A Yankee in the Far East Part 17

[Ill.u.s.tration: "You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred bull business around this neck of the woods"]

There are scores of sacred bulls in Calcutta. They have their special stamping ground. Let one bull poach on another one's preserve and there is a bullfight then and there. Not a Spanish "bullfight"--seven or eight trained athletes against one bull, with death for the bull a foregone conclusion--but a real, genuine, interesting bullfight, with the victor's tail in the air.

And it's a dull person who can't understand that that bull is saying to the vanquished one: "You stay where you belong. I'll do the sacred bull business around this neck of the woods."

XXVI

THE GUIDE WHO WOULDN'T SIT IN "MASTER'S" PRESENCE

I call him Lal.

The rest of his name is too long for week-day use. He is my interpreter, my guide, my servant, my counselor, and my friend.

I have hired him for a two weeks' trip across India. He is considerable of an erudite gentleman--speaks several languages.

I speak only one, and I do queer things to that one lots of times.

But Lal doesn't try to impress me with his superiority just because he knows a lot more than I do--quite the reverse.

His wages are a rupee a day, out of which he feeds himself. That was his own price. I'm paying him all he asks. I've been told that I'm paying him too much, that he has stung me. A rupee is thirty-two cents!

But he is a superior guide. He admits it himself. To prove it he showed me a sheaf of recommendations from American globe-trotters whom he has guided across India in days gone by.

A good many of those recommendations are frayed at the edges through much showing, but I wouldn't mind having some of those names on a blank check, with privilege to write the rest of the check myself.

Lal tells me he is the "Professor" of the guides.

I hired him yesterday. He calls me "Master." That's regular. All servants and guides in India call their employers "Master."

With a two weeks' trip to plan across India, with a map of India, hotel guides and railroad time-tables, pencil and paper spread out before me in my room this afternoon, I said: "Draw up a chair, Lal, and sit down. Here is a two hours' job before us."

"Excuse me, 'Master'," Lal said, "but if 'Master' will excuse me I will not sit in 'Master's' presence."

Get that?

Royalty, don't you know?

Lal got "Master" in only three times in that sentence. I've known him to bring it in four times in a shorter one.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Get that? Royalty, don't you know]

In addition to Lal's numerous duties--standing between me and the natives, brushing my clothes, looking after my laundry, making my bed in sleeping cars, and watching my goods and chattels while I take my meals in the dining car, and a score of other such duties, Lal was looking after "Master's" dignity.

Lal, old boy, after that gentle reminder, I'll know my place.

If there's nothing else to do, I'll let Lal fan me. I believe it's one of the prerogatives of Royalty to be fanned by va.s.sals.

These Indian guides are a cla.s.s by themselves. Many of them have traveled far.

Picked up by travelers for a tour across India, they are frequently taken to England and through Europe. For instance, Lal has been to England and Boston. In speaking of India he says: "My India," "my Calcutta," "my Bombay," and there isn't much about India he doesn't know.

They travel third-cla.s.s, which is ridiculously cheap in India. The tourist, of course, pays his servant's railroad fare and must land him back to point of hiring him.

Lal's home is in Calcutta. I will have finished with him at Bombay and will have to send him back to Calcutta, across India, fifteen hundred miles, and that item of expense will be sixteen rupees six annas--all of five dollars and twenty cents.

It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but Royalty is expensive anyway.

[Ill.u.s.tration: It's hard lines to pour out money in this way on Lal--but Royalty is expensive anyway]

XXVII

ROYALTY VS. "TWO CLUCKS AND A GRUNT"

To go across India from Calcutta one of the necessary things to consider is a railroad ticket.

After my va.s.sal and I had planned an itinerary we called a victoria, or rather Lal flagged a Hindu driving a team hitched to one.

It was rigged for a footman at the rear. The footman was there, too, ready to open the door for "Master" when he wished to enter or alight.

This truly regal, royal outfit cost twelve annas for an hour's drive, and that's twenty-four cents.

You can work the Royalty racket in Calcutta cheaper than you can hang over a lunch counter and eat baked beans in America.

Now Cook's tourist agency has booked me from Hong Kong to New York via steamer, first-cla.s.s, over the Peninsular and Oriental line, P. & O., for short.

That means steamer from Hong Kong to Calcutta via Singapore, Penang and Rangoon.

I have to pay my railroad fare across India to Bombay, and from that port privilege of P. & O. direct to London, via Aden, Port Said, Gibraltar and Ma.r.s.eilles, and home from London via any American or British line I choose from London.

Cook's take care of a traveler they book in this way, and their representatives look out for you on arrival and departure from ports.

In my role of Royalty I bade my va.s.sal, Lal, to hoist himself up on the driver's seat, and to tell the driver to go to Cook's.

Laying my itinerary before a booking clerk at Cook's I said: "Please book me to Bombay over this route."

As I was traveling first-cla.s.s by water, which they knew all about, and as I preserved my regal tread from my carriage door right up to Cook's counter, the clerk said: "Of course you want first-cla.s.s, Mr.

Allen?"

"Of course I don't," I came back at him; "you stung me last trip across India for first-cla.s.s, and you know the only difference between first and second here in India is the price, just double second, and the number on the door of the compartment. You'll book me second, please."