Part 2 (1/2)
Between my bungalow and the Married Officers' Quarters ran another _nullah_. Occasionally, when there was no moon, a panther used to wander down it, calling like a cat in the darkness which was too intense to allow me a shot at the animal. When we came to Buxa we had wondered why the windows of our houses were covered with strong wire netting, and were inclined to be sceptical when told that this was to keep predatory beasts out. But the Punjabi subaltern had been awakened one night by the noise of some animal moving about his room in the Mess, he having left his door open. He seized a handful of matches, struck them and saw a panther scared by the sudden blaze dash out through the door. And twice during our sojourn in Buxa did a similar thing happen.
This particular panther, for we a.s.sumed that it was always the same animal, haunted the Station and preyed on the dogs in the bazaar. One day on the road just below the fort it met one of my sepoys who promptly climbed the nearest tree and remained in the topmost branches until his shouts brought some other men to the rescue. Once at night I was roused from sleep by wild cries from a Bhuttia's hut on the spur above our Mess and learned on inquiry that the panther had carried off his dog. Another time, in brilliant moonlight, an Indian doctor then in medical charge of the detachment, who lived in the bungalow next to mine, saw the beast sitting in the small garden intently watching the door of an outhouse in which a milch-goat was kept shut up. The doctor ran indoors to fetch his gun and had an unsuccessful shot at it as it jumped the hedge. Needless to say we made many efforts to compa.s.s its death. One night it killed a goat tied up as a bait to a tree within fifteen yards of the fort and was wounded by a native officer waiting for it behind the wall. Yet not long afterwards it climbed into the fort at night and carried off a sepoy's dog. Many a time I sat up in a tree over a bleating goat in the moonlight, but always in vain; and I suppose that panther still lives to afford sport to our successors in Buxa.
Life was well worth living on the days when we could descend into the forest for a shoot. At dawn we started down the three miles of steep road to Santrabari where the elephants awaited us. For work in the jungle these animals, instead of the howdahs or cage-like structures with seats which they carry on shoots in fairly open country, have only their pads, thick, straw-stuffed mattresses bound on their backs by stout ropes. For in dense forest howdahs would soon be swept off. When we arrived at the Peelkhana the _mahouts_ made the huge beasts kneel down, or we clambered up, either by hauling oneself up by the tail, aided by one foot on the hind leg held up for the purpose at the driver's command, or by catching hold of the ears from the front and standing on the curled-up trunk which then raised us up on to the elephant's head. One either sat sideways on the pad or astride above the shoulders and behind the _mahout_ who rode on the neck with his bare feet behind the ears. Then our giant steeds lumbered off into the forest with an awkward, disjointed stride which is sorely trying to the novice.
And sitting upright with nothing to rest the back against for eight hours or more, shaken violently all the time by the jerky motion, is decidedly tiring. Prepared for beast or bird, each of us carried a rifle and a shot-gun, and, separating from the others, went his own way through the forest. Sometimes a _sambhur_, the big Indian stag, was the bag; sometimes a wild boar. Perhaps a _khakur_, the small, alert barking deer, of which the flesh is infinitely more tender than a _sambhur's_, or a few jungle fowl, rewarded our efforts. We carried with us food and water for the day and did not return until evening. Then, after leaving the elephants at the Peelkhana, came the fifteen-hundred-feet climb up the steep road to Buxa. And in a long chair in the Mess the fatigues of the day were forgotten in the pleasure of recounting every incident of the sport.
Sometimes we went out among the hills around us to stalk _gooral_, an active little wild goat. Clambering up the almost sheer sides of the mountains or clinging to the faces of rugged precipices while carrying a heavy rifle was a toilsome task; and too often, after a long and perilous climb, did I arrive in sight of the quarry only to see it disappear in bounding flight over the cliffs.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A KNEELING ELEPHANT.]
In our excursions into the forest or by purchase from natives we gradually gathered together a varied collection of pets to solace our loneliness. At different times I possessed half a dozen barking deer fawns, one of which became an inst.i.tution in Buxa. Scorning confinement she insisted on being allowed to wander loose about the Station, and, soon getting to know the sepoys' meal hours, visited the fort regularly.
She was punctual in her attendance at tea-time in my bungalow, being exceedingly fond of b.u.t.tered toast, and always claiming her share of mine. More than once I have only just been in time to save her from the rifle of one of our rare visitors who, seeing her on the hill-side, took her to be wild. A small green parrot which I had similarly objected to being shut up and flew freely about the Station. From wherever it happened to be its quick eye always marked my servant bringing my afternoon meal to the bungalow from the kitchen; and, having a strange liking for hot tea, it used to fly in through the open door of my sitting-room and perch on my head. It was little use my objecting to this familiarity; for, if I attempted to dislodge it, it would stick its claws into my scalp and hold on to my ear by its sharp beak until I let it drink from my cup. Its propensity for swooping down in the open on any white man was sometimes alarming to strangers. Once a certain civil official visitor to Buxa who was jocularly reputed to be overfond of alcohol and never far from the verge of delirium tremens was approaching my bungalow when the parrot swept down on him and tried to alight on his hat. Uncertain as to the reality of the vision circling around his head, our visitor uttered a cry of terror and tried to brush the phantom aside until I laughingly a.s.sured him that it was a real bird. He revenged himself afterwards by encouraging the parrot in a depraved taste for whisky.
In my afternoon walks I used to be accompanied by a small menagerie. Two small barking deer stepped daintily behind me, their long ears twitching incessantly. A monkey loped on all fours ahead, now and then stopping to sit down and scratch himself thoughtfully. A bear cub shambled along, playing with my dogs and being occasionally rolled over by a combined rush of riotous puppies. On our return to the bungalow we would be greeted by no less than five cats; while from its perch on the veranda a young hornbill, scarcely feathered and possessing a beak almost as big as its body, would survey us with a cold and gla.s.sy stare from its unwinking eyes. Once in a beat in the forest my orderly caught a _sambhur_ fawn which he bore, shrieking piteously, in his arms to me. In a day or two it was perfectly tame, fed from my hand, and insisted on sleeping on my bed. It was killed by a snake shortly afterwards.
I might almost include in our list of pets our three Government elephants, of which we became very fond. They were named Jhansi, Dundora, and Khartoum. I generally used the last in the jungle; though when looking for dangerous game I preferred Dundora. Jhansi was a frivolous and unsteady young lady of forty years of age; and shooting from her back was impossible. I soon learned to drive them, sitting on their necks and guiding them by pressing my feet behind the ears, as the _mahouts_ do. I was sometimes called on to doctor them; and had to perform almost a surgical operation on Jhansi, when wounded by a wild elephant out in the jungle. I had fortunately been taught how to treat their ailments when doing veterinary work in a transport course some years before. Elephants are somewhat delicate animals and liable to a multiplicity of diseases. Accustomed in the wild state to shelter from the noonday heat in thick forests, they suffer greatly if worked in a hot sun and get sore feet if obliged to tramp along hard roads.
Domesticated elephants are generally very gentle and docile; though males in a state of _musth_ often become very dangerous. Contrary to the usually received opinion they are not intelligent; but they are very obedient. At the word of command they will kneel, rise, pick up an article from the ground or lift a man on to their necks. When a _mahout_ is gathering fodder for his charge and sees suitable leaves out of reach at the top of a small tree, he orders his elephant to break the tree down. This it does by curling up its trunk and pressing its forehead with all its weight behind it against the stem and thus uprooting it.
When crossing a stream they try to sound the depth with their trunks. A bridge they attempt cautiously with one foot, and, if not satisfied with its strength, will resolutely refuse to trust themselves on it. Though good at climbing up steep slopes they are the reverse when descending.
On the level they are fast for a short distance only; but they can cover many miles in the day when travelling. They are excellent swimmers and are very fond of water. In the wild state they bathe whenever they can; and tame elephants thoroughly enjoy being taken into the river and lie in the shallows with a look of blissful content while their _mahouts_ wash them and scrub them with bricks. It is extraordinary how quickly they become used to captivity. In a few days they let their keepers feed them, mount them and take them to water. I have seen two, caught only four months before, being driven in a beat for a tiger; and when he was wounded and broke back into thick jungle they followed him unhesitatingly at their _mahouts'_ command.
Like all hill-places Buxa was full of snakes. One night in the hot weather when dining on the veranda, we found a viper climbing up the rough stone wall of the Mess just behind our chairs. We vacated our seats promptly and killed it with long bamboos. Another evening I discovered one on my veranda. Once when camped in the forest with my detachment, the officer who was then with me and I were sitting at a small table having tea when one of the native officers came up. I had a chair brought for him and he sat talking to us until dusk came. My servant placed a lighted lamp on the table. Suddenly the native officer who was sitting a few yards from me said quietly:
”Do not move, Sahib. There is a snake under your chair; and if you try to stand up you may tread on it.”
It was difficult to obey him and remain motionless; but, as it was the wisest thing to do, I sat quietly until I saw a small and very poisonous viper emerge between my feet and wriggle off. Then I jumped up, seized the lamp from the table and a cane from my native officer and killed it.
In Buxa one afternoon when I happened to be inspecting the bazaar a native ran up in a state of great excitement to inform me that a ”_bahut burra samp_,” a _very_ large snake, was climbing up the precipice on the west side of the hill on which the bazaar stood. I went with him and found two or three Bhuttias looking over the edge at an enormous serpent which was making its way up the steep face, clinging to projecting rocks and bushes. From its size I took it to be a python, which is not poisonous and kills its prey only by compression. We waited until the snake had got its head and a third of its length over the brink and fell upon it with sticks and clubbed it to death. I had it carried to my bungalow where I measured it and found it to be fifteen feet two inches in length. Preparatory to skinning it, I compared it with the coloured plates in a book on Indian reptiles and found to my horror that it was a king-cobra or hamadryad, the most dreaded and dangerous ophidian in Asia. It is very venomous and wantonly attacks human beings; so that it was fortunate for us that we had caught it at a disadvantage. There is a recorded instance of one chasing and overtaking a man on a pony. It is generally to be found only in the forests of Eastern Bengal, a.s.sam, and Burmah.
When one considers the enormous number of snakes in India it is surprising how seldom they are seen. This is due to their rarely venturing out in the daytime. But I have killed one with my sword when returning from a morning parade in Bhuj and another, a black cobra five feet nine inches long, in my bathroom in Asirgarh. Few Europeans ever get over their instinctive horror of these reptiles; but the natives, thousands of whom die every year from snake-bite owing to their going about with bare feet and legs at night, have not the same dread of them.
In fact Hindus hold the cobra sacred, and have an annual festival, the Nagpanchmai, in its honour. I have seen in Cutch the Rao (or Rajah) of that State go in solemn procession on that day to wors.h.i.+p it in a temple, accompanied by his strangely-uniformed troops, which included soldiers in steel caps and chain mail walking on stilts. They were supposed to be prepared to fight in the salt deserts and sandy wastes which surround Cutch.
Our first visitors from the outside world reached Buxa about a month after our arrival. They were General Bower, commanding the a.s.sam Brigade to which we belonged, and his staff officer, come for the annual inspection of the detachment. Brigadier-General (now Major-General Sir Hamilton) Bower is a man whose paths have lain in strange places and whose career reads like a book of adventures. A keen sportsman and a daring explorer of untrodden ways, he was as a captain ordered by the Government of India to pursue the Mohammedan murderer of an English traveller, Dalgleish, through the savage wilds of Central Asia. For months he chased the a.s.sa.s.sin through sterile regions where no European had ever before set foot and at last hounded him into the hands of the Russians at Samarcand where he killed himself in jail. His capture was necessary to show the lawless tribesmen of Central Asia that a price must be paid for a white man's blood and that the arm of our Government could reach an Englishman's slayer in any land. Readers of E. F.
Knight's fascinating book, ”Where Three Empires Meet” will remember the author's meeting with Captain Bower in Kashmir in 1891, after the latter's successful pursuit of this murderer, Dad Mohammed. Bower was then starting on his celebrated journey from India overland to China, which he has described in his work ”Across Tibet.” And since those days his life has not been tame. Ordered to raise a regiment of Chinamen to garrison Wei-hai-wei, he landed in Shanghai with one follower and soon brought a corps of Northern Chinese into being, which, in two years after its raising, fought splendidly in the b.l.o.o.d.y struggles around Tientsin in the Boxer War of 1900. He afterwards commanded the British Legation Guard in Pekin and found ample scope for all his tact and good temper in the intercourse with the officers of the Guards of other nationalities in the Chinese capital.
He spent three days with us; and though his inspection was thorough, and entailed fatiguing manoeuvres through jungle I had hitherto regarded as impenetrable and up mountains I had considered unscaleable, we were sorry when his visit terminated. As a rule one does not hail a General's inspection as a pleasant function. But General Bower proved the pleasantest and most interesting visitor we ever had. Tired of our own thrice-told tales we revelled in the interesting conversation of a man who had seen and done so much in his adventurous career, who had journeyed along untrodden ways, had fought strange foes and carried his life in his hand in wild lands where no king's writ runs. We talked much of Knight, whom I have the good fortune to know, a man who, like the General, might be the hero of a boy's book of romance. His life had been equally adventurous. He fought for the French in 1870, and against them later in Madagascar. In a small yacht he crossed the Atlantic and visited most countries in South America. In his wanderings beyond the frontier of India he came in for the difficult little Hunza-Nagar campaign and fought in it. Author, traveller, war-correspondent, amateur soldier, he has been everywhere, seen and done everything. And, simple and courageous, he is a type of the adventurers who made England great.
Romance is not dead while such men as he and Bower live.
With a General on official inspection one is inclined to speed the parting guest; but as General Bower waved his farewell to us from the back of the elephant which was carrying him downhill we were sorry to part with him, and all three hoped to meet him the following year again in Buxa. But when he came I alone was left. Smith had gone to Calcutta, and Creagh was commanding another detachment of the regiment in the heart of Tibet, even farther from civilisation than Buxa.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Heavy native knives.
[2] Water-carriers.
CHAPTER III
THE BORDERLAND OF BHUTAN