THROUGH THE HEART OF HINDUSTAN 



467 



Photograph by William W. Chapin 



PLAYING PACHISI ON THE TRIP PROM CALCUTTA TO RANGOON 



This is the favorite indoor sport of India. Not every one can, like Akbar, have the 

 court of his zenana laid out in a pachisi cross or command the services of purdah ladies as 

 living "men." But even on shipboard, players spread out the varicolored cones and cowrie 

 shells which serve as counters and dice. 



trumpet-flowers which match the yellow 

 robes of the Buddhist priests at Buddh 

 Gay a. 



India is a continental stage on which 

 many dramas are constantly being en- 

 acted. To the tourist it is an unparalleled 

 spectacle. 



One has frequent occasion to think that 

 the vast peninsula is an unbroken succes- 

 sion of dull tones ; but the next instant 

 a brown-skinned man, dressed in bizarre 

 tints, radiates color in floods of light or 

 points his brilliance against the dun back- 

 ground like a circus poster on a mud wall. 

 When the grays and browns of country- 

 side and complexion seem most deadly in 

 their monotony, the glint of copper and 

 brass, the shine of silver anklets, the 

 shimmer of silk, the glitter of nose bead 

 or earring breaks in on one's conscious- 

 ness as insistently as reveille in the midst 

 of deep sleep. 



Nor does India depend upon color 

 alone. It discharges sensory stimuli in 

 broadsides. When color is for the mo- 

 ment lacking, there is movement, sound 

 and smell. And behind it all there is the 



atmosphere, which seems almost tangible 

 in its intensity. 



Nine-tenths of India is monotony, lassi- 

 tude, silence. Yet so compelling is the 

 spectacle that, even when time has dulled 

 the impacts that color and sound and 

 smell have made, one is still reminded of 

 vividness such as one finds in the screech- 

 ing of lustrous green parrakeets amid the 

 jasmine flowers at Shalimar, when the 

 setting sun has made an upturned caul- 

 dron of the heavens and the placid pools 

 become smooth mirrors reflecting a chro- 

 matic explosion. 



The native seldom has a chance to leave 

 the stage and view life from the gallery 

 or pit. To the great majority, existence 

 is a drama the magnificence of whose set- 

 ting is obscured by the poignancy of its 

 tragedy. A white-hot sun is the flood- 

 light for a play, with the fickle monsoon 

 as its hero and with famine as the sleep- 

 less villain. When the monsoon fails, the 

 horizon of hunger contracts until famine 

 shrouds its victims in an uncanny influ- 

 ence to which the bravest must tamely 

 submit. 



