雙語+MP3|美國學(xué)生世界地理56 對面腳踩之地(續(xù))

     INDIA is divided into states like the United States and many of these states have separate rulers called rajahs. Many of the rajahs, however, are more interested in showing off and in having a good time than they are in ruling. They love jewels, such as diamonds and pearls, and they collect them as you might collect marbles, though one of their diamonds may be worth a million times what one of your precious marbles is worth. They own some of the largest and finest jewels that have ever been found. We think of diamond and pearl necklaces as something that only women wear, but when the rajahs appear before their subjects or ride in processions, as they love to do, they dress themselves up with their wonderful gems, some of them as big as walnuts, and wear collars of pearls, rubies, sapphires, and emeralds. In such processions a rajah rides on an elephant, which is dressed up too. The rajah sits on top of the elephant under a canopy that is so high in the air he has to use a stepladder to climb up.


     Elephants are considered sacred in India, and even though there are many wild ones, it is against the law to shoot one. So men hunt them, catch them, and tame them without shooting them. Hundreds of men form a long line around the place where there are elephants and beat drums and blow horns to frighten them. The elephants move away from the noise and, unknowingly, toward a pen that is left open to catch them. In this way they are driven by the terrible racket into the pen, which is then closed. After they are caught they must be tamed. This is not an easy job, for some elephants are very dangerous and can easily stamp a man to death. Once tamed, however, an elephant can be used like a camel in Arabia, a horse in Europe, or an automobile, a tractor, or a piece of machinery in our country. An elephant will wind his trunk around a log and load it on a train or ship, much as a machine called a derrick would do.

     One of the things a rajah likes best to do is to hunt tigers. The tiger-a huge, orange-colored cat with black stripes-is a fearful creature. He lives in the jungles of India, and when he is hungry he raids villages and kills domestic animals and people. A rajah going forth to a tiger hunt takes good care that he is in no danger. He and a party of friends, with hundreds of servants, go out into the jungle and climb to a safe place in a tree where a platform has been built. The servants then go through the jungle beating pans and drums and anything that will make a noise, keeping up a terrific din to scare the tiger along toward the rajah and his party of friends. When he comes within range they fire upon him from above. They then take his skin home to cover the floors or walls of the rajah's palace.

     There are over a hundred different religions in India but, as I told you in the last chapter, most of the people are Hindus. A Hindu believes his spirit comes back into this World in the shape of an animal or of another person. That is one reason why useful or good animals are treated well. A Hindu thinks that if he is good he will, when he dies, suddenly, in a twinkling, be born again-rich or in the shape of a good animal; if he has been bad, he will, when he returns, be poor or in the shape of a bad animal. When I look into the kindly eyes of my dog who wags his tail, puts out his paw, and whines "m-m-m," I can almost believe as the Hindu does that some human being, perhaps a rajah, is in his dog body.

     On the west side of India is a big city called Bombay, but Bombay does not look much different from any other large city in Europe. The buildings look much like the buildings in London or New York.
     But if you travel north from Bombay for about two days you will come to a town with two buildings like none other in the World. This town is called Agra. One building is a tomb, the other is a mosque. The tomb was built by a Mohammedan prince for one of his four wives who was his favorite. It is called the Taj Mahal, and some think it the most beautiful building in the World. I had come half-way round the World to see this sight and had traveled days in such terrific heat that a sunstroke was as much to be feared as a stroke of lightning. I saw the Taj by the full moon and was so busy looking that I stepped into a pool of water up to my knees, and I had hardly clambered out when I stepped off a platform and sprained my ankle. But it was worth it. And yet to me the most beautiful building in the World is not the Taj. It is the Pearl Mosque, which is also at Agra. I don't know what the buildings in Heaven look like, but I don't believe they could be more beautiful than the Pearl Mosque.
     On the east side of the country is the sacred river of India; it is called the Ganges. It has several mouths and at one of these mouths is Calcutta. Calcutta is in India but most of the mouths of the Ganges are in Pakistan.
     Farther up the sacred river is the sacred city of the Hindus. It is called Benares. No one but a Mohammedan may go to the sacred city of Mecca, but any one may go to Benares. Benares is built on the banks of the river, and covering the banks are long stone steps leading down into the river. Hindus come from all over India to bathe in the Ganges at Benares, not to wash away dirt but to wash away sins. They go in about waist-deep and, filling a bowl with the sacred water, pour it over their heads. Especially do they come to the Ganges when they think they are about to die. Good Hindus are not afraid to die. In fact, if they are miserably poor and unhappy they are glad to die, for if their sins are washed away they expect, by dying, they will immediately be changed into the body of a happier creature.


     The Hindus do not bury those who die; they burn their bodies on bonfires. Those who die in Benares are burned on the steps that lead down to the river, and so many are burned there that men make a regular business of selling wood for these funeral fires. The richer a man is, the bigger fire he can have when he dies; but often a man is so poor he has not left even enough money to pay for the few sticks of wood necessary to burn his body.
     There are so many people in India that often there is not enough food to go around, and though the poor people live on little but a few handfuls of rice a day, thousands upon thousands starve to death for lack of even this little food. The rajahs and well-to-do people look fat and well-fed, but the poor people are usually as thin as skeletons, and as they often wear hardly any clothes, you can see every bone in their lean bodies.
     From rajahs with their millions' worth of jewels to the poor wretch who dies without two sticks of wood to burn his body, that is the "opposite-feet" land.
     South of India is an island called Ceylon, where men wear skirts and combs in their hair. Much of our tea comes from there. Near Ceylon are the greatest pearl fisheries i. t. w. W.-greater even than those of the Persian Gulf. Many of the rajahs' famous pearls have been found there, and even I have a black pearl that came from there. It is supposed to bring good luck whether you wear it or whether you don't. I don't.
     The Indians are famous magicians, and at Colombo in Ceylon I saw some of their tricks. An Indian placed his wife in a basket, covered it with a shawl, stabbed through it in every direction, and then uncovered her alive and smiling. I saw him put a seed in a flower-pot and while you watched it it grew to a plant. How do they do such things? You can only guess just as every one else does.