PREFACE.

In a letter accompanying the manuscript of the following book were these paragraphs:

“Some years ago, while traveling in Southern France, I met with an accident that nearly ended my life. I was tenderly nursed to health in a family for which I formed the highest respect and a lasting friendship. Some years later I met the widow with her beautiful grown up children. One of the sons was devoted to science, the other to literature, and both becoming known in the world, while the daughter was engaged in landscape painting, ‘until,’ as she said with a most bewitching smile, ‘the right man comes along.’

“Talking of her husband, the widow said that he had left some manuscript which I might like to see. She then brought me a bundle neatly bound up in tape. Looking it over, I suggested its publication, and she gave it to me unreservedly to do with it as I thought best. I have not erased a line or altered a word. It is an autobiography of undeserved shame and sorrow, as well as an earnest effort of well doing. It is a pity that such a life should have been, and I trust that its lessons will be heeded by those who need them most.”

The word Eurasian is made of Eur, from Europe, and Asian, from Asia, and applied to the children of a European and an Asiatic and to their descendants, of whom there is a large class in India.

A prominent newspaper editor of London, England, in a note to the author of this work says, “I am impressed with the freedom and freshness of the literary style, and am in arms against the majestic abuses about which it inveighs as if incidentally and without any grand motherly didactics. You arrest attention at once with the desertion of the Pyari by the Sahib; the treatment is pathetic and intense.”

A well-known Chicago editor says, “A powerfully written book, though without any evidence of straining after effect. It should be of especial interest to a wide circle of readers, as it deals with a new subject in a masterly manner. The life history of the offspring of an English father and a Mohammedan mother affords the author opportunity to give a vast amount of information about the doings of the British in India, and the results of the contact between the two races, with the peculiarities of each, and of their offspring, which may well open the eyes of the world to a view of the enormities that have been perpetrated in the far-off land under the plea of modern civilization. Simple justice to the work and its author requires that it should have a large sale.”

“A work of decidedly unique character, is ‘THAT EURASIAN’ just published by F. Tennyson Neely. It deals with a class of people which has heretofore seldom figured in our literature, viz., that large family of half European and half Hindu parentage so numerous in British India. The abuses and indignities to which these people are subjected have long been well known to those who have given any attention to the condition of affairs in British India during the past half century, but the general public is strangely ignorant of all this. The many startling revelations made by the author of this book, who is an European long resident in India, will be received with something like wonderment and horror. We can only hint at the extent of these revelations; the legalized vice, the cruel oppression of a wretched peasantry, the shocking abuse of native women by Europeans, and other gigantic enormities are fully and fearlessly exposed in this remarkable book—remarkable none the less for the author’s keen and caustic criticism

of the Government that fosters such abuses, as for the grace and elegance of his literary style, and the lucidity of his thought.”

For Sale by all Booksellers or Sent Prepaid on Receipt of Price by the Publisher,

CHAPTER I.

On the southern coast of France, upon ground overlooking one of the beautiful bays of the Mediterranean, stood a chateau. It was nearly a mile distant from the coast, the land gradually descending toward the blue waters of the sea. The main and center part of the building was a relic of the ancient feudal times when strength and massiveness were characteristic of the architecture. The additions had been constructed from time to time, to suit the taste and convenience of the different owners of the property. The old park impressed one with a feeling of reverence for its solidity and quaintness, while the more modern parts added beauty and grace, making the whole consonant with the present age in comfort, luxury and utility. The grounds were spacious. An immense enclosure with its velvet green verdure, was broken here and there by patriarchal trees, of great variety. It was a park of orchards and gardens for use as well as beauty. A broad avenue, lined on either side with trees and trellised vines, led down to the sea where pleasure boats and yachts were

moored. This avenue, with the blue waters as a background, formed a most enchanting view from the upper balcony of the castle. The quiet stillness of the place was its greatest charm. In the days of summer there was scarcely a sound to be heard save that of the bees and insects among the flowers, the songs of the birds in the trees, the gentle murmur of the fountains or the sound like that from invisible æolian harps, as the light breezes played among the branches. Occasionally a storm from the loud resounding sea added grandeur to the place. The drives, the walks, every tree and flowering shrub 6showed the careful attention of the gardeners. Every visitor was in raptures over the beauty of the place, and could say with truth, “If there is a paradise on earth it is here.”

The interior of the chateau corresponded with its surroundings. The halls were adorned with solid, grand antique furniture, statuary, and paintings, the accumulation of centuries, acquired by the wealth and taste of a long line of the ancestry of the present occupants, while the rest of the building was embellished in more modern style, showing excellent judgment and culture. The library was one of which a nation might be proud, composed of almost priceless old books, and the best of more modern authors. In all the apartments there seemed to be nothing wanting and not a thing too much. There was no crowding or confusion, nothing cheap or tawdry, but all in harmony with the massive building, and its noble park, showing the culture of its possessors.

The present occupants, a gentleman and his wife, of excellent lineage, of wealth, education, and most refined tastes, one could scarcely tell whether they were made for the place or it was made for them, as both and all were in such delightful harmony. They often had guests, but of the most select kind. There were several beautiful children, of whom I was one or would have been, that is, if this fancy picture was a reality and I had had a choice in the matter of my birth, those would have been my parents and there the place where I would have been born if such events could have been decided by myself. Had the subject been referred to me, I would have been very judicious in the choice of my parents, for it is better than any amount of wealth to have a good father and mother. Alas! and more’s the pity that so few of us are consulted about our birth, the most important event in our lives; we are brought into life without consideration, and, impelled by fate, are thrown upon our destinies for good or evil, and yet made responsible for what results from our inherited

tendencies and circumstances.

Some one, I think a Frenchman, has said that we should select our parents with the greatest possible judgment. I 7thoroughly agree with him. So much depends on this, yet, as I have said, since very few of us are consulted about this matter, we have to accept the situation, whether it be in a palace or a hut. There is no use opposing the inevitable, still I cannot help finding fault in that we are made responsible for much that we could not in any possible way prevent. Many a one is environed, burdened and crushed by some hereditary impedimenta, and is blamed and cursed through life for that about which he was not consulted and from which he could not escape.

Before the law and human judgment all people are declared equal. Are they? Should not allowance be made for pangs of nature and taints of blood? Yet whatever men may do, I have faith that, if God is our judge, He will regard us for what we might have been as well as by what we are.

As might be supposed, the above is only a flight of fancy. Descending, I will now enter upon the real story of my existence.

CHAPTER II.

My first consciousness, my very first idea or remembrance of anything that I can recall, was on a hot sultry night in the city of Lucknow, in the year 18––, but no matter as to the exact date, for I do not know how old I was then, and do not now know the year in which I was born. I was awakened by the clinking sound of something that caught my ear; then turning my eyes I saw a number of beautiful round glittering things fall into my mother’s lap as she sat upon a charpoy. As I recall the scene, I think there must have been several hundred of these shining pieces. It is strange what an attraction there is in children for metal money, though they know nothing of its value. Is there not a latent love for it in them from a former birth as an inheritance?—but let that rest for the present.

My eyes then went to a man, as I now can designate him, for then it did not seem to me that I was conscious of 8him any more than that he was a thing of life, a being or something very indefinite, beyond my comprehension. I years after, recalled him as an Englishman, rather tall, of blonde complexion, with a cleanly-shaved face, except a heavy well-trimmed moustache. What struck me was the whiteness of his face and hands, so that I took him for a bhut or ghost, and quaking with fear gazed at him.

He was standing close to the charpoy looking down upon my mother, into whose lap he had thrown the shining things that I afterward learned were rupees and new, just brought from the treasury. After the clinking of the rupees I heard him say in Hindustani: “I must leave you, pyari. I am going to Wilayat, home, and may never see you again?”

“Jaoge! mujh ko chordoge?” said my mother, with trembling lips and a heart-breaking tone. “You are going and will leave me?” she repeated again, so plaintively. “Yes,” he said, “I have got leave and I must go. I have brought you five hundred rupees and hope you will be happy and take good care of the children. I have come to bid you good-bye.” Upon this my mother clasped her hands over her head and bent forward with a wail of anguish that was heart-rending. Amid her tears she exclaimed: “You always told me that I was your bibi, your own dear wife, that you would never leave me, and now you are going and will throw me away as the skin of the mango you have eaten, or as an old coat that you have worn out. You will leave me and go to Wilayat, where you will marry a young mem sahib as all the sahibs do, and she will never know that I am your wife. O Allah! Why did I ever listen to your soft words and become your pyari? Pyari, I have been and true to you in all things. Will you go away and leave me to be called a kusbi by all

these people? O Allah! ya Shaitan! why am I thus to be accursed?”

Then she swayed back and forth, wailing as if her heart was breaking. She piteously asked, “Why not take me with you, as you often said you would?”

“That would be impossible,” he replied. “You would not be happy among my people in a strange land; you are 9of another caste or race, and it would only make you unhappy to go there.”

“I have been your beloved wife, your pyari bibi here, why could I not be there also? I have lived here all these years, discarded and despised by my people because I was a sahib’s aurat, woman, but I loved you, I lived upon the thought of you. The very sound of your footsteps thrilled me with delight. I have been good enough for you as your wife through all these years, for you have called me your pyari bibi, your darling wife, a thousand times, and now you will cast me off and get an English mem sahib. Allah! Allah! have mercy upon me! O my children, my children! They are your children. You were my God. I worshiped you when they were conceived. My love and adoration of you impressed your features upon them. They are more yours than mine, for I gave them no thought of myself but all of you. They are yours, of your own flesh and blood. How can you forsake them? How can you be so cruel to them and me?”

She ceased, bitterly weeping. He stood speechless, somewhat moved by her piteous appeals, yet as I remember him, he regarded her with a look of hardened contempt. A moment after uttering the last words she quickly threw the rupees from her lap, scattering them all over the floor and leaping from the charpoy, flung herself at his feet and putting her arms around his legs placed her face upon his boots, wailing piteously and praying him not to desert his children.

“Throw me aside forever,” she said, “but, oh! the children, your own children, do not forsake them! For Allah’s sake, take care of them.”

Her long abundant black hair fell over her shoulders. Her face showed the intense agony of her soul and her large eyes filled with tears that dropped from her face as if each one was a drop of hot blood from her heart. He remained silent, as I remember him, with a cold brutal indifference, without saying a word until she seemed nearly exhausted in her anguish. He then lifted her up and placed her upon the charpoy, and taking her hand saying, “I cannot help it, pyari, it is my kismet, I must go,” and 10kissing her, said: “Salaam, good-bye, God bless you,” and rushed from the room.

Is it strange that I should remember such a scene? This was my first consciousness of life. I remember nothing previous to that night, and what I saw and heard then was burned into my very being to remain a part of it as long as I continue to be. She was my mother, my own, my darling mama. I am now an old man and the sands in my hour-glass are nearly run out. I have had trials enough to have hardened all my feelings into iron, yet as I think of my dear little mama, in her agony and despair on that memorable night, great tears run down my furrowed cheeks. I cannot help their coming, and I would not if I could. Blessed tears! that relieve us in our sorrows and moisten our hearts with tenderness. It was a strange scene to me. I was frightened into silence and could not stir, and dared not cry. I could understand that my mama was in great trouble, though I knew not why it was, nothing of the cause of it. I sat in a corner partly concealed by a cloth hung on a rope that was stretched across the room. I now see every little thing as it was then, my

mother’s eyes, the big tear drops on her cheeks are now in my sight, after all these years, just as I saw them then. I hear my mama’s voice, its wailing tones of entreaty, of despair. I see her body quivering in her agony as she was clinging to the feet of the sahib, just as vividly as if she was before me now.

As I learned afterward, he used to come late at night, so that I was asleep in a little side room when he came. At the front of the court was a large gate, but I was told the sahib never came in by that way. At the back end of the court there was a little narrow door, through which the rubbish and sweepings were carried and thrown, into a gully that wound its way to the old canal beyond the city. It was by the gully where the rubbish lay and through the door by which the sweepings went out that the sahib came in, never by daylight, but always near dead of night.

Shall I now express my opinion of that very brave Christian English gentleman? coming up through that stinking gully, through that little back door at the hour of midnight? 11A man who would do that would not only destroy the woman he had called his wife, make outcasts of his own children, but would barter his own soul and betray his God to gratify his lust. But I must not let my feelings overcome me. Yet I cannot help saying that often since then, when I have thought of that night scene, I have felt like tearing a passion to tatters, aye more than that, to be really truthful, to murder somebody; even that man, my own father, for the infamous wrong done my darling mother.

As I have said, when this sahib so suddenly appeared I was terribly frightened. He seemed to me a giant, so tall and big. Then the ghastly pale face; the reddish hair; the strange clothes, he might be one of the bhuts or jins that carry away little boys and eat them, one each day, for his dinner. Was it strange then, that I sat crouching in my corner, scarcely daring to breathe, lest he might hear me and seize me for his next day’s meal?

The clinking of the rupees is written on the first page of my memory. The sound and sight of them gave me a thrill of pleasure, but a moment after came the fright at the sight of the strange being. Scared as I was, I saw everything, heard all that was said and felt a thousand times more than I now can find words to describe. All was so sudden, strange and incomprehensible, that I was dumb with fear at the great thing standing so high up in the room, and when my mother began her piteous wailings, I was hushed to silence with my intense feelings of sorrow for her.

As the sahib rushed from the place, my mama threw herself upon the bare earthen floor with a shriek, and there lay moaning and crying out in heart-piercing tones, “My Sahib! my Sahib!” I sprang from my corner, and sat down by her, and placing her head upon my lap stroked her hair back from her face and begged of her “mama, pyari mama! why do you cry so?” There was no answer, but “my Sahib! my Sahib!” O! the agony of that hour! It has never left me, it became a part of my life and is with me now, for I feel it. What could I do, a little tot that had never been out of the court? I do not know how long I sat there; I must have become exhausted and gone to 12sleep, for in the morning I found myself lying on the charpoy where I suppose my mama placed me.

As I awoke, my first thought was of her. I glanced around the room and saw her sitting on a low stool facing the court. Her eyes were turned towards the western sky, but evidently she was not looking at anything. I awakened as from a horrible dream and could not at once realize what had happened, but when I saw that haggard, pallid face, those wide open eyes, that looked and saw nothing, all the night scene flashed upon me and I cried out, “Mama, mama!” She turned her head, without a word, toward me and began again to look far away as if for something beyond mortal ken. I was told years after, that before that night she was the most happy woman of all in the court, always so pleasant to her neighbors, always smiling, laughing and romping with her children; but after that awful night, the light of her life had gone out into utter darkness, for she never smiled again.

The rupees were gathered up and put in the rough wooden box, fastened with a big padlock. They were taken out one by one to pay the rent and to buy a little flour, rice and bread and a few vegetables for our daily food. There was a little sister, too young, thank God, to know anything of the trouble in the house. An old woman went to the bazar to purchase our food and did the cooking. At first a few of the neighboring women looked in at the door and tried to be friendly, but the little mother took no notice of them and they ceased coming. One day I overheard one of them say to the other as an excuse for her silence, “Her Sahib has gone.”