considerable of an erudite gentleman--speaks several languages.
I speak only one, and I do queer things to that one lots of times.
But Lal doesn't try to impress me with his superiority just because he
knows a lot more than I do--quite the reverse.
His wages are a rupee a day, out of which he feeds himself. That was
his own price. I'm paying him all he asks. I've been told that I'm
paying him too much, that he has stung me. A rupee is thirty-two
cents!
But he is a superior guide. He admits it himself. To prove it he
showed me a sheaf of recommendations from American globe-trotters whom
he has guided across India in days gone by.
A good many of those recommendations are frayed at the edges through
much showing, but I wouldn't mind having some of those names on a
blank check, with privilege to write the rest of the check myself.
Lal tells me he is the "Professor" of the guides.
I hired him yesterday. He calls me "Master." That's regular. All
servants and guides in India call their employers "Master."
With a two weeks' trip to plan across India, with a map of India,
hotel guides and railroad time-tables, pencil and paper spread out
before me in my room this afternoon, I said: "Draw up a chair, Lal,
and sit down. Here is a two hours' job before us."
"Excuse me, 'Master'," Lal said, "but if 'Master' will excuse me I
will not sit in 'Master's' presence."
Get that?
Royalty, don't you know?
Lal got "Master" in only three times in that sentence. I've known him
to bring it in four times in a shorter one.
[Illustration: Get that? Royalty, don't you know]
In addition to Lal's numerous duties--standing between me and the
natives, brushing my clothes, looking after my laundry, making my bed
in sleeping cars, and watching my goods and chattels while I take my
meals in the dining car, and a score of other such duties, Lal was
looking after "Master's" dignity.
Lal, old boy, after that gentle reminder, I'll know my place.
If there's nothing else to do, I'll let Lal fan me. I believe it's one
of the prerogatives of Royalty to be fanned by vassals.
These Indian guides are a class by themselves. Many of them have
traveled far.
Picked up by travelers for a tour across India, they are frequently
taken to England and through Europe. For instance, Lal has been to
England and Boston. In speaking of India he says: "My India," "my
Calcutta," "my Bombay," and there isn't much about India he doesn't
know.
They travel third-class, which is ridiculously cheap in India. The
tourist, of course, pays his servant's railroad fare and must land him
back to point of hiring him.
Lal's home is in Calcutta. I will have finished with him at Bombay and
will have to send him back to Calcutta, across India, fifteen hundred
miles, and that item of expense will be sixteen rupees six annas--all
of five dollars and twenty cents.
It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but Royalty is
expensive anyway.
[Illustration: It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on
Lal--but Royalty is expensive anyway]
XXVII
ROYALTY VS. "TWO CLUCKS AND A GRUNT"
To go across India from Calcutta one of the necessary things to
consider is a railroad ticket.
After my vassal and I had planned an itinerary we called a victoria,
or rather Lal flagged a Hindu driving a team hitched to one.
It was rigged for a footman at the rear. The footman was there, too,
ready to open the door for "Master" when he wished to enter or alight.
This truly regal, royal outfit cost twelve annas for an hour's drive,
and that's twenty-four cents.
You can work the Royalty racket in Calcutta cheaper than you can hang
over a lunch counter and eat baked beans in America.
Now Cook's tourist agency has booked me from Hong Kong to New York via
steamer, first-class, over the Peninsular and Oriental line, P. & O.,
for short.
That means steamer from Hong Kong to Calcutta via Singapore, Penang
and Rangoon.
I have to pay my railroad fare across India to Bombay, and from that
port privilege of P. & O. direct to London, via Aden, Port Said,
Gibraltar and Marseilles, and home from London via any American or
British line I choose from London.
Cook's take care of a traveler they book in this way, and their
representatives look out for you on arrival and departure from ports.
In my role of Royalty I bade my vassal, Lal, to hoist himself up on
the driver's seat, and to tell the driver to go to Cook's.
Laying my itinerary before a booking clerk at Cook's I said: "Please
book me to Bombay over this route."
As I was traveling first-class by water, which they knew all about,
and as I preserved my regal tread from my carriage door right up to
Cook's counter, the clerk said: "Of course you want first-class, Mr.
Allen?"
"Of course I don't," I came back at him; "you stung me last trip
across India for first-class, and you know the only difference between
first and second here in India is the price, just double second, and
the number on the door of the compartment. You'll book me second,
please."
This Royalty act is all right here in India, but you want to know
where to draw the line when it affects your pocketbook with nothing to
show for it.
[Illustration: "Of course I don't," I came back at him. "You stung me
the last trip across India"]
The man saw I was wise, grinned, and issued me a second-class ticket,
and third-class for my servant; and the evening of that same day saw
me starting for the railroad station in another victoria, Lal and the
driver up front, footman on behind, the lord my duke (meaning me) in
the "tonneau" with bedding, grips, steamer trunk, camera, coats, etc.,
etc., all royally placed in the same vehicle.
When a traveler starts out from Calcutta to take the train for a
night's journey, if it don't look as if he was breaking up
housekeeping and going somewhere, I've never asked for bacon and eggs
in the woolly West and heard the shirt-sleeved waiter yell: "Two
clucks and a grunt," and then collect more for the viands than it
costs to be moved across the second city in the British Empire in
royal entourage.
XXVIII
ONE WINK, SIXTEEN CENTS, AND ROYALTY
The seasoned traveler in India, planning a night's journey, don't
arrive at a station a minute or two before his train leaves, as we do
in plebeian America. Rush and hurry should form no part of Royal
journeys.
It isn't dignified.
You should get there at least half an hour before the train starts,
especially if you are playing Royalty on a second-class ticket.
As your equipage draws up to the station your footman alights and
swings open the carriage door, your guide descends from the driver's
seat and summons low-caste vassals who load your impedimenta on their
heads.
The cavalcade starts with you bringing up the rear.
You find the station-master, the string of your menials now following
on behind.
Locate your station-master, or at least an official who will answer
the same purpose, and tip him a wink, not forgetting to accompany it
with half a rupee, and tell him you want a car for Benares.
This man is a Hindu who can write but can't read--I am quite certain
he can't read.
He leads "Master" with his string of retainers to a car of four
compartments, four berths in each compartment, the berths running with
the train, with a toilet room for each compartment. He opens a door.
Lal tells the string of porters to put "Master's" baggage into the
compartment--no matter how much, put it all in, boxes, bags, bedding
and trunks.
Then this functionary who has been the recipient of a wink _and_ half a
rupee (don't forget the coin when working the combination), who can
write but who cannot read, fills in a placard which is hanging outside
the compartment. This placard, before the recipient of the wink and
half rupee begins to toy with it, is a blank which reads:
Lower Right Berth reserved for ----
Upper Right Berth reserved for ----
Lower Left Berth reserved for ----
Upper Left Berth reserved for ----
[Illustration: Lal tells the string of porters to put "Master's"
baggage into the compartment--no matter how much, put it all in,
boxes, bags, bedding, and trunks]
This official who has received a wink _and_ half a rupee--never, never
forget the half rupee, because half a rupee is sixteen cents--fills in
the blanks on the placard which now, in its completed state, reads:
Lower Right Berth reserved for Mr. Allen.
Upper Right Berth reserved for Mr. Jones.
Lower Left Berth reserved for Mr. White.
Upper Left Berth reserved for Mr. Brown.
He hangs up the placard outside of the compartment, wishes "Master" a
pleasant journey up to Benares, and closes the door.
Lal starts the electric fan, makes "Master's" bed, lays out "Master's"
pajamas, and arranges "Master's" belongings promiscuously over Jones',
White's and Brown's berths--Lal, a seasoned guide, is onto his job.
These last-named gentlemen get left--yes, sir, they get left. The
train pulls out before they get around, and I am deprived of the
pleasure of their company.
But if there is one place where a fellow can dispense with company
it's on a hot night's run in a railroad carriage through India.
It's when I step out of the car at Benares the next morning that I
learned that the fellow back in Calcutta couldn't read, for, blessed
if the outside of that compartment I have occupied all night isn't
labeled No. 1 instead of No. 2.
But that really makes no difference.
The compartment labeled No. 2, when you get inside, is just like
compartment labeled No. 1, on the other side of the partition in the
same car.
I conscientiously told that fellow I held a second-class ticket, and
if he _could_ read, Royalty is so cheap in Calcutta that you can buy a
whole night of it with sixteen cents, and the number on the outside of
the car, and the price charged for it, is all the difference between
Royalty and Plebeian in India--and Plebeians have the laugh on
Royalty--they have always had it on them for that matter.
XXIX
THE ENGLISHMAN AND MARK TWAIN'S JOKE, "THAT'S HOW THEY WASH IN INDIA"
In my home town I was once asked to give a travel talk in a large
stone church, the occasion being a rally for the Christian Endeavor
Society.
It had been announced that there would be no charge for admission;
furthermore, it had been thoroughly advertised that the young ladies
of the church would furnish a delectable spread to the audience in the
church parlors just as soon as I got through talking.
The town turned out _en masse_.
As the parson was leading me to the rostrum, the lights went out and
there was Egyptian darkness.
After an anxious wait of five minutes, it being a hard stunt to get
such a fine audience together in the classic, intellectual center in
which I live, even with a chromo offer, the parson, fearing it would
leave, made a little speech in the direction where he hoped the
audience was--he couldn't see it--it was an act of faith.
[Illustration: The town turned out _en masse_ to hear me talk]
He begged our good people to be patient under the trying
circumstances, explained that the burned-out fuse would soon be
replaced, that an electrician was even now on his way to the church,
and told them that a good thing was in store for them--he assured
them, "Mr. Allen is still with us."
Five more minutes passed and darkness still brooded.
Again the parson gave the audience, which he hoped was still there,
the same little speech, assuring them again, "Mr. Allen is still with
us--there's a good thing coming."
At the end of fifteen minutes he repeated it again, assuring them a
good thing was coming--the coffee began to boil in the church kitchen,
the aroma floating through the auditorium--the lights came on and
there hadn't one guilty man escaped. The audience was still there.
Kind reader, you'd never guess what _I_ was thinking about during that
trying fifteen minutes.
Well, I was trying to think of an appropriate story to open my speech
with, to illustrate the situation--something about where the lights
went out.
I thought, and _thought_, and THOUGHT, but could not fetch it, but the
next morning I thought of a corker--I am descended from the English.
[Illustration: The coffee began to boil in the church kitchen, the
aroma floated through the auditorium]
All my ancestors came from England and settled in New England. New
England was chiefly inhabited by Indians at the time, but, I suppose,
there still lurks a trace of English in me.
That old joke about the English being slow is no joke--it's a sad
fact.
If further proof than my inability to corral that illustration inside
of fifteen minutes were necessary, I've demonstrated it coming through
India this trip.
The universal way of washing clothes in India is for a native, they
call him a dobe, to take his clothes to the bank of a stream,
conveniently near a large stone.
The larger the stone the better. One weighing from one to three tons
is an ideal size.
The dobe picks up a garment, souses it in the water, and flails the
stone with it.
The dobe is a particularly vigorous man. The average Indian is of a
lymphatic nature, excepting the dobe. He is animated with a
strenuousness entirely lacking in all other callings.
Mark Twain, passing through India some fifteen years ago, noting the
strange sights, remarked that all over India he had seen the natives
trying to break huge stones with a shirt; but, he added, he hadn't, in
a single instance, seen one succeed.
[Illustration: That old joke about the English being slow is no
joke--it's a sad fact]
[Illustration: And every time the Englishman has explained to me that
he wasn't trying to break the stone]
Just to see whether our English cousins over here in India had caught
that joke yet, when our train crossed a stream I would draw a chance
English traveler's attention to the ubiquitous dobe flailing a stone,
and wonderingly ask: "Why does the man try to break the stone that
way?"--and every time the Englishman has explained to me that he
wasn't trying to break the stone; and he would further kindly explain,
"That's the way the Indians do their washing," and he would invariably
add: "Beastly stupid, don't you know, isn't it?"
And every time I've sadly admitted that it was.
XXX
ENGLISH AS "SHE IS SPOKE" IN INDIA
Benares is located on the Ganges River and is right in the center of
things for devout Hindus--Benares bearing the same relation to
Hinduism that Jerusalem does to Christianity.
Benares is the Hindus' sacred city, and the sacred Ganges River is
lined with temples and bathing and burning ghats.
Hindus come from afar to die at Benares, where their bodies may be
burned and their ashes consigned to the sacred waters of the Ganges.
And after Benares, by easy stages, Lal and I reached Delhi, the old
capital of India, until the seat of government was shifted to
Calcutta, to be again brought back to Delhi three years ago. And here
is some English "as she is spoke" in Delhi, handed out by an
enterprising shopkeeper to both Royalty and Plebeian:
"Useful value, Save Your Money
(Defy Competition)
"We have much pleasure to inform the Ladies and Gentlemen, Officers
and visitors and prince and the public in general who have always
been our customers or who wished to make the shopping they must not use
the Hotel and traveling guides and Hotel Carriages at the purchasing
time because they always Carried the visitors to those places where
they getting 25 per cent Commission, now it is a great point to think
that when they will get so High Commission from the shop keepers then
the visitors cannot get the things worth of a rupee only they will be
extorted and will get the things 4 ans. worth in a rupee, now it is
useful advice for them that the visitors should not make any purchases
without having inspected our prices and charges, as we are not going
to any Hotel to distribute our cards and never use to give them any
Commission that is why we are ready to sell our articles at
comparatively prices, our firm oldest and reliable has been
established in 1860 in Chandni Chowk now we have shifted our shop from
there to here near the Jama Masjid No. 1 for the convenience of our
customers.
"No use to get the money from your pocket and to give these guides and
Ghari-walas."
XXXI
A FIVE DAYS' SAIL AND A MEASLY POEM
We are nearing Aden in Arabia, en route from Bombay.
Bombay was all stirred up over the war and my itinerary is knocked
into a cocked hat.
I had planned to go through Palestine to Constantinople and cross
Europe to London, but I can't get my passport viseed--I'm no war
correspondent, anyway. I'm strictly a man of peace.
When Lal and I reached Bombay war was on, and Bombay was about
two-thirds of my way around the world, and home loomed large in my
mind--I wanted to get home. This English P. & O. mail liner was ready
to sail direct for London--and this was my ship.
For a strictly peaceful man this was not a good boat to sail on, I was
advised, numerously, and from many sources.
All banks in India since war was declared had shut down paying out
gold. This ship was going to carry four million pounds sterling to
London, which, in round numbers, is twenty million dollars.
[Illustration: Home loomed large in my mind--I wanted to go home]
She would be a prize for the German gunboats in the Arabian Sea. Aden
would be her first stop, a five days' sail from Bombay. The Germans
knew her schedule and her route and knew she would carry Indian gold
to London. She would have no chance at all to make Aden with all that
gold on board. The Germans would get her.
Then, from there up through the Red Sea to Suez she wouldn't be out of
danger--there were German gunboats in the Red Sea. She might get
through the Suez Canal all right, if she ever got so far as Suez. The
trip through the canal might possibly be a peaceful one, but, ye gods!
look out when she strikes Port Said at the other end of the canal, if
she ever gets that far, was the word passed out.
Port Said would be a hot point. Nothing but submarines would be safe
around Port Said about her due date there, it would be such a seething
hot-bed of naval engagements.
From there her course through the Mediterranean to Gibraltar would be
one trying ordeal for a man of peace, not used to, looking for, nor
wanting war's alarms. Italy was hanging in the balance as a neutral
power. She would probably be in it before the ship could reach the
Mediterranean at Port Said--if she ever reached Port Said.
To sail on this ship through the Mediterranean under present
conditions would be, for a rank civilian, just like committing
suicide. Of course for a soldier, whose job is war, it would be all
right--all in the day's business--justifiable.
Then after she reached Gibraltar (of course this was supposing the
improbable chance of her ever getting so far as Gibraltar) she would
have to sail out into the Atlantic through the Bay of Biscay, and up
the Thames, and the telegraph said the Germans had slipped over and
mined the mouth of the Thames--for a man anxious to get home this was
a bad ship to sail on. That was the encouragement held out to book for
passage on this ship.
I met a man at the Taj Mahal Hotel in Bombay (I'd met this man two
weeks previously at Calcutta)--an American, a machinery salesman from
the United States.
He told me he was on his way home, had crossed India to Bombay to
connect with this P. & O. liner, but none of this ship for him.
He had been filled as full, if not fuller, than myself of the dire
disasters that would, in all probability, overtake this ship.
[Illustration: Just like committing suicide]
"Why, Mr. Allen," he said, "that ship will have about as much chance
to get to London as a celluloid dog would have to catch an asbestos
cat racing through----" "Oh, say, my friend," I said, "don't say
it.
"Aside from that illustration having gray whiskers, it makes me
nervous and discourages me, because I want to get home, and that is
the ship I ought to sail on. But let's go and see our Consul; he may
be able to throw a little optimism on the situation."
[Illustration: He had been filled as full, if not fuller, than myself]
The Consul took an even more gloomy view of it than my friend from
Calcutta. Aside from the above cheerful opinions, all of which he
shared, he had the air of a man who knew something worse but was not
at liberty to tell.
That settled my friend from Calcutta.
He wanted to get home as bad as any man could, but he was going to
retrace his steps and go home via Japan.
Our Consul advised me if I really wanted to get home that I had better
go that way too. On the other hand, he advised, if I really enjoyed
the sensation of momentarily living in expectation of being sunk, shot
to pieces, or blown up, that this P. & O. liner was an ideal ship to
sail on.
As I had just come from Japan, as my contract is to write travel stuff
around the world--not two-thirds around and back over the same
ground--and as I had picked up numerous cases of stuff coming across
India, all of which were under consular invoice, said invoice reciting
the fact that the goods it described were to leave India on this same
ship, for entry at New York (it being a requirement of our tariff laws
to name the ship, port of departure, and port of arrival of goods for
entry into United States), I told our Consul and my Calcutta friend
that I was going to take a chance and sail on this ship.
To write that invoice all over again for another ship, for entry into
San Francisco en route from Japan--to get out of that was the
determining factor.
Anyone who knows anything about the details of a consular invoice will
understand.
So I boarded this ship with a handful of passengers booked for London.
The tender steamed away and left us in Bombay Harbor, ready to weigh
anchor and sail at 3 P. M. Saturday, the advertised hour for sailing.
But we didn't weigh--not at 3 P. M. that day, or the next. The next
day, Sunday, all first and second-cabin passengers--the P. & O. carry
no steerage--were shoved up forward, and British troops, homeward
bound, were taken on aft--and I wondered if the Consul knew.
This changed the situation.
[Illustration: To write that invoice all over again * * * to get out
of that was the determining factor]
Sailing on a British ship with British troops, to say nothing of
twenty million dollars in gold, with England and Germany at War, was
no good place for a man of my peaceful proclivities.
I wasn't alone in these sentiments.
The purser, on that peaceful Sabbath day, put this question to the
passengers: "Do you want to sail on this ship or go ashore?"
We might sail at our own risk. Anyone sailing was a belligerent. That
question thinned the passenger list down to about a score. The most
timid ones stampeded to leave the ship. I won first place at the
ladder, but remembered that consular invoice and turned back, and one
of our preacher passengers beat me to it and was the first one down
the ladder.
He had spent his life preaching that Heaven was a desirable place, but
he proposed to go there in God's good time. The purser, thinking he
had missed me, put the question to me the second time.
With my teeth chattering with valor and my face blanched with the war
spirit, to hide my real feelings I made reply: "P-p-please start your
tank. I want to go home--I want to get there as soon as possible--I
want to go home, I tell you."
[Illustration: With my teeth chattering with valor]
But I don't like this war game, and I decided right then and there if
they sprung another one, if they added another war risk to the ship
for this voyage, I _would_ shake it and go home via Japan.
We stayed in Bombay Harbor until next day at noon, to throw the
Germans off her schedule, and she sailed out of her regular course to
throw them off her route.
Nights we sail in darkness--her lights out and her wireless out of
commission; sailing phantom-like, with no lights to betray her to
lurking German cruisers, and by the same token, no lights to warn a
ship sailing north and south from ramming her.
I had fully intended to write some travel stuff coming across from
Bombay, but shucks! I haven't felt like writing travel stuff--couldn't
seem to get down to it.
A speck on the horizon would knock any travel stuff out of my
mind--that speck might grow into a German cruiser, and England at war
with Germany, and no guns aboard to shoot with! Just a merchant mail
ship with twenty million dollars in gold and British troops aboard.