From Edinburgh to India & Burmah Part 8

"I became acquainted in a few weeks with what the majority of our civilian officers spend their lives in only half suspecting. My experience has been that of a tourist, but I have returned satisfied that it is quite possible to see, hear, and understand all that vitally concerns our rule in India in six months' time."

After all, who may write about India? Major Jones said to me the other day, "Why on earth is Smith writing about India--what does he know? he is just out; why! I've been here over ten years and have just learned I know nothing."

Then I said, "What about General Sir A. B. Blank's writings?" Blank is going home after about forty years in India. "Oh! good gracious," he said, "Blank's ideas are hopeless--utterly antiquated!" Therefore no one may write about India; Smith is too inexperienced, Jones has only learned he knows nothing, and General Blank is too antiquated.

This day we spent calling round the station. The owners of the two first bungalows were out; at the third the hostess carried wreaths of flowers, which she was on her way to place on her native butler's grave; he had died of plague. The next house was full of madonnas and maids worshipping the latest arrival in the station, a chubby boy of six months. The father had retired to a quiet corner, but seeing another mere man, he came out with certain alacrity and suggested a peg and cheroot. The next house was the doctor's, and the Mrs Doctor and I were just getting warm over Ireland, and had got to Athlone, Galway, and Connemara, when the ten minutes, that seem law here, were up, and G.

rose to go, and I'd to leave recollections of potheen, and wet, and peat reek, and "green beyond green"--such refreshing things even to think of in this Eastern land, especially for us who are on the wander and know we will be home soon. But it must be a different feeling for those people at their posts, tied down by duty, year after year, with the considerable chance of staying in the little bit of a cemetery with others who failed to get home. But we must not touch on this aspect of our peoples life out here, it is too deeply pathetic. At the next house I did actually get a peg, and it was a pleasing change after buffalo milk and quinine for days: and mine host, who had been on the "West Coast," told me his experience of pegs in Africa. "The men," he said, "who didn't take pegs there at all, all died for certain, and men who took nips and pegs in excess died too; a few, however, who took them in moderation survived."

Then we drove towards the sunset and rolling hills, and were overwhelmed with the volume of colour. Bosky trees lined the road, and the orange light came through the fretwork of their leaves and branches, and made the dust rising from the cattle and the people on the red roads and the deep shadows all aglow with warm, sombre colour; I would I could remember it exactly. One figure I can still see--there is an open s.p.a.ce, green gra.s.s, and Corot like trees on either side reflected in water, and a girl carrying a black water-pot on her head, crosses the gra.s.s in the rays of the setting sun--a splash of transparent rosy draperies round a slight brown figure.

Friday.--Rode in morning with the Brother, painted and drove with G. in the afternoon, tennis and badminton at club, and people to dinner; that is not such a bad programme, is it? Not exciting, but healthy, bar the excessive number of meals between events,[12] and tiresome in regard to the inevitable number of changes of clothes. The ride we start after an early cup of tea. It begins pleasantly cool, but in an hour you feel the sun hot, and are glad to get in and change to dry clothes, and have breakfast proper about 9 A.M. The Brother then goes to office, which is a building like an extensive hydropathic, on an eminence to which on various roads, at certain hours of the day, streams of tidy native clerks may be seen going and coming. Of what they do when they get there, or where they go when they leave I have no idea; the country all round seems just red, rolling, gritty soil, with th.o.r.n.y bushes and scattered trees! But there is a native town; possibly these men go there, though their costumes are too trim to suggest native quarters.

There is such silence up here on the tableland at mid-day--only a light soughing of the soft, hot wind, otherwise not even the cheep of a lizard. A little later in the afternoon begins the note of a bird, like a regular drop of water into a metal pot, very soft and liquid, and when the gardener waters the flowers, more birds come round to drink. The house too is absolutely still; the servants drowse in their quarters in the compound; G. and her maid in a back room are quiet as mice; they got a sewing machine, which was a very clever thing to do, but it was a tartar, it wouldn't work--that was "Indian" I expect--so they have had a most happy morning pulling it to bits, and putting it together again--I wonder if they will make it go.

[12] Specially laid on for our benefit.

The most social part of the day here is the meeting at the club after the business day is done. I have not heard Indian club life described, but this club, though small, is, I think, fairly typical. Half the station turns up at it every evening before dinner; I should think there are generally about twenty ladies and men. You bike down, or drive, and play tennis on hard clay courts, a very fast game; then play badminton inside when it gets dark, and the lamps are lit.--I'd never played it before. What a good game it is; but how difficult it is to see the shuttle-c.o.c.k in the half light as it crosses the lamp's rays--A.1.

practice for grouse driving, and a good middle-aged man's game; for reach and quick eye and hand come in, and the player doesn't require to be so nimble on his pins as at tennis. To-night the little station band of little native men played outside the club under the trees, with two or three hurricane lamps lighting their music and serious dark faces, and the flying foxes hawked above them. Inside there was the feeling of a jolly family circle--rather a big family of "grown-ups"--or a country house party.

Dancing was beginning as we came away; men had changed from flannels to evening dress, and ladies had dumbied home and back, and a bridge tournament was being arranged. Think of the variety of costume this means, and grouping and lights. The brother and G. had come in from riding, G. in grey riding-skirt and white jacket, and the brother in riding-breeches and leggings, and two men and a lady came in with clubs from golf. Other men were in flannels, and some had already got into evening kit, and it was the same with ladies--what a queer mixture.

Everyone seems perfectly independent of everyone else, except one or two matrons who have the interests of the youths at heart, and bustle their "dear boys" out of draughts, where "they will sit, after getting hot at Badminton, and won't get ready for dancing or bridge." One cannot but admire the brotherly and sisterly relationship that seems to exist between these kindly exiles, the way they make the best of things and stand by each other, such a little group of white people, possibly thirty all told, in the midst of a countless world of blacks.

Let us now discourse on duck-shooting for a change, and because it is a safe subject, and like fishing, "has no sting in the tail of it." One of the "dear boys" at the club asked if I'd care to go duck-shooting on Sunday. This "youth" is country-bred, and for length and breadth and colour and accent, you'd think he had just come out from the Isle of Skye, the land of his people, where you know they run pretty big and fit.

It was very kind of these fellows I think, asking me to join them. A doubtful bag doesn't matter--it's a new country and I feel as keen as a c.o.c.kney on his first 12th--so I unpack my American automatic five shooter, beside which all last year's single-trigger double-barrel hammer-less ejectors are as flintlocks! "Murderous weapon, and bloodthirsty shooter"--some old-fashioned gunners of to-day will say, just as our grandfathers spoke when breechloaders came in, and that delightful pastime with ramrod and wads, powder flask and shot belt went out. So it ever has been! Since the day some horrid fellow used a bronze sword instead of a stone on a stick, and since Richard of the Lion Heart took to that "infernal instrument," the cross bow, because of its "dreadful power," and so earned from Providence and Pope Innocent II.

"heavenly retribution," and was shot by one of its bolts.

As I write these somewhat discursive notes, there is a very old-world figure pa.s.sing our verandah every now and then; he is our night watchman, called a Chowkidar or Ramoosee. He is heavily draped with dark cloak of many vague folds, and carries a staff and lantern; he belongs to a caste of robbers, and did he not receive his pittance, he and his friends would loot the place--and possibly get shot trying to do so. He flashes his lantern through your blinds as you try to sleep. Then if he wakens you by his snoring, you steal out and pour water gently down his neck.

A hyaena or jackal has started laughing outside--phew!--what an eerie laugh--mad as can be--what horrid humour! I have mentioned a lady's husband was taken away from her and eaten by a tiger lately, somewhere about this country, so we begin to feel quite _in medias res_, though far from the madding town.

To-morrow we drive to our shoot--start at six! To drive in dumbies, about eight miles. But what does distance matter; it's our first day's shooting in India--duck to-day, black-buck to-morrow, then sambhur, perhaps, and who knows, the royal procession may not account for all the tigers! and I begin to have a feeling that if one came within a fair distance, and did not look very fierce, I'd be inclined to lowse off my great heavy double-barrelled 450 cordite express and see if anything happened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The above painted by Allan Betty Iris and Uncle Gordon.]

CHAPTER XIV

_Copy letter on subject of "Duck."_

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Dear B,--There are still a few minutes before old Sol gets his face under cover, so I am going to let you know of my first great day's Indian Shikar! It was A.1. from start to finish, though an old resident here might laugh at its being given such a fine term. I know that it would have been as interesting to you as it was to me; it was so different from anything we have at home.

I met a man at the club who said, "Won't you come with us to-morrow (Sunday) and have a try for duck?" and I jumped--haven't had anything in way of exercise, bar a little mild riding and tennis for weeks. These fellows are so busy all the week they put in the Sunday out of doors shooting. Don't you wish we could too? You know everyone shoots here, it is free--one of the reasons so many of our best young fellows come out--men who haven't got ancestral or rented acres to shoot over.

Quarter past six, _mon ami_, was the hour fixed--I shudderd! By the way, most of these men were dancing yesterday afternoon till 7-45--at tennis previously, and at bridge till the small hours. Isn't that a rum way of doing things--the ladies dancing till after 7 o'clock, then dashing home to dress, and here at this bungalow to dinner at little after eight.

Turned out at a quarter to six--fifteen minutes later than I intended--fault of my "Boy"--tumbled into sort of shooting kit, and partly dressed as I scooted along the avenue through the park--compound I believe it should be called--the night watchman legging it along with my bag and gun. I believe a jackal slunk past; it was getting light--first jackal I've seen outside a menagerie--an event for persons like us? When I got to the avenue gate where these other heroes were to meet me, the deuce a shadow of one was there--only a native with something on his head. So I did more dressing and cussing because I was ten minutes behind time and thought they must have gone on.

Gradually the light increased. Dawn spread her rosy fingers over the pepal fig trees that lined the road; the fruit-eating flying-foxes sought their fragrant nests or roosts, and noiselessly folded their membraneous wings till next time. And the native turned out to have a luncheon basket on his head so my heart rose, and by and bye a big fellow in khaki stravaiged out of the shades--a jovial, burly Britisher called "Boots,"--told me he was hunting up the other fellows, and that they had got home late last night--this about half an hour after time fixed--so much for Indian punctuality hereaway! After some time another shooter arrived behind two white oxen, taking both sides of the road in a sort of big governess cart. Then Boots, who had hunted out a man Monteith, came up in a third dumbie, as their ox carts are called here.

These go like anything if you can keep them in the straight, but the oxen are dead set on bolting right or left up any road or compound avenue. Boots told me: going to dine one night, he had been taken up to three bungalows w.i.l.l.y nilly before he got to the right one. The reins go through bullocks' noses, so by Scripture that _should_ guide them. We went off at a canter, and hadn't got a mile when Boots and Monteith's dumbie dashed at right angles across a bridge to the cemetery; we followed, missing the edge of the bridge by an inch,--pulled round and went off on the straight again--seven miles in the cool of the morning, grey sky, soft light, new birds, new trees, new country, no mistake it was pleasant. Here is a sketch (much reduced) the dumbie following us.

As we went at a canter it was not very easy to do!

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At the tank or loch we disembarked amongst a motley crowd of natives--got men to carry cartridge bags, and then we surrounded the tank, a place about three-quarters of a mile long by a quarter broad.

M. got into a portable, square, flat-bottomed canvas boat he had sent the day before, and his heathen boatman, who swore he could row, cut branches to hide both of them from the duck. This arrangement looked like a fair sized table decoration, a conspicuous man in a topee with a gun at one end, and a black white-turbaned native at the other. Away they went, left oar, right oar! I watched these simple manoeuvres from the far side, where, like the other guns, I was posted at the water's edge, in full view of the duck which were swimming about in mid water, chuckling at us I am sure. The native's rowing was a sight! first one oar high in the air, then the other. I saw Monteith had to change and did both rowing and shooting, probably the native had never seen a boat in his life! When M. began firing at the duck at long range, they got up the usual way, straight up, and then flew round and round, high up. I didn't know whether to watch the duck or enjoy looking at the village scene opposite, for it was at once delightfully new and delightfully familiar. There were mud-built cottages among feathery-foliaged trees with wide roofs of thatch of a silver grey colour, and above them were two or three palms against the sky. Biblical looking ladies went to and fro between lake and village, and each carried on her head a large, black, earthenware bowl steadied by one hand, and a smaller bra.s.s pot swinging in the other. Blue-black buffaloes and white and yellow cows sauntered on the sloping banks, watched by men in white clothes and turbans--it was all very sweet and peaceful in the soft morning light.

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The ducks flew high of course, just out of range, but we banged away merrily at anything inside ninety yards! M. in the boat got within range of some confiding pochard, and we on sh.o.r.e got a few by flukes. They kept circling round for a long time as the other tanks in neighbourhood were almost dried up. Then it got very hot and I for one was glad to get my back against an aloe for a little shade and concealment, and sketched, and fired occasionally to be sociable, as a duck came within say eighty yards. See sketch and the futility of concealment. I thought it very delightful--the shooting was not too engrossing, the landscape was charming, and the village life interesting, and the simplicity of the whole proceeding distinctly amusing. F., one of our party, on the other side from me kept potting away regularly. He was surrounded with natives; his ideas as to what was "in shot" were great! Still, he told me the natives always swore he hit. The duck out here don't seem to mind small shot at a hundred or two hundred yards more than they do at home!

Pretty white herons sailed round occasionally without fear, and sometimes I could positively hardly see for grey-green dragon flies hovering in front; there was one tern, or sea swallow--my favourite bird; but how came it do you think, so far from the sea?

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Most of the duck had cleared off to other tanks by ten o'clock, so the fusilade stopped and we returned to the shade of a many-stemmed and rooted banyan tree where the desert met the sown, and had lunch and felt quite the old Indian, eating fearfully hot curry pasties and spiced sandwiches, as per sketch.

My five shooter is quite a novelty here, so I had to take it to bits and show how it worked, or rather, I began to show how it worked, did something wrong, and had to take it all to bits on this inauspicious occasion.

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We shot on languidly till about one, that is, sat in the heat and occasionally let off a shot at a very wide duck, and another member of our party took his turn in the boat with a professed oarsmen from the village who was worse than the first, so we gave up, one by one and dawdled up to the village, picking up some dead duck on the way. Here is a jotting of our retriever--a native who slung a bundle of dry pithy sticks under one arm, waded out, and swam along somehow, with an overhand stroke, not elegant but fairly effective.--I also made jottings of buffaloes in the water, all but submerged, water lilies, little white herons, and women in bright colours washing clothes in reflections! What subjects for pictures--rather shoppy this for you? The buffaloes walked sometimes entirely under water for some two or three yards--and then they came up and blew like seals!--by all the saints, isn't this just the Kelpie we have heard of from Sandy and Donald and Padruigh--and how "It" comes up from the dark water and the lilies in the dusk, like a great black cow, with staring eyes and dripping weeds hanging from its mouth and shoulders!

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I found the party under the shade of pepal trees beside the inverted boat, and the lunch basket, surrounded by the villagers of all ages. In front on the dust, in sunlight, a brown woman danced and whipped her bare flesh with a cord like a serpent, and another woman in soft, hanging, Madonna-like draperies, with a kid astride her hip and asleep on her breast, beat a tom-tom vigorously. The dancing woman's steps were the first of our sword dance--you see them round the world; she had ragged black hair, dusty brown skin, with various bits of coloured clothes twisted round her hips. Of the violent light and shade, and hot reflected light from the sandy red ground, and restless movements, I could only make this ghost of a sketch. Behind the women was a box, open on the side next us, fitted up as a shrine; in it sat an Indian G.o.ddess in vermilion and gold, with minor deities round her, all very fearsome.

I was told it was a cholera G.o.ddess, and the dancing was to propitiate her and drive cholera out of the village. I'd fain remember the light and shade and colour, but it is difficult to do these unfamiliar scenes from memory; of scenes at home one can grasp more in the time, for many forms are familiar and others one can reason from these--that they must be so--this last a risky business--and query: is it Art or Fake?--forgive shop again, awfully sorry.

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The drive home in mid-day sun with no shade was pretty considerably hot, through miles of unsheltered, hot, dusty road, but with regular tiger jungle on either side! Some of us slept--for me there was too much heat and too much to see for that.

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I think we got fourteen duck. There were pochard and pintail and one like a mallard. The pochard are good to eat here.

To-morrow we go South--both sorry and glad to go--sorry to leave the little social circle and glad to be on the road again. Again we have had a glimpse of how quickly friends are made here. I suppose the extreme isolation makes one white man realise his dependence on the next white man, so that they naturally make the best of each other and become friends quickly.