This does England gross injustice, for, as I
was able to tell them, English opinion was itself averse to giving
the Queen a title in India which they could not be induced to
tolerate at home, and only acquiesced because Victoria had really
done so much that was good during her long reign that they did not
wish to deny her what she had unfortunately set her heart upon;
and then after all the poor Queen probably did not know about the
famine. Her books show that her interest in life is confined
strictly to the petty details of her household and narrow circle
of satellites.
Today our Sunday-school recollections were again aroused by a
sight of the terrible car of Juggernaut. It is really an immense
affair, elaborately carved in bold relief, and on the top is a
platform for the priests. I should say the car is twenty-five feet
high and about eight by twelve at the base; it has six wheels,
four outside and two in the centre, the former nine feet in
diameter and the latter six, all of solid wood clamped together
with iron bands, and all at least two feet in width of tread. Such
a mass, drawn through the streets by elephants and accompanied by
excited devotees, its hundred bells jangling as it rolled along
where there was not another vehicle of any kind with which to
compare it, or a house more than one small story high, must have
appeared to the ignorant natives something akin to the
supernatural; and I can now well understand how wretches, working
themselves into a state of frenzy, should have felt impelled to
dash under its wheels.
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