GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA.
_Friday, January 30th._--Left Agra at 7.30 on our way to Gwalior.
After crossing the Chumbla on one of the finest bridges in India, we
came to a very strange bit of country. Every foot of the bare ground was
gulched, upturned, upheaved, into conical mounds. We saw a quantity of
curious little sugar-loaf cones, apparently of natural origin, and the
whole represents a series of miniature valleys and mountains. This broken
ground alone would form a formidable obstacle to the enemy's approach to
Gwalior, without its celebrated fort.
Long before we reached Gwalior we saw the great ridge of rock some two
miles in length, though only one in width, which rises up out of the
plain. It is the Gibraltar of India, and, standing out of the plain
instead of out of the sea, was called, before modern cannon brought the
fort within range of neighbouring heights, the key of Hindustan. It is a
grand rampart of nature, and the range of fortress walls which crown the
summit well become the site. They frown down upon the palace of Sindhia
himself, lying immediately underneath, in mockery guarding his territory,
for though the maharajah's standard floats from the flagstaff, British
soldiers occupy the stronghold.[7]
Sir Lepel Griffin, the Governor-General's agent to the princes of Central
India, was on his annual tour, and in camp at Morar, the adjacent
military station. He had asked us to stay with him at Indore, Holkar's
capital, where he is permanently located, and now offered us the
hospitality of his camp. But all our ideas of having to rough it melted
before the Oriental luxury of the temporary town.
We drove through a neat "street" of tents, and were set down before a
handsome pavilion. This was the entrance-hall with visitors' book, and
where the scarlet-clad chuprassies are in constant attendance. Through
this we passed into a drawing-room lined with brocade, thickly carpeted
with rugs, full of easy-chairs and of tables covered with photographs,
books, newspapers, flowers, &c. An anteroom, again, leads into the
dining-room. The tents for the remainder of the party are ranged on
either side of the pavilion.
Here we are in far greater luxury than in any Indian hotel, and save for
the supporting-pole in the centre, and the pebbles crunching under the
carpet, we might think ourselves in a comfortable room. All around there
are the cheerful sounds of camp-life, the chattering of servants, the
stamping of the picketed horses, or the whistling proceeding from your
opposite neighbour's tent. Some officers of the regiment are playing polo
in the adjoining ground, and their horses' feet resound as they scamper
about on the hard earth.
All commissioners and collectors have to camp out for one or two months
in the year on their tours of inspection, and so it comes to be quite a
feature of Indian life. The rule then is for one set of tents to be sent
on in advance over night. The _réveillé_ is sounded at 5 a.m., or some
such early hour, and the ten miles' march is accomplished before the heat
of the day, and they sit down to breakfast on the new camping-ground,
with the tents ready pitched. Not the least wonderful part of the camp
is the kitchen. Everything is cooked out in the open, and there is but
one tent for the culinary department. There are one or two mud ovens and
holes in the ground filled with charcoal, and with this and a very few
pots and pans a native cook manages to turn out a most elegant dinner for
eighteen. Rarely, if ever, are the dishes or sauces smoked, even when a
contrary wind is blowing.
We went to a small tennis party in the evening, and returning home along
the "Mall," Sir Lepel stopped and took us into the club, where there
is one room set aside for the use of the ladies. It is a most popular
institution, and prevails at many of the stations. The ladies walk down
here in the evening before dinner, and have a gossip, or read the papers,
whilst their husbands are playing billiards in an adjoining room.
This reminds me also of another, but a very different kind of club,--the
"Mutton Club," which exists at most stations. There are few butchers in
India, as none are called for among the Hindu population. So the ladies
on a station frequently join together and keep their own flock of sheep
and a shepherd, which supplies them with meat twice a week, and they take
it in turns for the prime joints. Some energetic member of the community
keeps the accounts and collects the subscriptions.
There was a dinner party in the evening, and during dinner the band of
the native infantry regiment, the Duke of Connaught's Own, played outside
the tent, and afterwards conjurors performed some well-known Indian
tricks. It strikes you as curious at first, when you step out of your
tent into the moonlight in full evening dress, and walk across to the
pavilion to dinner, to see the guests arriving up the "street," which
looks so pretty with its row of lamps.
_Saturday, January 31st. In camp at Gwalior._--Awoke at 7 a.m. to the
merry noises of an awakening camp--bugles braying, horses neighing, a
band playing in the distance, soldiers parading on the plain near by
under their officers' shouts of command, and gongs sounding at intervals
from all sides.
It was very chilly work turning out, for in the early morning and late at
night the cold in the tents is intense.
At eight o'clock we started, muffled up in winter wraps, yet shivering
much, and drove to the bottom of the Gwalior hill. Here we found one of
the Maharajah's elephants waiting to take us up the very steep climb to
the fort, which it is impossible to ascend in a carriage. Those who have
been on an elephant know well the first sensation of fright that comes
with the acute angle, as the beast raises himself on his hind-legs, when
his fore-legs bring us to a level; and then we seem to be on a height
which is dwarfing to all below us. The motion is a painfully uneven one,
to which you never seem able to find a corresponding one for your body,
and the howdah becomes anything but a comfortable seat, however pleased
you may be at first with the novelty of the situation. I think the
mahout, with his two-pronged fork, sitting astride the elephant's neck,
and guiding him by the pressure of his knees under the flopping ears, has
the more comfortable position of the two.
"The Little Fairy," as the elephant was poetically and inappropriately
termed, was very slow, and our progress proportionally tedious. Our party
must have presented a very picturesque appearance, as perched aloft
on the red and yellow trappings of the howdah, our bell sounding out
melodiously with the deliberate swaying walk of the elephant, we wound up
under the walls of the old fort.
The strength of the position is marvellous, and we do not wonder that the
chiefs of India would hardly believe when told that it had fallen into
our hands, a little more than a century ago.
We passed through two gateways, and then were beneath the castellated
walls, where under the protection of each battlement is a row of
glazed tiles of bright colours, in blue and green. One wonders how the
decoration, so strangely out of place, ever came there, and in other
parts of the fort it appears again. In one place, yellow geese are
represented by these means, walking in single file along the length of a
wall.
The whole of this narrow ridge is taken up with cantonments and barracks
laid in parallel lines on its perfectly flat surface. It is so narrow
that passing along the road in the centre you can almost see down on to
the plain immediately below on either hand.
One beautiful bit of antiquity still remains inside the fort in a
wonderful Hindu temple, surrounded by a museum of ancient outdoor
monuments, stone mummies, Jain idols, and monstrosities of hydra-headed
beasts, looking at each other from over a pillar. The temple is very
high, square, and narrow--a peculiar kind of formation, and unlike most
Hindu temples, which taper towards the top. It is built of small stones,
which seem to form Gothic arches in out-of-the-way corners, and the whole
temple presents an intricate mass of irregularities. To finish all,
it is covered in at the top by a modern addition, a huge white stone
semicircular roof, ending squarely, and looking entirely like a huge
sarcophagus.
As we passed the parade ground we saw the general reviewing a body of
troops. The tramp of their feet, and their regular lines, with bayonets
gleaming in the morning sun, was a cheerful sight.
The views from the fort are magnificent. There is old Gwalior lying away
among its sprinkling of trees, with the open space where the large square
of buildings shows the Maharajah's palace and gardens. The mud huts of
the large village of Lashkar, the city proper of Gwalior, is at our feet,
and away to the left is the defile of the Urwai Gorge, whose summit, on
a level with the fort, is the only weak point in the defences.
We had breakfast on returning at eleven o'clock, a very usual hour, when
chota hazri supplies all earlier wants, and from 12 p.m. a string of
callers were coming and going. The Indian etiquette requires calls to be
paid between the hottest hours of the day, from 12 till 2 p.m.
A combat of animals had been organized for that afternoon for us.
The natives squatting round formed a bright ring of colour, and
somewhat against our will we were obliged to witness a typical Indian
entertainment.
Some cocks were the first to appear on the arena, but, save one couple,
were not at all "game." Then some little partridges were brought, loudly
calling challenges to each other from their wicker cages; but when
brought face to face they only showed us a succession of clever dodgings.
They were followed by a pair of bul-buls, those fluffy-headed bullfinches
whom we hear chirping in the trees in the evening with such a deafening
noise. But the rams showed the best fight. Let fly from opposite ends of
the circle, they met in the centre with tremendous force, the repeated
dull thud of their horns echoing for days after in our ears. Provided
that they meet with their heads well down, it is their horns that have
the full force of the concussion, and it does not hurt them. A white ram
was produced, which was held back with difficulty, springing and showing
fight to all the rams that came near him. He proved too strong and heavy
for all the others, and they fled in terror before him, and could hardly
be persuaded to meet him. Then he would take a mean advantage of their
retreat and go after them, butting at their backs and sides, and turning
them contemptuously over.
We saw a snake pitted against a mongoose, but, curiously enough, little
fury as the mongoose is, he refused to touch the very handsome spotted
snake, and retreated at every hiss. The second and smaller one, however,
he succeeded in apparently killing, flattening his neck, till blood
poured out of his mouth. This was the signal for a wonderful exhibition.
The man declared he could bring the snake to life again, and, making
a hole in the earth, he laid the head in, and poured water on it. The
effect was magical; the neck stiffened and moved, and gradually the
serpent reared its head. Then the cure was completed by the sweet
dirge-like music charming the snake, and making it wave its head in time,
intently following each undulation--unconscious of all save the magic
music.
A buffalo-fight was tried in another part of the camp, but it was evident
that they, in common with the other animals, had no natural animosity for
one another.
Later in the afternoon we went to the cantonment to see some tent-pegging
by the Fourth Bengal Native Cavalry. This was a very different kind
of tent-pegging to any performance of the kind that you see at the
Agricultural Hall at Islington. Here the men were on a large open space,
and flew by at full speed with a wild rush, balancing the long spear low,
and carrying off the tiny peg (almost lost in such a space) by piercing
it through.
The dress of the native cavalry is splendid: scarlet coats, or more
crimson perhaps, with blue and white striped turbans; white that of the
infantry is buff with dark-blue turbans and facings. We walked through
the cavalry lines of horse pickets, and the horses of this regiment are
exceptionally fine, either "country-bred" or "Australians." Each man
is obliged to keep a grass-cutter for his horse, and a pony or mule is
shared by two, which goes out in the early morning and returns to camp at
night with the next day's load of grass.
We drove home through the bazaar, which is considered almost the model
bazaar of India. It is hardly credible what order and brightness by
whitewashing and a uniformity of red-striped blinds has been introduced
by the encouragement of Brigadier-General Massey, of Crimean fame, when
he commanded here. A great deal of the native-carved woodwork has been
used with great effect in balconies and over gateways, particularly in
that of the "serai," or the house of hospitality for native travellers,
which you find in all villages.
We drove out to dinner by moonlight that evening in an open carriage, the
usual way at "mofussil" stations, where a close carriage is so rarely
wanted. The word "mo_fussil_" sounded so funny to me at first, but it is
very expressive of the station and up-country life of India.
_Sunday, February 1st._--To church in the morning. The scarlet of the
infantry in the nave, and the blue of the artillery lining the transepts,
made a very effective addition to the congregation. The choir was formed
of soldiers, and accompanied by a brass band.
Captain Robertson, First Assistant to the Agent, showed us to-day a
kharita, or a letter to a native prince. The paper is specially made for
this purpose, and is sprinkled with gold leaf. Only the last few lines
of the somewhat lengthy document contain the purport of the letter,
while the remainder is made up of the usual roundabout and complimentary
phrases. It is folded in a peculiar way, with the flaps outwards, and
inserted into a muslin bag, and this latter into one of crimson and gold
tint, with a slip-knot of gold thread, attached to which is a ponderous
seal. The superscription and address on a slip of paper is passed into
the bag between this latter and the muslin one. I have given these
details in full, because they are important to Indian epistolary art, as,
should any of them be omitted, it would be thought that an insult had
been offered to the person addressed.
It may not be generally known that the native States still extant in
India are 800, though out of them only 200 are of any importance. The
Nizam of Hyderabad, the Maharajahs Sindhia and Holkar, each have an
income of over a million sterling a year; and the kingdom of the first
named is as large as Italy. This gives us some idea of the importance
and power which still remains in the hands of the native princes--added
to which, many of them maintain their own army, consisting of several
regiments. This is the Maharajah Sindhia's great pride--the strength and
efficiency of his army; and we were so sorry to have come a few days too
late to see the review which he had just held, when he commanded his
troops in person, and also to have missed the durbar, when his Highness
was received in state by Sir Lepel. Since then he has been laid up with
fever, and we were, therefore, unable to see him or his palace which
contains one of the finest durbar-halls in India.
We left the camp at daybreak the next morning, and this will ever be
remembered as the coldest and most disagreeable of our many early morning
starts, collecting our things, and leaving as we did in the dark. We
returned to Agra for the third and last time, where we spent the night.
Again all the next day we were travelling on the Rajpootana State Railway
to Jeypore, which we reached at six in the evening.
The country around Jeypore is of that peculiar formation which presents
a flat plain of untold limits, interrupted at frequent intervals by
conical-shaped hills that often attain to the height of mountains.
Surrounded by a semicircle of these mountains, lying in the hollow of
their midst, is Jeypore.
The white walls and towers of the great Tiger Fort, accessible only from
this one side, stands guard over the city. Beneath it, on the rocks, has
been painted in gigantic letters the one word "Welcome," inscribed there
for the visit of the Prince of Wales.
Jeypore, the city of victory, as its name implies, is considered the
model city of a native State, and it also carries off the palm for
picturesqueness amongst all those artist-loved cities of India.
The native quarter, surrounded by a wall, forms a city within the city.
The broad streets of its bazaar are wider and different to anything of
the kind that we have seen before. The low shops are surmounted by a
trellis carving, uniform throughout the long street, and all are coloured
that soft Eastern pink, deep enough here to be a terra-cotta colour. The
square market-place, with its marble fountain in the centre, and flocks
of pigeons, looks like some old Italian piazza, and the story is told
that it was built to please the Italian love of one of the Maharajahs
of Jeypore. In keeping with the cleanliness and the air of brightness
that generally pervades Jeypore, are the painted horns in red and green
of the bullocks, the spirited and caparisoned horses of the Maharajah's
attendants and messengers, and the bullock-carts and smartly curtained
ekkas, with their magnificent yokes of trotting-bullocks. A more than
ordinarily large number of sacred bulls seem to be lying or wandering
about the streets. There is the unusual sight of familiar rows of
lamp-posts once more, for Jeypore is the only city of a native State that
is lighted with gas, and presently we pass the smoky chimney of "His
Highness the Maharajah's Gasworks," as the inscription over the gate
tells us. It is the late Maharajah who has made Jeypore what it is.
Jeypore seems too more advanced in art, education, and culture, looking
at its school of art, where the native manufactures of pottery are sold,
the public library in the square, and the museum. This latter is formed
by the specimens of native manufactures, such as kincob, Benares and
Moorshabad work, Multan and other potteries, exhibited at the Jeypore
Exhibition two years ago, and which owes its origin and tasteful
arrangement chiefly to Dr. Hendley, the Civil Surgeon.
At the end of a long street is the "Palace of the Moon," which is
attractive from its name, but not from anything in its interior. There
are the usual ranges of courtyards, and two durbar-halls, gaudy in the
extreme, of a glaring mural decoration of flowers and fruit. We were
taken to the bottom of the garden, which commands a fine view of the
Tiger Fort, and were rather disgusted to find it was only to see a
billiard-room in the pavilion. The zenana, a palace in buff and blue, in
the form of a roof of terraces ascending and diminishing towards the gold
moon at the summit, is the prettiest thing about the Palace of the Moon.
Adjoining is the large courtyard with the tower in the centre, round
which the maharajah's 300 horses are stabled.
Facing the palace at the other end of the long street is a cage, where
seven magnificent tigers are kept for the amusement of the public.
Bars not as thick as the little finger are alone between us and these
ferocious animals. They crouch and glower in the furthermost corner,
and then spring forward as the keeper approaches, with a wild roar that
re-echoes down the street, making the cage quiver with its reverberation.
The grandest tiger of all alone has double bars, having once broken two
with a forward spring.
Then we drove to the "Palace of the Winds," a charmingly poetic name,
in keeping and resembling the fantastic façade in pink and white. A
series of little turrets, with trellis-work windows filled in with green
gratings, allow of the wind passing freely through. The palace ends with
a succession of steps, each one being crowned with a flag on a golden
staff, till they meet in the crowning step, the keystone of the façade.
It stands at the top of a hill, and is used as a summer residence. There
is nothing to see inside; the whole idea has been exhausted on the
exterior.
The history of the present Maharajah of Jeypore is somewhat romantic.
Formerly living in exile on an allowance of 1_l._ per month, he one day
found himself raised to the throne and the possessor of an income of
half a million sterling. His predecessor only settled the succession
three hours previous to his death, a usual custom among these Eastern
potentates, on account of the fear of poison from a rival for favour,
and out of some hundred relatives with equal claims, to the surprise of
all, he chose the present one, who is now only twenty-three years of age.
In addition to the annual income there was found in the treasury half a
million sterling in solid silver, which took Dr. Hendley twenty-three
days to count over.
It has been our usual fate throughout our Indian travels to find
commissioners and officials of all sorts away in camp on their
inspections, which have to be got through just after the cold weather and
before the advent of the hot; maharajahs and rajahs have been absent on
pilgrimages or a visit of welcome to Lord Dufferin.
So it is in the present instance. The Maharajah is at Calcutta,
performing this duty; and it will be remembered that Sindhia was ill, the
Maharajah of Benares returning the day after we left Benares, and later
on we were destined similarly to miss seeing the Nizam of Hyderabad.
In the afternoon by special arrangement Miss Joyce, the lady
superintendent of the girls' school, kindly took me to see a zenana, in
fulfilment of my great wish. There had been a death amongst the rajputs
or great nobles at Jeypore--that of a promising young lad, educated at
Mayo College--and the elder ladies had gone to pay a visit of condolence
to the family, and during their absence the younger ones were not
permitted to receive; added to which, until the twelfth day was over,
mourning or very plain dress would be _de rigueur_.
It was not in ancient days the custom for the Hindu women to be kept
in the zenana, or to be "in purdah" (literally behind the curtain).
The Hindus first began to adopt the plan after the Mohammedan invasion
in imitation of their harem, and now all the castes keep the women in
purdah, save those only of the very poor class who cannot afford it.
The house we went to was that of Sri Lachman Dat, the high priest of
the Court. We were received in a small room on the ground floor of the
palace, which, in true oriental fashion, was so much out of repair as to
be tumbling down. This room was soon crowded with the brothers, sons,
sons-in-law, and the numerous poor relations who are always hangers-on
in the house of their richer kin. Altogether they were a family of
fifty, and with over 100 servants it brought up this one household to
150 persons, who all found shelter in the palace. Miss Joyce acted as
interpreter, and a desultory conversation was maintained. The priest
inquired our names, and C. handed him a visiting-card, whereupon he
called for paper and pen, and had his name written by his chaplain in
exact imitation. The shastri said "that there were several members of his
family ill, but that our visit was better than any doctor's, and would
make them well," &c., &c.
At last a move was made, and the room cleared, the shutters closed, and
C. taken away. When he had been deposited on the roof of the house by the
gentlemen of the family--a position where he would be sure to be well
out of sight, one after another, the ladies slipped in to us. They were
all dusky, dark-eyed girls, some beautiful and others that would have
been so with their lustrous eyes, but for coarse lips and thick noses.
You would almost think they had arranged their dresses so as to form a
pleasing contrast, for one was dressed in pale-yellow with silver, the
other in orange with scarlet, and another in pink and gold--gorgeous
gowns they were, with the most extensive skirts. Miss Joyce pulled one
of them out for me to see, and they are so finely gathered that an
infinity of yards of stuff are compressed into one breadth, and this
makes them project, at the bottom, and swing like a crinoline. All wore
the sari over the head, completely covering the neck and shoulders, and
the short-sleeved bodice underneath, which just crosses the breast and
nothing more. They were laden with ornaments, and only too delighted
to take off each one separately to show me--their bead necklaces with
gold fringes, their amulets, their bangles on the ankles, the arms, and
above the elbow; their earrings, two inches long, weighed down with gold
tassels; their nose-rings, as large as a bangle-ring, and which one took
out of her cartilage, allowing that it hurt her. Their feet gave the
appearance of being covered with a silver toe-piece, so massive were the
rings and ornaments on each toe. The rings for their hands were made
joined, for two fingers to pass through at once. Families of children
and babies were brought and gathered into the room by degrees with their
attendants, who are treated quite on an equality, and it was becoming
very crowded when an adjournment was suggested by Miss Joyce.
We were each taken by the hand, and led upstairs to the zenana
apartments; here the rooms were small, but very neat and clean. The
floors were all wadded, and covered with linen, to enable them to sit
comfortably cross-legged on it. There were a few pictures on the wall,
and they showed me a common cottage clock in a corner, which they
evidently considered most curious, and of priceless value. They took
me into their sleeping apartments, and made me sit down on their bed,
lifting up the curtains and showing me their curious little cheek pillows
laid against the bolster. And then they went up some narrow flights
of stairs, and passed a courtyard being repaired, whence the men had
been carefully cleared by the eunuch, and only fled when warned of C.'s
existence on the top of the roof!
All this time left alone, he had been carrying on a conversation by
means of animated signs, and they had been examining his watch, hat, and
gloves with interest. In descending we were shown the Dunbar hall, and
one of the living rooms--such a bare, dirty dungeon.
On returning to the room the usual ceremony was gone through of the
presentation of baskets of fruit; the garland of flowers being thrown
over our heads, and the sticky paste of sandal-wood and otto of roses
smeared on the hands by the host, and returned by the guest.
The zenana women are allowed very occasionally to drive out in a gharry
with the shutters closed, and with muslin again hung before these, but
none of the servants or men of the household are even then allowed to
see them, save those only they have brought from their father's house.
It takes a long time before a chief can be persuaded to allow his zenana
to be visited by a European lady, and the present Maharajah refused
entrance to his zenana to the Duchess of Connaught, because several of
the other rajput maharajahs have not allowed their zenanas to be seen by
any European woman.
Here then, I say, is the opportunity for the lady doctors of England.
When tired of struggling against the blind prejudice that continues
to bar their way to advancement at home, here is the wide field of
usefulness, the work of charity for their suffering and imprisoned
sex--these poor zenana women.[8] When the European doctor is called in
(and it is only in very bad cases) he feels the pulse of the patient
through the purdah, or sometimes through three or four. The women suffer
terribly, and die from the want of ordinary skill and care, particularly
in their confinements, when no doctor can be called in.
We visited the Raj school, established for girls, and which corresponds
to that of the college for boys. Miss Joyce has enrolled on her books
pupils who are classed as follows, "Unmarried, married, or widows!" The
Hindu girls are married as early as ten years of age. The education
is supposed to be entirely secular, but she has a class for religious
instruction--a Sunday-school at her bungalow on Sunday.
We drove home through the Zoological Gardens, which are extremely pretty
and well laid-out. At their entrance is the Mayo Hospital, dedicated to
Lord Mayo by the late Maharajah, who was his personal friend, and further
on is the Albert Hall, or Town Hall, the memorial of the Prince of Wales'
visit. Jeypore is celebrated for its marble quarries, of which so many of
the beautiful buildings in India are built, notably the Taj.
We left Jeypore that evening, and arrived at Ajmere at the inconvenient
hour of midnight. This did not prevent Major Loch, the Principal of
the Mayo College, in his kindness, coming to meet us at the station,
and driving us to his abode inside the grounds. He has a most charming
"_house_," for bungalow it cannot be called, as it possesses the
remarkable feature for India of a staircase.
Mayo College was founded by the late Lord Mayo for the education of
the sons of rajahs. It was a grand and statesmanlike idea, this scheme
for the education of the native ruler, under the immediate guidance of
English master minds, thereby engendering a patriotism and attachment to
England as a mother country, raising and elevating the tone and domestic
life of the native prince, who in his turn was being prepared to wield
power humanely, and make the influence of his bringing up felt on those
around him. It was the stone dropped in the pool, with ever-widening and
concentric influence.
The College is very happily situated under the lee of an amphitheatre
of hills, that rise, like all those in this part of the country, sheer
out of the plain. It is a very charming feature of the College, the ten
houses, of such very varied architecture and style, that lie about the
compound, for each state has built and endowed its own college, for the
use of the sons of its nobles. There has been a certain amount of rivalry
exhibited in their erection. Some have marble cupolas, others arches, and
others towers; some are of pure white marble, others a mixture of white
and red stone; all are tasteful and uncommon. In the centre, and holding
them together as a mother university, is the College Hall, with its clock
tower, entirely built of white marble, but rough hewn and unpolished.
In the centre hall stands the statue of Lord Mayo; the class-rooms
lie around it. The white, green, pink, and black marbles used for the
decorations of the hall are all quarried within a radius of fifteen miles
around Ajmere.
These colleges are really boarding-houses, where each prince brings his
own establishment of servants. One lately admitted, brought twenty-two
retainers, which, with some difficulty, Major Loch reduced to eleven.
They ride, play cricket, tennis, and football, and are encouraged to
be as European in manners and habits as possible. With all this Major
Loch does not approve or encourage their being sent to England when
their education is complete, as they return impressed with a sense of
their own importance; of the number of their servants, their jewels,
their state and magnificence compared to that of the same class in
England. The native states represented by their colleges at Ajmere are
as follows:--Jeypore, Alwar, Bhurtpoor, Ajmere, Tonk Bikanir, Toohpur
or Narwar, Kotah, Thallawar, and Udaipur. It is often observed that the
College of Jeypore stands apart from the others. The late Maharajah of
Jeypore was very angry with Dholpore being allowed the first choice of
site, and so he built his college outside the compound. It is only lately
that Major Loch has succeeded in smoothing his vanity, and been allowed
to include Jeypore, thus completing the circle.
After seeing the College we drove through the walled city of the native
population, as Ajmere bazaar is particularly picturesque and dirty. It
lies on the hill-side, and the glimpse of mountains as a background to
the narrow streets adds to this effect.
There is a very curious tank here, filled with slimy green water, which
lies in a natural hollow on the hill-side. Houses lie above it; and the
marble courts and gilded minarets of a mosque overhang it on one side.
The only access to the tank is by innumerable flights of irregular steps
running up and down in all directions. Up and down these steps are always
staggering innumerable bheesties, bent under the weight of their bursting
skins, and disappearing through the archway of the passage tunnelled
through to the street.
Then we drove on to the Adhai-din-ka-Ghompra, which is very interesting,
on account of its being a Hindu Temple, with the facing of a Mohammedan
mosque. The signification of its long-drawn-out name literally is, "the
screen of two and a half days," which is generally supposed to mean that
it was built in that short space of time; but Major Loch and others take
a more practical view, in suggesting that it meant compulsory labour from
every man of two and a half days. The lofty arches are most splendidly
carved, and verses of the Koran are introduced among the bold design of
the tracery. Inside you see irregular rows of Hindu pillars, carved with
that grotesque figure-life of the gods of Hindu religion. These pillars
are easily detected to be in three separate pieces, and were doubtless
piled on each other to give the necessary height for a Mohammedan mosque,
by comparison with the low, intricate structure of pillars of a Hindu
temple. General Cunningham, the archæologist, considers this mosque the
most interesting piece of antiquity in India.
We are much struck, as are all new arrivals in India, with the ridiculous
number of servants required in one establishment. All say it is
unavoidable, as each servant will only undertake one duty, and the wages
given are extremely small; and there is another thing, you never know
what your servant eats, nor where he sleeps--he "finds" himself in a very
comprehensive sense of the term. The caste compels the first institution,
and the second is in accordance with the habit of all natives. I thought
it very strange at first to see the verandahs full of recumbent figures
wrapped in their quilts and striped blankets, and looking like so many
corpses. They sleep on the mats outside the door, under a tree, or on the
road--it is all the same to them where it is, so long as they may sleep
long and heavily, for all natives are very somnolent.
I think it may perhaps be interesting to give a complete list of servants
necessary for the _smallest_ Indian establishment:--
One sirdár-bearer (body-servant and valet).
Two maté-bearers (under-bearers, one to wait on child and ayah).
One or two ayahs (maid and nurse).
One khansamah (literally "Lord of the stores"), butler and head
table-servant.
Two khitmutgars (under table-servants).
One coachman.
Two syces, or grooms for one pair of horses (the allowance being
one syce and one grass-cutter to _every_ horse).
Two ghasiaras (grass-cutters).
One chuprássi (literally badge-bearer), carrier of letters and
messages.
One sirdár-mati (head-gardener).
One or two máte-matés (under-gardeners).
One bheestie (water-carrier).
One masátchi (literally torchbearer), scullion.
One cook.
One mihtu (sweeper).
One mithráni (sweeper-woman).
One dhobi (washerman).
In all twenty-three, and it must be remembered that all are absolutely
necessary, as, for instance, no khitmutgar or máti-bearer would take a
note or message in place of the chuprássi, and above all, one native in a
garden or elsewhere would do a fraction only of the work of the same man
in England.
Anglo-Indians are inordinate "grumblers." There is much to be said on
their side; the exile for the best years of their life, the return then
to England to be looked down upon as a "dried-up Indian official," the
separation entailed from children, the same imposed upon wife from
either husband or child, the exigencies of the climate, &c.; but on
the other hand it ought to be remembered that the salaries are very
large, the pensions fairly so in proportion, and that they are enabled
to have far more luxuries in India than they could possibly hope for at
home--abundance of horses and carriages, superabundance (I had almost
said) of servants, at any rate sufficient to enable no Anglo-Indian ever
to do or move for himself, and horses enough never to walk. I found a
few, but yet a very few who took this view of the case, allowing that at
home they would keep two, or at the most three, servants, and have no
carriages or horses.
In the afternoon we drove to the lake, which is a beautiful feature of
Ajmere. It is a lovely sheet of water--an Italian lake in miniature,
with its marble balconies and platforms, with its white houses hanging
over the water on the city side, while the other is formed by a range
of mountains. It looked particularly smiling this afternoon, with a
declining sun, as we toiled up to the Residency. This bungalow has a
most perfect situation, built high up on a rocky platform, with broad
verandah-rooms overlooking the lake. It seemed a pity that Colonel
Bradford, the Resident, is only able to reside here for two months in the
year.
In returning we passed the handsome stone building of the offices of the
Rajputana-Malwar Railway, whose headquarters are at Ajmere. The adjoining
bungalows of officials and clerks form quite a "line" to themselves. In
the evening we performed the customary programme of going to the club
for an hour, and then the drive home in the dark was made romantically
beautiful by the illumination of the tomb of an old saint on the
mountain-side, the lights seeming to glimmer and twinkle in mid-air in
the density of the darkness.
We left Ajmere that evening, catching up the mail train again at
midnight, and travelling for eighteen hours all night and through the
day, till we reached Ahmedabad at five this afternoon.
_Saturday, February 6th._--Chota hazri after the usual Indian custom, and
then a morning's sight-seeing before breakfast at 10 a.m.
Ahmedabad ranks in population as the second town in the Bombay
Presidency; and the native quarters, as usual enclosed within a city
wall, entered by no less than seventeen gateways, is very large. There is
very little of interest to be seen at Ahmedabad. We drove first to the
Mogul Viceroy's palace, that of Azim Khán, which has two massive Norman
towers flanking the gateway. It forms now a very suitable entrance for
its present purpose, for the _ci-devant_ palace is now the jail of the
district.
On the other side lies the European quarter, the jail thus forming the
boundary-line between the native and European populations. By the side
of the walls, hidden away in a corner, are the celebrated windows of
the Bhadar. They represent the trunk, branches, and foliage of a single
tree in each window, in the carved and fretted stone-work. They are
exceedingly beautiful, so much so, that copies of them are in the South
Kensington Museum.
The Kankariya Tank is very pretty, and, with its raised causeway leading
to the garden island in its midst, has become a favourite evening resort.
Near here are seen to rise the beautiful minars of the mosque of Shah
Alam, the spiritual adviser and friend of Sultan Ahméd, the founder
of the city. Within the court lies the tomb, with double galleries of
fretwork--its chief beauty--and it is remarkable that each panel of the
double screens is carved in a different pattern and device. The canopy
is of oak, inlaid with mother-of-pearl, precious now, as it has become a
lost art to the workmen of Ahmedabad.
They have the uncomfortable custom here of covering the marble sarcophagi
with precious stuffs; thus, on entering one of these tombs the effect
produced is as of a row of coffins covered with palls, more especially
when, as frequently, wreaths are laid on them.
Then we followed the usual round of mosques, tombs, and temples, of which
we, as well as my readers, I am sure, are wearying--the mosques being
represented by the Jamma Mosque--a Hindu temple with Mohammedan arches
and network of pillars (date 1567); the tombs by those of Ahméd Shah,
the aforesaid founder of the city, and those of his queens; the temples
by a purely Hindu one, now called the mosque and tomb of Rani Sipri.
Monkeys swarm in the city, and look upon these temples and tombs as their
rightful inheritance.
We notice a great difference amongst the lower orders now that we are
in the Bombay Presidency as compared to that of Bengal. The natives
look more well-to-do, are more clothed. There are fewer of those
"savage-clothed" coolies, with their single strip of muslin around the
loins. The neatly-plaited Hindu turban supersedes the hitherto more
common loosely-wound Mohammedan one.
We left Ahmedabad by the ten o'clock train, and reached Baroda at 4.30 in
the afternoon. Here we stayed five hours to catch up the mail train in
the evening to Bombay.
We were reduced to taking a curious native cart at the station for a
drive round the city. It was not quite an ekka, nor yet quite a tea-cart,
but a cross between the two; and the small plank seats were put crossways
and not lengthways, one behind the other. We jolted about in this for two
hours till we suffered severely from a feeling of dislocation in many of
our joints.
Baroda is a small and pretty city without any pretensions to special
interest, save as the capital and residence of the celebrated Gaekwar
of Baroda. We drove first to the pretty garden where stands his
summer-house, and his cage of wild beasts. The native quarter is very
large--more than usually picturesque, and the four main streets meet
in the lines of a cross at a gateway, a lofty structure in white and
yellow plaster. Here the guard keeps watch, a single sentry on the lofty
platform of its tower commanding the whole view of the city. From his
post of observation we saw a sight unequalled for the artist-loving
eye--for at the moment a wedding procession was slowly threading its way
from under the gateway below us, streaming away down the street in gay
ribbons, narrowing with the perspective, and finally disappearing
through a grey gateway further away. The block in the streets occasioned
by the motley procession of ekkas and bullock-carts, and the acclamations
of the crowd, further added to the striking scene.
Just beyond this gateway is the grand, grim, grey old palace of the
Gaekwar. A covered gallery leads to the blue and yellow quarters of the
zenana, seeming to tell of the "airy-fairy," do-nothing life of the
zenana ladies by comparison with the sterner duties of the men--as if the
Gaekwar liked to pass from the duties of the grey palace to the light
pleasures and recreation of the gay-coloured zenana. The green buildings
of the barracks are near, and the orange and yellow verandah of the
police-station lower down, together forming a vivid collection of colour.
The Gaekwar's cavalry paraded the streets in twos and threes, and a guard
was in waiting outside the palace gate to accompany his carriage. We
drove on further to see the gold and silver cannon. There are four gold
cannon mounted on silver carriages! kept in a yard, where many _white_
horses are stabled round, for in the prince's stables none but white
horses are found.
In returning to the station we were fortunate enough to see another
curious sight, during our few hours' stay only at Baroda. Heralded by a
mounted body-guard, and a running, shouting escort, the ladies of the
harem passed swiftly by. The barouche was carefully closed and curtained,
with a duenna standing up with the eunuch behind. The guard from the
guard-house turned out to salute, bugle, and beat a tattoo.
We passed repeatedly leopards being paraded through the streets by their
keepers, the pariah or "pi" dogs barking furiously at them. The animal
strained at his chains, and walking with stealthy, springing step,
glaring cautiously around for his prey, but the people do not fear their
escaping, and are very proud of their Gaekwar's wild beasts. There is an
arena at Baroda where he occasionally holds a wild-beast fight.
We came back to the station by a beautiful and stately avenue of
banyan-trees.
Leaving Baroda by the mail train that night, at seven the next morning we
found ourselves stopping at the various stations along the great Queen's
Road of Bombay, bordered by the sea.
We drove to Watson's Hotel on the Esplanade, kept by the same proprietor,
and a counterpart of the discomfort and dirt of the Great Eastern at
Calcutta.
We spent a quiet day driving out to Government House at Parell, six miles
away from the town, and a far from pleasant drive through some native
quarter. Sir James Fergusson is away at Calcutta, paying a farewell visit
to the Viceroy, as he leaves India early in March.
We went to the cathedral in the evening for service, as following the
usual custom of always "thinking it hot," the morning service is held at
7 a.m.
It is to be observed that all Anglo-Indians labour under the idea of a
perpetual and unabated heat in India. They always suggest you should
start in the morning at some very early hour, "to be home before it is
hot," and at all stations, and in Calcutta and Bombay, the habit prevails
of never going out driving in the evening till just before sunset and
darkness, as there is little twilight in these southern latitudes. For
ourselves we have suffered more from the cold than the heat in India,
but travelling in the winter gives, I am willing to allow, an erroneous
idea of the climate, and gives you also no appreciable idea of the heat.
Suffice it to say, oh! Anglo-Indians, that it is _not_ always hot in
India.
FOOTNOTE:
[Footnote 7: The Fortress has now been given back to the Maharajah.]
[Footnote 8: Since this was written, Lady Dufferin has founded a society
with this excellent object in view.]