PATNA, LUCKNOW
“_7th Jan._
“Arrived at Patna at half-past 9 o’clock, and found about eighty
of the leading Mohammedans at the City station awaiting us. Our
host, Seyd Rasa Huseyn, drove us in a handsome barouche to his
house, where we have been very comfortably lodged, and sumptuously
entertained, and have made the acquaintance of, I believe, every
Mohammedan of importance in Patna. Patna is one of the Mohammedan
strongholds, as they number 50,000 out of a total population of
150,000; and they still have many rich families and noble families
of the time of the Empire. The Province of Behar, they tell me,
contains also a certain Mohammedan population of ryots, 30,000
or 40,000, who are descended from the Pathan invaders, and are a
warlike race, retaining, however, nothing of their former rank but
their name Malik, the mass of the ryots being Hindus or converted
Hindus. The character of these is quite unwarlike. The Mohammedans,
therefore, hold their heads higher here than in most places.
“We received visits all the morning, meeting our old friend
Mohammed Ali Rogay from Bombay, Nur-el-Huda, Ferid-ed-Din, and
others, also Mohammed Abbas Ibn Huseyn Bafiti, Sheykh es Saadat of
Medina, a young Arab, who invited us cordially to come and stay
with him in Medina, whither he returns in a few months. He says
that if ever we write and tell him we are coming, he will prepare
to receive us, and gave us his address and took ours. He repeated
this invitation more than once, and I am sure it was sincerely
given. The other acquaintance was that of Sirhadé Huseyn, who
once wrote to me from Cirencester. After luncheon we were driven
out to see something of the town and country. The town is old and
picturesque, but we saw no specially fine buildings. We got out
and inspected a village by the river side, but it was too near the
river to be quite a fair specimen of Behar agriculture. One of the
inhabitants, whom we questioned, told us it belonged to a rent-free
Zemindar, and he was a tenant on a permanent rent, that is to say,
fifteen rupees an acre, for three acres. We calculated the gross
produce at thirty-six rupees, so he nets sixty-three rupees a year,
or over five rupees a month, a fortune, but it is land of the best
quality, and he grows maize and potatoes. It is not irrigated, so
does not grow sugar cane. We asked whether he felt the salt tax,
and he said ‘No.’ He was in debt twenty rupees this year, though he
had never been in debt before. He and his family had held the land
for generations.
“We sat down, sixteen or twenty, to dinner, and adjourned at 9
o’clock to the house of Nawab Villayet Ali Khan, the chief nobleman
of Patna, where, in a large hall, about one hundred and fifty
Mohammedans assembled to hear me give a lecture I had promised on
their prospects. I shall not give my speech here, which was almost
entirely extempore, because it is to be printed in one of the local
papers. Suffice it to say that it included, with other matter, most
of what I had said at the Anjuman i Islam, and was extremely well
received.
“_8th Jan._--We left Patna by the morning train, attended to the
station by our host and Nawab Villayet Ali, with some thirty
others, and a disagreeable incident occurred, as the train was
starting, owing to the violence of a Scotch doctor, who threatened
our friends, and especially the old Nawab, with his stick if they
remained near his carriage window. I jumped at him, of course,
and after calling him a blackguard for his conduct, gave him in
charge at the next station, Dinapore. The railway authorities tried
hard to screen him, and proposed to me to compromise the matter,
but I insisted on having his name, and after about ten minutes
he produced his card as Dr. K., Army and Navy Club (in pencil),
Sealkote. So I have written a strong letter to Lord Ripon, warning
him of the state of things, and of the bitterness of native feeling
in consequence of their habitual ill treatment by the English.”
This was a worse case than quite appears from this entry. The
Nawab, with his party of friends, were on the platform wishing me
good-bye, with all possible decorum, when the Scotchman, who turned
out to be Chief Medical Office of the Punjab, put his head and
shoulders out of the next compartment and struck with his stick at
the Nawab and his friends, bidding them, with an insolent air of
authority, to stand back from the neighbourhood of his carriage
window. This happened just as the train moved on, and I had to
wait till the train again stopped before I could take action.
Fortunately, however, Patna has two stations, and in five minutes
we came to the second. There I entered the Doctor’s compartment,
and insisted upon having his name, which he refused, and it was
only by threatening the station-master with reporting the case to
Lord Ripon that I got him to intervene. Several of my Patna friends
had come on by the train, and supported me, or I doubt if I could
have prevailed with him to do his duty. The matter being treated
in this way made a prodigious sensation, as it was the first time
an Englishman had openly taken part with the natives against his
fellow countrymen.
“We arrived at 4 o’clock at Benares, and are the Maharajah’s guests
in one of his empty houses, being attended to by one of his head
servants. The river at Benares is striking, but less beautiful than
I had expected.
“_9th Jan._--In the morning I wrote a letter to Lord Ripon about
the incident of yesterday, in a tone to compel his attention, and I
enclosed it to Primrose with a hint that I should publish it if the
matter was not promptly set right.
“We then went out to pay our respects to the Maharajah at
Ahmednagar, crossing the river in a boat. The Palace at Ahmednagar
is certainly one of the most striking buildings in the world.
The Maharajah received us most kindly. He is a really ‘grand old
man,’ blind with a cataract, but delighted to ‘see’ us. We had a
rather long conversation with him, touching on religion and the
disadvantage of a too-English education for men of the East. In
which opinion we cordially agreed. He had his little Court of old
servants round him, as he sat on the sofa, smoking his hookah, and
his son, an amiable youth, sat in front on a chair, translating
for him our conversation into Urdu. There was nothing of the new
world in all this. He also talked about various Englishmen he had
known, Sir John Strachey among others, whom he laughed at for his
airs of grandeur. On one occasion he had come to pay a visit and
had taken offence because the servants were not all at the door to
receive him, and so had gone home. I told him he would laugh more
if he could see Sir John Strachey in England, glad of anybody who
would take the trouble to say ‘how do you do’ to him. This caused
a chorus. Yet the officials fancy the ‘natives’ rate them at their
own pretensions.
“After seeing the temple and the tank and the various sights of the
Palace, we were rowed down the river in a barge, a really splendid
sight, stopping once or twice to be shown the insides of houses.
Bagdad must have been like this in its great days. But, what is
strange at Benares, there is not a single house south of the river.
Holkar’s house, which has slipped bodily into the Ganges, shows
how all that is solid on the river front will one day go, leaving,
as at Bagdad, only the mud huts they now screen. The temples here
are insignificant compared with those of the South. It has been
a pleasant day of comparative rest after all the talking we have
lately done.
“_10th Jan._--Calling accidentally at the Post Office, we found
important letters from England; and, amongst other good news, I
find my Colombo letter is published in the ‘Times’; also I am
informed that orders were sent to Lord Ripon not to receive me at
Government House.
“We were taken again on the river, which is a still more wonderful
sight in the morning than it was in the evening, and, through
the Maharajah, we had arranged to pay a visit, without which our
Mohammedan tour would have been incomplete, namely, to the last
representative of the Moguls, an elderly gentleman who lives in an
old palace on the river, on a pension, he told us, of 649 rupees, 6
annas, and 3 pice a month, paid him in lieu of his Indian Empire by
Her Majesty. He had had another 249 rupees with his wife, but she
died last year, and now he wanted his case laid before the public.
He was immensely pleased with our visit, for it seems no one ever
thinks of paying him any attention, because he is poor; but we
inundated him with compliments and courtesies, and he was moved
to telling us of his descent from Arungzeb through the Emperor
of Delhi, whose eldest son was his grandfather, and who, being
disinherited by his father, left Delhi and settled at Benares.
Sad old relic perched in a half ruinous house, like a sick eagle,
looking down on the river and the crescent-shaped city, with his
little group of tattered servants. We were pitying him from our
hearts, melted at his pedigree, when he suddenly changed his tragic
tone, and asked whether we would like to see a cock fight, and,
when we assented, jumped briskly on his legs and led the way to
the palace yard, where cocks had already been brought in crowing.
The cock fight, as a cock fight, was a delusion. The birds were
evidently too precious to be allowed to hurt each other, and their
spurs were carefully swathed in bandages, so that no harm was done.
This innocent amusement kindled him for a minute or two, and then
he relapsed into his old listlessness. Wreaths were brought for
us and perfumes, and we bade him farewell, and went on our way.
I would not have missed this visit to the last of the Moguls for
millions.
“We went on to Allahabad in the afternoon, and are staying with
Lyall[10] at Government House. There were a large number of
Mohammedans to meet us at the station; among them Ferid-ed-Din,
quite hilarious with the recollection of the row at the Patna
station. We were hurried off, however, to Government House, where
there was a large dinner of uninteresting officials. How dull
Anglo-Indian society is! But when everybody was gone, I unfolded to
Lyall my ideas of Mohammedan reform, and the university scheme,
which last, to my astonishment, he cordially approved, promising,
if it was started in his province, to aid it with a public grant.
He also suggested Jonpore or Rampore as suitable places.
“Ferid-ed-Din came to settle about the presentation of the address
and the lecture, but, after consultation with Lyall, it has been
agreed that the latter is to be abandoned. Ferid-ed-Din suggested
asking him to it, but this Lyall declined to do. I don’t quarrel
with him for this. But it is painful to see what terror he inspires
in the ‘natives.’ Ferid-ed-Din, in spite of his boldness, was
struck speechless in his presence, and stood before him barefooted.
I told Ferid-ed-Din to put his shoes on, but Lyall said he
had better stay as he was. Yet Lyall is very far from being a
narrow-minded man, and we have discussed the most burning questions
without reserve. Talking of the Ilbert Bill, he said it was, as far
as the Anglo-Indians were concerned, a local Bengal measure. It
was quite true the Assam planters regarded it as an attempt to do
away with their right of beating their own niggers. The jury system
could not work there, as it would leave them free to do exactly
what they chose. We discussed the chances of revolution. He would
not agree that it would come in five years, but perhaps in twenty.
But the people of India were a weak race, and would never be able
to stand alone. They would be a prey to seafaring nations on their
seaboard, and to the Russians and Chinese on their land frontier.
“We played lawn tennis, at which Lyall is good, in the afternoon;
and after dinner we went to the Mayo Hall, a public place where
about three hundred Mohammedans presented us with an address of an
effusively loyal nature, to which I replied in a carefully moderate
tone. Everything went off well, but the thing was tame compared
with the Patna meeting, for the fact of our being at Government
House has raised, in spite of us, a barrier between us and the
people. They dare not come to see us there, and dare not talk
openly anywhere. I feel suddenly shut out from all light, as when
one goes through a tunnel on a railway journey.
“In England all seems going well. Churchill has made a grand speech
at Edinburgh about Egypt, and I am glad to see advocates moral
principles of government according to the programme I sketched for
him. Gladstone’s mantle of righteousness, which has slipped off his
shoulders, may be picked up now by anybody. Also I have several
letters about my Colombo letter in the ‘Times.’ It was published on
the 13th, as Churchill’s speech was made on the 16th. From Egypt,
however, there comes news less good. Sherif has indeed resigned,
but Nubar is in his place, and there is talk of increasing the
staff of English employés, and prolonging the occupation for five
years.
“_12th Jan._--Akbar Huseyn and his brother came in the morning,
and we wrote out an account of the meeting last night, and sent it
to the ‘Pioneer.’ In the afternoon there was a garden party, and
I talked to Sir Donald Stewart, the High Court Judge, about the
Patna business. It surprised him, as it surprises every Englishman,
and fails to surprise every native. He said the only similar case
he had brought before him in his twelve years of judgeship, was
one in which certain native pleaders had been insulted in their
robing room in Court. This, however, does not affect the question
of such things happening, because it shows only that no native
ever dreams of complaining, or would have a chance of having his
complaint inquired into if he did. On the other hand they have
been settling a case this very day, in which a Hindu railway clerk
beat an Englishman, and have sentenced the clerk to ten months
imprisonment. Several of our Mohammedan friends were at the party,
among them Ferid-ed-Din, but I noticed that they mixed with none of
the English, talking only to each other or to certain Hindus.
“At dinner there were several intelligent people, especially a Mr.
Patterson, who is on good terms with the natives, and spoke of
them as I have not yet heard an Englishman speak. But he served
with Garibaldi in Italy, and so has ideas of liberty the rest have
not. The other was a young Strachey, son of Sir John, a true chip
of the old block, with his father’s way of sitting with his head
on one side like a sick raven, and the same spectacles and soft
voice, a clever youth. I had another long talk with Lyall about the
prospects of a Mohammedan reformation, and he reminded me of our
dinner at the Travellers in the summer of 1881, with Morley and
Zohrab, and of how I was then looking for a prophet in Arabia to
proclaim him Caliph. He thinks Egypt will certainly now be annexed.
“_13th Jan._--I was nervous all day yesterday at getting no answer
from Lord Ripon. But at dinner last night the post arrived, with a
most gracious letter, which makes me feel ashamed of my own violent
one. I shall now leave the matter entirely in his hands, and I am
glad of it, for it might interfere with my larger plans to have to
fight a newspaper battle on such a field.
“Since writing this, Lyall has spoken to me also about the Patna
business, and tells me Lord Ripon has sent him a copy of my letter,
and begged him to urge on me the excision of such portions of it
as treat the general question, because, Lyall says, if it were
brought forward in that form just now, there would be a terrible
row all over India, and it would upset Lord Ripon altogether. He
has had a terribly hard time lately, and another angry question
would be too much for him. He said he could promise me on Lord
Ripon’s part, that if I would rewrite the letter in this sense,
Lord Ripon would see justice done in the matter. He was not a man
to do less than justice, and he, Lyall, would advise that Dr. K.
be brought down to Patna to apologize to the Mohammedan gentleman,
and that an order should be issued to the Railway Company for the
better protection of natives. Of course I readily agreed to all
this, and have now rewritten the public letter, and posted it, with
a private one of thanks, to Lord Ripon. Nothing could have been
better. But Lyall charges me I should tell no man--no Englishman
that is--for I have already shown my first letter to several
Mohammedans, and sent a copy of it to Villayet Ali. Rajah Amir
Hassan called on his way to Lucknow, where we are to stay with him.
“In the afternoon we went with Mohammed Kazim, a friend of
Ferid-ed-Din, to see some villages across the river, and saw also
the Hindu pilgrims encamped in the river bed, at the junction of
the waters. I feel in high spirits to-day at things having gone
so exactly as I intended them to do in connection with the Patna
incident. I could not really have published the first letter at a
moment like this, and now Lord Ripon is under an obligation to me,
and I shall have a right to speak about the university.
“Another long talk with Lyall. He told me that the Ceylon
authorities had telegraphed about me to those of Bengal, and I
fancy, though he did not say so, that he has been instructed to
look pretty closely after me. It is also evident that Ferid-ed-Din
has been warned not to go too far; and Lyall advised me to allow
myself to be directed by Rajah Amir Hassan at Lucknow, as to whom
to see and not to see, which means that he, too, has been warned
to keep me out of dangerous company. I have been very frank with
Lyall about my plans and ideas. Government opposition now would
only strengthen me with the Mohammedans. They would do far better
to help than to hinder me, for my ideas do not really run counter
to any liberal interpretation of the continuance of British rule
in India. Lyall, as a man, is everything that is charming and
sympathetic; as an official he has graduated in a thoroughly bad
school. It was he who, more than any one else, ruined Salar Jung’s
administration in Hyderabad, and he admitted nearly as much to me.
Salar Jung, he said, presumed upon the fact of his good government
to claim what he could not get, that is, independence of the
Paramount Power. There were certain things which the Government
of India would always insist upon advising about, and having its
advice followed. But Salar Jung did not see this. He thought he
could rely on his own cleverness, and extra-official sympathy in
England. But this could not be allowed. On that point he agreed
with Lytton that Salar Jung was a dangerous man. It was not part
of the Imperial policy that the Berar provinces should ever be
restored.
“_14th Jan._--The ‘Pioneer,’ instead of publishing the account
of the meeting at the Mayo Hall, has printed a vicious little
paragraph, saying that the natives of Patna regard me as a paid spy
of the English Government. This is too much, and I expostulated
with Lyall about it on the ground that the ‘Pioneer’ is a
semi-official journal, a fact which, with certain qualifications,
he admitted, and sent at once for N., the sub-Editor--Allen, the
Editor, being away. After a sermon from Lyall, N. was shown in to
me, a lackadaisical youth in a check suit, apparently still in his
teens, and so frightened he could hardly speak or find his way
to a chair. I was sorry for the boy, and dealt with him mildly
when he stammered an excuse that the paragraph had been inserted
as a joke, and he promised repentance, and to print the address
verbatim as well as my speech, and also to print, when it should
arrive, any letter from the Patna Mohammedans. Lyall tells me he
is a youth who spends his time playing lawn tennis, and picks up
his information in such places. They make use of him, however, to
insert communiqués (one of them was Cordery’s explanation a few
days ago), and Colvin is thick with Allen, the Editor, lodging,
I understand, in the same house with him at Calcutta. Colvin, he
says, has always worked the press. He himself has made the rule
only to work anonymously to the extent of writing articles he was
prepared, if challenged, to avow. But he is of opinion it is best
to keep out of it altogether. It is Colvin, no doubt, who has
prompted the spiteful tone of the ‘Pioneer’ towards myself. But how
ridiculously these newspapers rule the world.
“_7th to 15th Jan._--We went to Lucknow, the party here breaking up
at the same time, Lyall going on a tour of the province, his wife
and daughter to a ball at Lucknow. Mulvi Wahaj-ed-din and about
twenty others came to see us off at the station, but we have seen
nothing of them, for they won’t come to Government House to be
treated like servants. Nothing happened on the journey except that
at Cawnpore about one hundred Mohammedans had assembled to see us
while the train stopped. One of them recited some verses in Arabic,
and an address was promised, but they had had no time, they said,
to write one. There are not many Mohammedans at Cawnpore, and only
one can speak a little English, so our interview was limited to
compliments, bowings, and hand shakings.
“At Lucknow we were received by all the great people, two of the
Oude princes, and our host, Rajah Amir Hassan, who drove us to his
house in a state carriage and four. He made many apologies to us
for the poorness of his abode, which was, in fact, a small palace,
and explained that his own palaces had been burned down at the time
of the Mutiny, and this house was given him in exchange by the
English Government. It was late, and we had no more time than to
dine and go to bed, the Rajah dining with us, the first time in his
life, he told us, he had ever dined with Europeans, nor had he ever
entertained an Englishman in his house.
“_16th Jan._--We have had a great deal of conversation with our
host, who is a man of much intelligence, though a rather bigoted
Shiah. He explained to me the dogmatic differences they had with
the Sunnis, the principal of which, he said, was that the Shiahs
asserted God’s justice, and that the prophets had been without
sin and infallible. He also went through the old discussion about
Ali’s succession to the Caliphate with warmth; and told me a number
of other curious things connected with his sect. Lucknow is its
stronghold in India, as the Court was Shiah during the last eighty
years of its existence. We then talked of Hyderabad. Sir Salar Jung
had been a great friend of his, and he had recommended Seyd Huseyn
to him.
“In the afternoon he drove us round the town and showed us the
Imambara, where he said a prayer on the tomb, touching it with
his right hand. Also to the Residency ruins, while he told us the
history of the Mutiny from his own point of view. His father had
sided with the mutineers and been the chief leader of the Shiah
faction among them, till the massacres occurred, when he left them
in disgust and went to his own fort, at Mahmudabad, where he took
ill and died. Twelve of Amir Hassan’s brothers and cousins were
shot, blown up, or hanged by the English, and he alone was left,
a boy of ten, to be educated by them. All the family property in
Lucknow was confiscated and destroyed, for the English destroyed
one third of the city, and so he comes in for an inheritance of
woe. Looking, however, at the ruins, which are very beautiful, he
said: ‘We have agreed to forget our history, and the days of our
glory. But the English refuse to forget it. They leave their ruins
standing to perpetuate the memory of bloodshed. If I could do it,
I would persuade the Lieutenant-Governor to have them razed or
rebuilt.’
“The Rajah is only thirty-six years old, but his hair is very gray,
and he looks fifty. He complains of his liver, and I have strongly
advised him, for the good of his soul and body, to make the land
pilgrimage from Kerbela to Mecca, and he says he will certainly do
so. He does not go into English society, because he dislikes being
disrespectfully treated. The officials are very tyrannical. Of
General Barrow he spoke very highly, as of one who had saved them
from destruction after the Mutiny, and he showed us a statue of
him the Talukdars of Oude are going to set up. He is President of
the Talukdars’ Association, and takes considerable part in public
affairs, besides having started some indigo factories. Altogether
he is a superior man.
“_17th Jan._--We went to the 10th Hussar ball last night, in the
Chotar Menzil, a beautiful room robbed by the Government from the
princes of Oude. Wood, the Colonel, is an old friend of mine, and
we met Brabazon and Lady Lyall and the Franklins.
“There is a furious article against me in the ‘Pioneer,’ written
evidently by Colvin, or inspired by him, to the effect that I am
stirring up sedition in Patna and other Mohammedan centres. The
text, however, of it is the ‘Wind and the Whirlwind,’ and its tone
is exactly what I could most have wished. Good hearty abuse as a
revolutionist can do me nothing but good. In the same sheet they
publish the text of my Allahabad address.
“I am to give a lecture here and receive an address to-morrow, and
have been busy preparing. In the middle of the day we went to a
horse sale of the 10th Hussars, and had luncheon with them; and
then we drove through the city with the Rajah, he lamenting over
the ruins. A great road has been run through the city by pulling
down the houses of poor men. Hardly any got compensation, and the
ruins make a causeway raised about twenty feet above the general
level. This is called Victoria Street.
“We had several visits: First, Mohammed Ibrahim, chief Mujtahed
of the Shiahs, a dignified old man who talked good Arabic. He
did not fancy a university at Hyderabad, because the Government
was Sunni. He lamented the decay of religious institutions here
in Lucknow. Secondly, Prince Mirza Mohammed Madhi Ali Khan, a
polite and amiable personage who talked no English, but had sent
us last night an enormous tray of fruits and sweetmeats. Thirdly,
Ihtimam ed Dowlah Nawab Haidar Huseyn Khan, an elderly nobleman of
Lucknow. Fourthly, Rajah Tasadak Rasul Khan, a nobleman related to
the princes, in very fine clothes. I find, however, that no Sunni
has been to see us, nor any of the small people of the town, who
are the most interesting. Perhaps our host is carrying out Lyall’s
instructions; perhaps he discourages Sunnis. It is tiresome, but
cannot be helped.
“We were taken to-day to see the Shiah Madrasa, a poor little
place, where seventy pupils, men and boys, are taught religion,
logic, and arithmetic up to the rule of three. I was begged to
examine them, and asked who was the Mogul leader who had sacked
Bagdad, but was told that no one knew history. Then I put the
problem of the herring and a half costing three half-pence, and six
boys, on slates, worked out the problem, two correctly.
“_18th Jan._--We went out in the morning to see the Hoseynabad
Imambara, which is certainly the most beautiful thing in Lucknow,
though less imposing than the great Imambara. Here we took off our
shoes, which pleased the Rajah greatly, and at his suggestion we
refused the wreaths offered us by the guardian, this on the ground
that, it being a charitable endowment, the money spent on these
wreaths given to English visitors was misspent. The way in which
this endowment is misappropriated is astonishing. The guardian is
a Hindu, appointed by the English trustees with a salary of four
hundred rupees a month, and quite recently they have spent £10,000
on building a ridiculous clock tower as a memorial to Sir George
Couper, the man most hated by the Mohammedans of Lucknow. These are
the things that bring the English name into contempt.
“Prince Mahdi Ali called again and one or two others, but there
seem to be few Mohammedans here who know English, except among the
younger men, and these did not come to the house. In the afternoon,
however, they came to the meeting. We talked with the Rajah about
the land assessment, and he gave us the following as the proportion
between the ryot, the Talukdar, and the Government. Of a field
producing one hundred maunds, the ryot would keep sixty (that is
three-fifths, of which fifteen or twenty would represent the seed
corn, and forty or forty-five for his profit and labour). Of the
remaining forty maunds the Government takes twenty or twenty-five,
leaving fifteen or twenty to the Talukdar. He said this would be an
average reckoning.
“The meeting in the Kaisar Bagh Hall was the most successful we
have yet had. All the religious chiefs, Sunnis and Shiahs, and
many of the noblemen of Lucknow, and altogether about one thousand
persons were present, as well as about a dozen Englishmen. Three
addresses were presented, and I made a long speech of an hour and a
half, which, as it is to be printed, I will not give here.
“Lyall has written to apologize for the article in the ‘Pioneer,’
which he says he knows comes from Calcutta, and he will give orders
that I am to be well received everywhere in his province. This is
good of him, though nobody can do me much good or harm now. My only
anxiety is Hyderabad, and I think I shall write to Lord Ripon and
ask him whether he wishes me to come or not. Unless he gives me his
countenance, my going back there will do more harm than good. We
came away by the night train to Aligarh.
“_19th Jan._--Mulvi Sami Ullah, Seyd Ahmed, and a number more of
the Aligarh Mohammedans, met us at the station, and we are staying
in Sami Ullah’s house, a bungalow furnished in extra English
taste, and having a certain chill simplicity which savours of the
convent. One expects a crucifix and a holy water stoup in every
room. The Mulvi’s dress is almost a cassock, and he has something
of the manner of a Don. I can understand why the Aligarh men are
not liked. I myself feel rather constrained with them, for one does
not know whether to treat them as pious Mohammedans, or latter-day
disciples of Jowett. Not that they are not extremely amiable, but
there is a tone of apology in their talk to me, as much as to say
‘we are not such infidels as you suppose.’
“I am rather disappointed in Seyd Ahmed. He is certainly a _beau
vieillard_, but does not inspire me with entire confidence.
His features are coarse, his hands coarse, and I should not be
surprised if he turned out to be a _faux bonhomme_. But this is a
first impression, and he speaks very little English. I have not
had a real opportunity of judging him even superficially. We went
over the College, which is certainly a wonderful work. It is on a
large scale, but without pretence, and no money has been wasted on
ornament. The boys were out playing cricket, which they did as well
as an average lot of English schoolboys, and seemed to take full
interest in the game. Among them was the new English Principal of
the College, Mr. Beck, a pretty little young man with pink cheeks
and blue eyes, certainly not an average Englishman; and an average
Englishman certainly could not succeed here. So Beck may succeed.
He is probably clever.[11]
“The Collector, Mr. Ward, and the Judge have called, by Lyall’s
orders, and I had some talk with the former about the ill feeling
between Englishmen and natives, which he seemed to think could not
be helped. I don’t suppose it can. The Judge seems a better sort,
but when we went to take tea with his wife, she at once asked Sami
Ullah to ‘take a peg,’ and then apologized for her thoughtlessness.
A good sort all the same.
“We sat down, a dozen, to dinner, but as no one could speak English
well, it was a dull party. There were two Rais in the company who
belong to the old-fashioned party, and with them I had a little
talk. On the whole Aligarh bores me.
“I forgot to say that Mr. Ward mentioned it, as an instance of
rough behaviour on the part of the natives, that a day or two
ago an Englishman having accidentally shot a Hindu boy, the
native police had arrested the man, made him walk some miles, and
detained him two days at the police station, and then brought a
charge against him. He said the wound was little more than a skin
wound, and that the bullet had glanced from the ground while the
Englishman was shooting blue deer.
“_20th Jan._--Letters have come from England, and a great number
from Patna, strengthening the general case of the insults offered
to natives. I shall now write to Lord Ripon again. We paid a visit
to the dispensary, where we happened to see the boy wounded in the
neck by the bullet, half an inch deep the English doctor said, and
within very little of the jugular artery. Also to the Mosque, where
we were received with great honour by the chief preacher here.
The Mosque has just been restored with excellent taste. I noticed
that Sami Ullah did not take off his shoes to go inside. The
repairs have cost £10,000, partly paid out of a _wakf_, partly by
subscription. They have made me promise to make a speech to-morrow,
but it will be difficult not to give offence, for party feeling
runs high.
“We drove to a village and ascertained a few useful facts. The
proportion of seed corn to harvest is one to six, and they give
their cattle salt twice a week. We dined at Seyd Ahmed’s, a mixed
party of Mohammedans and Englishmen. Seyd Ahmed told me he quite
agreed with my fifth chapter of the ‘Future of Islam.’
“_21st Jan._--The meeting was a failure compared with the others.
Most of the old Mulvis would not come, I suppose because it was
convened by Seyd Ahmed. But they sent me a very nice address in
Arabic, and some of them were there, including one who is a dwarf.
I did not know quite what to say between the two parties, and I
doubt whether Seyd Ahmed altogether liked my discourse. It was
certainly not a success. Still I think it may do good. It will put
them on their religious mettle.
“Since writing this, I hear that my speech was immensely
appreciated by the greater number of those present, only they
did not like to express their feelings strongly in Seyd Ahmed’s
presence. I have talked, too, with Seyd Ahmed, and hope no offence
has been taken by him. I fancy he has considerable experience of
people differing from him, and he tells me he shall lay to heart
the suggestions I made. I like him better than I did at first, and
have no doubt he is a good and sincere man. But my taking part,
in a way, with his enemies cannot of course be agreeable to him,
especially as he is just starting on a trip to the Punjaub to
collect funds for his college. Ikhram Ullah of Delhi is here, and
goes with him, being Seyd Ahmed’s nephew and disciple. It was on
him we counted for introductions at Delhi; but he has promised to
go back and start us there. I feel a little doubt as to how we
shall get on. The ‘Pioneer,’ I hear, has rather frightened people,
and Ikhram Ullah tells me we are watched by spies. However, the
thing is almost done now, and our reception at Delhi is not of
vital importance. I have written to Lord Ripon to ask his leave to
be at Hyderabad for the installation. It is evident to me now that
the Calcutta Foreign Office has warned Salar Jung and Vikar-el-Omra
against intimacy with us, perhaps also the Nizam. With Lord Ripon’s
countenance, however, we need not mind that.
“At night there was a dinner at the Aligarh Institute in my honour,
at which Seyd Ahmed presided, and the Collector and other English
officials were present. I sat between Seyd Ahmed and Mr. Ward.
The latter talked about the future of India, and said he wished
to see a parliament in India. Anything was better than being
governed by the English Parliament. He complained that the English
in India were disfranchised. They had no vote in England, and no
representation here. Seyd Ahmed read a speech in which he proposed
Her Majesty’s health, which was drunk in tea, and then my health
and a great many expressions of loyalty, and Sami Ullah also spoke,
and then Seyd Ahmed sang, with much spirit, a few Arabic verses in
my honour. After which I replied briefly, explaining that I was not
come to India to stir up strife, but to help the cause of peace and
goodwill. That I should like to see the Indians and English living
in harmony together, but the condition of social intercourse was
social equality. There were none at this dinner but men of Seyd
Ahmed’s school, but about fifty others came in in the evening.
Anne came also, but did not dine.
“_22nd Jan._--We left for Delhi by the morning train, Mulvi
Mohammed Abbas Huseyn, the chief of the Shiahs, presenting me with
a separate address before starting. He is one of the old-fashioned
ones, and I like him especially. He wears the white turban, and
dresses like an Egyptian Alem. At the station everybody was
present, Seyd Ikbal Ali had come all the way from Faizabad to see
us, Seyd Ahmed and all of them, who started a ‘hip hurray’ as
the train moved off, but Mohammedans are not good at cheering. I
promised Seyd Ahmed to send him a subscription, and wished him,
very heartily, success.”