CHAPTER XXV.

A few days more brought me to my last day’s march on the banks of the Jumna, and the mosques and minarets of the ancient capital of India broke on my delighted view.

I had scarcely dismounted from my pony at my tent door, which commanded a distant glimpse of the blue and “soft stealing” Jumna, when I perceived three Europeans on horseback approaching at a hard gallop. As they drew near, I recognized in one of the three myfriend and Mentor, Captain Marpeet. He was soon up, and warm and cordial was our greeting.

“Well, my boy, long looked-for comes at last; glad to have you amongst us, Gernon,” said he, presenting me to his companions, two laughing, beardless ensigns; “let me introduce you to my two boys, Wildfire and Skylark; two intractable dogs,” added he, laughing; “have given me twice the trouble to break in that you did.”

Wildfire and Skylark shook hands with me, and in ten minutes we were as intimate as if we had known each other for six months.

“Come, mount again, Gernon,” said Marpeet; “you are but a few miles from Delhi, and it is useless for you to remain here all day. Come along; I have breakfast all ready for you at my shop; your things, you know, can follow to-morrow; you don’t, though, appear to be overburthened with baggage, Frank, eh? Dogs, too—hah—regular terrier bunnow.[56]Great a griff as ever, I see—hah! hah!”

We pursued our course towards cantonments, Marpeet riding in the midst of hisprotégésas proudly as an old gander on a green at the head of three orphan goslings.

We crossed the river Jumna in a broad, square, flat-bottomed ferry-boat; and after riding through some rich cultivation on its banks, joined a road skirting part of the ruins of ancient Delhi, which from that point exhibited a confused assemblage of ruins—fort, mosque, tomb, and palace—stretching far away behind us in the distance, towards what I afterwards learned was the mausoleum of Humaioon.

I was particularly struck, as I rode on, by one large desolate building, which Captain Marpeet informed me was the ancient palace of Firoze Shah. A lofty pillar of stone, something like one of the round towers of Ireland, rose out of the centre of it, whilst the whole mass of building exhibited a touching picture of loneliness anddesolation; long grass and the silvery roots of the peepul grew around the battered arches and casements, out of one of which a couple of fat and saucy jackals were peeping, to reconnoitre us as we rode beneath.

We entered the modern city near the mansion of the Nawaub Ahmed Buksh Khan,[57]through an embattled gateway occupied by a guard of Nujjeebs, a sort of highly picturesque militia, attired in the Hindoostanee garb, and armed and equipped with crooked-stocked matchlocks, mull-shaped powder-horns, and other paraphernalia of a very primitive and extraordinary description. These men, who were upon guard, were smoking, sleeping, and doing their best to kill old Time, that enemy who, in the long run, is pretty sure to kill us.

We were soon in that part of the town called Derriow Gunge, where a portion of the troops were cantoned,[58]and drawing up before an odd sort of building, of a very mixed style of architecture, my friend dismounted, and announced my arrival at Marpeet Hall, “to which, my boy,” said he, with a squeeze, “you are heartily welcome, and where you may stick up your spoon, with my two babes in the wood there, as long as you please; don’t blow me up, that’s all, or set the house on fire, and you may do what else you like. So now for breakfast,” said the captain, cracking his half-hunter (whip), as a hint, I presumed, to thebawurchee(cook) to be expeditious, and shouting “hazree looe juldee” (“breakfast quickly”), he motioned us to enter, and followed.

The captain’s residence had been in the olden time a mosque or tomb, I cannot exactly say which; but with the addition of a terrace and verandah, and a few extra doors punched through walls six feet thick, it made a capital abode, combining the coolness in summer and the warmth in winter, which result from this solid modeof construction, with the superadded European conveniences.

My friend’s house was but a type of that widespreading process of adaptation which is now going on throughout the East, and its inhabitants, and which, as long as it does not effect a too radical alteration of that which “nature and their stars” intended for a people so circumstanced, is much to be rejoiced at.

Breakfast was laid out in a vaulted chamber, as massive as a bomb-proof, the walls and roofs in compartments, with here and there a niche for a cheragh, or lamp. There were we, a jovial quartetto, eating red herrings and rashers of the “unclean beast,” where the moollah had pronounced his “Allah-il-Allah,” or possibly over the respectable dust of some mighty Mogul Omrah.

After breakfast, Marpeet took me to the adjutant of my new regiment—a tall, strapping, good-looking man, of about eight-and-twenty, who told me I must report myself immediately to Colonel Bobbery, the commandant of my regiment, as also of the station.

“You have been some time on your way up, haven’t you?” said the adjutant, significantly; “we began to be half afraid that the Thugs had made away with you, or that you had gone on a pilgrimage to Hurdwar.”

“I fear I have exceeded my proper time very considerably,” I replied; “but I must ascribe it to the hospitality of friends whom I met with on the way.”

“Well, you must settle all that,” replied the adjutant, “with the colonel, who has often been inquiring for you, and to whose quarters we will now, if you please, proceed.”

I began to feel confoundedly nervous, and to apprehend that I was now about to taste a few of the incipient sweets of military subjection. The adjutant buckled on his accoutrements, I did the like with mine, which, at Marpeet’s suggestion, I had brought with me, and off we walked to the colonel’s.

“Rather a harsh man, the colonel, isn’t he?” said I,as we went along, hoping to elicit a little consolation in the shape of a negative.

“Why,” said the adjutant, “he is certainly a great stickler for duty, and fond of working the young hands—what we call a ‘tight hand.’”

I was “floored.”

The colonel’s bungalow was on the ramparts of the city, overlooking the Jumna, and the expanse of country through which it flows. Orderlies and a posse of silver-stick men, &c., were about the door; we entered, and the adjutant presented me to Colonel Bobbery, one of the most extraordinary-looking little mortals I ever beheld.

The colonel’s height was about five feet four—perhaps less—and his body as nearly approaching to an oblate spheriod as any body I ever beheld. This orbicular mass was supported on two little legs, adorned with very crumpled tights, and a pair of Hessian boots, then much worn, andminusthe usual appendage of tassels. His neck, which was remarkably long, was girt round with a very tight black stock, on the top of which, as may be supposed, was his head, the most extraordinary part of this very original specimen of “the human form divine;” his front face (profile he had none, which could be properly so called, bating an irregular curve with a large bulbous projection about the middle) was fat and rubicund; his nose Bardolphian, flanked by two goggle eyes, in which the several expressions of intellect, fun, and sensuality were singularly blended. A small Welsh wig completed the oddesttout ensembleI had yet seen in India.

“Oh! you are the young gentleman we have been expecting for the last five months?—better late than never—glad to see you at last, sir.”

I mentioned something about friends—hospitality—and detention.

“Oh, yes, yes! I know all about that; the old story; yes, yes! but you must be quicker in your future movements—eh, Marchwell?” said he, turning to the adjutant; “verbum sap., you know,verbum sap.”

After a rather prolonged conversation, during which I informed him I had done duty with the Zuburdust Bullumteers, and gave him some account of his friend, Mr. Sympkin, which he was pleased to receive, I rose to take my leave.

“Who are you with?” asked the colonel.

I told him with Captain Marpeet.

“Oh! my friend Marpeet, eh? Well, tell him to dine with me to-morrow, and bring you with him. I dine at six, and wait for nobody. Marchwell, Mr. Gernon will attend all drills, parades, and guard-mountings; we mustn’t let you forget what Colonel Lolsaug has taught you.”

I soon became comfortably domiciled with my friend Marpeet, who introduced me to my brother-officers, and put me generally in the way of doing all that was requisite in the new scene in which I found myself.

The more I saw of Marpeet, the more the extreme kindness and benevolence of his disposition became apparent. The tenderness of his nature, indeed, was frequently too much for his assumed rough and devil-me-care manner (which he thought manly), and would sometimes, if he was taken by surprise, show itself with almost a woman’s weakness.

Marpeet, as I have before stated, from invincible shyness, or awkwardness with females, or dislike of the restraint it imposed, had renounced the character of a “ladies’ man,” and was evidently doomed to die an old bachelor. Still, we must all have something to love and be kind to, be it wife, child, friend, cat, dog, or parrot.

Affection, if it has not something external on which to rest, turns to gall, embittering the life which, under a happier state of things, it would have sweetened. Marpeet’s benevolence displayed itself in his kindness to youth: rearing griffins, till fully fledged, constituting his extreme delight.

Never shall I forget the great satisfaction which his good-humoured physiognomy would express when surroundedby a bevy of young hands, all warm in their feelings towards him, and on perfect terms of familiarity, but at the same time exhibiting that profound deference to his dictum on deep and important points, such as the age of a horse, the manner of performing a manœuvre, or the way to make mulled port, and the like, which had the most bland and soothing influence on his feelings.

Skylark, Wildfire, and myself, were his immediate body-guard; we chummed with him, and though he allowed us to contribute to the house keeping expenses, the lion’s share, if the phrase is here allowable, fell to him.

He and I never quarrelled; but I could generally infer the state of his feelings from the name or appellation by which he addressed me. “Gernon” and “Frankibus” were the zero and summer-heat of the scale, between which were “my lad,” “young gentleman,” “you confounded griff,” “youngster,” and so forth; all of which, by the invariableness of the circumstances which elicited them, indicated the state of his mind at the moment: as “Come, my lad, this noise won’t do;” and “Young gentleman, I have to make out my report, and beg you won’t interrupt me.” “Well, old boy, how do you get on? are you disposed for a game at picquet?” and so forth; but, “Come, Gernon, I don’t like that,” told me his back was “hogged.”

One blot and inconsistency there was in Marpeet’s character: he was addicted to flogging his servants for what we here should deem trifling offences. On these occasions he always, however, put the offender through the form of a trial, in which, to save trouble, he acted in the quintuple capacity of plaintiff, judge, jury, witness, and counsel for the prosecution. After a dispassionate summing up, the guilty party was wont to be handed over to the kulassee, or tent-pitcher, to have administered a dozen or two of strokes with the rattan.

Marpeet would justify all this severity very logically, but I shall not trouble the reader with his reasons; certain it is, for all this, he paid his servants regularly,was in other respects kind, and on the whole very popular with them.

Not far from the Chandney Choke, the principal thoroughfare in Delhi, near which I was now located, is the Duriba, or Lombard Street, where the principal shroffs or bankers reside; here also many venders of sweetmeats have their shops; one of these, in my day, was a jolly fellow, who, out of compliment to his great Western prototype, was called Mr. Birch, to which name he always answered when summoned to produce some of his choicest imitations of English “sugar-plumery.”

I think I now see the good-natured fellow, hurrying out through his ranges of baskets with a few samples for inspection. Many a time and oft have Marpeet, I, and two or three jolly subs, after dinner, and under the agreeable stimulus of an extra dose of the rosy beverage, visited Mr. Birch, in the Duriba, all clinging to the pad of an elephant, whilst the lights blazed in the bazaars around, fakeers shouted, women chattered, and crowds of the faithful, moving hither and thither, gave a most Arabian-Nightish character to the scene.

These scenes of the past come over me sometimes, when my heart is sorrowfully disposed, with a sadly-painful distinctness; the laughing faces of those who participated in them are vividly before me, but they, “my co-mates and brothers in exile,” where are they? Alas! with a sigh I must answer the question—gone! gone! Others occupy their places; they will soon disappear to make way for more; “and thus wags the world.”

Oh, life, life! sad are thy retrospects to the best of us, and great are the trials thou hast for even him whose lot is cast in the pleasantest places; in thy sweetest pleasures lurk the germs of thy greatest sufferings, and the more we cultivate and refine our natures, the more acutely do we feel thy sorrows!

Happy ignorance! fortunate credulity! blessed insensibility! ye all seem to have your soothing opiates; whilst he who girds up his loins to seek the talisman oftruth from amidst its innumerable counterfeits—compensation for the past and something like certainty for the future—finds the farther he moves the less he knows, and, amazed and confounded at the profound and mighty mystery which surrounds him, at length sits down and weeps. Well may we exclaim,

“The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate,Puzzled in mazes and perplex’d in error,The understanding traces them in vain.”

“The ways of Heaven are dark and intricate,

Puzzled in mazes and perplex’d in error,

The understanding traces them in vain.”

Virtue, immortal plant, ye will blossom, ’tis true, in heaven, but must ye here be ever rooted in sorrow and watered with tears? Oh! for some mighty intellect, some second Newton, to call order out of chaos, light out of darkness; to hush the Babel of discordant tongues, and give to religious and moral truth that clear, convincing, and commanding aspect which shall for ever abash the various forms of perplexity and error. The awakening mind of the world demands something like unity and certainty, and will have them if they are to be had. But to proceed.

One of the finest buildings in Delhi is the Jumma Musjid, the principal mosque of the place. It has three nobly-proportioned domes; also two lofty and magnificent minarets, which I have often ascended, and enjoyed from their summits a noble prospect of the city and surrounding country.

From this height you look down on the flat roofs of the houses, and on a fine evening may observe the inhabitants seated on them, and enjoying their favourite, though somewhat childish amusements, of flying paper kites and pigeons.

The pigeons, of which the Hindoostanees are great fanciers, and possess a vast variety, are trained to join other flocks in their aerial excursions, and then, by separating from them with great velocity, to carry off some of those with which they were commingled; these they bring back in triumph to their bamboo stands, at the call or whistle of their owners.

At one extremity of the city lies the British residency, always the scene of hospitable doings, but particularly so during the period to which I am referring. The Resident at that time was a gentleman who, with first-rate talents and solid virtues, combined those social qualities which at once command what it is often difficult to unite—the love and respect of all.

Nothing could be more agreeable than the residency parties, and on what were called “public days,” invitations were extended to every one in the shape of an European; old Mahratta officers, Portuguese, French, and half-caste merchants, and others without the pale of the regular service, and not constituting an ordinary portion of the society, would swell thelevéeon such occasions.

Punning, as a practice or habit, is the greatest of bores, and deserves almost all that Johnson and others have said against it; I say “almost,” for I do not go the full length of that alliterative curmudgeon, when he says, “He who would make a pun would pick a pocket.” Had this been true, many an accomplished Barrington would the residency of Delhi have turned out at this period, with their distinguished chief at their head.

How this itch for punning got into the residency I don’t know, but certain it is it did get there, and proved remarkably infectious. A good pun was a first-rate recommendation, indeed, at the residency table, to him who made it. “Aquila non captat muscas;” which means, “Great wits don’t condescend to make puns.” Granted, as a rule; but every rule has its exception, and the Resident of that day was himself, “an the truth be spoken, but little better than one of the wicked,” delighting to take the lead occasionally in this conversation-burking system, where a man lies in wait for his neighbour’s words, pounces on one that suits his purpose, murders, mangles, and distorts it without remorse.

Occasional puns, if really good, give a poignancy to conversation—a tonquin-beanish sort of odour, which in moderation is very agreeable, but the excess of them isodious. I remember a few of the residency puns which I think may rank with some of the fairest on record.

The Resident himself was once asked where he acquired his taste for punning; he replied, that “he thought he must have picked it up when travelling through thePunjaub,” through which country he had accompanied a mission. A fisherman, to whom he had paid handsome wages to supply him with fish, absconded. “I always considered him a veryselfishman,” said the Resident.

One of the gates of the palace is called the “Delhi Gate,” and in my time a subaltern’s guard was always stationed there. A young sub, on one occasion, at the residency table, I believe, asked a friend to take his turn of duty there. “Excuse me,” said his friend, “I can’t be yourdelegate(Delhi Gate) to-day.”

One observed that grain in one part of the city sold for so much. “Yes,” replied another, “but that is not theaggregate(Agra Gate) price.”

These samples may suffice.

I soon began to discover the truth of the adjutant’s remark, that Colonel Bobbery was fond of “working the young hands;” for, what with morning and evening drills, parades, and attending guard-mountings, &c., I had little rest or enjoyment. The plain fact was, that I was bent on pleasure and hated duty, and the colonel, by giving me “excess on’t,”i.e.of the latter, seemed injudiciously determined to increase my dislike.

The more I think on my early Indian career, and that of other youths, the more satisfied I am that the sudden transition from school to a state of independence is most injurious to the individual and his future happiness; detrimental to the interest of the state and that of the people we govern; and, in short, that school-boys are not fit to be masters of themselves or to command others.

Nationally, we possess vast science and almost illimitable powers of destruction; and nationally, too, we are respected; but not so much so, I think, individually.

I have met with a great amount of calm, quiet, unprejudiced good sense, much reasonableness and rationality, amongst the natives of India of a certain rank, and, when such are disposed to give you their confidence, nothing is more frequently the subject of remark with them than the amount of power we confide to inexperienced hands—to merechokras(“boys”), as they term them, and at nothing do they express more surprise.

The natives of India are deeply susceptible of kindness, and possessed, on the whole, of fine and amiable temperaments. If Europeans on all occasions would regard their feelings and prejudices, which they certainly ought to do, considering how strong are their own, I verily believe that they might bind them firmly to us, that is, as far as aliens ever can be bound, and erect our power on the noblest of foundations—their hearts. Still they must never be allowed to think that our kindness springs from fear or weakness.

I am aware that the conduct of the English towards the inhabitants of India is much more conciliating than it was; still, John Bull is ever a rough subject, and too prone to employ thefortiter in re, rather than thesuaviter in modo. His pride prevents him from being amiable and conciliating, and however much he may be feared and respected, he has not the good luck to be loved, from the Straits of Calais to the Great Wall of China.

I doubt if, in the present day, such freaks would be tolerated in a commandant as those in which our old buffer was continually wont to indulge, in order to gratify his odd and despotic feelings. Besides abusing the men in the most violent manner (he had a regular ascending scale—a sort of gamut ofGalle,i.e.Hindoostanee Billingsgate—on which few could go higher than himself) till they trembled with rage and indignation, he would, when out of humour, carry them straight across the country, formed, in line, in a steeple-chase sort of style, over banks and ditches, through standingcorn and ploughed fields, for three or four miles, as the crow flies, in a broiling sun, and then, galloping home, would leave the next in command, or adjutant, to bring them back, covered with dust and drenched with perspiration.

Once or twice he marched the corps in close column into the river Jumna; when they reached the banks—there shelving—they commenced marking time, which consists in moving the feet without advancing; but the old colonel, to their astonishment, roared “Forward!” and on we all went, till near waist-deep, when the column fell into a state of disorder; the adjutant, on one occasion, tumbled off his horse in themêlée, and got a thorough soaking. The commander thought, I suppose, that, as good soldiers, we ought to be able to stand “water” as well as “fire.”

After I had been about a month at the station, I was put in orders as the subaltern for duty on the Delhi gate of the palace, a vast structure, occupied by the king and his relations and dependants, which duty continued for a week. Having marched my company down to the gate, I found the sub I was to relieve, with his guard drawn up, all as stiff as ramrods, to receive me. After exchanging salutes, and receiving his instructions to take proper care of the “Asylum of the Universe,”[59]&c., he gave the word “quick march” to his men, sent them off under the subadar, or native captain, and then proceeded to introduce me to the quarters in which I was to pass my period of guard.

In passing the first archway, I found myself in an enclosure, formed by lofty walls, round the bottom of which ran a line of arcades or cloisters; at the other end of this enclosure was another noble arch, surmounted by a vast and lofty pile of buildings, with windows and galleries; these were the quarters of Major M., who filled the post of killadar, or commander of the fort and palace guards, a kind-hearted, hospitable, and brawny Caledonian, who, amongst other harmless eccentricities,entertained the most profound veneration for the “Rowyal Hoose o’ Teemoor,” as he was wont to call it.

My own quarters, to which the sub introduced me, consisted of a small turret, in an angle of the ramparts, covered with thatch, and having something the appearance of a bee-hive; it contained a table and a few chairs, considerably the worse for wear, and when my cot was placed in it, there was little room left for myself. Here, then, for seven long days, I read, shot paroquets with my pellet-bow on the ramparts, cursed the heat and the flies, and conjugated the verbs’ennuyerto perfection, through all its moods and tenses.

One interesting break occurred, and that was his Majesty Ackbar Shah’s going out one day, in grand procession, to visit the tombs of his ancestors at the Kootub Minar.

On this occasion my guard was drawn up within the enclosure, to salute him as he passed, whilst another company of troops, and two six-pounders, were stationed without the second archway, on the plain between it and the city, for a similar purpose.

Little did I think, in my juvenile days, when I looked on the stern visage of the Great Mogul on the card covers, that I should ever have the honour of paying my respects to that fierce Saracenin propriâ personâ; but so it was. I had heard much of Eastern magnificence, but had never seen before, nor have I indeed since, anything that so completely realized my vague ideas of barbaric pomp, as this procession of the King of Delhi.

Though there was much in it that was imperfect, and which told of reduced means and insufficient resources, it was still a most striking pageant, and, as it issued tumultuously from those noble and resounding gateways, amidst the clang of wild instruments and echoing voices, I confess I was delighted and astonished, and was able to picture most forcibly what these things must have been when the Moguls were in the zenith of their power.

We had waited for some time, expecting his majesty to make his appearance; when at length confused sounds and a distant hubbub announced that he was on the move; presently, ever and anon, a cavalier, some omrah of the old noblesse, or inferior horseman, would come pricking forth from under the arch; then another and another; then steeds curveting and caracoling, and covered with rich housings and silver ornaments. After this came his majesty’s regiment of Nujjeebs, hurrying forth, a wild-looking body of bearded Mahomedan soldiery, armed with matchlocks and shields, and attired in darkchupkuns, or vests, and red turbans; next came his camel corps, each man with a little pattereroe, or swivel gun, on the bow of his camel’s saddle, ramming down and blazing away at a furious rate.

By the way, I was told that, on one of these occasions, a fellow, in his hurry, shot off his camel’s head.

After these followed a confused assemblage of chiefs on horseback, a knightly train; their steeds, half-painted vermilion or saffron colour, adorned with silver chains, and housings almost touching the ground, some of them composed of the silvery chowries, or Tartarian cows’ tails; mingled with these were litters, with dome-like canopies and gilded culesses, containing ladies of the harem, with numerous attendants.

The uproar now increased, and a numerous body of men followed on foot, bearing crescents, green standards, golden fish on poles, and other insignia of the royal dignity; all loudly shouting forth the now empty titles of the fallen monarch. These, his immediate avant-couriers, were followed by the king himself, seated on an enormous elephant, covered with a superbjhool, or housings, of crimson velvet; the huge tusks of the monster being adorned with silver rings, whilst his head was painted with crimson and yellow ochres, in bars and flourishes, like the face of a North American savage, when arrayed for battle.

The king, Ackbar Shah the Second, an aged and venerableman, adorned with jewels and aigrettes in his turban, sat immovable in a silver howdah, looking straight before him, neither to the right nor left, up nor down (for it is considered beneath the dignity of the “Son of the Sun and Moon” to notice sublunary matters), whilst his youngest and favourite son Mirza Selim, a youthful and handsome man, sat behind him, slowly waving over his head a chowry, or fan, formed of the tail of the peacock. His majesty’s elephant was followed by many others, more or less superbly decorated, bearing his relations, and the various officers and dependants of the court.

The assemblage of these vast animals, the litters, horsemen, and multitudinous array, combined with the Moresque buildings around, so admirably in keeping, altogether constituted to my mind a perfect scene of romance, which it took me two sides of foolscap properly to describe for the gratification of my friends at home.

I pictured to myself, I remember, as I wrote that account, the delight it would cause when read by my mother to the fireside circle in the little green parlour, whilst old Thomas, our lame footman, lingered, with the kettle in his hand, to catch some of Master Frank’s account of the “Great Mowgul in the Heast Hingies.”

Well, time wore on; some months had elapsed, during which nothing very particular had occurred, excepting that I received a letter from the charming widow, announcing that my kind friend, the old general, had at last gone to his long home.

It was an admirable epistle, written with all that proper feeling which such an event would naturally call forth in the breast of an accomplished woman and affectionate daughter. It breathed a spirit of resignation, and contained many beautiful, though not very new, reflections touching the frail tenure of existence, and of that inevitable termination of it which is alike the lot of us all.

The general, she said, had not forgotten me in his parting moments, but sent me his blessing, with a hope that I would not forget his advice, and would strive to emulate my uncle, who seemed, indeed, to have been his model of a cavalier.

In conclusion, she stated that she was about to join some relations who were coming to the Upper Provinces, and hoped she might have an opportunity shortly of renewing my acquaintance, and of assuring me in person that she was “mine very truly.”

Yes, mine very truly! I saw I was hooked for the widow, and began to put more faith than ever in the Chinese doctrine of invisible attraction. “Let me see,” said I; “the widow is two-and-twenty, I eighteen; when I’m two-and-twenty, she will be six-and-twenty. Oh, ’twill do admirably! what matters a little disparity?” So I whistledLillabulero, after the manner of my uncle Toby, concludingaffettuoso—

And around the dear ruin each wish of my heartShall entwine itself verdantly still.

And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart

Shall entwine itself verdantly still.

“Captain Marpeet,” said I, one day, after breakfast, “I shall to-morrow have been just one year in the country, and according to theLex GriffiniensisI shall be no longer a greenhorn.”

“Have you, my boy? Why bless my life! so you have, I declare; then by the piper that played before Moses, I’ll have a few friends to meet you, and we’ll make a day of it. You’ve never seen a nautch, I believe; we’ll have Chumbailie and Goolabie[60]and all that set—a devilled turkey, and a glorious blow-out.”

Marpeet was as good as his word; he posted offchits(invitations) to a dozen choice spirits; ordered a fat sheep to be killed, which had been six months on gram; bought the best ham to be had in cantonments, and a turkey for itsvis-a-vis; ordered half a chest of claret,and beer to betundakurred(cooled); sent his bearer to bespeak a tip-top set of nautch-girls, and then, slapping me on the back, exclaimed,

“Now, Frank, my boy, we are all right and tight, and your griffinage shall close with a flourish of trumpets.”

On the following day the guests assembled at dinner, and the old mosque resounded with the echoes of our revelry and mirth. Marpeet certainly boxed the kansamah[61]for omitting the pigeon-pie, and ordered the cook half a dozen rattans for underboiling the ham; but, on the whole, he was in splendid key.

Evening at length approached; more young officers came in; the wall shades were lighted, and chairs arranged in a semicircle; teapoys, port, mint, claret, were allmoojood(present), when the curtain was rolled up, and a bevy of as pretty gazelle-eyed damsels, arrayed in robes of sky-blue, crimson and gold, bedecked with rings and chains, and redolent of oil of Chumbailie, as I ever saw, entered the apartment in stately guise, followed by sundry old duennas, and four or five rakish looking musicians, with embroidered skull-caps, long raven ringlets, and slender ungirdled waists, bearing some of the funniest looking musical instruments ever seen since the days of Orpheus.

After some excruciating tuning, thrumming, and twisting of keys, a couple of young sirens, fair Mogulanees, whose languishing eyes shone brightly through their antimonial borders, broke forth into a song, advancing with hands extended and slow movements of the feet, their anklet-bells jingling harmoniously the “goongroo ka awaz,” by the way, a music on which the Indian poet loves to expatiate. As the song and the movement quickened, the heads of the fiddlers worked ecstatically, whilst they sawed away at their outlandish fiddles with surprising energy and vigour.

Marpeet was in raptures; he considered nautches superiorto all the operas in the universe, and thought he could hardly ever have enough of them.

The “Cahar ca nautch,” or “dance of the bearer,” a favourite in India, was now called for loudly, and the prettiest girl of the set, retiring a little on one side, and twisting a turban saucily round her head, after the fashion of that order of menial, and otherwise arranging her attire into a somewhat similar resemblance to the other parts of their dress, darted forward arms a-kimbo,à la Vestris, and danced an animated lilt, something of the nature of a Highland fling.

Rapturous were the “bravos” of the officers, and the “wau! waus!” of the natives. The girl’s excitement increased with the applause; the fiddlers worked like heroes, whilst thedoog-doogieman, or drummer, pegged away at his long drum, till, flushed and exhausted, she made her salaam, and retired within the circle amidst renewed plaudits.

This was followed by “Mootrib-i koosh,” “songster sweet,” and other Persian and Hindostanee airs, not forgetting “Sarrai teen pisa muchlee,”i.e., “three ha’porth of fish,” by way offinale, till at length the dancing grew languid; the hookas bubbled faintly, and Marpeet, starting up, dismissed the dancers, and we all adjourned to do honour to the devilled turkey’s legs and a saucepan of mulled port, of Marpeet’s own brewing.

Enlivened by the change, the song and the toast went round, and Marpeet, who was half-seas-over, sung us,

“Dear Tom, this brown jug, which now foams with mild ale,”

in his very best style; and, by particular request I warbled “The Woodpecker.”

The Last Night of His Griffinage Marpeet “Royal.”

“Franco, your health and song, my boy,” said my friend, rising on his legs; “and now, gentlemen (hiccup), I am about to propose the toast of the evening, and one which, I am sure, you’ll all drink with as much pleasure (hiccup) as I have in giving it: gentlemen, off with your heel-taps; are you all charged? Wildfire, pass the bottle. Gentlemen, I am now about to propose the health of a young friend of mine, whom I consider in some respects a chick of my own rearing. We came out together, and I take credit for having made him the good fellow you all find him (hiccup). This is the last day of his griffinage, and to-morrow he is one of us old hands. Gentlemen, I give you, standing, with three times three, long life, health, and success to our friend, Frank Gernon, the griffin. Hip! hip! hurrah!”

Woodfall and Kinder, Printers, Milford Lane, Strand, London, W.C.

1. The arms of the City of London supported by Griffins or Wyverns.

2. Milton speaks of the Gryphon as a “guardian of gold,” but that can clearly have no connection withouranimal, whose propensities in respect to the precious metals are quite of an opposite tendency.

3. Cant term for residents in the Bengal Presidency—“Qui Hye,” “who wait,” being constantly addressed to servants.

4.Mulls—cant term for Madrassees.

5.Crannies—Portuguese and country-born clerks in offices, and fillers of subordinate Government employments, &c.

6.Ticca, i.e. hired.

7. Honest Sancho Panza divides the world into two grand classes—the have-somethings and the have-nothings. Blacky, by an equally comprehensive arrangement, includes all mankind under the heads of Topee Wala and Puckree Bund, orhat-menandturban-wearers.

8. 6 bottles real Cognac, 1 pine cheese, 2 pot raspberry jam, 2 bag of shot.

9. Village-curs, appertaining to no one in particular.

10. A “made-up” terrier.

11. Liverpool, long considered a distinct empire from Great Britain by the natives, and as forming no part of Europe.

12. Sickmaun, or sick man, one of the few phrases borrowed from the English, and applied to brutes, furniture, or anything damaged or out of order.

13. In this country of high-pressure morality, it may be right to explain that the same reluctance to mingle under one roof the childrenlegitimè procreatiwith those less legally begotten does not exist in India, where unhappily, humanity and laxity flourish together, the reverse of what it should be, of course.

14. Broad-brimmed hat of pith or solah.

15.Boosa, chopped straw.

16.Hilsa, a fish slightly resembling the salmon.

17.Soondur Bun: i.e. the beautiful wood.

18.Jhoul, housings;howdah, seat.

19. The attack on the factory is an actual occurrence, and took place as described in all the essential particulars. The relator has been on the spot, and had the details from the principal actor in the scene.

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