Part 6 (2/2)
Now dinner, for there goes the Hotel bra.s.s band down below--_a cada necio agrada su porrada_--to me the pipes, the bra.s.s band to the Southerner, but for us all dinner--”both meat and music,” as the fox said when it ate the bagpipes.[7]
[7] To each fool agreeable is his folly; and, the bag of the pipes is made of sheep-skin you see.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
We have home letters to-night; ”The Mail” they speak of over the Indian Peninsula has arrived. G.'s maid has a letter from St Abbs from her mother, who is anxious about her, for she says, ”There's an awfu' heavy sea running at the Head.” Even at this distance of time and sea miles, we find home news takes a new importance, and are already grateful for home letters with details of what is going on there from day to day; trifles there, are interesting to read about here, there's the enchantment of distance about them, and they become important by their isolation.
Nov. 22nd.--We conclude, that considering packing, calling on Cook, and a complete absence of any Royal function or Tomasha of any sort, that we have put in a most excellent day, in fact the best day we have had since we landed--and it was spent at sea!--at least the best of it was. I visited the Sailors' Home in the morning, which is a palace here where a sailor man who has the money, and doesn't mind the loneliness and ennui, can live like a prince for a rupee a day, and as comfortably or more so than we can in the Taj for heaps of rupees. Perhaps it was the suggestion of being at anchor in that refuge that made G. and me go off to sea this afternoon, and we are glad we did so. We looked at a steam launch opposite the Hotel which was full of white pa.s.sengers seated shoulder to shoulder round the stern like soldiers; they were bound for Elephanta and the caves there, and we decided to go too; but they seemed so awfully hot even in shadow of an awning, and so packed and formal that we elected to take time and sail, in a boat of our own, with our own particular piratical crew, and lateen sails, and white awning. We were warned we might have to stay out till late at night! As it is said to be seven miles, I thought with a crew of four men, Krishna, and myself, we might by an effort even row home in time for dinner though it did fall calm!
So we chartered the craft for seven rupees there and back--which was two rupees above proper rate--left our packing undone, and sailed for Elephanta. It was altogether delightful being on the water again the first time for many months--of course being on board a P. & O. steamer doesn't count, as that hardly conveys even the feeling of being afloat.
The breeze was light and southerly, so at first we rowed, and the cheery dark faces of the crew beamed and sweated. These coast men are nicer to look at than the natives on sh.o.r.e. They did buck in with their funny bamboo oars, long things like bakers' bread shovels, with square or round blades tied with string to the end of a bamboo, which worked in a hemp grummet on a single wooden thole pin.
What a study they make! Bow, Two and Three, have skull-caps of lemon yellow and dull gold thread, and blue dungaree jackets faded and threadbare. They are young l.u.s.ty fellows, and Stroke, who is a tough-looking, middle-aged man, with a wiry beard, has a skull-cap between rose and brown, and round it a salmon-coloured wisp of a turban--over them there is the arch of the frogged foot of the lateen sail. All but Bow are in full sunlight, sweating at their oars, he is in the shadow the sail casts on our bow. We recline, to quote our upholsterer, in ”cairless elegance” on the floor of the stern, on Turkey red cus.h.i.+ons under the shadow of the awning, and I feel sorry we have spent so much time on sh.o.r.e.
We pa.s.s under the high stern of a lumbering native craft; its grey sun-bitten woodwork is loosely put together: on a collection of dried palm leaves and coir ropes on the stern, sit the naked, brown crew feeding off a bunch of green bananas. One has a pink skull-cap, and at a porthole below the counter the red gla.s.s of a side-light catches the sun and glows a fine ruby red; a pleasant contrast to the grey, sun-dried woodwork. Just as we clear our eyes off her, from seaward behind us comes an Arab dhow, a s.h.i.+p from the past, surging along finely! An out-and-out pirate, you can tell at a glance, even though she does fly a square red flag astern with a white edge. Her bows are viking or saucer-shaped, prettier than the usual fiddle-bow we see here, and her high bulwarks on her long sloping quarter deck you feel must conceal bra.s.s guns. From beyond her the afternoon sun sends the shadows of her mast and stays in fine curves down the bend of her sail, the jib-boom is inboard and the jib flat against the lee of the main sail. She brings up the breeze with her, and our bamboo oars are pulled in and we go slipping across the water in silence, only the bows talking to the small waves. Now, how sorry we feel for those other globe trotters on the launch, birring along behind a hot, bubbling, puffing, steam kettle--and so crowded, and in this heat too, whilst we extend at our ease in a white and sky-blue boat, with pink cus.h.i.+ons, and dreamily listen to the silky frou frou of the southern sea. The crew rest; and one brings out the hubble-bubble from the peak, with a burning coal on the bowl; it is pa.s.sed round and each of them takes three or four long inhalations through his hands over the mouth-piece, to avoid touching it with his lips, and the smell of the tobacco is not unpleasant, diluted as it is with the tropical sea air. Now it is brought aft to the oldest of our crew, the master I suppose, a grizzled old fellow, who sits on his heels on a sc.r.a.p of plank out at our stern and steers. He takes four deep inhalations and the mutual pipe is put away forward again. Our elderly ”Boy” is a Madra.s.see, tidy and clerk-like, and a contrast to the pirates; and he does not understand them very well, but he pats the pipe condescendingly as it is pa.s.sed forward, and puts questions about it with a condescending little smile.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
Elephanta comes closer and we see the undergrowth on the hills, and it does not seem very unfamiliar; it is considerate the way in which Nature leads you from one scene to another without any change sudden enough to shock you; in the most out-of-the-way corners of the world I believe, you may find features that remind you of places you have known. Here the few palms on the sky-line of the low hills, almost accidental features you might say, are all there is to distinguish the general aspect from some loch side at home. Our Stroke points ash.o.r.e and grins, and says, ”Elephanta,” and we say, ”Are you sure, is it not an island on Loch Katrine?” and he grins again and bobs and says, ”Yes, yes Elephanta!”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Sailing from Elephanta.]
I thought I'd written a remarkably expressive description of the carvings in the caves; if I did I can't find it, so the reader is spared. But I must say, before jogging on, that they are well worth taking far greater trouble to see than the little trouble that is required. I had heard them often spoken of lightly, but in my opinion they are great works of a debased art. The sculptured groups would be received any day _hors concours_ in the Salons for their technique only.
There are figures in grand repose, as solemn and dignified as the best in early Egyptian sculpture, others show astonis.h.i.+ng vigour, and fantastic freedom of movement and of light and shade. They are cut in the rock _in situ_, hard, blackish serpentine, which is a soft grey colour on the exposed surfaces. In some parts the carving is as modern in style and free in movement and composition as some _tourtmente_ modern French sculpture. But here, as in Europe and Egypt, marvellous talent has been used in the name of religion to express imaginings of the supernatural and inhuman, instead of being humbly devoted to the study of the beauty presented in nature.
Going home we sailed into the sunset, and it certainly was pretty late when we got back to dinner; in fact half of our little voyage was in the dark, in heavy dew and with red and green lights pa.s.sing across our course rather swiftly; we had one white light, and the glow in the men's big pipe. We were pleased with our crew and they were pleased with us for an extra rupee, and altogether we felt very superior having gone in so much better style than other poor people, so down on the bedrock for time that they cannot spare a half-hour here and there.
CHAPTER XII
I don't know very well how we did all our packing and got away from the Taj Hotel to the train, but we did it somehow; and possibly may become inured to the effort after six or seven more months travelling. Now we are reaping the reward of our exertions. Within less than half an hour from Bombay we are right into jungle! I thought of and looked for tigers, and saw in a glade of palms and thorns where there should have been tigers, h.o.a.rdings with ”The Western Indian Army-Equipment Factory”
and the like in big letters; so I had just to imagine the tigers, and make studies from life of the Parsis as they wandered up and down the corridor; I can see some point in their women wearing Saris, these graceful veils hanging from the back of their hair, but why do they and Mohammedan men wear their s.h.i.+rt tails outside their petticoats and trousers?--I must look up ”Murray.”
To right and left we come on open country divided like an irregular draught-board into little fields of less than an acre each, with d.y.k.es a few inches high round them; paddy fields, I suppose--the place for snipe and rice. Round those that have water on them are grey birds like small herons, with white showing in their wings when they fly--paddy birds; have I not heard and read of them from my youth up, and of the griffins'
bag of them. I have also read and heard of the Western Ghats[8], these mountain slopes we have to climb up east of Bombay, that run right south and which we are now approaching, but I had no idea they were so fantastically like Norman ramparts and b.u.t.tresses on mountain tops, neither had I an idea that the trees and fields at their feet and up their sides were so green. We rattle along at say fifty miles an hour, not very comfortably, for there is heat and dust; but all along the line are interesting groups of figures to look at. Here is a string of women in red shawls against golden sunlit gra.s.s above a strip of blue water, and there again, a man just stopped work sitting at the door of a dusty hut of palm leaves and dry clay. He shades his eyes with his hand as he watches the train pa.s.s; how his deep copper-coloured skin gleaming with moisture, contrasts with the grey parched earth; then a group of children bathing and paddling, at this distance they are perfectly lovely. The young people are far more fairly formed than I expected them to be--famine photographs probably account for this; they are black but comely, though possibly closer inspection would dissolve the charm--here are people, men and women, stacking corn or hay round a homestead, a scene I have not heard described or read of in home letters or books about India; how the pictures unfold themselves all hot and new to me, and coloured, and at fifty to sixty miles an hour! Won't mental indigestion wait on good appet.i.te!
[8] Sanskrit ”Gati” a way or path--Scottish ”gate” is a way or path too.
We are going south-east now; Bombay away to our right over the bay, and the Ghat we saw to the south in extended battlements and towers, now shows in profile as one tower, on high and steep escarpments. We are still in the low country. May I liken it to the Ca.r.s.e of Forth extended, with the Kippens on either side, with the features and heat considerably increased. I am told I should not compare homely places I know with places unfamiliar, as it limits the reader's imagination; the Romans did so--said, ”Lo! The Tiber!” when they saw the Tay; I must try not to do the same.
And as at home, the people at the stations become l.u.s.tier and have clearer eyes and are more powerfully built, as we get further from town; that is not saying much here, for the strongest look as if a breeze would blow them over; however, they may have their own particular kind of strength. I know my boy surprised me last night when he started to pack my various belongings; the way he sat down on his heels beside each box and went through the work showed if not strength, its equivalent in agility, and a method entirely his own. He told me, ”Yes, Sa, I do same whole camp one night, saddles, horses, bridles, whole lot camp outfit while you sleep.” He has been butler to two distinguished generals, so I feel it must be rather a drop for him to valet a mere cold-weather tourist, but he does not show it, which is a point in his favour. It was a little awkward though the other day when he began to beat up to find my profession; I forget what he said exactly. It was something like, ”Sahib General?” and I said, ”No, no,” as if Generals were rather small fry in my estimation, and racked my brains how to index myself. I've read you must ”buck” in the East--isn't that the expression?--so a happy inspiration came, and I said with solemnity, ”I am a J.P.,--a Justice of the Peace, you understand?” and I could see he was greatly relieved, for unless you have some official position in India you are no one. He went on packing perfectly satisfied, murmuring, ”Yes Sahib, I know, Sahib Lord Chief Justice, I know.” Ought I to have corrected him? Ought I to have told him seriously that I am an artist!--a professional painter from choice, and necessity? He would have left my ign.o.ble service on the spot; why, even in Britain, Art is reckoned after the Church, and in Belgium, though respectable, it is still only a trade--Peter Paul notwithstanding.
After two or three hours in the train through this sunlit country, we conclude it is worth coming to see; for the last hours have unfolded the most interesting show that I have ever seen from a train in the time.
Outside all is new, and inside the train much is familiar; some English people near us sit with their backs to the window and take no notice of the outside world. What high head notes they speak with, and what familiar ground they go over. ”Oh! you know Bown, do you--such a good fellah--good thot, I mean--went mad about golf--such a good gaime, you know--what I mean is--you know it's,” etc. Quite ”good people” too, probably keen on ridin' and shootin' though they may never have shot a foxth or a goo'th, or have even seen a golden eagle. But they seem almost happy, in a jog trot sort of a way, along the old trail--the Midlands to Indiar, and Indiar to the Midlands, with bwidge between.
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