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.
Sixty or eighty miles west of Buxa Duar and seven thousand feet above
the sea is the pleasant Himalayan Hill Station of Darjeeling. Less than
a day's journey by rail from Calcutta, it attracts to it the fortunate
mortals who, in the summer months, can escape from the heat of that
crowded city and the Bengal plains and plunge into a whirl of gaieties
on the cool heights of the Pleasure Colony. To it I had my first change
from Buxa. About a year after my arrival I got fourteen days' leave to
Darjeeling in order to meet the officer of my regiment commanding our
detachment at Gantok in Sikkim, who was coming there to appear at one
of the many examinations that plague the soldier's soul. The month was
October, perhaps the unpleasantest time of the year in India, when the
Rains are almost ended and the heat is intensified by the dampness of
earth and atmosphere.
To reach my destination required a very round-about journey by rail.
First from Buxa Road to the junction at Gitaldaha, where I could get on
to the main line which took me to Siliguri at the foot of the mountains
again; thence up the toy Himalayan Railway which crawled in spirals and
zigzags up the face of the giant hills. The Indian first-class railway
carriage is very unlike an English one. It is divided into two
compartments, each entered by a door at the end and containing along
each side a broad, leather-covered couch, used as a seat by day, a bed
by night. Above each is a hanging bed, hooked up until it is required
for use. There is thus sleeping accommodation for four in the
compartment, off which is a lavatory, which on some lines contains a
bath, a luxury much needed on a long journey in India. In the hot
weather the carriages are fitted with electric fans, which only serve to
stir the heated air, and hardly cool the perspiring occupants. Every
traveller carries his roll of bedding, which his servant spreads down at
night and in the morning ties up and stows out of the way. Until
comparatively recently restaurant cars were unknown; and the trains
halted three times a day for half an hour to allow their passengers to
descend at stations where meals could be obtained. For long journeys,
and in India three or four days in a train is not unusual, the type of
carriage I have described is more comfortable than the corridor
carriages which are now being introduced. This change is greatly due to
the number of running-train thefts and the murder of a Eurasian girl;
for of course in the corridor system travellers are less isolated.
Recent occurrences have somewhat scared ladies travelling alone. To
reassure them the railway companies allow them to have their _ayahs_ or
native female servants to share the carriage, the window-shutters have
been provided with bolts, and the guards have instructions to lock the
doors of their compartments.
As my train rolled along through the level country I was surprised to
note the number of rivers we crossed. These were the streams which
vanish at the foot of the hills and reappear above ground farther south.
The country we passed through was typical of Bengal--level plains well
cultivated and dotted with clumps of bamboos, numerous villages and
prosperous-looking farms.
In the early morning we reached Siliguri where we had to change to the
Himalayan Railway. A crowd of sleepy passengers descended and entered
the refreshment-room in search of breakfast, while their servants
gathered their luggage together. Then we took our seats in the tiny open
carriages of the small train which climbs the steep slopes of the mighty
mountains. At first it plunged into forest between huge trees clothed
with orchids, walled in by dense undergrowth; for we were in the Terai
again. Then it wound among the jungle-clad foot-hills and climbed ever
higher, while the forest grew thinner and sparser. Anon it emerged on
the sides of the open bare mountains; and we looked down on the dark
belt of trees and the plains spread like a map below us. We could trace
for miles the winding course of the Tista, the wide river that flows
down through the hills from Sikkim. Here and there we passed by long
stretches of tea gardens. In one place the railway forms a complete
circle, looping the loop; so that, with a long train, the engine would
be crossing over a bridge while the last carriage was still under it.
Beside the line ran the mountain road, by which heavily laden coolies
toiled between the villages of rough wooden huts. At last the greatest
elevation was reached at the small station of Goom; and the train ran
down for a thousand feet and ended its journey in Darjeeling.
Mark Twain was enraptured by the beauties and marvels of engineering of
this Himalayan Railway. But to me it seemed far less wonderful and
lovely than the lines over the Rocky Mountains of his own country. I
have crossed them by the Denver and Rio Grande route, where in broad
Pullmans and big-windowed observation-cars we sat in comfort, and at an
elevation of ten thousand feet gazed at the snow-clad peaks towering
above us or, lower down in the deep gorges, strove to see the tops of
the sheer, two-thousand feet high walls of the Grand Canyon, painted in
brilliant colours by the lavish hand of Nature.
But Darjeeling was unique in my experience; for I had visited no other
Himalayan Hill Station. A town on the mountain-tops, a town of pretty
villas, large hotels, clubs and churches, of big English shops with
plate-glass windows, of jumbled native bazaars thronged with thousands
of men and women of a dozen different hill races. Broad, well-kept roads
run along the ridges and up and down the steep hill-sides, lined with
lovely gardens, in which stand fascinating European houses like the
villas of Trouville and Deauville under the shade of giant orchid-clad
trees. English ladies in smart frocks go by in rickshaws or reclining in
chairs carried on the shoulders of strong coolies. Officers and
civilians on well-groomed ponies trot past groups of sturdy-limbed
Bhuttias or rosy-cheeked Lepcha women hung with turquoise and silver
ornaments. British soldiers in khaki stop to chat with small, cheery
Gurkha policemen by the roadside. Pig-tailed Sikkimese and Tibetan lamas
fingering their rosaries stare into the plate-glass windows of shops
that would not be out of place in Oxford Street and which display to the
bewildered heathen Paris fashions or the latest pattern of coloured
shirts and smart waistcoats.
The central point of Darjeeling is the cross roads at the Chaurasta.
Here on one side the ground rises a thousand feet or more to the summit
of Jalapahar, crowded with barracks and European bungalows. To the other
the hill-sides slope steeply away covered with tea gardens. Along the
ridge the road runs by a trim English Church in pretty grounds, the
straggling building of the Amusement Club with tennis courts terraced
one above the other, and on to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal's
summer residence set in a lovely park. To the north the ground falls
sharply another thousand feet; and one looks down on the roofs of the
bungalows and British Infantry Barracks of Lebong, with its race-course
around the polo ground and the rifle-range, seeming like a toy station
set out far beneath. Below, the deep valley; and beyond it rises a
jumble of mountains on mountains in bewildering profusion. And at dawn
and evening above the clouds hangs high in air the long line of the
Everlasting Snows. Over it towers Kinchinjunga, twenty-eight thousand
feet high, with its jagged white peaks gleaming in the morning or
pink-flushed in the rosy light of sunset; forty miles away, yet so clear
and distinct that the beholder imagines he would be able to see a man on
it, if some climber could scale its untrodden heights.
The abrupt change from the sweltering heat of the Bengal plains, seven
thousand feet below, to the cool climate and refreshing breezes of
Darjeeling is marvellous. In less than twenty-four hours the English
dwellers in the hot and crowded city of Calcutta are borne to this gay
Hill Station, which must seem another world to them. In the brisk
mountain air the jaded visitors from the Plains revive and are filled
with renewed energy; and one and all plunge feverishly into social
gaieties. In India only in such places as this does one find the
Englishman unoccupied by work; for in the East there is no leisured
class of Europeans. Even the Viceroys and Governors are busy mortals,
and perhaps the hardest-worked individuals in the dominions they rule.
Every white man in India has his employment; for he is a soldier, a
civil servant, a judge, a lawyer, a railwayman or a merchant. Each has
his work and his place in the scheme of things. But in the Hills, save
for those at the military or civil headquarters, he is on leave, and has
come to enjoy a well-earned rest.
The life in an Indian Hill Station is unlike anything that we have in
England. Gaiety reigns supreme. Games, races, dances, theatricals, and
all such entertainments abound. To take Darjeeling as an example. In the
mornings and forenoons the roads are thronged with riders or with ladies
in chairs or rickshaws, going to pay calls or on their way to
luncheon-parties. In the afternoons on the polo ground of Lebong the
players on their agile little ponies jostle each other, or race after
the ball. The tennis courts in the grounds of the Amusement Club are
full. The skating rink inside the Club is thronged in the mornings, and
when dusk falls, the lamps are lighted and the tea-tables are set out
beside the polished floor. The nights are never dull; dinner-parties in
the bungalows, restaurants and hotels, dances and theatricals at the
Club, fill them.
In these Hill Stations the summer residents in the bungalows, the
visitors at the hotels or boarding-houses, though they come from places
in the Plains far apart, are of the same class in life and know each
other or of each other. For, except for the lawyers and merchants, the
names of all are set forth in either of the two great books of India,
the Civil Service or the Army List. And they are linked by the bond of a
similar profession. All are members of the Club and see each other there
every day. To all are sent invitations to each big festivity. The
Lieutenant-Governor of the province has his summer residence in its Hill
Station and gives a series of official entertainments to which are asked
all those who have written their names in the book which, guarded by
red-coat servitors, lies on a table in the veranda of Government House.
He is constrained by his position to give dances, dinners, and
garden-parties, regardless of his private inclinations. For he is a very
important personage, and lives in almost regal state. He has his
military aides-de-camp, his military or police guard; the Union Jack
flies from a flagstaff on his lawn as a sign of his dignity. He rules
over a province as big as England and is supreme in his dominions unless
the Viceroy chances to visit them. Think what a change it must be for
such a proconsul when he has to retire and takes up his abode in a
London suburb or a small country town, where he is unknown to fame, and
unhonoured!
Life is indeed gay in these Hill Stations. To them flock the ladies to
escape the burning heat of the Plains, leaving their poor husbands to
grill and earn their pay while their wives are enjoying themselves up in
the cool mountains. And the fair ones must be amused. So the bachelors,
who can more easily afford to take leave than the married men, are at
their service to ride, play tennis, dance and flirt with them.
The fortnight of my stay in Darjeeling was supposed to be quite a dull
time in the Station; for it preceded the holidays of the Poojahs, a
Hindu feast, when all the Government and mercantile offices in Bengal
are closed and the Englishmen thus set free flock up to the Hills. These
holidays lasted two weeks; and an elaborate programme of festivities was
prepared for them. Yet during the period of my stay I found that there
were to be three balls, four afternoon dances, two days' races and two
separate amateur theatricals. So it seemed to me a whirl of gaiety after
the hermit-like seclusion of Buxa Duar.
On the first afternoon I rickshawed down into the bazaar or native
quarter thronged with representatives of many hill races. Sturdy little
Gurkhas, pig-tailed Sikkimese, broad-shouldered Bhuttias, dusky Hindu
women and fair-complexioned, red-cheeked Lepcha girls jostled each other
in the narrow, hilly streets. In the open market-place were stalls of
vendors of cheap commodities; and harsh-featured old women sat behind
trays of rough-cut turquoises or smoothly polished imitations of the
blue stone dear to the hearts of the female hill dwellers. In the bazaar
many of the dingy native shops were filled with curios to attract the
white resident or globe-trotter. Tibetan prayer-wheels, lama
devil-dancers' masks, Chinese embroideries and roughly hammered brass
gods were heaped in confusion. Trays of cut turquoises and lumps of
matrix stood on the counters. The window of one shop was filled with
skins of tigers, bears, and panthers; a sight to move the sportsman to
wrath, for to him such things are trophies to be won in fair chase, not
articles to be exposed for sale to the American tourist. I noticed that
tiger-skins were ticketed at L20, the pelts of other animals at lower
prices. Beyond the market-place, on a knoll, stood the European
sanatorium, in which I was to find myself a patient months afterwards.
As I entered the Amusement Club at sunset, after my visit to the bazaar,
I was quite bewildered by the sight of so many white folk. Outside, the
tennis courts were emptying as the dusk fell. Inside the building the
rink was crowded with skaters. Along one side of it were set out scores
of tea-tables, around which sat ladies attired in the latest fashions.
The card-room was full. People were changing books in the Club library
or looking at the English illustrated papers and magazines in the
reading-room. And in the bar was gathered together a festive crowd of
men of many professions and callings, though the military predominated,
chatting and disposing of the "short drinks" beloved of the
Anglo-Indian. Here I met two subalterns of my regiment, one on leave,
the other on his way back to headquarters from Gyantse in the heart of
Tibet, where he had been commanding the escort to the British Trade
Agent. In that isolated spot, thirteen thousand feet above the sea, he
had lived for eighteen months, solacing his solitude by stalking the
wily ibex. Here, too, I came across the major of the Punjabi regiment
whom I had relieved nearly a year before at Buxa Duar. After a cheery
greeting he asked me pityingly how I managed to endure the loneliness of
my little outpost. When he heard that I liked the existence there
immensely he seemed to regard me as a half-demented individual. While I
was chatting with him there descended upon me emissaries of a frantic
amateur stage-manager who, having heard that I had had much experience
in theatricals, besought me to take the place of one of his actors who
had suddenly fallen ill, as the performance was to come off in two days'
time. The dress rehearsal of the piece, a well-known London comedy, was
just about to commence in the Club theatre. Having consented I was borne
off to it, a typed book placed in my hand and I dragged into the
dressing-room to be "made up." I was already caught in the grip of the
amusement machine.
Next morning I was up before the sun to see the gorgeous panorama of the
Everlasting Snows. As the day dawned the lower hills were shrouded in
clouds; but high above them rose the long line of snow-clad summits,
seeming to float in air, unreal, unsubstantial in their beauty; and
Kinchinjunga's white and jagged crest towered over them all and was the
first to flush with rose colour in the rays of the morning sun. Then a
veil was slowly drawn over the glorious picture, as the clouds soared
slowly up from the lower levels and hid the gorgeous vision from sight.
I spent the day paying calls, rehearsing my part in the theatricals, and
becoming acquainted with Darjeeling. I visited the beautiful Botanical
Gardens, picturesquely situated on a steep slope and giving a wide view
over the deep valleys below.
I found that the transition from the two thousand feet height of Buxa to
the seven thousand of Darjeeling was rather trying at first; as the
least exertion of walking and climbing soon left me breathless. In a few
days I was quite accustomed to the superior altitude.
That night the bachelors of the Station gave a large ball in the
Amusement Club. Their coat-of-arms--a bottle, slippers, and a pipe
crossed with a latch-key--was blazoned on the walls. Gay was the
revelry, which lasted well into the small hours; and I was glad that I
was on leave and no early parade could claim me in the morning.
On the following night came another ball given by the
Lieutenant-Governor in his official residence. Government House was
filled with the wearers of pretty frocks and varied uniforms; and in the
glamour of scarlet and blue mess-jackets the black-coated civilian was
for once at a discount. But, alas! for the mercenary nature of the fair
sex; if he belong to the Indian Civil Service he is preferred to the
soldier as a husband. For he is worth "L400 a year dead or alive"; for
his widow will get that amount as a pension. Whereas an ungrateful
country dowers a lieutenant's relict with L40 a year, a captain's with
L70, a major's L100 and a colonel's L120. So how can the red-coat
compete with him in the matrimonial stakes?
The illuminated grounds of Government House and the cunningly-devised
"kala juggas," as sitting-out places are termed in India, lured many of
the dancers from the ball-room. At supper that night I sat at a small
table with a merry little party consisting of the subaltern of my
regiment on leave, Prince Rajendra of Cooch Behar and his partner, a
pretty Armenian girl. And of the four of us two are now dead. The
subaltern died a few months after attaining to his captaincy. Prince
Rajendra soon succeeded his father as Maharajah, but only lived to enjoy
his dignities two short years.
Next night the Club theatre was filled with a kindly disposed and
enthusiastic audience to witness our performance of the comedy. As India
is rarely visited by professional companies, which only appear in the
large cities, it is mainly dependent on the efforts of its amateur
actors. But these often, through natural talent and much practice,
attain a degree of excellence that would not disgrace the London stage.
And few would gainsay this who saw the performances of "The Country
Girl" given by another troop of amateurs before the end of my stay. They
were under the direction of His Highness the Maharajah of Cooch Behar,
who had lavished money on the production. The scenery and dresses had
come from London; and the piece was magnificently staged. The singing,
acting, and even the dancing could not be surpassed by at least any
first-class touring company in England.
The Maharajah had a house in Darjeeling where his entertainments were
princely and his hospitality profuse. The ladies of his family were
absent in Simla; but his sons were with him. Prince Rajendra, as
befitted the heir apparent, had a separate house and an establishment of
his own. Here one night I was present at a merry supper-party, after
renewing my acquaintance and dining informally with the Maharajah.
Every day of my short stay seemed to have its particular gaiety. The
races at Lebong were a sporting and a fashionable event. Down the steep
hill roads from Darjeeling, a thousand feet above, poured the stream of
Europeans in rickshaws or on ponies and of natives afoot early in the
afternoon to the miniature race-course which is built on the cut-away
hill-top. There is scant room for any horse to bolt out of it; for a few
yards will bring it to the edge of the precipitous slopes around. In
fact, the "straight" for the run home is gained by finishing up the
Darjeeling road. Most of the events were for hill ponies, sturdy and
plucky little animals; and the jockeys were mainly natives. But the
excitement of the crowds of race-goers of many shades of colour, the
keenness of the plungers on the totalisator or with the few bookmakers,
and the gaiety of the pleasure-seekers, could not be exceeded at Ascot
or Epsom. The scene was an animated one. The enclosure was gay with the
colours of the English ladies' frocks, the bright hues of Parsee women's
_saris_, the white refreshment tents, and the uniforms of the military
bandsmen; while outside was the varied crowd of British Infantry
soldiers in red, gunners in blue, and natives of a score of different
races, each in their distinctive garb. And over it all towered the
heights of Darjeeling and Jalapahar; while on three sides lay the deep
valleys, beyond which stood the mountains that barred the way to Sikkim
and Tibet.
Such is life in a Hill Station. To a man not devoted to social
frivolities existence in them soon palls. He tires of the sameness of
tennis in the afternoons, the vapid conversation of the tea-tables, and
nights spent in the heated atmosphere of ball-rooms. But to the fair sex
it appeals strongly; and they gladly hail the approach of the hot
weather, which will free them from the monotony of small Stations in the
plains and send them flocking to Simla, Darjeeling, Missourie or Naini
Tal.
Who would not be an English woman in India?
As Gilbert says:
"They are treasured as precious stones
And for the self-same reason--for their scarcity."
But they are not inclined to recognise this, and are apt to attribute
the attentions paid them by the men to their own charms and not to the
paucity of their sex in the land. Consequently they are too liable to
become conceited and over-bearing and forgetful of the fact that
courtesy _is_ a ladylike quality. It is perhaps not to be wondered at
that their heads get turned. The plainest girl, who in England would
spend most of her time at a ball sitting with her chaperon, in India can
fill her programme thrice over. She, who in her country village sees no
men of her own class except the parson and the doctor, out here finds
herself among crowds of military officers and better-paid civilians who,
prudence whispers, are more eligible _partis_. But the day has passed
when any failure in the English marriage-market can be shipped off to
India, sure of securing a husband there. Frequent leave and fast
steamers have altered all that. When men can find themselves back in
England in a fortnight they are not so prone to wed plain-featured and
dowerless maidens, sent out in search of a spouse, as were their
predecessors in the old days when it took six months in a sailing ship
to reach London from Calcutta or Bombay. The attractive but penniless
girl in India has still a better chance of marrying than she would in
England; for she is thrown in daily companionship with a large number of
bachelors. But many a damsel who, dispatched by her parents with a
single ticket to distant relatives or mere acquaintances in the East,
thinks on first arrival that she has only to pick and choose among the
surplus men and give herself airs accordingly, is forced to write home
for her return fare and go back reluctantly to the unwelcome existence
of an old maid. To my mind there is something almost immoral in the
custom which prevails of girls going out to India as paying-guests in
the known, if unavowed, hope of securing a husband. But the practice
grows every year.
Yet the existence of a white woman in India is not all unalloyed
pleasure. Her lot may be cast in some small out-of-the-way Station,
where there is little society and less amusement. And even in larger
places her life is empty enough. In the morning, perhaps, she goes for a
ride and then has to shut herself up in her bungalow on account of the
heat, until in the cool of the afternoon she can drive out to play
tennis or golf and then go to the club, where she sits on the lawn and
talks scandal with her female friends or, possibly, flirts with her male
ones. She is not occupied with the cares of the household as is her less
fortunate sister in England. Her cook goes to the bazaar early in the
morning and then later appears before her to show her his account book
and take her orders for the day. And she has little else to do to fill
in the long, weary hours in the house from breakfast until tea-time. An
occasional caller may come to pay his or her visit; but otherwise the
time hangs heavy on her hands. Any accomplishments she may possess are
apt to be neglected. Her reading is generally confined to novels from
the Club library; and she seldom tries to improve her mind by more
strenuous studies. In a land where all the white men are workers, she is
idle. And so the English woman in the East is generally uninteresting.
The gossip and scandal of the Station are her chief topics. The wonders
of the country she lives in, the strange life of the peoples outside her
door, the greater questions of Empire, are a sealed book to her; and she
is generally as commonplace as her untravelled sisters in English
country towns. The clever Mrs Hauksbees that Kipling depicts are
rare--more's the pity, for Anglo-Indian society would be brighter if
there were more of her type.
The petty squabbles among the ladies of a small Station are pitiful.
The Anglo-Indian wife too often takes little interest in her husband's
work, and so cannot prove very companionable to him. And this probably
accounts for the extraordinary latitude he allows her in seeking the
society of some particular bachelor with whom she rides, drives and sits
in the Club every day, who becomes a standing feature in her life. The
_menage a trois_ flourishes in India.
Hill stations have much to answer for in the frequency of domestic
trouble in Anglo-Indian society. In the old days before they existed,
and passages to England were long and costly, the wives stayed by their
husbands' side for weal or woe. What the latter could endure their
spouses were not afraid of. Now, at the first signs of the approach of
the hot weather, the married ladies, as well as the maidens, fly to the
Hills. In Darjeeling I met many who said they had not seen their
husbands for eight months--and yet I found them in October booking their
rooms in the hotels for the following March. Naturally this separation
does not tend to the continuance of conjugal love. And there is a still
greater danger. A married woman arriving from the Plains to take up her
residence in a hotel probably finds no other woman in it whom she has
known before. Among the guests there is sure to be a preponderance of
her own sex; and though many ladies may call on her, they will probably
be too much engrossed in their own concerns to give her much of their
society. She sits by herself at table at meals and spends most of her
time alone in her own room. Then some bachelor on leave, and staying
perhaps at the same hotel, makes her acquaintance. He finds her pleasant
and attractive, offers to join her in her solitary rides and walks,
comes in often to chat with her in her private sitting-room, takes her
to the many dances, and, as men are scarcer at them than in the
ball-rooms of the Plains, engages half her programme and escorts her
back to their hotel afterwards. Even from sheer loneliness she accepts
his attentions and allows him to drop into the acknowledged position of
her _cavaliere servente_. Two or three months of this daily, hourly
companionship and--well, another Hill scandal is caused.
The man who brings a pretty wife to India is brave; the one who sends
her away from him for six or eight months in the year is, to say the
least of it, unwise. It is not fair to her to expose her thus to
temptation. Far be it from me to assert that every Hill grass-widow
forgets her absent husband. But many do; and all the blame should not
rest on them.
The careful commanding officer of a regiment discourages his young
subalterns from taking leave to Hill Stations. He knows that in such
places mischief is too often found for idle hands. He urges them rather
to go shooting in the jungles or in Kashmir. And certainly this latter
is a better way for the youngster to spend his holiday than loafing
about a Hill Station.
Despite the novelty of the life in Darjeeling and its social gaieties I
did not repine when my time came to quit it; and my heart rejoiced as I
got out of the train at Buxa Road, mounted the elephant awaiting me, and
rode through the silent forest towards my lonely hills.