The little church of Bandel is a pleasing, modest structure—its white
tower, cross, cloisters, and adjoining priest’s house and garden,
creating a pleasing illusion; transporting the spectator in imagination
(forgetting he is in India) to the orange groves of Portugal or Madeira.
The vesper bell had ceased to sound as we slowly entered the building.
The interior was invested with a deepening gloom, but partially broken
by the waning light of evening, which, streaming in at the windows,
chequered the worn pavement, pencilling, as it were, with its sad and
sober ray, the touching but evanescent record of another departing day.
Within, all was silence and repose, save when slightly broken by the
closing of a door, or the echo of a distant footfall.
The altars, with their splendid adornments of the Romish ritual, tapers,
crucifixes, &c., sparkled through the “dim, religious light” of the
place, whilst here and there a few solitary native Portuguese women, on
their knees, met our eyes, absorbed in silent prayer.
The scene was solemn and impressive; my light thoughts fled, and a deep
sense of the holiness and loveliness of devotion fell upon me. We moved
through the body of the church and the adjoining courts and cloisters,
pleased with the tranquillity of the spot, before we bent our steps
towards the budgerow, whose whereabouts was now plainly indicated by the
numerous fires of our servants and boatmen, cooking their evening meal
on the banks.
“Well, Ann!” said the captain to his sister, as we sauntered along,
“what do you think of the old chapel of Bandel?”
“I have been greatly pleased with it,” answered Miss Belfield; “with me,
you know,
‘Even the faintest relics of a shrine
Of any worship wake some thought divine.’
But truly there is something _par excellence_ in these old Catholic
ecclesiastical buildings, which always, good Protestant as I am, takes a
powerful hold on my feelings and imagination; hallowed by their
association with the events of the misty past, they awaken the most
solemn reflections. To have trodden, too, as we have just done, those
very aisles where the adventurous Portuguese of the olden time of India
(now some centuries past) have put up their orisons, is well worth our
evenings ramble. Yes,” she added, with some enthusiasm, “whatever be the
defects of its tenets and doctrines, Romanism unquestionably contains
the very poetry of religion.”
“Ann! my dear Ann!” exclaimed the captain, “what would your old friend
Parson Martext, of Long Somerton, say, were he to hear you talking thus?
Fie! fie! The ‘misty past,’ as you poetically term it,” continued
Captain Belfield (who, I began to discover, was a matter-of-fact-man,
who had curbed and double-bitted his fancy, and was not perhaps quite so
orthodox as he should have been), “is too often a region of delusion, in
which flying the dull realities of the present, the feelings and
imagination love to revel—a sort of moral _mirage_ rests upon it. With
too many, as they approach it, judgment abandons the reins of the
understanding, whilst enthusiasm seizes them, and drives away Heaven
knows whither. In the distant mountain fading—in aerial tints of gold
and purple, infancy paints a heaven, whilst experience tells of rocks
and caverns, cataracts and precipices. I am myself, I confess, disposed
to entertain many of your feelings in such situations, but reading and
reflection have taught me to moderate them—to distinguish, I hope,
between feelings and rational convictions—romance and reality—in more
senses than one; be assured the ‘heart of man is deceitful above all
things.’ But, my dear Ann,” he added, “we are becoming a vast deal too
solemn and didactic. I’m sure our young friend here will think so. These
subjects are caviare to those just entering on the spring of life, to
which we, you know, are beginning to turn our backs. Here we are at the
budgerow, love! Tea, too, on table! Now, then, take care how you walk
over the plank; a dip in the Hoogly would be a chilling _finale_ to your
evening’s ramble. Mr. Gernon, give my sister your hand, if you please.
Here we are, once more, on board our first-rate.”
I was not long in discerning that Captain Belfield was a learned
Theban—a great Oriental scholar; a prodigious number of books he had,
too, lying about the cabin, in worm-eaten Indian covers, and in all
sorts of crambo characters—Persian, Nagree, Pali, and I know not what
besides; with dictionaries, many of formidable bulk.
He maintained—for Captain Belfield, like most men, had his hobby, and
was, moreover, at that time writing a book to prove it—that we have
received almost all our _raw_ notions of things in general from the
East, to which we are, in fact, more indebted than it suits the policy
of the world to acknowledge; and that now, after a score or two of
centuries, we are merely rendering them back their own in a
_manufactured_ or modified form.
Our feudal system, our juries, our best jokes, our cleverest tales, our
wisest aphorisms, and much more besides, were, according to him, all
filched from the Hindoos. The captain was not a man to be led away by
strained analogies and forced etymologies; so I put great faith in his
_dicta_—a faith which has not been shaken by my post-griffinish
researches.
He had better grounds to go upon than the old Irish colonel, who took up
the converse of the proposition, and proved, or endeavoured to prove,
that the Hindoos sprung from the Irish, that Sanscrit was a corruption
of their vernacular, their veneration for the cow nothing more than a
natural transition from their well-known partiality for _bulls_; and
that the mildness, temperance, and placability of the race all smacked
strongly of Tipperary.
On the evening to which I am referring, Captain Belfield soon became
absorbed in his books, whilst Miss Belfield and I sat down to chess. We
had two well-contested games; I won them both, and though I bore my
victory meekly enough, I perceived, or thought I perceived, that it
would not do to repeat my triumphs too often.
Chess is a fine, intellectual game, no doubt, but, somehow or other, a
sad tryer of the temper; and, whether beaten or victorious, unless
possessed of more than ordinary tact and self-command, you may chance to
quarrel with, and possibly alienate, your friend.
Thus, then, with some little variety, reading, or conversation, passed
we the evenings of our sojourn together—the pleasantest by far of my
griffinage.
The voyage to Burhampore, the first large military station on the river,
occupied ten or twelve days. I shall briefly touch on a few more of its
incidents.
In spite of General Capsicum’s friendly advice to indulge moderately in
field sports, like ninety nine out of every hundred griffins, I
commenced my popping operations almost from the day of starting, keeping
up a sort of running fire, with little intermission, till I reached my
destination.
My knowledge of Indian ornithology being extremely limited, I
declared war against all of the feathered race that presented
themselves—particularly the paddy-birds and snippets. The first, a
sort of small crane, abounding in the rice-fields, and which it is
considered by sportsmen the _acmé_ of Johnny-rawism to shoot, under
the impression that they are game; the second, a sort of sand-lark,
which runs ducking along the banks of the river, and are so tame,
being accustomed to boats, that it is difficult to make them take
wing. These, in my simplicity, I took for Bengal snipes, and
sometimes, poor little devils, opened a point-blank battery on them
from my bolio window, knocking them, of course, to “immortal smash.”
I had, it is true, gained an inkling from Tom and Marpeet touching the
nature of such proceedings, with some warnings to avoid them, though it
was reserved for Captain Belfield, a few days after we left Hoogly, to
renew the admonition, with better effect. This arose out of the
following occurrence.
I returned one evening to his budgerow, laden—_i.e._, Ramdial, bearer,
and Nuncoo, matar, were charged with the porterage of the following
miscellaneous bag of game, to wit: a cock-vulture, with fine red wattles
(which I shot, thinking he was a wild turkey), four snippets, five
paddy-birds, three doves, a gillarie, or striped squirrel, a braminy
kite, and a jackal.
The boats were just coming to, the poor dandies, after a hard day’s
pull, winding up their tow-lines, and old Phœbus himself just sinking to
rest, spreading his glorious hues over the broad bosom of the Bagheriti,
as,
Spent with extreme toil,
Weary and faint,
I made my appearance, after a long exploration among mango groves, paddy
fields, and sugar-cane kates,[33] in search of game.
The captain was seated on the roof of the budgerow as I hove in sight;
his amiable sister, parasol in hand, beside him, talking of Long
Somerton, in all probability, and enjoying the beauties of the scene and
the coolness and tranquillity of the hour.
“Well, Gernon,” said the former, who had now dropped the “Mr.” in
addressing me, “what sport? what have you killed?—too well employed to
think of dinner, of course!”
“Oh! capital, sir,” said I; “all in that bag, and more besides.”
“Quantity, certainly; but what are they?” added he, “for that, after
all, is the main point.”
“Pray bring them on board,” said Miss Belfield; “I am curious to see
some of the Indian game, to ascertain in what respect they differ from
ours at home.”
“With the greatest pleasure,” returned I, glad of an opportunity to
exhibit the contents of my bag; “you shall see them immediately.”
So saying, I went on board, and joined my friends on the roof, Ramdial
following with the bag, and Nuncoo dragging up the jackal by the tail.
Ye Gods! how the captain, albeit a grave man on ordinary occasions, did
laugh, as Ramdial tumbled out the contents of my cornucopia!
“Ha! ha! ha! why, you have made a day’s sport of it, indeed,” he
exclaimed; “but you don’t intend, I hope, that we should eat them all?”
“The snipes and the doves,” said I, modestly, “and those things,
something like woodcocks, might not, I thought, be bad eating.”
“Snipes!” echoed the captain, “I see no snipes.”
“No, sir! why, what are these?” I asked, holding up one of my snippets
by the bill; “aren’t these Bengal snipes?”
“Bengal snipes! no! nor snipes at all; miserable snippets; but with you,
I presume, all long bills are snipes?”
“No, not exactly,” said I; “but allowing for difference of latitude and
longitude, I thought these might very well be snipes.”
“Ah! I see,” said the captain, “I must put you in the way of managing
matters. I have long relinquished the gun, for I found I was getting too
fond of it, and, after a few years, the sun tells; but I must resume it
for a day or two, in order to initiate you a little into the proper
nature of Indian sporting, and to show you where real snipes and game
are to be found. All this is mere waste of powder and shot (which you
will find a very expensive article, by the way, in India), and will get
you, if you continue it, dubbed an egregious griffin or greenhorn. A
jackal, too! what made you shoot him?”
“He bolted from a bush, and I thought he was a wolf and floored him
beautifully; as I rolled him over ’twas fine fun to see the courage with
which Teazer and the bull attacked him when in his last agonies.
However, I should not have spared him, had I at first been aware of what
he was, for I owe the whole race a grudge for their infernal yellings. I
was kept awake for some hours last night by a troop of the fiends close
under my bolio window.”
“Ah!” said Belfield, “you have destroyed a useful scavenger; never kill
without an adequate purpose; if we have a right to slay, it is not in
mere wantonness; ‘shoot only what you can eat’ is a good maxim.”
“Mr. Gernon,” said Miss Belfield, “though my brother undervalues your
sport, it may be some consolation to you to know that I do not; I want
to sketch all the curious birds and animals I see, for a very dear
friend of mine at Long Somerton, who exacted a promise from me, at
parting, that I would do so. Will you, therefore, bring them all on
board to-morrow, the poor jackal included, and you shall group whilst I
sketch them?”
“Capital!” said I; “with the greatest pleasure; and we’ll have Nuncoo as
the Indian huntsman in the foreground: we shall,” I added rather
wickedly, “in this little dedication to the fine arts, be working out
the captain’s utilitarian principle, as applied to sporting.”
Captain Belfield was as good as his word; he put his double-barrelled
Manton together, after a long repose apparently, in its case, where, in
dust certainly, if not in _ashes_, it had mourned its state of inaction,
mustered several of his servants, and out we sallied in the afternoon of
the following day.
Captain Belfield, from his perfect knowledge of the language and the
people—whom, I observed, he always treated with great kindness—was soon
able to ascertain the spot in the neighbourhood of the river where the
game was to be found (there is but little, comparatively, in this part
of Bengal), and which I should probably have been long in discovering;
to them we accordingly went, and found hares, black partridges, and
abundance of real snipes, which I perceived did not differ in the
smallest degree from English ones; and I had the supreme felicity of
bagging something more respectable than paddy-birds and snippets, which
I afterwards treated with proper contempt.
The captain, although he had been so long on the retired list as a
sportsman, fired a capital good stick nevertheless, and knocked the
black partridges about, right and left, in great style; indeed, he once
or twice, to borrow a not very delicate sporting phrase, “wiped my nose”
in a very off-hand manner, proofs of his powers as a marksman with which
I could have readily dispensed; as next probably, to a smack in the
face, there are few things more disagreeable than having your “nose
wiped.”
The black partridge of India, I must inform the reader, is a beautiful
bird; its breast (_i.e._, the male’s), glossy shining black, spangled
with round and clearly defined white spots; its haunts are the long
grass on the borders of jheels and marshes, from whence it creeps, in
the mornings and evenings, into the neighbouring cultivation.
When flushed, up he goes, as straight as a line, to a certain elevation,
and then off with him, at a right angle, like a dart. He is by no means
an easy shot, though, from his mode of rising, it would appear
otherwise.
It will be long ere I forget the thrill of pleasure I experienced when I
dropped my first black partridge on this occasion, and how pompously,
after ascertaining his specific gravity, I consigned him to my bag,
taking him out about every five minutes, to indulge in another
examination. It is difficult to express the contempt with which I then
viewed my quondam friends, the snippets and paddy-birds.
The prodigious quantity of water-fowl to be seen on some of the shallow
lakes or jheels of India, is well calculated to astonish the European
beholder. I have seen clouds of them rise from such sheets of water,
particularly in the upper part of the Dooab, with a sound sometimes not
unlike the roar of a distant park of artillery; geese of two or three
sorts; ducks, teal, coots, saruses, and flamingoes; the latter, however,
should perhaps be excepted from the concluding part of the remark, for a
string of these beautiful scarlet and flame-coloured creatures, floating
silently in the air, or skimming, on lazy pinions, over an expanse of
water, seem like a chain of fairies, or bright spirits of some Eastern
tale, descending gently to earth; nor do I think this is an exaggerated
description, as all will allow who have seen the flame-coloured cordon
on the wing.
Having now been put in the way of doing things according to rule, I no
longer, as I have before hinted, molested such ignoble birds and beasts
as, in my state of innocence, I was wont to destroy. No more did I nail
the unhappy snippets to the bank from my bolio window nor disturb the
’lorn cooings of the turtle-dove in her bower of mango shade, by a
rattling irruption of No. 6; but in a steady, sportsmanlike form,
accompanied by Ramdial (who, by the way, had no sinecure of it), laden
with _chattah_ (umbrella), game-bag, and brandy-pawney bottle in
leathern case, and Nuncoo, the dog-keeper, with Teazer and the bull-dog,
I was almost daily in the jheels and swamps, mud-larking after the ducks
and snipes.
The reader will think, probably, and I am not disposed to question the
correctness of his opinion, that bull-dogs are not the best of the
species that can be selected for snipe-shooting.
Granted, I say again; but he will be pleased to remember that there are
such disagreeable things as tigers and wild boars (and great _bores_
they are too) to be met with in India. It therefore struck me that, in
case of an unexpected rencontre with one or other of these creatures,
the bull-dog might do good service, by making a diversion in my favour,
and in concert with Teazer, attacking the enemy in flank and rear,
keeping him in check, whilst I fell back on the fleet, as many a valiant
and experienced general had done before me.
Hector, however, though reserved for such important purposes, took no
pleasure in the sport; his heart was with the flesh pots of Whitechapel,
and Nuncoo had sometimes hard work to get him through the swamps; Teazer
behaved better, and, indeed, for a dog of such very low extraction,
displayed a better nose than I expected.
[Illustration: Griffin Mudlarking in the Jheels.]
Happy! happy days of my griffinage! first full swing of the gun! none
before or since have been like unto ye! Had I then set up for a second
Mahomed, and described a paradise, snipe-shooting in a jheel would have
infallibly been included amongst its most prominent enjoyments!
The country in this part of Bengal is a dead flat, composed of a rich
alluvial soil, in a high state of cultivation. Rice, sugar-cane, Palma
Christi, and fifty other tropical productions, flourish luxuriantly, and
charm the sight by their novelty.
The face of the country is covered with groves of mango, tamarind, and
plantain trees, &c.; and numerous towns and villages are scattered here
and there, but which, however, have little that is striking or
interesting in their appearance, mud or matting being the predominant
materials with which they are constructed.
Still the vastness of the population, the number and variety of the
boats on the river, transporting up and down the rich and varied produce
of India, and the diversity of the objects to be seen on the banks as
you slowly glide along, are extremely pleasing. Miss Belfield, being a
finished sketcher, was daily in raptures with all she saw. Full often
would she summon me to the budgerow window, to look at something
exceedingly picturesque—some glimpse, effect, or “pretty bit,” as she
was wont to term it, and which had awakened all her admiration.
Some old and magnificent banyan-tree, exhibiting a forest of shade, and
whose tortuous roots, like sprawling boa-constrictors, overhung the
stream; village maidens filling their water-pots beneath it, or fading
like phantasmagoric figures in the deepening gloom of the receding
woodland-path; or some Brahmin standing mid-leg in the water, with eye
abased, and holding his sacred thread; cattle sipping, or the huge
elephant, like a mountain of Indian-rubber, half-immersed, and patiently
undergoing his diurnal scrubbing and ablution.
I caught all her enthusiasm, and great was the sketching and dabbling in
water-colours which followed thereon.
Captain Belfield possessed a far more extensive library than my friend
Tom Rattleton, comprising many standard works on Indian history,
geography, antiquities, &c.; to these, for he was no monopolist in any
shape, he kindly gave me free access, and when not occupied by blazing
at the snipes, or in aiding Miss Belfield in her graphic operations, I
found in his library stores an ample fund of amusement.
I pored over the _seer ul Mutakhereen_, and formed an extensive
acquaintance amongst the twelve million gods of the Hindoo Pantheon.
How genuine, how refreshing, by the way, is the _bonhomie_ of the
Mahomedan author of the _seer ul Mutakhereen!_ with what grave
simplicity and _naïveté_ does he relate the sayings and doings of our
valiant countrymen in the early times of Anglo-Indian history!
His comparison of the red Feringhie[34] soldiers, firing in battle, to a
long brick wall, belching forth fire and smoke, is admirable. And how
excellent the story of Beebee Law, and the stem reproof administered to
the fawning Asiatic parasite, the young noble at Patna, by the sturdy
English commander, when the former tried to ingratiate himself by
insulting his fallen enemy, the gallant Frenchman!
How striking, too, when recording these acts, the energy and
astonishment with which, as if irresistibly impelled thereto, he
apostrophizes the virtues of the English—their high-souled contempt of
death—their fortitude under reverses, and moderation in success—likening
them to the Rustums and Noushervans of old, Asiatic types of valour and
justice; showing that there is a moral sense, an eternal standard of
nobleness, which no adverse circumstances of habit, climate, and
education can wholly obliterate or destroy—that virtue is not wholly
conventional!
And oh! admirable Orme! thou minute chronicler of still minuter events,
ungrateful, indeed, should I deem myself, did I not here acknowledge my
obligations to thee; did I not record the many pleasant hours I have
spent in poring over thy pages, whilst tracing the career of thy now
antiquated worthies, from Clive to Catabominaigue!
As we approached the classic ground of Plassey, both poetry and
patriotism began to stir within me. I studied Orme’s account of the
battle attentively, and determined, as doubtless many had done before
me, to attempt to identify the existing local features with those
incidentally mentioned in the narrative of that important event, the
first act of the greatest work of modern days,—the conquest, government,
and civilization, by a handful of remote islanders, of one hundred
millions of men; a work, be it observed, though still progressing, which
if left to liberal and practical minds, can hardly fail to be effected
(though yearly increasing in difficulty), if fanaticism on the one hand,
and ultra liberalism on the other, be not allowed prematurely to mar it.
Miss Belfield expressed great veneration for the memory of the Indian
hero, and begged to be allowed to accompany us to the scene of his
crowning exploit.
“The more the merrier, my dear,” said her brother, and out we all
sallied to visit—thrilling name—“The field of Plassey.”
A very pleasant stroll we had, too; but all our endeavours to harmonize
the then aspect of the country (and doubtless it is much the same now)
with Orme’s description of it were utterly nugatory; hunting lodge,
mango tope, and every other memorial and mark of the fight mentioned by
that accurate historian, having been swept away by the river, which,
since 1757, has entirely changed its course.
If any future Clive should fight a battle in Bengal, decisive of the
fate of India, and feel at all desirous that the field of his fame
should remain intact, I would respectfully advise him not to come to
blows within twenty good miles of the Ganges, if he can possibly avoid
it, for that headlong flood, in the course of its erratic movements,
will sooner or later be sure to sweep it away.
An example of the tortuosity of the course of the Bagheriti, and of the
way in which both it and the great Ganges abandon their beds and form
new ones, leaving miles of their former channels unoccupied, or formed
into stagnant lakes, was afforded at Augurdeep, a few miles from
Plassey.
After a long day’s journey (some fifteen or sixteen miles), we observed,
to our great surprise, that we had halted within a few hundred yards of
the spot from whence we had set out in the morning, the masts of boats
moored there being visible across a narrow neck of land, or isthmus,
connecting with the main land the peninsula we had been all day
circumnavigating.
This isthmus, in after years, was cut through, the river beating in full
force against it, leaving, of course, a great extent of channel dry. If
Clive’s victory, therefore, had left no more lasting memorial than the
field on which it was gained, we should know but little about it.
We were disappointed at our ill success, at least Miss Belfield and I;
for the captain had anticipated that matters would be as we found them.
I, however, consoled myself with a determination I had formed, to raise
a monument of the victory a little more durable than the one which had
just disappeared. I made up my mind to compose a poem, an epic, on the
conquest of Bengal; Clive, of course, the hero, and Plassey the scene;
on which, like the combatants, I proposed to put forth all my strength.
I had for some days felt the stirring of the divine _afflatus_ within
me, a sort of boiling and rioting of vast ideas; too vast, alas! I
afterwards found, for utterance or delivery, for I stuck fast at
“Immortal Clive.”
Two or three days more brought us to the station of Burhampore. The day
before we arrived, Captain Belfield received a letter from an old
acquaintance at the station, one Colonel Heliogabalus Bluff, begging him
to breakfast and dine with him on the morrow, and pass a day or two _en
route_. The letter thus concluded:
“I hear you have your sister with you; shall, of course, be glad to see
the Beebee Sahib too; send herewith a _dolee_, which pray present to
her, with my _bhote bhote salaam_.
“A _dolly_, sir,” said I, in astonishment, on Captain Belfield’s reading
this passage; “that’s rather an odd thing to send: he supposes, I
presume, that Miss Belfield is a child.”
Captain Belfield was attacked with a most violent fit of laughter on my
making this remark, and I saw that I had been once more unwittingly
griffinizing.
When he had a little recovered his composure, “Gernon,” said he, “it
will, add, perhaps, to your astonishment when I tell you, that we intend
to eat the said _dolly_ for dinner, and shall expect you to partake of
it.”
Saying this, he ordered the article to be brought in, when, instead of a
toy, I found the dolee was a basket of fruit, flowers, and vegetables.
“Who is the gentleman?” said Miss Belfield, as we sat at tea in the
evening, “from whom you had the letter this morning, and to whom we are
indebted for all this fine fruit?”
“Why, Colonel Bluff,” said her brother, “an old fellow-campaigner of
mine, a very rough subject; ‘and though he is my friend,’ as Mr. Dangle,
in ‘The Critic,’ says, I must acknowledge, a very eccentric and far from
agreeable character.”
“Oh! pray describe him fully,” said his sister: “I like much to have an
eccentric character delineated, for, in this age of refinement, men have
become so very much like one another, that a person marked by any
peculiarity is as enlivening as a rock, or other bold feature, to the
sight, after having been long wearied by the monotony of a low and level
landscape: do, pray, give us a sketch of him.”
“Well, then, the colonel is a stout, sturdy John Bull, underbred and
overfed, combining with the knock-me-down bluntness of that character,
as it once existed more strongly than at present, and a double allowance
of all his ordinary prejudices, the _gourmanderie_ and frivolity which
an idle life in India is too apt to engender in the very best of us.
“He reverses the rule, that we ought to eat to live, for he lives to
eat, and much of his time is occupied in devising dishes, or
superintending his farm-yard, educating his fat China pigs, and looking
after his tealery, and quailery and sheep.
“He has a constant supply always pouring in for him from Calcutta, of
exotic and expensive luxuries—beer, champagne, pine cheeses, Yorkshire
hams, Perigord pies, pigs’ cheeks, and the like—of which he is certainly
liberal enough; for no prince can be prouder than he is when at the head
of his table, making his gastronomical displays; in short, he greatly
prides himself on the surpassing excellence of his breakfasts and
dinners, though those who partake of them must often, as their price,
submit quietly to all his coarseness and brutality of manner. Folks in
India do not generally trouble themselves much about English politics;
at least, not so far as to identify themselves strongly with the sects
and parties which are everlastingly worrying each other at home, and who
remind me of vultures and jackals here over a carcase.
“Colonel Bluff is, however, an exception to the rule, and has always set
himself up for a great church-and-king man, and a violent high Tory,
delighting in talking of such subjects. He is a terribly violent fellow,
and when excited by a few glasses of wine, pounds the table, and makes
the glasses dance again, as he denounces all Whiggery and Radicalism.
“With all his faults, however, and he has more than an ordinary share,
he possesses a good deal of Miss Hannah More’s standing dish,
‘good-nature’ (provided he has everything his own way); and, indeed, but
for this redeeming trait, he would be utterly unbearable.”
[Illustration: Col. Heliogabalus Bluff and Orderly.]
Miss Belfield said she was curious to see this singular compound of _bon
vivant_ and politician, a feeling in which I expressed my hearty
participation.
“You must be on your guard how you comport yourself before him, Gernon,”
said the captain, “for I assure you he shows no mercy to griffins,
cutting them up right and left, when once he commences, with most
unmercifully rough raillery.”
“He had better leave me alone,” said I, with rather a formidable shake
of the head; “I’m not under his command, you know, sir, and may give him
a Rowland for his Oliver.”
“You’d better not attempt it, my dear fellow,” replied the captain; “he
has demolished many a stouter griffin than you are.”
The next morning we reached the station of Burhampore, and a little
before we brought to, I observed, approaching the banks, a very stout,
burly officer, followed by an orderly sepoy, whilst a bearer held a
chattah, or umbrella, over his head. It was impossible to be
mistaken—this must be Colonel Bluff.
“_Kisha budjra hyr?_” (whose boat is that?)
“_Bilfil Sahib ka_” (Captain Belfield’s), replied a servant.
“Ship ahoy! Belfield, get up, you lazy dog,” shouted the “stout
gentleman,” with the voice of a Stentor.
The captain ran out in his dressing-gown, and my suspicions were at once
confirmed; it was, indeed, the colonel; and a lively greeting now passed
between them.
“Well, then, so you’ve deserted Java—cut the Dutchmen, eh?—and come back
to the Qui-Hye’s?—they seem to have used you well, though; you aint half
such a lantern-jaw’d, herring-gutted looking fellow as you used to
be—haw! haw! You were, I recollect, when you joined us first, ‘as thin
as a ha’porth o’ soap after a hard day’s washing.’ as my father’s old
north country gardener used to say—haw! haw!”
“Complimentary and refined, as usual, I see, colonel; I can’t
congratulate you on any material alteration in that respect.”
“Why, man, you don’t expect me to compliment an old friend like you, do
you? ‘with compliments crammed,’ you know the rest—haw! haw! But, come,
stir your stumps, man! stir your stumps! breakfast’s all ready up
yonder, and as capital a ham for you as you ever stuck your teeth in. I
wait breakfast for no man, woman, or child living; you know me of old.
Talking of women, where’s the Beebee? where’s sister? she’ll come, won’t
she? My compts—Colonel Bluff’s compts—glad to see her; always proud to
do the honours to the ladies. But who have you got in that boat astern,
Belfield?”
“Oh, it’s a young friend of mine, Ensign Gernon, going to join his
regiment, under our convoy and protection.”
“O! a griff, eh! a greenhorn: hungry as a hunter, I’ll be sworn; bring
him along with you, bring him along, and we’ll fill him out. Rare
fellows, your griffs, to play a knife and fork—rare trencher-men. I’d
sooner keep some of them a week than a fortnight—haw! haw!”
“But colonel, had you not better take your breakfast with us? it’s
ready, and then we’ll walk up and spend the rest of the day with you.”
“Breakfast with you! No, hang me if I do: d’ye mean to insult me, sir?
What! a man, after a voyage, with hardly a shot in his locker, ask a
gentleman on shore, with a Yorkshire ham on his table, to breakfast with
him! never heard such a proposal in all my life! No, come, come along,
or I must march you all up under a file of Jacks.”
All this, which I overheard very distinctly, and which was uttered at
the top of an iron pair of lungs, was intended for heartiness and
jocularity. No doubt there was kindness in it, and with mortals as rough
as himself, it might doubtless have answered very well; but the captain,
I could see, evidently winced under the infliction, though bent
apparently on enduring it for a season, with proper resignation.
After finishing our toilets, and a few other little arrangements, we
joined the colonel, who would take no refusal, on the bund or esplanade.
Captain Belfield introduced his sister and me. The colonel, on being
presented to the former, raised his hat, and made as much of a bend as
the sphericity of his form would allow; at the same time thrusting forth
a leg far better adapted (to borrow the corn-law phraseology) for a
“fixed duty” than the “sliding scale,” with the air of a finished man of
gallantry.
There was something so irresistibly comic in the momentarily assumed
suavity of this huge _Ursa Major_ (or _Ursa Colonel_, as Paddy would
say), this attempt at the easy movement of the lady’s man, that I was
constrained to turn aside my head, in order to conceal a laugh.
The colonel gave us a superb breakfast and it was plainly observable
that his reputation as a _gastronome_ had not been overrated. Ham, fish,
jellies, butter, creams, cakes—all the profusion of an Indian
breakfast—were severally the very best of their kinds; moreover, Colonel
Bluff gave the history of every article, telling us to lay on, and spare
not, as we should not meet with any like them between that and Mr.
Havell’s, the provisioner’s, at Dinapore.
The dinner was equally remarkable for its goodness and profusion;
Chittagong fowls, as big as turkeys, were there, and a saddle of mutton
cased with two inches of fat, on which the colonel gazed with as much
pride as some tender parent would look on a favourite child.
He had invited some eight or ten of the ladies and gentlemen of the
station to meet us, and it was soon abundantly clear that the captain
had drawn a most accurate sketch of his friend’s character.
After the former had retired, he began to let out a little more of it.
Seated at the head of his table—his burly King Hal person filling his
capacious arm-chair—figure a little obliqued, a napkin over his knee,
and the bottles in array before him, the jolly colonel looked the very
personification of absolutism and animalism.
“Gentlemen, fill your glasses! Church and King! and after that what you
will. Pass the bottle, Belfield; fill up a bumper; come, a brimmer; no
daylight, sir; none of your Whiggery here; I thought you had left all
that off?”
“I’ll drink anything you please, colonel; but I fear our politics are
wider apart than ever.”
“You’re not becoming a follower of that rascal Tom Paine, are you? I
know you used to dabble in all sorts of books, and were but a few
degrees off it—a republican, irreligious scoundrel—gone to the d——l, I
hope, as he deserves—a fellow that had no respect for royalty, and would
have upset, if he could, our holy religion, an infernal villain!”
“Why, you are warm, colonel,” observed a middle-aged officer; “may I ask
when you took so keenly to politics?”
“Yes, you may ask,” said Bluff; “but it depends upon me whether I answer
you—haw! haw! Come, fill your glass and pass the bottle, and don’t ask
questions—haw! haw! haw!”
Never did I see so rough a specimen of humanity. How he talked, laughed,
thumped the table, and laid down the law, in the exercise of his
unenviable immunity!
An incident occurred after dinner, which displayed in a strong light the
violence of Bluff’s character, especially towards the natives, and his
perfect disregard of the feelings of his company.
As the bottles were placed before him by the apdar, or butler, a very
respectable-looking bearded Mahomedan, something in their arrangement
displeased our host, who, pointing with his forefinger to one of them,
exclaimed, “_Yee kea ky?_” (what is this?)
The unfortunate domestic bent forward his head, though evidently in
fear, to scrutinize the damage, when he received a back-handed blow in
the mouth from the colonel, which rung through the room, and sent him
staggering backwards, _minus_ his turban, which had fallen from the
shock.
The man—I shall never forget it—stooped and picked up his turban;
replaced it on his noble-looking head—his face was livid from a sense of
the insult; he put his hand to his mouth, and looked at it, there was
blood upon it.
The company appeared and were disgusted; even Bluff, I thought, seemed
ashamed of himself. Well it is that these things are becoming rare!
But enough of the colonel, of whom this sketch may give as good an idea
as a more elaborate description. Of such characters there were a few,
and but a few, in the Indian army, and it is to be hoped their number is
fast diminishing.