Twenty-One Days in India Part 1

Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series.

by George Robert Aberigh-Mackay.

PREFACE

In this edition it has been considered advisable to reproduce, verbatim, only the "Twenty-one Days" as originally published in _Vanity Fair_, the additional series of six included in several editions of the book issued after the Author's death being omitted.

The twenty-one papers in question have been supplemented by contributions to _The Bombay Gazette_, which appeared in that daily newspaper during the whole of the year 1880, the year before the Author's death, under the _nom de plume_ of "Our Political Orphan;"

and the Publishers beg to tender their best thanks to the proprietors of that newspaper for the permission thus generously accorded for their present reproduction.

In carrying out the work of revision many pa.s.sages previously omitted have been restored to the text. To render such readily apparent to the reader, they have in every case been enclosed in [] brackets.

A new series of ill.u.s.trations has been specially prepared for this edition by Mr. George Darby of Calcutta, and the Publishers venture to think he has succeeded in a marked degree in embodying in his sketches the spirit of the Author's subjects.

In conclusion it has been the aim of the Publishers to render this new edition of a great work by a very gifted writer as perfect as possible and worthy of acceptance as a standard Anglo-Indian cla.s.sic.

LONDON

September, 1910.

No. I

WITH THE VICEROY

[August 2, 1879.]

It is certainly a little intoxicating to spend a day with the Great Ornamental. You do not see much of him perhaps; but he is a Presence to be felt, something floating loosely about in wide epicene pantaloons and flying skirts, diffusing as he pa.s.ses the fragrance of smile and pleasantry and cigarette. The air around him is laden with honeyed murmurs; gracious whispers play about the twitching bewitching corners of his delicious mouth. He calls everything by "soft names in many a mused rhyme." Deficits, Public Works, and Cotton Duties are trans.m.u.ted by the alchemy of his gaiety into sunshine and songs. An office-box on his writing-table an office-box is to him, and it is something more: it holds cigarettes. No one knows what sweet thoughts are his as Chloe flutters through the room, blushful and startled, or as a fresh beaker full of the warm South glows between his amorous eye and the sun.

"I have never known Praise of love or wine That panted forth a flood of twaddle so divine."

I never tire of looking at a Viceroy. He is a being so heterogeneous from us! He is the centre of a world with which he has no affinity. He is a veiled prophet. [He wears many veils indeed.] He who is the axis of India, the centre round which the Empire rotates, is absolutely and necessarily withdrawn from all knowledge of India. He lisps no syllable of any Indian tongue; no race or caste, or mode of Indian life is known to him; all our delightful provinces of the sun that lie off the railway are to him an undiscovered country; Ghebers, Moslems, Hindoos blend together in one indistinguishable dark ma.s.s before his eye, [in which the cataract of English indifference has not been couched; most delightful of all--he knows not the traditions of Anglo-India, and he does not belong to the Bandicoot Club, St. James's Square!]

A Nawab, whom the Foreign Office once farmed out to me, often used to ask what the use of a Viceroy was. I do not believe that he meant to be profane. The question would again and again recur to his mind, and find itself on his lips. I always replied with the counter question, "What is the use of India?" He never would see--the Oriental mind does not see these things--that the chief end and object of India was the Viceroy; that, in fact, India was the plant and the Viceroy the flower.

I have often thought of writing a hymn on the Beauty of Viceroys; and have repeatedly attuned my mind to the subject; but my inability to express myself in figurative language, and my total ignorance of everything pertaining to metre, rhythm, and rhyme, make me rather hesitate to employ verse. Certainly, the subject is inviting, and I am surprised that no singer has arisen. How can any one view the Viceroyal halo of scarlet domestics, with all the bravery of coronets, supporters, and shields in golden embroidery and lace, without emotion! How can the tons of gold and silver plate that once belonged to John Company, Bahadur, and that now repose on the groaning board of the Great Ornamental, amid a glory of Himalayan flowers, or blossoms from Eden's fields of asphodel, be reflected upon the eye's retina without producing positive thrills and vibrations of joy (that cannot be measured in terms of _ohm_ or _farad_) shooting up and down the spinal cord and into the most hidden seats of pleasure! I certainly can never see the luxurious bloom of the silver sticks arranged in careless groups about the vast portals without a feeling approaching to awe and worship, and a tendency to fling small coin about with a fine mediaeval profusion. I certainly can never drain those profound golden cauldrons seething with champagne without a tendency to break into loud expressions of the inward music and conviviality that simmer in my soul. Salutes of cannon, galloping escorts, processions of landaus, beautiful teams of English horses, trains of private saloon carriages (cooled with water trickling over sweet jungle gra.s.ses) streaming through the sunny land, expectant crowds of beauty with hungry eyes making a delirious welcome at every stage, the whole country blooming into dance and banquet and fresh girls at every step taken--these form the fair guerdon that stirs my breast at certain moments and makes me often resolve, after dinner, "to scorn delights and live laborious days," and sell my beautiful soul, illuminated with art and poetry, to the devil of Industry, with reversion to Sir John Strachey.

How mysterious and delicious are the cool penetralia of the Viceregal Office! It is the censorium of the Empire; it is the seat of thought; it is the abode of moral responsibility! What battles, what famines, what excursions of pleasure, what banquets and pageants, what concepts of change have sprung into life here! Every pigeon-hole contains a potential revolution; every office-box cradles the embryo of a war or dearth. What shocks and vibrations, what deadly thrills does this little thunder-cloud office transmit to far-away provinces lying beyond rising and setting suns! Ah! Vanity, these are pleasant lodgings for five years, let who may turn the kaleidoscope after us.

A little errant knight of the press who has just arrived on the Delectable Mountains, comes rushing in, looks over my shoulder, and says, "A deuced expensive thing a Viceroy." This little errant knight would take the thunder at a quarter of the price, and keep the Empire paralytic with change and fear of change as if the great Thirty-thousand-pounder himself were on Olympus.--ALI BABA.

No. II

THE A.D.C.-IN-WAITING

AN ARRANGEMENT IN SCARLET AND GOLD

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE A.D.C.-IN WAITING--"An arrangement in scarlet and gold."]

[August 9, 1879.]

The tone of the A.D.C. is subdued. He stands in doorways and strokes his moustache. He nods sadly to you as you pa.s.s. He is preoccupied with--himself, [some suppose; others aver his office.] He has a motherly whisper for Secretaries and Members of Council. His way with ladies is sisterly--undemonstratively affectionate. He tows up rajas to H.E., and stands in the offing. His att.i.tude towards rajas is one of melancholy reserve. He will perform the prescribed observances, if he cannot approve of them. Indeed, generally, he disapproves of the Indian people, though he condones their existence. For a brother in aiguillettes there is a Masonic smile and a half-embarra.s.sed familiarity, as if found out in acting his part. But confidence is soon restored with melancholy glances around, and profane persons who may be standing about move uneasily away.

An A.D.C. should have no tastes. He is merged in "the house." He must dance and ride admirably; he ought to shoot; he may sing and paint in water-colours, or botanise a little, and the faintest aroma of the most volatile literature will do him no harm; but he cannot be allowed preferences. If he has a weakness for very p.r.o.nounced collars and shirt-cuffs in mufti, it may be connived at, provided he be honestly nothing else but the man in collars and cuffs.

When a loud, joyful, and steeplechasing Lord, in the pursuit of pleasure and distant wars, dons the golden cords for a season, the world understands that this is masquerading, skittles, and a joke. One must not confound the ideal A.D.C. with such a figure.

The A.D.C. has four distinct aspects or phases--(1) the full summer sunshine and bloom of scarlet and gold for Queen's birthdays and high ceremonials; (2) the dark frock-coats and belts in which to canter behind his Lord in; (3) the evening tail-coat, turned down with light blue and adorned with the Imperial arms on gold b.u.t.tons; (4) and, finally, the quiet disguises of private life.

It is in the sunshine glare of scarlet and gold that the A.D.C. is most awful and unapproachable; it is in this aspect that the splendour of vice-Imperialism seems to beat upon him most fiercely. The Rajas of Rajputana, the diamonds of Golconda, the gold of the Wynaad, the opium of Malwa, the cotton of the Berars, and the Stars of India seem to be typified in the richness of his attire and the conscious superiority of his demeanour. Is he not one of the four satellites of that Jupiter who swims in the highest azure fields of the highest heavens?

Frock-coated and belted, he pa.s.ses into church or elsewhere behind his Lord, like an aerolite from some distant universe, trailing cloudy visions of that young lady's Paradise of bright lights and music, champagne, mayonnaise, and "just-one-more-turn," which is situated behind the flagstaff on the hill.

The tail-coat, with gold b.u.t.tons, velvet cuffs, and light blue silk lining, is quite a demi-official, small-and-early arrangement. It is compatible with a patronising and somewhat superb flirtation in the verandah; nay, even under the pine-tree beyond the _Gurkha_ sentinel, whence many-twinkling Jakko may be admired, it is compatible with a certain shadow of human sympathy and weakness. An A.D.C. in tail-coat and gold b.u.t.tons is no longer a star; he is only a fire-balloon; though he may twinkle in heaven, he can descend to earth. But in the quiet disguises of private life he is the mere stick of a rocket. He is quite of the earth. This scheme of clothing is compatible with the tenderest offices of gaming or love--offices of which there shall be no recollection on the re-a.s.sumption of uniform and on re-apotheosis.

An A.D.C. in plain clothes has been known to lay the long odds at whist, and to qualify, very nearly, for a co-respondentship.

In addition to furnishing rooms in his own person, an A.D.C. is sometimes required to copy my Lord's letters on mail-day, and, in due subordination to the Military Secretary, to superintend the stables, kitchen, or Invitation Department.

After performing these high functions, it is hard if an A.D.C. should ever have to revert to the buffooneries of the parade-ground or the vulgar intimacies of a mess. It is hard that one who has for five years been identified with the Empire should ever again come to be regarded as "Jones of the 10th," and spoken of as "Punch" or "Bobby"

by old boon companions. How can a man who has been behind the curtain, and who has seen _la premiere danseuse_ of the Empire practising her steps before the manager Strachey, in familiar chaff and talk with the Council ballet, while the little scene-painter and Press Commissioner stood aside with c.o.c.ked ears, and the privileged violoncellist made his careless jests--how, I say, can one who has thus been above the clouds on Olympus ever a.s.sociate with the gaping, chattering, irresponsible herd below?

It is well that our Ganymede should pa.s.s away from heaven into temporary eclipse; it is well that before being exposed to the rude gaze of the world he should moult his rainbow plumage in the Cimmeria of the Rajas. Here we shall see him again, a blinking _ignis fatuus_ in a dark land--"so shines a good deed in a naughty world" thinks the Foreign Office.--ALI BABA.

No. III

WITH THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

[August 16, 1879.]