Part 2 (2/2)

You know, dear Vanity, I whispered to you before that the poor Baboo often suffers from a slight aberration of speech which prevents his articulating the truth--a kind of moral lisp. Lord Lytton could not have been alluding to this; for it was only yesterday that I heard an Irishman speak the truth to Lord Lytton about some little matter--I forget what; cotton duty, I think--and Lord Lytton said, rather curtly, ”Why, you have often told me this before.” So Lord Lytton must be in the habit of hearing certain truths from the Irish.

It was either Sir Andrew Clarke, Sir Alexander Arbuthnot, or Sir Some-one-else, who understands all about these things, that first told me of the tendency to Baboo wors.h.i.+p in England at present. I immediately took steps, when I heard of it, to capitalise my pension and purchase gold mines in the Wynaad and shares in the Simla Bank.

(Colonel Peterson, of the Simla Fencibles, supported me gallantly in this latter resolution.) The notion of so dreadful a form of fetis.h.i.+sm establis.h.i.+ng itself in one's native land is repugnant to the feelings even of those who have been rendered callous to such things by seats in the Bengal Legislative Council. [I refuse to believe that the Zoological Society has lent its apiary to this movement. It must have been a spelling-bee your informant was thinking of.

Talking of monkey-houses reminds me of] Sir George Campbell, who took such an interest in the development of the Baboo, and the selection of the fittest for Government employment. He taught them in debating-clubs the various modes of conducting irresponsible parliamentary chatter; and he tried to encourage pedestrianism and football to evolve their legs and bring them into something like harmony with their long pendant arms. You can still see a few of Sir George's leggy Baboos coiled up in corners of lecture-rooms at Calcutta. The Calcutta Cricket Club used to employ one as permanent ”leg.” [The Indian Turf Club used to keep a professional ”leg,” but now there are so many amateurs it is not required.]

It is the future of Baboodom I tremble for. When they wax fat with new religions, music, painting, Comedie Anglaise, scientific discoveries, they may kick with those developed legs of theirs, until we shall have to think that they are something more than a joke, more than a mere _lusus naturae_, more than a caricature moulded by the accretive and differentiating impulses of the monad[C] in a moment of wanton playfulness. The fear is that their tendencies may infect others. The patent-leather shoes, the silk umbrellas, the ten thousand horse-power English words and phrases, and the loose shadows of English thought, which are now so many Aunt Sallies for all the world to fling a jeer at, might among other races pa.s.s into _dummy soldiers_, and from dummy soldiers into trampling, hope-bestirred crowds, and so on, out of the province of Ali Baba and into the columns of serious reflection. Mr.

Wordsworth and his friends the Dakhani Brahmans should consider how painful it would be, when deprived of the consolations of religion, to be solemnly repressed by the _Pioneer_--to be placed under that steam-hammer which by the descent of a paragraph can equally crack the tiniest of jokes and the hardest of political nuts, can suppress unauthorised inquiry and crush disaffection.

At present the Baboo is merely a grotesque Bracken shadow, but in the course of geological ages it might harden down into something palpable. It is this possibility that leads Sir Ashley Eden to advise the Baboo to revert to its original type; but it is not so easy to become h.o.m.ogeneous after you have been diluted with the physical sciences and stirred about by Positivists and missionaries. ”I would I were a protoplastic monad!” may sound very rhythmical, poetical, and all that; but even for a Baboo the aspiration is not an easy one to gratify.--ALI BABA.

No. VII

WITH THE RAJA

[September 20, 1879.]

Try not to laugh, Dear Vanity. I know you don't mean anything by it; but these Indian kings are so sensitive. The other day I was translating to a young Raja what Val Prinsep had said about him in his ”Purple India”; he had only said that he was a dissipated young a.s.s and as ugly as a baboon; but the boy was quite hurt and began to cry, and I had to send for the Political Agent to quiet him and put him to sleep. When you consider the matter philosophically there is nothing _per se_ ridiculous in a Raja. Take a hypothetical case: picture to yourself a Raja who does not get drunk without some good reason, who is not ostentatiously unfaithful to his five-and-twenty queens and his five-and-twenty grand d.u.c.h.esses, who does not festoon his thorax and abdomen with curious cutlery and jewels, who does not paint his face with red ochre, and who sometimes takes a sidelong glance at his affairs, and there is no reason why you should not think of such a one as an Indian king. India is not very fastidious; so long as the Government is satisfied, the people of India do not much care what the Rajas are like. A peasant proprietor said to Mr. Caird and me the other day, ”We are poor cultivators; we cannot afford to keep Rajas.

The Rajas are for the Lord Sahib.”

The young Maharaja of Kuch Parwani a.s.sures me that it is not considered the thing for a Raja at the present day to govern. ”A really swell Raja amuses himself.” One h.o.a.rds money, another plays at soldiering, a third is horsey, a fourth is amorous, and a fifth gets drunk; at least so Kuch Parwani thinks. Please don't say that I told you this. The Foreign Secretary knows what a high opinion I have of the Rajas, and indeed he often employs me to whitewash them when they get into sc.r.a.pes. ”A little playful, perhaps, but no more loyal Prince in India!” This is the kind of thing I put into the Annual Administration Reports of the Agencies, and I stick to it. Playful no doubt, but a more loyal cla.s.s than the Rajas there is not in India.

They have built their houses of cards on the thin crust of British Rule that now covers the crater, and they are ever ready to pour a pannikin of water into a crack to quench the explosive forces rumbling below.

The amiable chief in whose house I am staying to-day is exceedingly simple in his habits. At an early hour he issues from the zenana and joins two or three of his thakores, or barons, who are on duty at Court, in the morning draught of opium. They sit in a circle, and a servant in the centre goes round and pours the _kasumbha_[D] out of a bra.s.s bowl and through a woollen cloth into their hands, out of which they lap it up. Then a cardamum to take away the acrid after-taste.

One hums drowsily two or three bars of an old-world song; another clears his throat and spits; the Chief yawns, and all snap their fingers, to prevent evil spirits skipping into his throat; a late riser joins the circle, and all, except the Chief, give him _tazim_--that is, rise and salaam; a coa.r.s.e jest or two, and the party disperses. A crowd of servants swarm round the Chief as he shuffles slowly away. Three or four mace-bearers walk in front shouting, ”Raja, Maharaja salaamat ho; niga rakhiyo!” (”Please take notice; to the King, the great King, let there be salutation!”) A confidential servant continually leans forward and whispers in his ear; another remains close at hand with a silver tea-pot containing water and wrapped up in a wet cloth to keep it cool; a third constantly whisks a yak's tail over the King's head; a fourth carries my Lord's sword; a fifth his handkerchief; and so on. Where is he going? He dawdles up a narrow staircase, through a dark corridor, down half-a-dozen steep steps, across a courtyard overgrown with weeds, up another staircase, along another pa.s.sage, and so to a range of heavy quilted red screens that conceal doors leading into the female penetralia. Here we must leave him. Two servants disappear behind the _parda_ with their master, the others promptly lie down where they are, draw the sheets or blankets which they have been wearing over their faces and feet, and sleep. About noon we see the King again. He is dressed in white flowing robes with a heavy carcanet of emeralds round his neck. His red turban is tied with strings of seed pearls and set off with an aigrette springing from a diamond brooch. He sits on the Royal mattress, the _gaddi_.[E] A big bolster covered with green velvet supports his back; his sword and s.h.i.+eld are gracefully disposed before him. At the corner of the _gaddi_ sits a little representation of himself in miniature, complete even to the sword and s.h.i.+eld. This is his adopted son and heir. For all the queens and all the grand d.u.c.h.esses are childless, and a little kinsman had to be transplanted from a mud village among the cornfields to this dreamland palace to perpetuate the line. On the corners of the carpet on which the _gaddi_ rests sit thakores of the Royal house, other thakores sit below, right and left, forming two parallel lines, dwindling into sardars, palace officers, and others of lower rank as they recede from the _gaddi_.

Behind the Chief stand the servants with the emblems of royalty--the peac.o.c.k feathers, the fan, the yak tail, and the umbrella (now furled). The confidential servant is still whispering into the ear of his master from time to time. This is durbar. No one speaks, unless to exchange a languid compliment with the Chief. Presently essence of roses and a compound of areca nut and lime are circulated, then a huge silver pipe is brought in, the Chief takes three long pulls, the thakores on the carpet each take a pull, and the levee breaks up amid profound salaams. After this--dinner, opium, and sleep.

In the cool of the evening our King emerges from the palace, and, riding on a prodigiously fat white horse with pink points, proceeds to the place of carousal. A long train of hors.e.m.e.n follow him, and footmen run before with guns in red flannel covers and silver maces, shouting ”Raja Maharaja salaamat,” &c. The hors.e.m.e.n immediately around him are mounted on well-fed and richly-caparisoned steeds, with all the bravery of cloth-of-gold, yak-tails, silver chains, and strings of sh.e.l.ls; behind are troopers in a burlesque of English uniform; and altogether in the rear is a mob of caitiffs on skeleton chargers, masquerading in every degree of shabbiness and rags, down to nakedness and a sword. The cavalcade pa.s.ses through the city. The inhabitants pour out of every door and bend to the ground. Red cloths and white veils flutter at the cas.e.m.e.nts overhead. You would hardly think that the spectacle was one daily enjoyed by the city. There is all the hurrying and eagerness of novelty and curiosity. Here and there a little shy crowd of women gather at a door and salute the Chief with a loud shrill verse of discordant song. It is some national song of the Chiefs ancestors and of the old heroic days. The place of carousal is a bare spot near a large and ancient well out of which grows a vast pipal tree. Hard by is a little temple surmounted by a red flag on a drooping bamboo. It is here that the _Gangor_[F] and _Da.s.sahra_[F]

solemnities are celebrated. Arrived on the ground, the Raja slowly circles his horse; then, jerking the thorn-bit, causes him to advance plunging and rearing, but dropping first on the near foot and then on the off foot with admirable precision; and finally, making the white monster, now in a lather of sweat, rise up and walk a few steps on his hind legs, the Raja's performance concludes amid many shouts of wonder and delight from the smooth-tongued courtiers. The thakores and sardars now exhibit their skill in the _manege_ until the shades of night fall, when torches are brought, amid much salaaming, and the cavalcade defiles, through the city, back to the palace. Lights are twinkling from the higher cas.e.m.e.nts and reflected on the lake below; the _gola_[G] slave-girls are singing plaintive songs, drum and conch answer from the open courtyards. The palace is awake. The Raja, we will romantically presume, bounds lightly from his horse and dances gaily to the harem to fling himself voluptuously into the luxurious arms of one of the five-and-twenty queens, or one of the five-and-twenty grand d.u.c.h.esses; and they stand for one delirious moment wreathed in each other's embraces--

While soft there breathes Through the cool cas.e.m.e.nt, mingled with the sighs Of moonlight flowers, music that seems to rise From some still lake, so liquidly it rose, And, as it swell'd again at each faint close, The ear could track through all that maze of chords And young sweet voices these impa.s.sioned words--

”Ho, you there! fetch us a pint of gin! and look sharp, will you!”

For who, in time, knows whither we may vent The treasure of our tongue, to what strange sh.o.r.es This gain of our best glory shall be sent, To enrich unknowing nations with our stores!

What worlds in the yet unformed Orient May come refined with accents that are ours!

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