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LIFE IN AN
INDIAN OUTPOST
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[Illustration: AFTER THE PROCLAMATION PARADE.]
LIFE IN AN
INDIAN OUTPOST
BY
MAJOR GORDON CASSERLY
(INDIAN ARMY)
AUTHOR OF
"THE LAND OF THE BOXERS; OR CHINA UNDER THE ALLIES"; ETC.
ILLUSTRATED
LONDON
T. WERNER LAURIE LTD.
CLIFFORD'S INN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
A FRONTIER POST
PAGE
Our first view of the Himalayas--Across India in a troop
train--A scattered regiment--An elephant-haunted
railway--Kinchinjunga--The great Terai
Jungle--Rajabhatkawa--In the days of Warren
Hastings--Hillmen--Roving Chinese--We arrive at Buxa
Road--Relieved officers--An undesirable outpost--March
through the forest--The hills--A mountain road--Lovely
scenery--Buxa Duar--A lonely Station--The labours of an
Indian Army officer--Varied work--The frontier of
Bhutan--A gate of India--A Himalayan paradise--The
fort--Intrusive monkeys--The cantonment--The Picquet
Towers--The bazaar--The cemetery--Forgotten
graves--Tragedies of loneliness--From Bhutan to the sea 1
CHAPTER II
LIFE ON OUTPOST
The daily routine--Drill in the Indian Army--Hindustani--A
lingua franca--The divers tongues of India--The sepoys'
lodging--Their ablutions--An Indian's fare--An Indian
regiment--Rajput customs--The hospital--The doctor at
work--Queer patients--A vicious bear--The Officers'
Mess--Plain diet--Water--The simple life--A bachelor's
establishment--A faithful Indian--Fighting the
trusts--Transport in the hills--My bungalow--Amusements
in Buxa--Dull days--Asirgarh--A lonely
outpost--Poisoning a General--A storied
fortress--Soldier ghosts--A spectral officer--The
tragedy of isolation--A daring panther--A day on an
elephant--Sport in the jungle--_Gooral_ stalking in the
hills--Strange pets--A friendly deer--A terrified
visitor--A walking menagerie--Elephants tame and
wild--Their training--Their caution--Their rate of
speed--Fondness for water--Quickly reconciled to
captivity--Snakes--A narrow escape--A king-cobra; the
hamadryad--Hindu worship of the cobra--General Sir
Hamilton Bower--An adventurous career--E. F.
Knight--The General's inspection 19
CHAPTER III
THE BORDERLAND OF BHUTAN
The races along our North-East Border--Tibet--The
Mahatmas--Nepal---Bhutan--Its geography--Its
founder--Its Government--Religious rule--Analogy
between Bhutan and old Japan--_Penlops_ and
_Daimios_--The Tongsa _Penlop_--Reincarnation of the
Shaptung Rimpoche--China's claim to Bhutan--Capture of
the Maharajah of Cooch Behar--Bogle's mission--Raids
and outrages--The Bhutan War of 1864-5--The Duars--The
annual subsidy--Bhutan to-day--Religion--An impoverished
land--Bridges--Soldiers in Bhutan--Thefeudal
system--Administration of justice--Tyranny of
officials--The Bhuttias--Ugly women--Our neighbours in
Buxa--A Bhuttia festival--Archery--A banquet--A
dance--A Scotch half-caste--Chunabatti--Nature of the
borderland--Disappearing rivers--The Terai--Tea
gardens--A planter's life--The club--Wild beasts in the
path--The Indian planters--Misplaced sympathy--The tea
industry--Profits and losses--Planters' salaries--Their
daily life--Bhuttia raids on tea gardens--Fearless
planters--An unequal fight 45
CHAPTER IV
A DURBAR IN BUXA
Notice of the Political Officer's approaching visit--A
Durbar--The Bhutan Agent and the interpreter--Arrival
of the Deb Zimpun--An official call--Exchange of
presents--Bhutanese fruit--A return call--Native
liquor--A welcome gift--The Bhutanese
musicians--Entertaining the Envoy--A thirsty Lama--A
rifle match--An awkward official request--My
refusal--The Deb Zimpun removes to Chunabatti--Arrival
of the treasure--The Political Officer comes--His
retinue--The Durbar--The Guard of Honour--The
visitors--The Envoy comes in state--Bhutanese
courtesies--The spectators--The payment of the
subsidy--Lunch in Mess--Entertaining a difficult
guest--The official dinner--An archery match--Sikh
quoits--Field firing--Bhutanese
impressed--Blackmail--British subjects captured--Their
release--Tashi's case--Justice in Bhutan--Tyranny of
officials--Tashi refuses to quit Buxa--The next payment
of the subsidy--The treaty--Misguided humanitarians 64
CHAPTER V
IN THE JUNGLE
An Indian jungle--The trees--Creepers--Orchids--The
undergrowth--On an elephant in the jungle--Forcing a
passage--Wild bees--Red ants--A lost river--A _sambhur_
hind--Spiders--Jungle fowl--A stag--_Hallal_--Wounded
beasts--A halt--Skinning the stag--Ticks--Butcher
apprentices--Natural rope--Water in the air--_Pani
bel_--Trail of wild elephants--Their habits--An
impudent monkey--An adventure with a rogue
elephant--Fire lines--Wild dogs--A giant squirrel--The
barking deer--A good bag--Spotted deer--Protective
colouring--Dangerous beasts--Natives' dread of bears--A
bison calf--The fascination of the forest--The generous
jungle--Wild vegetables--Natural products--A home in
the trees--Forest Lodge the First--Destroyed by a wild
elephant--Its successor--A luncheon-party in the
air--The salt lick--Discovery of a coal mine--A
monkey's parliament--The jungle by night 83
CHAPTER VI
ROGUES OF THE FOREST
The lord of the forest--Wild elephants in India--_Kheddah_
operations in the Terai--How rogues are made--Rogues
attack villages--Highway robbers--Assault on a railway
station--A police convoy--A poacher's death--Chasing an
officer--My first encounter with a rogue--Stopping a
charge--Difficulty of killing an elephant--The law on
rogue shooting--A Government gazette--A tame elephant
shot by the Maharajah of Cooch Behar--Executing an
elephant--A chance shot--A planter's escape--Attack on
a tame elephant--The _mahout's_ peril--Jhansi's
wounds--Changes among the officers in Buxa--A Gurkha's
terrible death--The beginner's luck--Indian and Malayan
_sambhur_--A shot out of season--A fruitless
search--Jhansi's flight--A scout attacked by a
bear--Advertising for a truant--The agony
column--Runaway elephants--A fatal fraud--Jhansi's
return 104
CHAPTER VII
A FIGHT WITH AN ELEPHANT
We sight a rogue--A sudden onslaught--A wild elephant's
attack--Shooting under difficulties--Stopping a
rush--Repeated attacks--An invulnerable foe--Darkness
stops the pursuit--A council of war--Picking up the
trail--A _muckna_--A female elephant--Photographing a
lady--A good sitter--A stampede--A gallant
Rajput--Attacking on foot--A hazardous feat--A narrow
escape--Final charge--A bivouac in the forest--Dangers
of the night--A long chase--Planter
hospitality--Another stampede--A career of
crime--Eternal hope--A king-cobra--Abandoning the
pursuit--An unrepentant villain--In the moment of
danger 124
CHAPTER VIII
IN TIGER LAND
The tiger in India--His reputation--Wounded
tigers--Man-eaters--Game killers and cattle thieves--A
tiger's residence--Chance meetings--Methods of tiger
hunting--Beating with elephants--Sitting up--A
sportsman's patience--The charm of a night watch--A
cautious beast--A night over a kill--An unexpected
visitor--A tantalising tiger--A tiger at Asirgarh--A
chance shot--Buffaloes as trackers--Panthers--The wrong
prey--A beat for tiger--The Colonel wounds a tiger--A
night march--An elusive quarry--A successful beat--A
watery grave--Skinning a tiger 141
CHAPTER IX
A FOREST MARCH
Reasons for showing the flag--Soldierless Bengal--Planning
the march--Difficulties of transport--The first day's
march--Sepoys in the jungle--The water-creeper--The
commander loses his men--The bivouac at
Rajabhatkawa--Alipur Duar--A small Indian
Station--Long-delayed pay--The Subdivisional Officer--A
_dak_ bungalow--The sub-judge--Brahmin pharisees--The
_nautch_--A dusty march--Santals--A mission
settlement--Crossing a river--Rafts--A bivouac in a tea
garden--A dinner-party in an 80-lb. tent--Bears at
night--A daring tiger--Chasing a tiger on elephants--In
the forest again--A fickle river--A strange animal--The
Maharajah of Cooch Behar's experiment--A scare and a
disappointment--Across the Raidak--A woman killed by a
bear--A planters' club--Hospitality in the jungle--The
zareba--Impromptu sports--The Alarm Stakes--The raft
race--Hathipota--Jainti 174
CHAPTER X
THROUGH FIRE AND WATER
India in the hot weather--A land of torment--The
drought--Forest fires--The cholera huts
burned--Fighting the flames--Death of a sepoy--The bond
between British officers and their men--The sepoy's
funeral--A fortnight's vigil--Saving the Station--The
hills ablaze--A sublime spectacle--The devastated
forest--Fallen leaves on fire--Our elephants'
peril--Saving the zareba--A beat for game in the
jungle--Trying to catch a wild elephant--A moonlight
ramble--We meet a bear--The burst of the Monsoons--A
dull existence--Three hundred inches of rain--The
monotony of thunderstorms--A changed
world--Leeches--Monster hailstones--Surveyors caught in
a storm--A brink in the Rains--The revived
jungle--Useless lightning-conductors--The Monsoon
again--The loneliness of Buxa 196
CHAPTER XI
IN THE PALACE OF THE MAHARAJAH
The Durbar--Outside the palace--The State elephants--The
soldiery--The Durbar Hall--Officials and gentry of the
State--The throne--Queen Victoria's banner--The hidden
ladies--_Purdah nashin_--Arrival of the _Dewan_--The
Maharajah's entry--The Sons' Salute--A chivalrous
Indian custom--_Nuzzurs_--The Dewan's task--The
Maharani--An Indian reformer--_Bramo Samaj_--Pretty
princesses--An informal banquet--The _nautch_--A
moonlight ride--The Maharajah--A soldier and a
sportsman--Cooch Behar--The palace--A dinner-party--The
heir's birthday celebrations--Schoolboys'
sports--Indian amateur theatricals--An evening in the
palace--A panther-drive--Exciting sport--Death of the
panther--Partridge shooting on elephants--A stray
rhinoceros--Prince Jit's luck--Friendly intercourse
between Indians and Englishmen--An unjust complaint 213
CHAPTER XII
A MILITARY TRAGEDY
In the Mess--A gloomy conversation--Murder in the army--A
gallant officer--Running amuck on a rifle-range--"Was
that a shot?"--The alarm--The native officer's
report--The "fall in"--A dying man--A search round the
fort--A narrow escape--The flight--Search parties--The
inquiry into the crime--A fifty miles' cordon--An
unexpected visit--Havildar Ranjit Singh on the trail--A
night march through the forest--A fearsome ride--The
lost detachment--An early start--The ferry--The
prisoner--A well-planned capture--The prisoner's
story--The march to Hathipota--Return to the fort--A
well-guarded captive--A weary wait--A journey to
Calcutta--The escort--Excitement among the passengers
on the steamer--American globe-trotters--The court
martial--A callous criminal--Appeal to the
Viceroy--Sentence of death--The execution 232
CHAPTER XIII
IN AN INDIAN HILL STATION
To Darjeeling--Railway journeys in India--Protection for
solitary ladies--Reappearing rivers--Siliguri--At the
foot of the Himalayas--A mountain railway--Through the
jungle--Looping the loop--View of the
Plains--Darjeeling--Civilisation seven thousand feet
high--Varied types--View from the Chaurasta--White
workers in India--Life in Hill
Stations--Lieutenant-Governors--A "dull time" in
Darjeeling--The bazaar--Types of hill
races--Turquoises--Tiger-skins for tourists--The
Amusement Club--The Everlasting
Snows--Kinchinjunga--The bachelors' ball--A Government
House ball--The marriage-market value of Indian
civilians--Less demand for military
men--Theatricals--Lebong Races--Picturesque
race-goers--Ladies in India--Husband hunters--The empty
life of an Englishwoman--The dangers of Hill
Stations--A wife four months in the year--The hills
_taboo_ for the subaltern--Back to Buxa 262
CHAPTER XIV
A JUNGLE FORT
I decide on Fort Bower--Felling trees--A big
python--Clearing the jungle--Laying out the
post--Stockades and _Sungars_--The bastions--_Panjis_
and _abattis_--The huts--Jungle materials--Ingenious
craftsmen--The furniture--Sentry-posts--Alarm
signals--The _machicoulis_ gallery--Booby-traps--The
water-lifter--The hospital--Chloroforming a
monkey--Jungle dogs--An extraordinary shot--An unlucky
deer--A meeting with a panther--The alarm--Sohanpal
Singh and the tiger--Turning out to the rescue--The
General's arrival--Closed gates--The inspection--The
"Bower" and the "'Ump"--Flares and bombs--The General's
praise--Night firing--A Christmas camp 280
CHAPTER XV
FAREWELL TO THE HILLS
The Proclamation Parade--An unsteady charger--"Three cheers
for the King-Emperor!"--The Indian Army's loyalty--King
George and the sepoys--A land held by the sword--An
American Cavalry officer's visit--Hospitality of
American officers--Killing by kindness--The brotherhood
of soldiers--The bond between American and British
troops sealed by blood--U.S. officers' opinion of us--A
roaring tiger--Prince Jitendra Narayen--His visit to
Buxa--An intoxicated monkey--Projected visits--A road
report--A sketch fourteen feet long--The
start--Jalpaiguri--A planters' dinner-party--Crossing
the Tista River--A quicksand--A narrow
escape--Map-making in the army--In the China War of
1860--Officers' sketches used for the Canton Railway
survey--The country south of the hills--A sepoy's
explanation of Kinchinjunga--A native officer's theory
of the cause of earthquakes--Types on the road--After
the day's work--A man-eater--A brave postman--Human
beings killed by wild animals and snakes in
India--Crocodiles--Shooting a monster--Crocodiles on
land--Crossing the Torsa--Value of small
detachments--The maligned military officer--A life of
examinations--The man-killing elephant again--Death of
a Bhuttia woman--Ordered home--A last good-bye to a
comrade--Captain Balderston's death--A last view of the
hills 296
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
After the Proclamation Parade _Frontispiece_
Buxa Duar _To face page_ 16
"The fort was built on a knoll" " 16
Rajput sepoys cooking " 24
British and Indian officers " 24
My double company " 28
My bachelor establishment " 28
A kneeling elephant " 36
"The ladies of the hamlet came forward" " 54
Bhuttia drummers " 54
Chunabatti " 56
"From my doorstep I watched them coming
down the hill" " 66
The Deb Zimpun's prisoners " 66
The Durbar in Buxa " 74
A _sambhur_ stag and my elephant " 90
Bringing home the bag " 90
Forest Lodge the First " 100
Forest Lodge the Second " 100
"The _mahout_ was holding up the head" " 110
Subhedar Sohanpal Singh " 128
"We saw another elephant" " 130
The tiger's Lying in state " 172
The tiger's last home " 172
"My sepoys drilling" " 178
Buglers and non-commissioned officers of
my detachment " 178
The walled face of Fort Bower over the
river " 282
The stockade and ditch of Fort Bower " 282
The gate with wicket open and drawbridge
lowered " 286
Captain Balderston inside the stockade " 286
Bringing home the General's dinner " 290
"I was mounted on a country bred pony" " 296
"An elephant loaded with my stores and
baggage" " 296
LIFE IN AN INDIAN OUTPOST
CHAPTER I
A FRONTIER POST
Our first view of the Himalayas--Across India in a troop
train--A scattered regiment--An elephant-haunted
railway--Kinchinjunga--The great Terai
Jungle--Rajabhatkawa--In the days of Warren
Hastings--Hillmen--Roving Chinese--We arrive at Buxa
Road--Relieved officers--An undesirable outpost--March
through the forest--The hills--A mountain road--Lovely
scenery--Buxa Duar--A lonely Station--The labours of an
Indian Army officer--Varied work--The frontier of
Bhutan--A gate of India--A Himalayan paradise--The
fort--Intrusive monkeys--The cantonment--The Picquet
Towers--The bazaar--The cemetery--Forgotten
graves--Tragedies of loneliness--From Bhutan to the
sea.
Against the blue sky to the north lay a dark blur that, as our troop
train ran on through the level plains of Eastern Bengal, rose ever
higher and took shape--the distant line of the Himalayas. Around us the
restful though tame scenery of the little Cooch Behar State. The
chess-board pattern of mud-banked rice fields, long groves of the
graceful feathery bamboo, here and there a tiny hamlet of palm-thatched
huts--on their low roofs great sprawling green creepers with white
blotches that look like skulls but are only ripe melons. But the dark
outlines of the distant mountains drew my gaze and brought the heads of
my sepoys out of the carriage windows to stare at them.
For somewhere on the face of those hills was Buxa Duar, the little fort
that was to be our home for the next two years.
For four days my detachment of two hundred men of the 120th Rajputana
Infantry had been whirled across India from west to east towards it.
From Baroda we had come--Baroda with its military cantonment set in an
English-like park, its vast native city with the gaily painted houses
and narrow streets where the Gaikwar's Cavalry rode with laced jackets
and slung pelisses like the Hussars of old, and his sentries mounted
guard over gold and silver cannons in a dingy backyard. Where in low
rooms, set out in glass cases, as in a cheap draper's shop, were the
famous pearl-embroidered carpets and gorgeous jewels of the State, worth
a king's ransom.
Four days of travel over the plains of India with their closely
cultivated fields, mud-walled villages, stony hills and stretches of
scrub jungle, where an occasional jackal slunk away from the train or an
antelope paused in its bounding flight to look back at the strange iron
monster. Across the sacred Ganges where Allahabad lies at its junction
with the River Jumna. The regiment was on its way to garrison widely
separated posts in outlying parts of the Indian Empire and neighbouring
countries. Two companies had already gone to be divided between Chumbi
in Tibet and Gantok in the dependent State of Sikkim, and to furnish the
guard to our Agent at Gyantse.
The month was December; and they had started in August to cross the
sixteen-thousand-feet high passes in the Himalayas before the winter
snows blocked them. The regimental headquarters, with four companies,
was on its way to embark on the steamers which would convey them a
fourteen days' journey on the giant rivers Ganges and Brahmaputra to
Dibrugarh and Sadiya in Assam.
At Benares my two companies had parted from the rest and entered another
troop train which carried us into Eastern Bengal.
Every day for three or four hours our trains had halted at some little
wayside station to enable the men to get out, make their cooking-places,
and prepare their food for the day. The previous night my detachment had
detrained at Gitaldaha, where we had to change again on to a narrow
gauge railway, two feet six inches in width, which would take us through
Cooch Behar to our destination. The railway officials informed me that
we must stay in the station all night, as the trains on this line ran
only by daylight. I asked the reason of this.
"They cannot go by night on account of the wild animals," was the reply.
"The wild animals?" I echoed in surprise.
"Yes; the line runs through a forest, the Terai Jungle, full of
elephants and bison. Three months ago one of our engines was derailed by
a wild elephant and the driver badly injured. And not long before that
another rogue elephant held up a station on the line, stopped a train,
blockaded the officials in the buildings, and broke a tusk trying to
root up the platform."
And when daylight dawned and I could see the toy engine and carriages, I
was not surprised at the fear of encountering an elephant on the line.
Now on our fifth day of travel we were nearing the end of the journey.
We had passed the capital of Cooch Behar and were approaching Alipur
Duar, the last station before the Terai Forest is reached. Suddenly,
high in the air above the now distinct line of hills, stood out in the
brilliant sunlight the white crest and snowy peaks of Kinchinjunga,
twenty-eight thousand feet high, and nearly one hundred and twenty miles
away. Past Alipur Duar, and then hills and snow-clad summits were lost
to sight as our little train plunged from the sunny plain into the deep
shadows of the famous Terai Forest--the wonderful jungle that stretches
east and west along the foot of the Himalayas, and clothes their lowest
slopes. In whose recesses roam the wild elephant, the rhinoceros and the
bison, true lords of the woods; where deadlier foes to man than these,
malaria and blackwater fever hold sway and lay low the mightiest hunter
before the Lord. And standing on the back platform of our tiny carriage
my subaltern and I strove to pierce its gloomy depths, half hoping to
see the giant bulk of a wild elephant or a rhinoceros. But nothing met
our gaze save the great orchid-clad trees, the graceful fronds of
monster ferns, and the dense undergrowth that would deny a passage to
anything less powerful than bisons or elephants.
In a sudden clearing in the heart of the forest, the train stopped at a
small station near which stood a few bamboo huts and a gaunt,
two-storied wooden house in which, we afterwards learned, an English
forest officer lived his lonely life. The place was called Rajabhatkawa,
which in the vernacular means, "The Rajah ate his food." It was so named
because, nearly one hundred and thirty years before, in the days of
Warren Hastings, a Rajah of Cooch Behar ate his first meal there after
his release from captivity among the hill tribesmen of Bhutan who had
carried him away into their mountain fastnesses. They had released him
at the urgent instance of a British captain and two hundred sepoys who
had followed them up and captured three of their forts.
Among the crowd of natives on the platform at this station were several
of various hill races, Bhuttias and Gurkhas, with the small eyes and
flat nose of the Mongolian. I was surprised to see two Chinamen in blue
linen suits and straw hats, fanning themselves and smoking cigarettes,
as much at home as if they were on the Bund in Shanghai or in Queen's
Road in Hong Kong. But later on I learned that Rajabhatkawa led to
several tea gardens, where Chinese carpenters are always welcome. These
men are generally from Canton, the inhabitants of which city emigrate
freely. I have met them in Calcutta, Penang, Singapore, Manila, and San
Francisco.
On again through the jungle our train passed for another eight miles,
and then drew up at a small station of one low, stone building with a
nameboard nearly as big as itself, which bore the words "Buxa Road." It
stood in a little clearing in the forest, where the ground was piled
high with felled trees, ready to be dispatched to Calcutta. This was the
end of our railway journey.
The sepoys tumbled eagerly out of the train, threw their rolls of
bedding out of the compartments, fell in on the platform and piled arms,
and then turned to with a will to unload the heavy baggage from the
brake-vans. A number of tall, bearded Mohammedans, men of the detachment
of the Punjabi Regiment we were replacing, were at the station. Their
major came forward to welcome me, and expressed his extreme pleasure in
meeting the man who was to relieve him and enable him to quit a most
undesirable place.
This was a blow to me; for I had pictured life in this little outpost as
an ideal existence in a sportsman's paradise.
"What? Don't you like Buxa Duar?" I asked in surprise.
"Like it?" he exclaimed vehemently. "Most certainly not. In my time I
have been stationed in some poisonous places in Upper Burmah, when I was
in the Military Police; but the worst of them was heaven to Buxa."
I gasped with horror. "Is it as bad as all that? How long have you been
here?"
"Three weeks," replied the major; "and that was three weeks too long.
Before you have been here a fortnight you will be praying to all your
gods to take you anywhere else."
This was pleasant. The subaltern of the Punjabis now came up and was
introduced to me. He had been six months in Buxa; and _his_ opinion of
it was too lurid to print. My subaltern, who had been superintending the
unloading of the baggage, joined us and in his turn was regaled with
these cheering criticisms of our new home. His face fell; for, like me,
he had been looking forward eagerly to being quartered in this little
outpost, where, we had been told, the sport was excellent. Fortunately
men's tastes differ; and after eighteen months' experience of this
much-abused Buxa, I liked it better than any other place I have ever
served in in all my soldiering.
I learned from our new friends that the fort was six miles from the
railway and fifteen hundred feet above it; so I inquired for the
transport to convey our baggage there.
Before leaving Baroda the quartermaster of our regiment had written to
the nearest civil official of the district, requesting him to provide me
with a hundred coolies for the purpose. There were also, I knew, three
Government transport elephants in charge of the detachment quartered in
Buxa Duar. These I saw at the station engaged in conveying the baggage
of the Punjabis, who were to leave on the following day. I asked for my
hundred coolies.
The major laughed when I told him of our quartermaster's requisition.
"Your regimental headquarters," he said, "evidently did not realise what
a desolate, uninhabited place this is. A hundred coolies? Why, with
difficulty I have procured eight; four of them women. You will have to
leave your baggage here under a guard, and have it brought up piecemeal
on the elephants after our departure. And now, if you will fall in your
men, I'll lead the way up to Buxa and gladly take my last look at it."
A baggage guard having been left at the station with our food and
cooking-pots, etc., my detachment fell in, formed fours and followed us.
From the clearing near the railway a broad road, cut through the forest,
led towards the hills. For the first three miles it was comparatively
level; and we swung along at a good pace between the tall trees rising
from the dense undergrowth. Breaking the solemn silence of the forest, I
eagerly plied our new friends with questions on the chances of sport
that Buxa afforded. But I found that they had done little in that way
and could give me scant information. The subaltern had shot a tiger on a
tea garden, but had hardly ever gone into the jungle. I learned,
however, that out of the three transport elephants now at my disposal,
two were trained for shooting purposes and were remarkably steady. This
at least was good news.
Towards the end of the third mile the road began to rise; and when it
emerged into a small clearing we halted for a few minutes. We were now
at the very foot of the hills; and from here we could see them for the
first time since our train had entered the forest. High above our heads
they towered. At first low, rounded, tree-clad buttresses of the giant
ramparts of India, long spurs thrust out from the flanks of the
mountains. Then lofty rugged walls of rock, jagged peaks, dark even in
the brilliant sunshine, precipitous cliffs over which thin threads of
water leapt and seemed to hang wavering down the steep sides.
In the clearing stood two or three wooden huts; and a hundred yards
farther on was a long and lofty open structure, with a thatched roof
supported on rough wood pillars. The flooring was of pounded earth with
three brick "standings," with iron rings inserted in them; for this was
the Peelkhana or elephant stables of the detachment. The clearing was
dignified with the euphonious name of Santrabari. Past the Peelkhana the
road entered the hills. At first it wound around their flanks, crossing
by wooden bridges over clear streams; then, rising ever higher, it
climbed the steep slopes in zigzags. Along above a brawling mountain
torrent, tumbling over rounded rocks in a deep ravine it went, across
wooded spurs and under stony cliffs. Huge bushes flamed with strange red
and purple flowers, thick shrubs hung out great white bells to tempt the
giant scarlet and black butterflies hovering overhead. Above our path
tall trees stretched out their long limbs covered with the glossy green
leaves of orchids. From trunk to trunk swung creepers thick as a ship's
hawser, trailing in long festoons or interlacing and writhing around
each other like great snakes.
But, as we climbed, the forest fell behind us. The trees stood farther
apart, grew fewer and smaller. The undergrowth became denser. Tall
brakes of the drooping plumes of the bamboo, thick-growing thorny
bushes, plantain trees with their broad leaves and hanging bunches of
bananas, the straight slender stems of sago palms with trailing clusters
of nut-like fruit springing up from tangled vegetation. A troop of
little brown monkeys leapt in alarm from tree to tree and vanished over
a cliff. With a measured flapping of wings a brilliantly plumaged
hornbill passed over our heads. The road crossed and recrossed the
mountain stream and led into a deep cleft among the hills towering
precipitously over us. And looking up I saw on the edge of a cliff the
corner of a building. It was the fort of Buxa at last. But before we
reached it a few hundred feet more of climbing had to be done; and we
panted wearily upward. Through a narrow cutting we emerged on a stretch
of artificially levelled soil, the parade ground, and halted gladly. We
stood in a deep horseshoe among the mountains, nearly two thousand feet
above the plains. Before us, peeping out from low trees and flowering
bushes, were a few bungalows; and above them towered a conical peak, its
summit another four thousand feet higher still. From it right and left
ran down on either side of us two long wooded spurs; and on knolls on
them stood three white square towers. Behind us, on a long mound, were
fortified barracks with loopholed walls. These formed the fort; and this
was Buxa Duar. We had reached our destination.
The major first showed our men to their new quarters; and I told them
off to their different barrack-rooms, and saw them settled down. Then he
and his subaltern led us to the Mess where we met a third officer, the
doctor, a young lieutenant in the Indian Medical Service named Smith,
who was to remain on in Buxa in medical charge of my detachment. Then
ensued the wearisome task of taking over charge of all the Government
property in the Station, from the rifle-range and the ammunition in the
magazine to picks and shovels, buckets and waterproof coats. We had next
to do our own bargaining over the buying of the store of tinned
provisions, jams, pickles and wines in the Mess, as well as the scanty
furniture in it. Among other things we purchased were two Bhutanese
mountain sheep--huge creatures with horns. Meat being a rare commodity
in Buxa, the major had bought them from a Bhuttia from across the
border. Not needing to kill them at once, he had let them roam freely
about the Mess garden until, as he said, they had become such pets that
he could not harden his heart sufficiently to order them to be killed
for food. My subaltern and I mentally resolved not to allow them to
become thus endeared to us by long association.
Dinner in the Mess that night was quite a pleasant function, everyone
but the doctor being in the best of spirits. As he was not to take his
departure on the morrow, he was not as cheerful as the two Punjabi
officers, who were delighted to think that they were so soon to leave
Buxa. They had, perhaps, reason to rejoice at their return to
civilisation and the society of their kind. They had come there from
Tibet, where they had been quartered in the wilds from the end of the
fighting in the war of 1904 to the evacuation of the country by our
troops. They frankly pitied us for the prospect of two years' exile in
this isolated post, where a strange white face was rarely seen. They
fully expatiated on the loneliness of it. In a Bhuttia village a few
miles over the hills there was an elderly American lady missionary. Down
in the forest below a few English tea-planters were scattered about, the
nearest fifteen or twenty miles from us. During the winter we might
expect an occasional visitor, a General or our Colonel on inspection
duty, or a Public Works Department Official come to see to the state of
the road or the repair of the buildings. During the rainy season, which
lasts seven months, from April to the end of October, with a rainfall
therein from two hundred to three hundred inches, we would see no
stranger and probably be cut off from outside intercourse by the washing
away of the roads. As during those months the forest below would be
filled with the deadly Terai fever, we could not solace our loneliness
by sport which rendered the remainder of the year bearable. And as the
jungle around us, which grew to our very doors would, during the Rains,
swarm with leeches which fasten in scores on man or beast if given the
chance, we would scarcely be able to put foot outside our bungalows,
even if tempted to face the awful thunderstorms and torrential Rains.
All this certainly did not sound cheering; so I changed the subject and
asked for information regarding my duties in the Station. I learned
that, in addition to my work of my detachment, I would hold the proud
but unpaid post of Officer Commanding Buxa Duar--an appointment which
would entail voluminous routine correspondence on me. I would also,
again without extra pay, represent law and order by being Cantonment
Magistrate, third class, with power to award imprisonment up to three
months' hard labour. Verily, the duties that fall to the lot of the
Indian Army Officer are many and various. Besides being a soldier he is
also a schoolmaster, having to set and correct examination papers for
certificates of education. He must be something of a master tailor to
decide on the fit and alteration of his men's new uniforms; a clerk to
cope with interminable correspondence; an accountant to wrestle with
complicated accounts. He must be an architect and builder to direct and
oversee the erection and repair of the barracks, which is done by the
sepoys themselves. Bad for him if he is not a good business man, for he
must often give out contracts for hundreds or thousands of pounds, and
see that they are properly carried out. A lawyer, to sit on or preside
at courts martial, or to administer the law to civilians as Cantonment
Magistrate. And sometimes it falls to his lot to replace the chaplain in
a military Station, read the lessons in church, or, perhaps, the Burial
Service over the grave of a comrade.
Next morning the detachment of Punjabis marched off; and as we watched
their files disappear down the winding mountain road, we three
Britishers certainly felt a little isolated and cut off from our kind.
Before the small column passed the last bend which would hide them from
our eyes, the major turned to wave us a cheery farewell. Poor fellow,
not long after, when in command of his regiment, he died of cholera in
Benares.
However, our depression was momentary; and we turned away to begin
making ourselves acquainted with our new surroundings. Buxa Duar stands
guard over one of the gates of India, which opens into it from the
little-known country of Bhutan. It commands a pass through the Himalayas
into the fertile plains of Eastern Bengal, a pass that has run with
blood many a time in the past. Through it fierce raiders have poured to
the laying waste of the rich plains below. Back through it weeping women
and weary children have passed to slavery in a savage land. And were the
strong hand of Briton lifted from it, its jungle-clad hills would see
again the blood-dyed columns of fighting men and the sad processions of
wailing captives. To-day its gloomy depths are peaceful. But to-morrow,
when the menace of a regenerated and aggressive China becomes real, its
rocky walls may once more echo to the sounds of war.
Three thousand feet above our heads, two miles away in a straight line,
but six by the winding mule track, lay the boundary-line between the
Indian Empire and Bhutana--a line that runs along the mountain tops and
rarely fringes the plains. It curves round the northern slopes of the
conical hill that towers above Buxa, Sinchula, the "Hill of the Misty
Pass."
Buxa Duar has been the scene of fierce fighting even in the short
history of England's rule in India. It was first taken by the British
from the Bhutanese in the days of Warren Hastings, when in 1772 Captain
Jones and his small column of sepoys swept them back into their
mountainous land. It was given back the following year. In 1864 we again
went to war with Bhutan and captured Buxa; and, although throughout the
winter of that year, our troops were closely besieged in it, it has
remained in our possession ever since. Formerly garrisoned by a whole
regiment, it is now occupied merely by a double company--two hundred
men--of an Indian Infantry battalion. They are the only troops between
the Bhutan border and Calcutta--three hundred miles away.
In all my wanderings I have seldom seen a lovelier spot than this lonely
outpost. Nestling in the little hollow on the giant Himalayas, its few
bungalows stood in gardens flaming with the brilliant colours of
bougainvillias and poinsettias, surrounded by hedges of wild roses, and
shaded by clusters of tall bamboos and the dense foliage of mango trees.
The encircling arms of the mountains held it closely pressed. The jungle
clothed the steep slopes around it, and rioted to our very doors. No
sound disturbed its peace, save the shrill notes of our bugles or the
chattering of monkeys by day, and the sudden harsh cry of barking deer
or the monotonous bell-like note of the night-jar after the sun had set.
The building dignified by the name of fort was in reality an irregular
square of one-storied stone barracks, their outer faces and
iron-shuttered windows loopholed for rifle fire. They were connected by
a low stone wall pierced with three gateways, closed at night or on an
alarm by iron gates, which slid into place on wheels. The fort was built
on a knoll, which on three sides fell perpendicularly for two or three
hundred feet in rocky precipices from ten to forty yards from the walls.
On the north face it was only about fifty feet above the parade ground,
which was a levelled space two hundred yards long and a hundred broad.
This served also for hockey and as a rifle-range; the targets being
placed in tiers up the steep hill-side on the east end.
Standing at the front gate and looking northwards towards the mountains,
one saw the ground rise sharply to the foot of Sinchula. Dotted about
among the trees and set round with orchid-studded, low stone walls or
flowering hedges, were four or five single-storied bungalows.
The lowest and nearest to the parade ground of these was the Commanding
Officer's Quarters, which I occupied. Higher up to the right, and
separated from mine by a deep ravine crossed by a little wooden bridge,
was an empty house, known as Married Officers' Quarters. Behind it was a
long wooden building raised on pillars, the forest officer's bungalow,
to shelter that official in his annual visit. Around it were a few
bamboo huts for his native clerks. Past my quarters ran the mountain
road which climbed the steep sides of Sinchula, and, degenerating into
a narrow mule track, wound round it to the Bhutan frontier. Near my
house it was shaded by mango trees which, when the fruit was ripe, were
very popular with the wild monkeys. To preserve the mangoes for
ourselves, I was then obliged to station a sentry on the road at
daybreak to keep the marauders off. In my garden stood a very large
mango tree, up which I used in the season to send a small Bhuttia boy to
gather the fruit. One day he found a large monkey there before him. It
attacked him savagely and I was obliged to shoot it to save him from its
fury.
A hundred feet above my house and on the left of the road stood in a
terraced garden the Officers' Mess, occupied by my subaltern and the
doctor. And three hundred feet higher still was the last building in
Buxa, the Circuit House, intended as a court-house and temporary
residence for any civil official who should chance to come there on
duty. The three white square towers, which stood on the spurs running
down from Sinchula were known as the Picquet Towers, and, conspicuous
against the dark mountains could be seen for many miles from the plains
below. They were intended to contain in war time small parties of the
garrison and hold points which commanded the fort at close range. From
one above the east face of the fort even arrows could be shot into the
interior of our defences; so its possession was a necessity to us. They
were strongly built of stone and loopholed, the door eight feet from the
ground, and reached by a ladder, windowless, the only light coming from
the loopholes. To the west of the fort beyond the mountain road and
behind another spur, was the bazaar or native town, which consisted
of a dozen wooden huts, and three or four brick houses, in which lived
the few _bunniahs_ or merchants who resided there to trade grain, salt,
and cloth, with the Bhutanese across the border. There were hardly
thirty natives in the bazaar, comprising our whole civil population. The
"shops" in the one tiny street contained little of use, even for our
sepoys' frugal needs, and nothing for ours; so that anything we required
had to be sent for from Calcutta--a day and a night by train.
[Illustration: BUXA DUAR.
My bungalow in the foreground; the Officers' Mess among the trees.]
[Illustration: "THE FORT WAS BUILT ON A KNOLL."]
Beside the bazaar was the European cemetery, a mournful enclosure which
was dotted with ruinous tombstones of British officers who had been
killed or died of disease in this solitary outpost. The most recent
grave was that of a former forest officer of Rajabhatkawa who, unable to
bear the loneliness of his isolated life, had shot himself in his house
in the jungle below. But before our detachment left Buxa another grave
was dug here to hold the body of a young captain of my regiment. Though
he died of disease, with no doctor there at the time to attend him, yet
it was in reality loneliness that killed him; for, depressed by the
solitude, he had no heart in him to fight against illness. But the
far-flung boundaries of England's Empire are marked everywhere by graves
like his.
From the south wall of the fort the ground fell in wooded spurs and
rocky cliffs to the forest fifteen hundred feet below. East and west the
interminable miles of trees ran on beyond the range of sight, clothing
the foot-hills and climbing the steep mountain sides. Here and there a
light green island in the darker-hued sea of foliage showed where a tea
garden lay in a clearing, the iron-roofed factories, and the planters'
bungalows visible through a field-glass. But to the south, beyond the
clearly defined edge of the forest, the cultivated plains of Eastern
Bengal stretched unbroken to Calcutta--three hundred miles away.
South-west, in the Rains when the Indian atmosphere is clearest, we
could see the Garo Hills fifty miles away in Assam, lying beyond the
broad Brahmaputra where it flows to join the Ganges and pour their
united waters through a hundred mouths into the Bay of Bengal--close on
four hundred miles to the south of us.