What I Saw in India. The adventures of a globetrotter

Preface

. FT! HE series of sketches contained in this volume were ■*■ originally published in the Morning Post at Allahabad. They were written during the hot weather of 1892, whilst I was editing that journal, and practically mark the close of three years' residence in India. I cannot, therefore, claim to be a genuine globe-trotter, but I assumed the role in order to more freely exhibit the errors of thought and conduct common amongst Englishmen at home when Indian life aud manners are under consideration. My facts are the results of personal observation : my opinions may be taken as fairly representative of the views held by Anglo-India as a whole. The sketches attracted some attention whilst running through the columns of the Morning Post, and my critics were both competent and keen — but they were also approving.

I quite disclaim any political bias or social faddism, having endeavoured to describe, on a large canvas, and with few colours, the conditions under which Englishmen exist in India, as, although native life and characteristics are largely dealt with, the motif of the book is found in their relation to the Anglo-Indian vie intiine. The slight plot will perhaps be deemed to give a tinge of human interest, and I may be permitted to call attention to the fact, that the report of the Land Indebtedness Commission, issued in September of this year, might have been almost based on chapter xv., so closely do the Commissioners' views and my own coincide with regard to the bondage in which the usurer holds the ryot. One word as to the typographical errors. These it is quite impossible to prevent in a book set up by Musalman and Hindu compositors, who do not understand a single word of the MSS. they deal with.

In this connection I will have the ready sympathy of all who are acquainted with the methods of the native " comp." It may possibly be that in the atrocious mis-prints towards the close of the volume, he only takes a just but terrible revenge for my mild comments concerning him on pp. 193-4. LOUIS TRACY. October, 1892. INDEX. Chapter i. I arrive . . . . . . . . Page i ,, n. First impressions .. .. 9 ,, in. Snakes, and other matters . . 18 ,, iv. A dose of Parsi . . . . . . 27 „ v. La Belle Americaine . . . . 38 „ vi. The Plot thickens .. .. 52 ,, vn. We start .. . .. .. 62 vm. Jeypur 73 „ ix. A Grand Shikar . . . . . . 82 „ x. A field day — and Potts . . . . 90 „ xi. The Taj . . . . . . . . 100 „ xii. Heart-aches — and a fortune-teller 108 „ xm. Disquisitions .. .. .. 116 „ xiv. Further disquisitions . . . . 123 „ xv.

The Ryot . . . . . . . . 134 „ xvi. Superstitions . . . . . . 146 „ xvn. A Rajput Prince — new style' . . 149 „ xviii. Delhi, and the Mutiny .. .. 161 „ xix. Lucknow, and other matters .. 170 „ xx. Cawnpur, and pig .. .. 179 M xxi. Allahabad.. .. .. .. 190 „ xxii. Some odd jottings . . . . 202 „ xxiii. Native idylls .. .. .. 212 „ xxiv. Calcutta . . . . . . . . 223 „ xxv. Olla Podrida . . . . . . 233 , xxvi. Children, big and little . . 241 xxvii. The beginning of the end . . 251 „ xxvin. The killing of a cow .. .. 261 „ xxix. Monkeys and men . . . . 273 „ xxx. L'Envoi .. .. .. •• ill li. ADVENTURES OF A GLOBE-TROTTER.

Chapter I

-I ARRIVE <■.{■ (VON'T you smell the bazaar ?" said the Judge. " Well no, not exactly — that is. there is no per ceptible difference just now in the perfume of the engines. It seems to be the same lubricant which I tirst sniffed in the East India Dock, and which proved fia appetizing in the Bay" " I forgot," said the Judge-. " You have never been to India." Something in his tone made me look at him. and there was a far-away sadness in his eyes I did nut muler stand. Just as the pearl-diver;, pf Ceylon allow their sense of touch to be deceived by the exaggerated appearance of the objects they see at a great depth, SQ <li>l the memories of this man's soul govern his nose (This is not pretty, but you people out in India know wlnt I mean.) So I left him to his dreams and gaged upon lli--- pk-a^int prospect before me.

The Pcwnsulni h.iil just stopped to pick up a pilot from the outer ■n.itn'n schooner off Bombay harbour, and the \:i-i pO jfaQitics of the Ea-;t wore hidden lichind a Jight-bOUSC in front, with a long line of buildings beyond it an.i ,i iiu raage si hills msteaply-^shicraeii tslaftd^tw .'. : 2 right. They (the possibilities aforesaid) were hidden only to the visual organs ; but the peep-holes of imagi - nation were wide open, and a delicious tremour of ex pectant pleasure ran dpwn my spinal cord and made my left hand tighten convulsively on the railing of the promenade deck where we were standing. There is something in the atmosphere of India Which is a direct incentive to esoteric Buddhism. I, Reginald Hooper, aged thirty, being of sound mind and body, and care fully ticketted by Cook as a globe-trotter, presently bent upon '•doing" the country; further, having a strong commonsense contempt for all persons who believe in double existences, no sooner come within measurable distance of the coral strand — -which strand is largely composed of mud, as I afterwards discovered — than I find myself, twice in ten lines, talking about hidden sensations of a metaphysical cast.

But this is a true record, and I even yet experience a delightful soupgon of introspective joy when I recall the expectancy of the momentary hush before the great steamer again resumed her course to the Gate of India The Judge— he wasn't a Judge as we understand the term at home, but a judicial functionary of the Civil Service whom the other Anglo-Indians on board addressed by that appellative —was still gazing fixedly into space when I again turned towards him. He had been home on furlough for two years and had left a pretty wife, two sons, and a daughter behind him in England when he returned to duty. We saw them part from him in the Thames, and the husband and wife spent the last five minutes in uttering the veriest commonplaces about the necessity there was for the children to be placed in suit able schools.

Besides, hadn't the Judge's health greatly THE ADVENTURES OF A GLOBE-TROTTER. 3 improved during his stay in North Devon, and in four more years he would come back for good, and they would buy that nice little house they so much admired near Ilfracombe. The time would soon pass, and the wife would not be at all lonely whilst looking after the children. And all the time these two were nearly heart-broken. The woman would go back to her room in the hotel and cry until she was hysterical ; as for the man, he was a long time arranging his berth, and the two subs who shared his cabin found that they preferred a pleasant cigar on deck to a futile struggle with boxes just an inch too high for the space beneath the bunks The children, of course, boo-hooed with all their might, and there was some relief for the parents in giving them ab surd phrases of comfort.

The Judge and I had struck up a close acquaintanceship during the voyage. He had told me much of India and he had not amused himself by filling my innocent mind full of absurdities. The same could not be said of all my fellow-passengers. Two planters from Behar sat at our table, which was mostly composed of globe-trotters like myself, and one night I heard the following dialogue between them and an impressionable young lady in pince-nez :— Impressionable young lady : " Good gracious ! How perfectly awful it must be to have tigers roaming about so close to the house." Planter No. I. : " Yes. it's rather trying at first, when you see half-a dozen jumping over the compound wall as soon as the sun goes down. But you get used to it." Planter No. II. : '■ The only drawback is when you want to play whist." .< 4 I. Y. L. (shrieking) : " Surely they never come inside: the—."

Planter No. II. : " Oh, no ! Never beyond the verandah. But, you see, we live with another chap, and the nearest man to make up a four has a bungalow nearly three hundred yards away. It doesn't matter how he is armed or protected by servants carrying lanterns : he and everybody with him would certainly be carried off if they ventured out'after dark." I. Y. L. : " Then you never play," P. No. I : " We hardly miss a night, and we manage it this way : All the tigers round there are well acquainted with the whistling of a bullet, and they don't like it particularly. So Jones— that is, the man who lives in the other house — -has rigged up a couple of targets in front of his bungalow, and we keep up a pretty stiff fire on them whilst he walks up the space between." I. Y. L (intensely interested at this glimpse of wild life in India) : " But isn't that dangerous ?

" P. No. II, : "Not a bit when you're used to it. One night, when Jones was going home, he was a bit unsteady — sudden touch of the sun or something — and he didn't keep the line, so I took off the tip of his left ear. But that is the only approach to an accident we have had. He has to be pretty lively on entering or leaving the house, to avoid the spray from the targets : all the rest is easy." I. Y. L. : " Go long." (Giggles.) The Judge remarked to me : " There is a sug-pestio ligris about that story which is effective." " To say nothing about the suggcstio sals/." THE ADVENTURES OF A GL OBE-TR OTTER. 5 " Oh ! " said the Judge; " only the natives tell lies in India. " By the way, we were standing on the promenade deck of the Peninsular and steaming into Bombay harbour. The pilot, some one said, was the same man who brought in the Serapis when the Prince of Wales came to India.

His Royal Highness shook hands with him on that occasion and genially remarked : " You are the connecting link between England and India, " which was kindly, if somewhat forced. The Judge suggested tiffin. Perish the thought, with two thousand miles of the East straight in front! The telegraph bell is now ringing on the bridge : the screw ceases to revolve; there is a puff of steam forward, followed by a hoarse rattle as the anchor seeks a resting-place some fathoms below, and the great steamer becomes stationary', having faithfully performed her allotted task and brought her human freight safe and sound to its destination. All my traps were safely packed, boxes locked and strapped, stewards tipped, &c, so I had nothing to do but quietly go ashore in a steam launch from the hotel, which would be in waiting.

As I descended the companion to the main deck, I had no reason to check my poetic fancyr from apostrophising the noble vessel for thus accomplishing her mission. So I mused ; — Proud mistress of the seas, whose shapely form Hath spurned the main and met the raging wind With steady shock — " Look out, " yelled a voice in my ear, and the next moment a Saratoga trunk, labelled " Hiram T. Potts, Pottsville, Pa.," was hoisted out of the hold on a travelling crane and hit me on the small of the back. The Peninsular suddenly stood upon her bowsprit, and for a : time things were a bit mixed. When I had recovered my hat and felt my nose, and found that my eye-glass was not wedged into my brain, but was lying in atoms on the deck (the steamer having meanwhile righted herself), a man said to me, " I guess that thar one-hundred-and twenty-pound package ain't pleasant on the swing."

So this was Potts, or he would not have known the weight ofthe inf— . I gave him a murderous look and turned to take a feeble interest in the picturesque boats alongside, whose half-naked occupants were wildly competing for the first place near the ladder. The boatmen swarmed up the side at every possible point, some balancing themselves on the end of their mainsail yard until the rocking of the boat brought them near enough to grasp the gunwale of the ship. And now I saw the brutal instincts of the Englishman given full vent to The quartermaster kicked at least six men down the gangway — kicked them violently', too: and a sailor with a handspike hit the fingers of the enterprising gymnasts who had tried the masthead trick and were now clinging like limpets to the bulwarks. My heart bled for the poor fellows, who, after all, -were only trying to earn an honest living.

"Got anything to declare, sir ? '' said a customs officer civilly. Now, as I have already stated, I had spent some hours early in the dxy in securely fastening my boxes, as I had only forty-nine cigars in my possession and was absolutely devoid of spirituous liquor, lace, or the other contraband articles they so carefully look for at Charing Cross the Gare du Nord and Modane. So, with conscious probity, I replied, "No; only half a box of cigars left. " THE A D VENTURES OF A G L QBE- TR 0 TIER. 7 " We don't mind about cigars here, sir; but have you any eau-de-cologne or manufactured silver or gold — or fire-anus." Seeing the elongation of my visage at the mention of the last item, he continued insinuatingly : •"Perhaps Iliad better look through a ll your baggage, sir." No one ever told me that guns were dutiable in India, and I had brought out a regular battery.

There were an eight-bore for elephants, which, I knew, abounded in some parts of Upper India and Madras; an express rifle of the latest and dearest pattern for tigers, bears, etc.; a fowling-piece, also very expensive, and a brace of revolvers for personal protection whilst travelling through the wild and turbulent districts of the Central Provinces and Bengal. After a good thirty minutes of hard labour, my fingers bruised aud knuckles chipped and hands sore with pulling refractory straps, I was told I had to pay fifteen pounds or two hundred and seventy rupees, which ever was most convenient, and was given to understand that, as a personal savour, he (the customs man) would not tell the captain that I had infringed the company's rule and conveyed on board one hundred rounds of special steel-faced eight-bore cartridges, which, of course, the half-civilized dealers in India could not supply .me with.

Otherwise, he added, I would be severely punished. Visions of Oriental torture floated through my brain, so I handed him sixteen sovereigns and proceeded to give directions about the destination of my traps. Where were they? Gone, spirited away; seized by those wretched boatmen who had by this time taken possession of the ship. Gazing madly over the side, I saw two portmanteaux in one : boat a hat-box, dressing-bag, and gun-case in another ; whilst the owner of a third and fourth— with the crew of a fifth as intervenors — were fighting vigorously and making a most appalling din over the possession of a big leather trunk. The quartermaster came to my aid, and two sailors, who swarmed down the ladder with characteristic energy, rescued my goods and placed them on board the steam-launch, which had returned after taking away the first batch of passengers.

As I shook hands with the quartermaster, I said : "The next time you come to Bombay, oblige me by killing the first native who tries to enter this ship. " I gave the sailor who had used the handspike half a crown. We soon crossed the harbour, which must have seemed beautiful in the brilliant light ofthe afternoon; but I was in no mood to admire anything just then. Tired, hot, and sore, I managed to get myself and belongings safely to Watson's Hotel and flung myself on the bed in a third storey room, wondering why I had ever left my peaceful home.

Chapter II First Impressions My

despondency did not last long I am too young and too health}'- and too enthusiastic a sightseer to allow a punch in the ribs and some chipped knuckles to interfere with my enjoyment of life. So, after an hour of delicious repose, I ordered a bottle of beer and a sandwich, as I had had no tiffin, and began to take stock of my surroundings. Electric bells and lights, post, telegraph, railway, and exchange offices on the premises, and a hydraulic lift to the upper regions seemed rather progressive for half-civilized India. But, of course, I was only on the verge of the East, and the splendid melange of tigers, snakes, curry, and brandy-pawnees was yet to come. The aborigine who brought the bottle of beer remained in the room, and, after contemplating me with glitter ing eyes whilst I half emptied the glass, said, " Guzzle, sahib ':" " What the holy Mo has it got to do with you whe ther I guzzle or not ?"

I replied, annoyed at the fellow's impudence. " No, sahib ; not drink it, wash it," he said, pointing to the bath-room. The idea was good Re-invigorated by a tub, I donned a correct Eastern costume of white flannel, with a Lord Byron collar and a sun hat. This latter was of helmet shape, with a nice frill tucked on all round. Completing the outfit with a large linen covered umbrella, I made my way to the verandah on the first floor, this being evidently the general meeting place for residents. It was about 5 p. m , and I could not help noticing that, with the exception of half a dozen ti WHAT I SAW IN INDIA : strangers like myself, all the men — and women too — were arrayed in the most orthodox garments of Brighton or Eastbourne at the same hour. A vaguely uncomfort able feeling of being rather remarkable in appearance was not lessened when I met the Judge, faultlessly attired in a grey tweed suit, immaculate linen, and a bowler hat, evidently about to go out somewhere.

He surveyed me critically for a moment and then said with an air of pained surprise : " What's the little game ?" " I am unconscious of any ' little game,' as you term it," I replied stiffly. " Awfully sorry ; but I thought you were made up to represent Stanley in Equatorial Africa, or Grant Dis covering the Sources of the Nile." " If your feeble sarcasm is directed against my gar ments," I observed, with all the dignity I could com mand, " allow me to state that I always do in Rome as the Romans do, and, I believe, my present dress is the regular costume for hot climates like the East." " In that case you ought to be consistent and simply tie a cloth round your loins, or at most drape a dhoti1 grace fully round your stalwart figure. Look here, Hooper," continued the Judge pityingly, " don't be an ass !

Go to your room and dress yourself properly like an English gentleman. I will wait for you ten minutes and take you over to the Yacht Club to hear the band. " Another cherished image broken. Within the allotted time I managed to assume a Piccadilly aspect, and we were about to leave the hotel, when, to my intense amazement, I encountered in the manager no less a person than the well-remembered and well-beloved 1 A flowing loose robe generally worn by the natives in place of trowsers. Poincilit, for years at the head of the Criterion, and whom I had afterwards seen in Delmonico's. "Well, Mr. Hooper," he said cheerily, "come to see India ?" "That was my original intention, but I can't find it." Perceiving my meaning, he laughed. "We are only fourteen days behind England, you know. " Looking round at the broad and handsome streets, the beautiful outlines of the University buildings in an opposite garden, the numbers of smart equipages dashing along the roads or waiting in front of the hotel for occupants, I began to doubt the existence of even a fortnight's backwardness.

This impression was heightened as we strolled along to the Club. The fine open space lined by the Municipal and other public offices and the Sailors' Home was specially' pleasing to eyes accus tomed to the confinement of London vistas.3 When we reached the Yacht Club, with its delightfully open rooms, and had seated ourselves in the grounds overlook ing the harbour, with its picturesque lines of shipping, its dancing waters dotted over with native-rigged boats, and its background of rugged heights now tipped with gold by the setting sun, I failed to find words to express my enjoyment of the scene Around me, too, were numbers of handsome and well-dressed English ladies, and the men, for the most part, had a distinguished air about them which bespoke good birth, habits of command, and self-reliance.

A military band discoursed sweet music at one end of the enclosure, and directly in front were three or four parties of English residents in Bombay 2 Yet it has since been seriously proposed by the Government of ISombay to split up this magnificent lung into building sites ! : 12 going out for their evening sail in roomy and well-uphol stered yachts. " So this is the Gate of India," I said at last, breaking a dreamy silence of wonderment. " Yes," said the Judge. " Not an ill-looking doorway, is it ?" " What a mark you and your predecessors have placed on thecountry and its people in a century ! " I answered, somewhat irrelevantly. " On the country, yes ; our railways, roads and canals, our law courts and revenue administration and rigid departmental bureaux have somewhat altered the physical geography of India.

As for the people, our veneer of civilization sits so lightly on them that it could be oblit erated more easily than a schoolboy smudges a figure off his slate." Having heard Dadabhai Naoroji lecture in the Na tional Liberal Club on the necessityof conferring an elective franchise on the enlightened people of India, and having often met that cultured and charming Bengali gentleman, Bama Chandra Gupta, of the Middle Temple, I naturally felt the Judge was only giving vent to the unreasonable and deep-rooted conservatism which leads nearly all men who have lived some years in the country to doubt the advisability of grafting Western institutions upon the gnarled trunk of Eastern superstition and ignorance. But I didn't tell him this, as the Judge had an irritating habit of laughing in a dry chuckling way and then changing the conversation.

Not knowing, or perhaps not caring about my thoughts, he continued : " During your brief tour through India, if you will only endeavour to look beneath the film spread over the face of things by university degrees and Government reports, you will— for I know you to be observant and not eaten up by the demon of conceit, which blinds the eyes of most men who come out here to solve in three months political and social problems which we do not understand after a thirty-years' residence" (this jarred very unpleasantly upon my reflections of a moment ago, but no matter; — " you will quickly find 'the morals and manners of the people to be so little changed from the times when Christ walked by the Sea of Galilee that there is no perceptible difference. In other respects they have actually gone back.

Their arts and manufac tures have been ruined by the introduction of scientific machinery, and their finest habitations of to-day are but grotesque copies ofthe magnificent creations of past centuries." Phew ! He was riding his hobby-horse, and it was useless to argue. All the way out from home I had carefully studied Hunter's " Indian Empire," and I was crammed with rounded periods and statistical tables which fully disproved the pessimistic views I had just heard. But the Judge talks well, and the evening was balmy, so I queried, " Am I to understand, then, that a century of British rule in India has been a lamentable failure ?" He took his cigar between his lips and hesitated, as though about to launch forth into another paragraph. But he only said : " You have promised to come and see me in camp in January.

We will discuss the point then, beneath a pipal 3 tree, after dinner. Meanwhile come and have a peg." 3 A tree of great size which usually marks the cen-tre of the grove surrounding most Indian villages. : 14 What a splendid word "peg" is ! It means so much in such a small compass. I had studied it etymologically, socially, and convivially on board the Peninsular, but I was now to experience another surprise. Two "small" pegs were ordered, and, without any inquiry, the native servant brought two whiskies and a split soda. " But," I expostulated, " you always drink brandy in India ? " "We used to," said the Judgs, "when Thackeray wrote ' The Newcomes ; ' but the habit has been generally dropped for many years." I had been earnestly assured by a Radical member of Parliament, to whom I had confided myr intention of visiting India, that the Anglo-Indian officials of the country spent their office hours, which were few, in receiving bribes and drinking brandy and water, and their leisure, which was large, in shooting tigers to a further accompaniment of the same beverage.

So I quoted my authority. " It's all right," said the Judge ; " only he committed the pardonable error for a teetotaller— which, I presume, he was — of confusing the two mixtures. When we meet in January, you will see the whole scandalous system for yourself." A man standing near overheard our conversation and laughed. He was elderly, with a kindly face, of that half-military half-diplomatic cast which one so often sees in Indian civilians. He looked hard at my companion, and then gladly extended his hand. " Hallo 1 Terrant, old man ! I thought you were in Belait.4 When did you come out, and how is the mem-sahib and the kids ?"' ■'.An Anglo-Indian colloquialism for "England." "They're smiling. I landed this morning. But you are not looking well yourself." "Well, no; but I am very fit, considering that a month ago I was given up for enteric I'm just off on twelve months' sick leave, but I had a mighty close shave.

Got it in the Terai 5 -whilst planning a new settlement for criminal tribes." "Any news?" "Just the usual. Poor Ferrars— you knew Ferrars, the Judicial Commissioner — left his furlough until too late and was buried off Aden last week. And Smyth — Tomkyns Smyth, you know — went over to Banda a few days ago to look after a bad outbreak of cholera. He got it and died in four hours. Mrs. Smylh and the girls were just coming down that very day from Simla to join him. Some one met them at Tundla, and they changed their route, but were too late to see him buried." The Judge listened to this terrible intelligence of his personal friends with a sang-froid which either bespoke a frightful familiarity with such details, ora callous indifference to other people's sufferings I did not give him cre dit for.

He merely said, "You were lucky to have escaped yourself, old chap ! Bon voyage!" and we left the club. We crossed over to the Apollo Bunder Restaurant, so that I might see how young Britannia in Bombay spends the two hours of sunless calm before dinner. With the exception that the money used was rupees and annas instead of shillings and pence, the place might have been in the busiest street of an English 5 The malarious belt of thick jungle lying between the lower slopes of the Himalayas and the plains of the North-West Provinces and Bengal. : town. Somewhat to my astonishment, a good deal of German mixed with the Anglo-Saxon of the habitues, and I was told that the trade of India was gradually drifting into the hands of German firms, and that even English houses in London gave their business to German agents because they were cheaper than the Englishmen who were established in the country.

This struck me as a rather suicidal policy, because German agents would in the long run give priority to German exporters. But I did not come here to write commercial treatises. We strolled back to the hotel by the Sea Face, and I duly admired the splendid sweep of the lamps which encircled Back Bayr and climbed Malabar Hill at the opposite point. The noble line of public buildings, too, evoked my enthusiasm, and although I have since learnt that the Secretariat is hardly occupied in any portion for a month in the year, and that the large sum of money expended upon it was utterly thrown away, I can almost forgive the extravagance for the spectacular effect. In the entrance hall of the hotel a curious thing happened. The Judge was accompanied by a nice little spaniel, and he had several times wished that his servant would arrive from up-country to relieve him of the persistent charge of the animal.