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Cornell University Library 
 DS 413.T81 1866 
 
 The competition wallah / 
 
 3 1924 022 898 450 
 
THE 
 
 COMPETITION WALLAH. 
 
 BY 
 
 g/o. trevelyan, m.p. 
 
 SECOND EDITION, 
 WITH OMISSIONS AND C0EEECTI0N8. 
 
 ITonbirn anb Carabriiigt : 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 1866. 
 
 ('X ) 
 
 fJVie Bight of Translation is Heserved.] 
 
LONDON 
 
 E. CLAY, SON, ANll TAVLOR, PRINTERS, 
 
 BREAD STREET HILL. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 Those who read these letters with attention cannot 
 fail to perceive that my most earnest desire and most 
 cherished ambition is to induce Englishmen at home to 
 take a lively and effective interest in the native popula- 
 tion of their Eastern dominions ; and with that view to 
 lay before them a plain statement of the feeling which 
 is entertained towards the population by the European 
 settlers in India. This is a task which cannot be 
 undertaken by an anonymous writer. On a matter so 
 momentous evidence will not be received from a wit- 
 ness whose character and antecedents are unknown. 
 On all the great questions which now agitate Anglo- 
 Indian society the civilians and the settlers are at 
 odds : so that men naturally reject the testimony of 
 an author whom the larger half of his readers and 
 reviewers believe to be a civilian. The admiration 
 expressed in the fourth letter for the gallantry of Mac- 
 donell and Mangles, and the recital of the advantages 
 
vi PRUFAGE. 
 
 of a public career in India contained in the fifth, were 
 successively attributed to the predilection of the author 
 for his own Service. This was of little consequence : 
 but not so with the ninth letter, which exposes at 
 length the horrible tone adopted by a certain class of 
 Anglo-Indians regarding the murder of natives by 
 Europeans. This exposition consists almost entirely 
 of extracts from the Anglo-Indian journals themselves : 
 and yet it was styled " a burst of civilian hatred against 
 the Independent Settler " by no less a journal than 
 the Spectator, which had noticed the previous letters 
 most favourably and courteously. The tenth of the list 
 is chiefly an attack upon the proposed Criminal Con- 
 tract Law : the facts of which are drawn almost entirely 
 from the writings of the advocates of that law. Nothing 
 would have given me greater pleasure than a criticism, 
 however hostile, in the pages of the Spectatm', since 
 my dearest object is to excite the interest of the 
 English people in these questions so vital to India; 
 but the only notice bestowed upon me was that "the 
 " Competition Wallah is writing on a subject on which 
 " a civilian always loses his senses, and pleads his bro- 
 " therly affection for natives as a reason for his cousinly 
 " spitefulness to all settlers." 
 
PREFJCK vii 
 
 I am not a civilian, nor a prejudiced witness : for 
 having sailed from England in a state of such entire 
 ignorance with regard to Indian subjects as effectually 
 to preclude the very existence of prejudice, during 
 my first three months I lived much in the indigo dis- 
 trict; and my hosts and friends, whether official or 
 non-official, were for the most part advocates of the 
 Contract Law, and opposed to the policy of the Home 
 Government. By the end of that time I was a rabid 
 Anglo-Saxon. But, with increasing knowledge of the 
 country, my opinions underwent a gradual but complete 
 change. My faith in the principles of the anti-native 
 party was first shaken by the violence and ferocity of 
 the anti-native journals, the sure symptom of an unjust 
 and unhealthy cause. Nine months more, spent in 
 travel and study, and in free and familiar intercourse 
 with all classes of men, European and native alike, have 
 strengthened and confirmed those opinions which are 
 expressed at length in the latter half of this book. I 
 entreat adverse critics from this time forward not to 
 set down my sentiments to the score of civilian spite, 
 but to show that I am wrong in my facts ; that the 
 European settlers cherish a kindly feeling towards the 
 children of the soil ; that they speak and write of them 
 
viii PREFACE. 
 
 as equals in the eye of the law — as fellow-men and 
 fellow-subjects; that they do not stigmatise them as 
 " niggers," and treat them little better than such ; that 
 they do not regard as execrable hypocrisy the sentiment 
 that " we hold India for the benefit of the inhabitants 
 "of India." 
 
 Something has been added to the book, and something 
 altered. Much bad prose and worse rhyme has been 
 omitted from the earlier letters : and yet a great deal 
 remains so interwoven with more important matter that 
 it cannot be expunged, of which 1 am heartily ashamed 
 already, and expect to be still more ashamed in years 
 to come. Such, however, must be the case with every 
 young author, unless he be rarely precocious or uncom- 
 monly self-satisfied. It may be hoped that some pardon 
 will be granted to youth and inexperience, and some 
 to the excitement and emotion of one who has lived 
 among scenes of social oppression and injustice which 
 his readers have not known even by hearsay. These 
 letters will not have been written in vain if, by their 
 means, the natives of India obtain some portion of 
 English sympathy and English justice. 
 
 2, Clauges Street, 
 April, 1864. 
 
PEEFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. 
 
 The alterations and omissions in the Second Edition 
 aim at making this book not less faulty, but less un- 
 readable. I have struck out nothing that is merely 
 bad, but much that is dull. The only exception is 
 in the case of some remarks which have brought upon 
 their author the charge of religious bigotry, and of 
 spite towards the Catholic faith. My readers will, I 
 think, allow that religious bigotry is not my crying 
 sin. I do not, however, hesitate to expunge a passage 
 which -has given offence to men whom I deeply re- 
 spect, and whose claims for justice and tolerance I 
 shall ever support to the extent of my ability. 
 
 8, Gkosvenoe Ceesoent, 
 Se2>tember, 1865. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 LETTEH OF IXTKODUOTIOX ... . .1 
 
 LETTER I. 
 
 THE TAVO SYSTEMS . .... .... ti 
 
 LETTER II. 
 
 AX IXPI.VX KAILWAY ... ... 1!< 
 
 LETTER III. 
 
 ' A GOVKllXMEXT SCHOOL AND AN OPIUM FACTORY ... 41 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 A STOEY OF THE GltEAT MUTINY ..... 64 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 A JOUKNEY, A GRAND TDMASHA, AND THE TRUTH ABOUT THE 
 
 CIVIL SERVICE CAREER 94 
 
 LETTER VI. 
 
 A TIGER-PAETy IN NEPAUL 133 
 
xii CONTENXS. 
 
 LETTER VII. 
 
 PAGK 
 
 ABOUT CALCUTTA AND ITS CLIMATE ; \VrrH SUIIIOUS IXFEREXCF.K 167 
 
 LETTER VIIT. 
 
 ABOUT THE HINDOO CHAEACTEn ; fl-ITH DIOltESSIONS HOME 210 
 
 LETTER IX. 
 
 BRITISH TEMPER TOWARDS INDIA, BEFORE, DURING, AND SINCE 
 
 THE MUTINY . . ... . . ... 238 
 
 LETTER X. 
 
 CHRISTIANITY IN INDIA . . 282 
 
 LETTER XL and last. 
 
 EDUCATION IN INDIA SINCE 1835 ; WITH A MINUTE OF LORD 
 
 MACAULAY ... .... . . . . . 317 
 
LETTERS 
 
 COMPETITION WALLAH. 
 
 LETTER OF INTRODUCTION. 
 To the Editor of MacmillarCs Magazine. 
 
 Dear Sib, — Though feeling some hesitation in approach- 
 ing (metaphorically) the editorial sanctum, there are 
 occasions when diffidence is out of place ; and I think 
 that you will allow that this comes under that category. 
 But, without any further preface, I will plunge at once 
 in medias res, and teU you my whole story from the 
 very beginning. 
 
 The gentleman (and scholar), whom I wish to intro- 
 duce to your notice, is Mr. Henry Broughton, my earliest 
 and most attached friend. Throughout our school 
 career — which we passed together in the classic groves 
 and along the banks of Eadley — to call us Damon and 
 Pylades would have been to " damn with faint praise." 
 Together we chased the bounding ball ; together we 
 cleft the yielding wave ; together we studied ; together 
 we attended Divine worship ; together we should have 
 passed the hours of the night, had not the regulations 
 of that excellent institution confined us to our separate 
 cubicles. Our characters were admirably fitted to 
 supply what was wanting in the other. My mind was 
 
2 J)AMON AND Pl'LJDES. 
 
 of the class which developes late, and which, while it 
 gives abundant promise to the observant eye, too often 
 fails to be appreciated by those immediately around. His 
 reached its maturity early. I was the more thoughtful 
 and the intellectualler of the two ; he the more practical 
 and the quick-sighteder. I ofttimes found myself un- 
 able to express the high thoughts that welled inside 
 me ; while he carried off all the school-prizes. In the 
 fulness of time we followed each other to college — to 
 the college ennobled by more than one enduring world- 
 wide friendship — to the college of Tennyson and Henry 
 Hallam. In our new phase of life we were still as in- 
 timate as ever at heart, though, outwardly speaking, our 
 social spheres diverged. He lived with the men of action ; 
 I with the men of thought. He wrote and talked, wielded 
 the oar and passed the wine-cup, debated on the benches 
 of the Union high questions of international morality 
 and ecclesiastical government. I conversed with a few 
 kindred souls about, or pondered out in solitude, the 
 great problems of existence. I examined myself and 
 others on such points as these : Why were we born ? 
 Whither do we tend? Have we an instinctive con- 
 sciousness ? So that men would say, when they saw 
 me in the distance, " Why was Simkins born ? Is he 
 " tending hither ? Has he an instinctive consciousness 
 " that he is a bore ?" I gloried in this species of in- 
 tellectual persecution. I was the Socrates, Broughton 
 the Alcibiades, of the University. His triumphs may 
 be read in the Cambridge Calendar and the club-room 
 of First Trinity : mine are engraven deep in the minds 
 which I influenced aiid impressed with my own stamp. 
 However, to come to the point, as M^e were lounging in 
 
WHY MR. BROVGinON WE^iT OUT. 3 
 
 the cloisters of Neville's Court on an eveniiig in March, 
 1860, the conversation happened to turn on an Indian 
 career. Broughton spoke of it with his wonted enthu- 
 siasm, maintaining that the vital object to be looked 
 for in the choice of a line of life was to select one that 
 would present a succession of high and elevating in- 
 terests. I, on the contrary, was fired at the idea of 
 being placed with almost unlimited power among a 
 subject-race, which would look up to me for instruction 
 and inspiration. What a position for a philosopher ! 
 What for a philanthropist ! Above all, what for a 
 philosophic philanthropist ! We forthwith sent in our 
 names for the approaching competitive examination. 
 For the result of that examination 1 do not pretend to 
 account. Broughton, who was lamentably ignorant of 
 modern literature ; who was utterly unable to " give a 
 " brief summary of the opinions held by, and a sketch 
 " of the principal events in the life of Heraclitus, Dr. 
 " Darwin, Kant, or Giordano Bruno ;" — Broughton, 
 who, when asked for the original source of the quota- 
 tion, " When Greek meets Greek," said that when Greek 
 met Greek he probably inquired whether he intended 
 to vote for Prince Alfred, Jefferson Davis, the Duke of 
 Saxe Coburg, Panizzi, or any other man ; Broughton, I 
 say, passed third on the list, being beaten only by a* 
 student from Trinity College, Dublin, and a gentleman 
 educated at Eton, where he resided exactly three weeks, 
 and a private tutor's, with whom he passed seven years. 
 As for myself, I have since been convinced that au 
 examiner, whose name I willingly suppress, was shocked 
 by my advanced opinions on the destination and pro- 
 gress of our racn. This fact, together with a certain 
 b2 
 
4 WHY MR. SniKINS STAYED AT HOMS. 
 
 dash and freedom of style which continually peeps 
 through, and -which is more prone to disgust than to 
 fascinate those with whom my fate lies, sufficed to ex- 
 clude me from among the successful candidates. Our 
 readers may possibly have heard, when the fire burns 
 low on a winter night, and ghost-tale succeeds ghost- 
 tale, and the trembling circle draw closer in round the 
 blazing-hearth — on such an occasion my readers may 
 have heard a story of two friends who made a compact 
 in life that, if one of them died first, he should appear 
 to the other and disclose to him what he knew of the 
 secrets of the grave. While the result of the examina- 
 tion was still pending, we agreed, in imitation of these 
 friends, that, if one only of us survived the ordeal, he 
 should wi'ite to his home-staying comrade a fuU account 
 of his Indian experiences. Broughton has been true to 
 our contract ; and, knowing that you had formerly ex- 
 pressed your willingness to insert a production of his pen 
 (you may remember that your wish was conveyed in the 
 same letter in which you informed me — with thanks — 
 that you could not find space for my article on " The 
 "Subjectivity "of Buckle"), I determined to transmit 
 you his letters for publication. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 Triu. Coll. Cant. ChAELES SiMKINS, B.A. 
 
 « 
 
 P.S.— I send you under cover a trifle which has 
 occupied a few of my idle moments. It is somewhat in 
 the vein of Browning. If you think the imitation toe 
 pronounced, or if, on the other hand, the originality of 
 the little thing appears too marked to be graceful in a 
 young author, pray xio not hesitate to reject it. 
 
FIRST IMPRESSIONS. 
 
 LETTEE I. 
 
 THE TWO SYSTEMS. 
 
 Calcutta, Jan. 24, 1863. 
 
 Deae Simkins, — Indian travellers usually commence 
 their first letter by describing tbeii' earliest impression 
 upon landing in Calcutta. With some it is mosquitoes ; 
 with others, Warren Hastings ; while others, again, 
 seem divided between an oppressive consciousness of 
 heathendom and hot tiffins. My prevailing feeling wa.s 
 negative : it was the absence of Dundreary. The sense 
 of relief at being able to ask a question without being 
 told that it was "one of those things that no fellah- 
 "could understand," was at first delightfully soothing. 
 On the whole, the current English slang is at a discount 
 in the market here. 
 
 I did not write during the first fortnight, as I was in 
 very low spirits, and nothing encourages that state of 
 mind so much as trying to communicate it to others. 
 There is no doubt that the situation of a young civilian 
 has much in it that is very trying. His position is 
 precisely that of a new boy at school. I was continually 
 expecting to hear the familiar question, " Wliat's your 
 " name, you fellow ?" Nobody, however, seemed to care 
 enough about me to ask. There are so many young 
 civilians that older residents cannot afford to show them 
 attentions until they have earned themselves an indi- 
 viduality. Every one has been a " student " in his day. 
 
6 LONELINESS OF A YOUNG CIVILIAN. 
 
 with the same hopes, the same aspirations, the same 
 anxiety about passing in Persian. Just as the magnates 
 of undergraduate life at the University refuse to see in 
 an ardent freshman the future Craven Scholar or Mem- 
 ber's prizeman ; even so the judges of the High Court 
 and the Secretaries to Government are slow to extend 
 their favour and encouragement to budding Metcalfes 
 and possible John Peters. As a set-off, however, against 
 the insignificance of student life, there is the certainty 
 that each year will bring with it an increase in impor- 
 tance and social position. A civU servant of ten years' 
 standing, who has not plenty of friends and a suffi- 
 ciency of admirers, must either be singularly undeserv- 
 ing or exquisitely disagreeable. 
 
 The sensation of loneliness is much aggravated by the 
 present system of selecting and training the members of 
 . the Indian Civil Service. In old days a Writer came 
 out in company with a score of men who had passed 
 the last two years of their English life in the same 
 I quadrangle as himself He found as many more already 
 comfortably settled, and prepared to welcome and assist 
 their fellow collegian ; and, in his turn, he looked for- 
 ward to receiving and initiating a fresh batch at the end 
 of another six months. Haileybury formed a tie which 
 the vicissitudes of official life could never break. In 
 the swamps of Dacca, in the deserts of Eajpootana, 
 amidst the ravines and jungles where the Khoond and 
 the Santhal offer an intermittent but spirited opposition 
 to the advance of civilization and the permanent settle- 
 ment, wherever two Haileybury men met they had at 
 least one set of associations ia common. What matter 
 if one wore the frock-coat of the Board of Eevenue, 
 
EAILE7SVRY BSPRIT BT} CORPS. 
 
 while the other sported the jack-boots and solar topee 
 of the Mofussil Commissioner ? What matter though 
 Brown swore by the Contract Law and Sir Mordaunt 
 Wells, while Eobinson was suspected of having lent a 
 sly hand in pushing about the Nil Durpan ? Had they 
 not rowed together on the Lea 1 Had they not larked 
 together in Hertford ? Had they not shared that abun- 
 dant harvest of medals which rewarded the somewhat 
 moderate exertions of the reading-man at the East 
 Indian College ? This strong esprit de corps had its 
 drawbacks. The interests of the country were too often 
 postponed to the interests of the service. But the ad- 
 vantages of HaUeybury outweighed the defects. 
 
 Our situation is very different. Few of us are lucky 
 enough to have more than two or three acquaintances 
 among the men of our own years : and, while our 
 seniors persist in looking on us as a special class, we 
 have no bond of union among ourselves. At Cambridge 
 you must have observed that freshmen regard freshmen 
 with a peculiar suspicion and shyness ; and I some- 
 times think that it is the same with the novices of the 
 Civil Service. It is some time before we acquire the 
 aplomb, the absence of which characterises the reading- 
 man of the University. I use the word " aplomb " in 
 order to avoid your darling term " self-consciousness," 
 that treasured discovery of a metaphysical age. When 
 a man describes himself as " self-conscious," I always 
 think of the American fugitive bawling out to an of&cer 
 who attempted to rally his regiment, ''For Heaven's 
 " sake, do not stop me ; I am so fearfully demoralised." 
 The stories against the Competition Wallahs, which are 
 told and fondly believed by the Haileybury men, are all 
 
8 WALLAH STORIES. 
 
 more or less founded on the want of savoir faire.' 'A. 
 collection of these stories would be a curious proof of 
 the credulity of the human mind on a question of class 
 against class. They remind one of nothing so much as 
 of the description in " Ten Thousand a Year " of the 
 personal appearance, habits, and morals of the sup- 
 porters of the Eeform Bill. 
 
 For instance : 
 
 Story showing the Pride of Wallahs. — ^A Wallah being 
 invited to dinner by a member of Council, went out 
 before the whole company. 
 
 Story showing the Humility of Wallahs. — A Wallah, 
 on a visit to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, being 
 urged to sit down, replied that he knew his place better. 
 (Be it observed that the Lieutenant-Governor denies the 
 story with all its circumstances.) 
 
 Their want of familiarity with polite society. — A 
 Wallah, having occasion to write to the daughter of a 
 man high in office, addressed her as : 
 
 Miss White, 
 
 &c, &c. 
 
 Barrackpore. 
 Some anecdotes are more simple, such as : a Wallah, 
 riding on a horse, fell into a tank ; or, a WaUah, seeing 
 a rifle, thought it was a musket. 
 
 The idea entertained by the natives is droll enough : 
 they say that another caste of Englishmen has come 
 out. A common complaint among the magistrates and 
 commissioners up country is, that many of the young 
 men who have lately joined lack the physical dash and 
 the athletic habits that are so essential in India. When 
 
ATHLETIC HABITS ESSENTIAL. 9 
 
 some three or four Englishmen are placed over a pro- 
 vince as large as Saxony, an ofificer who cannot drive a 
 series of shying horses, or ride across country, is as use- 
 less as a judge who suffers from headache in a badly- 
 ventilated courthouse. A commissioner of Police told 
 me that on one occasion, when a district in Bengal was 
 in a very inflammable state on account of the Indigo 
 troubles, he marched up in hot haste with a strong 
 force, and requested the civil officer to meet him on the 
 way. To his ineffable disgust that gentleman came to 
 the rendezvous in a palanquin. It was not by travel- 
 ling about in palanquins that "Wake and Mangles and 
 their fellows, in the midst of a hostile population, with 
 small hope of succour, bore up against frightful odds 
 through the long months of the great mutiny. It is 
 impossible to believe that any class of Englishmen are 
 deficient in natural courage ; but familiarity with arms 
 and horses can only be acquired by men constantly 
 exercised in field sports; and to field sports the new 
 civilians are not addicted as a class. The individual 
 members of an imperial race settled in small numbers 
 throughout a subject population must be men of their 
 hands. What the Enniskilleners were in Ireland, what 
 the soldiers of Cortes were in Mexico, that are our 
 countrymen in India. It is well for a Mofussil civilian 
 that he should have cultivated tastes and extended 
 views ; but it is well likewise that he should be ready 
 at need to ride fifty miles on end without seeking for 
 road or bridge, and that in villages and bazaars of the 
 most evil reputation he should feel secure with a 
 favourite hogspear in his hand, and a double-barrelled 
 Purdey slung across his shoulders. 
 
Ill LIKEfriSK TKhGALITl'. 
 
 In the Earlier days of the new system stories were 
 frequently told against the competitioners, accusing them 
 of the grave crimes of frugality and foresight. One 
 competitioner had set up housekeeping with a dozen of 
 beer and a corkscrew. Another was seen walking with 
 his arm round his wife's waist in the bazaar. We no 
 longer hear anjiihing of this class of anecdotes, for the 
 plain reason that society has come round to the compe- 
 titioners, and acknowledged that they were in the right. 
 If a young couple in the first year of wedded life can- 
 not be happy without a carriage, their love can hardly 
 be so warm as to justify their marrying on three hun- 
 dred a year. Many of those who laughed loudest had 
 bitter reason to regret the want of the prudence which 
 they ridiculed. In old days, it was no uncommon thing 
 for men of advanced life and high standing in the Ser- 
 vice to be tormented with debts contracted during their 
 first eighteen months in the country. With minds of a 
 certain class, to have " turned your lac " — that is, to owe 
 ten thousand pounds — was conventionally supposed to 
 be a subject of mutual congi-atulation. Whether the 
 contemplation of that achievement afforded equal plea- 
 sure to the father of a large family down a vista of 
 thirty years may well be doubted. A civilian who has 
 the self-command to live within his income from the 
 very day on which he lands, after a very short time, 
 wUl never know what the want of money is. But to 
 live within his income is no easy thing for a student 
 within the Calcutta ditch. To him iced champagne is 
 as pleasant, and native hack-coaches are as dirty, and 
 promising colts in the last batch landed from the Cape 
 are as good bargains as to any collector and magistrate 
 
TURKiyO YOUR Lie. 11 
 
 in the receipt of nineteen hundred rupees a month. It 
 is sweet to quaff Moselle-cup on Sabbath afternoons in 
 the Botanical Gardens ; sweet to back one's opinion 
 with fifty gold moliurs within the palings of the Grand 
 Stand ; sweet — oh, passing sweet ! — to whisper soft 
 somethings in the ear of the beauty of the cold season 
 as you rein in your chafing Arab by her carriage on the 
 course. Facile is the descent of Avernus ; subservient 
 is the native banker ; easj^ is it, and withal somewhat 
 dignified, to borrow on official prospects. But it will 
 not be so pleasant a quarter of a century hence, when 
 Harry, poor fellow, has to be written to and told to give 
 up the Balliol Scholarship because you cannot afford to 
 pay his coUege-bills ; and Tom must be kept on at that 
 private school where he learns nothing, because Rugby 
 is too expensive ; and Margaret's marriage has to be put 
 oft another, and yet another year, because you cannot 
 .spare the couple of thousand for her settlements ; and, 
 worse than all, the little ones are growing paler and 
 more languid every month, but the fares of the P. and 
 0. are so heavy ; and that infernal Baboo is becolniing so 
 insolent ; and your head was not quite the thing last 
 hot season ; and mamma .... It is better to pinch a 
 little, while one is young and hopeful ; and the compe- 
 titioners have discovered this principle, and are acting 
 upon it honestly and well. 
 
 We must not close our eyes to the undoubted advan- 
 tages of competition. Short of competition, the old 
 system of appointment by individual directors is far the 
 best that ever was devised. A gentleman in very high 
 office out here, of great experience and excellent judg- 
 ment, proposes that the Secretaiy of State should name 
 
12 HOW TO CHOOSB TOUR CIFILIAK. 
 
 twice as many candidates as tliere are vacancies, and 
 that the half of these should be selected by a searching 
 competitive examination. But it is impossible for a 
 statesman, with his hands full of work, however well 
 disposed, to make, on his own judgment, a large number 
 of appointments. He must rely on the recommenda- 
 tion of others. He might, indeed, request the head- 
 masters of the great public schools to send in the names 
 of those of their best scholars who fancied an Indian 
 career — which, after all, would only be an irregular 
 competitive system under another name. But he would 
 he far more likely to ask members of parliament, who 
 were undecided which way to vote on the approaching 
 stand-and-fall question, to assist him with their valu- 
 able advice in making the nominations. The prizes of 
 the Civil Service are too rich to be placed in the lap of- 
 any one man. Suppose twenty vacancies, and a secretary 
 for India with free opinions on the matter of patronage. 
 What would be easier than to nominate twenty favoured 
 candidates, and twenty youths who had failed three 
 times running in the preliminary examination at Cam- 
 bridge ? The only chance for a man, without interest, 
 would be to feign extreme incapacity ; to get flogged at 
 school and plucked at college ; and then to burst on the 
 horror-struck examiners with a flood of unsuspected in- 
 formation and latent genius. It would be necessary to 
 imitate the elder Brutus, in order to deceive the Tarquin 
 of the India Ofiice. 
 
 Now, the system of appointment by directors worked 
 well, because it was founded on the principle of per- 
 sonal responsibility. Each member of the board wished 
 his protege to do him credit. He chose the most pro- 
 
ADVANTAQE OF THE OLD PLAN. 13 
 
 mising of his sons or nephews : and a public-spirited 
 man would often go further and nominate the most 
 likely young fellow of his acquaintance. The chief dis- 
 advantage lay in the fact that the lads, brought up in 
 Anglo-Indian families, and among Indian associations, 
 from an early age, looked upon India as their birth- 
 right, and failed to acquire the larger views and wider 
 interests of a general English education. Any one who 
 has observed boys closely cannot but remark the unfor- 
 tunate effect produced on a growing mind by a special 
 line of life constantly in prospect. 
 
 Is there, then, any plan which would unite the ad- 
 vantages of the old and the new systems? Why not 
 appoint men by open competition, between the ages of, 
 say, seventeen and nineteen, and afterwards send the 
 successful candidates to an East Indian College at or 
 near London ? By choosing your civilians at an earlier 
 age, you wUl get hold of a class who now slip through 
 your hands. A man of first-rate powers, who has once 
 tasted the sweets of university success, will never be 
 persuaded to give up his English hopes. By the time 
 he is five-and-twenty, when he has begun to estimate 
 his position truly, and to see that a Univerity scholar- 
 ship is not a certain step to the cabinet or the woolsack, 
 then, indeed, he would be glad enough to take the Civil 
 Service by the forelock. But at two-and-twenty, in the 
 full- conceit of a glorious degree, in the full view of a 
 Trinity or Merton fellowship, who would consent to 
 exchange the Common-room in esse, and Downing-street 
 in posse, for the bungalow and the cutcherry ? Warren 
 Hastings and Sir Charles Metcalfe were among the best 
 scholars of their time at Eton and Westminster. If 
 
14 A NEW HAILEYBUBT. 
 
 fhey had once worn the gown, once known what it was 
 to be the pets of the Union Society and the favourites 
 for the Medal among the knowing ones at the scholars' 
 table, they would have been lost for ever to India. 
 Under the existing system, such men are lost to her for 
 ever. Put the limit of age some three years earlier, and 
 you will have a fair chance of getting a Metcalfe every 
 other year, and a Hastings once in a decade. 
 
 Such a college as I propose would retain all that was 
 good in Haileybury, without its capital defect — an ex- 
 cessive esprit-de-corps, a way of thought too exclusi^'ely 
 Anglo-Indian. A set of lads, fresh from the great 
 public schools, imbued each with the traditions and 
 tone of the place in which he had been brought up, the 
 heroes of Bigside, the aristocracy of the Philathletio 
 Club at Harrow, would be in no danger of turning into 
 a community of young Quihyes. Future judges of the 
 Zillah Court, with livers as yet unenlarged, would drive 
 their eight-oar past the Plough with all the zeal of 
 Caius and something of the dash of Third Trinity. 
 Sucking assistant residents would vie with any in 
 acquiring that style, so exquisitely compounded of 
 Pope's " Odyssey " and Brady-and-Tate, which used to 
 characterise the Cambridge Prize Poem, until the heir 
 of England inspired the University lyre. Such an 
 institution would obviate all the defects in the present 
 system, that are so strongly felt both by its enemies 
 a,nd its well-wishers. It would again unite the members 
 of the Civil Service, in the most indissoluble of ties ; 
 and would prove an admirable corrective of a pedantic, 
 unpractical turn of mind, or of a sedentary effeminate 
 habit of body. The innate evils of a close college 
 
PROSODY ^•'' 
 
 would have no existence aiuoiig a society of young 
 fellows, picked by merit from the great places of educa- 
 tion, and. planted within easy reach of Lincoln's Inn and 
 Westminster Hall. 
 
 I have been very long and dull about my competi- 
 tioners, but it is consoling to think that you would 
 have been much duller. You may take your revenge 
 by writing eight sides upon any subject in which you 
 are interested, excepting only the American war and 
 the destinies of our race, provided that you prepay the 
 letter. My next shall be more amusing, as I start this 
 day week on a visit to my cousin, the collector and 
 magistrate of Mofussilpoor, in Bahar ; so that you shall 
 hear something of up-country life. Go on and prosper 
 in your mission of reforming society by your pen. I 
 have no doubt that, before many months are out, I 
 shall hear of your having left something so written that 
 the world will very willingly let it die. Be assured 
 that my affection for yourself, and my indifference to 
 your theories, continue unchanged. 
 
 ' ' JecuT, non animum mutaut qui trans mare currunt. " , 
 
 It is not worth while altering the line for your benefit, 
 as you never had a strong opinion on the question of 
 quantities. It has sometimes occurred to me that your 
 having fallen short of excellence as a writer of Latin 
 verse may be partially accounted for by your neglect of 
 
 prosody. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 H. Broughton. 
 
 P. S. You asked for a description of life on the over- 
 land route. I send you the prologue written for a play 
 
16 TUB OrEBLJND HOUTS. 
 
 we acted on board Captain Weston's ship, the Nemesis, 
 on the evening of the day on which we stopped at the 
 coral island of Minnicoy, to pay a visit to the poor 
 people who had been wrecked in the " Colombo " some 
 six weeks before. It will tell you as much as it is good 
 for you to know about the habits and pastimes of the 
 "P. and 0." traveUers. 
 
 Fair dames, whose easy-chairs in goodly row 
 Fringe either bulwark of the P. and ; 
 Whose guardian angels with auspicious gales 
 Swell the hrood hosom of our outward sails, 
 Or, as a metaphor more strictly true, 
 Direct the revolutions of our screw ; 
 As the long day wears on, and nothing hrings 
 To hreak the dull monotony of things, 
 No fresh delight, no genial Christmas fun, 
 Save water-ices or a casual bun, 
 Just like our watches, as we eastward go 
 We're growing slower still and yet more slow. 
 
 In search of sport these join the circle full 
 That smokes and lounges round the game of " Bull," 
 Chaff if Smith get a B, and marvel when 
 Jones, flushed with triumph, scores a lucky ten. 
 
 Those train their muscles, spite of bruise and rub. 
 With two old dumb-bells and a broken club. 
 And, like trae heroes, undergo in play 
 Work that were cheap at five rupees a day. 
 
 Some loftier natures coxirt a nobler care, 
 And sit in judgment on the bill of fare. 
 Sigh for fresh butter and abuse the ghee, 
 Sneer at the ox-tail soup and praise the pea. 
 And for discussion find a boundless field 
 In Irish stew hermetically sealed. 
 
 Then blame us not if we exert our powers 
 To charm away ennui some two short hours. • 
 Excuse our faults. For time most sorely prest 
 We've done but roughly, though we've done our best. 
 To dye our lover's waistcoat in a hurry 
 We stole a spoonful of the purser's curry. 
 
QUIS SEPARABIT? IT 
 
 And left the after-dinner wine and fig 
 
 To pick the hemp that forma our viUaiu's wig. 
 
 Is there one here who, when his spu'its droop, 
 Eecalls his broken slumbers on the poop ; 
 Roused from the rugged plank on which he lay 
 By humid Lascars ere the break of day ? 
 Is there a maid who lives in nightly dread 
 Lest some dire cockroach drop from overhead. 
 And in the fevered fancies of her sleep 
 Sees the foul insect towards her pQlow creep ? 
 Let them to-night, while laughing tiU they cry, 
 Lay cares and cockroaches and Lascars by. 
 If thoughts of those we left on Minuicoy 
 Infuse some bitters in our cup of joy, 
 Let us at least this consolation rest on, 
 Through their mishap we sail with Captain Weston. 
 
 Wliile friends at home through dank Tybumia's fog. 
 Their flanks protected by a trusty dog, 
 A stout alpaca o'er their shoulders spread, 
 Alert and armed, are marching back to bed, 
 And scheming to avoid, as best they can, 
 The fell embraces of "the nasty man ;"^ 
 Here shall the mermaids who pursue in play 
 Our track of phosphor stretching nules away, 
 "WTien burst of merriment and jocund stave 
 Come floating by across the Indian wave. 
 Cock up their tails and cry, "Full well we know 
 " Some lark's afloat on board the P. and 0." 
 
 1 This is the professional title of the gentleman who actually gives 
 the hug. 
 
ENGLISH IQNORANCE OF INDIA. 
 
 LETTER IL 
 
 AN INDIAN KAILWAY. 
 
 Bankipoeb, alias Patna, 
 Feb. 7, 1863. 
 
 Dear Simeins, — ^A man gains more new ideas, or, which 
 comes to the same, gets rid of more old ones, within 
 his first month on Indian soil than during any equal 
 period of his life. It is consequently very hard for him 
 to realize that many things, which are familiar to him- 
 self, are strange to his English correspondents. A 
 dashing comedy by Mr. Tom Taylor, with life in an 
 up-country station for its subject, in the style of "the 
 " Overland Eoute," would do more to unite the sympa- 
 thies of England and India than the Eed Sea Telegraph, 
 or the Ai-my Amalgamation Scheme. A few days before 
 my departure a youth of that class which you persist in 
 alluding to as " our mutual friends," who had already 
 undergone the rite of ordination, and might therefore be 
 considered qualified to impart instruction to his fellow- 
 men, asked whether I should not be a full fortnight oij 
 the voyage between England and Calcutta! On the 
 same occasion, a gentleman much distinguished in the 
 University Curriculum was speaking of a friend in 
 Bengal who had been pushed forward by " a man called 
 
PUCKA. 19 
 
 " Grant." I inquii-ed, " Do you refer to Sir John Peter?" 
 " I don't know about that," he replied, " but I am sure 
 " that the man's name was Grant." The effect of this 
 out here is much the same as that which would be pro- 
 duced at home by hearing Lord Monteagle descrilied 
 as having been ia old days " a ilr. Eice," or Lord 
 Lp'eden spoken of as "formerly Smith of the Board 
 " of Control" 
 
 But it is not only the absence of ideas in commnn 
 that renders correspondence an arduous task. Almost 
 as serious an obstacle is the want, so to speak, of a 
 common language. Anglo- Indians are, naturally enough, ' 
 wont to interlard their conversation with native words, 
 though this is the case less in Calcutta than elsewhere. 
 The habit is so universal that a Governor-General fresh 
 from home complained ia a published order that he 
 could not understand the reports of his own officials. 
 An Englishman may keep his ground in Parisian salons, 
 and pass for a very sensible, intelligent fellow, by a 
 copious though judicious use of "par exemple." In the 
 same war, a man who is a thorough master of the word 
 " Pucka," may hold his own in any society in India. 
 " Pucka " literally means " ripe," and is used to express 
 the notion of perfection and completeness. A man who 
 is good at all points, whom Aristotle would have deno- 
 minated " a cube without blame," is more concisely 
 described out here as "pucka." A permanent barrack is 
 " pucka," as opposed to a thatched hut. The arrange 
 ments for a shooting party are " pucka " when the pale 
 ale does not run short, and the bore of the station is 
 prevented from coming by an attack of dysentery. 
 
 The adjectives or verbs wliich are imported into con- 
 c 2 
 
20 BELATTEE PAVNEE. 
 
 versatiou from native sources are comparatively few ; 
 but, in the case of names of things, the English word is 
 
 / often entirely shoved out of the field. All India outside 
 the Mahratta Ditch is the Mofussil; Sport is always 
 
 X, Shikar ; and an Order always a Hookum. A civilian 
 of old standing, who was desirous of pleasing me by 
 praising my University, told me that the " compounds " 
 of some of the colleges were charming. The same gen- 
 tleman complained that, when he was travelling on the 
 Continent during his furlough, he found it impossible to 
 avoid mixing up Hindustani with his French or German. 
 On one occasion he astonished an ardent imperialist, 
 with whom he was holding a dispute in a railway car- 
 riage, by exclaiming, "Ah, Tnonsieur, voire Empereur 
 " n'est pas pucka du tout, du tout, du tout ! " There 
 is nothing that enchants people out here so much as 
 the mistakes in the languages made by new arrivals. 
 The native name for soda-water is Belattee Pawnee, 
 which, being interpreted, means, " English water." This 
 arises from an idea which prevails in the Hindoo mind 
 that it is the ordinary water of the English rivers bottled 
 for exportation. Never shall I forget the enthusiastic 
 delight occasioned by my tallcing of " bi-carbonate of 
 " Belattee." In fact, a charitably-disposed grif&n will 
 not unfrequently commit intentional inaccuracies in 
 order to give the greatest possible amount of pleasure 
 with the least expenditure of wit. A young officer 
 lately convulsed a dinner-table by proclaiming that he 
 was going to shoot tigers in the Cummerbunds — a 
 triumph which was afterwards dimmed by a competi- 
 tioner, who stated that at one time it had been his 
 intention to have taken hookums. The natives have 
 
SIM KIN. 21 
 
 met us halfway in the matter of language. I am told 
 that the current Hindustani has been much anglicized 
 within the last twenty years. Besides borrowing tlie 
 form of the sentences, they have adopted many of our 
 ■words, and altered them in the most curious manner to 
 suit their own effeminate pronunciation. This is ordi- 
 narily done by the insertion of a vowel before our 
 harsher combination of consonants. Thus, " Tank 
 " Square " becomes " Tanky Square," and " Stewed Duck " 
 " Ducky stew." " Champagne " seems to have troubled 
 them most. They have turned it into your singular, 
 and call it " Simkin." 
 
 Towards the end of last month I applied for, and 
 obtained, six weeks' leave, after passing in the first of 
 my two languages. It is a fact worthy of note, that 
 the men who fail are very generally dissatisfied with 
 the manner in which this examination is conducted, 
 while the men who S'Ucceed seem, on the whole, in- 
 clined to think that there is not much amiss. On the 
 evening of the 31st I left Calcutta by traia, with the 
 intention of living a week at Patna with Major Eatclifl'e, 
 who is on special duty there, and then passing the rest 
 of my leave with my cousin, Tom Goddard, at Mofus- 
 silpore. EatcHffe is a Bengal Club acquaintance, who 
 gave me first a general, and then a most particular 
 invitation to stay with him up country. There is 
 something stupendous in the hospitality of India. It 
 appears to be the ordinary thing, five minutes after a 
 first introduction, for people to ask you to come and 
 spend a month with them. And yet there is a general 
 complaint that the old good-fellowship is going out 
 fast ; that there are so many Europeans about of ques- 
 
2:i A CONTRAST 
 
 •tionable position and most unquestionable breeding, that 
 it is necessary to know something of a man besides the 
 colour of his skin before admitting him into the bosom 
 of a family. 
 
 There is something very interesting in a first railway 
 journey in Bengal. Never was I so impressed with the 
 triumphs of progress, the march of mind. In fact, all 
 the usual common-places genuinely filled my soul. 
 Those two thin strips of iron, tepresenting as they do 
 the mightiest and the most fruitful conquest of science, 
 stretch hundreds and hundreds of miles acros.s the 
 boundless Eastern plains — rich, indeed, in material pro- 
 ducts, but tilled by a race far below the most barbarous 
 of Europeans in all the qualities that give good hope 
 for the future of a nation — ^through the wild hiUs of 
 Eajmahal, swarming with savage beasts, and men more 
 savage than they ; past Mussulman shrines and Hindoo 
 temples ; along the bank of the great river that cannot 
 be bridged, whose crocodiles fatten on the corpses which 
 superstition still supplies to them by hundreds daily. 
 Keep to the line, and you see everywhere the unmis- 
 takable signs of England's handiwork. There are the 
 colossal viaducts, spanning wide tracts of pool and 
 sandbank, which the first rains will convert into vast 
 torrents. There are the long rows of iron sheds, with 
 huge engines running in and out of them with that 
 indefiniteness of purpose which seems to characterise 
 locomotives all over the world. There is the true 
 British stationmaster, grand but civil on ordinary occa- 
 sions, but bursting into excitement and ferocity when 
 things go wrong, or when his will is disputed; who 
 fears nothing human or divine, except the daily press. 
 
PJRTIALITY OF HINDOOS FOR THE RAIL. 23 
 
 There is the refreshment-room, with its half-crown 
 dinner that practically always costs five and ninepence. 
 Stroll a hundred yards from the embankment, and all 
 symptoms of civilization have vanished. You find 
 yourself iu the midst of scenes that Arrian might have 
 witnessed ; among manners unchanged by thousands of 
 years — unchangeable, perhaps, by thousands more. The 
 gay bullocli-litter bearing to her wedding the bride of 
 four years old ; the train of pilgrims, their turbans and 
 cummerbunds stained with pink, carrying back the 
 water of the sacred stream to their distant homes ; the 
 filthy, debauched beggar, whom all the neighbourhood 
 pamper like a bacon-hog, and revere as a Saint Simeon 
 — these are sights which have very little in common 
 with Didcot or Crewe Junctioit 
 
 A station on an Indian line affords much that is 
 amusing to a curious observer. Long before the hour 
 at which the train is expected, a dense crowd of natives 
 collects outside the glass-doors, dressed in their brightest 
 colours, and in a wild state of excitement. The Hin- 
 doos have taken most kindly to railway-travelling. It 
 is a species of locomotion which pre-eminently suits 
 their lazy habits ; and it likewise appeals to their love 
 of turning a penny. To them every joiu'ney is a petty 
 speculation. If they can sell their goods at a distance 
 for a price which wUl cover the double fare, and leave a 
 few pice over, they infinitely prefer sitting still in a 
 truck to earning a much larger sum by genuine labour. 
 A less estimable class of men of business, who are said 
 to make great use of the railway, are the dacoits, who 
 travel often sixty or seventy miles to commit their vil- 
 lanies, in order to escape the observation of the police 
 
24 CLAUb AlSD (jAUTh. 
 
 iu their own district. Every native carries a parcel of 
 some sort or kind; and it often happens that a man 
 brings a bundle so large that it cannot be got in at the 
 door. 
 
 At length the barrier is opened, and the passengers 
 are admitted in small parties by a policeman, who 
 treats them with almost as little courtesy as is shown 
 to Cook's tourists by a Scotch railway official. When 
 his turn comes to buy a ticket, your true Hindoo 
 generally attempts to make a bargain with the clerk, 
 but is very summarily snubbed by that gentleman ; 
 and, after an unsuccessful effort to conceal a copper 
 coin, he is shoved by a second policeman on to the 
 platform, where he and his companions discuss the 
 whole proceeding at great length and with extraordinary 
 warmth. 
 
 Natives almost invariably travel third-class. At one 
 time a train used to run consisting entirely of first and 
 third-class carriages. Every first-class passenger was 
 entitled to take two servants at third-class prices. It 
 was no uncommon thing for well-to-do natives to en- 
 treat an English traveller to let them call themselves 
 his servants for the sake of the difference in the fares. 
 ' The most wealthy Hindoos would probably go first-class 
 if it were not for a well-founded fear of the Sahibs ; and 
 therefore they ^hare the second-class with our poorer 
 countrymen.^'^ In fact, in spite of the fraternity and 
 equality which exist in theory between the subjects of 
 our beloved Queen, the incompatibility of manners is 
 such that English ladies could not use the railway at 
 all if native gentlemen were in the constant habit of 
 travelling in the same compartment If you ask how 
 
TRE SAHIB ON A JOURNEY. 26 
 
 our countrymen manage to appropriate to themselves 
 the first-class carriages without a special regulation to 
 that effect, I ask you in return, How is it that there are 
 no tradesmen's sons at Eton or Harrow ? There is no 
 law, written or unwritten, which excludes them from 
 those schools, and yet the boys take good care that if 
 one comes he shall not stay there very long. 
 
 To return to the scene at our station. Suddenly, in 
 the rear of the crowd, without the gates, there arises a 
 great hubbub, amidst which, from time to time, may be 
 distinguished an imperious, sharp-cut voice, the owner 
 of which appears to show the most lordly indifference 
 to the remarks and answers made around him. A few 
 moments more, after some quarrelling and shoving 
 about, the throng divides, and down the lane thus 
 formed stalks the Sahib of the period, in all the glory 
 of an old flannel shirt and trousers, a dirty alpaca coat, 
 no collar, no waistcoat, white canvas shoes, and a vast 
 pith helmet. Behind him comes his chief bearer, with 
 a cash-box, a loading-rod, two copies of the SaUirday 
 Review of six months back, and three bottles of soda- 
 water. Then follows a long team of coolies, carrying 
 on their heads a huge quantity of shabby and nonde- 
 script luggage, including at least one gun-case and a 
 vast shapeless parcel of bedding. On the portmanteau 
 you may stiU read, ia very faint white letters, " Cal- 
 " cutta. Cabin." The Sahib, with the freedom and easy 
 insolence of a member of the Imperial race, walks 
 straight into the sacred inclosure of the clerk's office, 
 and takes a ticket, at five times the price paid by his 
 native brethren. Meanwhile, his bearer disposes the 
 luggage in a heap, rewards the coolies on a scale which 
 
26 ON THE PLATFORM. 
 
 seems to give them profound discontent, and receives a 
 third-class ticket from his master's hand with every 
 mark of the most heartfelt gratitude. If there happen 
 to be another Sahib on the platform, the two fall to 
 talking on the extreme badness of the road in the dis- 
 trict made by the Supreme Government, as opposed to 
 those constructed by the local authorities. If he is 
 alone, our Sahib contemplates the statement of offences 
 committed against the railway rules and regulations, 
 and the penalties inflicted, and sees with satisfaction 
 that his own countrymen enjoy the privilege of being 
 placed at the head of the list, which generally runs 
 somewhat thus : — 
 
 " John Spinks, formerly private in the — th Foot, 
 " was charged before the magistrate of Howrah, with 
 " being drunk and disorderly on the Company's pre- 
 " mises, in which state he desired the station-master to 
 " run a special train for him, and on this being refused, 
 " he assaulted that official, and grievously wounded 
 " three native policemen. On conviction, he was sen- 
 " fenced to three months' imprisonment." 
 
 " David "Wilkins, who described himself as a pro- 
 " fessional man, was charged with being drunk and 
 " disorderly, and with refusing to leave a railway car- 
 " riage when requested to do so. He was reprimanded 
 " and discharged." 
 
 Then comes a long series of native misdemeanours, 
 chiefly consisting in riding with intent to defraud. 
 
 At length the train arrives. As the traffic is very 
 large, and there is only a single line (though the bridges 
 and viaducts have been built for a double line), the 
 tiains are necessarily composed of a great number of 
 
THE TRAIN. 27 
 
 trucks. First, perhaps, come eight or ten second-class 
 carriages, full of pale panting English soldiers, in their 
 shirt-sleeves. Then one first-class, of which the cowpe 
 is occupied hy a young couple going to an appointment 
 up-country. They have become acquainted during the 
 balls and tiffins of the cold season at Calcutta, and 
 were married at the end of it. Perhaps they may never 
 see it again until the bridegroom, who seems a likely 
 young fellow, is brought down from the Mofussil to be 
 put into the Secretariat. They have got a happy time 
 before them. India is a delightful country for the first 
 few years of married life. Lovers are left very much 
 to themselves, and are able to enjoy to the full that 
 charmingly selfish concentration of affection which 
 is sometimes a little out of place in general society. 
 When the eldest child must positively go home before 
 the next hot season, and ought to have gone home 
 before the last — when aunts, and grandmothers, and 
 schoolmistresses at Brighton, and agents in London 
 have to be corresponded with — then troubles begin to 
 come thick. The next compartment is fiUed by a family 
 party — a languid, bilious, mother; a sickly, kindly, 
 indefatigable nurse ; and three little ones sprawling on 
 the cushions in different stages of undress. In the 
 netting overhead are plentiful stores of bottles of milk, 
 bread and butter, and toys. Poor things ! What an 
 age a journey from Calcutta to Benares must seem at 
 four years old! In the third compartment are two 
 Sahibs smoking, who have filled every corner of the 
 carriage with their bags and trunks, the charge for 
 luggage in the van being preposterously high out here. 
 Our Sahib, who is too good-natured to disturb the 
 
28 TBIRB-CLASS PASSENGERS. 
 
 lovers, and who has no great fancy for children as fellow- 
 travellers, through the dust and glare of a journey in 
 India, determines to take up his quarters with the last- 
 mentioned party. The two gentlemen object very 
 strongly to being crowded, although there is full room 
 for eight passengers ; but our Sahib is a determined 
 man, and he soon establishes himself, with aU his be- 
 longings, as comfortably as circumstances wiU admit, 
 and before very long the trio have fraternized over 
 Manilla cheroots and the Indigo question. Behind the 
 first-class carriage come an interminable row of third- 
 class, packed to overflowing with natives in high ex- 
 hilaration, stripped to the waist, chattering, smoking 
 hubble-bubbles, chewing betel-nut, and endeavouring to 
 curry favour with the guard — for your true native never 
 loses an opportunity of conciliating a man in authority. 
 Though there does not appear to be an inch of room 
 available, the crowd of new comers are pushed and 
 heaved in by the station-master and his subordinates, 
 and left to settle down by the force of gravity. In 
 an incredibly short space of time the platform is 
 cleared ; the guard bawls out something that might 
 once have borne a dim resemblance to " aU right be- 
 " hind," the whistle sounds, and the train moves on at 
 the rate of twenty-five miles an hour, including stop- 
 pages. 
 
 If one of the pleasures of travel be to find a precon- 
 ceived notion entirely contradicted by the reality, that 
 pleasure I enjoyed to the full at Patna. A city of 
 nearly three hundred thousand inhabitants, the capital 
 of an immense province, one of the earliest seats of 
 Batavian commerce, connected with the history of our 
 
THE IDEAL. 29 
 
 race by tlie most melanclioly and glorious associations ; 
 — I expected to pass through a succession of lofty streets, 
 of temples rich with fretwork, of bazaars blazing with 
 the gorgeous fabrics of the Eastern loom ; in fact, through 
 such a scene as you described in your unsuccessful 
 prize poem upon "Delhi." Somewhere in the centre 
 of this mass of wealth and magnificence I depicted to 
 myself a square or crescent of architecture less florid 
 than elsewhere, but more nearly approaching to Euro- 
 pean ideas of comfort. This was to be the quarter 
 appropriated to the English residents. Here were to 
 be their shops and factories, their courts, their offices, 
 and the churches of their various persuasions. Such 
 was the picture which I had composed in about equal 
 proportions from the " Arabian Nights " and Macaulay's 
 Essay on Lord Clive. Now for the original. 
 
 We were due at Patna at 2 p.m., and, punctual to 
 the time, the engine slackened its pace. There were 
 no signs of a town to be seen ; nothing but a large col- 
 lection of mud huts standing in small untidy gardens, 
 and shaded by a great number of trees. We arrived 
 at the station, and I alighted, and collected my things 
 — a course of conduct which appeared to excite some 
 surprise among the English passengers, none of whom 
 left the carriages. The natives got out in herds, and 
 the platform was instantly covered with a noisy multi- 
 tude, who surged round my baggage, which I had placed 
 in front of me as a species of breakwater. After some 
 minutes the train moved off, and the station-master 
 came up and demanded my ticket. I asked him 
 whether I could get a conveyance to take me to Major 
 Eatcliffe's. "No. There were no conveyances at the 
 
30 THE ACTUAL. 
 
 "station." Would he send some one to the nearest 
 hotel to order me a fly ? " Quite impossible. The 
 " nearest hotel was at Dinapore, twelve mUes off." At 
 length, the awful truth began to dawn upon my be- 
 wildered intellect. Patna was the native town ; Banki- 
 pore, the civU station, was six miles farther on; and 
 Dinapore, the military station, six miles again beyond 
 that. The railway people were very civil, and procured 
 a couple of bullock-carts for my luggage. As it was so 
 early 'in the day, there was nothing for it but to wait at 
 least three hours before the sun was low enough to 
 allow me to venture on a six-mile walk ; and an Indian 
 waiting-room is a perfect black-hole of duhiess. In a 
 road-side station at home, there are a few objects out of 
 which an intensely active mind may extract some par- 
 ticles of amusement. First, there is the Bible provided 
 by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, for 
 the edification of people who may have missed the train 
 — a circumstance not generally conducive to a devotional 
 state of feeling. On the fly-leaf you find something of 
 this sort : — 
 
 ' You who upon this holy book 
 With Eeverenshal eyes do look, 
 Seek for and gladly pluck the fruit 
 Contained within this holy truth. 
 
 (Signed) John Hopkins, 
 
 Aged 28, 
 Little Marlow, 
 Near Boston, 
 Lincolnshire." 
 
A WAITING-RGOM IN ENGLAND. 31 
 
 Then, in another hand : 
 
 " The Bible does not need the recommendation of John 
 " Hopkins, aged 28." 
 
 The writer of this last sentence appears to be the local 
 Voltaire, for he is attacked in a series of appeals to his 
 conscience, all more or less illegible, for the most part 
 commencing, " Scoffer — ." Then, in the absence of 
 a refreshment-room, you may feast your mental palate 
 on the list of perishable articles in the tariff of goods — 
 " Eggs, Fruit, Fish, Game ; " or you may shudder over 
 the diabolical character of the man who can transmit 
 " Phosphorus, Gunpowder, Lucifer-matches, or other 
 " Combustible Articles," without declaring the nature of 
 the package. Finally, you can walk iuto the village, 
 and examine the small shelf of books which are kept 
 for sale at the general shop ; where the mistress of the 
 establishment, in answer to your request for something 
 new, offers you " Uncle Tom's Cabin," with the assurance 
 that a gentleman told her that it was " quite the go in 
 "London now-adays." I had nothing to beguile the 
 time except the conversation of a stoker in a state of 
 what I once saw described in a novel by a female 
 hand as "doubtful ebriety :" — a mistake in etymological 
 analogy, for M'hich I had been prepared a few pages 
 before, by finding a misogynist called a " woman'.hrope." 
 I abandoned myself accordingly to my own reiiections, 
 which, as there was nothing to reflect. ?con became 
 sufficiently dull; the only point which actively occu- 
 pied my mind being the extreme helplessness of a stray 
 European in India. His way of life is so essentially 
 different from that of the population, that the country 
 
32 EEIPLESSNESS OF A STRAY EUROPEAN. 
 
 outside the European stations might as well be desert 
 for all the accommodation it can afford him. He 
 cannot eat the ordinary native food, or sleep under a 
 X^native roof. The serais, or inns, are mere jBlthy sheds ; 
 and he might walk through miles of bazaar without 
 seeing an article which would add to his comfort. 
 Fortunately, no Englishman of decent habits and trust- 
 worthy character need long be an outcast in Bengal. 
 
 As soon as the evening shades began to prevail I 
 proceeded to take up my wondrous tail, which consisted 
 of two curious bullock-cars — so contrived that by great 
 skill it was possible to place in them about one-fifth 
 of the weight which the animals could draw — and three 
 coolies, each conveying with apparent ease half again 
 as much as both the vehicles together. Our way lay at 
 first through groves of palms, and patches of poppy and 
 various sorts of lentil, interspersed with wretched mud 
 huts, at the doors of which numbers of children were 
 intently engaged in the only recreation indulged in by 
 the Hindoo infant, that of making dirt-pies. I was 
 much impressed by the portentous development of 
 stomach among the younger ones, and by their dress, 
 which consisted simply of a strip of red tape, which I 
 presumed to be a delicate compliment to the Imperial 
 Government. However, their wrists and ankles were 
 covered with silver ornaments ; in consequence of 
 which custom the decoying and murdering of children 
 is one of the most common crimes out here. Alon? 
 the gutters wandered the hideous foul Indian pig. It 
 is only necessary to watch the habits of the animal for 
 five minutes to understand why the eaters of swine- 
 flesh are held unclean throughout the East. In this 
 
A VILLAGE IN BAHAR. 33 
 
 respect Englishmen have adopted what is generally 
 looked upon as an Oriental prejudice ; and no pork 
 appears on a Calcutta table except such as has been 
 sty-fed by hands in which the host reposes the most 
 perfect confidence. Add a few bullocks sprawling in a 
 roadside pool ; a few thin-legged peasants half-dressed 
 in a single garment of coarse cotton, sitting on their 
 haunches in an attitude which can be imitated by no 
 European who is not a practised athlete, sharing the 
 alternate pipe, or cleaning their teeth with a bit of stick, 
 the end of which they have previously chewed into a 
 brush; a few slim mysterious poles of about twelve 
 feet high, ornamented with bits of coloured rag ; a few- 
 pariah dogs ; and not a few smells ; and you will have 
 a very fair notion of a village in Bahar. But where are 
 the graceful maidens with pitchers balanced on their 
 stately heads ? Where are the lovely daughters of Hin- 
 dustan, from whom Southey drew his conception of the 
 charming heroine of the Curse of Kehama ? Echo, alas ! 
 answers: "In the zenanas of wealthy baboos." At 
 any rate, they are not to be seen on the roads. In fact 
 the village women are so stunted and unattractive that, 
 so far from appreciating the taste of those Sahibs in 
 whose eyes they have occasionally obtained favour, one 
 finds it difficult to imagine how they ever find husbands 
 among their own people. 
 
 After a time we got into the main line of bazaar, 
 which extends from the farther extremity of the city of 
 Patna to the English station of Bankipore. Do not let 
 the name "bazaar" conjure up reminiscences of the 
 Pantheon, or the fond infantile associations which 
 cluster round the corner of Soho Square, or those sub- 
 
 D 
 
34 A BJZAJIR. 
 
 terraneous chambei.s wiiieli Icirm tlie basement of the 
 chaste and classical gallery of Tussaud — that unfre- 
 quented fancy-mart where, at the unwonted apparition 
 of a visitor, the stallkeepers duck under the counters 
 as rabbits disappear at the approach of a man in tight 
 corduroy tro\isers and an old velveteen coat. An Indian 
 bazaar is a narrow street of one-storied hovels, each 
 with a small verandah, of which the floor is raised 
 about two feet above the level of the road. The fronts 
 are generally of wood, carved in tawdry patterns, dirty 
 beyond anything that cold western imaginations can 
 conceive. Into the filth and darkness of the inner 
 room behind the shop no European, save a police- 
 officer, or a sanitary commissioner, would dare to pene- 
 trate. The proprietor sits in the verandah surrounded 
 by his stock-in-trade, which consists of a dozen bags of 
 various sorts of grain ; or as many baskets of sweetmeats, 
 made of sugar and rancid butter ; or three or foixr 
 pounds' worth of silver anklets and charms ; or a few 
 piles of coloured handkerchiefs of the coarsest English 
 manufacture. There is very little difference between 
 the appearance of the town and country populations, 
 and an utter absence of the picturesque costumes which, 
 in the markets of Cairo and Alexandria, almost realize 
 our ideas of the Bagdad of Haroun Alraschid. 
 
 There were already some ten minutes of daylight left 
 when I arrived on a scene which amply repaid me for 
 the dust and discomfort of the preceding hour and a 
 half. On the left of the road lay an expanse of turf of 
 some thirty acres, encircled by a race-course, an insti- 
 tution without which our countrymen seem unable to 
 support existence in India. Surrounding the plain stood 
 
-/ CirjLIAX'S HOME. 35 
 
 tlie residences of the officials, each in its own enclosure 
 of from three to ten aores of lawn and garden. There 
 is a strong family likeness between all houses in the 
 Mofussil. A one-storied building, co^^ered with plaster 
 of dazzling whiteness, reKeved by bright green blinds, 
 surrounded on all sides by a broad verandah. Two 
 lofty spacious sitting-rooms, with so wide an opening 
 between that they ahnost form one hall, extend through 
 the centre of the house from front to back, while either 
 end is occupied by bedrooms, each with a bath-room 
 attached. The servants sleep in sheds scattered about 
 the compound ; and the cooking is carried on in an 
 outhonse, which gentlemen who are particular about 
 their eating sometimes connect with the dining-room by 
 a covered passage. The Sahib, generally speaking, has 
 a sanctum of his own, where a confusion reigns which 
 surpasses anything which could be found in a Lincoln's 
 Inn garret, or the chamber in an English country-house 
 appropriated to the son and heir. The walls are orna- 
 mented with mouldering antlers and dusty skulls of 
 boar and tiger, the trophies of unmamed days ; a map 
 of the district, a ground-plan of the station, a picture of 
 Eugby Close in 1843, and a print of Lord Canning, cut 
 out from the Illustrated London Keics, marked with the 
 generic sulkiness which characterises the portraits in 
 that remarkable periodical. The furniture consists of a 
 table overflowing with papers and pamphlets, which 
 constantly encroach on the small corner reserved for an 
 ink-stand and blotting-pad, in spite of a species of tem- 
 porary dam formed by a despatch-box and two bags of 
 wadding ; a dressing-table and appliances which would 
 be scorned by a Belgravian footman ; a camp-bed, so 
 
 B 2 
 
36 J CIVILIAN'S SANCTUM. 
 
 light as to allow of its feeing placed at will within range 
 of the punkah ; half-a-dozen oane chairs, and a vast 
 leather couch, where the Sahib spends the half hour 
 after his early morning walk, alternately dipping into 
 the Englishman, and sharing his tea and buttered toast 
 with a favourite terrier. In one corner stand two splen- 
 did smooth-bores, stamped with the name of Westley 
 Eichards, and a double-barrelled rifle by the same 
 hands ; a long native gun, studded with glass beads, the 
 muzzle shaped into a dragon's mouth ; a blunderbuss, a 
 couple of hog spears, a heavy hunting-crop, and two 
 driving-whips ; and the ancient family Joe Manton 
 solemnly presented to the yoimg writer by his anxious 
 parent the day before he left the East India Docks in 
 the Lord Minto, 1,200 tons, some fifteen years since. 
 The other three corners are heaped with a chaos of salt- 
 reports, minutes, blue-books, codes and translations of 
 codes, and letters of every size and age, filed and unfiled, 
 tied up with string, whipcord, boot-laces, or the frail, 
 foul, execrable red-tape of India, which has done more to 
 break the hearts and health of English-bred Governors- 
 General and Financiers than the mists of the Hooghley 
 or the stenches of the Black Town. 
 
 By a careful inspection of the furniture and knick- 
 nacks in the drawing-room, a close observer may be 
 able to name with confidence the three years which his 
 host passed at home on furlough. In one house there 
 is a prevailing sense of Great Exhibition. Everywhere 
 you see views of the interior and exterior of the build- 
 ing, crowded with Turks and Albanians, Highlanders 
 and Esquimaux, with here and there an individual in 
 the hat and coat of modern civilization directing the 
 
FURLOtJGir. 37 
 
 attention of a female on his arm by pointing his stick 
 at some interesting object in mid-air. On the table lie 
 some Great Exhibition tokens. Till I came out here 
 I never conlil conceive who bought those most futile 
 and meaningless articles of commerce. In the book- 
 shelves stands a long row of volumes of the Illustrated 
 Catalogue, blazing with blue and gold. In other fami- 
 lies, pictures of Solferino and the entry into Milan, 
 maps of Sicily, and portraits of Cavour and Garibaldi, 
 testify that the furlough of your host coincided with the 
 struggle for Italian Unity. There is something touching 
 in these memorials ; for they remind one that, however 
 devoted our countryman may be to the interests of the 
 race which is entrusted to his charge, the objects dearest 
 to his inmost heart lie far away, beyond the glaciers 
 of the Hindoo Koosh, and the seething waves of the 
 Eed Sea. 
 
 On my right hand a smaller open space, likewise 
 covered with grass, ran some way back from the road. 
 On one side stood a church, as pretty as anything can 
 be which is coated with yellow plaster, surrounded by a 
 portico formed by means of graceful flying buttresses ; 
 on the other a row of low barracks, swarming with 
 native poUcemen in bright blue tunics and scarlet 
 turbans. At the end farthest from the road was the 
 collector's office, or cutcherry, encircled by a rude forti- 
 fication thrown up in the crisis of 1857. I was much 
 interested in this, the first evidence I had met with of 
 the great mutiny. A mere ditch and mound overgrown 
 with prickly pear, a man could walk over it without 
 changing step. And yet it was behind such slender 
 defences as this, that in many an isolated station a 
 
38 THB "SimE OV mLlW 
 
 dozen or two of the Imperial race stood at bay for 
 months before a hundred times their number of infu- 
 riated enemies, disciplined by English skiU, and armed 
 from English arsenals. In those dreadful days this was 
 the refuge for the Europeans from every one of the six 
 or seven districts in the Patna division : from every one 
 except Arrah, where eight or ten civilians and railway 
 officials, with a handful of stout Punjabees, were de- 
 fending a billiard-room against the lev^e-en-masse of a 
 province, supported by three strong regiments of regular 
 infantry. 
 
 It is five years since my attention was directed to this 
 country by the " Siege of Delhi " at Astley's. I had 
 been persuaded by Jack Whiffin, of whom the "fast 
 set " at Eadley consisted, to run up to town for a lark — 
 which eventually resulted in his premature departure 
 from that seminary of moderately sound learning and 
 uncommonly religious education. Our lark comprised 
 Astley's, a visit to Cremorne (which, to our intense 
 though unexpressed relief, we found closed, as I am 
 told is the case in the winter months), an ineffectual 
 search after the Cider-Cellars, and a supper at a Covent 
 Garden hotel, of a dozen oysters, a roast goose, an 
 apricot-tart and custard, and a bottle of what Jack pro- 
 nounced to be " a fine dry fruity sherry." That evening, 
 from seven o'clock till half-past nine, we gazed with 
 rapture on what we religiously believed to be an accurate 
 and life-like picture of Indian habits. The play opened 
 with a scene representing a number of sepoys off duty. 
 A Brahman — who reminded one alternately of a Druid 
 and a Jew pedlar — was handing about Lotus-flowers as 
 a signal for revolt. This slight verbal error of Lotus- 
 
. A LIFE ZEBRA. 39 
 
 flowers for brass Lotahs was pardonable — shared as it 
 was by the most imaginative and oriental of England's 
 statesmen. To them entered an officer, and began to 
 form the men into line ; whereupon two sepoys fired at 
 tlie chandelier, and one into tlie prompter's box, which 
 proceeding was unaccountably followed by the fall of 
 the officer. The coup d'wil of the next scene was very 
 fiui.'. It displayed " the moiintain-pass of Barrackpore," 
 up which were painfully winding supplies for the be- 
 leaguered garrison of Cawnpore, consisting, according 
 to the bill, of " cavalry, infantr}-, artillery, buffaloes, a 
 " LIVE ZEBEA." "What part this singTilar animal was 
 destined to play in the great events which followed, 
 I do not know. Perhaps it was intended as a remount 
 for General Windham. How, Barrackpore is on the 
 Hooghley, within six leagues of Calcutta, and the coun- 
 try, for two hundred miles round, is as flat as the beer 
 in the refreshment-rooms in the Great Exhibition. The 
 principal part in the capture of Delhi, and in the opera- 
 tions wliich preceded it, was played by a comic Irish 
 sergeant, who appeared to have emancipated himself 
 entirely from all discipline, and — perhaps from an un- 
 merited distrust of the powers of the regulation rifle — 
 went to action armed with a shillelah. Among other 
 feats he danced the jig of his country with an extremely 
 attractive lady's-maid (whom he subsequently led to the 
 altar), without hat or bonnet, under the mid-day Indian 
 sun — an act of daring which alone should have sufficed 
 to procure him the Victoria Cross. Cawnpore was re- 
 lieved, at the very moment that the women and children 
 were about to be butchered, by Sir Henry Havelock's 
 showing himself on horseback on the top of a precipice 
 
40 MB. JOHN PETERS. 
 
 overlooking the cautonment ; at which stupendous ap- 
 parition all the sepoys dropped down dead, with the 
 exception of four, who were reserved for immediate 
 execution. Just then in rushed a youth of some eighteen 
 years of age, attired in a frock-coat, a black silk hat, 
 evening trousers, and an enormous blue scarf, described 
 in the programme as " Mr. John Peters, a Commis- 
 " sioner," who cried out, " Spare these good men ! They 
 " are innocent ! Are you not, my poor fellows ? " 
 
 "Yes, Sahib. We were forced into the mutiny by 
 " others." 
 
 " You have not been concerned iu any atrocities, have 
 " you ? " 
 
 " Oh no. Sahib ! " 
 
 Hereat John Peters is highly delighted, and enters on 
 a general disquisition about the quality of mercy, which 
 he represents, with great truth and originality, as not 
 being strained ; when, by some mysterious process, the 
 guilt of the culprits is established, and they are sen- 
 tenced to be blown from guns ; which is done by tying 
 them to the muzzles of the cannon, and letting down 
 the curtain, from behind which four reports are heard 
 after a short interval. 
 
 Ever yours, 
 
 H. Broughton. 
 
A CLOSE FOUKDATION. ■li 
 
 LETTEE III. 
 
 A GOVEKXilENT SCHOOL AND AX OPIUM FACTORY. 
 
 MoFUSSiLPOEE, Feb. 12, 1863. 
 
 Dear Sfmions, — I libelled Patna somewhat in my last 
 letter. Eatcliffe drove me in on two different occasions, 
 and we spent one long day in poking about the town, 
 and another in the opium factory, which is second only 
 ia importance to that of Benares. There is a mile or 
 two of very singular street architecture. The j\Iahom- 
 medans live here ia gi-eat numbers, and everything be- 
 longing to them is picturesque all the world over. We 
 visited a Mahommedan foundation, something between a 
 college and a monastery, which boasted a good deal of 
 shabby magnificence. It is very richly endowed, and 
 the loaves and fishes are kept strictly among the 
 founder's kin. The head of the family for the time 
 being is ipso facto President, and he had apparently dis- 
 tributed the college offices with great impartiality among 
 his brothers. The Fellows were certainly iene nati, and 
 may have been mediocriter docti for all I knew. There 
 was no doubt that they fell short of the All Souls' 
 standard in the other particular. 
 
 We were led through a long series of quadrangles 
 built of white stone, with the shrine of some devotee of 
 ancient days standing in the centre of each, on the brink 
 
42 THE MASTER WHO SITS UP ALOFT. 
 
 of a pretty little ornamental tank. Some of the courts 
 were used as hospitia for pilgrims, others as schools for 
 the younger members of the institution, others again as 
 combination-rooms and studies for the Jellows. As 
 all Mahommedaiis are strict teetotallers, it is hard to 
 imagine how they spend their time in the combination- 
 room. They probably talk about the dangers of setting 
 aside the founder's will, and the presumption of the 
 young men in wishing to have the mosque fines re- 
 diiced. At present they were in a violent sta.te of ex- 
 citement, because the local authorities were thinking 
 about appointing a species of University Commission, to 
 inquire into the management of their revenues. Behind 
 the courts lay a spacious garden. The whole establish- 
 ment would have presented a very pleasing appearance, 
 had not everything been in a disgraceful state of dirt 
 and decay. At length we came to a large pUe of 
 buildings, on the roof of which we mounted, and found 
 ourselves at the door of a chapel, in which sat the 
 Master of the College. From the time that he succeeds 
 to that ofiice he may never descend to the level of the 
 earth, so that, if a set of reforming young Fellows got a 
 footing in the society, they might introduce all sorts of 
 innovations with impunity, as long as they kept to the 
 ground-floor. Fancy if, as a condition of holding his 
 present position, the Master of Trinity was never 
 allowed to come down from the roof of Neville's-court, 
 even if he saw us playing cricket ,on the bowling-green ! 
 The old fellow was very civil — so much so, that I felt 
 half inclined to give him some advice about throwin? 
 open his scholarships, but was deterred by my imperfect 
 acquaintance with the language. 
 
RLLIGIOVS ISDIFFEEEStE OF XATirES. 43 
 
 These premises are the head-quarters of religious 
 enthusiasm at the great festival of the Mohurrum. 
 I-ast year the ferment was such that a strong force of 
 police was stationed close at hand, and the officers of 
 the party kept watch through a whole day and night 
 in a tower opposite the great gate. I was told that 
 the mass of the crowd who went about bawling 
 " Hussain and Hussan," were Hindoos ; but it is idle 
 to draw any conclusion from a fact of this nature. 
 Englishmen out here are very fond of sajing that there 
 is no strong religious feeling among the natives ; that 
 the fetters of caste are maintained by our own mistaken 
 tenderness for the prejudices of the country, and by 
 the idleness of our domestics, who object to perform 
 duties that belong to another class, not because they 
 are bigoted, but because they are lazy. Xothing is 
 easier than to pick up a hundred stories of servants 
 who have been detected feasting on ham and cham- 
 pagne, though in the ilenu code, the crime of drinking 
 strong liquors comes next in tui-pitude to throwing 
 the parings of your toe-nails at a Brahmin ; of villagers 
 who have used the same cup as a European traveller ; 
 of learned men who have laughed at the received 
 Hindoo theories of astrology and geography. Yet all 
 this does not prevent either the votaries of the Prophet 
 or the worshippers of Vishnu from rushing to any ex- 
 treme of ferocity, or self-sacrifice, if they believe theii 
 religion to be in danger. More than once some insult 
 to custom, or to rites which to us appear insignificant, 
 but by them are held dearer than life itself, has aroused 
 a passive but stubborn resistance, followed by a savage 
 outbreak of fanatical wrath and devotion. In the davs 
 
44 MUTINT AT rELLOlfE. 
 
 when a great deal of the tailor entered into the compo- 
 sition of a genuine military officer, the authorities in- 
 troduced into a regiment stationed at Veil ore, a turban, 
 which, in the diseased imagination of the soldiery, re- 
 sembled a hat. The idea got about that they were to 
 be forcibly turned into topee-wallahs, hat-fellows, a 
 synonym for the hated name of Frank or Christian. 
 The most respectable among the men remonstrated ; 
 and the commanding officer, who, naturally enough, 
 considered that plumes and facings were of infinitely 
 greater moment than the faith of the human beings 
 committed to his care, answered their petition by flog- 
 ging and degrading them as seditious rascals. When 
 the outraged sepoys had risen as one man, when 
 hundreds of Europeans had been butchered in a single 
 evening, it began to occur to our colonels and brigadiers 
 that a persecution of the warriors, by whose aid we 
 kept down the Mahrattas and Pindarees, for the sake of 
 some regulation frippery, was as mad a scheme as forcing 
 the leopard to change his spots, or a man-eating Bengal 
 tiger his stripes. 
 
 Time rolled on and the lesson was forgotten. Some 
 few, who smelt the hurricane in the air, raised their 
 voices in warning, only to be taunted with credulity 
 and timidity. The earnest expostulations of one to 
 whom the latter taunt could hardly be applied, the 
 victor of Meeanee, were passed by with respectful 
 neglect.- Again recurred the same indications of a 
 coming storm ; again the native soldiers entreated their 
 superiors not to put a force upon their conscience; 
 again their request was treated as a crime. Then, with 
 the suddenness and fury of an Eastern tempest, burst 
 
THE GREAT MUTINY. 45 
 
 forth the madness of superstition in all its full horror. 
 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, many a 
 pleasant English homestead was laid waste. Many a 
 family lamented their nearest and dearest, slaia by 
 forms of death as frightful as anything that fiction or 
 the Spanish Inquisition ever invented. More dreadful 
 still, there were families in which none was left to 
 lament another. Through tens of thousands of square 
 miles, our authority, which but just now seemed at last 
 secure against any shock, was overthrown and scattered 
 to the wdnds. Our treasuries and magazines were 
 sacked, our barracks and court-houses burnt to the 
 ground. Our officers fled for their lives through the 
 districts which they had ruled with absolute authority ; 
 while tenderly-nurtured ladies, with their httle ones on 
 their knees, travelled night after night along by-roads 
 and through jungles, and crouched all day in native 
 hovels. 
 
 Then came the great vengeance, at which the world 
 still shudders. The blaze of Oriental fanaticism, which 
 at one time threatened to baffle all our efforts to subdue 
 its ravages, at length yielded to the courageous persever- 
 ance, and the unconquerable energy of our race. Yet, 
 though the fire has been got under, the embers glow 
 with as fierce a heat as ever, and the crust of ashes is 
 not' so thick but that the flames break out with ominous 
 frequency. Only the other day, in a village within the 
 borders of a State under British protection, a report got 
 about that two unfortunate men, father and son, had 
 buried some cow-beef iu their garden. The mob of the 
 place, set on by the most wealthy and influential people 
 of the neighbourhood, assembled at the suspected cot- 
 
46 COW-BEEF. 
 
 tage, tied the poor wretches by their .feet to the bough 
 of a tree, and swung them to and fro, beating them aA 
 the time with the heavy murderous staves carried by 
 all Indian peasants. They were then cut down, and 
 btanded from head to heel with hot iron, mounted on 
 donkeys with their faces to the taUs, led round the 
 village under a shower of stones, and finally pitched 
 down dead in front of their own door. What more 
 could the celebrated majority in the Oxford Convocation 
 do to their Greek Professor, if they had the power as 
 well as the will ? 
 
 The nature of religious enthusiasm is the same every- 
 where. It is not always the most zealous champions 
 of a Church who obsei-ve most exactly all that their 
 Church ordains. Philip the Second was living in open 
 defiance of the teaching of his own religion, all the 
 while that his emissaries, in the name of that religion, 
 were burning, and butchering, and racking, and ravish- 
 ing his misguided subjects over the seventeen provinces 
 of the Netherlands. The conduct of our own James 
 the Second proves how easy and comfortable it is to 
 eject and suspend men from livings and fellowships for 
 non-conformity to a faith, at a time when one is dis- 
 obeying some of its precepts. But there is no need to 
 ransack history for analogies. When we predicate the 
 indifference of the natives to their religion from their 
 neglect of its observances, they might weU retort and 
 say : " The English are not so strict as they might be. 
 " Last Sunday our Sahib would not do Poojah in the 
 " morning because it was so hot ; and, when the hour 
 " of afternoon prayer arrived, he was at tifiin with the 
 "judge Sahib, and could not dishonour the table of his 
 
FRJCTICE JXlJ PRECEPT. 47 
 
 '■ liost by going away. Nor does the Sahib eat the food 
 "that bis religion prescribes. On Good Friday there 
 " were no hot cross buns at breakfast. The only thing 
 " hot and cross was the Sahib himself. And the Sahib 
 " does not pay respect to his Brahmans. He only once 
 " set food and wine before the holy man from the bar- 
 " racks ; and I heard him tell the brigadier Sahib that 
 " his ]MoUali was no better than one devoid of under- 
 " standing. And the brigadier Sahib stroked his beard 
 " and replied, ' Haw, demmy, yes. More he is. Haw !'" 
 No one can deny that this is not an unfair picture of 
 many of our countrymen ; and yet men of this class are 
 among the first to resent any outrage on the religion of 
 their country, real or imaginary. The most hot oppo- 
 nents of Cardinal Wiseman and his bishops were not 
 all the most regular church-goers. Then why should a 
 Mussulman gentleman, who is occasionally overcome by 
 the charms of iced ^loselle, or a Hindoo Zemindar, who 
 is sometimes scandalized at the ignorance and cupidity 
 of his priests, be the more likely to be pleased at seeing 
 his religion held up to ridicule, and his hundred mil- 
 lions of brethren devoted to damnation, in a tract or a 
 sermon ? 
 
 From the college we passed on to a more common- 
 place, but far more useful institution, the Government 
 School. The buildings appropriated for the purpose 
 are, in most instances, beggarly enough ; but the class 
 of scholars, and the character of the instruction given, 
 place them far above the level of Government Schools 
 in England. We had the curiosity to question a Form 
 of some two dozen boys on the profession and standing 
 of their respective fathers. Half of them were the sons 
 
48 HINDOO PRECOCITT. 
 
 of public employes, and full a fourtli of Zemindars, who 
 answer in social position to the French "Eentier." 
 Every here and there sat, glittering in gold and jewellery, 
 the child of a rajah who counts his income by lacs. 
 The little fellows are sometimes very pretty and intelli- 
 gent, and are always dressed with great taste in very 
 brilliant colours, for the natives are much addicted to 
 petting their young children. It is now a trite observa- 
 tion that, up to a certain time of life, the Hindoo boys 
 show greater cleverness and capacity than Europeans of 
 the same age. James Mill observes that " they display 
 " marvellous precocity in appreciating a metaphysical 
 " proposition which would hopelessly puzzle an English 
 " lad." This is high praise as coming from the father 
 and preceptor of John Stuart ; for it is hard to conceive 
 a metaphysical proposition which could have hopelessly 
 puzzled John Stuart at the most tender age. Their turn 
 for mathematics is truly wonderful. A distinguished 
 Cambridge wi'augler assured me that the youths of 
 eighteen and twenty, whom he was engaged in teaching, 
 rushed through the course of subjects at such a headlong 
 speed that, if they went on at the same rate, they would 
 be in " Lunar Theory '' by the end of six months. But 
 it is allowed with equal unanimity that, at the period 
 when the mind of young Englishmen is in full course 
 of development, the Hindoo appears to have already 
 arrived at maturity, or rather effeteness, and begins to 
 degenerate rapidly and surely. There is nothing which 
 gives such deep discouragement to those who have 
 the instruction and improvement of the race most at 
 heart. 
 
 It is often said that a liberal education is valued only 
 
YOUNG BENGAL. 49 
 
 as a stepping-stone to Government employ ; that, as in 
 everything else, the natives look upon it merely as a 
 question of rupees. But this is very unfairly put. As 
 ■vvell might you throw it in the teeth of the parents of 
 all the boys at Harrow and Marlborough that they sent 
 their sons to a pubUc school in order to enable them to 
 get their living in the liberal professions. A very re- 
 spectable proportion of the Government scholars come 
 from the homes of independent and opulent men, and 
 would never dream of looking to of&cial life for their 
 maintenance. And, after all, why is it worse for a 
 native gentleman to send his child to school, to qualify 
 him for the office of a treasurer or deputy judge, than 
 for an English gentleman to engage a crammer to turn 
 his son into a walking encyclopaedia against the next 
 Indian competitive examination ? But the habit of 
 sneering at our dark feRow-subjects is so confirmed in 
 some people, that they lose sight of sense and logic — if 
 logic be anything else than sense — whenever the subject 
 is introduced. 
 
 The headmaster asked Eatcliffe to examine the first 
 class, which consisted of twelve or fifteen boys of 
 about the same age and height as the sixth form at a 
 pnbKc school In everything else, however, they wei'e 
 sufficiently unlike the heroes of Eton and Eugby. The 
 effeminate habits of the higher classes in Bengal had 
 already told fatally on their physique. Slouching, 
 flabby, spiritless, the whole lot together could not stand 
 up to Tom Brown for a single round, and would as soon 
 think of flying as of running a hundred yards. The 
 members of the moneyed class in the Gangetic provinces 
 are the most helpless, feeble set of beings in the universe. 
 
 E 
 
50 ADDISONESR 
 
 If one of them can ride a shambling pony, daubed all 
 over with splotches of white paint, to and from his office, 
 without tumbling off, he considers himself to have done 
 quite enough to establish his reputation as a horseman. 
 Their only amusements in boyhood consist in eating im- 
 mense quantities of the most sickly trash, and in flying 
 kites — which latter pastime, in another and more popular 
 sense, is the principal occupation of their riper years. 
 What wonder if, long before they come of age, they 
 have lost all trace of the pleasing features, and graceful 
 shape which may often be observed among the younger 
 children ? The youths before us appeared to be too old 
 for pets, since they were not attired with any remark- 
 able elegance. " Young Bengal " has adopted a most 
 unsightly mongrel costume, compounded of a native 
 tunic and ludicrously tight European trousers. Bearing 
 in mind the class at home who especially aiFect tight 
 trousers, I imagined at first that '' Young Bengal " was 
 horsey ; an idea which the sight of him, outside a 
 horse, effectually dispelled. There are often gaps in the 
 first class caused by the absence of the scholars on their 
 frequent honeymoons. In fact, where an English boy 
 finds it expedient to " run up to town to see the den- 
 "tist," a young Hindoo asks for leave to go and get 
 married. 
 
 The class was engaged on " The Deserted Village." 
 Each scholar read a few Unes, and then gave a para- 
 phrase of them in the most grandiloquent and classical 
 English. I sat aghast at the flowery combination of 
 epithets which came so naturally to their lips; not 
 knowing at the time that the natives who have been 
 brought up at the Government schools, having learnt 
 
C02fFEKTI0AUl SENTIMENT. 51 
 
 our language from Addison and Goldsmith, use, on all 
 occasions, the literary English of the last century. 
 They talk as Dr. Johnson is supposed to have talked by 
 people who have never read Boswell, as seems to have 
 been the case with the authors of "Eejected Ad- 
 " dresses." The passage before us was that beginning — 
 
 " lU fares the land to hastening iHs a prey — " 
 
 an excellent sample of that mild conventional senti- 
 mental Conservatism, which to so many minds is the 
 constituent idea of poetry ; and which appeals to man 
 in his maudlin moments throughout all ages and in 
 every clime. There was something exquisitely absurd 
 in hearing a parcel of young Bengalees regretting the 
 time when every rood of ground in England maintained 
 its man, and indignantly apostrophising trade's unfeeling 
 train for usurping the land and dispossessing the swain. 
 And yet, was it more truly incongruous than the notion 
 of English boys in the latter half of the nineteenth 
 century upbraiding the descendants of Eomulus with 
 their degeneracy and luxury ; calling on them to fling 
 into the nearest sea their gems and gold, the materials 
 of evil; and complaining that few acres are now left 
 for the plough ; though, if that implement resembled 
 the one described by Virgil in the first Georgia, it is, 
 perhaps, as well that the field of its operations was 
 limited ? Eatclifi'e created a general agitation by asking 
 whether commerce was really a curse to a country. 
 These young Baboos, destined, many of them, to pass 
 their lives in the sharpest and most questionable mer- 
 cantile practice, seemed to consider any doubt on the 
 subject as perfect heresy ; until one of them, who ex- 
 
 e2 
 
52 TALL WMTINa. 
 
 pressed himself in a manner more nervous and less 
 omafe than his fellows, solved the difficulty by stating 
 that "the poets often told lies." One youth, at the 
 bottom of the class, on beiag requested for a definition 
 of what Goldsmith meant by " unwieldy wealth," 
 amused me much by replying, "Dazzling gawds and 
 "plenty too much elephants." On the whole, the 
 facility with which they used a tongue which they 
 never hear spoken, except in school, was very creditable 
 to the system. 
 
 The other day, a captain, in a native regiment, showed 
 me a letter sent him by a sepoy in his company, who, 
 having been punished for a civil offence, thought it 
 necessary to give a plausible explanation of the matter 
 to his officer. It had evidently been written for him by 
 a friend who had received his education at a Govem- 
 mjent school. It appeared from this production, that the 
 sepoy and some of his comrades took it into their heads 
 to pay a visit to the town near which they were sta- 
 tioned ; so they got leave for a few days, and on the 
 evening of their arrival " set forth from our lodging and 
 "traversed the streets with unwearied steps. By 
 " chance, I discerned at a window a pleasing dame, from 
 " whose eyes shot the dart of love. Not being able to 
 "resist the dart, I approached the lattice, and courted 
 " and wooed her as a lover should. While we were 
 " engaged in our dalliance, there came by a banker who 
 " had formerly been her swain. The banker, seeing his 
 '' Phyllis smiling on another, could not contain his ire, 
 " but passed on breathing immediate vengeance." The 
 upshot of the matter was that the injured rival brought 
 a charge ,of theft against the sepoy, and, " by dint of 
 
rSRY TALL WRITING. 53 
 
 " tortuous perjury and forensic chicanery,'' succeeded in 
 getting him imprisoned for three months. 
 
 A Calcutta daily paper complained lately that native 
 correspondents were so long-winded and verbose, that 
 they omitted nothing that could bear upon the subject, 
 except the point of it, and gave as a specimen a com- 
 munication from one of them concerning the abuses at a 
 school for Hindoo children. The writer begins by say- 
 ing that " there is not a single soul which will not echo 
 "back the emotions that spontaneously arise in our 
 "breasts, when we consider the heavy chains under 
 " which the little innocent sufferers are made to groan." 
 He then proceeds to declare himself inadequate to the 
 task he has undertaken, and exclaims — " Would to God 
 " there were half a dozen Ciceros and Burkes here to 
 " give vent to our feelings ! " Half a dozen Ciceros ! 
 "What an overwhelming thought ! Ninety-six books of 
 Letters to Atticus ! Thirty Verrine Orations ! Six De 
 Finibi ! The human faculties are too weak to seize the 
 conception in aU its immensity. Yet, who can feel the 
 want of any amount of Ciceros or Burkes when he 
 meets with such a sentence as the following ? — " Not to 
 "mention the damp, ill-ventilated, dismal cells, with 
 " bare, unprotected, naked roofs, upon which the young 
 " pupUs, panting after fresh air and light, go during a 
 " recreation hour, and plentifully enjoy the short period 
 " of their amusement, by running and frisking in the 
 " meridian sun, heedless and unwarned of the danger of 
 "tumbling over into a gaping weU beneath, or some 
 " such pitfalls of death, artfully kept there for a sup- 
 " posed good purpose." The peroration of the complaint 
 is magnificent — " Friends and patriots ! " exclaims the 
 
54 TEE DUTCH IN INDIA. 
 
 writer, " what shall we do when the future hopes and 
 '•'glories of our nation are at stake? Where shall we 
 " fly for a refuge, when the cries of infants groaning 
 " under the yoke of a bondage worse than slavery haunt 
 " us from all sides ? " &c. ,&c. If a kindly Providence 
 had ordained that Mr. Bellew should be born a Yankee, 
 is not this something like the style in which he would 
 address an audience of his countrymen on the Fourth of 
 July? 
 
 The opium factory at Patna is an enormous mass of 
 buildings of the most durable construction, from the 
 roof of which there is a commanding view far up and 
 down the Ganges. It was erected by the Dutch long 
 before the English name became great in Bahar. There 
 is something very interesting in the traces of the 
 Mynheers. They seem to have preceded us every- 
 where by a century, and have passed away, leaving 
 behind them monuments solid, homely, and ponderous, 
 like themselves. 
 
 There could not be a worse month than February for 
 a visit to the factory, for the stock of last year has by 
 this time all been sold off, and this year's opium has 
 not yet begun to come in. However, there was a little 
 of the drug left at the bottom of the vats, and, for- 
 tunately for me, some chests which had been damaged 
 on the voyage down the Ganges had been sent back to 
 be repacked. Tour studies, my dear Simkins, have for 
 so long been directed towards the higher regions of 
 thought, and your ideas about all material objects are 
 so essentially vague, that I firmly believe your notion 
 of the raw material of opium vacillates between cocoa- 
 nuts and juniper-berries. I, therefore, shall not scruple 
 
CULTII'ATION OF OPIUM. cc 
 
 to give you a short sketch of the manufacture of that 
 commodity, in the style of the enlightened Magnall, on 
 whose tomb might be inscribed : — 
 
 " Nullum fere scientias genus non epitomavit. 
 Nullum quod, epitomarit non obscuraTit." 
 
 Do not wince at " epitomavit." It is an excellent 
 word, and is used by no less an author than Treb. 
 Poll. XXX. Tyr. It was like-nase a favourite with Veg. 
 Een., a very nice writer, who flourished towards the 
 close of the fourth century (a.d.). 
 
 The ryot, who answers to an uncommonly small 
 farmer, makes an agreement with Government to furnish 
 a certain quantity of opium at about four shillings a 
 pound, receiving something more than a quarter of the 
 money in advance. Now, this would be a losing game 
 for the ryot, if it were not for the peculiarity of the 
 crop — most of the labour being done by the women 
 and children of the household, who would be otherwise 
 unemployed. As it is, the natives consider it a pri- 
 vilege to be allowed to grow opium. At the proper 
 season, the whole family turn out in the evening, armed 
 with a species of three-pronged knife, and make an 
 incision in each of the poppy-heads which have suffi- 
 ciently ripened. Dui'ing the night a juice exudes, which 
 is carefully scraped off and preserved. This is repeated 
 three times with each flower. Then the leaves are 
 gathered up and formed into a sort of cake, for a pur- 
 pose which shall be hereafter described, and the stalks 
 are stacked and put by; no part of the poppy being 
 without its use. The whole produce is then delivered 
 in to the factory at Patna or Benares. 
 
56 MANUFACTURE OF OPIUM. 
 
 Here the opium goes through a series of processes 
 which may generally be described by the epithet 
 " refining." At any rate the result of them is that 
 quantities of scum and dregs are separated from the 
 more valuable portion, though even this refuse has a 
 considerable value of its own. Who has not experienced 
 the distress of being forced to trace an article through- 
 out all the stages of fermenting, and precipitating, and 
 puddling? In the eyes of the visitor every operation 
 bears a hideous resemblance to every other. In all he 
 gazes upon a mysterious liquid, lying apparently in a 
 perfectly quiescent state far down in a frightful iron 
 tank, over which he walks trembling on a single sloppy 
 plank, preceded by a foreman of oppressive intelligence, 
 and followed by two of the hands, who attend partly as 
 an excuse for leaving their work, and partly from a faint 
 hazy instinct of beer looming in the future. After the 
 opium has been duly prepared comes the operation of 
 making it into balls. The workman who is employed 
 on this duty is seated at a board, and is provided with 
 the materials for each ball separately — a fixed quantity 
 of the precious drug, some refuse opium, and a certain 
 portion of the coagulated mass of poppy-leaves, all 
 measured out with scrupulous care. With the leaves 
 he forms a bowl about three-quarters of an inch in 
 thickness, using the refuse copiously as glue. In the 
 cup thus fashioned he places the opium, and finishes off 
 the ball with wonderful skill and celerity, consuming 
 exactly the regulation amount of his materials. The 
 balls are about the size of a man's head, and are sold 
 by the Government at an average rate of seventy-six 
 shillings each. They are packed by forties in a chest, 
 
DESTINATION OF OPIUM. 57 
 
 • 
 
 the diied stalks of the poppy, reduced almost to powder, 
 being poured into all the interstices, and are sent down 
 to Calcutta to be disposed of by public auction ; whence 
 they go forth upon their mission of soothing John 
 Chinaman into a temporary forgetfulness of the rebels 
 who plunder him, and of the Anglo-Chinese force which 
 protects him; and deluding his soul with visions of a 
 Paradise where the puppy-dogs and rats run about 
 ready-roasted ; where the birds' nests are all edible, and 
 the pigs all die a natural death ; where the men have 
 aU short names and the women all short feet; where 
 everybody has just succeeded in the competitive exami- 
 nation for the governorship of a province, and has a 
 right to order everybody else three hundred strokes of 
 the bamboo on his bare soles. 
 
 "What a book might be made of " The Confessions 
 " of an English Opium Agent !" It is the^most romantic 
 of manufactures. Everywhere the drowsy scent of the 
 poppy prevails, and lulls the pleased visitor into a de- 
 lightfiJ. consciousness of oriental languor and bound- 
 less profits, and into a sweet oblivion of the principles 
 of competition and Pree Trade. That little lump of 
 black putty, which was bought a few days ago at forty 
 pence, beneath the magic touch of the Government be- 
 comes an equivalent for a bouncing sovereign. What 
 is this alchemy which can turn silver into gold ? which 
 can extract yearly six millions net from the pockets of 
 an alien, often a hostile, nation? Eegard with awe 
 those dark sticky globes, lying so snugly in their bed 
 of kindred straw ! These are the cannon-balls with 
 which to extract tribute from the stranger ! " Such an 
 " immoral trafhc," say you ? Let us get out of this sleepy 
 
58 A DISqUISITIOp. 
 
 lotus-eating atmosphere, and we will talk the question 
 over at leisure. 
 
 If a practice is pernicious to the community, it is 
 clearly the duty of a wise government to suppress it, 
 with this condition — that the evils consequent on the 
 suppression, or attempt at suppression, are not so great 
 as to outweigh the benefits. When the English nation 
 had been thoroughly convinced that slavery was a curse 
 which must be got rid of at any risk, it cheerfully paid 
 down as the price of its abolition twenty millions in 
 cash, and the prosperity of our West Indian Colonies 
 for many years to come. Never was money better laid 
 out. W^e gave the devil such a beating as he had not 
 got since Luther's first campaign, for one-tenth of what 
 it cost lis to lose America, and one-fiftieth of what we 
 spent in avenging the execution of Louis the Sixteenth. 
 On the other Jaand, though few people will deny that 
 we should be better without the institution known as 
 the " social evil " par excellence, still fewer are prepared 
 to admit that affairs would be mended by the interfer- 
 ence of the strong hand of power. Nothing could be 
 more odious than that Government should meddle in 
 matters which a wise father leaves to the conscience 
 and discretion of his sons. The public scandal, the in- 
 vasion of private liberty, the violation of houses, would 
 be grievances far exceeding in importance any little 
 success which might be gained for the cause of morality. 
 Heaven preserve the streets of Liverpool and York from 
 the condition of Oxford or Cambridge on the night of 
 a grand Proctorial raid 1 
 
 Gambling affords an instance in which the Govern- 
 ment has wisely interfered, and wisely abstained from 
 
'RESTRICTIVE LAWS. . 59 
 
 interference. It is impossible to put down the vice, or 
 even to define it. What spectacle can be more innocent 
 and touching than that of four subalterns sitting over a 
 rubber at rupee points ? And yet two files of privates 
 playing for the same stakes would justly be considered 
 gamblers of the deepest dye. Backgammon for six- 
 pence a game is gambling among schoolboys. At the 
 University it would be a recreation to which even the 
 recital of the mistakes made by a freshman would be 
 more preferable, to use the strongest comparative in 
 existence. The only chance of getting at private gam- 
 bling would be in an unlimited employment of spies, in 
 the guise of club-waiters, billiard-markers, college-gyps, 
 messmen, butlers, grooms, and barmaids. What Govern- 
 ment could do, it did thoroughly. It forbade public 
 gaming-tables. It prohibited individuals or Companies 
 from making it their profession to play for money with 
 any comer. The consequences were just what would 
 naturally result from so judicious a course of conduct. 
 Pablic feeling, not being shocked by any undue restraint 
 upon opinion or practice, rejoiced to see hells stormed 
 by the police, green-baize tables smashed, and foreign 
 noblemen, with doubtful linen and patriotic opinions, 
 turning the crank instead of the roulette-wheel, and 
 reduced from picking aces out of their sleeves in St. 
 James's Street to performing the same oflice by oakum 
 at Brixton. The effect upon private habits was far wider 
 and more lasting than could have been produced by a 
 direct prohibition. High play became disreputable. 
 AVhist succeeded to hazard, and billiards to rouge-et- 
 noir. Great Whig statesmen no longer came home to 
 Herodotus after losing thirty thousand pounds, but read 
 
60 CRBATINO A CEIMM.- 
 
 Kicardo and Bentham ■without any such inauspicious 
 preliminary to their studies. 
 
 In dealing practically with this class of questions, it 
 should never be forgotten that no greater injury can be 
 inflicted on society than the creation of a crime. Every 
 prohibitory ' law m^kes so many new offenders. The 
 exigencies of the public service absolutely require that 
 a sum should be paid by the owner of certain goods at 
 their entrance into the country. Henceforward, who- 
 ever introduces those goods without paying the dues 
 becomes at once a criminal. He is a smuggler. He 
 has broken the law, and is likely to turn at short notice 
 into a pirate or a murderer. It is an old saying that 
 poaching is halfway to sheep-stealing. There is a far 
 more common phase of this portentous evil, which has 
 not been noticed as it deserves. In almost all good 
 books, so-called "sabbath-breaking" is classed in the 
 same list as debauchery, drunlcenness, and such like. 
 A shop-boy who prefers the cricket-ground to a dull 
 sermon, an overworked artizan who finds Hampstead 
 Heath, or St. George's HiU a pleasanter resort on a 
 July Sunday than Spitalfields or Drury Lane, feels a 
 painful consciousness that he is committing what is 
 denounced in nine tracts out of ten to be a sin, which 
 must be repented of before the sinner can have any 
 part in Him who said the Sabbath was made for man, 
 and not man for the Sabbath. Poor fellow ! He is not 
 strong-minded enough or enlightened enough to claim 
 his privilege as a Christian not to be judged with re- 
 ference to New Moons or the Sabbath-day. He knows 
 that every condemned felon, after having partaken 
 (why do condemned felons always partake ?) of his 
 
A CEWK ON CONSUMPTION. 61 
 
 last mutton-cliop and Lis penultimate cup of coffee, 
 at the urgent importunity of the chaplain, confesses 
 that Sabbath-breaking was his first step to the 
 gallows. 
 
 If, then, any commodity in general use is undoubtedly 
 deleterious, the Government is justified in putting a stop 
 to the manufacture and sale of it. But if the circum- 
 stances of the case prevent the adoption of this course, 
 then by all means tax that commodity as heavily as it 
 will bear — ^that is to say, up to the point at which 
 smuggling woidd be so lucrative as to offer an irresisti- 
 ble temptation. The most devoted lover of paradox 
 would not dare to assert that a heavy tax has no ten- 
 dency to check consumption. Who can doubt that, if 
 the farmers of Devonshire and Sussex were allowed to 
 grow tobacco, if Cavendish and Birdseye were imported 
 at a registration duty of a farthing a pound, nine-tenths 
 of the population of our isles would be blowing a cloud 
 from morning tO dewy eve ? Those, then, would smoke 
 who never smoked before, and those who once did smoke 
 would soon be well on their way to delirium tremens. 
 In vain would Dean Close warn the men of " merry 
 Carlisle," whom he certainly never leaves long without 
 an excuse for merriment, not to make their mouth a 
 furnace and their nose a chimney. Did it ever occur 
 to you how very absurd is the employment of this 
 rhetorical style in the discussion of questions purely 
 physical? When a man talks about my making my 
 mouth a furnace, I always ask him why he makes his 
 body a sewer. It is not too much to assert that, by 
 taxing, opium to the extent of six hundred per cent, on 
 the prinie cost, we diminish the use of it to one-tenth 
 
62 TAXATION NO RECOGNITION. 
 
 of what it would be if the drug were free. Do away 
 with the mouopoly in Bengal and Bahar, remove the 
 transit duty on opium grown in the Native States, and, 
 for every Chinese who is now insensible for a few hours 
 three times a week, five will be in state of coma all 
 day long : the whole nation will become one vast De 
 Quincey ; every one will neglect his work and loathe 
 his food ; the plumpest pug-dogs will wander along the 
 streets of Canton with impimity ; and the most measly 
 porker will die unheeded at the very door within which, 
 oblivious of his posthumous charms, the smoker is 
 dreaming and inhaling away his appetite and health, 
 his manliness and intellect. No one can logically assert 
 that it is immoral to tax opium, unless he is prepared 
 to maintain that we can, and should, put down with a 
 strong hand the cultivation of the poppy. 
 
 Some say that it is criminal in the Government to re- 
 cognise the vice. But taxing is not the same as recog- 
 nising, and recognising is not the same as approving. 
 There is an excise on bnmdy, and not on butcher's 
 meat. Does this imply that the Cabinet recognises the 
 fact of Britons being groggy, while it refuses to take 
 cognizance of their carnivorous propensities? It is 
 certainly a new and somewhat startling doctrine that 
 taxation is a form of encouragement, that protection is 
 afforded to a traffic by loading it with a strapping duty. 
 If this be really the case, the two great English parties 
 must change names. Free-traders must go about in 
 top-boots and spacious waistcoats, and Protectionists 
 must rush to the poll under the banner of the Big Loaf. 
 Are we to give up six millions of income, and consent 
 to demoralise the whole East, by allowing it to buy 
 
FALSE DELICACr. 63 
 
 opium dirt cheap, iu order tliat we luu}' appear to 
 ignore as a nation a prat'tice the existence of whicli is 
 patent to every individual ? Tlie colonel of a regiment 
 once remonstrated with his chaplain, because he chd not 
 attend the hospital with due regularity. The clergy- 
 man answered that, whenever he went there, the only 
 patients he found were men suffering from diseases en- 
 gendered by drink and licentiousness, and that he did 
 not choose to recognise those sins. And yet the sins in 
 question continued to prevail in the cantonment, how- 
 ever much the worthy man averted his countenance. 
 Happily Lord Stanley and Sir Charles Wood do not 
 reason like this chaplain. 
 
 By this time, my Simkins, you must have had 
 opium enough to send you asleep ; so no more at 
 present. 
 
 Sincerely yours, 
 
 H. Broughton. 
 
64 ABRAH. 
 
 LETTER IV. 
 
 A STORY OF THE GREAT MUTINY. 
 
 MoFUSSiLPOEE, Feb, 17, 
 
 Dear Simeins, — Before leaving Patna I ran OYsr to 
 Arrah, and spent an evening and morning in visiting 
 the scene of the most complete episode of the great 
 troubles. The collector entertained me very hospitably, 
 and I passed the night in " The House " in a more 
 unbroken repose than others of my countrymen have 
 enjoyed in the same room. I was rather ashamed of 
 having slept so well Would a Spartan have slumbered 
 soundly on the tomb of the Three Hundred? — or a 
 Roman, think you, beneath what Mebuhr does not 
 believe to be the sepulchre of the Horatii, with no 
 thought " on those strong limbs " which, according to 
 that acute and able scholar, do not " moulder deep 
 " below " ? Eor Arrah is emphatically the Thermopylfe 
 of our race — hallowed, no less than those world-famed 
 straits, by superhuman courage and by memorable 
 disaster. 
 
 All the associations there are concentrated within a 
 small well-defined locality, which vastly increases the 
 emotion that they excite. It is this, even more than 
 the importance of the conilict, which draws so many 
 tourists to Hougoumont. There is the farm-yard gate 
 
COKCEXTRATET) ASSOCIATIONS. 65 
 
 which the assailants forced open, and which four English 
 officers and a sergeant shut in their faces by dint of 
 hard shoving. There is the chapel half consumed by 
 tire, and the crucifix with charred feet, and the loop- 
 holed brick waU which the French were said to have 
 mistaken for a line of red-coats. Who — who, at least, 
 with the exception of Sir Archibald Alison, cares to 
 inspect the boundless flat expanse round Leipsic, where, 
 for three autumn days, four hundred thousand com- 
 batants disputed the fate of Europe over a space of a 
 hundred square miles? The interest of a battle does 
 not depend on the number of squadrons and battalions 
 engaged, nor on the extent of territory for which they 
 contend, nor on the rank and power of the leaders, nor 
 on the amount of. the butcher's bill at the end of the 
 day. AVe look to the character and worth of the indi- 
 vidual actors, not to the breadth of the stage front and 
 the multitude of supernumeraries. Naseby and Sedge- 
 moor are to Borodino and Wagram what Fechter's 
 Hamlet is to a play got up by Charles Kean, in whose 
 eyes the main point of " Hemy the Fifth " is the 
 triumphal entry into the City, and the most important 
 incident in " A Winter's Tale " a Pyrrhic dance which 
 has no existence in the original History takes small 
 account of the millions of Assyrians, Egj'ptians, Medes, 
 Huns, and Tartars, who have been driven as sheep to 
 the slaughter to realize the icUe of a despot, or have 
 perished in obscure barbaric forays. But she wiR not 
 soon forget those hundi-ed and ninety-two citizens who, 
 on the plain of Marathon, cheerfully laid down their 
 lives for the city of the Violet Crown; those simple 
 Dutchmen who died amidst the slush of their beloved 
 
 F 
 
66 THB STATION. 
 
 dykes in many an amphibious struggle against Spanish 
 tyranny and orthodoxy ; those chivalrous mountaineers 
 who flung themselves on the bayonets at CuUoden in a 
 cause which appealed to everything most romantic and 
 irrational in our nature. To my mind there is no mili- 
 tary operation on record which comes up to the retreat 
 of Socrates from the defeat of the Athenian army at 
 Delium. A sturdy, clumsy-built, common-looking man, 
 with bare feet, walking off at a brisk, steady pace, spear 
 on shoulder, turning up his snub-nose, and looking 
 askance at the mingled mass of fugitives and pursuers 
 which swept by on either side, engaged all the while 
 in a discussion on the principle of evil with a fellow- 
 citizen, who submitted to be bored for the sake of the 
 protection of so intrepid a veteran. Then up rides 
 Alcibiades, the ladies' pet, the darling of the popular 
 assembly, covered with dust and blood, and without his 
 helmet, and cries, " Cheer up, Socrates ; for I wiU. see 
 " you safe home." A needless promise, because, in his 
 own words, " the bearing of the man ■ made it pretty 
 " plain to all, far and near, that whoever meddled with 
 " him would have reason to repent it." 
 
 Arrah lies twelve miles from the Ganges, between 
 Patna and Buxar, which are both on the same river. 
 To the eastward the Sone, which is in April a streak of 
 water creeping through a vid.de desert of sand, and in 
 July a torrent a mile broad and thirty feet deep, flows 
 into the main stream at a distance of four leagues from 
 Arrah and about flve from Dinapore, which, as you 
 doubtless remember, is the military station at Patna. 
 The compounds of the Europea.n houses at Arrah are 
 very extensive ; and the most extensive of all is that in 
 
THE HOUSE. 67 
 
 ■which stands the residence of the Collector. It is, as 
 far as I can judge from recollection, four hundred yards 
 long by three hundred broad. It is bounded in most 
 parts by a crumbling ditch and the remains of a hedge 
 of prickly pear. The Collector's house is large and 
 commodious, with spacious, very lofty rooms ; one- 
 storied, like all dwellings in the MofussU, but with the 
 floor raised several feet above the level of the ground. 
 On one side of the house is a portico ; exactly forty 
 yards from which stands a small whitewashed building, 
 the basement of which consists of cellars, with open 
 arches some four or five feet in height. A staircase in 
 the interior leads to a single room, surrounded on three 
 sides by a verandah. The dead wall faces the Collector's 
 garden, which is thirty or forty yards off. It was for- 
 merly a biOiard-room, and is now used for the accom- 
 modation of visitors when the great bungalow happens 
 to be full. The house-top is reached by a ladder, and is 
 surrounded by a parapet ; but it is entirely commanded 
 by the roof of the neighbouring building, from which 
 the porch stands out Eke a bastion. 
 
 In the summer of 1857 there were stationed at Dina- 
 pore three regiments of native 'infantry — a force of at 
 least twenty-five hundred bayonets. The composition 
 of this brigade was such as to give grave cause for 
 alarm. The men were all drawn from the notorious 
 turbulent district of Shahabad, of which Arrah is the 
 oificial capital, and were united by the bond of an 
 undefined allegiance to Coer Sing, who was recognised 
 as chieftain by the Eajpoots, or soldier caste, of that 
 region. There is a strong family feeling in the native 
 mind. Your head-servant fills your house with young 
 
 f2 
 
68 THB BINAPOBM BRIGADE. 
 
 barbarians from Hs own village, whom he brings up 
 to Calcutta to try their luck in service. As soon as a 
 Government employ^ is in receipt of a good income, 
 relations and connexions pour in from all parts of India, 
 and claim to live at his expense. In the same manner 
 the old sepoys introduced into their company sons, 
 nephews, and younger brothers ; while any recruit who 
 did not belong to the tribe was made almost as uncom- 
 fortable as a cockney in a crack Light Cavalry mess, 
 and soon found it expedient to ask leave to change his 
 quarters. The result was that the regiment had a 
 tendency to turn into a clan, the members of which 
 regarded each other with attachment and confidence, 
 and carried put their common resolves with singular 
 unanimity and secrecy. 
 
 The state of things at Dinapore excited profound 
 uneasiness. For weeks previous to the catastrophe, 
 letters appeared in the Calcutta daily papers urging the 
 authorities to take measures to prevent an outbreak, 
 which was regarded as now imminent. Unhappily, the 
 brigadier in command at the station was one of that 
 class known at the Horse-Guards as experienced officers 
 of long standing in the service, and by the world in 
 general as old women. It is our misfortune that the 
 commencement of every war finds our choicest troops 
 and our most precious strongholds at the disposal of 
 men who won their- first laurels at Salamanca or Quatre 
 Bras, and who should have been content to have closed 
 their career at Sobraon. It is a fact of serious import 
 that the introduction of the rifle, the greatest military 
 revolution of this century, was sulkily, peevishly, hys- 
 terically opposed by the majority of those who, in the 
 
HOW NOT TO DO IT. 69 
 
 event of war, would have been at the head of our 
 armies. The veterans of the Senior United Service Club 
 might have sung if their feelings had allowed them — 
 
 " Believe me, if that most endearing old arm, 
 
 "WTiich we miss with so fondly to-day, 
 "Which never did Afghan or Sikh any harm. 
 
 Was to shoot straight for once in a way. 
 It should still he the weapon for Guardsmen and Line, 
 
 Let the windage increase as it will ; 
 And we'd think the performance sufficiently fine, 
 
 If one hall in five hundred should kill. " 
 
 Such a chief, to the cost of humanity, was in charge of 
 Meerut on that day of evil omen, the first of many 
 such, when the troopers of the Third Light Cavalry, 
 having shot down their of&cers and burnt their barracks, 
 galloped off unmolested to cut the throats of the English 
 at Delhi. Such a cMef was not in charge of Barrack- 
 pore at the crisis when foresight, calmness, and judi- 
 cious severity broke up a battalion of murderous scoun- 
 drels, and saved the capital of India from the fate of 
 Cawnpore. Hearsey at Meerut, Neill at Dinapore, and 
 Outram at Allahabad, might have saved much of the 
 good blood that was spUled, and much of the bad blood 
 that remains. 
 
 Throughout July the insolence of the sepoys in the 
 Dinapore cantonments, and the terror and discomfort of 
 the European residents, waxed greater daily. At length 
 the symptoms of sedition grew so unmistakable as to 
 attract the notice of- General Lloyd himself. Accord- 
 ingly, on the morning of the 25th, he issued an order, 
 enjoining the sepoys to return their percussion-caps at 
 four o'clock that afternoon. This gave them just nine 
 hours to pack up their clothes, ammunition, and wives. 
 
70 SUSPENSE. 
 
 cook their rice, and get a wasli, and inarch out of the 
 station at their ease, in the direction of the Sone. When 
 they had gone a mile or two on their way, a few round 
 shots were sent after them, as a parting compliment, 
 and then the General had plenty of leisure to sit down 
 and reflect on the probable result of his masterly com- 
 binations. 
 
 Meanwhile the little community at Arrah did not 
 regard with indifference the prospect of an event which 
 caused so much apprehension at Calcutta. Those long 
 July days could hardly have been to them a period of 
 secure enjoyment. It was much if they could put force 
 on themselves to get through their ordinary business. 
 The women and children were sent to what, in those 
 awful times, was considered a place of comparative 
 security. "Whatever might chance, at any rate, when 
 the peril did come, the men should have to make pro- 
 vision for nothing that could be dearer than honour and 
 duty. At that time the portion of the East Indian 
 Eailway in the neighbourhood was in course of con- 
 struction — the embankment having been already thrown 
 up, though the bridges were not yet completed. Mr. 
 Boyle, the executive engineer of the company, resident 
 at the station, happened to have a natural turn for 
 fortification, which he subsequently had ample oppor- 
 tunity to gratify. This gentleman took it into his 
 head to put what is now the Collector's outhouse in 
 a state for defence, thinking that it might come in use- 
 ful on an emergency. From time to time he sent in 
 some bricks and mortar, and a few odd coolies, and 
 devoted a spare hour or two to superintend the work. 
 The arches of the cellars were solidly built up, and a 
 
CERTJIXTl'. n 
 
 tliin curtEiia of brickwork erected between each pillar 
 in the verandah on the first floor, with a judicious 
 arrangement of loopholes. 
 
 On Saturday, the 25th of July, Mr. "Wake, the Col- 
 loetor, received an express from Dinapore, bidding him 
 to be on his guard, for that something was in the air. 
 Tliere followed a night of suspense, which was changed 
 into terrible certainty by the arrival of a mounted 
 patrol, who came in with tlie information that a strong 
 force of sepoys had crossed the Sone, and that large 
 numbei^ were still crossing. Then it became too evi- 
 dent that " some one had blundered." The moment had 
 come when a resolution must be taken — hurried, but 
 irrevocable. A few hours more, and the enemy would 
 be upon them ; the country-people in arms, the roads 
 impassable, and the bridges broken up for thirty miles 
 round. "While their communications were still open, 
 should they retreat on Buxar, and wait there till the}- 
 could be brought back to their posts by the returning 
 tide of European re-conquest ? It was too late to avert 
 the destruction of their property ; too late to keep the 
 town to its allegiance, tmd save the treasure and the 
 public records. There was nothing which they could 
 stow behind their slender defences — save the empty 
 name of British rule. Was it woith while to run so 
 frightful a risk for a shadow ? Why, for an advantage so 
 doubtful, expose their dear ones to anxiety worse than 
 death — to bereavement and desertion in such a time 
 and in such a plight ? On the other hand, should they 
 skulk off like outlaws through the province which had 
 been entrusted to their care — where but yesterday their 
 will was law — leaving the district ready to receive the 
 
72 BILLIARDS. 
 
 rebels with open arms, and afford them a firm foothold 
 on the' South of the Ganges — another Oude, whence 
 they might securely direct their future efforts against 
 our power, which already tottered to the fall ? If the 
 rest of Shahabad must go — the authority of old England 
 and of John Company — the most generous of masters — 
 should be upheld, at least, within the walls of one 
 billiard-room, which was to witness such a game as 
 never did biUard-room yet ; a game at hopeless odds, 
 amateurs opposed to professionals, fair play to knavery ; 
 a game where histoiy stood by as marker, and where no 
 starring could recover a life once taken ; a game which 
 one losing hazard would undo, one cannon almost in- 
 evitably ruin ; but which Wake and his fellows, as with 
 clear eyes, brave hearts, and steady hands, they awaited 
 the opening . stroke, were fully determined should not 
 be a love game. 
 
 There was no time to be lost. Eice and flour sufficing 
 for a few days' consumption, and what other provisions 
 came first to hand, were quickly stored in the house. 
 The supply of water which could be collected on such 
 short notice, was alarmingly scanty. And then they 
 made haste to enter their ark, before the flood of se- 
 dition and anarchy should engulph everything around. 
 The garrison consisted of Herwald Wake, the Collector ; 
 young Colvin, and two other civilians ; Boyle, the 
 engineer, the Vauban of the siege ; Mr. Hall, a civil 
 surgeon ; an official in the opium agency, and his 
 assistant ; a Government schoolmaster ; two native 
 public eviployis, and five other Europeans in various 
 subordinate grades ; forty-five privates, two Naiks, two 
 Havildars, and one Jemmadar — names which so pain- 
 
THB GARRISON. 73 
 
 fully bewilder an English reader of the list of killed 
 and woimded in the Gazette after an Indian victory — 
 true Sikhs all, staunch as steel, and worthy to be the 
 countrymen of the heroes of ChUianwallah. Sis-and- 
 sisty fighting men by tale, with no lack of pluck and 
 powder, but very badly off for meat and drink. 
 
 On Monday morning the sepoys poured into the town, 
 and marched straight to the Treasury, from which they 
 took 85,000 rupees in cash. After this indispensable 
 preliminary, they proceeded to carry out the next step 
 in the programme usual on these occasions — the slaugh- 
 ter of every one connected with the Government. It 
 was very thoughtful of the Sahibs to have collected in 
 one place, so as to spare Jack Sepoy the trouble of 
 hunting them down in detail. It was best, however, to 
 do the job in style ; so a strong detachment was formed 
 in column, and marched into the compound with drums 
 beating and colours flying. It would give the men a 
 good appetite for their curry to knock the dozen or so of 
 quill-drivers and railway people on the head in the hole 
 where they had taken refuge ; and, if those unlucky 
 Punjabees could not see on which side their chupatties 
 were buttered, why, it should be the worse for them ! 
 But through every loophole in the brickwork on the 
 first floor peered an angry Englishman, feeling at the 
 trigger of his bone-crushing rifle, behind which he had 
 stood the charge of many a tiger and buffalo — unless, 
 indeed, he was one of the school of sportsmen who 
 prefer a smooth-bore for anything under eighty yards ; 
 while in the cellars below, and beneath the breastwork 
 on the roof, lurked half a hundred warriors of that 
 valiant sect whom no other native army could look in 
 
74 TEE INVESTMENT. 
 
 the face. Just as the leading ranks were passing a fine 
 tree, which grows a stone-throw from the house, they 
 received a volley which laid eighteen of their number 
 dead on the spot. As this made it evident that the 
 Sahibs intended to die game, the mutineers, who had 
 come out for a battue, and not on a storming-party, broke 
 line, and dispersed behind the trees scattered about the 
 compound, whence they kept up a desultory fire. 
 
 For long past Goer Sing had been watching the 
 course of events with keen interest and a very definite 
 purpose. This remarkable man came in for an abun- 
 dant share of the abuse so indiscriminately dealt out to 
 aU who took part against us at that crisis. Coer Sing 
 was described in the contemporary journals as a " devil," 
 whose viQany could be accounted for only on the theory 
 that he was not " of human flesh and blood." The time 
 for shrieking and scolding has now gone by, and we can 
 afford to own that he was not a devil at all, but the 
 high-souled chief of a warlike tribe, who had been 
 reduced to a nonentity by the yoke of a foreign invader. 
 "What am I good for under your dynasty?" was his 
 constant complaint to European visitors. He had already 
 reached an age which in England is supposed to incapa- 
 citate for any employment short of the premiership. He 
 well remembered the time when Scindiah and Holkar 
 were not mere puppets of the Government of Fort 
 WOliam ; when the Mahratta still ruled at Poonah and 
 Nagpore ; when, what with Pindaree raids, and the long 
 contest for the Helen of Odipore, and the extremely 
 bellicose attitude of non-interference adopted by the 
 Company, a dashing partizan leader, with a few thousand 
 stout Eajpoots at his back, was good for a great deal in 
 
AN HINDOO LVNDTi^. 7S 
 
 the estimation of Central India. He fretted, like the 
 proud Highland chiefs, when reduced to insignificance 
 by the severe and orderly sway of the Southron. Surely, 
 a people whose favourite heroes are Lochiel and Eob 
 Eoy Macgregor may spare a little sympathy for the 
 chieftaia who, at eighty years old, bade fill up his brass 
 lotah, saddle his elephants, and call out his men, inas- 
 much as it was up with the pugrees of Goer Sing ; who 
 inflicted on us a disaster most complete and tragical ; 
 who exacted from the unruly mutineers an obedience 
 which they paid to none other; who led his force in 
 person to Lucknow, and took a leading part in the 
 struggle which decided the destinies of India; who, 
 after no hope was left for the cause North of Ganges, 
 did not lose heart, but kept his men together during 
 a long and arduous retreat in the face of a victorious 
 enemy ; and, as the closing act of his life, by a masterly 
 manceu%Te baflied his pursuers, and placed his troops in 
 safety on their own side of the great river, when friend 
 and foe ahke believed their destruction to be inevitable. 
 On that occasion a round-shot from an English gun 
 smashed his arm, as he was directing the passage of the 
 last boatfuls of his followers, contrary to the habit of 
 Eastern generals, who ordinarily shim the post of danger. 
 The old warrior, seeing that his last hour was come, is 
 said to have cut oif his shattered limb with the hand 
 that remained to him, and to have died of the loss of 
 blood which ensued. But his army had not lost the 
 impress of his skiU and energy. During several months 
 they maintained themselves at Juggdeespore, hai'assing 
 with daily incursions the English garrison at Arrah, 
 whose head-quarters were in a fortification laid out by 
 
76 THE FIRST PARALLEL. 
 
 the recently-developed genius of Mr. Boyle ; they re- 
 pulsed -with heavy loss a detachment sent to dislodge 
 them ; and finally laid down their arms under the general 
 amnesty, after having defied our Government during 
 more than a year of continuous fighting. Two facts 
 may be deduced from the story of these operations — 
 first, that the besiegers of the house at Arrah were 
 neither cowards nor bunglers ; and next, that it was 
 uncommonly lucky for us that Coer Sing was not forty 
 years younger. 
 
 Such, then, was the man who now claimed to take 
 command of the levies of Shahabad by hereditary right. 
 He brought with him a mighty following, and recruits 
 poured in by hundreds and thousands daily. The sepoy 
 veterans, who were living on pensions in their native 
 villages, came forward to share the fortunes of their 
 ancient regiments in greater number than in other 
 districts. " That old fool, Coer Sing," was reported in 
 the Calcutta papers to have held a review of eight 
 thousand armed men, besides the three regular bat- 
 talions. There was one cry throughout the province — 
 that now or never was the time to shake off the oppres- 
 sion of the stranger. When once they had put to the 
 sword the Sahibs in the billiard-room, all would go well 
 But the Sahibs in question manifested a very decided 
 disinclination to be put to the sword, so that it became 
 necessary to put the sword to the Sahibs. The siege 
 was pressed forward with vigour. Bullets rained on 
 the defences night and day alike. The sepoys bawled 
 out to our Sikhs that, if they would betray the Sahibs, 
 they should receive a safe-conduct and five hundred 
 rupees apiece. The Sikhs, in return, requested them to 
 
JXXTBIT. 77 
 
 come nearer and repeat tlieir liberal offers — a compliance 
 with which iavitation resulted in the unfortimate agents 
 of Coer Sing findiag that, when they approached ■within 
 earshot, they were within musket-shot as welL 
 
 Meanwhile, the most painful soHcitude, which was 
 fast deepgning iato despair, prevailed at Dinapore and 
 Calcutta, and wherever else the tidings of the great 
 peril of our countrj-men had penetrated. The first 
 intelligence received at the capital was conveyed in a 
 letter which appeared ia the Englishman, dated the 
 27th of July, containing these, words: "Mr. Boyle 
 " and the magistrate sent me a message to find a safe 
 " place. The Arrah people proposed to defend Mr. 
 " Boyle's fortification. If they have done so, I hope for 
 " the best, but dread the worst. What can a handful 
 " of Englishmen do with hundreds of lawless soldiers ?" 
 A correspondent writes on the 29th : " ^Ye have no 
 ■' news as to the English cooped up ia Mr. Boyle's 
 " fortification, whether they are ia existence or not.'' 
 And again : " God knows what the fate of the unfortu- 
 nate people at Arrah has been." Towards the middle 
 of the week it was determined at Dinapore to make an 
 effort to raise the siege. An expedition started, con- 
 sisting of nearly three hundred and fifty men of the 
 37th Queen's regiment, sixty Sikhs, and some young 
 civilians who volunteered to accompany the party. 
 Unfortunately, Captain Dunbar, the officer appointed 
 to the command, was quite unfit for such a duty, his 
 military experience having been gained in a paymaster's 
 bureau. The force was put on board a steamer, and 
 sent up the Ganges. It was the height of the rainy 
 season, and much of the country was under water. 
 
78 FOLLY. 
 
 Accordingly, on arriving nearly opposite Arrah, the 
 troops left the steamer, and embarked in some large 
 boats, in which they followed the course of a nullah, 
 which brought them some miles nearer their point. 
 By the time they were landed, evening had already 
 closed in. The officers present, who knew something 
 of night service, importuned their leader to bivouac 
 on a bridge at some distance from Arrah, to give the 
 soldiers their rum and biscuit, with a few hours' sleep, 
 and then march in at daybreak. They urged on him 
 the extreme danger of taking a small party of tired men 
 in the dark through an unknown region swarming with 
 foes who were thoroughly prepared for their reception. 
 The answer was : " No. They expect us at Arrah, and 
 " I shall not think of halting till we get there." This 
 was a reason which it was hard for Englishmen to 
 gainsay. So the order was given to move on, and the 
 men threw their firelocks over their shoulders, and set 
 off on the march, the Sikhs forming the advance-guard. 
 Almost incredible to relate. Captain Dunbar had not 
 sufficient foresight to throw out iiankers. It never 
 seems to have occurred to him that a march at mid- 
 night through three miles of bazaar and mud-waU, grove 
 and garden, to the relief of a place beleaguered by ten 
 thousand armed men, had need to be conducted with 
 any greater caution than a change of quarters from 
 Calcutta to Dum Dum. 
 
 A short league from the An-ah Collectorate, on the 
 right hand of a man travelling towards the town, stands 
 a large Hindoo temple, in grounds of its own. Just 
 before reaching this point, the way, which has hitherto 
 passed through open fields of rice and poppy, runs for 
 
THE COKSEQUEXCE. 79 
 
 some three hundred yards between belts of trees about 
 fifty feet in width. The road lies along an embankment 
 raised considerably above the level of the surrounding 
 country. The Sikhs had already passed, and the strag- 
 gling array of English soldiers were plodding along the 
 defile, half asleep, with weary legs and empty stomachs, 
 when the darkness of the grove on either side was lit 
 up as by magic, and a crashing fire poured into their 
 ranks. Exposed on the top of the causeway, their 
 bodies standing out against what dim starlight there 
 was, they afforded an easy mark to their invisible 
 enemies, who swarmed in the gloom below. During 
 the first minutes many were struck down, and at that 
 short range there were few wounds wliich did not bring 
 death. Then, by a sort of instinct, the men deserted 
 the road, and collected in groups wherever they could 
 find cover. One large party took refuge in a dry tank, 
 beneath the banks of which the)' loaded and discharged 
 their pieces at random, as long as their ammunition 
 lasted; while the flashes of their musketiy enabled 
 the sepoys to direct their aim with deadly accuracy. 
 Another party occupied the temple, and throughout 
 the night there went on constant skirmishing round 
 the walls and in the inclosure of the garden. If the 
 soldiers had been got together in one place, and made 
 to lie down quietly in their ranks till the morning, they 
 were still quite strong enough to perform the service 
 on which they had been despatched. In spite of their 
 heavy losses, they were quite as numerous as the force 
 which eventually succeeded in relieving Arrah. But 
 there was no one there of the temper of Xicholson or 
 Hodson ; no one who at such a moment dared to step 
 
80 THB BOUT. 
 
 forward and usurp authority in the name of the com- 
 mon safety. Split up into small sections, without orders 
 from their superiors ; ignorant alike of the fate of their 
 comrades, the nature of the surrounding localities, and 
 the number and position of their assailants ; wasting 
 their strength and powder in objectless firing, than which 
 nothing is more sure to demoralise troops under any 
 circumstances — in such plight our countrymen awaited 
 the dawn of day. 
 
 Then, after a short consultation, the officers who 
 survived got the men into some sort of order, and 
 commenced a retreat upon the boats. But by this time 
 the enemy, flushed with success, and increasing every 
 minute in strength, redoubled their efforts to complete 
 the ruin of our force. In front, in rear, on either flank 
 hung clouds of sepoys, who kept up a withering dis- 
 charge on the thin line of dispirited exhausted English- 
 men. At first our soldiers replied as best they could ; 
 but soon every one began to think of providing for 
 his own safety. Our fire slackened, ceased; the pace 
 quickened ; the ranks became unsteady ; and finally the 
 whole array broke, and fled for dear life along the road 
 in the direction of the nullah. 
 
 Then came the scenes which have ever marked the 
 rout of a company of civilized men by barbarian foes. 
 Some of the fugitives were shot down as they ran, 
 Others, disabled by wounds or fatigue, were overtaken 
 and slain. Others again, who sought preservation by 
 leaving the line of flight, were mobbed and knocked on 
 the head by the peasants of the neighbouring villages. 
 More than one unfortunate European, who, after having 
 been pursued for miles, took to the water like a tired 
 
V. C. 81 
 
 Stag, was beaten to death witli bludgeons from the 
 brink of the pond in which he had taken refuge. All 
 who remained on the ground in the vicinity of the 
 temple, whether dead or alive, were hung on the trees 
 which fringed the road. The Sikhs that day proved 
 that they were stUl animated by the same spirit which 
 had formerly extorted the respect of their conquerors 
 in many a fierce and dubious battle in the open field. 
 Setting shoulder to shoulder, they fought their way to 
 the boats in unbroken order, and found that in such a 
 strait the most honourable course is likewise the safest. 
 Eoss Mangles, a young civilian, whose father was chair- 
 man of the com-t of directors during that trying year, 
 bore himself gallantly amidst the universal panic. He 
 had joined the expedition purely out of love for Herwald 
 "Wake, and in the suiprise of the preceding evening 
 had been stunned by a bullet-wound on the forehead. 
 His commanding appearance and cheery air now won 
 the confidence of those immediately round him, and he 
 succeeded in keepiag together a small knot of men who 
 supplied him with a succession of loaded rifles. As he 
 was a noted shikaree, a dead hand at bear and antelope, 
 the sepoys thought proper to keep their distance. Mean- 
 time he carried a wounded soldier on his back for six 
 miles, laying him down tenderly from time to time 
 when the enemy came too close to be pleasant. With 
 threescore fellows of his own kidney at his side, Eoss 
 would have shaken his friend by the hand before night 
 closed in, though Goer Sing stood in the way with all 
 the mutineers in Bahar. The men of his term at Hailey- 
 bury will long point with pride to the V.C. that follows 
 his name in the list of the Bengal Civil Service. 
 
82 TEB RUTUEN. 
 
 On reaching the banks of the nxillah, the soldiers, who 
 had now lost presence of mind, self-respect, subordi- 
 nation, everything but the unbridled desire for safety, 
 flung themselves into the water, and swam and waded 
 to the boats, into which they crowded with all the 
 iinseemly hurry of an overpowering terror. As they 
 struggled with the current, floundered iu the mud, and 
 scrambled over the gunwales, the sepoys plied them 
 with shot at pistol-range, directing their especial atten- 
 tion to a barge which was prevented from effecting its 
 escape by a rope twisted round the rudder. The men 
 inside crouched at the bottom of the boat, not daring 
 to show their heads above the bulwarks as a mark for 
 a hundred muskets. Nothing could have averted the 
 capture and destruction of the whole party, had not a 
 young volunteer, Macdonell by name, climbed out over 
 the stem, and unfastened the rope amidst a hail of 
 bullets ; an action which gave another Victoria Cross 
 to the Civil Service. 
 
 And now all was over ; and the survivors, bringing 
 home nothing but their bare lives, returned in mournful 
 guise, full of sad forebodings about the brave men whom 
 they were forced to abandon to their fate. The people 
 at Dinapore, when the steamer came in sight, as they 
 strained their eyes to catch some indication of the result 
 of the expedition, saw the deck covered with prostrate 
 forms ; and the dejection expressed by the air and atti- 
 tude of those on board convinced them at once that all 
 was not well. Of four hundred men who went forth, 
 only half returned. The others were lying, stripped 
 and mangled, along those two fatal leagues of road. 
 Captain Dunbar, in the Pagan phrase ordinarily used on 
 
EOV OOSS THE FIGHT. 83 
 
 sucli occasions, atoned for his obstinacy with his life. 
 When the news of this reverse reached Calcutta, there 
 were none so sanguine as to retain any hope of deliver- 
 ance for the little garrison at Arrah. 
 
 The opinion which prevailed in Calcutta certainly 
 coincided with that of Coer Sing and his army. 
 Throughout the night none of the defenders of the 
 house had slept. They listened with sickening anxiety 
 to the noise of the firing, now beguiling themselves into 
 the idea that it was drawing nearer ; now desponding, 
 as it remained ever stationary; and again comforting 
 each other with the theory that their countrymen had 
 taken up a strong position in the suburbs, and would 
 advance to their relief at break of day. Alas ! they 
 little knew what that day would bring forth. But, 
 when morning came, and the reports of the musketry- 
 grew fainter and fainter, tUI they died away in the dis- 
 tance, their hearts sank within them. They were not 
 long left in suspense ; for the besiegers had no intention 
 of keeping such good news to themselves, and they were 
 speedily informed that the force from Dinapore had been 
 cut to pieces, and that their last hope was gone. Yet 
 not the last — for they still had the hope of dying sword 
 in hand, instead of being tamely murdered like aU who 
 had hitherto put trust in the word of their treacherous 
 and unforgiving Eastern foe. That foe now offered the 
 whole party their lives, if they would give up Wake 
 and Syed Azmoodeen Khan, the deputy-collector, a 
 native for whom the Sahib of Sahibs, Lord William 
 Bentinck, had entertained a great regard. This proposal 
 having been rejected, nothing more was said about con- 
 ditions of surrender, and both sides applied themselves 
 to the serious business of the siege. 
 
 g2 
 
8i SREACHING-BATTlSBr, NO. 1. 
 
 , The enemy had fished out from some corner two 
 cannon — a four-pounder, and a two-pounder — the 
 smaller of which they placed at the angle of the bun- 
 galow facing the little house, while they hoisted the 
 larger on to the roof. They adopted the plan of loading 
 the gun behind the parapet, and then running it on to 
 the top of the portico, and wheeling out an arm-chair 
 fitted with a shot-proof screen of boards, on which sat 
 a man who aimed and discharged the piece. It was 
 then drawn back with ropes to be sponged out and re- 
 charged. This method of working artillery would per- 
 haps be considered somewhat primitive at Shoeburyness 
 or Woolwich ; but, when employed against a bUliard- 
 room at a range of forty yards, the result might justly 
 be described as a feu d'enfer. For some time the be- 
 sieged fully expected that their walls would come tum- 
 bling down about their ears ; but they soon took heai-t 
 of grace, and set themselves manfully to repair the 
 damage caused by breaching-battery, No. 1.' Fortu- 
 nately the store of cannon-balls was soon exhausted. 
 The enemy eked it out by firing away the castors of 
 Mr. Boyle's piano, of which the supply, however, was 
 necessarily limited. Meanwhile, the sepoys had lined 
 the garden wall, which at that time ran within twenty 
 yards of the rear of the house. From this position their 
 picked marksmen directed their shots at the loopholes, 
 while from the trees around, from the ditch of the com- 
 pound, from the doors and windows of the bungalow, an 
 incessant fire was maintained throughout the twenty- 
 four hours. If Mr. Boyle's fortification, like Jericho, 
 could have been brought to the ground by noise, it 
 would certainly not have stood long. The mutineers, in 
 
NOSE-GATK 85 
 
 imitation of the besiegers of Mansoul, ia Bunyan's 
 " Holy War," seemed determined to try all the senses 
 round, and to enter at Nose-gate if they were repulsed 
 at Ear-gate. Poor Mr. Wake, who provided the material 
 both for the attack and the defence, had placed his 
 horses in an inclosure under the walls of the outhouse. 
 These were now shot by the sepoys ; and the Indian 
 sun speedUy produced effects which gave more annoy- 
 ance to the garrison than the cannonade from the porch. 
 But the contents of every knacker's cart in London 
 might have been shot out under the verandah, without 
 weakening the determination to resist * to the last. 
 Some ingenious natives set fire to a large heap of the 
 raw material of red pepper on the windward quarter, 
 with the view of smoking out the Sahibs. But a lot of 
 genuine Qui-hyes, with their palates case-hardened by 
 many pungent curries, were not likely to be frightened 
 at a bonfire of chilies. Since the first day, the muti- 
 neers fought shy of any attempt to carry the place by 
 storm : and not %vithout reason : for, as a reserve to 
 their trusty rifles, each Sahib had his fowling-piece, with 
 a charge of number four shot for close quarters, lying 
 snugly in the left-hand barrel. Then they had hog- 
 spears, and knew how to use them. The charge of a 
 forty-inch boar, rising well in his spring, was at least as 
 formidable as the rush of a sepoy. They had revolvers, 
 too, with a life in every chamber, — the weapon that is 
 the very tj^e of armed civilization. On the whole, the 
 besiegers were not far wrong in regarding an attack by 
 open force as a resource to be adopted only when all 
 other devices had failed. 
 
 Meanwhile the temper of the people inside was as 
 
86 WHAT WENT ON INSIDE. 
 
 true as the metal of their gun-locks. Englishmen are 
 always inclined to look at the bright side of things, as 
 long as there is a bright side at which to look ; and 
 the English spirit was well represented there. Young 
 Colvin was especially cheerful himself, and the cause 
 that cheerfulness was in other mea The whole party 
 accommodated their habits to their circumstances with 
 great good-humour. The Sikhs occupied the cellarage. 
 The Sahibs lived and slept in the single room on the 
 first iioor, and took their meals, sitting on the stairs 
 above and below the landing-place, on which the cloth 
 was laid. On the wall above the hearth. Wake wrote a 
 journal of the events of each day, in full expectation 
 that no other record would be left of what had taken 
 place within those devoted walls. One morning the 
 Jemmadar reported that the water with which his men 
 had provided themselves had all been drunk out. The 
 Europeans offered to supply them out of their own 
 store : but one Sikh obstinately refused to touch the 
 same water as the Sahibs. He stoutly affirmed that he 
 had rather die of thirst than give in to such a scandalous 
 piece of latitudinarianism. It was not a time to dis- 
 regard the whims and prejudices of any one of the 
 gallant fellows, whom neither fear nor lucre could tempt 
 to be false to their salt. So Natives and English to- 
 gether set to work to dig a well in one of the vaults, and 
 within twelve hours they had thrown out eighteen feet 
 of earth by four, a depth at which they found abun- 
 dance of water. At the end of the week close obser- 
 vation convinced them that the sepoys were engaged in 
 running a mine towards the back of the house. This 
 justly gave them greater alarm than any other machina- 
 
BLOCKADK 87 
 
 tion of the enemy. But necessity is the mother of 
 countermines ; and these amateur sappers soon made 
 themselves as secure against the new peril that threat- 
 ened them as their scanty means would admit. 
 
 And so they staved off destruction another day, and 
 yet another. But a far more terrible foe than Coer Sing 
 now broke ground before the defences. The house had 
 been provisioned for a week, and a week had already 
 passed. ITeither rifle, nor spear, nor British courage, nor 
 N^ative fidelity, would avail aught, when the rice and 
 the flour had all been eaten. At Arrah, as at other 
 Indian stations, where the residents know good meat 
 from indifferent, there was an institution called a 
 mutton-club, the sheep belonging to which were feeding 
 about the compound under the hungry eyes of their 
 owners. But no one could show himself for a second 
 outside the walls and live. It might be a hundred, it 
 might-be a hundred and fifty hours, (for who could say 
 beforehand how long human pluck and patience, when 
 put to the test, could endure the last extreme of priva- 
 tion ?) but the dread moment was steadily drawing on, 
 when death must come by famine or by the bullets of 
 the enemy. In no direction could they discern a gleam 
 of light. The only force that was near enough and 
 strong enough to march to the rescue had been routed 
 and disorganized. The English troops at Buxar were a 
 mere handful, not numerous enough to guarantee the 
 safety of the station. The days of miracles had gone 
 by, and it seemed that nothing short of a miracle could 
 deliver them. Unless it should come to pass that the 
 angel of the Lord should go forth by night and smite 
 the camp of the besiegers, they felt that this world, with 
 
88 riNCWT UTRE. 
 
 its joys and troubles, would be all over for them ere but 
 a few suns had set. 
 
 The English troops at Buxar certainly were a mere 
 handful. But there was a man there who was neither 
 a novice nor a pedant, neither a young soldier nor an old 
 woman. Wherever hard knocks had been going within 
 the last twenty years — and during that period there was 
 no lack — Yincent Eyre had generally managed to come 
 in for a liberal allowance. In the Afghan war, the 
 roughest of schools, he had learnt to preserve an equal 
 mind ia arduous circumstances. "When the intelligence 
 of the outbreak, travelling with the proverbial speed of 
 bad news, reached the station of Buxar, Eyre at once 
 made up his mind to march, without waiting to hear 
 whether an expedition had started from Dinapore. 
 Perhaps he was unwilling to leave the fate of the gar- 
 rison entirely dependent on the energy and promptness 
 of Greneral Lloyd. Perhaps he thought that a good 
 thing like the relief of Arrah would bear doing twice 
 over. His force consisted of a hundred and fifty and 
 four English bayonets, twelve mounted volunteers, and 
 three field-pieces, with their complement of artillery- 
 men. The distance to be traversed was fifty mUes as 
 the crow flies ; and, as the waters were out over the 
 face of the country, and the population was in a state of 
 open hostility, the march proved long and formidable. 
 On the way. Eyre received tidings of the reverse sus- 
 tained by Dunbar's detachment. It seemed foolhardy 
 indeed to advance to the attack of an enemy who had 
 just cut in pieces a force twice as strong as his own. 
 But, according to his view of the matter, this consider- 
 ation did not in any wise affect the result of his rea- 
 
HOW TO DO IT. 89 
 
 soiling. His axiom was that Arrah. must be relieved. 
 There was no one else now left to do the business ; so 
 of necessity it fell to him. He had not many soldiers, 
 and would be glad to have more. He did not share 
 the sentiment of King Henry at Agincourt. He would 
 have been delighted to see at his back a thousand or two 
 of those men at Aldershott who did no work that day. 
 But, as he had only a few, he must perform the work 
 with those few. So on he went, nothing doubtincr. 
 
 On the night of Sunday, the 2d of August, our force 
 bivouacked at Googerajgunge. In the morning the 
 enemy put in an appearance, and the march was one 
 constant skirmish as far as Bebeegunge, where the road 
 crosses a deep nullah. The bridge had been destroyed ; 
 and EjTe had nothing for it but to direct his course 
 towards the railway embankment, along which he hoped 
 to force his way to Arrah. This route, however, was 
 barred by a wood, in and about which was drawn up 
 Goer Sing's whole force — two thousand five hundred 
 mutineers, and the posse comitatus of the province, 
 estimated at eight thousand men. The rebels, whom 
 their recent success had inspired with unwonted con- 
 fidence, did not wait to be attacked. The sepoy bugles 
 sounded the "Assembly," then the "Advance," and 
 finally the " Double ; " and their battalions, in columns 
 of companies, charged our guns in front, but were 
 driven back several times with great slaughter. Then 
 they tried a surer game, and endeavoured to crush our 
 line with a heavy point-blank musketry fire. " And 
 " now," said Major Eyre, " we had as much on our own 
 "hands as we could manage." Large numbers of the 
 enemy stole round under cover of the trees, and raked 
 
90 THE miBGE. 
 
 our whole array from either flank. The men hegan to fall 
 fast ; and, in an army of nine or ten score combatants, 
 men cannot fall fast for many minutes together without 
 serious consequences. Our troops began to be disheart- 
 ened, and to be painfully aware of the overwhelming 
 odds against which they were contending. It was 
 trying work receiving twenty bullets for every one they 
 fired. At such a moment the man of sterling stuff feels 
 that things cannot go well, unless he personally exerts 
 himself to the utmost. It is this state of mind that wins 
 foot-ball matches, and boat-races, and battles. Now or 
 never, was the word. The order was given, and our 
 ofificers ran forward, sword in hand, towards the poinf 
 where the enemy stood thickest, with the men shouting 
 at their heels. This appeared to the sepoys a most un- 
 accountable proceeding ; but they were not ignorant of 
 the great military truth that " when two hostile parties 
 " find themselves on the same ground one or the other 
 " must leave it ; " and, as our people kept coming nearer 
 and nearer with the expression on their faces which the 
 Sahibs always wear when they don't intend to turn 
 back, -they had no choice but to run for it. That charge 
 saved Arrah. When once natives have given way, it is 
 almost impossible to bring them again to the scratch. 
 Goer Sing retreated, leaving on the ground six hundred 
 of his followers, most of whom had been killed in the 
 attack upon the battery ; and our poor little force, which 
 he had expected to devour at a single mouthful, gathered 
 together the wounded, limbered up the guns, and with 
 lightened hearts pressed forward on its mission of de- 
 liverance. 
 
 When the garrison looked out of their loopholes at 
 
THE RELIBF. 91 
 
 dawn, on the 3d, they were surprised at seeing none of 
 the besiegers stirring in the neighbourhood. As they 
 were not the men to wait tamely for what might befall 
 them without doing something to help themselves, they 
 sallied forth and took this opportunity to get some 
 fresh air and replenish their larder. After a hard chase 
 about the compound, they succeeded in capturing four 
 sheep, which they brought back into the house amidst 
 great rejoicing, together with one of the enemy's cannon. 
 Presently the boom of guns was heard in the distance, 
 and excited a strange hope which, but just now, they 
 expected never again to experience. Towards evening 
 the beaten rebels poured into the town in dire confusion. 
 They stayed only to collect their plunder — in the sense 
 in which the word is employed both by a Yankee and 
 an Englishman — and marched off, bag and baggage, 
 never more to visit Arrah, with the exception of a few 
 who returned from time to time in order to be present 
 at their own execution. On the morning of Tuesday, 
 the 4th of August, there was not a sepoy within miles 
 of the station. And then our countrymen came forth, 
 unwashed, unshaved, begrimed with dust and powder, 
 haggard with anxiety and want of sleep, but very 
 joyous and thankful at heart : pleased to stand once 
 more beneath the open sky, and to roam fearlessly 
 through their old haunts, in which the twittering of 
 birds and the chirping of grasshoppers had succeeded 
 to the ceaseless din of musketry ; pleased with the first 
 long draught of sherry and soda-water, and with the 
 cool breath of dawn after the atmosphere of a vault, 
 without window or punkah, filled to suffocation with 
 the smoke of their rifles. With what fervour must they 
 
92 THE SCENE MAY PERISH 
 
 have offered their tribute of praise and gratitude to 
 Almighty God — not for having smitten Amalek, and 
 discomfited Moab ; not for having overthrown their 
 enemies, and dashed in pieces those that rose up against 
 them ; not for having abated the pride of Coer Sing, 
 assuaged his malice, and confounded his devices— but 
 because, in His mercy, He so decreed, and in His 
 wisdom so arranged the order of the world, that civili- 
 zation should prevail over brute force, fair dealing over 
 treachery, and manly valour over sneaking cruelty, that 
 so all things might work together for our good and His 
 honour ! 
 
 There are moments when an oppressive sense of 
 Nineteenth Century weighs heavy on the soul ; when 
 we shudder to hear Mr. Cobden pronounce that one 
 number of the Times newspaper is worth the eight 
 books of Thucydides. There are moments when we 
 feel that locomotives and power-looms are not every- 
 thing; that black care sits behind the stoker; that 
 death knocks with equal foot at the door of the Turkey 
 Eed Tarn Establishment. Then it is good to turn from 
 the perusal of the share-list ; from pensive reflections 
 on the steadiness of piece-goods, the languor of gunny- 
 cloths, and the want of animation evinced by mule- 
 twist, to the contemplation of qualities which are 
 recognised and valued by all ages ahke. It is good to 
 know that trade, and luxury, and the march of science, 
 have not unnerved our wrists, and dulled our eyes, and 
 turned oiu- blood to water. There is much in common 
 between Leonidas dressing his hair before he went forth 
 to his last fight, and Colvin laughing over his rice and 
 salt while the bullets pattered on the wall hive hail. 
 
THE ME2I01ir NEVER. 93 
 
 Still, as in the days of old Homer, " Cowards gain 
 " neither honour nor safety; but men who respect them- 
 " selves and each other for the most part go through the 
 " battle unharmed." Still, as in Londonderry of old, 
 the real strength of a besieged place consists not in the 
 scientific construction of the defences, nor in the mul- 
 titude of the garrison, nor in abimdant stores of pro- 
 vision and ordnance, but in the spirit which is prepared 
 to dare all, and endure all, sooner than allow the 
 assailants to set foot within the wall. Thoiigh but six 
 years have passed away, the associations of the events 
 which I have related begin to grow dim. So changeable 
 are the elements of Anglo-Indian society that not one 
 of the defenders of the fortification is now resident at 
 the station. Already the wall, on wliich Wake wrote 
 the diary of the siege, has been whitewashed ; and the 
 inclosure, where the dead horses lay through those 
 August days, has been destroyed ; and a party-wall has 
 been built over the mouth of the well in the cellars ; 
 and the garden-fence, which served the mutineers as a 
 first parallel, has been moved twenty yards back. Half 
 a centiuy more, and every vestige of the struggle may 
 have been swept away. But, as long as Englishmen 
 love to hear of fidelity, and constancy, and courage 
 bearing up the day against frightful odds, there is no 
 fear lest they forget the name of " the little house 
 " at .-Vrrah." 
 
 Youis very truly, 
 
 H. Bkoughton. 
 
94 BAWK-TBAVELLING. 
 
 LETTER V. 
 
 i JOUENEY, A GRAND TUMASHA, AND THE TRUTH ABOUT 
 THE CiyiL SERVICE CAREER. 
 
 Calcutta, March 12. 
 
 Deak Simkins, — I have lately witnessed some phases 
 of life in India which have little in common with 
 Calcutta grandeur and civilization. To hegin with the 
 travelling : I spent sixteen hours on the four hundred 
 miles between the capital and Patna, and seventeen 
 hours on the forty odd mUes between Patna and 
 MofussUpore. And uncommonly odd JDnes they were. 
 I started at ten p.m. on the 9th of last month in the 
 time-honoured palanquin. My suite comprised sixteen 
 bearers, two feUows with torches and four banghy- 
 wallahs, who convey luggage in something resembling 
 the received idea of the Scales in the zodiac. The 
 performances of these thia-legged, miserable, rice-fed 
 " missing links " are perfectly inexplicable according 
 to our notions of muscular development. Pour picked 
 readers of Kingsley would find it hard work to bring 
 along an empty palanquin at their own pace ; whereas a 
 set of sixteen bearers will carry you and your traps at 
 the rate of four and four and a half miles an hour for 
 twenty leagues on end. The powers of the banghy- 
 
TENSER SPLEENS. 95 
 
 wallahs are something portentous. Two of them took 
 to Mofussilpore, tnrn and turn about, a gun-case and a 
 carpet-bag containing, among other things, twenty-eight 
 pounds of shot and three hundred and fifty bullets, 
 going the whole way at a swing trot. And yet the 
 physical conformation of these men is so frail, that a 
 blow on the body is liable to cause instant death. It 
 is commonly believed that this proceeds from the large 
 size of the spleen : and, whether true or not, the theory 
 has its advantages : for the lower classes of Europeans 
 are a little too apt to be free with their fists, and the 
 coolies who come in their way escape many a thrashing 
 which would fall to their lot if their midritFs were less 
 ticklish to meddle with. Eecruits are always solemnly 
 warned of this peculiarity in the Hindoo constitution 
 by their comrades who have been some time in the 
 country : and more than once a soldier, when seeking 
 redress ia a court of justice for a fraud or theft 
 committed by a native, has excused himseK for not 
 having taking the law into his own knuckles, by 
 reminding the magistrate of the thinness of the de- 
 fendant's pericardium. 
 
 In the rainy season, the Ganges at Patna is a sheet 
 of water six miles ia breadth ; but in February it flows 
 along two channels on either side of a low sandy island. 
 On arriving at the first branch of the river, the whole 
 company got on board a large boat, and we were ferried 
 across for the moderate remuneration of three mites 
 a head. The bearers enjoyed the passage amazingly ; 
 handing about the fraternal hubble-bubble, and dis- 
 cussing whether the Sahib was a planter or a police- 
 ofBcer — to which latter opinion the majority eventually 
 
96 STUCK FylST. 
 
 inclined, on the ground that he had black hair. We 
 then crossed the island, and a little after midnight 
 embarked on our second voyage. I fell asleep directly 
 after we started, and awoke again at four in the 
 morning to find the boat stuck fast on a sand-bank in 
 the centre of the stream. The crew, three in number, 
 were up to their middles in the water, in the last stage 
 of exhaustion, vainly endeavouring to shove us off; 
 while the other natives, twenty-two in all, reclined at 
 their ease on the benches, waiting apparently tiU the 
 first rains in Jun'e should set the vessel afloat. The 
 appearance of my head from the door of the palan(iuin 
 produced an instantaneous effect. The whole party 
 fell to upbraiding each other with indolence and selfish- 
 ness, untn at length one individual, more public-spirited, 
 or, perhaps, more weak-minded than the rest, slowly 
 divested himself of his toga, and stepped over the 
 bulwarks into the river. His exertions were not fol- 
 lowed by any visible amelioration in our position, and, 
 when this fact had been thoroughly realized by his 
 companions, another lowered himself into the gulf with 
 the most leisurely air of self-sacrifice. By the time it 
 came to the Quintus Curtius, another half-hour had 
 gone by, and I could stand it no longer. So I bundled 
 the whole lot bodily into the water, and, after a great 
 deal of sighing and grunting, we bumped gradually into 
 a deeper channel, and arrived at the left bank without 
 any farther mishap. 
 
 As it was now five o'clock, I resolved to get some 
 breakfast at the dawk bungalow, which stood near the 
 ferry. There was only one Sahib staying in the house ; 
 a fat civil servant, whom at first I mistook for Jos 
 
JOS SUDLEY. 97 
 
 Sedley. He was travelling in most luxurious style, 
 with a complete hattcrie dc cuisine, and at least a dozen 
 servants. He turned out to be a capital fellow, and 
 provided me witli a complete breakfast — tea, fish, steak, 
 and curry. When he learnt that I Aias a competition- 
 wallah, he was highly delighted, and asked me whether 
 I was a good scholar. Then, without waiting for a 
 repl}', he informed me that the classics were his hobby ; 
 that they had long formed his only recreation, with the 
 exception of pig-sticking; and that his mind was so 
 thoroughly imbued with the literature of Greece that it 
 had become positively Hellenized. To this I replied 
 that our nature gradually moulds itself till it resembles 
 the object of our favourite pursuit ; which was rather 
 an unlucky observation, as he was wonderfully like a 
 pig. However, he took the remark in a favourable 
 sense, and proceeded to tell me that the study of the 
 ancients was the passion of his mature years. He had 
 not been remarkable for early proficiency : although, 
 indeed, on one occasion, he had come within seven of 
 the classical medal at Haileybury. He was at present 
 ensraged on a work, the scheme of which, he flattered 
 himself, was both judicious and original. It was neither 
 more nor less than the rendering of the "Lays of 
 " Ancient Eome " back into the ballad poetry of which 
 they are supposed to be translations. This, when com- 
 plete, would, he observed, be a " -xprjixa elaaei" He 
 then repeated the opening lines of " Horatius," which 
 ran thus : — 
 
 " En ! Lars Clusinus per ter tres Porsena Divos 
 Jurat Tarquinios ne louga injuria vexet 
 Se provisurum. Per ter tres Porsena Divos 
 Jurat, et Auroram certam proolamat ubiqne. 
 H 
 
98 SATUBNIAN MUTBH 
 
 Et speoulatores deourrere solis ad ortus, 
 
 Solis et occasus jussit, Boreamque, Kotumque, 
 
 Et late Tusoum agmeu 'ad anna' vocavit, 'ad anna.'" 
 
 " Observe," he cried, " the repetition in the last line. 
 " The first ' ad arma ' may be supposed to be the 
 "summons to battle; the second is, as it were, the 
 " universal answer of the people. Is it not life-like ? " 
 I replied that it might be like life, but that it certainly 
 was not Kke the production of a Eoman bard who lived 
 more than three centuries before Virgil was bom or 
 thought of I reminded him that the hexameter was 
 borrowed from Greece at a later period than that 
 imagined by Macaulay as the date of this poem, and 
 suggested that the Saturnian metre would be more 
 appropriate. He asked for a specimen, and I repeated 
 the only lines in that measure with which I was 
 acquainted : — 
 
 " Et Naevio poetse, cum saepfe Isederentur, 
 Datunt malum Metelli : dabunt malum MetelU : " 
 
 an attack upon the poet which was called forth by the 
 epigram : — 
 
 " Fato Metelli fiunt Eoms consules :" 
 
 a satire, the point of which is so preternatnrally mild, 
 that it is difficult to account for the bitterness which it 
 excited. Hereupon my companion's countenance as- 
 sumed an air of thought, and he retired into his bed- 
 room, whence he emerged after an interval of about an 
 hour, with the information that he had re-written the 
 commencement of the lay in a manner which undoubtedly 
 displayed considerable powers of adaptation : — 
 
" I AM ONLY THE HXPRHSS." 99 
 
 " Ab uite rex amicus cim sscpe pelleretur, 
 Mox Porsence miuacis cohors Etrusca KoniEe 
 Dabit malum superbse ; dabit malum superbee." 
 
 Almost immediately afterwards I set off again on my 
 journey, not without painful misgivings as to what my 
 friend would do now that he had used up all his model 
 in the first three Hues of his poem. 
 
 About half-way to MofussHpore we came upon a 
 native lying asleep under a tree at the side of the road. 
 The bearers stopped, and informed me that he was a 
 dawk runner, carrying the post, and that, wnenever the 
 Sahibs saw a dawk runner asleep or loitering, they 
 always got out and beat him with their feet. On sub- 
 sequent inquiry, I found that the statement was correct. 
 The postmen are bound to travel at the rate of six 
 miles an hour ; but, in point of fact, they never go 
 beyond a walk. If, however, an Englishman heaves in 
 sight, they set off, and puff and blow like a pedestrian 
 who is trying to look as if he were being outrun by 
 Deerfoot. l^ot wishing to appear ignorant of the 
 custom of the country, I alighted, and began banging 
 the man about with my umbrella, and asked him what 
 the Son of Morning he meant by liis conduct. It 
 turned out that my zeal was misplaced ; for when 
 returning consciousness disclosed to him the presence 
 of a Sahib with an avenging alpaca, he looked up in 
 my face with an air of reproachful innocence, and said : 
 " Main dawk nahin hi. Main express hi." (I am not 
 the dawk ; I am only the express.) 
 
 The omnipresence of " hi " never fails to impress a 
 new comer. As it forms the termination to four sen- 
 tences out of five, he at first imagines that it is an 
 
 112 
 
100 EI. 
 
 interjection with a sense of command. He deduces 
 this theory partly from the fact that at home the 
 particle in question is exclusively employed by Tdus- 
 drivers as a preliminary to running over deaf people; 
 and partly from the profusion "with which the word is 
 used out here by Englishmen in giving their orders to 
 inferiors. He therefore tacks it on to the end of the 
 name of any article which he may require, exclaim- 
 ing with touching confidence, " Belattee Pawnee' hi ! " 
 " Beer Shrub hi ! " — a form of expression which 
 simply amounts to predicating the existence of those 
 luxuries. 
 
 At five o'clock in the afternoon we had still an hour's 
 journey before us. As it was no longer too hot to be 
 pleasant, I sent on the palkee and my luggage, and 
 walked into the station alone. The last two miles lay 
 through the Bazaar. I was surprised, and not much 
 flattered, by the indifference to my presence shown by 
 the ladies seated in the verandahs bordering on the 
 road. Whether travellers by profession have a higher 
 opinion of their own personal charms than any other 
 class of men, I cannot say, but their books usually 
 teem with passages in this style : 
 
 "The fair daughter of Mahomet, as the sound of 
 " wheels reached her ears, drew over her stately head, 
 "in playful haste, the veil which religion and custom 
 "aKke prescribe, but not so quickly as to rob the 
 '' stranger of one glance at her dark features and chiselled 
 " brow, worthy of a home in the Paradise of the 
 " blessed : " or, 
 
 '' From behind the lattice issued from time to time 
 "the noise of suppressed laughter, while a careful ob- 
 
Torxa FJRjyKS. loi 
 
 " server might note a gazelle-like orb peering throngh 
 " the framework in cnrions admiration of the ruddy 
 " countenance and stalwart form of the young Frank." 
 
 ]My own impression is, that a native female troubles 
 herself as little about yoimg Franks as a Yorkshire 
 girl about young Gentoos. A recluse, who knew the 
 world only from books, would imagine that all women 
 were of exquisite beauty, and thought about nothing 
 from morning till night except the admiration which 
 they excited. This is only another form of the fable of 
 the lion and the sculptor. If the immense majority 
 of books had been written by women, the conventional 
 idea would ha^'e attributed good looks and coquetry 
 to men. Poetry would have been full of tapering mous- 
 tachios and waving whiskers, and Apollos de iledici, 
 and men, in their hours of ease, imcertain, coy, and hard 
 to please. A strong proof of the rapid spread of culti- 
 vation and knowledge among English ladies is afforded 
 by the fact, that much of the nonsense about bright 
 eyes and cruel charmers with which the literature of 
 a century ago is larded would not be tolerated by 
 modern readers. We owe this to IMiss Austen, Currer 
 Bell, Harriet Martineau, and others of their sex, who 
 have shown by indisputable proofs that women are good 
 for something better than to point a sonnet or adorn an 
 eclogue. 
 
 At every turn of the road I came upon a policeman 
 in a bright blue tunic, tight yellow pantaloons, and a 
 red pugree or turban. It is some time before the mind 
 can grasp the conception of poHce, in a countiy where 
 the cooks are aU. of the male sex, and where religion 
 forbids the consumption of cold mutton. The absence 
 
102 THJE OLD POLICH. 
 
 of areas is compensated to a certain extent by the 
 village well, whither the officer on duty retires occa- 
 sionally to refresh himself with a drink and a flirtation. 
 The police force is in a state of reorganization over the 
 whole Bengal Presidency. Under the old system, the 
 duties were left unperformed by a watchman in every 
 village, and by a Thannadar, or Government officer, 
 who was a person of no small authority, having Bur- 
 kandazzes under him, and saying to this man, " Find 
 " me a culprit, or I will give you a hundred lashes ; " 
 and to another, " Pay me down twenty rupees, and 
 " I win let you have six hours' law ; " and to the civil 
 servant in charge of the district, " Sahib, the murderer 
 " has escaped over the frontier disguised as a Pakeer." 
 The new police has been constructed on the Irish 
 model. They are entrusted with various services which 
 once fell to detachments from the regular army ; such 
 as guarding prisons, escorting treasure, and such like. 
 The inspectors and suj^erintendents are taken for the 
 most part from among regimental officers, and it is 
 said that the tendency of the new force is become too 
 decidedly military. The detective element is certainly 
 rather weak at present ; but it is better thus than that 
 the constables who are supposed to check crime should 
 be a gang of Jonathan Wilds, which was too often the 
 case before the present reforms began to take effect. 
 The same complaint is brought against the Irish police. 
 The magnificent fellows who parade in pairs, rifle on 
 shoulder, along the highroads of Mayo and Limerick, 
 consider it a great feat to capture an illicit still once 
 every two years in a region where nine-tenths of the 
 whiskey ou sale has never paid duty. In time of peace 
 
THE NEir POLICE. 103 
 
 there is something droll in the mixture of dislike and 
 contempt with which they are regarded by the country 
 people. When the tourist finds himself obliged to wade 
 a stream, the chances are that he will be told by his 
 guide that there was a beautiful bridge two years ago, 
 which the police broke down by marching over it in 
 step. It is needless to add that this accusation is 
 merely the form in which the popular sentiment has 
 thought fit to express itself. 
 
 It was just dark when I arrived at the Collectorate. 
 My cousia Tom welcomed me warmly, if warmth can 
 be coimected with anything pleasant in such a climate 
 as this. In eastern imagery, the idea of comfort and 
 solace is expressed by similes which imply protection 
 from heat and glare. " like the shadow of a great 
 " rock in a weary land," would mean very little on Ben 
 Cruachan or the ScawfeU Pikes. If in the course of 
 time the language of our countrymen in India adapts 
 itself to their altered tropics, we shall talk about our 
 hearts cooling towards a kindred nature, and our dis- 
 appointment at meeting with a hot reception from an 
 old friend. 
 
 There was a large dinner-party in the evening, and 
 every guest on his arrival was duly acquainted with my 
 having performed the last four miles of my journey on 
 foot. It was very amusing to observe the incredulity 
 with which this statement was received by some, and 
 the hilarity which it excited in others. That ghastly 
 allusion to the supposed poverty of one's feet, which 
 apparently" had just penetrated to Bahar, was freely 
 drawn upon for my benefit One or two old Indians 
 were seriously put out at such a piece of enthusiastic 
 
104 FM'mSmiAN EXBRCISB IN INDIA. 
 
 folly ; and a young assistant^magistrate, who had won 
 the mile race at Eton, and who, in the long vacation 
 before he came out, had discovered three loasses in 
 Switzerland, talked of my " superabundant energy " with 
 the languid pity of an Oriental voluptuary; From the 
 moment when he is cheated in the purchase of his first 
 buggy by a third-hand dealer in Calcutta, to the time 
 when, amidst an escort of irregular cavalry, he dashes 
 through Wondering villages in all the state of a lieu- 
 tenant-governor, your true civil servant never goes 
 a-foot on the highroad for a hundred yards together. 
 And this does not proceed from indolence or effemi- 
 nacy : for a Mofussil official, on the most dim rumour 
 of bear or tiger, will carry his gun for days over ground 
 that would heartily disgust ah English sportsman. But 
 horses and grooms and fodder are so cheap out here, 
 and the standard of incomes so high, that no one need 
 walk except for pleasure ; and the pleasure of walldng 
 in Bengal is, to say the least, equivocal. During the 
 whole of my stay in these parts, this feat provided a 
 subject for inexhaustible chaff, with the smallest con- 
 ceivable admixture of grain. 
 
 .It so happened that the Eajah of Euttehgunge, which 
 lies somewhere in the outskirts of this district, called 
 at Mofussilpore on his way back from the Durbar, or 
 levfe, held by the Viceroy at Agra. He had invited all 
 the English residents to a gi'and tumasha at his camp, 
 which was to take place the evening after my arrival. 
 A " tumasha " is anything special in the way of amuse- 
 ment ; a feast, a ball, or a play. The word has a magical 
 effect upon the native mind. On one occasion, a friend 
 of mine prevailed upon his bearer to submit to an 
 
J TUM.1SHA. 105 
 
 agonizing series of electric sliocks, under the assurance 
 that the proceeding "was a " tumasha." 
 
 We left the Collectorate at nine at night, iind drove 
 to the tents, which were nearly half a mile off, between 
 hedges of blazing lights, in three rows, one above 
 another. The Eajah received us at the entrance of 
 the pavilion ; and, after mutual compliments, we seated 
 ourselves on a row of arm-chairs on either side of the 
 great man. The scene was very picturesque. The 
 tent, which was of immense extent, open at the sides, 
 was thronged with guards and retainers in the most 
 gorgeous costumes, studded with gems which gUttered 
 and twinkled in the fitful flaring torchlight. In the 
 darkness outside thronged the whole population of the 
 neighbovirhood. The centre was spread -with a broad 
 rich carpet, on which were seated the performers, 
 rirst came a nautch, which afforded a striking example 
 of the profound dissimilaiity in taste between Asiatics 
 and Europeans. I have witnessed the exhibition of 
 Mr. "Woodin ; I have seen Charles Kean enact the lover 
 in a sentimental comedy ; I have a horrible dream of 
 having sat through the explanation of the comic dis- 
 solving ^dews at the Polj-technic Institution; but, though 
 a being of awful experiences, I could not have believed 
 in the existence of an entertainment so extravagantly 
 dull as a nautch. A young lady not remarkable for 
 her charms, dressed in a very splendid robe, which was 
 several inches too long for her, came forward a few 
 paces, stumbKng over her skirts, and commenced a 
 recitation in a singular and monotonous key, accom- 
 panied by three musical instruments of barbaric fashion, 
 which I concluded to be sackbuts and dulcimers. She 
 
106 A NAUTCH. 
 
 sang the praises of Tom Goddard, his early promise, 
 his beauty, his high birth. She related how he ex- 
 celled all his companions in manly exercises, and how 
 the Moonshees, who conducted his education, foretold 
 his future greatness. (The fact is, that he was the most 
 notorious muff on Bigside, and that the Principal of 
 Haileybury threatened him with expulsion at the end 
 of every term.) Then she described how the deities of 
 the sea made smooth the waves around the prow of the 
 ship which bore him across the black water. (He was 
 unable once to leave his cabin between Southampton 
 and Alexandria.) How, when he sat upon the bench 
 of judgment, aL. wondered at the precocious wisdom of 
 the youthful sage, and how the rulers of the land vied 
 to do him honour, and disputed with each other the 
 possession of so bright a jewel. (He began his public 
 career in the north-west, under a magistrate who 
 reversed three-fourths of his decisions, and made it a 
 personal favour that he should be removed to Bahar, 
 where he turned over a new leaf) She then spoke 
 of the condition of the province over which he now 
 extended his fostering care. She told us that the 
 period of his government was the golden age of the 
 district ; that force and fraud were unknown throughout 
 the borders ; that the planter did not grind the ryot, 
 nor the ryot write libels on the planter ; that the iields 
 were white with poppies, and that grain had fallen 
 three seers in the rupee ; that fuUer vats foamed with 
 bluer indigo, and more vigilant policemen watched over 
 emptier jails. At this point of the eulogium, Tom, 
 who had only the day before committed twenty-three 
 dacoits, blushed visibly — a performance to which I had 
 
COMEDIANS. 107 
 
 thoug'M him unequal. All this while, two stunted girls 
 had been coming forward at intervals of some minutes, 
 who, after waving their arms in time to the music, 
 turned short round and ran back to their places. 
 Meantime, another woman, with a sword between her 
 teeth and bells on her fingers, was throwing about her 
 head and hands in most ungTaceful contortions. And 
 this is the famous nautch, on which natives of the 
 highest class gaze in rapture for three, four, six hours 
 together ! 
 
 To the nautch succeeded the drolleries of a company 
 of comedians, ten or twelve in number. The Eajah 
 had prudently given them a hint to be careful, feeling 
 that even greater reverence is due to collectors than to 
 boys. The affair, in consequence, was grossly proper, 
 but excessively childish and absurd. It began with 
 imitations of various animals — the peacock amongst 
 others — which was represented by an ancient man with 
 a long white beard, evidently the Eobson of the troupe, 
 who held up a lighted torch behind him to represent 
 the bird's tail, and ran round and round cackling like 
 a goose as he was. After this a number of scenes were 
 enacted, in which the old fellow always played the 
 principal character. At one time he was an Arab 
 stable-keeper, while the others were grooms, horses, and 
 customers. On another occasion he was a magistrate 
 in Cutcherry, who, when a knotty case is brought before 
 him, sends it to be determined by the Joint Sahib (as 
 the natives designate the joint magistrate) and calls for 
 a light to his cigar. Finally, all the rest of the party 
 lay down on their backs, and clapped their hands, 
 while he passed a lighted torch over them. This was 
 
108- NATIVE FIREWORKS. 
 
 feebly supposed to suggest the idea of a pyrotechnical 
 exhibition. 
 
 We were roused from the profound melancholy into 
 which we had been thrown by this specimen of Eastern 
 humour, by a summons from our host to take supper 
 previously to witnessing a display of fireworks. A 
 magnificent banquet was laid out in an adjoining tent. 
 We each sipped a glass of wine, and, declining any 
 more solid refreshment, proceeded to mount a sort of 
 grand stand, which had been erected for our accommo- 
 dation, leaving the feast to be devoured by two deputy 
 opium agents and an Irish gentleman, who, according 
 to his own account, was engaged on a tour for the 
 purpose of collecting facts with a view to entering upon 
 public life, but who was very generally supposed to be 
 Haynes the murderer — a report that was eventually 
 traced home to the assistant-magistrate, who had been 
 persuaded by the stranger into purchasing a spavined 
 horse. The dulness of the nautch certainly had not 
 communicated itself to the fireworks. Eockets, wheels, 
 flowerpots, fountains, Bahar lights, Eoman candles, 
 were fizzing and blazing in every direction. There was 
 no attempt at effect or grouping. Men rushed about 
 with torches, lighting anything that stood most con- 
 venient. Within twenty minutes a good two hundred 
 pounds' worth of gunpowder must have flashed away 
 into the illimitable. The whole entertainment could 
 not have cost the Eajah less than four thousand rupees; 
 and yet the same man would think ten rupees a year a 
 very handsome subscription to the dispensary or the 
 schools in his own town. 
 
 The motive for this profusion is evident enough. All 
 
PBECEDEKCE. 109 
 
 the world witliin a hundred miles will hear that the 
 Futtehs'UBffe man has induced the Sahibs of Mofus' 
 silpore to be present at a tumasha ; and the Eajah of 
 Doodiah, his dearest enemy, will not know a moment's 
 peace until he has acliieved the same honour. Under 
 the feeble rule of the Mogul, these great landholders 
 exercised an absolute authority within their own 
 borders, and made war upon each other with con- 
 siderable gusto. Since we have been in the country 
 they have been forced to coniine their rivalry to 
 qxiarrels concerning precedence, and endless litigation 
 about every imaginable subject. At one of Lord 
 Canning's Durbars a dispute arose between two Rajahs, 
 as to which should be presented the first. They agreed 
 to refer the decision to an eminent member of the 
 Council then present, who proposed that they should 
 settle the point by the ordeal of tossing up. They 
 answered that they would be quite ready to adopt his 
 suggestion for that occasion only, but that the matter 
 was one which concerned all time, and must not be 
 lightly disposed of Accordingly the Englishman whom 
 they had appointed arbiter, went thoroughly into the 
 question, studied theh respective genealogies, and drew 
 up a report which was generally allowed to be con- 
 clusive. The unsuccessful claimant retired almost 
 broken-hearted. 
 
 Next day the servants of the Eajah came with the 
 intimation that the great man would pay us a visit in 
 the course of the morning. They brought Tom a doUy, 
 which is the name given to the only description of 
 present that Government servants are permitted to 
 accept. A dolly consists of trays of provisions, the 
 
110 A BOLLT. 
 
 number of which is regulated by the rank of the person 
 to whom the compliment is paid. Thus, a lieutenant- 
 governor gets fifty trays, while I, as a hanger-on of 
 Tom's, came in for a little dolly of ten. The size of 
 the offering, however, is of no consequence at all, as 
 the only article that an Englishman ever dreams of 
 touching is the box of Cabul grapes, of which each 
 dolly, great or small, contains one and only one. The 
 huge imsightly fish, the heaps of greasy sweetmeats, 
 and the piles of nondescript fruit and vegetables, are 
 appropriated by your servants, who are in a state of 
 plethora for forty-eight hours after, and of dyspepsia 
 during the whole of the next week. 
 
 Towards noon the Eajah came with a following of 
 eighteen or twenty cavaliers, mounted on raw-boned 
 horses daubed with paint according to the taste of their 
 riders, and about two score guards on foot, armed with 
 halberts, sabres, and blunderbusses of that beU-mouth 
 form which the Irish landlord knows so well. " Oft in 
 " the stUly night " he descries a tall hat peering over a 
 neighbouring stone wall, in company with that primitive 
 weapon, which, after a laudable effort at missing fire, 
 belches forth a shower of slugs and rusty nails and 
 copper halfpence, as an instalment of the rint which has 
 been withheld. Then he rides home cautiously, looking 
 out for the gates which have been taken off their hinges 
 and laid across his horse's track ; and, while his wife 
 picks the bits of old iron out of his back, he discusses 
 with the police sergeant the identity of the man who 
 has been compelled by a crisis in his affairs to borrow 
 the village blunderbuss. A Government less powerful 
 than our own might object to the troops of armed raga- 
 
SNOsmssmss. Ill 
 
 inufB.ns who live at the expense of the great noblemen 
 of these parts. But it is well understood, that all this 
 state is merely maintained with a view to keep up their 
 position ia the eyes of their cotmtrymen. There is no 
 one who gets so little fun for his money as your rich 
 Hindoo. He lives in a wretched doghole, and feeds on 
 rice and spices and sweetstuff, Hke the meanest shop- 
 keeper. Yet he is always in debt, always mortgaging 
 his land to planters, and screwing his tenants, and 
 cheating and being cheated by his agents and baUiffs. 
 The mass of his income goes to gratify what is neither 
 more nor less than the genuine spirit of snobbishness. 
 The Eajah of Doodiah has forty armed men in attend- 
 ance : — ^he must have fifty. The Eajah of Nilpore keeps 
 eighty riding horses : — he must keep a hundred, although 
 he never stirs out except in a litter. And yet Thackeray 
 will have it that snobbishness is the peculiar weakness 
 of Britons ! — the crying sin for which fire from heaven 
 is to descend upon Brompton, and turn Islington into a 
 sea of brimstone ! 
 
 What is the champagne from the public-house round 
 the corner, and the greengrocer in white cotton gloves 
 making off with a cold chicken in his umbrella, to the 
 gigantic ruinous pretension and display of a highborn 
 zemindar? I hate this ignorant abuse of everything 
 English. It is an ill novelist that fouls its own nest. Is 
 it really the fact that in England, of all countries in the 
 world, a titled fool can command the worship of society, 
 while merit without a handle to its name is doomed to 
 contempt and sixpenn'orth of beef from the cookshop ? 
 If Mr. Gladstone were a Hindoo gentleman of limited 
 means, his rare mental gifts would certainly not com- 
 
112 CONVERSATION WITH THE BAJJH. 
 
 peusate in the estimation of the comiminity for his defi- 
 ciency of rupees. If Mr. Eoiipell were the wealthiest 
 landholder in Tirhoot or Chumparun he might accuse 
 himself of forgery for thirty hours out of the twenty- 
 four without losing an atom of his influence and power. 
 But it is the same in everything. Though the marriage 
 tie is more sacred in England than in any other European 
 community; — though our literature is pure compared 
 with the German, and prudery itself by the side of the 
 productions of modern France ; — there are writers who 
 perpetually inveigh against our licentiousness and im- 
 morality. In spite of hospitals and refuges, and shoe- 
 black brigades, and Lancashire Eelief Eunds, you would 
 judge from the sermons of some clerical horse-leeches 
 that there was neither charity nor humanity throughout 
 our island. We are not inclined to self-glorification. 
 We have no Fourth of July, and we do not desire to 
 have one. But it is affectation to deny that, as nations 
 go, we honestly strive to learn what our duties are, and 
 to fulfil them to the best of our abilities. 
 
 The Eajah's address, like that of all Bengalee 
 grandees in the presence of Englishmen, was a curious 
 compound of solemnity and servility. He told us a 
 little about the Durbar, and we told him a little about 
 the Great Exhibition. He spoke of the approaching 
 marriage of the Prince of Wales, and expressed his 
 surprise at that ceremony having been deferred tUl the 
 bridegroom was twice the age at which he himself 
 had taken his first wife. He informed us that a report 
 prevailed in Bahar to the eifect that the Muscovites, 
 assisted by the King of Roum, were on the poiat of 
 sealing up the Persian Gulf to the rescue of Brigadier 
 
J.V ALARM. 113 
 
 Jefl'ersou Linooln. My cousiu advised him to have liis 
 son vacciaated, and in return he made a wild attempt to 
 get his assessment lowered. Tom pretended to mistake 
 his meaning, and answered that the Government was 
 inclined to regard with favour the zemindars who pro- 
 moted the cause of popular education by example and 
 pecuniary assistance. Upon this the Eajah, who found 
 the conversation growing unprofitable, took his leave, and 
 drove away amidst a salute from all the fire-arms in his 
 train which were capable of going off on so short a 
 notice. This proceeding raised the most lively appre- 
 hension in the breast of the Irish gentleman, who was 
 in a state of feverishness tempered with belattee-pawnee 
 after the dissipation of the previous evening. Under 
 the impression that a mutiny was on foot, and that the 
 Eajah, with all the native police of the district, was 
 besieging the Collectorate, he rushed out in his night- 
 shirt and drawers, with a gun cocked and loaded, and 
 was with some difSculty prevented from shooting Tom's 
 principal Sudder Ameen, an eminently respectable 
 Baboo in high judicial employ, who happened to be the 
 first native that came in his way. 
 
 The Indian CivU Service is undoubtedly a very fine 
 career. Here is Tom, in his thirty-first 3'ear, in charge 
 of a population as numerous as that of England in the 
 reign of Elizabeth. His Burghley is a joint magistrate 
 of eight-and-tweuty, and his Walsingham an assistant- 
 magistrate who took his degree at Christ Chiu-ch within 
 the last fifteen months. These, with two or three super- 
 intendents of police, and, last, but by no means least, a 
 judge, A\ho in rank and amount of salary stands to Tom 
 in the position which the Lord Chancellor holds to the 
 
 I 
 
114 A COLLECTOR. 
 
 Prime Minister, are the only English officials in a 
 province one hundred and twenty miles by seventy. 
 
 You must not imagine, my own Simkins, that a col- 
 lector in Bahar at all resembles the individual at home 
 who comes round with a pen in his mouth, leaving a 
 notification at his first visit, and a surcharge at his next, 
 and finally bringing a wheelbarrow and pickaxe to cut 
 off your water, neglecting at every stage alike to scrape 
 his shoes before he enters your hall. The employe who 
 rejoices in the full dignity of collector and magistrate, 
 in addition to the special duty of handling the revenue 
 and determining all questions connected with the Land 
 Settlement, is the chief executive authority in the 
 district to which he is attached. His freedom of action 
 is controlled by none but the commissioner, who pre- 
 sides over a division of five or six districts, and whose 
 immediate superior is the Lord Sahib or Lieutenant- 
 Governor, who is inferior only to the Burra Lord Sahib 
 or Viceroy, who owns no master save the Secretary of 
 State, for whom the natives have not invented a title, 
 and of whom they probably know veiy little, except 
 they happen to be in the service of a planter, in which 
 case they have heard that functionary anathematized by 
 their master whenever indigo showed any symptom of 
 heaviness, or the ryots of independence. 
 
 Work iji India is so diversified as to be always in- 
 teresting. During the cold season, the collector travels 
 about his district, pitching his camp for a night at one 
 place, and for three days at another ; while at the larger 
 towns he may find sufficient business to occupy him for 
 a week. Tent-life in the winter months is very enjoy- 
 able, especially to a man who has his heart in his 
 
WORK IN INMJ. 115 
 
 duties. It is pleasant, after having spent the forenoon 
 in examining schools and inspecting infirmaries, and 
 quaiTelling about the sites of bridges with the super- 
 intending engineer in the Public Works Department, to 
 take a light titfin, and start off with your gun and your 
 assistant-magistrate on a roundabout ride to the next 
 camping-ground. It is pleasant to dismount at a Kkely 
 piece of grass, and, flushing a bouncing black partridge, 
 to wipe the eye of your subordinate ; and then to miss 
 a haie, which your bearer knocks over with his stick, 
 pretending to find the marks of your shot in its fore- 
 quarter. It is pleasant, as you reach the rendezvous in 
 the gloaming, rather tired and very dusty, to find your 
 tents pitched, and your soup and curry within a few 
 minutes of perfection, and your kitmutgar with a bottle 
 of lemonade, just drawn from its cool bed of saltpetre, 
 and the head man of the village ready with his report 
 of a deadly affray that would have taken place if you 
 had come in a day later. Is not this better than the 
 heart-sickness of briefs deferred ; the dreary chambers, 
 and the hateful lobby ; the hopeless struggle agoinst 
 the sons of attorneys and the nephews of railway- 
 directors ; the petition to be put into one of the law 
 ofl&ces, that you may eat a piece of bread? Is it not 
 better than grinding year after year at the school-miU, 
 teaching the young idea how to turn good English 
 verses into bad Latin ; stopping the allowances, and 
 paring down the journey-money ; crowding as many 
 particles into an iambic as the metre will bear ? Is it 
 not better than hanging wearUy on at college ; feeling 
 your early triimiphs turn tii 1 1'' ^'-tit^^h ; doubtin?^ v ii'^i->er 
 to class youi-SL-lf ^' ' b f1n' -i.: •-. :!■•'■ v-mm;:;; seeaig 
 
116 A COLLECTOR'S DAT. 
 
 around you an ever-changing succession of lads, who, as 
 fast as they grow to be friends and companions to you, 
 pass away iato the world, and are no more seen ? 
 
 During ten months in the year the collector resides 
 at the station. The Government does not provide its 
 servants with house-room ; but they seldom experience 
 any inconvenience in finding suitable accommodation, 
 for the native landlords make a point of reserving for 
 every official the residence which had been occupied by 
 his predecessor. ISTo advance in terms will tempt them 
 to let the judge's bungalow to any but the judge, or to 
 turn the joint Sahib out of the dwelling which has 
 been appropriated to joint Sahibs ever since that class 
 of functionaries came into being. They charge a very 
 moderate rent, which includes the cost of gardeners and 
 sweepers for the use of the tenant. This is an effect 
 of the passion for conferring obligations upon men in 
 authority which exists in the mind of every Hindoo. 
 The life of a collector in the Mofussil is varied and 
 bustling even in the hot weather. He rises at daybreak, 
 and goes straight from his bed to the saddle. Then off 
 he gallops across fields bright with dew to visit the 
 scene of the late dacoit robbery; or to see with his 
 own eyes whether the crops of the zemindar who is so 
 unpunctual with his assessment have really failed ; or 
 to watch with fond parental care the progress of his pet 
 embankment. Perhaps he has a run with the bobbery 
 pack of the station, consisting of a superannuated fox- 
 hound, four beagles, a greyhound, the doctor's retriever, 
 and a Skye terrier belonging to the assistant-magistrate, 
 who unites in his own person the offices of M. F. H., 
 huntsman, and whipper-in. They probably start a jackal,- 
 
A BOBBERY PACK. il7 
 
 who gives them a sharp nm of ten mioutes, and takes 
 refuge in a patch of sugar-cane ; whence he steals away 
 in safety while the pack are occupied in mobbing a 
 fresh fox and a brace of wolf-cubs, to the delight of 
 a remarkably full field of five sportsmen, with one pair 
 of top-boots amongst them. On their return, the whole 
 party adjourn to the subscription swimming-bath, where 
 they find their servants ready with clothes, razors, and 
 brushes. After a few headers, and " chota hasree," or 
 " little breakfast," of tea and toast, flavoured with the 
 daily papers and scandal about the commissioner, the 
 collector returns to his bungalow, and settles down to 
 the hard business of the day. Seated under a punkah 
 in his verandah, he works through the contents of one 
 despatch-box, or " bokkus," as the natives call it, after 
 another ; signing orders, and passing them on to the 
 neighbouring collectors ; dashing through drafts, to be 
 filled up by his subordinates ; writing reports, minutes, 
 digests, letters of explanation, of remonstrance, of warn- 
 ing, of commendation. N'oon finds him quite ready for 
 a (MJcd)ier a, la fourchcttc, the favourite meal in the 
 Mofussil, where the teatray is lost amidst a crowd of 
 dishes^fried fish, curried fowl, roast kid and mint- 
 sauce, and mango-fool. Then he sets off in his buggy 
 to Cutcherry, where he spends the afternoon in hearing 
 and deciding questions connected with land and revenue. 
 If the cases are few, and easy to be disposed of, he may 
 get away in time for three or four games at rackets in 
 the new court of glaring white plaster, which a rich 
 native has built, partly as a speculation, and partly to 
 please the Sahibs. Otherwise, he drives with his ■wife on 
 the race-course ; or plays at billiards with the inspector 
 
118 INDIAN L ABIES. 
 
 of police ; or, if horticulturally inclined, superintends 
 the labours of his Mollies. Then follows dinner, and 
 an hour of readiag or music. By ten o'clock he is ia 
 bed, with his little ones asleep in cribs, enclosed within 
 the same mosquito curtains as their parents. 
 
 The ladies, poor things, come in for all the disagree- 
 ables of up-country life. Without plenty of work, India 
 is unbearable. That alone can stave off languor and 
 a depth of enimi of which a person who has never left 
 Europe can form no conception. ' In a climate which 
 keeps every one within doors from eight in the morning 
 tm five in the evening, it is, humanly speaking, im- 
 possible to make suf&cient occupation for yourself, if it 
 does not come to you in the way of business. After a 
 prolonged absence from home, reviews and newspapers 
 become uninteresting. Good novels are limited in 
 number, and it is too much to expect that a lady should 
 read history and poetry for six hours every day. What 
 well-regulated female can make dress an object in a 
 society of a dozen people, who know her rank to a tittle, 
 and her income to a pice ; or music, when her> audience 
 consists of a Punkah- wallah and a Portuguese Ayah? 
 Some ladies, as a matter of conscience, go very closely 
 into the details of household affairs ; but after a time 
 they come to the conclusion that it is better to allow 
 the servants to cheat within a certain margin, for the 
 sake of peace and quietness; for cheat they will, do 
 what you may. Oh ! the dreariness of that hour in the 
 middle of the long day, when the children are asleep, 
 and your husband has gone to tiffin with the judge, 
 and the book-club has sent nothing but Latham's 
 " Nationalities of Europe," and three refutations of 
 
THEIR TRIALS. 119 
 
 Colenso (who seems to take an unconscionable amount 
 of refuting, considering the size of his publication), and 
 the English post has come in yesterday, with nothing 
 but a letter from yoiir old governess, congratulating you 
 for being settled among the associations of the Mahom- 
 medan conquerors of India, and -asking you to take 
 some notice of her nephew, who is in the office of the 
 Accountant-General of Bombay. It is very up-hill work 
 for a lady out here to keep up her spirits and pluck, 
 and her interest in general subjects. The race-week, 
 the visit to her sister in the Punjab, the hope of being 
 ordered down to Calcutta, the reminiscences of the sick- 
 leave, and the anticipations of the furlough, are the 
 consolations of a life which none but a very brave or a 
 verj' stupid woman can endure long without suffering in 
 mind, health, and toumure. If a lady becomes dowdy, 
 it is all up with her; and the temptations to dowdi- 
 ness in the Mofussil cannot well be exaggerated. 
 
 I know of no better company in the world than a 
 rising civilian. There is an entire absence of the carp- 
 ing, pining spirit of discontent which is so painfully 
 apparent in able men at home who find themselves 
 kept in the background for want of interest or money. 
 In most cases, the normal condition of a clever Enghsh- 
 man between the ages of twenty-two and thirty is a 
 dreary feeling of dissatisfaction about his work and his 
 prospects, and a chronic anxiety for "a sphere." If he 
 is a master at a public school, he wastes a couple of 
 hundred pounds at Lincoln's Inn or the Temple, in 
 order to delude himself with the fond idea that he will 
 one day exchange his desk in the fourth-form room for 
 the more stirring cares of forensic life. If he still 
 
120 ADVANTAGTSS OF THE CIVIL SERriCE. 
 
 hesitates to surrender the ease and security of a fellow- 
 ship, he compounds with his intellect by writing for the 
 Saturday Review, and representing the liberal element 
 in the governing body of his college. He takes to the 
 law, only to discover that there are instincts in the 
 human heart which, even conveyancing will not satisfy ; 
 to the Church — no, he does not take to the Church ; 
 to literature, and finds himself in the plight of that 
 gentleman, who 
 
 "At thirty years of age, 
 "Writes statedly for Blackwood's Magazine, 
 And thinks he sees three points in Hamlet's soul 
 As yet unseized by Germans. " 
 
 An Englishman cannot be comfortable if he is in a 
 false position ; and he never allows himself to be in a 
 true position unless he is proud of his occupation, and 
 convinced that success will depend upon his own efforts. 
 These agreeable sensations are experienced to the full 
 by an Indian civil servant. It is impossible for him to 
 have any misgiving concerning the dignity and import- 
 ance of his work. His power for good and evil is 
 almost unlimited. His individual iafiuence is as great 
 as that arrogated by the most sublime of Dr. Arnold's 
 favourite preepostors during his first terra at the uni- 
 versity. He is the member of an official aristocracy, 
 owning no social superior ; bound to no man ; fearing 
 no man. Even though he may be passed over once 
 and again by a prejudice in the mind of his commis- 
 sioner, or some theory on the subject of promotion 
 held by his ■ lieutenant-governor, he is weU aware that 
 his advancement does not hang upon the will and 
 pleasure of this or the other great man, but is regu- 
 
CERTAIX BEWAED OF MERIT. Vl\ 
 
 lated by the opinion entertained of his ability and 
 charaeter by the service in general In order to rise 
 in India, it is not necessary to be notorious. In fact, 
 notoriety is rather a clog than otherwise. People out 
 here are not easily bamboozled, and lilie you none the 
 better for trying to bamboozle them. A ci'ialian who is 
 conscious of power does not seek to push his way into 
 notice by inditing sensation minutes, or by riding a 
 hobby to the death ; but makes it his aim to turn off 
 his work in good style, trusting for his reward to the 
 sense and public spirit of his chief. There is nothing 
 ■which men in power out here so cordially abominate as 
 solemnity and long-winded pedantry. A ready, dashing 
 subordinate, who, to use a favourite Platonic phrase, 
 " sees things as they are," is sure to win the heart of 
 every resident and chief commissioner with whom he 
 may have to do. I have observed that, if ever a young 
 fellow is spoken of in high quarters as an able and 
 promising public servant, he is sure, on acquaintance, 
 to turn out a remarkably pleasant and interesting com- 
 panion. A collector or under secretary will sometimes 
 get a little maudlin over his cheroot, and confide sun- 
 dry longings for literary society and European topics ; 
 but he never speaks of his duties e.xeept in a spiiil 
 of enthusiasm, or of his profession without a tone of 
 profound satisfaction. He no more dreams of yearning 
 for " a sphere " than for a pentagon or a rhomboid. A 
 magistrate had been mildly complaining to me that he 
 found no time for scientific pursuits. " But, after all,' 
 he said, " who can think about butterflies or strata when 
 " there are' embankments to be raised on which depends 
 " the famine or plenty of a thousand square miles ; and 
 
122 WORTH £300 A YEAR, DEAD OR ALIVE. 
 
 " hundreds of human beings are waiting their trial in 
 "jail; and millions are living and dying in ignorance, 
 "for want of schools and teachers?" He must be a 
 happy man who can talk of his daily occupations and 
 responsibilities in such terms as these. 
 
 But, besides the blessings of absorbing work and an 
 assured position, a civilian enjoys the inestimable com- 
 fort of freedom from pecuniary troubles. Intriguing 
 mothers used to say that a writer was worth three 
 hundred a year, dead or alive. It requires some self- 
 denial, during the probation in Calcutta, to make both 
 ends of the sbc months meet; but in the Mofussil a 
 young bachelor has enough and to spare. Tom's as- 
 sistant-magistrate keeps four horses, and lives well 
 within as many hundred rupees a month. If a man 
 puts off his marriage to withia a year or two of the 
 age at which he may take a wife in England without 
 being disinherited by his gi-eat-uncle, he may always 
 have a good house and plenty of servants, his cham- 
 pagne and his refrigerator, his carriage and buggy, an 
 Arab for the Mem Sahib, and for himself a hundred- 
 guinea horse that wiU face a pig without flinching. He 
 win. be able to portion his daughters, and send his son 
 to Harrow and Oxford ; and, while stUl in the vigour 
 of life, he may retire to a villa at Esher, or a farm in 
 his native country, with a pension of a thousand a year, 
 and as much more from the interest of his savings. 
 Bobus Smith, during the intervals of writing hexame- 
 ters which put to shame all Latin verse of the present 
 day, used to say that a man could not live iq India on 
 less than two thousand a year, and could not spend 
 more than three thousand. An amendment which 
 
THM LOJf'ES AXD FISHES. 123 
 
 would inseiii the "svord " married " before the word 
 " man," and alter the numbers to fifteen hundred and 
 two thousand respectively, would be nearer the mark. 
 In a climate where fresh air and cool water are bought 
 for a price, a good income is essential to comfort ; but, 
 when comfort has been attained, there is no object on 
 which money can be laid out. A man might subscribe 
 to every charity and every newspaper without being 
 two hundred pounds the worse at the end of the year. 
 The sum which can be thrown away on. horse-racing is 
 limited by the paucity of the people who desire to win 
 your gold mohurs or to lose their own. There is no 
 temptation to display; for every member of society 
 knows the exact number of rupees which you draw on 
 the fifteenth of each month. A joint magistrate and 
 deputy-collector who marries on nine hundred a year 
 may count on being a full magistrate and collector at 
 one or two and thirty, with an income of two thousand 
 three hundred. In five years more, with industry and 
 ordinary parts, he will be in receipt of three thousand 
 a year as a ci%'il and sessions judge ; or, if he prefers 
 to wait his time, he will have charge of a division, with 
 a commissioner's salary of three thousand six hundred. 
 Then there are the quartern loaves and the plvrmp 
 fishes ; the chance of Bombay or Madras ; the lieu- 
 tenant-governorships, with an income of ten thousand 
 pounds ; the Council, with an income of eight thou- 
 sand ; the chief commissionerships, with an income of 
 six thousand ; the secretariat and the board of revenue, 
 with sometliing under five thousand a year. And these 
 prizes are open to every subject of the Queen, though 
 his fath.jr be as poor as Job subsequently to the crash 
 
l-2i CHOICE OF A CARHHB. 
 
 in that patriarch's affairs, and though he does not num- 
 ber so much as the butler of a member of Parliament 
 among his patrons and connexions. 
 
 To those who think that life should be one long 
 education, the choice of a profession is a matter of the 
 greatest moment: for every profession that deserves 
 the name must draw so largely on the time and intellect 
 of a man as to allow scant opportunity for general 
 study. Therefore, any one who wishes to preserve a 
 high tone of thought, and a mind constantly open to 
 new impressions, must look for a calling which is ah 
 education in itself — that is, a calling which presents a 
 succession of generous and elevating interests. And 
 such is pre-eminently the career of a civil servant iii 
 India. There is no career which holds out such certain 
 and splendid prospects to honourable ambition. But, 
 better far than this, there is no career which so surely 
 inspires men with the desire to do something useful in 
 their generation — to leave their mark upon the world 
 for good, and not for evil. The public spirit among the 
 servants of the Government at home is faint compared 
 with the fire of zeal which glows in every vein of an 
 Indian official. During a progress through his province, 
 a lieutenant-governor is everywhere followed about by 
 magistrates, who beg with the most invincible pertinacity 
 for a thousand rupees more towards this infirmary, for 
 another one per cent, on the court fees towards that 
 Cutcherry. Our modern quaestors are every whit as 
 grasping and venal as the satellites of Verres and 
 Dolabella ; but it is for the benefit of their district, and 
 not for their own pockets. It is this deep and pure 
 love for his adopted country, transplanted to an uncon- 
 
FUBLIC SPIRIT. 125 
 
 genial soil, wliich too often attaches to the retired 
 Indian the fatal title of " bore," which unites all parties 
 in the endeavour to keep him out of the House of 
 Commons, and cough him down if he succeeds in forcing 
 an entrance. It seems incredible to him that people 
 should exhibit indifference towards subjects which have 
 been his dearest care ever since he was punted up the 
 Burrampootra to his first station ; that there should be 
 men who shudder at the bare mention of the Annexa- 
 tion Policy; who shift their chairs at the most faint 
 allusion to the indigo troubles. But it is out here 
 that the fruits of this noble and earnest philanthropy 
 are manifested in their true light. It is a rare pheno- 
 menon this, of a race of statesmen and judges scattered 
 throughout a conquered land, ruling it, uot with an eye 
 to private profit, not even in the selfish interests of the 
 mother country, but in single-minded solicitude for the 
 happiness and improvement of the children of the soil. 
 It is a fine thing to see a homely old pro-consul retiring 
 from the government of a region as large as France and 
 Austria together, with a clear conscience and a sound 
 digestion, to plague his friends about the Amalgamation 
 Act and the Contract Law ; to fiU his villa on the 
 Thames or the Mole, not with statues and bronzes 
 snatched from violated shrines, but with ground-plans 
 of hospitals and markets and colleges, and translations 
 of codes, and schemes for the introduction of the Eoman 
 character. 
 
 Whence comes this high standard of efficiency and 
 public virtue among men taken at random, and then 
 exposed to the temptations of unbounded power and 
 unlimited facilities for illicit gain ? It cannot be pecu- 
 
126 TOLEBdNCE. 
 
 liarly the result of Haileybury, for that institutiou, from 
 its very nature, united the worst faults of school and 
 college. The real education of a civil sers'ant consists 
 in tha responsibility that devolves on him at an early 
 age, which brings out whatever good there is in a man ; 
 the obligation to do nothing that can reflect dishonour 
 on the service ; the varied and attractive character of 
 his duties; and the example and precept of his superiors, 
 who regard him rather as a younger brother than as a 
 subordinate official. One black sheep, and two or three 
 incapables, in a 3''early list of forty or fifty names, is 
 a large average. A young member of the secretariat, 
 a dead hand at a minute, and the best amateur critic I 
 ever came across, told me that, if he had been the eldest 
 son of a man with broad acres in England, he should 
 nevertheless be glad to have spent ten years in India 
 for the sake of the traiaing, moral and intellectual. 
 The absence of bigotry and intolerance here is un- 
 doubtedly very remarkable. Wlaere there is so much 
 work to be done by any one who will put his hand . to 
 the plough, men have no time to quarrel about the 
 direction and depth of the furrows. Because you drive 
 a pair of oxen, and I an ox and a donkey ; because 
 your share is curved, while mine is straight ; am I, 
 therefore, bound to mulct you of your hire, and pelt you 
 off the fallows with clods and pebbles ? Here, at least, 
 the waste lands are plenteous, and the labourers are 
 very few. Here, at least, we can weU afford to leave 
 each other to toil in peace. Jones has doubts about the 
 Pentateuch ; but he has just sailed for England, leaving 
 his health behind him in that pestilential district which 
 he volunteered to take during the cholera, and where 
 
DRAWBACKS OF INDIAN LIFE. 127 
 
 his theories on draining and burning jungle saved 
 countless lives ; and I really have not the heart to let 
 him be anathema maranatha — a curse which a mind 
 unlearned in Oxford theology would conclude, from the 
 context, to have no bearing on the authenticity of 
 the Book of Deuteronomy. In spite of Doctor Pusey, I 
 cannot help greeting as a brother Protestant the little 
 Danish missionary who has changed those blackguard 
 murderous villagers of Kurnaum into Christians and 
 payers of rent. Flanagan rides twenty miles every fort- 
 night to Dinagegur to hear mass ; but I can remember 
 when he rode as many leagues, through the September 
 sun, with my baby on the saddle before him, a musket- 
 baU in his shoulder, and his cheek laid open by a sabre 
 cut. 
 
 The drawbacks of Indian life begin to be severely felt 
 when it becomes necessary to send the first-born home. 
 From that period until liis final retirement there is little 
 domestic comfort for the father of the family. After 
 two or three years have gone by, and two or three 
 children have gone home, your wife's spirits are no 
 longer what they were. She is uneasy for days after a 
 letter has come in with the Brighton post-mark. At 
 last there arrives a sheet of paper scrawled over in a 
 large round hand, and smeared with tears and dirty 
 fingers, which puts her beside herself You wake two 
 or three times in the night always to find her crying at 
 your side; and the next morning you write to the agent 
 of the P. and 0. to engage places for a lady and ayah. 
 At the end of the six months she writes to say that the 
 doctor has insisted on Joey's going to Nice for the 
 winter, and that she must stay to take him. Shortly 
 
128 FAMILY SEPARATIONS. 
 
 after you receive a communication from your mother- 
 in-law, to the effect that you must give Ann another 
 summer in England, under pain of the life-long dis- 
 pleasure of that estimable relative. And so it goes on, 
 till, after the lapse of some three or four years, your wife 
 joins you at the Presidency in a state of wild delight at 
 meeting you, and intense misery at finding herseK again 
 in India. Within the next two hot seasons she has 
 had three fevers. She tries the hills, but it will not do ; 
 and at last you make up your mind to the inevitable, 
 and run down to Calcutta to take your seat at the 
 Board of Eevenue and despatch her to England, with a 
 tacit understanding that she is never to return. Then 
 you settle down into confirmed bachelor habits, until 
 one day in August, when all Chowringhee is a vast 
 vapour-bath, you feel, in the region of your liver, an 
 unusually smart touch of the pain which has been con- 
 stantly recurring during the last eighteen months, and 
 it strikes you that your clever idle son will be more 
 likely to pass his competitive examination if you are 
 on the spot to superintend his studies. So you resign 
 your seat in Council, accept a farewell dinner from 
 your friends, who by this time comprise nearly the 
 whole of Calcutta society, and go on board at Garden 
 Eeach, under a salute from the guns of Eort William 
 and an abusive article in the Tlurkaru on your predi- 
 lection for the natives. 
 
 But the returned Indian does not leave all his 
 troubles behind him on the ghaut whence he embarks 
 for England. In fact, it is not tiU. after the first year of 
 home-life that he begins to appreciate the dark side of 
 the career in which he takes just pride. The first sight . 
 
SORROJt'S OF THE SirURyED INDIAX. 129 
 
 of turnip fields and broad-backed sheep ; tlie first 
 debauch on home-made bread, and bright yellow butter, 
 and bacon which is above suspicion ; the first pic-nic ; 
 the first visit to the Haymarket Theatre ; the first stroll 
 round the plaj^ing-fields with his pet son, the Newcastle 
 medallist of the year, are joys so fresh and pure as to 
 admit no doubt about the future or yearnings for the 
 past. But before long he is conscious of a certain 
 craving for the daily occupation to which he has been 
 accustomed since boyhood. He remembers, with fond 
 regret, tlie pleasure with which he plunged headlong 
 mto the Settlement of the Eajbehar district on his 
 retm-n from furlough in '47. Though far from a vain 
 man, he misses the secure and important position which 
 he has so long occupied. He feels the want of the old 
 friends with whom he lived during his prime ; the old 
 habits and associations which are familiar to him as 
 Household Words ; in fact, much more famUiar, for he 
 left England just in time to miss the first number of 
 that exemplary periodical, and returned to find the 
 name and publisher already changed. It is a severe 
 trial for a leader of Calcutta society to become one of 
 the rank and file in the pump-room at a watering-place ; 
 to sink from the Council-board to the Vestry, and from 
 the High Court to the Petty Sessions. It is a severe 
 trial, when settled down at Eugby or Harrow, seeing 
 that his boys learn their repetitions and get up in time 
 for morning school, quarrelling with their tutor, and 
 requesting the head-master to publish his Confirmation 
 sermon, for a man to look back to the days when he 
 coerced refractory rajahs, bearded the secretariat, and 
 did the Finance Minister out of a lac and half for his 
 
130 qUID FLES, ASTERIE? 
 
 favourite cotton-road. It is a severe trial to live among 
 men who know not John Peter, who hold the opinion 
 that the opium duty is immoral, and who are under the 
 impression that a zemindar is a native non-commissioned 
 officer. He must console himself with English air and 
 scenery and books and faces, with the consciousness of 
 a good work well done, and a good name handed on 
 unstained to the children who are growing up around 
 him. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 H. Beotjghton. 
 
 P.S. I have some thoughts of publishing a translation 
 of the Odes of Horace, adapted to the use of Indian 
 readers. Here are three examples. If they meet your 
 approbation I wiU set to work in earnest. 
 
 Lib. III. Cakm. 7. 
 
 Quidfles, Asterie, quern tibi candidi 
 Prima restUumi vcre Favonii ) 
 
 I. 
 
 My dear Miss White, forbear to weep 
 Because the North West breezes keep 
 
 At anchor off Rangoon 
 That youth who, richer hy a lac, 
 M&y safely be expected back 
 
 Before the next monsoon. 
 
 II. 
 
 Beneath his close musquito nets 
 With loYe and prickly-heat he frets 
 
 On Irawaddy's water, 
 Nor heeds a dame on board the ship, 
 Who lets no fair occasion slip 
 
 For praising up her daughter. 
 
DONAS£M PATER AS. 1 £ 1 
 
 III. 
 31ie talks of maiden's heart so true, 
 And angry brothers six foot two 
 
 Demanding satisfaction. 
 And, as a last resource tlirows out 
 Hints very palpable about 
 
 A breach-of-promise action. 
 
 IV. 
 She tells how Pickwick's glance of fire 
 Quailed 'neath an angry woman's ire : 
 
 But let not that alai'm ye. 
 He still remains as deaf as those 
 Who govern India to the woes 
 
 Of Bengal's ill-used army. 
 V. 
 Fear not for him, but, thou, beware ! 
 "Tis whispered (though I hardly dare 
 
 To credit the assertion), 
 How very kind an ear you lend 
 To some young Civil Service friend 
 
 Who lately passed in Persian — 
 VI. 
 Than whom no other wallah steers, 
 With less excruciating fears. 
 
 His buggy down the course ; 
 Or chooses out a softer place, 
 And with a more seductive grace 
 
 Drops off a shying horse. 
 
 Lib. IV. Carm. 8. 
 
 Donarem pcUeras gralague cominodus, 
 Ccnsori7u\ meis cera sodalibus. 
 
 If all my "woulds, " dear Jones, were changed to "coulds," 
 
 I'd deck thy bungalow with Europe good,s ; 
 
 With bronzes which the awe-struck Baboo stops 
 
 To gape and stare at in Cho^v^inghee shops ; 
 
 With flagons such as either Koss has won 
 
 In many a hard-fought match at Wimbledon ; 
 
 With Brett's chefs d'ceuvi-es which Euskins buy and praise 
 
 .Amidst the scorn of petulant R.A.o. 
 
132 TV NS qUMSIERIS. 
 
 Brave presents these, but how can I dispense 'em 
 "With just four hundred odd rupees per mensem ? 
 One potent gift I hoast, one treasure dear, 
 The access to an editorial ear. 
 What gives old Time this lie, and keeps alive 
 In sohool-hoy mouths the mighty name of Clive ; 
 Preserves great Hastings from oblivion's flood, 
 And daubs poor Impey with perennial mud ? 
 Why, just two articles in that Review 
 Where tawdi-y yellow strives with dirty blue. 
 Ne'er will the man on whom the press has smiled 
 Pine in CoUectorates remote and wild. 
 'Tis not for him the beaten path to tradge 
 From Sub-assistant up to Zillah Judge. 
 And, when, persuaded by his wife to give her 
 The best advice in London for her liver, 
 He chooses a convenient month to start in 
 And huiTies home to see Sir Banald Martin, 
 These magic words perchance may thrill his breast, 
 "Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood request— "^ 
 
 Lib. L Cakm. 11. 
 
 Tu lie qitcesieris {sciiv nefas) qiiem mihi, quern tibi, 
 Finem Dt dederint Leuconw nee Babylonios 
 Tentaris numeros. 
 
 Matilda, will you ne'er have ceased apocalyptic summing, 
 
 And left the number of the beast to puzzle Dr. Gumming ? 
 
 What can't be cured must be endured. Perchance a gracious heaven 
 
 May spare us tiU the fated year of eighteen sixty-seven. ^ 
 
 Perchance Jove's Board of Public Works the dread decree has passed ; 
 
 And this cold season, with its joys, is doomed to be our last. 
 
 Let's to the supper-room again, though Eitmutgars may frown. 
 
 And in Lord Elgin's diy champagne wash all these tremors down ; 
 
 And book me for tlie fifteenth walse : there, just beneath my thumb. 
 
 No, not the next to that, my girl ! The next may never come. 
 
 ^ Sic Jovis interest 
 Optfttis epulis. 
 
 " This is the date fixed by Dr. Cumming for the end of all things. 
 
STYLE OF SPORTmG AUTHORS. 133 
 
 LETTEE VI. 
 A TIGEE-I'AETY m NEPAUL. 
 
 March 28, 1863. 
 
 ]\It dear Simkins, — For some time past "my mind 
 " has been divided witkin my shaggy breast," as to 
 whether I should send you an account of our tiger-party 
 in Xepaul. I was deterred by doubts of my ability to 
 hit off that peculiar vein of dulness vt^hich seems the 
 single qualification requisite for a sporting author. Why 
 a pursuit of such absorbing interest should lose all its 
 charms in the recital it is hard to say. Perhaps men 
 are misled by the delights of a hard run or a successful 
 stalk, and imagine that a bare unadorned narrative M'iU 
 best convey the idea of those delights to their readers. 
 But this can hardly be the cause ; for accounts of sport, 
 for the most part, ai'e characterised by carefuUy elabo- 
 rated jocosity of a singularly insipid flavour. Some- 
 times the writer aspires to poetry ; in which case he 
 invariably talks about his Pegasus, and is mildly my- 
 thological, calling aU. ladies '' Dianas," and speaking of 
 the sun as " Phoebus.'' After describing the breakfast 
 at the house of "Amphitryon," the meet on the lawn, 
 and the scene at coverside, he proceeds somewhat in 
 this strain : — 
 
 " Across the fields proud Eeynard goes, 
 Amidst a hundred Tally-hos. 
 
134 THE POET'S CORNER IN BELVB LITE. 
 
 Our Master kept the Cockneys back, 
 Who pressed and jostled in the track. 
 Eight manfully his tongue he plies, 
 And to perdition dooms their eyes. 
 Three couple now are on the scent ! 
 ' Hark, forrard ! ' and away we went. 
 ' Hark, forrard ! Forrard ! ' is the cry ; 
 And like a flock of birds we fly, 
 In breeches, scarlet-coat, and tops, 
 Along the Dyke to Heywood Copse. 
 As down towards Barton Wold we sail, 
 The Cockneys soon began to tail. 
 And all of them were missing, rot 'em, 
 Ere yet we got to Brambly Bottom. 
 The pace now told on every nag, 
 "Which proved the fox was not a ' bag. ' 
 Poor Captain Fisher broke his girth. 
 And, like Antieus, came to earth. 
 Though with his fall, I greatly fear, 0, 
 Ceased his resemblance to that hero. 
 Briggs came a cropper ; and the earl 
 Experienced an unlucky purl. 
 But towards the front lie .showed again 
 Before we entered Ditton Lane. " 
 
 Who reads these productions? I had the pleasure 
 of living among fox-hunters in England (having indeed 
 myself described parabolas over more than one hedge), 
 and can vouch that their taste in literature was as good 
 as that of any other class of educated men. 
 
 It is bad enough that the athletic pursuits which are 
 the special glory of England should be made the vehicle 
 for such melancholy buffoonery ; but the more practical 
 writers on sporting matters have very crude notions of 
 what is readable. There are no authors who as a class 
 so consistently ignore the precept of Horace which for- 
 bids to commence the history of the return of Diomede 
 with the decease of Meleager, and to trace the Trojan 
 
EXHAUSTIVE WRITING. 135 
 
 War from the double egg. Just as the chroniclers of 
 the middle ages always began with Adam, every one 
 who publishes a treatise on the habits and diseases of 
 the dog seems unable to tell us what mash he recom- 
 mends for a tired pointer, and whether he treats dis- 
 temper with sweet oil or mustard and water, unless 
 he has prefaced his remarks by informing us that the 
 hounds of Theseus 
 
 " Were bred out of the Spartan kind, 
 So flew'd, so sanded ■;" 
 
 and that the poor Indian entertains the hope that, when 
 he has been dispatched " to the equal sky," by fire- 
 water, and small-pox, and the other blessings brought 
 to the door of his wig-wami by advancing civilization, 
 " his faithful dog shall bear him company." Whether 
 ^.his privilege, if extended to the whole of the canine 
 race, would conduce to the greatest happiness of the 
 greatest number of departed spirits, may reasonably be 
 doubted. There is an officer residing in our boarding- 
 house who was the spirited proprietor of a bull-dog 
 which I shot the day before yesterday with a saloon- 
 pistol, and of which I sincerely trust that I have seen 
 the last in this world and the next. There is no one 
 who can bring out a work upon the game of cricket 
 without introducing into his first few pages an allusion 
 to the rhyme — 
 
 "At football or at cricket. 
 How neatly liur could prick it ! " 
 
 impelled apparently by the same mysterious necessity 
 which, in the case of the weak-minded gentleman in 
 " David Copperfield," over-ruled his efforts to keep King 
 
136 NIMROD JUNIOR. 
 
 Charles I. out of his memorial. It is fortunate that this 
 tendency is confined to one department of literature. 
 Conceive what it would be if every medical publication 
 commenced with Hezekiah's poultice of figs, every book 
 on tactics and fortification with the battle of four kings 
 against five, and every peerage with Duke Teman, Duke 
 Omar, Duke Zepho, and Duke Kenaz ! 
 
 Indian sport has perhaps suffered more in public 
 estimation by villainously bad writing than any other 
 branch of the gentle craft. People have been so over- 
 done with howdahs, and bottled beer, and hair-triggers, 
 and , hair-breadth escapes, and grif6.ns spearing a sow 
 by mistake, that they had rather face a royal Bengal 
 tiger in his native jungle than in the Sporting Maga- 
 zine, and dread the name of a pig more than the most 
 scrupulous Jew can abhor the reality. What reader of 
 taste does not feel his heart sink within him when, as 
 he flits through the leaves of a periodical, paper-knife 
 in hand, he is aware of a contribution headed : 
 
 " Pigs ajid their stickers; 
 
 Or, How we keep it up in the North-West. 
 
 By Nimrod Junior." 
 
 Mayhap as he cuts his way through Nimrod Junior's 
 article, in the haste of an absorbing terror, he lights 
 upon a page commencing : " • — your eyes, you young 
 "greenhorn, keep to your own side,' and up dashes 
 "Major W— , the gallant, the determined, his long 
 " beard floating on the mid-day air, his glance beaming 
 " as it beamed when he led the stormers over the glacis 
 " at Moohan. Ely, poor piggy, if thou wantest to re-see 
 " thy porcine spouse ! But faster flies thy pursuer, his 
 " intellectual brow knit with eagerness, as he just feels 
 
THB TERAI. 137 
 
 " the Pelham pressing the month of his four-year-old." 
 I will endeavoiir to steer clear of the Scylla of slang 
 and the Charybdis of hombast, and to set down on paper 
 a simple unvarnished history of some most pleasant 
 days passed in very good company. 
 
 The northern border of the district, of which Mofus- 
 silpore is the capital, lies some fifty miles distant from 
 the station. The province is bounded in this quarter 
 by Kepaul, or rather by the Terai, a slip of plain about 
 twenty miles in breadth along the foot of the lower 
 chain of the Himalayas, which we have left in the pos- 
 session of the Hillmen. It is cultivated by Hindoos, 
 from whom their masters exact a swingeing tribute ; 
 and as most of their revenue is drawn from this source, 
 the fear of losing it makes even Ghorkas shy of a 
 collision with the British Government. The soil is 
 fertile, and intersected by numerous streams, which, fed 
 by the eternal snows of the main chain, afford a more 
 certain supply of water than the great rivers that flow 
 into the Ganges from the South. The ground immedi- 
 ately under the hills is, however, wild and broken, and 
 covered with luxuriant jungles, which swarm with wild 
 animals of every species, from elephants to monkeys. 
 It is the custom of the magnates of Mofussilpore to 
 make an expedition thither in the spring of every year ; 
 and Jung Bahadur, the mayor of the palace at the court 
 of Katamandoo, holds it ia high repute as a shooting 
 ground. As the Nepaulese have no " modified resolu- 
 " tions concerning the sale of waste lands," it is probable 
 that this region will long provide abundant sport alike 
 for civil servants and native premiers. Last year the 
 party from the station had been a good deal annoyed by 
 
138 ORGANIZATION OF A SHIKAR PARTY. 
 
 the suspicion with which they had been regarded by the 
 local officials ; so Tom had obtained a permit from the 
 great man himself, giving us leave to shoot for twenty 
 days. It was attested by his seal, which gave his title 
 at full length in English, " Jung Bahadur, G.C.B., Prime 
 " Minister of Nepaul." 
 
 For months, beforehand preparations had been on 
 foot. The arrangements for a shooting party on a grand 
 scale demand no scant amount of administrative capa- 
 city, and require all the personal influence of a man 
 in authority to be successfully carried out. Three 
 elephants must be borrowed from one zemindar, and 
 four from another ; and the brigadier' at Dinapore must 
 be requested to lend the services -of' a score of his 
 hugest and most earth-shaking beasts, and his pluckiest 
 mahouts. Then tents and howdahs must be looked 
 up and repaired, and a small commissariat department 
 organized for the provisioning of a little army of drivers, 
 grass-cutters, and servants at a distance from the dep8ts. 
 Then communications ■ must be kept open between the 
 station and the camp, and a daily dawk maintained on 
 a system resembling as' little as possible that of the 
 General Post Office of India.' Finally, the comfort of 
 the Sahibs must be insured ; bacon, cheese, flour, sheep, 
 fowls, beer-shrub, brandy-shrub, sherry-shrub, Simldn- 
 shrub, tea-shrub, belatte-pawnee, meta-pawnee,^ penica-' 
 pawnee,^ must be despatched on a-head, and a double 
 set of horses laid down at six-mile stages along the 
 whole line of road. 
 
 From the 16th to the 19th of February, elephants 
 came to Mofussilpore in quick succession ; and, as fast 
 ' Lemonade. ^ Drinkmg-water. 
 
TIUTUM TRAJ'ELLIXG. 139 
 
 as they arrived, we presented each mahout with a rupee 
 and a bag of rice, and sent him on to camp. On the 
 evening of tlie 20th, young Benson, the assistant-magis- 
 trate, treated his brother-hunters, to a bachelor-dinner. 
 "We were four in number : our host, Tom, myself, and 
 Mr. jMUdred, an indigo planter who resided in the 
 vicinity — a first-rate spear and rough rider, and a most 
 keen sportsman, but unselfish enough to consider the 
 sport of others as more important than his own. If 
 ever I am sent to skirmish in open order, I should like 
 to have ]\Iildred for the front-rank man of my file. "We 
 got uncorumonly jolly rmder the combined stimulus of 
 Simkin and anticipation. After dessert was removed, 
 we spent the evening in sewing up bullets in linen — 
 a wise precaution, for it is poor work fumbling for a 
 patch when, having just fired away all your ball at 
 an antelope, yoa see a streak of yellow and black 
 glancing througli the grass twenty yards in front of 
 your elephant. 
 
 The next morning. we rose at half after three, and 
 started off into the darkness in two tumtums, or dog- 
 carts. Everybody in these parts keeps at least three 
 horses : and no one who meditates a journey feels any 
 delicacy about asking, for the loan of as many as he 
 requires, from the factories and stations bordering on 
 his route. It soon grew light, and we bowled merrily 
 along at the rate of eight miles an hour, including 
 stoppages, and ferries, and shyings, and boltings, and 
 rearings. The road, not having been constructed under 
 the auspices of the Public Works Department, was in 
 excellent order. A grass causeway ran along the centre, 
 hi^h and drv ; whUe on either side was a sort of ditch 
 
140 MOFUSSIL HORSES. 
 
 sacred to bullock hackeries. Long before each set of 
 aags had lost their freshness, we came in sight of another 
 pair, standing sometimes beneath an ancient peepul-tree, 
 sometimes under the walls of a ruined temple, some- 
 times in a grove of mangoes or palms. Mofussil horses 
 behave in a most fiendish manner at starting ; but, when 
 once well off, they complete their stage with laudable 
 zeal and propriety. Some are incorrigible planters, con- 
 sidering it essential to their dignity to stand perfectly 
 still for ten minutes after they have been put between 
 the shafts. Others, jib violently and back into the cart- 
 track beneath, while a cascade of gun-cases slides over 
 the rear of the tum-tum, and a stream of Collectors 
 pours out in front. In other cases, the owner holds the 
 animal's head high in the air, to prevent him from kick- 
 ing the vehicle to pieces ; and, when the harness has 
 been adjusted, sends, him off at a gallop, and jumps up 
 behind as best he may. 
 
 By eleven o'clock we had accomplished forty-seven 
 miles in safety, and found ourselves at an old military 
 station on the borders of Nepaul. During the war 
 at the beginning of the century, a battalion had been 
 quartered here, but the place had long been deserted. 
 The bungalows were abandoned to the jackal and the 
 cobra, the compounds were overgrown with brushwood, 
 blie wells choked with rubbish. One ancient lady, a 
 Mrs. Grant — whose husband, the regimental surgeon, 
 had died and been buried during the period of ou' 
 occupation — lived on here for many years in perfect 
 solitude, till she lapsed into semi-barbarism, quarrelling 
 with her native servants, and keeping a number of deer 
 and cats under her roof, from which she could not be 
 
J DESERTED STATION. 141 
 
 persuaded to tear herself even after they had departed 
 this life, and become too high to be agreeable pets. 
 The aspect of the burial-ground was melancholy and 
 singular. Amidst a group of trees enclosed within a 
 ruined wall were scattered, fast crumbling to decay, 
 those unsightly masses of brick-work which make 
 hideous the last home of the stranger in India. Here, 
 as elsewhere, most of the inscriptions had been removed 
 by the rustics of the neighbourhood, to be used for 
 grinding their curry ; but some few remained, of which 
 one, showing signs of comparatively recent repair, stated 
 itself to be in " affectionate memory of Dr. Grant." 
 Others recorded the names of officers hardly emerged 
 from boyhood, whose pre-conceived hopes of the ex- 
 citement of active service and the gaiety of country 
 quarters were realised in ennui, brandy-pawnee, jungle- 
 fever, and an early grave. One monument was erected 
 to a "Waterloo hero by " his friend. Lord Combermere," 
 who has lived through another generation since his old 
 comrade was buried in the wilds of NepauL 
 
 The last vestige of practicable road ceased at the 
 frontier. So we alighted, unloaded the tumtums, and 
 packed our guns and baggage on a couple of elephants. 
 As the Happy Hunting Grounds were seven coss, or 
 fourteen miles, within the Nepaulese territory, we took 
 a few hours' rest and a hearty tiffin under the shade 
 of a noble banyan tree — a tree that is to other trees 
 as a patriarchal clan to a modern household. Just as, 
 in primitive times, every community owned a common 
 father, whose memory formed an indissoluble tie long 
 after he was dead and gone, even when the family 
 had increased into a mighty nation ; so the banyan is a 
 
142 THE NEPAULESE KNIFE. 
 
 forest in itself, which, for centuries after every trace of 
 the parent trunk has disappeared, grows outward and 
 upward, till whole battalions might repose within the 
 circuit of its boughs. Here we drank tea, and smoked, 
 and did gymnastics on the branches, and read Tristram 
 Shandy out loud, till three in the afternoon, when we 
 saddled the horses, and re-commenced our march. 
 
 Before we had gone many yards, my horse, a fiery 
 young Cabul stallion belonging to Mildred, said Ha, ha, 
 and pitched me over his head ; and then proceeded, 
 after their manner, to eat me like a radish,, from the 
 feet upwards. He was not, however, destined to enjoy 
 his unhallowed meal in peace ; for his owner, who dis- 
 mounted on the spot, and to my intense relief insisted 
 on changing animals with me, speeddy brought him to 
 reason with a pair of heavy spurs and a cotton umbrella. 
 We were conducted by a guide along a track, far more 
 rugged than the fields on either side, through a rich 
 country thickly studded with villages. Tom's eye, 
 more practised or more partial than my own, detected 
 numerous signs of mis-government. He bade us observe 
 that the tillage had imperceptibly fallen off, and that 
 the people lived in wretched wicker- huts ; while, on his 
 side of the border, each man had his excellent mud 
 cabin thatched with straw. The population was entirely 
 Hindoo; but here and there we came across a ISTepaulese 
 of&cial, clothed in skins, and invariably armed with the 
 heavy curved knife which the native tribes far and near 
 dread as the Tarentines and Etrurians dreaded the 
 broadsword of old Eome. Our own sepoys, led by 
 British officers, could not be brought to stand the charge 
 of the Hillmen ; and on more than one memorable oc- 
 
INDIAN HIOELANDERS. 143 
 
 casiou even the English bayonets gave way before the 
 Ghorka blades. For a whole year, the regular army of 
 Xepaul, a mere handful of some 12,000 warriors, de- 
 fended their extensive frontier against tremendous odds. 
 The earlier engagements in the war read like Prestonpans 
 and KiUiecrankie. At length, when Ochterlony, acting 
 with great caution and skill, had out-manoeuvred the 
 chiefs of these Highlanders of the east, they avoided a 
 CuUoden, by signifying their agreement to an equitable 
 peace, the terms of which have been faithfully observed 
 by both parties — an instance of mutual respect rare in 
 India. The specimens of the race whom we passed on 
 the road, to judge by their appearance, would be awkward 
 customers in a surprise or foray. Short, with thick 
 firm limbs, light complexions, long matted hair, and an 
 inexpressibly humorous cast of features, they looked us 
 full in the face, and laughed and talked with a freedom 
 and dignity which had quite a bracing effect on men 
 accustomed to Bengalee servility and effeminacy. In 
 fact, the Ghorkas are a military aristocracy, like the 
 Spartans of blue blood ; the other l>repaulese represent 
 the Lakedsemonians or Perioeki, (in gratitude to dear 
 ^Ir. Grote for that history which all scholars love and 
 all pedants hate and envy, I make a point of spelling 
 to his fancy,) while the Hindoos of the Terai are little 
 better than Helots. 
 
 In a bold and singularly unsuccessful attempt to 
 take a flying leap over a mud wall, Benson broke a 
 stirrup-leather, and while he stopped to mend it with 
 his boot-laces, Tom took occasion to question the 
 villagers about the system adopted by the Xepaulese 
 for getting in the revenue, expecting to obtain soine 
 
144 NEPAULmS LAND SETTLEMENT. 
 
 information concerning the grades and -duties of the 
 collectors, the nature and amount of the assessment, 
 the permanency of the settlement, &c. His audience 
 burst out laughing, and replied that the received method 
 of collecting consisted in placing a lattee, which is the 
 name for the quarter-staff carried by all Indian peasants, 
 under the defaulter's knee, and raising his leg till he 
 became able to pay up. As to a Permanent Settlement, 
 the Government officers sometimes brought a ryot's 
 elbows behind his back, passed a lattee under them, 
 hung him by his heels to a tree, and settled him there 
 permanently, unless his quota was forthcoming ; but 
 they had never heard of any other. The amount of the 
 assessment seemed to average about four times the sum 
 that would be exacted for the same lands by the English 
 Treasury, with as much more as could be squeezed out 
 of the tenants by these legitimate ineans of coercion. 
 In return for the tribute, the Imperial Government does 
 not appear to have provided its subjects with cheap and 
 speedy justice, or with facilities for the instruction of 
 their children, or any of the other benefits by which we 
 seek to compensate the natives for the loss of their in- 
 dependence, and salve our own consciences ; while the 
 state of the roads and of the irrigation went to show 
 that the Khatmandoo Department of Public Works was 
 hardly superior in efficiency to our own. The whole 
 strength of the Ghorka administration seems to be 
 concentrated on their War Office, and their Prime 
 Ministers are better hands at shooting their uncles 
 through the back with blunderbusses, than at com- 
 piling codes or devising sweeping measures of popular 
 education. 
 
A BLOODY FLUX. 145 
 
 As we went Ly a miserable hovel, a man rau out, aud 
 putting up his hands in the attitude of prayer, as is 
 the universal custom among natives when addressing a 
 superior, entreated Tom to cure him of a bloody flux, 
 from which he had suffered for the space of two years. 
 Tom said, kindly, that if he would come to Mofussilpore, 
 everj- attention should be paid to his case ; but this 
 was not what the poor fellow wanted. He had fondly 
 imagined that the Sahib would make him whole bj^ a 
 word or a touch. Europeans are rarer birds and more 
 like black swans in these parts than in the British 
 dominions, and very mysterious notions exist concerning 
 their powers for good and evO. This was a fair instance 
 of what the missionary tracts call " Illustrations of 
 Scripture." How sick one got as a child of those little 
 green books, which never tired of informing us that the 
 Chinese rice-growers even now cast their bread on the 
 waters and find it after many daj-s ; and that even now 
 the Hindoos take up their beds and walk. The similes, 
 drawn by our Saviour from the familiar scenes around 
 him, come home to one with great force out here. 
 Every week a magistrate, in Cutclierry, disposes of cases 
 which forcibly remind one how little twenty centuries 
 have modified the immutable ways of Oriental agricul- 
 tural life. Still, when a farmer goes forth at dawn to 
 find his boundary stone rolled inwards, or his crop 
 choked with tares, he knows that " an enemy hath done 
 this." Still the unjust Gomastah calls his lord's tenants 
 unto him, and bids one who owes a hundred seers of 
 indigo take his bill and write fifty, and another who 
 owes a hundred maunds of grain take liis bill and write 
 fourscore, trusting wisely to the selfish gratitude of tlie 
 
 L 
 
146 ILLUSTRATIONS OF SCSIPTURE. 
 
 mammon of unrighteousness. Still, when some strong 
 man of doubtful loyalty has been depriyed of his 
 weapons under the Disarming Act, the daicoits dig 
 through the wall, and first bind the strong man, and 
 then spoil his house. The excessive aversion to pedes- 
 trian exercise that prevails among old residents, and 
 the great difficulty which a fresh arrival experiences in 
 obtaining a companion for a walk, frequently recalls the 
 text which enjoins a special manifestation of unselfish- 
 ness. More than once have I induced a good Christian 
 to go with me a taile sorely against his will, who, when 
 we have accomplished that distance, has freely offered 
 to complete the twain. 
 
 As we approached the mountains the crops became 
 poorer and fewer, and the patches of cultivation were 
 surrounded with rude fences — a sure sign that we were 
 come into the region of deer. At length we entered 
 upon a grass plain sprinkled with brushwood, fringed 
 on three sides with jungle. It was now the cool of the 
 evening, and we put our horses into a gallop, which 
 soon brought us to the border of a vast wood. After 
 winding about through the trees for the better part of 
 an hour, we hit upon the camp just before dark ; and a 
 very picturesque scene it was. The tents stood in an 
 open space of an acre and a half or two acres, enclosed 
 in the primaeval forest. Along the west side of the en- 
 campment, at the foot of a bank that went sheer down 
 to the depth of thirty feet, ran the river Bogmutty, 
 babbling over the pebbles like a highland burn. To 
 use the expression of old Pepys, it was pretty to see the 
 excitement of my companions at the sound and aspect 
 of a running brook. Men who, for a dozen yearS;, had 
 
OUR CAMP. 147 
 
 never known anything but stagnant tanks, or wide slug- 
 gish streams the colour of pea-soup, were beside them- 
 selves with delight at the tinkling of the water as it 
 rippled over the shingle, the deep clear pools "with 
 "here and there a lusty trout," the peewits calling to 
 each other from the brink, the rocks which afforded so 
 inviting a dressing-room to bathers who were sceptical 
 on the subject of crocodiles and leeches. Some six 
 miles to the northward the Himalayas sprang straight 
 up from the plain to the height of five thousand feet ; 
 while, in the far distance, we could discern the white 
 line of those mysterious hills beside which Monte Eosa 
 and the ]\Iatterhorn are mere pigmies ; from whose 
 glaciers even "Wills would turn away in despair; on 
 whose summits not even a TyndaU could plant a ther- 
 mometer. 
 
 If I live a hundred years (in which case the Govern- 
 ment will have made an uncommonly bad bargain, as I 
 shall have continued to draw my pension for half a 
 century), I shall never forget that first morning in the 
 wilderness. I sauntered out of the tent, after a long 
 cool sleep, into an air as pure and fresh as the air of 
 Malvern. AU around the jungle-cocks were crowing 
 and the sea-fowl hooting, while every now and then 
 was heard the deep bellow of an elephant. In the 
 space between the tents Tom was hard at work at a 
 little table, signing, writing, and dictating to a native 
 subordinate : whUe a sowar, or mounted policeman, 
 blazing in scarlet and blue, stood bridle in hand wait- 
 ing to escort the post into British territory. Mildred 
 had got out his guns, and was examining them with 
 that loving solicitude which a lady bestows on her 
 
 L ■^ 
 
148 FIRST MORNINQ IN TUH WILDERNESS. 
 
 gowns, jewels, and furniture, but which a man is tod 
 proud to show except in the case of a favourite fire- 
 arm, or a deerepid salmon-rod which has seen tougher 
 days. Benson was enjoying his coffee and toast, and 
 between the sips read aloud an article in one of the 
 Calcutta papers, proving from Scripture the Divine 
 origin of the Contract Law, to which Mildred listened 
 with an occasional grunt of satisfaction. In one corner 
 of the camp lay the howdahs. In another, the cooks 
 were making preparations for breakfast, which, as it 
 was we who were going to eat it, we took good care not 
 to observe too minutely. In the river below lay a 
 dozen elephants ; while others were cautiously descend- 
 ing the steep bank, or mounting it again after their 
 bath. The huge animals wallowed patiently in the 
 stream, while their mahouts scrambled over their bodies 
 scraping them with a species of overgrown curry-comb. 
 Those who had been half-washed presented a most droll 
 contrast of colour between the white coating of dust 
 and the natural black hue of their skin. We wandered 
 forth into the wood, where the jungle-fowl — who are 
 neither more nor less than cocks and hens in a wild 
 state, with singularly beautiful plumage — ran and flut- 
 tered within a few yards of us. Every moment we 
 came upon a group of two or three elephants, standing 
 amidst a great heap of leaves and branches, which they 
 consumed very leisurely and with an air of profound re- 
 flection. Meanwhile the drivers were grinding their curry 
 under an extempore tent formed- of pads propped up 
 against each other, or saying the morning prayer with 
 their faces turned towards far Mecca. Our horses were 
 tetiiered in the centre of a lofty grove of ancient trees'; 
 
ELFPHANTS. 149 
 
 and near tliem stood the four howdah-elephants ; noble 
 beasts, who towered far above their fellows ; their tusks 
 ornamented with metal rings, and their broad foreheads 
 painted in grotesque patterns. Elephants in good con- 
 dition are very fat and full. Strange stories these old 
 howdah-wallahs could teU us, if they had the gift of 
 speech ! They may have dragged a gun iuto action at 
 Plassey, or groaned beneath the litter of the Grand 
 Mogul when he was still sovereign of the continent 
 from Xepaul to Travancore. Perhaps this sight of the 
 wilderness reminds them, in a dreamy manner, of a 
 Ceylonese forest, far back ia the depths of time, where 
 they wandered, and browzed, and bathed, and loved and 
 were jilted, and fought, (for their small ej'es get very 
 green on provocation), until some wliite monkeys tied 
 their legs together, and carried them off into a servitude 
 which they have tolerated ever since with magnificent 
 Oriental indifference. They have seen the empire of 
 Delhi fade away, and John Company come and go. 
 They have beheld the President of Council turn into 
 Governor General, and the Governor General into Lieu- 
 tenant of the Queen of India. They have witnessed a 
 Ions succession of Deficits, and have attained to the 
 days of a Surplus, palpable and tangible. They have 
 lived to wonder at the roar and the rush of a steam- 
 engine amidst regions where, with Scindia or Meer 
 Jaffia on their backs, they have stood the roar and the 
 rush of many a tiger and buffalo. I wonder whether 
 they recollect their first mahout, and whether they think 
 the rice now-a-days as good as it was in the heyday of 
 youth, when they were still in their grand climacteric. 
 After breakfast we started for a point about a mile 
 
150 A HOWDAH. 
 
 distant, whence we were to begin shooting ; and on the 
 way we settled ourselves in our howdahs as agreeably 
 as circumstances would allow. The howdah consists of 
 a box of wood and wicker-work, open at top, with sides 
 three and a half feet high.- There is a tolerably com- 
 fortable seat in front for the Sahib, and a remarkably 
 uncomfortable one behind for the attendant. On either 
 side of the sportsman rest his firearms ; a double-bar- 
 relled rifle and two smooth-bores loaded with ball, and 
 one gun with a couple of charges of " number four," or 
 " BB," shot for partridge and jungle-fowl. As most of 
 the firing consists of snapshots within fifty yards, a good 
 smooth-bore is every whit as effective as a grooved bar- 
 rel. In a number of little partitions in the front of the 
 howdah the ammunition lies ready to hand. Here are 
 a couple of dozen of well-oiled bullets packed snugly 
 in a tooth-powder box. There is the leather shot-belt 
 which you have carried over Perthshire moor, and Gal- 
 way bog, and Somersetshire stubble, till it has grown 
 limp, and black, and greasy, and beloved. In this 
 drawer roll too and fro, with every jolt of your animal 
 the remnant of a batch of green cartridges, which the 
 gamekeeper at your grandfather's gave you as a parting 
 present at the end of your last day's shooting on 
 English ground; the day you wiped the old gentle- 
 man's eye four several times, and were rewarded by a 
 tip of a hundred pounds to buy hookahs, accompanied 
 with an exhortation not to marry a Begum. Your 
 Chuprassie sits behind with an umbrella covered with 
 white linen, with which he contrives to come to the 
 most frightful grief whenever yon get among trees. In 
 two holsters on either side of him swing a bottle of 
 
nrSTlNV C0S7VMR 151 
 
 lemouade and another of soda water, while your lunch 
 is stowed away iu the well beneath your seat. Your 
 dress is simple ; a flanuel shirt ; the trousers of your 
 college boat-club, the wash-leather lining of which is 
 very grateful towards the close of a hard day ; a pair 
 of canvas shoes, and an enormous pith hat with a thick 
 pad hauging down your back, Avbich, combined with the 
 howdali, gives you the appearance of a sporting mush- 
 room gro^ung in a Hower-pot. Your tout ensemble is 
 not as elegant as that of a cockney on the twelfth of 
 August ; nor M^ould it pass muster at a show meet in 
 the grass-counties. But, as a dentist once said to me, 
 '■ All is not stopping that glitters.'' I dare say Nimrod's 
 leathers were of au archaic cut, and yet he rode to 
 hounds as well as most antediluvians. 
 
 On arri\'ing at the rendezvous we found the pad 
 elephants, forty-four in number ; which, with the how- 
 dali-wallabs, gave us a line of four dozen. Tom, whom 
 we had elected captain, deployed them as well as the 
 difficrdties of the ground would admit. Then we ad- 
 vanced, Mildi-ed on the right wing, Tom and myself 
 in the centre, and Benson on the left. Oh, the wild 
 romantic charm of that first day in the forest ! The 
 strange luxuriant vegetation. The parasites, hanging iu 
 festoons from tree to tree. The gaudy gracefid birds, 
 not now seated in uneasy attitudes under a glass case 
 in a drawing-room, with a wire through their bodies, 
 staring in ghastly fashion out of their bead eyes, but 
 piping and darting about among their native foliage. 
 The big baboons swinging from branch to branch, and 
 the lesser monkeys scudding along the ooixlage of 
 knotted creepei's, unconscious of the existence of such 
 
152 WILD SPORT: 
 
 beings as Savoyard organ-grinders, the curse alike of 
 man and ape. The jungle-cock, cackling and running 
 about among the fallen leaves, at which I take a deadly 
 aim, when, as my finger already contracts on the trigger, 
 a timely heave of my elephant flings the ba,rrel ten 
 degrees farther from the horizon. The cry on the far 
 right of " Deer ahead ! Look out ! " And in and out 
 of the tranks, comes dodging a bright red animal, 
 which recalls in a second a flood of Zoological Garden 
 associations. Trembling from head to foot, I drop the 
 shot-gun, and put a rifle to my shoulder, which — " Con- 
 " found it ! It's on half cock ! " At last I fire, and have 
 the pleasure of seeing a white mark appear on the bark 
 of a sycamore just above the deer's back. A fair shot 
 enough ; but, alas, a miss is as good as half a coss. 
 And now my elephant is brushing through the bram- 
 bles along the bottom of a nullah ; and Benson has, 
 wandered in a vague manner away to the left, drawing 
 a score of elephants after him ; and Tom, in a state of 
 white rage, has gone to bring him to book ; and Mildred, 
 who never does anything without an object, has gradually 
 crept up towards me, and is marching on the bank above 
 with his thumb on the hammer of his fowling-piece, 
 and — whir-r-r-r, a vast bird rises before me, obscuring 
 one whole quarter of the heaven with its wings and 
 tail, and I give him both my barrels, and he reels and 
 drops with a slow stately swoop, and lies amidst the 
 tangled grass, gorgeous in death, the hundred-eyed 
 favourite of the Queen of Olympus. Then, as the day 
 draws on, we reach a part of the wood where the trees 
 are young and the ground clear of undergrowth.. Lean- 
 ing back in the howdah, I fancy for the moment that I 
 
A BUCK BEAR. 153 
 
 am passing througli a plantation in an English coimty, 
 and almost expect to see a board threatening to prose- 
 cute me with the utmost rigour, or an old keeper in a 
 suit of fustian, with a bunch of vermin-traps hanging 
 from his shoulder, or — What is that thing tumbling 
 through the trees a-head ? A cow ? A big dog 1 
 Heavens and earth, a huge black bear ! " Juldee, ma- 
 " hout ! Juldee, budzart ! ^ We're gaining ! we're 
 " gaining ! No, no ! Yes, we are ! He's gone. No ; 
 " there he is again. Will you look sharp, you beastly 
 " old wallah ? " Meanwhile, far behind, I hear Tom 
 bawling to me to come back and be — No ; the dis- 
 tance must have deceived me. After a fruitless chase 
 of a nrile, I obey, and, crestfallen and repentant, listen 
 to a general lecture on my shortcomings, and a special 
 order at sight of bear or tiger to call " Tally ho," and 
 keep to the line. And, when no game is in view, I 
 have the annisement of observing the almost human 
 sagacity of my elephant ; of watching him make his 
 way, howdah and all, through thickets which a man on 
 foot could not penetrate ; breaking off great branches 
 and tearing down creepers with his trunk, and pushing 
 over small trees with his massive forehead. Then there 
 are thoughts of tifiSn, and occasional draughts of meta 
 pawnee, and sweet anticipations of the lies I shall tell 
 when I get back to Calcutta, and the flaming letter I 
 shall write to the Scholar's table at Trinity. Oh ! it is 
 good to tear oneself for awhile from visiting cards, and 
 white chokers, and swallowtail coats, to a life primitive 
 and simple, witliout waistcoat or collar, care or dignity ! 
 It is good to tcU the time by sunrise, and noon, and 
 ' Quick, mabovt ! Quick, bf»!!e-born mnn ! 
 
154 PRlMITirE LIFE, 
 
 evening, instead of dividing the glorious day into 
 periods nicknamed ten-fifteen and four-thirty; to eat 
 when hungry, and sleep when weary, and meditate 
 when you feel thoughtful, and talk when you feel gush- 
 ing. It is good that your object for a time should be, 
 not to send in a Keport that shall touch a tender chord 
 in the heart of your Chief Commissioner, but to keep 
 your portion of the line in faultless order by a liberal 
 use of all the powers of vituperation which Providence 
 has allotted you ; to shoot a pea-chick for soup, and a 
 blue pigeon, whose feathers will complete the plume 
 which you promised to that dear little girl with whom 
 you danced the three last waltzes at the Bengal Club 
 IBaU. 
 
 During this expedition I began to realize the ruling 
 principles of military operations. In order to appreciate 
 the history of a campaign, the reader must constantly 
 bear in mind that multitudes are always helpless and 
 unwieldy. A single man, or a dozen or score of men, 
 wUl carry their packs and rifles across a country for 
 months together, at the rate of twenty miles a day, 
 procuring food as they go along. But ten . thousand 
 men must be handled as if they were so many women. 
 Good roads must be chosen, and plenty of them. The 
 communications must be kept open, and provisions, 
 clothes, and shoes stored at convenient points. The 
 length of the day's march must be such as to allow 
 the train of cannon, waggons, buUock-carts, and bag- 
 gage mules to keep up with the fighting part of the 
 force. I now began- to understand the problems wliich 
 have puzzled five hundred generations of schoolboys, 
 with the exception possibly of the proverbial genius 
 
CASUALTmS. 155 
 
 in the fourth fomi ; why Epaminondas did not advance 
 on Sparta from the battle-field of Leuctra ; why Han- 
 nibal did not advance upon Eome from the slaughter 
 of Cannse. We never succeeded in moving our tents 
 and furniture to a distance of more than four coss from 
 the last encampment. The country being strange, there 
 continually occurred some misunderstanding about the 
 name and direction of places. Our guides lost their 
 way, and our wheels came off, and our carters stopped 
 to bathe in the nullahs. Sometimes there was no track, 
 and the weakest and the most insane of the elephants 
 had to be left behind to convey our hea^'y property. 
 Then the rice fell short, and the oxen fell sick, and the 
 mounted escort fell off, and our servants fell to logger- 
 heads with the village people. Nothing but Tom's 
 excellence as a quartermaster-general saved us from 
 confusion a great deal worse confounded. He shone, 
 not only as an administrator, but as a tactician. It is 
 far easier work to manoeuvre a battalion of volunteers, 
 among whom every third man considers his claims to 
 the colonelcy overwhelming, than to bring a line of 
 half a hundred elephants through a thorn jungle with- 
 out clubbing them hopelessly. As it is impossible to 
 see more than ten yards to the right and left, a gap 
 once made, there is every chance that the array wUl be 
 split up into two fragments, marching towards opposite 
 quarters. The mahouts are a lazy stupid lot, with none 
 of the interest in the sport displayed by English beaters, 
 and with a more than ordinary Hindoo faculty for 
 going to sleep under circumstances the most unsuited 
 for that pastime. They are very tender of their skins, 
 and, when not, strictly watched, are apt to follow the 
 
156 ABUSIVE EPITHETS. 
 
 howdah elephant through the thicket in a long string, 
 instead of beating the bushes on either side of him. 
 Consequently every sportsman has to look very sharply 
 after his section of the line. At first I expected to 
 feel the want of an intimate acqiiaintance with the 
 native terms of abuse ; but a copious fount of vigorous 
 English, assisted by the signs that are common to all 
 time, was an excellent substitute for a fuU vocabulary 
 of vernacular slang ; the more so as I had provided 
 myself with one disparaging epithet, which seldom 
 came amiss, "Budzart," "base-born," which has the 
 advantage, rare in Hindoo Billingsgate, of not embody- 
 ing a painful and unscrupulous assertion regarding the 
 female relatives of the person addressed. Probably 
 the mahouts in the army of Hannibal were not over 
 and above familiar with colloquial Punic, and yet that 
 eminent general appears to have had no difficulty in 
 explaining to them when their animals were to slide 
 down a glacier on their hind quarters, and when they 
 were to wait tilL the cruet-stand was brought up from 
 the rear. I adopted a simple plan. Whenever a driver 
 appeared incorrigibly sluggish or disobedient 1 made 
 him take his place next me, within reach of my load- 
 ing-rod. Por instance, if a fellow in a turban loitered 
 behind to steal sugar-canes, I would call out, "Hi, 
 " pugree- wallah ! Pugree-wallah, hi !" Hereupon was 
 attracted the attention of all the men wearing pugrees, 
 who were thus as a class interested in identifying the 
 culprit ; and, at a wave of my arm, they would shove 
 him in front of the Une, and pass him on tUl he came 
 into the place of torment. One very drowsy old boy, 
 with a long white beard, passed three-fourths of every 
 
TlilJLS OF TEMPER. 157 
 
 day in this unenviable post. The heat and the excite- 
 ment of Indian shooting are a severe trial to the 
 temper. It is especially necessary to be careful with 
 your own mahout, as he sits immediately below, within 
 the swing of your fist, and, as both his hands are occu- 
 pied, the temptation to box his ears is, on provocation, 
 fearfully strong. I should like to see Job himself at 
 the moment when, as he is loading for dear life, with a 
 leopard in the reeds before him, the mahout takes him 
 under a branch which sweeps the top of the howdah, 
 knocks hiTTi breathless on to the seat, scratches his pet 
 rifle from muzzle to breach, and sends a charge of shot 
 through the crown of his helmet. Unfortunately, your 
 orders are liable to be mistaken on account of the simi- 
 larity between the two words which are most often in 
 your mouth, " left " and " right." Their sound is well 
 enough represented by " binah " and " dinah ; " though 
 a young gentleman who has been pronounced " Satis- 
 factory " in Oordoo will not be content with anything 
 imder " bahina," and " dahina." 
 
 At two o'clock we came to the skirts of a wide plain 
 of turf, with here and there a patch of grass a foot or so 
 in height, browned by the sun. To an English eye the 
 nature of tne ground showed poor promise of game. 
 But my companions knew better, and agreed that the 
 cream of the sport was still to come. "We made a halt, 
 and lunched on plum-cake and cold tea. No sensible 
 hunter will touch alcohol in any shape till the day's 
 work is over. Xothiug but the strictest temperance can 
 avert the dangers of the heat and glare. Indeed, total 
 abstinence is the safest rule for the jungle. The first 
 evening we indulged freely in ale and sheiTv ; then we 
 
158 J MA'B ELEPHANT. 
 
 came down to claret, and from that to lemonade, and a 
 mixture of beer and soda-water, which was very re- 
 freshing at the price. The charms of brandy and be- 
 lattee pawnee, a beverage which goes by the name of a 
 " psg " (according to the favourite derivation, because 
 each draught is a "peg" in your coflSn), are far too 
 seductive and insidious for a climate which in itself 
 iinds more than sufficient work for the nerves. 
 
 After tiffin we advanced in a half-moon, so that the 
 howdah elephants on the wings formed bastions, whence 
 an enfilading fire might sweep from right to left. Our 
 array presented a most impressive appearance as we 
 moved over the plain in stately guise. No Eastern 
 potentate marching to subdue an empire could present 
 a more formidable front than this party of civilians 
 beating for hare and partridge. The firing was inces- 
 sant all along the line. Besides small game, the long 
 grass swarmed with hog-deer and antelope, while now 
 and then a majestic florican flapped away in the dis- 
 tance. Before we had gone very far, one of the pad 
 elephants, who had throughout the day shown symp- 
 toms of mild frenzy, now threw aside every vestige of 
 sanity, and knocked over three of his smaller comrades 
 in succession, not being chivalrous enough to butt one 
 of his own size. Tom, after a hurried investigation, de- 
 clared him to be a criminal lunatic, ordered him to be 
 put into a sort of straight pad, and told off two great 
 tusk-wallahs to act as keepers, who beat him about with 
 their trunks untU he became tractable. Towards even- 
 ing a spotted deer got up in front of Benson, who fired a 
 shot which broke its leg. We started in pursuit, plying 
 it with ball and slug, but for a long time it succeeded in 
 
?,^CI£>ENTS OF THE CHASE. 159 
 
 keeping about eighty yards ahead, till it took sanctuary 
 in a bush. When we came up we found ourselves in 
 the most ridiculous plight, for every one of our thirty 
 barrels had been discharged. At last Mildred loaded 
 again, and shot the animal dead, while Benson and I 
 gave it a pai-ting salvo ; and, finally, the Mahonimedan 
 mahouts jumped down and cut its throat, calling upon 
 Allah, and pretending to imagine that it was still alive. 
 By this piece of hj'pocrisy they comfort their con- 
 sciences, for they profess to believe with the Jews that 
 God " will set His face against that soul that eateth 
 " blood, and will cut him off from among His people :" 
 a doctrine which, since the manifesto of the bishops 
 against the unfortunate man of Natal, I suppose we 
 must all hold as necessary to salvation, in common witli 
 Hebrew and Mussulman. That night, when the game 
 was laid in state at the tent-door, we counted fifteiJi 
 holes in the body of the deer. Yoii may be sure we did 
 not dispute the possession of the skin. 
 
 And several days passed in like manner, as dehghtful 
 as constant change of scene, the innumerable chances of 
 the chase, and rare good fellowship could make them. 
 We bathed, and hunted, and lunched, and hunted again. 
 We had our fair share of incidents. Tom shot a pea- 
 cock through the neck with a single ball, at a distance 
 of two hundred yards, and I hit an old cow in the 
 stomach at a distance of twenty, under the impression 
 that she was a wild buffalo. A native thief, on being 
 detected among the tent-ropes, ran a muck -with a beer 
 bottle, and created a panic among our servants, but was 
 eventually knocked down by Mildred, who executed a 
 rude justice on his person with a boot-iack, and then 
 
160 PUCKA KUBBUR. 
 
 kicked him out of camp. We played wliist, we skinned 
 birds, we manufactured and wore to rags an endless 
 supply of bad jokes, which, in after days, will be the 
 shibboleth of the expedition. We disputed by the hour 
 on neology, physiology, free-thought, free-trade, free- 
 will, the respective merits of light and heavy charges 
 of powder, and the virtues of tobacco as a soporific. Ou 
 the Saturday night we held a general council, to con- 
 sider the propriety of shooting on the morrow, since 
 there were no ladies or clergymen to scandalize, no 
 church to attend, and nothing to do but to read " Tris- 
 "tram Shandy," which can hardly be said to come 
 under the category of Sunday books. Old associations 
 prevailed, and we resolved not to have out the pad 
 elephants, but to make a detour to the next camping- 
 ground, and " shoot anything we came across," which 
 comprised five pigeons, three hares, a jackal, a wild cat, 
 and a cobra-capeUa. At length, during dinner, one 
 evening, a cowherd came with information, or kubbur, 
 concerning a tiger, which had carried off a bullock at 
 a place some six miles to the eastward. Now here was 
 kubbur, but the momentous question was, "is it 
 " pucka ? " Tom thought it looked well, and, if the 
 man's story was true, our chances seemed very good ; 
 for a tiger invariably lurks three days in the neigh- 
 bourhood of his prey. 
 
 We went to bed in high expectation, and the next 
 morning Benson called up the whole party four several 
 times before six o'cloclv, our usual hour for rising. 
 " You have waked me too soon," as the Irishman said 
 whep suspended animation was restored during his 
 prematui-e funeral rites. Tom's native official "\\as very 
 
TANTALIZATION. 161 
 
 anxious to be allowed to see the sport, but refused an 
 ofler of one of the pad elephants, on the ground that he 
 entertained " apprehensions that inconvenience would 
 " result from the friction ; " so I took him up in my 
 back seat, while the man who had lost the bullock 
 stood behind Tom's howdah. The forest in which the 
 tiger was supposed to be lying was very extensive, 
 which considerably decreased our hopes. Our captain 
 gave strict orders to fire at nothing except tiger and 
 sambhur, a gigantic deer of the elk species. As invari- 
 ably happens in such a case, the less noble game seemed 
 to find pleasure in tantalizing us. Antelopes stood 
 gazing upon us out of their large eyes for minutes toge- 
 ther. Great hogs trotted gravely away within pistol- 
 shot. Pea-fowl and jungle-hens scuttled about tiU the 
 ground beneath looked like a poultry-yard. At last a 
 very small fawn proved too much for my forbearance. 
 But the consciousness of guilt unnerved my arm. I 
 missed, and Tom's voice pealed down the line — 
 "Is that a tiger?" 
 "No; a deer." 
 " What ? A sambhur ? " 
 
 " I — I — I'm not quite certain. I think it was." 
 Soon after, a peacock, which had strutted before my 
 nose for a quarter of a mile, became irresistible. I fired, 
 and, being now hardened in crime, not unsuccessfully. 
 Then came the question — 
 "HaUo! What's that?" 
 " H'm. My gun went off." 
 " I know that. What did it go off at ? " 
 This time I judiciously pretended to be out of ear- 
 shot. 
 
 M 
 
162 THE TIGER'S LAIR. 
 
 After struggling through two miles of frightful thicket 
 we came to a dry nullah, along which we marched, 
 feeling the bank with our right. A conviction seemed 
 to prevail that a crisis was approaching. " Confound 
 "those mahouts," I said, " they're trying to sneak off." 
 My companion replied, "Sire, they seem bent upon 
 " absconding." And now we reached a spot that to a 
 novice had much of horror and mystery. On the brink 
 of the ravine lay a tract overgrown with rank coarse 
 grass, which overtopped the shoulder of the tallest 
 elephant. Every tree in the neighbourhood was covered 
 with a swarm of foul vultures, who filled the air with 
 discordant ill-omened cries. We began to perceive a- 
 strong smell of putrid flesh, which became more oppres- 
 sive as we drew on. Here, or nowhere, was the tiger's 
 lair. The contrast which our array now presented to 
 its ordinary appearance was as marked as that between 
 a battalion on parade and in action. The drivers of the 
 smaller beasts hung back, and one by one left their 
 places in the line, while the howdah-bearers gradually 
 converged towards the point where the stench and the 
 cloud of flies told us that the tyrant of the jungle could 
 not be far distant. Silent as death, with finger on 
 trigger, every nerve quivering with excitement, straining 
 our eyes downwards to left and right, we advanced in 
 a cluster, step by step, through the tangled vegetation. 
 To my dying day I shall never forget the look on 
 Mildred's face as he peered into the ground below. Ten 
 yards from the brink of the gully we came upon the 
 mangled remnant of the bullock, and then the grass 
 was agitated as with the motion of some large animal, 
 and, casting back a glance of scorn, at the throng of 
 
THE DEATH STRUGGLE. 163 
 
 men and brutes, forth he stalked from his covert, the 
 Royal Nepaiil Tiger. Quick as thought came the report 
 of aU our rifles, and more than one red spot appeared 
 on Ms tawny flank. With a roar, a flash of his tail, and 
 one tremendous bound, he was among us. I have a 
 very dim recollection of what followed. Bullets were 
 whizzing all around, Tom firing over my shoulder, and 
 Benson into my howdah ; the tiger at one time on the 
 head of Mildred's elephant, at another between the legs 
 of mine ; our beasts trumpeting, and plunging, and 
 rolling ; the rank and file scampering away in ungovern- 
 able terror. At the end of what seemed ten minutes, 
 and was perhaps ninety seconds, the tiger lay dead 
 amidst the trampled grass, with six balls in his body 
 one in the foreleg, and another through the brain. 
 
 We returned in triumph, shooting at everything that 
 presented itself. I achieved a conquest over an ancient 
 swine, which I brought down as it careered past at a 
 distance of at least fifteen feet from the muzzle of my 
 gun, at the rate of two miles an hour, including stop- 
 pages. As our Mahommedan followers refused to have 
 anything to do with the unutterable flesh, we forced 
 some Hindoos to alight and hoist the boar on to an 
 elephant as it knelt on the ground. It is hard to say 
 whether the men or the animal evinced most disgust. 
 For a long time the mahouts pretended that the weight 
 was more than they could manage ; but at last they 
 heaved the pig up, upon which the elephant raised itself 
 on its forelegs, shot off its burden behind, and scrambled 
 away in this absurd attitude, roaring horribly. After a 
 quarter of an hour of this nonsense, during which I 
 endeavoured in vain to quicken the movements of the 
 
 m2 
 
164 MELODT. 
 
 ■group by pelting them with custard-apples from an 
 overhanging bough, I appeared among them with my 
 loading-rod, as a diaboliis ex niachina, and the job was 
 done in fifty seconds. Tom offered to prepare the boar's 
 skull to be preserved as a trophy, which excited the 
 most supreme contempt in the breast of Mildred, who 
 remarked, " Some time hence, when the whole thing 
 " has been forgotten, you can say you speared him." 
 
 We agreed to drink our last two bottles of Simkia 
 in honour of our signal victory. After dinner the fun 
 became uproarious. Every glass added an inch to the 
 length and height of the tiger, till at last he assumed 
 such monstrous proportions in Benson's mouth that 
 Mildred jotted down the items, and chalked a rude 
 sketch of the animal on the table. The result was 
 certainly startling. "Gad, sir," said the artist, "a 
 " young elephant is nothing to him." At last Tom 
 knocked down Mildred for a song, who gave us the 
 following plaintive ditty, replete with touching allusion 
 to Government paper, in which he had lately taken a 
 deep interest, with a view to future investment. 
 
 ' ' John Company, my Jo, John, 
 
 When we were first acquent 
 You borrowed, like the Yankees, 
 
 At eight or ten per cent. 
 Our Fours are now at par, John ; 
 
 Our Cash Eequirements low. 
 Yet honour to your old good name, 
 
 John Company, my Jo. 
 
 " John Company, my Jo, John, 
 Those tight tight days are past, 
 The English budget system 
 A puiplus shows at last. 
 
EXCELSIOR. 166 
 
 In eighteen seventy-three, John, 
 
 To limbo you must go. 
 And all your stock wQl be redeemed, 
 
 John Company, my Jo. " 
 
 Tom followed witli a clianson a thought too local for 
 English taste. Still, if Longfellow considers himseK 
 justified in borrowing the burden of a song from the 
 dead languages, a Mofussil collector has surely a right 
 to pay the same compliment to Oordoo, the current 
 dialect in the north of India. " Juldee jao " really does 
 mean "go quickly;" whereas "excelsior" is not "higher," 
 but simply " taUer," a horrid bit of Americanism. Pray 
 observe that " lao," which is pronounced like the first 
 three letters in " lout," is the Hindoostanee for " bring ; " 
 that " qui hye " is the ordinary summons to a servant ; 
 that a mookhtar is a native attorney and a omedwan 
 a native petitioner ; and that Mahommed is a name as 
 universal among kitmutgars as John among London 
 footmen. 
 
 ' ' 'When from the palkee I descend. 
 
 Too weary to rejoice 
 At sight of my Mofussil fiiend, 
 
 I cry with feeble voice. 
 Ere yet within the genial tub 
 
 I plunge my clammy brow ; 
 ' Qui hye, Mahommed, brandy shrub, 
 
 ' Belattee pawnee lao ! ' 
 
 " As from Cutcheny home I spin, 
 
 Worn with the ceaseless rout 
 Of raookhtars quarrelling \vithin 
 
 And omedwans without. 
 My servant catches from afar 
 
 The mandate, 'Juldee jao ! 
 ' Hullo, there ! Brandy, kitmutgar 
 
 ' Belattee pawnee lao ! ' 
 
166 BBLATTEE PAWNEE LAO. 
 
 ' ' When I, a poor forsaken brute, 
 
 On fevered couch repose ; 
 No man of medical repute 
 
 Within a hundred coss ; 
 One sovereign remedy I know, 
 
 Whose virtues all allow ; 
 ' Qui hye, Mahommed, Brandy do ! 
 
 ' Belattee pawnee lao ! ' " 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 H. Bkoughton. 
 
THE HOT WEATHER W, 
 
 LETTEE VII. 
 
 ABOUT CALOTTTTA AND ITS CLIMATE; WITH SERIOUS 
 INFERENCES. 
 
 Calcutta, April 12, 1863. 
 
 Dear Simeins, — The hot weather has set in. These 
 ■avoids may convey to you no very definite idea, beyond 
 the general one, of punkahs and iced champagne ; but 
 to us they are the earnest of miseries which are unut- 
 terable. The amenities of life are over for the year. 
 The last waltz has been danced in the assembly-rooms ; 
 the last wicket has been pitched on the cricket ground ; 
 the last tiffin eaten in the Botanical gardens ; the last 
 couple married in the cathedral, at the very sensible and 
 uncanonical hour of half-past five in the afternoon. 
 People have settled themselves down to be clammy, 
 and gloomy, and hepatic for six grilling months. The 
 younger and more vigorous effloresce with a singularly 
 unpleasant eruption, known as "prickly heat" — a con- 
 dition which is supposed to be a sort of safety-valve for 
 feverish tendencies, and which, therefore, excites the 
 envy of all who are not so blessed. Conceive a" climate 
 such that an exquisitely painful cutaneous disorder is 
 allowed to be a fair subject of congratulation ! And in 
 such a plight, amidst a tempei'ature of 97° in the shade 
 and anything from headache to apoplexy in the sun, men 
 are supposed to transact official work from morn till 
 
168 97°. 
 
 stewy eve. Is it fair to expect high efficiency under 
 such circumstances? Are enlarged views compatible 
 with enlarged livers? No strain is put upon the re- 
 flective powers of Strasbourg geese. Their most active 
 mental exercise is a vague consciousness of an increasing 
 weight under the right wing. And why should English 
 gentlemen be debarred from a privilege extended to 
 Alsatian fowls ? It required the transcendent genius of 
 Milton to imagine for the lost angels this aggravation 
 of their punishment, that they should carry on public 
 business amidst the burning marie, and beneath the 
 torrid clime vaulted with fire. The second book of 
 " Paradise Lost " reads like the proceedings during the 
 meeting of a Supreme Council to decide on the question 
 of peace and war with Burmah or Nepaul, in which the 
 aggressive schemes of Moloch, the first ordinary 
 member, are opposed by Mammon, the financial 
 member, who is nervous about his surplus, and who 
 thinks that the country needs " repose " in order that 
 her resources may be developed by judicious, but hearty 
 aid from Government. 
 
 " This desert soU 
 "Wants not lier Mdden lustre, gems and gold ; 
 Nor want we skill or art, from whence to raise 
 Magnificence. And wliat can Heaven show more ? " 
 
 There can be no doubt that Mammon was adverse to an 
 annexation policy. And yet the poet does not inflict 
 upon the fallen cherubim any heavier task than that of 
 making and listening to speeches, a labour which he 
 justly considered to be severe enough for such an atmo- 
 sphere. There were no reports to be written, no ac- 
 counts to be kept, no boxes to be worked off and passed 
 
CALCUTTA. 169 
 
 on. Thammuz would find his annual wound a very 
 different thing from an annual estimate of the net pro- 
 duce of the sales when opium was at 1423 rupees a 
 chest ; and Astoreth would soon have worried herself 
 into an attack of dysentery, if the Sidonians, instead of 
 paying her " their vows and songs," had paid five per 
 cent, on MadapoUams tariffed at ninepence, and disposed 
 of in the market at one-and-fourpeuce the pound. 
 AMiy, I ask, should the condition of enlightened public- 
 spirited civilians be worse than that of Eimmon and 
 Beelzebub ? 
 
 Take your map of India, and find, if you can, a more 
 uninviting spot than the town whose name stands at 
 the head of this letter. Placed in the burning plain of 
 Bengal, on the largest delta in the world, amidst a net- 
 work of sluggish, muddy streams, in the neighbourhood 
 of the jungles and marshes of the Sunderbunds, and yet 
 so distant from the open sea as to miss the benefits of 
 the breeze which consoles IMadras for the want of a cold 
 season and a Permanent Settlement — it unites every 
 condition of a perfectly unhealthy situation. If the 
 Government were in want of a site for a convalescent 
 hospital, they could not pray for one more to their taste. 
 The place is so bad by nature that human efforts could 
 do little to make it worse ; but that little has been done 
 faithfully and assiduously. " God made the country," 
 evidently without a view to its becoming a European 
 colony ; and " man made the town," and the municipal 
 council made the drains. The combined effect is over- 
 whelming. Statistics cannot express the state of the 
 native streets. The unassisted genius for manuiacturing 
 smells displayed by the Hindoo becomes stupendous 
 
170 INDIAN DRAINS. 
 
 when aided by the sanitary measures of the local 
 authorities. A walk in DhurrumtoUah Lane would 
 prove too much for a City Missionary, and would try 
 the stomach of a costermonger. During the hot 
 months, the English aristocracy live entirely among the 
 lofty mansions fringing the Maidan, the vast plain of 
 turf which forms the Hyde Park of Calcutta. Here 
 they lead an artificial life amidst gardens, and veran- 
 dahs, and spacious saloons alive with punkahs, and 
 would as soon think of walking as of taking their car- 
 riages fifty yards within the limits of the Black Town. 
 In fact, we have at our doors a region which we dare 
 not enter under penalty of a headache, or of feeling like 
 a French juryman returning from the Exhibition ' witi 
 Folkestone and Dieppe. It is only necessary to make an 
 hour's journey up or down the river in order to appre- 
 ciate the atmosphere of Calcutta. At Barrackpore, 
 where the average rate of mortalitj^ does not much 
 exceed that in the Irish quarter of Liverpool during a 
 typhus fever in the haymaking season, the air appears 
 balmy and 'genial to a visitor from the capital. 
 
 A soldier might go through three battles of Waterloo 
 with no greater risk of life than he incurs during a re- 
 sidence of a year in Port' "William. Oat of every thou- 
 sand soldiers quartered in Bengal, sixty-five die in the 
 course of every twelvemonth. And these not old 
 Quihyes, with clogged livers and shattered nerves, but 
 picked men in 'the very spring and prime of life, sent 
 forth from home sound in wind and limb, with open 
 chests, and arched feet, and broad straight backs. Of 
 soldiers' wives forty-four die yearly in the thousand ; 
 and, of their children, eighty-eight in the thousand. As 
 
MORTALITY. 171 
 
 an old surgeon said, in 1672, of the Europeans in Bom- 
 bay, " They reckon that they walk in charnel-houses. 
 " In five hundred one hundred survive not." The 
 European army in Bengal has, hitherto, disappeared in 
 every ten and a-half years. This computation of course 
 includes the men who have been invalided. The yearly 
 mortality among the officers rises from nine to the 
 thousand in London to twentj'-four to the thousand in 
 Bengal The civilians, by dint of horse-exercise, and 
 ice, and cool rooms, and trips to Simla, and furloughs to 
 Europe, and (a better medicine than any) constant and 
 interesting occupation, keep down their average to 
 something over seventeen in the thousand. But a hard- 
 worked official finds no lack of indications that he is 
 not at Malvern or Torquay. After his first year in Cal- 
 cutta, an Englishman can no longer sleep as he once 
 slept, or eat as he once ate, and it is lucky if he drinks 
 no more than he once drank. If you asked him to run, 
 he would laugh in your face. I sometimes think that 
 our uniform success in Indian warfare may be partially 
 due to the fact that our countrymen, by long disuse, lose 
 the power of running away. Above aU, the mental 
 faculties deteriorate surely and rapidly in this hateful 
 climate. The mind, like the body, becomes languid and 
 flabby and nerveless. Men live upon the capital of 
 their energy and intellect, backed by occasional remit- 
 tances from home, or from the hills. AYhile tliis suda- 
 rium continues to be the seat of government, the public 
 interests do not suffer only under the head of sick 
 allowances and pensions ; the work done here by the 
 servants of the Crown, is far inferior in quality and 
 quantity to what it would be in a more congenial air. 
 
1'72 NON Dl. 
 
 This may be clearly seen in tlie case of literary compo' 
 sition, whicli I take to be the most thorough strain on 
 the mind— a sort of moral gymnastics, the greatest ex- 
 ercise for the greatest number of intellectual powers. 
 At home, on a pinch, a man may write his very best for 
 five hours in the day, and four months on end. Perhaps 
 " Ask Mamma " might be produced at the rate of eight 
 hours a day, and " Aurora Moyd " at the rate of twelve, 
 while the accomplished author of "Proverbial Philo- 
 sophy " may have spent weeks together in the sweet 
 throes of creative travail Poor old Tupper ! thou art, 
 as it were, the village donkey, at whom every one has a 
 shy as he passes onward to his daily work. Blessed for 
 thee will be the hour, in which a new Montgomery 
 may take his place beside thee on the green, at whom 
 wayward youth may discharge the potato of satire ; to 
 whose tail fastidious middle life may attach the tin 
 kettle of hostile criticism. Sweet it is to lie on the 
 rosewood tables in a Clapham drawing-room ! Sweet to 
 be quoted in households where even Cowper may not 
 penetrate, where even PoUok is 'held to be profane and 
 worldly ! But these joys may be too dearly purchased. 
 Do they compensate thee for the ruthless raillery of the 
 Saturday Review ? Por the clumsy mockery of the 
 Press, kicking, not a sick lion, but a prostrate brother ? 
 Do they repay thee for the misery of seeing thy divine 
 name popularly quoted at the opposite end of the poetic 
 scale from that of the Swan of Avon ? What Review, 
 weekly or quarterly, metropolitan or provincial, canst 
 thou open without lighting upon that baleful, but fami- 
 liar phrase, '' all bards from Shakespeare to Tupper ? " 
 Or that sentence, which thou believest to be a transla- 
 
SLEEPLESSA^ESS. 173 
 
 tion from Sophocles, which speaks of thee in connexiou 
 with gods, and men, and columns ? 
 
 But to return. Three consecutive hours of original 
 composition on a summer-day in Calcutta, is a sufficient 
 task for the strongest brain. Woe to him who ventures 
 to court the muse in the first watch of the night, the 
 hour when she lends the kindest ear to her votaries. 
 When he tears himself from the pleasing labour, it is 
 with nerves in high excitement, and a sensation in his 
 head as if all the vessels and cellules in which thought 
 lies were in a state of rabid red inflammation. A sleep- 
 less couch is the certain penalty for his presumption ; 
 and sleep is even more a necessary of life here than in 
 England. So that, after fancying that he has wrested 
 some hours of study from the unwilling night, he finds 
 himself in the position of the Emperor Titus. I some- 
 times think that the classical idea of departed spirits' 
 shadows pursuing shadowy occupations, hunting incor- 
 poreal game, mining for immaterial treasures, tending 
 visionary sheep, must have been suggested by the expe- 
 riences of the day that succeeds a sleepless night. You 
 go about your ordinary cares without interest ; you eat 
 and drink without gratification ; venison seems tasteless, 
 and champagne insipid; you read Avithout reflection, 
 and talk without animation ; your actions are prompted 
 by habit, not by choice ; you seem to live, but life is 
 neither painful nor pleasant. I cannot conceive a man, 
 who knows in what the value of writing consists, after 
 having completed one book while resident in this climate, 
 deliberately and in cold blood commencing another ; 
 and I believe that no one, who had lived and toiled 
 here for ten years, would be capable of producing a 
 
174 NON HOMINES. 
 
 first-class work. Even Anthony Trollope would suc- 
 cumb to the exhalations of the Lai Bazaar. Even Dr. 
 Stanley would become as Gumming, and Tennyson as — 
 no, requiescat. 
 
 " Allusions sore unmoved he bore, 
 And watched his books attain, 
 By his foes' admission, 
 The seventieth edition, 
 Like ' The Eights of Man,' by Paine." 
 
 Surely this simple epitaph would well suit one who 
 fondly imagined that he was writing poetry when he 
 addressed the Princess Alexandra thus — 
 
 10,000,000 welcomes! 
 
 100,000,000 welcomes ! 
 
 1,000,000,000 welcomes ! 
 
 Farewell, my Tupper ! 
 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 farewells ! 
 
 Hear Dr. Moore, of the Bombay Medical Service, a 
 most able and observant officer — 
 
 " In Indian hill ranges it is not the terrestrio-mias- 
 ■"matic causes of disease alone which are partially 
 " escaped ; it is the absence of intense heat, the lower- 
 "ing of the temperature some ten or fifteen degrees, 
 "which allows the European to recover his elasticity 
 " of vital and physical powers — which the fervid heat 
 ''of the plains depresses to the lowest existing point 
 " — which allows him to obtain a moderate quantity of 
 " exercise, without undue fatigue and exhaustion, and 
 "which conduces to his obtaining rest and sleep by 
 " night, free from the forbidding causes of the plain — 
 " heat and mosquitoes. 
 
 "As a natural consequence, the body not only be- 
 
DR. MOORE. 176 
 
 " comes invigorated and inspirited, but the mind also 
 "more active, and capable of greater and sustained 
 " action. 
 
 " A clear intellect, and a temperature of 88° Fali- 
 "renheit, are almost incompatibilities, vrhen long and 
 " contiaued intellectual exertions are required ; and it 
 " may be stated, that the capabilities of any individual 
 " as regards the latter vary inversely as the heat of the 
 " climate. Intense application and deep thought never 
 " prospered long together where the body is always on 
 " the qui rwe to keep itself cool. The hands, perhaps, 
 " may be taxed, but not the head. The latter, after a 
 " certain time, either fails or performs its work unsatis- 
 " factorily. 
 
 " Hence, in hUl stations, whether for good or evil, 
 "there is generally a fresher, more energetic, and, it 
 " perhaps may be added, more intellectual tone than is 
 " met with among the dwellers on the plains. There 
 " is not the heat to feel and talk about, and the climate 
 " seems to instil a new life into both mind and body. 
 " It gives a greater elasticity, and enables Europeans 
 " to undergo more than they could possibly endure 
 " under the ' punkah ' and ' tatties,' or exposed to the 
 "heat without those necessaries. It is tlie circum- 
 " stance of a hill cUmate being a sanatarium Jbr the 
 " mind as well as the body which adds so immensely 
 " to its value." 
 
 But, besides sanitary defects, there are other objec- 
 tions to Calcutta as the seat of the Central Government ; 
 for, as long as that Government remains here, it can 
 be central only in name. At present the chief city is 
 poked up in an angle of the empire, with nothing to 
 
176 CALCUTTA NOT CENTRAL. 
 
 the east of it except part of our Burmese dominions. 
 It lies at a distance of nearly five hundred miles (as 
 the crow and General Pope fly) from Allahabad, the 
 capital of the North-West; six hundred miles from 
 Lucknow, the capital of the Chief Commissionership 
 of Oude, and from Nagpore, the capital of the Chief 
 Commissionership of that illc; more than eight hun- 
 dred miles from Delhi, the foeus of native interests; 
 nine hundred from Madras ; more than one thousand 
 from Bombay ; and between eleven and twelve hundred 
 miles from Lahore. During the crisis of the Mutiny 
 the people on the scene of action were left tO' manage 
 as they best might, without orders from head-quarters, 
 and with small chance of making their position known 
 to the supreme authorities. Sir John Lawrence fought 
 his province as a brave captain fights his vessel when 
 he finds himself surrounded by the hostile fleet in a 
 fog which prevents him from discerning his admiral's 
 signals. It is fortunate for England that our officers 
 acted in the spirit of ISTelson's golden rule — " when a 
 "commander is in doubt what to do, he cannot be in 
 " the wrong if he lays his ship alongside the nearest 
 " enemy." But it is not only while great events are in 
 progress that the inconveniences of the hole-and-corner 
 situation of Calcutta are severely felt. In the most 
 piping times of peace (why are times of peace piping ?) 
 the expense and delay in the transmission of despatches 
 constitute a very serious public evil. "When instructions 
 from the India Oflice at Home, relating to the Punjab, 
 aiTive at Bombay, they are within nine hundred miles of 
 the Government to which they refer ; but, as they must 
 be submitted to the Supreme Authorities, before they 
 
"MINOR PRESIDEXCIES." 177 
 
 reach their destination they will have made a journey 
 of two thousand two hundred miles in a direct line : 
 and a journey of two thousand two hundred miles in 
 India is no joke. 
 
 But the Imperial Government should not only be 
 locally central. It must likewise be morally central. 
 As long as the Viceroy, the Council, and the Secretariat 
 are settled in the capital of a Presidency, that Presi- 
 dency ^^^ll always rule the rest of India. To this day 
 Bombay and Madras are familiarly spoken of as " the 
 " Minor Presidencies ; " while the north-west provinces, 
 with their thirty millions of inhabitants, and the Pun- 
 jab, with its sixteen millions, are regarded as mere 
 dependencies of Bengal And how should it be other- 
 wise ? From the time that our Eastern domiaions 
 were united under the superintendence of one supreme 
 authority, that authority has been located at Calcutta. 
 As long as this state of things lasts, Bengal influences 
 and Bengal habits of thought wiU. direct or modify 
 every measure of the Supreme Government. There is 
 no danger lest the sei-vants of the favoured Presidency 
 should use their power for their own selfish advantage. 
 But it is not good that the officials of Bombay and the 
 Punjab should have no voice in matters which are of 
 special moment to themselves, or which concern the 
 sjeneral interests of the empire. It may be said, with- 
 out exaggeration, that a young fellow who begins his 
 career in the Southern Presidencies has no hope of 
 ever taking part in the general administration of the 
 country. A njan might count the Madras and Bombay 
 oflBcers who are employed in the Supreme Administra- 
 tion on the fingers of one hand, even if he had passed 
 
178 * CHANGING HOUSE. 
 
 some time in the establishment of Adoni-bezek, in 
 company with the threescore and ten unfortunate royal 
 personages who gathered their meat under the table of 
 that remarkably unpleasant monarch. The knowledge 
 of this has the most depressing effect on the morale of 
 the services which are thus virtuaUy excluded from 
 high and honourable office. This objection to Calcutta 
 as the official capital is so strong as to outweigh all 
 others. It is absolutely essential that the Supreme 
 Government should be impartial, unbiassed by local 
 prejudices or associations, — in a word, imperial; and, 
 while India is, to a certain extent, misgoverned from 
 this cause, Bengal is over-governed. Zealous and able 
 Councillors and Secretaries of State, who watch things 
 going wrong under their nose, would be more than 
 official if the temptation to direct interference did not 
 sometimes prove too strong for their forbearance. The 
 local powers are hampered, and trammelled, and fretted 
 by the constant presence of a superior authority. No 
 one would be more heartily glad to see the backs of 
 the members of the Supreme Government than the 
 magnates of the Presidency of Bengal. 
 
 The expense of changing house is, of course, the 
 strongest argument against moving the seat of Govern- 
 ment from Calcutta to some less enervating and pesti- 
 lential climate ; and undoubtedly it would cost no trifle 
 to found a new official metropolis for a country of more 
 than four times the area of Great Britain and France 
 together. But, when we look the matter in the face, 
 many of the difficulties vanish. From the circumstances 
 under which our Eastern empire came into existence, 
 a large share of power remained in the hands of the 
 
HISTORICAL TIES. 179 
 
 provincial authorities. It ■was long before the SoutheiD 
 Pi'esidencies could be brought to acknowledge what 
 ]\Ir. Grote would call the Hegemony of Bengal ; and 
 eveu now the idea of ceutralization is repugnant to the 
 Indian official mind. At Madras and Bombay, Alla- 
 habad and Lahore, Nngpore, Lucknow, and Eangoon, 
 much public business is carried on which in a European 
 State would be transacted at the capital city. Con- 
 sequently, the staff of public servants stationed at Cal- 
 cutta, and attached to the Supreme Government, is not 
 so large as to render the removal of that Government a 
 work of extraordinary labour and cost. A very large 
 proportion of the emploj/es resident in the capital belong 
 to the Government of Beng-al, and would therefore stay 
 where they are. It must not be forgotten that the whole 
 legal staff come under this head — judges, barristers, 
 attorneys, clerks, registrars, and false witnesses. Even 
 the High Court is a Bengal tribunal. 
 
 In the case of an empire which can trace the history 
 of its growth through long centuries, the associations 
 which gather round the chief city form a tie which few 
 Utilitarians could find it in their heart to break. Even 
 in that fearful year when the Thames gave up his dead 
 cats, when volumes of foul vapoui-s roUed in at every 
 one of Barry's mullioned windows ; when honourable 
 membei's sat gloomy and silent in the smoking-room, or 
 lay on their backs on the floor of the dressing-closets in 
 the agonies of naiisea ; when Pam became sobered and 
 Bright pale and pensi\e ; when there was only a basin 
 between Spooner and Eternif^- ; — not then did it cross 
 the mind of the most qualmish legislator to suggest that 
 the English Curia should be transferred from the sacred 
 
 .\ 2 
 
i80 WASHINGTON. 
 
 £oil of Westminster. That august ally of ours, though 
 he carefuUy demolishes every relic of the old regime, 
 and of the great events which have placed a gulph 
 between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, aims 
 only at adorning the ancient site, and has no thought of 
 creating a new Paris in a distant department. Such, at 
 least, I presume to be his intentions ; for the Imperial 
 secrets, if Mr. Tennyson is to be believed, are entrusted 
 only to a single confidant of very questionable reputa- 
 tion. Even the Yankees seem unwilling to abandon 
 those sacred waUs within whose precinct they and their 
 fathers have talked bunkum for a couple of generations ; 
 those classic haunts, hallowed by the recollections of 
 Daniel Webster, and the bodily presence of Mister 
 Chase ; that sublime Capitol, towards which their legions 
 have fled in dire confusion from many a field of victory 
 — ^which not even the cackling of Cassius Clay, nor the 
 CamUlus who found a Veil in Eiohmond, will save from 
 the clutches of the barbarians from the South ; that 
 rostrum on which, in years to come, the heroes who 
 solicit the suffrages of their countrymen will bare their 
 backs and display the scars which testify to their prowess 
 on more than one hard-run day of battle.^ 
 
 In the case of Calcutta there is no reason to entertain 
 scruples on this score. As I am curious about the 
 scenes and circumstances of notable events, imme- 
 diately on my arrival I instituted an inquiry into the 
 existing associations of the place, and got together 
 
 1 The foregoiBg passage is retained as a proof of tlie decency and 
 discrimination with which a young Englishman, in 1863, thought fit to 
 discuss the greatest events of his time. I sinned with my elders, and 
 repeated with my betters. — Sept. 1865. 
 
ASSOCUTIOXS OF CALCUTTA. 181 
 
 the following collection, which is not so rich that it 
 deserves to have much weight when the expediency of 
 changing the seat of Government comes to be con- 
 sidered. 
 
 1. A Baboo was alive some years ago, who stated 
 himself to have been the native secretary of Warren 
 Hastings, and who pointed out the tree under which the 
 duel took place. According to his own account, he was 
 at hand when that Suhib of chequered fame fought with 
 Francis Sahib, "to decide which should be Governor- 
 " General " — a theory not wholly devoid of truth ; for, if 
 Hastings had been killed, his adversary would assuredly 
 have seized the reins. The value of this old gentleman's 
 testimony was somewhat impaired by the fact that his 
 presence, on the occasion in question, did not form a 
 feature in the earlier editions of the story, and is strongly 
 suspected to have been an afterthought. 
 
 2. There are those still living who have often talked 
 with an ancient lady who remembered, as a very young 
 girl, during an early ride on the Maidan, seeing a gen- 
 tleman carried across tj^e grass. On asking his name, 
 she was informed that he was !Mr. Francis, supposed by 
 Mr. Macaulay and Lord Stanhope to be the author of 
 the letters of Junius, and that he was returning with 
 a bullet through his body, from an interview with the 
 Governor-General. 
 
 3. The Black Hole was somewhere in Tank Square, 
 though some think that it is a certain room at the office 
 of the l)Oard of Examiners. 
 
 4. Enthusiastic antiquarians profess to find ti'aces of 
 the Mahratta Ditch in the neighbourhood of Ballygunge. 
 Others are of opinion that these faint indentations in 
 
182 ^ ROME AND BYZANTIUM. 
 
 the soil are an early effort of the Public Works Depart- 
 ment in the canal-making line. 
 
 Wherever a great mass of public buildings and private 
 residences has been accumulated in a long course of 
 time, the removal of the personnel and paraphernalia 
 of Government would occasion much individual distress 
 and a considerable loss to the State. When Constantine 
 resolved on founding a new Imperial capital on the shore 
 of the Bosphorus, it must have caused a bitter pang to 
 many an old official when he was bidden to surrender 
 " the smoke, the pomp, the din of favoured Eome ; " to 
 turn his back for ever on the temples, and arches, and 
 theatres of the glorious city ; the long succession of 
 echoing squares, fringed with stately colonnades ; the 
 colossal baths where he had perspired, and sipped negus, 
 and betted, and talked scandal ever since he came to 
 man's estate ; the Mint, under the Capitol, where he sat 
 as qusestor during his first and proudest year of public 
 life ; the causeway of Appius, along which he drove, 
 through the tombs of his ancestors, to take possession 
 of his province ; and the portico under which, after his 
 retTirn, he stood to be congratulated on his acquittal 
 from the charge of extortion and oppression, on the day 
 when he so triumphantly established his innocence at 
 the rate of a hundred thousand sesterces to each judge, 
 and a Venus Victrix, by Scopas, to the Praetor. It must 
 have been a terrible blow to him when the gorgeous 
 BasUica, where he had listened to the eloquence of the 
 great pleaders of the day, was turned into a little Bethel 
 for Christians, and when his pretty house-property on 
 the edge of the Esquiline Hill, where two Augurs and 
 the Emperor's barber lived within four doors, went down 
 
INDIAN PUBLIC BUILDINGS. 1S3 
 
 fifty per cent, in value on the publication of the fatal 
 edict which announced that Byzantium was hence- 
 forward to be the mistress of the world. 
 
 Calcutta, however, is not Eome ; though old Job 
 Charnock, the Quirimis of the town, when he pitched 
 his tent under a fine banyan-tree that grew where Fort 
 William now stands, would probably have been consi- 
 derably astonished had he been told that he was the 
 nucleus of a population that would one day exceed four 
 hundred thousand souls. Still, the servants of the 
 Indian Government will, on their departure, have but 
 little reason to regret the board-rooms they leave be- 
 hind them. It is not too much to say that there is 
 nothing here which answers to a public office in London. 
 The business of the State is transacted in private houses 
 hired or bought for the purpose. The lobby of the 
 Treasury is a duty closet with a whitewashed wall, 
 daubed with specimens of native art, and opening into 
 an untidy back-yard. Out here the Horse Guards 
 would be regarded as an elegant and commodious pile of 
 architecture, and the ISTational Gallery as the model of a 
 chaste and classic style. The only building which can 
 properly be said to belong to the Supreme Government 
 is the palace of the Viceroy ; and this would not be 
 wasted, as the want of accommodation for the Courts of 
 Law is a crying evil, and Government House, from the 
 peculiarity of its form, is admirably suited for judicial 
 purposes. Twelve haUs of justice might be provided — 
 for the worst of which the judges at Westminster would 
 pull wigs —with ventilation that would wia a smile of 
 approval from Baron Bramwell, or, as I suppose 1 ought 
 to say, the late Baron Bramwell, since long before this 
 
184 FASHION. 
 
 reaches you he will probably have fallen a victim to the 
 outraged relatives of expatriated garotters. The result 
 of the proposed, change would be that a couple of dozen 
 of the finest mansions in Calcutta would be thrown into 
 the market — a most timely supply, as the scarcity of 
 house-room is already painfidly felt. They would be 
 immediately snatched at by the famihes who are now 
 living in discomfort and publicity at hotels and board- 
 ing-establishments, because respectable and convenient 
 dwellings are not to be had at any price. ISTo percepti- 
 ble effect would be produced upon society by the de- 
 parture of the "Viceroy; for it may be confidently asserted 
 that no one resides at Calcutta because it is fashionable. 
 In India everybody lives within reach of his business ; 
 and, when he has got money, he goes to spend it in 
 England. 
 
 Some hold that there is danger in removing the 
 Government fi'om a bustling populous city, where the 
 healthy breezes of public opinion circulate freely, to a 
 solitude where it wlU. be surrounded by an impenetrable 
 official atmosphere. But on this point men are misled 
 by European analogies. It is idle to endeavour to find 
 a counterpart out here for every English institution, 
 from Magna Charta down to the skating club. If I 
 dared, I would say that the state of feeling on Indian 
 matters that prevails among the great majority of our 
 countrymen at home has far more in common with 
 the public opinion of the Civil Service than with that 
 of our small and peculiarly constituted non-official 
 society : — 
 
 aWd. fni\* aivus 
 
JUBBULPORE. 18o 
 
 I am in a ruoxtal fright of the Calcutta gentlemen, and 
 the very pretty Calcutta ladies with wide crinolines. 
 
 l^ext comes the choice of a permanent site ; for the 
 Supreme Government must not go cruising about like 
 a returned Indian, who cannot make up his mind 
 whether to settle in a Cheltenham vUla, or a Brighton 
 Crescent, or at Eugby to educate his sons, or in London 
 to dispose of his daughters. For some time subsequently 
 to the Miitiny, Delhi was generally talked of. There 
 was much of the romantic in the notion of enthroning 
 '■he Lieutenant of the Crown in the palace of the Mogul. 
 It was supposed that the native mind would transfer to 
 the representative of the Empress of India the prestige 
 attached to the line of Baber and Aurengzebe. But 
 Delhi is neither much more central nor much more 
 healthy than the present capital It lies almost as far 
 to the Xorth as Calcutta to the East. The air, taking 
 the whole year round, is as hot ; and the drainage would, 
 doubtless, very soon be as bad. It is worth while to 
 incur expense and trouble for the sake of a change to 
 a hill climate, and to a hill climate only. 
 
 Fortunately, a region exists wHch unites all the condi- 
 tions desirable for the official capital of a great empire. 
 On the new line of railway from Allahabad to Bombay, 
 in latitude 23° 7' N. and longitude 79° 57' E. stands 
 Jubbulpore, at an elevation above the sea of near fifteen 
 hundred feet. The Washington of the East might spring 
 up on these high table-lands, amidst the park -like un- 
 dulating scenery in the vicinity of the town — and in 
 India vicinity means anything within fifty miles. A 
 branch line from Jubbulpore would bring despatches to 
 hand twenty-four hours subsequent to their arrival at 
 
186 COLONIZATION. 
 
 Bombay, and in twenty-two days after their departure 
 from England. The spot is the very centre and 6ij,(j)aX6v 
 of the continent. It lies a hundred and fifty nules from 
 Nagpore, two hundred from Allahabad, three hundred 
 from Lucknow, something over five hundred from Cal- 
 cutta, something under six hundred from Bombay, and 
 about seven hundred mUes from Madras in the far south 
 and Lahore in the extreme north. The public opinion 
 of the whole of India would be applied equably and in 
 due proportion to all the measures of the Supreme 
 Government, which would no longer be swayed by the 
 influences of a single Presidency. The high officials would 
 be drawn from all quarters, would reflect the feelings 
 and interests of many different provinces, and would 
 bring to the service of the Crown a great variety of ideas 
 and experiences. A representative element would thus 
 be introduced into the constitution. 
 
 One most beneficial result would ensue, which is not 
 evident at first sight. The removal of the seat of Govern- 
 ment to the table-lands of the Central Provinces would 
 have the effect of a gigantic scheme of colonization, as 
 far as colonization is practicable in India. With refer- 
 ence to this question, much has of late been talked and 
 written. Most people who know anything about the 
 country have a pretty decided opinion on the subject. 
 It is impossible to induce men to work in a climate 
 worse than that of Jamaica, for less than half the wages 
 earned by a Dorsetshire peasant. Skilled labour of the 
 highest class will always find its price out here. Clerks, 
 and factors, and engineers will never have any difficulty 
 in earning a livelihood ; but poor people, without capital 
 or education, could not find employment in any consi- 
 
DR. MOOBE AGJiy. 187 
 
 derable number. Besides, colonization is hopeless unless 
 the colonist can manage to live himself, and rear his 
 children and grandchildren. On this point Dr. Moore 
 speaks very positively : 
 
 " It is the fashion now, in some quarters, to declare 
 " that the dangers of Indian residence and service have 
 "been deeply overrated, and that there is little or 
 " nothing in the exceptional character of the climate of 
 " India to render it necessary that special inducements 
 " should be held out to persuade people to reside therein, 
 " and this, too, in the face of so many stern facts which 
 "have confronted us -within the last few years. How 
 " many more victims must be added to the list of those 
 " killed by climate, before the dangers of a tropical resi- 
 " dence become appreciated ? 
 
 " If colonization, as America and Australia have been 
 " colonized, were possible in this country, some instances 
 " of the kind would already have occurred. But the 
 " melancholy truth is, that the European race dies out. 
 " Of the numerous pensioners who have settled at our 
 " principal military stations, how many have been 
 '' colonists ? There is not one single instance. There is 
 " not a gTeat-grandchild_,or grandchild of these pensioners 
 " retaining their European characteristics. An infusion 
 "of native blood is essential to the continuance of the 
 " race. 
 
 " The fact is, for the white man or his offspring, there is 
 " no such thing as acclimatisation in India. As a rule, 
 " Europeans enjoy the best health, and suffer less from 
 " heat, during their first years of residence in this country. 
 "Acclimatisation, as regards an Indian sun, is simply 
 "impossible. Exposure, instead of 'hardening' the 
 
188 ACCLIMATISATION. 
 
 " system, actually has the contrary effect, and, the lonijer 
 " Europeans remain in this country, the more tjiey feel the 
 " effects of the vertical sun. When Europeans urge that 
 " they have exposed themselves to the sun for years, and 
 " have never felt any evil effects, it is only saying that 
 " the losing battle between the sun and their constitu- 
 " tion is not yet over ; but every day's exposure brings 
 "them nearer to the final triumph of their solar ad- 
 " versary. The lamented fate of that gallant sun-defier, 
 " Colonel Jacob, who advised young officers not to mind 
 "the sun, as it 'would only tan their cheeks,' is an 
 " apropos example of the foregoing." 
 
 Colonization, in the usual sense of the word, is, 
 therefore, impracticable. But, if a modified system 
 can succeed anywhere, or under any circumstances, it 
 will be in the event of the settlement of the Supreme 
 Government on a new and salubrious site. At present, 
 all our large European communities are planted in and 
 about ancient and important native towns, already 
 civilized up to a certain point. Our example has pro- 
 duced no perceptible change in the manners, ways of 
 thought, and religion of the bulk of the inhabitants of 
 Calcutta, Madras, or Delhi. But, wlien the Governor- 
 General, in all his glory, with a couple of European 
 regiments and a great staff of officials, comes down like a 
 god from Olympiis, among a sparse and wild population, 
 there is every hope that a Christian and Anglified colony 
 will gradually be formed in the very heart of India. 
 
 One objection remains to be answered. It is main- 
 tained that, in case of another mutiny, the position of 
 the Government, many hundred miles from the sea, and 
 in the irddst of hardy, warlike tribes, wlU be alarming 
 
ARE WE SECURE!' 189 
 
 in the extreme. To this I answer, that our power is 
 now, humanly speaking, absolutely secure from an in- 
 ternal shock. In the fatal spring of 1857, the European 
 force in India was barely twenty thousand strong. VUe 
 roads, and treacherous rivers, were the only channels of 
 eommunication. The artillerymen, the skilled labourers 
 of the army, whose training is a work of much time 
 and expense, and whose services are absolutely essential 
 to the success of military operations, were for the most 
 part natives, and sworn foes to our rule. At present 
 seventy thousand English soldiers are distributed over 
 the three Presidencies. The whole continent is covered 
 with a network of telegraph wires. EaQways already 
 completed, or in rapid process of construction, connect 
 all the chief cities ; and light tramways are being pushed 
 out in every direction from the grand trunk lines. Ex- 
 cepting one or two local corps, posted in savage and 
 unhealthy districts, there is not a black gunner or driver 
 within the borders of the empire. Every battery is 
 worked exclusively by Europeans. Forewarned, fore- 
 armed, fifty General Lloyds would find it difficult to 
 bungle us into another crisis. The condition of the 
 Punjab is undoubtedly critical, but the distance between 
 that province and Jubbulpore is greater than that be- 
 tween Paris and Vienna, 
 
 Something must be done, and that soon. At home, 
 Calcutta is regarded as a city of the plague. When a 
 man sails from Southampton, his friends bid him fare- 
 well, with the same look on their faces as the secretary 
 of the Church Missionary Society wears when he sends 
 out a supplementary batch of African bishops, of whom 
 not one in six is destined to return to convulse the 
 
190 EEEU! 
 
 episcopal bench with problems propounded by sceptical 
 Zulus and latitudinarian Bosjesmen. And no wonder ; 
 for, of the distinguished Englishmen who for many 
 years have gone forth in mature life to bear high office 
 in Bengal, most have found their graves on the banks 
 of the Hooghly, or, with shattered health and blighted 
 hopes, have returned to die. Splendid, indeed, were 
 the prospects which induced Lord Dalhousie and Lord 
 Canning to surrender the joys, the comforts, the mani- 
 fold interests of English life. It was a noble position 
 which tempted them to these shores ; but the conditions 
 of the tenure of that position were hard indeed, for it 
 was written on their lease that they were never to hold 
 another. But, sadder stiU, the Nemesis, which, if the 
 old Greek poets are to be believed, attends upon high 
 fortune, was not to be contented with one sacrifice. 
 Lady Dalhousie, prostrated by the effects of the deadly 
 atmosphere of the capital, sank and died during the 
 homeward voyage ; and an exquisitely simple and beau- 
 tiful monument, strewn daily with fresh flowers, in the 
 sweetest nook of the viceregal gardens at Barrackpore, 
 marks the spot where Lady Canning best loved to 
 linger away the evening hours during her splendid 
 exile. Poor Mr. Wilson, who came out in the cold 
 season full of vigour of mind, but at an age when a 
 man cannot with, impunity begin taking a vapoui-bath 
 daily and all day long, at first used to talk of the cUmate 
 with good-humoured approbation ; but, when the terrible 
 summer came upon him during the severe labours of 
 the first Indian budget, he ceased to joke, though he 
 stood to his post to the death with truly admirable 
 courage and devotion. 
 
FREE TRADE IN INTELLECT. 191 
 
 This view of tlie subject deserves most serious con- 
 sideration, for it is impossible to over-estimate the 
 benefit to India tbat is derived from the influence and 
 labours of statesmen and jurists who are already famous 
 at home. Tlie advantage does not end here ; for, on 
 his return, a man of established Enghsh reputation can 
 do much to excite the interest of the public in the 
 affairs of our eastern empire. We venture to say that 
 three-fourths of the knowledge of Indian matters pos- 
 sessed by a young fellow at Oxford or Cambridge is 
 derived from Lord Macaulay's Essays on Clive and 
 Warren Hastings. The service, and the nation at large, 
 owe much to the efforts and example of such a man as 
 Macaulay, fresh from the lobby of the Commons and 
 the drawing-room of Holland House ; of such men as 
 Mr. Wilson, Mr. Laing, the present financial minister, 
 and the accomplished scholar and jurisconsult, who now 
 holds the office of Legal Member of Council. The lq- 
 troduction of the English budget, with all Mr. Gladstone's 
 recent improvements, is alone an incalculable blessing. 
 Measures are being taken for the despatch of subordinate 
 officials trained in the Home Treasury and Audit office — 
 a step that promises to be of great advantnge to the 
 administration of the public departments ui this country. 
 But the evil repute which is attached to the air of 
 Calcutta will be fatal to any extensive systeiii of mutual 
 accommodation in intellect and experience between the 
 mother-country and her greatest dependency. 
 
 There are few public men who would not be pleased 
 with the idea of spending two or three years in a most 
 interesting land, amidst an ancient and peauliar society, 
 and a mysterious wide-spread system of idolatry, with 
 
192 A DIRE EXCHANGE. 
 
 unbounded powers of effecting good in his generation, 
 a noble income, an eminent position, and every oppor- 
 tunity for keeping his name in the mouths of his 
 countrymen. It is exactly what would, at one time, 
 have appeared most fascinating to the late Sir George 
 Cornewall Lewis. Such would be the case if the seat 
 of Government were planted amidst high table-lands, 
 and in a bracing air, where an Englishman would miss 
 nothing except the east winds in March and the fogs in 
 November. As it is, he exchanges the excitements and 
 amenities of London and country-house life ; the long 
 cool sleep ; the breakfast seasoned by a fresh appetite 
 and the Times newspaper ; the afternoon ride in the 
 park ; the chat in the smoking-room at his club, cut 
 short by a telegraphic summons to a division on the 
 Irish Drainage Bill ; the speech-day at Harrow, where 
 he. sees his firstborn quarrel with Cassius and cringe 
 before Sir Anthony Absolute as he, quarrelled and cringed 
 a quarter of a century before ; the heather in August ; 
 the run with Lord FitzwUliam purchased at the price of 
 a wigging from the Treasury whip, a night in the train, 
 and a breakfast in the refreshment-room at the Shore- 
 ditch Station — he exchanges aU this, for what? For 
 the privilege, at forty or fifty years of age, of entering 
 upon a life of compulsory hypochondria and inevitable 
 valetudinarianism ; measuring his food by ounces, and 
 his drink by gills ; abstaining from fruit by the advice 
 of one old Indian, and from ice-pudding at the warning 
 of another ; rising six times in the night to kick his 
 punkah-bearer awake; issuing forth, after fevered broken 
 slumbers, for a dreary objectless constitutional ; growing 
 weak, thin, languid, and still slaving on tiU a definite 
 
A CALCUTTA BALL. 193 
 
 malady overtakes Hm ; then, tossing outside the Sand- 
 head in a dirty, comfortless pilot-brig, in the vain hope 
 of staving off the inevitable ; returning to the hateful 
 city to work again, to droop, to despair, to rally once 
 during the short winter months, and then to sicken for 
 the last time. Eight thousand a year and the title of 
 Honourable are dear indeed at such a price. 
 
 The other day we made up a party to go to a ball at 
 the town-hall, the last of the rapid succession of bril- 
 liant entertainments which have enlivened our short 
 and cherished winter. During the past cold season 
 fancy-balls were the rage. This ball, however, was no 
 fancy, but the sternest reality. You probably never 
 waltzed in full evening dress round the inner chamber 
 of a Turkish bath, and therefore can have no concep- 
 tion of the peculiar charms of the dance in this climate. 
 Terpsichore is a muse who loves shade, and zephyrs, 
 and running streams ; but not shade in which the 
 thermometer stands at 93°, where the zephyrs are arti- 
 ficial, and the only running streams those on the faces 
 of her votaries. The waste of tissue during a galloppe, 
 with a partner in high training just landed from Eng- 
 land, is truly frightful The natives understand these 
 things better. They let the ladies do their dancing for 
 them, and content themselves with looking on. I some- 
 times think that Orientals agree to consider women as 
 chattels, in order to avoid the trouble of paying atten- 
 tions to the sex. It cannot be denied, however, that 
 this is very hard upon the women. Making love is no 
 joke out here ; though, in one sense, Indian lovers may 
 all be said to be ardent. It is all very well in a humid 
 northern atmosphere to tallc of the torch of Cupid, and 
 
 
 
194 TROPICAL FLIRTATION. 
 
 the flames which dart from the eyes of your mistress, 
 and the genial glow of mutual affection; but iu the 
 Tropic of Cancer these images acquire a horrible signi- 
 ficance. Talk of dying for your sweetheart ! But what 
 if you. were comfortably ensconced on the breezy side 
 of the punkah, within reach of an ice-pudding — would 
 you cross over to where she sits panting between a fat 
 brigadier and a fatter chaplain? If after supper you 
 were to swear to her that you had looked for her in 
 vain, it would surely be one of those 
 
 " Lover's perjuries, 
 At wMoli tliey say Jove laughs. " 
 
 There is no fear of her testing your devotion like the 
 lady at the court of King Francis, who flung her glove 
 into the arena among fighting lions, for here it is no 
 easy matter to doff a glove on the spur of the moment, 
 from causes that do not require explanation. Perhaps 
 a little quiet dalliance inside a retired tatty ^ is the 
 most tolerable form of flirtation ; though even in this 
 case you are liable to inten-uption by stepping upon a 
 plateful of mangoes, or a bottle of claret, which the 
 kitmutgar has deposited there to be cooled. 
 
 Sweet Emily E , most piquante and wayward 
 
 of all step-daughters of Deputy-Assistant-Income-Tax- 
 Commissioners, hast thou yet forgotten thy favourite 
 Compafcition Wallah ? Didst thou ever deign to wonder 
 what secret cause estranged that much-enduring snub- 
 
 1 A tatty is a framework placed over the window, stuffed with scented 
 grass, which is kept constantly wet. The air from the outside, after 
 jjassing through this erection, is supposed to give coolness to the room, 
 and undoubtedly does give lumbago to the people who sit in it. 
 
V'^HY I JILTED EMILY M . 195 
 
 nosed youth, who once was the most submissive of the 
 captives who were dragged at the wheels of thy buggy ? 
 Perchance, in thy vexation, thou didst accuse the wiles 
 of the black-eyed sister of the Joint Magistrate of 
 Boggiegunge. Perchance thou didst imagine that the 
 approaching examination in Persian allowed thy swain 
 no leisure for the more grateful but not less perilous 
 ordeal of courtship. Yet my heart owned not the sway 
 of any other dame. The snare of the Siren of Boggie- 
 gunge was in vain spread in the sight of at least one 
 civilian. I should not_ have been deterred from pluck- 
 ing a feather for my cap out of the wing of Cupid by 
 any fear of being plucked in the tongue of the children 
 of Cyrus. The motive for my coldness was far other. 
 Dost thou remember how, at the United Service Club, 
 we pulled a cracker which contained a scroll bearing 
 these tender lines : — 
 
 " As when a roaming busy bee 
 Inflicts its sting upon my knee, 
 So thou, fair, within my heart 
 Hast caused a wound that makes me smart." 
 
 Xext morning I awoke from a late sleep, during which 
 I dreamed alternately that I had been appointed Secre- 
 tary of State for India on condition of taking you to 
 wife, and that I was being kicked by the aide-de-camp 
 from Government House, to whom thou didst give all 
 the round dances after supper. I found on my dressing- 
 table that hallowed slip of paper, sticlcy and sweet with 
 the remains of the bonbon which it had enveloped. 
 Dreadful to relate, it now formed the rendezvous for 
 two long armies of white ants, which ascended and 
 descended the opposite legs of the article of furniture 
 
 o2 
 
196 WHITE ANTS. 
 
 in question. One string passed across the carpet into 
 the cupboard where I kept my pickles and soda-water, 
 while the other filed in unbroken order over the matting, 
 up the bed-posb, round the edge of my mattress, and 
 thence on to the shelves where my Radley and Cam- 
 bridge prize-books stand, a glittering row. Thence- 
 forward those two colonies have planted themselves, 
 the one among my literature, and the other amidst my 
 condiments, being apparently desirous of settling the 
 problem of white colonisation in India. From that 
 fatal morn I have never seen thee without thinking of 
 white ants ; never listened to the accents of thy voice 
 without feeling a tickling as of an insect meditating 
 a bite ; never heard thy once-adored name without ex- 
 periencing an irresistible inclination to scratch the calf 
 of my leg. What love could hold out against such a 
 connexion of ideas ? Certainly not that of a young 
 civilian in his first year of residence. 
 
 A serious drawback to the enjoyment of an English 
 ball is the impossibility of getting at any accurate in- 
 formation concerning your partners or your rivals. If 
 your attention is attracted to any stranger by his taste 
 in dress or style of dancing, or his ugliness, or his 
 equanimity and self-reliance when his quadrille has 
 fallen into inextricable confusion, your inquiries about 
 Mm will probably be answered by the assurance that 
 he seems " a dellish cool fler," or that he is " a fler 
 " with lots of money ; " or you will be told something 
 about his father, or his elder brother, who meets with 
 the qualified approbation of being "not a bad sort of 
 " fler." You are struck by the appearance of some d^lw- 
 tante, and request an introduction. Your good-natured 
 
WHO IS SHE? 197 
 
 hostess presents you to each other with some cabalistic 
 words, amidst which you distinguish your own titles 
 clearly enough, but can catch no part of the lady's name 
 
 except the last syllable, which sounds like son. 
 
 " The next lancers ? Can she favour you ? Well, then 
 " the galoppe ? Number six, you believe.'' The first 
 round proves to you that she dances very prettily ; and 
 during the last quadriUe before supper you learn that 
 she talks and listens nicely, and that she can preserve 
 an equal mind in the awful crisis when one couple is 
 dancing " Trelise,'' and another " Pastorale," and the 
 rest are standing still in despaii', or vaguely dodging 
 about in a sort of spontaneous " Chaine Anglaise." A 
 very minute allowance of champagne has the most 
 genial effect. Having discovered that she has been on 
 the Continent, you make the remark which never fails 
 to elicit a symptom of interest from the haughtiest or 
 stupidest of belles, " What very objectionable persons 
 ' one does meet abroad." From this common ground 
 you gradually approach the subject which forms the 
 staple of ball-room conversation, the extreme shyness 
 of ordinary people. If you stand within ear-shot of a 
 couple talking behind a curtain, or on the landing- 
 place, it is ten to one that you will find them discussing 
 this mental phenomenon — the gentleman indulging in 
 a mild imitation of the ethical small-print articles in 
 the Saturday Review, firing off, from time to time, the 
 epithet " self-conscious ; " while the lady draws her il- 
 lustrations from individuals among the company then 
 present. After supper, you induce your partner to coax 
 her chaperone to stay out one more waltz ; and then, as 
 you re-ascend the stairs, after having paid her the last 
 
198 NBFER ASEUD IN VAIN OUT HERE. 
 
 of&ces, you resolve to call next day and show her that 
 passage of Eobert Browning, whom she owned never to 
 have read, and of whom you strongly suspect that she 
 has never heard. But on reflection you begin to be 
 aware that you have no conception who she is or where 
 she lives. All you know about her is, that she has 
 black eyes, that her aunt disapproves of theatres, but 
 that she has witnessed the moving panorama of the 
 Mississippi, that she has a brother in the 49th, and that 
 she hates men who hop in the polka. You apply to 
 your hostess, who, inasmuch as she has brought together 
 nearly five hundred pairs in the course of one evening, 
 naturally wonders what young lady you can possibly 
 refer to, but thinks she may have been a distant rela- 
 tion whom Mrs. asked leave to bring, l^ow, there 
 
 is nothing of this sort in India. Your curiosity regard- 
 ing a cavalier wiLL not be satisfied with a statement con- 
 cerning his dress or manners, or his merits and demerits 
 as a " fler," but by the solid palpable fact of his being 
 the acting Sub-Inspector-General of Opium Godowns : ^ 
 for everybody here is something as well as somebody. 
 If you want to know the name of the brunette who is 
 standing up with the man in Windsor uniform, the 
 reply will be, " Brunette ! I should rather think she 
 " is ! There's a strong touch of the tar-brush in that 
 " quarter. Why, her father was old Joe Collins, once 
 " Commissioner of PoHyghaut, who went out the other 
 ■'day after being eight-and-forty years in the service. 
 " For the last part of his life he gave into native ways. 
 "He married her a few years before his death. The 
 " mother, I mean. She's alive now, somewhere up in 
 ^ storehouses. 
 
THE OFFICIJL ELEMENT. 199 
 
 " Oude, and is supposed to have made away witL a 
 " deal of Joe's property. His grandson is coming out 
 " by the next boat to look into the matter. The girl 
 '' is a good girl, and lives with her uncle, the Sudder 
 " Judge.'' 
 
 Besides the facility of identifying everybody one 
 meets, there are other signs of the strong official 
 element in the composition of Society. IsTowhere are 
 the rules of precedence so rigorously observed as in 
 Calcutta. I have heai-d a Member of Council com- 
 plain that for a whole fortnight he always took the 
 same lady in to dinner ; and, inasmuch as I am a very 
 minor Sahib, I have never had the pleasure of descend- 
 ing the stairs in other company than that of a male per- 
 sonage of my own calibre. Fortunatelj', the English 
 character is entirely free fi'om any bias toward bureau- 
 cratic exclusiveness or conceit. Civilians who draw 
 salaries as large as twenty insolent Pi'ussian Directors- 
 General or pompous French Sub-prefects, always bear 
 in mind that they or their companions are English 
 gentlemen. It is impossible, however, long to forget 
 that you are in the midst of a community of public 
 servants. Eor instance, a person in Ol health is always 
 spoken of as being " sick" — a term which has a curious 
 effect till it becomes familiar to the ear. The employ- 
 ment of it arises from the peculiar constitution of 
 society. When a member of the service hears that 
 another member has been taken iU, his first ideas are 
 not those of doctors, or nurses, or lawyers, or clergy- 
 men, or undertakers. They run in the Une of sick- 
 leave and sick-allowances. Some time ago I was much 
 puzzled at hearing nothing talked of except the proba- 
 
200 ADULT CONFIRMATION. 
 
 bility of a gentleman in mature life being " confirmed." 
 Everybody took the deepest interest in his approach- 
 ing confirmation. The conversation of Calcutta was so 
 full of the rite in question that it sounded like one of 
 Miss Sewell's novels. To add to my bewilderment, our 
 excellent bishop was on a pastoral tour, and was not 
 expected back for some weeks to come. Having a dim 
 notion that Anglo-Indian society was somewhat Pagan, 
 I presumed that the religious education of this person 
 had been lamentably neglected. It turned out that he 
 performed temporary duty in the place of an envployd 
 who was absent on sick-leave, and whose recovery was 
 so doubtful that there was every prospect of his sub- 
 stitute being permanently " confirmed" in the office. 
 The gentle sex take a deep interest in this branch of 
 public affairs. I love to hear a pair of pretty lips pro- 
 nounce on the chance of the Acting Appointment held 
 by Miss Meta Pornideau's betrothed becoming " pucka," 
 or declaiming against the iniquity of the authorities 
 in having banished into the Mofussil young Sir Henry 
 Currey, Bart., whose family have enjoyed the loaves 
 and mango-fishes of Calcutta ever siace his great-grand- 
 father was chairman of the Board of Directors during 
 the trial of Warren Hastings. The ladies manage the 
 affairs of the charities of the town with a knowledge of 
 the forms of of&cial business which would delight the 
 heart of Sir Gregory Hardlines. They form commit- 
 tees, and distribute the superintendence of the various 
 departments, and send round reports — which the older 
 hands supplement with copious minutes, while the less 
 experienced content themselves with a bare expression 
 of approbation or disapproval ; just as a new Member 
 
LORD SAHIB DUNDRHART. 201 
 
 of Council " concurs in the compromise sanctioned by 
 his colleagues." 
 
 You may remember that in an early letter I remarked 
 upon the absence of " Dundreary." At first there was 
 relief in the thought that so many thousand miles of 
 sea foamed between myself and that polished but 
 simple nobleman. Time, however, has led me to think 
 otherwise. The great want in India is a diversity of 
 minor subjects of conversation — novels, plays, reviews, 
 heretical books, sensation-histories of the Crimean "War, 
 Leotards, Blondins, trials de Lunatico Inquirendo costing 
 five hundred pounds a day, international prize fights — 
 in short, all those petty interests which may be summed 
 up under the generic head " Lord Dundreary." "We 
 sadly need some yeast to keep society from becoming 
 doughy. As an education, nothing can be better than 
 the early years of a civilian's career. It is a great 
 thing to live in a community where every one has work 
 to do, and where almost every one does it with a ■noil ; 
 where intolerance and bigotry are at a ruinous discount ; 
 where broad liberal unselfish views are as plentiful as 
 blackberries at the bottom of a Surrey valley. But, 
 after a time, symptoms appear which show that the 
 mind needs the stimulus of variety. You begin to per- 
 ceive that the drones of this world have their use as 
 well as the bees. However much mischief Satan may 
 find still for idle hands to do, those idle hands certainly 
 provide a great deal for busy people to talli about. 
 This state of things is painfully felt — as is proved by 
 the avidity with which we seize on any scandal from 
 Simla, any trumpery squib in the daily journals, any 
 question about the desirability of excluding pigs from* 
 
202 INTELLECTUAL HEALTH. 
 
 the agricultural show in deference to native prejudices. 
 But all this is very poor mental food for men who have 
 received a first-rate home education. A civil servant 
 who neglects to keep up a lively interest in general 
 subjects by a conscientious perusal of the English 
 newspapers and periodicals, by a certain modicum of 
 standard reading, and by a furlough judiciously spent 
 in London society and Continental travel, is in danger 
 of lapsing into an honourable and public-spirited bore. 
 Unless he takes unremitting care of his intellectual 
 health, he can no more expect, on his return, to enter 
 kindly into English interests and English conversation, 
 than he can hope to enjoy roast-beef and plum-pudding 
 with his digestion impaired by hot curries and Manilla 
 cheroots. 
 
 Happily, it is no uncommon thing for men to bring 
 home at the end of their term of service a vigorous 
 constitution both of mind and body. The habits of 
 our countrymen in India have long been in steady 
 course of improvement. It has generally been found 
 that a manly valiant race, which has imposed its yoke 
 upon an effeminate and unwarlike people, in course of 
 time, degenerates and becomes slothful and luxurious. 
 Thus the Persians adopted the manners of Medes, and 
 the Macedonians the manners of Persians. Thus Marc 
 Antony — or, as some people spell him, Mark Anthony 
 — and his followers became half Egyptians under the 
 influence of the lovely Begum of Alexandria ; and the 
 sun was reduced to the painful predicament of behold- 
 ing, among the military standards a base canopy ; while 
 the Eoman soldier, alas ! (0 posterity, you will deny itj 
 •was bound to the service of a woman. With the English 
 
JNGLO-INDIANS OF THE PAST. . 203 
 
 in the East precisely the opposite result has taken place. 
 The earliest settlers were indolent, dissipated, grasping, 
 almost Orientals in their way of life, and almost 
 heathens in the matter of religion. But each genera- 
 tion of their successors is more simple, more hardy, 
 more Christian than the last. 
 
 Mrs. Sherwood's pictures of a Mofussil station, of a 
 merchant's household in Calcutta, of an indigo factory 
 among the jungles in the days when Lord Wellesley 
 was Governor-General, are well worthy of careful study. 
 Our knowledge, derived from other sources, fully bears 
 out her vivid descriptions of the splendid sloth and the 
 languid debauchery of European society in those days — 
 English gentlemen, overwhelmed with the consequences 
 of extravagance, hampered by liaisons with Hindoo 
 women and by crowds of olive-coloured children, with- 
 out either the will or the power to leave the shores of 
 India ; English ladies living in a separate establishment 
 from their husbands, in semi-oriental retirement, drink- 
 ing largely of beer and claret, smoking hookahs, aban- 
 doning their little ones to the fatal blighting bestial 
 influence of native conversation and example, main- 
 taining not even the pretence of religious belief or 
 practice, having no hope, and without God in the world. 
 Great men rode about in state-coaches, with a dozen 
 servants running before and behind to bawl out their 
 titles : and little men lounged in palanquins, or drove a 
 chariot for which they never intended to pay, drawn 
 by horses which they had bullied or cajoled out of 
 the stables of wealthy Baboos. Writers not yet within 
 years of man's estate gave champagne dinners, ran race- 
 horses, and put together a pretty nest-egg of debt before 
 
204 AMELIORATION. 
 
 tJiey had passed the examination which qualified them 
 for public employ. As a natural result, there were at 
 one time near a hundred civilians of more than thirty- 
 five years' standing who remained out here in pledge to 
 their creditors, poisoning the principles of the younger 
 men, and blocking out their betters from places of emi- 
 nence and responsibility. The amount of bribery and 
 extortion was something stupendous. A worthy of the 
 name of Paul Benfield,^ at a time when he was drawing 
 a few hundred rupees a month as a junior servant of 
 the Company, petitioned the Madras Council to assist 
 him in getting a sum of two hundred and fifty thousand 
 pounds owed to him by a single native prince. From 
 this chaos of profligacy and corruption emerged, from 
 time to time, that jaundiced purse-proud Nabob, who 
 roused the indignation of our forefathers by his inso- 
 lence, his ignorance of everything English, his effemi- 
 nate habits transplanted to a clime where men lead a 
 manly life, his curries and spices, his fans and cushions, 
 the crowd of shivering helpless dark-faced beings who 
 hung about the corridors of the hotel in which he occu- 
 pied the choicest suite of rooms. 
 
 Things are changed now, thank God ! Many stations 
 boast a chaplain and a pretty little parish church, where 
 the punkahs surging to and fro recall the swing of the 
 
 ^ When Cicero was cMef-oommissioner of tte non-regulation province 
 of Cilicia, he complained bitterly in his private letters of the rapacity 
 of the celebrated Brutus, who plundered the wretched Baboos of Cyprus 
 through the agency of one Scaptius. Brutus was very importunate 
 with Cicero to make Scaptius a collector, with full powers of a magis- 
 trate. Lord Macaulay, who had no love for the oligarchical party of 
 those days, says in a marginal note in his favourite well-thumbed copy 
 of the Letters to Attious : "This pati'iot seems to have been little 
 " better than a Paul Eeniield." 
 
AN OLD SES?WX. 205 
 
 censers in a Catholic temple. In otiier places the coolest 
 room in the cutcherry or the Government school is 
 swept and garnished every Sunday morning, and the 
 collector, assisted by his joint magistrate, performs the 
 service, with now and then a sermon from the works of 
 his favourite standard divine ; while the superintendent 
 of police, who has an ear for music, plays the harmonium 
 and leads the choir. It is a question whether the 
 congregation do not benefit by the substitution of the 
 official for the clerical element, since the clergymen who 
 can be induced to take duty in India, are, as a rule, no 
 cleverer than they should be. One Simday, at Mofus- 
 silpore, the chaplain of a neighbouring cantonment 
 offered to drive over and officiate. We were disap- 
 pointed, since Tom and his colleagues chant Gregorians 
 in a style which excites the admiring en^•y of the whole 
 di'^'ision, and the reverend gentleman was known to 
 disapprove of this interference of the laity. He gave 
 us, according to his usual custom, a sermon which he 
 had written for a militarj' audience. In this particular 
 discourse he addressed himself to wives. He exhorted 
 them to endure ill-treatment with meekness, even if 
 their husbands should beat and starve them. ..Vbove 
 aU, he warned them against betaking themselves, in 
 despair, to drink, or e\-il courses. He then drew a 
 pathetic picture of the horrors of delirium t?-cmcns, and 
 the other temporal consequences of gross sin : an ad- 
 monition which was aU. very well when directed to 
 soldiers' wives, whose lot is as hard and perilous as 
 that of any class of women, but which savoured of the 
 absurd when addressed to a coni^regation among whom 
 the only matrons present were the ladies of the judge 
 
206 IMPnOVEI) HABITS. 
 
 and the collector. Nowadays, at any rate, the natives 
 cannot taunt ns with being ashamed of oiu religion. 
 In fact, the English societies here are so small, and the 
 goings out and comings in of every one so well known 
 to his neighbours, that men attend public worship more 
 regularly here than at home, if it were only to avoid 
 giving offence to their weaker of&cial brethren. 
 
 The days of corruption have long passed away. The 
 hands of a civil servant are as pure and white as his 
 summer trousers. Men have learned to resist the temp- 
 tations to indolence and dissipation. They drive dog- 
 carts instead of being driven in coaches, and very much 
 prefer a gallop across country to snoozing about in 
 a palanquin. They walk up partridges, and ride down 
 hogs, and no longer relax their minds with hazard and 
 cock-fighting. Honest dancing has driven out the vica- 
 rious nautch, an amusement the moral tendency of 
 which might be called in question. A quiet pipe in the 
 verandah after dinner has succeeded to the eternal 
 omnipresent hookah, and habitual indulgence in brandy- 
 pawnee is no longer allowed to be respectable. Did you 
 not always imagine brandy-pawnee to be a drink com- 
 pounded of many ingredients, a sort of tropical dog's 
 nose, like sangaree, or those abominations in the Ameri- 
 can refreshment-room at the Great Exhibition, which 
 sapped the health of the more curious and foolhardy 
 among the visitors ? It is merely brandy-and-water, 
 the most simple and handy agent for any one who has 
 a mind to derange his liver and destroy the coats of his 
 stomach in the shortest possible time. Sobriety and 
 decency have had their ordinary effect upon the intellect 
 of society. Book-clubs have been established all over 
 
J STATISTICAL FRIEND. 207 
 
 the continent, wliicli are well supplied from home with 
 all the new puhlications, including the chief reviews 
 and magazines. The Evening Mail, each copy contain- 
 ing the pith of two numbers of the Times, is taken in at 
 many stations. A man finds it uphill work stiD. to keep 
 himself au courant with European matters ; but it is 
 no longer a struggle in which success is hopeless. The 
 time has already gone by when returned Indians could 
 talk of nothing else but lacs and jaghires, (which people 
 at home took to be a sort of leopard,) and the time is 
 fast going by when they can talk of nothing but the 
 Amalgamation Act and the Eyotwar Settlement. 
 
 With reference to the subject treated of at the com- 
 mencement of this letter, I venture to insert a song, 
 composed by a friend who is passionately devoted to 
 the study of the laws of sanitation and mortality. lie 
 carries his enthusiasm on the subject so far as to tinge 
 with it his view of every conceivable matter, religious, 
 political, and literary. He once wrote an anonj-mous 
 letter to the Laureate, commenting on the lines in the 
 " Vision of Sin '' — 
 
 " Every moment dies a man — ■ 
 Every moment one is born." 
 
 He observed, with great truth, that if this statement 
 were correct the population of the world would remain 
 stationary, and urged the poet to alter the lines thus — 
 
 " Eveiy moment dies a man, 
 And one and one-sixteeutli is born." 
 
 He owned that the exact figure was one, decimal 
 point, ought, six, four, seven ; but (as he said) some 
 allowance must be made for metre. 
 
208 SANITATION VERSIVmD. 
 
 ODE TO CALCUTTA. 
 
 Fair city, India's crown and pride, 
 Long may'st thou tower o'er HoogUey's tide, 
 Whose hallowed, bnt malarious stream, 
 The peasant's god, the poet's theme. 
 
 Rolls down the dead Hindoo ; 
 And from whose wave, a stagnant mass 
 Keplete with sulphuretted gas. 
 
 Our country beer we brew ! 
 As o'er a pulse physicians stand. 
 Intent upon the second-hand, 
 
 Determined not to miss ticks, 
 I watch thy sanitary state, 
 Jot down of deaths the annusd rate. 
 And each new epidemic greet, 
 UntU my system I complete 
 
 Of tropical statistics. 
 
 IL 
 
 Of those with whom I laughed away 
 On Lea's^ fair banks the idle day. 
 Whose love would ne'er my breast allow 
 To hold concealed the thoughts that now 
 
 Within my heart are pent, 
 Who hung upon my every breath. 
 Of those dear friends I mourn the death 
 
 Of forty-five per cent. : 
 And Harry Gray, my soul's delight, 
 The brave, the eloquent, the bright. 
 
 The versatile, the shifty, 
 Stretched hopeless on his dying bed. 
 With failing strength and aching head. 
 In cholera's malignant phase, 
 Ah ! woe is me, will shortly raise 
 
 The average to fifty. 
 
 1 The old East Indian College stood within a mile and a half of this 
 river. 
 
HEPATITIS. 2(11) 
 
 III. 
 
 And when, tefore the rains in June, 
 Tlie mercury went up at noon 
 To nine-and-ninety in tlie shade, 
 I every hour grew more afraid 
 
 That doctor Fayrer right is 
 In liinting to my wife that those 
 Inflammatory symptoms rose 
 
 From latent hepatitis. 
 I'll, 'ere another week goes by. 
 For my certificate apply. 
 
 And saU home invalided : 
 Since, if I press an early bier. 
 The deaths from Liver in the year. 
 Compared ■with those produced by Sun, 
 Will (fearful thought !) have then by one 
 
 Their ratio exceeded ! 
 
 Yours truly, 
 
 H. Beoxjghtox. 
 
210 CALL 
 
 LETTEE VIII. 
 
 ABOUT THE HINDOO CHARACTER; WITH DIGRESSIONS 
 HOME. 
 
 Calcutta, April 17, 1863. 
 
 Dear Simkins, — One morning, at the beginning of this 
 month, as I lay between sleeping and waking, near the 
 open window, I began to be aware of a hideous din in 
 an adjacent street. At first the sound of discordant 
 music, and a confused multitude of voices, impressed 
 me with a vague idea that a battalion of volunteers 
 were passing by in marching order, headed by their 
 band. This notion, however, was dispelled by the ap- 
 pearance of my bearer with the tea-tray, who informed 
 me that this was the festival of Call, the goddess of 
 destruction, and that all the Hindoo people had turned 
 out to make holiday. I immediately sallied forth in 
 the direction of the noise, and soon found myself amidst 
 a dense crowd ia the principal thoroughfare leading to 
 the shrine of the deity. During a few minutes I could 
 not believe my eyes ; for I seemed to have been trans- 
 ported in a moment over more than twenty centuries, to 
 the Athens of Cratinus and Aristophanes. If it had 
 not been for the colour of the faces around, I should 
 have believed myself to be on the main road to Eleusis 
 in the full tide of one of the Dionysiac festivals. The 
 
DJO^'r.sL■s. 211 
 
 spirit of the scene was the same, aud at each step some 
 well-kno'^n feature reminded one irresistihly that the 
 ilacchic orgies sprung from the mysterious fanaticism 
 of the far East. It was no unfounded tradition that 
 pictured Dionysus returning from conquered India, 
 leopards and tigers chained to Ids triumphal car, 
 escorted from the Hj-phasis to the Asopus by bands 
 of votaries dancing in fantastic measure lo the clang of 
 cymbals. It was no chance resemblance this, between 
 an Hindoo rite in the middle of the nineteenth century, 
 and those wild revels that stream along many a Grecian 
 bas-relief, and wind round many an ancient Italian 
 vase ; for every detail portrayed in these marvellous 
 works of art was faithfully represented here. If one of 
 the life-like black figures in the Etruscan chamber of 
 the British ]\Iuseum coul^ have walked down off the 
 back-gTound of red pottery into the midst of the road 
 conducting to Cali Ghaut, he would not have attracted 
 the notice of the closest observer. Every half-minute 
 poured by a troop of worshippers. First came boys, 
 stark naked, and painted from head to foot in imitation 
 of leopards and tigers, while others guided them with 
 reins of tldn cord. Then followed three or four 
 strange classic figures, wearing the head-dress which 
 is familiar to us from the existing representations of 
 bacchanalian processions, dancing in an attitude which 
 recalled, spontaneously and instantly, the associations 
 of Smith's "Dictionary of Antiquities." The only cir- 
 cumstance which was not in common between "Tolly's 
 " Nullah " and the Cephisus, was the censer of live 
 charcoal which these men carried before them, supported 
 by wires passed through the flesh under their armpits. 
 
212 TOLLIUS. 
 
 Into this, from time to time, they threw a powder, which 
 produced a sudden flash and a most infernal smell. 
 Behind them, his brows crowned profusely with foliage, 
 was led in mimic bonds the chief personage of the 
 company, who was supposed to be under the direct 
 influence of the god. All around him, musicians were 
 beating tomtoms and clashing tambourines, like the 
 satellites of Evius, on the day when he leapt from his 
 car into the arms of the forsaken Ariadne : as he still 
 leaps on the glowing canvas of Titian. All was head- 
 long licence and drunken frenzy. After struggling 
 through the throng for a mile and a half of dusty street, 
 I came to a narrow slum which descended to the Ghaut, 
 or landing-place, of Call, which lies on the nullah of the 
 mythical hero Tolly, who, perhaps, was the Atys of this 
 Oriental Cybele. From this lane, a passage a yard or 
 two in breadth opened on to a dirty court, in which 
 stood the sanctuary,' whence Calcutta derives its name ; 
 which was an object of awe and reverence to the sur- 
 rounding population for ages before the first ship, laden 
 with Feringhee wares, was warped up the neighbouring 
 river. It seemed impossible to pierce the mob of de- 
 votees, and penetrate to the holy place ; but not even 
 religious madness, not even the inspiration of bang and 
 toddy, could overcome the habitual respect paid to a 
 white face and a pith helmet. A couple of policemen 
 cleared a passage for me to within a few feet of the 
 sacred image. It appeared to be a rude block, orna- 
 mented with huge glass beads ; but I dare say the 
 Palladium, which fell from heaven, was not a very 
 elaborate device ; and yet it saved the reputation of a 
 young Roman lady, and gave a synonym to an English 
 
A BFxAirBACK OF IDOLATRY. 213 
 
 jnrj'. Before I reached home, what with the jostling, 
 and hubbub, and stench, I was veiy glad to get back to 
 the society of clean, fragrant Christians. As I grew 
 every moment more tired and hot, the exhibition seemed 
 to saA'our less of the classical and more of the diabolical. 
 At last, I came to the ill-natured conclusion, that Satan 
 was at the bottom of the whole business, and not the 
 golden-haired Dionysus. The remarkably unpleasant 
 Mcenads around me suggested the idea of perspiration 
 rather than inspiration; and I felt iaclined to exclaim — 
 
 Dea, magna domina Tolli, Ca]ie dea domina, 
 Procnl a meo sit omnis tuns ore, preoor, odor ! 
 Alios age hiac olentes. Alios age putridos. 
 
 This singular system of idolatry, so perfect in organi- 
 zation, so venerable in its extreme antiquity, already 
 shows evident marks of decay. The study of the history 
 of creeds teaches us, that the laws which govern the 
 religious opinions of mankiad maj' be ascertained as 
 sirrely as the laws wluch govern their political and social 
 opinions. A rude nation is content •with an absurd, 
 irrational siipei-stition ; while a higlily civilized com- 
 munity requires a logical and consistent faith. You 
 might as soon expect, in the England of the nineteenth 
 century, to find Ptolemy the great astronomical authority, 
 and Galen the great medical authority, as to meet with 
 tenets such as those of the Church in the dark ages. 
 Men who are accustomed to examine with care the 
 principles of constitutional government, of commercial 
 policy, of international law, of personal rights ; — men 
 who will not admit the existence of the most insignifi- 
 cant fact in geologj- or physiology, without a rigorous 
 investigation, — are not Kkely to be indifferent concern- 
 
214 RATIONALISM. 
 
 iiig trutli or error in matters to wliich tlie interests of 
 this world are as nothing in the balance. The same 
 causes that set John Stuart Mill at work upon the 
 questions of small holdings and limited liability, which 
 led Maclure in quest of the North-West Passage, and 
 Sir Charles Lyell in search of flint knives and pre-liistoric 
 men — these very causes incite adventurers of another 
 class to seek a reason for the faith that is in them, 
 amidst perils, to which polar bears and icebergs are a 
 trifle. Yet, incredible as it may seem, instead of bid- 
 ding them God-speed, we prosecute them, and sequester 
 them, and backbite them, and take away their good 
 name and their fellowships. When a savant, after a 
 faithful and diligent inquiry, arrives at a conclusion 
 with which we disagree, we are none the less pleased 
 that the subject has been sifted, and we buy his book, 
 and tack some mystical letters to the end of his name. 
 When a theological writer follows this example, we say 
 that his number is six hundred threescore and six, and 
 trounce him of about as many pounds a year. 
 
 But I have wandered far enough from Call Ghaut. 
 You may well imagine that such a scene of idolatrous 
 barbarism as I have described must seem shocking and 
 absurd to natives educated in European literature, and 
 versed in European habits of thought and business. The 
 schoolmaster has long been abroad, and the rationalist 
 generally treads on the heels of that functionary : for 
 the earliest and most natural heresy is an attempt to 
 rationalise the irrational, and extract from the follies 
 of the old faith a consistent system of morality and 
 divinity. Towards the beginning of the present century, 
 Earn Mohun Eoy, struck with the idea of divine unity. 
 
TBE f'EDjyilSTS. -215 
 
 •which he had learnt from the Bible and the Koran, -with 
 much audacity and ingenuity undertook to trace out an 
 underlying current of ^Monotheism in the four books of 
 the Yedas, the most sacred of tlie Hindoo Scriptures. 
 During a residence in England, he regulaiiy attended 
 a Unitarian place of "Worship. His sect went by thr 
 name of " Vedautists ; " in fact, the " Evang«hcals " of 
 the East. The orthodox Pundits took alarm, and 
 declared him a heretic, but not before they had most 
 clearly shown that he had entirely fiiiled to explain away 
 the polj'theist character of the Hindoo theologj'. Ir 
 never occurred to them to assert that this pretended 
 new idea had been exploded as far back as tlie reign of 
 Shah Jehan. 
 
 "VMien, however, European principles of criticism 
 were applied to the Yedas, grave doubts began to 
 spring up concerning tlieir divine origin. One book 
 was evidently the primary basis of the other three, 
 which were little more than a confused ]iturg}^ The 
 Yedantists now began to talk about " natural religion." 
 They refused any longer to acknowledge the lugh autho- 
 rity of the writings from which their sect received its 
 first name, and professed to believe only in the pure 
 and eternal God, or Brahma. By a strange incon- 
 sistency, they still use the old Yedic ritual, the hymns 
 of which they sing to the best music that can be pro- 
 cured in Calcutta ; wliich is not saying very much for it. 
 
 You urge me, in all your letters, to tell you some- 
 thing about the aborigines of India. You write as if 
 you were making inquiries about a set of savages, their 
 bread-fruit, their canoes, and their clubs. I have not 
 hitherto £rratified vour wisli, because I am one of those 
 
216 DAMNED NIGGBBS. 
 
 who think that the people of India deserve more than 
 cursory observation, inasmuch as they are the most im- 
 portant class ia India ; — for whose benefit we hold the 
 country, and to whom we shall have one day to account 
 for the manner in which we govern it. Extraordinary as 
 this opinion may seem to some people, it is backed by the 
 high authority of Sir Charles Wood and Lord Stanley, 
 Sir John Peter Grant, and the vast majority of the Civil 
 Service. I hate the " damned nigger " style. One re- 
 quires more than a few months to form a correct set of 
 opinions and impressions concerning an ancient and 
 wealthy society, with a singular and complicated organi- 
 zation ; whose habits, instincts, and ways of thought, to 
 a European eye, form " a mighty maze," which, never- 
 theless, if it be closely examined, will be found to be 
 " not without a plan." 
 
 In order to lay a foundation for a conception of the 
 native character, it is essential first to clear away all 
 our preconceived notions of what that character ought 
 to be. It is impossible to judge a Hindoo by any other 
 known standard. He is not, like the ISTorth American 
 Indian, a barbarian with a few sound ideas about the 
 bearings of the stars and the habits of deer, and a few 
 crude ideas about the Great Spirit and the future con- 
 dition of his faithful dog. He is not, like the European 
 of the middle ages, the member of a community, rude 
 indeed as yet, and undeveloped, but replete with the 
 germs of a vigorous civilization. The institutions of his 
 country, though grotesque enough in our point of view, 
 are as elaborate and mature as any recorded in history. 
 He belongs to a social order, which dates far back into 
 the d.epths of time, with innumerable well-defined 
 
AXTiqVITT OF EINBOO IXSTIWTIONS. 217 
 
 grades aud classes ; ■with titles ■which ■were borne by his 
 forefathers, when the ancestors of English dukes still 
 paddled about in wicker canoes, when wild in woods the 
 noble marquis ran. He professes a religion compared with 
 which all other creeds are mere parvenus ; which looks 
 down on the venerable faith of Buddhism as a modern 
 heresy, and watches the varying fortunes of Mahom- 
 medanism with the same contemptuous curiosity as 
 that with which the Church of England regards the pro- 
 gress of the Eevival movement. He stiU may recognise 
 at every turn the traces of a system of government, 
 justice, and finance, as comprehensive and minute, 
 though not so philosophical, as that which we have 
 founded in its place. His countrymen were bankers, 
 and merchants, and shopkeepers, long before the 
 renaissance era of European commerce ; ere Venice 
 had yet supplanted Amphitrite ia the affections of 
 Xeptune ; ere Britannia was aware of the charter which 
 had been drawn up for her benefit on the occasion of 
 her rising from the azure main amidst a flattering 
 but somewhat monotonous chorus of guardian angels. 
 Broldng, and discounting, and forestalling, and retailing 
 were going on briskly along either bank of the Ganges 
 while Gurney and Overend were squabbling over the 
 skin of a badger which they had trapped on the ground 
 where the Exchange now stands ; while Eortnum and 
 Mason were dri%'ing a bouncing trade in acorns, and 
 Swan and Edgar were doing a good thing in woad ; 
 while Eothschild was compounding for his last grinder 
 with some fierce chieftain in Eranconia. Who can 
 ■wonder that the member of such a society should differ 
 radicallv from a Frencliman or a German ; — not as a 
 
218 IFJNT OF MENTAL STAMINA. 
 
 savage differs from a civilized man, but as one man 
 differs from another who has been brought up amidst 
 an entirely dissimilar set of ideas, scenes, associations, 
 and influences ? The day has long passed when the 
 Bengalee could he disposed of by being termed a 
 "mild Hindoo," and I trust' that it will not be long 
 before he will cease to be disposed of by being called 
 a " damned nigger.'' 
 
 In the constitution of the native mind, the funda- 
 mental characteristic is want of stamina, and this defect 
 is the favourite text of the abuse levelled against the 
 Hindoo by his enemies. The secret of our rapid con- 
 quest and secure tenure of the country is the absence 
 of energy among the inhabitants. In every action of 
 his life, the Bengalee makes it manifest that he is en- 
 tirely without the earnestness of purpose which a Briton 
 carries into his business, his pleasures, even his vices. 
 Your native is perfectly contented to glisten and bask 
 in the sun for days and weeks together, dozing, waking 
 to scratch his arms and turn over, and dozing again. 
 Conceive a Scotchman, not under the influence of whisky 
 and unprovided with tobacco, lying on his back for two 
 hours of daylight ! He would never be able to recover 
 his lost ground and catch up his brother Scotchman in 
 the race of life. John Stuart Mill has shown that the 
 " standard of comfort indispensable in the people of the 
 " labouring classes " is the ruling principle of social 
 progress. N"ow, in India, that standard is lamentably 
 low. A penny or twopence a day M'ill provide a man 
 with rice enough to produce a pleasing sense of plethora. 
 A single coarse cotton garment, a mat, and a brass lotah 
 require no large outlay. He digs a great hole in the 
 
LOW STAXDARD OF COJSFOIJT. 219 
 
 groimd, and makes a dirt pie, which he calls a house. 
 He grinds his cuny on a stone prigged from an English 
 graveyard, cooks his rice in an extempore oven on a 
 tire of dried cow-dung, and eats till he "swells visihly 
 " before your very eyes." One good fit of dyspepsia, 
 tempered by a pipe and a siesta, suffices for his suste- 
 nance. The great mass of the population will do just as 
 much work as wiU earn them their simple but flatulent 
 dinner, and not a stroke more. The distinctive traits 
 of the Oriental and the Frank are strongly marked in 
 their respective methods of limiting their exertions to 
 their wants. An English nav^y will work lil-ce a horse 
 for four days out of the seven, and spend the other 
 three in an Elysium of beer, bird's-eye, pugilism, and 
 bull-terriers. A ryot lounges and snoozes over his 
 business every day and aU day long, except on some 
 high festival, when he splotches his turban with pinlc 
 paint, and sets ofi" to drink the water of the holy river 
 in an exalted state of piety and bang, in the companj- 
 of twenty or thirty of his neighbours, a tomtom, and 
 two females of bad reputation. 
 
 The ordinary Hindoo has no feeling about the sacred- 
 ness of toil Honest, faithful performance you wiU. 
 expect from him in vain. A dnmken debauched me- 
 chanic in our own country will turn out what work he 
 does, in first-rate style. A kna^sish, dissipated groom 
 will bring your horse to the door in perfect condition, 
 with not a hair out of place, as fresh as he himself was 
 the evening before. A native, on the contrary, must be 
 watched from morning tiU night. He has no sense of 
 shame in the matter of laziness, and considers himself 
 horribly ill used if he is kept to his duty. I leai-nt this 
 
220 NON CONCESSERE COLUMNS 
 
 fact during my first night on these shores. After half 
 an hour's sleep, I began to dream that I was Dante, and 
 that I was paying a visit to the Infernal realms under 
 the guidance of Martin Tupper. Protected by his divine 
 presence, I traversed the regions of torment, escaping 
 with difficulty from the clutches of minor demons, who 
 bore a strong resemblance to the Lascars in the service 
 of the P. and 0., untn we arrived at the sanctum of 
 the Father of Lies, who received us very cordially. The 
 atmosphere was hot, very hot ; so hot that I had begun 
 to think of negotiating a retreat, when an imp came up 
 to his majesty, touched his horns respectfully, and said, 
 " More coals, please sir, for General Butler." At this 
 moment 1 awoke in a fearful state of perspiration, to 
 see the punkah hanging motionless overhead. I sallied 
 forth, and there was the bearer roUed up in his blanket, 
 fast asleep ; and this fellow had absolutely nothing else 
 to do besides pulling a string for three hours and a half 
 every night. The rest of the twenty-four he had at his 
 own disposal. If you go to sleep on a journey, nothing 
 is more usual than to find your palanq[uin on the ground 
 at the side of the road, while half the men are gone to 
 a village a mile off for a drink of water, and the other 
 half are smoking in a circle and listening to a disqui- 
 sition of the torch-carrier, who has just pronounced to 
 the satisfaction of his audience that you are of a lower 
 caste than the Sahib at the last dawk bungalow, because 
 he wore a collar and waistcoat, while you travel without 
 those badges of rank. It is difficult to imagine how 
 any business was done before we came into the country 
 — how any one ever made a road, or a boat, or a journey. 
 The other day I was on a visit to the house of a Maha- 
 
BE TO HIS FAULTS— 221 
 
 rajali. We were to set off at three in the mormng, in 
 palanquins, to catch a train at a distant station, ilost 
 ininnte arrangements had been made over night. Our 
 servants were to start on an elephant at one a.m. ; our 
 bagg-jige on the heads of coolies an hour after that ; 
 whUe we were to find breakfast ready at a quarter 
 before three. At five minutes before three I awoke by- 
 chance, and, out of a household of a hundred and more, 
 not a soul was stirring. They had all gone to bed, not 
 witli a determination to oversleep themselves, but abso- 
 lutely indiflerent whether they overslept themselves or 
 not. This utter want of conscience in. everrthing that 
 concerns industry is very trying to men who employ 
 natives in large numbers ; and a natural indignation is 
 too apt to render such men oblivious of the fact that the 
 most idle, worthless, ser%'ile, timid ryot is the equal of 
 the Yieeroy himself in his rights of man and citizen. 
 
 Unfortunately, this want of truthfulness leavens the 
 whole being of the Bengalee. And here, thotigh I use 
 the language of the most cruel foes of the native, I en- 
 treat you to believe that the same language may be 
 employed with very different ends. Facts are facts. 
 The deduction to be di-awn from them is the vital point. 
 Is a firm friend of the Hindoo, a devout believer in the 
 destinies of the race, to blink his eyes to grand faults of 
 the Hindoo character, because those faults form a pre- 
 text for those who desire to lower the peasant-proprietor 
 to the condition of a serf? Let us boldly take the 
 uative as he is, compare him with what he was, and we 
 shall find no reason for despair as to what he will be. 
 It is not too much to assert that the mass of Bengalees 
 have no notion of truth and falsehood. During the 
 
222 DISREGARD OF TRUTH. 
 
 earliest weeks of Indian life one is amused or irritated, 
 as the case may be, by the transparency or ingenuity of 
 the lies which meet one at every turn. The first Mofus- 
 sil town at which I spent any time was Patna. When 
 my servant heard that we were going thither, he ap- 
 peared to be in high glee, and said that he had a papa 
 and mamma at Patna. Pleased at his filial piety, I 
 gave him some hours' leave in the course of every day, 
 little dreaming that his parents were represented by a 
 hideous venal sweetheart of eight-and-thirty. At Mo- 
 fussilpore his papa and mamma were succeeded by his 
 brother and sister, at Chupra by his uncle and aunt. 
 As we went from station to station be had reason to 
 regret that he had been so extravagant with his relations 
 at first setting out. By the time we came to Gya he 
 had exhausted the whole connexion, aiid was reduced to 
 the clumsy expedient of transporting the author and 
 authoress of his being from Patna in search of employ- 
 ment. You are obliged to engage a servant with your 
 eyes shut. It is a hundred to one that the testimonials 
 which he brings for your inspection refer to some other 
 man. A lady told me that three ayahs applied to 
 her consecutively, one dirtier than another, with pre- 
 cisely the same set of testimonials. But, however 
 deeply engrained in the Hindoo nature are habits of 
 mendacity, there is good ground for believing that those 
 habits may be corrected or modified in time. Under 
 favourable circus tances a native can refrain from saying 
 the thing that is not. Powerful Eajahs and high-born 
 Zemindars are too proud and independent to Lie and 
 cozen. There are abundance of signs which must con- 
 vince those who do not in their heart of hearts wish 
 
LOfE OF GJIX. 2i3 
 
 tlieir dark liretlircu to contiuue " always liars, evil beasts, 
 " slow bellies," that the Hindoo is capable of speaking 
 the truth, just as he is capable of reading Gibbon, wear- 
 ing peg-top trousers, and drinking bottled ale. Benga- 
 lees who have received an English education, and who 
 mix much with Englishmen, have learnt to appreciate 
 the English feeling about veracity. Tlie Jemmadar, or 
 headman of a factory, who is high in the confidence and 
 much in the company of his master, is often every whit 
 as trustworthy as a Xorfolk or Yorkshire bailiff. "Who 
 can doubt, then, that among the many blessings wHch 
 England will have conferred upon India, Truth will not 
 be wanting I At present she is certainly lying ■with 
 Hope at the bottom of the tank in Short's bazaar. 
 
 The love of gain is strong in the Hindoo, but not so 
 strong as to counteract his aversion for what an English- 
 man would call work. His covetousness displays itself 
 in a penchant for saving money that almost amounts to 
 a mania, and in the popularity of all occupations which 
 afford an opportunity for turning two-thirds of an anna 
 without any great exertion of mind or body. Your 
 Bengalee dearly loves a contract. He is the ideal con- 
 tractor, as far as his own interests are concerned. He 
 will spare no trouble or time to buy the article at an 
 absurdly low price, and of the woi>t quality that can 
 by any possibility pass muster. If there is any quiet 
 little knavery practicable, he marks it witli the glance 
 of a vulture. The universal " dust< lorie "' is a singular 
 monument of the petty peculation wliicb has been going 
 on throughout Beng;il for thousands of years. Every 
 agent employed to make a purchase, great or small, 
 pockets a commission unknown to his principal. Tliis 
 
224 » DUSTOORIE." 
 
 commission is called " dustoorie," or "the customary 
 " sum ; " the amount being regulated by the impudence 
 of the buyer, and the anxiety of the seller to dispose of 
 his goods. A native prince, who agi'eed to take the 
 house and furniture of a gentleman about to leave the 
 country, claimed to make a deduction from the price, on 
 the ground that he was his own agent. The rascality 
 and acuteness of the servants in European families are 
 something stupendous. A bad servant cheats you right 
 and left. A good servant takes less and less every year 
 that he lives with you, but he will always take some- 
 thing. He could not reconcile it with his conscience to 
 impugn the institution of the dustoorie. If you give 
 your man a rupee to pay a cab, he puts the coin in his 
 pouch, and arranges the matter when your back is 
 turned. If you bid him throw a few pice into a beggar's 
 lap, he takes his percentage after a bargain made at 
 great length and with much heat. But it never occurs 
 to the cabman or the beggar to dispute his right to a 
 commission. The other day, a treasury messenger was 
 sent to buy some stamps. Not being aware that this 
 commodity is supplied by the Government, which is 
 more apt to take dustoories than to give them, he de- 
 manded his discount, which was summarily disallowed 
 by the clerk. Shocked and scandalised by a refusal, 
 which appeared to him monstrous and unreasonable, he 
 jumped over the counter, knocked the functionary on 
 the head with his own official ruler, and carried off the 
 ledger in triumph as a hostage back to the treasury. 
 A lady, who lately set up house here, paid the wages of 
 twelve bearers into the hands of the Sirdar or headman 
 during the first month. At the end of that time, she 
 
A XATn-'E LETTER, 2-25 
 
 held a review of all the estabLLshment, a step which 
 disconcerted the policy of the Sirdar, who was able to 
 produce only nine bearers, of whom two were evidently 
 coolies got in for the occasion from a neighbouring 
 bazaar. The same man offered the steward ten shillings 
 a month for the pri\alege of supplying the lamps with 
 oil Yet there is ever}- reason to believe that he is 
 honest, as Sii-dar-bearers go. The following communi- 
 cation to the Englishman wOl give you a notion of the 
 universality of " dustoorie," and is likewise a fail- speci- 
 men of a native letter. You must know that jMessrs. 
 Thacker and Spink publish a Post-ofi&ce Directory pre- 
 faced by an almanac. "Chota," as you will probably 
 discover by yom- unassisted genius, sig-nifies " little." 
 
 " Thakkuk axd Spines Eklips. 
 "To the Edditur of the Englishman. 
 " Sir, — I beg to trubble on your honnor's benificense 
 " for shameless neglekt of Messrs. Tiiakkur and Sphinx 
 '■ not keep there words about Ekklips of mune. I buy 
 " Thakkur and Spink's Post office dirrektions which say 
 " ekklips of mune 1st Joone at 8-i5 with diskount and 
 ■ kommishun for redy rupees. What for my rupees all 
 '■ gone and no Ekklips ? Not my rupees, but master's. 
 " I very good man, get edukating in Mission Skul, whUe 
 " ^Mission Sahib smoke cheroots, and IMission Sahib 
 " buy Thakkur and Spink's for Society, which give 
 ' me commisshun and diskount very small pice. I very 
 •' fond of Ekklipses, and I sit up to see Ekklips with 
 ■' Mem Sahib's ayah, and she say I know nothing 
 " and she not tui'n Ivristian, and very angry, and I give 
 " her chota drop out of master's bottle, make her very 
 
 Q 
 
226 LITIGATION. 
 
 " glad, and turn anything. Then master he come out, 
 " and look at mune, and say ' dam Thakkur and Sphinx/ 
 " and throw him in tank, and send me to fish out Post 
 " ofice Direkshions to curl chota Mem Sahib's hair. 
 " But I think master all rong. Thakkur and Sphiax 
 " very good gentlemens, and give dishkount, and its the 
 " Post ofice and Elekrik Telegremps what made Ekklips 
 " come rong day ; and if you will put it in your paper 
 " Post ofice people very mad, and tare wigs, and kick 
 " punkah-wallah, but erklips come all right yesterday 
 " after rumpus. 
 
 " I poor native boy rite butiful English, and rite good 
 " Sirkulars for Mateland Sahib and Chamber of Kom- 
 " merce very cheap, and gives one rupee eight annas per 
 " diem, but new man say he make betterer English, and 
 " put it all in rong, and only give one rupee ; so I leave 
 " the gentlemen's and come to you if you wiU give two 
 " eight per diem. I can make potery and country 
 " korruspondance. 
 
 " Tours trully, 
 
 " MOFUSSIL." 
 
 Of all avenues to wealth, that most peculiar to this 
 country is the tortuous path of litigation. The native 
 regards a court of law, not as the bulwark of the inno- 
 cent, and the refuge of the wronged, but as a prize-ring, 
 which affords a fair field and no favour ; a stock- 
 exchange, where fortunes are to be made by cleverness 
 and industry, and lost by carelessness and stupidity ; 
 where all men have an equal chance, and no one must 
 rely on the justice of his cause, or the blamelessness of 
 his Hfe, or any such natural advantage which he may 
 
PEEJURT. 227 
 
 possess over his fellows. The wealthiest and most 
 respected man in a district will often be one who dates 
 his prosperity from a suit which, as everybody is well 
 aware, was brought to a successful termination by 
 unlimited perjury, and a document discovered at the 
 bottom of a chest in the Zenana, just in time to be 
 produced in court. His neighbours speak of him as 
 the society of an English provincial town speaks of a 
 man who began life under a counter and ends it in the 
 parlour of the county bank, whither he has pushed his 
 way by dint of prudence and frugality. Great families 
 carry on their feuds in the cutcherries and the Zillah 
 courts instead of in the tented field. Accusations and 
 counter accusations of murder, violence, fraud ; writs 
 of ejectment and trespass ; appeals ; summonses ; false 
 wiUs ; false witnesses ; false dates — such are the weapons 
 which are familiar to the Percies and Douglasses, the 
 Capulets and Montagues, of Bengal and Bahar. A 
 planter confessed to a friend of mine, that he had been 
 reduced to the verge of ruin by a rajah, who trumped 
 up three actions in succession, and gained them all. 
 The Englishman, however, eventually won back the 
 ground which he had lost in a suit, the facts of which 
 had been invented and arranged by his agent and 
 zemindar. Amidst such an entangled mass of chicane, 
 falsehood, and inaccuracy, a judge requires a local 
 experience of many years, and considerable natural 
 discernment, to arrive with any certainty at a conclu- 
 sion, and even with these advantages he is often misled. 
 A Hindoo never sticks at a lie, but in the witness-box 
 he surpasses himself Even if there is no intention to 
 deceive, the native has not yet been found who can 
 
 Q 2 
 
228 FELIX GRAHAM. 
 
 stand the cross-examination of an English barrister. 
 A hold big lawyer wOl make a ryot contradict himself 
 ten times in as many sentences. The testimony of a 
 siagle one of our countrymen has more weight with 
 the court than that of any number of Hindoos, a cir- 
 cumstance which puts a terrible instrument of power 
 into the hands of an unscrupulous and grasping English- 
 man. It is no uncommon thing for a rich native to 
 purchase an estate in the name of a dependent, who 
 farms it for his master's profit, partly from an innate 
 dislike of open dealing, partly from an ancient preju- 
 dice against presenting to the world an appearance of 
 wealth — the relic of a lawless age, when none but the 
 poor were safe. On one occasion, a zemindar bought 
 some valuable indigo works, without taking the precau- 
 tion of binding by a document the agent to whom the 
 factory was nominally to belong. An Englishman in 
 the neighbourhood got the ear of the agent, and bribed 
 and bulUed him into making over the whole concern to 
 himself, knowing well that, in the absence of written 
 evidence, the word of a European would carry the day. 
 And small wonder, when every week a dozen cases come 
 into court in which a plain fact, asserted on oath by a 
 score of men, is denied on oath by another score. 
 
 India is the country for those conscientious barristers 
 who have doubts about the morality of advocating a 
 cause which they believe to be unfounded. If Felix 
 Graham came out here, he would lead the bar within 
 five vears, and his pretty wife would be a charming 
 addition to Calcutta society. He would be utterly un- 
 able to make out whether his client was the wronged 
 or the wronger, guilty or not guilty. He might say to 
 
TWEIVjE MEX of KKOJJ'N PROBITl'. 229 
 
 himself, " We employ perjury, it is true, but the other 
 " side employ both perjury and forgery. We bring 
 ' forward fifteen witnesses, who would not speak truth 
 " if they coidd, but the other side brings forward as 
 '■'many who could not speak truth if they would." 
 Last month, at Mofussilpore, I witnessed a case which 
 came before Benson, and which he referred to Tom. 
 A shopkeeper complained that, as he was walking across 
 the street, one of his neighbours fell on him, knocked 
 him down with a cudgel, and, as he lay insensible on 
 the ground, robbed him of thirteen rupees. He pro- 
 duced seven witnesses, wlio confirmed circumstantially 
 his whole statement. It eventually turned out that the 
 prisoner struck the prosecutor on the back with a slight 
 switch, and that the rupees and the insensibility were 
 an episode which had no foundation in fact. The pro- 
 ceedings ia a case where natives are concerned always 
 remind me of the scene at a public school, when a dis- 
 puted point occurs during an interesting match. Last 
 M'inter, I witnessed a game of football at Harrow be- 
 tween two boarding-houses, in which twelve boys of 
 known probity (that is to say, the eleven players and 
 their umpire) swore that the ball had flown midway 
 through the base ; while twelve other boys, of equally 
 known probity, swore that it had touched one of the 
 poles. What would Paley say to this? Which of 
 these two pre-judications would he find himself unable 
 to resist? 
 
 JVIildred, my Mofussil friend, who has lived for twenty 
 years in constant communication with the people of 
 the country, at times seeing none but black faces for 
 six months on end, has a very low opinion of native 
 
230 THE NINTH COMMANDMENT. 
 
 evidence. He is a credible authority on this point, 
 inasmuch as he is a real friend of the Hindoo, and is 
 adored by the population of the neighbourhood. Eyots 
 who have a suit in court are very importunate to have 
 him called as a witness in their favour. A man lately 
 entreated the magistrate to summon my friend to tes- 
 tify to his character. On being asked whether he had 
 ground for believing that Mildred knew anything about 
 him, he replied that the Sahib had once fined him ten 
 rupees for cattle stealing ! When Mildred was a very 
 young man, he bought a village from a zemindar, who 
 sold it cheap because the inhabitants had for some 
 years past refused to pay a pice of rent. As the new 
 proprietor was well aware that his tenants enjoyed a 
 very evil reputation for theft, dacoity, and manslaugh- 
 ter, he called his friends and neighbours together, and 
 rode over with some force to collect the arrears. It 
 happened that cholera was rife in the village; so the 
 party encamped for the night on a spot about a mUe 
 distant. Late in the evening, the head man, accom- 
 panied by six or seven others, came to Mildred, and 
 told him that, unless he cleared off in the course of the 
 morrow, they would bring the corpse of a ryot who had 
 died of the epidemic, cut the throat, throw it into the 
 camp, and go in a body to the magistrate, to accuse 
 the Sahibs of a murder ! 
 
 On another occasion, Mildred, in company with two 
 planters of his acquaintance, drove over to visit a 
 friend, who lived at a considerable distance from the 
 station. They had given him no previous intimation to 
 expect them, but people in India can be hospitable on 
 very short notice, and he soon set before them curry, 
 
A TRAGEDY. 231 
 
 and fowls, and beer, and cheroots. As they were chat- 
 ting over their tobacco, after a jolly tiffin, they heard 
 the howl of a jackal in the vicinity of the bungalow, 
 and it was proposed to sally forth and have a shot at 
 him. The firearms in a planter's house are always in a 
 condition for immediate use ; so the host loaded a rifle, 
 and went out with one of his guests, while IVIildred 
 and the other remained among the soda-water bottles. 
 After some time a shot was heard, and soon after the 
 pair returned, pale and agitated. The master of the 
 house said, " Mildred, I believe I have shot a man, but 
 "we did not dare to go and look." It appears they 
 could not find the jackal : so, in the wantonness of men 
 who were full of meat, and drink, and smoke, they took 
 a shot at a sheep wliich was feeding about a furlong off. 
 As the gun was fired, a man sprang up out of the grass 
 behind the animal, and dropped again before he was 
 well on his feet. Mildred went to the spot, and found 
 a peasant stone dead, with a ball through the heart, 
 liow for the sequel The relations of the poor fellow 
 prosecuted the planter for murder, and swore that he 
 had tied the deceased to a tree, beaten him cruelly, 
 outraged him in the most foul manner, and finally put 
 him out of his misery by deliberately firing at him from 
 the distance of a few yards. This vindictive wicked 
 lie was supported in every particular by a number of 
 the villagers. The presence of his' three countrymen, 
 — a happy chance, and nothing more, — alone saved the 
 prisoner from condemnation. " From that day forward " 
 (such was the conclusion which Mildred drew from the 
 circumstance) " I resolved, if ever I was on a jury, 
 " never to convict a European of a capital crime on 
 
232 VICARIOUS COEIiUPTION. 
 
 "native testimony." I endeavoured to show him that 
 his resolution was illogical, and that the consequences 
 of it would be most disastrous ; that, if we rejected the 
 evidence of Hindoos when the life of an Englishman 
 was in question, we must refuse to admit it on any- 
 other occasion whatsoever; the result of which would 
 be that, instead of providing the people of India with 
 justice of superior quality to that dealt out by their 
 own countrymen, we should banish law and order from 
 the land, until an insulted Providence sent us about our 
 business. He was not convinced. 
 
 By the most scrupulous care our officers cannot pre- 
 vent their names being used for purposes of the grossest 
 corruption. Por instance, a native gentleman calls on 
 the magistrate, and then goes straight to the house of 
 some one who has a suit pending, and says: "I sit 
 " down in the presence of the Sahib. He has a greater 
 " respect for me than for the sub-inspector of police, and 
 " loves me better than he loves a lieutenant and two 
 " ensigns in the cantonments, and he will soon love me 
 " better than one of the captains. Give me five hundred 
 " rupees." And, though the poor fool must know that 
 if he gave away his whole fortune in presents he would 
 not alter a tittle of the magistrate's verdict, he pays the 
 money under a hazy conviction that some benefit will 
 ensue. Eich baboos wUl vie with each other for the 
 post of deputy-treasurer, which is worth fifty or sixty 
 rupees per mensem, and wUl gladly deposit eighty or a 
 hundred thousand rupees as security for the faithful 
 discharge of the functions. They are attracted, not so 
 much by the honour of being in the service of Govern- 
 ment, as by the knowledge that an official position will 
 
JACK IN OFFICE. 233 
 
 enable them to drive harder bargains, to obtain higher 
 interest, to oppress their poorer neighbours, and intimi- 
 date their equals. And yet every dealer in the town 
 knows that if he was to come to the English authorities, 
 and say : " Baboo Chunder Boss, the deputy-treasurer, 
 " told me yesterday that if I refused to let him have my 
 " saltpetre at his own price I should repent it," Baboo 
 Chunder Boss would not be deputy-treasurer another 
 twenty-four hours. They know this, but they cannot 
 act upon it. Habit is too strong for reason. Besides, 
 your native positively likes to fee Jacks-in-ofifice. During 
 the progress of a Governor through his province, all the 
 rajahs and zemindars who come to pay their respects to 
 the gi-eat man are never content imless they pay their 
 rupees to his servants. They would not enjoy their 
 interview thoroughly if they got it gratis. The sirdar- 
 bearer or the head messenger of a member of council 
 makes a wonderfully good thing of his place. Out of 
 his pay of a pound a month he manages to dress well, 
 feed of the best, and maintain a sufficiency of wives 
 and parasites. If he hears of a good investment on a 
 small scale, he can generally come down with a fat 
 bag of rupees. Surely the feUow's clients and patrons 
 can hardly imagine that he has the ear of his master. 
 Their munificence is dictated by " dustoor," or custom, 
 the most powerful of all the motives which actuate the 
 conduct of a native. 
 
 Dustoor is the breath of a Hindoo's nostrils, the 
 mainspring of his actions, the staple of his conversation. 
 A ryot is never so happy as when he is squatted amidst 
 a circle of neighbours, smoking a miKture in which pow- 
 dered dung is the most fragrant ingredient, and talking 
 
234 BUSTOOR. 
 
 about dustoor. The spirit of conservatism, powerful 
 everywhere except among the conservative leaders ia 
 the English House of Commons, is rabid iu the East. 
 In European countries men keep up old practices and 
 habits which reason cannot approve because familiarity 
 has rendered them attractive. In India men do things 
 which they know to be absurd, and which they exces- 
 sively dislike, because custom so enjoins. An English 
 family, an hour after their usual bedtime, perform an 
 elaborate toUette, and start off to dance and flirt them- 
 selves into a state of unnatural wakeftilness. The son 
 is routed out from a quiet corner, where he has been 
 employed over a surreptitious cigar, and hounded up 
 to his dressiug-room with threats and execrations. A 
 daughter, who is on ordinary occasions a model of piety, 
 rudely tears the kerchief from the face of her sleepiag 
 father, and rouses him from sweet visions of middling 
 fair Pernambuco and ditto transfer stock, to the fearful 
 reality of a four hours' lounge in a back drawing-room, 
 sweetened by fine supper-sherry at twenty-eight and 
 six. And yet they go forth to the sacrifice a troop of 
 willing victims, proud of the fillet, and in fond expec- 
 tation that they will enjoy the rite. A shopkeeper or 
 clerk, when club-night comes round, duly pays half- 
 crowns which he can ill afford, and swallows four times 
 as much liquor as he can well digest. But, while he is 
 seated at midnight in the midst of a noisy, boozy com- 
 pany, with an incipient headache and the prospect of a 
 crapulous colic, smoking his fourteenth pipe and sipping 
 his ninth — no, tenth — no, eleventh — brar-r-ry war-r-rer, 
 he is all the time under the impression that he is doing 
 something uncommonly jolly and Bacchanalian. Now 
 
EXTE.ir.iGANCK 235 
 
 this is not tlie case with the Hindoo. Groaning and 
 repenting, he follows whithersoever dustoor may lead 
 him. This thrifty, temperate race, who deny themselves 
 every pleasure and comfort without a sigh, at the com- 
 mand of fashion fling away sums which would keep 
 them and theirs in luxury for a lifetime. To procure 
 these sums they are forced to have recourse to money- 
 lenders, who are the bugbears of Indian social life. A 
 sepoy, whose pay is seven rupees a month, has often 
 been known to sell himself, body, soul, and pension, to 
 a baboo, in order to spend three hundred rupees on a 
 marriage feast. The other day, an ayah, whose wages 
 are those of a London servant-of-all-work, in^■ited a Eu- 
 ropean lady's-maid to a dinner, where covers were laid 
 for thirty guests, with champagne, and beer a discretion. 
 MUdred told me that native gentlemen frequently came 
 to him to borrow some thousands of pounds on the 
 secui'ity of a great slice of their estate. He would say : 
 " My good fellow, I am well aware what you want this 
 " loan for ; and you are well aware that you will never 
 " be able to pay it, and that you will have ruined your- 
 ■' self and your descendants in order, once in a way, to 
 "cut a figure in the district. You will gain much more 
 " respect by being known to be able to spend all your 
 " rents.'' The zemindar would own the truth of every- 
 thing my friend stated, shrug his shoulders, and go off 
 muttering something about " dustoor." A few days 
 after, the land would be in the clutches of some hai-py 
 from Patna 
 
 A curious instance of the pernicious effects of " dus- 
 " toor " is afforded by the fortunes of the family of my 
 friend the Maharaja. His ancestors were enormously 
 
236 THE MAHARAJA OF KISHENAGUB. 
 
 ■wealthy, and were, besides, the purest of pure Brahmans, 
 and at the head of the religious community for a hun- 
 dred miles rouni^. If Lord Fitzwilliam were likemse 
 Archbishop of lork, his position in the country would 
 be much that of the old Maharajas of Kjshenagur, in 
 the tract which lies along the left bant of the Hooghly. 
 The grandfather of the present man brought himself to 
 the brink of ruin by the most reckless and aimless ex- 
 travagance. On one occasion he sold the battle-ground 
 of Plassey for two lacs (20,000?.), and expended the 
 proceeds on gold and silver cups, which he scattered 
 broadcast among the mob from the summit of his sacred 
 car during the procession on a solemn feast-day. The 
 father received the estate much involved and reduced 
 to very small dimensions. ISTevertheless he spent thirty 
 thousand rupees on the marriage of his son. HappUy 
 that son had received an English education, and had 
 acquired a taste for English habits and society. ■ He 
 lives freely, keeps open house from year's end to year's 
 end, and is very popular with the residents at the 
 station; and meanwhile he has paid off debts to the 
 tune of seventeen thousand pounds, has cleared the 
 property, and intends to indulge himself in a visit to 
 England next March, as a reward for his sense and 
 forethought. He has much more fun for his money 
 than ever his grandfather had, and yet he manages to 
 eat his chupatty, and have it too. When he had once 
 emancipated himself from the toils of " dustoor," pro- 
 sperity followed as a natural consequence. Being so 
 very exalted a Brahmin, he may eat and drink in the 
 company of Europeans without blame or stain. Nay, 
 hundreds and hundreds of natives come to him in the 
 
NOT IN VAIN. 237 
 
 course of the year, to "have their caste restored for a 
 price. It is the old story. I fancy Tetzel got his in- 
 dulgences uncommon cheap. There are some who say 
 that, if we left India to-morrow, the only traces of 
 our occupation would be the empty beer-bottles ; just 
 as there ai"e some who say that it is all over -with the 
 army since the amalgamation, and who make other 
 afifirmations of about equal value with the statement 
 that Balbus is building a wall. Let no one assert that 
 we have ruled, and fought, and panted, and perspired, 
 and permanently settled in vain, as long as we have 
 taught one ilaharaja the absurdity of " dustoor." 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 H, Beoughton. 
 
238 THE FRIEND OF INDIA. 
 
 LETTEE IX. 
 
 BRITISH TEMPER TOWARDS INDIA, BEFORE, DURING, 
 AND SINCE THE MUTINY. 
 
 Calcutta, May 11, 1863. 
 
 Dear Simkins, — I lately read through a file of the 
 Friend of India, for 1836, with great pleasure, not 
 unmingled with regret. The value of such a paper in 
 these days would be incalculable. The tone of the 
 articles indicated the existence in Anglo-Indian society 
 of a spirit which has passed away and left but faint 
 traces. In those times the well-being of the Hindoo 
 was the first and dearest care of our leading civilians. 
 Their successors honestly do their duty by the native 
 population ; but that duty is no longer a labour of love. 
 Thirty years ago the education of the people of the 
 country was the favourite subject of conversation in the 
 best circles, and occupied the spare time of men who 
 had little enough of that commodity. Hindoo history, 
 Hindoo literature, Hindoo social life, were discussed 
 with inexhaustible ardour; and the hopes entertained 
 concerning the future of the race were proportionate to 
 the interest which it excited. Of course this feeling, 
 like all that is noble and unselfish in the mind of man, 
 partook of a strong dash of illusion. But the same 
 
EJLCrON DJYS. 239 
 
 may be said of every successive stage in the progress of 
 knowledge and civilization. Philanthropists are a san- 
 guine class ; and it is well for them that they are so. 
 The generation which was determined to show that 
 Englishmen came to India with other ends than that of 
 making money, and swaggering about the great " Anglo- 
 " Saxon race," might well be forgiven for over-rating the 
 merits of Sanskrit poetry or the attainments of a Ben- 
 galee Bachelor of Arts. Once every week, Marshman, 
 the editor of the Friend of India, would come down 
 from Serampore for a conversation with the Secretary 
 to Bengal ; and the salutary fruits of this close under- 
 standing between the executive power and the press 
 were evident, both in the acts of the Government and 
 the articles in the Friend. Public measures were dic- 
 tated by a spirit of enlightened philosophy, and the 
 suggestions and disquisitions in the journal were prac- 
 tical and temperate, and acquired additional value from 
 the fact that they were understood to represent the 
 views of men in power. A noisy and enthusiastic 
 breakfast-party frequently met to discuss the subject 
 which was next their hearts- Of these men some are 
 still doing good work well, wliile others have passed 
 away, leaving their mark more or less deeply impressed 
 on their generation. There was Sir Edward Eyan, then 
 Chief Justice of Bengal, now President of the Ci^il 
 Service Commission, whose hearty address and kindly 
 adA^ce are among the most agreeable associations which 
 a young civilian carries from the shores of England. 
 I remember well, that, on emerging from his pleasant 
 presence, I remarked in the haU a bust of Dwarkanatli 
 Thakur, a Hindoo gentleman for whom Sir Edward en- 
 
240 A BREAKFAST PARTY. 
 
 tertained a strong regard ; for our officers were then not 
 ashamed to call a native by the name of " friend," and 
 would have been very much ashamed to talk of him by 
 the appellation of " nigger," even without the customary 
 prefix. Then there was young Trevelyan; and young 
 Colvin, whose destiny was to die sick and weary in the 
 darkest hour of the great mutiny, at a time when his 
 authority as Governor of the North-West Provinces was 
 confined to the space commanded by the guns of the 
 fort of Agra : Sir Benjamin Malkin, an able judge and a 
 ripe scholar, a man eminently distinguished by " public 
 " spirit, ardent and disinter ested, yet always under the 
 " guidance of discretion :" and Ross Mangles, who, when 
 chairman of the Court of Directors during that eventful 
 year 1857, could never be convinced that the mass of 
 the population of India had been suddenly transformed 
 into felons and rebels, preordained by Providence to 
 afford food for powder and the gallows. And there too 
 was Macaulay, in high delight at finding himself in a 
 country where so much was to be learned ; keeping the 
 company far on towards noon over the cold curries and 
 empty tea-cups, imtil the consciousness of accumulating 
 boxes drove them one by one to their respective offices. 
 Now-a^days such a reunion would be reviled in the 
 local papers as a parcel of conspirators assembled to 
 hatch dark plots against the English Name, the Plant- 
 ing Interest, and the Development of the Eesources of 
 India. Under the auspices of Lord Dalhousie, the har- 
 vest which had been sown by these men and those who 
 thought with them, was reaped in a series of wise and 
 beneficent reforms. But during the reign of the next 
 viceroy things took a fatal turn. 
 
1857. 241 
 
 At the commencement of 1857, humanity and philan- 
 thropy were the order of the day. We had just brought 
 to an end the Eussian ^var, which had been fought 
 throughout in a spirit of generous chivahy, in spite of 
 the efforts of those who endeavoured to turn a contest 
 waged to preserve the balance of power into a mur- 
 derous struggle of embittered nations. It was not many 
 years since we had put down, in a cheery off-hand style, 
 an Irish rebellion, which would have furnished our fore- 
 fathers with a welcome excuse for barbarous severity 
 and prolonged and increased oppression. In 1798, the 
 victorious Orangemen could not be induced to spare 
 the lives of a parcel of clever schoolboys, who talked a 
 little too much about Brian Boru, and Harmodios and 
 Ai-istogiton. In 1848 we transported the leader of the 
 revolt for a few years, rather because we did not know 
 what else to do with him, than from any desire to make 
 him suffer for his presumption. When Smith O'Brien 
 was sentenced to be hanged, drawn, and quartered, any 
 one who knew the temper of the nation was perfectly 
 aware that the value of the life of the condemned 
 rebel, in an annuity of6.ce, was as good as that of any 
 other man of his age in the thi'ee kingdoms. 
 
 Then came the tidings of the outbreak at Meerut, of 
 the massacre of Delhi. The first impression produced 
 by the intelligence was curiosity mingled with pity, and 
 surprise that any interesting thing could come out of 
 India. But as every mail brought a fresh story of horror 
 and disaster, a significant change came over the face of 
 society. If the sympathy and indignation inspired by 
 an outrage is intense in proportion to the faculty of 
 suffering in the victim, here was a case in which indig- 
 
 E 
 
242 TFHITE WRATH. 
 
 nation, and sympathy could know no bounds ; for the 
 victims belonged to the most refined and enlightened 
 class of the first nation in the world. Ladies, bred and 
 nurtured amidst aU that wealth and afiection could 
 afford, were dragged along, imder a June sun, ia the 
 ranks of the mutiaeers, ia hourly expectation, and soon 
 in hourly hope, of death. Officers, who had been trained 
 to the duties of government by the best education which 
 the mother-country could supply, judges, magistrates, 
 men of science, men of letters, were pelted to death with 
 brickbats, or hung, amidst shouts of laughter, after a 
 mock trial. Then from the lowest depths of our nature 
 emerged those sombre, iU-omened instincts, of whose 
 very existence we had ceased to be aware. Intense 
 compassion, intense wrath, the injured pride of a great 
 nation — those combative propensities against which Mr. 
 Bright has so often testified in vain — surged in upon 
 the agitated community. It was tacitly acknowledged 
 that mercy, charity, the dignity and sacredness of human 
 life — those great principles which, at ordinary times, are 
 recognised as eternally true — must be put aside till our 
 sway was restored and our name avenged. It is well 
 that nations, as men, should pray to be delivered from 
 temptation. Two months of N'ana Sahib brought about 
 an effect on the English character at the recollection of 
 which Englishmen at home have already learned to 
 blush, but the lamentable consequences of which wiU 
 be felt in India for generations yet unborn or un- 
 thought of. 
 
 Who does not remember those days, when a favourite 
 amusement on a wet afternoon, for a party in a country 
 house, was to sit on and about the billiard-table de- 
 
GOOD TIBIN6S. 243 
 
 vising tortures for the Nana ; when the pahn was given 
 to that ingenious gentleman who proposed that he should 
 be forced, first, to swallow a tumbler of water in which 
 all the blue papers in a seidlitz-powder box had been 
 emptied, and then a tumbler with the contents of all 
 the white papers in a state of solution ? when every one 
 chuckled to hear how General Neill had forced high 
 Brahmans to sweep up the blood of the Europeans 
 murdered at Cawnpore, and then strung them in a row, 
 without giving them the time requisite for the rites of 
 purification? It is singular that he imitated in eveiy 
 particular the conduct of Telemachus towards the maid- 
 servants who had lent too kind an ear to those suitoi's 
 who were content to fly at low game, with a view, I 
 presume, to keep their hands in during tlie intervals of 
 their more ambitious courtship. Eyery one chuckled, 
 with the exception of a certain evangelical paper, which 
 remonstrated with the General for depriving these poor 
 men of their chances of salvation ! " Have you heard 
 the news ? " said a celebrated author to an acquaintance, 
 as they stood together under the porch of the Athenjeum. 
 " The Sepoys have taken to inflicting the most exquisite 
 " cruelties upon the Sikhs, and the Sikhs in return 
 " swear that they will stamp the Company's arms in 
 " red-hot pice over the body of every Sepoy who comes 
 " in their way. These are the sort of tidings that now- 
 " a-days fill every heart in England with exultation and 
 " thankfulness. ' During the first debate at the Union 
 Society, in my first term, an orator wound up with these 
 words : " When the rebellion has been crushed out from 
 " the Himalayas to Comorin ; when every gibbet is red 
 " with blood ; when every bayonet creaks beneath its 
 
 k2 
 
244 NEMESIS. 
 
 " ghastly burden ; -when the ground in front of every 
 " cannon is strewn with rags, and flesh, and shattered 
 " bone ; — then talk of mercy. Then you may find some 
 " to listen. This is not the time.'' This peroration was 
 received with a tumult of applause by an assembly 
 whose temper is generally characterized by mild hu- 
 manity, modified by an idolatrous attachment to the 
 memory of Archbishop Laud. If you turn over the 
 volume of Punch for the latter half of 1857, you will 
 probably open on a picture representing a big female, 
 with a helmet and a long sword, knocking about a black 
 man, in appearance something between a gorilla and 
 a soldier in one of our West Indian regiments, who is 
 standing over a dead woman and child. Two palm- 
 trees in the back-ground mark the locality, and the 
 whole production is labelled " Justice," or " N'emesis," 
 or " God of Battles, steel my soldiers' hearts ! " "What 
 must have been the fury of the outburst which could 
 transport to such lengths that good-natured and sensible 
 periodical, which so admirably reflects the opinions of a 
 good-natured and sensible nation ! 
 
 Such was the feeling in England ; and, being such, it 
 was only the faint shadow of the state of things in India. 
 For out here men were influenced, not only by pity and 
 wrath, intensified by the immediate presence of the 
 objects of those passions, but by shaine, by the bitter- 
 ness of bereavement and ruin, by an ever-present fear, 
 by the consciousness of an awful risk which they had 
 barely escaped, and of innumerable perils still to come. 
 History shudders at the recollection of the terrible 
 " Spanish fury " which desolated Antwerp in the days 
 of AVilliam the Silent; but the "English fury" was 
 
TRE "ENGLISH FURY." 245 
 
 more terrible still. With the grim determination and 
 the dogged pertinacity of their race, men went forth 
 over the face of the land to shoot, and sabre, and hang, 
 and blow from guns tiU the work should be accom- 
 plished. It was generally understood that no one would 
 be called in question for having erred on the side of 
 severity. Many a one of those good-humoured agreeable 
 civilians with whom you canter along the course, or 
 play bUliards at the club ; who are so forgiving when 
 you revoke palpably and inexcusably, and so ready with 
 their letters of introduction and offers of hospitality — 
 many a one of them has witnessed strange scenes, and 
 could tell strange tales. He could tell how he has 
 ridden into some vUlage in Shahabad or the Dooab, 
 with a dozen troopers at his heels ; how he has called 
 for a drink of mUk, and taken his seat under a tree, 
 pistol in hand, whUe his men ferreted out the fugitive 
 mutineers who had found their way home to seek con- 
 cealment and sustenance among their relations and 
 neighbours ; how very short a trial sufficed to convict 
 those who were accused of housing and abetting the 
 rebels; and how, as he left for the next camping-ground, 
 he pretended not to observe his followers stealing back 
 to recover their picket-ropes. 
 
 There is a degree of mutual terror which almost ne- 
 cessitates mutual extermination. At a time when the 
 safety of India depended on the Punjab, and the safety 
 of the Punjab hung on a single hair (and, thank God, 
 that single hair was a strong one, for it was Sir John 
 Lawrence), a native regiment quartered in that province^ 
 unable to resist the epidemic of sedition, mutinied and 
 left the cantonments. An energetic civil officer started 
 
246 A SAD NEOHSSITT. 
 
 off in pursuit with the slender force of sixty-six police- 
 men, brought the mutineers to bay, and, by a rare display 
 of audacity and craft, captured them to a man. It is 
 more easy to blame what followed than to say how he 
 should have acted under the circumstances. It would 
 have been madness to send off a compact and numerous 
 force with tickets of leave to recruit the rebel garrison 
 of Delhi. At the same time, Sir Joshua Jebb himself 
 would have hesitated before he undertook to guard a 
 battalion of regular troops with a handful of native 
 policemen, who were themselves at that moment on the 
 eve of an outbreak. One course remained. There is a 
 closer prison than a Government jail : a surer sentry 
 than a Punjabee chokedar. 
 
 When first I came out there were two gentlemen here 
 who were considered the most welcome addition to Cal- 
 cutta society. One was a jolly comical-looking chap, 
 an excellent officer, and a capital man for a small dinner- 
 party. The other was most refined and intelligent, with 
 a remarkably courteous and winning address. It was 
 said that these two had hung more people than any 
 other men in India. Mr. Hume, of Etawah, who was 
 blamed by many for excess of leniency, but who so bore 
 himself that no one could blame him for want of courage, 
 distinguished himself by keeping down the number of 
 executions in his district to seven, and by granting the 
 culprits a fair trial. These he treated with fatherly 
 tenderness, for he invented a patent drop for their 
 benefit ; so that men prayed — first, that they might be 
 tried by Mr. Hume, and next, that, if found guilty, they 
 might be hanged by him. 
 
 One morning I was lounging in the room of a very 
 
WEAPONS WHICH HAVE SEEN WORK. 247 
 
 good friend of mine, one of the youngest captains in the 
 army, who went through as much lough-and-tumble 
 fighting as could he squeezed into twelve months, and 
 who came out of the business with the reputation of 
 being a first-rate cavalry officer. We were overhauling 
 his collection of guns, trying the locks, and criticizing 
 the grooving, as men do on such occasions, when I 
 remarked, suspended in the place of honour, an archaic 
 rickety revolver, and an old cut-and-thrust sword, with 
 a bright notched blade, and a well-worn leathern handle. 
 Those were not holiday weapons. Once, when charging 
 a couple of hundred of the famous Dinapore mutineers, 
 he left that sword in the head of a sepoy. While 
 dismounting to recover it he was separated from his 
 squadron, and surrounded by a party of desperate 
 Pandies, who, being perfectly aware that their last hour 
 was come, were desirous of openiag to themselves the 
 gates of the celestial Zenana by the sacrifice of so re- 
 doubted a Sahib. My friend sheltered himself as best 
 he could behiftd his horse's neck, and kept the assailants 
 off with his revolver, till two faithful Punjabees galloped 
 back to his assistance. Meanwhile, he had shot three 
 men dead on the spot, each with a bullet through the 
 brain. He took part in the pursuit of Coer Sing from 
 Lucknow to the Ganges. On the night before that old 
 warrior succeeded in passing the river, a picket was 
 posted to keep watch upon the rebels, who were 
 quartered in and near a populous vUlage. From time 
 to time the country-people came in with the intelligence 
 that the enemy were stiU there, until their importunate 
 desire to give information roused a suspicion that all 
 was not right. We advanced cautiously, and found that 
 
248 A TERRIBLB PASS. 
 
 Coer Sing had stolen away, and was already well on his 
 road towards the ferry. After the affair had terminated 
 in the escape of the mutineers, our commanding of&cer 
 sent back his cavalry, with orders to take signal ven- 
 geance on the peasants whose treachery had foiled his 
 carefuUy-concerted plan. The regiment surrounded the 
 village, set the roofs on fire, looted the dwellings of what 
 cloth and grain they contained, stripped the women of 
 their bangles and anklets, and put all the males to the 
 edge of the sword. This was only one among many like 
 deeds, deeds of which every one approves at the time, 
 but which afterwards no one cares to justify or to 
 discuss. We little dream what a dire and grim signi- 
 ficance is attached by many a widow and orphan in 
 Oude or Bahar to the names of some who appear to us 
 the mildest and most loveable of human beings. In the 
 eyes of only too many Eoman matrons Caesar was the 
 most attractive and insinuating among the young swells 
 of his day ; whether amiability and tenderness formed 
 the leading features of his character, as conceived by 
 a Helvetian or a Ifervian, may reasonably be doubted. 
 
 Things had now come to a terrible pass. During the 
 first weeks of the mutiny the murders were perpetrated 
 by the " budzarts," or black sheep, of the regiment, with 
 a view to implicate their comrades beyond the hope of 
 pardon ; to place between themselves and their former 
 condition of life a gulf filled with English blood. Their 
 scheme met with entire success. The minds of our 
 countrymen were so agitated and distorted by anger and 
 uneasiness, that even those battalions which remained 
 true to their salt began to be apprehensive for their 
 safety whenever they found themselves in the same 
 
UNWILLING MUTINY. 249 
 
 cantonment with European troops. In a station where 
 this state of things existed, suspicion and dislike reigned 
 supreme. The officers of the native corps slept in the 
 European lines with loaded revolvers under their pillows; 
 the guns, unlimbered and charged to the muzzle with 
 grape, faced the quarters of the sepoys ; a strong force 
 was at all times under arms, and the very air seemed 
 heavy with an impending storm. Under such circum- 
 stances, an outbreak would have been regarded rather 
 as a relief than as a misfortune. But if our people were 
 anxious, the supposed mutineers had far more reason to 
 be nervous. On occasions of this description, there is 
 nothiag which men so constantly underrate as the terror 
 which they themselves inspire in the breasts of others. 
 During a town and gown row, I always used to think 
 that the hostile column looked most formidable and 
 impressive, while I was only too conscious that the 
 fighting power of our own array was lamentably de- 
 fective. "Who could depend on Screwington, who had 
 descended by hebdomadal steps from the second to the 
 sixth boat, untU he finally retired into the illimitable ? 
 on Dufferly, who cried three weeks before he left school, 
 when the fags mutinied and pelted him with penny- 
 rolls ? on Timkins, who had never taken a walk a nule 
 long since he spent the day at Shelford to escape being 
 condoled with after missing his scholarship ? And yet 
 the effect produced on the imagination of the town by 
 our onward charge was, doubtless, very demoralizing. 
 A cloud of tall forms, in square caps and flowing gowns, 
 bearing down through the fog, must test the courage of 
 the hardiest Barnwell cooley, or the most vindictive 
 college kitmutgar, burning to take out his unpaid wages 
 
250 MUTUAL EXTERMINATION. 
 
 in Tindergraduate gore. Once, or more than once, it 
 befell that, when the suspected troops were ordered out 
 to be disarmed or discharged, the loaded cannon, the 
 lighted matches, the line of frowning white faces, proved 
 too much for their nerves. Convinced that they had 
 been assembled to be butchered, the poor devils broke 
 and took to their heels, under a crashing fire of shrapnel 
 and canister. By the time it came to this, the only 
 chance of existence for the one party lay in the utter 
 destruction of the other. Quarter was not given, and, 
 indeed, hardly could be said to be worth the asking. 
 An Englishman knew well that, though one set of 
 Pandies were to spare his life, the next lot who came 
 across him would cut his throat ; and a sepoy knew 
 well that, if his captors took the trouble to drag him 
 about in their train for a few days, the magistrate at 
 the first station on the road would infallibly hang him 
 before the officer in command of the party had finished 
 his dinner. 
 
 The presence of a military officer, however, seldom 
 afforded much comfort to a prisoner. None of their 
 persecutors were so dreaded by the natives as the royal 
 troops lately arrived from England. No civilian armed 
 with the thunderbolts of the law, able to ascertain at 
 a glance whether the culprit was a pensioned sepoy, a 
 Mahommedan fanatic, or a peaceable cultivator, was 
 haK so terrible a judge as a beardless subaltern, fresh 
 from the depot at Chatham, whose experience of the 
 population was summed up in the statements that " nig- 
 " gers were all blasted liars," and that, " when a feller 
 " said he was a ryot, he was sure to be the greatest 
 " scoundrel unhung : " a distinction which he was not 
 
" MOOSS." 251 
 
 likely long to retain. The knowledge of the servants of 
 the Company was far less formidable than, the ignorance 
 of the servants of the Crown. No Sikh burning to 
 avenge Aliwal and Sobraon on the revolted mercenaries 
 who had been used by the Feringhees as tools to accom- 
 plish the humiliation of his race, inspired such horror 
 in the souls of the village people, as the British private, 
 who saw a probable murderer, and an undoubted subject 
 for " loot," in every " Moor " who came in his way — for 
 in those days the rank and file of our army always 
 spoke of the inhabitants of India by the appellation of 
 " Moors." As the men landed at Bombay, they expressed 
 vexation and disappointment at not being allowed to go 
 in at the Moors who were taking their siesta upon the 
 beach. They had been brought all the way from England 
 to kill JMoors, and why shordd they not begiir at once ? 
 One Moor in the hand was worth two in the bush, or 
 rather the jungle. At one time it became necessary to 
 double the guards at Fort "William, in order to prevent 
 the soldiers from sallying forth at night to avenge the 
 ati-ocities committed in Oude and Eohilcund upon the 
 syces of Chowringhee, and the palkee-bearers of the 
 China-bazaar. A corporal, who had travelled up with 
 a party from Bombay to join his regiment in the field, 
 on his arrival at head-quarters reported that in the 
 course of the journey a mutiny had taken place among 
 the buUock-drivers. On inquiry, it appeared that the 
 hero of the affair was an honest fellow, who had dis- 
 embarked with his head full of the Nana and the fatal 
 weU. His story was simple : — " I seed two INIoors talk- 
 " ing in a cart. Presently I heard one of 'em say 
 " ' Cawnpore.' I knowed what that meant ; so I fetched 
 
252 A FINE BAG. 
 
 " Tom "Walker, and he heard 'em say ' Cawnpore,' and 
 " he knowed what that meant: So we polished 'em 
 " both off." 
 
 It is observable that civHians, as a rule, described the 
 operation of killing as " accounting for," or " disposing 
 " of ; " as if to express the perfunctory and exact per- 
 formance of official work. Military men preferred the 
 term "polishing off" as a more jovial and rollicking 
 synonym for the extermination of their fellow-creatures. 
 Men spoke of executions and massacre in the tone 
 which a certain class of medical students are supposed 
 to adopt with reference to surgical operations. It must 
 have been a curious state of things in which English 
 Christians could talk to other English Christians of 
 " fine bags," not of hares and pheasants, but of human 
 beings. 
 
 At Buxar, which, you may remember, is on the 
 Ganges, a little above Arrah, there lived a native, weU 
 known to aU the residents by the name of " Coony 
 " Baboo," who was employed by the Government in a 
 subordinate capacity. He was a Bengalee, and as such 
 had just as much reason to be alarmed for his safety as 
 any Englishman at the station. One day he was pur- 
 suing his avocation at a wharf on the river, armed with 
 a pistol, which he kept to protect his life and property 
 against the stray mutineers, and other vagraiits, who 
 swarmed in those troubled regions, when a steam-flat 
 came up the stream carrying a detachment of English 
 troops. The commanding officer sent a boat to com- 
 municate with the authorities on shore. The crew, 
 seeing a man who, to their eyes, presented a suspicious 
 appearance, hanging about the jetty, took it into their 
 
COOXY BABOO. 253 
 
 heads that he might just as well hang on board then- 
 steamer, and accordingly seized him and searched his 
 person. When the pistol came t.o light, they made no 
 doubt but that he was a mutineer who had in. some 
 unaccountable manner been delivered into their hands. 
 They forthwith took him on board, where, after a short 
 but satisfactory investigation, the poor Baboo was ordered 
 for immediate execution. Happily, in the nick of time, 
 a civil officer appeared on the scene, who, when he saw 
 the prisoner, exclaimed, " Why, it is Coony Baboo ! 
 " What are they doing to j^ou, Coony ? " It was with 
 great difficulty that the captors could be induced to 
 believe the assurances of the civilian, whom they evi- 
 dently regarded as an emissary of Lord Canning, and 
 a representative of that clemency policy which was the 
 bugbear of the day. 
 
 At a place hundreds of miles distant from the seat of 
 war, some brinjarries, or corn-dealers, came into the camp 
 of a regiment which had been a very short while in the 
 country. The men on guard observed that the heads of 
 the strangers were shaved, and knew by instiact that 
 they must be sepoys. A hastUy-constituted tribunal 
 took cognizance of the matter, and called in a sergeant 
 who had the reputation of a profound knowledge of 
 India. Pleased at being consulted, he cocked his eye, 
 and, after due inspection, pronounced that the prisoners 
 were undoubtedly sepoys. A civilian, who was present, 
 remonstrated most vehemently, but was answered with 
 the primd facie argument, ''You see their heads are 
 " shaved ! They must be sepoys." At length his im- 
 portunity prevailed, and the colonel ordered the soldiers 
 to take the brinjarries to the outskirts of the camp and 
 
254 BED-COOLmS. 
 
 let tliem go. These orders were obeyed to the letter. 
 The men were led beyond the tents, set free, and shot 
 down as they ran away. 
 
 A story was current at the time, which, if not true, 
 had at any rate so much the air of truth, that people 
 did not take the trouble to refuse it credence. Some 
 troops, fresh from England, were marching up country 
 under the orders of an old brigadier. One morning, 
 just before the tents were struck, a couple of dirty 
 miserable beings were detected lurking outside the line 
 of sentries. They were seized, and brought before 
 the commanding officer, who questioned them closely. 
 Whether from the consciousness of guilt, or an in- 
 ability to understand Aldershott Hindoostanee, the poor 
 wretches answered only by uncouth gestures and dis- 
 jointed exclamations. The verdict was : " Spies, spies ! 
 " Hang 'em up ! " and the word was given to march. 
 At the next halting-place the colonel's bed was missing. 
 The old fellow stormed, and fretted, and cursed his ser- 
 vants freely, but with no result. At length his sirdar- 
 bearer came forward trembling, and putting his hands 
 together in an attitude of supplication, as their wont is 
 when addressing a superior, said in a tone of depre- 
 catory explanation : " Master done give order hang up 
 " bed-cooUes." 
 
 The events of those times have left their trace ia 
 our military vocabulary. During the year and a half 
 which followed the outbreak at Meerut, to " loot " and 
 to " polish off " became household verbs in the British 
 army. It was only the other day that I was present 
 while a party of military men were discussing the 
 beauties and antiquities of Benares. " Gad," exclaimed 
 
LOOTISO S^XJESS. 255 
 
 one of tliem, "what a town it would be to loot. They 
 '' say that nobody knows when it was looted last. 
 " There must be at least ten ciore of jewels and coin 
 " somewhere about the place." The notion seemed 
 M-onderfully palatable to the company, and afforded 
 a pregnant subject of conversation. Meanwhile, I sat 
 with my mouth wide open, marvelling how on earth 
 English officers could entertain the idea of plundering 
 a city which was exactly as much an English city as 
 York or Exeter. Talk of this description is childish 
 enough, but, when indulged ia frequently, it becomes 
 significant. The sterling qualities of our army alone 
 rescued it from utter demoralization. No other soldiers 
 ia the world could have preserved their self-respect 
 amidst so fearful an ordeal. Eighteen months ia such 
 a school woxdd have turned the French line-regiments 
 into Zouaves, the Zouaves into Turcos, and the Turcos 
 into cannibals. 
 
 After all, however, the best hope of the miserable 
 natives lay in the justice and moderation of ofi&cial 
 men. The stern and cold animosity of the civilians, 
 the reckless and unscrupulous retribution dealt out by 
 the military, were as nothing to the rabid ferocity of the 
 non-official community. These men had come to the 
 shores of India for the sole purpose of making money. 
 They were under no professional obligation of providing 
 for the prosperity and happiness of the population, and 
 indeed were too apt to regard their dark fellow-subjects 
 simply as tools for promoting their own ends. Now that 
 their lives and fortunes were brought to the extreme of 
 jeopardy, in consequence of a wide-spread and most 
 formidable revolt of the despised race, their fury and 
 
25C TONE OF TEE PRESS. 
 
 hatred knew no measure. In one or two instances the 
 Government was constrained by the pressure of circum- 
 stances to place power in the hands of men of this class. 
 In one great city some low Europeans were vested with 
 full magisterial authority. The unhappy place was de- 
 livered over to a Eeign of Terror. Whatever misery 
 could be inflicted by cupidity, private malice, and vulgar 
 barbaritj'-, was endured to the full by the wretched 
 natives at the hands of this triumvirate of snobs. 
 
 The tone of the press was horrible. l_]Srever did the 
 cry for blood swell so loud as among these Christians 
 and Englishmen in the middle of the nineteenth cen- 
 turyT^ The pages of those brutal and grotesque journals 
 published by Hubert and Marat during the agony of 
 the French Eevolution, contained nothing that was not 
 matched and surpassed ia the files of some Calcutta 
 papers. Because the pampered Bengal sepoys had be- 
 haved like double-dyed rascals, therefore every Hindoo 
 and Mussulman was a rebel, a traitor, a murderer ; 
 therefore, we were to pray that all the population of 
 India might have one neck, and that all the hemp in 
 India might be twisted into one rope. It would be 
 wearisome to quote specimens of the style of that day. 
 Every column teemed with invectives which at the time 
 seemed coarse and tedious, but which we must now pro- 
 nounce to be wicked and blasphemous. For what could 
 be more audacious than to assert that Providence had 
 granted us a right to destroy a nation in our wrath ? — 
 to slay, and burn, and plunder, not in the cause of order 
 and civilization, but in the name of our insatiable ven- 
 geance, and our imperial displeasure ? The wise ruler, 
 whose comprehensive and impartial judgment preserved 
 
ABUSE OF LORD CANNING. 257 
 
 him from the contagion of that fatal frenzy, was assailed 
 with a storm of obloquy for which we should in vain 
 seek a precedent in history. To read the newspapers of 
 that day, you would believe that Lord Canning was at 
 the bottom of the Avhole mutiny; that upon his head 
 was the guilt of the horrors of Cawnpore and Allahabad ; 
 that it was he who had passed round the chupatties and 
 the lotahs, and spread the report that the Euss was 
 marching down from the north to drive the English into 
 the sea. After all, the crime charged against him was, 
 not that he had hindered the butchery, but that his 
 heart was not in the work. No one had the face to say, 
 or, at any rate, no one had the weakness to believe, that 
 Lord Canning had pardoned any considerable number 
 of condenmed rebels. His. crying sin was this, that 
 he took little or no pleasure in the extermination of 
 the people whom he had been commissioned by his 
 Sovereign to govern and protect. 
 
 After Lord Canning, Sir John Peter Grant had the 
 gratification of being the personage most profusely and 
 fiercely maligned by the enemies of the native : which 
 honourable position he long retaiaed, until of late Sir 
 Charles Wood put in his claim, — a claim which has 
 been instantly and fully recognised. A certain journal 
 made the brilliant suggestion that Sir John Peter, had 
 he dared, would very Ukely have released the sepoys 
 whom General NeiU had ordered for execution, and 
 then proceeded to abuse him as if he had actually so 
 done. This hypothetical case soon grew into a fact. 
 It was stated positively in all quarters, that Sir John 
 Peter Grant had set free the murderers of Cawnpore, 
 with a bombastic proclamation, containing the words 
 
 s 
 
258 SIR JOHN PETER AND HIS HIGH AUTHORITY. 
 
 " in virtue of my high authority," an expression which 
 at once discredited the story in the estimation of all 
 who knew the man. Sir John and his high authority 
 were reviled and ridiculed in the daily and weekly 
 papers of England, and India, in conversation, on the 
 stage, and on the hustings. Meanwhile, with native 
 laziness and good-humour, he said nothing, and allowed 
 the tempest to whistle about his ears without moving 
 a muscle. At length the Home Government wrote out 
 to the Governor- General, directing him to take cogni- 
 sance of the affair; and he accordingly requested the 
 accused party to explain how the matter stood. Then 
 Sir John spoke out, and af&rmed that the report was 
 a pure fabrication; that he never enlarged a single 
 sepoy ; and that, had he . desired to thwart General 
 NeiU, such interference would have been entirely out of 
 his power. Hereupon, the press in general proceeded to 
 make amends in a fuU and satisfactory manner. One 
 newspaper, however, had no intention of letting him off 
 so easily, and put forward an apology which was exqui- 
 sitely characteristic, and which probably diverted the 
 object quite as much as it was designed to vex him. 
 The gist of it was, that Sir John had imdoubtedly been 
 falsely charged in this particular instance, but that he 
 was such a confirmed and abandoned friend of the 
 native as quite to deserve everything he had got ; and 
 that no contumely, whether rightly or wrongly bestowed 
 on him, could by any possibility come amiss. 
 
 And now who can wonder that among a generation 
 which has gone through such a crisis philanthropy is 
 somewhat at a discount? It is unjust to blame men 
 who have lost their fortunes and friends and health in 
 
PHILANTHBOPY AT A DISCOUNT. 259 
 
 the desperate struggle, because the moment the victory 
 is decided, they cannot set to work heart and soul at 
 concocting and promoting plans for the benefit of their 
 conquered foe ! That struggle irresistibly reminded us 
 that we were an imperial race, holding our own on a 
 conquered soil by dint of valour and foresight. Can- 
 tonments and arsenals, field batteries, and breachin? 
 batteries, seemed more essential to the government of 
 the country than courts of law, normal schools, and 
 agricultural exhibitions. The questions of the day 
 were, not whether Sanskrit should be taught at the 
 Presidency College, or to what extent the pure mathe- 
 matics of Hindoo men of science were borrowed from 
 European sources ; but whether artUlery might safely 
 be posted at a station where no English cavalry were 
 quartered; whether the advantages of massing troops 
 at central points compensated for the sanitary dangers 
 of that measure. As long as human nature remains 
 what it is, men who have just made a great and suc- 
 cessful effort wQl ask themselves whether they and 
 theirs are not to profit by their exertions. Had we 
 poured forth our blood like water in order that the 
 children of sepoys might receive a better education 
 than they would have obtained in the event of their 
 fathers having overturned the British supremacy? In 
 order that the disaffected Eajpoots of Shahabad might 
 reap the advantages of a more speedy and equitable 
 administration of justice than they would have enjoyed 
 under the rule of Coer Sing? What was England to 
 gain in return for her millions of money and thousands 
 of lives? Did she not merit some more substantial 
 recompense for having recovered India, than the privi- 
 
 s 2 
 
260 WHAT ARE WE TO GAIN? 
 
 lege of governing the Indians in a spirit of wisdom and 
 unselfishness ? Echo and the planters answered " yes ! " 
 though equity and humanity steadily continued to assert 
 that the events of 1857 and 1858 had not altered a 
 whit our position in India — that our re-conquest could 
 be justified in the sight of God and Europe only by the 
 same conditions as had justified our original conquest. 
 We must still govern the land in the interest of the in- 
 habitants. We must stUl provide them with everything 
 that is essential to their well-being and happiness. We 
 must still pay rent and taxes, keep the roof tight and 
 the drains open, or out we must turn as unprofitable 
 and dishonest tenants. 
 
 It is greatly to the credit of the civilians that they 
 hearkened to the voice of equity and humanity. The 
 natives cannot accuse their governors of neglect or 
 injustice. They have no reason to regret having ex- 
 changed Munro and Elphinstone for Grant and Beadon. 
 Most of our officers would do all and suffer all rather 
 than betray their trust. Some have already done much, 
 and suffered not a little. But the new order of things 
 is not as the old. The children of the soil are no 
 longer regarded with the lively interest, the credulous 
 partiality of yore. Those are plants which do not 
 flourish amid the rank weeds and rushes, the sand and 
 rubble that overspread the land which was lately sub- 
 merged by the deluge of civil strife. Men cannot at 
 will cast aside the recollection of those times when all 
 was doubt and confusion and dismay ; when a great 
 fear was their companion, day and night; when the 
 mother and children were in sanctuary at the head- 
 quarters of the Division ; when the husband worked. 
 
THE EVROPEJN SETTLERS. 261 
 
 with a loaded revolver among his papers, a horse stand- 
 ing saddled in the stable, his feet resting upon a pair of 
 saddle-bags crammed with his most valuable property. 
 The distrust and dislike engendered by such an ex- 
 perience are too deeply rooted to be plucked up by an 
 act of volition. 
 
 Though the civilians do not allow the impressions 
 left by the events of the mutiny to influence their 
 opinions and their conduct, the case is far other witli 
 the non-of&cial society. And here I may remark that 
 there is some difficulty in finding an appellation for the 
 members of that society. They themselves insist upon 
 it that the civilians have given them the name of " inter- 
 " lopers/' and grow extremely wroth over this imaginary 
 grievance. I solemnly declare that I never heard the 
 word used in conversation by a civilian, and never saw 
 it in print, except when it occurs in the effusions of the 
 " interloping" party. On occasions, when they are very 
 angry indeed, they will have it that they are called 
 "adventurers." Perhaps "settlers" is the least objec- 
 tionable and most comprehensive title. 
 
 The European settlers in India speedily acquired that 
 contempt for the Bengalees which it is a law of nature 
 that the members of a conquering race should entertain 
 for the subject population among whom they live. As 
 the Norman baron regarded the Saxon churl, as the 
 Dutch boer regarded the Hottentot, so it was inevitable 
 that the English planter should regard the ryot and the 
 cooly. No one can estimate very highly the moral and 
 intellectual qualities of people among whom he resides 
 for the single purpose of turning them to pecuniary 
 account. But in the course of time a new element was 
 
262 THEIR AVEBSION FOR THE NATIVE. 
 
 added to the feelings which the settler displayed towards 
 the Hindoo. Dislike appeared by the side of disdain. 
 The Dutchman might treat the Hottentot as he pleased, 
 wiyiout the interposition of Government, as represented 
 by a numerous and able body of public servants paid 
 to protect and cherish the ancient population of the 
 country. Front-de-Boeuf and Brian Bois de Guilbert 
 did what was right in their own eyes, without fear of 
 being charged with dacoity and abduction under the 
 revised penal code before the civil and sessions judge of 
 the district. But the English settler became aware that 
 he must behave towards the Bengalee as towards a fel- 
 low-citizen and fellow-subject, or the local magistrate 
 and the Supreme Court would know the reason why. 
 This discovery did not raise his opinion of the natives, 
 but caused him to look on them in the light of enemies, 
 possessed of rights and privileges whereto they had no 
 just claim, and which, as time went on, they might be 
 tempted to employ against him as weapons of annoy- 
 ance. His state was much that of a boy at school who 
 is prevented by an wholesome dread of the monitors 
 from fagging a stupid, cowardly fellow in the same bed- 
 room with himself to the extent which the eternal fit- 
 ness of things appears to him to demand — a position 
 which is not calculated to foster the most kindly senti- 
 ments of our nature. 
 
 At the period of the mutiny the feeling of aversion 
 was intensified into deadly hatred. For a season this 
 hatred was shared by the entire mass of our country- 
 men. Invectives against the treacherous, blood-thirsty 
 Mussulman, ironical sneers about the " mild Hindoo," 
 were nuts alike to the civilian and the planter. The 
 
ABDIEL. £63 
 
 latter rejoiced to hear the world acknowledge that his 
 estimate of the native had been correct throughout. 
 But this glimpse of happiness was too bright to last. 
 This sweet vision of a Utopia of rampant Anglo-Saxons 
 and " damned niggers " melted away as swiftly as it had 
 arisen, and disclosed the stern reality in all its horrid 
 nakedness : a land flowing indeed with ghee and indigo, 
 but peopled by a race of free peasants, possessed of an 
 ancient interest in the soil, and by an oppressed and 
 disheartened community of Englishmen, whose unnatu- 
 ral mother-country refused to recognise any distinction 
 in civic rights between a nigger doomed to everlasting 
 torment and a white man iu a state of salvation. At 
 home the reaction against a severe and retributive policy 
 set in with irresistible strength. People fell to repent- 
 ing their recent excesses, in sackcloth and ashes ; or, to 
 speak more accurately, in pamphlets and May meetings. 
 The of&cial society out here soon followed suit, and the 
 unfortunate settler found himself in the plight of a 
 colonial Abdiel, " faithful only he " to the great prin- 
 ciples of the debasement of the native, the domination of 
 the Anglo-Saxon, and the " development of the resources 
 " of India " into English pockets. Always sore upon 
 the question of the social and political condition of the 
 native, he now became positively raw and festering. 
 The events of the last few years have certainly not 
 been of a nature to soothe his injured soul. His morbid 
 detestation of the Bengalees, as displayed in the pages 
 of the local journals, would be ludicrous, if there could 
 be a ludicrous side to a phenomenon so painful and Ul- 
 omened. One unfortunate correspondent, who happened 
 to make use of the expression, " our native brethren," 
 
264 " THE TWO OEEAT BAOES." 
 
 was lately treated to a column of indignant remonstrance 
 and ill-tempered satire. A certain of&cial, in answer to 
 an affectionate address presented to him by a large 
 number of wealthy and influential Hiadoos, spoke of 
 " the two great races " who occupy India. Next morn- 
 ing he was taken to task firmly but respectfully for 
 having been weak enough to call the natives a " great 
 " race/' and place them by implication, on an equality 
 with Englishmen. As if this gentleman, in order to 
 gratify the vanity and spite of any class in existence, 
 would have chosen to insult a body of worthy men who 
 had assembled to give him a mark of respect and devo- 
 tion, by reminding them that they belonged to an inferior 
 and subject people ! 
 
 It is only natural that the protectors of the native 
 should come in for a share of odium. Though the great 
 majority of planters live on the most cordial terms with 
 the officials in their neighbourhood, it cannot be denied 
 that the meneurs . of the party have worked themselves 
 up into a state of violent excitement against the very 
 name of civilian. I said above that the events of the 
 last few years have not been of a nature to calm the 
 agitation of the public mind. In fact, from the day 
 that law and order were restored throughout the land, 
 one vexed question has followed, another in swift and 
 baneful succession. 
 
 First came the great indigo row. Now, if you cannot 
 touch pitch without being defiled, you certainly cannot 
 touch indigo without being made to look uncommonly 
 blue. Besides, I am not one of those who enjoy walk- 
 ing " through fires placed under the crafty cinder ; " so 
 I wUl confine myself to stating boldly that over vast 
 
ASELBT EDEN. 265 
 
 tracts of Bengal the ryots cultivated indigo under a 
 system wMch, in the hands of shrewd and energetic 
 European planters, had become an instrument of intoler- 
 able oppression. Many of these poor fellows (excited, 
 as some think, by the general up-turning of society 
 occasioned by the rebellion) objected to grow indigo, 
 on the ground that other crops paid them better. 
 Upon this their employers, in many cases, sowed the 
 lands by the hands of their, myrmidons, who meanwhile 
 kept the unfortunate proprietors at a distance by terror 
 of sword and cudgel. This went on until a young 
 magistrate, the Honourable Ashley Eden, of all the 
 friends of the native the most consistent and audacious, 
 (no unimportant quality in a state of society where 
 philanthropy is useless unless backed up by audacity), 
 like the worthy sou of an English Bishop, stepped in 
 with the following order : — 
 
 " Since the ryots can sow on their lands whatever 
 " crop they like, no one can without their consent and 
 " by violence sow any other crop ; ordered, therefore, 
 " that the original petition be sent to the Deputy- 
 " ^Magistrate of Mitterhaut, in order that he may send 
 " policemen to the ryots' land to prevent any disturb- 
 " ances that are likely to . ensue from any compulsory 
 " cultivation of their lands, and instruct them — if the 
 " land is really that of the ryots — not to allow any one 
 " to interfere with it If the ryots wish to sow indigo 
 " w anything else, the policemen u-ill see that there is no 
 " disturbance'' 
 
 This occasioned the appointment of the Indigo Com- 
 mission ; which, after a searching and patient investi- 
 gation, brought to light a vast number of facts which 
 
266 THE INDIQO COMMISSION. 
 
 proved tlie horrible tendency of the existing system. 
 There can be no object in boring or shocking you, as 
 the case may be, with a long array of grievances and 
 abuses. Suffice it to say that the Commission reported 
 that " the planters, as a lody, are not acquitted of the 
 " practice of kidnapping and illegally confining indi- 
 " viduals ; '' and that (while thirty thousand cultivators 
 of the poppy, within the limits of a single agency, had 
 in the course of a few years thrown up their opium 
 contracts, and resumed them only on obtaiuing a con- 
 siderable advance in price from the Government) out of 
 the hundreds of thousands of ryots who grow indigo not 
 one, could he produced who had cleared Ms accounts with 
 his employer, and been permitted to hreak off his connexion 
 with the factory. It was likewise ascertained, though 
 not inserted in the Eeport, that certain of the planters 
 were in the habit of carrying about a " Sham Chand," 
 or leathern instrument of flagellation, with which to 
 flog the free peasant proprietors with whom they had 
 deaUngs. And these are the sons of the men who 
 thought the abolition of negro slavery cheap at twenty 
 millions sterling ! 
 
 In the heat of the mM^e the Eev. Mr. Long pub- 
 lished a translation of a vernacular drama, entitled, 
 " Nil Durpan," or, " The Mirror of Indigo,'* giving the 
 aspect of the question as seen from a native point of 
 view. In so doing he acted in accordance with the 
 spirit of the Missionaries, "whose conduct," says the 
 Eeport, " during the late controversy and crisis, is not 
 " blameworthy, and that of many has been straight- 
 " forward, manly, and considerate." In the preface 
 Mr. Long reflected in severe but just terms upon the 
 
NIL LUBPAN. 267 
 
 line taken by the t\ro leading Anglo-Saxon journals. 
 By the exertions of the " Planters' Association " he was 
 brought to trial, and indicted on two counts : first, for 
 having libelled the Englishman and the Bengal Hurkani^, 
 in the preface ; and, secondly, for having libelled " tlie, 
 "general hochj of planters," in the play itself. The passages 
 which excited the most animadversion were the follow- 
 ing. The first occurs in a conversation between two 
 native women. 
 
 " Reboti. jMoreover, the wife of the indigo-planter, 
 " in order to make her husband's case strong, has sent 
 " a letter to the magistrate, since it is said that the 
 " magistrate hears her words most attentively." 
 
 " Aduri. I saw the lady. She has no shame at all. 
 " When the magistrate of the Zillah (whose name 
 " occasions great terror) goes riding about through the 
 " village, the lady also rides on horseback with him. 
 " Eiding about on a horse ! Because the aunt of Kezi 
 " once laughed before the elder brother of her husband 
 " all people ridiculed her : while this was the magistrate 
 " of the Zillah." 
 
 The second runs as follows. The Daroga, or pohce- 
 sergeant, says to the jemmadar of the jail : — 
 
 " I)id not the magistrate say he will come here this 
 "day?" 
 
 "Jemmadar. Wo, sir. He has four days more to 
 " come. On Saturday they have a champagne-party 
 " and ladies' dance. Mrs. Wood can never dance mth 
 " any one but our Sahib. I saw that when I was a 
 " bearer. Mrs. Wood is very kind. Through the in- 
 " fluence of one letter she got me the jemmadary of the 
 "jail" • 
 
2G8 A CEARQB FROM THE BENCH. 
 
 With reference to these passages the judge on the 
 bench spoke to the following effect, as reported in the 
 contemporary papers : — 
 
 " His Lordship approached the subject with sorrow 
 " and disgust, as any man must. Eeading these pas- 
 " sages, it was impossible to speak of them otherwise 
 " than as a foul and filthy slander against a society of 
 " helpless women, who, under the mask of a general 
 " type, were cruelly stabbed in the dark. If it meant 
 " anything, it was not merely a slander against the 
 " wives of planters, hut it was for the Jury to consider 
 " whether it was not intended as a reproach on the vjhole 
 " middle class of the women of England, whence they 
 " came. The jury, the civilians, the soldiers, the 
 " merchants in this country, alike had their origin from 
 " that middle class whose daughters were here so 
 " shamefully maligned. Those women came to this 
 " country to share a life of toil and hardship with their 
 " husbands, far from the friendships and protection of 
 " their native land." 
 
 By the way, talking of the protection of their native 
 land, was Mr. Thackeray indicted for calumniating 
 under the mask of the general type of Becky Sharp, the 
 whole middle class of the women of England, whence 
 she came ? 
 
 The Judge proceeds, or rather is said by the papers 
 to have proceeded, thus :— 
 
 " Would they believe that those women were in the 
 " habit of prostituting themselves in order to gain the 
 " decision of magistrates who were bound by oath to 
 " administer the law with strict impartiality ? Would 
 " they believe that those magistrates were in the habit 
 
PERSECUTION. 269 
 
 " of violatiug the solemn obligations of their duty and 
 '• conscience to gratify licentious desire ? 
 
 " "Would the reverend gentleman point out how far 
 " he thought this fiUhi/ statement was calculated to 
 " bring about improvements in social morals. When 
 " he read those JiUhy passages he blushed to tliink that 
 " a clergyman of the established Church of England 
 " could have lent himself to the propagation of so 
 " malicious and unfounded a slander. That state- 
 " ment would go forth to the mothers and daughters 
 " of the middle class in England to make them think 
 " that is the fate of their daughters here. Not a 
 " gentleman in any station but would tear the filthi/ 
 " production ; but, above all, every ci-sdlian, soldier, 
 " and merchant, and he hoped every clergyman, would 
 '• agree that it shoidd never reach the firesides of 
 '■ England." 
 
 The' best comment on these last words is afforded 
 by a lady famous for her virtues and charities, who, 
 writing to a friend in India, declared herself unable 
 to form a judgment on the impropriety of the objection- 
 able passages, as her husband had received an ex- 
 purgated copy. It is needless to say that the filthy 
 production had reached her fireside in all its revolting 
 integrity. 
 
 The jury did not require to be stimulated from the 
 tench. JNIr. Long was thrown into jaO. and heavily 
 fined ; though I have reason to believe that certain 
 good friends did not allow the expense to fall upon his 
 slender wages as a missionary. One juryman was said 
 to have held out against the verdict for a short space. 
 This same man, this rery year, though a scholar and a 
 
270 RENT. 
 
 gentleman of high official rank and blameless character, 
 was blackballed at the Bengal Club, whither men con- 
 nected with indigo do most resort. 
 
 Close upon the heels of the indigo row came the rent 
 dispute. Some planters, who at the same time were 
 landholders, raised the rents of their tenantry, on the 
 principle of doing what they liked with their own ; while 
 the civilians, as a class, maintained that the ryots had 
 an undefined but undoubted right in the land, which 
 had been confirmed by Act Ten of '59. This complica- 
 tion was not calculated to throw oil on the troubled 
 pools. When the matter was laid before the Lord Chief 
 Justice of Bengal; he decided broadly and roundly 
 against the ryot ; a decision which, if carried into effect, 
 would reduce millions upon millions of peasant pro- 
 prietors to the condition of Irish cottier tenants, ground 
 to the earth by a rack-rent, and a sense of humiliating 
 dependence without aim or hope. The civilian magis- 
 trates and judges, however, so arrange matters that the 
 planters have got very scant satisfaction from this de- 
 cision of the Chief Justice. 
 
 Then came the renewed demand for a criminal con- 
 tract law, a subject with regard to which a planter is as 
 touchy as a Buckinghamshire farmer in the matter of 
 Free Trade and Protection. The modification of the 
 resolutions concerning the sale of waste lands did not 
 tend to heal the breach ; and the ringleaders of the 
 European settlers now regard the civilians as their 
 sworn foes, and have firmly persuaded themselves that, 
 in their public acts, our officers are influenced by an 
 inveterate hatred of all English capitalists and Zemin- 
 dars. Eead the following extracts from the writings of 
 
MR. CECIL BEADON. 271 
 
 one of the shining lights of what he himself calls the 
 " interloping " paxty : — 
 
 " I feel compelled to protest against the supiueness on 
 " the part of interlopers, which has been permitting the 
 " Government, now, as formerly, under the rule o:^ the 
 " Ti-aditional Policy Party, to undo all that has been 
 " done, and to return by degrees to the state of things 
 " which prevailed before the mutinies. Not two years 
 "ago, interlopers had conquered and dismissed a lieu- 
 " tenant-governor, had overcome the prejudices which 
 " the governor-general had been imbibing for five years 
 "fi-om his ci\-ilian advisers, and had seen their old 
 "enemy, Mr. Cecil Beadon, introducing that horror of 
 " civilians, a Contract Act, into the Legislative Council. 
 " I shall not call to your recollection at present the 
 "minor circumstances of their triumph, siich as the 
 " discomfiture of ilr. Seton-Karr and others. Not two 
 " years ago interlopers were in the zenith of their power ; 
 " but, having arrived to that proud eminence, they seem 
 " to have lain down and slept there, till their old 
 " enemies, recovering, ventured to give them a shove, 
 "and sent them down the hill much faster than they 
 " climbed it." 
 
 Then follows a jeremiad on the falling-off of Mr. 
 Beadon, who appears to have "relapsed into the pure 
 " civilian which he had always been, guided by the prin- 
 " ciples and maxims of civUianism, which had become 
 "his second nature." Happily, whatever may be the 
 second nature of that worthy successor of Sir John Peter 
 Grant, his first nature is as noble and genial as any being 
 on earth is blessed with. After this comes a description 
 of " the civilian policy, which never dies, but is handed 
 
272 ANGLO-SAXON WRITINa. 
 
 "down from one generation to another, more than a 
 " match for the tactics of a society whose members are 
 "ever changing, and whose leaders are even now scat- 
 " te'red, though but such a short time has elapsed since 
 " the date of their greatest victories ; and I am sorry to 
 " say that we have but little chance of seeing them re- 
 " united, or of seeing another band of men fighting like 
 " them, until civilian misrule again destroys a great 
 " industry, or inflicts some unbearable oppression upon 
 " a race which is but too long-suffering." And so on, 
 and so on, usque ad nauseam. There is plenty more of 
 this to be had at the same shop. It is wearisome work, 
 morning after morning wading through huge masses 
 of balderdash, in which her Majesty's servants are 
 held up to execration because they prevent one class 
 of her subjects from oppressing and enslaving another 
 class. 
 
 The theory that the native is his equal in the eyes 
 of the law is of itself sufficiently aggravating to the 
 European settler ; but, when the occasion comes for that 
 theory to be put in practice, when justice demands that 
 one of our countrymen should be brought to account for 
 outrage or oppression, then class hatred breaks forth into 
 a paroxysm of illogical fury ; then is the great Anglo- 
 Saxon spirit neither to hold nor to bind ; then are the 
 "English name,'' and the "development of the resources 
 " of India," unlimbered, and trundled out to overawe the 
 civilian magistrates and the judges of the High Court. 
 It was bad enough not to be permitted to hang 
 natives at discretion, but what if it came to hanging 
 a member of the imperial race ? Last year, one Kudd, 
 who was in the service of a Mr. Jellicoe, was desired by 
 
MURDER. 2Ta 
 
 his master to procure a sheep for the use of the house- 
 hold. He accordingly selected one from the flock of 
 a shepherd of the name of Fazil, -who objected to his 
 choice, saying, " Sir, do not take the sheep ; she is with 
 " young, and I ■wiU give you another." To this piece of 
 Indian perversity Eudd replied by carryiag off the 
 animal vi ct armis. The owner followed him to the 
 bungalow, and appealed to Mr. Jellicoe, who, after hear- 
 ing of the story, gave back the sheep, and reproved his 
 servant for his want of consideration. The weak and 
 un-English behaviour of his master gave great offence to 
 Eudd, whose righteous and Anglo-Saxon soul was vexed 
 to such a point that he could vent his indignation by no 
 milder measure than that of pelting Fazil with stones, 
 and kicking him in the loins — a proceeding which excited 
 sympathy rather than surprise among the bystanders, 
 who were probably accustomed to Eiidd's method of 
 conducting a purely commercial transaction. Apparently 
 imagining that enough had not been done to avenge the 
 EngUsh name upon this insolent nigger, our countryman 
 soon afterwards took a gun from the house and fired in 
 the air, over Fazil's head ; and then, having brought out 
 another gun, shot the poor feUow through the back as 
 he ran away. The murderer retuxned to the bungalow 
 '■ \erj pale : " a pallor which was much insisted on by 
 liis admirers as a proof of the kindliness of liis disposi- 
 tion. His victim died soon after, and Eudd was put 
 upon his trial, and overwhelmed by a mass of evidence, 
 native and English, which could leave no doubt of his 
 guilt on the minds of the most indulgent jury. Sir 
 Charles Jackson (who, by the way, has never been for- 
 given for the part which he played on this occasion), in 
 
 T 
 
274 ' HYPOGRISr. 
 
 spite of his evident compassion for the prisoner, summed 
 up like a true English judge who does not fear what 
 man or the Calcutta press can do unto him. Eudd was 
 convicted of wilful murder — murder all the more horrible 
 from the wanton brutality which considered no punish- 
 ment too severe for a native who dared to have a voice 
 in the disposal of his own property. 
 
 Then the Bengal Hurharu^ spoke out: "We discern 
 " signs that Calcutta will be stirred to its utmost depths 
 " in a day oi two, all classes and conditions of men 
 " banding together for a common object, to achieve the 
 " gain of a human life, an existence which is forfeit to 
 " the public strangler. Marvellous, indeed, is the power 
 " of the instinct of mercy. Mightier and holier the wish 
 " to save than the yearning to destroy." And this was 
 the very journal which but three short years before cried 
 the loudest and longest for blood, and yet more blood ! 
 which howled at Lord Canning as a traitor because he 
 displayed no marked satisfaction at the consciousness 
 that more natives had been hung during his reign than 
 under all the former Viceroys together ! which called 
 down fire from heaven upon every civilian who refused 
 to degrade himself from a j udge into a " public strangler ! " 
 Marvellous, indeed, was the power of "the instinct of 
 
 1 "Wherever througliout these pages reflections occur on the Bengal 
 Hurkaru, no allusion is intended to anything that has appeared since 
 the paper came into the hands ol Mr. James Hutton, who has edited 
 it with considerable ability, and in a spirit of ti-ue philanthropy, from 
 the date of March 1st, 1863. An exception has been made in the 
 case of the English Correspondence, written, as generally supposed, by 
 a former editor now resident at home. This Mr. Hutton, according to 
 the custom of the Indian press, has been bound to publish, without 
 alteration or omission. 
 
MORE HYPOCRISY. 275 
 
 " mercy ' in the months that followed the mutiny. That 
 quality, as far as the Sepoys were concerned, was cer- 
 tainly strained uncommonly fine. The relation between 
 the might and holiness of the wish to save and the 
 yearning to destroy, ia the year 1862, was exactly 
 what it had been in the year- 1857. This talk about 
 ■'human life," and "marvellous instincts," and "holy 
 "wishes,'' ill became those who had so lately been the 
 foremost to hound on the slayer. It would have been 
 more honest to have refi-ained from these generalisations, 
 and boldly to have declared that the sentence of the law 
 must not be carried out because, "s-illain as he might be, 
 Iludd belonged to the Anglo-Saxon race — because the 
 murdered man was no better than a damned nigger. 
 
 When such was the state of feeling in the European 
 community there was no diihculty in obtaining a vast 
 number of signatm-es to a petition urging the Governor- 
 General to commute the sentence. Xaturally enough 
 the educated Hindoos, who had but just now been 
 accustomed to see multitudes of innocent natives hung 
 simply because they were natives, were scandalised at 
 the notion that a guilty Englishman must be spared, 
 simply because he was an Englishman. One of these 
 men expressed the sentiments of his class in a tem- 
 perate and well written article, containing the following 
 passage : — " If the oflender has deserved the extreme 
 ■' penalty of the law, in the name of justice and humanity 
 " let the forfeit be extorted. Let blood be shed for blood. 
 " To attempt in such a case to mitigate the punislunent 
 ■ is to attempt to pervert justice, to shake the staple 
 " foundations upon which society rests." These expres 
 sions, in the eyes, of the Hurkaru, savoured of blas- 
 
 t2 
 
276 THE MOSAIC DISPENSATION. 
 
 phemy and ferocity, and called fortli an invective, of 
 which the following lines are a specimen : — " The editor 
 "is a sable Christian — one who has grafted upon the 
 " traditional mildness of the Hindoo character the 
 " charitable tendencies of the Gospel. Christian Cali 
 " desires blood, and denounces the immorality which 
 " would afford a criminal the chance of sobbing out his 
 " life in ignominy and pain." 
 
 What would this humane gentleman have said if Sir 
 John Peter Grant, in virtue of his high authority, had 
 packed off General iN'eill's prisoners to " sob out their 
 " lives in ignominy and pain " on the shores of the 
 Andamans? To my mind the writer had better have 
 thought twice before he had accused his neighbours of 
 impiety. Another statement in the same columns is 
 only saved from being revolting by its extreme absur- 
 dity : — " The Mosaic dispensation is dispensed with by 
 " the Christian era. A mightier than Moses is Prince of 
 " Justice." Does this mean that it was under the Law 
 that we hung ryots in 1857, and that in-, obedience to 
 the Gospel we are to spare murderers in 1862 ? Was 
 the Mosaic dispensation in force during the mutiny, and 
 was the Christian era coincident with the pacification 
 of India? After puzzling over the matter for some 
 time, I at length came to the conclusion that the writer 
 was of opinion that the Mosaic dispensation went out 
 with the old Company, and that the Indian Council and 
 the Evangelists came in together. 
 
 The Governor-General, to his infinite credit, refused 
 to use his prerogative of pardon, and, as a natural con- 
 sequence, the people who had reviled Lord Canning for 
 saving from th.e gallows one out of a thousand con- 
 
COUSAGE OF LORD JELGI2f. 277 
 
 demned natives, now reviled Lord Elgia for sending to 
 the gallows a single Englishman. The Viceroy, how- 
 ever, was proof against that outcry, to which even the 
 stern spirit of his predecessor at lengih yielded — a con- 
 cession that produced such lamentable results during 
 the last months of his otherwise spotless administration. 
 So, finding that he was not likely to be frightened into 
 compliance or repentance by any amount of bluster — 
 conscious, too, that it was impossible to deprive Sir 
 Charles Wood of the honour of being the enemy par 
 c.rccllciicc of the EugHsh name, and invest Lord Elgin 
 with that title on so short a notice — the votaries of 
 Eudd changed their tack, and fell foul of the native 
 community for having instituted the martyrdom of their 
 saint. 
 
 " Give him " (the native) '' an English Hfe. His fore- 
 " fathers offered up human sacnfices to ensure good 
 " harvests, and their descendants ask that the gallows 
 " and the cord may aid in the same good work of pro- 
 " motiug Bengalee happiness." 
 
 " The convict Eudd is to be hanged in spite of the 
 " earnest prayers of more than 3,000 people. Well, 
 " when the gods are to be propitiated, it is well to have 
 " a \'ictini at hand, and the offering will be all the more 
 " acceptable if they are not angry at the moment of 
 " sacrifice. Eudd will die because he is an English- 
 " man." 
 
 " We hesitate not to say that nine-tenths of those 
 " who vote for the public strangling of the unhappy 
 " wi'etch have done so because if Eudd is not hanged 
 " the native population will be dissatisfied. They wiU 
 " do injustice if the heavens threaten to falL" 
 
278 HELY. 
 
 And here occurs an interesting speculation. Why 
 is a native always "polished off," and an Englishman 
 " publicly strangled ?" The operation is the same in 
 both cases. 
 
 Unfortunately, within the last few months, circum- 
 stances have taken place, which have called forth those 
 bad passions that have slept since the execution of 
 Eudd. An English family, who possess a large and 
 thriving estate in the Delta of the Ganges, had long 
 been desirous of purchasing a village which would have 
 rounded off their property. The inhabitants, however, 
 stoutly refused to sell. The servants of the disappointed 
 landholders did their best to annoy and terrify these 
 poor people into acquiescence. On one occasion they 
 made an attack on the village, and got a sound thrash- 
 ing for their pains. They were .now irritated to such a 
 degree, that they resolved to take a signal revenge on 
 these obstinate peasants, and especially on the head 
 man of the place, a Bengalee Naboth, called, as far as I 
 can remember, EaneemooUee. Be it observed that the 
 employers of this pack of rascals had no cognizance 
 whatever of these iniquitous proceedings. They are 
 tmiversaUy acknowledged to be kind-hearted loyal 
 English gentlemen. One night a strong force assailed 
 the village, brutally ill-used the ryots, murdered Eanee- 
 mooUee, and carried off two women of his family. It 
 was strongly suspected that a young Irishman of the 
 name of Dennis Hely had been the ringleader. He dis- 
 appeared immediately after the affair, and the police 
 long searched for him in vain. 
 
 Now here was an occurrence which, one would think, 
 should have stirred the compassion and indignation of 
 
NABOTH. 279 
 
 e^■el■y honest man in Bengal and Behar. Oppression, 
 violence, abduction, murder, brutal satellites, innocent 
 peasants slaughtered for refusing to sell the homesteads 
 of their fathers — no element of horror and vOlany was 
 wanting. On what conditions do we hold India ? What 
 is the strongest plea by which we may justify our occu- 
 pation of the country in the eyes of rival nations and 
 impartial posterity 1 Surely, that we have enthroned 
 order and the law, where rapine and the sword once 
 reigned supreme ; that we have banished from the land, 
 to the best of our power, the curse of brigandage and 
 dacoity. But what gang of dacoits ever committed a 
 more flagrant outrage than this atrocity, which had been 
 perpetrated under the supposed instigation of one of 
 our countrymen ? The sin of Ahab and Jezebel was 
 a trifle to it, for they, at any rate, preserved the forms 
 of justice, and forbore to take the law into their own 
 hands. Would not the first sentiment of every true 
 Englishman be profound pity, and an earnest desue 
 that Hely might be brought to account, in order that 
 if guUty he might expiate his crime, and if guiltless 
 might establish his innocence, and wipe off a foul sus- 
 picion from the English name ? 
 
 "What, then, was the view of the subject taken by the 
 anti-native portion of the Calcutta press ? What was 
 the theme upon which they especially delighted to 
 dwell ? Pity for the sufferers ? No, indeed. Solici- 
 tude for the honoui' of our rule and nation ? Far from 
 it. The fear lest Hely should be condemned by the 
 machinations of the friends of the Hindoo, and the 
 deduction that the Bengalees were damneder niggers 
 than ever, occupied their thoughts so entirely, that no 
 
280 AN ACqUITTAL. 
 
 room was left for more noble or humane sentiments- 
 Hely was at last secured, and put to trial on a charge 
 such that no jury in the world would have convicted 
 him. Instead of indicting him as having been present 
 at and engaged in a murderous riot, the prosecutor 
 undertook to prove that the fatal shot had been fired by 
 the prisoner's own hand. The hopeless confusion of 
 a night attack, and the confusion, far more hopeless, of 
 native evidence, would have prevented such a charge 
 from being substantiated had the accused been ten times 
 guilty. The jury decUned to hear the defence, and at 
 once returned a verdict in his favour. Then appeared a 
 series of leading articles from which we have selected 
 the following extract : — 
 
 " The Conciliation PoHcy, Lord Canning's great 
 " stumbling-block and infatuation, pensively declined 
 " to cut the cords which bound the victim to the altar, 
 " lest the native population should be baulked of the 
 " wished-for immolation. Their instiactive antipathy 
 " to the Feringhee might, it is presumed, be danger- 
 " ously excited without that sacrifice. An annual 
 " tragedy, with a European to do the death-scene, is 
 " a capital contrivance for obviating rebellion. The 
 " tranquillizing entertainment can hardly now be dis- 
 " continued. Cerberus must have his sop, or the in- 
 " fernal regions will become intolerable from his hungry 
 " howlings.'' 
 
 Now I do not hesitate to brand the expression, " an 
 " annual tragedy," as a foul mis-statement. From the 
 columns of this very journal I learn that the last 
 Englishman who suffered the extreme penalty of the 
 law in Calcutta, was a soldier, who was executed as 
 
"FRESH FROM COILEOE." 281 
 
 far back as 1858 for the m\Trder of a comrade and a 
 countryman. Since Eudd, no European has died on the 
 gallows.^ 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 H. Bboughton. 
 
 ' It is satisfactory to observe tliat tlie leading Calcutta journals, 
 whioli'liad hitherto spoken of the " Competition 'Wallah " in terms of 
 exti-avagant and unmerited eixlogy, immediately on the publication of 
 this letter, discovered that he was an ignorant, conceited coxcomb, 
 "iresh from college," vhose efFnsions could only be received with 
 silent contempt, expressed in leading-articles an ell long. It is not 
 easy to see what freshness from college has to do with the matter. 
 The passages quoted in the above letter would be equally objection- 
 able if the extracts had been made by a literary veteran as old as 
 Methuselah. 
 
282 llETROSPECTIFE DISCUSSION. 
 
 LETTEE X. 
 
 CHEISTIAKITY IN INDIA. 
 
 Deae Simkins, — On my return from a visit to Chan- 
 dernagore, I found two letters full of your reflections 
 on the questions of the advisability of our keeping 
 India. One had come through Bombay, and the other 
 by Poiat de Galle, and I am anxiously expecting another 
 round the Cape. The problems which you select for 
 discussion are certainly rather antiquated. Some three 
 months ago you gave me your opinion about the aimex- 
 ation of Oude, in a treatise that displayed profound 
 political wisdom, which more than compensated for a 
 slight want of familiarity with the details of your sub- 
 ject. At first I was surprised and gratified to find that 
 you had turned your attention to an event so recent; 
 but it gradually began to dawn upon me that the annex- 
 ation of Oude, which you had undertaken to justify in 
 the sight of God and man, was not that accomplished 
 by Lord Dalhousie, in 1856, but the arrangement which 
 was effected by Lord Wellesley, as far back as 1801. 
 While reading your letters I seem to resemble the 
 traveller, who, during a tour in Southern Eussia, in the 
 year 1819, came to a Cossack village, somewhere be- 
 tween the Don and the Volga. He found the popu- 
 lation in a state of wild excitement and exhilaration. 
 Bonfires were blazing, and oxen roasting whole. The 
 
J LITTLE BEHINDHAXD. 283 
 
 gutters ran with raki and train-oil. Peasants who had 
 ue\-er tasted anything daintier than a rushlight now 
 had their fiU. of long sixes. It was evidently some 
 great occasion. Perhaps the hirthday of an archduke. 
 Perhaps a victory over the ' Circassian. Possibly the 
 return of an influential member of the tribe from a 
 temporary sojourn in Siberia. The tourist inquhed 
 ^^•hat had given rise to these demonstrations. " Haven't 
 '' you heard ? "' was the answer. " Napoleon has abdi- 
 " cated ! The allies have entered Pai'is ! Our brethren 
 " are living at free-quarters in a land flowing with lard 
 " and tallow. Hourah ! Alexander for ever ! " 
 
 Kow, you are at least as much beliind the world as 
 these honest Cossacks. Some four or five years ago, 
 when the financial state of our Eastern Empire seemed 
 desperate to the most sanguine of political economists, 
 there was some little talk about the inconvenience and 
 danger of retaining our hold upon India. Men might 
 reasonably question the advantage of a possession which 
 cost more than it brought in. Xo one will thank you 
 for lea%'ing him an estate encumbered with mortgages, 
 and entaUing on him a yearly lawsuit ; and the con- 
 dition of such an estate was much that of 'our dominions 
 in Asia, loaded with a debt of a hundred millions, 
 surrounded by such litigious neighbours as Burmese 
 and Afghans, thronged with tenants as turbulent and 
 impracticable as Siklis and Santhals. India might be 
 the brightest jewel of the English crown, but she 
 certainly was one of which the cutting and setting 
 came rmcommonly expensive. There was very little 
 encouragement and satisfaction in the prospect of a 
 budget which showed a pretty steady annual deficit of 
 
284 A PRIMITIVE FINANCIAL SYSTEM. 
 
 five millions ; or, worse than that, in the prospect of 
 an annual deficit of five millions without any budget 
 at all. Until the appointment of poor Mr. Wilson, the 
 public resources of India were administered on the 
 most happy-go-lucky system that perhaps ever existed 
 in any civilized country. That grand old Company 
 displayed very little mercantile accuracy in the manage- 
 ment of the finances. It would almost seem as if the 
 Anglo-Indian government was ashamed of its com- 
 mercial origin, and sought to rival the majestic pro- 
 fusion of ancient and time-honoured dynasties. Then, 
 the work of conquest and annexation went on so briskly, 
 there were so many independent princes to be turned 
 into allies, and so many aUies to be degraded into sub- 
 jects, that our rulers had neither time nor inclination 
 for the manufacture of financial statements. They 
 found it easier to pay their contractors and their 
 mercenaries with the first money that came to hand, 
 and borrow whenever the treasury was not in cash — a 
 contingency of by no means rare occurrence. Even if 
 the powers that then were had been overtaken by a fit 
 of economy, even if they had felt the paramount neces- 
 sity of effecting a comprehensive and minute survey of 
 the resources and expenses of the State, it is doubtful 
 whether they would have found in the ranks of the 
 Civil Service men endowed with the experience and 
 knowledge which such a task would demand. As long 
 as there were vast conquests to be organized and 
 governed, mighty potentates to be cajoled into friend- 
 ship or bullied into vassalage, justice to be adminis- 
 tered, codes to be digested, no one cared to descend 
 from the rdle of a governor, an envoy, a judge, a law- 
 
NAPOLEON. 286 
 
 giver, and assume the less splendid, but certainly not 
 less useful, character of an accountant or an auditor. 
 Who ■ff'ovdd condescend to the office of qusestor, when 
 he might be a praetor or a pro-consul ? Napoleon the 
 Great acted on a very different priuciple. He knew 
 well that a power which owes its origin to a period of 
 general confusion, and its grandeur to successful and 
 successive wai-s, can least of all afford to neglect the 
 finances. Nothing short of the most rigorous economy, 
 the most anxious and constant scrutiny into details, 
 could have kept afloat through so many eventful years 
 a Government at once revolutionary and aggressive, 
 whose chief wafe hated by all the monarchs of Europe 
 as a usurper and a parvenu, and by all the nations of 
 Europe as a grasping and unscrupulous Jupiter Scapin. 
 ^Tiile with his terrible right hand he was dealing 
 home-thrusts at the heart of Austria and Brandenburg, 
 his left hand was for ever iu his breeches-pocket jingling 
 the francs and centimes. Unfortunately there was no 
 Buonaparte in India. Things went as providence chose 
 to order them — providence, that is to say, represented 
 by Armenian stockjobbers and Hindoo contractors. 
 The budget made itself as best it could. Acting 
 Governors-general wrote home by one maU in a flurry 
 to announce a deficit of forty lacs of rupees, and by the 
 next maO. ioformed the honourable Court that a slight 
 error had been detected in the accounts, and that in- 
 stead of a deficit there turned out to be a surplus. 
 Unfortunately in far the greater number of instances 
 the case was reversed, and instead of a surplus there 
 resulted a very tangible and palpable deficit. By the 
 year 1859, the prospects of Indig, were so hopeless, as 
 
286 NOUS AFONS CHANGH TOUT CELJ. 
 
 far as the financial eye could reach, that even those 
 who could view our occupation of this country from 
 other points than that of pounds, shillings, and pence, 
 began seriously to doubt whether we were not paying too 
 dearly for the privilege of governing and civilizing the 
 East. 
 
 Now everything is changed. Mr. Wilson brought in 
 the first Indian budget; and, before two years were 
 out, the astonished world beheld the last Indian deficit. 
 Three years ago a Governor of Madras prophesied that 
 the vast resources of the country, fostered by judicious 
 economy and- administered by trained financiers, regu- 
 lated and adjusted by means of an exact and sweeping 
 annual estimate, would more than suffice to meet all 
 demands. And yet we may well believe that even he 
 would have been astounded could he have foreseen the 
 state of things which it has fallen to his lot to announce. 
 In 1859-60 the Eevenue was £39,705,822, and the 
 Expenditure £50,475,683. In 1862-63 the Eevenue 
 was £45,105,700, and the Expenditure £43,825,104.. 
 The questions which occupy our Eastern Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer are no longer how this • deficit is to be 
 met, how that loan is to be negotiated ; but whether an 
 increased grant may be allotted to education, whether 
 an oppressive monopoly may be abolished with ad- 
 vantage, whether the surplus should be absorbed in 
 repealing taxation, paying off debt, or advancing repro- 
 ductive public works. 
 
 It appears, then, that we can afford to hold India : 
 but how do we establish our right of tenure 1 There is 
 no need to justify our occupation in the eyes of the 
 world in general. The commercial interests of all 
 
DO WB DO OUR DUTY BY INDIA? 287 
 
 nations imperatively demand that the government of 
 Hindostan should be in the hands of a great and 
 enlightened power. As long as Bombay and Calcutta 
 are free ports ; as long as the navigation of the Ganges 
 and the Indus is as safe as the navigation of the Elbe 
 and the Ehone ; as long as the tea-plantations in Assam 
 are as secure as the sugar-plantations in Jamaica, and 
 the cotton-fields of Central India a great deal more 
 secure than the cotton-fields of South Carolina ; so long 
 the merchants of Marseilles, of Hamburg, of Baltimore, 
 of Manilla wUl thank us for taking upon ourselves the 
 trouble of keeping the Ghorkas out of Bahar, and the 
 Burmese out of Silhet. Monsieur Thiers may grumble, 
 and IMonsieur Lesseps may rant, but almost every 
 Frenchman of sense would be very sorry to see our 
 commissioners and collectors succeeded by prefects and 
 receivers-general. During the crisis of the mutiny we 
 enjoyed the hearty sympathy of the civilized world; and 
 we may say with pride, and without ingratitude, that 
 that sympathy was not entirely disinterested. The 
 Americans of the North, who see a parallel between 
 their present position and that of England in 1857, 
 bitterly complain that we have requited their gx>od-will 
 with our cold neglect. As far as India is concerned, 
 we do our duty by the commonwealth of nations. It 
 remains to inquire whether we do our duty by the 
 inhabitants of India. 
 
 We are, as a nation, agreed that the gi-eatest benefit 
 we can confer upon our subjects is Christianity. Our 
 heart's desire and prayer for India is, that she may be 
 saved. Is that desire soon to be accomplished? Is 
 that prayer in the course of fulfilment ? Let us ask our 
 
288 A BARREN SOIL. 
 
 missionaries who, with true Protestant honour and 
 fidelity, publish to the light the results of their labours, 
 ,be they great, or be they insignificant. The Eeport of 
 the Church Missionary Society for 1862-63 contains the 
 following summary : — 
 
 " Taking the statistics of the three presidencies of 
 " India, we find that, besides hundreds of thousands of 
 " listeners to the Gospel message, there were ten years 
 " ago 94,145 registered Christians, and that there are 
 " now 138,543." 
 
 That is to say, there is something less than one 
 Christian to every thousand heathen, and this after 
 European missionaries have been sijcty years in the 
 country. 
 
 As I know, by personal observation, nothing at all of 
 the presidency of Bombay, and little of Madras, I wiU 
 confine my remarks on the progress of Christianity to 
 the Xorth of India. The Eeport of the Church Mis- 
 sionary Society places the number of native Christians 
 in the liTorth India Mission at 8,523 ; that is to say, at 
 barely one Christian to every ten thousand heathen. 
 
 Like brave and worthy Englishmen, the labourers in 
 this ungrateful vineyard are not afraid of acknowledging 
 their failure. Let us take the three Mofussil missions 
 of Bengal. The Eev. S. HaseU, of Burdwan, owns in 
 his report that, " but very few converts have been bap- 
 " tized from the ZiUah itself." 
 
 The Eev. E. P. Greaves, in his annual review of the 
 mission at Kishnagur, writes : — 
 
 " One of the most unsatisfactory characteristics of 
 " the congregations in this district at present is their 
 " non-expansion. They are showing but little light, and 
 
ONE LV TEX TflOrSjyD. 289 
 
 " producing but little good around. For a series of 
 " ye;ii3 they have been stationary, not to say stagnant." 
 
 The Eev. E. L Puxley, of the Bhaugulpore and 
 Santhal mission, furnishes a statement containing the 
 following passage : — 
 
 " As to future prospects, humanly speaking, I feel 
 " much less hope now for the rapid conversion of the 
 " Santhals than I did at the beginning of last year. I 
 " was then new to the work, and judged more by reason 
 " than experience. The religion of the Santhals is a 
 " religion wliich they cherish as derived from their 
 " fathers, and to which they cUng with far greater 
 " tenacity than I had expected. I caimot help ex- 
 " pressing my hope that I am totally in the wrong con- 
 " cerning our future prospects, and that events may 
 " prove that my original opinion was the most exact. 
 " "We derive courage fi-om the tho\ight of the unseen 
 " things — God's power, and the promises which are 
 " behind." 
 
 Gallant words these, and good words : but what a 
 hopeless state of things do they imply ! The cause of 
 Faith must, indeed, be in a bad way when such men 
 despair. To fight an uphill fight ; to finish his course 
 without joy ; to sow where he cannot reap ; to strew 
 where he may not gather ; to work honestly and stoutly 
 to the end, and to work in vain ; such is the fate of the 
 English missionary in the Northern Provinces of India. 
 It is idle to close our eyes against the fact, that with 
 all the advantages of ci\alization and domination, we 
 have hitherto succeeded in converting to our own creed 
 only one in ten thousand of the subject-people. "WTiy 
 is the most pure and consistent of religions powerless 
 
 u 
 
290 NOT A PROSELTnZING -nELIGION. 
 
 against tlie most foul and fanciful of superstitions? 
 Why is Truth worsted in the battle, though science 
 and authority, the power of the intellect, and the power 
 of the sceptre, are ranged at her side in close alliance ? 
 Why, under the very shadow of the Christian churches 
 and colleges, do men cry aloud to Seeva, and cut them- 
 selves after their manner with knives and lancets, till 
 the blood gushes out upon them 1 Why does Christ 
 count His followers by units, while Vishnu numbers his 
 worshippers by myriads? The failure is due partly 
 to defects inherent in our system of evangelization ; 
 partly to overwhelming obstacles without, against which 
 the most perfect organization would unsuccessfully 
 contend. 
 
 The very excellence and perfection of our religion 
 constitutes our first and most serious difticulty. The 
 creed which our missionaries preach would be far more 
 readily adopted if it were not so much too good for the 
 men to whom they preach it. The days of wholesale 
 conversion are long gone by. It is natural to regret 
 the golden age when tribes of Huns and Vandals 
 embraced, with easy unanimity, the faith of the empire 
 which they had invaded — ^when strings of captive Danes 
 were led from the field of battle to the nearest stream 
 before the blood had dried upon the weapons of the 
 victors. But we must not forget that our Christianity 
 differs from the Christianity of the dark ages at least 
 as much as the belief of Socrates differed from the 
 belief of Homer. Ours is an elevated and philosophic 
 religion, adapted to the wants of an enlightened and 
 progressive society : and a philosophic religion cannot 
 be a proselytizing religion. The Church in old time 
 
EAROLD THE DAUNTLESS. 21] 
 
 offered very different attractions to converts of rank 
 and power, and demanded from them a far easier test 
 than do the Protestant missionary societies of our own 
 day. The bounty was so high, and the discipline in her 
 ranks so lax, that she found no difficulty in procuring 
 recruits. St. Cuthbert's bishop knew well what he was 
 about when he undertook to enlist the old northern 
 rover. 
 
 " Broad lands he f^ve to him on Tyne and "Wear, 
 To be held of the Church by bridle and spear : 
 Part of Monkwearmouth, of Tyndale part, 
 To better his will, and soften his heart. 
 Count Witikind was a joyful man. 
 Less for his faith than the lands which he wan. 
 The High Church of Durham is dressed for the day, 
 And the clergy are ranked in their solemn array. 
 There came the Count in a bearskin wanu. 
 Leaning on Hilda his concubine's arm. 
 He kneeled before St. Cuthbert's shrine 
 "With patience unwonted at rites divine ; 
 But such was the grisly old proselyte's look. 
 That the priest who baptized him grew pale and shook. " 
 
 Xor did the churchman demand any very marked 
 outward manifestation of the good work that was going 
 cm within the breast of his convert. Sir Walter tells: 
 us how — 
 
 " E'en the good bishop was forced to endure 
 
 The scandal which time and instruction might cure. 
 It were dangerous, he deemed, at the first to restrain 
 From his wine and his wassail a half-christened Dane. 
 The mead flowed around, and the ale was drained dry, 
 "Wild was the laughter, the song, and the cry ; 
 "With Kyrie Eleison came clamorously in 
 The war-song of Danesraan, Norweyan, and Fin. " 
 
 He must have been a very thick-headed old Viking 
 who could not appreciate the advantages of a conver- 
 
 u-2 
 
292 THE OUTWAEB AND VISIBLB SIGN. 
 
 sion in which the only drawback consisted in a short 
 rite followed by a long drinking-bout, and the practical 
 result was a fat fief in Durham or l^orthuniberland. 
 If he had been required to give up liabits of brutality 
 and self-indulgence ; to stint himself in mead and ale, 
 and make Hilda an honest woman ; to become charitable, 
 devout, and unselfish ; to have a decided opinion on the 
 doctrine of the Eeal Presence, and an undecided opinion 
 on the question of Eternal Punishment ; to profess, and 
 at the same time to profess with reservation, his belief 
 that, if his ancient brethren in arms held that the Holy 
 Ghost was not proceeding, but either made, created, or 
 begotten, without doubt they would perish everlastingly 
 — if such were the conditions exacted of him by his 
 new teachers, he would probably be not quite so ready 
 to renounce the pleasing prospect of tippling through 
 all eternity in the congenial society of Odin. 
 
 As a general rule, the religion of a people is cere- 
 monial in inverse proportion to their advance in know- 
 ledge and civilization. Anlong rude and degraded 
 nations the outward and visible sign is regarded far 
 more than the inward and spiritual grace. The pre- 
 ponderance of the spiritual element in the national reli- 
 gion of Scotland is, in no small measure, due to the 
 canniness of her inhabitants. Weak human nature 
 craves for a rite, until by thought and effort it has 
 attained to the power of seeing God through, and not 
 in. His creatures. Our Lord was not unmindful of 
 this craving when He bade His disciples, in remem- 
 brance of Him, do as He had done on the last sad 
 night in that large upper room within the city. The 
 very simplicity which, to the educated mind, constitutes 
 
THB E.VD AND THE MEANS. 293 
 
 the chief grace and virtue of Protestantism, renders it 
 distasteful to the Oriental. How can we expect that 
 men glutted with the coarse and grotesque pomp of the 
 Brahminical worship can be attracted by the unadorned 
 ritual of oiir Church? How can we expect that men 
 who have been encouraged by their priests to run riot in 
 debauchery and crime can submit to bring their bodies 
 into subjection, and their minds into true devotion? 
 What is there in common between the faith of Heber 
 and Swartz and a creed which enjoins suicide and self- 
 mutilation, prostitution and murder ; whose monks are 
 fakeers ; whose knights-errant are Thugs ; and whose 
 temples are little better than consecrated brothels ? 
 
 There can be little doubt that, if we would consent 
 to return to the system of the Church in past ages, we 
 might Christianize the Hindoos as fast as our clergymen 
 could get through the Ministration of Baptism to such 
 as are of riper years. If we were to entice the great 
 chiefs by liberal grants of waste lands, and intimidate 
 them with threats of fine and confiscation ; if we were 
 to attach no conditions to admission into the fold save 
 the mere naked rite of baptism ; if we were to permit 
 the neophytes to indulge to their heai'ts' content in 
 lust, and perjury, and bang, and litigation ; if we were 
 to wink at their mai-rying a plurality of wives during 
 life, and burning their favourites after death, — 1 do not 
 hesitate to assert that we might con^'ert Maharajas by 
 the dozen, and Zemindars by the himdred : and the 
 populace ^^ould soon follow the example of their natural 
 leaders. But, thank God, we have not so learned Cln-ist. 
 "We do not profess to do evil that good may come ; least 
 of all, so certain an evil for a good so illusory. Better 
 
294 FINU TOOLS. 
 
 one true convert to ten thousand heathen, than a whole 
 continent of mongrels, Brahmins in heart and in deed, 
 and Christians only in name. 
 
 Our missionaries would succeed better if they were in 
 certain respects inferior men. According to one theory 
 very generally received, the nature of the land in India 
 does not repay deep-soil ploughing ; and the character 
 of the people seems to resemble that of the soil which 
 they till. In the moral world, as well as the agricul- 
 tural, work may be done too scientifically. It is to he 
 feared that we are using tools of too fine an edge. The 
 men to impress and influence Oriental populations are 
 not scholars and gentlemen, but devotees. The mass of 
 the people of Hindostan are of much the same grade 
 inteUectuaUy and morally as the mass of the Western 
 populations in the darkest centuries of the Christian era 
 — those centuries have produced such an abundant crop 
 of saints and martyrs. The peasant of Bengal could 
 appreciate the self-humiliation of St. Paul of Thebes, 
 the self-torment of St. Simeon of the Pillar ; but logic 
 and learning, argument and illustration, are yet, and 
 will long be, to him but the dead letter. If an English 
 clergyman chose to stand for twenty years at a stretch 
 on the top of the Ochterlony monument, or take up his 
 abode under a cocoa-nut tree in the Sunderbunds, he 
 would have thousands of worshippers and millions of 
 admirers ; but the Bishop of Oxford or Dr. Guthrie 
 might preach through all the cities in the north of India 
 without making two dozen proselytes. In what terms 
 can you appeal to the conscience or the good sense of 
 men who canonize a bloated sensual scoundrel for no 
 other reason than because he has never been known to 
 
DEVOTEES. 295 
 
 wash himself or to wear a rag of clothing 1 What can 
 YOU do with people who see virtue and merit in the 
 performances of a falieer ? The highest phase of earthly- 
 existence, according to the Menu books, is the contem- 
 plation for seven years of the divine essence as repre- 
 sented by the tip of your own nose. If our priests 
 would conduct the service with their right foot held 
 over their left shoulder, if our bishops would make their 
 visitations by roUing along the Grand Trunk Eoad from 
 one station to another, we should soon have converts 
 enough and to spare ; the high festivals of our religion 
 would be among the most popular Poojahs of the year ; 
 our churches would reek with frankincense, and glitter 
 with the offerings of wealthy baboos ; and the doors 
 would be too small to admit the same painted, drunken, 
 perspiring, yelling mob which crowds the temples of 
 Juggernauth and Tripety. 
 
 However, it is possible for those who recognise this 
 defect in the native character to make a worthy use of 
 their knowledge. From time to time there have been 
 men who have not hesitated to sacrifice comfort, society, 
 so-caUed respectability, to the chance of doing some great 
 thing for the cause of Christ. Sleeping in native huts, 
 living on native food, going afoot from village to village 
 through the sim of June and the exhalations of Sep- 
 tember, talking of Jesus to the ryots in the field, to the 
 women at the weU, under the gipsy tent in the lonely 
 jungle, beneath the eaves of the coffee-shop, in the 
 crowded bazaar, they have shown to the heathen, and 
 shown not ia vain, that a Christian apostle may equal 
 a Hindoo eremite in endurance and devotion. Such a 
 man need not fear the rival influence of the most punc- 
 
296 LBT HIM lHAJrE ALL, 
 
 tDious Brahmin or the most disgusting fakeer. When 
 once the people of the country have learnt to revere 
 him as one who courts privation and suffering, his 
 humility and disinterested zeal give him an unspeakable 
 advantage over the ostentatious, self-seeking professors 
 of the baser religion. 
 
 I speak not my own opinion, but that of men who 
 have gained by long experience the most intimate 
 acquaintance with the native population, when I say 
 that our missionaries wUl never obtain a thorough hold 
 on the Hindoo mind until they renounce that way of 
 life which is considered essential to the health of the 
 European in this climate. The barbarous people around 
 us refuse to submit their belief to instructors who live 
 in spacious houses hung with punkahs to cool the air, and 
 muslin netting to keep off the mosquitoes ; who eat 
 fish, and flesh, axid fowl, and drink beer and wine ; who 
 bathe and change their linen twice in every twenty-four 
 hours. We are well aware of the devotion of these our 
 countrymen. We know that their poor little luxuries 
 only render this country something less miserable and 
 unwholesome to men brought up in the Sixth Foim 
 Eooms of Eugby and Marlborough, and the quadrangles 
 of Merton and Baliol. But the people for whose sake 
 they have come into willing exile understand none of 
 these things. The man they go out to the wUderness to 
 see must not be clothed in soft raiment. He must carry 
 no silver in his purse, nor bread, nor change of coat ; 
 but into whatsoever village he enters, he should abide 
 in the house of the most worthy, eating and drinking 
 such things as are set before him — boiled rice, and peas, 
 and coarse river fish, and water from the tank ; and 
 
AND FOLLOW ME. 297 
 
 then he need not fear lest he should find occasion to 
 shake the dust off his feet for testimony against that 
 village. Our Saviour did not preach abstinence and 
 self-mortification. He placed no merit in fasting or 
 penance. But He knew that, when simple souls are to 
 be won, it does not do to count the cost too closely. It 
 was but seldom in those three years that the Son of 
 Man had where to lay His head. 
 
 Certain societies of German Lutherans have obtained 
 a remarkable influence over the people of the country. 
 These men beax up the battle under the pressure of the 
 most abject poverty, and a very good fight they make 
 of it At Chupra, the children of these good folk live 
 on rice and curried lentils like the young Hindoos 
 among whom they axe brought up. The parents are 
 most thankful if the collector sends them a parcel of 
 half -worn white trousers, or if the judge's wife looks up 
 some frocks belonging to her little girl who sailed for 
 England at the end of the last cold weather. Very 
 touching are the stories which peep through the records 
 of these small communities — how brother Friedrich 
 was carried off by the epidemic of March ; and brother 
 Bernard, whom we had hoped to be able to afford to 
 send to the hills during the rains, sank under a third 
 attack of dysentery in the last week of August. But 
 tlie lives of these men, and their deaths, are not with- 
 out their due effect. Talking the vernacular languages 
 with admirable fluency and precision ; sympathising 
 with the sorrows and joys of the children of the soil ; 
 fearing nothing ; doubting nothing ; they go eveiywhere, 
 and are everywhere welcome. A friend of mine was 
 present at the baptism of a Brahmin of high rank, who 
 
298 THE PENALTIES OF CONVERSION. 
 
 had been convinced by the exertions and example of 
 the German missionaries. The proselyte publicly re- 
 nounced his religion in the presence of a large assembly 
 of his friends and retainers amidst general and profound 
 emotioa When, at a certain stage in the ceremony, 
 he snapped with his own hands the Brahminical cord 
 which hung about his neck, the sacred badge of his 
 faith and grade, a long and deep moan of horror and 
 wrath ran through the multitude. That very night the 
 convert's house was burnt to the ground. 
 
 The searching and incessant oppression to which a 
 native Christian is subjected by his countrymen at 
 present forms an insurmountable impediment to the 
 efforts of our missionaries. Among the hardy nations 
 of the North of Europe, persecution which stops short 
 of extermination would seem to be the most favourable 
 condition under which a young religion can develop 
 itself. But the mUd and flexible nature of the Hindoo 
 shrinks from an ordeal which would only add zest to the 
 religious emotions of a Scotchman. The Free Church 
 nowhere counts among its votaries so large a proportion 
 of the population, as in the districts where, at the 
 period of the secession, the secular authority was in 
 the hands of violent opponents of the movement. In 
 a village, where the attendance at the worship of the 
 Establishment is exceptionally thin, the chances are 
 that you will be told, on inquiry, that the father of the 
 present laird, honest man, had always steadily refused 
 to grant a site for a Free Kirk. But it may be ques- 
 tioned whether even an ardent Free Kirker would not 
 think the most unpremeditated discourse, from the 
 mouth of a preacher of his own choosing, dearly pur- 
 
LOSS OF CASTE. 299 
 
 chased at the cost of the suffering imdergone by a 
 converted Hindoo. The poor fellow is exposed to a 
 subtle and constant social tyranny, which might well 
 break a heart of sterner stuff than his. The words, 
 " loss of caste," convey to an English gentleman's mind 
 no more terrible idea than that of marrying his laun- 
 dress ; wliile to an English lady they imply the con- 
 sequences attached to an elopement with her music- 
 master. But they have a far more ominous sound in 
 the ears of a Hindoo Christian. In the dark hour of 
 obloquy and outrage he does not possess the sweetest 
 and most effective of consolations, — the sympathy of 
 those who ai-e the nearest to him, and who should be 
 the dearest. The Covenanter who gave testimony to the 
 death before his own hearthstone looked boldly down 
 the barrels of the Southron carbines, because he was 
 secure of the respect, the love, the compassion of his 
 neighbours ; because his widow would cherish the 
 memory of her goodman with proud sorrow; because 
 his childi-en would never tire of telling how their sire 
 played the man in the time of the great troubles. But 
 the Hindoo martyr has no more bitter foes than they of 
 his own household. His parents disown him. His 
 wife is taught to loathe him. His very children rise up 
 and call him cursed. It would be vain for him to ask 
 his new masters to suffer him to go and bury his father, 
 for the unconscious form of the sire would almost 
 shrink on the funeral pile from the defiling touch of the 
 outcast son. He has not with whom to eat or drink ; 
 with whom to sit down or stand up ; with whom to go 
 on a journey or rest at an inn. If he offers to smoke 
 or chat with the loungers in the bazaar, the meanect 
 
300 A PABIAE. 
 
 coolies would refuse to squat in the same circle as the 
 Christian. It is hard to be unable to appear in public 
 without being hailed as an eater of pig, and a wearer 
 of hats, by men with whom he lived, but a month ago, 
 in intimate converse. It is hard to be pelted through 
 the street of the village in which he was born and 
 nurtured with showers of dried mud and broken pot- 
 tery, and unsavoury and most ungrounded assertions 
 concerning his female connexions of many generations 
 back. Such a trial would be severe enough for the 
 most strong-willed Teuton ; but to the native, whose 
 childish mind, singularly tenacioiis of associations, dotes 
 upon "dustoor" or custom, this sudden breach of all 
 the ties of family and social life is especially painful. 
 
 A native convert of rank and wealth may perhaps 
 have no cause to dread personal violence, but his posi- 
 tion is none the less most trying and melancholy. It is 
 not too much to say, that the condition of an English 
 barrister or clergyman who had turned Brahmin would 
 be enviable compared with that of a Brahmin who had 
 turned Christian. If it was to be announced in all the 
 daily papers that a Peer of the Eealm or a Bishop of 
 the Church intended to submit on a certain day to the 
 rite of circumcision, and publicly to testify his adhe- 
 rence to the Mahommedan faith, we should only have a 
 faint idea of the horror, the scandal, the indignation 
 occasioned by the baptism of a rich and high-born 
 Hindoo. In fact, it may be questioned whether a swell 
 who had adopted the Brahminical creed would not find 
 his position in society improved by his conversion; 
 whether his betel-box and turban would not be con- 
 sidered essential ingredients in every evening party of 
 
UNWORTHY CHRISTIANS. 301 
 
 note ; whether the beauties of the season would not 
 treat him to the nautch of his adopted country as he 
 puffed his bubbling hookah among the cushions of many 
 a back drawing-room in May-fair. The native society 
 of India, however, has not yet arrived at such a pitch 
 of civilization as to consider singularity synonymous 
 with fashion, and the proselyte must be prepared to 
 surrender everything which he once held dear — the 
 company of his equals, the respect of his inferiors, 
 social distinction, home affection. Unless he is ready 
 to own whosoever shall do the will of his Father which 
 is in Heaven as brother, and sister, and mother, he must 
 go through the dreary remainder of life uncheered by 
 friendship and unsoothed by love. 
 
 The penalty attached to conversion is so awful, the 
 loss of status and reputation so certain, that the ma- 
 jority of converts belong to that class which has little 
 or no reputation or status to lose. The missionaries 
 acknowledge with grief the inferior character of many 
 among their congregations. Small as the flock is, they 
 scorn to reckon the black sheep among the valuable 
 stock. Mr. Greaves, of Kishnagur, says : " By with- 
 " drawing unwise and indiscriminate temporal aids from 
 " our Christians, we shall be able much better to discern 
 "the wheat from the chaff Among our people there 
 "are not a few on whom it is worse than useless to 
 " spend our time, labour, and money. They never have 
 " been Christians, but in name. The pity is that they 
 " ever received the name." Hence arises the unfortu- 
 nate prejudice against native Christians, so general in 
 Anglo-Indian society. It is a positive disadvantage to 
 a servant who is looking for an engagement to give 
 
302 PBACTICH BWORE PREACHING. 
 
 himself out as a Christian. I well remember hearing 
 some members of the CivU Service discussing the iden- 
 tity of a Hindoo. One of the number, a most religious 
 and estimable man, made use of the following ex- 
 pression : " The fellow I mean was an awful blackguard. 
 " He turned Christian ; '' and the sentiment appeared 
 so perfectly natural that it passed without comment 
 either from the speaker or his audience. 
 
 There remains one stumbling-block in the path of 
 those who would bear to the Hindoo the good tidings 
 of great joy — a stumbling-block which we have placed 
 there with our own hands, and which we do not seem 
 in a hurry to remove. How can the heathen appreciate 
 the blessings of English Christianity while the practice 
 of English Christians is what it is ? Here is a peasant 
 who, under a Hindoo landlord, has lived on the produce 
 of a plot of ground which has been in his family for 
 generations ; who has paid a moderate rent, fixed by 
 custom more revered than any law, and has learnt 
 under the mild and equitable rule of his countrymen to 
 respect himself as an independent yeoman. The estate 
 is purchased by an Englishman, who, bragging all the 
 while of Anglo-Saxon energy and public spirit, twists to 
 the ruin of his tenant some one clause in a law which 
 was compiled for his protection ; and before twelve 
 months have passed the poor fellow is a homeless 
 pauper. With what face can an Anglo-Saxon missionary 
 preach to that man in the name of the Teacher who 
 warned His followers to lay not up for themselves 
 treasures upon earth? Here is a village, whose in- 
 habitants, time out of mind, have grown indigo for a 
 Hindoo capitalist with profit to themselves and satis- 
 
ANGLO-SAXON CERISTTANITT. 303 
 
 faction to their employer. An Englishman buys the 
 factory — an Englishman, strong in the consciousness of 
 the great principle of the Development of the Eesources 
 of India — and ■within a few short years the thriving 
 little community finds itself changed into a society of 
 poverty-stricken hopeless serfs, bound to their new 
 masters by indissoluble bonds, forged by unscrupulous 
 shrewdness and selfish foresight. Let an Anglo-Saxon 
 evangelist go down to that village, and stand under the 
 ancient peepul-tree at the hour of the evening meal, 
 and proclaim that our God is love, and that our most 
 cherished virtue is that charity which doth not behave 
 itself unseemly, and seeketh not her own ! Here is the 
 widow of a poor shepherd who has been butchered by 
 the wanton violence of a European loafer, and whose 
 cries for vengeance are answered by the statement that 
 the murderer was as respectable, as humane, as singu- 
 larly amiable, as the murderers of natives always are in 
 the eyes of some of our countrymen, and by the com- 
 plaint that those brutes of niggers have such delicate 
 spleens. Go to her and tell that our religion is too pure 
 to take count of murder, because we hold that whoso- 
 ever is angry with his brother without a cause is in 
 danger of his immortal soul ! 
 
 In vain do the missionaries preach the gospel of love, 
 and humility, and self-sacrifice, as long as the Bengal 
 Hurharu preaches the gospel of national hatred, 
 national insolence, and national cupidity. In vain do 
 one class of our countrymen caU the converts "Christian 
 " brethren," as long as another class persist in dubbing 
 them " damned niggers." To undertake the great charge 
 of governing an alien population, and to fulfil that 
 
304 MODURN SCHOOLMEN. 
 
 charge by abusing our subjects as if they were our most 
 bitter foes ; to coin their sweat into rupees, and speak 
 of them all the while in private and public as a pack of 
 treacherous, worthless scamps ; to revile those who pro- 
 tect them ; to hunt down and fling into jail any poor 
 missionary who may strive to interest the people of the 
 mother country in their behalf : — a worthy comment this 
 upon the words of Him who bade us love our enemies, 
 bless them that curse us, and do good to them who 
 requite that good with hate ! 
 
 Even in those cases in which the errors of Hinduism 
 have been extirpated by a liberal education there seems 
 to be little or no disposition to admit the truths of 
 Christianity in their place. The most ignorant and de- 
 based ryot is a more hopeful subject for the missionary 
 than a young Brahmin loaded with prizes won at a 
 Christian college, who talks like Samuel Johnson, and 
 writes like Addison, and wiU. descant by the hour upon 
 the distinction between Original Grace and Prevenient 
 Grace. For the Hindoo mind is singularly acute and 
 subtle, and dearly loves to disport itself in the intricate 
 mazes of Western controversy. The cultivated native is 
 irresistibly attracted by the curious and complicated 
 theological problems which at present occupy so much 
 of the attention of all our most earnest men. He 
 regards the doctrines of Eternal Punishment and verbal 
 inspiration much as the Christian schoolmen regarded 
 Plato's doctrine of ideas ; that is to say, as a training- 
 ground for the intellect, as an excellent field for mental 
 gymnastics. While the mass of the people, like the 
 Jews of old, desire a sign, the upper classes seek after 
 wisdom as eagerly and insatiably as the Greeks of 
 
Jin. VAUGHAN. 305 
 
 Athens and Alexandria. The missionaries have not 
 failed to observe this trait. The Eev. James Vaughan, 
 of Calcutta, ■writes: — "Perhaps the saddest feature of 
 "all ^yhich strikes us in dealing with the educated 
 "classes is the extent to which European infidelity 
 " influences them. Newman and Parker have long been 
 "household words with them. German and English 
 " rationalism also wonderfully strengthen their position 
 "of unbelief; and now they triumphantly point to a 
 " mitred head, and cry, ' Behold a bishop of your own 
 " Church cannot believe the Bible as inspired ! ' " 
 
 The nature of the process by which the weeds of 
 Brahminism are rooted out and cleared away does not 
 prepare the ground favourably for the reception of the 
 seed of Christianity. Tlie most effective spell with 
 which to exorcise the demons of the Hindoo mythology 
 is physical science. A native who has taken the degree 
 of Doctor of Medicine, or who has learnt at the Presi- 
 dency College aU that can be taught him by a crack 
 Cambridge Wrangler, must regard the astronomy and 
 geography of his old religion with a contempt which 
 will very soon include that religion itself But, when 
 he has surrendered his ancient creed because the priests 
 of that creed are at strife with the European astrono- 
 mers, is he likely to accept a new creed whose priests 
 are at strife with the European geologists ? Until our 
 clergymen make their peace with Huxley they must not 
 expect to meet with any success among the educated 
 Hindoos. To aggravate the evil, the leading Anglo- 
 Saxon journals are furious partisans of orthodox geology. 
 The Bengal Hurkaru. seems unable to make up its 
 mind which is the most heinous crime — to express sym- 
 
 X 
 
306 GEOLOGY v. ORTHODOXY. 
 
 patliy with an evicted Bengalee peasant, or doubts on 
 the extent of the Noachian Deluge. The doctrines of 
 Sir Charles Lyell are but one degree less damnable 
 than the doctrines of Sir Charles Wood, and the name 
 of Professor Owen is only less execrable than the 
 memory of Lord Canning. So that there occurs the ex- 
 traordinary phenomenon of a Hindoo journalist praising 
 the leading geologists of the day as men of profound 
 learning and acute insight, and an English jotirnalist 
 sneering at them as shallow, conceited, impious block- 
 heads. 
 
 It is most unfortunate that the present Governor of 
 Madras should have so warmly and openly espoused 
 the cause of the clergy against the geologists. "When a 
 man who, from his position and ability, holds so gTeat 
 a place in the eyes of India, goes out of his way to 
 proclaim that the dearest interests of the Church are 
 incompatible with the newest theories of Science, his 
 subjects naturally enough trust him to the extent of 
 believing that it is imj)ossible for them ,to serve two 
 masters between whom such an antipathy exists, and 
 hasten to make their choice between Science and the 
 Church. And how can men who have but just cast 
 off one faith, because the tenets of that faith are incon- 
 sistent with Physical Truth, accept another faith whose 
 tenets are declared, by the Englishman who but lately 
 held the highest rank in our Eastern dominions, to be 
 inconsistent with what is held to be Physical Truth by 
 the most eminent sa,vans of the day ? What is now 
 passing among the upper classes in India is an ad- 
 mirable illustration of that glorious simile by which a 
 great and gpod jnan rebukes those who stake the truth 
 
A SnilLl. 307 
 
 of religion on the event of a controvsrsy regarding facts 
 in the physical ' world. "Like the Israelites in their 
 " battle with the Philistines, they have presnmptuously, 
 " and withont warrant, brought down the ark of God 
 " into the camp as a means of ensuring victory ; — and 
 " the consequence is, that, when the battle is lost, the 
 " ark is taken." 
 
 The struggle which must be gone through before a 
 man can expel a crowd of false, bxit cherished, opinions, 
 and abandon a host of idle, but familiar ceremonies, is 
 so intense and painful, as to leave the mind languidly 
 incredulous, and, for a time at least, incapable of new 
 and prolonged exertion ; and the exertion of ascertain- 
 ing, sifting, and accepting the varied and involved doc- 
 trines of English Protestantism, is no slight one. For 
 Pi-otestantism insist-s that her doctrines shall be judged 
 separately on their own merits, and finally swallowed 
 in the lump— a process wliich requires a peculiar con- 
 formation of intellect, which, unfortunately, is rare 
 indeed. If we put the Bible into the hands of a man 
 who was brought up a Brahmin, and now has no faith at 
 all, can we, humanly speaking, be confident that such 
 a man will evolve from the pages of the Sacred Book 
 exactly the creed which we profess ? WiR he, after an 
 unprejudiced study of the Word of God, be absolutely 
 certain to light upon all the doctrines held by the 
 Church of England, and miss all the doctrines which 
 she eschews I Will he, without fail, hit off exactly that 
 theory of the Eteruitj' of Punishment which wiU put 
 him out of danger of the Council — exactly that dis- 
 tinction between the conversion of the Godhead into 
 flesh and the taking of the Manhood into God which 
 
 X 2 
 
308 THE HIND AND THE PANTHER. 
 
 will put him out of danger of hell-fire ? Eome has this 
 immeasurable advantage, that she can say to the weary- 
 wounded soul : " I am the true and ancient Church, 
 " whose authority has descended in unbroken stream 
 " from the rock on which Christ himself built. Do not 
 " trouble yourself to weigh and investigate this rite 
 " and that tenet. Perform faithfully whatever I bid ; 
 " believe humbly whatever I enjoin ; and it cannot but 
 " be well with you. Come unto me, all ye that labour 
 " and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Beau- 
 tifully, indeed, has this idea been expressed by one in 
 whose conversion she may well take pride : — 
 
 " What weight of ancient witness can prevail 
 If private reason holds the public scale ? 
 But, gracious God, how well dost Thou provide 
 For erring judgments an unerring guide ! 
 Thy throne is darkness in the abyss of light, 
 A blaze of glory, that forbids the sight. 
 Oh, teach me to believe Thee thus concealed. 
 And seek no farther than Thyself revealed ; 
 But her alone for my director take 
 Whom Thou hast promised never to forsake ! 
 My thoughtless youth was winged with vain desires ; 
 My manhood, long misled by wandering fires. 
 Followed false lights ; and, when their glimpse was gone, 
 My pride struck out new sparkles of her own. 
 Such was I, such by nature still I am ; 
 Be Thine the gloiy, and be mine the shame ! " 
 
 AVith such an element of discord as the proud and 
 bigoted Mahommedan population scattered throughout 
 the country, it is greatly to the credit of our Govern- 
 ment that religious disturbances are of such rare occur- 
 rence. If you can conceive the Catholics and Orange- 
 men of Ireland, each multiplied by twenty, and planted 
 
ROMJX OFFICIALS. 30!) 
 
 imder a zone where tlie passions are at blood-lieat, you 
 Avill have an idea what the state of things oiit here 
 would be if it were not for the heavy hand of English 
 authority.- In all sectarian squabbles our magistrates 
 behave with the same cold justice and magnificent 
 indifference that was displayed by the provincial officers 
 of old Eome in the days of Paul and Barnabas, and I 
 have no doubt but what they get the same hard mea- 
 sure from the enthusiasts whom they prevent from 
 tearing each other in pieces. In aU probability, the 
 records and traditions of the respective creeds preserve 
 the name of more than one judge or collector, who was 
 rewarded for having saved the life of some bold preacher, 
 by being handed down to posterity as the personification 
 of " carelessness." There are few personages in history 
 who have been so unjustly used as these Eoman 
 deputies and chief captains. They seem to have borne 
 themselves with rare courage and judgment, to have 
 stood on every occasion between the persecutors and 
 their prey, and to have given way only wheu nothing 
 short of concession could avert a general uprising of a 
 fierce and determined nation of fanatics. The conduct 
 of Lysias and Festus seems to have been eminently 
 just and prudent ; and, after all, poor Gallio's fault 
 simply consisted in this, that when he found no mention 
 in the revised code, of the crime charged against Paul, 
 he bundled both parties out of his cutchery. 
 
 During the most awful and melancholy scene that 
 the world has ever witnessed — when the earth trembled 
 with horror, and the kindly sun veiled his face before 
 the cruelty of man — after the Divine victim, and those 
 women whose perfect love cast out their fear, the cha- 
 
310 I KNOW NOT TEE MAN. 
 
 racter who most deserves our pity is the timid, femiuine, 
 compassionate ruler, who pleaded hard for that sacred 
 life against the murderous and turbulent mob of Jeru- 
 salem ; who yielded at last in an agony of remorse and 
 shame ; and who restored to His disciples the body of 
 their Master in the teeth of those implacable bigots, 
 who desired to pursue their revenge beyond the limits 
 of the grave. His cowardice seems far more venial than 
 the dastardly desertion of those men who, after living in 
 daily intercourse with our ^Saviour for the space of three 
 years, hanging on His words, eating with Him at the same 
 table, sleeping at His side, sharing His every toil and 
 privation (made light indeed by so blessed a presence, 
 and so deep an affection), at the first sight of sword 
 or staff, "forsook Him and fled." The conduct of 
 Judas, of Caiaphas, of Herod, of Pilate, may be ex- 
 plained by (alas 1) ordinary human motives. But who 
 can account for the conduct of Peter and James, 
 Andrew and Philip ? In the most stormy tumult, with 
 outrage and massacre staring them in the face, a faith- 
 ful band of followers and admirers always stuck by Paul 
 to the last. On the day when "the best of men who 
 " knew not God " was mobbed by deadly enemies before 
 a prejudiced tribunal, Plato and Crito, ApoUodorus and 
 Critobolus stood around their companion and teacher, 
 pressed him with loving importunity to accept their 
 money and their services ; and, at the risk of their lives, 
 schemed his escape from prison, loth to acquiesce in 
 his fixed determination to submit to the laws of his 
 country, however imjustly they might have been 
 wrested by his adversaries to ensure his destruction. 
 And yet Paul and Socrates, great and noble as they 
 
DOWNFALL OF CASTE. 311 
 
 were, -were nothing more than men. How then could 
 those who had been permitted to call themselves the 
 friends of a Divine and perfect being stoop to a base- 
 ness from which ordinary men of the world would be 
 preserved by sentiments of honour and self-respect ? 
 It indeed required a life as long as that of John, and a 
 fate as painful as the fate of James and Peter, to wipe 
 out sucli a stain from their own conscience and from 
 the memory of mankind. 
 
 The immediate prospects of missionary enterprise in 
 India are, indeed, discouragiug ; but it does not follow 
 that there is no hope for the future. However little 
 we maj- have succeeded in doing towards introducing 
 Christianity, we have done a great deal towards driving 
 out Brahminism. The fresh air of European civilization 
 circulates freely through every pore of this vast com- 
 munity. That gross and grotesque system of religion 
 which has prevailed through so many ages of semi-bar- 
 barism, cannot hold its ground in the face of our art 
 and science, our energy and good sense, our liberal 
 views and purer morality. The gigantic edifice of class 
 exclusiveness is shaken to the very foundation. The 
 Government School had already done miich, and the 
 railroads seem likely .to complete the work. A Brahmin 
 who travels from Burdwan to Calcutta cheek by jowl 
 A\ith a butcher, in order to see his son go up to receive 
 a prize at the Presidency College in company with the 
 offspring of a sweeper, is likely to go home with some 
 new ideas on the question of caste. Striking symptoms 
 of the great change which is working itself out in the 
 minds of men meet us at every turn. The ladies of 
 one of the most ancient and respected Hindoo houses 
 
312 GOOD SIGNS. 
 
 in Calcutta lately exchanged visits with the families of 
 the leading English public servants ; and at the Agri- 
 cultural Exhibition of Alipore a day, or rather a night, 
 will be set apart for the native women who can prevail 
 on their lords to trust them away from the Zenana 
 amongst Christian prize-cattle and steam-ploughs. A 
 school has been set up for female children, to which 
 Brahmins, of high consideration among, their fellows, 
 have promised to send their daughters ; and the more 
 enlightened natives are agitating for the abolition of 
 the time-honoured custom which condemns the Hindoo 
 widow to life-long soKtude and retirement, than which 
 the genial and exciting martyrdom of the Suttee would 
 be hardly more terrible. 
 
 .The missionaries have noticed this state of things, 
 particularly in the more immediate neighbourhood of 
 European influences. Mr. Vaughan says : " I have at 
 " different times preached east, west, north, and south 
 " of Calcutta, and the same grand features strike one 
 " everywhere. Hinduism is dying ; yea, is well-nigh 
 " dead, as respects the hold which it has upon the 
 " minds of the people. It is no longer the battle- 
 " ground. During the whole tour, I have hardly met 
 " with a man who stood forth as its champion ! " 
 
 It is not too much to say that an educated Hindoo 
 almost inevitably becomes a Deist. Even the great 
 dect of Dissenters, who began by professing to extract 
 a rational religion from the sacred books of the Veda, 
 soon gave over playing Niebuhr, and confined their 
 belief to the pure and eternal God. The introduction 
 of western learning has produced upon the Hindoo 
 religion the same effect that was produced upon the 
 
PJG.^yls^f. r,i3 
 
 ancient classical creeds by the progress of civilization. 
 The leading men of old Eome preserved as much of 
 the ont-n-ard forms of Paganism as their social standing 
 and comfort might demand. They canvassed vigorously 
 for the offices of Pontiff and Flamen. In theii par- 
 liamentary harangries they used the Immortal Gods 
 copiously enough for purposes of allusion and appeal. 
 They never hesitated to accept a legacy on account of 
 the sacrifices and ceremonies with which it might be 
 saddled. They drove triumphal cars along the Yia 
 Sacra, and annual nails into the ■wall of the temple of 
 Jupiter Optimus Maximus. But, in secret, their alle- 
 giance was given to the Academy, the Porch, the 
 Garden, or the Tub. 
 
 There are 'some who admire the great men of Greece 
 and Eome, because they united philosophy to the con- 
 duct of public affairs. How beautiful to behold Peri- 
 cles learning from Anaxagoras that the universe in 
 general, and Aspasia in particular, was composed of 
 homogeneous atoms ! Cato, on the eve of death, as- 
 siu'ing Plato that he reasoned well ! Cicero, in the in- 
 terests of self-glorification, writing academic treatises, 
 and recei%-ing consolatory letters from people who had 
 sailed from ^i^gina to Megara ! There would be just 
 as much sense in praising Bright for being a Protes- 
 tant as well as a demagogue, or Pelissier for being a 
 Ixoman Catholic as well as a marshal. A man must 
 nave a belief, or disbelief, of some sort or kind ; and 
 when, as in the case of Jupiter and Vishnu, the national 
 religion is too absurd for an enlightened man to swallow, 
 he must profess himself something, were it only an 
 atheist. 
 
314 AUGURS AND BRAHMINS. 
 
 When Lentulus and Atticus entertained their col- 
 leagues of the Sacred College of Augurs, it may be 
 doubted whether the conversation ever turned on the 
 mysteries of their art. It would be much if the master 
 of the feast muttered the name of some favoured deity 
 as a preliminary to the first toast, as he dashed on the 
 tesselated pavement a few drops of wine drawn from a 
 cask Avhich remembered the Marsian War : if indeed 
 any good liquor had escaped the notice of Spartacus the 
 Contraband. The taUc ran fast and free concerning the 
 nature of Pain and Pleasure, the Acatalepsy of Arcesi- 
 laus, and the Cataleptic Phantasm of Zeno. The Wheel 
 of Ixion, or the Elysian Fields, were matters which 
 concerned such men as little as the Jewish Sabbath 
 or the prophecies of Isis. In the same manner, a 
 Brahmin is unwilHng to surrender the estimation which 
 he holds in the eyes of his countrymen in virtue of his 
 religious rank and dignity. That he may not shock 
 his weaker brethren, he continues to perform the family 
 rites, to wear the prescribed dress, and abstain from the 
 forbidden meats. At the great festivals he keeps open 
 house, and fills his corridors with garlands and torches, 
 and hires the crack dancer from Eajpootana for five 
 hundred rupees and a pair of Cashmere shawls. But at 
 heart he cares for none of these things. His creed is 
 drawn, not from the rolls of the Veda, but from the 
 pages of Locke, and Adam Smith, and Buckle. As 
 Cicero said of the augurs of his day, it is hard to con- 
 ceive how one Calcutta Brahmin can look another in 
 the face without a smile. 
 
 And herein lies the best hope for those whose desire 
 is set upon Christianizing India. Not in our lifetime. 
 
irAIT, AND HOl'E. 315 
 
 iior mayhap in tlie lifetime of our sons, will the good 
 work come to its accomplishment. It will require many 
 a decade to batter down the stronghold of tradition, 
 and cut away the harriers of caste. When that end is 
 attained ; when a new generation has arisen that knows 
 not Vishnu ; when men who have emancipated them- 
 selves from the trammels of Brahminism rear up sons 
 who know of those trammels only by hearsay ; then, if 
 that crisis finds us stUl in possession of the reins of 
 government, we may trust that the majority of culti- 
 vated Hindoos will not be averse to accept the creed 
 of their rulers. 
 
 To educate, to enlighten, to strike off the fetters of 
 custom and superstition, this is the grand duty the 
 fulfilment of which we must further by all honest 
 means. Colleges and railroads, libraries and news- 
 papers, national justice and moderation, national charity 
 and conscientiousness — such are the forces with which 
 the battle of Truth is at present to be fought. The 
 time will surely come when we maj' bring up our re- 
 serves with happy effect ; but that time is not now, and 
 to anticipate the favourable moment would be to secure 
 ns nothing save disappointment, chagrin, and despond- 
 ency. Let us not despair because India is not yet ripe ; 
 because, being men, we must stoop to human means ; 
 because the wind bloweth where it listeth, and not 
 where we h'st. The world is so ordered that we cannot 
 Christianize the heathen of Bengal as the Apostles 
 Christianized the heathen of Greece and Asia ]\Iinor. 
 To none of us is given the worldng of nriracles, nor 
 prophecy, nor discerning of spirits, nor divers kinds of 
 tongues. "We must labour in the way in which it is 
 
316 NOT OUR WILL —! 
 
 given "US to labour, or not at all. And at those times 
 when our soul grows faint within us, when the toil 
 seems excessive, and the end remote and doubtful, we 
 may comfort ourselves with the thought that, though 
 there be differences of administrations, there is the 
 same Lord, and, though there be diversity of operations, 
 it is the same God that worketh aU in all. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 H. Beoughtok. 
 
EDUCATION. 317 
 
 LETTEE XI. AND LAST. 
 
 EDUCATION IN" IWDIA SINCE 1S35; ^ITH A JIIXUTE OF 
 LOKD M,\CAULAY. 
 
 JIoFussiLPORE, July 20, 1S63. 
 
 Deak Simkixs, — You will be glad to hear that I passed 
 my second examination soiiii,' three weeks ago, and have 
 since been settled here us au assistant to Tom Goddard. 
 He set me to work at first upon the Government School, 
 which was not in a satisfactoiy state ; and I have gained 
 some valuable experience about the operation of our 
 system of public instruction. The natives of India do 
 not seem willing to adopt Christianity as a compensa- 
 tion for the loss of national independence ; but there 
 can be no question whether or not they appreciate the 
 blessings of a sound European education. That we have 
 been enabled to oiler to our subjects in the East a boon 
 so acceptable, is due mainly to the exertions of a great 
 man, who, for the space of more than three years, 
 laboured to direct the whole coirrse of instruction into 
 the channels which it at present occupies. To describe 
 with my feeble pen the nature of the change which he 
 introduced woitld be vain and presumptuous indeed, 
 when he has left a monument of that change in his 
 o^vn immortal words. Strange it is, while rummaging 
 
318 COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC INSTRUCTION. 
 
 among tlie dusty records of the Public Offices at Cal- 
 cutta, to light upon a yellow bundle of foolscap, tied up 
 with frayed and faded tape, and honeycombed by the 
 ravages of generations of white ants. To judge from 
 the appearance, it might well be an ancient minute 
 upon the question of Half Batta, or the spread of Eus- 
 sian influence in Affghanistan, indited by some bygone 
 councUlor who now lies under the grass of a churchyard 
 at Cheltenham, or dozes over " Allen's Indian Mail " in 
 the subscription reading-room at Torquay. Unfold the 
 packet, and every page teems with the vivid thought, 
 the glowing fancy, the grand yet simple diction which 
 has already become classic wherever the English tongue 
 is spoken or the English literature studied; which ages 
 hence will be familiar, whether to the New Zealander, 
 who from that broken arch of London Bridge contem- 
 plates the ruins of St. Paul's, or (as is far more probable) 
 to the student in some Anglo-Saxon college founded on 
 the site of a stockade of the Maori race, already long 
 extinguished by the combined influence of fire-water 
 and progressive civilization. 
 
 At the commencement of the year 1835, the opera- 
 tions of the ' Committee of Public Instruction, of which 
 Macaulay was President, were brought to a stand by a 
 decided difference of opinion. HaK of the members 
 were in favour of Arabic, Persian, and Sanscrit learning; 
 the other half in favour of English and the vernacular. 
 The battle was fought over a sum of ten thousand 
 pounds, set apart by Parliament for the promotion of 
 literature and science. When the matter came before 
 the Council, Macaulay drew up the following minute, 
 which is endorsed thus : — 
 
A MINUTE. 319 
 
 " I give my entire concurrence to the sentiments 
 " expressed in this minute. 
 
 "W. Bextinck. ' 
 
 " 2d Februani, 1S35. 
 
 "As it seems to he the opinion of some of the gentlemen who 
 compose the Committee of Public Instruction, that the course which 
 they have hitherto pursued was strictly prescribed by the British 
 Parliament in 1813, and as, if that opinion be correct, u. legishitive 
 Act will be necessary to warrant a change, I have thought it right 
 to refrain from taking any part in the preparation of the adverse 
 statements which arc now before us, and to reserve what I had to 
 say on the subject tQl it should come before me as a member of 
 tlie Council of India, 
 
 " It does not appear to me that the Act of Parliament can, by 
 any art of construction, be made to bear the meaning which has 
 been assigned to it. It contains nothing about the particular lan- 
 guages or sciences which are to be studied. A sum is set apart ' for 
 the revival and promotion of literature and the encouragement of 
 the learned natives of India, and for the introduction and promo- 
 tion of a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the 
 British territories.' It is argued, or rather taken for granted, that 
 by literature the Parliament can have only meant .Arabic and San- 
 scrit literature, that they never would have given the honourable 
 appellation of a ' leai-ned native ' to a native who was familiar with 
 the poetry of Jiilton, the metaphysics of Locke, and the pliysics of 
 Newton ; but that they meant to designate by that name oniy such 
 persons as might have studied in the sacred books of the Hindoos 
 all the usages of eusa-grass, and all the mysteries of absorption into 
 the Deit}'. This docs not appear to be a very satisfactory interpre- 
 tation. To take a parallel case ; suppose that the Pacha of Egypt, 
 a country once superior in knowledge to the nations of Europe, but 
 now sunk far below them, were to appropriate a simi for the purpose 
 of ' reviving and promoting literature, and encouraging learned natives 
 of Egypt,' would anybody infer that he meaut the youth of his 
 pachalic to giie years to the study of hieroglyphics, to search into 
 all the docti'ines disguised under the fable of Osuis, and to ascertain 
 with aU possible accuracy the ritual with which cats and onions were 
 anciently adored? "Would he be justly charijed with inconsistency, 
 if, instead of employing his young subjects in deciphering obelisks, he 
 were to order them to be instructed in the English and French 
 
320 FOUNDERS' WISHES. 
 
 languages, and in all the sciences to which those languages are the 
 chief teys ? 
 
 "The words on which the supporters of the old system rely do not 
 bear them out, and other words follow which seem to be quite decisive 
 on the other side. This lac of rupees is set apart, not only for 
 ' revifing literature in India, ' the phrase on which their whole inter- 
 pretation is founded, but also for ' the introduction and promotion of 
 a knowledge of the sciences among the inhabitants of the British 
 territories,' — words which are alone sufficient to authorize all the 
 changes for which I contend. 
 
 "If the Council agree in my construction, no legislative Act will 
 be necessary. If they differ from me, I will prepare a short Act 
 rescinding that clause of the Charter of 1813, from which the difficulty 
 arises. 
 
 " The argument which I have been considering affects only the form 
 of proceeding. But the admirers of the Oriental system of education 
 have used another argument, which, if we admit it to be valid, is 
 decisive against aU change. They conceive that the public faith is 
 pledged to the present system, and that to alter the appropriation of 
 any of the funds which have hitherto been spent in encouraging the 
 study of Arabic and Sanscrit would be downright spoliation. It is not 
 eiisy to understand by what process of reasoning they can have amved 
 at this conclusion. The grants which are made from the public purse 
 for the encouragement of literature differed in no respect from the 
 grants which are made from the same purse for other objects of real 
 or supposed utility. We found a sanatarium on a spot which we 
 suppose to be healthy. Do we thereby pledge ourselves to keep a 
 sanatarium there, if the result should not answer our expectation ? 
 We commence the erection of a pier. Is it a violation of the public 
 faith to stop the works, if we afterwards see reason to believe that the 
 building will be useless ? The rights of property are undoubtedly 
 sacred. But nothing endangers those rights so much as the practice, 
 now unhappily too common, of attributing them to things to which 
 they do not belong. Those who would impart to abuses the sanctity 
 of property are in truth imparting to the institution of property the 
 unpopularity and fragility of abuses. If the Government has given to 
 any person a formal assurance ; nay, if the Government has excited in 
 any person's mind a reasonable expectation that he shall, receive a 
 certain income as a teacher or a learner of Sanscrit or Arabic, I would 
 respect that person's pecuniary interests — I would rather err on the 
 side of liberality to individuals than suffer the public faith to be called 
 in question. But to talk of a Government pledging itself to teach 
 certain languages and certain sciences, though those languages may 
 
VJLUE OF SJNSCRIT LITERATURE. 321 
 
 Decorae useless, though those sciences may bo exploded, seems to me 
 quite unmeaning. There is not a single word in any public intructions 
 from which it can be inferred that the Indian Grovemment ever intended 
 to give any pledge on this subject, or ever considered the destiuation of 
 these funds ;is unaltembly fixed. But, had it been otherwise, 1 should 
 have denied the competence of our predecessors to bind us by any 
 pledge on such a subject. Suppose that a Government had in the last 
 centuiy enacted in the most solemn manner that all its subjects should, 
 to the end of time, be inoculated for the small-pox : would that 
 Government be bound to persist in the practice after Jenner's dis- 
 covery ? These promises, of which nobody claims the performance, 
 and from which nobody can grant a release ; these vested rights, 
 which vest in nobody ; this property without proprietors ; this rob- 
 bery, which makes nobody poorer, may be comprehended by persons 
 of higher faculties than mine — I consider this plea merely as a set 
 form of words, regularly used both in England and India, in defence 
 of every abuse for which no other plea can be set up. 
 
 " I hold this lac of rupees to be quite at the disposal of the 
 Governor-General in Council, for the purpose of promoting learning in 
 India, in any way which may be thought most advisable. I hold his 
 Lordship to be quite as free to direct that it shaU no longer bo 
 employed in encouraging Arabic and Sanscrit, as he is to direct 
 that the reward for killing tigers in Mysore shall be diminished, 
 or that no more public money shall be expended on the chanting at 
 the cathedral. 
 
 "We now come to the gist of the matter. "We have a fund to be 
 employed as Government shall direct for the intellectual improvement 
 of the people of this country. The simple question is, what is the 
 most useful way of employing it ? 
 
 "All pai'ties seem to be agreed on one point, that the dialects 
 commonly spoken among the natives of this part of India contain 
 neither Literary or scientific information, and are, moreover so poor 
 and rude that, until they are enriched from some other quarter, it wHl 
 not be easy to translate any valuable work into them. It seems to be 
 admitted on all sides that the intellectual improvement of those classes 
 of the people who have the means of pursuing higher studies can at 
 present be effected only by means of some language not vernacular 
 amongst them. 
 
 " What, then, shall that language be ? One half of the Committee 
 maintain that it should be the English. The other half strongly 
 recommend the Arabic and Sanscrit. The whole question seems to me 
 to be, which language is the best worth knowing ? 
 
 "I have no knowledge of either Sanscrit or Arabic. — But I have 
 
 Y 
 
322 OUR NOBLEST POSSESSION. 
 
 done what I could to form a correct estimate of theft' value. I havB 
 read translations of the most celebrated Arabic and Sanscrit works. 
 1 have conversed both here and at home with men distinguished by 
 their proficiency in the Eastern tongues. I am quite ready to take 
 the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. 
 T have never foimd one among them who could deny that a single shelf 
 of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of 
 India and Arabia. The iutrinsic superiority of the "Western hteratnre 
 is, indeed, fully admitted by those members of the Committee who 
 support the Oriental plan of-education. 
 
 " It will hardly be disputed, I suppose, that the department of 
 literature in which the Eastern writers stand highest is poetry. And 
 I certainl y never me t with any^ Orientalist who ventured to maintain 
 that the Arabic and Sanscrit poetry could be compared to that of the 
 great European nations. But, when we pass from works of imagi- 
 nation to works in which facts are recorded and general principles 
 investigated, the superiority of the Europeans becomes absolutely 
 immeasurable. It is, I believe, no exaggeration to say, that~aILJhe 
 EStorical information which has been collected from-a^_the books 
 written in the Sanscrit language is less valuable than what may be 
 found in the most paltry abridgments used at preparatory schools in 
 England. In every branch of physical or moral philosophy the 
 relative position of the two nations is nearly the same. 
 
 "How, then, stands the case? "We have to educate a people who 
 cannot at present be educated by means of their mother-tongue. 
 "We must teach them some foreign language. The claims of our 
 own language it is hardly nceessary to recapitulate. It stands pre- 
 eminent even among the languages of the Wei?t. It abounds with 
 works of imagiuation not iuferior to the noblest which Greece has 
 bequeathed to us ; with models of every species of eloquence ; with 
 historical compositions, which, considered merely as narratives, have 
 seldom been surpassed, and which, considered as vehicles of ethical 
 and political instruction, have n ever been equalled ; with just aAd 
 lively representations of huin'an'TtfSTSd human nature ; with the 
 ra!Mt_profound speculations on metaphysics, morals, government, 
 jurisprudence, and trade ; with fuU and correct information respecting 
 every experimental science which tends to preserve the health, to 
 increase the comfort, or to expand the intellect of man. Whoever 
 knows t hat language , has ready access Jo_all the vast intellectual 
 wealth, w hich all th e wisest "SHons of the e"arth have created and 
 hoarded in the course of niuety generations. It may safely be said 
 that the literature now extant in that language is of far greater value 
 than all the literature which three hundred years ago was extant in 
 
BETIFAL OF LETTERS IN EUROPE. 323 
 
 all the languages of the world together. Nor ia this all. In India, 
 English is the language spoken by the mling class. It is spoken by 
 the higher class of natives at the seats of Government. It is likely to 
 become the language of commerce throughout the seas of the East. It 
 is the language of two great European communities which are rising, 
 the one in the south of Africa, the other in Australasia ; communities 
 which are every year becoming more important, and more closely 
 connected with our Indian empire. Whether we look at the intrinsic 
 value of our literature, or at the particular situation of this country, 
 we shall see the strongest reason to think that,_of all foreign tongues, 
 the English tongue is that which would be the most~useful to our 
 native subjects. 
 
 "The question now before us is simply whether, when it is in our 
 power to teach this language, we shaU. teach languages in which, 
 by universal confession, there are no books on any subject which 
 deserve to be compared to our own ; whether, when we can teach 
 European science, we shall teach systems which, by universal con- 
 fession, whenever they differ from those of Europe, differ for the 
 worse ; and whether, when we can patronise sound Philosophy and 
 true History, we shall countenance, at the public expense, medical 
 doctrines which would disgrace an English Farrier — Astronomy, which 
 would move laughter in girls at an English boarding school — History, 
 abounding with kings thirty feet high, and reigns thirty thousand 
 years long — and Geography, made up of seas of treacle and seas of 
 butter. 
 
 "We are not without experience to guide us. History furnishes 
 several analogous cases, and they all teach the same lesson. There 
 are in modern times, to go no further, two memorable instances of a 
 great impulse given to the mind of a wholesociety — of prejudices 
 overthrown — of knowledge diffused — of taste purified — of arts and 
 sciences planted in countries which had recently been ignorant and 
 barbarous. 
 
 "The iirst instance to which I refer is the great revival of letters 
 among the Western nations at the close of the fifteenth and the be- 
 ginning of the sixteenth century. At that time almost everything 
 that was worth reading was contained in the wi-itings of the ancient 
 Greeks and Romans. Had our ancestors acted as the Committee of 
 PubKo Instruction has hitherto acted ; had they neglected the lan- 
 guage of Cicero and Tacitus ; had they confined their attention to 
 the old dialects of our own island ; had they printed nothing and 
 taught nothing at the universities but Chronicles in Anglo-Saxon and 
 flomances in Nonnan-Frenoh, would England have been what she 
 uow is f 'flTiat the Greek and Latin were to the contemporaries 
 Y 2 
 
324 RUSSIA. 
 
 of More and Ascham, our tongue is to the people of India. The 
 literature of England is now mors valuable than that of classical 
 antiquity, I doubt whether the Sanscrit literature be as valuable 
 as that of our Saxon and ITonnan progenitors. In some depart- 
 ments — in History, for example — I am certain that it is much 
 less so. 
 
 "Another instance may be said to be still before our eyes. Within 
 the last hundred and twenty years, a nation which had previously 
 been in a state as barbarous as that in which our ancestors were before 
 the Crusades, has gradually emerged from the ignorance in which it 
 was sunk, and has taken its place among civilised communities — I 
 speak of Russia. There is now in that country a large educated class, 
 abounding with persons fit to serve the state in the highest functions, 
 and in nowise inferior to the most accomplished men who adorn the 
 best circles of Paris and Loudon. There is reason to hope that this 
 vast empire, which in the time of our grandfathers was probably 
 behind the Punjab, may, in the time of our grandchildren, be pressing 
 close on France and Britain in the career of improvement. And how 
 was this change effected ? Not by flattering national prejudices ; not 
 by feeding the mind of the young Muscovite with the old woman's 
 stories which his rude fathers had believed ; not by filling his head 
 with lying legends about St. Nicholas ; not by encouraging him to 
 study the great question, whether the world was or was not created on 
 the 13th of September : not by calling him ' a learned native,' when 
 111 he has mastered all these points of knowledge : but by teaching him 
 those foreign languages in which the greatest mass of information had 
 been laid up, and thus putting all that information within his reach. 
 The languages of Western Europe civilized Eussia. I cannot doubt 
 that they will do for the Hindoo what they have done for the 
 Tartar. 
 
 "And what are the arguments against that course which seems to he 
 alike recommended by theory and by experience ? It is said that we 
 ought to secure the co-operation of the native public, and that we can 
 do this only by teaching Sanscrit and Arabic. 
 
 " I can by no means admit that, when a nation of high intellectual 
 attainments undertakes to superintend the education of a nation com- 
 paratively ignorant, the learners are absolutely to prescribe the com'se 
 which is to be taken by the teachers. It is not necessary, however, to 
 say anything on this subject. For it is proved by unanswerable evi- 
 dence that we are not at present securing the "co-operation of the ■ 
 natives. It would be bad enough to consult their intellectual taste at 
 the expense of their intellectual health. But we are consulting neither 
 — we are withholding from them the learning for which they are 
 
PATINO MEN TO LEARN. 326 
 
 craving; we are forcing on them the mock-learniug which they 
 nauseate. 
 
 "This is proved by the fact that we are forced to pay oui' Arabic and 
 Sanscrit students, while those who learn English ai'e willing to pay us. 
 All the declamations in the world about the love and reverence of the 
 natives for their sacred dialects will never, in the mind of any impartial 
 person, outweigh the undisputed fact, that we cannot find, in all our 
 va,st empire, a single student who will let us teach him those dialects 
 imless we wiU pay Mm. 
 
 " I have now before me the accounts of the Madrassa for one month 
 — the month of December, 1833. The Arabic students appear to have 
 been seventy-seven in number. All receive stipends irom the public. 
 The whole amount paid to them is above 600 rupees a month. On 
 the other side of the account stands the following item : Deduct 
 amount realized from the out-students of English for the months of 
 May, June, aud July last, 103 rupees. 
 
 "I have been told that it is merely from want of local experience 
 that I am surprised at these phenomena, and that it is not the fashion 
 for students in India to study at their own charges. This only confirms 
 me in my opinion. Nothing is more certain _than that it never can in I'l 
 any part of the world be necessary to pay men for~doing~what they ' 
 think pleasant and profitable. India is no exception to this rule. The 'i| 
 people of India do not require to be paid for eating rice when they are < ' 
 hungry, or for wearing woollen cloth in the cold season. To come 
 nearer to the case before us, the children who learn their letters and a 
 little elementary Ai-ithmetic from the village schoolmaster are not paid 
 by him. He is paid for teaching them. Why, then, is it necessary to 
 pay people to learn Sanscrit and Arabic ? Evidently because it is uni- 
 versaUy felt that the Sanscrit aud Ai'abic are languages the knowledge 
 of which does not compensate for the ti'ouble of acquiring them. On all 
 such subjects the state of the market is the decisive test. 
 
 " Other evidence is not wanting, if other evidence were required. A 
 petition was presented last year to the Committee by several ex-students 
 of the Sanscrit College. The petitioners stated they had studied in the 
 college ten or twelve years ; that they had made themselves acquainted 
 mth Hindoo literature and science ; that they had received certificates 
 of proficiency : and what is the fniit of all this ? ' Notwithstanding 
 Buch testimonials,' they say, ' we have but little prospect of bettering 
 our condition without the kind assistance of your Honourable Com- 
 mittee, the indifference with which we ai-e generally looked upon by 
 our countrymen leaving no hope of encoui-agement and assistance from 
 them.' They therefore beg that they may be recommended to the 
 Governor-General for places under the Government, not places of high 
 
326 A SINGULAR FETITION. 
 
 dignity or emolument, but such as may just enable tliem to exist. 'Ve 
 want means, ' they say, ' for a decent living, and for our progressive 
 improvement, which, however, we cannot ohtain without the assistance 
 of Government, by whom we have been educated and maintained from 
 childhood.' They conclude by representing, very pathetically, that 
 they are sure that it was never the intention of Government, after be- 
 having so liberally to them during their education, to abandon them to 
 destitution and neglect. 
 
 " I have been used to see petitions to Government for compensation. 
 All these petitions, even the most unreasonable of them, proceeded on 
 the supposition that some loss had been sustained — that some wrong 
 had been inflicted. These are surely the first petitioners who ever 
 demanded compensation for having been educated gratis — for having 
 been supported by the public during twelve years, and then sent forth 
 into the world well-furnished with literature and science. They repre- 
 sent their education as an injury which gives them a claim on the 
 Government for redress, as an injury for which the stipends paid to 
 them during the infliction were a very inadequate compensation. And 
 I doubt not that they are in the right. They have wasted the best 
 years of life in learning what procures for them neither bread nor 
 respect. Surely we might, with advantage, have saved the cost of 
 making these persons useless and miserable ; surely, men may be 
 brought up to be burdens to the public and objects of contempt to 
 their neighbours at a somewhat smaller charge to the state. But such 
 is our policy. "We do not even stand neuter in the contest between 
 truth and falsehood. We are not content to leave the natives to the 
 influence of their own hereditarj- prejudices. To the natural difficulties 
 which obstruct the progress of sound science in the Kast we add fresh 
 difSculties of our own making. Bounties and premium.s, such as ought 
 not to be given even for the propagation of truth, we lavish on false 
 taste and false philosophy. 
 
 "By acting thus we create the very evil which we fear. "We are 
 making that opposition which we do not find. What wo spend on the 
 Arabic and Sanscrit colleges is not merely a dead loss to the cause of 
 truth : it is the bounty-money paid to raise up champions of error. It 
 goes to form a nest, not merely of helpless place-hunters, but of bigots 
 prompted alike by passion and by interest to raise a cry against every 
 useful scheme of education. If there should be any opposition among 
 the natives to the change which I recommend, that opposition will be 
 the effect of our own system. It wUl be headed by persons supported by 
 our stipends and trained in our colleges. The longer we persevere in our 
 present course, the more formidable will that opposition be. It will be 
 every year re-inforced by recruits whom we are paying. From tha 
 
SALS OF BOOKS. 327 
 
 native society left to itself we have no difficulties to apprehend ; all 
 tlie murmuring will come from that oriental interest which we have, hy 
 artificial means, called into being and nursed into strength. 
 
 " There is yet onothw fact, which is alone sufiBoient to prove that 
 the feeling of tlie native public, when left to itself, is not such as 
 the supporters of the old system represent it to be. The Committee 
 have thought fit to lay out above a lao of rupees in printing Arabic and 
 Sanscrit books. Those books find no purchasers. It is very rarely 
 tiat a single copy is disposed of. Twenty-tJiree thousand volumes, 
 most of them folios and quartos, fill the libraries, or rather the lumber- 
 rooms, of this body. The Committee contrive to get rid of some por- 
 tion of their vast stock of Oriental literature by giving books away. 
 But they cannot give so fast as they print. About tweuty thousand 
 rupees a year .are spent in adding fresh masses of waste paper to a hoard 
 which, I should think, is ali-eady sufficiently ample. During the last 
 three years, about sixty thousand rupees have been expended in this 
 manner. The s;ile of Arabic and Sanscrit books, dming those three 
 3"ears, has not jnelded quite one tliousand rupees. In the mean time 
 the School-book Society is selling seven or eight thousand English 
 volumes every year, and not only pays the expenses of priuting, but 
 realizes a profit of 20 per cent, on its outlay. 
 
 " The fact that the Hindoo law is to be learned chiefly from Sanscrit 
 books, and the Mahomed.in law from Arabic books, has been much 
 insisted on, but seems not to bear at all on the question. TVe are 
 commanded by Parliament to ascertain and digest the laws of India. 
 The assistance of a law commission has been given to us for that 
 purpose. As soon as the code is promulgated, the Shasters and the 
 Hedeya will be useless to a Moonsiff or Sudder Ameen. I hope and 
 trust that, before the boys who are now entering at the Madrassa and 
 the Sanscrit college hare completed their studies, this great work will 
 be finished. It would be manifestly absurd to educate the rising gene- 
 ration with a view to a state of things which we mean to alter before 
 they reach manhood. 
 
 "But there is yet another argument which seems even more un- 
 tenable. It is said that the Sanscrit and Arabic are the langiiages in 
 which the sacred books of a himdred millions of people are written, and 
 that they are, on that account, entitled to peculiar encouragement. 
 Assuredly it is the duty of the British Government in India to be not 
 only tolerant, but neutral on all religions questions. But to encourage 
 the study of a literature admitted to be of small intrinsic value only 
 because that literature inculcates the most serious errors on the most 
 important subjects, is a course hardly reconcilable with reason, with 
 morality, or even with that very neutrality which ought, as we all 
 
328 SHALL WE THACH FALSEHOOD ? 
 
 agree, to be sacredly preserved. It is confessed that a language is 
 barren of useMknajjledge. "We are toTdtSteacfi it because it is fruit- 
 ful of monstrous superstitions. "We are to teach false history, false 
 astronomy, false medicine, because we find them in company with a 
 false religion. "We abstain, and I trust shall always abstain, from 
 giving any public encouragement to those who are engaged in the 
 work of converting natives to Christianity. And, while we act thus, 
 can we reasonably and decently bribe men out of the revenues of the 
 state to waste their youth in learning how they are to purify them- 
 selves after touching an ass, or what text of the Vedas they are to repeat 
 to expiate the crime of tilling a goat ? 
 
 " It is taken for granted by the advocates of Oriental learning that 
 no native of this country can possibly attain more than a mere smatter- 
 ing of English. They do not attempt to prove this ; but they per- 
 petually insinuate it. They designat-e the education which their 
 opponents recommend as a mere spelling-book education. They assume 
 it as undeniable, that the question is between a profound knowledge of 
 Hindoo and Arabian literature and science on the one side, and a super- 
 ficial knowledge of the rudiments of English on the other. This is not 
 merely an assumption, but an assumption contrary t,n n]1 TCasnn and 
 experience. "We know that foreigners of all nations do learn oiir 
 language sufficiently to have access to aU the most abstruse knowledge 
 which it contains, sufiiciently to relish even the more delicate graces of 
 oiu' most idiomatic writers. There are in this very town natives who 
 are quite competent to discuss political or scientific questions with 
 fluency and precision in the English language. I have heard the very 
 question on which I am now writing disciissed by native gentlemen 
 with a liberality and an intelligence which would do credit to any 
 member of the Committee of Public Instraction. Indeed, it is un- 
 usual to fiud, evenin the literary circles of the continent, any foreigner 
 who can express himself in English with so much facility and correct- 
 ness as we find in many Hindoos. Nobody, I suppose, wiU contend 
 that English is so difficult to a Hindoo as Greek to an Englishman. 
 Yet an intelligent English youth, in a much smaller number of years 
 than our unfortunate pupils pass at the Sanscrit college, becomes able 
 to read, to enjoy, and even to imitate, not unhappily, the composition 
 of the best Greek authors. Less than half the time which enables an 
 English youth to read Herodotus and Sophocles ought to enable a 
 Hindoo to read Hume and Milton. 
 
 " To sum up What I have said : I think it clear that we are not 
 fettered by the Act of Parliament of 1813 ; that we are not fettered by 
 any pledge expressed or implied ; that we are free to employ our funds 
 as we choose ; that we ought to employ them in teaching what is best 
 
MIBBLE-MEN. 329 
 
 wortli knowing ; that English 13 better worth knowing than Sanscrit 
 or Arabic ; tliat the natives are desirous to be taught English, and are 
 not desii'ous to be taught Sanscrit or Arabic ; that neither as the 
 languages of law, nor as the languages of religion, have the Sanscrit 
 and Ai-abic any peculiar claim to our encouragement ; that it is possible 
 to make natives of this country thoroughly good English scholars, and 
 that to this end oui eiforts ought to be directed. 
 
 " In one point I fully agree with the gentlemen to whose general 
 views I am opposed. I feel, with them, that it is impossible for us, 
 with our limited means, to attempt to educate the body of the people. 
 We must at present do oui- best to form a class who maybe interpreters 
 between us and the millions whom we govern ; a class of persons, i 
 Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in I 
 morals, and in intellect. To that class we may leave it to refine the 
 vernacular dialects of the country, to enrich those dialects with terms 
 of science borrowed from the Western nomenclature, and to render 
 them by degrees fit vehicles for conveying knowledge to the great mass 
 of the population. 
 
 " I would strictly respect aU existing interests. I would deal even 
 generously with all individuals who have had fair reason to expect a 
 pecimiary provision. But I would strike at the root of the bad system 
 which has hitherto been fostered by us. I would at once stop the 
 printing of Arabic and Sanscrit books ; I would abolish the Madrassa 
 and the Sanscrit college at Calcutta. Benares is the great seat of 
 Brahmauical leai'ning ; Dellii, of Arabic learning. If we retain the 
 Sanscrit college at Benares and the Mahomedan college at Delhi, we 
 do enough, and much more than enough in my opinion, for the Eastern 
 languages. If the Benares and Delhi colleges should be retained, I 
 would at least recommend that no stipend shall be given to any 
 students who may hereafter repair thither, but that the people shall be 
 left to make their own choice between the rival systems of education 
 without being bribed by us to leam what they have no desire to know. 
 The funds which would thus be placed at our disposal would enable us 
 to give larger encouragement to the Hindoo college at Calcutta, and to 
 establish in the principal cities throughout the Presidencies of Fort 
 WiOiam and Agra schools in which the English language might be 
 well and thoroughly taught. 
 
 ' ' If the decision of his Lordsliip in Council should be such as I 
 anticipate, I shall enter on the performance of my duties irith the 
 greatest zeal and alacrity. If, on the other hand, it' be the opinion of 
 the Government that the present system ought to remain unchanged, I 
 beg that I may be pennittcd to retire from the chair of the Committee. 
 1 feel that I could not be of the smallest use there — 1 feel, also, that I 
 
330 PROTICmNCT OF NATITES IN OUR LANGUAGE. 
 
 stould he lending my countenance to what I firmly believe to he a 
 mere delusion. I believe that the present system tends, not to 
 accelerate the progress of truth, but to delay the natural death of ex- 
 piring errors. I conceive that we have at present no right to the 
 respectable name of a Board of Public Instruction. We are a Board 
 for wasting public money, for printing books which are of less value 
 than the paper on which they are printed was while it was blank ; for 
 giving artificial encouragement to absurd history, absurd metaphysics, 
 absurd physics, absurd theology ; for raising up a breed of scholars who 
 find their scholarship an encumbrance and a blemish, who live on the 
 public while they are receiving their education, and whose education is 
 so utterly useless to them that, when they have received it, they must 
 either starve or live on the public all the rest of their lives. Entertain- 
 ing these opinions, I am naturally desirous to decline all share in the 
 responsibility of a body which, unless it alters its whole mode of proceed- 
 ing, I must consider not merely as useless, but as positively noxious." 
 
 The event has more than justified the opinions ex- 
 pressed in this minute. The natives of India have, 
 with marvellous eagerness and unanimity, abandoned 
 the dead or effete learning of the East for the living 
 and .vigorous literature of England. Whoever can 
 spare the time and money greedily avails himself of 
 the instruction which we offer. " To such an extent, 
 " indeed, is this the case " (I quote the Eeport on 
 Public Instruction for Bengal Proper), " that many of 
 " our best native scholars can write English and even 
 " speak it with greater facility than their mother- 
 " tongue." Interest and ambition, the instinct of 
 imitation and the thirst for knowledge, urge on the 
 students ; and, by the aid of a delicate taste, and a 
 strong power of assimilation, their progress is surpris- 
 ing to one accustomed to the very slender proficiency in 
 the classical tongues obtained by the youth of England 
 after a boyhood devoted almost exclusively to Xenophon 
 and Cicero. Of two hundred scholars who leave Eton 
 in the course of a year, it is much if some three or four 
 
THEIR APTITUDE FOR I2IITATI0X. 331 
 
 can construe a chorus of Euripides ■without the aid of a 
 trajislation, or polish up with infinite pains a piece of 
 Latin prose which a Eoman might possibly have mis- 
 taken for a parody of the " De Ofificiis," composed by a 
 Visigoth in the time of Diocletian. A young Hindoo 
 who has made the most of his time at college will 
 write by the hour a somewhat florid and stilted English 
 ■nith perfect ease and accuracy; and will' read, enjoy, 
 and criticize any of our authors, from Chaucer down 
 to Eobert Browning and Carlyle. The works of our 
 greatest historians and philosophers have penetrated 
 to every comer of our dominions, and, wherever they 
 pass, shed somewhat of the wisdom, the good sense, and 
 the pure morality which stamp a peculiar character 
 upon our noble literature. The Mahommedan gentle- 
 men, whose pride does not allow them to study the 
 language of their conquerors, have begun to be pain- 
 fully aware that they are fast losing their moral and 
 intellectual superiority over the Hindoos, who do not 
 profess any such scruples. 
 
 The aptitude of educated Bengalees for philosophic 
 and literary pursuits is indeed remarkable. Their 
 liberal and elevated opinions, their love of .truth and 
 contempt for bigotry, would go far to satisfy the most 
 ardent lover of the human race, were he only certain 
 that these splendid qualities are more than skin-deep. 
 That instinct for imitation, which I mentioned above, 
 is so dominant in the native, his desire to please so 
 constant, that you never know whether his sentiments 
 are real or artificial. In fact, it may be doubted 
 whether he knows himself. When he speaks, you 
 cannot be sure whether you are listening to the real 
 
332 BLEFATED THOUGHT. 
 
 man, or to the man whom he thinks you would like him 
 to be. The feebleness and the servility which render 
 Hindoo testimony so singularly untrustworthy forbid 
 us to put too much confidence in Hindoo civilizatioa 
 The Bengalee witness, who has no motive to lie, will 
 distort the facts if he imagines that he can by so doing 
 give one tittle of pleasure to the barrister who is 
 examining him, or the judge who is taking notes of his 
 evidence. The Bengalee journalist, with equal facility, 
 win adopt the tone which he has reason to believe may 
 suit the greatest number of Sahibs. All the great 
 discoveries in Political and Social Science which have 
 been wrought out by successive generations of European 
 thinkers he picks up and appropriates with almost 
 pathetic simplicity and conceit. He never writes an 
 article on Trade or Taxation which, as far as the 
 opinions are concerned, might not have been the work 
 of John Stuart Mill. He never writes an article on 
 Creeds or Subscription which might not have been the 
 work of Goldwin Smith or Maurice. He has his choice 
 of all the theories which have fever been current, and 
 he finds it just as cheap to take the most advanced and 
 the most recent as to borrow one which already has 
 been a little blown upon. In the hardy rugged minds 
 of northern men, liberality is a plant which springs 
 from seed sown amidst doubt and fond regret; which 
 strikes root downward, and bears fruit upward. Here, 
 it lies on the surface, and sprouts to right and left with 
 easy profusion ; but its produce is mighty tasteless and 
 surfeiting. In the days of the Eeform Bill, when the 
 great soul of England was in woful anxiety and mis- 
 giving as to the course which it behoved her to pursue. 
 
A CONVERSATION. 333 
 
 every little Hindoo Bachelor of Arts was most glib 
 and positive abont the absurdity of Gatton and old 
 Sarum returning Members, while vast marts of industry, 
 gigantic emporia of commerce, cities teeming with a 
 countless population, remained still unrepresented. 
 
 It is hopeless to attempt to give a true idea of what 
 these people think, and wish, and love, and hate. It 
 was but yesterday that I called upon a native, with 
 the view of obtaining some information concerning the 
 reign of terror which succeeded the capture of Delhi 
 To my certain knowledge, this man, who had been 
 worth more than 30,000^. the da)- before the assault, 
 had been plundered by our soldiery of everything he 
 possessed, though he had distinguished himself by 
 marked proofs of his attachment to our rule. I asked 
 him whether some severities had not been committed 
 which our cooler judgment might regret. 
 
 " Oh, no, Sahib ! The rebels were punished, and 
 " the good people rejoiced." 
 
 "But did not the whole population desert the city 
 " through fear of being hung 1 " 
 
 " Yes, Sahib ; but they had sinned so gTievously in 
 "that they had allowed the sepoys to enter Delhi at 
 " the first. The people repented very much that they 
 "had done so. The sepoys were budmashes. Sahib. 
 " They used to take goods worth six annas, and only 
 "give four annas in payment." 
 
 Upon this I asked him how much our soldiers used 
 to give in pajmient when they had taken goods worth 
 six annas from the shopkeepers of Delhi : but the 
 question distressed him so cruelly that it would have 
 been unkind to persist. 
 
334 SUBJECTiriTT. 
 
 On another occasion I was anxious to learn from a 
 native gentleman what effect the great heat produced 
 upon the comfort and health of the people of the 
 country. No persuasion, however, would induce him 
 to describe his own sensations. He persisted in 
 speaking of the climate from what he imagined to 
 be my point of view. I kept asking him whether he 
 suffered from cold in December; whether he became 
 languid and weak in the hot weather : while he con- 
 tinued to inform me that the temperature was un- 
 bearable during nine months in the year, but that in 
 the cold season life was tolerable provided you stayed 
 in -doors from eight in the morning tUl five in the after- 
 noon. This was at least as absurd as if an Englishman, 
 in talking of the cUmate of our own island, were to say 
 that it was possible to bear the out-door cold for two or 
 three hours in the middle of the day during the months 
 of July and August. 
 
 We certainly have not yet got to the bottom of the 
 native character. Facts crop up daily which prove 
 incontestably to all, save those who reduce everything 
 to some Procrustean theory of civilization, that the 
 depths of that character cannot be fathomed by our 
 ordinary plummet, or marked with certainty on the 
 chart by which we navigate in European waters. Take 
 for instance those extraordinary symptoms which pre- 
 ceded the great mutiny; the marvellous organization 
 of that vast plot ; the mysterious but intimate con- 
 nexion between the mutineers and the independent 
 native powers ; the dim prophecies and ghastly rumours 
 which foreshadowed the outbreak ; the secresy ; the 
 unanimity; the tokens passed from hand to hand through- 
 
BUMOURS. 335 
 
 out a million villages. "Within the last few years, on 
 one and the same day along the whole course of the 
 Ganges the women flung their spiadles into the river, 
 ajid to this hour no European has the most remote con- 
 ception of their motive in so doiag. Some imagine 
 that the sacrifice was made with the idea of expiating 
 a national shortcoming; others suppose that it was 
 intended to avert a drought ; others, again, of a more 
 practical turn of mind, heUeve it to have been a super- 
 stition invented by the manufacturers of spindles. 
 There is something very striking in these rumours. No 
 one knows where they originate, or what their purport 
 may be ; but they are passed on, from house to house 
 and city to city, spreading throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land agitation and anxiety, a wild ter- 
 ror and a wilder hope. Shortly after the pacification 
 of the country, it was said everywhere in the Lower 
 Provinces, that within three months there would be no 
 "white thing" throughout Bengal. Nobody had the 
 slightest clue as to what this " white thing " might be. 
 Some held it to be the poppy, and supposed the pro- 
 phecy to refer to the extremely improbable contingency 
 of the abolition of the opium traffic. Some took a 
 more gloomy view, and would have it that it pointed 
 to the approaching extermination of our race. It was 
 useless to question the natives, for they knew no more 
 than we. The rumour had been set a-going, and it 
 became, therefore, a sacred duty to do their best to 
 spread it. At this moment there is a universal belief 
 all over the Punjaub that our rule is to come to an end 
 before this very year is out. 
 
 Some of these are undoubtedly idle reports, set on 
 
336 ADVEBTISma THE MUTINY. 
 
 foot in mere wantonness, or, perhaps, springing up al- 
 most spontaneously from the talk of men, and indicating 
 at most an unhealthy, excited condition of the popular 
 mind. But, beyond all question, some secret influence 
 was at work, to advertise, as it wej'e, the coming horrors 
 of 1857. The ringleaders of that gigantic conspiracy 
 deliberately undertook to impress upon the world i^i 
 general the idea that something was coming the like of 
 which had not been known before : just as, when we 
 see in Piccadilly a file of men with blank boards on 
 their shoulders, we become aware that a sensation 
 drama has been put in hand at one of the leading 
 theatres. It has been ascertained that the Mahom- 
 medans throughout the whole of the north of India 
 received instructions, from an unknown hand, to sing 
 at aU their social meetings a ballad which described in 
 touching strains the humiliation of their race, and the 
 degradation of their ancient faith, once triumphant 
 from the Sutlej to the Burrampootra, but now in sub- 
 jection and bondage to the Christian and the stranger. 
 Each village in turn received a handful of chupatties or 
 bannocks, by the hands of the post-runners, with orders 
 to bake others, and pass them on to the next village ; 
 and in the month of January, 1857, a saying was uni- 
 versally current: — "Sub lal hogea hai "—" Everything 
 " is to become red." On the first of February a satirical 
 poem appeared in a Calcutta journal, intending to ridi- 
 cule the fears of those who paid attention to this 
 prophecy. The concluding passage, which no doubt 
 was thought droU enough at the time both by the 
 writer and his readers, when studied by the light of 
 subsequent events has the air of a ghastly prediction : — 
 
SUB LAL EOGEA SAL 337 
 
 " Beneath my feet I saw 'twas nouglit tut blood, 
 And shrieking wretches borne upon the stream 
 Struggled and splashed amidst a sea of- gore. 
 I heard a giant voice again proclaim, 
 'Mid shouts of murder, mutiny, and blood, 
 ' SUB LAL HOGEA HAI,' and I awoke." 
 
 In the meantime people ate, and drank, and married, 
 and gave in marriage, and danced, and flirted, and 
 speared hogs, and acted "Cocknies in California," at 
 the amateur theatre ia Fort William, and wrote letters 
 to the newspapers complaining that the military men in 
 civil employ gave themselves airs, and abusing the 
 Municipal Board for not seeing that the course at 
 Calcutta was properly watered, and condoling with a 
 popular physician of Cawnpore who was forced to go 
 to England for the benefit of his health. There is an 
 irony in history surpassing in depth the irony of 
 Sophocles. 
 
 During the AprU of 1857, the English Society' at 
 Delhi was convulsed by the conduct of a peppery 
 colonel, who, at the station-ball for some fancied insult 
 from a civilian, turned his band out of the room and 
 stopped the dancing, but expressed himself willing to 
 relent if the official of highest rank present would 
 apologize to the bandsmen. On the 17th of the same 
 month comes a complaint that : — 
 
 "The bigwigs get the strawberries from the station- 
 " garden, while a new subscriber cannot get a sniff at 
 " the flowers." 
 
 Lilvewise — 
 
 " A wedding talked of as likelyto take piace soon, 
 "but the names of the aspii'ants to hymeneal bliss I 
 "will refrain from mentioning just yet, lest anything 
 
338 WHAT A BAY MAY BEING FORTH. 
 
 "should occur to lesson their affection for each other 
 " before the knot is tied." 
 
 On the fifth day of May, a correspondent writes from 
 that doomed place : — 
 
 " As usual no news to give you. All quiet and dull. 
 " Certainly we are enjoying weather which at this 
 " season is wonderful. The morning and evening are 
 " deliciously cool. In fact, punkahs are hardly come 
 " into use." 
 
 On the eleventh day of May the English quarter was 
 given over to murder, and rapine, and outrage. The 
 Commissioner lay hewn in pieces inside the palace. 
 Metcalfe, the collector, was flying for his life through 
 the streets of the city where his family had ruled for 
 more than half a century. The mangled bodies of the 
 officers of the 54th Native Infantry were heaped in a 
 bullock-cart outside the walls. The fanatic troopers 
 from Meerut, with all the scum of the bazaar at their 
 heels, were hunting down and butchering the members 
 of the quiet Christian community. The teachers had 
 been slain in the lecture-room ; the chaplain in his 
 study ; the telegraph-clerk with his hand still on the 
 signaUing apparatus. The Editor of the Gazette, with 
 his mother, wife, and children, died in the office of the 
 journal. At the Delhi Bank fell Mr. Beresford, the 
 manager, with all his family, after a gallant and despe- 
 rate resistance. Of those ladies, who a few days before 
 were grumbling at the bearishness of the old colonel, 
 some were dragging themselves towards Meerut or 
 Kurnaul, under the fierce noon-day sun, bare-headed 
 and with bleeding feet ; while others were lying uncon- 
 scious in death, and therefore less to be pitied, on the 
 
A CONSECRATION. 339 
 
 platform in front of the police-of&ce in the principal 
 boulevard. 
 
 Early in the year 1857, a new church was consecrated 
 at Sealkote, which is described in a letter to the 
 Englisliman from that place as " the most chaste and 
 " beautiful structure of Modern Gothic in India." Xo 
 high praise, by the way. It was only the other day 
 that we Calcutta people were gratified by the informa- 
 tion that Mr. Fergusson, in his work on Modern 
 Architecture, had given drawings of oiu- Cathedral, 
 both iaside and out ; but our delight was qualified by 
 the subsequent discovery that he had iuserted those 
 drawings as specimens of what he pronounced to be the 
 most debased style extant. The writer from Sealkote 
 takes occasion to say that : — 
 
 " The futm-e historian, when he traces the career of 
 " our rise, and perchance our fall, in this wondrous land, 
 " will love to dwell upon a pictiu-e like the present — 
 " a few score strangers dedicating their churches to be 
 " set apart from all profane uses for ever with such 
 " fixity of purpose, and with minds so assured as never 
 " for one moment to doubt the fulness of their faith in 
 " the future ; and this ia the midst of millions distinct 
 " from them in race, religion, and feeliug. The strength 
 " of the many made subservient to the will of the few, 
 " not by crushing armies from foreign lands, but by 
 " sowing the seeds of peace and order around — a land 
 " a few years ago bristling with bayonets, an enemy's 
 " country, now cheerfully acknowledging our rule, and 
 " avowing it to be a blessing — is a truth that has been 
 " sealed by the ceremony just concluded." 
 
 Then comes a remarkable postscript : — 
 z2 
 
340 LARGE PLATES OF STBAWBEBEIE8. 
 
 " The other day a telegraphic message was received, 
 " noted ' Urgent.' The news ran like wildfire round the 
 " station, that the troops here were to march at once 
 " for Herat.i But, alas ! it was — can it be guessed ? 
 " Never ! — That the Sepoys ivho were learning the use of 
 " the Enfield Rifle were to have no more practice ammu- 
 " nition served out to them ! " 
 
 This supplies material for some humorous remarks, 
 which end with the words — " Everything wears such a 
 " mysterious aspect to us benighted Sealkotians, that 
 " none dare venture an opinion, and we must wait till 
 " time and the Englishman enlighten us." 
 
 They were to be soon enlightened by quite another 
 agency — by a leading article written in a very different 
 composition from printer's ink. One evening in July, 
 Dr. Graham, the superintending surgeon of the station, 
 begged a friend with whom he was dining, who had re- 
 marked on the insolent demeanour of the sepoys, not to 
 let his fears get the better of his senses. The next 
 morning an officer " saw Miss G-raham coming in the 
 " buggy, apparently alone, screaming and crying most 
 " piteously." He assisted in taking out her father's 
 body. 
 
 The Lucknow news ia May 1857, consists chiefly in 
 the badness of the road from Cawnpore. 
 
 " Soft blankets should be provided in the dawk 
 " carriages, and plenty of them. We have large plates 
 " of strawberries every morning. Calcutta people might 
 " well pay Lucknow a visit. Our hospitality is famous." 
 
 ' The Persian war was still in progress, and the prospect of » 
 campaign woiild have even greater attractions than the retrospect of a 
 consecration. 
 
ALLAHABAD. 341 
 
 Small thought had men of soft blankets and large 
 plates of strawberries on that November day when the 
 English host covered sixteen miles in length of that 
 Cawnpore road, with the sad remnants of the immortal 
 garrison marching in the centre, and among them three- 
 score widows who had been wives when the siege began : 
 — the van hurrying forward under stout Sir Colin to 
 save the bridge from the victorious mercenaries of 
 Gwalior, wliile the rear stood savagely to bay against 
 the clouds of sepoys who poured from the town to 
 harass our retreat. 
 
 At Allahabad, towards the end of March, the weather 
 was — 
 
 " Delightful. No news ; no one dead ; many married ; 
 '• some about to be born ; some have been ; and some 
 " won't be, notwithstanding the welcome awaiting 
 " them" 
 
 The welcome awaiting them ! On the 22nd May — 
 
 '• We have plenty of cause for amusement here. The 
 " railway people insist on going the grand rounds. One 
 '■ cadet doing duty with the 6th Native Infantry, walked 
 •' in the verandah last night for five houi's, armed with 
 " sword and pistol, amidst the raillery of his wiser 
 " comrades." 
 
 Two days after these words were written the 6th 
 Native Infantry rose and massacred seventeen officers, 
 including this poor boy and several other young cadets, 
 who were waiting to be attached to regiments. From 
 that time forward the Allahabad news becomes signifi- 
 cant. On the 8th July the " bodies of European men 
 " and women were floating down the river lately." 
 
 Late in March we find the following pai-agraphs : — 
 
Hi CORBBSPONBUNOS FROM RANEE&TINQE. 
 
 " We of this generation cannot realize what the effect 
 " of a real panic would be among the European residents 
 " in this country, and it would be foolish to attempt to 
 " realize it." 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " I fear that the good old days are gone by when we 
 •* were accustomed to queU disaffection by blowing from 
 " a cannon a few of the malcontents." 
 
 So men wrote in the spring. Before autumn had 
 well set in their style had altered. A gentleman at 
 Eaneegunge says : — ■ 
 
 " I have three pieces of timber, which the taste of 
 " my engineer would convert into a picturesque gaUows 
 " which would accommodate sixteen of the largest size 
 " without inconveniencing each other. A coil of whale 
 " rope, warranted not to have any bullock's fat to offend 
 "prejudices, wiU do its work. Having been a sailor, 
 " I am up to knot-making, and can introduce one much 
 " approved of by Bolivar, when he sometimes amused 
 " himself by hanging instead of shooting." 
 
 The residents at a station in Bahar would be "aU 
 " right and merry, if we could only get a few people to 
 " hang." 
 
 At Allahabad the Judicial Commissioners, Sandys 
 and Palmer, whom Lord Canning, to his eternal honour, 
 speedily sent back again into private life, " are doing 
 " their duty well. The day before yesterday one of 'em 
 " hanged thirteen, yesterday he hanged fifteen, and there 
 " are still seventy-two candidates." 
 
 And again : — 
 
 " Palmer and Sandys are doing good service in tuck- 
 " ing up and scratching the backs of rebels." 
 
A SAD PAGE. 343 
 
 Soon afterwards a correspondent from the same place 
 — ^let US hope the same man — recommends torture for 
 "respectable IMahommedans." At Delhi, four months 
 after the restoration of tranquillity, six men were hung 
 on the information of a single witness, wAo himself icas 
 hung an the same day for being concerned in the murder 
 of Europeans. A company of gipsies, against whom no 
 special charge could be found, were strung up together 
 on the indictment of " retarding the peaceable organi- 
 " zation of society." The newspapers teemed with de- 
 liberate propositions to raze to the ground ancient and 
 crowded cities — to depopulate vast and thriving pro- 
 %Tnces — to put to the edge of the sword aU the women 
 iu Deltd and Cawnpore — to exterminate the inhabitants 
 of every vDlage which a European fugitive had tra- 
 versed without being entertained and protected ; the 
 certaiu and merited consequences of which barbarity 
 would have been that, in the case of another outbreak, 
 the peasantry would take good care that no European 
 fugitive should escape to teU the hne of country which 
 he had taken in his flight. In fact, as a contributor to 
 the Englishman remarks, with logic at least equal to his 
 humanity : — 
 
 " There was only one prayer, and that was that every 
 " one should meet death after a fair trial, such as they 
 " all get. How very differently they would have been 
 " treated by any other of the European powers." 
 
 my countrymen ! Is there no such thing as British 
 bunkum? Have our Columbian brethren a monopoly 
 of seK-appreciation ? 
 
 TMien it first began to be whispered in English circles 
 that sedition was afoot, public opinion was strong against 
 
344 THE FAITEFUL SBPOY. 
 
 the alarmists. The sepoy was everything that could' be 
 wished. Faithful and docile, his prejudices were to be 
 respected and his calumniators snubbed. 
 
 " We understand/' on the 3rd of February, 1857,. 
 "that the sepoys of Barrackpore have consulted their 
 " comrades in the upper provinces as to the new method 
 " of making cartridges, and have been informed that 
 "they are determined not to submit to an innovation 
 " which affects their rules of caste. The Government 
 " may be assured that those who are most determined 
 "to maintain their own rights are neither the worst 
 " nor least faithful soldiers. Even CromwelTs Ironsides 
 " would ham mutinied if they had been forced to hear the 
 " Common Prayer read," 
 
 " What a pity it is," writes an officer of the 65th 
 Native Infantry, " that Europeans abusing a corps cannot 
 " be strung up." 
 
 A few short months, and a Delhi ruffian, stained to 
 the elbows with English blood, was a saint compared 
 to the Englishman of noble and elevated nature, who, 
 amidst the universal madness, preserved one tittle of 
 justice, one spark of humanity. " We earnestly hope," 
 (such was the style of the penny-a-Hner of those days,) 
 " and we shall be joined by almost aU our readers, that 
 "the sepoys will first sheathe their bayonets in the 
 " bodies of those capable of excusing them.'' 
 
 Here is an art-notice of the period : — 
 
 "That indefatigable artist, Mr. Hudson, has just 
 " jSnished a portrait of Captain Hazlewood, which may 
 " be seen in Thacker and Spink's gallery. The friends 
 " of the gallant officer will at once recognise the like- 
 " ness, and feel confident that no undue lenity on his 
 
THE POET'S CORNER. 345 
 
 " part mil be shown to tlie mui-derers of women and 
 " children ; for he has a stem expression of counte- 
 " nance, as if he had just given an order to haug them 
 "and tk-cir favorers." 
 
 The Poet's corner in the EiiglisJimati of that year 
 contains productions the most degraded, morally and 
 intellectually, that ever proceeded from a human pen, 
 not e:sceptiag that of the P^re Duchesne. These are 
 the terms in which men allowed themselves to speak 
 of the ruler who saved oiu- nation from as awful a crime 
 as any on which the sun has shone : — 
 
 " JSarring humanity-prctcttdcrs. 
 To Hell of none are we tlie wiUing senders ; 
 But, if to sepoTS entrance must he given, 
 Locate them, Lord, ia the back slums of Hearen. " . 
 
 Tiilk of the Xcw York Herald / May our Father 
 which is in heaven not lead us again into such temp- 
 tation ! 
 
 When but seven years have passed since such a mine 
 lay beneath our feet unheeded and unknown, we should 
 be slow to affirm that we understand the feelings and 
 character of the people of India. Their ianer life stiR 
 remains a sealed book to us. Certain it is that we 
 have a very vague notion of the estimation in which 
 thev hold us. It is hardly possible for a man brought 
 up amidst European scenes and associations to realize 
 the idea conceived of him and his countrymen by a 
 thorough-bred Hindoo. On the one hand, the natives 
 must acknowledge our vast superiority in the arts of 
 war and government. Our railways and steamships 
 and Armstrong guns are tangible facts which cannot be 
 slighted. They must be perfectly aware that we have 
 
346 WHAT WE SEEM TO THE NATIVES. 
 
 conquered them, and are governing them in a more 
 systematic and downright manner than they have ever 
 been governed before. But, on the other hand, many 
 of our usages must in their eyes appear most debased 
 and revolting. Imagine the horror with which a punc- 
 tilious and devout Brahmin cannot but regard a people 
 who eat the flesh of cow and pig, and drink various 
 sorts of strong liquor from morning till night. It is at 
 least as hard for such a man to look up to us as his 
 betters, morally and socially, as it would be for us to 
 place amongst the most civilized nations of the world a 
 population which was in the habit of dining on hiunan 
 flesh, and intoxicating itself daily with laudanum and 
 sal-volatile. The peculiar qualities which mark the 
 Englishman are singularly distasteful to the Oriental, 
 and are sure to be strangely distorted when seen from 
 his point of view. Our energy and earnestness appear 
 oppressive and importunate to the languid voluptuous 
 aristocracy of the East. Our very honesty seems osten- 
 tatious and contemptible to the wily and tortuous 
 Hindoo mind. That magnificent disregard of hs con- 
 venances, which has rendered our countrymen so justly 
 beloved by all the continental nations, is inexplicable 
 and hatefid. to a race who consider external pomp and 
 reticent solemnity to be the necessary accompaniments 
 of rank, worth, or power. The Maharajah of Kishnagur 
 once described to me his disgust and surprise at seeing 
 an English magistrate, during a shooting excursion, 
 bathe in a tank near which the tents were pitched. 
 Europeans who have resided many years in the East 
 seldom fail to acquire some of these so-called Oriental 
 prejudices. Some of my Anglo-Indian friends have told 
 
Gl'3fXASTICS. 347 
 
 me that nothing would persuade them to strip them- 
 selves in a public swimming-bath ; and I have seen a 
 high official unable to conceal his horror when a suck- 
 ing-pig, which by that time was a sucking-pig only in 
 name, was placed on the table directly under his nose. 
 
 It is noteworthy that the free and hardy customs of 
 the ancient Greeks produced much the same effect upon 
 the effeminate subjects of Darius and Artaxerxes. The 
 Persian, whose every action was dictated by a spirit of 
 intense deconmi and self-respect, could not appreciate 
 the lordly iadifference to appearances displayed by the 
 Spartan, accustomed to box, and run, and wrestle with- 
 out a shred of clothing, in the presence of myriads of 
 his brother Hellenes. Herodotus tells his countrj-men, 
 as a remarkable piece of information, that, " among the 
 " Lydians, and, speaking loosely, among barbarians in 
 " general, it is held to be a great disgrace to be seen 
 " naked, even for a man." 
 
 Add the mysterious awe by which we are shrouded in 
 the eyes of the native population, which very generally 
 attributes to magic our uniform success in everything 
 we take in hand, and you wUl have some conception 
 of the picture presented to the Hindoo mind by an inde- 
 fatigable, public-spirited, plain-spoken, beer-drinking, 
 cigar-smoking, tiger-shooting collector. "We should not 
 be far wrong if we were content to allow that we are 
 regai-ded by our Eastern subjects as a species of quaint 
 and somewhat objectionable demons, with a rare apti- 
 tude for fighttag and administration ; foul and degraded 
 in our habits, though with reference to those habits not 
 to be judged by the same standard as ordinary men ; 
 not malevolent withal (that is to say the official fiends), 
 
348 ORIENTAL PEELING ABOUT WOMEN. 
 
 but entirely wayward and nnaccountable ; a race of 
 demi-devils : neither quite human, nor yet quite super- 
 natural ; not whoUy bad, yet far from perfectly beni- 
 ficent ; who have been settled down in the country by 
 the will of fate, and seem very much inclined to stay 
 there by our own. If this is not the idea entertained of 
 us by an average Bengalee rustic, it is something very 
 near it. 
 
 Such is the incompatibility of sentiment and custom 
 between the European and the natives, that even the 
 firmest friends of the latter allow that a complete 
 amalgamation is quite hopeless. The wide and radical 
 difference between the views held by the respective 
 races with regard to the weaker sex alone, forms a bar, 
 at present insuperable, to any very familiar intercourse. 
 We. who stUl live among the recollections and records 
 of chivalry, horrify utilitarians by persisting in regard- 
 ing women as goddesses. The Hindoos, who allow their 
 sisters and daughters few or no personal rights — the 
 Mahommedans, who do not even allow them souls — 
 cannot bring themselves to look upon women as better 
 than playthings. The pride of a Mussulman servant is 
 terr-ibly wounded by a scolding from the lady of the 
 house. He takes every opportunity of showing contempt 
 for his mistress by various childish impertinences when 
 the Sahib and his horsewhip are well out of the way. 
 Among the numberless symptoms of our national eccen- 
 tricity, that which seems most extraordinary to a native 
 is our submitting to be governed by a woman. For a 
 long time they accounted for the presence of the Queen's 
 ef&gy on the rupee by setting her down as the wife of 
 John Kumpani. Now they probably imagine that John 
 
IKCOMPATIBILITT OF SEXTIMEXT. 349 
 
 Kiimpani is dead, and that she has come into possession 
 as residuary legatee. The free and unrestrained life of 
 an English lady excites the strangest and most imjust 
 ideas in the mind of an Hindoo. To see women riding 
 in public, driving about in open carriages, dining and 
 talking and dancing with men connected with them 
 neither by blood nor marriage, never fails to produce 
 upon him a most false and imfortunate impression. 
 Many gentlemen who are intimately acquainted with 
 nati-\'e ways of thought are not often very ready to take 
 their wives and daughters to balls where the guests are 
 of mixed nationality. I was present lately at an enter- 
 tainment given by the Maharaja of Nilpore. The danc- 
 ing went on in a sort of atrium in the centre of the 
 palace, while the host, in a blaze of diamonds from 
 head to foot, inspected the scene through a lorgnette, 
 from the gallerv, turning from time to time to make a 
 remark to a circle of his friends and hangers-on. He 
 resembled Lord Steyne at the opera, surrounded by his 
 Wenhalns and AVaggs, rather than the received notion 
 of " the man of the house " of a Belgravian ball-room. 
 His bearing aroused the most lively indignation among 
 the older Anglo-Indians. Suggestions to "turn him 
 " out,' and " throw him over '' were bandied about in an 
 audible key. One old campaigner sighed for the halycon 
 days of the mutiny. " Hang him ! I should like to 
 " loot him. He must be worth a quarter of a crore of 
 " rupees as he stands. His cap alone would be a good 
 " two lacs." 
 
 The longer a man lives in this country the more 
 firmly convinced does he become that the amalgamation 
 of the conquerors and the conquered is an idea imprac- 
 
350 AMALGAMATION HOPELESS. 
 
 ticable, and, to use an odious word^ Utopian. But this 
 does not imply that, as time goes on, as the native 
 becomes 'civilized, and the European humane and equi- 
 table, the two races should not live side by side with 
 mutual sympathy and self-respect, and work together 
 heartily for the same great ends. But this consum- 
 mation is simply impossible untU there is a marked 
 improvement in the tone of the European settlers. 
 That intense Anglo-Saxon spirit of seK-approbation, 
 which, though dormant at home, is unpleasantly per- 
 ceptible among vulgar Englishmen on* the Continenii 
 becomes rampant in India. It is painful, indeed, to 
 observe the deep pride and insolence of race which is 
 engrained in our nature, and which yields only to the 
 highest degree of education and enlightenment. The 
 lower in the scale of society, the more marked become 
 the symptoms of that baneful sentiment. A native of 
 rank, whom men like Sir John Lawrence or Sir Herbert 
 Edwardes treat with the courtesy due to an equal, will 
 be iiouted and kicked about by any planter's assistant 
 *or sub-deputy railway-contractor whose path he may 
 chance to cross. On such a question as this, one fact 
 is worth volumes of declamation ; and facts of grave 
 import may be gathered by the bushel by any one who 
 spends three days in the country with his mouth shut 
 and his eyes wide open. 
 
 Sonepore, the point at which the Gunduck runs into 
 the Ganges, is the most sacred spot in the North of 
 India. Thither, time out of mind, at a certain phase 
 of the moon during the late autumn, devout Hindoos 
 have been wont to repair from hundreds of miles round, 
 for the purpose of washing away their sins. Men dis- 
 
SONEPORE 351 
 
 covered that expiatory bathing was not incompatible 
 with business, and a great fair began to be held yearly 
 during the festival, principally for dealings in elephant 
 and horse-flesh. The Anglo-Indians, who attended for 
 the purpose of buying nags, soon took to running their 
 purchases one against another ; and the attractions of a 
 European race-meeting were thus added to those which 
 Sonepore already possessed during the sacred week. 
 The whole of Bahar society now makes holiday ia that 
 week, and a more pleasant reunion it is difBcult to 
 imagine. JMen rejoice in the annual opportunity of 
 renewing HaHeybury and Addiscombe friendships with 
 old companions from whom they have been separated 
 throughout the remainder of the year by vast distances 
 and vile roads. The complicated family connexions, 
 so general in the Civil Service, render this periodical 
 gathering peculiarly pleasant. The wife of the Judge 
 of Boglipore looks forward for months to meeting her 
 sister, the Collectrix of Gya ; and the Commissioner of 
 Benares, like a good cousin, has promised to bring her 
 brother in his train, though that promising but sus- 
 ceptible Assistant-Magistrate has exceeded his privilege 
 leave by ten days' extra philandering at Simla. The 
 desirable young ladies come to Sonepore already engaged 
 to local partners for every dance during the meeting : — 
 a circumstance extremely discouraging to casual swells 
 who may have been attracted from Calcutta by the 
 glowing accounts of the doings at the races put about 
 by Bahar members of the Secretariat. Beneath a vast 
 circular grove stretches a camp more than a mile in 
 extent, where croquet and betting go on briskly by day, 
 and waltzing and flirtation by night. The tents of each 
 
352 WHAT I SAW THIEBM. 
 
 set of friends cluster rouud a large open pavilion, be- 
 longing to some liberal planter or magistrate, where 
 covers are laid three times a day for every one who can 
 be cajoled into joining the party. I coiild talk on for 
 ever about Sonepore ; such dear associations does it 
 conjure up of open-handed Indian hospitality and open- 
 hearted Indian friends, from my feeling for whom neither 
 time, nor absence, nor opposed sentiments, nor divided 
 interests, can ever, shall ever, abate one atom of affection 
 and gratitude. 
 
 It was there, during one of the principal races, that I 
 was standing at the judge's post, divided by the breadth 
 of the course from a platform occupied by some dozen 
 Englishmen. Close up to ■ this platform crowded a 
 number of well-dressed, well-to-do natives — ^respectable 
 shopkeepers from Chupra ; warm men of business from 
 Patna ; gentlemen of rank from Benares and Lucknow. 
 I saw — with my own eyes I saw— a tall raw-boned 
 brute of a planter, whose name I should not hesitate to 
 publish if it were worth the publishing, rush at these 
 men, who had as good a right to be there as the 
 Governor-General himself, and flog them with a double- 
 thonged hunting-whip, until he had driven them in 
 humiliating confusion and teiTor for the distance of many 
 yards. One or two civilians present said to each other 
 that it was a "shame;" but no one seemed astounded 
 or horrified ; no one interposed ; no one prosecuted ; n 
 one objected to meet the blackguard at dinner, or to 
 take the odds from him at the ordinary. 
 
 A Judge of the High Court at Calcutta informed me 
 that he had himself witnessed the foUowiag scene, while 
 travelling on the East Indian Eailway between Benares 
 
A " NATIVE GENTLEMAN. " 353 
 
 and Ho%vraIi. When the train stopped at a certain 
 station, a Bengalee attempted to get into a second-class 
 carriage. Some Europeans, who were comfortably set- 
 tled down for a long sleep, told him to go about his 
 business. He appealed to the officials, stating himself 
 to be a native gentleman. A person in authority told 
 him he must be contented to travel third-class ; to 
 which he replied that he preferred to be left behind. 
 By this time he was surrounded by a circle of bullying 
 English travellers; whom the gitard of the train con- 
 vulsed with delight by holding up his lantern to the 
 poor man's face, and in a strong Irish brogue bidding 
 the bystanders look at " a specimen of a native gentle- 
 " man.'' 
 
 If I covdd think that the interest with which you 
 read these stories could be one-tenth as deep as the 
 pain with which I write them, you should have enough 
 to keep you in indignation for the next twelvemonth. 
 But things which, when acted, set the teeth chattering 
 and the fingers twitching, seem childish enough when 
 turned into sentences and divided with commas and 
 colons. Heaven knows, I would give a month's pay or 
 a year's pension to have my will of some ruffians for 
 what I have heard them say with applause, and seen 
 them to do with impunity. Fearful s^-mptoms these of 
 what must be seething below ! However kind he might 
 be to his native servants, however just to his native 
 tenants, there is not a single non-official person in 
 India, with whom I have convei-sed on public ques- 
 tions, who would not consider tlie sentiment that we 
 hold India for the benefit of the inhabitants of India a 
 loathsome un-English piece of cant. Hence comes the 
 
 A A 
 
354 NEVER RELAX. 
 
 paramount necessity that opinion at home should keep 
 a close watch upon the conduct of the affairs of India. 
 It is not enough that we send her out able and high^ 
 minded rulers. While there, they must never be allowed 
 to forget that the eyes of England are upon them. Lord 
 Canniug was as brave a man and as good a man as 
 could well be found within our isles. Such he proved 
 himself to be at a crisis when virtue was useless without 
 courage, and when courage without virtue was far worse 
 than useless. Yet even he succumbed at last to the 
 raveniug clamour of the friends of indigo. If Lord 
 Canning had been left to himself, the ryot would have 
 been delivered over to his tyrants bound hand and foot 
 by a law illogical, inhumane, and inexpedient in all the 
 highest senses. 
 
 What is the meaning of the Anglo-Saxon outcry? 
 We cannot exterminate a wealthy and ancient com- 
 munity of a hundred and fifty millions of human 
 beings, like so many Maories or Cherokees : and, if we 
 do not exterminate them, we cannot continue to humble 
 and to wrong them. If this state of things is dis- 
 regarded at home, most serious evils must ensue. If it 
 should ever come to pass that for a single period of five 
 years India should be governed under the auspices of a 
 Secretary of State of anti-native tendencies, the certain 
 result would be a wide- spread system of social oppres- 
 sion, degrading and cruel to, the native, shameful and 
 demoralizing to us. The apathy of Englishmen to the 
 affairs of India would be venial if our interests alone 
 were thereby placed in peril ; but, when the conse- 
 quences fall on the innocent children of the soil, that 
 apathy becomes nothing less than criminal. While 
 
PERILS OF APJTHF. 355 
 
 honest men doze, bad men aa'e hard at work. Tlie 
 people of Hindostan, if they be wise, will make it their 
 prayer that they may gain the ear of England ; for, if 
 they succeed in obtaining her attention, they are secure 
 of her humanity and her justice. 
 
 Youi's ever, 
 
 H. Broughton. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 PRINTED BY R. CLAT, SOX, AND TAYLOR, RRKAD STREET HILI_