Part 16 (1/2)
”Did you indeed!” says the lady, taking the remark as if addressed to herself. ”'Grace and I dined there and paid double that, and we did not think anything of it.”
She then immediately turns, and seeing Ramaswamy standing outside mistakes him for a station-attendant, and orders him to tie up their bedding. He looks to me for orders. I nod to him to do it, and, hat in hand, make a sweeping bow--
”Only too glad if my boy can be of any service to you, Madam.”
I think I also got my own back!
[Ill.u.s.tration: A BRa.s.s WORKER, DELHI.]
CHAPTER XVIII
THE CAPITAL OF INDIA
Delhi!
If you draw a line across the map of India from the north to the south at the greatest length, and another from east to west at the greatest breadth, the two will form a cross of the usual shape, with the cross-bar high up. Just at the point where they intersect stands Delhi, the chief city in India since the King-Emperor's proclamation in 1911.
Before that Calcutta was the capital, but Calcutta, like Bombay, is a city of trade, and has practically no historic memories. Delhi is full of the romance of history. In the Mutiny the question as to who should hold it was of the greatest importance, and if the British then had let it slip from their grip, without an effort to retake it, their power in India would have been gone for ever.
Now, on the first morning that we are here, let us drive round and see what we can of this splendid city. First we will go down the Chandni Chauk, the main street which cuts Delhi into two parts. It is immensely wide and lined with trees of a good size. These stand on each side of a broad walk for foot-pa.s.sengers, which runs down the middle of the street, foreign fas.h.i.+on, and makes a popular promenade. The gay colours of the natives' clothes flash in and out of the shadows of the trees as the people pa.s.s along, each on his own errand. On one side are the tram-lines and on the other you can see a fast bullock-cart with pretty little white trotting bullocks as dainty in their own way as antelopes, and as different from the slow yellow ones as carriage-horses are from cart-horses. There are on both sides shops for jewels, for sweetmeats, for the richest and most beautiful silks and ivory, and mingled with them grocers' shops filled with tinned stuffs from England, and others with every kind of modern utensil for a house. Such a mixture! They are all heavily protected against the sun by awnings, for even at this early hour of the morning it is strong. At the end of the street is a tall red sandstone tower with a clock in it. In the distance we see the spire of an English church, and down that opening we catch sight of a Mohammedan mosque. The shop here beside us is a blaze of colour with Eastern carpets hung out like banners; the native owner squats on a thing like a wooden bedstead by his door and chews betel-nut, which makes his tongue and lips a deep red. Next door is a vigorous agency for the sale of sewing-machines! A Hindu religious fanatic, smeared with ashes and with hardly any clothes to cover his lean body, walks ahead with eyes unseeing, and at the same moment a smart motor-car stops beside us and the voice of a high-bred English-woman says, ”I will meet you at the Effinghams in an hour,” as she waves a greeting to her companions and steps out.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A SHOP IN DELHI.]
Hullo! There is a band. Round the corner swings a company of Ghurkas, the st.u.r.dy little men who helped England to overcome the mutineers. They look very soldier-like in their neat holly-green uniforms, with small round caps set at a jaunty angle on their cropped heads. They are hill tribes from the north, and in appearance not unlike the j.a.panese. They are all so much of one size you could run a ruler along their heads.
Their swinging stride would delight a soldier's heart, for it is like clockwork in its precision. They are born soldiers, brave and easily disciplined, devoted to their officers and without the knowledge of fear. They have faults, of course. The Ghurka is apt to be rather a gay dog; he gets drunk, and the girls he loves are many, but he is of the right stuff, and his officers are proud of him.
I was talking to one of them as we came up the coast on the s.h.i.+p.
”Nothing like them anywhere else in the world,” he said. ”They take to drill like their mother's milk, they thrive on it and discipline--the slightest fault that might be overlooked elsewhere we punish severely.
They like it and live up to it. You could lead a Ghurka regiment anywhere; fighting is their pastime. They have nothing in common with the slothful races of Lower India; they are alert and vigorous and active as cats. The funniest thing is their love for the Highlanders; if a Highland regiment comes up the two meet and mingle as if they were brothers. You'll see a great Highlander in his kilt and feather bonnet arm in arm with one of these little chaps, hobn.o.bbing as if they had known each other all their lives. And the Ghurkas won't have anything to say to the other Indian regiments; they despise them all except the Sikhs--they get on with them all right.”
We are lucky, for the Ghurkas are followed by a company of Sikhs, and anything less like the Ghurkas you could hardly imagine. The Sikhs are big men with stern bearded faces, they look like veterans and are a pleasant sight in their scarlet tunics with neat gaitered feet. There were many Sikh regiments belonging to our army in the black days of the Mutiny, and some wavered, but some held firm. Had it not been for the Sikhs things would have gone badly with us.
Now we are nearing the Lah.o.r.e Gate and you can see that Delhi is a walled city. The walls run all round for six miles, and are backed up by a twenty-five feet ditch, so that it is a tough city for any army to take. The gate itself is a fine building. When the British troops, who varied at times from 5000 to 10,000 men, set to work to attack this strong city, held by 40,000 to 100,000 natives, many of them trained and disciplined soldiers, taught by the very men against whom they were fighting, it seemed an impossible task. The audacity of it! This gate was one of the hardest of all to break through. Four attacking parties had been sent against the walls, the other three got in, but the one that came here failed. Then the others tried to work their way through, inside the city, to capture this gate. They crept along the narrow lane running inside the wall, but it was commanded everywhere from the heights of the houses by the enemy, who poured down a murderous fire into it. Again and again the reckless men, who determined to take the gate, started off on the deadly errand, again and again they were wiped off, and alas! one of those mortally wounded was General John Nicholson, whose utter disregard of danger and marvellous understanding of the native character had made many of the natives look on him as a G.o.d!
Now we are outside and driving up to the ridge. Every British boy and girl has heard of the ridge. It played a great part in the Mutiny. It is a long backbone of hill which runs close up to the city at one end. We will leave our carriage to go slowly along to the far end, where the road winds up, and we ourselves will scramble up at this side till we gain the Mutiny Memorial, a Gothic tower rising in many stages like a church spire. We can mount the steps inside to see the view. It is worth it, for miles and miles of country lie spread before us from this height.
I don't want to go into details of history, but if ever there is a place where history was made it is here. On this ridge for months was camped the British army, including some loyal native regiments, and all the time they never wavered in their determination to retake Delhi, then in the hands of the natives. Our men could not be said to besiege the city, because to besiege means to sit down all round a place and prevent the inhabitants from getting supplies from outside until they are compelled to give in or are too weak to resist the entrance of the besiegers; we never invested Delhi in this way. There were not enough men even to attempt it; the natives could always get supplies into the city, if they wanted, from the river Jumna, which runs past the other side. But the British sat steadily on their heights in grim determination, and never lost the chance of a move. They died in hundreds; remember it was during an Indian summer, and even under the best conditions, with ice and punkahs and shade, the European finds it hard to get through the hot weather. Here there were no conveniences and very few even of what might be considered necessaries. The men suffered from dysentery, fever, wounds, and sunstroke, and yet they carried through their forlorn hope triumphantly, and it was hardly a year later that the Queen of England was proclaimed Sovereign of India.
In that great plain, which stretches far as eye can see on the other side of the ridge, some twenty years later another proclamation was made, and the Queen was further proclaimed under the t.i.tle of Empress of India; while in 1911 her grandson, King George, himself proclaimed Delhi as the capital of India in place of Calcutta.
Over the screen of trees you can see beautiful Delhi lying within its h.o.a.ry walls. You can see the towers and steeples and minarets and domes of the city. Now look the other way, along the ridge. That great pillar close to us is very old; it was made by one of the Hindu kings, but it was only put up here ten years after the Mutiny, and is not interesting. That white house farther on is now a hospital; it was once a private house, and in it General Nicholson died. Look on again, much farther, past trees and other houses, and you will see a rounded building with turrets--that is the Flagstaff Tower so fiercely held.
Come down now to rejoin the carriage and we will go back to the city by the Kashmir Gate. Of all the gates this is the one with the most daring story of adventure attached to it.
When the British had resolved to make an a.s.sault on the city they detailed four parties, as I said, to attack in four places. One of them was this gate. The other three places had been partially broken in by the guns, and there was a chance for those heroic madmen to get through, but this was entire. The a.s.saulting party had first to break a way in and then get through.
And they did it!