Part 21

Sir Stamford Raffles, the founder of Singapore, was one of the British Empire builders who was very shabbily treated by the English government. Unaided, he prevented the Dutch from obtaining exclusive control over all the waters about Singapore and he was also instrumental in retaining Malacca, after the East India Company had decided to abandon it. He was appointed Lieutenant-Governor of Java after the English wrested the island from the Dutch in 1810. His ambition was to make Java "the center of an Eastern Insular Empire," but this project was thwarted by the restoration of Java to Holland. The Raffles Museum in Singapore, one of the most interesting in the Orient, was his gift.

Sketches of Singapore may be found in Sir Frank Swettenham's British Malaya, Malay Sketches and The Real Malay; Wright and Reed, The Malay Peninsula; Belfield, Handbook of the Federated Malay States; Harrison, Illustrated Guide to the Federated Malay States; Ireland, The Far Eastern Tropics; Boulger, Life of Sir Stamford Raffles; Buckley, Records of Singapore.

RANGOON

There is a large literature on Burma, which seems to have appealed to British travelers. Among the books that have chapters devoted to Rangoon are Cuming, In the Shadow of the Pagoda; Bird, Wanderings in Burma; Hart, Picturesque Burma; Kelly, The Silken East; MacMahon, Far Cathay and Farther India; Vincent, The Land of the White Elephant; Nisbet, Burma Under British Rule and Before; Hall, The Soul of a People and A People at School.

INDIA

The literature about India is very extensive, so that only a few of the best books may be mentioned here. To the tourist the one indispensable book is Murray's Handbook for Travelers in India, Ceylon and Burma, which is well provided with maps and plans of cities. For general description, among the best works are Malcolm, Indian Pictures and Problems; Scidmore, Winter India; Forrest, Cities of India; Kipling, From Sea to Sea; Stevens, In India; Arnold, India Revisited; Low, A Vision of India (describing the journey of the Prince of Wales in 1905-6); Caine, Picturesque India; Things Seen in India.

For the history of India, some of the best books are Lane-Poole, Mediæval India and The Mogul Emperors; Fanshawe, Delhi, Past and Present; McCrindle, Ancient India; Rhys-Davids, British India; Roberts, Forty-one Tears in India; Holmes, History of the Indian Mutiny; Innes, The Sepoy Revolt; Curzon, Russia in Central Asia; Colquhoun, Russia Against India.

On the religions of India: Rhys-Davids, Buddhism; Warren, Buddhism in Translations; Clarke, Ten Great Religions; Hopkins, Religions of India; Arnold, The Light of Asia.

EGYPT

Egypt has changed so much during the last twenty years that books written before that time are practically obsolete. The dahabiyeh is no longer used for Nile travel, except by tourists of means and large leisure, since the tourist steamers make the trip up and down the Nile in one quarter the time consumed by the old sailing vessels. Cairo has been transformed into a European city and even Luxor is modernized, with its immense hotels and its big foreign winter colony.

Bædeker's Egypt is the best guide book, but be sure that you get the latest edition, as the work is revised every two or three years. The introductory essays in this volume on Egyptian history, religion, art and Egyptology are well worth careful reading. The descriptions of the ruins and the significance of many of the hieroglyphs are helpful. Of general descriptive works on Egypt, some of the best are Penfield, Present Day Egypt (1899); Jeremiah Lynch, Egyptian Sketches, a book by a San Franciscan which gives a series of readable pictures of Cairo and the voyage up the Nile; Holland, Things Seen in Egypt.

Of Egypt, before it was transformed by the British, standard works are Lane, Cairo Fifty Tears Ago; Lady Duff-Gordon, Letters From Egypt (covering the period from 1862 to 1869). Good historical works are Lane-Poole, Egypt, and the Story of Cairo; Ebers, Egypt, Descriptive, Historical, and Picturesque.

Of the administration of England in Egypt, the best book is Lord Cromer's Modern Egypt. Other works are Milner, England in Egypt; Colvin, The Making of Modern Egypt. The story of Gordon's death at Khartoum is well told in Stevens, With Kitchener to Khartoum and Churchill, The River War.

Several valuable works on Egyptian archeology have been written by Maspero and Flinders-Petrie. Maspero's Art in Egypt, which is lavishly illustrated, will be valuable as a guide book. Flinders-Petrie's Egyptian Decorative Art is worth reading.

Index

Agra, East Indian city of interesting features, 111; the Taj Mahal, 112-116

Arjmand, favorite wife of Shah Jehan, for whom the Taj was built, 112

Benares, sacred city of the Hindoos, 100-105; bathing ghats along the Ganges, 100-102; toll levied by priests on all bathers, 103; burning the dead by the river banks, 104-105; funeral ceremonies, 105

Bombay, gateway of India, 123-134; beauty of public buildings, 123-124; the Apollo Bunder, 124; importance of the Parsees in city life, 124-1126; reception to King George V, 127; holiday street scenes, 128; religion and customs of the Parsees, 129-130; wedding ceremonies, 132; "Towers of Silence" where dead are exposed to vultures, 133-134

Buddhism, temples at Nikko, 17; greatest temple, the Shwe Dagon Pagoda at Rangoon, 90; first residence of Buddha at Sarnath, near Benares, 100

Cairo, the capital of Egypt, 137-142; much Europeanized since Ismail's time, 138-139; the Street of the Camel, 138-140; Esbekiyeh Gardens, 140; shopping in the great Muski bazar, 141; Island of Roda, where Moses was found, 142; scenes in the old native city, 142

Calcutta, greatest commercial port of India, 95-99; former capital, 95; the Maidan or Esplanade, 95-96; Eden Gardens, 95; scene of the Black Hole, 96; caste marks, 97; scenes in bathing ghats on the Hoogly, 98; native quarter, 98-99; botanical gardens with great banyan tree, 99; Imperial Museum, 99

Canton, the great business center of China, 72-79; exodus of people during revolution, 73; boat city on the Pearl river, 73-74; "hot-foot" boats, 75; inside the ancient walls, 76-77; deserted stores on main street, 76; Buddhist Temple of Horrors, 77; great rush of refugees, 77-78; scene of the assassination of Tartar general, 78; old Buddhist water clock, 78

Cawnpore, scene of the worst massacre in the Sepoy mutiny, 109-110; fatal mistake of General Wheeler, 109; treachery of Nana Sahib, 110; butchery of women and children, 110

Chator, Sir Paul, who made Hongkong a great city, 81

Delhi, ancient Mogul capital of India, 117-122; tombs of Moslem emperors, 117-118; squalor of common people, 119; Mogul palaces and mosques, 119-120; the Kutab Minar, 120-121; memorials of the mutiny, 121-122; fighting at Kabul gate, 122

Egypt, the land of tombs, pyramids and mummies, 137-164; railroad ride from Port Said, 138; features of the country, 138-139; Cairo and its picturesque life, 138-142; Luxor and Karnak ruins of finest temples of ancient Egypt, 143-149; Thebes, tomb city of the Egyptian Kings, 150-155; sailing down the Nile, 156-160; Pyramids and the Sphinx, 161-164

Havelock, English General who fought his way into Lucknow and helped defend the city against hordes of mutineers, 108