TWENTY-ONE DAYS IN INDIA
Or, The Tour Of Sir Ali Baba K.C.B.
and THE TEAPOT SERIES
by
GEORGE R. ABERIGH-MACKAY
Sometime Principal of the Rajkumar College Indore
Ninth Edition with New Illustrations and Elucidations
1914
[Illustration: THE TRAVELLING M.P.--"The British Lion rampant."]
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE
In this edition it has been considered advisable to reproduce,
verbatim, only the "Twenty-one Days" as originally published in
_Vanity Fair_, the additional series of six included in several
editions of the book issued after the Author's death being omitted.
The twenty-one papers in question have been supplemented by
contributions to _The Bombay Gazette_, which appeared in that daily
newspaper during the whole of the year 1880, the year before the
Author's death, under the _nom de plume_ of "Our Political Orphan;"
and the Publishers beg to tender their best thanks to the proprietors
of that newspaper for the permission thus generously accorded for
their present reproduction.
In carrying out the work of revision many passages previously omitted
have been restored to the text. To render such readily apparent to the
reader, they have in every case been enclosed in [] brackets.
A new series of illustrations has been specially prepared for this
edition by Mr. George Darby of Calcutta, and the Publishers venture to
think he has succeeded in a marked degree in embodying in his sketches
the spirit of the Author's subjects.
In conclusion it has been the aim of the Publishers to render this new
edition of a great work by a very gifted writer as perfect as possible
and worthy of acceptance as a standard Anglo-Indian classic.
LONDON
September, 1910.
CONTENTS
PREFACE
I. WITH THE VICEROY
II. THE A.-D.-C.-IN-WAITING, AN ARRANGEMENT IN SCARLET AND GOLD
III. WITH THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
IV. WITH THE ARCHDEACON, A MAN OF BOTH WORLDS
V. WITH THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT
VI. H.E. THE BENGALI BABOO
VII. WITH THE RAJA
VIII. WITH THE POLITICAL AGENT, A MAN IN BUCKRAM
IX. WITH THE COLLECTOR
X. BABY IN PARTIBUS
XI. THE RED CHUPRASSIE; OR, THE CORRUPT LICTOR
XII. THE PLANTER; A FARMER PRINCE
XIII. THE EURASIAN; A STUDY IN CHIARO-OSCURO
XIV. THE VILLAGER
XV. THE OLD COLONEL
XVI. THE CIVIL SURGEON
XVII. THE SHIKARRY
XVIII. THE GRASS-WIDOW IN NEPHELOCOCCYGIA
XIX. THE TRAVELLING M.P., THE BRITISH LION RAMPANT
XX. MEM-SAHIB
XXI. ALI BABA ALONE; THE LAST DAY
* * * * *
EXTRACTS FROM "SERIOUS REFLECTIONS AND OTHER CONTRIBUTIONS"
BY "OUR POLITICAL ORPHAN"
_Bombay Gazette Press_, 1881.
THE TEAPOT SERIES:
SOCIAL DISSECTION
SAHIB
THE GRYPHON'S ANABASIS
THE ORPHAN'S GOOD RESOLUTIONS
SOME OCCULT PHENOMENA
* * * * *
ELUCIDATIONS
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS:
THE TRAVELLING M.P.
THE A.D.C. IN WAITING
THE ARCHDEACON
THE BENGALI BABOO
THE POLITICAL AGENT
THE RED CHUPRASSIE
THE PLANTER
THE EURASIAN
THE OLD COLONEL
THE GRASS-WIDOW
No. I
WITH THE VICEROY
[August 2, 1879.]
It is certainly a little intoxicating to spend a day with the Great
Ornamental. You do not see much of him perhaps; but he is a Presence
to be felt, something floating loosely about in wide epicene
pantaloons and flying skirts, diffusing as he passes the fragrance of
smile and pleasantry and cigarette. The air around him is laden with
honeyed murmurs; gracious whispers play about the twitching bewitching
corners of his delicious mouth. He calls everything by "soft names in
many a mused rhyme." Deficits, Public Works, and Cotton Duties are
transmuted by the alchemy of his gaiety into sunshine and songs. An
office-box on his writing-table an office-box is to him, and it is
something more: it holds cigarettes. No one knows what sweet thoughts
are his as Chloe flutters through the room, blushful and startled, or
as a fresh beaker full of the warm South glows between his amorous eye
and the sun.
"I have never known
Praise of love or wine
That panted forth a flood of twaddle so divine."
I never tire of looking at a Viceroy. He is a being so heterogeneous
from us! He is the centre of a world with which he has no affinity. He
is a veiled prophet. [He wears many veils indeed.] He who is the axis
of India, the centre round which the Empire rotates, is absolutely and
necessarily withdrawn from all knowledge of India. He lisps no
syllable of any Indian tongue; no race or caste, or mode of Indian
life is known to him; all our delightful provinces of the sun that lie
off the railway are to him an undiscovered country; Ghebers, Moslems,
Hindoos blend together in one indistinguishable dark mass before his
eye, [in which the cataract of English indifference has not been
couched; most delightful of all--he knows not the traditions of
Anglo-India, and he does not belong to the Bandicoot Club, St. James's
Square!]
A Nawab, whom the Foreign Office once farmed out to me, often used to
ask what the use of a Viceroy was. I do not believe that he meant to
be profane. The question would again and again recur to his mind, and
find itself on his lips. I always replied with the counter question,
"What is the use of India?" He never would see--the Oriental mind does
not see these things--that the chief end and object of India was the
Viceroy; that, in fact, India was the plant and the Viceroy the
flower.
I have often thought of writing a hymn on the Beauty of Viceroys; and
have repeatedly attuned my mind to the subject; but my inability to
express myself in figurative language, and my total ignorance of
everything pertaining to metre, rhythm, and rhyme, make me rather
hesitate to employ verse. Certainly, the subject is inviting, and I am
surprised that no singer has arisen. How can any one view the
Viceroyal halo of scarlet domestics, with all the bravery of coronets,
supporters, and shields in golden embroidery and lace, without
emotion! How can the tons of gold and silver plate that once belonged
to John Company, Bahadur, and that now repose on the groaning board of
the Great Ornamental, amid a glory of Himalayan flowers, or blossoms
from Eden's fields of asphodel, be reflected upon the eye's retina
without producing positive thrills and vibrations of joy (that cannot
be measured in terms of _ohm_ or _farad_) shooting up and down the
spinal cord and into the most hidden seats of pleasure! I certainly
can never see the luxurious bloom of the silver sticks arranged in
careless groups about the vast portals without a feeling approaching
to awe and worship, and a tendency to fling small coin about with a
fine mediæval profusion. I certainly can never drain those profound
golden cauldrons seething with champagne without a tendency to break
into loud expressions of the inward music and conviviality that simmer
in my soul. Salutes of cannon, galloping escorts, processions of
landaus, beautiful teams of English horses, trains of private saloon
carriages (cooled with water trickling over sweet jungle grasses)
streaming through the sunny land, expectant crowds of beauty with
hungry eyes making a delirious welcome at every stage, the whole
country blooming into dance and banquet and fresh girls at every step
taken--these form the fair guerdon that stirs my breast at certain
moments and makes me often resolve, after dinner, "to scorn delights
and live laborious days," and sell my beautiful soul, illuminated with
art and poetry, to the devil of Industry, with reversion to Sir John
Strachey.
How mysterious and delicious are the cool penetralia of the Viceregal
Office! It is the censorium of the Empire; it is the seat of thought;
it is the abode of moral responsibility! What battles, what famines,
what excursions of pleasure, what banquets and pageants, what concepts
of change have sprung into life here! Every pigeon-hole contains a
potential revolution; every office-box cradles the embryo of a war or
dearth. What shocks and vibrations, what deadly thrills does this
little thunder-cloud office transmit to far-away provinces lying
beyond rising and setting suns! Ah! Vanity, these are pleasant
lodgings for five years, let who may turn the kaleidoscope after us.
A little errant knight of the press who has just arrived on the
Delectable Mountains, comes rushing in, looks over my shoulder, and
says, "A deuced expensive thing a Viceroy." This little errant knight
would take the thunder at a quarter of the price, and keep the Empire
paralytic with change and fear of change as if the great
Thirty-thousand-pounder himself were on Olympus.--ALI BABA.
No. II
THE A.D.C.-IN-WAITING
AN ARRANGEMENT IN SCARLET AND GOLD
[Illustration: THE A.D.C.-IN WAITING--"An arrangement in scarlet and
gold."]
[August 9, 1879.]
The tone of the A.D.C. is subdued. He stands in doorways and strokes
his moustache. He nods sadly to you as you pass. He is preoccupied
with--himself, [some suppose; others aver his office.] He has a
motherly whisper for Secretaries and Members of Council. His way with
ladies is sisterly--undemonstratively affectionate. He tows up rajas
to H.E., and stands in the offing. His attitude towards rajas is one
of melancholy reserve. He will perform the prescribed observances, if
he cannot approve of them. Indeed, generally, he disapproves of the
Indian people, though he condones their existence. For a brother in
aiguillettes there is a Masonic smile and a half-embarrassed
familiarity, as if found out in acting his part. But confidence is
soon restored with melancholy glances around, and profane persons who
may be standing about move uneasily away.
An A.D.C. should have no tastes. He is merged in "the house." He must
dance and ride admirably; he ought to shoot; he may sing and paint in
water-colours, or botanise a little, and the faintest aroma of the
most volatile literature will do him no harm; but he cannot be allowed
preferences. If he has a weakness for very pronounced collars and
shirt-cuffs in mufti, it may be connived at, provided he be honestly
nothing else but the man in collars and cuffs.
When a loud, joyful, and steeplechasing Lord, in the pursuit of
pleasure and distant wars, dons the golden cords for a season, the
world understands that this is masquerading, skittles, and a joke. One
must not confound the ideal A.D.C. with such a figure.
The A.D.C. has four distinct aspects or phases--(1) the full summer
sunshine and bloom of scarlet and gold for Queen's birthdays and high
ceremonials; (2) the dark frock-coats and belts in which to canter
behind his Lord in; (3) the evening tail-coat, turned down with light
blue and adorned with the Imperial arms on gold buttons; (4) and,
finally, the quiet disguises of private life.
It is in the sunshine glare of scarlet and gold that the A.D.C. is
most awful and unapproachable; it is in this aspect that the splendour
of vice-Imperialism seems to beat upon him most fiercely. The Rajas of
Rajputana, the diamonds of Golconda, the gold of the Wynaad, the opium
of Malwa, the cotton of the Berars, and the Stars of India seem to be
typified in the richness of his attire and the conscious superiority
of his demeanour. Is he not one of the four satellites of that Jupiter
who swims in the highest azure fields of the highest heavens?
Frock-coated and belted, he passes into church or elsewhere behind his
Lord, like an aërolite from some distant universe, trailing cloudy
visions of that young lady's Paradise of bright lights and music,
champagne, mayonnaise, and "just-one-more-turn," which is situated
behind the flagstaff on the hill.
The tail-coat, with gold buttons, velvet cuffs, and light blue silk
lining, is quite a demi-official, small-and-early arrangement. It is
compatible with a patronising and somewhat superb flirtation in the
verandah; nay, even under the pine-tree beyond the _Gurkha_ sentinel,
whence many-twinkling Jakko may be admired, it is compatible with a
certain shadow of human sympathy and weakness. An A.D.C. in tail-coat
and gold buttons is no longer a star; he is only a fire-balloon;
though he may twinkle in heaven, he can descend to earth. But in the
quiet disguises of private life he is the mere stick of a rocket. He
is quite of the earth. This scheme of clothing is compatible with the
tenderest offices of gaming or love--offices of which there shall be
no recollection on the re-assumption of uniform and on re-apotheosis.
An A.D.C. in plain clothes has been known to lay the long odds at
whist, and to qualify, very nearly, for a co-respondentship.
In addition to furnishing rooms in his own person, an A.D.C. is
sometimes required to copy my Lord's letters on mail-day, and, in due
subordination to the Military Secretary, to superintend the stables,
kitchen, or Invitation Department.
After performing these high functions, it is hard if an A.D.C. should
ever have to revert to the buffooneries of the parade-ground or the
vulgar intimacies of a mess. It is hard that one who has for five
years been identified with the Empire should ever again come to be
regarded as "Jones of the 10th," and spoken of as "Punch" or "Bobby"
by old boon companions. How can a man who has been behind the curtain,
and who has seen _la première danseuse_ of the Empire practising her
steps before the manager Strachey, in familiar chaff and talk with the
Council ballet, while the little scene-painter and Press Commissioner
stood aside with cocked ears, and the privileged violoncellist made
his careless jests--how, I say, can one who has thus been above the
clouds on Olympus ever associate with the gaping, chattering,
irresponsible herd below?
It is well that our Ganymede should pass away from heaven into
temporary eclipse; it is well that before being exposed to the rude
gaze of the world he should moult his rainbow plumage in the Cimmeria
of the Rajas. Here we shall see him again, a blinking _ignis fatuus_
in a dark land--"so shines a good deed in a naughty world" thinks the
Foreign Office.--ALI BABA.
No. III
WITH THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF
[August 16, 1879.]
At Simla and Calcutta the Government of India always sleeps with a
revolver under its pillow--that revolver is the Commander-in-Chief.
There is a tacit understanding that this revolver is not to be let
off; indeed, sometimes it is believed that this revolver is not
loaded.
[The Commander-in-Chief has a seat in Council; but the Military Member
has a voice. This division of property is seen everywhere. The
Commander-in-Chief has many offices; in each there is someone other
than the Commander-in-Chief who discharges all its duties.
What does the Commander-in-Chief command? Armies? No. In India
Commanders-in-Chief command no armies. The Commander-in-Chief only
commands respect.]
The Commander-in-Chief is himself an army. His transport, medical
attendance, and provisioning are cared for departmentally, and watched
over by responsible officers. He is a host in himself; and a corps of
observation.
All the world observes him. His slightest movement creates a molecular
disturbance in type, and vibrates into newspaper paragraphs.
When Commanders-in-Chief are born the world is unconscious of any
change. No one knows when a Commander-in-Chief is born. No joyful
father, no pale mother has ever experienced such an event as the
birth of a Commander-in-Chief in the family. No Mrs. Gamp has ever
leant over the banister and declared to the expectant father below
that it was "a fine healthy Commander-in-Chief." Therefore, a
Commander-in-Chief is not like a poet. But when a Commander-in-Chief
dies, the spirit of a thousand Beethovens sob and wail in the air;
dull cannon roar slowly out their heavy grief; silly rifles gibber and
chatter demoniacally over his grave; and a cocked hat, emptier than
ever, rides with the mockery of despair on his coffin.
On Sunday evening, after tea and catechism, the Supreme Council
generally meet for riddles and forfeits in the snug little cloak-room
parlour at Peterhoff. "Can an army tailor make a Commander-in-Chief?"
was once asked. Eight old heads were scratched and searched, but no
answer was found. No sound was heard save the seething whisper of
champagne ebbing and flowing in the eight old heads. Outside, the wind
moaned through the rhododendron trees; within, the Commander-in-Chief
wept peacefully. He felt the awkwardness of the situation. [He thought
of Ali Musjid, and he thought of Isandula; he saw himself reflected in
the mirror, and he declared that he gave it up.] An aide-de-camp stood
at the door hiccupping idly. He was known to have invested all his
paper currency in Sackville Street; and he felt in honour bound to say
that the riddle was a little hard on the army tailors. So the subject
dropped.
A Commander-in-Chief is the most beautiful article of social
upholstery in India. He sits in a large chair in the drawing-room.
Heads and bodies sway vertically in passing him. He takes the oldest
woman in to dinner; he gratifies her with his drowsy cackle. He says
"Yes" and "No" to everyone with drowsy civility; everyone is
conciliated. His stars dimly twinkle--twinkle; the host and hostess
enjoy their light. After dinner he decants claret into his venerable
person, and tells an old story; the company smile with innocent joy.
He rejoins the ladies and leers kindly on a pretty woman; she forgives
herself a month of indiscretions. He touches Lieutenant the Hon.
Jupiter Smith on the elbow and inquires after his mother; a noble
family is gladdened. He is thus a source of harmless happiness to
himself and to those around him.
If a round of ball cartridge has been wasted by a suicide, or a pair
of ammunition boots carried off by a deserter, the Commander-in-Chief
sometimes visits a great cantonment under a salute of seventeen guns.
The military then express their joy in their peculiar fashion,
according to their station in life. The cavalry soldier takes out his
charger and gallops heedlessly up and down all the roads in the
station. The sergeants of all arms fume about as if transacting some
important business between the barracks and their officers' quarters.
Subalterns hang about the Mess, whacking their legs with small pieces
of cane and drinking pegs with mournful indifference. The Colonel
sends for everyone who has not the privilege of sending for him,
and says nothing to each one, sternly and decisively. The Majors
and the officers doing general duty go to the Club and swear before
the civilians that they are worked off their legs, complaining
fiercely to themselves that the Service is going, &c. &c. The
Deputy-Assistant-Quartermaster-General puts on all the gold lace he is
allowed to wear, and gallops to the Assistant-Adjutant-General--where
he has tiffin. The Major-General-Commanding writes notes to all his
friends, and keeps orderlies flying at random in every direction.
The Commander-in-Chief--who had a disturbed night in the train--sleeps
peacefully throughout the day, and leaves under another salute in the
afternoon. He shakes hands with everyone he can see at the station,
and jumps into a long saloon carriage, followed by his staff.
"A deuced active old fellow!" everyone says; and they go home and dine
solemnly with one another under circumstances of extraordinary
importance.
The effect of the Commander-in-Chief is very remarkable on the poor
Indian, whose untutored mind sees a Lord in everything. He calls the
Commander-in-Chief "the Jungy Lord," or War-Lord, in contradistinction
to the "Mulky-Lord," or Country-Lord, the appellation of the Viceroy.
To the poor Indian this War-Lord is an object of profound interest and
speculation. He has many aspects that resemble the other and more
intelligible Lord. An aide-de-camp rides behind him; hats, or hands,
rise electrically as he passes; yet it is felt in secret that he is
not pregnant with such thunder-clouds of rupees, and that he cannot
make or mar a Raja. To the Raja it is an ever-recurring question
whether it is necessary or expedient to salaam to the Jungy Lord and
call upon him. He is hedged about with servants who will require to be
richly propitiated before any dusky countryman [of theirs, great or
small,] gets access to this Lord of theirs. Is it, then, worth while
to pass through this fire to the possible Moloch who sits beyond? Will
this process of parting with coin--this Valley of the Shadow of
Death--lead them to any palpable advantage? Perhaps the War-Lord with
his red right hand can add guns to their salute; perhaps he will speak
a recommendatory word to his caste-fellow, the Country-Lord? These are
precious possibilities.
A Raja whom I am now prospecting for the Foreign Office asked me the
other day where Commanders-in-Chief were ripened, seeing that they
were always so mellow and blooming. I mentioned a few nursery gardens
I knew of in and about Whitehall and Pall Mall. H.H. at once said that
he would like to plant his son there, if I would water him with
introductions. This is young 'Arry Bobbery, already favourably known
on the Indian Turf as an enterprising and successful defaulter.
You will know 'Arry Bobbery, if you meet him, dear Vanity, by the
peculiarly gracious way in which he forgives and forgets should you
commit the indiscretion of lending him money. You may be sure that he
will never allude to the matter again, but will rather wear a piquant
do-it-again manner, like our irresistible little friend, Conny B----.
I don't believe, however, that Bobbery will ever become a
Commander-in-Chief, though his distant cousin, Scindia, is a General,
and though they talk of pawning the 'long-shore Governorship of Bombay
to Sir Cursinjee Damtheboy.--ALI BABA.
No. IV
WITH THE ARCHDEACON
A MAN OF BOTH WORLDS
[Illustration: THE ARCHDEACON--"A man of both worlds."]
[August 23, 1879.]
The Press Commissioner has been trying by a strained exercise of his
prerogative to make me spend this day with the Bishop, and not with
the Archdeacon; but I disregard the Press Commissioner; I make light
of him; I treat his authority as a joke. What authority has a pump? Is
a pump an analyst and a coroner?
Why should I spend a day with the Bishop? What claim has the Bishop on
my improving conversation? I am not his sponsor. Besides, he might do
me harm--I am not quite sure of his claret. I admit his superior
ecclesiastical birth; I recollect his connection with St. Peter; and I
am conscious of the more potent spells and effluences of his
shovel-hat and apron; but I find the atmosphere of his heights cold,
and the rarefied air he breathes does not feed my lungs. Up yonder,
above the clouds of human weakness, my vertebræ become unhinged, my
bones inarticulate, and I collapse. I meet missionaries, and I hear
the music of the spheres; and I long to descend again to the circles
of the everyday inferno where my friends are.
"These distant stars I can forego;
This kind, warm earth, is all I know."
I am sorry for it. I really have upward tendencies; but I have never
been able to fix upon a balloon. The High Church balloon always seems
to me too light; and the Low Church balloon too heavy; while no
experienced aeronaut can tell me where the Broad Church balloon is
bound for; thus, though a feather-weight sinner, here I am upon the
firm earth. So come along, my dear Archdeacon, let us have a stroll
down the Mall, and a chat about Temporalities, Fabrics, "Mean Whites,"
and little Mrs. Lollipop, "the joy of wild asses."
An Archdeacon is one of the busiest men in India--especially when he
is up on the hill among the sweet pine-trees. He is the recognised
guardian of public morality, and the hill captains and the
semi-detached wives lead him a rare life. There is no junketing at
Goldstein's, no picnic at the waterfalls, no games at Annandale, no
rehearsals at Herr Felix von Battin's, no choir practice at the church
even, from which he can safely absent himself. A word, a kiss, some
matrimonial charm dissolved--these electric disturbances of society
must be averted. The Archdeacon is the lightning conductor; where he
is, the leaven of naughtiness passes to the ground, and society is not
shocked.
In the Bishop and the ordinary padre we have far-away people of
another world. They know little of us; we know nothing of them. We
feel much constraint in their presence. The presence of the
ecclesiastical sex imposes severe restrictions upon our conversation.
The Lieutenant-Governor of the South-Eastern Provinces once complained
to me that the presence of a clergyman rendered nine-tenths of his
vocabulary contraband, and choked up his fountains of anecdote. It
also restricts us in the selection of our friends. But with an
Archdeacon all this is changed. He is both of Heaven and Earth. When
we see him in the pulpit we are pleased to think that we are with the
angels; when we meet him in a ball-room we are flattered to feel that
the angels are with us. When he is with us--though, of course, he is
not of us--he is yet exceedingly like us. He may seem a little more
venerable than he is; perhaps there may be about him a grandfatherly
air that his years do not warrant; he may exact a "Sir" from us that
is not given to others of his worldly standing; but there is
nevertheless that in his bright and kindly eye--there is that in his
side-long glance--which by a charm of Nature transmutes homage into
familiar friendship, and respect into affection.
The character of Archdeacons as clergymen I would not venture to touch
upon. It is proverbial that Archidiaconal functions are Eleusinian in
their mysteriousness. No one, except an Archdeacon, pretends to know
what the duties of an Archdeacon are, so no one can say whether these
duties are performed perfunctorily and inadequately, or scrupulously
and successfully. We know that Archdeacons sometimes preach, and that
is about all we know. I know an Archdeacon in India who can preach a
good sermon--I have heard him preach it many a time, once on a benefit
night for the Additional Clergy Society. It wrung four annas from
me--but it was a terrible wrench. I would not go through it again to
have every living graduate of St. Bees and Durham disgorged on our
coral strand.
From my saying this do not suppose that I am Mr. Whitley Stokes, or
Babu Keshub Chundra Sen. I am a Churchman, beneath the surface, though
a pellicle of inquiry may have supervened. I am not with the party of
the Bishop, nor yet am I with Sir J.S., or Sir A.C. I abide in the
Limbo of Vanity, as a temporary arrangement, to study the seamy side
of Indian politics and morality, to examine misbegotten wars and
reforms with the scalpel, Stars of India with the spectroscope, and to
enjoy the society of half-a-dozen amusing people to whom the Empire of
India is but a wheel of fortune.
I like the recognised relations between the Archdeacon and women. They
are more than avuncular and less than cousinly; they are tender
without being romantic, and confiding without being burdensome. He has
the private _entrée_ at _chhoti hazri_, or early breakfast; he sees
loose and flowing robes that are only for esoteric disciples; he has
the private _entrée_ at five o'clock tea and hears plans for the
evening campaign openly discussed. He is quite behind the scenes. He
hears the earliest whispers of engagements and flirtations. He can
give a stone to the Press Commissioner in the gossip handicap, and win
in a canter. You cannot tell him anything he does not know already.
Whenever the Government of India has a merrymaking, he is out on the
trail. At Delhi he was in the thick of the mummery, beaming on
barbaric princes and paynim princesses, blessing banners, blessing
trumpeters, blessing proclamations, blessing champagne and truffles,
blessing pretty girls, and blessing the conjunction of planets that
had placed his lines in such pleasant places. His tight little cob,
his perfect riding kit, his flowing beard, and his pleasant smile were
the admiration of all the Begums and Nabobs that had come to the fair.
The Government of India took such delight in him that they gave him a
gold medal and a book.
With the inferior clergy the Archdeacon is not at his ease. He cannot
respect the little ginger-bread gods of doctrine they make for
themselves; he cannot worship at their hill altars; their hocus-pocus
and their crystallised phraseology fall dissonantly on his ear; their
talk of chasubles and stoles, eastern attitude, and all the rest of
it, is to him as a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing. He would
like to see the clergy merely scholars and men of sense set apart for
the conduct of divine worship and the encouragement of all good and
kindly offices to their neighbours; he does not wish to see them
mediums and conjurors. He thinks that in a heathen country their
paltry fetishism of misbegotten notions and incomprehensible phrases
is peculiarly offensive and injurious to the interests of civilisation
and Christianity. Of course the Archdeacon may be very much mistaken
in all this; and it is this generous consciousness of fallibility
which gives the singular charm to his religious attitude. He can take
off his ecclesiastical spectacles and perceive that he may be in the
wrong like other men.
Let us take a last look at the Archdeacon, for in the whole range of
prominent Anglo-Indian characters our eye will not rest upon a more
orbicular and satisfactory figure.
A good Archdeacon, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit gay and bright,
With something of the candle-light.
ALI BABA.
No. V
WITH THE SECRETARY TO GOVERNMENT
[August 30, 1879.]
He is clever, I am told, and being clever he has to be rather morose
in manner and careless in dress, or people might forget that he was
clever. He has always been clever. He was the clever man of his year.
He was so clever when he first came out that he could never learn to
ride, or speak the language, and had to be translated to the
Provincial Secretariat. But though he could never speak an
intelligible sentence in the language, he had such a practical and
useful knowledge of it, in half-a-dozen of its dialects, that he could
pass examinations in it with the highest credit, netting immense
rewards. He thus became not only more and more clever, but more and
more solvent; until he was an object of wonder to his contemporaries,
of admiration to the Lieutenant-Governor, and of desire to several
_Burra Mem Sahibs_[A] with daughters. It was about this time that he
is supposed to have written an article published in some English
periodical. It was said to be an article of a solemn description, and
report magnified the periodical into the _Quarterly Review_. So he
became one who wrote for the English Press. It was felt that he was a
man of letters; it was assumed that he was on terms of familiar
correspondence with all the chief literary men of the day. With so
conspicuous a reputation, he believed it necessary to do something in
religion. So he gave up religion, and allowed it to be understood that
he was a man of advanced views: a Positivist, a Buddhist, or something
equally occult. Thus he became ripe for the highest employment, and
was placed successively on a number of Special Commissions. He
inquired into everything; he wrote hundredweights of reports; he
proved himself to have the true paralytic ink flux, precisely the kind
of wordy discharge or brain hæmorrhage required of a high official in
India. He would write ten pages where a clod-hopping collector would
write a sentence. He could say the same thing over and over again in a
hundred different ways. The feeble forms of official satire were at
his command. [He could bray ironically at subordinate officers. He had
the inborn arrogance required for official "snubbing." Being without a
ray of good feeling or modesty, he could allow himself to write with
ceremonial rudeness of men who in his inmost heart he knew to be in
every way his superiors.] He desired exceedingly to be thought
supercilious, and he thus became almost necessary to the Government of
India, was canonised, and caught up to Simla. The Indian papers
chanted little anthems, "the Services" said "Amen," and the apotheosis
was felt to be a success. On reaching Simla he was found to be
familiar with the two local "jokes," planted many years ago by some
jackass. One of these "jokes" is about everything in India having its
peculiar smell, except a flower; the second is some inanity about the
Indian Government being a despotism of despatch-boxes tempered by the
loss of the keys. He often emitted these mournful "jokes" until he was
declared to be an acquisition to Simla society.
Such is the man I am with to-day. His house is beautifully situated,
overlooking a deep ravine, full of noble pine-trees, and surrounded by
rhododendrons. The verandah is gay with geraniums and tall servants in
Imperial red deeply encrusted with gold. Within, all is very
respectable and nice, only the man is--not exactly vile, but certainly
imperfect in a somewhat conspicuous degree. With the more attractive
forms of sin he has no true sympathy. I can strike no concord with him
on this umbrageous side of nature. I am seriously shocked to discover
this, for he affects infirmity; but his humanity is weak. In his
character I perceive the perfect animal outline, but the colour is
wanting; the glorious sunshine, the profound glooms of humanity are
not there.
Such a man is dangerous; he decoys you into confidences. Even Satan
cannot respect a sinner of this complexion,--a sinner who is only
fascinated by the sinfulness of sin. As for my poor host, I can see
that he has never really graduated in sin at all; he has only sought
the degree of sinner _honoris causa_. I am sure that he never had
enough true vitality or enterprise to sin as a man ought to sin, if he
does sin. [Of course a man ought not to sin; and the nobler sort try
to reduce their sinning to a minimum; but when they do sin I hold that
they sin like men. (I have heard it said that a man should sin like a
gentleman; but I am much disposed to think that the gentleman nature
appears in the non-sinning lucid intervals.)] When I speak of sin I
will be understood to mean the venial offences of prevarication and
sleeping in church. I am not thinking of sheep-stealing or highway
robbery. My clever friend's work consists chiefly in reducing files of
correspondence on a particular subject to one or two leading thoughts.
Upon these he casts the colour of his own opinions, and submits the
subjective product to the Secretary or Member of Council above him for
final orders. His mind is one of the many dense and refractive mediums
through which the Government of India looks out upon India.
From time to time he is called upon to write a minute or a note on
some given subject, and then it is that his thoughts and words expand
freely. He feels bound to cover an area of paper proportionate to his
own opinion, of his own importance; he feels bound to introduce a
certain seasoning of foreign words and phrases; and he feels bound to
create, if the occasion seems in any degree to warrant it, one of
those cock-eyed, limping, stammering epigrams which belong exclusively
to the official humour of Simla. [In writing thus, the figure of
another Secretariat official rises before me with reproachful looks. I
see the thought-worn face of that Secretary to whom the Rajas belong,
and who is, in every particular, a striking contrast with the typical
person whose portrait I sketch. The Secretary in the Foreign
Department is a scholar and a man of letters by instinct. Whatever he
writes is something more than correct and precise--it is impressed
with the sweep and cadence of the sea; it is rhythmical, it is
sonorous.]
[But let us return to the prisoner in the dock] I have said that the
Secretary is clever, scornful, jocose, imperfectly sinful, and nimble
with his pen. I shall only add that he has succeeded in catching the
tone of the Imperial Bumbledom; and then I shall have finished my
defence.
This tone is an affectation of æsthetic and literary sympathies,
combined with a proud disdain of everything Indian and Anglo-Indian.
The flotsam and jetsam of advanced European thought are eagerly sought
and treasured up. "The New Republic" and "The Epic of Hades" are on
every drawing-room table. One must speak of nothing but the latest
doings at the Gaiety, the pictures of the last Academy, the ripest
outcome of scepticism in the _Nineteenth Century_, or the aftermath in
the _Fortnightly_. If I were to talk to our Secretariat man about the
harvest prospects of the Deckan, the beauty of the Himalayan scenery,
or the book I have just published in Calcutta about the Rent Law, he
would stare at me with feigned surprise and horror.
"When he thinks of his own native land,
In a moment he seems to be there;
But, alas! Ali Baba at hand
Soon hurries him back to despair."
ALI BABA.
No. VI
H.E. THE BENGALI BABOO
[Illustration: THE BENGALI BABOO--"Full of inappropriate words and
phrases."]
[September 13, 1879.]
The ascidian[B] that got itself evolved into Bengali Baboos must have
seized the first moment of consciousness and thought to regret the
step it had taken; for however much we may desire to diffuse Babooism
over the Empire, we must all agree that the Baboo itself is a subject
for tears.
The other day, as I was strolling down the Mall, whistling Beethoven's
9th Symphony, I met the Bengali Baboo. It was returning from office. I
asked it if it had a soul. It replied that it had not, but some day it
hoped to pass the matriculation examination of the Calcutta
University. I whistled the opening bars of one of Cherubini's
Requiems, but I saw no resurrection in its eye, so I passed on.
[I have just procured an adult specimen of the Bengali Baboo (it was
originally the editor of the _Calcutta Moonshine_), and I have engaged
an embryologist, on board wages, to examine and report upon it.
I once found George Bassoon weeping profusely over a dish of
artichokes. I was a little surprised, for there was a bottle close at
hand and he had a book in his hand. I took the book. It was not
Boccaccio; it was not Rabelais; it was not even Swinburne. I felt that
something must be wrong. I turned to the title-page. I found it was a
poem printed for private circulation by the _Government of India_. It
was called "The Anthropomorphous Baboo subtilised into Man."]
When I was at Lhassa the Dalai Lama told me that a virtuous
cow-hippopotamus by metempsychosis might, under unfavourable
circumstances, become an undergraduate of the Calcutta University, and
that, when patent-leather shoes and English supervened, the thing was
a Baboo. [This sounds very plausible; but how about the prehensile
tail which the Education Department finds so much in the way of
improvement, which indeed is said to preclude all access to the
Bengali mind, and which can grasp everything but an idea, even an
inquisitorial schoolmaster? "Hereby hangs a tail" is a motto in which
Edward Gibbon had no monopoly.]
I forget whether it was the Duke of Buckingham, or Mr. Lethbridge, or
General Scindia--I always mix up these C.I.E.'s together in my mind
somehow--who told me that a Bengali Baboo had never been known to
laugh, but only to giggle with clicking noises like a crocodile. Now
this is very telling evidence, because if a Baboo does not laugh at a
C.I.E. he will laugh at nothing. The faculty must be wanting.
[The Raja of Fattehpur, Member of the Legislative Council, and
commonly known as "Joe Hookham," says that fossil Baboos have been
found in Orissa with the cuckoo-bone, everything that a schoolmaster
could wish. Now "Joe" is a palæontologist not to be sneezed at. This
confirms the opinion of General Cunningham that the mounted figure in
the neighbourhood of Lahore represents a Bengali washerwoman riding to
the _Ghât_ to perform a lustration. Because unless the _os coccyx_
were all right it would be as difficult to ride a bullock as to get
educated by the usual process.]
When Lord Macaulay said that what the milk was to the cocoanut, what
beauty was to the buffalo, and what scandal was to woman, that Dr.
Johnson's Dictionary was to the Bengali Baboo, he unquestionably spoke
in terms of figurative exaggeration; nevertheless, a core of truth
lies hidden in his remark. It is by the Baboo's words you know the
Baboo. The true Baboo is full of words and phrases--full of
inappropriate words and phrases lying about like dead men on a
battlefield, in heaps to be carted away promiscuously, without
reference to kith or kin. You may turn on a Baboo at any moment and be
quite sure that words, and phrases, and maxims, and proverbs will come
gurgling forth, without reference to the subject or to the occasion,
to what has gone before or to what will come after. Perhaps it was
with reference to this independence, buoyancy, and gaiety of language
that Lord Lytton declared the Bengali to be "the Irishman of India."
You know, dear Vanity, I whispered to you before that the poor Baboo
often suffers from a slight aberration of speech which prevents his
articulating the truth--a kind of moral lisp. Lord Lytton could not
have been alluding to this; for it was only yesterday that I heard an
Irishman speak the truth to Lord Lytton about some little matter--I
forget what; cotton duty, I think--and Lord Lytton said, rather
curtly, "Why, you have often told me this before." So Lord Lytton must
be in the habit of hearing certain truths from the Irish.
It was either Sir Andrew Clarke, Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, or Sir
Some-one-else, who understands all about these things, that first told
me of the tendency to Baboo worship in England at present. I
immediately took steps, when I heard of it, to capitalise my pension
and purchase gold mines in the Wynaad and shares in the Simla Bank.
(Colonel Peterson, of the Simla Fencibles, supported me gallantly in
this latter resolution.) The notion of so dreadful a form of fetishism
establishing itself in one's native land is repugnant to the feelings
even of those who have been rendered callous to such things by seats
in the Bengal Legislative Council. [I refuse to believe that the
Zoological Society has lent its apiary to this movement. It must have
been a spelling-bee your informant was thinking of.
Talking of monkey-houses reminds me of] Sir George Campbell, who took
such an interest in the development of the Baboo, and the selection of
the fittest for Government employment. He taught them in
debating-clubs the various modes of conducting irresponsible
parliamentary chatter; and he tried to encourage pedestrianism and
football to evolve their legs and bring them into something like
harmony with their long pendant arms. You can still see a few of Sir
George's leggy Baboos coiled up in corners of lecture-rooms at
Calcutta. The Calcutta Cricket Club used to employ one as permanent
"leg." [The Indian Turf Club used to keep a professional "leg," but
now there are so many amateurs it is not required.]
It is the future of Baboodom I tremble for. When they wax fat with new
religions, music, painting, Comédie Anglaise, scientific discoveries,
they may kick with those developed legs of theirs, until we shall have
to think that they are something more than a joke, more than a mere
_lusus naturæ_, more than a caricature moulded by the accretive and
differentiating impulses of the monad[C] in a moment of wanton
playfulness. The fear is that their tendencies may infect others. The
patent-leather shoes, the silk umbrellas, the ten thousand horse-power
English words and phrases, and the loose shadows of English thought,
which are now so many Aunt Sallies for all the world to fling a jeer
at, might among other races pass into _dummy soldiers_, and from dummy
soldiers into trampling, hope-bestirred crowds, and so on, out of the
province of Ali Baba and into the columns of serious reflection. Mr.
Wordsworth and his friends the Dakhani Brahmans should consider how
painful it would be, when deprived of the consolations of religion, to
be solemnly repressed by the _Pioneer_--to be placed under that
steam-hammer which by the descent of a paragraph can equally crack the
tiniest of jokes and the hardest of political nuts, can suppress
unauthorised inquiry and crush disaffection.
At present the Baboo is merely a grotesque Bracken shadow, but in the
course of geological ages it might harden down into something
palpable. It is this possibility that leads Sir Ashley Eden to advise
the Baboo to revert to its original type; but it is not so easy to
become homogeneous after you have been diluted with the physical
sciences and stirred about by Positivists and missionaries. "I would I
were a protoplastic monad!" may sound very rhythmical, poetical, and
all that; but even for a Baboo the aspiration is not an easy one to
gratify.--ALI BABA.
No. VII
WITH THE RAJA
[September 20, 1879.]
Try not to laugh, Dear Vanity. I know you don't mean anything by it;
but these Indian kings are so sensitive. The other day I was
translating to a young Raja what Val Prinsep had said about him in his
"Purple India"; he had only said that he was a dissipated young ass
and as ugly as a baboon; but the boy was quite hurt and began to cry,
and I had to send for the Political Agent to quiet him and put him to
sleep. When you consider the matter philosophically there is nothing
_per se_ ridiculous in a Raja. Take a hypothetical case: picture to
yourself a Raja who does not get drunk without some good reason, who
is not ostentatiously unfaithful to his five-and-twenty queens and his
five-and-twenty grand duchesses, who does not festoon his thorax and
abdomen with curious cutlery and jewels, who does not paint his face
with red ochre, and who sometimes takes a sidelong glance at his
affairs, and there is no reason why you should not think of such a one
as an Indian king. India is not very fastidious; so long as the
Government is satisfied, the people of India do not much care what the
Rajas are like. A peasant proprietor said to Mr. Caird and me the
other day, "We are poor cultivators; we cannot afford to keep Rajas.
The Rajas are for the Lord Sahib."
The young Maharaja of Kuch Parwani assures me that it is not
considered the thing for a Raja at the present day to govern. "A
really swell Raja amuses himself." One hoards money, another plays at
soldiering, a third is horsey, a fourth is amorous, and a fifth gets
drunk; at least so Kuch Parwani thinks. Please don't say that I told
you this. The Foreign Secretary knows what a high opinion I have of
the Rajas, and indeed he often employs me to whitewash them when they
get into scrapes. "A little playful, perhaps, but no more loyal Prince
in India!" This is the kind of thing I put into the Annual
Administration Reports of the Agencies, and I stick to it. Playful no
doubt, but a more loyal class than the Rajas there is not in India.
They have built their houses of cards on the thin crust of British
Rule that now covers the crater, and they are ever ready to pour a
pannikin of water into a crack to quench the explosive forces rumbling
below.