Under my window, in the street called Cossitollah, flows all the
motliness of a Calcutta thoroughfare in two counter-setting currents;--
one Chowriagee-ward, in the direction of Nabob magnificence and grace;
the other toward the Cooly squalor and deformity of the Radda Bazaar;--
and as, in the glare of the early forenoon sun, the shadows of the
hither or thither passing throngs fall straight across the way, from
the Parsee's _godown_, over against me, to the gate of the _pucca_
house wherein my look-out is, I watch with interest the frequent
eddies occasioned by the clear-steerings of caste,--Brahmin, Warrior,
and Merchant keeping severely to the Parsee side, so that the foul
shadow of Soodra or Pariah may not pollute their sacred persons. It
is as though my window were a tower of Allahabad, and below me, in
Cossitollah, were the shy meeting of the waters. Thus, looking up or
down, I mark how the limpid Jumna of high caste holds its way in a
common bed, but never mingling with the turbid Ganges of an unclean
rabble.
Reader, should you ever "do" the City of Palaces, permit me to
commend with especial emphasis to your consideration this same
Cossitollah, as a representative street, wherein the European and
Asiatic elements of the Calcutta panorama are mingled in the most
picturesque proportions; for Cossitollah is the link that most
directly joins the pitiful benightedness of the Black Town to the
imposing splendors of Kumpnee Bahadoor,--the short, but stubborn
chain of responsibility, as it were, whereby the ball of helpless
and infatuated stock-and-stone-worship is fastened to the leg of
British enlightenment and accountability.
From the Midaun, or Parade Ground, with its long-drawn arrays of
Sepoy chivalry, its grand reviews before the _Burra Lard Sahib_,
(as in domestic Bengalee we designate the Governor-General,) its
solemn sham battles, and its welkin-rending regimental bands, by
whose brass and sheepskin God saves the Queen twice a day; from
Government House, with its historic pride, pomp, and circumstance,
and its red tape, its aides-de-camp, and its adjutant-birds, its
stirring associations, and its stupid architecture; from the
pensioned aristocracy of Chowringhee the Magnificent; from the
carnival concourse of the Esplanade, with its kaleidoscopic surprises;
from the grim patronage of Fort William, with its in-every-department
well-regulated fee-faw-fum; in fine, from Clive, and Hastings, and
Wellington, and Gough, and Hardinge, and Napier, and Bentinck, and
Ellenborough, and Dalhousie, and all the John Company that has come
of them; from the tremendous and overwhelming SAHIB, to that most
profoundly abject of human objects, the Hindoo PARIAH, (who
approaches thee, O Awful Being! O Benign Protector of the Poor! O
Writer in the Salt-and-Opium Office! on his hands and knees, and
with a wisp of grass in his mouth, to denote that he is thy beast,)--
from all those to this, the shortest cut is through Cossitollah.
And so, in the current of its passengers, partaking the
characteristics of its contrasted extremities, fantastically blending
the purple and fine linen of Chowringhee with the breech-cloths of
the Black Town, Cossitollah is, as I have said, preëminently the
type street of Calcutta. Other localities have their peculiar throngs,
and certain classes and castes are proper to certain thoroughfares;--
Sepoys and dogboys to the Midaun; _circars_ or clerks, and
_ chowkeydars_ or private police, to Tank Square; a world of
pampered women, fat civil servants, coachmen, _ayahs_ or nurses,
_durwans_ or doorkeepers, _cha-prasseys_ or messengers, _kitmudgars_
or waiters, to Garden Reach; palanquin-bearers, the smaller fry of
_banyans_ or shopkeepers, and _dandees_ or boatmen, to the Ghauts;
together with no end of coolies, and _bheestees_ or water-carriers,
horse-dealers, and _syces_ or grooms, to Durumtollah; sailors,
British and American, Malay and Lascar, to Flag Street, the quarter
of punch-houses;--but in Cossitollah all castes and vocations are met,
whether their talk be of gold mohurs or cowries; here the Sahib gives
the horrid leper a wide berth, and the Baboo walks carefully round the
shadow of Mehtur, the sweeper. Therefore, reader, Cossitollah is by
all means the street for you to draw profound conclusions from.
Come, let us sit in the window and observe; it is but forty puffs of
a No. 3 cheroot, in a lazy palanquin, from one end of Cossitollah to
the other; and from our window, though not exactly midway, but
nearer the Bazaar, we can see from Flag Street wellnigh to the Midaun.
What is this? A close _palkee_, with a passenger; the bearers, with
elbows sharply crooked, and calves all varicose, trotting to a
monotonous, jerking ditty, which the _sirdar_, or leader, is
impudently improvising, to the refrain of _Putterum_, ("Easy now!")
at the expense of their fare's _amour-propre_.
"Out of the way there!
_Putterum_.
This is a Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Very small Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Sixpenny Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Holes in his elbows!
_Putterum_.
Capitan Slipshod!
_Putterum_.
Son of a sea-cook!
_Putterum_.
Hush! he will beat us!
_Putterum_.
Hush! he will kick us!
_Putterum_.
Kick us and curse us!
_Putterum_.
Not he, the greenhorn!
_Putterum_.
Don't understand us!
_Putterum_.
Don't know the lingo!
_Putterum_.
Let's shake the palkee!
_Putterum_.
Rattle the pig's bones!
_Putterum_.
Set down the palkee!
_Putterum_.
Call him a great lord!
_Putterum_.
Ask him for buksheesh!
_Putterum_."
And the four consummate knaves do set down the palkee, and shift the
pads on their shoulders; while the sirdar slips round to the
sliding-door, and timidly intruding his sweaty phiz, at an opening
sufficiently narrow to guard his nose against assault from within,
but wide enough to give us a glimpse, through an out-bursting cloud
of cheroot-smoke, of a pair of stout legs encased in white duck,
with the neatest of light pumps at the end of them, says:--
"_Buksheesh do, Sahib! buksheesh do_! O favorite slave of the Lord!
O tender shepherd of the poor! O sublime and beautiful Being, upon
whose turban Prosperity dances and Peace makes her bed! Whose mother
is twin-sister to the Sacred Cow, and whose grandmother is the Lotos
of Seven Virtues! _O Khodabund! buksheesh do_! Bestow upon thy
abject and self-despising slave wherewithal to commemorate the
golden hour when, by a blessed dispensation, he was permitted to lay
his trembling forehead against thy victorious feet!"
"_Jou-jehennum, toom sooa_!--Go to Gehenna, you pig! What are you
bothering about, with your 'boxes,' 'boxes,' nothing but 'boxes'?
Insatiable brutes! _Jou_! I tell you,--_jeldie jou_! or by Doorga,
the goddess of awful rows, I'll smash the palkee and outrage all
your religious prejudices! _Jou_!"
Evidently our varicose friends imagine they have caught a Tartar,
and that the white ducks are not so recent an importation as they at
first supposed; for now they catch up the pole of the palkee nimbly,
and _jou jeldie_ (that is, trot up smartly) to quite another song.
"_Jeldie jou, jeldie_!"
_Putterum_.
Carry him softly!
_Putterum_.
Swiftly and smoothly!
_Putterum_.
He is a Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Rich little Rajah!
_Putterum_.
Fierce little Rajah!
_Putterum_.
See how his eyes flash!
_Putterum_.
Hear how his voice roars!
_Putterum_.
He is a Tippoo!
_Putterum_.
Capitan Tippoo!
_Putterum_.
Tremble before him!
_Putterum_.
Serve him and please him!
_Putterum_.
Please him and serve him!
_Putterum_.
He will reward us!
_Putterum_.
He will protect us!
_Putterum_.
He will enrich us!
_Putterum_.
Charity Lord Sa'b!
_Putterum._
Out of the way there!
_Putterum_.
Way for the great ...
_Putterum_.
Rajah of ten crores!
_Putter_....
.... Ten crores!..
_Putter_....
Rajah.... ....
_Put...._
.... Lard.... ..
_Putter...._
.... ... Sa'b!
_.... rum_.
And so they have turned down Flag Street.
But what now? Here is something more imposing,--a chariot-and-four,--
four spanking Arabs in gold-mounted trappings,--a fat and elaborate
coachman, very solemn,--two tall _hurkarus_, or avant-couriers,
supporting the box, one on either side, with studied symmetry, like
Siva and Vishnu upholding the throne of Brahma,--four _syces_ running
at the horses' heads, each with his _chowree_, or fly-flapper, made
from the tail of the Thibet cow,--a fifth before, to clear the way,--
a basket of _Simpkin_, which is as though one should say Champagne,
behind, and our own _banyan_, our man of contracts and ready lakhs,
that shrewd broker and substantial banker, the Baboo Kalidas Ramaya
Mullick, on the back seat.
"_Hi! Cliattak-wallah! Bheestee!--Hi! hi_!--You chap with the
umbrella, you fellow with the water, clear the way! This Baboo comes,
this Baboo rides,--he stops not, he stays not,--he is rich, he is
honored. Shall a pig impede him? Shall a pig delay him? Jump,
_sooa_. Jump!"
And thus, amid much vociferation, and unceremonious dispersing of the
common herd, who dodge with practised agility right and left, the
fat and elaborate coachman pulls up the spanking Arabs at our
_godown_ gate, and the Baboo alights with the air of a gentleman
of thirty lachs, to the manner born; to him all this outcry is but
_Mamoul_,--usage, custom,--and _Mamoul_ is to him as air.
As the Baboo steps through the wide swinging gate and enters the
place that owns him master, let us mark his reception. The _durwan_
first,--our grenadier doorkeeper, the man of proud port and
commanding presence, to whom that portal is a post of honor,--our
Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, in one, of courage, strength, and
address enlisted with fidelity. The loyalty of Ramee Durwan is
threefold, in this order: first, to his caste, next, to his beard,
and then to his post; only for the two first would he abandon the
last; his life he holds of less account than either.
As the Baboo passes, Ramee Durwan, you think, will be ready with
profound and obsequious salaam. Not so; he draws himself up to the
very last of his extraordinary inches, and touches his forehead
lightly with the fingers of his right hand, only slightly inclining
his head,--a not more than affable salute,--almost with a quality
of concession,--gracious as well as graceful; he would do as much
for any puppy of a cadet who might drop in on the Sahib. On the
other hand, lowly louteth the Baboo, with eyes downcast and palm
applied reverentially to his sleek forehead.
How now? This Baboo is a banyan of solid substance, and the Mullicks
all are citizens of credit and renown; while Ramee Durwan gets five
rupees a month, and makes his bed at the gate. Last year, they say,
when little Dwarkanath Mullick, the Baboo's adopted son, nine years
old, was married to the tender child Vinda, old Lulla Seal's darling,
on her fifth birthday, the Baboo Kalidas Raniaya Mullick made the
occasion famous by liberating fifty prisoners-for-debt, of the
Soodra sort, with as many flourishes of his illustrious signature.
Ramee Durwan has not a change of turbans.
And now the Baboo passes into the godown, and receives from a score
of servile _cicars_, glibbest of clerks, their several reports of
the day's business. Presently, from his low desk, in the lowliest
corner, uprises, and comes forward quietly, Mutty Loll Roy, the head
circar, venerable, placid, pensive, every way interesting; but he is
only the Baboo's head circar, an humble accountant, on fifteen
rupees a month. Do you perceive that fact in the style of his
salutation? Hardly; for the Baboo piously raises his joined hands
high above his head, and, louting lower than before, murmurs the
Orthodox salutation, _Namaskarum_! Yet the Baboo contributed two
thousand rupees in fireworks to the last Doorga Fooja, and sent a
hundred goats to the altar; while only with many and trying shifts
of saving could Mutty Loll afford gold leaf for one image, besides
two tomtoms and a horn to march before it in procession. But behold
the lordly beneficence in Mutty Loll's attitude and gesture,
as with outstretched hands, palms upward, he greets the Baboo
condescendingly with a gift of goodwill!
"_Idhur ano, Sirdar, idhur ano_!--Come hither, Karlee, my gentle
bearer, thou of the good heart and gray moustache! Come hither, and
enlighten this Sahib's ignorance; tell him why the Durwan is
disdainful, as toward the Baboo, and the Circar solemn."
"_Man, Sahib_! That Durwan _Ksutriye_, Soldier caste, Rider caste,--
feest-i-rat-i-man (first-rate man); that Durwan have got Rajpoot
blood, ver-iproud, all same Sahib. Baboo, Merchant caste,--
ver-i-good caste, plenty rich, but not so proud Durwan caste; Baboo
not have Rajpoot blood, not have i-sharp i-sword, not have musiket.
Durwan arm all same tiger; Durwan beard all same lion; Durwan plenty
i-strong, plenty proud.
"That Circar,--ah! that Mutty Loll, too, high caste; that Circar
Brahmin,--Kooleen Brahmin,--all same _Swamy_ (god); that Circar
foot all same Baboo head; that Circar shoe all same Baboo turban.
'Spose Baboo not make that Circar _bhote-btote salaam_, that Circar
say curse, that Circar ispeak _jou-jehannam_ (go to hell). Master
und-istand i-me? I ispeak Master so Master know?"
"Very clear, Karlee,--and wholesome expounding. But here comes the
Baboo to speak for himself.--Good-day, Baboo! Whither so fast with
the spanking Arabs and the Simpkin?--to the garden-house?"
"To the garden-house, Sahib; and the Simpkin is for two young
English friends of mine, who will do the garden-house the honor to
make it their own for a day or two."
"Take care, Baboo! take care! I have my doubts as to the Simpkin.
They do say the orthodoxy of 'Young Bengal' men is none the better
for beefsteaks and Heidseck; such diet does not become the son of a
strict and straightgoing heathen. Well may the Brahmins groan for
the glaring scandals of the new lights; you'll be marrying widows
next, and dining at clubs with fast ensigns."
"Sahib, Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The church of the
Churruck post and the orgies of Hooly are in no danger from beef or
Simpkin so long as steak or bottle costs a man his inheritance; and
we of Young Bengal know too well how hard are the ways of the Pariah
to try them for fun. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his prophet. The
'glad tidings of great joy' your missionaries bring fall upon ears
stopped with family pride and the family jewels: you know that
appropriate old saw in our proverbial philosophy, 'What is the news
of the day to a frog in a well?'--_Salaam, Sahib_! I have but a few
minutes to spare, and the supercargo is waiting with the indigo
samples."
Presently, as the Cossitollah panorama flows on beneath our window,
with all its bizarreness from the bazaars,--its boxwallahs, and its
pawn-makers, its peddlers of toys, its money-changers and shopmen,
its basket-makers and mat-weavers and chattah-menders, its
perambulating cobblers and tailors, its jugglers, gymnasts, and
match-girls,--its fellows who feed on glass bottles for the
astonishment and delectation of the Sahibs, or who, if you have such
a thing as a sheep about you, will undertake to slaughter and skin
it with their teeth and devour it on the spot,--its conjure-wallahs,
who, for a few pice, will run sharp foils through each other's bodies
without for a moment disturbing either health or cheerfulness, or
will make mangoes grow under table-cloths, "all fair and proper,"
while Master waits,--as the Brahmin still dodges the shadow of the
Soodra, and the Soodra spits upon the footprint of the Pariah, the
Baboo returns to his chariot; the fat and solemn coachman gathers up
the reins, the burkarus assume their symmetrical attitudes on the box,
the syces bawl, and the socas jump.
Just now a _palkee-gharree_, cheapest of one-horse vehicles, with
but one half-naked syce running at the pony's head, and never a
footman near, passes the spanking Arabs; the plain turban of a
respectable accountant in the Honorable Company's coal office at
Garden Reach shows between the Venetian slats of the little window,
and lo! our fine Baboo steps out of his slippers, and standing
barefoot in the common dust of Cossitollah,--dust that has been
churned by all the pigs'-feet that ply that promiscuous thoroughfare,--
humbly touches first the vulgar ground and then his elegant turban,
murmuring a pious _Namaskarum_; for the respectable accountant in the
Honorable Company's coal office is, like Mutty Loll, a Kooleen
Brahmin,--only a little more so. Caste is God, and Mamoul is his
prophet!
At the gate-lodge of the Baboo's garden-house on the Durumtollah
Road, a gray and withered hag, all crippled and leprosied, sits
_durhna_.
What may that be?
Be patient; you shall know.
When the Baboo was as yet a youth, his uncle Rajinda, the pride of
the Mullicks, died of cholera, and the administration of the estate
devolved upon our free-thinking Kalidas. Of course there were
mortgages to foreclose, and delinquent debtors to stir up. A certain
small shopkeeper of the China Bazaar was responsible to the concern
for a few thousand rupees, wherewith he had been accommodated by
Uncle Rajinda as a basis for certain operations in seersuckers and
castor-oil, that had yielded no returns. So our Baboo, in a curt
_chit_, (that is, note, or _sheet_ of paper, as near as a Bengalee
can come to the word,) bade the small speculator of China Bazaar
come down forthwith with the rupees.
But, behold you now, "he had paid," he said. "By the Holy Ganges and
the Blessed Cow! by the turban of his father and the veil of his
mother! restitution had been made long ago," the old man said;
"and the soul of Uncle Rajinda, the pride of the Mullicks, had no
reason to be disquieted for the rupees, though the seersuckers had
been but vanity, and the castor-oil vexation of spirit."
"Produce the documents," said the Baboo, with a business-like
impassibility that in Wall Street would have made him a great bear;--
"where are the receipts?"
"My Lord, I know not. Prostrating my unworthy turban beneath the
lovely lilies of your feet, I swear to my _gureeb purwar_, the
destitute-and-humble-protecting lord, by the Holy Water and the
Blessed Cow, by the beard of my father and the veil of my mother,
that I settled the little account long ago!"
That unhappy speculator in seersuckers and castor-oil died in prison,
and a _gooroo_ (that is, a spiritual teacher) feed by the Baboo,
desolated his last hour with the assurance that he should
transmigrate into the bodies of seven generations of _gharree_-horses,
and drag _feringhee_ sailormen, in a state of beer, from the ghauts
to the punch-houses, all his miserable lives.
Now whether or not the unlucky little speculator had in good faith
discharged the debt will, in all the probabilities of human rights
and wrongs, never appear this side of the last trump; for the Holy
Water and the Sacred Cow, his father's beard and his mother's veil,
were not good in law, the documents not forthcoming.
But it is certain that his widow had faith in his integrity; for at
once, with all her sorrows on her head, she sallied forth in quest
of justice; and from Brahmin post to Sahib pillar she went crying,
"See me righted! Against this hard and arrogant Baboo let my wrongs
be redressed, or fear the evil eye of Dookhee the Sorrowful, of
Haranu the Lost!"
But utterly in vain; for the clamor of the Hindoo widow, however
bitterly aggrieved, is but a nuisance, and her accusation insolence.
So in her pitiful outcasting, in all the forlorn loathsomeness of
leprosy, and the shunned squalor of a cripple, she sat down at the
Baboo's gate, to wait for justice till the gods should bestow it,--
till Siva, the Avenger, should behold her, and ask, "Who has done
this?"
And who shall challenge her? Who shall bid her move on? Mamoul has
crowned her Queen of Tears, and her sublime patience and appealing
have made a throne of the wayside stone on which she sits; there is
no power so audacious that it would give the word to depose her; her
matted gray locks and her furrowed cheeks, her sunken eyes and her
hungry lips, are her "sacred ashes" of the high caste of Sorrow.
The Brahmin averts his face as he passes, and mutters, "She is as
the flower which is out of reach,--she is dedicated to God." That
insolent official, the Baboo's pampered durwan, sees in her only
Mamoul; he would as soon think of shaving himself as of driving her
away. So, as the Baboo passes in or out through the great gate, the
solemn coachman whips up the spanking Arabs, and the syces bawl
louder than ever, and Kalidas Ramaya Mullick turns away his eyes.
But for all that, the durhna woman heaps dust upon her head, which
he sees, and mutters a weird warning, which he hears; and though the
lawn is wide, and the banian topes are leafy, and a gilded temple,
the family shrine, stands between, and the marble veranda is spacious,
and the state apartments are remote, they do say the shadow of the
durhna woman falls on the iced Simpkin and the steaks, in spite of
Young Bengal.
_Mootrib i koosh nuwà bigo,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
Baduè dil kooshà bidoh,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!
Koosh biu sheen bu kilwulé
Chung nuwaz-a sa-uté,
Bosu sitan bu kam uz o,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
"Songster sweet, begin the lay,
Ever sweet and ever gay!
Bring the joy-inspiring wine,
Ever fresh and ever fine!
With a heart-alluring lass
Gayly let the moments pass,
Kisses stealing while you may,
Ever fresh and ever gay!"
Now surely she who thus sings should be beautiful, after the Hindoo
type;--that is, she should have the complexion of chocolate and cream;
"her face should be as the full moon, her nose smooth as a flute;
she should have eyes like unto lotuses, and a neck like a pigeon's;
her voice should be soft as the cuckoo's, and her step as the gait
of a young elephant of pure blood." Let us see.
Alas, no! She entertains a set of lazy bearers, smoking the
hubble-bubble around a palanquin as they wait for a fare; and her
buksheesh may be a cowry or two. By no means is she of the
_nautch_-maidens of Lucknow, who were wont to lighten the hours of
debauched majesty between the tiger-fights and the games of leap-frog;
by no means is she ringed as to her fingers or belled as to her toes;
and though she carries her music wherever she goes, she also carries
a shiny brown baby, slung in a canvas tray between her shoulders.
No excessively voluminous folds of gold-embroidered drapery encumber
her supple limbs; but her skirts are of the scantiest, (what Miss Flora
MacFlimsey would call _skimped_,) and pitifully mean as to quality.
By no means have the imperial looms of Benares contributed to her
professional costume a veil of wondrous fineness and a Nabob's price;
but a narrow red strip of some poor cotton stuff crosses her bosom
like a scarf, and leaves exposed too much of the ruins of once
daintier beauties. A string of glass beads, black and red alternate,
are all her jewels,--save one silver bodkin, all forlorn, in her hair,
and a ring of thin gold wire piercing the right nostril, and, with
an effect completely deforming, encircling the lips. Her teeth and
nails are deeply stained, and the darkness of her eyes is enhanced
by artificial shadows.
And so, while that baby-Tantalus, catching glimpses, over the
unveiled shoulder, of the Micawberian fount he cannot reach,
stretches his little brown arms, bites, kicks, and squalls,--while a
small female apprentice, by way of chorus, in costume and gesture
absurdly caricaturing her _prima donna_, (a sort of Cossitollah
marchioness, indeed, for some Dick Swiveller of the Sahibs,) shuffles
rheumatically with her feet, or impotently dislocates her slender
arms, or pounds insanely on a cracked tomtom, or jangles her clumsy
cymbals, while the squatting bearers cry, "_Wah wah!_" and clap
their sweaty hands,--our poor old glee-maiden of Cossitollah strums
her two-stringed guitar, letting the baby slide, and creaks
corkscrewishly her _Chota, chota natchelee_:--
_Badi subå choo boog zuree,
Bar suri kove an puree,
Qassué Hufiz ush bigo
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou!_
"Zephyrs, while you gently move
By the mansion of my love,
Softly Hafiz' strains repeat,
Ever new and ever sweet!"
Heaven save the key!
"_Ka munkta_, Bearer?--What is it, my gentle Karlee?"
"_Chittee, Sahib!--chittee_ for Master."
"Note, hey? from whom? let us see!"
Pink paper,--scented with sandal-wood, pah!--embossed, too, with
cornucopias in the corners,--seal motto, _Qui hi?_ ("Who waits?")--
denoting that the bearer is to bring an answer. Now for the inside:
"DEVOTED AND RESPECTFUL SIR:--"
"Insured of your pitiful conduct, your obsequious suppliant, an
eleëmosynary lady of decrepit widowhood, throws herself at your
Excellency's mercy feet with two imbecile childrens of various
denominations. For our Heavenly Father's sake, if not inconvenient,--
which we have been beneficently bereaved of other paternal
description,--we humbly present our implorations to your munificent
Excellency, if any small change, to bestow the same, winch it will
be eternally acceptable to said eleëmosynary widow of late Colonel
with distinguished medal in Honorable Service, deceased of cholera,
which it was suddenly attacks, and as pretty near destitute. Therefore,
hoping your munificent and respectable Excellency will not order,
being scornful, your pitiful Excellency's durwan to disperse us; but
five rupees, which nothing to Excellency's regards, and our tenacious
gratitude never forget; but kissing Excellency's hands on
indifferent occasions, and throwing at mercy feet with two imbecile,
offsprings of different denominations, I shall ever pray, &c."
"MRS. DIANA, THEODOSIA, COMFORT, GREEN."
"P.S. If not five rupees, two rupees five annas, in name of
Excellency's exalted mother, if quite convenient."
There now! for an imposing structure in the florid style of
half-caste begging-letters, Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green
flatters herself that is hard to beat.
"'_Qui hi_?'--Karlee, who is at the gate?"
"_Mem Sahib_! one chee-chee woman wanch look see Master, ispeakee
Master buksheesh give; _paunch butcha_ have got."
"_Paunch butcha!--five_ children! why, Karlee, there are but two here.
But remembering, I suppose, that my Excellency has but two 'mercy
feet,' and with an eye to symmetry in the arrangement of the grand
tableau of which she proposes to make me the central figure, she has
made it two 'imbecile offsprings' for the looks of the thing. Do you
know her, Karlee?"
"_Man, Sahib_! too much quentence have got that chee-chee woman; that
chee-chee woman all same dam iscamp; paunch butcha not have got,--
one butcha not have got. Master not give buksheesh; no good that
woman, Karlee think."
"Very well, old man; send her away; tell the durwan to disperse
Mrs. Diana Theodosia Comfort Green; but let him not insult her
decrepit widowhood, nor alarm her imbecile offsprings of various
denominations. For the 'Eurasian' is a great institution, without
which polkas at Coolee Bazaar were not, nor pic-nics _dansantes_ at
Chandernagore."
But now to tiffin. I smell a smell of curried prawns, and the first
mangoes of the season are fragrant. Buxsoo, the _khansaman_, has
cooled the _isherry-shrob_, as he calls the "green seal," and the
_kilmudgars_ are crying, "_Tiffin, Sahib_!" The Mamoul of meal-time
knows no caste or country.
_Bur zi hyat ky kooree!
Gur nu moodum, mi kooree!
Badu bi koor bu yadi o,
Tazu bu tazu, nou bu nou_!
"Gentle boy, whose silver feet
Nimbly move to cadence sweet,
Fill us quick the generous wine,
Ever fresh and ever fine!"
* * * * *