Part 4 (2/2)
After witnessing the departure of the Prince, we sat a breathing s.p.a.ce on the lawn at the Yacht Club and watched the day fading, ”Evening falling, shadows rising,” and the ladies dresses growing faint in colour, as the background of the Bay and the white men-of-war became less distinct; the golden evening light crept up the lateen sails in front of us and left them all grey, and the moon rose beyond the Bay, and the club lamps were lit, and the guns began to play--vivid flashes of flame; and a roar round the fleet, straight in our faces, and again far over to Elephanta, yellow flashes in the violet twilight, and the Prince came ash.o.r.e.
The cavalry and their lances at once follow his carriage; they are silhouetted against the last of gold in the west, flicker across the lamps of the Bundar, and rattle away into the shadows of the streets.
There is the noise of many horses feet and harness, and the last of the guns from the fleet. Then the night is quiet again and hot as ever, and there's nothing left of the glare and noise of the day, only the glowing lamps on some of the buildings, and the subdued hum of the talk of the moving thousands, and the whispering sound of their bare feet in the dust. The Eastern crowd is distinctly impressed and very much compressed; they will now spend the rest of the evening gazing at the Bombay public buildings that are being lit all over with little oil lamps.
And this was but a small part of the day for us, the best was to come in the damp, hot night.
CHAPTER IX
[Ill.u.s.tration: (With apologies to the Indian Surveys.)]
Dined at our hostlerie; in every direction vistas of uniforms, ladies'
dresses, maharajahs, rajahs, turbans, and jewels, the marble pillars and the arches of blue night over the bay for background.
Then we got away in a bustle of hundreds of other carriages and gharries, all bound for Government House. We started a little late; you may have observed that with ladies you are apt to be late for social functions, but rarely miss a train! H. and I drove ahead with soothing cigars, and the ladies came close behind.
On our left we pa.s.sed the R.H. Artillery Camp, rows of tents frosted with moonlight against the southern sea, some had lamps glowing inside; and further on we pa.s.sed their lines of picketted horses, with silent native syces squatted on the sand at their feet.
... The dust hangs heavily from the gharries in front of us as we drive north round the Back Bay, which we are told is very beautiful, and like the Bay of Naples in the daytime; what we see on this warm night is a smooth, dark sea, which gives an infrequent soft surge on the sh.o.r.e, a few boats lie up on the moonlit sand and figures lie asleep in their shadows, and others sit round little fires. Dark palm stems and banyan trees are between us and the sea, and to our right are fern-clad rocks and trees in night green shade, rising steeply to where we can distinguish white walls and lights of villas of the wealthy Bombay natives.
We pa.s.s the Parsis' Towers of Silence, where vultures entomb the dead, and inhale for a long part of the road the smoke of burning wood and Hindoos--an outrageous experience. The road rises gradually and gets narrower as we leave the sh.o.r.e, and the procession of carriages goes slower. On either side are low white walls and villas and heavy foliage.
Coloured lamps are hung in every direction, and their mellow lights blend pleasantly with the moonlight and shadows, and s.h.i.+ne through the flags that hang without movement, and light up ropes of flowers and ribands with gold inscriptions of welcome, that stretch from tree to tree across the road. You read on them in golden letters, ”Tell papa how happy we are under British Rule,” and on the walls, sitting or lying at length, and in the trees are bronze-coloured natives in white clothes, or in the buff, silently watching the procession of carriages, and they do look as contented as can be; and so would we be too, if we had to get into their evening undress instead of hard s.h.i.+rts and broad cloth on such a damp, hot night. It is November and ought to be cool, but this year everyone says it is just October as regards temperature and moisture, and October, they say, is the beastliest month in the twelve.
The drive of four or five miles takes over an hour, and looking south we see the lights s.h.i.+ning across the bay from where we started. We climb slowly up Malabar Hill in the dusky shade of the heavy foliage and come to a stop amongst crowds of other carriages opposite Government House.
I'd like to stop and paint this scene, it would suit the stage--the marquee on the right, pale moonlight on its ridge, and warm light and colour showing through its entrance as ladies go in to put off their cloaks; its guy ropes are fast to branches and air roots of a banyan tree; and to the left there is another graceful tree, with wandering branches, hung with many red and yellow paper lamps, the branches like copper in the light and in shadow black against the dark blue sky. In front is part of Government House, dim white with trellis work and creepers round a cla.s.sic verandah, and lamplight coming through the open jalousies. Leading up to the verandah are wide steps in shadow; and on these, a light catching now and then on a jewel or scabbard, are groups of Indian Princes. Beside us on the lawn are people in all kinds of dresses, soldiers in uniform and the gold dull in the shadows, ladies in fairy-coloured ball dresses, and Parsi men in frock-coats and s.h.i.+ny black hats, their women in most delicate veils over European dresses.
The figures move quietly and speak softly, and the air is full of the rattle of crickets or cicadas and a pleasant scent of night flowers, and cheroot smoke, with a whiff of old ocean.
We wait and chat outside with acquaintances, and some ladies practise curtseys whilst the natives are being received--the coloured man first, the white man and his womenfolk when they may! Then we all go up the steps and into the brilliant interior, which is Georgian in style, and light and prettily coloured. It is distinctly a sensation, to come from semi-darkness into full light and such an extraordinary variety of people and colour and costumes. The figures in the half light outside were interesting, in the full blaze of hundreds of candles from many chandeliers the effect is just as brilliant as anything one could imagine. The strong colours of the natives' turbans, silk coats, sashes, and jewels enrich the scene, and their copper colour helps to set off the splendid beauty of our women with their dazzling skins and delicately coloured dresses. Positively these princes were inches deep in emeralds, diamonds, and pearls.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Then comes the tableau of the evening, the Prince and Princess walking with aides-de-camp through their Eastern and Western subjects, with an introduction made here and there. The Prince walks in front and the Princess a few steps behind. She seems very pleased and interested, and still, I think, looks under her eye lest she should fail to recognise some one she would wish to notice, and the Prince's expression is so pleasant, quiet, and possessed in repose, and with a very ingratiating smile. He stops and speaks to right and left, to one of our officers, or a native prince. One, a tall grizzled old fellow with gorgeous turban and the eye and air of a hunter, bends very low over the offered hand, and talks a moment, possibly tells how he shot with the King when he was Prince, and how there are tigers and devoted subjects waiting in the north in his state all at the service of the son of the Great White Raj, and as the Prince goes past, the old man follows him with a very kindly expression. I must say that these people's jewels interest me more than their expressions; but this one man's face was exceptional, and he was lean! You see the thing above these people, that is the punkah; when it waggles about it makes a cold draught and you get hot with annoyance.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Waiting for Carriages after Reception at Government House, Bombay]
Immediately the Prince pa.s.sed, the crowd pressed towards a side room for champagne and iced drinks, the native Princes gallantly leading the charge. At the start we were all pretty level, but we Britons made a bad finish, and the native waiters and champagne were somewhat exhausted when we came in, but for what we did receive we are truly thankful, for it was sorely needed.
How we got home again now seems like a dream. I have just a vague recollection of hours and hours in the warm dusk, and crowds of people in evening dress waiting till their carriages came up. Perhaps the arrangements could not have been better? Some of us dozed, some smoked Government House cheroots, which were good, and the time pa.s.sed. All conversation gradually stopped, and you only heard the number of the gharry or carriage shouted out with a rich brogue and sometimes a little stifled joke and a ”Chelo!” which seems to stand for ”All right,” ”Go ahead,” ”Look sharp,” or ”Go on and be d.a.m.ned to you,” according to intonation and person addressed. I do not quite understand how it took such hours to get everyone away, and I do not understand how we ever managed to get up that vast square staircase up the enormous central tower of the Taj Hotel, for G. was deadly tired, so of course the lift wasn't working--it looked so big and grey, and silent in the cold light of morning.
Then to sleep, and tired dreams of the whole day and evening; I dreamt I was in a Government House and the guests had gone and I met a dream Prince and a dream of an A.D.C. in exquisite uniform who said, ”quai hai,” and in an instant there were dream drinks, and cheroots such as one used to be able to get long ago, and we planned ways to remedy abuses, and the greatest was the abuse of the Royal Academical privileges; and at such length we went into this, that this morning I wrote out the whole indictment and it covered six of these pages, and so it is too long to insert here. And our remedy as it was in a dream was at once effective--sculpture and painting became as free and as strong an influence in our national life in Britain as literature is at this moment--then came a frightful explosion! and I awoke, and the sun was blazing out of a blue sky through the open windows--then it came again, a terrific bang! and the jalousies rattled and the whole of the Taj Hotel shook for the war s.h.i.+ps were saluting The Prince of Wales, and he and his aides-de-camp and all the officials in his train had been up for hours, ”doing their best to serve their country and their King,” whilst we private people slumbered.
But whither have I strayed in this discourse? Am I not rather wandering from the point, as the cook remarked to the eel, telling dreams instead of making notes on a cold weather tour as I proposed; so I will stop here, and tell what, by travel and conference, I have observed about Royal functions.
The day has pa.s.sed to the accompaniment of ”G.o.d bless the Prince of Wales,” and gun firing, and ”G.o.d save the King,” on bra.s.s bands, and more gun firing. Somehow or other ”G.o.d save the King” in India, where you are surrounded by millions of black people, sounds a good deal more impressive than it does at home--perhaps there's more of the feeling of G.o.d save us all out here.
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