Beast and Man in India Part 9

That the roads built by the English are a most important factor in Indian progress is one of the notable discoveries of the obvious that I find myself compelled to announce from time to time. In ancient days sculptures and paintings show that horse chariots, recalling the ancient racing chariots of Rome, were largely used, but in more recent times the Prince and his Queens, as well as the peasant and his produce, were drawn by oxen through the deep ruts and mires. There is no evidence of springs until the early Englishman in Calcutta or Madras put a _palki_ on springs and four wheels, where it has remained ever since, as the _dak gari_ or posting carriage. The _ekka_, a single-horse, springless gig, seems to be an indigenous carriage, and has the half-organic air that suggests antiquity.

Unknown in the Deccan, Western India, and Sind as far north as Mooltan, it is the people's own "trap" from Peshawar through the Punjab, Hindustan, and parts of Bengal nearly to Calcutta. Nothing could be more characteristic than the primitive, useful, and cheaply-built machine here sketched.

The tea-tray is the top of an inverted three-sided prism resting on the axle, so that every jolt is transmitted straight to the spines of the occupants, who sit doubled up in the "two-foot-rule" fold which the Indian frame seems to take by nature. A long _ekka_ drive is sharp discomfort to a European, even when he has the tea-tray to himself; but natives to the manner born pack themselves up like compressed capital N's, occupying but little more floor s.p.a.ce when sitting than when standing, and for hours tranquilly maintain a position that would make a European die in an agony of "pins and needles."

It is easy to sketch an _ekka_, but the appearance of the machine is only part of the impression it makes. Noise is a necessity of the Oriental nature; loud, continuous, strident din. So the horse is hung with bells, and the cart has rows of loose plates that clash like cymbals. The maddening din is supposed to cheer the horse as the sheep-bell "keeps a stout heart in the ram with its tinkle." In the dark the jingle may be useful, for lamps do not enter into the _ekka_ scheme, as many an Englishman has found to his cost.

[Ill.u.s.tration:]

_The ekka, a tea-tray on wheels, dear, Flies past as its occupants sit, --For a pony you know never feels, dear-- All five pulling hard at one bit._

The _tonga_ is supposed by some to be an indigenous native of Western India. It is a low, hooded, two-wheeled dog-cart on strong springs, with a centre pole to which a pair of ponies are harnessed by an iron yoke bar, curricle fashion. It is much used in the Deccan, and is now the Himalayan post-cart running to Simla, Murree, and along the new Kashmir road. The vehicle has good points of its own, but its springs proclaim it a modern invention; according to some an importation from the Cape of Good Hope.

Travellers by _tonga_ often sit behind animals that are simply first-rate of their kind, and perfectly suited to their work.

On the lines under Government control the horses are fairly dealt by, but on routes where the native contractor has his own way sickening examples of barbarity are often seen. A large proportion of _dak gari_, or post horses, cannot be started without torture. Some have ears permanently broken and torn by a savage trick of wringing them with the hands and a piece of cord, the twitch is mercilessly applied to the noses of others, the inside of the legs is chafed with a rough rope vigorously pulled with a sawing motion; sometimes fire is applied, while whips and sticks ring like flails on a threshing floor, and all the stable men of the stage yell and swear like demons. The bad temper produced by stupid upbringing is partly to blame, the mysterious nervous affection resulting in jibbing has something to do with it; but dread of the pain of a collar chafing a sore is the usual cause of the trouble.

Many of the _palki garis_ used as hack cabs in Calcutta and other large towns, owned by speculators who know nothing of their business, including liquor-sellers, table-servants, and even priestesses of Venus retired from business, are drawn by scare-crows that recall in a reduced and shadowy form the outlines of Bewick's grim woodcut,--"Waiting for death." But the mercy of death is denied to them.

Though the North-West _ekka_, the Deccan _tonga_, the Madras _bandy_, the Bombay and Bengal _shigram_, and other variants of the _palki gari_ may be considered characteristically Indian, they by no means exhaust the number of vehicles in use; for, since the days when the craftsmen of Delhi copied the English carriages sent as presents to the Great Mogul, there has been a continuous importation of the best and the worst coach work that Long Acre can produce.

One of the first steps taken in technical progress was the carriage-building trade, now gradually spreading over the country. Oil painting and varnishing, carpentry, smith's work and leather dressing, owe much to this craft. Dog-carts and numerous varieties of one-horse spring carts seem to be supplanting the once universal buggy or hooded gig. The _brum gari_, brougham; the _fitton gari_, phaeton or barouche; the _vagnit_, waggonette, are now built in most large towns by native craftsmen, springs and axle-boxes being of European make. It is of no use to protest against these barbarous words, for, like _botel_ for bottle, and _kitli_ for kettle, with other travesties of our tongue, they are fixed in popular speech. The _vagnit_ seems likely to be the carriage of the future, because of its capacity. The Oriental, like the ant, goes forth in bands, and is capable of piling more people in, on, or about a carriage than would be believed in Europe.

Not only does an improvement in the vehicles in use testify to increased prosperity, but it ought to mean an amelioration in the condition of the horse. One would like to write confidently of the future, but considering all that has been done by our veterinary colleges and hospitals (missionary efforts of the highest value), and all the influence of the British power, it must be confessed that though there is enough for an official triumph, much remains to be done before the horse of the Indian people can be reckoned to have a fair chance. Nor can one who knows the country escape from the reflection that we underrate the apathy and indifference of its various races; alike in this, that they are and must be const.i.tutionally disinclined to take the trouble that merciful and just treatment of animals in servitude involves.

The Indian farrier has some sound notions and is acquainted with a few valuable remedies for disease, but he has a pa.s.sion for long prescriptions, esteemed according to the number and nastiness of their ingredients.

Mixtures of lucky numbers of substances (always odd) must include inert or noxious matter. But the mere number is part of the charm. Like the farriers of Britain, he is given to an abuse of the firing-iron, but cherishes a faith in the pattern of the brand unknown to the Western world. He does his best to make a mystery of his lore and practice, but everybody about an Indian stable seems to have a taste for medicine. Even in England many grooms dabble in quackery and "know of a rare fine thing for a 'oss,"

which, as a rule, were better let alone. The education of the farrier and of the shoeing-smith is a duty which the Government has undertaken with some success. But the Oriental has a faculty of learning with seeming eagerness and then of laying his lesson aside as one folds a garment and puts it away.

In the West the horse goes to the smith to be shod, in the East the smith comes to the horse; bringing with him a wallet full of tools, a bellows made to work in a hole in the ground, and an apprentice to help him. And the animal's feet are held for him in turn as shown in the accompanying sketch.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AN INDIAN FARRIER]

Reference has been made at some length to the typical method of dealing with the horses of persons of quality. It is only fair to say that in this field better notions are spreading. H.H. The Maharaja of Ulwar, the Maharaja (late Thakore) of Bhaonagar, the Maharaja of Jodhpur, and doubtless other princes, could be cited whose stables and studs, sometimes managed by English experts, show a very different picture from that usually presented. From a series of letters written to the _Pioneer_ by my son, describing a tour in Rajputana, I extract a description of a visit he paid to the establishment of a native prince well known on the Indian turf, premising that Colonel Parrott mentioned therein is one of the most successful breeders of horses in India.

"The Maharaja led on from horse-box to horse-box, pointing out each horse of note, and Jodhpur has many. 'There's Raja, twice winner of the Civil Service Cup.' Close to him stood Autocrat, the gray with nutmeg marks on the off shoulder,--a picture of a horse. Next to him was a chestnut Arab, a hopeless cripple, for one of his knees had been smashed and the leg was doubled up under him. It was Turquoise, who six or eight years ago rewarded good feeding by getting away from his groom, falling down, and ruining himself, but who, none the less, has lived an honoured pensioner on the Maharaja's bounty ever since. No horses are shot in Jodhpur stables, and when one dies his funeral is an event. He is wrapped in a white sheet, which is strewn with flowers, and amid the weeping of the grooms is borne away to the burial ground. After doing the honours for half an hour the Maharaja left me, and as I had not seen more than forty horses I felt justified in demanding more. And I got them.

Eclipse and Young Revenge were out, down country, but Sherwood, Shere Ali, Conqueror, Tynedale, Sherwood II., a maiden of Abdul Rahman's, and many others of note were in and were brought out. Among the veterans, a wrathful, rampant, red horse still, came Brian Boru, whose name has been written large in the chronicles of the Indian turf, jerking his groom across the road. His near fore is altogether gone, but as a pensioner he condescends to go in harness and is said to be a handful. He certainly looks it.

At the two hundred and fifty-seventh horse and perhaps the twentieth block of stables, my brain began to reel, and I demanded rest and information on a certain point. I had gone into some fifty stalls and looked into all the rest, and in the looking had searchingly sniffed. But, as truly as I was then standing far below Brian Boru's bony withers, never the ghost of a stench had polluted the keen morning air. This city of the Houyhnhnms was specklessly clean, cleaner than any stable, racing or private, that I had been into. How was it done? The pure white sand accounted for a good deal, and the rest was explained by one of the Masters of Horse. 'Each horse has one groom at least; Old Ringwood he had four, and we make 'em work. If we didn't we'd be mucked up to the horses' bellies in no time. Everything is cleaned off at once; and whenever the sand's tainted it's renewed. There's quite enough sand, you see, hereabouts. Of course we can't keep their coats so bright as in other stables, by reason of the rolling; but we can keep 'em pretty clean.' This immaculate purity was very striking, and quite as impressive was the condition of the horses, which was English, quite English. Naturally, none of them were in any training beyond daily exercise, but they were fit and in good fettle. Many of them were out on the various tracks, and many were coming in. Roughly, two hundred go out of a morning.

"It was pleasant to sit and watch the rush of the horses through the great opening--gates are not affected--going on to the countryside where they take the air. Here a boisterous unschooled Arab, his flag spun silk in the sunlight, shot out across the road and cried ha! ha! in the scriptural manner, before trying to rid himself of the grinning black imp on his back. Behind him a Kabuli--(surely all Kabulis must have been born with Pelhams in their mouths)--bored sulkily across the road or threw himself across the path of a tall, mild-eyed Kurnal-bred youngster, whose c.o.c.ked ears and swinging head showed that though he was so sedate, he was thoroughly taking in his surroundings, and would very much like to know if there were anybody better than himself on the course that morning. Impetuous as a schoolboy and irresponsible as a monkey, one of the Prince's polo ponies, not above racing in his own set, would answer the query by rioting past the sedate pupil of Colonel Parrott, his body cloth flapping free in the wind and his head and banged tail in the air. The youngster would swing himself round and polka-mazurka for a few paces, till his attention would be caught by some dainty Child of the Desert, an Arab fresh from the Bombay stables, sweating at every sound, backing and filling like a rudderless ship.

Then, thanking his stars that he was wiser than some people, No. 177 would lob on to the track and settle down to his spin like the gentleman he was.

"Elsewhere, the eye fell upon a cloud of nameless ones, whose worth will be proved next hot weather when they are seriously taken in hand--skirmishing over the face of the land and enjoying themselves immensely. High above everything else, like a collier among barges, screaming shrilly, a black, flamboyant Marwari stallion, with a crest like the crest of a barb, barrel-bellied, goose-rumped, and river-maned, pranced through the press, while the slow pacing Waler carriage horses eyed him with deep disfavour, and the young prince's tiny mount capered under his pink Roman nose, kicking up as much dust as the Foxhall colt, dancing a saraband on a lovely patch of sand. In and out of the tangle, going to or coming back from the courses, ran, shuffled, rocketed, plunged, sulked, or stampeded countless horses of all kinds, shapes, and descriptions--so that the eye at last failed to see what they were, and retained only a general impression of a whirl of bays, grays, iron-grays, and chestnuts with white stockings, some as good as could be desired, others average, but not one distinctly bad.

"'We have no downright bad 'uns in this stable. What's the use?' said the English Master of Horse calmly. 'They are all good beasts, and one with another must cost more than a thousand each. This year's new ones brought from Bombay, and the pick of our own studs, are a hundred strong, about.

Maybe more. Yes, they look all right enough; but you can never know what they are going to turn out. Live stock is very uncertain.'

"'And how are the stables managed; how do you make room for the fresh stock?'

"'Something this way. Here are all the new ones and Colonel Parrott's lot and the English colts that Maharaja Pertab Singh brought out with him from home. Winterlake, out o'

Queen Consort, that chestnut with the two white stockings you're looking at now. Well, next hot weather we shall see what they are made of, and which is who. There's so many that the trainer hardly knows 'em one from another till they begin to be a good deal forward. Those that haven't got the pace, or that the Maharaja don't fancy, they're taken out and sold for what they'll bring. The man who takes the horses out has a good job of it. He comes back and says: "I sold such and such for so much and here's the money." That's all. Well, our rejections are worth having. They have taken prizes at the Poona horse show. See for yourself. Is there one of those there you wouldn't be glad to take for a hack, and look well after, too? Only, they're no use to us, and so out they go by the score. We've got sixty riding boys, perhaps more, and they've got their work cut out to keep 'em all going. What you've seen are only the stables. We've got one stud at Bellara, eighty miles out, and they come in sometimes in droves of three or four hundred from the stud.

They raise Marwaris there too, but that's entirely under native management. We've got nothing to do with that. The natives reckon a Marwari the best country-bred you can lay your hands on, and some of them are beauties! Crests on 'em like the top of a wave. Well, there's that stud and another stud, and, reckoning one with another, I should say the Maharaja has nearer twelve hundred than a thousand horses of his own. For this place here two waggon loads of gra.s.s come in every day from Marwar Junction. Lord knows how many saddles and bridles we've got! I never counted. I suppose we've about forty carriages, not counting the ones that get shabby and are stacked in places in the city, as I suppose you've seen. We take 'em out in the morning, a regular string all together, brakes and all; but the prettiest turn-out we ever turned out was Lady Dufferin's pony four-in-hand. Walers, thirteen two the wheelers and thirteen one the leaders. They took prizes at Poona. That _was_ a pretty turn-out. The prettiest in India. Lady Dufferin, she drove it when the Viceroy was down here last year. There are bicycles and tricycles in the carriage department too. I don't know how many, but when the Viceroy's camp was held, there was about one a-piece for the gentlemen with remounts.

How do we manage to keep the horses so quiet? You'll find some of the youngsters play the goat a good deal when they come out o' stable, but, as you say, there's no vice generally. It's this way. We don't allow any curry-combs. If we did the men would be wearing out their brushes on the combs. It's all elbow-grease here. They've got to go over the horses with their hands. They must handle 'em, and a native, he's afraid of a horse. Now an English groom, when the horse is playing the fool, clips him over the head with a curry-comb, or punches him in the belly; and that hurts the horse's feelings. A native, he just stands back till the trouble is over. He _must_ handle the horse, or he'd get into trouble for not dressing him, so it comes to all handling and no licking, and that's why you won't get hold of a really vicious brute in these stables. Old Ringwood, he had four grooms, and he wanted 'em, every one, but the other horses haven't more than one man a-piece. The Maharaja, he keeps fourteen or fifteen horses for his own riding. Not that he cares to ride now, but he likes to have his horses and no one else can touch 'em. Then, there's the horses he mounts his visitors on when they go out pig-sticking (boar-hunting) and such like, and there's a lot of horses that go to Maharaja Pertab Singh's new cavalry regiment. So you see a horse can go through all three degrees sometimes before he is sold and be a good horse at the end of it. And I think that's about all.'"

While speaking of the horse as he is, we are forgetting the popular estimate of him. In spite of ill-usage, he stands for honour and state both among Hindus and Muhammadans. Centuries have pa.s.sed since the Aswamheda or great Hindu horse-sacrifice was celebrated, but the tradition lingers even among unlettered folk. As a.s.sociated with _Surya_, the Sun G.o.d, he is held in esteem. Our a.n.a.lytical way of explaining the inner meaning of such a.s.sociations is not congenial to the blandly receptive Oriental mind, which does not take its stories to pieces as if they were clocks. There may be astronomical facts hidden in the horses harnessed to the chariot of the sun, but so far as the Hindu at large is concerned, they are inventions of European Scholars.

Muhammadans unite to praise him, for the Prophet himself, who at one critical time had but two horses in his whole army, and knew his value, has left a formal benediction: "Thou shalt be to man a source of happiness and wealth, thy back shall be a seat of honour and thy belly of riches, every grain of barley given to thee shall purchase indulgence for the sinner."

Also, from the winged horses of Persian invention, akin to Pegasus, and Borak the mystic steed of Muhammad, he stands for fancy and imagination. A dreamer or a poetical person "rides the horse of the winds." Swiftness and despatch have for long been a.s.sociated with the horse. The rapid transmission of news by the horse post of the first Darius was one of the wonders of the ancient world, so the Persians said that the great King's post-riders flew faster than the cranes. Eastern proverbs and stories never die, but are handed down from age to age, from hero to hero, and in recent times the Emperor Akbar's similar post still further helped to connect the diffusion of news,--literature and intelligence,--with horses in the popular mind. Written words are still said to "gallop on a paper horse,"

the order of Government goes forth "on a steed of air." The postcards of the Nepal State have a little black horse stamped upon them.

Then, in addition to many esoteric sayings of stable lore, there are homely words in everybody's mouth. "You can't find out the jokes of a horse, nor the ailments of a baby" hints that spirited horses have more to set them capering and kicking than the human knows of. Of an old woman in gay attire they say, "An old mare in a red rein." Our brutal saw says, "Old ewe, lamb fashion." The Bengalis say, "You tell a horse by his ears and a generous man by his gifts," an inconclusive saying. _Do_ you tell a horse by his ears, except perhaps in Bengal? "When the horse's tail grows longer he'll brush his own flies off," is a saying with a reference to the access of influence consequent on official promotion. The Persians say, and the saying is current in India, "It is too late to give barley when you are at the foot of the hill." "The Governor's (or Government officer's) mare eats sixty pounds of corn," is a common and warrantable complaint of the exactions of official underlings in the name of their masters.

Horses take a great part in most Indian weddings, Both Hindu and Muhammadan bridegrooms ride in procession, while the bride is borne in a canopied litter. In Bengal, however, all go on wheels, caparisoned horses being led to swell the show. In some hill regions both bride and bridegroom are carried in litters. The equestrian marriage parade is probably an ancient custom based, it may be, on the marriage by capture of which we hear so much. In Western India the bridegroom rides, covered with tinsel and gay clothing, in the midst of a moving square of artificial flowers and bushes, counterfeiting a garden, borne on long platforms on the heads of coolies.

In the case of the trading Hindus of the cities this ride is often the first and last occasion of crossing a horse. The child bridegroom begins his progress with a light heart, but the weight of his finery, the smoke of the torches, the din of the throbbing, screaming music, and the ceaseless clamour soon tell, and you may see the poor little man crying as he is held in the saddle, or lifted off, half dead with sleep, and put into a litter.

When the bridegroom is of mature age the effect is often absurdly quaint.

Part of the wedding finery is a veil, which has come to be a dropping-well arrangement of tinsel or cut paper fringes through which the most sensible face alive looks foolish. But one of the peculiarities of India is that nothing there is absurd. Disguises that would be grotesque and laughable in the West are accepted in the East without comment.

Some religious mendicants habitually ride, especially on the Punjab frontier. You may also see strings of them entering the towns of the plains in picturesque procession. Mendicancy is an honourable profession, practised by many men of admirable character, and by a host of ruffians who lead vagabond lives, diversified by drunkenness, thieving, and debauchery.

Some _Bairagis_, as distinguished from other ascetics, are gathered into monasteries, nor would it be easy for a purist in morals to find fault with their lives and conduct. Other sects that wander and beg have houses and lands; but there is no escape from the conclusion that the country, notwithstanding its hidden wealth, is too poor to keep vast armies of able-bodied priests and beggars. The wonder is that though the respectable cla.s.ses complain bitterly of sanctified loaferdom, there is scarcely a house that does not periodically receive and entertain more or less G.o.dly loafers.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK (HINDU DEVOTEE)]

Concerning the mule there is not much that can be said with propriety, for his mixed descent points salt and perpetual gibes at ill-a.s.sorted marriages and b.a.s.t.a.r.ds, whereon native opinion is very severe. As in aesop, when the mule boasts of his mother's high family, he is asked for news of his father, whereupon the poor wretch is silent and ashamed. There is a strong prejudice in the minds of many Hindus against mule breeding as unnatural and improper. The degradation of the a.s.s, the offscouring of all things, is probably at the root of this. It is wicked to couple a n.o.ble creature of good caste with the ign.o.ble, impure, small-pox-defiled donkey. As to mere differences of kind, it is not likely that the Hindu would trouble his incurious mind; for stranger unions than this are recorded with approval.

Thus, in a countryside saying current in the Deccan, the beauty of a breed of cows is popularly attributed to the interference of an antelope sire. So one might cla.s.s the mule as a European introduction (he really is a Government inst.i.tution); while the Hindu smiles complacently, seeing in the creature a type of the irregularity and inferiority of the mixed lineages of the West.

The mule, however, is bred in increasing numbers, for he is an ideal pack animal, born and made to carry the burdens of armies over difficult countries, and good at draught. Sure of foot, hard of hide, strong in const.i.tution, frugal in diet, a first-rate weight carrier, indifferent to heat and cold, he combines the best, if the most homely characteristics of both the n.o.ble houses from which he is descended. He fails in beauty, and his infertility is a reproach, but even ugliness has its advantages. The heavy head of the mule is a mercy to him, for both in practice and the written orders of Government it is ordained that he is not to be bothered with bearing-reins. So that big _chef_ serves its natural purposes and is an index, unerring as a steam engine's dial, to how much is left in him.

When tired the ears droop back, losing the alert forward tilt of the morning, and the head drops lower and lower. This freedom of the head gives additional play to his heels, for he is a superb kicker. A spirited mule in full fling radiates a rainbow of kicks, an aurora made splendid by the flash and flicker of his iron hoofs. With his fore-feet as a centre he clears for himself a sacred inviolable circle. And there are mules as handy with a swift fore-foot as ever was Tom Sayers with his left. So it is written in Major Burn's official manual: "Examining a mule's mouth with the view of ascertaining his age is at times a risky operation, and the following method is recommended: Put a halter on the mule's head and blind-fold him; stand well in against the near fore-shoulder, pa.s.s the hand gently up the neck, patting the animal as it goes, and take a firm grip of the root of the ear with the right hand. Seize the upper lip and nose quickly and lightly with the left hand. This must be done quickly and resolutely, guarding against a blow from the fore-foot. In this way a glance at the incisors will be obtained, and it will be seen whether the corner tooth is temporary or permanent." It is to no common animal that a careful Government inscribes so respectful a tribute.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE WHEELS OF A MOUNTAIN BATTERY]

Perhaps the finest mules in the service of the Indian Government are those which carry its mountain artillery, an arm in which equipment, adaptation to work, smartness and efficiency in action seem to have reached their highest point. Some animals carry the guns, others ammunition chests, and others the wheels of the batteries, and all are able to go anywhere. In pictures by amateur artists you may see them represented in action on a mountain summit boldly outlined against the sky. But in practice this most picturesque position is not the best for the health of either gunners or mules, nor for efficient attack. There is a special science of mountain gunnery akin to good deer-stalking or ibex hunting. While watching a mountain battery at work, and studying the hill contours, you may gain some hint of the powers of an arm which delivers its fire from the most unexpected places, and seems to arrive by unseen and sheltered ways at exactly the proper point of attack. It is natural that the officers and men of so highly specialised a service should cherish an _esprit de corps_ which is perhaps not exaggerated in a verse from my son's barrack-room ballad, "Screw-Guns"--

"They send us along where the roads are, but mostly we goes where they ain't; We'd climb up the side of a sign-board an' trust to the stick o' the paint; We've chivied the Naga an' Lushai, we've give the Afreedee man fits, For we fancies ourselves at two thousand, we guns that are built in two bits."

CHAPTER IX

OF ELEPHANTS

"The torn boughs trailing o'er the tusks aslant, The saplings reeling in the path he trod, Declare his might,--our lord the elephant, Chief of the ways of G.o.d.

"The black bulk heaving where the oxen pant, The bowed head toiling where the guns careen, Declare our might,--our slave the elephant, The servant of the Queen."