[Illustration]
Before the phantom of false morning died,
Our boy outside the carriage cried,
When all the breakfast is prepared without,
Why nods the drowsy Sahib still inside?
and
Wake for the sun has scattered into flight
The stars before it from the field of night;
Drives night along with it, and strikes
The Rajah's palace with a shaft of light--
as above, but possibly it is just a Government building, a post office,
perhaps! Our two carriages are in a siding at this Mysore station, and
the servants are outside with breakfast. The robes of the natives coming
towards the station in the twilight under said shaft of light are
greenish in contrast; they are wrapped up in their white mantles to keep
off what they appear to think dangerous morning air. Only a few of them
are astir, and the dew runs steadily from the roof of our carriage and
makes a hole in the sandy track, and an early crow is round for anything
that may be going. The cook comes past with a comforting glow from
charcoal in a frying pan, so we know our _chota hazri_ will be before
us in no time, after which we intend to trolly back on the line to
Seringapatam.
We came here yesterday afternoon from Bangalore, R. and D. with their
carriage, and self and G. in one the Railway Co. let us have--for a
consideration! A very good plan this--you pay for three fares and have
your carriage overnight, so at places where there are no hotels you are
more comfortable than if there were!
Coming here from Bangalore to Mysore, the line is interesting all the
way, the scenes change constantly--I have very distinct recollections of
at first "garden scenery," then jungle and bushy woods running into
rocky gorges, barren sand wastes and rich rolling corn lands alternating
in the few hours run, yet in my journal I have not a line of pen or
scrape of pencil of these scenes; I daresay the reader has noticed this,
that scenes taken unconsciously on the tablets of memory--unconscious
impressions--are more lasting than those taken down consciously and
deliberately.
Mysore town is a place of wide roads and trees, fields intended to be
parks some day, and light and air. Many houses of European origin,
somewhat suggestive of Italian or Spanish villas, are shuttered and
closed in, so as to give a sense of their being deserted. You drive past
these silent houses and their gardens and come to the native town, which
is anything but silent or deserted, and then to the new palace; the
modern sight of southern India. It is brimming with life; it looks like
a Gothic cathedral in course of construction. Two towers, each at a
guess, 150 feet high, with a wing between them, bristle with bamboo
scaffolding so warped and twisted out of the perpendicular that the
uprights are like old fishing rods. The extraordinary intricacy is quite
fascinating, but at present it partially prevents one seeing the general
proportions and effect of the building. As we see it, in the afternoon,
the great mass of building is grey against the western light; thousands
of men, women, boys, and children are scattered over its face on these
fragile perches, and though not in sunlight, their many-coloured
draperies reflect on the variously coloured stones at which they are
carving. Around us, on the ground, are other thousands doing similar
work, hewing, sawing, and carving marbles and granite--such intricate
carving--in reddish and grey-green granite. As to the general
architectural effect it would be unwise to venture an opinion at
present; but the details are simply marvellous. I believe it is intended
to be the finest palace in the world, and if a great many exquisite
fancies put together, will form one great conception, then certainly
this expression in architecture must be a magnificent work of art. The
people to-day and the generations to come must owe this Prince great
gratitude for the encouragement of so many skilled craftsmen, and for
the preservation of Indian arts and crafts. There were four hundred
fine-wood carvers, and four hundred fine-stone carvers, carving filigree
ornaments, chains, and foliage of the most astonishing realism in these
materials. Fancy, actual chains in granite, pendants from elephants'
heads! Most of the skilled masons and joiners of India, I am told, have
been collected here. The masons must be in thousands; they are
wonderfully skilled in work at granite, their very lightness of hand
seems to let them feel just the weight of iron needed to flake off the
right amount from the granite blocks. A very much extended description
of the Temple of Solomon might give to one who had time to read an idea
of the richness of the materials employed, and the variety of the
subjects of the decorations. There is marble--work and wood--work,
silver doors, ivory doors, and rooms, halls, and passages of these
materials, all carved with Indian minuteness and delicacy, with telling
scenes from the stories of Hindoo deities; and in the middle of these
Eastern marvels are alas! cast-iron pillars from Glasgow. They form a
central group from base to top of the great tower; between them at each
flat they are encircled with cast-iron perforated balconies. They are
made to imitate Hindoo pillars with all their taperings and swellings,
and are painted vermilion and curry-colour. Opening on to these
cast-iron balconies are the silver and ivory rooms and floors of
exquisite marble inlay.
We saw inside on many floors, modellers with their clay, modelling
groups for the stone-carvers, in high or low relief, with utmost
rapidity, freedom, finish, and appreciation of light and shade. The
different methods of craftsmen in different countries is always
interesting. Here the modeller works on the floor seated on his heels;
he runs up acanthus leaves, geometric designs, or groups of figures and
animals with a rapidity that would give our niggling Academy teachers at
home considerable food for thought--and yet the work is fine, and the
figures are full of expression. The area of a workman's studio you might
cover with a napkin, or say, a small table-cloth. The carver takes the
model and whacks it out in _granite_ without any pointing or other help
than his hand and eye and a pointed iron chisel and hammer, and he loses
very little indeed of the character of the model, in fact, as little as
some well paid Italian workers.
The wood-carving, as far as technical skill in cutting goes, was out and
away beyond anything we could almost dream of at home, and all at 1s.
4d. a day, which is good pay here. One man cut with consummate skill
geometrical ornaments on lintels to be supported by architraves covered
with woodland scenes, with elephants foreshortened and ivory tusks
looking out from amongst tree-trunks, and most naturalistic monkeys,
peacocks, fruit, and foliage. All this we saw rapidly dug out in the
hard brown teak with delightful vigour, spontaneity, and finish. One
might fear that a geometrically carved lintel would not be quite in
keeping with a florid jamb, but why carp, we should look at the best
side of things. I think these same craftsmen working to the design of
one artist, or artist and architect in one, might make a record. The
ability to carry out the design is here, and at such a price! But where
is the thought, the conception for a Parthenon--a nation must first
worship beauty before it can produce it.
I think the native town and streets here as good as can be for painting
pictures; a man would have to come young and get up early to do the
subjects you see in an hour or two. Here there is more style, wider
surfaces, and character in the native houses than in Bombay.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
We went to Seringapatam yesterday on trollies, nine miles back on the
line by which we came from Bangalore to Mysore city. We had two
trollies, R. and G. in front with workmen examining the line as we went,
an extremely pleasant mode of procedure, with a certain dignity about it
that is absent in a railway carriage. We sit in front on comfortable
seats, a red flag on a bamboo overhead, a fat stationmaster and two
natives behind, and two on the rails to shove, the shadow of the whole
show running along beside us outlined on the ballast and sunny cactus
hedge.
[Illustration]
The first miles were over somewhat sandy, gravelly ground, then through
groves of palms, and mostly down hill. At this comfortable rate we had
time to look at the field workers in the rice crops, the palms with
their skirts of creepers, and flowering thornbrakes, and the "bits" of
the yellow corn and hedges and flat fields, that one might have seen on
any summer's day in England. The reapers were in groups and lines in the
greenish corn, the men bronze and bare to the waistcloths, the women in
many-coloured draperies, Ruths and reapers and Boazes by the dozen, with
the women's bangles gleaming, and the men's sickles glittering in the
cheerful sunlight.
Seringapatam is on an island three miles long, in the Cauvery River;
outside it we were met by a victoria and drove about the island. It is a
pleasant place to spend a day; the marks of our forefathers' gunnery on
the walls gives quite a homely feeling. You see where they camped and
the river they looked at--a gentle-running, sapphire stream with
yellow-grey stones showing across it, not much more than a hundred yards
across when we saw it--and the big double masonry wall beyond it which
they battered and scaled. Barring the trees and bushes that have grown
on the walls, the battering looks as if it had only been done yesterday.
We spent the morning going over the walls, without a guide or
guide-book, trying to pick up the hang of the situation from what we had
heard and read of the siege. There is pleasant park-land inside the
walls, with beautiful tall trees, but the view that fascinates is from
the walls across the river towards the points where the British guns
were fired from, and from which the assault was made. Later in the day
the stationmaster, Bubbaraya Moodeliar, gave us a copy of a guide he has
written, such an excellent, concise description of the place and its
history. It was pleasant to find so many of our countrymen's names on
the first pages, and at the risk of being tedious, my friends, they are
here; the names as they occur in this "Short History of the Siege and
Assault," by an Indian native--Wellesley, Kelly, Sir David Baird,
Captain Prescott, Lt. C. Dunlop, Baillie, Bell, Lt.-Colonel Gardiner,
Dalrymple, General Stuart, Wallace, Sherbrooke, Douse, Hart, Lalor--all
well-known Scottish and Irish names, except two or perhaps three that
may be English, but the Native puts them all, down as "English!" So does
the editor of Murray's "Guide to India"--describes those who fought
under Duff, Grant, and Ford as an "English Force." So foolish writers
are filching our good name by ignoring the Terms of Union, and
deliberately or unconsciously are working up another scrap on the banks
of the Bannock--well, so be it, the times are a little dull; and we need
a little national stiffening north of Tweed.
The Water-gate, where Tippoo Sultan got his _coup de grace_ in the
general flight of his people, is just the quiet and peaceful place in
which to doze and dream for a summer day on the green sward under the
park-like trees. The Gate is an arched passage through thick walls
leading to a walled-in space with trees hanging over it; through a
tumbled down bit of this wall you come on to the river. It was
delightful there, no one about, excepting two or three women washing
clothes on the stones in the clear running water, with the sunshine and
flickering shadows from the trees falling over them. But it must have
been bustling enough on the 4th of May, 1799, when Tippoo tried to pass,
with Baird's troops behind! What would one not give to have seen that
last tableau: the British soldier in the crowd of natives going for the
wounded Sultan's jewelled sword belt, the jam and press, and the heat
and danger! The Sultan objected and wounded the soldier, so the soldier
put a bullet through the Sultan's head--and what became of our northern
robber, and the belt? What heaps of jewels Tippoo had collected; he used
to spend days in his treasure-house inventorying his stores of diamonds
and pearls, and to-day you may see some of the strings of pearls if you
dine out in Edinburgh. After the assault, during the night, a soldier
found his way into the treasury, and by morning a handful of diamonds
was the price offered and asked for a bottle of Arrack. These
international looting scenes seem to me peculiarly fascinating; I think
a little prize-money won that way must feel worth fortunes earned in
business. How our soldier of to-day swears at being deprived of such
perquisites, and how he wishes he had been "in the civil" at Mandalay or
Pekin.
We drove through the native town and bazaar. It seemed half empty; a
native villa there might be had for one line of an old song. The Plague
had been knocking at many doors a little while ago, and now they swing
loosely on the hinges and the roofs are fallen in, or have been pulled
down rather, by the sahibs, to let the sun in and the evil plague spirit
out.
We came to the high mosque, Allah Musjid one of the most beautiful
buildings I have ever seen; its proportions are so big and simple. It
was the favourite place of worship of Hyder Ali Khan and his son,
Tippoo. You go up to it through porticoes, and up a rough white stair,
with innumerable swallows in nests of feathers protruding from a level
line of holes in, the hot, sun-lit wall just above your head on the
right hand; and past little rest rooms for worshippers on the left, of
plain whitewashed stone, and earth floors, all in shadow. Up the steps
you come on a paved court with a balcony of white stone, and in front
there is the moorish arcade of the mosque, and at either end a very high
minaret, built possibly of stone white-washed, but much like weathered
marble. The design is big and simple, finer in conception than anything
we have seen so far. You have to lean your head very far back to follow
up the minarets with your eyes to the top; each is octagonal and tapers
slightly to two balconies. Pigeon-holes follow the slightly sloping
sides in a spiral direction, and under each hole there is a little
carved ledge, and on these and hovering near are many pigeons. There is
colour--marble-white, weathered to yellow, dazzling in the sun and cool
violet in shade, blue rock pigeons everywhere, and at the very top of
each spire a golden ball burns against the unfathomable blue.
The hot air is slightly scented with incense and sandalwood, and there
is a musical droning from a few worshippers who repeat verses from the
Koran in the cool white interior mingled with the cooing of innumerable
pigeons, and the faint "kiree, kiree" of a kite a mile above, in the
blue zenith.
We may not enter the mosque with boots on, and will not enter with them
off, so we admire from the outside the half Indian, half Saracenic
plaster-work in the interior of the arcade--the stalactite domes,
diapers, groins, modellings _in situ_, and wish the authority on plaster
work, Mr William Millar, was here to enjoy the skill and beauty of the
work.
Next show--the summer palace of Tippoo Sultan. If you have been at
Granada you can picture this as rather a thin Hindoo edition of
Generalife Villa. It is moresque in style, but small in structural
forms, smaller still in geometrical ornament, and without breadth or
much harmony of colour schemes. Some small rooms were passable in gold
and silver and primary colours, but the principal halls and galleries
were extremely crude. To be seen properly there should be people in
proportion, little Hindoo beauties sitting primly at the balconies that
open on to the inner court, and playing beside the long formal tanks
that extend far amongst shrubs and trees of the surrounding gardens.
There are mural paintings on the verandah walls, which are spoken of as
attractions and things to be seen; they are slightly funny. They
represent the defeat of our troops by Hyder Ali and the French, but they
are of no great count, except as records of costume. But enough about
this place: our interest lay in the battered walls and the cells behind
them where our Highland and Lowland soldiers were imprisoned so long.
We passed the Water-gate on our way back, then under a grove of
cocoa-nut palms, with many cocoa-nuts and monkeys in their tops; and we
threw stones up, but never a cocoa-nut did the monkeys throw back at us!
So we bought some at a price, a very small price indeed, and I for one
enjoyed seeing them in their green fresh state; when we got home to our
railway carriages, that had come on for us from Mysore to Seringapatam,
we had their tops slashed off with an axe: then put a long tumbler,
mouth down over the hole and upset the two, and so got the tumbler
filled with the water from the inside and drank it. We'd have drunk
anything we were so thirsty: so I will not offer an opinion as to its
quality, more than that it was distinctly refreshing. The shells and
husks were then split open, and we scraped the creamy white off the
inside of the soft shell with a piece of the rough green husk and ate it
and made believe it was delicious!
[Illustration]
As the sun is setting we cross the Cauvery River again, leaving
Seringapatam because it is said to be so malarial that it is unwise to
spend the night there.... The river is golden, the rocks violet, and the
sky above purple and vermilion; herons' scraik and duck are on the move,
almost invisible against the dark palms and bushes and shadowy banks--I
am not superstitious, but I think there were ghosts about, sturdy
fellows in old-fashioned uniforms; I should like to have held converse
with them.
MYSORE.--We got back to Mysore after dark.
Our two homes are gently shoved into a siding, and before you can say
knife, our servants are spreading the table beside the carriage on the
sand by lamplight; there are flowers on the table, silver, linen, and
brass fingerbowls for four--the dinner prepared between Seringapatam and
here _en route_! R. having made final arrangements with his people for a
long hot day's work to-morrow, we fall to; needless to say we do not get
into regulation evening kit, but the regulation warm bath before dinner
was there all in order, even in such limited space!
We left all windows open on the road here, so to-night hope we have got
rid of all the malarial infecting mosquitoes of Seringapatam--those here
are bad enough.
[Illustration]
... Work done, one sketch as above--catalogue misleader, "Dinner on the
Line;" or would a "Meal on the Track" be less descriptive?--Mind
stuffed with those "erroneous, hazy, distorted first impressions,"
which, according to, and with the approval of Mr Aberich Mackay, the
"Anglo-Indian" hastens to throw away; and which I, not being in the
least Anglo-anything, wish most sincerely I could keep!