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.
When our Christmas shoot ended I returned to Buxa with our guests in
time to hold the Proclamation Parade; for on 1st January, 1877, Queen
Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India, and on this date every year
the event is celebrated in military Stations throughout our Eastern
Empire by a parade of troops in garrison. Even in our little outpost
we did not forget to honour the day.
[Illustration: "I WAS MOUNTED ON A COUNTRYBRED PONY."]
[Illustration: "AN ELEPHANT LOADED WITH MY STORES AND BAGGAGE."]
On the drill ground a flagstaff had been erected, from which flew the
Union Jack. The two companies of the detachment, officers and men in
their full-dress uniform of scarlet and blue, were drawn up in line
facing it. Captain Balderston rode a pony recently purchased from a
planter, which strongly objected to soldiers and refused to go near the
troops. No persuasions of its rider could induce it to approach the
line; and when Balderston called the men to attention on my arrival and
the rifles were brought smartly to the "slope," his disobedient charger
swung round and bolted with him off the parade ground, jumping a ditch
and nearly ending both their careers in a deep _nullah_. I was mounted
on a country-bred pony which I had brought from Darjeeling and trained
to troops. Deprived of the assistance of my second in command I started
the parade. After the royal salute had been given, the men fired the
_feu de joie_, when the rifles are discharged one by one along the front
rank from right to left and back again in the opposite direction down
the rear rank. Then taking off my helmet I gave the command "Three
cheers for the King Emperor!"; and the hills re-echoed the shouts of the
sepoys. A useless ceremony this, to the Little Englander; yet one
fraught with deep meaning and stirring the heart to the core; for at
that moment throughout the Indian Empire from the Himalayas to Colombo,
from Aden to Mandalay, the cheers of His Majesty's soldiers, white and
black, were ringing in loyal chorus.
Fifty years ago, in the dark days of the Mutiny, the revolted sepoy
regiments faced their erstwhile comrades in battle; but the guilt of
that black crime has long ago been purged in blood and obliterated by
faithful service; and to-day the Kaiser-i-Hind has no more loyal
soldiers than the men of his Indian Army. Until a few years ago the
Sovereign was only a name to the warrior races that fill its ranks. But
King George by his visits to India has made them realise his existence.
He has given his Indian subjects what Orientals always desire, the
knowledge that they have a living monarch. And by so doing he has
changed the vague loyalty of the sepoys into a real and affectionate
attachment to the person of their ruler. The native troops whom he
reviewed, who lined the streets or formed his Guards of Honour in
Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta, rejoice to have actually seen their
"_Badshah_" (Emperor) and proudly boast of it to others who have not
been so fortunate. Only we officers of the Indian Army can fully realise
how much this means, how wise were the councils that dictated his visits
to India.
For, despite the politician and the civil servant, we hold the land, as
we won it, by the sword. No concessions to the clamour of the _babus_ of
Bengal will retain the loyalty of this country. It rests on the weapons
and in the hearts of the gallant warrior races that aided us to conquer
India and help us to retain it. Would that the Englishman in England
could realise the fact!
Shortly after the departure of our guests who had come for the Christmas
shoot, I received a long-expected visit from an American officer,
Captain Brees, 1st United States Cavalry. Years before, in China, Japan,
and California I had foregathered with a cheery Irish subaltern of his
regiment, Lieutenant Coghlan, who had won his commission in the fierce
fighting in Luzon. And when Captain Brees, their corps being then in the
Philippine Islands, arranged to visit India on his way home on leave to
his native country, Lieutenant Coghlan guaranteed him a warm welcome
from me. For I felt that I owed a debt of gratitude to every officer of
the American Army for the kindly hospitality I had received from them in
the United States--from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Before I landed in
San Francisco, Coghlan, then stationed in Los Angeles and unable to come
to meet me, had written to friends of his in regiments quartered in the
Army Post in the Presidio, the Golden City's splendid park, and asked
them to welcome me in his stead. As soon as I arrived not only they, but
a score of other officers of the garrison, had made their way through
the ruins of the city not long before devastated by earthquake and fire
to give me that welcome to their country. They offered me all the
hospitality of their camp and clubs. A Cavalry regiment on the point of
departing for their summer training in the famous Yosemite Valley
extended a cordial invitation to accompany them and promised me a horse,
a tent, and rations. The Field Battery offered to mount me whenever I
liked to march out with them. I was asked to every military
entertainment; and at every regimental dance my hosts saw that I had my
programme full.
One night at a magnificent entertainment at the Fairmont Hotel in
celebration of the first anniversary of the earthquake and San
Francisco's phoenix-like rising again from the flames, a civilian asked
me if I belonged to the Indian Army. On my replying in the affirmative
he begged to be allowed to introduce me to two friends of his present
that night, American officers on leave from another Station, as they
were anxious to meet an officer of my Service. As I shook hands with
them, one said:
"We've been looking for a fellow in the Indian Army."
"Which one?" I asked.
"Anyone. It doesn't matter who. We want to kill him," was the alarming
reply.
"Good Heaven! why?" I queried apprehensively, backing away from him.
"Say, don't be afraid," he answered, laughingly. "We only mean to kill
him with kindness. The fact is that we have just been on leave through
India and Burma; and your fellows were so good to us everywhere we went
that we have been looking for any stray officer of your army to give us
an opportunity of returning their hospitality."
"That's so," said his companion. "Now, what can we do for you? Dine you,
wine you, or lend you money?"
And when I told them that the unbounded kindness of their comrades in
San Francisco had left me nothing to desire, they were very
disappointed.
Between the soldiers of every nationality there is a bond of
brotherhood; and never have I found it so strong as between American
officers and ours in the too few occasions on which they have met.
"Blood is thicker than water"; and in the China War of 1900 Uncle Sam's
troops and the British seemed to form one army. Side by side they fought
in the grim combats around Tientsin. On the day when the city was
stormed, when the pouches of the gallant 9th United States Infantry
were empty, their brave colonel, Liscum, and a score of men killed, and
four officers and seventy-two men wounded out of total of two hundred
Americans engaged, a British officer, Ollivant, was killed in trying to
replenish their ammunition, another, Major Pereira, was wounded in
trying to bring in their injured, and Lieutenant Phillimore and his
bluejackets of H.M.S. _Barfleur_ helped them to hold their ground, and
brought back their wounded.
In less strenuous days in North China after the fighting, our American
friends there told us that they found us very different to their
preconceived ideas of the English officer, whom they had pictured as a
languidly haughty individual, inseparable from his eyeglass, and
prefacing every remark by "I say, by Jove!" They frankly admitted that
they had come prepared to dislike us, but had found us on acquaintance
not such bad fellows after all.
Similarly Captain Brees confessed to me that he had been obliged to
reconstruct all his preconceived ideas of British military men as soon
as he had met them. Before his departure from Manila I had sent him
letters of introduction to many of our officers in Hong Kong, Singapore,
Colombo and Calcutta. He told me that on arriving in Hong Kong he had
hesitated to avail himself of them but, hardening his heart, had at last
dispatched them to the addresses.
"I can tell you, major," he said, "that, with the ideas I had of what
your fellows would be like, I was considerably surprised when several of
them swooped down upon me in my hotel and insisted on my transferring
myself and my baggage at once to their quarters, where they entertained
me royally for the rest of my stay in Hong Kong. The same in Singapore.
And when my ship reached Calcutta, two British officers came on board as
soon as the anchor dropped, took me ashore, and gave me a bully time
there. I tell you that after this you can just inform any of your army
friends that, if they visit America, their address is '1st United States
Cavalry.' And don't you forget it!"
"Jimmy" Brees was one of the most charming men I have ever known; and
everywhere he went in India he made a most favourable impression on all
our officers who met him. In Buxa we could not offer him any social
gaieties; but we made him free of the jungle, taught him to ride on and
shoot from elephants, and did the little we could to entertain him.
Once, after a long day in the forest on Khartoum's back, we climbed up
into Forest Lodge to dine and sleep. Exhausted by his tiring experience,
Brees had just fallen asleep and I was preparing to follow his example,
when I heard a tiger roaring in the jungle close to my lofty
tree-dwelling, and apparently approaching us. I was delighted to give my
guest the opportunity of at least hearing a tiger and possibly shooting
it in the moonlight if it came close enough. So I sprang out of bed,
seized my rifle and, posting myself at the window, called out over my
shoulder:
"Wake up, Jimmy, wake up! There is a tiger close by."
"Eh? What?" came the sleepy reply.
"Get up, man, get up!" I whispered excitedly. "I tell you there's a
tiger near us. It may come close enough to give us a shot at it."
But the fatigues of the day had been too much for him. A loud snore was
his only answer; and although the tiger roamed around the house for half
an hour, uttering its peculiar snorting roar, it never woke him.
However, he lost nothing but the noise; for, though I sat eagerly
expectant by the window for a long time, the brute never came within
range.
My next visitor was Prince Jitendra Narayen, now through the death of
his eldest brother Maharajah of Cooch Behar. Before Darjeeling came into
existence as a Hill Station the rulers of his State possessed a house in
Buxa Duar, to which they used to come in the summer to avoid the heat of
the Plains. But this was before the day of the present generation of the
family, none of whom, except the then Maharajah, had ever visited Buxa.
So Prince "Jit" was glad of an opportunity of seeing our small Station,
and spent several days with me. As he belonged to the Imperial Service
Cadet Corps he was keenly interested in military matters, and passed
much time in watching our detachment at work. Like his father, he was an
ardent sportsman and good shot; and, used to the more open country south
of the forest, he enjoyed wandering on one of our elephants through our
dense jungle in search of _sambhur_. His cheery manner made him popular
with everyone in Buxa--except our pet monkey. For that little beast,
having a severe cold, was given whisky-and-milk one day, and, imbibing
too freely, became absolutely drunk. Its antics as it reeled about the
mess-room were extremely comical and made us all roar with laughter. It
seemed to pardon its owners' want of good manners but resented Prince
Jitendra's mirth as an impertinence in a stranger. Swaying drunkenly as
it tried to stand on its hind legs, it chattered and shrieked with rage
at him and endeavoured to stagger across the room to bite him, falling
down and rolling helplessly on the floor on its way. And next morning it
was plain to see that it suffered from a bad headache. But when Jit
entered the Mess at breakfast-time and condoled with it on its evident
pain, it flew at him and attacked him savagely.
When my guest returned to Cooch Behar I accompanied him. At the Palace
his account of the beauties of Buxa Duar made the ladies of the family
eager to see the place; and it was arranged that Her Highness the
Maharani and her two daughters, the Princess Pretiva and Sudhira, should
pay us a visit in our outpost. The Maharajah's four sons were also to
come at another time, bringing all the elephants belonging to the State,
to join me in making a systematic search for a rogue which was
committing havoc in the forest near Buxa. But the Maharajah's illness,
which necessitated his going to Europe for medical treatment and which
resulted in his lamented death the following year, deprived me of the
pleasure of these visits.
Shortly after Prince Jitendra's departure an order from the brigadier to
report on and sketch eighty-four miles of road and country across
Eastern Bengal afforded me an opportunity of seeing something of this
province south of the Terai Jungle. The task was no light one. The
military sketch was to be executed on a scale of two inches to a mile;
so that I had to make a map fourteen feet long! It was to begin more
than twenty miles west of Jalpaiguri, a town on the railway to Siliguri
and Darjeeling, the route running parallel to the mountains and thirty
or forty miles south of them, and ended at Alipur Duar.
As the ground to be traversed contained no towns where I could purchase
supplies, I had to make my own arrangements for food as well as
transport. I might find an empty _dak_ bungalow here and there; but it
behoved me to carry a tent with me. So, dispatching my pony and an
elephant loaded with my baggage and stores to march across country and
meet me at Jalpaiguri, I went by train to this station, reaching it of
course several days before my animals could arrive. There I borrowed an
elephant from the police officer, bought some tinned provisions and
flour, and set out west along the twenty-four miles of road to the spot
where I was to begin my sketch. I was fortunate in finding _dak_
bungalows on it every ten or twelve miles in which to shelter at night.
At the first of these I was informed by the native in charge of it that
on a tank--as ponds and lakes are called in India--about six miles away
I would find hundreds of duck. So I shouldered my gun and set out across
the fields. I discovered the tank and from a distance saw that the water
was dotted with birds. Cautiously stalking them, with glowing
anticipations of wild duck for dinner, I reached the bank to find that
they were coots and "divers." Not even a snipe rewarded me for my long
walk; and I returned to the _dak_ bungalow to give my misinformant my
candid and unflattering opinion of him.
Next day I reached the spot where my sketch was to begin. My
starting-point was near another _dak_ bungalow, perched on a little hill
overlooking a broad river flowing through thin jungle and
well-cultivated fields. Here I turned my face towards Jalpaiguri and
commenced my task. Cavalry sketching-case in hand I walked along the
road through open and uninteresting country, counting my paces as
measurement and filling in the meagre details of the country on either
hand on my map. I completed the mapping of the twenty-four miles in two
days.
Arrived at Jalpaiguri I had to wait there a day for my elephant and
pony, which were accompanied by my butler and a sepoy orderly, as well
as the _mahout_ and a _syce_; so that with Draj Khan, who was already
with me, I had quite a following. Jalpaiguri is built on the west bank
of the broad Tista River, which flows from Sikkim through the Himalayas
to the plains of Bengal. The civil Station contains the usual
Anglo-Indian community of such a town, the deputy commissioner, a judge,
a settlement officer, a Public Works Department engineer, a police
officer and a few more Europeans. There are no troops there. The
engineer who had visited me at Buxa, which was in his charge, kindly
offered me the shelter of his bungalow; and I was hospitably entertained
by everyone in the Station. I came in for a very merry dinner-party
given at the club by a number of planters of the neighbourhood to two
members of their community who were leaving India for England. Near
midnight we escorted the guests to the railway station and considerably
delayed the mail train by our lengthy good-byes and parting libations.
In vain the stationmaster, the guard, and the engine-driver in turn
stormed, argued, and pleaded with the two departing planters to take
their seats and let the train start. Sleepy and irate English passengers
put their heads out of the carriage windows and cursed the causes of
the delay. One of our party had to be stopped by main force from pouring
a whisky-and-soda into the interior mechanism of what he declared to be
"a poor thirsty engine that nobody thought of offering a drink to." The
native stationmaster, torn between his dread of official reprimand for
delaying the mail and his fear of displeasing the Sahibs of his town,
almost wept as he implored the party to end their farewells and let the
train depart.
My transport having arrived that night I continued on my way next
morning. I had to cross the Tista, which here, though the banks were
more than a mile or a mile and a half apart, was at that season shrunk
to a stream half a mile in breadth flowing between wide stretches of
sand, over which I rode on my pony to reach the ferryboat. This was a
broad, flat-bottomed craft, loaded with natives, cattle, bullocks and a
cart which carried the baggage and camp equipment of a civil official
going out to tour his district. The cart was festooned with wicker
crates containing hens and ducks destined to supply "master's dinner in
jungle," as the servant in charge informed me. With sail, oar and pole
the ferry-boat made its way across the stream, until it reached a wide
stretch of sand lying between the water and the bank. My pony, after
much urging, jumped out; and I mounted. I had ridden four or five
hundred yards when the animal stopped suddenly and its legs began to
sink. To my horror I found that we were in a quicksand. The pony plunged
and struggled wildly. I slipped from the saddle to ease it of my weight
and sank at once up to my knees. Visions of a horrible death engulfed in
the yielding mass of sand flashed across me as I struggled against the
invisible monster that seemed to clutch me and drag me down. Luckily
the pony got its forefeet on to firmer ground and fought its way out of
the quicksand, pulling me out with it by the reins to which I clung. It
stood terrified and quivering while I tried to soothe it. Fifty yards
away was a group of natives who had been watching the incident
phlegmatically and had made no move to come to our help. When I was safe
they called out to me.
"That is a very dangerous place, Sahib. A cow was swallowed up there the
other day."
Having told them forcibly what I thought of them for not warning me in
time, I cautiously led my pony forward to the firm earth bank, which I
was delighted to reach after the treacherous sand. Here the road to
Alipur Duar began again. I swung myself into the saddle and continued my
sketch on horseback, thus covering the ground much more quickly than on
the first days. I was able to get my measurements by having previously
counted the number of paces my pony took to cover a distance of a
hundred yards at a trot.
In the old days knowledge of map-making was, in the army, confined to
the Royal Engineers. A late inspector-general of fortifications, General
Sir Richard Harrison, R.E., told me that in the China War of 1860 only
two officers, he and Captain, afterwards Lord, Wolseley, in the
Anglo-Indian Army there could make a military sketch, and very few
others were able to understand it when made. Nowadays every officer can
map any country and during the drill season is called upon to furnish at
least one sketch. The civil engineers brought out in 1905-6 to Hong Kong
to survey the route of the railway to Canton told me that in the
British Hinterland they made no maps, and contented themselves with such
annual military sketches of the country done by officers of the
garrison. And these they found accurate enough for railway laying. The
task that I was now engaged on, which was for the purpose of revising
the military route-book of Eastern Bengal, was set me as part of my
ordinary work; I being the nearest available officer.
The country through which my road lay for the next sixty miles was open,
level, and well-cultivated, dotted with groves of feathery bamboos and
the typical, compact, thatched villages and farm-buildings of Bengal. As
usual, in India, the fields were not divided by hedges or any obstacles.
Even at that season of the year the country-side looked green, in
striking contrast to other parts of the land then when the hot weather
was drawing near. And always along and parallel to my route lay the wall
of the mountains thirty or forty miles away, rising abruptly from the
plains in a confused jumble of rugged hills overtopping each other until
they culminated in the long white crest of Kinchinjunga, which now and
then at sunset or dawn towered over them all above the clouds and seemed
to float detached in the sky.
At the first _dak_ bungalow which sheltered me after leaving Jalpaiguri
we had a splendid view of this magnificent mountain; and I overheard my
orderly, Draj Khan, who had been with me in Darjeeling and had seen it
from there, explaining to the Rajput sepoy with us that it was composed
entirely of ice. The latter, a man from the sandy deserts of Bikanir,
never having seen snow or more ice than a small lump in some native
liquor-dealer's shop in the bazaar, refused to believe Draj's statement
and appealed to me. I found it no easy task to explain the mystery of
the Everlasting Snows to the intellect of this more or less untutored
savage; and I fear that he understood me even less than he did Draj
Khan's explanation. Natural physical phenomena that we accept as
articles of belief we find not so easy to make clear to the minds of
uneducated people. The Pathan subhedar-major of my regiment rejected my
account of the causes of earthquakes in favour of his own theory that
they arise from the movements of a dragon slumbering in the centre of
the earth and occasionally shaking itself or turning round in its sleep.
I found my journey day by day along the road interesting from the many
types of natives whom I passed. Brown-skinned peasants, many clad simply
in a cotton cloth wound round the waist and between the legs, and
_puggris_ tied loosely about their heads, saluted me respectfully as I
rode by. Native women, nose-ringed and glass-braceletted, modestly drew
their _saris_ over their dark faces to hide their problematical beauty
from my profane gaze. Naked little brown urchins with them stopped to
gaze, finger in mouth, at the Sahib and scampered off in simulated fear
when I waved my hand to them, but halted at a safe distance to wave back
laughingly. Bearded Mohammedans uttered a "Salaam Aleikoum"[8] and
grinned with pleasure at the correct reply "Aleikoum salaam."[9] Groups
of lean-shanked jungle-dwellers shuffled by, the men unencumbered, the
ragged women laden with cooking-pots, babies, and other possessions.
Once or twice I passed a tall, stately Pathan, long-haired and
hook-nosed, clad in baggy trousers, gold-laced velvet waistcoat and
voluminous turban. These gave me a cheery salutation, with no trace of
servility; for the Pathan is of a haughty race and thinks himself any
man's equal. These individuals had wandered far from their homes among
the mountains beyond the North-West Frontier to make small fortunes as
usurers among the simple peasants of Bengal. Small boys herding cattle
drove their black buffaloes to one side of the road to let me pass,
fearlessly beating with shrill cries the savage-looking animals which
seemed inclined to charge my pony. Heavy carts, their wheels solid discs
of wood, drawn by stolid white bullocks, lumbered noisily along, the
drivers twisting the _byles'_ tails to accelerate their speed. Although
I was in so-called disaffected Eastern Bengal I met with no rudeness or
black looks; for the sedition carefully fostered among the
feather-headed young Bengali students has not affected the simple
cultivators of the soil, who still respect the white man and look
confidently to the Sahibs for justice. Even well-fed _babus_ on the road
stopped and closed their umbrellas, a native sign of respect, and were
always ready to answer my questions or enter into a chat.
Every day after completing ten or twelve miles of my sketch I halted at
a _dak_ bungalow or pitched my tent. My servants and elephant had
usually arrived before me; and I found my breakfast of biscuit, tinned
meat and tea, occasionally supplemented by eggs from the nearest
village, awaiting me. My orderly, scouting on ahead on my bicycle, had
sought for information of sport; and, if the prospects of it were good,
I took my gun or rifle and went out in search of something to shoot.
But in such well-cultivated country there was very little game.
At one village near which I halted for the night I heard that a
man-eating tiger was lurking in the neighbourhood. It had killed two
natives on the road within the week. Of course I went out to look for
it, but with scant hope of finding it, as I could only stay a day in the
place. Mounting my elephant I started after breakfast and beat through
all the small patches of jungle for miles round and along the banks of a
small stream flowing by the village. But, though I hunted until after
dusk, I found no traces of it, and returned disappointed to the _dak_
bungalow.
As I sat smoking after dinner out in the compound under the stars I
heard the tinkle of bells coming along the road and drawing nearer and
nearer. Then past the gate of the enclosure around the bungalow a native
postman shuffled by at a dog-trot, his spear and bells over his
shoulder. I stopped him and asked him if he had heard of the tiger.
The little old man, bent almost double under the weight of his mail-bag,
wiped his brow, as he answered:
"Yes, Protector of the Poor, the _shaitan_ (devil) killed two men of
this village on this very road by which I come each night."
"Are you not afraid of meeting him?" I asked.
"That is in the hands of God, Sahib. I must earn my pay by carrying the
_dak_ (mail) along that road every day."
"But why come by night?"
"The _dak_ only reaches my post office after nightfall, and must be sent
on at once. _Hukm hai._ It is the order." And with a farewell salaam he
trotted off into the darkness and danger of the night; and the tinkle of
the bells died away down the fatal road.
Next morning I moved on, deeply regretting that I could not afford the
time to remain and make a systematic search for the man-eater. It was
tantalising to be in its hunting-ground and yet be unable to stay longer
and devote myself to its destruction. To shoot an ordinary tiger is not
much of an achievement; but to circumvent and kill a murderous beast,
grown daring and wily in the slaughter of human beings, is something to
be proud of, and a good and useful deed. The hunter must pit his brains
against its cunning and risk his life freely; for the man-eater is acute
beyond all others and has lost the wild animals' usual dread of man. It
is fortunate that such are rare; for last year tigers killed eight
hundred and eighty-five persons in India, one being credited with
forty-one deaths. Other wild beasts were far behind in the grim count.
Wolves killed two hundred and fifty-five; while panthers slew two
hundred and sixty-one human beings. But these figures fall far short of
the havoc caused by venomous reptiles. In 1911 over twenty-five thousand
persons died from snake-bite; in 1912, twenty-one thousand four hundred
and sixty-one deaths were recorded from the same cause. But it must be
remembered that in villages far from police investigations and coroners'
inquests, snake-bite is a very convenient explanation of a sudden and
violent death.
As I rode along day by day busy with my sketch I had not time to feel
lonely; though, with the exception of my brief stay in Jalpaiguri, I had
not exchanged a word with one of my own colour for over a week. But in
India one grows accustomed to that. Soldiers, planters, forest and civil
officers are used to being cut off from their kind; and on detachment I
have passed months without seeing another European. The evenings, when
the day's work is done, are the hardest to bear; and now in this long
and solitary ride, when I sat in my tent or a _dak_ bungalow after
dinner by the flickering light of a hurricane lantern I did occasionally
wish for a white man to talk to.
My road, running parallel to the hills, crossed many rivers flowing from
them. Most of these were, at that season of the year, easily fordable;
though in some the water was up to my pony's girths. Warned by my
experience at the Tista, I kept a sharp look-out for quicksands. At one
broad stream villagers bade me beware of crocodiles; and fording a river
in which these brutes lurk is not a pleasant task.
The crocodiles of India are divided into two species. The _ghavial_, or
fish eater, attains a length of eighteen feet and is reputed not to
attack human beings. Yet with their long, narrow snouts studded with a
serrated row of sharp teeth they look much more formidable than the
man-eating, blunt-nosed _muggers_. The latter are similar to the
alligators of the New World and the crocodiles of Africa, though they do
not reach the length of the latter. The largest I have known was an old
veteran twelve and a half feet long, which I shot in the Jumna near its
confluence with the Ganges at Allahabad. The latter river is full of
_muggers_; but the former is reputed locally to contain only _ghavials_.
My crocodile may have been a stray. From a boat in which I was drifting
down stream I saw it, looking like an immense log, lying on the bank;
for these brutes are in the habit of coming ashore to sun themselves
during the heat of the day. They are not easy to shoot, as at the least
sign of danger they are prone to dive into the river. Even if wounded
they are hard to secure; for they nearly always lie at the water's edge,
so that the least movement takes them into the stream and, if they die
below the surface, their bodies do not float for some time.
Having spotted the crocodile in question from a distance I landed on the
opposite bank and, cautiously stalking it, managed to get within two
hundred yards without its being alarmed. I was armed with a .303 carbine
and, aiming at its neck, luckily paralysed it by my first shot with a
bullet in the spine. To make sure of it I fired several more rounds at
it, then, hailing my boat, crossed over to where it lay. It feebly
snapped its huge jaws at me as I approached, but was unable to move
otherwise; and a final bullet laid it out. It was an old and immensely
powerful brute, broad out of all proportion to its length. Its thick
hide studded with bosses was like armour-plate, and over its back
impenetrable to bullets. Its teeth were large and blunted and its nails
long and thick.
At the sound of my shots a number of natives had run out from a village
close by. When they saw the _mugger_ lying dead, they streamed down to
the bank and to my surprise swarmed round me, hung garlands about my
neck and lauded me to the skies. I learned from them that the dead
monster had closed a ford from their village to one on the other side
of the river for two years, had carried off several women bathing or
drawing water (this was a minor offence to the native, women being cheap
in India); but, worse still, had killed several of their sacred and
valuable cows. Hence my ovation. The brute was so large and heavy that
it took fourteen villagers to drag and push it up an inclined plane of
planks into my big native sailing-boat. We brought it down the river to
the Lines of my regiment, which were built close to the bank. There we
landed it and cut it open. In its stomach were seven metal anklets or
armlets of different sizes, ornaments such as are worn by native women
and girls, and--a horrible sight!--the entire body of a child about a
year old. It was in the process of being digested; and, when exposed to
the air, the flesh fell away from the bones. The stench was
unforgettable.
The rivers of Bengal are full of these unpleasant saurians. And
crocodiles do not always confine themselves to the water; for they are
reputed to have an undesirable habit of wandering across country by
night from stream to stream and, if these are far apart, hiding by day
in any convenient tank. I have seen a large one in quite a small pond
which was rapidly drying up and would contain no water in a week. A
friend of mine in the Civil Service told me that once, riding into a
village in his district in Eastern Bengal, he found it in a state of
commotion and the whole population gathered in front of the local post
office but keeping a respectful distance from the building; for on the
steps of it was a crocodile about six feet long, snapping fiercely at
anyone who approached it. It must have been overtaken by daylight when
passing through the village on its way from water to water. My friend
shot it, to the intense relief of the besieged postal officials inside
the building.
A crocodile would certainly be an unpleasant animal to meet on the land
in the dark. However, I forded all the streams I came to without mishap.
When I reached the Torsa, a broad and rapid river, across which, some
thirty miles to the north, I had driven the man-killing rogue elephant
months before, I found it unfordable. A large ferry-boat was plying
across it; and in company with two carts and their bullocks and drivers,
a wandering Pathan, several peasants and a gipsy family, I embarked on
it. We had an adventurous voyage. Heavy squalls sweeping down from the
mountains churned up the dark surface of the river and drove our
shallow, top-heavy craft back. The few boatmen, striving with paddles
and poles, to propel it against the wind, were helpless. I seized a long
bamboo and tried to aid them. The Pathan followed my example, while the
other natives on board sat watching our efforts apathetically. This
infuriated him; and he fell upon them with kicks and cuffs until they
rose, took up other bamboos and helped to pole the boat across. But such
was the strength of the gale that it took us two hours to force a
passage against it; and once or twice we were nearly capsized.
Another couple of days or so brought me to the end of my task. When I
saw the tin-roofed buildings of Alipur Duar rise before me on the road,
I struck spurs to my pony and finished my sketch at a gallop. And the
next day saw me back in Buxa Duar, glad to be among the friendly hills
again, for the charm of the mountains was upon me. And on them I hoped
to spend another year; but the gods willed otherwise.
Such outposts as ours may not be as good for the training of the rank
and file as service in large garrisons. But for the individual officer
there is no better way of developing his power of initiative and
teaching him to rely on himself than the command of these small
detachments. And in these jungle outposts the sport to be found is an
additional advantage. Save only active service what better education can
he have than the pursuit of big game, when every sense is trained to be
on the alert, and quick decision becomes a second nature? An eye for
country, readiness of resource, generalship and courage is needed in
this "image of war." The time he spends in the jungles is not wasted.
The British military officer is a much-maligned individual. It seems an
article of faith among civilians in England to believe that he leads a
life of luxury, is ignorant of the science of his profession, and leaves
the training and instruction of his men to be done by the sergeants. As
to luxury--see him in his plainly furnished one room in barracks in the
British Isles or his rat-infested Indian bungalow for which he pays an
exorbitant rent! Examinations all through his service up to the rank of
colonel; examinations for promotion to each grade, signalling, transport
and musketry classes, each with its final examination, examinations in
Indian and other foreign languages keep his brain from rusting for want
of exercise. I have had to pass nine professional, and three obligatory
language examinations myself during my service; and there are many who
have passed more. That there is no army in the world that has as many
officers qualified as interpreters in foreign tongues as ours was well
exemplified in North China during the Boxer War of 1900. And as for
leaving his work to be done by the non-commissioned ranks, only a person
absolutely ignorant of our army to-day would venture to make that
assertion. Who created the auxiliary armies throughout the Empire, who
made the Indian, the Egyptian, the West and the East African Armies? Not
the drill-instructor, not Sergeant What's-his-name, but the British
officer!
Little did I think as I rode into Buxa, after making my sketch, that my
time among my beloved mountains was drawing to a close. One day, not
long afterwards, when out tiger-shooting I was taken suddenly ill and
was barely able to remain in the howdah long enough to fire my rifle and
bag the tiger. Hardly capable of sitting in the saddle I made my way on
my pony back to my Station, there to lie on a sick-bed for over a month.
And I raged at my helplessness when news was brought me during that time
that the man-killing elephant I had fought with was back in our forests
again. Within a few miles of us he surprised a Bhuttia woodcutter and
his wife encamped in the jungle. He came upon them at dawn. They fled
before him; but he overtook the woman, struck her down, and crushed her
into a shapeless mass under his feet. When I heard of it I longed to be
well enough to go out to meet him again. But the Fates forbade it.
Thanks to the devoted care of our Indian doctor, Captain Sarkar, I.M.S.,
I recovered sufficiently to be sent to England on sick leave, much
against my will, for I had no desire to quit Buxa. But four sturdy
_kahars_ (bearers) carried me in a litter down the steep road from our
little outpost through the forest to the train. Beside me walked Captain
Balderston wishing me farewell and a speedy return to health. I little
knew that I was never to see him again, as he shook my hand for the last
time. Four months afterwards his sorrowing sepoys laid my cheery little
comrade to rest in his grave in the deserted cemetery of Buxa. He died
there all alone.
As the train bore me out of the forest and through the green plains of
Eastern Bengal, I raised myself from my couch in the railway carriage
and with sadness in my heart looked back to where the white Picquet
Towers shone out on the purple background of the fast-receding hills.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] "Peace be with you!"
[9] "With you be peace!"
THE NORTHUMBERLAND PRESS, THORNTON STREET, NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE
* * * * *
Transcript Notes
1. This book uses both "country-side" and "countryside"
2. This book uses both "ferry-boat" and "ferryboat"
3. This book uses both "foothills" and "foot-hills"
4. This book uses both "goat-skin" and "goatskin"
5. This book uses both "head-gear" and "headgear"
6. This book uses both "woodcutter" and "wood-cutter"
End of Project Gutenberg's Life in an Indian Outpost, by Gordon Casserly