We had various interpreters. One of these was a specially gifted woman. She had a sweet, plaintive voice, and sang the native songs with touching effect on the poor women whom we visited; one we always recall as having been a wonderful instrument through God of moving their hearts. It was a pilgrim hymn with a recurring strain of warning against the love of the world, dress, jewellery, and sinful pleasures; and reminding us all that this life is swiftly passing, and that death may soon overtake us. Often before the refrain was finished the poor women would be seen sobbing as they listened, joining in the sorrowful strain that recurred again and again; and as soon as the song was ended pouring out their pitiful histories and their protests against the degradation into which they had been thrust by the infamous system of legalised vice under which they were slaves.
[1] Trading-posts for the supply of necessaries to the soldiers; but the author means, in explicit terms, the chakla or brothel.
[3] The Cantonments we visited were Bareilly, Lucknow, Meerut, Lahore (Cantonment Station, Meean Meer), Rawal Pindi, Peshawar, Amritzar, Umballa, Sitapur, and Benares. Five of these we visited a second time.
A VIVID scene comes before us: We are sitting on a mortar bench, built in a circular form around the trunk of an old tree, in the open court of a Government chakla in one of the Cantonments of India. Some thirty or forty girls come trooping around us, either sitting down on the ground, native style, or bringing their cot-beds with them for seats.
Our sweet-voiced interpreter sings a plaintive song--native words and native tune--and when she has finished there is scarcely a dry eye to be seen. Then follows a simple Gospel message to which all give respectful heed, and at its close we ask, "Why are you in such a place as this?" Several answer in brief monosyllables, accompanied by a gesture as though drawing a line transversely across the brow. "It is our fate! It is our fate!" are the words used in reply; and our interpreter explains to us that these believe, in accordance with their religious instructions, that while they were yet babes, in an unfortunate moment, when left alone by the mother, the messenger of fate entered the room and wrote the word "prostitute" in invisible characters across the brow, and that from that moment to struggle against the lot that awaited them would have been useless.
