[Illustration: B]
Bombay.--I've travelled these three weeks with people who have lived in
India, and I have been brought up on Indian books and Indian home
letters, and in one way and another have picked up an idea of what the
people and the features of nature are like, but I have received only a
very faint idea of its real light and colour. I thought Egypt had given
me a fair idea of what India might be, but nothing in Egypt can touch
what I've seen in these two half days.
Our first view of Bombay from where we lay at anchor a mile off shore
was very disappointing. All there is to see is a low shore and a
monotonous line of trees and houses; the air was warm and damp and hazy,
and the smoke from two or three tall chimneys hung in thin wreaths over
land and water. In our immediate neighbourhood steamers were coaling,
and their dust did not add any beauty to the picture, and the actual
landing is not very interesting; you get off the ship to the wharf in a
big launch, a slow process but quietly and well-managed, and on shore
have a little trouble about your luggage, even though it may be in the
hands of an agent. I'd two or three cab voyages, "gharry," I should have
said, before I got the best part of ours to the Taj Hotel. There a
friend had booked us our rooms before we sailed, and on the morning of
our arrival had very thoughtfully secured them with lock and key, so
that no unscrupulous Occidental could play on Oriental weakness and bag
them before our arrival.
The journeys in the gharry were not entirely successful, and I didn't
get all our baggage till next day, but they presented me with one
astounding series of beautiful pictures, so that my head fairly reeled
with the continuous effort to grasp the way of things and their forms
and colours, things in the street, themselves perhaps of no great
interest but for the intense colourful light.--There is a water carrier;
the sun shines blue on the back of his brown bare legs and back, and
blazes like electric sparks on the pairs of brass water pots he carries
slung across his shoulders. He is jogging along fast, his "shoulder knot
a-creaking," and the water that splashes on to the hot dust intensifies
the feeling of heat and light. Then you catch the flash of silver rings
in the dust on a woman's toes as she strides along, and have the
unfamiliar pleasure of seeing the human form, God's image in brown, and
note the rounded limbs and bust, and the movement of hip and swinging
arm through white draperies, which the sun makes a golden transparency.
What thousands of figures, and all in different costumes or bare skin.
[Illustration]
Their Royal Highnesses the Prince and Princess of Wales arrived the day
before we did, so the air vibrates with the salutes from guns, and is
full of heat and curdling smoke, and colour. "The Prince" is distinctly
in the air, and we feel glad in consequence that we have arrived in
time to have seen the town at its brightest: from morning to night there
is one scene after another of continually shifting figures and colours,
perfectly fascinating to us new comers.
... Guns again from the war ships, aimed right at our windows!
Everything jingles, the air is quivering with the sound and light. The
ships in the bay are ablaze with flags, and the sides of the Apollo
Bundar (the landing place of the Prince) are a mass of decorations and
flags. Below our windows in the shadow of our hotel on the embankment,
the crowd of natives in their best behaviour and best clothes move to
and fro making holiday, watching the ships and any ceremony that may
come off in their neighbourhood, for like our own natives they love a
tamasha. They wear flimsy clothes of varied colours, lemon-yellow and
pale rose, white and pale green, and the Southern light softens all
these by making each reflect a little on to the other.
... There they go again! banging away--good thing there's no glass in
our hotel windows! You can hardly see the shipping now, the smoke hangs
low on the turquoise blue of the bay, and you can just see the yellow
gleam of the flash and feel the concussion and the roar that follows.
Interjectory this journal must be, even my sketches are running into
meaningless strokes with so many subjects following one on the top of
the other. In the pauses that follow the passing of troops and
gun-firing, the crowds in the streets below our hotel watch snake
charmers, jugglers, and monkey trainers who play up to us at our
balconies.
What a delight!--there they are, all the figures we knew as dusty
coloured models as children, now all alive and moving and real. The
snake charmer, a north countryman, I think, sits on his heels on the
road and grins up at us and chatters softly and continuously, holding up
his hands full of emerald green slow moving snakes; a crowd of holiday
townspeople stand round him at a little distance and watch closely. He
stows the green snakes away into a basket, and his hands are as lithe as
his snakes but quicker, then pipes to nasty cobras, the colour of the
dusty road; they raise their heads and blow out their hoods and sway to
and fro as he plays. Then the mongoose man shows how his beast eats a
snake's head--no trick about this! And always between the turns of the
performances the performers look up and show their white teeth and talk
softly to us, but we can't hear what they say the windows are so high
up. Then bang go the guns again, and we shut our blinds and try to read
of the show of the day, the opening of Princes Street, when the Prince
drove through "millions of happy and prettily dressed subjects." As we
read there comes a knock and a message with an invitation card to see
the Prince open a museum, and we read on; another knock comes just as
I'd begun to draw the Prince as we saw him last night in a swirl of
dust, outriders, and cavalry, blurred in night and dust and heat--it is
another card! To meet their Royal Highnesses, the Prince and Princess of
Wales to-night at Government House! Surely this is the veritable land of
the tales of the Arabian Nights! It comes as a shock to live all your
life in your own country and never to see the shadow of Royalty, then
suddenly to be asked twice in one day to view them as they pass--I am
quite overcome--It will be a novel experience, and won't it be warm! It
means top hat, frock coat and an extra high collar for the afternoon,
and in the evening a hard, hot, stiff shirt and black hot clothes, and a
crush and the thermometer at pucca hot-weather temperature, and damp at
that, but who cares, if we actually see Royalty--twice in one day!
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
I am determined not to go out to-day, not on any account. I will sit in
this tower room of this palace and write and draw, and will shut these
jalousies that open west and south and north-east, and offer
distracting views, and I will contemplate the distempered walls in the
shade till I have recalled all I saw yesterday. If I go to the window,
or outside, there will be too many new things to see. I maintain that
for one day of new sights, a day is needed to arrange them in the
tablets of memory.... But is it possible I saw all these things in one
day! From a tiny wedding in the Kirk in the morning to the Royal
Reception at Government House at night; from dawn till late night one
splendid line of pictures of Oriental and Occidental pageantry, of which
I have heard and read of so much and realised so little compared with
reality.
[Illustration]
We started the day with a wedding of a lady we knew on board, to a young
Scottish officer, the day after her arrival. We directed our "boy" to
tell our driver to go to the Free Church. But apparently neither of
these benighted heathens could distinguish between the "Free" and the
"Wee Free," or the "U. P." or the "Established" and took us to the
English Church. We had such a hunt for the particular branch of the
Church of Scotland. It was quite a small kirk, and our numbers were in
proportion. We arrived a little hot and angry at being so misled, but
the best man, a brother officer of the bridegroom, had not turned up, so
we waited a little and chatted and joked a little, and felt in our
hearts we would wish to see the bride and bridegroom's friends and
relations about them. The best man came soon, and the bridegroom's
colonel, and made an audience of four, not counting the minister; and
the somewhat lonely pair stood before him, with the punkah above them,
and the sun streamed through latticed windows and a modest bit of
stained glass, and they were joined for better and no worse I am sure.
Then the minister opened a little paste board box someone had sent from
home, and out came a little rice, and we four got a little each and
threw it very carefully, two or three grains at a time so as not to
miss. The bride had a dainty sprig of white heather in a brooch of a
lion's collar bone, and was dressed in white and had a very becoming
rose from home, and the sea, on her cheeks. As we prayed I made a sketch
of them for her sister at home. Then they and the witnesses signed their
names, and where their hands and wrists touched the vestry table there
was a tiny puddle, and yet this is what they call "cold weather" here!
We met the bride and bridegroom later at lunch, and we drank to each
other's health in pegs of lemon squash after the latest fashion East of
Suez.
"It was a wee, wee waddin'
In a far, far toon,"
and it's far awayness from friends and relatives and their own country
was rather pathetic, even though the pair looked so handsome and happy.
We drove back more leisurely and marvelled at the innumerable lovely
groups in streets and by-ways, the flicker of light through banyan trees
on white-robed figures, the little carts with big wooden wheels and
small oxen and sharp big shadows, and we stopped to watch a splendid
group of men washing clothes, a dozen or more naked brown statues
against a white low wall, water splashing over them and round them,
flecks of sun and shadows coming through the leaves--I suppose these
were natives from the north as they had good legs. I must try and put
that down this afternoon if I can, and bring in the hedge of convolvulus
with lilac blooms behind and the hoody crows dancing round; then past
lines of pretty horses and tents and officers and ladies at lunch. At
our lunch at the Taj we bade good-bye to five friends, R. and D. for
Bangalore, Mrs D. C. for the north, and our newly-married pair for
Baroda. So G. and I and Mr and Mrs H. remain out of our table on board
ship; the H.'s stay for a time at the Taj and tell us so much about
Bombay, its people, and their ways, that a guide book would feel very
dry reading.
By the afternoon we have received I think five invitations on yellow
cards to various royal functions! Now indeed we are in the marvellous
East, in the land to which Scot and Irish should travel to see their
prince or king. So you, my dear friends, artists and professional men,
who have chosen to live as I have done, in or near the capital of your
native land, and whose most thrilling pageant in the whole year is the
line of our worthy bailies and the provost in hired coaches going up the
High Street to open a meeting of ministers, if you would experience the
feeling that stirred the blood of your ancestors so hotly, the feeling
of personal loyalty to prince or king, the sense that is becoming as
dormant as the muscles behind our ears, all you have to do is to leave
your native shores and your professional duties, and home ties, and
travel to some outlying part of the Empire; say to Bombay--there and
back will cost you about _L_200 by P. & O., but you will realise then
that the old nerves may still vibrate. You, my friends, who can't
afford this luxury, you must just stay at home and be as loyal as you
can under the circumstances, and try not to think of our departed
glories, and Home Rule, or Separation--and you can read, about these
yellow tickets to royal shows and such far off things, in traveller's
tales.
The first of these functions was the laying of the foundation of a
museum of science and art; it sounds prosaic, but it was a pageant of
pageantry and pucca tomasha too; the greater part, I daresay, just the
ordinary gorgeousness of this country, fevered with stirring loyalty.
The ceremony was in the centre of an open space of grass, surrounded by
town buildings of half Oriental and half Western design, and blocks of
private flats, each flat with a deep verandah and all bedecked with
flags, and gay figures on the roofs and in the verandahs. In the centre
of the grass were shears with a stone hanging from them on block and
tackle. To our left was a raised dais with red and yellow striped tent
roof supported on pillars topped with spears and flags and the three
golden feathers of the Prince of Wales. In front of the circle of chairs
opposite this and to our right sat the Indian princes; they had rather
handsome brown faces and fat figures, and wore coats of delicate silks
and satins, patent leather shoes and loose socks, big silver bangles and
anklets; their turbans and swords sparkled with jewels, and the air in
their neighbourhood was laden with the scents of Araby.
Behind us sat the Parsees and their women-folk, soberly clad in European
dress; they are intelligent looking people with pleasant cheery manners,
I would like to see more of them. Their fire-worship interests me, for
it was till lately our own religion, and I even to-day know of an old
lady in an out-of-the-way corner of our West Highlands who, till quite
recently, went through various genuflexions every morning--old forms of
fire-worship--as the sun rose; and in the Outer Isles we have still
many remains of our fore-fathers' worship woven into the untruthful
jingling rhymes of the monks.[5]
[5] See "Carmina Gadelica, the Treasure House, Hymns and Incantations of
Highlands and Islands," collected by Alexander Carmichael, 1900, and
there also the pre-Christian game and fishing laws of Alba.
Through the pillars of the Shamiana we could see lines of white helmets
of troops, and beyond them the crowds of natives in bright dresses,
banked against the houses and in groups in the trees, a kaleidoscope of
colour. Past this came a whirl of Indian cavalry with glittering sabres,
and the Prince and Princess came on to the dais--more brightly dressed
than they were in Oxford Street three weeks ago, the Prince in a white
naval uniform with a little gold and a white helmet, an uncommonly
becoming dress though so simple; the Princess in the palest pink with a
suggestion of darker pink showing through, and a deep rose between hat
and hair. A tubby native in frock coat and brown face and little pink
turban held a mushroom golden umbrella near the Prince and Princess, not
over them, it really was not needed for there were clouds, and the light
was just pleasant. The Prince then "laid" the stone--that is, some
natives slackened the tackle, and it came down all square--and he and
the Princess talked to the Personages in attendance and various City
Dignitaries. First, I should have said, the Prince read a speech which
seemed to me to cover the ground admirably. I forget what he said now,
but you could hear every word. He had notes, but I think he spoke by
heart. I made a careful picture of it all; red decorations, green grass,
Prince and Princess, and the golden umbrella, but it is gone, lost--gone
where pins go, I suppose.
You should have heard the people cheering, and seen the running to and
fro of crowds to catch a glimpse of the great Raj as he drove away! In a
minute the great place was all on the move, Rajahs getting into their
carriages and dashing off with their guards riding before and behind,
and smaller Rajahs with seedier carriages and only bare-footed footmen
jumping up behind.
Everyone was happy and interested, and what a bustle and movement there
was! The banging of the guns on the men-of-war began again as the
motley, fascinatingly interesting crowd, cavalry outriders, Sikhs,
Parsees, Gourkas, Hindoos, and Mussulmen, sped away down to the Apollo
Bundar to see the Prince go off to the flagship. H. and I went with the
tide, a jolly cheery medley of coloured races, waddling, trotting,
running, the whole crowd cut in two by the Royal Scots marching through
them, their pipers playing the "Glendaruil Highlanders." Sandies and
Donalds and natives of India, but all subjects of the great Raj: and all
got down together to the Bundar to see the Royal embarkation. Next we
met G. and Mrs H. driving as fast as possible through the crowd to still
another function, at the Town Hall, where the British Princess met the
women of all India in their splendour, and woman's world met woman's
world for the world's good. I'd fain have seen the tall, fair, Saxon
surrounded by devoted Eastern subjects! All I did see was some of the
preparations--red cloth being laid in acres up to a stately
Parthenon--but from various accounts I have heard from ladies who were
present, this must have been one of the most extraordinary and gorgeous
functions the world has ever seen.
The Princess, in robes and creations that chilled words, walked
ankle-deep in white flower petals and golden clippings, pearls rained,
and on all sides were grouped the most beautiful Eastern ladies in most
exquisite silks of every tint of the rainbow, with diamonds, pearls, and
emeralds and trailing draperies, skirts, and soft veils, and silken
trousers; sweet scents and sounds there were too, in this Oriental dream
of heaven, and everything showed to the utmost advantage in the mellow
trembling light that fell from two thousand five hundred candles, and
one hundred and ninety-nine glittering and bejewelled candelabra. And in
the middle, there was a golden throne of bejewelled peacocks, and
punkahs and umbrellas of gold and rose--a dream of beauty--and not one
man in the whole show!
The Apollo Bundar, as everyone who has been in India knows, is a
projecting part of the esplanade below the Taj Hotel. Here Royalties are
in the habit of landing and embarking. On the centre has been built
something in the nature of a triumphal arch with eastern arches and
minarets at its four corners with golden domes. It is all white, and
between it and the pavilion at the landing stairs a great awning, or
Shamiana is stretched, of broad red and white striped cloth. Everywhere
are waving flags from golden spears, and little palms and shrubs in
green tubs are arranged on either side of the Shamiana; and the effect
is quite pretty; but considering the historic importance of the occasion
and the natural suitability of the surroundings for a Royal landing, the
conception and arrangement of spectacular effect was astoundingly
poor--and it must be admitted it is a mistake to hide the principal
actors at the most telling point of a momentous event with bunting and
shrubs in pots, or both! The actual landing, the stepping on shore,
should have been pictorial and visible to the thousands of spectators.
Instead of this, the Royal personages, the moment they stepped ashore,
were conducted into this tent, to listen to written speeches! What an
occasion for a great spectacular effect lost for ever!
When we got down to the Bundar the Sikh cavalry had dismounted and stood
at their horses' heads; their dark blue and dark rose uniforms and
turbans made a foil to the brilliant dresses of the crowd.
After witnessing the departure of the Prince, we sat a breathing space
on the lawn at the Yacht Club and watched the day fading, "Evening
falling, shadows rising," and the ladies dresses growing faint in
colour, as the background of the Bay and the white men-of-war became
less distinct; the golden evening light crept up the lateen sails in
front of us and left them all grey, and the moon rose beyond the Bay,
and the club lamps were lit, and the guns began to play--vivid flashes
of flame; and a roar round the fleet, straight in our faces, and again
far over to Elephanta, yellow flashes in the violet twilight, and the
Prince came ashore.
The cavalry and their lances at once follow his carriage; they are
silhouetted against the last of gold in the west, flicker across the
lamps of the Bundar, and rattle away into the shadows of the streets.
There is the noise of many horses feet and harness, and the last of the
guns from the fleet. Then the night is quiet again and hot as ever, and
there's nothing left of the glare and noise of the day, only the glowing
lamps on some of the buildings, and the subdued hum of the talk of the
moving thousands, and the whispering sound of their bare feet in the
dust. The Eastern crowd is distinctly impressed and very much
compressed; they will now spend the rest of the evening gazing at the
Bombay public buildings that are being lit all over with little oil
lamps.
And this was but a small part of the day for us, the best was to come in
the damp, hot night.