“from Severn and from ClydeAnd from the banks of the Shannon—”
“from Severn and from ClydeAnd from the banks of the Shannon—”
“from Severn and from ClydeAnd from the banks of the Shannon—”
“from Severn and from Clyde
And from the banks of the Shannon—”
they had aroused not only the khansamah but the mess cook; and the cook and the khansamah submitting, as poor natives must to tyrannous Englishmen, gave us a hot supper that made the rain sound like music.
It was always a wonder to me where all the good things came from that found their way into regimental larders. I suppose that, as a matter of fact, they came from all the four quarters of the globe. I know that they had, in that out-of-the-way place, viands that I could by no means have bought in the big bazaars of Simla.
People talk of the good old times. Veterans tell of the great old battles. I believe in the British army as it stands, man to man and shoulder to shoulder. I believe that it would come triumphant through any test. Opportunity makes heroes. Given the opportunity (which I pray they never may be) I for one am sure that the men in the ranks and the men who officer England’s forces would to-day prove themselves, one and all, heroes.
Above all I have faith in the subaltern. I think he is a very undervalued person. The Major-General regards him as of less importance than a private; and the private regards him as of no importance at all. He is in great demand for private theatricals. He is made useful as an orderly officer and about the stables. He distinguishes himself at polo; and is splendidlyen evidenceon the regimental drag and at gymkanas. I have been told that he writes eloquent love letters. But he does more than that. He takes life and its vicissitudes like a man. Whatever he does, he does like a man, and when his hour comes, he takes his life in his hand, and if he falls—he falls with his face to the foe and with never a murmur. Perhaps his heart cries out sometimes, in the thick of battle or the loneliness of the cantonments, cries out for home and for mother. But he keeps a smiling face to the world; and, take him all in all, he is as true to himself as the sun is to its orbit. If he takes you out in his “tum-tum” (and he will if you are not too very old and ugly) he will come very near breaking your neck, but he probably won’t do it. In the first place, his pony is sagacious and not over mettled; in the second, his sais knows his business; and in the third, he himself is not half so reckless as he pretends to be.
“Do you ever run over a native?” I asked a subaltern in Allahabad.
He was simply rushing through the densest part of the native quarter, and I wondered if our drive wouldn’t end at the police court.
“Not often,” he said, “they are very clever about getting out of the way. And it is ridiculously expensive to run over a native. It costs fifty rupees the first time, and a hundred the second.”
Dear lad! he wouldn’t have hurt a fly. Every dog in the cantonment loved and trusted him. But I believe that a heartless magistrate did once fine him twenty rupees for shaking his bearer.
Yes; I most cordially like the subaltern. Make him your friend if you can, and count yourself lucky. He will be staunch and true as long as he lives, and he will do any earthly thing for you.
CHAPTER XXXVII
AT THE MOUTH OF THE KHYBER PASS
Thetwo names in India most fascinating to me were Kashmir and Afghanistan. I longed to see Afghanistan even more than I longed to see Kashmir. I knew hosts of men who had been in Kashmir; I knew four or five women who had lived there. I knew two or three men who had been in Afghanistan, but no woman, and the men had not stayed there long, nor had they seen much. One of them was a fairly high official. He had ridden out every morning in Kabul. He was attended by a subservient retinue, provided by the Ameer. When he mounted they salaamed until their foreheads touched their saddle-cloths. If he rode to the right he was followed humbly; if he rode to the left he was stopped humbly, but effectually. “There was cholera in that part of the town. Their master, the Ameer, would command their death did they allow his English brother to catch infection.”
AFREDEEDS AT THE KHYBER PASS.Page 329.
AFREDEEDS AT THE KHYBER PASS.Page 329.
All this fired my desire to see Afghanistan. The journey from Rawal Pindi to Peshawar was extremely trying. The weather was vivid, the topography of the country was flat, and it was unrelieved by architecture of any interest. We stopped a few days at Campbellpore, the most uninteresting cantonment in India, in spite of the elephants who salute and salaam, and in spite of the splendid regimental drag. I shall remember the kindness of the “Elephant Battery” when I have forgotten Campbellpore; but at the time Campbellpore was a geographical horror—mitigated by the regiment—but still a horror.
After we left Campbellpore we crossed the Attock Bridge. We tried to think it picturesque, because it was so famous. It was not picturesque, unless the sightseer was endowed with an imagination that saw beauty in any spot superlatively arid.
It never rains at Peshawar; so all the officers of the Scots Fusiliers say; but it was raining when our train crawled into the station, and it rained most of the time we were there. I had a petty triumph at Peshawar, and a bitter disappointment. I had been told—worse than that, my husband had been told—that I could not go into the native city without the protecting presence of numerous Englishmen. Nevertheless, every day for two weeks I spent several hours in Old Peshawar with only my ayah, our chokera, and our gharri wallah and sais. I did not suffer the least inconvenience from my foolhardiness.
To a woman there is nothing more delightful in being in India than the delight of buying, for a few pence, a something that she feels sure will be to her an artistic delight, for many years of colourless Western residence. The Indian artisans, or the Indian artists (for in India the highest art is highly mechanical) lack the fine exactitude and the superlative grace of the Japanese amateurs. But no art is so characteristic as the Indian art. They have inherited everything, they have invented nothing, nor do they appropriate anything. The very rigidity of the Indian caste lines has kept the Indian art lines pure, if it has also kept them crude. When you are in Peshawar you are so near the borderland, across which the bravest British soldier goes with more or less trepidation, that the most callous European tourist is justified in feeling himself dangerously near the interesting cradle of Indian art. You can buy a great many things in Peshawar; you can buy two things there that you can buy nowhere else in perfection—waxwork and the skins of snow-leopards.
We associate leopards with torrid jungles, but, on the principle that the greatest heat is cold and the extremest cold hot, the Indian leopards sometimes find their way up to the snows of the Himalayas. The baby leopards that are born there are gray and white, not brown and yellow. They are rare, and still more rarely caught. They are called “snow-leopards”; they look as if they were thickly powdered with snow, and they smell of the high, cold hills. I bought the skin of one in Peshawar for forty rupees—about three pounds. It was beautifully marked; the claws were perfect, and the teeth impressive. A few days ago, I was asked ten pounds for the skin of a clawless, toothless snow-leopard—a manufactured, European-looking fellow—and I was inclined to doubt if he had seen as much of the Himalayas as I had.
“Waxwork” is more difficult of description. I am too ignorant of Oriental mythology to appreciate the peculiarities of Oriental anatomy as portrayed on Indian purdahs; and the Peshawar waxwork is very anatomical. Three-legged cows follow five-legged cows in the wake of a mightily-turbaned Rajah, who sits astride a very peculiarly constructed peacock. I have often had my fragile heart broken by seeing displayed in a London shop the duplicate of some article I had bought in the East—some article I had thought unobtainable in Europe. But I believe I am quite secure in my sole possession of some very fine specimens of Peshawar waxwork. You can buy waxwork in almost every Indian bazaar and in half a dozen London shops, but only the cheaper sorts. The wonderful curtains, teeming with wax representations of Indian life and Indian history; purdahs, over which expert Indian artists spend months and even years, can only be bought, I believe, in two or three shops in Old Peshawar. I bought some wonderful bits of metal work in Peshawar. I have one quaint vessel, so characteristic in its shape that, though it has never been used, I always fancy it smells of coffee. I bought a marvellous little table of fine Kashmir work, and a ridiculous native chair constructed in the coarsest way. The two are typical of the most careful extreme and of the most careless extreme of Indian workmanship.
One day I spent some hours in a shop where I had discovered a fascinating collection of Bokhara work, of skins, and of Afghan weapons. The shop was far back in a dark, barn-like building; it was more like an empty granary than anything else. The proprietor rolled up half a dozen skins for me to sit on; then he sent his servants climbing up bamboo ladders into the garret. They brought down huge rolls of temptation. When I came to pay for what I had bought, my purse was gone. A great excitement ensued, initiated by Ayah and my chokera, both of whom I had taken in with me. We hastened to the gharri, followed by the merchant and all his assistants. Both the gharri wallah and the sais were fast asleep, lying across the road some yards from the gharri. About fifty natives, men, women, and children, were crowded about the carriage. They were examining my wrap and a Maltese lace scarf I had carelessly left on the seat. They made way for me good-humouredly; and on the front seat lay my purse. Nothing had gone from it. That was the nearest to being mobbed I ever came in the East. Yet I was told by European women, who had lived for two years or more in Peshawar, that nothing would tempt them to venture into the native city, without half a company of soldiers.
You enter Old Peshawar through one of the picturesque, dilapidated gates, to which you become so used in the Orient. As you go on, the streets grow narrower and the natives thicker. There were streets where I saw nothing but pottery, most of it blue and green, all of it very common. It looked very rich and effective a few yards off, but when I went to the booths, in which it was displayed, it was unmitigatedly ugly. I bought one dish, because I thought it was the ugliest piece of pottery I had ever seen. It is made of mud and is very breakable. Strangely enough I managed to bring it safely home, and it even escaped the destructive fingers of the Custom House officers at Liverpool. There were streets, miles long, where I saw nothing but shoes and shoemakers. Most of the shoes were bright red or green, thickly embroidered with tinsel and mock pearls.
A queer zig-zag canal runs through Old Peshawar; it is crossed by bamboo bridges. On the banks, under the blazing sun, sat the sellers of mettie and other Indian sweets. There were piles of countless melons, some of them bursting with their own lusciousness, there were mountains of cocoanuts, and huge heaps of curry stuffs. I stopped to buy a bag of gram, of which I am as fond as an Indian. A high-caste woman came up, and bargained with the old man who had the stall, for a few pie worth of gram. She wore the graceful red trousers of her caste, and was hidden in the full folds of her white bourkha. A naked black baby toddled at her side. He had thick silver bangles on his ankles and a string of blue beads about his fat waist.
My husband and an officer friend arranged to take me to the Khyber Pass. By the way, the correct spelling of that is Kaibar, I think, but I haven’t the courage of my knowledge; I fear not every one would recognise the word. The “tum-tum” was packed full of ice, a hamper of provisions was slung beneath. The escort was ready; we were to start at midnight; to avoid, as far as possible, the fearful heat of the torrid place into which we were going. At ten o’clock we were having a wonderfully nice little supper with some officers who were going with us on horseback. I remember that I had an oyster on my fork when an orderly came in with a note saying that the commanding officer was extremely sorry, but he could not allow me to go. Only that day Afredeeds had fired upon a non-commissioned officer who was escorting a gun from near the Pass to Peshawar. I sent a return message, pleading very hard for permission to go; but it was refused. My husband might go, if he chose, but the commanding officer was a Queen’s servant, and he would not risk, in the slightest way, the life of a woman. I was so disappointed at missing the excursion that the men all gave it up and remained with me in Peshawar. We lingered on in Peshawar for two weeks hoping that the Pass would become safer; but it did not. The war cloud thickened, and I was forced to leave without getting even a passing glimpse of the land of the Ameer. One morning early I rode out with a young officer. We went as near the mouth of the Pass as I could induce my friend to take me. As it was, he said he would be cashiered if we were caught. I had one glimpse of a group of Afredeeds, however, and a fine, manly-looking lot they were, despite their cruel faces.
Peshawar—Peshawar of the cantonments—is dull and vapid. It is reiterated drifts of sand, and since I might not journey into Afghanistan I was glad to leave Peshawar.
CHAPTER XXXVIII
AN IMPROMPTU DINNER-PARTY IN THE PUNJAB
Wehad finished the last of several brief but delightful theatrical engagements in Rawal Pindi—if one may use the phrase “theatrical engagement,” in connection with so small a band of strolling players as we had been. The afternoon train was carrying the last of our little company to Bombay. In twenty-four hours we two were going on—by a pleasantly broken route—to Karachi. But, in the meantime, we are going to give a dinner-party. How it all comes back! We had playedCastethe night before, with the kind help of regimental amateurs. Such a funny performance ofCaste! (But that’s a story by itself.) At the close of the performance we had asked “Hawtree,” “George D’Alroy,” and the prompter to risk a dinner (so called) with us the next night. “Hawtree” was a popular subaltern in the 60th Rifles; his real name is a grand old English name. The prompter (also in the 60th) was no less a person than the son of his Excellency Lord Roberts. “George D’Alroy” was a young Irishman; his blood and his eyes were very blue, but they were the only blue thing about him. He was a Gordon Highlander, doing special duty at Rawal Pindi. Besides playing “D’Alroy” he had danced and sung “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay” between the acts, arrayed in my “Polly” wig, all my jewellery (real and otherwise), and a specially-constructed costume.
India is,par excellence, the land of bad hotels. We were living in Rawal Pindi at one of India’s few not bad hotels. They gave us fruit,—they knew how to cook tomatoes, and (test of tests!) their ice never gave out. But the capable European manager, who had another hostelry at one of the hill stations, was away, and I felt that it behoved my hostess-ship to aid, though not abet, the khansamah.
At five o’clock, when the early Indian sun called softly all men to rise and pay Sabbath worship to lavish Nature, my ayah brought me my chota haziri. Chota haziri means little breakfast. Translated by an unsupervised khansamah or a mean European boarding-house memsahib, it means two small slices of cold toast and one cup of vile tea. But a well-trained ayah translates it: “one cup of good tea, one bunch of black grapes, one Bombay mango, red heart of one melon, and an egg just come.” Indian fruit in the early Indian morning! It is something even to remember it. I had my bath; there are three kinds of baths that can only be properly enjoyed in the Punjab: sun baths, mud baths, and water baths. I got into my gharri—a barouche, if you please, but a very shabby one; with a rather black, rather naked coachman, and a very black, very naked footman; and I was driven to the “bazaar”: driven through green picture bits of landscape, canopied by the marvellous blue of perfect sky, and clothed with the indepreciable silver of Indian lakes, where the pink water-lilies floated: driven through the native streets, with their fascinating panorama that was teeming with life primitive after many centuries,—streets dense with Oriental architecture, some rich, mostly squalid, all graceful—and all having matchless accessories: driven to a “bazaar” that beggars my description, and would, unless you have seen it, overtax your imagination.
It was easy enough to provide myself with the materials for a capital dinner, only, unfortunately, in India at that time of the year the variety was so limited, that, whatever I selected, I might be sure that my guests had eaten of it very recently, and cooked far better than I could offer it to them. For the 60th Rifles have a famous mess, and I can testify that the mess of the Gordon Highlanders is excellent.
I was back at the hotel at eight, and after breakfast I had a confab with the khansamah. I gave him my little menu, and told him what I would cook and what he was to cook. I think that I can write out the menu now, it was one I so often fell back upon in the East:—
Sandwiches of caviare and hard-boiled eggs. Olives.Tomato soup.Salmon (tinned, of course). Cucumbers.Beef-steak. Mushrooms (tinned). Grilled potatoes.Fricassee of chicken livers and sweetbreads.Roast pigeons with bread sauce and limes. Baked tomatoes.Asparagus (tinned, but delicious).Chicken curry.Mayonnaise salad. (No mess cook can make that as well as I can.)Ices. Creams. Sweets. (The Indians excel at making them.)Fruit.Coffee.
Sandwiches of caviare and hard-boiled eggs. Olives.
Tomato soup.
Salmon (tinned, of course). Cucumbers.
Beef-steak. Mushrooms (tinned). Grilled potatoes.
Fricassee of chicken livers and sweetbreads.
Roast pigeons with bread sauce and limes. Baked tomatoes.
Asparagus (tinned, but delicious).
Chicken curry.
Mayonnaise salad. (No mess cook can make that as well as I can.)
Ices. Creams. Sweets. (The Indians excel at making them.)
Fruit.
Coffee.
But two items I hadn’t selected were provided us—one by the khansamah, one by that fickle purveyor, Fate. The khansamah enlivened us with the worst champagne I have ever tasted. We couldn’t drink it, but it gave us a theme for small-talk. And we pretended to prefer claret. Fate’s contribution was a nastier one; for like the Egyptians of old we had a death’s head at our feast. About an hour before we expected our friends, I heard the rapid canter of a horse, and my ayah, who was sitting on the verandah, exclaimed, “Lal coatie sahib!” The natives have only this one term for all British soldiers. No matter what their uniforms, they are all “red coats.” We were the only guests in the hotel, so I ran out. Yes, the rider was one of the boys we were expecting later. I had always seen him so jolly; but now he looked very worn and white. “I have come to ask you to excuse me to-night,” he said. “I have been all the afternoon with a poor chap—a private—who has just died. Cholera! It was very tough. I feel a bit done.” But I vetoed that. It was the time of all times when an English boy needed a little cheering.
It was a very grave little dinner-party when we sat down; the spirit of cholera was with us. Oh! what precautions you would all take, here in London, if you knew of cholera half that I know! How I wish that I could voice some sharp word of warning that the mothers of England would heed! My servants think me a bit mad and very troublesome. But I know what I know. I have paid a terrible price for my knowledge. And so I insist, and see that they obey. All our garbage is burned. Our drinking water is boiled. We smell of carbolic from cellar to attic. And in the nursery there is a bottle of chlorodyne, a flask of brandy, and mustard and linen ready for plasters. Cholera is very quick. It must be fought quickly or in vain.
Yes, we began our meal very gravely. But English soldiers are taught the courage of cheerfulness, and we were not gloomy, though my husband and I were leaving on the morrow, perhaps never again to see the three soldier boys we liked so much; and for them that morrow held the dreaded possibility of “cholera camp.” The champagne helped us to be almost merry, though not in a conventional way. It is remarkable what vile champagne is sold in the East and with the very best labels! The khansamah was very quaint as bottle after bottle was opened, amid an expectant silence that was not broken by a pop or a fizz. “It was always the way with the best champagne,” he assured us. “The very best champagne never jumped about like a nautch-girl. It was all good wine, not half of it bad gas. Such champagne the ‘sahibs’ did not often see.” He was in despair when the “sahibs” would not drink it; he was in downright distress the next morning when my husband declined to pay for it. “He must pay—indeed he had paid the Parsi from whom he had procured it, and he could not get back his many rupees. He had procured it with great difficulty. It had been wanted for the Maharajah of Kapurthala. He was a most poor man, and he had sold the memsahib a priceless dog for so few rupees. He wept at our feet.” We were really rather fond of the khansamah, and we knew that we had only paid treble for a huge half-bred bull-dog that I had fancied for my children; so the bill was paid less the price of one of the half-dozen bottles that had been opened.
The following letter reached us a few days before we sailed from Karachi. It is one of the most valued things in my cabinet of curios:—
Hakin Raig, Mannigar Imperial Hotel,Rpindi, 14/8/1892.Mr —— Noble sur and gentlamen.Karachi city.Sir,—You cutted the hotel Bille 15 Rupees. And you tolded to me I must say to Jamasji he sold me crab wine—and what remark you make of it. I done all arrangements with Jamasji. He said i don’t care. I am not making here myself wine. This fault of the shampain maker. Please hear my prayer—you write noble sur to shampain maker. He live in france his name is Mr. Cliquot. You tell him he sell Jamasji bad wine. And you send me money by m.o. what you like. I pray for twenty rupees. Fifteen you cutted the hotel bill. Five make me present. She is poor man. She will pray for your long life and procespairity.Yours faithfullyHAKIN RAIG.Please tell my salam to your noble lady wife with yourself, and say if the dog is well.
Hakin Raig, Mannigar Imperial Hotel,
Rpindi, 14/8/1892.
Mr —— Noble sur and gentlamen.
Karachi city.
Sir,—You cutted the hotel Bille 15 Rupees. And you tolded to me I must say to Jamasji he sold me crab wine—and what remark you make of it. I done all arrangements with Jamasji. He said i don’t care. I am not making here myself wine. This fault of the shampain maker. Please hear my prayer—you write noble sur to shampain maker. He live in france his name is Mr. Cliquot. You tell him he sell Jamasji bad wine. And you send me money by m.o. what you like. I pray for twenty rupees. Fifteen you cutted the hotel bill. Five make me present. She is poor man. She will pray for your long life and procespairity.
Yours faithfully
HAKIN RAIG.
Please tell my salam to your noble lady wife with yourself, and say if the dog is well.
We sent him a small money-order, but we haven’t yet written to “Mr. Cliquot, Shampain Maker, France.”
I have just been looking in the last Army List. Neither of the three young soldiers who dined with us a year ago are missing from the noble roll. I am so glad; so many whom we knew and liked in India a year ago are gone. I am personally thankful for every one of those brave lives spared. For if it were not for the never-to-be-for-a-moment forgotten memories of personal sorrows, I should count as the pleasantest days of my life those when we were strolling players in the cantonments of the Punjab. I wonder how many European women there are in London to-day home-sick for India? I know one. And they do say that the Duchess of Connaught knows another. Dear old Punjabi cantonments! Shall I ever see them again?
IDOLS IN A SIAMESE PAGODA.Page 341.
IDOLS IN A SIAMESE PAGODA.Page 341.
CHAPTER XXXIX
SALAAM!
Howshall I say good-bye to India and to all that I left there? I can’t say it. I say instead, “Salaam, burra salaam.”
Hopes are impotent things often; but I hope that some day I may go back to the East. I wish that I could have written more adequately of the Orient—I wish it very much.
There are many places to which my heart goes back eagerly, but of which I have not found time to write a sentence.
We passed some dreadful but delightful months in the cantonments of the Punjab, when the Punjab was hottest.
Murree was to me the most delightful spot in India. It is a hill place—a resting spot and a breathing station for soldiers who are worn out, or blessed with indulgent Colonels. The pleasantest friends that we made in India, we made in Murree. They were indefatigable amateurs in Murree. Ah, what performances we gave! Major Frere, the Commandant, played Hawtree faultlessly; and Major Chancellor (alas! he is dead now) gave a performance of Sir George Carlyon inIn Honour Bound, that would have greatly credited any professional. We had a Talbot Champneys there who played the part better than I ever saw it played, and a Belinda who made me look to my laurels in my favourite part of Mary Melrose.
And the bazaars down the hill! What rugs! What skins! What phulkaris! Murree is up towards Kashmir; and the bazaar teemed with Afghans, and with ten thousand things that were lovely.
How we roamed at night over the mountain paths, and sang songs of home, and regretted that we were going away!
From Rawal Pindi we went on alone, my husband and I. We left our two children in Murree that they might stay in the cool, healthy place until we were ready to sail.
I felt very blue when we left for Pindi, for I knew that I was taking my last tonga ride.
Do you know what a tonga is? It is a unique vehicle that grows in India; and though it is somewhat lacking in comfort, you grow to like it, and learn to sit at your ease in it and not to fall out.
The tonga rides in India are delightful. For me no other scenery has so strong a fascination as that in the hills of India; and I recall no happier days than those when we left a cantonment at daylight, and drove over the wild hills to another—drove until dusk, perhaps into the starlight. Every few hours we drew up at a Dâk Bungalow; and when the bungalow proved good, and the curry was faultless,—which happened more often than not,—India had nothing more to offer us.
From Rawal Pindi we went to Lahore. But we did no work there. I remember writing my candid opinion in the book that was kept by the eating-house khansamah, and that he did not like what I wrote. We prowled about Lahore quite like leisure people. Then we went on to Mooltan. We went to stay two days, but we stayed two weeks. A friend who was stationed there took possession of us at the station. He took us home to his bungalow; and I often wonder how we ever left it. We pretended to play; but we really visited our friend and the brother officer with whom he chummed.
We did play one night with the help of the officers. But the heat was inexpressible; it was fearful. We panted. A few nights later we were to have played. We went to the theatre. Ayah was in tears, and Abdul was excited. Abdul said that he thought the balcony (we were going to give, need I say what scene from Shakespeare?) would tumble down when I stood upon it; and Ayah sobbed out that the dhobie hadn’t brought my gown, which she had given him to press, and that she didn’t know where he lived. My husband and one host addressed themselves to solidifying the balcony; and our other host and I drove off in search of the dhobie. We found that good and great native, but not until we had had a prolonged drive and sundry adventures. My companion was not as fond of the natives as I was, and I fancy he spoke rudely to the dhobie.
We bribed the gharri wallah to drive rapidly back to the theatre. We were very late, but when we reached the play-house, we found it almost as empty as Mother Hubbard’s cupboard. My husband and three officers sat out in the compound calmly smoking; Ayah was packing up; and Abdul was pulling from off the balcony the pink roses that had been procured for me with a good deal of difficulty.
“Whatever’s the matter?” I said, remembering how packed we had had the theatre a few nights before.
“Cholera!” was the answer. It was answer enough. Cholera had broken out in the bazaar. The theatre had been put “out of bounds.” So I gathered my roses into my arms, and we drove back to the bungalow.
We were leaving Mooltan the next night; so this night we sat up even later than our late usual. There were six of us there, for two other officers had come home with us. It was Saturday night. We sat under the great punkahs, and we played poker a little. But that we soon gave up. My husband said I was cheating; but I think he was bored, because we were only playing for matches. Perhaps we all felt that we would rather chat away our last night in Mooltan.
I shall never forget Mooltan. I can see it now. I can see the 15th Bengal Lancers at their morning parade. I can hear their grave, courteous “Salaam.” Then a cloud of swift dust dashes the picture: the polo ponies are coming! The trees in Mooltan—I can see them too, and feel their grateful shadow. I can see an old ruin where the wild flowers twisted among the crumbling fragments of what was once some great Hindoo’s glory. It is growing dusk. I’m miles away from the bungalow; I’m in a dark little den. A native sits on the floor. He is making me something big and blue, something bright and beautiful. It is Mooltani ware. I’ve been here for hours, watching it grow beneath the skilful brown fingers. The potter is almost done now. In another moment I am driving home through the dusk with a tum-tum load of blue pottery.
I think the sais was indignant that I had refused to let a coolie bring it. And thebeau soldatwho was driving had to drive very slowly—which I am sure he had never before in all his life done. But I wanted to carry home my spoils myself, because I wished to be sure that I had the identical pieces that I had seen made; and I have them—or at least some of them now. Part of them were slaughtered by the clumsy fingers of the Custom House officers at Liverpool. But I have some left, and when I look at them I think of Mooltan and our friends there.
There is something very charming about the home lives of the officers in India. Those who are unmarried seem to have a wonderful talent for making rooms pretty and home-like. I know of nothing nicer than the pride that those young officers take in their quarters, and of nothing more gentlemanly, nor more soldierly than the way they keep up their order and beauty.
The best housekeepers I have ever known have been soldiers. And the best cook I ever knew was a poet. I really think that we women need to look after the laurels we have or are supposed to have, rather than hunt for new ones.
We left Mooltan at dusk on Sunday. Our little ones had come down from Murree, and we had Ned, the monkey (whom a bold, bad subaltern had tried to steal), and Nizam, the dog, and Abdul and Ayah—so that with “Wadie” and ourselves we were a party of nine; quite a respectable number.
“Good-bye” we cried to one friend, and “auf wiedersehen” to the other; for one was to join us at Sukkur, and go on with us to Karachi. The rain came down in wild fury before the train started. The wind sobbed and the window glasses shivered and chattered. And I whispered “Salaam, burra Salaam” to the cantonment where I had been so much at home,—the last cantonment of many in which I was leaving friends,—the last cantonment in India that I loved.
We spent a dreadful day and an indescribable night at Sukkur. I am enthusiastic about the East—but I except a few places; Sukkur is emphatically one of them.
I shall never forget the Dâk Bungalow there; and I feel very sure that the khansamah will never forget me.
In the evening we gave a performance. It was the second time that we ever gave an entire performance by ourselves; and I remarked at the time that it would be the last. My husband says I lost my temper; but I deny it. I was calmly and justly furious—that was all.
Our recital in Canton had been bad enough, but this was worse. In Canton we gave a recital in evening dress. In Sukkur we gave a dramatic performance in costume. In Canton it was cool. In Sukkur it was horridly hot.
We playedSweethearts. Yes, we did, with two characters cut out. We playedA Happy Pair, and we gave two scenes fromMacbeth, a scene fromHamlet, and a scene fromRomeo and Juliet.
The worst of it was they liked it—they really did, and the next morning a deputation asked us to stay another night and do it again; but I refused, on the ground that there was not room in the Dâk Bungalow for myself and the khansamah. My husband says that the heat and some of the cholera regulations, notably that which forbade us ice and soda-water, had made me ugly. He is mistaken—as he so often is. I was never ugly in my life. I was indignant.
The journey to Karachi was wonderfully interesting. We succeeded in getting ice, and life seemed brighter.
Karachi I liked less than any other important place in the East. And yet we spent long happy days out fishing, and the nights surpassed all the nights of my memory. The moon was matchless. I don’t know where it went to at dawn; there didn’t seem room for it in the sky. When the moon shone on the sands and the ocean at Karachi, it was a marvel in white, silver, and gold that I have never seen equalled.
Perhaps I saw Karachi unfortunately. I was not pleased with the Dâk Bungalow. If I expressed myself frankly and freelyrethat Dâk Bungalow I might, I fear, find myself involved in a suit for libel. And the cholera was raging. Two of our dhobies died from it, and wherever we went, every few yards we came upon a fire—a bonfire built by the natives to burn up the poison fumes.
Everything comes to those who wait, and a great deal more comes to those who don’t. The day came when we left India; I, at least, was deeply sorry. Whatever home and the future might give me—I was leaving much in India. Much that was sacred and precious. I had buried hopes in the East and lost ambitions; but I had found much that was helpful and soothing. India, I cry you “Salaam,” and I throw mogree flowers at your feet!
We looked toward England with longing eyes. Yet we left the Orient with reluctant feet.
It rained viciously when we reached Liverpool. We did not care. We were home—home at last! We looked into each other’s eyes and were glad. We had come, hand in hand, out of the storied East. We were going, hand in hand, into London,—the actor’s Mecca.
As I glance back through my pages, I fear that I have written too personally; but it was the only way I could write.
I was born with a talent. Perhaps I will be forgiven for boasting of it, because I freely confess that it is the only talent I have ever had. I inherited it from my father, who had it to a very great degree. It is a talent that sometimes brings sorrow; but certainly no other talent brings half so much joy. And I venture to think that if a woman can have but one talent, it is the very best talent that she can have: the talent of loving. I have loved the East dearly. Unless I had written of the East as I saw it—unless I had written of my daily life there, I must have been silent. And I wanted to speak; I had something to say. I do so hope that I have said it. It is this, “Go East—go East!”
Every blemish in my little book belongs to me, and not one to my theme.
India is far from my feet, but close to my heart; and I would waft to Rangoon and to Kausali a message—a message borne on the breath of English wood violets.
GLOSSARY
Note.—Only the utmost nicety of scholarship would justify one in feeling sure that any (English) spelling of a Hindustani word was correct. Indeed, one who is not a scholar, must, after some years’ residence in India, come to the conclusion that all spellings of a Hindustani word are correct.
In this dilemma I have tried to avoid spellings that were pedantic. But I have also tried to avoid spellings that were over-English.
In the following glossary, the definitions indicate the meanings in which the words have been used in the preceding pages. Many of the words have several other meanings. And Anglo-Indian Hindustani is not always exact Hindustani.
The Japanese, Chinese, and Burmese words are indicated by parenthetical initials.
L. J. M.
THE END
Printed byR. & R. Clark,Edinburgh
Transcriber’s Notes:
Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation and obvious typesetting errors have been corrected without note. Some illustrations have been moved slightly from their original positions to keep paragraphs intact. Glossary was added to the Contents for reader convenience.
[End ofWhen We Were Strolling Players in the Eastby Louise Jordan Miln]