[Illustration]
December ...--We left "Locksley Hall" at 7.30, and D. came to station to
see us off and to give last instructions to the servants about catering
for us. We have to train all night till two in the morning, then shoot
duck and snipe at an out of the way tank, get back to train at twelve,
and then home after another day and night in train. A long journey for a
small shoot, but for R. the shoot is only a minor consideration. All
along the road he stops at stations and gets reports front contractors
and workers on the line, and generally sees that the line is in working
order. His assistant engineer comes with his own carriage. R., as
senior, can take the tail of train with our carriage so that he can
watch the track as we jog along. It's a nice slow train, and you think
you could walk beside it up the hills, but in reality you have to go at
a gentle trot.
Bangalore Station was a sight for a tenderfoot--brim full of colour and
types. Half in shadow half in light, as if several theatrical companies
were on tour in their costumes--a company, say of The Merchant of
Venice, another of The Cingalee, and a Variety Show or two. There were
sellers of green bananas and soda water and native sweet cakes in all
the colours you can think of, and British soldiers in khaki and pith
helmets, and everyone running about with properties and luggage on their
heads and in their hands.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
This is, to my mind, a luxurious way of travelling. Both carriages have
berths, bathroom, and kitchen, all very diminutive except the berths.
Our kitchen would hardly hold one European, but holds at least three
natives. At five and a half miles an hour you can do all sorts of
things, paint or snooze, or, as I prefer to do on this day, sit in a
comfortable arm-chair with feet in the sun on the after platform and
watch the line running away behind into the vanishing point.
R.'s assistant, H., is in our carriage, and these two pull out all sorts
of documents and papers flooded with figures and go into their work, and
talk of cement, sleepers, measurements, curve stresses and strains
generally, and of the particular bits of business on hand; but
occasionally they have a minute or two off and we find ourselves talking
of duck and snipe and overhauling decoys, R. and H. discussing the
chances of the season at this tank or the other. Then they get to
business again, about a native contractor perhaps--is he all right, or
is he not?--and every now and then we disembark and have a brief chat
with a stationmaster, and look at points or trees and buildings; these
matters are gone through pretty quickly, and we get on to the tail of
our train again as it slowly moves off.
We are going now through a gravelly red soil, the sun blazing hot. We go
so comfortably slowly that we can lean out and see our little narrow
gauge train crawling along like a silver grey caterpillar, for the
passenger cars and goods cars are round topped like Saratoga trunks, and
their French grey colour harmonises with the hedge of grey-green cactus
leaves on the side of the line. Beyond the train we see the lines like
curves of blue riband on the yellow and white quartz ballast of the
track. Our little engine puffs up little rags of white against the blue
sky. Add a touch of bright colour, a flutter of pink drapery, and a
brown shoulder, a finely modelled arm and bangle at a carriage window,
catching the cool draught, and you have, I think, quite a pleasant
colour scheme. The track is so tidy that there are white quartz stones
arranged along each side of the yellow quartz ballast, and where there
is sand ballast it is patted down as neatly as a pie crust. R. says it
is difficult to prevent the native navvy making geometric designs with
the coloured quartz.
[Illustration]
By the afternoon we are in a wide-spreading country, only broken with
clumps of palms at great distances. The soil is dull red, almost magenta
at the edge of cuttings, and above on the plains it is yellow ochre with
scrub bushes and many lemon-yellow blossoms. As the sun sets we pass
flocks of sheep and goats collecting for protection within tall zerebas
of thorn and palm leaves. The dust they raise catches the sun and hangs
over them in a golden mist. Far out on the horizon there is one streak
of warm violet where some low hills appear--a simple enough landscape,
with not many features, but with the charm that belongs to scenes at sea
or in the desert, where there are but two elements to hold the thoughts.
Now we draw up near a village, and women and children watch our train.
I wish they'd keep some one portion of their limbs and draperies still
an instant to let me see and draw, but they won't. Two women lean
against the wire fence near us, one a tall, small-headed and long-limbed
matron in dullish green sari with gold or yellow round its edges in thin
and broad lines, and a bodice of orange and crimson. Her neighbour leans
and talks, incessantly moving; she is wrapped in vivid crimson, edged
with a broad band of poppy blue. Behind them the village is hazy in half
tone against the light; across the space between, there flits a fairy in
lemon-yellow or orange drapery slightly blown out so that the sun makes
it a transparent blaze of yellow--a dainty Tanagra Figurine come to life
and colour again!
... ARSIKERE.--We have our carriage gently shunted at a siding here, and
stop under a banyan tree, and have our meal in the moonlight--such
moonlight and such a meal! I've heard so much of Indian cooking, of the
everlasting chicken and curries, but out of our two tiny kitchens we get
a dinner worthy of a moderately good French cafe, fish and beef, and
game, and variety of vegetables.--Indian beef is not half bad in my
humble opinion, and the Vino Tinto is straight from Lisbon, by Goa, the
Portuguese port on this west coast, what better could a man desire?
A hitch in our arrangements occurred here. Our plans were to tie on to a
north-going train at two in the morning, and cut off again at a tank
some miles up the line where the duck-shooting is sublime. But my host
got a wire from the head engineer of the whole line about matters
connected with the royal visit to Mysore, and he must now go down south,
to stamp on the bridges and see that the line is all firm and safe, so
the wanderer from home again realises that there is a Prince in the
land! And we feel loyally resigned, especially as there happens to be
good snipe ground where we are, and we can't return before midday
to-morrow, and so can have a long half-day's shooting before we hitch
on to the south mail train.
[Illustration]
As we sit at table on the side of the track, the village dogs steal into
the moonlight and come gradually nearer us; masterless dogs of any
colour betwixt the collie and fox-terrier. No one feeds them or owns
them, so there's plenty of appetite and unclaimed affection going. One
old lady takes her position beside us for the night, and its poor bony
sides are filled for once, and its brown eyes in the morning look
grateful and eager for more. R. says he thinks the most miserable are
those with fox-terrier blood; and they do not outlive their second
litters. It lay on the sand a little way off the greater part of the
night, the shyer dogs still farther off, scarcely seen in the darkness.
Perhaps these half-breds have inherited thoughts of former better days,
which brings me back to that freckled, sandy-haired Eurasian boy at the
Bundar, with his black eyelashes, and the blue-eyed, curly-haired girl
in the native throng.
[Illustration]
Now we are coming to the snipe, "little by little," our nurse used to
say, "as the lawyers get to Heaven," and I put in notes about them here
from a letter written to my friend W. B., but not yet posted.
"MY DEAR W. B.,--You ask me about sport, and if I've got near a
tiger? So far as I am aware I have not been in the immediate
proximity of a tiger, though I have been in what is, at times, a
tiger country--about Dharwar, and where I'd very probably have got
one if I'd taken many men and months and much money to secure it.
But to-day I've had funnier shooting than I've ever had--fancy
snipe, my dear man, amongst palm trees! tall cocoa-nut palms, betel
nuts, and toddy palms, and banana trees--big snipe, and decently
tame. Fancy them dodging like woodcock at home, from a blaze of sun
into the deep shadows of subtropical palm groves!
[Illustration]
"We trollied to our shooting ground, R. and I and four trolley
men--such a nice way of getting along--with palms on either side of
the track, some of them covered with creepers from their very tops
to the ground in cascades--Niagaras, I mean, of green leaves and
lilac blossoms; and through this jungle the sun streamed across the
yellow quartz track and glittered on the lines. Two men at a time
ran barefooted behind, one on each rail, and shoved the trolley and
jumped on going down hill. We went at just a nice rate, which gave
us time to note the birds and flowers along the side of the line.
[Illustration]
"About two miles down the line we struck off to the east on foot,
and crossed rice stubbles with clear rills of water running through
them, the first clear water we have seen here so far--any we have
seen has been red or yellow with mud. Then we came to woods of all
sorts of palms, mostly low growing on white sand, and here and
there pools and marshes over which the palms stood and were
reflected and threw sharp shadows across the blue reflection from
the sky. Fancy shooting common snipe in such a botanical garden!
The last I shot were with S. in Ayrshire in cold, and wind and wet
and a grey light on high moorland, about the 1st of last October.
[Illustration]
"We spread out, R. and I and his merry men, and waded; his butler
and cook apparently as keen about shikar as cooking, and promptly
three snipe got up, jolly slow flyers, in front of me, and I let
off and hit one of the palm tree trunks and the snipe disappeared
in the gloom of their shade. I saw R. on my right out in the full
blaze of the sun get one of the three, then wisp after wisp got up
and we began to bag them and to fear our cartridges would run out.
But imagine the difficulty of hitting even those slow waterfowl
with an eagle or vulture or a group of them, huge fellows, looking
at you from fifteen to twenty yards off from the top of a low palm,
or a kingfisher of vivid cerulean quivering in front of your nose,
so fixed in its poise and so dazzling in colour that you saw a pink
spot for minutes after, and so got in to your waist. And there were
many kinds of doves and pigeons, which almost fanned our faces as
they swooped past, and hanging weaver birds' nests, that I tried
not to look at, and a roller bird I'd defy anyone not to look
at--the size of a jay, irridescent pale blue and green all over,
with just a touch of brown to set off the blues. I'd fain have shot
one but for the bother of skinning and curing. You can imagine how
distracting at first was this free run in a natural aviary and
botanical garden combined, and how difficult to concentrate on the
'commoner' garden snipe.
[Illustration]
"Very soon each of the men had a bundle of snipe and we had to
return; but we had not many cartridges left, which consoled us. We
went back pretty wet all over, for it was piping hot and airless
under the palms, but on the fields outside the air was delicious
and dry. We crossed the line to a beautiful lake with level grassy
banks and found it alive with thousands of duck. They were very
wary though, and kept far out of range and wouldn't rise. We had
not time for rafting or boating, so got on to the trolly again, and
back to our home on the siding; and some snipe were plucked before
I'd found my pencil. You should see how neat these servants are
with their fingers. Here is a jotting of the operation--I think
I've got the movement of their rather weak-looking hands. They are
sitting on the track beside the kitchen part of the carriage.
"I wish very much both R. and I could spare a little more time for
this pastime, "but one canna dae a' thing," as they say at St.
Abbs, and R. has to attend to Royal preparations south--thus has
the honour and glory of serving his country and his King--I am
trying to see where my Ego scores, but don't--I miss a half-day's
shooting. But the little we had, was astonishingly interesting
though it wasn't very long. Now we have a day and a night home
again--a hundred miles to a snipe shoot, my longest journey in
proportion to the size of the shoot; but no distance at all
compared with its novelty and interest.
... Drew most of the way home, cows, aloes, trees, women's figures,
men's ditto, dogs, goats, palms, etc., etc. It passes the time and
does no harm that I wot of.
All pleasures but the Artist's bring
"I' th' tail repentance like a sting."
"Home to Bangalore and the rehearsal of our adventures to our
better halves, and talk--well into the night, which means here
about 11.30! Then to bed at once, for R. has to start early with
his Chief in the morning, he is coming from the Central Office at
Dharwar; to test bridges and things in Mysore, to see they are
strong enough, for they say there are twenty English valets coming
in the Royal train!"
It rained heavily all night, and this morning the sky was overcast, and
already we, who have been in India only a few weeks, feel almost vexed
that it is not sunny. In the morning we went to the Residency to call--a
strange hour to call at, one of the things in India nobody can
understand--as reasonable as top hats and frock coats in Calcutta. It is
a very fine Embassy indeed--palace, perhaps, you might almost call it,
with a nice air of official dignity that comes from the Lion and the
Unicorn in the front of the house above the entrance, and the little
khaki clad native soldiers, mounted orderlies, and Red Chuprassis in
groups about the grounds.
Mrs Fraser, wife of the Resident, was at home, and wore a very pretty
dress of soft grey and black muslin(?) with touches of dull rose
bows--but how can you describe a dress of the present period, they are
such subtle things; a Romney or a Reynolds dress would be easy
enough--something white hitched up here or there would be near enough,
but nowadays the colours of various materials tell through each other so
delicately and the shapes suggest faintly so many periods that I
question if it is in the power of words to describe a modern frock.
Our hostess, I gathered, is deeply engrossed in making the bundabast[15]
for the entertainment of the Prince and his retainers--If twenty valets
require so many napkins, for so many days, how many cups and saucers
will be needed for a Royal Procession for a week, and so on?
[15] I think the context explains the meaning of Bundabast--an
invaluable word. I take it, it is used correctly as above. You can make
"bundabast" for a campaign, I believe, or for a picnic; _i.e._, order
the carriages, food, and things, and the right people, and generally
take all responsibilities therefor.
15th. Dec.--This ought to be a date to remember in our lives. My neice
and I went to jail to-day, both for the first time, and I am not anxious
to go again. It is immediately across the road from Locksley Hall. We
passed through a double archway, guarded inside by native soldiers.
Facing us as we entered, the walls were decorated with trophies of
chains and fetters, which the man in the street might see as he passed.
The Governor very kindly went round with us, and we saw a distinctly
stronger type of man than those outside; here and there a trifle too
much cheek bone and queer eyes, mostly murderers, many with faces one
would pick for choice as manly men. Famine times account for some of the
murders, and overstocking I should say; it's done everywhere, in trout
ponds, deer forests, and sheep runs. India, I expect, is over preserved;
a bad season comes, and famine, and one starving fellow chips in with
another, and knocks a third party on the head because he has a meal on
him, and the first parties' children are crying for food--and by the
prophets, we'd each try to do the same under similar circumstances, and
the result would be the survival of the fittest. Government now catches
the would-be "fittest" and sets him hanging to a piece of rope, or makes
him wear beautiful bright chains and weave beautiful carpets, as they do
here, in all the colours of Joseph's coat, in silk or cotton; with
everything he wants except liberty and the sun on the road outside--and
the children and wife. The carpets are exquisitely made in hand-looms.
The men sit in a sort of rifle pit and weave on an upright hand-loom,
and the patterns on great carpets or the finest of silk rugs grow out of
their wicked brains only; there's no pattern in front of them to copy
from; they do it by heart. You know a "Lifer" from a "Timer" by the
colour of their skull caps; one is white, the other brown--I think the
brown is the "Lifer." All is beautifully kept, and the men look at you
when ordered to do so, also when they are not ordered and your back is
turned. They give their names too when ordered, and crimes, and terms of
imprisonment, so gently. Oh! how I'd love to kick the blessed wall all
down and let the lot out! then I'd have to sit up all night, I suppose,
with a gun, looking after our silver-plated spoons.
The principal individual who caused most trouble in the prison was a
"Lifer," I think, a most remarkably long, thin man, actually eel-like.
He had escaped three times. The last hole he escaped by he made with a
nail, and it had just been bricked up and plastered over. He was not
allowed to work, merely stood bolt upright, a head and shoulder higher
than his two, armed jailers, who were chained to him. He was motionless
as a statue, but I never saw such unrest as there was in his eyes; there
was the look of the eye of a bird in the hand, one simple concentrated
expression of watchfulness for a chance to escape. He is a bit of a wag,
I am told. Once when he escaped he borrowed a carriage and livery and
engaged himself to the services of a lady in Bangalore, and actually
drove the lady to prison to call on the Governor. But when he gathered
the Governor was coming to return the call, he thought it time to go; I
don't know how he was captured again, and I wonder very much if he will
escape once more. His four companions who stood beside him in the blaze
of joyous sun were just going to be released in half an hour from all
their joys and troubles. Two of them looked very murderous specimens,
two looked good, I don't know why, but one felt curiously shy about
looking at them. One or two of the murderers' faces wore a quiet
half-smiling expression, barely human, and that seemed to me to spell
"killing" quite distinctly and without any evil intent, like the
expression on a Greek head I have only once seen, a youthful
combatant--a cheery unintrospective look, a tough round neck, raised
chin, oblique eyes, and the least smile on lips just parted. One young
woman had that kind of face too; the rest were just as good in
expression as outsiders. They were employed grinding millets in hand
quirns, hard work, I'd think; the top stone they turn round, weighs two
stone and they put it round fairly quickly. I'd so much have liked to
have drawn this particular woman's face. I think it is the only
handsomely shaped face I've seen in India so far, and yet that queer
inhuman look ought to have prevented a child closing its eyes near her.
She had killed a child for its bangle and dropped it into a well, and in
prison nearly killed another for another bangle. She was fourteen and
had a look of complete ignorance of good or evil. This good-looking girl
they tell me is to go into a nunnery--by my Hostie! I'd like to hear the
end of the story.
We came back from the jail and found a tableau arranged on our verandah.
It was well done, whether by accident or design. The two principal
actors sat in the middle of the verandah with neat bundles arranged
round them, and behind them sat their two slaves or henchmen in garments
of complimentary tints. The Memsahibs came and were salaamed, and sat in
front of the traders. Then the bundles were opened and blossomed into
colours and fabrics. Within ten minutes the verandah was covered with
silks of every hue, gorgeous colours and the delicate colours of
moonlight, so that the matting was completely covered with a veritable
riot of colours and textures--a much more wonderful effect than any
tricks with baskets or mangoes grown under sheets. I tried to put this
down in colour, and here is a pen and ink jotting of the subject.
[Illustration]
Sunday.--Walked round the outside of the prison grounds amongst little
patches of highly-cultivated market gardens and clumps of palms, and
these long pumps like the ancient catapult with bronze men sweating at
them pulling down the long arm of the balanced yard to let the bucket
down the well, then tipping the water out into gutters of mud to
irrigate. They do it pretty much the same way up the Nile. The cottages
have low mud walls, and are thatched with dried palm leaves and scraps
of corrugated iron, and the naked children, with their coal-black mops
of hair, play about in the dust with the hens, and seem to have a good
time. They are chubby and jolly, and don't quarrel so much, or speak so
harshly as school board children in our Bonnie Lowlands. Here and there
are quaint little temples, stone built, under the palms between the
patches of cultivated ground. There are prickly pears, and hedges of
different thorny creepers with flowers of pink, cinnamon, deep orange,
and violet. I pass a group of goats feeding on one of these hedges,
black, white, and brown--a pleasant motley of moving colour. The piece
of hedge near me has pink flowers, and behind it you see a little
lapis-lazuli sky. The black goat's coat is almost blue with reflected
sky. Near me a boy stands in the shadow of a tree herding a cow. The
leaves throw deep shadows on the rusty red path and a tracery of leaf
shadows, on the cow's back and sides--deeper in colour than the velvety
black of the hide itself.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: A Street Corner, Bangalore]
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
In the evening my hostess drives me to another part of the bazaar, and
we scribble, and try hard to remember a street corner and prevent other
scenes obliterating our impressions and come straight home to get it
down.
The lamplight conflict with daylight is to me as interesting here as at
home. The best minutes in the day, I think, for colour, are when the
shadows from figures passing the lamps just become visible, when they
still hold the blue of day in them, and so contrast pleasantly with the
yellow lights of oil and electric lamps.
Outside many of the booths chandeliers of cut crystal are hung, and
give, what I consider, a charming effect.
In the evening there was a dinner party at the Residency, to which Mrs
Fraser very kindly invited us, and there was pleasant talk about Burmah
and princely pageants, elephant kedar camps, and the right royal
entertainments to be held at Mysore; and of how the twenty valets and
the hundreds of guests are to be provided for; to quote the Tales of
the Highlands, "there will be music in the place of hearing, meat in the
place of eating, smooth drinks and rough drinks, and drinks for the
laying down of slumber, mirth raised and lament laid down, and a right
joyful hearty plying of the feast and Royal Company"--but how it is all
to be done is past my comprehension! Noah, the Raven said, did them
really well in the Ark; but a Royal Retinue must be much more difficult
to provide for, must need a bigger "bunda-bust"--I believe I've used
this word rightly again!
[Illustration]
The Maharajah of Mysore came after dinner. He was dressed in a pale
turquoise silk coat, with dark blue and white and gold turban with
diamond aigrette, and white trousers, patent leather shoes, and a long
necklace of very large diamonds. He is twenty-one and good-looking, with
pleasant expression and a quiet possessed manner. I am almost glad I did
not know that he is building such a wonderful palace, or I would have
felt oppressed. This palace at Mysore is to be the finest in the world,
so people here say, but of it anon. We spoke of music; he plays a great
number of instruments (I think thirteen). I asked which music he liked
best, Eastern or Western, and he replied, "When I hear Western music, I
think surely nothing could be better. Then when I hear our own Eastern
music, again I think nothing could be better." He understands the
various kinds of our Highland music, and argued that if you understand
the folk music of one race you can understand that of others. To me it
seems a loss to music that these early forms of various races are not
more often studied by modern musicians. Writers and painters set an
example in this way; painters and sculptors especially, for they study
the art of all times and peoples, ancient Greek, Egyptian, Japanese,
etc., but what does the ordinary musician know of these ancient Greek,
Egyptian, or Celtic tunes that are fast being forgotten, or of Japanese,
Indian, or Burmese intricacies? Sir Arthur Sullivan did study Burmese
music, but was not that quite exceptional? Writers too, generally have a
smattering of some dead languages, and even advocate the study to-day,
of Sanskrit, and Gaelic.
[Illustration]