simple in his habits. At an early hour he issues from the zenana and
joins two or three of his thakores, or barons, who are on duty at
Court, in the morning draught of opium. They sit in a circle, and a
servant in the centre goes round and pours the _kasumbha_[D] out of a
brass bowl and through a woollen cloth into their hands, out of which
they lap it up. Then a cardamum to take away the acrid after-taste.
One hums drowsily two or three bars of an old-world song; another
clears his throat and spits; the Chief yawns, and all snap their
fingers, to prevent evil spirits skipping into his throat; a late
riser joins the circle, and all, except the Chief, give him
_tazim_--that is, rise and salaam; a coarse jest or two, and the party
disperses. A crowd of servants swarm round the Chief as he shuffles
slowly away. Three or four mace-bearers walk in front shouting, "Raja,
Maharaja salaamat ho; niga rakhiyo!" ("Please take notice; to the
King, the great King, let there be salutation!") A confidential
servant continually leans forward and whispers in his ear; another
remains close at hand with a silver tea-pot containing water and
wrapped up in a wet cloth to keep it cool; a third constantly whisks a
yak's tail over the King's head; a fourth carries my Lord's sword; a
fifth his handkerchief; and so on. Where is he going? He dawdles up a
narrow staircase, through a dark corridor, down half-a-dozen steep
steps, across a courtyard overgrown with weeds, up another staircase,
along another passage, and so to a range of heavy quilted red screens
that conceal doors leading into the female penetralia. Here we must
leave him. Two servants disappear behind the _parda_ with their
master, the others promptly lie down where they are, draw the sheets
or blankets which they have been wearing over their faces and feet,
and sleep. About noon we see the King again. He is dressed in white
flowing robes with a heavy carcanet of emeralds round his neck. His
red turban is tied with strings of seed pearls and set off with an
aigrette springing from a diamond brooch. He sits on the Royal
mattress, the _gaddi_.[E] A big bolster covered with green velvet
supports his back; his sword and shield are gracefully disposed before
him. At the corner of the _gaddi_ sits a little representation of
himself in miniature, complete even to the sword and shield. This is
his adopted son and heir. For all the queens and all the grand
duchesses are childless, and a little kinsman had to be transplanted
from a mud village among the cornfields to this dreamland palace to
perpetuate the line. On the corners of the carpet on which the _gaddi_
rests sit thakores of the Royal house, other thakores sit below, right
and left, forming two parallel lines, dwindling into sardars, palace
officers, and others of lower rank as they recede from the _gaddi_.
Behind the Chief stand the servants with the emblems of royalty--the
peacock feathers, the fan, the yak tail, and the umbrella (now
furled). The confidential servant is still whispering into the ear of
his master from time to time. This is durbar. No one speaks, unless to
exchange a languid compliment with the Chief. Presently essence of
roses and a compound of areca nut and lime are circulated, then a huge
silver pipe is brought in, the Chief takes three long pulls, the
thakores on the carpet each take a pull, and the levée breaks up amid
profound salaams. After this--dinner, opium, and sleep.
In the cool of the evening our King emerges from the palace, and,
riding on a prodigiously fat white horse with pink points, proceeds to
the place of carousal. A long train of horsemen follow him, and
footmen run before with guns in red flannel covers and silver maces,
shouting "Raja Maharaja salaamat," &c. The horsemen immediately around
him are mounted on well-fed and richly-caparisoned steeds, with all
the bravery of cloth-of-gold, yak-tails, silver chains, and strings of
shells; behind are troopers in a burlesque of English uniform; and
altogether in the rear is a mob of caitiffs on skeleton chargers,
masquerading in every degree of shabbiness and rags, down to nakedness
and a sword. The cavalcade passes through the city. The inhabitants
pour out of every door and bend to the ground. Red cloths and white
veils flutter at the casements overhead. You would hardly think that
the spectacle was one daily enjoyed by the city. There is all the
hurrying and eagerness of novelty and curiosity. Here and there a
little shy crowd of women gather at a door and salute the Chief with a
loud shrill verse of discordant song. It is some national song of the
Chiefs ancestors and of the old heroic days. The place of carousal is
a bare spot near a large and ancient well out of which grows a vast
pipal tree. Hard by is a little temple surmounted by a red flag on a
drooping bamboo. It is here that the _Gangôr_[F] and _Dassahra_[F]
solemnities are celebrated. Arrived on the ground, the Raja slowly
circles his horse; then, jerking the thorn-bit, causes him to advance
plunging and rearing, but dropping first on the near foot and then on
the off foot with admirable precision; and finally, making the white
monster, now in a lather of sweat, rise up and walk a few steps on his
hind legs, the Raja's performance concludes amid many shouts of wonder
and delight from the smooth-tongued courtiers. The thakores and
sardars now exhibit their skill in the _manége_ until the shades of
night fall, when torches are brought, amid much salaaming, and the
cavalcade defiles, through the city, back to the palace. Lights are
twinkling from the higher casements and reflected on the lake below;
the _gola_[G] slave-girls are singing plaintive songs, drum and conch
answer from the open courtyards. The palace is awake. The Raja, we
will romantically presume, bounds lightly from his horse and dances
gaily to the harem to fling himself voluptuously into the luxurious
arms of one of the five-and-twenty queens, or one of the
five-and-twenty grand duchesses; and they stand for one delirious
moment wreathed in each other's embraces--
While soft there breathes
Through the cool casement, mingled with the sighs
Of moonlight flowers, music that seems to rise
From some still lake, so liquidly it rose,
And, as it swell'd again at each faint close,
The ear could track through all that maze of chords
And young sweet voices these impassioned words--
"Ho, you there! fetch us a pint of gin! and look sharp, will you!"
For who, in time, knows whither we may vent
The treasure of our tongue, to what strange shores
This gain of our best glory shall be sent,
To enrich unknowing nations with our stores!
What worlds in the yet unformèd Orient
May come refined with accents that are ours!
But, dear Vanity, I can see that you are impatient of scenes whose
luxuries steal, spite of yourself, too deep into your soul; besides, I
dread the effect of such warm situations on a certain Zuleika to whom
the note of Ali Baba is like the thrice-distilled strains of the
bulbul on Bendemeer's stream. So let us electrify ourselves back to
prose and propriety by thinking of the Political Agent; let us plunge
into the cold waters of dreary reality by conjuring up a figure in
tail-coat and gold buttons dispensing justice while H.H. the romantic
and picturesque Raja, G.C.S.I., amuses himself. Yet we hear cries from
the gallery of "Vive M. le Raja; vive la bagatelle!"
So say we, in faint echoes, defying the anathemas of the Foreign
Office. Do not turn this beautiful temple of ancient days into a mere
mill for decrees and budgets; but sweep it and purify it, and render
it a fitting shrine for the homage and tribute of antique
loyalty--"that proud submission, that subordination of the heart which
kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted
freedom." With tail-coat and cocked-hat government "the unbought grace
of life, the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment
and heroic enterprise is gone."--ALI BABA.
No. VIII
WITH THE POLITICAL AGENT
A MAN IN BUCKRAM
[Illustration: THE POLITICAL AGENT--"A man in buckram."]
[September 27, 1879.]
This is a most curious product of the Indian bureaucracy. Nothing in
all White Baboodom is so wonderful as the Political Agent. A near
relation of the Empress who was travelling a good deal about India
some three or four years ago said that he would rather get a Political
Agent, with raja, chuprassies,[H] and everything complete, to take
home, than the unfigured "mum" of Beluchistan, or the sea-aye-ee
mocking bird, _Kokiolliensis Lyttonia_. But the Political Agent cannot
be taken home. The purple bloom fades in the scornful climate of
England; the paralytic swagger passes into sheer imbecility; the
thirteen-gun tall talk reverberates in jeering echoes; the chuprassies
are only so many black men, and the raja is felt to be a joke. The
Political Agent cannot live beyond Aden.
The Government of India keeps its Political Agents scattered over the
native states in small jungle stations. It furnishes them with
maharajas, nawabs, rajas, and chuprassies, according to their rank,
and it usually throws in a house, a gaol, a doctor, a volume of
Aitchison's Treaties, an escort of native Cavalry, a Star of India,
an assistant, the powers of a first-class magistrate, a flag-staff,
six camels, three tents, and a salute of eleven or thirteen
guns. In very many cases the Government of India nominates
a Political Agent to the rank of Son-to-a-Lieut.-Governor,
Son-in-Law-to-a-Lieut.-Governor, Son-to-a-member-of-Council, or
Son-to-an-agent-to-the-Governor-General. Those who are thus elevated
to the Anglo-Indian peerage need have no thought for the morrow what
they shall do, what they shall say, or wherewithal they shall be
supplied with a knowledge of Oriental language and occidental law.
Nature clothes them with increasing quantities of gold lace and starry
ornaments, and that charming, if unblushing, female--Lord Lytton begs
me to write "maid"--Miss Anglo-Indian Promotion, goes skipping about
among them like a joyful kangaroo.
The Politicals are a Greek chorus in our popular burlesque, "Empire."
The Foreign Secretary is the prompter. The company is composed of
nawabs and rajas (with the Duke of Buckingham as a "super"). Lord
Meredith is the scene-shifter; Sir John, the manager. The Secretary of
State, with his council, is in the stage-box; the House of Commons in
the stalls; the London Press in the gallery; the East Indian
Association, Exeter Hall, Professor Fawcett, Mr. Hyndman, and the
criminal classes generally, in the pit; while those naughty little
Scotch boys, the shock-headed Duke and Monty Duff, who once tried to
turn down the lights, pervade the house with a policeman on their
horizon. As we enter the theatre a dozen chiefs are dancing in the
ballet to express their joy at the termination of the Afghan War. The
political _choreutæ_ are clapping their hands, encouraging them by
name and pointing them out to the gallery.
The government of a native state by clerks and chuprassies, with a
beautiful _fainéant_ Political Agent for Sundays and Hindu festivals,
is, I am told, a thing of the past. Colonel Henderson, the imperial
"Peeler," tells me so, and he ought to know, for he is a kind of
demi-official superintendent of Thugs and Agents. Nowadays, my
informant assures me, the Political Agents undergo a regular training
in a Madras Cavalry Regiment or in the Central India Horse, or on the
Viceroy's Staff, and if they have to take charge of a Mahratta State
they are obliged to pass an examination in classical Persian poetry.
This is as it ought to be. The intricacies of Oriental intrigue and
the manifold complication of tenure and revenue that entangle
administrative procedure in the protected principalities, will unravel
themselves in presence of men who have enjoyed such advantages.
When I first came out to this country I was placed in charge of three
degrees of latitude and eight of longitude in Rajputana that I might
learn the language. The soil was sandy, the tenure feudal
(_zabardast_,[I] as we call it in India), and the Raja a lunatic by
nature and a dipsomaniac by education. He had been educated by his
grandmamma and the hereditary Minister. I found that his grandmamma
and the hereditary Minister were most anxious to relieve me of the
most embarrassing details of government, so I handed them a copy of
the Ten Commandments, underlining two that I thought might be useful,
and put them in charge. They were old-fashioned in their methods--like
Sir Billy Jones; but the result was admirable. In two years the
revenue was reduced from ten to two lakhs of rupees, and the
expenditure proportionately increased. A bridge, a summer-house, and a
school were built; and I wrote the longest "Administration Report"
that has ever issued from the Zulmabad Residency. When I left money
was so cheap and lightly regarded that I sold my old buggy horse for
two thousand rupees to grandmamma, with many mutual expressions of
good-will--through a curtain--and I have not been paid to this day.
But since then the horse-market has been ruined in the native states
by these imperial _mélas_[J] and durbars. A poor Political has no
chance against these Government of India people, who come down with
strings of three-legged horses, and--no, I won't say they sell them to
the chiefs--I should be having a commission of my _khidmatgars_[K]
sitting upon me, like poor Har Sahai, who was beaten by Mr. Saunders,
and Malhar Rao Gaikwar, who fancied his Resident was going to poison
him.
I like to see a Political up at Simla wooing that hoyden Promotion in
her own sequestered bower. It is good to see Hercules toiling at the
feet of Omphale. It is good to see Pistol fed upon leeks by
Under-Secretaries and women. How simple he is! How boyish he can be,
and yet how intense! He will play leap frog at Annandale; he will
paddle about in the stream below the water-falls without shoes and
stockings; but if you allude in the most distant way to rajas or
durbars, he lets down his face a couple of holes and talks like a
weather prophet. He will be so interesting that you can hardly bear
it; so interesting that you will feel sorry he is not talking to the
Governor-General up at Peterhoff.
[But I feel that an Agent to the Governor-General is looking over my
shoulder, so perhaps I had better stop; though I know two or three
things about Politicals.]--SIR ALI BABA, K.C.B.[L]
No. IX
WITH THE COLLECTOR
[October 4, 1879.]
Was it not the Bishop of Bombay who said that man was an automaton
plus the mirror of consciousness? The Government of every Indian
province is an automaton plus the mirror of consciousness. The
Secretariat is consciousness, and the Collectors form the automaton.
The Collector works, and the Secretariat observes and registers.
To the people of India the Collector is the Imperial Government. He
watches over their welfare in the many facets which reflect our
civilisation. He establishes schools and dispensaries [for their
children], gaols [for their troublesome relations and neighbours], and
courts of justice [for the benefit of their brothers who can talk and
write]. He levies the rent of their fields, he fixes the tariff, and
he nominates to every appointment, from that of road-sweeper or
constable, to the great blood-sucking officers round the Court and
Treasury. As for Boards of Revenue and Lieutenant-Governors who
occasionally come sweeping across the country, with their locust hosts
of servants and petty officials, they are but an occasional nightmare;
while the Governor-General is a mere shadow in the background of
thought, half blended with "John Company Bahadur" and other myths of
the dawn.
The Collector lives in a long rambling bungalow furnished with folding
chairs and tables, and in every way marked by the provisional
arrangements of camp life. He seems to have just arrived from out of
the firmament of green fields and mango groves that encircles the
little station where he lives; or he seems just about to pass away
into it again. The shooting-howdahs are lying in the verandah, the
elephant of a neighbouring landowner is swinging his hind foot to and
fro under a tree, or switching up straw and leaves on to his back, a
dozen camels are lying down in a circle making bubbling noises, and
tents are pitched here and there to dry, like so many white wings on
which the whole establishment is about to rise and fly away--fly away
into "the district," which is the correct expression for the vast
expanse of level plain melting into blue sky on the wide
horizon-circle around.
The Collector is a bustling man. He is always in a hurry. His
multitudinous duties succeed one another so fast that one is never
ended before the next begins. A mysterious thing called "the Joint"
comes gleaning after him, I believe, and completes the inchoate work.
The verandah is full of fat black men in clean linen waiting for
interviews. They are bankers, shopkeepers, and landholders, who have
only come to "pay their respects," with ever so little a petition as a
corollary. The chuprassie-vultures hover about them. Each of these
obscene fowls has received a gratification from each of the clean fat
men; else the clean fat men would not be in the verandah. This import
tax is a wholesome restraint upon the excessive visiting tendencies of
wealthy men of colour. [Several little groups of] brass dishes filled
with pistachio nuts and candied sugar are ostentatiously displayed
here and there; they are the oblations of the would-be visitors. The
English call these offerings "dollies"; the natives _dáli_. They
represent in the profuse East the visiting cards of the meagre West.
Although from our lofty point of observation, among the pine-trees,
the Collector seems to be of the smallest social calibre, a mere
carronade, not to be distinguished by any proper name; in his own
district he is a Woolwich Infant; and a little community of
microscopicals,--doctors, engineers, inspectors of schools, and
assistant magistrates, look up to him as to a magnate.
They tell little stories of his weaknesses and eccentricities, and his
wife is considered a person entitled "to give herself airs" (within
the district) if she feels so disposed; while to their high dinners is
allowed the use of champagne and "Europe" talk on æsthetic subjects.
The Collector is not, however, permitted to wear a chimney-pot hat and
gloves on Sunday (unless he has been in the Provincial Secretariat as
a boy); a Terai hat is sufficient for a Collector.
A Collector is usually a sportsman; when he is a poet, a
co-respondent, or a neologist it is thought rather a pity; and he is
spoken of in undertones. Neology is considered especially
reprehensible. The junior member of the Board of Revenue, or even the
Commissioner of a division (if he be _pukka_)[M], may question the
literal inspiration of Genesis; but it is not good form for a
Collector to tamper with his Bible. A Collector should have no leisure
for opinions of any sort.
I have said that a Collector is usually a sportsman. In this capacity
he is frequently made use of by the Viceroy and long-shore Governors,
as he is an adept at showing sport to globe-trotters. The villagers
who live on the borders of the jungle will generally turn out and beat
for the Collector, and the petty chief who owns the jungle always
keeps a tiger or two for district officers. A Political Agent's tiger
is known to be a domestic animal suitable for delicate noble Lords
travelling for health; but a Collector's tiger is often [believed to
be almost] a wild beast, although usually reared upon buffalo calves
and accustomed to be driven. [Of course the tiger which the Collector
and his friends shoot is quite an inferior article; a fierce, roaming
creature that lives upon spotted deer when it can get them, but is
often quite savage from hunger.] The Collector, who is always the most
unselfish and hospitable of men, only kills the fatted tiger for
persons of distinction with letters of introduction. Any common jungle
tiger, even a man-eater, is good enough for himself and his friends.
The Collector never ventures to approach Simla, when on leave. At
Simla people would stare and raise their eye-brows if they heard that
a Collector was on the hill. They would ask what sort of a thing a
Collector was. The Press Commissioner would be sent to interview it.
The children at Peterhoff would send for it to play with. So the
clodhopping Collector goes to Naini Tal or Darjiling, where he is
known either as Ellenborough Higgins, or Higgins of Gharibpur in
territorial fashion. Here he is understood. Here he can bubble of his
_Bandobast_,[N] his _Balbacha_[O] and his _Bawarchikhana_;[P] and here
he can speak in familiar accents of his neighbours, Dalhousie Smith
and Cornwallis Jones. All day long he strides up and down the club
verandah with his old Haileybury chum Teignmouth Tompkins; and they
compare experiences of the hunting-field and office, and denounce in
unmeasured terms of Oriental vituperation the new sort of civilian who
moves about with the Penal Code under his arm and measures his
authority by statute, clause, and section.
In England the Collector is to be found riding at anchor in the
Bandicoot Club. He makes two or three hurried cruises to his native
village, where he finds himself half forgotten. This sours him. The
climate seems worse than of old, the means of locomotion at his
disposal are inconvenient and expensive; he yearns for the sunshine
and elephants of Gharibpur, and returns an older and a quieter man.
The afternoon of life is throwing longer shadows, the Acheron of
promotion is gaping before him; he falls into a Commissionership;
still deeper into an officiating seat on the Board of Revenue.
_Facilis est descensus, etc._ Nothing will save him now;
transmigration has set in; the gates of Simla fly open; it is all
over. Let us pray that his halo may fit him.--ALI BABA, K.C.B.
No. X
BABY IN PARTIBUS
[October 11, 1879.]
The Empire has done less for Anglo-Indian Babies than for any class of
the great exile community. Legislation provides them with neither
rattle nor coral, privilege leave nor pension. Papa has a Raja and
Star of India to play with; Mamma the Warrant of Precedence and the
Hill Captains; but Baby has nothing--not even a missionary; Baby is
without the amusement of the meanest cannibal.
Baby is debarred from the society of his compatriots. His father is
cramped and frozen with the chill cares of office; his mother is
deadened by the gloomy routine of economy and fashion; custom lies
upon her with a weight heavy as frost and deep almost as life; the
fountains of natural fancy and mirth are frozen over; so Baby lisps
his dawn pæans in soft Oriental accents, wakening harmonious echoes
amongst those impulsive and impressionable children of Nature that
masque themselves in the black slough of Bearers and Ayahs; and Baby
blubbers in Hindustani.
These Ayah and Bearer people sit with Baby in the verandah on a little
carpet; broken toys and withered flowers lie around. They croon to
Baby some old-world _katabaukalesis_, while beauty, born of murmuring
sound, passes into Baby's eyes. The squirrel sits chirruping
familiarly on the edge of the verandah with his tail in the air and
some uncracked pericarp in his uplifted hands, the kite circles aloft
and whistles a shrill and mournful note, the sparrows chatter, the
crow clears his throat, the minas scream discordantly, and Baby's
soft, receptive nature thus absorbs an Indian language. Very soon Baby
will think from right to left, and will lisp in the luxuriant bloom of
Oriental hyperbole. [Presently, when Baby grows a little older, Baby
will say to the Bearer, through his sweet little nose, "Arreh! Ulu ka
bacha, tu kya karta hai?" Which being interpreted, is, "Ah! Child of
night's sweet bird, what dost thou now?" Afterwards Baby will learn to
say many other things which it is not good to repeat here.]
In the evening Baby will go out for an airing with the Bearer and Ayah
people, and while they dawdle along the dusty road, or sit on
kerb-stones and on culvert parapets, he will listen to the extensile
tale of their simple sorrows. He will hear, with a sigh, that the
profits of petty larceny are declining; he will be taught to regret
the increasing infirmities of his Papa's temper; and portraits in
sepia of his Mamma will be observed by him to excite laughter mingled
with dark impulsive words. Thus there will pass into Baby's eyes
glances of suspicious questionings, "the blank misgivings of a
creature moving about in worlds not realised."
In the long summer days Baby will patter listlessly about the darkened
rooms accompanied by his suite, who will carry a feeding bottle--Maw's
Patent Feeding Bottle--just as the Sergeant-at-Arms carries the mace;
and, from time to time, little Mister Speaker will squat down on his
dear little hams and take a refreshing pull or two. At breakfast and
luncheon time little Mister Speaker will straggle into the
dining-room, and fond parents will give him a tidbit of many soft
dainties, to be washed down with brandy and water, beer, sherry, or
other alcoholic draught. On such broken meals Baby is raised.