Part 3 (1/2)
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHUNABATTI.]
The long belt of the Terai Jungle is nowadays patched with clearings for tea gardens; for the Duars' tea is famous. Mixed with tea grown near Darjeeling at an elevation of six thousand or seven thousand feet it forms a favourite blend. But the sportsman, no matter how fond he may be of the ”cup that cheers,” cannot view without regret the clearing away of thousands of acres of forests that shelter big game. And an artist would not consider the destruction of the giant, orchid-clad trees with the festoons of swinging creepers compensated for by the stretches of more profitable low green tea-bushes in symmetrical and orderly rows.
Nor do the other signs of man's handiwork on a tea garden compensate for the natural beauties they replace. Hideous factories, gaunt drying and engine-houses with stove-pipe like chimneys rising above corrugated iron roofs, villages of dilapidated thatched huts sheltering the hundreds of coolies employed on the estate, and the unbeautiful bungalows of the Europeans in charge. For on each garden there are from one to four Britishers. The larger ones have a manager, two a.s.sistants, and an engineer; on the smaller ones the manager perhaps combines the functions of the others in his own person.
A planter's life is a lonely one. The gardens are generally a few miles apart. Men busy, especially in the gathering season, from dawn to dark have little inclination to go visiting after the day's work is done, even if the roads were better and freer from the danger of meeting a wild elephant on them at night. But in each little district a club-house is built in some central spot within comparatively easy reach of all the gardens around. It is generally only a rough wooden shed; but in the small clearing around it a few tennis courts, or perhaps a polo ground, are made. And here once a week all the planters of the neighbourhood, with an occasional lady or two among them, repair on horseback through the jungle. There may be flooded rivers to cross, wild beasts to avoid; but, unless writhing in the grip of the planters' plagues, malarial or blackwater fever, all will be there on club day. Like the Bhuttias in our village feast one of the number takes it in turn to act as host. He sends over from his bungalow, miles away, crockery, gla.s.ses, a cold lunch, and, possibly, tea. For planters are not fond of it as a beverage. Then men, who have not seen another white face for a week, foregather, do justice to the lunch, play tennis or polo, and take a farewell drink or two when the setting sun warns them to depart. Then into the saddle again and off by forest road and jungle track to another week of loneliness and labour. What tales they have to tell of the wild beasts they meet on their way home in the deepening gloom! But the planter fears nothing except wild elephants; and not them if he is on horseback and a good road. Two men from the same garden who used to linger longest at the bar came one evening upon a tiger, another time upon a fine specimen of the more dreaded Himalayan bear, right in their path. They were unarmed, but their libations had added to their natural courage. Without hesitation, they dug spurs into their unwilling ponies and with demoniac yells charged straight at the astonished wild beasts.
In each case tiger or bear found this too much for his nerves and promptly bolted into the jungle.
There are few finer bodies of men in the world than the planters of India. Educated men, they lead the life of a _gaucho_. Hard riders, good shots, keen sportsmen, they are the best volunteers we have in the Indian Empire; and more than once some of them have worthily upheld the fame of their cla.s.s in war.
During the last Abor Expedition of 1912 several of the a.s.sam Valley Light Horse, a Planters' corps, gave up their posts and went to the front as troopers.
It is well to be content with your lot. From our cool hills I used to look down on the bright green patches of the gardens in the dark forests below and pity the poor planters in the humid heat of the summer months.
But when I visited them I found that their sympathy went out to us in Buxa. On one occasion my host pointed to the dark wall of hills on which three tiny white specks, the Picquet Towers of my fort, shone out in the sunlight. With a sigh of compa.s.sion he said:
”Whenever we look up there and think of you poor fellows shut up in that isolated spot we pity you immensely and wonder how you can bear the dreadful loneliness of it. Down here we are so much better off.”
As he spoke we looked towards the mountains, and at that moment a dark cloud was drawn like a pall across their face. Its black expanse was rent by vivid lightning; and the hollow roll of distant thunder in the hills told us that one of the frequent storms was raging over my little Station, while we stood in brilliant suns.h.i.+ne. And certainly at the moment Buxa looked a gloomy spot.
Tea growing seems a profitable industry. I heard of estates which paid a profit of sixty per cent, and noticed with regret fresh inroads being made in the forest for more ground to plant in. Of course with a new garden one must wait five years or so for any return on the capital invested. And the initial expenses of clearing and preparing the soil, buying machinery and erecting factories, are great. The coolies must be brought from a distance, as the country around is too spa.r.s.ely populated to supply a sufficiency of labour. And before quitting their houses they demand an advance of pay to leave with their relatives, and not infrequently abscond after getting the money. Each company sends a recruiting agent to collect these coolies who are well paid according to the Indian labour-market rates. And the father of a family is better off than a bachelor; for women and children help to gather the leaves, and each worker brings in his or her basket to be weighed, and payment is made by results. One sees the mothers with their babies on their hips moving among the bushes and plucking the tender green shoots. The whole process of manufacturing, from the planting and pruning, the gathering of the leaf, and the withering and drying, down to the packing of the tea ready for the market is interesting. Little goes to waste. The floors of the factories are regularly swept, and the tea-dust thus collected is pressed into blocks to form the brick-tea popular in Central Asia and used as currency in the absence of money.
But tea growing is not all profit. Sometimes a hailstorm ruins the year's crop, frost blights the plants, and losses occur in other ways.
The planters rarely own their gardens, but are usually in the service of companies in England. They are not overpaid; a manager in the Duars generally receives six hundred rupees a month, together with a house, allowances for his horse and certain servants which make his salary up to another hundred, in all about forty-seven pounds. But an a.s.sistant begins on less than twenty pounds a month. Engineers, who look after the machinery, are better paid; and some economically minded companies promote the engineer to be manager, and so save a salary. The expenses of living are not great, and a frugal planter--if such a being exists--can save money.
To those fond of an outdoor existence the work is pleasant enough. Early in the morning manager and a.s.sistants mount their ponies and set out to ride over the hundreds of acres of the estate, inspect the plants, visit the nurseries, and watch the coolies at work among the bushes or clearing the jungle. Then through the factory and, if it be the season, see the baskets of leaves brought in and weighed. And back to a late breakfast, where tea rarely finds its way to the table, and a siesta until the afternoon calls them forth to ride round the garden again. It sounds an easy life and idyllic, but the planters say it is not.
In any land the sight of the rich plains stretching away from the foot of the barren hills is always a tempting sight to the fierce mountain dwellers. And for the Bhutanese it must have been a sore struggle to curb their predatory instincts and cease from their profitable descents on the unwarlike inhabitants of Bengal. Wealth and women were the prizes of the freebooter until the s.h.i.+eld of the Briton was thrust between him and his timorous prey. Yet even to-day, although their nation is at peace with us, the temptation sometimes proves too much for lawless borderers. And parties of raiders from across the frontier swoop down on the Duars. A tea garden, when a store of silver coin is brought to pay the wages of the hundreds of coolies, is their favourite mark. The few police scattered far apart over the north of Eastern Bengal are powerless to stop a rush of savage swordsmen who suddenly emerge from the forest, loot the _bunniahs_ and the huts on a garden, and disappear long before an appeal for succour can reach the nearest troops. With the fear of the white man before their eyes they do not seek to meddle with the Europeans in their factories and bungalows. But the fearless planters do not imitate their forbearance. In one garden a terrified coolie rushed to the manager's house to inform him that Bhuttias were raiding the village. Without troubling to inquire the number of the dacoits the planter called his one a.s.sistant; and taking their rifles the two Englishmen mounted their ponies and galloped to the village.
They found it in the hands of about sixty Bhuttias, armed with _dahs_, who were plundering right and left. The planters sprang from their saddles and opened fire on them. The raiders, aghast at this unpleasant interruption to their profitable undertaking, strove to show a bold front. But the pitiless bullets and still more the calm courage of the two white men daunted them; and they fled into the friendly shelter of the forest. That garden was never attacked again.
I was surprised to learn that on such occasions the planters had never sent information to the detachment at Buxa. But they told me that, as they never saw anything of the troops there, they almost forgot their existence. They added that the raiders came and went with such rapidity that it was hopeless for infantry to try to catch them. I determined to alter this state of affairs. So, shortly after our arrival, I took almost all my men out on a ten days' march, lightly equipped, through the jungle district to show that we were not tied to the fort and that we could mobilise and move swiftly if needed. I also devised a scheme by which, on the first intimation of a raid reaching me, mobile parties of my detachment would dash off at once over the hills to secure all the pa.s.ses near and cut off the retreat of the invaders, while other parties, descending into the forest, would shepherd them into their hands.
CHAPTER IV
A DURBAR IN BUXA
Notice of the Political Officer's approaching visit--A Durbar--The Bhutan Agent and the interpreter--Arrival of the Deb Zimpun--An official call--Exchange of presents--Bhutanese fruit--A return call--Native liquor--A welcome gift--The Bhutanese musicians--Entertaining the Envoy--A thirsty Lama--A rifle match--An awkward official request--My refusal--The Deb Zimpun removes to Chunabatti--Arrival of the treasure--The Political Officer comes--His retinue--The Durbar--The Guard of Honour--The visitors--The Envoy comes in state--Bhutanese courtesies--The spectators--The payment of the subsidy--Lunch in Mess--Entertaining a difficult guest--The official dinner--An archery match--Sikh quoits--Field firing--Bhutanese impressed--Blackmail--British subjects captured--Their release--Tas.h.i.+'s case--Justice in Bhutan--Tyranny of officials--Tas.h.i.+ refuses to quit Buxa--The next payment of the subsidy--The treaty--Misguided humanitarians.
Soon after our arrival in Buxa I received a letter from the Political Officer in Sikkim, Tibet, and Bhutan informing me that he proposed to visit our little Station and hold a Durbar there in order to pay over to a representative of the Bhutanese Government the annual subsidy of fifty thousand rupees. He requested me to furnish a Guard of Honour of a hundred men for the ceremony. The news that Buxa was to rise to the dignity of a Durbar of its own and be honoured with the presence of the Envoy of a friendly State was positively exciting. True, neither the Durbar nor the Envoy were very important; still, with them, we felt that we were about to make history. The officer who has charge of our political relations with these three countries resides at Gantok, the capital of Sikkim, and, until recently, administered the affairs of that State. Of late years the Maharajah has been admitted to a share of the Government.
In Chunabatti lived two natives of Darjeeling, British subjects, who were paid a salary by our Government to help in transacting diplomatic affairs with Bhutan. They were officially styled the Bhutan Agent and the Bhutanese interpreter. Their knowledge of English, acquired in a school of Darjeeling, was not extensive; and their acquaintance with Hindustani was on a par. They were men of a Tibetan type, dressed like our Bhuttias, except that they wore a headgear like a football cap and also gaily striped, undoubted football stockings.
Shortly after the receipt of the Political Officer's letter, one of these men, the Agent, came to my bungalow one afternoon and informed me that the Bhutan Government's representative had arrived in Buxa and was lodged in the Circuit House. The Agent wished to know when I intended paying an official call on this personage. I had sufficient acquaintance with the ways of Orientals to be aware that this was an impertinence, for it was the place of the Envoy to make his visit first to the officer commanding the Station; but, like the Chinese, who have a childish desire to a.s.sert their own importance on every occasion, he was endeavouring to steal a march on me. So I a.s.sumed a haughty demeanour and informed the Agent that I would be prepared to receive the Envoy at my house in two hours' time, as he must first call on me. The Agent at once agreed that this was the proper course, as, indeed he had known all the time.
I sent an order to the fort for a native officer and twenty men to parade in full dress at my bungalow in a couple of hours, and then prepared to hold my first official reception. Punctually to the time named a ragged procession of sixty bareheaded, barelegged Bhuttias, armed with swords and every second man of them disfigured by an enormous goitre, descended the road from the Circuit House. From my doorstep I watched them coming down the hill. They escorted a stout cheery old gentleman in dirty white kimono and cap and long Chinese boots. He was accompanied by the Agent and the interpreter and followed by two coolies carrying baskets of oranges. This was the Bhutan Envoy, the Deb Zimpun, a member of the Supreme Council of Punakha and Cup Bearer to the Deb Raja, when there is one. The Guard of Honour presented arms as I advanced to meet and shake hands with him. I addressed him in Hindustani; but the old gentleman grinned feebly and looked round for the interpreter. The latter explained that the Deb Zimpun spoke only his own language; but that he would interpret my greeting. I then formally welcomed the Envoy to India, and invited him to inspect the Guard of Honour, such being the procedure with distinguished visitors. He was quite pleased at this and pa.s.sed down the ranks, looking closely at the men's rifles and accoutrements. He noticed that two or three of the sepoys, who had been called from the rifle-range and had dressed hurriedly, wore their pouches in the wrong place and pointed it out to me. When he had minutely inspected the Guard I led the way into my bungalow and begged him to be seated. He took off his cap politely, and, sitting down, produced a metal box from the breast of his robe, took betel-nut out of it and began to chew it. An attendant holding a spittoon immediately took up his position beside him. The Agent and interpreter stood behind us and translated our remarks to each other.
The remainder of the motley crew remained in the garden or crowded into the veranda, scuffling and shoving each other aside in their attempts to get near the open door and look in at us.