1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
SOME EXPERIENCES IN HINDOO SANITATION 
That an Englishman on visiting an Indian village in which cholera 
was raging should be able to offer the inhabitants no advice which he 
was certain was good and at the same time practicable, except that 
they should pray to Bhowani, the Cholera-Goddess, may appear a 
matter for surprise to people in England. When it is further 
explained that the Englishman had come to the village furnished 
with such resources of modern science as a portable bacteriological 
laboratory, which included an autoclave and an immersion lens, and 
that he had had some experience of cholera epidemics under different 
conditions in India, the surprise will not be lessened; neither will it 
be diminished when it is learnt that Bhowani is another form of Kali, 
the terrible goddess of the Thugs, those road murderers who used to 
appease her by offering human sacrifices. Nevertheless, this was my 
experience on the occasion of a visit which I made to the Balrampur 
district in the autumn of the year 1894, and I venture to think that 
an account of my experience may prove of some interest. 
Balrampur is a small native state, about half as large as England, 
situated to the north of the River Gogra, and lying within sight of 
the snow-clad ranges of the Himalaya Mountains. Much of it is 
frequently flooded. Fever is constantly present, and cholera breaks 
out almost every year. No railway exists nearer than Gonda, which 
is twenty-six miles distant from Balrampur, the chief town of the 
state. One or two roads run through the district, away from which 
travelling is difficult, especially during the rains, when, as was my 
own experience, the tracts are impassable for horses and heavy going 
even for elephants. 
My object in spending a few days' leave in this place was to see if 
it might not be possible to check the march of cholera by disinfecting 
wells. Thanks to the kindness of Colonel Anson, the Political Agent, 
I found myself installed in a comfortable bungalow, with the town in 
which cholera was present on one side, and the village of Dhusaha, in 
which the disease was also raging, on the other. A soldier belonging 
to the state had died in the compound, and one of the only two 
Europeans in the place had died of the same disease, in each case a 
543 544 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
few days before I arrived. I afterwards found that two out of the 
three wells in use in the compound contained the microbe of cholera, 
and were probably responsible for these deaths. 
The villagers at first objected to my putting any medicine in 
their wells. I regret to say that, so far as my experience goes, the 
first symptom of civilisation among the lower classes in India is that 
they develop a sort of inverted conscience, which pricks them when- 
ever they tell the truth. In Dhusaha this influence had not yet 
arrived, and consequently my suggestion to put a medicine in their 
wells was met with a plain-spoken and unambiguous refusal. I 
therefore spent my first few days in the place in making bacterio- 
logical observations and in studying the beliefs and customs of the 
inhabitants. 
The village Dhusaha consists of a collection of mud huts. There 
had been about 320 inhabitants, but seventy-eight had died of cholera 
in the epidemic that was then existing. The water supply is obtained 
from four shallow wells. The mud huts are constantly falling down 
in the rains, and mud to repair them being taken from a piece of 
waste land, the hollow thus formed has gradually formed a tank. 
Refuse is usually thrown down on the margins of the tank; hence, 
its water is so putrid that the inhabitants not only do not drink 
it, but I believe do not use it even for washing clothes. The in- 
habitants pointed out to me that the reason why the water in one 
of the wells was bad was that it was situated near the tank, and 
that the bad water from the tank travelled along under the ground 
to the well and gave a disagreeable taste to the water. I afterwards 
found that the water of this particular well contained no less than 
7,000 microbes per cubic centimetre, and thus thoroughly deserved 
the character the villagers gave it. 
The inhabitants are all high-caste Hindoos, mostly Brahmins. 
Not a single sweeper or other low-caste man was in the place. Being 
of high caste they only eat food which has been cooked by them- 
selves, and this only when it is perfectly fresh. They eat no sweet- 
meats or other food brought from the bazaar in the neighbouring 
town. Their food consists almost entirely of rice and pulse, with 
occasionally a little unrefined sugar or dried mangoes. 
But what chiefly aroused my interest was their views of cholera, 
and their religious observances in the presence of this scourge. If 
cholera breaks out in a village, the inhabitants say that it is due to 
Bhowani their goddess, or to the army of Bhowani being present in 
the place. They regard it as a judgment for their sins and short- 
comings, and, as in other religions, they consider this evil to be a 
blessing in disguise. They immediately commence to propitiate the 
goddess by sacrificing flowers and rice. When travelling through 
the district the first sign of the presence of cholera which struck the 
eye was a small booth of grass mats surmounted by flags borne on 1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
545 
long bamboos. In Dhusaha such a booth had been erected on the 
margin of a well which contained the cholera microbe, and in this 
booth the chief ' jogi,' or priest, of the village prayed with about a 
dozen of the older villagers. I myself heard him praying on three 
successive days in a loud voice, and I believe he prayed the whole 
day long with scarcely an interval for refreshment. I shall mention 
him again later on. 
The villagers in this district, however, not only attempt to pro- 
pitiate Bhowani by prayers and sacrifices, but also by certain rules of 
conduct, which appear to me to be of interest and importance. 
Firstly, they say that Bhowani will be angry if any of the inhabitants 
leave the village. Secondly, they say that she will be angry if any 
outsiders are allowed to come into the village at a time when cholera 
is present. A curious incident illustrating the good effect of this 
belief happened at about this time in a couple of villages some 
distance from the town of Balrampur. There was only one well 
between the two villages. Cholera one day broke out in the village 
which possessed the well. On the next morning women came as 
usual from the other village to fetch water. But the inhabitants of 
the first village turned out and refused to allow them to approach, on 
the grounds that Bhowani was among them and would be angry at 
being disturbed. The inhabitants of this second village had to get 
their water from elsewhere, and consequently came into the town to 
make a complaint. It may be noted that the official to whom they 
chose to bring their complaint was not the native prime minister or 
the native secretary for home affairs, or any other native official, who 
might be supposed to be better able to sympathise with their wrongs, 
but the head stableman, who was the only English official in the 
district at the time. I have no doubt that he pointed out to them 
that if they could not get their water, they were equally unable to 
get the cholera through this source. 
Granting that the spread of cholera is chiefly furthered by human 
intercourse (and this at the present time few people seem inclined to 
doubt), it appears to me difficult to see how cholera could spread if 
these simple rules were rigidly enforced. 
But there are other ways of avoiding the wrath of Bhowani which 
appear to me to be only slightly less admirable than those above 
mentioned. 
Firstly, they say that Bhowani will be angry if any one takes 
medicine when cholera is about. Perhaps I owe some apology to 
medical men in suggesting that this rule is good. But when it is 
considered that if the natives were willing to take medicine, they 
would often have to walk, twenty miles to the dispensary to get it, 
thus increasing the risk of spreading the disease through the four 
thousand villages that are in the district in question, it will be seen 
that there are advantages in the plan. Further, it would often 546 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
happen that the medicine would arrive too late to have any effect on 
the patient, and probably it would have a bad effect on the relatives 
in making them doubt the efficacy of English drugs. Cholera in this 
district often kills in a few hours, and wdien a fairly unanimous 
choice has been made as to which of the thousand and one now 
existing remedies is most likely to be able to cope with it, it will be 
time to object to the custom in question. The wish to do something 
when one sees a fellow creature in pain is very natural. I saw an 
old woman dying of cholera in Dhusaha. The sole treatment to 
which she had been subjected was that a mud plaster had been 
spread over the stomach, and small doses of holy water from the 
Ganges were being poured into her mouth. The latter treatment 
was intended as a medicine for her soul rather than for her body, as 
every Hindoo should, according to the prevalent belief, drink this 
water before his death. Her relatives were too troubled by the 
occurrence to object to my putting some salol which I happened to 
have with me into this water, but it certainly did no good to the 
patient, and had I at the time known more about their religion, I 
should have avoided the risk of hurting their feelings. 
When Bhowani is in the village, it is also necessary to avoid 
feasting and other forms of indulgence. The excellence of these 
rules is sufficiently obvious. 
What is the origin of this worship of Bhowani, every detail of 
which, excepting the sacrifices, appears to be a sanitary precaution ? 
Is Bhowani the name of some primeval bacteriologist, who has since 
been deified ? Or of some early sanitary commissioner, w'hose studies 
on the nature of cholera have since earned him a place in the 
Hindoo pantheon ? Or, on the other hand, has the form of worship 
arisen by some process of evolution from a simpler and perhaps less 
admirable model ? A priori the latter alternative would appear to be 
the most probable, and it agrees the better with some inquiries I have 
instituted since my return to Agra. Bhowani is another name or 
incarnation of the goddess Kali.1 There are not many worshippers 
of this goddess in the parts of the North-West Provinces with which 
I am acquainted. They occur more frequently, however, in the 
neighbourhood of Calcutta; and here I made inquiries. I found, 
however, no trace in her worship of the above-described sanitary 
precautions. After some search, I met in Agra with a most devout 
worshipper of Kali, who had given up his business in order to be able 
to devote his time to religion. He showed great willingness to tell 
me everything connected with the ritual, and further gave me 
free permission to chop off his head if he could not stop a cholera 
epidemic by offering sacrifices and prayers. He was, however, more 
' Kali is the Destroyer. Diseases and pestilences are caused by her emissaries. 
The views of the Thugs were that they could please her by acting as her emissaries. 
Consequently they regarded the murder of their fellow creatures as a religious act. 1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
547 
shocked than interested in the ideas of his fellow religionists in 
Balrampur, and I found in his worship of Kali no trace of any 
hygienic precaution. He told me that if cholera is present in a 
village, it is necessary to sacrifice to Kali every day, and that while 
the public worship, which may last about two hours, is going on, it is 
necessary that no one of the inhabitants of the village should stay away. 
Further, while the worship is proceeding, the inhabitants do not like 
strangers to come into the village and interrupt them, either by 
drawing water or in any other way. It would seem that, in 
Balrampur, it is these details of the ritual that have been more 
developed than they are elsewhere. In other places the worshippers 
of Bhowani or Kali seem content with enjoining that the inhabitants 
should remain in the village during the two hours during which the 
religious ceremony is going on. In Balrampur, on the other hand, 
it is considered necessary that every one of the inhabitants should 
remain in the village during the whole of the twenty-four hours. Else- 
where the worshippers merely object to their service being interrupted. 
In Balrampur they object to strangers coming into the villages at 
any time when cholera is present, as if the worship were proceeding 
continuously. 
I have left to the last a curious custom, rather than a religious 
observance, which is met with in the Balrampur district. It relates 
to the disposal of the dead. The body of a person dead of cholera, 
instead of being burnt, is buried. This may appear at first sight to 
be an insanitary proceeding. But in reality it is the reverse. 
Usually the bodies of Hindoos are burned. It is a necessary part 
of the ritual that on the fifth, tenth, eleventh, or thirteenth day 
after the burning, according to the caste, all the relatives of the 
deceased should meet in his house with as many Brahmins as can be 
obtained, and that they should have a feast. Supposing this to be 
done at a time when cholera was present in the village, there can be 
no doubt that it would lead to the diffusion of cholera over the 
surrounding district. A case in which this appears to have happened 
is mentioned in a recent report by Surgeon-Captain Pratt on cholera 
in the Gonda district. The worshippers of Bhowani, on the other 
hand, prefer to bury the bodies until cholera has vanished. The 
burying of the body is not followed by the assemblage of the 
relatives for the funeral feast, but after the cholera is over they dig 
up the body, burn it, and then carry out the religious ceremonies. 
I cannot find that this apparently insanitary proceeding has ever 
re-started the cholera. Nor is it likely that it should, for it has 
recently been shown that the cholera microbe rapidly perishes in 
buried corpses. How far this disagreeable custom may be objection- 
able in respect of other diseases I am not prepared to discuss, but I 
have little doubt that it tends to prevent the spread of cholera.2 
2 In many parts of Oudh it is a custom to throw the bodies of persons dead of 548 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
As already stated, my object in coming to Balrampur was to dis- 
infect wells, and my proposal to do so had bean met by a direct 
negative on the part of the Dhusaha villagers. After learning their 
belief as to the nature of cholera, and the nature of their objections 
to the presence of a disinfectant in their wells, I was in a position to 
attack them again on the subject. Knowing that it is more easy to 
convince people by education than by argument, I collected about a 
dozen jogis and other kinds of fakirs and some Brahmins, and gave 
them a lecture which, with the accompanying experiments, lasted 
about two hours, and was completely successful in its object. Those 
who know fakirs chiefly, as I have seen them, hanging for hours 
head downwards, over a hot fire in the burning Indian sun, or 
attempting to earn their salvation by other eccentric methods, such 
as sitting on a bed of upturned nails, may think that I was too 
sanguine in hoping to succeed, and a short account of this lecture 
may therefore be of interest. 
I commenced my lecture by showing them a human hair under 
the microscope, first slightly magnified, and then under increasing 
degrees of magnification, until, as they affirmed, it looked as large as 
a tree. Then I showed them some mildew growing in a test tube ; 
this they recognised. Then, under a low power of the microscope, 
they saw that the mildew consisted of a mass of threads. Under a 
higher power (a magnification of 750 diameters) they recognised with 
evident interest that it was a plant, and they themselves pointed out 
the branches, the roots, the flowers, and the seeds. I then showed! 
them a large collection of microbes which I had at that time collected 
from different wells in the neighbourhood. In each case I gave the 
name of the well in the hope of increasing their interest in the subject, 
and with the arriere-pensee of suggesting that their water was in need 
of improvement. The first microbe which I showed them was a large 
bacillus, that had grown out into long rods similar in thickness to the 
threads of which the mildew consists, and containing rows of spores 
which they recognised as seeds. I then showed them the same 
bacillus at an earlier stage of its growth, when the individual rods 
were shorter and slowly moving through the culture liquid. The 
next microbe I exhibited was still smaller and rapidly motile. The 
last was the smallest, and moved so quickly across the field of view 
that they could only see it with difficulty. This was the cholera 
microbe. I told them that it was the army of Bhowani, but after- 
wards referred to it as the ' cholera mildew.' I pointed out how in 
some respects these creatures resembled plants, in others animals. 
cholera into rivers. In other parts of the country this fate happens to the bodies of 
persons dead of snake-bite. Still more widespread is the custom of disposing of the 
bodies of lepers in this way. For this I believe there are religious reasons. The 
bodies of young children are not cremated. In the case of poor people the cremation 
is often very partial, and the greater part of the disintegration is left to the sacred 
turtles which are always waiting at the burning ghats. 1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
549 
Since they had seen them moving, it was no use asserting that they 
were merely plants, so I contented myself with asking the question, 
' Who can tell which they are, animals or plants ? ' I then told them 
that the food of these creatures is dirt. I showed them some peptone 
under the name of the ' essence of dirt taken from the inside of a pig/ 
The nomenclature may appear strange, but if I am right in believing 
that peptone is usually made by allowing a pig's stomach to digest itself 
at a warm temperature, it at least cannot be described as highly inaccu- 
rate. I then showed them some water to which some of this ' essence of 
dirt ' had been added. I told them the name of the well from which 
the water had been taken, and explained that on the previous night 
the cholera mildew had been present in such small quantities, that I 
was unable to see it by means of the microscope, but that owing to 
the ' essence of dirt ' having acted as food, the water now looked as 
if milk had been added to it, and the reason of this was that many 
thousands of the cholera mildews were now present in every drop. 
It may be explained that the addition of peptone to water in this 
way is the ordinary method of testing for the cholera microbe. 
I then somewhat changed the subject by asking why it was that 
no one ever got cholera by drinking holy water, whereas many persons 
died of cholera every year by drinking water out of ordinary wells. 
Holy water, it may be explained, is water taken from the Ganges or 
Jumna.3 Many bodies of persons dead of cholera are thrown into 
these rivers. Natives constantly drink the water of the river while 
cholera corpses are floating past, yet none of them contract the 
disease from so doing. Yet it is certain that the cholera mildew gets 
into the water. Further, this must also happen when cholera breaks 
out at religious festivals at Hurdwar and Allahabad ; yet there is no 
evidence that cholera spreads to villages downstream more quickly 
than it does to other villages, to which it is carried by the returning 
pilgrims. I suggested that the reason of this is that the water of 
these rivers contains no dirt suitable for the cholera mildew. Con- 
sequently, when it gets into these rivers it quickly perishes owing to 
lack of nourishment. The water of these rivers appears to be muddy. 
If some of the mud floating in their water is examined under the 
microscope, it is seen to consist of nothing but little pieces of stone. 
If the mud from a well, on the other hand, is examined, pieces of 
leaves, of clothes, of human skin, and of other particles of animal 
origin may be discerned. Such things furnish food for the cholera 
mildew. Consequently, if a trace of the cholera mildew gets into one 
of their wells, finding there a suitable food, it rapidly reproduces, 
until the cause of cholera is present in quantities in every drop. 
Here in Balrampur the wells were dirty, and hence cholera came and 
3 Evidence of the extraordinary purity of the Ganges and Jumna may be found in 
a paper which I read at the Indian Medical Congress in Calcutta (December 1894),, 
entitled ' On the Microbes of Indian Rivers.' 550 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
was bad every year. In Agra, on the other hand, where I came from, 
the wells were cleaner and cholera was far less frequent.4 
I then went on to ask how cholera could be stopped. This 
could be done by adding to the wells a medicine which I possessed, 
which had the wonderful power of destroying dirt. The medicine, 
it may be explained, was potassium permanganate. To exhibit its 
action, I placed before them two glasses of water. To one I added a 
small quantity of the ' essence of dirt.' The other was pure water, 
or, rather, the best that I could obtain. I showed them some potas- 
sium permanganate, dissolved it in water, and added a few drops of 
the solution to each of the glasses. The purple colour produced by 
the addition remained permanent in the glass containing clean 
water; but in the other, owing to the presence of the peptone, the 
colour was destroyed in a few seconds, giving rise to a yellow colour; 
and presently a brown precipitate was deposited. I pointed out to 
my audience that where dirt was present the medicine had combined 
with it. The medicine was destroyed, and also the dirt, both falling to 
the bottom as a precipitate. I pointed out that this might be done in 
a well just as easily as in a glass, and that by so doing they inevitably 
render the water less fitted to support the life of the cholera mildew, 
and make the water like that of the Ganges.5 I did not ask them to 
take away the life of any living creature, for this I knew was con- 
trary to their religion ; but I did ask them to remove its food and 
thus prevent this living creature from reproducing itself, and so 
giving them the cholera. Further, I said that I knew that drinking 
an English medicine was also contrary to their religion, and I did 
not ask them to drink it. There was plenty of dirt in their wells 
with which it would combine, and if they added it at night, it would, 
before the morning, have fallen to the bottom. Further, as they 
could see for themselves, if a trace of the medicine was present in 
the water, it produced a purple colour, and therefore if they waited 
till the purple colour had disappeared, they would be safe to avoid 
the chance of swallowing the medicine. 
Whether they were most impressed with the cogency of my 
arguments, or the exceeding badness of the Hindustani in which I 
4 I have stated some of the grounds on which this and other opinions expressed 
here are based in The Annual Report of the Chemical Examiner and Bacteriologist to the 
Government of the North- West Provinces and Oudh for 1894, published at the Govern- 
ment Press, Allahabad. But since writing the above, I have been led to the view that 
there is something in the water of the Ganges and Jumna which kills the microbe. 
5 Some evidence that permanganate really acts in the way here described-namely, 
by removing the food of the microbe and thus ' starving it out-was subsequently 
obtained in an epidemic of cholera in Shahgunj. Here the cholera microbe vanished 
from the well water a few hours after the addition of the permanganate, but reappeared 
on the following morning. But within three days it had wholly disappeared from the 
wells which had been treated, though it continued to exist for weeks in other wells 
that had not been medicated. Less than two ounces of the permanganate had been 
added to each well. 1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
551 
expressed them, or by the price of my microscope, I do not know ; 
but they appeared to be satisfied that it was a good thing to add the 
medicine to the wells; some of them even appeared to be eager to 
do so, since cholera was in their villages. 
After giving this lecture I went to Dhusaha, and at last persuaded 
the chief jogi, Mahadeo Purhit by name, to allow me to put medicine 
into his well. The natives crowded round, showing much surprise 
at the quantity of colour produced by so little of the substance. The 
addition was made at evening, and on the next day both the colour of 
the permanganate and the cholera microbe which had previously been 
in the well had completely vanished. 
Later in the day news was brought to me that Mahadeo Purhit 
was dangerously ill. I hurried over to see him, and to my dismay 
found that he was dying of cholera. In the afternoon he died. I went 
again immediately to the village, not feeling very sure of the recep- 
tion I should get, since it was inevitable that, sooner or later, the 
inhabitants would come to the conclusion that his death was a 
judgment from Bhowani for his allowing a Sahib to come into the 
village and to put medicine in his well. However, I thought that it 
might be possible to prevent their arriving at this conclusion by first 
getting another idea into their heads. I spoke to the villagers, and 
pointed out that his death proved the truth of what I had been 
saying, for I had said that the cause of cholera was in his well at a 
time when no one who drank its water was suffering from the disease. 
Now he had died from drinking this water. If I had put the medi- 
cine into the well a week earlier, he would now have been all right. 
I then seized the opportunity of making some prophesies about other 
wells which were in the village, and in which I had found the 
cholera microbe; and without more ado the villagers allowed me to 
put permanganate into all these wells. 
It may be noted that it was most important that the villagers 
should have no objection to this medication of their wells. For if 
they did not approve of it, they might obtain their water from a tank 
or some other source which might be worse than the well itself. 
Although I succeeded in showing the natives that the addition of 
this medicine implied nothing dangerous to their caste, I could not 
help their being at first a little frightened of it. So I drank some 
water (and this was the second of the two occasions only on which I 
have drunk water since I have been in India) from one of the wells 
in the village, to which permanganate had been added; this I had 
to do in order to convince the natives that it was not poisonous. 
The cholera stopped within three days of the treatment of the 
wells, that is to say within a time covered by the probable incubation 
period of the disease. It is not the object of this paper to prove that 
the disinfection of wells during cholera epidemics is useful, so I will 
confine myself to saying that the results obtained in other epidemics 552 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
as in this have been encouraging, but not conclusive, as to the value 
of the method. 
I wish rather to suggest that a help to progress in sanitation in 
India may possibly be secured by studying the customs of the people 
in the light of recent knowledge, and by encouraging those which 
appear to be of use. The customs above described exist, so far as I 
am aware, over a limited area only, and from the standpoint of others 
than the inhabitants themselves, this religion which makes quarantine 
in the presence of cholera one of the cardinal virtues, is little more 
than an ethnological curiosity. In other parts of India the religious 
beliefs of the people impel them to the most insanitary actions, 
especially at their religious festivals, which are known to be so 
potent in spreading diseases. 
But I have come across customs which exist over a far wider area, 
and which I believe to have a beneficent influence in limiting the 
spread of epidemic disease. Take for instance the customs connected 
with giving water to strangers. I have been told that in some 
districts Brahmins keep a bucket and rope at each well for the 
special use of travellers, these not being allowed to lower their own 
buckets into the well. In other places a man also is provided to draw 
water for strangers. Sometimes, in the case of villages situated near 
to the high road, a man brings water from the village to sell to the 
passers by. But I believe a more frequent plan is for the villagers to 
subscribe, and to keep going a house in which passers-by can obtain 
water free of cost. A man of high caste sits inside the house at a 
little window. A traveller comes up and asks for water. In England 
he would receive it in a glass which he would put to his lips, and 
after having deposited on the edge of the glass any objectionable 
microbe which he might happen to have about him, whether influenza, 
diphtheria, or whooping cough, would return the glass in a condition 
in which it might possibly be ready to infect the next comer. In 
India the simple process of giving a cup of cold water to a traveller is 
carried out with more regard to sanitary laws. Firstly the traveller 
states his caste. If he is of high caste, immediately he holds out his 
hands, and washes them with water poured into them. Then more 
water is poured into his hands and thus conveyed to his mouth. If 
by any chance he should happen to touch the drinking vessel, it 
would be necessary to heat it in a fire to sterilise it, or, as the natives 
say, to remove the defilement, before it could be used again for the 
next comer. Supposing the traveller is of low caste, that is to say 
one engaged in some filthy occupation, then the water cannot be 
poured direct from the vessel into his hands, because, as was explained 
to me by a Brahmin, it is possible that some defiled water might 
plash back from the man's hands on to the vessel. Hence the 
low-caste man has to drink from a little spout called a 'tonti,' 
usually made of bamboo, projecting from below the window. The 1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
553 
water-provider pours water from his vessel into a sort of funnel. 
Thence it issues by the spout, and if any water does splash back 
from the man of dirty occupations, it merely falls on to the spout, 
and there is no risk of its infecting the water supply for the 
next comer. If one realises the complete absence of the dirt- 
fearing instinct, among, for instance, the sweepers, and the fact that 
it is their business to remove the most filthy offal, which they 
generally do with their hands, and that consequently their hands are 
liable to be polluted with the most objectionable microbes, it will be 
understood that the above precautions are by no means a useless 
refinement. When I was examining one of these places the water- 
provider offered me a drink, adding that he had a glass. When I 
reflected that I had only just recovered from a mild attack of cholera, 
owing to an infection contracted in my laboratory from a moment's 
carelessness, I felt more inclined to drink from the spout than 
to run the risk of infecting his water by drinking in the English 
fashion. 
It is now abundantly proved that the cholera infection is often 
carried into villages by returning travellers. There can be no doubt 
that it then infects others by the intermediary of the village well. 
In reading certain reports which contained much evidence in favour 
of this statement, I was struck by the fact that the traveller in each 
•case appears only to have brought the disease to the village to which 
he returned, but does not seem to have deposited the infection in the 
villages through which he passed. There is the possibility that this, 
if true, is due to the above described arrangements for giving water 
to strangers. This inference, however, cannot be made with certainty 
until investigations have been made, both as to the customs in the 
villages in question, and as to the amount of cholera in villages 
situated on the high roads. Against this idea may be stated the fact 
that cholera is known to be frequent along great pilgrim routes. But 
it is possible that this is an exception which helps to prove the rule. 
Owing to the vast numbers of pilgrims passing along the roads, it 
would, I suspect, be impossible for the villagers to provide water for 
them all to drink, and it thus becomes necessary for them to draw it 
for themselves. 
I have had opportunities of watching the customs of these pil- 
grims at the large religious festivals held annually near Allahabad, 
at the point of junction of the Ganges and Jumna. For miles along 
the roads leading to the fair, and all over the plain near the site of 
the fair, families of Hindoos (chiefly Brahmins) can be seen encamped, 
and cooking their simple food. Before eating they take off all their 
clothes, except a loin cloth, and wash themselves all over, for fear 
■some defilement may be present on their clothes or .bodies. As is 
well known, they object to a person of another caste coming near to 
them while they are eating. It is not so well known that they have 554 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
no such objection if their food has been heated to a temperature 
sufficient to kill microbes, that is to say, if it has been fried in oil, 
except so far as persons are concerned who belong to the five lowest 
castes. The occupations of members of these castes are regarded as 
unclean, and they are not allowed to come near high-caste Hindoos 
while they are eating under any conditions, neither are such persons 
allowed to bring the uncooked food of Brahmins from the bazaar. It 
is obvious that each one of these rules has a tendency, though it may 
be slight, to prevent men of higher caste from swallowing the microbes 
which can cause diseases. Unfortunately, when at pilgrimages, they 
do not appear to pay much attention to the precautions which at that 
time are most required. I questioned several of them on that point, 
and they told me that they took no care as to what water they drank. 
I may parenthetically remark that I was walking alone among these 
natives without any imposing array of police or other officials. The 
only sign that I was an official was the doubtful one that I was 
carrying a notebook. Yet frequently as I passed the natives would 
turn round and call out after me, ' God bless the power and property 
of the English Government.' I was particularly struck by their 
using the term English, and I commend the fact to the attention of 
the members of the National Congress. 
Sometimes the customs attending pilgrimages are fearfully in- 
sanitary. For instance, at the site of a pilgrimage in the Madras 
Presidency is a hill which is supposed to be a god. It is surrounded 
by twenty-four small tanks. On the great day of the festival nearly 
a hundred thousand persons bathe in, and drink, the water of each of 
these tanks. Each tank is thus defiled by every body, since, for re- 
ligious purposes, everyone must go round the hill and bathe in each 
of the tanks. Little wonder that these pilgrimages are potent means 
for the spread of cholera. 
The idea that natives in certain parts of India, when in their 
villages, habitually take precautions to insure the purity of their 
water supply, may seem strange not only to English readers, but also to 
Anglo-Indian officials stationed in certain other parts of India where no 
such care is taken, as, for instance, is, I suppose, the case in localities 
where the supply of drinking water is derived from tanks. Here, I 
am informed, the natives are in the habit of washing themselves, 
their cows, and the Sahib's shirts, in the tank that also acts as the 
village cesspool and the village water supply. Personally, I know 
nothing of these parts of India. The following account is based on 
experience obtained near Agra, and in other parts of the North-West 
Provinces. 
In every village at least one well is reserved for the supply of 
drinking water. Only vessels especially reserved for the purpose are 
allowed to be lowered into such wells. Great care is taken to preserve 
the drinking-water vessels from pollution. Musalman water-carriers 1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
555 
or bhistis 6 do not allow any one but themselves to touch their water 
buckets, or the skins in which they carry their water. Hindoos gene- 
rally draw water in an iron vessel known as a ' dol.' This is only 
used for drawing the water. When required the water is poured into 
another vessel, and only from this other vessel is the water poured 
into the hands of any one requiring a drink. No one is allowed 
to go on to the platform of a well without removing his shoes. 
Other wells in the village are reserved for household purposes. 
The vessels used to draw drinking water are never allowed to be 
lowered into these wells by Hindoos. I suspect that Musalman 
bhistis are not so particular ; at any rate, this is the case with bhistis 
employed by English people. The poorest Hindoos have two separate 
sets of vessels, one to hold drinking water, the other for water used 
in household purposes, such as washing the cooking vessels. 
Houses, being generally made of mud, are constantly in need of 
repair. The workmen (or coolies) who need water for carrying out 
this work necessarily employ very dirty earthenware vessels. I am 
certain that these are not allowed to be lowered into drinking-water 
wells, and I believe they are not allowed to be lowered into wells 
used for household purposes. A small tank containing dirty water is 
generally attached to each well, and from this the workmen take the 
water which they need in repairing houses. When first I saw these 
tanks I thought it was rather unsanitary to have such dirty water 
so close to the well. But the above statements, I venture to think, 
make it obvious that it is better to have such tanks than that coolies 
should lower their dirty vessels into a well used for drinking pur- 
poses. 
I once asked a completely uneducated native why it was necessary 
to have dirty w'ells in the place, why the dirty wells could not be 
closed, and all the water, whether for drinking or household purposes, 
be obtained from clean wells. His answer was that if this were done 
diseases would become prevalent. Whatever truth there may be in 
this answer appears to me to depend on the practical necessity that 
in some cases dirty vessels have to be lowered into wells; and hence 
it seems to be a good plan, as things go, to reserve some wells into 
which alone such vessels may be lowered. 
I recently had to do with a cholera epidemic in which certainly 
most of, possibly all of, the infection was derived from wells used 
for household purposes, and it is probable that the disease would 
have been far more widespread if the water of such wells had been 
actually drunk by the mass of the population. The epidemic 7 in 
6 Bhistis are always Mahommedan, and only draw water for Mahommedans or for 
English people. Hindoos usually draw water for themselves, but sometimes water- 
drawers are employed. These are always of Brahmin or Cahar castes. 
7 Some details concerning this epidemic will be found in my Annual Report already 
quoted. 556 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
question occurred in Shahgunj, and at the time it was stated to 
be inexplicable on the grounds that only women had been attacked. 
I found that the latter statement was true so far as the first part of 
the epidemic was concerned. The women who were affected had no 
supply of drinking water in common. Some of them obtained their 
■drinking water from a well situated a couple of miles away from 
their houses. But out of seven cases I found evidence that six had 
been in the habit of going to one well which was used, not for 
drinking, but only for household purposes, and consequently was 
chiefly frequented by women. A few poor Musalmans, however, 
were in the habit of using the water for drinking purposes. Hindoos 
used a better well situated about sixty yards away. The epidemic 
affected twenty-six Mahommedans and only one Hindoo. I have 
little doubt that the first part of the epidemic was due to accidental 
infection from the water brought by the women for household 
purposes. In the latter part of the epidemic the cholera microbe 
appears to have spread to other wells in the place; but in these 
cleaner wells the microbe seems to have assumed a less virulent 
form, for the cases which now affected both men and women in 
nearly every instance ended in recovery, and on my putting disin- 
fectants into the wells the epidemic ceased. 
It is commonly supposed that the natives are in the habit of 
washing their clothes and themselves at the wells, and that the water 
frequently runs back into the well. This is not quite accurate. 
Women generally wash themselves either in their houses or in the 
river, if one is near. Men wash themselves and also their dhoti or 
loincloth at the wells, and owing to the platform of the well sloping 
away from its mouth, very little water, if any, gets back into the 
well, provided it is in good repair. Clothes, both of men and 
women, are washed by dhobies, who are never allowed to carry on 
their business near a well. They are obliged to use either the river 
or a tank. It is considered that the occupation of dhobies is 
unclean, and consequently they belong to one of the five lower castes 
who are not allowed to come near a well used by higher castes. 
Perhaps the most interesting precaution taken by Hindoos about 
their drinking water is that those who are supposed to be engaged 
in dirty occupations, or vessels belonging to such persons, are not 
allowed to come near a well. In towns and larger villages it 
sometimes happens that a well is especially reserved for the use of 
Chamars and sweepers. More generally, if a sweeper wants water, he 
has to sit down at a distance from the well and wait till some one of 
higher caste comes and draws water for him. 
This does not exhaust the list of precautions taken by natives in 
this district to insure the purity of their water supply. I was astonished 
to discover that they take pains to prevent the contamination of the 
Biver Jumna. While staying the other day in a bungalow in the 1896 
BHOWANI, THE CHOLERA-GODDESS 
557 
Ram Bagh Garden, which is situated above Agra on the banks of 
the river, a fisherman came to me and complained that my servants 
had dug a drain from the cook house and that from it dirty water 
was running into the river. The servants had made this drain by 
my orders, as I had a prejudice against the accumulation of stagnant 
water near to where my food was being prepared. On the fisherman 
making the complaint I hazarded the statement that it did not matter, 
since all up the banks of the river everywhere the natives were in 
the habit of depositing on its banks, as they often did at the margin 
of a tank, refuse which frequently fell into the water. The fisherman 
somewhat indignantly denied that this was the case, saying that men 
who would do such a thing must be of very low caste, and that higher 
caste people certainly always took pains to prevent the pollution of 
the river. To this I objected that the natives did not care whether 
the water was dirty or not, because a mile or two lower down the 
stream they were bathing at the ghats just where a large drain ran 
into the river. The fisherman admitted that they did this, because 
their ancestors had always bathed there, but at the same time he 
said they do not like the drain being run into the river, because the 
river is holy and they make many prayers to it. It appears to me 
that this incident well illustrates to what extent with these people 
cleanliness is godliness, and tends to make one regret that cleanliness 
has not been left a matter of common-sense instead of having become 
incorporated with their religion. 
I have only attempted to describe some of the customs of the 
Hindoos in respect of their supply of drinking water. A further 
study of their customs would show that, with the higher castes of 
Hindoos, cleanliness and the avoidance of defilement are virtues to 
be cultivated in one's self and admired in others. Among the poorer 
classes and among men of lower castes these hygienic virtues are apt 
to be tempered with much original sin of the insanitary kind. But 
it cannot, I think, be denied, that even when only a few members of 
higher castes are present in a village they exert a beneficial influence 
in preserving the supply of drinking water from contamination. 
Unfortunately, their influence does not go far enough, but it appears 
to me that this is only a reason for trying to extend it in those 
directions in which it appears likely to be of use.8 
The above remarks may seem like a eulogy of the caste system. 
This is far from my wishes. A system which enjoins that persons 
8 For instance, I am engaged in writing a tract in Hindustani on the prevention 
of cholera in India. By way of advocating the imposition of a quarantine on persons 
returning from a pilgrimage who may possibly bring back the cholera virus with them, 
I suggested in my rough draft of the pamphlet that such persons should be regarded 
as unclean for a week after their return. But on translating it into Hindustani, I 
was unable on the one hand to find any word for unclean that did not mean unholy; 
and on the other hand I found that the custom already existed in the case of certain 
distant pilgrimages. My informant, whom I have every reason to rely on, tells me that 
Vol. XL-No. 236 P P 558 
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
Oct. 
who are careful in avoiding defilement should be admired and re- 
spected, but not imitated, at any rate by part of the population, is 
far from satisfactory even from the hygienic standpoint. From the 
ethical standpoint, a system which tends to keep certain classes in a 
low position and to prevent them from rising to anything higher, no 
doubt leaves much to be desired. Further, it seems to make no distinc- 
tion in importance between matters which might be of great use, such 
as those relating to the water supply, and those of trivial import, such 
as the position of the cooking vessels while food is being prepared. 
E. H. Hankin. 
pilgrims returning from Goya and Budrinath are not allowed to eat with other mem- 
bers of their families or, I believe, to come near their wells, until they have bathed in 
the Ganges. I believe this custom to be the reverse of widespread, but in my tract I 
have explained its advantages, and suggested that it should be applied to every 
returning traveller, that his clothes should not be washed until they have been ex- 
posed in the sun to dry, that he should be allowed to bring none but dry food back 
with him into the village, &c. THE CRY FOR FRAUDULENT MONEY IN AMERICA 
IN THIS NUMBER. 
This is the Original Edition Printed in England and issued in America by authority 
of the English publishers, 
NINETEENTH 
CENTURY 
A MONTHLY REVIEW 
EDITED BY JAMES KNOWLES 
No. 236, OCTOBER, 1896. 
I. Why Russia Distrusts England. By Sir Wemyss Reid. 
II. The Cry for Fraudulent Money in America." By George F. Parker. 
{United States Consul, Birmingham). 
III. On the Ethics of Suppression in Biography. By Edmund S. Purcell. 
{Author of "The Life of Cardinal Manning." ) 
IV. Bhow&ni, the Cholera-Goddess. By E. H. Hankin. 
V. Of Women in Assemblies. By Charles Selby Oakley. 
VI. Lord Randolph Churchill as an Official. By the Right Hon. Sir 
Algernon West, K.C.B. 
VII. On the Dervish Frontier. By J. Theodore Bent. 
VIII. County Councils and Rural Education. By Charles Thomas Dyke 
Acland. 
IX. Horse Ambulances. By the Hon. Dudley Leigh. 
X. A Visit to Queen Elizabeth. By J. H. Round. 
XI. The Unavoidable Uselessness of Prison Labour. By Sir Edmund Du 
Cane, K.C.B. 
XII. Fra Filippo Lippi. By the late Sir Joseph Crowe, C.B., K.C.M.G. 
XIII. The Massacres in Turkey : 
(1) By the Rev. Dr. J. Guinness Rogers. 
(2) By the Right Hon. the Earl of Meath. 
(3) By John Burns, M.P. 
(4) By Professor H. Anthony 
(5) By the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone. 
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