Fifty-One Years of Victorian Life Part 12

Mr. Alexander Johnston adds that he ultimately received from the French Government the value of the plate and jewels which his parents had been compelled to give up to the Calais munic.i.p.ality. It is, however, unlikely that he would have recovered the heart thirty or forty years afterwards--unless indeed Mrs. Johnston had kept it in its little steel case and surrendered the urn.

[Sidenote: THE PALACE OF MADURA]

The old Palace at Madura is a fine building, now used for a court of justice. At the time of our visit recollections of the Prince of Wales (Edward VII) still prevailed. When he arrived at the Palace a row of elephants was stationed on either side of the court on to which the princ.i.p.al buildings opened. All the elephants duly salaamed at a given signal except one--perhaps inoculated with Bolshevik principles. Whereupon the stage-manager of the proceedings called out in Tamil to the mahout of the recalcitrant animal, "I fine you five rupees!"

One of the purdah Ranees still occupied a side room of the Palace, and our host Mr. Turner with another man was stationed to guard the door. The Prince, however, feeling that "nice customs curtsy to great kings," put them aside and entered the apartment with all his suite. The Ranee was much flurried at first, but finally fascinated, and afterwards gave him a handsome necklace.

From delightful terraces on the Palace roof you get an extensive view of the town and surrounding country. There are two fine hills, one called Secundermullai, as Alexander the Great is supposed to have camped there, the other Elephantmullai, from a legend that the Chola (Tanjore) King's magician made him a gigantic elephant, but the Pandyan (Madura) King's magician changed it into a mountain. As the mountain bears a decided resemblance to an elephant, who will doubt the tale?

The most striking feature of Madura is the immense Temple, of which the size, the decorations, and the wealth displayed are impressive evidence of the vitality of the Hindu faith. Four gopurams or towers guard the entrances to the halls, galleries, arcades, and courts within the sacred precincts. One hall is called the Hall of a Thousand Pillars and is said really to contain 997. In the galleries are colossal figures of dragons, G.o.ds, G.o.ddesses, and heroes, groups being often carved out of one gigantic monolith.

The presiding deity is Minachi, the old Dravidian fish-G.o.ddess adopted by the Brahmins as identical with Parvati, wife of Siva. The Brahmins constantly facilitated the conversion of the lower races to their faith by admitting their tutelar deities to the Hindu Pantheon. The great flag-staff of Minachi (alias Parvati) is overlaid with gold. There are a thousand Brahmins and attendants employed about the Temple, which has an annual income of 70,000 rupees, and shortly before our visit the Nattukottai Chetties or native money-lenders had spent 40,000 rupees on the fabric.

The Treasury contains stores of jewels, particularly sapphires, and "vehicles" for the G.o.ds in the form of elephants, cows, lions, or peac.o.c.ks constructed of, or overlaid with, gold or silver of fine workmanship. Two cows, late additions, were pointed out to us as having cost 17,000 rupees.

The Chetties are an immensely wealthy caste, and lavish money in building both temples and commodious houses for themselves. At one corner of the latter they put a large figure of an Englishman attended by a small native, at another an Englishwoman in a crinoline and with rather short petticoat. They evidently like to propitiate the powers both seen and unseen.

Before the Prince of Wales's visit the Collector asked them to contribute a specified sum towards the fund being raised for his entertainment. They refused, but offered so much less. They were then shut up in a place enclosed with palisades, while a series of notes and messages was interchanged with them. They were much amused by the proceedings, which they evidently regarded as the proper method of negotiation, and kept refusing with roars of laughter, till feeling that they had played the game long enough, they consented to give the sum originally asked and were released.

[Sidenote: ROUS PETER'S SACRED DOOR]

Among the many objects of interest in the temple one of the quaintest was a _door_ dedicated to a former Collector called Rous Peter. He used to worship Minachi in order to obtain any money that he wanted from the PaG.o.da Treasury for the repair of the roads and other public purposes.

After his death the Brahmins placed him among their devils, and used to light little lamps round the door in his honour. A devil was quite as much respected as a beneficent deity, indeed it was even more necessary to keep him in a good humour. Mr. Peter unfortunately did not always distinguish between his own and the public funds and finally poisoned himself.

He had a great friend, one Colonel Fisher, who married a native woman, and he and Peter were buried side by side near the PaG.o.da. Colonel Fisher's family were, however, not satisfied with this semi-heathen arrangement and later on built a Christian church destined to include their remains. There was some little difficulty with the Christian authorities about this, but ultimately it was amicably settled. When we were at Madura a screen behind the altar shut off from the rest of the church the part where they were buried, to which the natives came with garlands to place on Peter's tomb.

As is well known, such semi-deification of Europeans who had captivated Indian imagination was not uncommon. We heard of a colonel buried in another part of the Presidency on whose grave the natives offered brandy and cheroots as a fitting tribute to his tastes.

A twenty-three hours' journey brought us back to Madras on the afternoon of December 16th. We had greatly enjoyed our few days in the new world of Southern India, and were impressed with the hold that the Hindu faith still had on the population.

During the whole of our stay at Madras Lord Connemara and his staff made every effort for our enjoyment. Mr. Rees (Private Secretary) was especially kind in arranging that I should see, not only the Public Museums and other Inst.i.tutions, but also some of the private houses to which Europeans were not generally admitted. Among the excellent representatives of the British Government were the Minister of Education, Mr. Grigg, and Mrs. Grigg. Madras owes much to them both--the native girls particularly to Mrs. Grigg. Their son, who acted as one of Lord Connemara's pages at the Invest.i.ture of the Maharajah of Travancore, is now Sir Edward Grigg, whose knowledge of the Empire has been invaluable to the Prince of Wales, and who is now Secretary to the Prime Minister.

One of the most prominent educational inst.i.tutions at Madras was the Scottish Free Church Mission which had a College for boys and Schools for girls of different castes. These included some Christians, but there was no claim to any large number of conversions. All scholars learnt to read the Bible, and no doubt a good system of morality was inculcated. I believe that had we gone to Trichinopoly we should have found many more Christians. It is much easier to convert pariahs and low-caste natives, numerous in Southern India, than those of the higher castes, who have to give up social position and worldly advantage if they change their faith.

Lord Connemara often received very amusing correspondence. One letter was from a luckless husband who wrote: "Nothing is more unsuitable than for a man to have more than one wife. I have three, and I pray your Excellency to banish whichever two you please to the Andaman Islands or some other distant country."

[Sidenote: LOYALTY OF NATIVE INDIANS]

When we first visited India at all events the natives had implicit faith in English power and justice even when their loyalty left something to be desired. An Englishman was talking to a man suspected of pro-Russian sympathies, and pointed out to him the way in which Russians treated their own subjects. "If Russia took India," he said, "what would you do if a Russian tried to confiscate your property?" "In that case," was the prompt reply, "I should appeal to the High Court." For the most part, however, they were intensely loyal to the person of the Sovereign.

When Queen Victoria's statue was unveiled at the time of the First Jubilee the natives came in thousands to visit it, and to "do poojah," presenting offerings of cocoa-nuts, etc. The statue was in bronze, and they expressed great pleasure in finding that their Mother was brown after all; they had hitherto imagined her to be white!

We had arranged to sail from Madras to Calcutta by a British India named the _Pundua_, which ought to have landed us there in good time for Christmas, but our voyage had many checks. First the hydraulic unloading machinery of that "perfidious bark" went wrong, and we were only taken on board three days later than the scheduled time for starting. Starting at all from Madras was not particularly easy in those days, for the harbour had been constructed on a somewhat doubtful principle; nature had not done much for it, and the results of science and engineering had been seriously damaged by a cyclone. As Sir Mount Stuart Grant Duff had sagely remarked, "Any plan is a good one if you stick to it," but the damaged walls were being rebuilt somewhat tentatively and there was no conviction as to the ultimate outcome. Probably there is now a satisfactory structure, but in our time there was not much protection for the boat which carried us to the _Pundua_. Mr. Rees was to accompany us to Calcutta, and Lord Connemara and Lord Marsham took us on board. We had taken tender farewells of all our friends ash.o.r.e and afloat--the Governor had gone back in his boat, when we heard an explosion followed by a fizzing. A few minutes later the captain came up and said, "Very sorry, but we cannot start to-day." "What has happened?" "The top of the cylinder has blown off." Much humiliated we had to return with our luggage to Government House, and to appear at what was called "The Dignity Ball" in the evening.

Next day (December 22nd) we really did get off; the wretched _Pundua_ possessed three cylinders, so one was disconnected, and she arranged to proceed at two-third speed with the others. This meant something over nine knots an hour, and, after sticking on a sandbank near the mouth of the Hoogli, we ultimately reached the neighbourhood of Diamond Harbour on December 26th, and by means of a Post Office boat, and train, reached Calcutta and Government House late that evening.

[Sidenote: Pa.s.sENGERS ON THE "PUNDUA"]

When I went on board the _Pundua_ I was shown into the good-sized "Ladies Cabin" and told that I could have that and the adjoining bathroom to myself. In reply to my inquiry as to whether the other ladies on board would not want it, I was told that there was only one other lady and she was not in the habit of using the bath! This seemed queer, till I discovered that she was the heroine of one of the tragedies which sometimes occur in the East. She was the daughter of a family of mixed European and Indian parentage. The other children were dusky but respectable. She was white, and rather handsome, and fascinated a luckless young Englishman of good family, who married her, only to discover that she was extravagant and given to flirtation. They were on their way to a post--tea-planting if I remember aright--somewhere to the North of India.

When they first left England the husband was very sea-sick, and the wife carried on a violent flirtation with another pa.s.senger and was also described as swearing and drinking. When the husband recovered she insisted on his shooting her admirer, and on his declining tried to shoot her husband. The captain, however, seized the revolver and shut her up in a second-cla.s.s cabin. She was only allowed to dine with the first-cla.s.s pa.s.sengers on Christmas evening. Poor husband! I believe that he was quite a good fellow, but I do not know their subsequent fate.

We also had on board an orchid-hunter who had given up the destination which he had originally proposed to himself, because he discovered that a rival was going to some new field for exploration, and as he could not let him have the sole chance of discovering the beautiful unknown flower of which there were rumours, he set off to hunt _him_. All the material for a novel, if only the lady with the revolver had formed an alliance, offensive and defensive, with the orchid-hunter. Unfortunately we did not learn the after-history of any of these fellow-pa.s.sengers.

We were warmly welcomed at Government House, Calcutta, by Lord and Lady Lansdowne. Lord Lansdowne, an old school and college friend of Jersey's, had just taken over the reins of Government from Lord Dufferin. Lord William Beresford, another old friend of my husband's, was Military Secretary, and Colonel Ardagh Private Secretary. Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, who had been so eminently successful as Private Secretary to the late Viceroy, was staying on for a short time to place his experience at the service of the new rulers. The aides-de-camp were Major Rowan Hamilton, Captain Streatfeild, Captain Arthur Pakenham, Captain Harbord, and Lord Bingham.

We found that the tardy arrival of our unfortunate _Pundua_ had not only been a disappointment to ourselves, but, alas! a great grief to many of the Calcutta ladies, as it was bringing out their new frocks for the Viceroy's Christmas Ball. I hope that it proved a consolation to many that the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal gave a ball at Belvedere two days after the ship came in, when no doubt the dresses were unpacked. Lady Lansdowne's pretty daughter, now d.u.c.h.ess of Devonshire, was just out and therefore able to attend this ball.

[Sidenote: THE BRAHMO SOMAJ]

We spent a few very pleasant days at Calcutta and met various interesting people. Amongst them was Protap Chunder Mozoondar, Head of the Brahmo Somaj (i.e. Society Seeking G.o.d). He paid me a special visit to expound the tenets of his Society, which, as is well known, was founded by Babu Chunder Sen, father of the (Dowager) Maharanee of Kuch Behar. Briefly, the ideas of the Society are based on natural theology, or the human instinct, which tells almost all men that there is a G.o.d. The Brahmo Somaj accepts a large portion of the Holy Books of all nations, especially the Vedas and the Bible. It acknowledges Christ as a Divine Incarnation and Teacher of Righteousness, but again it does not regard His atonement as necessary to salvation. My informant's view was that Christian missionaries did not sufficiently take into account Hindu feelings, and enforced unnecessary uniformity in dress, food, and outward ceremonies. This is quite possible, but it would be difficult for a Christian missionary not to insist on the Sacraments, which form no essential part of the Brahmo Somaj ritual.

Babu Chunder Sen's own sermons or discourses in England certainly go beyond a mere acknowledgment of Christ as a Teacher and express deep personal devotion to him and acceptance of His atonement in the sense of at-one-ment, or bringing together the whole human race, and he regards the Sacraments as a mystical sanctification of the ordinary acts of bathing--so congenial to the Indian--and eating. However, in some such way Protap Chunder Mozoondar seemed to think that a kind of Hinduised Christianity would ultimately prevail in India.

It is impossible for an ordinary traveller to form an opinion worth having on such a point, but the Brahmo Somaj, like most religious bodies, has been vexed by schism. Babu Chunder Sen among other reforms laid down that girls should not be given in marriage before the age of fourteen, but his own daughter was married to the wealthy young Maharajah Kuch Behar before that age. This created some prejudice, though the marriage was a successful one, and she was a highly educated and attractive woman. She had a great reverence for her father, and in after years gave me some of his works. Another pundit, later on, started another Brahmo Somaj community of his own. The explanation of this given to me by Kuch Behar himself was that he was a "Parti" and that this other teacher (whose name I have forgotten) wanted him to marry his daughter, but he chose Miss Sen instead! I fear that this is not a unique example of church history affected by social considerations.

While at Calcutta we received a telegram to say that Villiers had reached Bombay and we met him at Benares on New Year's Day, 1889. He had come out escorted by a Mr. Ormond, who wanted to come to India with a view to work there and was glad to be engaged as Villiers's travelling companion.

Rather a curious incident was connected with their voyage. A young Mr. S.

C. had come out on our ship the _Arcadia_--on Villiers's ship a youth travelled who impersonated this same man. The amusing part was that a very excellent couple, Lord and Lady W. (both now dead), were on the same ship.

Lady W. was an old friend of Mrs. S. C.--the real man's mother--but, as it happened, had not seen the son since his boyhood. Naturally she accepted him under the name he had a.s.sumed, and effusively said that she had nursed him on her knee as a child. The other pa.s.sengers readily accepted him as the boy who had been nursed on Lady W.'s knee, and it was not until he had landed in India that suspicion became excited by the fact that there were _two_ S. C.'s in the field and that number Two wished to raise funds on his personality. This a.s.sumption of someone else's name is common enough, and every traveller must have come across instances, but it was rather funny that our son and ourselves should have travelled with the respective claimants.

[Sidenote: MAHARAJAH OF BENARES]

At Benares we were taken in hand by a retired official--a Jain--rejoicing in the name of Rajah Shiva Prashad. We stayed at Clark's Hotel, while Shiva Prashad showed us all the well-known sights of the Holy City, and also took us to pay a formal visit to the "Maharajah _of the people_ of Benares." It is curious that the Maharajah should have adopted that name, just as Louis Philippe called himself "King of the French" rather than "of France" to indicate less absolute power. The Maharajah's modesty was due to the fact that Shiva is supposed to uphold Benares on his trident, and bears the name of "Mahadeva"--Great G.o.d, or Ruler of the City--so the earthly potentate can only look after the people--not claim the city itself.

The Maharajah's Palace was on the river in a kind of suburb called Ramnagar, to which we were taken on a barge. We were received at the water-steps by a Babu seneschal, at the Castle steps by the Maharajah's grandson, and at the door of a hall, or outer room, by the Maharajah himself--a fine old man with spectacles. It was all very feudal; we were seated in due state in the drawing-room, and after some polite conversation, translated by our friend the Rajah, who squatted on the floor at the Maharajah's feet, we were entertained with native music and nautch-dancing. After we had taken leave of our host we inspected his tigers, kept, I suppose, as an emblem of his rank. Shiva Prashad told us a romantic tale of his own life, according to which he first entered the service of the Maharajah of Bhurtpore, but was disgusted by the cruelty which he saw exercised--prisoners thrown into miserable pits, and only given water mixed with salt to drink. He left the Maharajah, and thought of becoming an ascetic, but being taunted by his relatives for his failure in life, he (rather like St. Christopher) determined to enter the service of someone "greater than the Maharajah." He discovered this superior power in the British Government, which gave him an appointment in the Persian Department.

While there he somehow found himself with Lord Hardinge and three thousand men arrayed against sixty thousand Sikhs. The Council of War recommended falling back and waiting for reinforcements, "but Lord Hardinge p.r.o.nounced these memorable words--'We must fight and conquer or fall here.'" They fought--and first one three thousand, then another three thousand friendly troops joined in, so the Homeric combat ended in their favour, and Prashad himself was employed as a spy. Afterwards he retired to the more peaceful occupation of School Inspector, and when we knew him enjoyed a pension and landed property.

[Sidenote: MARRIAGES OF INFANTS AND WIDOWS]

He posed as a perfect specimen of a happy and contented man, and had much to say about the excellence of the British Raj and the ignorance and prejudice of his own countrymen, whom he said we could not understand as we persisted in comparing them with Europeans--that is, with reasonable beings, whereas they had not so much sense as animals! All the same I think a good deal of this contempt for the Hindu was a.s.sumed for our benefit, particularly as the emanc.i.p.ation of women evidently formed no part of his programme. He gave an entertaining account of a visit paid by Miss Carpenter to his wife and widowed sister. Miss Carpenter was a philanthropic lady of about fifty, with hair beginning to grizzle, who carried on a crusade against infant marriage and the prohibition of the remarriage of widows. "Well," was the comment of Mrs. Prashad, "I married when I was seven and my husband nine and I have been happy. How is it that this lady has remained unmarried till her hair is growing grey? Has no one asked her? There ought to be a law in England that no one shall remain unmarried after a certain age!" The sister countered an inquiry as to her continued widowhood with the question, "Why does not the Empress marry again?"

CHAPTER IX

NORTHERN INDIA AND JOURNEY HOME

From Benares we went to Lucknow, where we had the good fortune to meet Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts, and Lady Roberts, who were exceedingly kind to us during our stay. We had one most interesting expedition under their auspices. We and some others met them by appointment at Dilkusha, a suburban, ruined house of the former King of Oude from which Sir Colin Campbell had started to finally relieve Outram and Havelock in November 1857. Roberts, then a young subaltern, was, as is well known, of the party, and he took us as nearly as possible over the ground which they had traversed. Havelock, who had previously brought relief to the garrison, but not enough to raise the siege of Lucknow, had sent word to Sir Colin not to come the same way that he had, as it entailed too much fighting and loss to break right through the houses held by the rebels, but to keep more to the right. Sir Frederick pointed out the scenes of several encounters with the enemy, and one spot where he, sent on a message, was nearly lost--also Secunderabagh, a place with a strong wall all round it, where the British found and killed two thousand rebels, the British shouting "Remember Cawnpore!" to each man as they killed him.

[Sidenote: THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW]

Each party--Campbell's, and Havelock's who advanced to join them--put flags on the buildings they captured as signals to their friends. At last they respectively reached the Moti Mahal or Pearl Palace. Here Sir Frederick showed us the wall on which the two parties, one on either side, worked till they effected a breach and met each other. Then Sir Colin Campbell, who was at the Mess House just across the road, came forward and was greeted by Generals Outram and Havelock--and the relief was complete.

Sir Frederick had not seen the wall since the breach had been built up again, but he pointed out its whereabouts, and Jersey found the new masonry which identified the spot. Colonel May, who had come with us from Dilkusha, then took us over the Residency in which he, then a young engineer, had been shut up during the whole of the siege. It was amazing to see the low walls which the besieged had managed to defend for so long, particularly as they were then overlooked by comparatively high houses held by the rebels which had since been levelled to the ground. Colonel May indicated all the posts, and the places of greatest danger, but there was danger everywhere, except perhaps in the underground rooms in which 250 women and children of the 32nd were lodged. Cannon-b.a.l.l.s were always flying about--he told us of one lady the back of whose chair was blown away while she was sitting talking to him just outside the house, and of a cannon-ball which pa.s.sed between the knees of a Mrs. Kavanagh, while she was in the verandah, without injuring her. We also saw the place where the rebels twice a.s.sembled in thousands crying "Give us Gubbins Sahib and we will go away." They particularly hated Mr. Gubbins, as he was Financial Commissioner.