impregnable position," the guides tell us.
A company of the Khyber Rifles are quartered there in the old buildings
and the officers' deserted bungalows; over all hangs an atmosphere of
icy desolation and overpowering melancholy. Above our heads a flight of
eagles wheeled against the sky.
As we stood up there the caravan for Cabul came in sight on the road
below, and slowly disappeared wrapped in dust, with mechanical
steadiness and without a sound. After that came the other train of
travellers from Peshawur, singing to the accompaniment of mule-bells,
every sound swelled by the echo. Children's laughter came up to our
ears, the scream of an elephant angry at being stopped--even at a
distance we could still hear them a little--and then silence fell again
under the flight of the eagles soaring in circles further and further
away as they followed the caravan.
Close to us on each level spot of the scarped rock was a little
fortified look-out where three or four soldiers kept watch, with here
and there a larger tower, reached only by a ladder, and in these six or
eight men.
Beyond this point among the mountains the road seemed to vanish, to lead
nowhere, lost in pale red among the red cliffs, as if it stopped at the
foot of the rocky wall.
As we went back we found the roses carried in the morning by the Persian
strewn on the ground in front of the Ali Musjid, and over them a flock
of birds with red beaks were fluttering.
Then at Peshawur again in the evening, girls, with groups of soldiers in
red jackets or Scotch kilts; the common women were horrible, whitened,
with loose shirts and tight-fitting trousers. One alone sat at her
window wreathed about with _mindi_ flowers in the crude light of a lamp.
The others accosted the passer-by, laughing and shouting in shrill
tones.
In one room we heard music--guzlas, drums, and a vina. There were three
dancing-girls. At first they only performed the Indian "goose-step," the
slow revolutions growing gradually quicker. But urged by the soldiers
who filled the room and beat time with their sticks on the floor, the
nautch-girls marked their steps, wriggled with heavy awkward movements,
and tried to dance a Highland jig, taught by two Scotch soldiers.
A dark street corner where there were no shops. Under a canopy
constructed of four bamboos thatched with straw, a young man in a
light-coloured dhoti was sitting on a low stool; about him were women
singing. Presently one of them came forward, and dipping her fingers
into three little copper pots that stood on the ground in front of the
youth, she took first oil, then a green paste, and finally some perfume
with which she touched seven spots--the lad's feet, knees, shoulders,
and turban. Then she wiped her fingers on the saree of the bridegroom's
mother--for he was to be married on the morrow--who was standing behind
her son.
After her another woman repeated the ceremony, and then they went away,
still singing. This went on for part of the evening. When it was all
over they went to eat rice at the bridegroom's house, and meanwhile the
same ceremony had been performed with the bride, whom her neighbours had
taken it by turns to anoint and perfume, in a house closed against
prying eyes.
When the dead are to be honoured in this land each true believer lays a
pebble as homage on the tomb, and the dead man's repute is estimated by
the size of the pile of stones that covers him.
Not far from Peshawur a legend had arisen concerning a certain Guru,
that the holy man now underground grew taller every year by a foot, and
the heap of stones grew longer day by day, till the English authorities
had to interfere and place a guard of soldiers to check the encroachment
of the tumulus on the high road.
MURREE
We left Rawal Pindi in a tonga. The night was black, the carriage had no
lamps; but now and again, at the sound of the driver's horn, dark
masses--baggage camels, scarcely distinguishable in the gloom--made way
for us to go past at a gallop.
We changed horses every five miles; ill-kempt little beasts, and only
half fed, who got through their stage only by the constant application
of the whip, and shouts from the sais standing on the step; when
released from harness they stood forlorn and hobbled off, lame of every
leg, to their stables with no litter. Day broke, a dingy grey, dark with
woolly cloud and heavy rain; a wall of fog rose up around us, while the
road was uphill towards the mountains.
The fog seemed to turn to solid smoke, impenetrably black, wrapping us
in darkness which was suddenly rent by a red flash, blood-red, ending in
a green gleam. The mist retained a tint of sulphurous copper for some
time; then a second flash, and far away among the lurid clouds we had a
glimpse of the Himalayas, pallid purple with green shadows against an
inky sky. The thunder, deadened by the masses of snow and very distant,
rolled to and fro with a hollow sound, frightening the horses which
struggled uphill at a frantic pace. And the dense fog closed round us
once more, a dark green milkiness streaked with snow, which was falling
in large flakes formed of four or five clinging together like the petals
of flowers. Then it hailed, which completely maddened the horses, and
then again snow, and it was literally night at ten in the morning when
at last we reached this spot and the shelter of a bungalow.
The storm raged on all day, bringing down clouds that swept the earth
and yawned in cataracts, to the awful roar of the thunder that shook the
foundation of rock.
GARHI
A day in the tonga. Early in the morning through snow, and past forests
where huge pines were felled by yesterday's storm; then, after
descending a hill in a thaw that melted the clay soil into red mud, we
came to a felted carpet of flowers as close as they could lie, without
leaves; violets, and red and white tulips swaying on slender stems. And
here again were the song of birds, and fragrance in the soft, clear air.
Halting at noon at Kohala, we found a barber in the open street shaving
and snipping his customers. In a cage hanging to the bough of a tree
above his head a partridge was hopping about--black speckled with white,
and gold-coloured wings. It had a strident cry like the setting of a
saw.
As soon as the last customer's beard was trimmed, the barber took down
the cage and carried the bird to another spot whence we could hear its
scream.
Above the road lie dark cliffs; a rose-coloured waterfall of melted snow
tumbled mixing with the clay--pink with lilac depths, and the foam
iridescent in the sunbeams. The ruins of a large temple of green stone
carved with myriads of fine lines stood in solitude at the edge of a
wood, and the background was the mountain-range, the Himalayas, lost in
the sky and bathed in blue light. Only a portico remains standing--a
massive, enduring frame for the infinite distance of snow-capped giants.
The stones have lost their hue; they are darkly streaked by the rains
and a growth of grey and purple mosses, and russet or white lichens have
eaten into the surface.
All the architectural details are effaced; parasites and creepers have
overgrown the old-world carvings.
SRINAGAR
Still the tonga; uphill and down, over the hilly country, with a horizon
of dull, low mountains, and the horses worse and worse, impossible to
start but by a storm of blows. Towards evening a particularly vicious
pair ended by overturning us into a ditch full of liquid mud. The sais
alone was completely immersed, and appealed loudly to Rama with shrieks
of terror. Abibulla on his part, after making sure that the sahibs and
baggage were all safe and sound, took off his shoes, spread his dhoti on
the ground, and made the introductory salaams of thanksgiving to the
Prophet, while the coolie driver returned thanks to Rama.
The hills are left behind us; the plateau of Cashmere spreads as far as
the eye can see, traversed by the glistening Jellum, that slowly rolling
stream, spreading here and there into lakes.
Trees shut in the flat, interminable road, and it was midnight before we
reached Srinagar, where I found, as a surprise, a comfortable house-boat
with inlaid panels, and a fragrant fire of mango-wood smelling of
orris-root.
The large town lies along the bank of the Jellum; the houses are of
wood, grey and satiny with old age, and almost all tottering to their
end on the strand unprotected by an embankment. The windows are latticed
with bent wood in fanciful designs. Large houses built of brick have
thrown out covered balconies and verandahs, supported on tall piles in
the water, and on brackets carved to represent monsters or flowering
creepers.
The ugliest of these palaces is that of the Maharajah, with galleries of
varnished wood, of which the windows overlooking the river are filled
with gaudy stained glass. In the garden is a pagoda painted in crude
colours crowned with a gilt cupola; the zenana has bright red walls
striped with green, and in the grounds there is a cottage exactly copied
from a villa in the suburbs of London.
The muddy waters reflected the grey houses and the roofs of unbaked
clay, on which the winter snows were melting in black trickling drops.
In the streets the people, all wrapped in long shawls of a neutral
brown, were only distinguishable amid the all-pervading greyness by
their white head-dress. Men and women alike wear the same costume--a
full robe of dirty woollen stuff with long hanging sleeves, and under
this they are perfectly naked. The rich put on several such garments one
over another; the poor shiver under a cotton wrapper. And all, even the
children, look as if they had the most extraordinary deformed angular
stomachs, quite low down--charcoal warmers that they carry next their
skin under their robe.
At the bazaar we were positively hunted as customers; the clamour was
harassing, and everything was displayed for sale in the open street,
while the owner and his family crowded round us and hindered us from
going a single step further.
Inside the shops everything was piled together. The same man is at once
a banker, a maker of papier-mâché boxes--_papi-machi_ they call it
here--and of carpets, a goldsmith, tailor, upholsterer--and never lets
you go till you have bought something.
The bargaining was interminable, something in this manner:--
"How much for this stuff?"
"You know it is _pashmina_?"
"Yes, I know. How much?"
"It is made at thirty-five, twenty, fifteen rupees."
"Yes. But how much is this?"
Then follows a long discussion in Hindi with the bystanders, who always
escort a foreigner in a mob, ending in the question--
"Would you be willing to pay thirty-five rupees?"
"No."
"Then twenty-eight?"
And the figures go down after long discussions, till at last the
question as to whether I know the worth of pashmina begins all over
again--endless.
This morning, at Peshawur, down come the police on my houseboat--three
of them--and their leader explains matters. Abibulla interprets.
I have no right to stay in Cashmere without the authorization of the
Anglo-Indian Government, and ought to have handed such a permit to the
police on arriving. I have none--no papers whatever.
The matter was evidently very serious. The three constables consulted
together in an undertone, and then went off after desiring that I would
forthwith telegraph to Sealkote and bring the reply to the police
office.
Abibulla saw them off with great deference and a contrite air, and
watched their retreat; then, as I was about to send him to despatch the
message, he was indignant. The police! What could they do to a sahib
like me? It was all very well to frighten poor folks--it was a sin to
waste money in asking for a reply which I should never be called upon to
show--and so he went on, till I made up my mind to think no more of the
matter. And whenever I met the chief at the bazaar or by the Jellum, he
only asked after my health and my amusements.
So, after waiting for the reply of the gentleman whose business it was
to give me this free pass, seeing that he could not make up his mind, I
left the town without it.
At Srinagar you live under the impression that the scene before you is a
panorama, painted to cheat the eye. In the foreground is the river;
beyond it spreads the plain, shut in by the giant mountains, just so far
away as to harmonize as a whole, while over their summits, in the
perpetually pure air, hues fleet like kisses of colour, the faintest
shades reflected on the snow in tints going from lilac through every
shade of blue and pale rose down to dead white.
At the back of the shops, which lie lower than the street, we could see
men trampling in vats all day long; they were stamping and treading on
old woollen shawls, fulling them to take off the shiny traces of wear,
to sell them again as new goods.
"Export business!" says Abibulla.
On the sloping bank to the river stood a large wooden mosque falling
into ruins. In front of this building was a plot full of tombstones,
some overthrown, some still standing on the declivity.
In the evening, lamps shining out through latticed windows lighted the
faithful in their pious gymnastics. A moollah's chant in the distance
rose high overhead, and very shrill, and in the darkness the stars shed
pale light on the tombstones mirrored in the black water; a plaintive
flute softly carried on the sound of the priests' prayers. Down the dark
streets the folk, walking barefoot without a sound, and wrapped in
white, looked like ghosts.
Our boat stole slowly past the palaces, where there were no lights,
through the haze rising from the river, and all things assumed a
dissolving appearance as though they were about to vanish; all was
shrouded and dim with mystery.
To-day a religious festival; from the earliest hour everybody had donned
new clothes, and in the afternoon in the bazaar there was a masquerade
of the lowest class--embroidered dhotis, white robes, light-coloured
turbans displaying large discs of green, red or blue. The men, even old
men, ran after each other with bottles of coloured water, which they
sprinkled far and near. One indeed had neither more nor less than a
phial of violet ink, which, on the face and hands of a little black boy,
shone with metallic lustre. One boy, in a clean garment, fled from a man
who was a constant beggar from me, and who was pursuing him with some
yellow fluid; and the fugitive was quite seriously blamed for
disregarding the will of the gods and goddesses, whose festival it was.
Two days after, the people would burn in great state, on an enormous
wood pile, an image of Time, to ensure the return next year of the
festival of colours.
All day long in front of the houses the women were busy clumsily
pounding grain with wooden pestles in a hollow made in a log; stamping
much too hard with violent energy, they scattered much of the grain,
which the half-tamed birds seized as they flew, almost under the women's
hands. And then the wind carried away quite half the meal. But they
pounded on all day for the birds and the wind, and were quite happy so
long as they could make a noise.
Two old women had a quarrel, and all the neighbourhood came out to look
on.
Words and more words for an hour, till one of them stooping down took up
a handful of sand and flung it to the earth again at her feet. The
other, at this crowning insult, which, being interpreted, conveys,
"There, that is how I treat you! like sand thrown down to be trodden
on," covered her face with her sleeves and fled howling.
Two days later the roofs were covered with tulips of sheeny white and
red, as light as feathers swaying on their slender stems; and the crowd,
all in bright colours, went about in muslins in the clean, dry streets.
Only a few very pious persons still wore the garments stained at the
festival.
In the depths of a deserted temple in the bazaar, amid heaps of rags,
bones, and colourless _debris_, dwelt an old man, a very highly
venerated fakir, motionless in his den, while around him were gathered
all the masterless dogs of Srinagar, who allowed no one to come near him
and flew at anybody who tried to enter the temple.
At a goldsmith's I stood to watch a native making a silver box. He had
no pattern, no design drawn on the surface, but he chased it with
incredible confidence, and all his tools were shapeless iron pegs that
looked like nails: first a circle round the box, and then letters and
flowers outlined with a firm touch that bit into the metal. He had no
bench, no shop--nothing. He sat at work on the threshold of his stall,
would pause to chat or to look at something, and then, still talking,
went on with his business, finishing it quite simply at once without any
retouching.
In the coppersmiths' street was a booth that seemed to be a school of
art, where little fellows of seven or eight were engraving platters and
pots with the decision of practised craftsmen.
Some more small boys, a little way off, were doing embroidery, mingling
gold thread and coloured silks in patterns on shawls. They were
extremely fair, with long-shaped black eyes under their bright-hued
pointed caps, and their dresses were gay and pretty, mingling with the
glistening shades of silks and gold. And they were all chattering,
laughing, and twittering as they worked, hardly needing the master's
supervision.
A man by the roadside was mixing mud with chopped straw; then when his
mortar was of the right consistency he began to build the walls of his
house between the four corner posts, with no tools but his hands. A
woman and child helped him, patting the concrete with their hands until
it began to look almost smooth.
We set out from Srinagar in an ekka, drawn at a trot by our only horse.
The driver, perched on the shaft almost by his steed's side, dressed in
green with an enormous pink pugaree, flogged and shouted incessantly.
The monotonous landscape went on and on between the poplars that border
the road, extending as far as the blue circle of distant Himalayas. The
valley was green with the first growth of spring; as yet there were no
flowers. And till evening fell, the same horizon shut us in with
mountains that seemed to recede from us.
We stopped at a bungalow by a creek of the Jellum that was paved with
broad lotus-leaves, among which the buds were already opening their pink
hearts.
RAMPOOR
By three in the morning we had started on our way. At the very first
streak of day, in front of us, on the road, was a snow-leopard, a
graceful supple beast, with a sort of overcoat above its grey fur
spotted with black, of very long, white hairs. It stood motionless,
watching some prey, and it was not till we were close that it sprang
from the road with two bounds, and then disappeared behind a rock with
an elastic, indolent swing.
For our noonday rest I took shelter under a wood-carver's shed. On the
ground was a large plank in which, with a clumsy chisel, he carved out
circles, alternating with plane-leaves and palms. The shavings, fine as
hairs, gleamed in the sun, and gave out a scent of violets. The man,
dressed in white and a pink turban, with necklaces and bangles on his
arms of bright brass, sang as he tapped with little blows, and seemed
happy to be alive in the world. He gave us permission to sit in the
shade of his stall, but scorned to converse with Abibulla.
A man went past in heavy, nailed shoes, wrapped in a flowing dhoti; he
carried a long cane over his left shoulder, and as he went he cried,
"Soli, soli, aïa soli." All the dogs in the village crowded after him
howling; and in the distance I saw that he was walking round and round
two carriages without horses, still repeating "Soli, soli."
Last year he and his brother had gone into the mausoleum of a Moslem
saint with their shoes on; both had gone mad. The other brother died in
a madhouse, where he was cared for; this one, incurable but harmless,
went about the highways, followed by the dogs.
When we left he was in a coppersmith's shop, singing with wide open,
staring eyes; his face had a strangely sad expression while he sang a
gay, jigging tune to foolish words that made the people laugh.
We met a native on horseback; a pink turban and a beard also pink, with
a round patch of intensely black skin about his mouth--white hair dyed
with henna to make it rose-colour; and a lock of hair that showed below
his turban was a sort of light, dirty green in hue, like a wisp of hay.
The rider, well mounted on his horse, was deeply contemptuous of us,
sitting in an ekka--the vehicle of the vulgar; and he passed close to
us muttering an insult in his pink beard trimmed and combed into a fan.
On the river-bank were some eagles devouring a dead beast. One of them
fluttered up, but came back to the carrion, recovering its balance with
some difficulty, its body was so small for its large, heavy wings. Then
they all rose together straight into the air with slow, broad
wing-strokes, smaller and smaller, till they were motionless specks
against the sky, and flew off to vanish amid the snowy peaks.
A forest in flower: Indian almond trees white, other trees yellow, a
kind of magnolia with delicate pink blossoms; and among these hues like
perfume, flew a cloud of birds, black, shot with glistening metallic
green, and butterflies of polished bronze and dark gold flashed with
blue, and others again sprinkled with white on the nacreous,
orange-tinted wings.
Whenever our green driver meets another ekka-driver they both get off
their perch and take a few puffs at the hookah that hangs in a bag at
the back of the vehicle.
A smart affair altogether is this carriage! two very high wheels, no
springs, a tiny cotton awning supported on four sticks lacquered red,
and sheltering the seat which has three ropes by way of a back to it.
Portmanteaus and nosebags are hung all round, and even a kettle swings
from the near shaft, adding the clatter of its cymbal to the Indian
symphony of creaking wheels, the cracking whips, the driver's cries of
"_Cello, cello_," and Abibulla's repeated "_Djaldi_," all intended to
hurry the horse's pace.
DOMEL
A great crowd round the bungalow and along the road, and a mass of
sepoys and police, made Abibulla remark:
"It must be the tax-collector to bring such a mob together."
But for once he was mistaken.
A tonga arrived just as we drove up, bringing an English official,
travelling in his own carriage; gaiters, shooting jacket, a switch in
his hand. He seated himself outside the bungalow in a cane chair, close
by mine. Out of a case that was brought before him a hatchet and a
pistol were unpacked, documentary evidence of the crime into which he
was to inquire.
And then, under the verandah, the accused were brought up: an old man
and a youth, father and son, both superbly handsome, very tall, erect,
haughty, in spite of the hustling of the armed men and the heavy chains
that weighed on them; and after bowing low to the judge they stood
towering above the crowd of witnesses, soldiers, and native
functionaries, in magnificent dignity and calm indifference.
Then, as it began to grow a little cool, the inquiry was continued
indoors, whither the table was removed with the papers and the weapons,
and, with great care, the magistrate's "soda." The two culprits were
brought in and out, and in and out again, sometimes alone, sometimes to
be confronted with the witnesses, who, almost all of them, had the fresh
stains of the festival on their garments.
One of the police in charge had a whip, and when he was leading away the
old man, holding his chain he "played horses" with him, to the great
amusement of the bystanders, and even of the old fellow himself.
All round Domel there were fields of lilac lilies among the silky young
grass, and the cliffs were hung with a yellow eglantine exhaling a
penetrating scent of almonds.
There was a large encampment round the bungalow that night: tents for
the soldiers, and under the vehicles men sleeping on straw; others
gathered round the fires, over which hung the cooking-pots, listening to
a story-teller; and in a small hut of mud walls, with the door hanging
loose, were the two prisoners with no light, watched by three dozing
soldiers.
DERWAL