Memoirs of a Griffin; or, a Cadet's first year in India ... Illustrated from designs by the author

Front matter

I ■ I ■ ■ I ■ I ■ I I OE, A CADET'S FIRST YEAR IN INDIA. BY CAPTAIN BELLEW. ILLUSTRATED FROM DESIGNS BY TEE AUTHOR. A NEW EDITION. LONDON: WM H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE, S.W., PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE. 1880. LONDON : PRINTED BY WOODFALL AND KINDER, MILFORD LANE, STRAND, W.C. TO Major-Gen. Sir ROBERT CU1-TLIFFE, Bart., C.B., OF ACTON PARK, DENBIGHSHIRE, LATE COMMISSARY-GENERAL OF THE BENGAL ARMY, IN WHOSE DEPARTMENT THE AUTHOR HAD FOR SOME YEARS THE HONOUR TO SERVE, THIS LITTLE WORK IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, AS A MARK OF HIS SINCERE ESTEEM.

Preface

. Good wine, says the proverb, needs no bush; on the same principle, some will think that a book, if readable, may dispense with a preface. As a general rule this may be true, but there are occasions, and I take leave to deem this one of them, when, from the peculiar nature of the subject, a few preliminary observations, by creating a clear and possibly a pleasant understanding between the author and the gentle reader, may not be unacceptable or out of place. In the following little narrative, in which I have blended fact and fiction — though always endeavouring to keep the vraisemblable in view — my object has been to depict some of those scenes, characters, and adventures, which some five-and-twenty or thirty years ago a "jolly cadet" — alias a Griffin — was likely to encounter, during the first year of his military career ; men, manners, and things in general have, since that period, undergone considerable changes ; still, in its main features, the sketch I have drawn, admitting its original correctness, will doubtless apply as well to Griffins in the present mature age of the century, as when it was in its teens. The Griffin, or Greenhorn, indeed, though

PREFACE.

. VIII subject, like everything else, to the external changes incident to time and fashion, is, perhaps, fundamentally and essentially, one of the "never ending, still begin ning " states, or phases of humanity, destined to exist till the " crash of doom." The characters which I have introduced in my narrative (for the most part as transiently as the fleeting shadows of a magic latern across a spectrum) are all intended to represent respectively classes having more or less of an Oriental stamp, some still existing unchanged — others on the wane — and a few, I would fain hope, who, like the Trunnions and Westerns (parva componere magnis) of the last age have wholly disappeared before the steadily increasing light of knowledge and civiliza tion — influences destructive of those coarse humours, narrow prejudices, and eccentric traits, which, however amusing in the pages of the novelist, are wondrously disagreeable in real life.

It is true, the gradual disappearance of these coarser features imposes on the painter of life and manners the necessity of cultivating a nicer perception — of working with a finer pencil, ancl of seizing and embodying the now less obvious indications of the feelings and passions — the more delicate lights and shades of mind and character — but still in parting in a great measure with the materials for coarse drollery and broad satire, the world perhaps on the whole will be a gainer ; higher feelings will be addressed than those which minister to triumph and imply humiliation : for though 'tis well to laugh at folly and expose it — 'twere perhaps better to have no folly or error to laugh at and expose. In the following pages, my wish has been to amuse,

PREFACE.

. IX and where I could — without detriment to the professedly light and jocular character of the work — to instruct and improve. To hurt or offend has never entered into my contemplation — if such could ever be my object, I should not do it under a mask. I deem it necessary to make this observation en passant, lest, like a young officer I once heard of in India, who, conscience-stricken on hearing some of his besetting sins, as he thought, pointedly denounced, flung out of the church, declaring " there was no standing the chaplain's personalities," some of my readers should think that I have been taking, under cover, a sly shot at themselves or friends. That the characters lightly sketched in these Memoirs have been taken from life — i.e., that the ideas of them have been furnished by real personages — I in some measure candidly allow, though I have avoided making the portraits invidiously exact ; as in a dream, busy fancy weaves a tissue of events out of the stored impressions of the brain, so, of course, the writer of a story must in like manner, though with more congruity, arrange and embody his scattered recollections, though not necessarily in the exact shape and order in which the objects, &c, originally presented themselves.

Moreover, I believe I may safely add, that the originals of my sketches have, for the most part, long since brought " life's fitful fever " to a close. To the kind care of the public I now consign the " Griffin," particularly to that portion of it connected with India, a country where my best days have been spent, the scene of some of my happiest hours, as alas ! of my severest trials and bereavements ; hoping, on account of his " youth," they will take him under their X

PREFACE.

. especial protection. To the critics I also commend him, trusting, if they have " any bowels," that they will, for the same reason, deal with him tenderly. London — queen of cities ! — on sympathetic grounds, I hope for your munificent patronage. Griffins* are your supporters, then why not support my " Griffin ? " If encouraged by the smiles of a " discriminating public," I may, at some future period, impart the late Brevet Captain Gernon's post-griffinish experiences amongst Burmahs, Pindaries, and " Chimeras dire," with his "impressions of home," as contained in the remaining autobiography of that lamented gentleman, who sunk under a gradual decay of nature and a sckirrous liver, some time during the last hot summer. It is proper I should state that these Memoirs, in a somewhat different form, first saw the light in the pages of the Asiatic Journal. * The anus of the City of London supported by Griffins or Wyverns.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. PACE! Mr. Cadet Gernon, anxious to discover a Royal Bengal Tiger, falls in with a Bear 60 General Capsicum on board the Rotttnbeam Castle . . . 66 Griff, on Landing, besieged by Baboos ..... 74 Returning from the Hog-hunt . . . . . . . 151 Ensign Rattleton receiving Morning Reports from the Fat Lord and the Red Lion 177 The Native Court-Martial 202 Griffin Mudlarking in the Jheels . . . . . .246 Colonel Heliogahalus Bluff and Orderly taking Morning Stroll . 253 Griffin Marching to Join in Patriarchal Style . . . . 336 The Last Night of his Griffinage— Marpeet Royal . . .372

Chapter I

Pleasant days of my Griffinhood ! — green oasis of life's desert waste ! — thoughtless, joyous, happy season, when young Hope told " her flattering tale," and novelty broke sweetly upon a heart unsated by the world, with what fond and regretful emotions do I now look back upon you through the long, dim, dreary vista of five and-twenty years ! But I think I hear a raw reader exclaim, " Griffins ! — are there griffins in the East ? " "Assuredly, sir. Did you never hear of the law of Zoroaster, quoted in Zadig, by which griffins' flesh is prohibited to be eaten ? Griffins are so common at the different presidencies of India that nobody looks at them, and most of these animals are very tame." I will not, however, abuse the traveller's privilege. Griffin, or more familiarly a Griff, is an Anglo-Indian cant term applied to all new-comers, whose lot has been cast in the " gorgeous East."

Whether the appellation has any connection with the fabulous compound, the gryps or gryphon of armorial blazoning, is a point which I feel myself incompetent to decide.* A griffin is the Johnny Newcome of the East, one whose European manners and ideas stand out in ludicrous * Milton speaks of the Gryphon as a "guardian of gold," but that can clearly have no connection with our animal, whose propensities in respect to the precious metals are quite of an opposite tendency. Ii relief when contrasted with those, so essentially different in most respects, which appertain to the new country of his sojourn. The ordinary period of griffinhood is a year, by which time the novus homo, if apt, is supposed to have acquired a sufficient familiarity with the language, habits, customs, and manners of the country, both Anglo-Indian and Native, so as to preclude his making himself supremely ridiculous by blunders, gaucheries, and the indiscriminate application of English standards to states of things to which those rules are not always exactly adapted.

To illustrate by example : — a good natured Englishman, who should present a Brahmin who worships the cow with a bottle of beefsteak sauce, would be decidedly " griffinish," particularly if he could be made acquainted with the nature of the gift ; nevertheless, beefsteak, per se, is an excellent thing in an Englishman's estimation, and a better still with the addition of the before-mentioned condiment. But to return to our subject. At the termination, then, of the above-mentioned period, our griffin, if he has made the most of his time, becomes entitled to associate on pretty equal terms with those sun-dried specimens of the genus homo, familiarly called the " old hands :" — subs of fifteen years' standing, grey-headed captains, aud superannuated majors, critics profound in the merits of a curry, or the quality of a batch of Hodgson's pale ale.

He ceases to be the butt of his regiment, and persecutes in his turn, with the zeal of a convert, all novices not blessed with his modicum of local experience. Youth is proverbially of a plastic nature, and the juvenile griffin, consequently, in the majority of instances, readily accommodates himself to the altered "circumstances in which he is placed; but not so the man of mature years, to whose moral and physical organization forty or fifty winters have imparted their rigid and unmalleable influences. Griffins of this description, which commonly comprises bishops, judges, commanders-in-chief, and gentlemen sent out on special missions, &c, protract their griffinage commonly during the whole period of their stay in the country, and never acquire the peculiar knowledge which entitles them to rank with the initiated.

The late most excellent Bishop Heber, for example, who to the virtues of a Christian added all the qualities which could adorn the scholar and gentleman, was nevertheless an egregious griffin, as a perusal of his delightful travels in India, written in all the singleness of his benevolent heart, must convince any one acquainted with the charac ter of the country and the natives of India. Autobiographers love to begin ab ovo, and I see no reason why I should wholly deviate from a custom doubly sanctioned by reason and established usage. It is curious sometimes to trace the gradual development of character in " small " as well as in " great " men ; to note the little incidents which often determine the nature of our future career, and describe the shootings of the young idea at that vernal season when they first begin to expand into trees of good or evil.

In an old manor-house, not thirty miles from London, on a gloomy November day, I first saw the light. Of the home of my infancy I remember little but my nursery, a long, bare, whitewashed apart ment, with a tall, diamond-paned window, half obscured by the funereal branches of a venerable yew-tree. This window looked out, I remember, on the village church yard, thickly studded with the moss-grown memorials of successive generations. In that window-seat I used to sit for many a weary hour, watching the boys idling on the gravestones, the jackdaws wheeling their airy circles round tbe spire, or the parson's old one-eyed horse crop ping the rank herbage, which sprouted fresh and green above the silent dust of many a " village Hampden." The recollections of infancy, like an old picture, become often dim and obscure, but here and there particular events, like bright lights and rich Rembrandt touches, remain deeply impressed, which seem to defy the effects of time -, of this kind is a most vivid recollection I have of b a venerable uncle of my mother's, an old Indian, who lived with us, and whose knee I always sought when I could give nurse the slip.

My great uncle Frank always welcomed me to his little sanctum in the green parlour, and having quite an Arab's notion of the sacred rights of hospitality, invariably refused to give me up when nurse, puffing and foaming, would waddle in to reclaim me. I shall never forget the delight I derived from his pleasant stories and the white sugar-candy, of which he always kept a stock on hand. Good old man ! he died full of years, and was the first of a long series of friends whose loss I have had to lament. My father was, truly, that character emphatically styled "an Irish gentleman," in whom the suavity of the French man was combined with much of the fire and brilliancy of his native land. Though of an ancient family, his for tune, derived from an estate in the sister kingdom, was very limited, the " dirty acres " having somehow or other, from generation to generation, become " small by degrees, and beautifully less."

He was of a tender frame, and of that delicate, sensitive, nervous tempera ment, which, though often the attendant on genius, which he unquestionably possessed, little fits those so constituted to buffet with the world, or long to endure its storms. He died in the prime of manhood, when I was very young, and left my mother to struggle with those difficulties which are always incident to a state of widowhood, with a numerous family and a limited in come. The deficiency of fortune was, however, in her case, compensated by the energies of a masculine under standing, combined with an untiring devotion to the interest and welfare of her children. Trades and professions in England are almost as com pletely hereditary as among the castes of India. The great Franklin derived his " ponderous strength," physical if not intellectual, from a line of Blacksmiths, and I, Frank Gernon, inherit certain atrabilious humours, maternally, from a long series of very respectable " Qui Hyes."* Yes, my mother's family — father, grandfather, uncles, and cousins — had all served with exemplary fidelity that potent merchant-monarch affectionately termed in India the Honourable John (though degraded, I am sorry to say, into an " old woman " by his native subjects) ; they had all flourished for more than a century under the shade of the " rupee tree," a plant of Hesperidean virtues, whose fructiferous powers, alas ! have since their time sadly declined.

These, my mater nal progenitors, were men both of the sword and pen ; some had filled high civil stations with credit, whilst others, under the banners of a Clive, a Lawrence, or a Munro, had led " Ind's dusky chivalry " to war, and participated in many of those glorious, but now time mellowed exploits, from which the splendid fabric of our Eastern dominions has arisen. This, and other circumstances on which I shall briefly touch, combined to point my destiny to the gorgeous East. My mother, for the reasons given, aud the peculiar facilities which she consequently had for establishing us in that quarter, had from an early period looked fondly to India as the theatre for the future exertions of her sons. But long before the period of my departure arrived — indeed I may say almost from infancy — I had been inoculated by my mother, my great uncle, and sundry parchment-faced gentlemen who frequented our house, with a sort of Indo mania.

I was never tired of hearing of its people, their manners, dress, &c, and was perfectly read on the sub ject of alligators and Bengal tigers. I used, indeed, regularly and systematically to persecute and bore every Anglo-Indian that came in my way for authentic accounts of their history and mode of destruction, &c. One most benevolent old gentleman, a fine specimen of the Indian of other days, and a particular friend of my family, used to "fool us to the top of our bent" in that way. I say us, for the Indo-mania was not confined to myself. * Cant term for residents in the Bengal Presidency— "Qui Hye," ■***■ who wait," being constantly addressed to servants. My mother, too, used to entertain us with her experiences, which served to feed the ardent longing which I felt to visit the East. How often in the winter evenings of pleasant " lang syne," when the um hissed on the table, and the cat purred on the comfortable rug, has our then happy domestic circle listened with delight to her account of that far-distant land !

What respect did the sonorous names of Bangalore and Cuddalore, and Nundy Droog and Severn Droog, and Hookhaburdar and Soontaburdars, and a host of others, excite in our young minds ! In what happy accordance with school-boy thoughts were the descriptions she gave us of the fruits of that sunny clime — the luscious mango — the huge jack — the refreshing guava — and, above all, the delicious custard-apple, a production which I never in the least doubted contained the exact counterpart of that pleasant admixture of milk and eggs which daily excited my longing eyes amongst the tempting display of a pastry-cook's window ! Sometimes she rose to higher themes, in which the pathetic or adventurous predominated. How my poor cousin Will fell by the dagger of an assassin at the celebrated massacre of Patna ; and how another venturous relative shot a tiger on foot, thereby earning the benedictions of a whole community of peaceful Hindoos, whose village had long been the scene of his midnight maraudings : this story, by the way, had a dash of the humorous in it, though relating in the main to a rather serious affair.

It never lost its raciness by repetition, and whenever my mother told it, which at our request she frequently did, and approached what we deemed the comic part, our risibles were always on full-cock for a grand and simultaneous explosion of mirth. Well, time rolled on; I had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, sweet sixteen, and the ocean of life and adventure lay before me. I stood five feet nine inches in my stockings, and possessed all the aspirations common to my age. " Frank, my love," one day said my mother to me, at the conclusion of breakfast, " I have good news for you ; that most benevolent of men, Mr. Versanket, has complied with my application, and given me an infantry cadetship for you ; here," she con tinued, " is his letter, read it, and ever retain, as I trust you will, a lively sense of his goodness."

I eagerly seized the letter, and read the contents with a kind of ecstasy. It expressed sympathy in my mother's difficulties, and an invitation to me to come to London and take advantage of his offer. I will not dwell on the parting scenes. Suffice it to say, that I embraced those dear objects of my affection, many of whom I was never destined to embrace again, and bid a sorrowful long adieu to the parental roof. I arrived in the great metropolis, and prepared for my outfit and departure. Having completed the former — sheets, ducks, jeans, and gingerbread, tobacco to bribe old Neptune, brandy to mollify the sailors, and all et ceteras, according to the most approved list of Messrs. Welsh and Stalker — nought remained but to pass the India House, an ordeal which I was led to view with an indefinable dread.

From whom I received the information I now forget, though it was probably from some one of that mischievous tribe of jokers, who love to sport with the feelings of youth ; but I was told that it was absolutely necessary that I should learn by heart, as an indispensable preliminary to passing, the " Articles of War and Mutiny Act," then forming one volume. What was my state of alarm and despondency as I handled that substantial yellow-backed tome, and reflected on the task I had to perform of committing its whole contents to memory in the brief space of one week ! It haunted me in my dreams, and the thought of it, sometimes crossing my mind whilst eating, almost suspended the power of swallowing. I carried it about with me where ever I went, applying to it with desperate determination whenever a leisure moment, of which I had very few, would admit; but what I forced into my sensorium one moment, the eternal noise and racket of London drove out of it the next.

To cut a long story short, the day arrived, " the all-important day," big with my fate. I found myself waiting in the India House, preparatory to appearing before the directors, and, saving the first two or three clauses, the "Articles of War " were to me as a sealed volume. I was in despair ; to be disgraced appeared inevitable. At last came the awful summons, and I entered the apartment, where, at a large table covered with green cloth, sat the " potent, grave, and reverend signiors," who were to decide my fate. One of them, a very benevolent-looking old gentleman, with a powdered head, desired me to advance, and having asked me a few questions touching my name, age, &c, he paused, and, to my inexpressible alarm, took up a volume from the table, which was no other than that accursed piece of military codification of which I have made mention.

Now, thought I, it comes, and all is over. After turning over the leaves for some seconds, he said, raising his head, " I suppose you are well acquainted with the con tents of this volume ? " Heaven forgive me ! but the instinct of self-preservation was strong upon me, and I mumbled forth a very suspicious " Yes." Ye generous casuists, who invent excuses for human frailtv, plead for my justification. "Well," continued he, closing the book, " conduct yourself circumspectly in the situation in which you are about to enter, and you will acquire the approbation of your superiors ; you may now retire." Those who can imagine the feelings of a culprit re prieved, after the fatal knot has been comfortably adjusted by a certain legal functionary ; or those of a curate, with £50 per annum, and fifteen small children, on the an nouncement of a legacy of £10,000; or those of a respectable spinster of forty, on having the question un expectedly popped ; or, in short, any other situation where felicity obtrudes unlooked for, may form some idea of mine ; I absolutely walked on air, relieved from this incubus, and gave myself up to the most delightful buoyancy of spirits.

A few days more, and Mr. Cadet Francis Gernon found himself on board the Rottenbeam Castle, steering down Channel, and with tearful eyes casting a lingering gaze on the shores of old Eng land.

Chapter II

The first scene of this eventful drama closed with my embarkation on board the Rottenbeam Castle, bound for Bengal. Saving an Irish packet, this was the first ship on which I had ever set foot, and it presented a new world to my observation — a variety of sights and sounds which, by giving fresh occupation to my thoughts and seelings, served in some measure to banish the tristful remembrance of home. All, at first, was a chaos to me ; but when the confusion incidental to embarkation and departure (the preliminary shake of this living kaleidos cope), a general clearing out of visitors, custom-house officers, bum-boat women, et hoc genus omne, had sub sided, things speedily fell into that regular order charac teristic of vessels of this description — each individual took up his proper position, and entered in an orderly manner on his prescribed and regular routine of duty ; and I began to distinguish officers from passengers, and to learn the rank and importance of each respectively.

Before proceeding further with ship-board scenes, a slight sketch ofa few of the dramatis person œ may not be unacceptable. And first, our commander, the autocrat of this little empire. Captain McGuffin was a raw-boned Caledonian, of some six foot three ; a huge, red-headed man of great physical powers, of which, however, his whole demeanour, singularly mild, evinced a pleasing unconsciousness; bating the latter quality, he was just such a man of nerves and sinews as in the olden time, at Falkirk or Bannockburn, one could fancy standing like a tower of strength, amidst the din and clash of arms, " slaughing " off heads and arms, muckle broad-sword in hand, with fearful energy and effect. He had a sombre ancl fanatical expression of visage ; and I never looked at his "rueful countenance" but I thought I saw the genuine descendant of one of those stern covenanters of yore, of whom I had read — one of those "crop-eared whigs" who, on lonely moor and mountain, had struggled for the rights of conscience, and fought with indomitable obstinacy the glorious fight of freedom.

I soon discovered I was not " alone in my glory," and that another cadet was destined to share with me the honours of the " Griffinage." He was a gawky, wide mouthed fellow, with locks like a pound of candles, and trousers half-way up his calves ; one who, from his appearance, it was fair to infer had never before been ten miles from his native village. It was a standing source of wonder to all on board (and to my knowledge the enigma was never satisfactorily solved), by what strange concurrence of circumstances, what odd twist of Dame Fortune's wheel, this Gaspar Hauserish specimen of rus ticity hacl attained to the distinguished honour of being allowed to sign himself " gentleman cadet," in any " warrant, bill, or quittance;" but so it was. The old adage, however, applied in his case ; he turned out event ually to be much less of a fool than he looked.

Our first officer, Mr. Gillans, was a thorough seaman, and a no less thorough John Bull ; he had the then com mon detestation of the French and their imputed vices of insincerity, &c, and in endeavouring to avoid the Scylla of Gallic deceit, went plump into the Charybdis of Eng lish rudeness. He was in truth, a blunt, gruff fellow, who evidently thought that civility and poltroonery were con vertible terms. The captain was the only person whom his respect for discipline ever allowed him to address without a growl ; in short, the vulgar but expressive phrase, as " sulky as a bear with a sore head," seemed made for him expressly, for in no case could it have been more justly applied. The second mate, Grinnerson, was a gentlemanly fellow on the whole, but a most eternal wag and joker. Cadets had plainly, for many a voyage, furnished him with subjects for the exercise of his facetious vein, and " Tom," i. e. Mr. Thomas Grundy, and myself, received diurnal roastings at his hands.

If I expressed an opinion, "Pardon me, my dear sir," he would say, with mock gravity, " but it strikes me that, being only a cadet, you can know nothing about it ; " or, " in about ten years hence, when you get your commission, your opinion 'on things in general' may be valuable." If I flew out, or the peaceable Grundy evinced a disposition to " hog his back,'" he would advise us to keep our temper, to be cool, assuring us, with dry composure, that the " cadets on the last voyage were never permitted to get into a passion." In a word, he so disturbed my self-complacency, that I long gravely debated the question with myself, whether I ought not to summon him to the lists when I got to India, there to answer for his misdeeds. As the voyage drew towards a close, however, he let off the steam of his raillery considerably, and treated us with more deference and respect ; thereby showing that he had studied human nature, and knew how to restore the equilibrium of a young man's temper, by adding to the weight in the scale of self-esteem.

Our doctor and purser are the only two more connected with the ship whom I shall notice. The first, Cackleton by name, was a delicate, consumptive, superfine person, who often reminded me of the injunction, "physician, heal thyself." He ladled out the soup with infinite grace, and was quite the ladies' man. His manners, indeed, would have been gentlemanly and unexceptionable had they not been for ever pervaded by an obviously smirking consciousness on his part that they were so. As for Cheesepare, the purser, all I shall record of him is, that by a happy fortune he had dropped into the exact place for which nature and his stars appeared to have designed him. He looked like a purser — spoke like a purser — ate and drank like a purser — and locked himself up for three or four hours per diem with his books and ledgers like a very praiseworthy purser.