Halcyon Days in the Dream City

by Mrs. D. C. Taylor

Continued from Part 10

A low curved roofed, wide eaved temple, built of foreign woods covered with intricate carving, with deep lace-arched balconies, and blind walls, windowless and dark.[1]

As we enter the door a strange odor of mingled incense and sandal wood greets us. We find ourselves in a medium sized room lighted from the roof, and surrounded by a gallery supported on slender pillars. Every pillar is wreathed and festooned with woven woofs in every conceivable color, design and fabric, from silken gauze to coarsest cotton. Cashmeres, how shall we describe them! The very name breathes of richness and beauty. Indian rugs and carpets that woo the eye with tints as brilliant, yet vanishing, as those of the kaleidoscope, are tacked to walls and ceiling, tossed in tumbled heaps, and spread upon floor and divans.

Myriads of little elephants, from two inches to two feet in height, fashioned of porcelain, ivory, ebony, brass and woods, stand about everywhere; and still more numerous, in the same materials, gazing up at us from low pedestals upon the floor, looking down upon us from the gallery, on every side we turn are expressionless cross-legged images of Boodha. Truly he is a God! not the supreme “I AM,” but one of the Gods of whom there are as many as there are men to create them. The eternal calm of Boodha is an eternal void, NOT the divine calm of life at its fullest fruition.

A flight of broad stairs leads us into the gallery; these low arches hold in their dusky depths rich store of barbaric art, carvings in wood and ivory that represent the patient toil of countless lives; wonders of workmanship in brass, still unrivaled in beauty as in the days when King Solomon sent emissaries to collect treasures for his temple. Brass, solid and massive like molten gold, and brass, airy fine as lace, enameled with blue, red and black. Rich ruddy copper of Cashmere, chased and wrought with an art no other land knows, into images, shrines and many symbols, unintelligible to christian eyes.

Here stands an alabaster model of “The Taj,” inexpressibly beautiful in its white fineness, with its mournful breathing of human grief, sighing down through long centuries of time, that love only, is eternal. Little bells whose mellow sweetness of tone touches the ear with a note of sadness, hang pendant from shrine and idol; stacks and piles of tea trays and the fragrance of tea upon the air, let us descend and take a cup of tea.

So we go down the stairs and walk up to an archway between the pillars of which a silken rope bars further progress. Behind it stands a tall straight form robed in the garb of India. A long somewhat full skirted coat of fine scarlet cloth reaching almost to the ankles, fits his superb figure without a wrinkle. It is belted at the waist with gold, and his head is surrounded by a high milk-white turban of fine muslin, that tells the exalted caste of its wearer by its multiplicity of folds. He is a handsome man, with rich yellow complexion, inky hair and beard, and long lustrous dark eyes; his expression is intelligent and gentle, his bearing dignified and commanding, and he performs his menial duties with the self respecting air of a prince in his native palace. After some moments he lowers the rope, and lets out some dozen or so of ladies and gentlemen, and lets us in.

There we find a space enclosed by screens and crowded with small round tables surrounded by chairs. The place is appetizing with the odor of tea, and a huge bright metal urn is hissing and steaming upon a high counter. Threading our way through a dense tangle of human and chair legs, we seat ourselves at one of the tables, .and wait until there comes up another red robed “prince,” and places upon the table two dainty red and white cups and saucers, a generous pot of cream, a bowl of lump sugar, and a little black and gold tea-pot, full of tea hot and strong. How delicious it tastes to our thirsty palates. The two cups empty the little tea-pot, but another immediately replaces it full to the brim, and we are welcome to its cheer without money or price.

Dignified forms move quietly on slippered feet from table to table, fetching, carrying without haste or dallying, politely attentive to everyone, the perfection of service, and as we pass out with murmured thanks, each man bends his head in low, but stately parting “salaam.” For six months this generous hospitality was extended to the world at large, and our thirsty lips returned more than once to this perennial fountain of Oriental nectar.

And so, India goodbye! and we have not even glanced at your far famed shawls! our souls yearned for them but our impecunious purses passed them by. Good-bye! Land where Buddha sits entranced, while his dreaming followers pass proudly through squalor and toil to their rest in the vast realm of “Nirvana.”

Continued in Part 12

NOTES

[1] Standing just north of the Fisheries building, the East India Building also was designed by Henry Ives Cobb with Director of Color William Prettyman in charge of its decoration. The building impressed visitors with its gold-canopied arched entrance surmounted by minarets.