From sea to sea and other sketches; letters of travel

TORONTO PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BRANCH — (

^ AUG 1 9 1999

THE SERVICE EDITION

OF

THE WORKS OF
RUDYARD KIPLING

FROM SEA TO SEA

AND OTHER SKETCHES
VOL. IV

FROM SEA TO SEA

AND OTHER SKETCHES
LETTERS OF TRAVEL

BY

RUDYARD KIPLING

IN FOUR VOLUMES
VOL. IV

MACMILLAN AND CO.. LLMllED

ST MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON

1914

COLLuGt ^
LIBRARY. Jj

A^ ^,1

_^

FEB 1 0 1959

CONTENTS

THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

1 Page

A Real Live City 3

II

The Reflections of a Savage ♦ . .11

III

The Council of the Gods . . . .21

IV

On the Banks of the Hughli . . . 33

V

With the Calcutta Police . . . .45

VI

The City of Dreadful Night . . .53
vii

FROM SEA TO SEA

VII P.,e

Deeper and Deeper Still . . . .65

VIII
Concerning Lucia . . ♦ ♦ .73

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

A Railway Settlement 85

II
The Shops .♦..♦♦. 95

III

Vulcan's Forge 106

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

I
On the Surface 119

II

In the Depths 130

viii

CONTENTS

III

The Perils of the Pits .

IN AN OPIUM FACTORY .

Page

138
151

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

The Cow-house Jirga .

. . 163

A Bazar Dhulip .

. 170

The Hands of Justice .

. , 175

The Serai Cabal .

, 180

The Story of a King .

. 185

The Great Census

. 190

The Killing of Hatim Tai .

. 196

A Self-Made Man

. 201

The Vengeance of Lai Beg .

. . 207

Hunting a Miracle

. 211

The Explanation of Mir Baksh

. 217

A Letter from Golam Singh

. 223

The Writing of Yakub Khan

. 228

A King's Ashes ,

. 236

The Bride's Progress .

. 240

' A District at Play ' ♦

, 251

"What it comes to

. 264

The Opinions of Gunner Barnab

as . . 270

IX

^9 CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

s. s. Vol. IV 5S

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Jan.'Feb., 1888

CHAPTER I
A Real Live City

WE are all backwoodsmen and barbarians
together — we others dwelling beyond the
Ditch, in the outer darkness of the
Mofussil. There are no such things as Com^
missioners and heads of departments in the world,
and there is only one city in India. Bombay is
too green, too pretty, and too stragglesome ; and
Madras died ever so long ago. Let us take off
our hats to Calcutta, the many-sided, the smoky,
the magnificent, as we drive in over the Hughli
Bridge in the dawn of a still February morning.
We have left India behind us at Howrah Station,
and now we enter foreign parts. No, not wholly
foreign. Say rather too familiar.

3

FROM SEA TO SEA

All men of a certain age know the feeling of
caged irritation — an illustration in the GraphiCy a
bar of music or the light words of a friend from
home may set it ablaze — that comes from the
knowledge of our lost heritage of London. At
Home they, the other men, our equals, have at
their disposal all that Town can supply — the roar
of the streets, the lights, the music, the pleasant
places, the millions of their own kind, and a wilder^
ness full of pretty, fresh'coloured Englishwomen,
theatres and restaurants. It is their right. They
accept it as such, and even affect to look upon it
with contempt. And we — we have nothing except
the few amusements that we painfully build up for
ourselves — the dolorous dissipations of gymkhanas
where every one knows everybody else, or the
chastened intoxication of dances where all engage^
ments are booked, in ink, ten days ahead, and
where everybody's antecedents are as patent as
his or her method of waltzing. We have been
deprived of our inheritance. The men at home
are enjoying it all, not knowing how fair and rich
it is, and we at the most can only fly westward for
a few months and gorge what, properly speaking,
should take seven or eight or ten luxurious years.
That is the lost heritage of London ; and the know^
ledge of the forfeiture, wilful or forced, comes to
most men at times and seasons, and they get cross.

4

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Calcutta holds out false hopes of some return.
The dense smoke hangs low, in the chill of the
morning, over an ocean of roofs, and, as the city
wakes, there goes up to the smoke a deep, full^
throated boom of life and motion and humanity.
For this reason does he who sees Calcutta for the
first time hang joyously out of the ticca^gharri and
sniff the smoke, and turn his face toward the
tumult, saying: 'This is, at last, some portion
of my heritage returned to me. TThis is a dty.
There is life here, and there should be all manner
of pleasant things for the having, across the river
and under the smoke.'

The litany is an expressive one and exactly
describes the first emotions of a wandering savage
adrift in Calcutta. The eye has lost its sense
of proportion, the focus has contracted through
overmuch residence in up'Country stations — twenty
minutes' canter from hospital to parade-ground,
you know — and the m.ind has shrunk with the
eye. Both say together, as they take in the sweep
of shipping above and below the Hughli Bridge :
* Why, this is London ! This is the docks. This
is Imperial. TTiis is worth coming across India
to see ! '

Then a distinctly wicked idea takes possession
of the mind : ' What a divine — what a heavenly
place to loot ! ' This gives place to a much worse

5

FROM SEA TO SEA

devil — that of Conservatism. It seems not only a
wrong but a criminal thing to allow natives to
have any voice in the control of such a city —
adorned^ docked^ wharfed> fronted, and reclaimed
by Englishmen, existing only because England
lives, and dependent for its life on England. All
India knows of the Calcutta Municipality; but
has any one thoroughly investigated the Big
Calcutta Stink ? There is only one. Benares is
fouler in point of concentrated, pent-up muck,
and there are local stenches in Peshawar vv'hich
are stronger than the B. C. S. ; but, for diffused,
soul'sickening expansiveness, the reek of Calcutta
beats both Benares and Peshawar. Bombay cloaks
her stenches with a veneer of assafoetida and
tobacco ; Calcutta is above pretence. There is no
tracing back the Calcutta plague to any one source.
It is faint, it is sickly, and it is indescribable ; but
Americans at the Great Eastern Hotel say that it
is something like the sm.ell of the Chinese quarter
in San Francisco. It is certainly not an Indian
smell. It resembles the essence of corruption that
has rotted for the second time — the clammy odour
of blue slime. And there is no escape from it.
It blows across the maidan ; it comes in gusts into
the corridors of the Great Eastern Hotel ; what
they are pleased to call the * Palaces of Chowringhi *
carry it j it swirls round the Bengal Club j it

6

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

pours out of by 'Streets with sickening intensity,
and the breeze of the morning is laden with it.
It is first found, in spite of the fume of the engines,
in Howrah Station. It seems to be worst in the
little lanes at the back of Lai Bazar where the
drinking'shops are, but it is nearly as bad opposite
Government House and in the Public Offices.
The thing is intermittent. Six moderately pure
mouthfuls of air may be drawn without offence.
Then comes the seventh wave and the queasi^
ness of an uncultured stomach. If you live long
enough in Calcutta you grow used to it. The
regular residents admit the disgrace, but their
answer is : * Wait till the wind blows off the Salt
Lakes where all the sewage goes, and then you'll
smell something.' That is their defence ! Small
wonder that they consider Calcutta is a fit place
for a permanent Viceroy. Englishmen who can
calmly extenuate one shame by another are capable
of asking for anything — and expecting to get it.

If an up'Country station holding three thousand
troops and twenty civilians owned such a possession
as Calcutta does, the Deputy Commissioner or the
Cantonment Magistrate would have all the natives
off the board of management or decently shovelled
into the background until the mess was abated.
Then they might come on again and talk of * high-
handed oppression ' as much as they liked. That

7

FROM SEA TO SEA

stink, to an unprejudiced nose, damns Calcutta as
a City of Kings. And, in spite of that stink, they
allow, they even encourage, natives to look after
the place! The damp, drainage ^ soaked soil is
sick with the teeming life of a hundred years, and
the Municipal Board list is choked with the names
of natives — men of the breed bom in and raised
off this surfeited muck'heap ! They own property,
these amiable Aryans on the Municipal and the
Bengal Legislative Council. Launch a proposal
to tax them on that property, and they naturally
howl. They also howl up'Country, but there the
halls for mass^meetings are few, and the vernacular
papers fewer, and with a strong Secretary and a
President whose favour is worth the having and
whose wrath is undesirable, men are kept clean
despite themselves, and may not poison their
neighbours. Why, asks a savage, let them vote
at all? They can put up with this filthiness.
They cannot have any feelings worth caring a rush
for. Let them live quietly and hide away their
money under our protection, while we tax them
till they know through their purses the measure
of their neglect in the past, and when a little of
the smell has been abolished, let us bring them
back again to talk and take the credit of enlighten^
ment. The better classes own their broughams
and barouches ; the worse can shoulder an English^

8

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

man into the kennel and talk to him as though he
were a cook. They can refer to an English lady
as an aurat; they are permitted a freedom — not
to put it too coarsely — of speech which, if used
by an Englishman toward an Englishman, would
end in serious trouble. They are fenced and
protected and made inviolate. Surely they might
be content with all those things without entering
into matters which they cannot, by the nature of
their birth, understand.

Now, whether all this genial diatribe be the
outcome of an unbiassed mind or the result first
of sickness caused by that ferocious stench, and
secondly of headache due to day-long smoking to
drown the stench, is an open question. Anyway,
Calcutta is a fearsome place for a man not edu^
cated up to it.

A word of advice to other barbarians. Do not
bring a north'Country servant into Calcutta. He
is sure to get into trouble, because he does not
understand the customs of the city. A Punjabi in
this place for the first time esteems it his bounden
duty to go to the Ajaib'ghar — the Museum. Such
an one has gone and is even now returned very
angry and troubled in the spirit. * I went to the
Museum,' says he, * and no one gave me any abuse.
I went to the market to buy my food, and then I
sat upon a seat. There came an orderly who

9

FROM SEA TO SEA

said, " Go away, I want to sit here/^ I said, ** I
am here first." He said, **\ am a chaprassil get
out I '' and he hit me. Now that sitting-place was
open to all, so I hit him till he wept. He ran
away for the Police, and I went away too, for the
Police here are all Sahibs. Can I have leave from
two o'clock to go and look for that man and hit
him again ? *

Behold the situation ! An unknown city full
of smell that makes one long for rest and retire^
ment, and a champing servant, not yet six hours
in the stew, who has started a blood'feud with an
unknown chaprassi and clamours to go forth to
the fray.

Alas for the lost delusion of the heritage that
was to be restored ! Let us sleep, let us sleep,
and pray that Calcutta may be better to-morrow.

At present it is remarkably like sleeping with a
corpse.

10

CHAPTER II
The Reflections of a Savage

MORNING brings counsel Does Calcutta
smell so pestiferously after all ? Heavy-
rain has fallen in the night. She is newly
washed, and the clear sunlight shows her at her
best. Where, oh where, in all this wilderness of
life shall a man go ?

The Great Eastern hums with life through all
its hundred rooms. Doors slam merrily, and all
the nations of the earth run up and down the
staircases. This alone is refreshing, because the
passers bump you and ask you to stand aside.
Fancy finding any place outside the Levee'room
where Englishmen are crowded together to this
extent! Fancy sitting down seventy strong to
table cfhote and with a deafening clatter of knives
and forks ! Fancy finding a real bar whence drinks
may be obtained ! and, joy of joys, fancy stepping
out of the hotel into the arms of a live, white,

11

FROM SEA TO SEA

helmeted, buttoned^ truncheoned Bobby! What
would happen if one spoke to this Bobby?
Would he be offended? He is not offended.
He is affable. He has to patrol the pavement
in front of the Great Eastern and to see that
the crowding carriages do not jam. Toward
a presumably respectable white he behaves as a
man and a brother. There is no arrogance
about him. And this is disappointing. Closer
inspection shows that he is not a real Bobby
after all. He is a Municipal Police something
and his uniform is not correct; at least if they
have not changed the dress of the men at home.
But no matter. Later on we will inquire into the
Calcutta Bobby, because he is a white man, and
has to deal with some of the * toughest ' folk that
ever set out of malice aforethought to paint Job
Charnock's city vermilion. You must not, you
cannot cross Old Court House Street without
looking carefully to see that you stand no
chance of being run over. This is beautiful.
There is a steady roar of traffic, cut every two
minutes by the deep roll of the trams. The
driving is eccentric, not to say bad, but there
is the traffic — more than unsophisticated eyes
have beheld for a certain number of years. It
means business, it means money -' making, it
means crowded and hurrying life, and it gets

12

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

into the blood and makes it move. Here be
big shops with plate'glass fronts — all displaying
the well'known names of firms that we savages
only correspond with through the Parcels Post.
They are all here» as large as life, ready to
supply anything you need if you only care to
sign. Great is the fascination of being able to
obtain a thing on the spot without having to
write for a week and wait for a month, and
then get something quite different. No wonder
pretty ladies, who live anywhere within a reason'
able distance, come down to do their shopping
personally.

'Lx)ok here. If you want to be respectable
you mustn't smoke in the streets. Nobody does
it.' This is advice kindly tendered by a friend in
a black coat. There is no Levee or Lieutenant'
Governor in sight ; but he wears the frock'Coat
because it is daylight, and he can be seen. He
refrains from smoking for the same reason. He
admits that Providence built the open air to be
smoked in, but he says that 'it isn't the thing.'
This man has a brougham, a remarkably natty
little pill'box with a curious wabble about the
wheels. He steps into the brougham and puts
on — a top'hat, a shiny black * plug.'

There v/as a man up'Country once who owned
a top ' hat. He leased it to amateur theatrical

13

FROM SEA TO SEA

companies for some seasons until the nap wore
off. Then he threw it into a tree and wild bees
hived in it» Men were wont to come and look
at the hat, in its palmy days, for the sake of
feeling homesick. It interested all the station,
and died with two seers of babul'-ilower honey
in its bosom. But top^hats are not intended to
be worn in India. They are as sacred as home
letters and old rose ^ buds. The friend cannot
see this. He allows that if he stepped out of
his brougham and walked about in the sunshine
for ten minutes he would get a bad headache.
In half an hour he would probably die of sun^
stroke. He allows all this, but he keeps to his
Hat and cannot see why a barbarian is moved
to inextinguishable laughter at the sight. Every
one who owns a brougham and many people
who hire ticca-gharris keep top^hats and black
frock' coats. The effect is curious, and at first
fills the beholder with surprise.

And now, *Let us see the handsome houses
Where the wealthy nobles dwell' Northerly lies
the great human jungle of the native city,
stretching from Burra Bazar to Chitpore. That
can keep. Southerly is the maidan and Chow'
ringhi. ' If you get out into the centre of the
maidan you will understand why Calcutta is called
the City of Palaces.' The travelled American

14

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

said so at the Great Eastern. There is a short
tower, falsely called a ' memorial/ standing in a
waste of soft, sour green. TTiat is as good a
place to get to as any other. The size of the
maidan takes the heart out of any one accustomed
to the * gardens ' of up-country, just as they say
Newmarket Heath cows a horse accustomed to
a more shut - in course. The huge level is
studded with brazen statues of eminent gentle-
men riding fretful horses on diabolically severe
curbs. The expanse dwarfs the statues, dwarfs
everything except the frontage of the far-away
Chowringhi Road. It is big — it is impressive.
There is no escaping the fact. They built houses
in the old days when the rupee was two shillings
and a penny. Those houses are three-storied, and
ornamented with service-staircases like houses in
the Hills. They are very close together, and they
have garden walls of masonry pierced with a single
gate. In their shut-upness they are British. In
their spaciousness they are Oriental, but those
service - staircases do not look healthy. We will
form an amateur sanitary commission and call
upon Chowringhi.

A first introduction to the Calcutta durwan
or door-keeper is not nice. If he is chewing
parit he does not take the trouble to get rid of
his quid. If he is sitting on his cot chewing

15

FROM SEA TO SEA

sugar-cane, he does not think it worth his while
to rise. He has to be taught those things, and
he cannot understand why he should be reproved.
Clearly he is a survival of a played'out system.
Providence never intended that any native should
be made a concierge more insolent than any of the
French variety. The people of Calcutta put a
man in a little lodge close to the gate of their
house, in order that loafers may be turned
away, and the houses protected from theft.
The natural result is that the durwan treats
everybody whom he does not know as a loafer,
has an intimate and vendible knowledge of all
the outgoings and incomings in that house, and
controls, to a large extent, the nomination of
the servants. They say that one of the estim-
able class is now suing a bank for about three
lakhs of rupees. Up - country, a Lieutenant-
Governor's servant has to work for thirty years
before he can retire on seventy thousand rupees
of savings. The Calcutta duruodti is a great in-
stitution. TTie head and front of his offence is
that he will insist upon trying to talk English.
How he protects the houses Calcutta only knows.
He can be frightened out of his wits by severe
speech, and is generally asleep in calling hours.
If a rough round of visits be any guide, three
times out of seven he is fragrant of drink. So

16

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

much for the diirivan. Now for the houses he
guards.

Very pleasant is the sensation of being ushered
into a pestiferously stablesome drawing-room.
' Does this always happen ? ' ' No, not unless
you shut up the room for some time ; but if you
open the shutters there are other smells. You
see the stables and the servants' quarters are close
to.' People pay five hundred a month for half a
dozen rooms filled with scents of this kind. They
make no complaint. When they think the honour
of the city is at stake they say defiantly : * Yes,
but you must remember we're a metropolis. We
are crowded here. We have no room. We aren't
like your little stations.' Chowringhi is a stately
place full of sumptuous houses, but it is best to
look at it hastily. Stop to consider for a moment
what the cramped compounds, the black soaked
soil, the netted intricacies of the service'Staircases,
the packed stables, the seethment of human life
round the diirwans* lodges, and the curious arrange^
ment of little open drains mean, and you will call
it a whited sepulchre.

Men living in expensive tenements suffer from
chronic sore throat, and will tell you cheerily that
* we've got typhoid in Calcutta now.' Is the pest
ever out of it? Everything seems to be built
with a view to its comfort. It can lodge com^

s. s. Vol. IV 17 c

FROM SEA TO SEA

fortably on roofs, climb along from the gutter^pipe
to piazza, or rise from sink to veranda and thence
to the topmost story. But Calcutta says that all
is sound and produces figures to prove it ; at the
same time admitting that healthy cut flesh will not
readily heal. Further evidence may be dispensed
with.

Here come pouring down Park Street on the
maidan a rush of broughams, neat buggies, the
lightest of gigs, trim office brownberrys, shining
victorias, and a sprinkling of veritable hansom
cabs. In the broughams sit men in top'hats. In
the other carts, young men, all very much alike,
and all immaculately turned out. A fresh stream
from Chowringhi joins the Park Street detach'
ment, and the two together stream away across the
maidan toward the business quarter of the city.
This is Calcutta going to office — the civilians to
the Government Buildings and the young men to
their firms and their blocks and their wharves.
Here one sees that Calcutta has the best turn-out
in the Empire. Horses and traps alike are enviably
perfect, and — mark the touchstone of civilisation
— tlie lamps are in their sockets! The country^
bred is a rare beast here ; his place is taken by the
Waler, and the Waler, though a ruffian at heart,
can be made to look like a gentleman. It would
be indecorous to applaud the winking harness, the

18

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

perfectly lacquered panels, and the liveried saises.
They show well in the outw^ardly fair roads
shadowed by the Palaces.

How many sections of the complex society of
the place do the carts carry? Firsts the Bengal
Civilian who goes to Writers' Buildings and sits in
a perfect office and speaks flippantly of ' sending
things into India/ meaning thereby he refers
matters to the Supreme Government. He is a
great person, and his mouth is full of promotion'
and'appointment * shop.' Generally he is referred
to as a 'rising man.' Calcutta seems full of 'rising
men.' Secondly^ the Government of India man,
who wears a familiar Simla face, rents a flat when
he is not up in the Hills, and is rational on the
subject of the drawbacks of Calcutta. Thirdly, the
man of the ' firms,' the pure non^official who fights
under the banner of one of the great houses of the
City, or for his ov/n hand in a neat office, or dashes
about Clive Street in a brougham doing 'share
work ' or something of the kind. He fears not
' Bengal,' nor regards he ' India.' He swears im.^
partially at both when their actions interfere with
his operations. His ' shop ' is quite unintelligible.
He is like the English city man with the chill off,
lives well and entertains hospitably. In the old
days he was greater than he is now, but still he
bulks large. He is rational in so far that he will

19

FROM SEA TO SEA

help the abuse of the Municipality, but womanish
in his insistence on the excellences of Calcutta.
Over and above these who are hurrying to work
are the various brigades, squads, and detachments
of the other interests. But they are sets and not
sections, and revolve round Belvedere, Government
House, and Fort William. Simla and Darjeeling
claim them in the hot weather. Let them go.
They wear top'hats and frock-coats.

It is time to escape from Chowringhi Road
and get among the long'shore folk, who have no
prejudices against tobacco, and who all use very
much the same sort of hat.

20

CHAPTER III

The Council of the Gods

He set up conclusions to the number of nine thousand
seven hundred and sixty-four ... he went afterwards to the
Sorbonne, where he maintained argument against the theO'
logians for the space of six weeks, from four o'clock in the
morning till six in the evening, except for an interval of two
hours to refresh themselves and take their repasts, and at this
were present the greatest part of the lords of the court, the
masters of request, presidents, counsellors, those of the ac-
compts, secretaries, advocates, and others ; as also the sheriffs
of the said town. — Pantagruel.

*^ I THE Bengal Legislative Council is sitting
I now. You will find it in an octagonal
A wing of Writers' Buildings : straight across
the maidan. It's worth seeing.' ' What are they
sitting on ? ' * Municipal business. No end of a
debate.' So much for trying to keep low company.
The long'shore loafers must stand over. Without
doubt this Council is going to hang some one for
the state of the City, and Sir Steuart Bayley will

21

FROM SEA TO SEA

be chief executioner. One does not come across
councils every day.

Writers' Buildings are large. You can trouble
the busy workers of half a dozen departments
before you stumble upon the black^stained stair^
case that leads to an upper chamber looking out
over a populous street. Wild orderlies block the
way. The Councillor Sahibs are sitting, but any
one can enter. *To the right of the Lat Sahib's
chair, and go quietly.' Ill-mannered minion!
Does he expect the awe -stricken spectator to
prance in with a war-whoop or turn Catherine-
wheels round that sumptuous octagonal room with
the blue-domed roof? There are gilt capitals to
the half pillars and an Egyptian-patterned lotus-
stencil makes the walls gay. A thick-piled carpet
covers all the floor, and must be delightful in the
hot weather. On a black wooden throne, com-
fortably cushioned in green leather, sits Sir Steuart
Bayley, Ruler of Bengal. The rest are all great
men, or else they would not be there. Not to
know them argues oneself unknown. There are
a dozen of them, and sit six a-side at two slightly
curved lines of beautifully polished desks. Thus
Sir Steuart Bayley occupies the frog of a badly
made horse-shoe split at the toe. In front of him,
at a table covered with books and pamphlets and
papers, toils a secretary. There is a seat for the

22

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Reporters, and that is all. The place enjoys a
chastened gloom, and its very atmosphere fills one
with awe. This is the heart of Bengal, and un^
commonly well upholstered. If the work matches
the first' class furniture, the inkpots, the carpet,
and the resplendent ceilings, there will be some'
thing worth seeing. But where is the criminal
who is to be hanged for the stench that runs up
and down Writers' Buildings staircases; for the
rubbish heaps in the Chitpore Road ; for the sickly
savour of Chowringhi ; for the dirty little tanks
at the back of Belvedere ; for the street full of
smallpox ; for the reeking gharri'Stand outside the
Great Eastern ; for the state of the stone and dirt
pavements ; for the condition of the gullies of
Shampooker, and for a hundred other things ?

'This, I submit, is an artificial scheme in super-
session of Nature's unit, the individual.' The
speaker is a slight, spare native in a flat hat'turban,
and a black alpaca frock-coat. He looks like a
scribe to the boot'heels, and, with his unvarying
smile and regulated gesticulation, recalls memories
of up-country courts. He never hesitates, is never
at a loss for a word, and never in one sentence
repeats himself. He talks and talks and talks in
a level voice, rising occasionally half an octave
when a point has to be driven home. Some of his
periods sound very familiar. This, for instance,

23

FROM SEA TO SEA

might be a sentence from the Mirror : * So much
for the principle. Let us now examine how far
it is supported by precedent/ This sounds bad.
When a fluent native is discoursing of * principles *
and * precedents/ the chances are that he will go on
for some time. Moreover, where is the criminal,
and what is all this talk about abstractions ? They
want shovels not sentiments, in this part of the
world.

A friendly whisper brings enlightenment : 'They
are ploughing through the Calcutta Municipal Bill
— plurality of votes, you know. Here are the
papers.' And so it is ! A mass of motions and
amendments on matters relating to ward votes. Is
A to be allowed to give two votes in one ward
and one in another ? Is section 10 to be omitted,
and is one man to be allowed one vote and no
more? How many votes does three hundred
rupees* worth of landed property carry "i Is it
better to kiss a post or throw it in the fire ? Not
a word about carbolic acid and gangs of sweepers.
The little man in the black dressing-gown revels
in his subject. He is great on principles and pre^
cedents, and the necessity of 'popularising our
system.' He fears that under certain circumstances
'the status of the candidates will decline.' He
riots in * self-adjusting majorities,' and ' the healthy
influence of the educated middle classes.'

24

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

For a practical answer to this, there steals across
the council chamber just one faint whiff of the
Stink. It is as though some one laughed low and
bitterly. But no man heeds. The Englishmen
look supremely bored, the native members stare
stolidly in front of them. Sir Steuart Bayley's
face is as set as the face of the Sphinx. For these
things he draws his pay, — low wage for heavy
labour. But the speaker, now adrift, is not alto-
gether to be blamed. He is a Bengali, who has
got before him just such a subject as his soul loveth,
— an elaborate piece of academical reform leading
nowhere. Here is a quiet room full of pens and
papers, and there are men who must listen to him.
Apparently there is no time limit to the speeches.
Can you wonder that he talks ? He says * I submit '
once every ninety seconds, varying the form with
* I do submit, the popular element in the electoral
body should have prominence.' Quite so. He
quotes one John Stuart Mill to prove it. There
steals over the listener a numbing sense of nights
mare. He has heard all this before somewhere —
yea; even down to J. S. Mill and the references
to the * true interests of the ratepayers.' He sees
what is coming next. Yes, there is the old Sabha,
Anjuman, journalistic formula : * Western education
is an exotic plant of recent importation.' How on
earth did this man drag Western education into

25

FROM SEA TO SEA

this discussion ? Who knows ? Perhaps Sir
Steuart Bayley does. He seems to be listening.
The others are looking at their watches. The
spell of the level voice sinks the listener yet deeper
into a trance. He is haunted by the ghosts of all
the cant of all the political platforms of Great
Britain. He hears all the old, old vestry phrases,
and once more he smells the Smell. That is no
dream. Western education is an exotic plant. It
is the upas tree, and it is all our fault. We brought
it out from England exactly as we brought out the
ink'bottles and the patterns for the chairs. We
planted it and it grew— monstrous as a banian.
Now we are choked by the roots of it spreading so
thickly in this fat soil of Bengal. The speaker
continues. Bit by bit we builded this dome, visible
and invisible, the crown of Writers' Buildings, as
we have built and peopled the buildings. Now
we have gone too far to retreat, being ' tied and
bound with the chain of our own sins.' The speech
continues. We made that florid sentence. That
torrent of verbiage is Ours. We taught him what
was constitutional and what was unconstitutional in
the days when Calcutta smelt. Calcutta smells
still, but We must listen to all that he has to say
about the plurality of votes and the threshing of
wind and the weaving of ropes of sand. It is Our
own fault.

26

I

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

The speech ends, and there rises a grey English'
man in a black frock-coat. He looks a strong
man, and a worldly. Surely he will say, * Yes,
Lala Sahib, all this may be true talk, but there's
a vile smell in this place, and everything must be
cleaned in a week, or the Deputy Commissioner
will not take any notice of you in durbar/ He
says nothing of the kind. This is a Legislative
Council, where they call each other * Honourable
So'and'So's.* The Englishman in the frock-coat
begs all to remember that 'we are discussing
principles, and no consideration of the details
ought to influence the verdict on the principles.'
Is he then like the rest ? How does this strange
thing come about? Perhaps these so English
office fittings are responsible for the warp. The
Council Chamber might be a London Board-room.
Perhaps after long years among the pens and
papers its occupants grew to think that it really is,
and in this belief give resumes of the history of
Local Self'Government in England.

The black frock-coat, emphasising his points
with his spectacle-case, is telling his friends how
the parish was first the unit of self-government.
He then explains how burgesses were elected, and
in tones of deep fervour announces, 'Commis-
sioners of Sewers are elected in the same way/
Whereunto all this lecture } Is he trying to run a

27

FROM SEA TO SEA

motion through under cover of a cloud of words,
essaying the well-known * cuttk'fish trick ' of the
West?

He abandons England for a while, and now we
get a glimpse of the cloven hoof in a casual refers
ence to Hindus and Mahometans. The Hindus
will lose nothing by the complete establishment of
plurality of votes. They will have the control of
their own wards as they used to have. So there
is racC'feeling, to be explained away, even among
these beautiful desks. Scratch the Council, and
you come to the old, old trouble. The black
frock-coat sits down, and a keen ^ eyed, black'
bearded Englishman rises with one hand in his
pocket to explain his views on an alteration of
the vote qualification. The idea of an amendment
seems to have just struck him. He hints that he
will bring it forward later on. He is academical
like the others, but not half so good a speaker.
All this is dreary beyond words. Why do they
talk and talk about owners and occupiers and bur^
gesses in England and the growth of autonomous
institutions when the city, the great city, is here
crying out to be cleansed ? What has England to
do with Calcutta's evil, and why should English'
men be forced to wander through mazes of un'
profitable argument against men who cannot
understand the iniquity of dirt ?

28

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

A pause follows the black^bearded man's speech.
Rises another native, a heavily built Babu, in a
black gown and a strange head-dress. A snowy
white strip of cloth is thrown duster- wise over his
shoulders. His voice is high, and not always
under control. He begins, 'I will try to be as
brief as possible.' This is ominous. By the way,
in Council there seems to be no necessity for a
form of address. The orators plunge in medias res,
and only when they are well launched throw an
occasional * Sir ' towards Sir Steuart Bayley, who
sits with one leg doubled under him and a dry
pen in his hand. This speaker is no good. He
talks, but he says nothing, and he only knows
where he is drifting to. He says: 'We must
remember that we are legislating for the Metropolis
of India, and therefore we should borrow our
institutions from large English towns, and not
from parochial institutions.' If you think for a
minute, that shows a large and healthy knowledge
of the history of Local Self'Government. It also
reveals the attitude of Calcutta. If the city thought
less about itself as a metropolis and more as a
midden, its state would be better. The speaker
talks patronisingly of * my friend,' alluding to the
black frock-coat. Then he flounders afresh, and
his voice gallops up the gamut as he declares, * and
therefore that makes all the difference.' He hints

29

FROM SEA TO SEA

vaguely at threats, something to do with the
Hindus and the Mahometans, but what he means
it is difficult to discover. Here, however, is a
sentence taken verbatim. It is not likely to appear
in this form in the Calcutta papers. The black
frock'Coat had said that if a wealthy native * had
eight votes to his credit, his vanity would prompt
him to go to the polling-booth, because he would
feel better than half a dozen gharri'Wans or petty
traders.' (Fancy allowing a gharri^wan to vote!
He has yet to learn how to drive.) Hereon the
gentleman with the white cloth : * Then the com^
plaint is that influential voters will not take the
trouble to vote ? In my humble opinion, if that
be so, adopt voting^papers. That is the way to
meet them. In the same way — the Calcutta
Trades* Association — you abolish all plurality of
votes : and that is the way to meet them,* Lucid,
is it not ? Up flies the irresponsible voice, and
delivers this statement, *In the election for the
House of Commons plurality are allowed for
persons having interest in different districts.' Then
hopeless, hopeless fog. It is a great pity that India
ever heard of anybody higher than the heads of
the Civil Service. Once more a whiff of the Stink.
The gentleman gives a defiant jerk of his shoulder^
cloth, and sits down.

Then Sir Steuart Bayley : * The question before

30

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

the Council is/ etc. There is a ripple of * Ayes '
and ' Noes/ and the ' Noes ' have it, whatever
it may be. The black^bearded gentleman springs
his amendment about the voting qualifications.
A large senator in a w^hite waistcoat, and with a
most genial smile, rises and proceeds to smash up
the amendment. Can't see the use of it. Calls
it in effect rubbish. The black dressing ' gown,
he who spoke first of all, speaks again, and talks
of the ^sojourner who comes here for a little
time, and then leaves the land.' Well it is for
the black gown that the sojourner does come,
or there would be no comfy places wherein to
talk about the power that can be measured by
wealth, and the intellect 'which, sir, I submit,
cannot be so measured.' The amendment is lost ;
and trebly and quadruply lost is the listener. In
the name of sanity and to preserve the tattered
shirt'tails of a torn illusion, let us escape. This
is the Calcutta Municipal Bill. They have been
at it for several Saturdays. Last Saturday Sir
Steuart Bayley pointed out that at their present
rate they would be about two years in getting it
through. Now they will sit till dusk, unless Sir
Steuart Bayley, who wants to see Lord Connemara
off, puts up the black frock-coat to move an
adjournment. It is not good to see a Government
close to. This leads to the formation of blatantly

31

FROM SEA TO SEA

self-satisfied judgments, which may be quite as
wrong as the cramping system with which we
have encompassed ourselves. And in the streets
outside Englishmen summarise the situation
brutally, thus: 'The whole thing is a farce.
Time is money to us. We can't stick out those
everlasting speeches in the municipality. The
natives choke us off, but we know that if ^ things
get too bad the Government will step in and
interfere, and so we worry along somehow.*

Meantime Calcutta continues to cry out for the
bucket and the broom.

32

CHAPTER IV
On the Banks of the Hughli

THE clocks of the city have struck two.
Where can a man get food ? Calcutta is
not rich in respect of dainty accommoda-
tion. You can stay your stomach at Peh'ti's or
Bonsard's, but their shops are not to be found in
Hastings Street, or in the places where brokers fly
to and fro in office-jauns, sweating and growing
visibly rich. There must be some sort of enter-
tainment where sailors congregate. ' Honest Bom-
bay Jack' supplies nothing but Burma cheroots
and whisky in liqueur-glasses, but in Lai Bazar,
not far from 'The Sailors' Coffee-rooms,' a
board gives bold advertisement that 'officers
and seamen can find good quarters.' In evi-
dence a row of neat officers and seamen are
sitting on a bench by the 'hotel' door smoking.
There is an almost military likeness in their
clothes. Perhaps 'Honest Bombay Jack' only
S.S. Vol. IV 33 I,

FROM SEA TO SEA

keeps one kind of felt hat and one brand of
suit. When Jack of the mercantile marine is
sober, he is very sober. When he is drunk he
is — but ask the river police what a lean, mad
Yankee can do with his nails and teeth. These
gentlemen smoking on the bench are impassive
almost as Red Indians. Their attitudes are
unrestrained, and they do not wear braces. Nor,
it would appear from the bill of fare, are they
particular as to what they eat when they attend
table d*hdte. The fare is substantial and the
regulation * peg * — every house has its own depth
of peg if you will refrain from stopping Ganymede
— something to wonder at. Three fingers and
a trifle over seems to be the use of the officers
and seamen who are talking so quietly in the
doorway. One says — he has evidently finished
a long story — * and so he shipped for four pound
ten with a first mate's certificate and all; and
that was in a German barque.' Another spits
with conviction and says genially, without raising
his voice, * That was a hell of a ship. Who
knows her ? ' No answer from the assembly,
but a Dane or a German wants to know whether
the Myra is *up' yet. A dry, red'haired man
gives her exact position in the river — (How in
the world can he know ?) — and the probable hour
of her arrival. The grave debate drifts into a

34

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

discussion of a recent river accident, whereby a
big steamer was damaged, and had to put back
and discharge cargo. A burly gentleman who
is taking a constitutional down Lai Bazar strolls
up and says : * I tell you she fouled her own
chain with her own forefoot. Hev you seen the

plates?' 'No/ 'Then how the can any

like you say what it well was ? '

He passes on, having delivered his highly flavoured
opinion without heat or passion. No one seems
to resent the garnish.

Let us get down to the river and see this stamp
of men more thoroughly. Clark Russell has told
us that their lives are hard enough in all con^
science. What are their pleasures and diversions ?
The Port Office, v/here live the gentlemen who
make improvements in the Port of Calcutta, ought
to supply information. It stands large and fair, and
built in an orientalised manner after the Italians at
the corner of Fairlie Place upon the great Strand
Road, and a continual clamour of traffic by land
and by sea goes up throughout the day and far
into the night against its windows. This is a place
to enter more reverently than the Bengal Legist
lative Council, for it controls the direction of the
uncertain Hughli down to the Sandheads ; owns
enormous wealth ; and spends huge sums on the
frontaging of river banks, the expansion of jetties,

35

FROM SEA TO SEA

and the manufacture of docks costing two hundred
lakhs of rupees. Two million tons of sea'going
shippage yearly find their way up and down the
river by the guidance of the Port Office, and the
men of the Port Office know more than it is good
for men to hold in their heads. They can without
reference to telegraphic bulletins give the position
of all the big steamers, coming up or going down,
from the Hughli to the sea, day by day, with their
tonnage, the names of their captains and the nature
of their cargo. Looking out from the veranda of
their office over a lancer-regiment of masts, they can
declare truthfully the name of every ship within eye^
scope, and the day and hour when she will depart.
In a room at the bottom of the building lounge
big men, carefully dressed. Now there is a type
of face which belongs almost exclusively to Bengal
Cavalry officers — majors for choice. Everybody
knows the bronzed, black-moustached, clear-speak'
ing Native Cavalry officer. He exists unnaturally
in novels, and naturally on the Frontier. These
men in the big room have his cast of face so
strongly marked that one marvels what officers are
doing by the river. * Have they com.e to book
passages for home?' 'Those men? They're
pilots. Some of them draw between two and three
thousand rupees a month. They are responsible
for half a million pounds' worth of cargo some--

36

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

times/ They certainly are men, and they carry
themselves as such. They confer together by
twos and threes, and appeal frequently to shipping
lists.

' Isn't a pilot a man who always wears a pea'
jacket and shouts through a speaking ' trumpet ? '
* Well, you can ask those gentlemen if you like.
You've got your notions from Home pilots.
Our's aren't that kind exactly. They are a picked
service, as carefully weeded as the Indian Civil.
Some of 'em have brothers in it, and some belong
to the old Indian army families.' But they are not
all equally well paid. The Calcutta papers echo
the groans of the junior pilots who are not allowed
the handling of ships over a certain tonnage. As
it is yearly growing cheaper to build one big
steamer than two little ones, these juniors are
crowded out, and, while the seniors get their
thousands, som.e of the youngsters make at the
end of one month exactly thirty rupees. This
is a grievance with them ; and it seems well'
founded.

In the flats above the pilots' room are hushed
and chapel 'like offices, all sumptuously fitted,
where Englishmen wTite and telephone and tele'
graph, and deft Babus for ever draw maps of the
shifting Hughli. Any hope of understanding the
work of the Port Commissioners is thoroughly

37

FROM SEA TO SEA

dashed by being taken through the Port maps of a
quarter of a century past. Men have played with
the Hughli as children play with a gutter^runnel,
and^ in return, the Hughli once rose and played
with men and ships till the Strand Road was
littered with the raffle and the carcasses of big
ships. There are photos on the walls of the
cyclone of '64, when the Thunder came inland and
sat upon an American barque, obstructing all the
traffic. Very curious are these photos, and almost
impossible to believe. How can a big, strong
steamer have her three masts razed to deck^level ?
How can a heavy country- boat be pitched on to
the poop of a high'walled liner ? and hov/ can the
side be bodily torn out of a ship? The photos
say that all these things are possible, and men aver
that a cyclone may come again and scatter the craft
like chaff. Outside the Port Office are the export
and import sheds, buildings that can hold a ship's
cargo apiece, all standing on reclaimed ground.
Here be several strong smells, a mass of railway
lines, and a multitude of men. * Do you see where
that trolly is standing, behind the big P. and O.
berth ? In that place as nearly as may be the
Govindpur went down about twenty years ago,
and began to shift out I ' * But that is solid
ground.' * She sank there, and the next tide
made a scour^hole on one side of her. The re^

38

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

turning tide knocked her into it. Then the mud
made up behind her. Next tide the business was
repeated — always the scour-hole in the mud and
the filling up behind her. So she rolled, and was
pushed out and out until she got in the way of the
shipping right out yonder, and we had to blow her
up. When a ship sinks in mud or quicksand she
regularly digs her own grave and wriggles herself
into it deeper and deeper till she reaches moderately
solid stuff. Then she sticks.' Horrible idea, is it
not, to go down and down with each tide into the
foul Hughli mud ?

Close to the Port Offices is the Shipping Office,
where the captains engage their crews. The men
must produce their discharges from their last ships
in the presence of the shipping master, or, as they
call him, * The Deputy Shipping.' He passes them
after having satisfied himself that they are not
deserters from other ships, and they then sign
articles for the voyage. This is the ceremony,
beginning with the ' dearly beloved ' of the crew-
hunting captain down to the ' amazement ' of the
deserter. There is a dingy building, next door to
the Sailors' Home, at whose gate the cast'Ups
of all the seas stand in all manner of raiment.
There are the Seedee boys, Bombay serangs and
Madras fishermen of the salt villages ; Malays who
insist upon marrying Calcutta women, grow jealous

39

FROM SEA TO SEA

and run amok; Malay ' Hindus, Hindus Malays
whites, Burmese, Burma ' whites, Burma ^ native*
whites ; Italians with gold ear-rings and a thirst for
gambling ; Yankees of all the States, with Mulattoes
and pure buck - niggers ; red and rough Danes,
Cingalese, Cornish boys fresh taken from the
plough'tail, ' corn'Stalks ' from colonial ships where
they got four pound ten a month as seamen ; tun-
bellied Germans, Cockney mates keeping a little
aloof from the crowd and talking in knots together ;
unmistakable * Tommies ' who have tumbled into
seafaring life by some mistake; cockatoo - tufted
Welshmen spitting and swearing like cats ; broken-
down loafers, grey - headed, penniless and pitiful,
swaggering boys, and very quiet men with gashes
and cuts on their faces. It is an ethnological
museum where all the specimens are playing
comedies and tragedies. The head of it all is
the * Deputy Shipping,* and he sits, supported by
an English policeman whose fists are knobby, in
a great Chair of State. The * Deputy Shipping *
knows all the iniquity of the river -side, all the
ships, all the captains, and a fair amount of the
men. He is fenced off from the crowd by a
strong wooden railing behind which are gathered
the unemployed of the mercantile marine. They
have had their spree — poor devils ! — and now they
will go to sea again on as low a wage as three

40

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

pound ten a month, to fetch up at the end in some
Shanghai stew or San Francisco hell. They have
turned their backs on the seductions of the Howrah
boarding'houses and the delights of Colootollah.
If Fate will, 'Nightingale's' will know them no
more for a season. But what skipper will take
some of these battered, shattered wrecks whose
hands shake and w^hose eyes are red ?

Enter suddenly a bearded captain, who has
made his selection from the crowd on a previous
day, and now wants to get his men passed. He is
not fastidious in his choice. His eleven seem a
tough lot for such a mild'eyed civil-spoken man
to manage. But the captain in the Shipping Office
and the captain on his ship are two different things.
He brings his crew up to the ' Deputy Shipping's '
bar, and hands in their greasy, tattered discharges.
But the heart of the ' Deputy Shipping ' is hot
with him, because, two days ago, a Howrah
crimp stole a whole crew from a down'dropping
ship, insomuch that the captain had to come back
and whip up a new crew at one o'clock in the day.
Evil will it be if the * Deputy Shipping ' finds one
of these bounty 'jumpers in the chosen crew of the
Blenkindoon,

The 'Deputy Shipping' tells the story with
heat. * I didn't know they did such things in
Calcutta,' said the captain. 'Do such things I

41

FROM SEA TO SEA

They'd steal the eye-teeth out of your head there,
Captain/ He picks up a discharge and calls for
Michael Donelly, a loose ^ knit, vicious ' looking
Irish ' American who chews. 'Stand up, man,
stand up ! * Michael Donelly wants to lean against
the desk, and the English policeman won't have
it. ' What was your last ship ? ' * Fairy Queen/

* When did you leave her ? ' * 'Bout 'leven days.'
' Captain's name r 'Flahy.' 'That'll do. Next
man : Jules Anderson.' Jules Anderson is a
Dane. His statements tally with the discharge^
certificate of the United States, as the Eagle
attesteth. He is passed and falls back. Slivey,
the Englishman, and David, a huge plum'Coloured
negro who ships as cook, are also passed. Then
comes Bassompra, a little Italian, who speaks
English. ' What's your last ship ? ' * Ferdinand.*

* No, after that ? ' * German barque.' Bassompra
does not look happy. * When did she sail ? '

* About three weeks ago.' * What's her name ? '

* Haidie* * You deserted from her ? ' * Yes, but
she's left port.' 'The 'Deputy Shipping' runs
rapidly through a shipping^list, throws it down with
a bang, ' 'Twon't do. No German barque Haidee
here for three months. Hov/ do I know you don't
belong to the Jackson* s crew ? Cap'en, I'm afraid
you'll have to ship another man. He must stand
over. Take the rest away and make 'em sign.'

42

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

The bead'eyed Bassompra seems to have lost
his chance of a voyage, and his case will be
inquired into. The captain departs v/ith his men
and they sign articles for the voyage, while the
' Deputy Shipping ' tells strange tales of the sailor^
m.an's life. * They'll quit a good ship for the sake
of a spree, and catch on again at three pound ten,
and by Jove, they'll let their skippers pay 'em at
ten rupees to the sovereign — poor beggars ! As
soon as the money's gone they'll ship, but not
before. Every one under rank of captain engages
here. The competition makes first mates ship
sometimes for five pounds or as low as four ten a
month.' (The gentleman in the boarding-house
was right, you see.) * A first mate's wages are
seven ten or eight, and foreign captains ship for
twelve pounds a month and bring their own small
stores — everything, that is to say, except beef,
peas, flour, coffee, and molasses.'

These things are not pleasant to listen to while
the hungry-eyed men in the bad clothes lounge
and scratch and loaf behind the railing. What
comes to them in the end ? They die, it seems,
though that is not altogether strange. They die
at sea in strange and horrible ways ; they die, a
few of them, in the Kintals, being lost and
suffocated in the great sink of Calcutta ; they die
in strange places by the water-side, and the Hughli

43

FROM SEA TO SEA

takes them away under the mooring'chains and the
buoys, and casts them up on the sands below, if the
River Police have missed the capture. They sail
the sea because they must live; and there is no
end to their toil. Very, very few find haven of
any kind, and the earth, whose ways they do not
understand, is cruel to them, when they walk
upon it to drink and be merry after the manner of
beasts. Jack ashore is a pretty thing when he is
in a book or in the blue jacket of the Navy.
Mercantile Jack is not so lovely. Later on, we
will see where his * sprees * lead him.

44

CHAPTER V
With the Calcutta Police

The City was of Night — perchance of Death,
But certainly of Night.

The City of Dreadful Night.

IN the beginning, the Police were responsible,.
They said in a patronising way that they would
prefer to take a wanderer round the great city
themselves, sooner than let him contract a broken
head on his own account in the slums. They said
that there were places and places where a white
man, unsupported by the arm of the Law, would be
robbed and mobbed ; and that there were other
places where drunken seamen would make it very
unpleasant for him.

* Come up to the fire look'Out in the first place,
and then you'll be able to see the city.' This
was at No. 22 Lai Bazar, which is the head-
quarters of the Calcutta Police, the centre of the
great web of telephone wires where Justice sits all

45

FROM SEA TO SEA

day and all night looking after one million people
and a floating population of one hundred thousand.
But her work shall be dealt with later on. The
fire look-out is a little sentry-box on the top of the
three^storied police offices. Here a native watch'
man waits to give warning to the brigade below if
the smoke rises by day or the flames by night in
any ward of the city. From this eyrie, in the
warm night, one hears the heart of Calcutta
beating. Northward, the city stretches away three
long miles, with three more miles of suburbs beyond,
to Dum^Dum and Barrackpore. The lamplit dusk
on this side is full of noises and shouts and smells.
Close to the Police Office, jovial mariners at the
sailors' coffee^shop are roaring hymns. Southerly,
the city's confused lights give place to the orderly
lamp^rows of the maiden and Chowringhi, where
the respectabilities live and the Police have very
little to do. From the east goes up to the sky the
clamour of Sealdah, the rumble of the trams, and
the voices of all Bow Bazar chaffering and mak^
ing merry. Westward are the business quarters,
hushed now; the lamps of the shipping on the
river; and the twinkling lights on the Howrah side.
'Does the noise of traffic go on all through the
hot weather ? ' * Of course. The hot months are
the busiest in the year and money's tightest. You
should see the brokers cutting about at that season,

46

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Calcutta can't stop, my dear sir/ * What happens
then?' 'Nothing happens; the death-rate goes
up a h'ttle. That's all!' Even in February, the
weather would, up'Country, be called muggy and
stifling, but Calcutta is convinced that it is her
cold season. The noises of the city grow percep'
tibly ; it is the night side of Calcutta waking up
and going abroad. Jack in the sailors' coffee^shop
is singing joyously : * Shall we gather at the River
— the beautiful, the beautiful, the River ? ' There
is a clatter of hoofs in the courtyard below. Some
of the Mounted Police have come in from some^
where or other out of the great darkness. A clog'
dance of iron hoofs follows, and an Englishman's
voice is heard soothing an agitated horse who
seems to be standing on his hind-legs. Some of
the Mounted Police are going out into the great
darkness. * What's on ? ' * A dance at Govern-
ment House. The Reserve men are being formed
up below. They're calling the roll.' The
Reserve men are all English, and big English at
that. They form up and tramp out of the court-
yard to line Government Place, and see that Mrs.
Lollipop's brougham does not get smashed up by
Sirdar Chuckerbutty Bahadur's lumbering C-spring
barouche with the two raw Walers. Very military
men are the Calcutta European Police in their set-
up, and he who knows their composition knows

47

FROM SEA TO SEA

some startling stories of gentlemen^rankers and the
like. They are^ despite the wearing climate they
work in and the wearing work they do, as fine a
five^score of Englishmen as you shall find cast of
Suez.

Listen for a moment from the fire look -out
to the voices of the night, and you will see why
they must be so. Two thousand sailors of fifty
nationalities are adrift in Calcutta every Sunday,
and of these perhaps two hundred are distinctly
the worse for liquor. There is a mild row going
on, even now, somewhere at the back of Bow
Bazar, which at nightfall fills with sailormen who
have a wonderful gift of falling foul of the native
population. To keep the Queen's peace is of
course only a small portion of Police duty, but it
is trying. The burly president of the lock-up for
European drunks — Calcutta central lock-up is
worth seeing — rejoices in a sprained thumb just
now, and has to do his work left-handed in conse-
quence. But his left hand is a marvellously per-
suasive one, and when on duty his sleeves are
turned up to the shoulder that the jovial mariner
may see that there is no deception. The
president's labours are handicapped in that the
road of sin to the lock-up runs through a grimy
little garden — the brick paths are worn deep with
the tread of many drunken feet — where a man can

48

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

give a great deal of trouble by sticking his toes
into the ground and getting mixed up with the
shrubs. A straight run-in would be much more
convenient both for the president and the drunk.
Generally speaking— and here Police experience is
pretty much the same all over the civilised world
— a woman^drunk is a good deal worse than a
man'drunk. She scratches and bites like a China-
man and swears like several fiends. Strange
people may be unearthed in the lock-ups. Here
is a perfectly true story, not three weeks old. A
visitor, an unofficial one, wandered into the native
side of the spacious accommodation provided for
those who have gone or done wrong. A.
wild-eyed Babu rose from the fixed charpoy and
said in the best of English, ' Good morning, sir.^
* Good morning. Who are you, and what are you
in for } * Then the Babu, in one breath : * I
would have you know that I do not go to prison
as a criminal but as a reformer. You've read the
l^kar of Wakefield}* 'Ye-es.' 'Well, / am the
Vicar of Bengal — at least that's what I call my-
self.' The visitor collapsed. He had not nerve
enough to continue the conversation. Then said
the voice of the authority: 'He's down in con-
nection with a cheating case at Serampore. May
be shamming insane, but he'll be seen to in
time.'

s. s. Vol. IV 49 E

FROM SEA TO SEA

The best place to hear about the Police is the
fire look'Out. From that eyrie one can see how
difficult must be the work of control over the
great, growling beast of a city. By all means let
us abuse the Police, but let us see what the poor
wretches have to do with their three thousand
natives and one hundred Englishmen. From
Howrah and Bally and the other suburbs at least a
hundred thousand people come in to Calcutta for
the day and leave at night. Then, too, Chander^
nagore is handy for the fugitive law'breaker, who
can enter in the evening and get away before the
noon of the next day, having marked his house and
broken into it.

^But how can the prevalent offence be house^
breaking in a place like this?' 'Easily enough.
When you've seen a little of the city you'll see.
Natives sleep and lie about all over the place, and
whole quarters are just so many rabbit'warrens.
Wait till you see the Machua Bazar. Well, besides
the petty theft and burglary, we have heavy cases
of forgery and fraud, that leave us w^ith our wits
pitted against a Bengali's. When a Bengali criminal
is working a fraud of the sort he loves, he is about
the cleverest soul you could wish for. He gives
us cases a year long to unravel. Then there are
the m.urders in the low houses — very curious things
they are. You'll see the house where Sheikh Babu

50

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

was murdered presently, and you'll understand.
The Burra Bazar and Jora Bagan sections are the
two worst ones for heavy cases ; but Colootollah is
the most aggravating. There's Colootollah over
yonder — that patch of darkness beyond the lights.
That section is full of tuppenny'ha'penny petty
cases, that keep the men up all night and make 'em
swear. You'll see Colootollah, and then perhaps
you'll understand. Bamun Bustee is the quietest of
all, and Lai Bazar and Bow Bazar, as you can see
for yourself, are the rowdiest. You've no notion
what the natives come to the police station for.
A man will come in and want a summons against
his master for refusing him half^an^hour's leave.
I suppose it does seem rather revolutionary to an
up'Country man, but they try to do it here. Now
wait a minute, before we go down into the city
and see the Fire Brigade turned out. Business is
slack with them just now, but you time 'em and
see.' An order is given, and a bell strikes softly
thrice. There is a rush of men, the click of a bolt,
a red firC'engine, spitting and swearing with the
sparks flying from the furnace, is dragged out of
its shelter. A huge brake, which holds supplement-
ary horses, men, and hatchets, follows, and a hose-
cart is the third on the list. The men push the
heavy things about as though they were pith toys.
The men clamber up, some one says softly, * AU

51

FROM SEA TO SEA

ready there/ and with an angry whistle the fire-
engine, followed by the other two, flies out into
Lai Bazar. Time— 1 min. 40 sees. * They'll find
out it's a false alarm, and come back again in five
minutes.* * Why } ' * Because there will be no
constables on the road to give 'em the direction of
the fire, and because the driver wasn't told the
ward of the outbreak when he went out I ' * Do
you mean to say that you can from this absurd
pigeon^loft locate the wards in the night-time ?*
* What would be the good of a look-out if the man
couldn't tell where the fire was?' ^But it's all
pitchy black, and the lights are so confusing.'

'You'll be more confused in ten minutes.
You'll have lost your way as you never lost it
before. You're going to go round Bow Bazar
section.'

* And the Lord have mercy on my soul ! '
Calcutta, the darker portion of it, does not look
an inviting place to dive into at night.

52

CHAPTER VI
The City of Dreadful Night

And since they cannot spend or use aright
The little time here given them in trust,

But lavish it in weary undelight

Of foolish toil, and trouble, strife and lust —

They naturally clamour to inherit

The Everlasting Future — that their merit

May have full scope. ... As surely is most just.

The City of Dreadful Night,

THE difficulty is to prevent this account
from growing steadily unwholesome. But
one cannot rake through a big city without
encountering muck.

The Police kept their word. In five short
minutes, as they had prophesied, their charge was
lost as he had never been lost before. * Where are
we now ? ' * Somewhere off the Chitpore Road,
but you wouldn't understand if you were told
Follow now, and step pretty much where we step
— there's a good deal of filth hereabouts.'

53

FROM SEA TO SEA

The thick, greasy night shuts in everything.
We have gone beyond the ancestral houses of the
Ghoses and the Boses, beyond the lamps, the smells,
and the crowd of Chitpore Road, and have come
to a great wilderness of packed houses — ^just such
mysterious, conspiring tenements as Dickens would
have loved. There is no breeze here, and the air
is perceptibly warmer. If Calcutta keeps such
luxuries as Commissioners of Sewers and Paving,
they die before they reach this place. The air is
heavy with a faint, sour stench — the essence of
long-neglected abominations — and it cannot escape
from among the tall, three-storied houses. 'This,
my dear Sir, is a perfectly respectable quarter as
quarters go. That house at the head of the alley,
with the elaborate stucco'work round the top of
the door, was built long ago by a celebrated mid'
wife. Great people used to live here once. Now
it's the — . Aha ! Look out for that carriage.' A
big mail'phaeton crashes out of the darkness and,
recklessly driven, disappears. The wonder is how
it ever got into this maze of narrow streets, where
nobody seems to be moving, and where the dull
throbbing of the city's life only comes faintly and
by snatches. * Now it's the what ? ' * The St.
John's Wood of Calcutta — for the rich Babus.
That ** f itton " belonged to one of them.' ' Well,
it's not much of a place to look at I' 'Don't

54

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

judge by appearances. About here live the
women who have beggared kings. We aren't
going to let you down into unadulterated vice all
at once. You must see it first with the gilding
on — and mind that rotten board.'

Stand at the bottom of a lift'shaft and look
upwards. Then you will get both the size and
the design of the tiny courtyard round which one of
these big dark houses is built. The central square
may be perhaps ten feet everyway, but the balconies
that run inside it overhang, and seem to cut away
half the available space. To reach the square a man
must go round many corners, down a covered'in
way, and up and down two or three baffling and
confused steps. * Now you will understand,' say
the Police kindly, as their charge blunders, shin^
first, into a well'dark winding staircase, * that these
are not the sort of places to visit alone.' 'Who
wants to } Of all the disgusting, inaccessible dens
— Holy Cupid, what's this ? '

A glare of light on the stair^head, a clink of
innumerable bangles, a rustle of much fine gauze,
and the Dainty Iniquity stands revealed, blazing —
literally blazing — with jewellery from head to foot.
Take one of the fairest miniatures that the Delhi
painters draw, and multiply it by ten ; throw in
one of Angelica Kaufmann's best portraits, and
add anything that you can think of from Beckford

55

FROM SEA TO SEA

to Lalla Rookh, and you will still fall short of the
merits of that perfect face I For an instant^ even
the grim, professional gravity of the Police is
relaxed in the presence of the Dainty Iniquity with
the gems, who so prettily invites every one to be
seated, and proffers such refreshments as she con^
ceives the palates of the barbarians would prefer.
Her maids are only one degree less gorgeous
than she. Half a lakh, or fifty thousand pounds'
worth — it is easier to credit the latter statement
than the former — are disposed upon her little body.
Each hand carries five jewelled rings which are
connected by golden chains to a great jewelled
boss of gold in the centre of the back of the
hand. Ear-rings weighted with emeralds and
pearls, diamond nose^rings, and how many other
hundred articles make up the list of adornments.
English furniture of a gorgeous and gimcrack kind,
unlimited chandeliers, and a collection of atrocious
Continental prints are scattered about the house,
and on every landing squats or loafs a Bengali
who can talk English with unholy fluency. The
recurrence suggests — only suggests, mind — a grim
possibility of the affectation of excessive virtue
by day, tempered with the sort of unwholesome
enjoyment after dusk — this loafing and lobbying
and chattering and smoking, and unless the bottles
lie, tippling, among the fouLtongued handmaidens

56

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

of the Dainty Iniquity. How many men follow
this double, deleterious sort of life? The Police
are discreetly dumb.

* Now don't go talking about ** domiciliary
visits " just because this one happens to be a pretty
woman. We've got to know these creatures.
They make the rich man and the poor spend their
money; and when a man can't get money for
*em honestly, he comes under otir notice. Now
do you see ? If there was any ** domiciliary visit "
about it, the whole houseful would be hidden
past our finding as soon as we turned up in the
courtyard. We're friends — to a certain extent.'
And, indeed, it seemed no difficult thing to
be friends to any extent with the Dainty
Iniquity who was so surpassingly different from
all that experience taught of the beauty of
the East. Here was the face from which a
man could write Lalla Rookhs by the dozen^
and believe every word that he wrote. Hers
was the beauty that Byron sang of when he
wrote . . .

* Remember, if you come here alone, the chances
are that you'll be clubbed, or stuck, or, anyhow,
mobbed. You'll understand that this part of the
world is shut to Europeans — absolutely. Mind
the steps, and follow on.' The vision dies out in
the smells and gross darkness of the night, in evil,

57

FROM SEA TO SEA

time'rotten brickwork, and another wilderness of
shut'Up houses.

Follows, after another plunge into a passage of
a courtyard, and up a staircase, the apparition of
a Fat Vice, in whom is no sort of romance, nor
beauty, but unlimited coarse humour. She too
is studded with jewels, and her house is even finer
than the house of the other, and more infested
with the extraordinary men who speak such
good English and are so deferential to the Police.
The Fat Vice has been a great leader of fashion
in her day, and stripped a zemindar Raja to
his last acre — insomuch that he ended in the
House of Correction for a theft committed for
her sake. Native opinion has it that she is
a 'monstrous well-preserved woman.' On this
point, as on some others, the races will agree to
differ.

The scene changes suddenly as a slide in a
magic ' lantern. Dainty Iniquity and Fat Vice
slide away on a roll of streets and alleys, each
more squalid than its predecessor. We are * some-
where at the back of the Machua Bazar,' well in
the heart of the city. There are no houses here
— nothing but acres and acres, it seems, of foul
wattle-and-dab huts, any one of which would
be a disgrace to a frontier village. The whole
arrangement is a neatly contrived germ and fire

58

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

trapt reflecting great credit upon the Calcutta
Municipality.

* What happens when these pig'Sties catch fire ? '
* They're built up again/ say the Police, as though
this were the natural order of things. 'Land is
immensely valuable here.' All the more reason,
then, to turn several Haussmanns loose into the
city, with instructions to make barracks for the
population that cannot find room in the huts and
sleeps in the open ways, cherishing dogs and worse,
much worse, in its unwashen bosom. * Here is a
licensed coffee^shop. This is where your servants
go for amusement and to see nautches.' There is
a huge thatch shed, ingeniously ornamented with
insecure kerosene lamps, and crammed with drivers,
cooks, small store^keepers and the like. Never
a sign of a European. Why ? * Because if an
Englishman messed about here, he'd get into
trouble. Men don't come here unless they're
drunk or have lost their way.' The hack^drivers
— they have the privilege of voting, have they
not? — look peaceful enough as they squat on
tables or crowd by the doors to watch the nautch
that is going forward. Five pitiful draggk'tails
are huddled together on a bench under one of the
lamps, while the sixth is squirming and shrieking
before the impassive crowd. She sings of love
as understood by the Oriental — the love that dries

59

FROM SEA TO SEA

the heart and consumes the liver. In this place,
the words that would look so well on paper have
an evil and ghastly significance. The men stare
or sup tumblers and cups of a filthy decoction, and
the kunchenee howls with renewed vigour in the
presence of the Police. Where the Dainty Iniquity
was hung with gold and gems, she is trapped
with pewter and glass ; and where there vv^as
heavy embroidery on the Fat Vice's dress, defaced,
stamped tinsel faithfully reduplicates the pattern
on the tawdry robes of the kunchenee.

Two or three men with uneasy consciences have
quietly slipped out of the coffee'shop into the
mazes of the huts. The Police laugh, and those
nearest in the crowd laugh applausively, as in duty
bound. Thus do the rabbits grin uneasily when
the ferret lands at the bottom of the burrow and
begins to clear the warren.

* The chandoo " shops shut up at six, so you'll
have to see opium^smoking before dark some day.
No, you won't, though.' The detective makes for
a half 'Opened door of a hut whence floats the
fragrance of the Black Smoke. Those of the
inhabitants who are able promptly clear out —
they have no love for the Police — and there remain
only four men lying down and one standing up.
This latter has a pet mongoose coiled round his
neck. He speaks English fluently. Yes, he has

60

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

no fear. It was a private smoking party and —
'No business to-night — show how you smoke
opium.' ' Aha ! You want to see. Very good,
I show. Hiya ! you ' — he kicks a man on the
floor — * show how opium " smoke.' The kickee
grunts lazily and turns on his elbow. The mon^
goose, always keeping to the mean's neck, erects
every hair of its body like an angry cat, and
chatters in its owner's ear. The lamp for the
opium'pipe is the only one in the room, and lights
a scene as wild as anything in the witches' revel ;
the mongoose acting as the familiar spirit. A
voice from the ground says, in tones of infinite
weariness : * You take afim, so ' — a long, long
pause, and another kick from the man possessed
of the devil — the mongoose. ' You take afitii ? '
He takes a pellet of the black, treackly stuff on the
end of a knitting - needle. 'And light ajim/ He
plunges the pellet into the night'light, where it swells
and fumes greasily. ' And then you put it in your
pipe.' The smoking pellet is jammed into the
tiny bowl of the thick, bamboo ^stemmed pipe,
and all speech ceases, except the unearthly chitter
of the mongoose. The man on the ground is
sucking at his pipe, and when the smoking pellet
has ceased to smoke will be halfway to Nibban.
* Now you go,' says the man with the mongoose.
' I am going smoke.' The hut door closes upon

61

FROM SEA TO SEA

a red'lit view of huddled legs and bodies, and
the man with the mongoose sinking, sinking on
to his knees, his head bowed forward, and the
little hairy devil chattering on the nape of his
neck.

After this the fetid night air seems almost
cool, for the hut is as hot as a furnace. * Now
for Colootollah. Come through the huts. There
is no decoration about this vice/

The huts now gave place to houses very tall
and spacious and very dark. But for the narroW'
ness of the streets we might have stumbled upon
Chowringhi in the dark. An hour and a half has
passed, and up to this time we have not crossed
our trail once. ^You might knock about the
city for a night and never cross the same line.
Recollect Calcutta isn't one of your poky up'
country cities of a lakh and a half of people/
* How long does it take to know it then ? '
^ About a lifetime, and even then some of the
streets puzzle you.' ' How much has the head of
a ward to know ? * * Every house in his ward if
he can, who owns it, what sort of character the
inhabitants are, who are their friends, who go out
and in, who loaf about the place at night, and
so on and so on/ *And he knows all this by
night as well as by day?' *Of course. Why
shouldn't he ? ' * No reason in the world. Only

62

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

it's pitchy black just now, and I'd like to see
where this alley is going to end' 'Round the
corner beyond that dead wall. There's a lamp
there. Then you'll be able to see.' A shadow
fiits out ^of a gully and disappears. * Who^s
that?' 'Sergeant of Police just to see where
we're going in case of accidents.' Another shadow
staggers into the darkness. 'Who's iJiat}*
* Soldier from the Fort or a sailor from the ships.
I couldn't quite see.' The Police open a shut
door in a high wall, and stumble unceremoniously
among a gang of women cooking their food.
The floor is of beaten earth, the steps that lead
into the upper stories are unspeakably grimy, and
the heat is the heat of April. The women rise
hastily, and the light of the bull's eye— for the
Police have now lighted a lantern in regular
London fashion— shows six bleared faces— one
a half, native half - Chinese one, and the others
Bengali. 'There are no men here!' they cry.
' The house is empty.' Then they grin and jabber
and chew pern and spit, and hurry up the steps
into the darkness. A range of three big rooms
has been knocked into one here, and there is some
sort of arrangement of mats. But an average
country.bred is more sumptuously accommodated
in an Englishman's stable. A horse would snort
at the accommodation.

63

FROM SEA TO SEA

* Nice sort of place, isn't it ? ' say the Police
genially. ^This is where the sailors get robbed
and drunk/ 'They must be blind drunk before
they come/ * Na — na ! Na sailor men ee— yah I *
chorus the women, catching at the one word they
understand. * Arl gone ! ' The Police take no
notice, but tramp down the big room with the
mat loose^boxes. A woman is shivering in one of
these. 'What's the matter?' 'Fever. Seek.
Vary, vary seek.' She huddles herself into a heap
on the charpoy and groans.

A tiny, pitch-black closet opens out of the long
room, and into this the Police plunge. ' Hullo !
What's here ? ' Down flashes the lantern, and a
white hand with black nails comes out of the
gloom. Somebody is asleep or drunk in the cot.
The ring of lantern^light travels slowly up and
down the body. ' A sailor from the ships. He'll
be robbed before the morning most likely.'
TTie man is sleeping like a little child, both
arms thrown over his head, and he is not un-
handsome. He is shoeless, and there are huge
holes in his stockings. He is a pure-blooded
white, and carries the flush of innocent sleep on
his cheeks.

The light is turned off, and the Police depart ;
while the woman in the loose-box shivers, and
moans that she is ' seek ; vary, vary seek.'

64

CHAPTER VII

Deeper and Deeper still

I built myself a lordly pleasure-house,
Wherein at ease for aye to dwell.

I said, ' O Soul, make merry and carouse,
Dear soul, for all is well.'

The Palace of Art.

AND where next ? I don't like Colootollah/
The Police and their charge are standing
in the interminable waste of houses under
the starlight. ' To the lowest sink of all, but you
wouldn't know if you were told.' They lead till
they come to the last circle of the Inferno — a long,
quiet, winding road. 'There you are; you can
see for yourself.'

But there is nothing to be seen. On one side
are houses — gaunt and dark, naked and devoid of
furniture : on the other, low, mean stalls, lighted,
and with shamelessly open doors, where women
stand and mutter and whisper one to another.

s. s. Vol. IV 65 F

FROM SEA TO SEA

There is a hush here^ or at least the busy silence
of an office or counting-house in working hours.
One look down the street is sufficient. Lead on,
gentlemen of the Calcutta Police. We do not
love the lines of open doors, the flaring lamps
within, the glimpses of the tawdry toilet ^ tables
adorned with little plaster dogs, glass balls from
Christmas-trees, and — for religion must not be
despised though women be fallen — pictures of the
saints and statuettes of the Virgin. The street is
a long one, and other streets, full of the same
pitiful wares, branch off from it.

* Why are they so quiet ? Why don't they
make a row and sing and shout, and so on?'
* Why should they, poor devils ? ' say the Police,
and fall to telling tales of horror, of women
decoyed and shot into this trap. Then other
tales that shatter one's belief in all things and folk
of good repute. * How can you Police have faith
in humanity } '

'That's because you're seeing it all in a lump
for the first time, and it's not nice that way.
Makes a man jump rather, doesn't it? But,
recollect, you've asked for the worst places, and
you can't complain.' * Who's complaining ?
Bring on your atrocities. Isn't that a European

woman at that door?' 'Yes. Mrs. D ,

widow of a soldier, mother of seven children.'

66

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

* Nine, if you please, and good evening to you/

shrills Mrs. D- , leaning against the door-post,

her arms folded on her bosom. She is a rather
pretty, slightly made Eurasian, and whatever
shame she may have owned she has long since
cast behind her. A shapeless Burmo-native trot,
with high cheek'bones and mouth like a shark,

calls Mrs. D ' Mem'Sahib.' The word jars

unspeakably. Her life is a matter between herself
and her Maker, but in that she — the widow of a
soldier of the Queen — has stooped to this common
foulness in the face of the city, she has offended
against the White race. * You're from up-country,
and of course you don't understand. There are
any amount of that lot in the city,' say the Police.
Then the secret of the insolence of Calcutta is
made plain. Small wonder the natives fail to
respect the Sahib, seeing what they see and know^
ing what they know. In the good old days, the
Honourable the Directors deported him or her
who misbehaved grossly, and the white man pre--
served his face. He may have been a ruffian, but
he was a ruffian on a large scale. He did not sink
in the presence of the people. The natives are
quite right to take the wall of the Sahib who has
been at great pains to prove that he is of the same
flesh and blood.
All this time Mrs. D stands on the thresh'

67

FROM SEA TO SEA

old of her room and looks upon the men with

unabashed eyes. Mrs. D is a lady with a story.

She is not averse to telling it. * What was — ahem
— the case in which you were — er — hmn — con'

cerned, Mrs. D -?' 'They said Yd poisoned

my husband by putting something into his drinking
water.' This is interesting. * And — ah — did you ? '

* 'Twasn't proved/ says Mrs. D with a laugh,

a pleasant, lady'like laugh that does infinite credit
to her education and upbringing. "Worthy Mrs.

D ! It would pay a novelist — a French one

let us say— to pick you out of the stews and make
you talk.

The Police move forward, into a region of Mrs.

D 's. Everywhere are the empty houses, and

the babbling women in print gowns. The clocks
in the city are close upon midnight, but the Police
show no signs of stopping. They plunge hither
and thither, like wreckers into the surf ; and each
plunge brings up a sample of misery, filth and woe.

A woman — Eurasian — rises to a sitting position
on a cot and blinks sleepily at the Police. Then
she throws herself down with a grunt. * What's
the matter with you ? ' *\ live in Markiss Lane
and' — this with intense gravity — 'I'm so drunk.'
She has a rather striking gipsy 4ike face, but her
language might be improved.

* Come along,' say the Police, ' we'll head back to

68

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Bentinck Street, and put you on the road to the
Great Eastern/ They walk long and steadily, and
the talk falls on gambling hells. * You ought to
see our men rush one of 'em. When we've marked
a hell down, we post men at the entrances and
carry it. Sometimes the Chinese bite, but as a rule
they fight fair. It's a pity we hadn't a hell to show
you. Let's go in here — there may be something
forward.' * Here ' appears to be in the heart of a
Chinese quarter, for the pigtails — do they ever go
to bed ? — are scuttling about the streets. * Never
go into a Chinese place alone,' say the Police, and
swing open a postern gate in a strong, green door.
Two Chinamen appear.

* What are we going to see ? ' * Japanese gir

No, we aren't, by Jove ! Catch that Chinaman,
quick.* The pigtail is trying to double back across
a courtyard into an inner chamber; but a large
hand on his shoulder spins him round and puts
him in rear of the line of advancing Englishmen,
who are, be it observed, making a fair amount of
noise with their boots. A second door is thrown
open, and the visitors advance into a large, square
room blazing with gas. Here thirteen pigtails,
deaf and blind to the outer world, are bending over
a table. The captured Chinaman dodges uneasily
in the rear of the procession. Five — ten — fifteen
seconds pass, the Englishmen standing in the full

69

FROM SEA TO SEA

light less than three paces from the absorbed gang
who see nothing. Then the burly Superintendent
brings his hand down on his thigh with a crack
like a pistol-shot and shouts: 'How do, John?'
Follows a frantic rush of scared Celestials, almost
tumbling over each other in their anxiety to get
clear. One pigtail scoops up a pile of copper money,
another a chinaware soup^bowl, and only a little
mound of accusing cowries remains on the white
matting that covers the table. In less than half a
minute two facts are forcibly brought home to the
visitor. First, that a pigtail is largely composed of
silk, and rasps the palm of the hand as it slides
through ; and secondly, that the forearm of a China'
man is surprisingly muscular and welLdeveloped.
* What's going to be done ? ' * Nothing. There are
only three of us, and all the ringleaders would get
away. We've got 'em safe any time we want to
catch 'em, if this little visit doesn't make 'em shift
their quarters. Hi I John. No pidgin to-night.
Show how you makee play. That fat youngster
there is our informer.'

Half the pigtails have fled into the darkness,
but the remainder assured and trebly assured that
the Police really mean ' no pidgin,' return to the
table and stand round while the croupier manipu^
lates the cowries, the little curved slip of bamboo,
and the soup'bowl. They never gamble, these

70

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

innocents. They only come to look on, and smoke
opium in the next room. Yet as the game progresses
their eyes light up, and one by one put their money
on odd or even — the number of the cowries that
are covered and left uncovered by the little soup'
bowl. Mythan is the name of the amusement,
and, whatever may be its demerits, it is clean. The
Police look on while their charge plays and loots a
parchment'skinned horror — one of Swift's Struld'
brugs, strayed from Laputa — of the enormous sum
of two annas. The return of this wealth, doubled,
sets the loser beating his forehead against the table
from sheer gratitude.

* Most immoral game this. A man might drop
five whole rupees, if he began playing at sun^down
and kept it up all night. Don't you ever play
whist occasionally ? '

'Now, we didn't bring you round to make
fun of this department. A man can lose as much
as ever he likes and he can fight as well, and if
he loses all his money he steals to get more. A
Chinaman is insane about gambling, and half his
crime comes from it. It must be kept down. Here
we are in Bentinck Street and you can be driven to
the Great Eastern in a few minutes. Joss'houses ?
Oh yes. If you want more horrors. Superintendent
Lamb will take you round with him tO'morrow
afternoon at five. Good night.'

71

FROM SEA TO SEA

The Police depart, and in a few minutes the
silent respectability of Old Council House Street,
with the grim Free Kirk at the end of it, is reached.
All good Calcutta has gone to bed, the last tram
has passed, and the peace of the night is upon the
world. Would it be wise and rational to climb the
spire of that Kirk, and shout : * O true believers !
Decency is a fraud and a sham. There is nothing
clean or pure or wholesome under the Stars, and
we are all going to perdition together. Amen!'
On second thoughts it would not ; for the spire is
slippery, the night is hot, and the Police have been
specially careful to warn their charge that he must
not be carried away by the sight of horrors that
cannot be written or hinted at.

* Good morning,' says the Policeman tramping
the pavement in front of the Great Eastern, and
he nods his head pleasantly to show that he is the
representative of Law and Peace and that the city
of Calcutta is safe from itself at the present.

72

CHAPTER VIII
Concerning Lucia

TIME must be filled in somehow till five this
afternoon, when Superintendent Lamb will
reveal more horrors. Why not, the trams
aiding, go to the Old Park Street Cemetery ?

* You want go Park Street ? No trams going
Park Street. You get out here.' Calcutta tram
conductors are not polite. The car shuffles un^
sympathetically down the street, and the evicted
is stranded in DhurrumtoUah, which may be the
Hammersmith Highway of Calcutta. Providence
arranged this mistake, and paved the way to a
Great Discovery now published for the first time.
DhurrumtoUah is full of the People of India,
walking in family parties and groups and con^
fidential couples. And the people of India are
neither Hindu nor Mussulman — Jew, Ethiop,
Gueber, or expatriated British. They are the
Eurasians, and there are hundreds and hundreds

73

FROM SEA TO SEA

of them in DhurrumtoUah now. There is Papa
with a shining black hat fit for a counsellor of
the Queen^ and Mamma, whose silken dress is
tight upon her portly figure, and The Brood
made up of straw ' hatted, olive -■ cheeked, sharps
eyed little boys, and leggy maidens wearing white,
open-work stockings calculated to show dust.
There are the young men who smoke bad cigars
and carry themselves lordily — such as have in'
comes. There are also the young women with
the beautiful eyes and the wonderful dresses
which always fit so badly across the shoulders.
And they carry prayer<books or baskets, because
they are either going to mass or the market.
Without doubt, these are the People of India,
They were born in it, bred in it, and will die in it.
The Englishman only comes to the country, and
the natives of course were there from the first, but
these people have been made here, and no one has
done anything for them except talk and write
about them. Yet they belong, some of them, to
old and honourable families, hold houses in
Sealdah, and are rich, a few of them. They all
look prosperous and contented, and they chatter
eternally in that curious dialect that no one has
yet reduced to print. Beyond what little they
please to reveal now and again in the newspapers,
we know nothing about their life which touches

74

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

so intimately the White on the one hand and the
Black on the other. It must be interesting — more
interesting than the colourless Anglo-Indian article;
but who has treated of it ? There was one novel
once in which the second heroine was an Eurasienne.
She was a strictly subordinate character and came
to a sad end. The poet of the race^ Henry Derozio,
— he of whom Mr. Thomas Edwards wrote a
history^ — was bitten with Keats and Scott and
Shelley^ and overlooked in his search for material
things that lay nearest to him. All this mass of
humanity in Dhurrumtollah is unexploited and
almost unknown. Wanted, therefore, a writer
from among the Eurasians, who shall write so
that men shall be pleased to read a story of
Eurasian life ; then outsiders will be interested in
the People of India, and will admit that the race
has possibilities.

A futile attempt to get to Park Street from
Dhurrumtollah ends in the market — the Hogg
Market men call it. Perhaps a knight of that
name built it. It is not one^half as pretty as the
Crawford Market, in Bombay, but ... it appears
to be the trysting-place of Young Calcutta. The
natural inclination of youth is to lie abed late, and
to let the seniors do all the hard work. Why,
therefore, should Pyramus, who has to be ruling
account forms at ten, and Thisbe, who cannot be

75

FROM SEA TO SEA

interested in the price of second-quality beef,
wander, in studiously correct raiment, round and
about the stalls before the sun is well clear of the
earth? Pyramus carries a walking-stick with
imitation silver straps upon it, and there are cloth
tops to his boots; but his collar has been two
days worn. Thisbe crowns her dark head with a
blue velvet Tam-o'-Shanter ; but one of her boots
lacks a button, and there is a tear in the left-hand
glove. Mamma, who despises gloves, is rapidly
filling a shallow basket, that the coolie-boy carries,
with vegetables, potatoes, purple brinjals, and — O
Pyramus I Do you ever kiss Thisbe when Mamma
is not by? — garlic — yea, lusson of the bazaar.
Mamma is generous in her views on garlic.
Pyramus comes round the corner of the stall
looking for nobody in particular — not he — and is
elaborately polite to Mamma. Somehow, he and
Thisbe drift off together, and Mamma, very portly
and very voluble, is left to chaffer and sort and
select alone. In the name of the Sacred Unities
do not, young people, retire to the meat-stalls to
exchange confidences! Come up to this end,
where the roses are arriving in great flat baskets,
where the air is heavy with the fragrance of flowers,
and the young buds and greenery are littering all
the floor. They won't — they prefer talking by
the dead, unromantic muttons, where there are

76

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

not so many buyers. There must have been a
quarrel to make up. Thisbe shakes the blue velvet
Tam-o^Shanter and says, * Oah yess ! ' scornfully.
Pyramus answers : * No^a, no^a. Do'ant say thatt.'
Mamma's basket is full and she picks up Thisbe
hastily. Pyramus departs. He never came here
to do any marketing. He came to meet Thisbe,
who in ten years will own a figure very much like
Mamma's. May their ways be smooth before them,
and after honest service of the Government, may
Pyramus retire on 250 rupees per mensem, into a
nice little house somewhere in Monghyr or Chunarl
From love by natural sequence to death.
Where is the Park Street Cemetery ? A
hundred hack ^ drivers leap from their boxes and
invade the market, and after a short struggle
one of them uncarts his capture in a burials
ground — a ghastly new place, close to a tram^
way. This is not what is wanted. The living
dead are here— the people whose names are not
yet altogether perished and whose tombstones
are tended. * Where are the old dead ? ' * No^
body goes there,' says the driver. * It is up that
road.' He points up a long and utterly deserted
thoroughfare, running between high walls. This is
the place, and the entrance to it, with its gardener
waiting with one brown, battered rose for the
visitor, its grilled door and its professional notices,

77

FROM SEA TO SEA

bears a hideous likeness to the entrance of Simla
churchyard. But, once inside, the sightseer stands
in the heart of utter desolation — all the more for^
lorn for being swept up. Lower Park Street cuts
a great graveyard in two. The guide'books will
tell you when the place was opened and when it was
closed. The eye is ready to swear that it is as old
as Herculaneum and Pompeii. The tombs are
small houses. It is as though we walked down the
streets of a town, so tall are they and so closely
do they stand — a town shrivelled by fire, and
scarred by frost and siege. Men must have
been afraid of their friends rising up before the
due time that they weighted them with such
cruel mounds of masonry. Strong man, weak
woman, or somebody's * infant son aged fifteen
months,' for each the squat obelisk, the defaced
classic temple, the cellaret of chunam, or the
candlestick of brickwork — the heavy slab, the
rust^eaten railings, whopper^jawed cherubs, and
the apoplectic angels. Men were rich in those
days and could afford to put a hundred cubic
feet of masonry into the grave of even so humble a
person as ' }no. Clements, Captain of the Country
Service, 1820.' When the 'dearly beloved ' had
held rank answering to that of Commissioner, the
efforts are still more sumptuous and the verse . . .
Well, the following speaks for itself : —

78

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

Soft on thy tomb shall fond Remembrance shed

The warm yet unavailing tear,
And purple flowers that deck the honoured dead

Shall strew the loved and honoured bier.

Failure to comply with the contract does not, let
us hope, entail forfeiture of the earnest-money ;
or the honoured dead might be grieved. The slab
is out of his tomb, and leans foolishly against it ;
the railings are rotted, and there are no more last-
ing ornaments than blisters and stains, which are
the work of the weather, and not the result of the
warm yet unavailing tear/
Let us go about and moralise cheaply on the
tombstones, trailing the robe of pious reflection up
and down the pathways of the grave. Here is a
big and stately tomb sacred to 'Lucia,' who d^ed
m 1776 A.D., aged 23. Here also be lichened
verses which an irreverent thumb can bring to
light. Thus they wrote, when their hearts were
heavy in them, one hundred and sixteen years
ago :—

What needs the emblem, what the plaintive strain.

What all the arts that sculpture e'er expressed,
To tell the treasure that these walls contain ?

Let those declare it most who knew her best.
The tender pity she would oft display

Shall be with interest at her shrine returned,
Connubial love, connubial tears repay.

And Lucia loved shall still be Lucia mourned,

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FROM SEA TO SEA

Though closed the lips, though stopped the tuneful breath,
The silent, clay-cold monitress shall teach —

In all the alarming eloquence of death

With double pathos to the heart shall preach.

Shall teach the virtuous maid, the faithful wife.
If young and fair, that young and fair was she,

Then close the useful lesson of her life,

And tell them what she is, they soon must be.

That goes well, even after all these years, does
it not ? and seems to bring Lucia very near, in
spite of what the later generation is pleased to call
the stiltedness of the old'time verse.

Who will declare the merits of Lucia — dead
in her spring before there was even a Hickey*s
Gazette to chronicle the amusements of Calcutta,
and publish, with scurrilous asterisks, the liaisons
of heads of departments ? What pot-bellied East
Indiaman brought the 'virtuous maid' up the
river, and did Lucia ' make her bargain ' as the
cant of those times went, on the first, second, or
third day after her arrival ? Or did she, with the
others of the batch, give a spinsters' ball as a last
trial — following the custom of the country ? No«
She was a fair Kentish maiden, sent out, at a cost
of five hundred pounds, English money, under the
captain's charge, to wed the man of her choice,
and he knew Clive well, had had dealings with
Omichand, and talked to men who had lived

80

1

CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT

through the terrible night in the Black Hole. He
was a rich man, Lucia's battered tomb proves it,
and he gave Lucia all that her heart could wish : a
green-painted boat to take the air in on the river
of evenings, Coffree slave-boys who could play on
the French horn, and even a very elegant, neat
coach with a genteel rutlan roof ornamented with
flowers very highly finished, ten best polished plate
glasses, ornamented with a few elegant medallions
enriched with mother-o'-pearl, that she might take
her drive on the course as befitted a factor's wife.
All these things he gave her. And when the
convoys came up the river, and the guns thundered,
and the servants of the Honourable the East India
Company drank to the king's health, be sure that
Lucia before all the other ladies in the Fort had
her choice of the new stuffs from England and
was cordially hated in consequence. Tilly Kettle
painted her picture a little before she died, and the
hot'blooded young writers did duel with small-
swords in the Fort ditch for the honour of piloting
her through a minuet at the Calcutta theatre or
the Punch House. But Warren Hastings danced
with her instead, and the writers were confounded
— every man of them. She was a toast far up the
river. And she walked in the evening on the
bastions of Fort William, and said, 'La! I
protest!' It was there that she exchanged con-
s. s. Vol. IV 81 G

FROM SEA TO SEA

gratulations with all her friends on the 20th of
October, when those who were alive gathered
together to felicitate themselves on having come
through another hot season ; and the men — even
the sober factor saw no wrong here — got most
royally and Britishly drunk on Madeira that had
twice rounded the Cape. But Lucia fell sick, and
the doctor — he who went home after seven years
with five lakhs and a half, and a corner of this vast
graveyard to his account — said that it was a pukka
or putrid fever, and the system required strength'
ening. So they fed Lucia on hot curries, and
mulled wine worked up with spirits and fortified
with spices, for nearly a week ; at the end of which
time she closed her eyes on the weary river and
the Fort for ever, and a gallant, with a turn for
heUes4ettres, wept openly as men did then and had
no shame of it, and composed the verses above set,
and thought himself a neat hand at the pen — stap
his vitals I But the factor was so grieved that he
could write nothing at all — could only spend his
money — and he counted his wealth by lakhs — on
a sumptuous grave. A little later on he took
comfort, and when the next batch came out —

But this has nothing whatever to do with the
story of Lucia, the ' virtuous maid, the faithful wife.'
Her ghost went to a big Calcutta powder ball that
very night, and looked very beautiful. I met her.

82

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

CHAPTER I
A Railway Settlement

JAMALPUR is the headquarters of the East India
Railway. This in itself is not a startling state^
ment. The wonder begins with the exploration
of Jamalpur, which is a station entirely made
by, and devoted to, the use of those untiring servants
of the public, the railway folk. They have towns
of their own at Toondla and Assensole ; a sun'dried
sanitarium at Bandikui ; and Howrah, Ajmir,
Allahabad, Lahore, and Pindi know their colonies.
But Jamalpur is unadulteratedly ^Railway,' and
he who has nothing to do with the E. I. Rail'
way in some shape or another feels a stranger
and an interloper. Running always east and
southerly, the train carries him from the torments
of the North'West into the v/et, woolly warmth of
Bengal, where may be found the hothouse heat

85

FROM SEA TO SEA

that has ruined the temper of the good people of
Calcutta. The land is fat and greasy with good
living, and the wealth of the bodies of innumerable
dead things; and here — ^just above Mokameh — -
may be seen fields stretching, without stick, stone,
or bush to break the view, from the railway line to
the horizon.

Up'country innocents must look at the map
to learn that Jamalpur is near the txjp left-hand
corner of the big loop that the E. I. R. throws out
round Bhagalpur and part of the Bara^Banki
districts. Northward of Jamalpur, as near as may
be, lies the Ganges and Tirhoot, and eastward an
off'shoot of the volcanic Rajmehal range blocks
the view.

A station which has neither Judge, Commis^
sioner, Deputy, or 'Stunt, which is devoid of law
courts, ticca^gharrieSf District Superintendents of
Police, and many other evidences of an over'
cultured civilisation, is a curiosity. 'We ad-
minister ourselves,' says Jamalpur proudly, * or we
did — till we had local self-government in — and
now the racket^marker administers us.' This is a
solemn fact. The station, which had its begins
nings thirty odd years ago, used, till comparatively
recent times, to control its own roads, sewage,
conservancy, and the like. But, with the intro'
duction of local self-government, it was ordained

86

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

that the * inestimable boon ' should be extended to
a place made by, and maintained for, Europeans,
and a brand'new municipality was created and
nominated according to the many rules of the
game. In the skirmish that ensued, the Club racket'
marker fought his way to the front, secured a place
on a board largely composed of Babus, and since
that day Jamalpur's views on government have
not been fit for publication. To understand the
magnitude of the insult, one must study the city
— for station, in the strict sense of the word, it
is not. Crotons, palms, mangoes, wellingtonias,
teak, and bamboos adorn it, and the poinsettia and
bougainvillea, the railway creeper and the Bignonia
venusta, make it gay with many colours. It is laid
out with military precision ; to each house its just
share of garden, its red^brick path, its growth of
trees, and its neat little wicket gate. Its general
aspect, in spite of the Dutch formality, is that of
an English village, such a thing as enterprising
stage^managers put on the theatres at home. The
hills have thrown a protecting arm round nearly
three sides of it, and on the fourth it is bounded
by what are locally known as the ' sheds * ; in other
words, the station, offices, and workshops of the
Company. The E. I» R. only exists for outsiders.
Its servants speak of it reverently, angrily, de^
spitefully, or enthusiastically as * The Company ' ;

87

FROM SEA TO SEA

and they never omit the big^ big C. Men must
have treated the Honourable the East India
Company in something the same fashion ages ago,
* The Company ' in Jamalpur is Lord Dufferin, all
the Members of Council, the Body 'Guard, Sir
Frederick Roberts, Mr. Westland, whose name is
at the bottom of the currency notes, the Oriental
Life Assurance Company, and the Bengal Govern^
ment all rolled into one. At first when a stranger
enters this life, he is inclined to scoff and ask, in
his ignorance, * What is this Company that you
talk so much about?' Later on, he ceases to
scoff ; for the Company is a * big * thing — almost
big enough to satisfy an American.

Ere beginning to describe its doings, let it be
written, and repeated several times hereafter, that
the E. I. R. passenger carriages, and especially the
second'Class, are just now horrid — being filthy and
unwashen, dirty to look at, and dirty to live in.
Having cast this small stone, we will examine
Jamalpur. When it was laid out, in or before the
Mutiny year, its designers allowed room for growth,
and made the houses of one general design — some
of brick, some of stone, some three, four, and six
roomed, some single men's barracks and some two^
storied — all for the use of the employes. King's
Road, Prince's Road, Queen's Road, and Victoria
Road— Jamalpur is loyal — cut the breadth of the

88

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

station; and Albert Road, Church Street, and
Steam Road the length of it. Neither on these
roads nor on any of the cool'shaded smaller ones
is anything unclean or unsightly to be found.
There is a dreary village in the neighbourhood
which is said to make the most of any cholera that
may be going, but Jamalpur itself is specklessly
and spotlessly neat. From St. Mary's Church to
the railway station, and from the buildings where
they print daily about half a lakh of tickets, to the
ringing, roaring, rattling workshops, everything
has the air of having been cleaned up at ten that
very morning and put under a glass case. There
is a holy calm about the roads — totally unlike any^
thing in an English manufacturing town. Wheeled
conveyances are few, because every man's bungalow
is close to his work, and when the day has begun
and the offices of the * Loco.* and * Traffic * have
soaked up their thousands of natives and hundreds
of Europeans, you shall pass under the dappled
shadows of the trees, hearing nothing louder than
the croon of some bearer playing with a child in
the veranda or the faint tinkle of a piano. This
is pleasant, and produces an impression of WatteaU'
like refinement tempered with Arcadian simplicity.
The dry, anguished howl of the * buzzer/ the big
steam'whistle, breaks the hush, and all Jamalpur
is alive with the tramping of tiffin^seeking feet.

89

FROM SEA TO SEA

The Company gives one hour for meals between
eleven and twelve. On the stroke of noon there
is another rush back to the works or the offices,
and Jamalpur sleeps through the afternoon till four
or half 'past, and then rouses for tennis at the
institute.

In the hot weather it splashes in the swimming
bath, or reads, for it has a library of several
thousand books. One of the most flourishing
lodges in the Bengal jurisdiction — * St. George in
the East ' — lives at Jamalpur, and meets twice a
month. Its members point out with justifiable
pride that all the fittings were made by their own
hands ; and the lodge in its accoutrements and the
energy of the craftsmen can compare with any in
India. But the institute is the central gathering
place, and its half'dozen tennis-courts and neatly^
laid'Out grounds seem to be always full. Here,
if a stranger could judge, the greater part of the
flirtation of Jamalpur is carried out, and here the
dashing apprentice — the apprentices are the live^
liest of all — learns that there are problems harder
than any he studies at the night school, and that
the heart of a maiden is more inscrutable than the
mechanism of a locomotive. On Tuesdays and
Fridays the volunteers parade. A and B Com^
panies, 150 strong in all, of the E. I. R. Volun^
teers, are stationed here with the band. Their

90

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

uniform, grey with red facings, is not lovely, but
they know how to shoot and drill. They have to.
The ' Company * makes it a condition of service
that a man must be a volunteer ; and volunteer in
something more than name he must be, or some
one will ask the reason why. Seeing that there are
no regulars between Howrah and Dinapore, the
* Company ' does well in exacting this toll. Some
of the old soldiers are wearied of drill, some of the
youngsters don't like it, but — the way they entrain
and detrain is worth seeing. They are as mobile
a corps as can be desired, and perhaps ten or
twelve years hence the Government may possibly
be led to take a real interest in them and spend a
few thousand rupees in providing them with real
soldier's kits — not uniform and rifle merely. Their
ranks include all sorts and conditions of men —
heads of the * Loco.' and * Traffic,' — the Company
is no respecter of rank — clerks in the * audit,' boys
from mercantile firms at home, fighting with the
intricacies of time, fare, and freight tables ; guards
who have grown grey in the service of the Com^
pany ; mail and passenger drivers with nerves of
cast'iron, who can shoot through a long afternoon
without losing temper or flurrying; light 'blue
East Indians ; Tyne^side men, slow of speech and
uncommonly strong in the arm ; lathy apprentices
who have not yet ^filled out'; fitters, turners,

91

FROM SEA TO SEA

foremen^ full^ assistant, and sub^assistant station^
masters, and a host of others. In the hands of
the younger men the regulation Martini ^ Henry
naturally goes off the line occasionally on hunting
expeditions.

There is a twelve hundred yards range running
down one side of the station, and the condition of
the grass by the firing butts tells its own tale.
Scattered in the ranks of the volunteers are a fair
number of old soldiers, for the Company has a
weakness for recruiting from the Army for its
guards who may, in time, become stationmasters.
A good man from the Army, with his papers all
correct and certificates from his commanding
officer, can, after depositing twenty pounds to pay
his home passage, in the event of his services being
dispensed with, enter the Company's service on
something less than one hundred rupees a month
and rise in time to four hundred as a station'
master. A railway bungalow — and they are as
substantially built as the engines — -will cost him
more than one-ninth of the pay of his grade, and
the Provident Fund provides for his latter end.

Think for a moment of the number of men
that a line running from Howrah to Delhi must
use, and you will realise what an enormous amount
of patronage the Company holds in its hands.
Naturally a father who has worked for the line

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AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

expects the line to do something for the son ; and
the line is not backward in meeting his wishes
where possible. The sons of old servants may be
taken on at fifteen years of age, or thereabouts,
as apprentices in the 'shops/ receiving twenty
rupees in the first and fifty in the last year of their
indentures. Then they come on the books as full
*men' on perhaps Rs. 65 a month, and the road
is open to them in many ways. They may become
foremen of departments on Rs. 500 a month, or
drivers earning with overtime Rs. 370; or if they
have been brought into the audit or the traffic, they
may control innumerable Babus and draw several
hundreds of rupees monthly ; or, at eighteen or
nineteen, they may be ticket - collectors, working
up to the grade of guard, etc. Every rank of the
huge, human hive has a desire to see its sons
placed properly, and the native workmen, about
three thousand, in the locomotive department only,
are, said one man, 'making a family affair of it
altogether. You see all those men turning brass
and looking after the machinery ? They've all got
relatives, and a lot of 'em own land out Monghyr^
way close to us. They bring on their sons as soon
as they are old enough to do anything, and the
Company rather encourages it. You see the father
is in a way responsible for his son, and he'll teach
him all he knows, and in that way the Company
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FROM SEA TO SEA

has a hold on them all You've no notion how-
sharp a native is when he's working on his
own hook» All the district round here, right up
to Monghyr, is more or less dependent on the
railway/

The Babus in the traffic department, in the
stores' issue department, in all the departments
where men sit through the long, long Indian day
among ledgers, and check and pencil and deal in
figures and items and rupees, may be counted by
hundreds. Imagine the struggle among them to
locate their sons in comfortable cane ' bottom.ed
chairs, in front of a big pewter inkstand and stacks
of paper ! The Babus make beautiful accountants,
and if we could only see it^ a merciful Providence
has made the Babu for figures and detail. With'
out him, the dividends of any company would be
eaten up by the expenses of English or city^bred
clerks. The Babu is a great man, and, to respect
him, you must see five score or so of him in a
room a hundred yards long, bending over ledgers,
ledgers, and yet more ledgers— silent as the Sphinx
and busy as a bee. He is the lubricant of the
great machinery of the Company whose ways and
works cannot be dealt with in a single scrawl.

94

CHAPTER II

The Shops

THE railway folk, like the army and civilian
castes, have their own language and life,
which an outsider cannot hope to under^
stand. For instance, when Jamalpur refers to itself
as being ' on the long siding,' a lengthy explanation
is necessary before the visitor grasps the fact that
the whole of the two hundred and thirty odd
miles of the loop from Luckeeserai to Kanu-
Junction via Bhagalpur is thus contemptuously
treated. Jamalpur insists that it is out of the
world, and makes this an excuse for being proud
of itself and all its institutions. But in one
thing it is badly, disgracefully provided. At a
moderate estimate there must be about two
hundred Europeans with their families in this
place. They can, and do, get their small supplies
from Calcutta, but they are dependent on the
tender mercies of the bazaar for their meat,
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FROM SEA TO SEA

which seems to be hawked from door to door.
There is a Raja who owns or has an interest in
the land on which the station stands^ and he is
averse to cow'killing. For these reasons, Jamalpur
is not too well supplied with good meat, and what
it wants is a decent meat ^market with cleanly
controlled slaughtering arrangements. The ' Com*
pany,' who gives grants to the schools and builds
the institute and throws the shadow of its prO'
tection all over the place, might help this scheme
forward.

The heart of Jamalpur is the * shops,^ and here
a visitor will see more things in an hour than he
can understand in a year. Steam Street very
appropriately leads to the forty or fifty acres
that the * shops * cover, and to the busy silence
of the loco, superintendent's office, where a man
must put down his name and his business on a
slip of paper before he can penetrate into the
Temple of Vulcan. About three thousand five
hundred men are in the * shops,' and, ten minutes
after the day's work has begun, the assistant
superintendent knows exactly how many are * in.'
The heads of departments — silent, heavy-handed
men, captains of five hundred or more — have
their names fairly printed on a board which is
exactly like a pool ' marker. They * star a life *
when they come in, and their few names alone

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AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

represent salaries to the extent of six thousand a
month. They are men worth hearing deferentially.
They hail from Manchester and the Clyde, and
the great ironworks of the North: pleasant as
cold water in a thirsty land is it to hear again the
full Northumbrian burr or the long'drawn York'
shire 'aye.' Under their great gravity of de^
meanour— a man who is in charge of a few lakhs'
worth of plant cannot afford to be riotously mirth-
ful— lurks melody and humour. They can sing
like north'Countrymen, and in their hours of ease
go back to the speech of the iron countries they
have left behind, when * Ab o' th' yate ' and all
' Ben Briarly's ' shrewd wit shakes the warm air
of Bengal with deep -chested laughter. Hear
'Ruglan' Toon/ with a chorus as true as the
fall of trip-hammers, and fancy that you are back
again in the smoky, rattling North !

But this is the * unofficial ' side. Go forward
through the gates under the mango trees, and set
foot at once in sheds which have as little to do
with mangoes as a locomotive with Lakshmi.
The * buzzer ' howls, for it is nearly tiffin time.
There is a rush from every quarter of the shops,.
a cloud of flying natives, and a procession of more
sedately pacing Englishmen, and in three short
minutes you are left absolutely alone among
arrested wheels and belts, pulleys, cranks, and

s. s. Vol. IV 97 H

FROM SEA TO SEA

cranes — in a silence only broken by the soft
sigh of a far-away steam-valve or the cooing of
pigeons. You are, by favour freely granted, at
liberty to wander anywhere you please through
the deserted works. Walk into a huge, brick-
built, tin-roofed stable, capable of holding twenty-
four locomotives under treatment, and see what
must be done to the Iron Horse once in every
three years if he is to do his work well. On
reflection, Iron Horse is wrong. An engine is a
she — as distinctly feminine as a ship or a mine.
Here stands the Echo, her wheels off, resting on
blocks, her underside machinery taken out, and
her side scrawled with mysterious hieroglyphics
in chalk. An enormous green - painted iron
harness-rack bears her piston and eccentric rods,
and a neatly painted board shows that such and
such Englishmen are the fitter, assistant, and
apprentice engaged in editing that Echo, An
engine seen from the platform and an engine
viewed from underneath are two very different
things. The one is as unimpressive as a cart ;
the other as imposing as a man-of-war in the
yard.

In this manner is an engine treated for navicular,
laminitis, back-sinew, or whatever it is that engines
most suffer from. No. 607, we will say, goes
wrong at Dinapore, Assensole, Buxar, or wherever

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AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

it may be, after three years' work. The place she
came from is stencilled on the boiler, and the forC'
man examines her. Then he fills in a hospital
sheet, which bears one hundred and eighty printed
heads under which an engine can come into the
shops. No. 607 needs repair in only one
hundred and eighteen particulars, ranging from
mud'hok'flanges and blower^cocks to lead'plugs,
and platform brackets which have shaken loose.
This certificate the foreman signs, and it is framed
near the engine for the benefit of the three
Europeans and the eight or nine natives who have
to mend No. 607. To the ignorant the supers
human wisdom of the examiner seems only
equalled by the audacity of the two men and the
boy who are to undertake what is frivolously
called the * job.^ No. 607 is in a sorely mangled
condition, but 403 is much worse. She is reduced
to a shell — is a very elk'Woman of an engine,
bearing only her funnel, the iron frame and the
saddle that supports the boiler.

Four ^ and 'twenty engines in every stage of
decomposition stand in one huge shop. A
travelling crane runs overhead, and the men
have hauled up one end of a bright vermilion
loco. The effect is the silence of a scornful
stare — just such a look as a colonel's portly
wife gives through her pince*ne7i at the audacious

99

FROM SEA TO SEA

subaltern. Engines are the Mivest' things that
man ever made. They glare through their
spectacle'plates, they tilt their noses contemptu-
ously^ and when their insides are gone they adorn
themselves with red lead, and leer like decayed
beauties; and in the Jamalpur works there is
no escape from them. The shops can hold fifty
without pressure, and on occasion as many again.
Everywhere there are engines, and everywhere
brass domes lie about on the ground like huge
helmets in a pantomime. The silence is the
weirdest touch of all. Some sprightly soul — an
apprentice be sure — has daubed in red lead on
the end of an iron tool-box a caricature of some
friend who is evidently a riveter. The picture
has all the interest of an Egyptian cartouche,
for it shows that men have been here, and that
the engines do not have it all their own way.

And so, out in the open, away from the three
great sheds, between and under more engines, till
we strike a wilderness of lines all converging to
one turn-table. Here be elephant-stalls ranged
round a half-circle, and in each stall stands one
engine, and each engine stares at the turn-table.
A stolid and disconcerting company is this ring-
of-eyes monsters; 324, 432, and 8 are shining
like toys. They are ready for their turn of
duty, and are as spruce as hansoms. Lacquered

100

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

chocolate, picked out with black, red, and white, is
their dress, and delicate lemon graces the ceilings of
the cabs. The driver should be a gentleman in
evening dress with white kid gloves, and there
should be gold'headed champagne bottles in the
spick^and'span tenders. Huckleberry Finn says of
a timber raft, *It amounted to something being
captain of that raft.' Thrice enviable is the man
who, drawing Rs. 220 a month, is allowed to
make Rs. 150 overtime out of locos. Nos. 324,
432, or 8. Fifty yards beyond this gorgeous
trinity are ten to twelve engines who have put in
to Jamalpur to bait. They are alive, their fires are
lighted, and they are swearing and purring and
growling one at another as they stand alone.
Here is evidently one of the newest type — No. 25,
a giant who has just brought the mail in and waits
to be cleaned up preparatory to going out afresh.

The tiffin hour has ended. The buzzer blows,
and with a roar, a rattle, and a clang the shops take
up their toil. The hubbub that followed on the
Prince's kiss to the sleeping beauty was not so
loud or sudden. Experience, with a foot-rule in
his pocket, authority in his port, and a merry
twinkle in his eye, comes up and catches Ignorance
walking gingerly round No. 25. 'That's one of
the best we have,' says Experience, * a four'wheeled
coupled bogie they call her. She's by Dobbs.

101

FROM SEA TO SEA

She's done her hundred and fifty miles tO'day;
and she'll run in to Rampore Haut this afternoon ;
then she'll rest a day and be cleaned up. Roughly,
she does her three hundred miles in the four^and'
twenty hours. She's a beauty. She's out from
home, but we can build our own engines — all
except the wheels. We're building ten locos, now,
and we've got a dozen boilers ready if you care
to look at them. How long does a loco, last ?
That's just as may be. She will do as much as
her driver lets her. Some men play the mischief
with a loco, and some handle 'em properly. Our
drivers prefer Hawthorne's old four 'wheeled
coupled engines because they give the least bother.
There is one in that shed, and it's a good 'un to
travel. But eighty thousand miles generally sees
the gloss off an engine, and she goes into the
shops to be overhauled and refitted and replaned,
and a lot of things that you wouldn't understand
if I told you about them. No. 1, the first loco,
on the line, is running still, but very little of the
original engine must be left by this time. That
one there came out in the Mutiny year. She's
by Slaughter and Grunning, and she's built for
speed in front of a light load. French^looking
sort of thing, isn't she? That's because her
cylinders are on a tilt. We used her for the
mail once, but the mail has grown heavier and

102

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

heavier^ and now we use six 'wheeled coupled
eighteen 'inch, inside cylinder, 45 'ton locos, to
shift thousand'ton trains. No! All locos, aren't
alike. It isn't merely pulling a lever. The
Company likes its drivers to know their locos.,
and a man will keep his Hawthorne for two or
three years. The more mileage he gets out of
her before she has to be overhauled the better
man he is. It pays to let a man have his fancy
engine. A man must take an interest in his loco.,
and that means she must belong to him. Some
locos, won't do anything, even if you coax and
humour them. I don't think there are any un'
lucky ones now, but some years ago No. 3 1 wasn't
popular. The drivers went sick or took leave
when they were told off for her. She killed her
driver on the Jubbulpore line, she left the rails
at Kajra, she did something or other at Rampur
Haut, and Lord knows what she didn't do or
try to do in other places I All the drivers fought
shy of her, and in the end she disappeared. They
said she was condemned, but I shouldn't wonder
if the Company changed her number quietly, and
changed the luck at the same time. You see, the
Government Inspector comes and looks at our
stock now and again, and when an engine's con'
demned he puts his dhobi'mark on her, and she's
broken up. Well, No. 31 was condemned, but

103

FROM SEA TO SEA

there was a whisper that they only shifted her
number, and ran her out again. When the drivers
didn't know, there were no accidents. I don't
think we've got an unlucky one running now.
Some are different from others, but there are no
man-eaters. Yes, a driver of the mail is somebody.
He can make Rs. 370 a month if he's a covenanted
man. We get a lot of our drivers in the country,
and we don't import from England as much as
we did. 'Stands to reason that, now there's more
competition both among lines and in the labour
market, the Company can't afford to be as generous
as it used to be. It doesn't cheat a man though.
It's this way with the drivers. A native driver gets
about Rs. 20 a month, and in his way he's supposed
to be good enough for branch work and shunting
and such. Well, an English driver'll get from Rs.
80 to Rs. 220, and overtime. The English driver
knows what the native gets, and in time they tell
the driver that the native'll improve. The driver
has that to think of. You see? That's com'
petition I '

Experience returns to the engine ^ sheds, now
full of clamour, and enlarges on the beauties of
sick locomotives. The fitters and the assistants
and the apprentices are hammering and punching
and gauging, and otherwise technically disporting
themselves round their enormous patients, and

104

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

their language, as caught in snatches, is beautifully
unintelligible.

But one flying sentence goes straight to the
heart. It is the cry of Humanity over the Task
of Life, done into unrefined English. An appren^
tice, grimed to his eyebrows, his cloth cap well
on the back of his curly head and his hands deep
in his pockets, is sitting on the edge of a tool'box
ruefully regarding the very much disorganised
engine whose slave is he. A handsome boy, this
apprentice, and well made. He whistles softly
between his teeth, and his brow puckers. Then he
addresses the engine, half in expostulation and half
in despair, * Oh, you condemned old female dog ! '
He puts the sentence more crisply — much more
crisply — and Ignorance chuckles sympathetically.

Ignorance also is puzzled over these engines.

105

CHAPTER III
Vulcan's Forge

r*J the wilderness of the railway shops^and
machinery that planes and shaves, and bevels
and stamps, and punches and hoists and nips
— the first idea that occurs to an outsider, when he
has seen the men who people the place, is that it
must be the birthplace of inventions — a pasture^
ground of fat patents. If a writing'man, who
plays with shadows and dresses dolls that others
may laugh at their antics, draws help and comfort
and new methods of working old ideas from the
stored shelves of a library, how, in the name of
Common^sense, his god, can a doing^man, whose
mind is set upon things that snatch a few moments
from flying Time or put power into weak hands,
refrain from going forward and adding new invent
tions to the hundreds among which he daily moves ?
Appealed to on this subject, Experience, who
had served the E» I. R. loyally for many years,

106

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

held his peace. *We don't go in much for
patents ; but/ he added, with a praiseworthy
attempt to turn the conversation, 'we can build
you any mortal thing you like. We've got the
Bradford Leslie steamer for the Sahibgunge ferry.
Come and see the brass'work for her bows. It's
in the casting'shed.'

It would have been cruel to have pressed
Experience further, and Ignorance, to foredate
matters a little, went about to discover why Ex'
perience shied off this question, and why the men
of Jamalpur had not each and all invented and
patented something. He won his information in
the end, but it did not come from Jamalpur. That
must be clearly understood. It was found any^
where you please between Howrah and Hoti
Mardan ; and here it is that all the world may
admire a prudent and far-sighted Board of
Directors. Once upon a time, as every one in
the profession knows, two men invented the D.
and O. sleeper — cast-iron, of five pieces, very
serviceable. The men w^ere in the Company's
employ, and their masters said : * Your brains are
ours. Hand us over those sleepers.' Being of
pay and position, D. and O. made some sort of
resistance and got a royalty or a bonus. At any
rate, the Company had to pay for its sleepers.
But thereafter, and the condition exists to this

107

FROM SEA TO SEA

day, they caused it to be written in each servant's
covenant, that if by chance he invented aught,
his invention was to belong to the Company.
Providence has mercifully arranged that no man
or syndicate of men can buy the ^holy spirit of
man ' outright without suffering in some way or
another just as much as the purchase. America
fully, and Germany in part, recognises this law.
The E. I. Railway's breach of it is thoroughly
English. They say, or it is said of them that they
say, 'We are afraid of our men, who belong to
us, wasting their time on trying to invent.'

Is it wholly impossible, then, for men of
mechanical experience and large sympathies to
check the mere patent'hunter and bring forward
the man with an idea ? Is there no supervision
in the * shops,' or have the men who play tennis
and billiards at the institute not a minute which
they can rightly call their very own ? Would it
ruin the richest Company in India to lend their
model'shop and their lathes to half a dozen, or,
for the matter of that, half a hundred, abortive
experiments ? A Massachusetts organ factory, a
Racine buggy shop, an Oregon lumber'yard, would
laugh at the notion. An American toy 'maker
might swindle an employ^ after the invention, but
he would in his own interests help the man to
* see what comes of the thing.' Surely a wealthy,

108

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

a powerful and, as all Jamalpur bears witness, a
considerate Company might cut that clause out
of the covenant and await the issue. There would
be quite enough jealousy between man and man,
grade and grade, to keep down all but the keenest
souls ; and, with due respect to the steam -
hammer and the rolling --mill, we have not yet
made machinery perfect. The * shops ' are not
likely to spawn unmanageable Stephensons or
grasping Brunels ; but in the minor turns of
mechanical thought that find concrete expressions
in links, axle-boxes, joint packings, valves, and
spring'Stirrups something might — something would
— be done were the practical prohibition removed.
Will a North'Countryman give you anything but
warm hospitality for nothing? Or if you claim
from him overtime service as a right, will he work
zealously ? ' Onything but t' brass,' is his motto,
and his ideas are his ' brass.'

Gentlemen in authority, if this should meet
your august eyes, spare it a minute's thought,
and, clearing away the floridity, get to the heart
of the mistake and see if it cannot be rationally
put right. Above all, remember that Jamalpur
supplied no information. It was as mute as an
oyster. There is no one within your jurisdiction
to — ahem — * drop upon.'

Let us, after this excursion into the offices,

109

FROM SEA TO SEA

return to the shops and only ask Experience such
questions as he can without disloyaUy answer*

* We used once/ says he, leading to the foundry,
* to sell our old rails and import new ones. Even
when we used 'em for roof beams and so on, we
had more than we knew what to do with. Now
we have got rolling-mills, and we use the rails to
make tie^bars for the D. and O. sleepers and all
sorts of things. We turn out five hundred D.
and O. sleepers a day. Altogether, we use about
seventy'five tons of our own iron a month here.
Iron in Calcutta costs about five^eight a hundred--
weight ; ours costs between three-four and three-
eight, and on that item alone we save three
thousand a month. Don't ask me how many
miles of rails we own. There are fifteen hundred
miles of line, and you can make your own calcula-
tion. All those things like babies' graves, down
in that shed, are the moulds for the D. and O.
sleepers. We test them by dropping three hundred-
weight and three hundred quarters of iron on top
of them from a height of seven feet, or eleven
sometimes. They don't often smash. We have
a notion here that our iron is as good as the
Home stuff.'

A sleek white and brindled pariah thrusts him-
self into the conversation. His house appears to
be on the warm ashes of the bolt-maker. This

110

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

is a horrible machine, which chews red'hot iron
bars and spits them out perfect bolts. Its manners
are disgusting, and it gobbles over its food.

* Hi, Jack I ' says Experience, stroking the
interloper, ' you've been trying to break your leg
again. That's the dog of the works. At least
he makes believe that the works belong to him.
He'll follow any one of us about the shops as far
as the gate, but never a step further. You can
see he's in first-class condition. The boys give
him his ticket, and, one of these days, he'll try to
get on to the Company's books as a regular worker.
He's too clever to live.' Jack heads the procession
as far as the walls of the rolling'shed and then
returns to his machinery room. He waddles with
fatness and despises strangers.

* How would you like to be hot'potted there ? '
says Experience, who has read and who is enthusi'
astic over She, as he points to the great furnaces
whence the slag is being dragged out by hooks.
* Here is the old material going into the furnace
in that big iron bucket. Look at the scraps of
iron. There's an old D. and O. sleeper, there's
a lot of clips from a cylinder, there's a lot of
snipped' up rails, there's a driving-wheel block,
there's an old hook, and a sprinkling of boiler^
plates and rivets.'

The bucket is tipped into the furnace with a

111

FROM SEA TO SEA

thunderous roar and the slag below pours forth
more quickly. 'An engine/ says Experience
reflectively, * can run over herself so to say. After
she's broken up she is made into sleepers for the
line. You'll see how she's broken up later.' A
few paces further on, semi -nude demons are
capering over strips of glowing hot iron which
are put into a mill as rails and emerge as thin,
shapely tie'bars. The natives wear rough sandals
and some pretence of aprons, but the greater part
of them is * all face.' * As I said before,' says
Experience, * a native's cuteness when he's working
on ticket is something startling. Beyond occasion^
ally hanging on to a red-hot bar too long and so
letting their pincers be drawn through the mills,
these men take precious good care not to go
wrong. Our machinery is fenced and guards
railed as much as possible, and these men don't
get caught up in the belting. In the first place,
they're careful — the father warns the son and so
on — and in the second, there's nothing about 'em
for the belting to catch on unless the man shoves
his hand in. Oh, a native's no fool ! He knows
that it doesn't do to be foolish when he's dealing
with a crane or a driving-wheel. You're looking
at all those chopped rails ? We make our iron
as they blend baccy. We mix up all sorts to get
the required quality. Those rails have just been
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AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

chopped by this tobaccO'Cutter thing/ Experience
bends down and sets a vicious'looking, parrot'
headed beam to work. There is a quiver — a snap
— and a dull smash and a heavy rail is nipped in
two like a stick of barley-sugar.

Elsewhere, a bull-nosed hydraulic cutter is rail-
cutting as if it enjoyed the fun. In another shed
stand the steam-hammers ; the unemployed ones
murmuring and muttering to themselves, as is the
uncanny custom of all steam-souled machinery.
Experience, with his hand on a long lever, makes
one of the monsters perform : and though Ignor-
ance knows that a man designed and men do con-
tinually build steam-hammers, the effect is as
though Experience were maddening a chained
beast. The massive block slides down the guides,
only to pause hungrily an inch above the anvil, or
restlessly throb through a foot and a half of space,
each motion being controlled by an almost im-
perceptible handling of the levers. 'When these
things are newly overhauled, you can regulate your
blow to within an eighth of an inch,' says Ex-
perience. *We had a foreman here once who
could work 'em beautifully. He had the touch.
One day a visitor, no end of a swell in a tall,
white hat, came round the works, and our fore-
man borrowed the hat and brought the hammer
down just enough to press the nap and no more.

S.S. Vol. IV 113 ,

FROM SEA TO SEA

"How wonderful!" said the visitor, putting his
hand carelessly upon this lever rod here.* Ex^-
perience suits the action to the word and the
hammer thunders on the anvil, 'Well, you can
guess for yourself. Next minute there wasn't
enough left of that tall, white hat to make a
postage'Stamp of. Steam-hammers aren't things to
play with. Now we'll go over to the stores. . . .'

Whatever apparent disorder there might have
been in the works, the store department is as clean
as a new pin, and stupefying in its naval order.
Copper plates, bar, angle, and rod iron, duplicate
cranks and slide bars, the piston rods of the Brad*
ford Leslie steamer, engine grease, files, and hammer-
heads— every conceivable article, from leather laces
of beltings to head-lamps, necessary for the due and
proper working of a long line, is stocked, stacked,
piled, and put away in appropriate compartments.
In the midst of it all, neck deep in ledgers and
indent forms, stands the many-handed Babu, the
steam of the engine whose power extends from
Howrah to Ghaziabad.

The Company does everything, and knows
everything. The gallant apprentice may be a wild
youth with an earnest desire to go occasionally * upon
the bend.' But three times a week, between 7 and
8 P.M., he must attend the night'School and sit at
the feet of M. Bonnaud, who teaches him mechanics

114

AMONG THE RAILWAY FOLK

and statics so thoroughly that even the awful
Government Inspector is pleased. And when
there is no night-school the Company will by no
means wash its hands of its men out of workings
hours. No man can be violently restrained from
going to the bad if he insists upon it, but in the
service of the Company a man has every warning ;
his escapades are known, and a judiciously arranged
transfer sometimes keeps a good fellow clear of the
down-grade* No one can flatter himself that in
the multitude he is overlooked, or believe that
between 4 p.m. and 9 a.m. he is at liberty to mis'
demean himself. Sooner or later, but generally
sooner, his goingS'On are known, and he is re^
minded that 'Britons never shall be slaves' — to
things that destroy good work as well as souls.
Maybe the Company acts only in its own interest,
but the result is good.

Best and prettiest of the many good and pretty
things in }amalpur is the institute of a Saturday
when the Volunteer Band is playing and the tennis
courts are full and the babydom of Jamalpur — fat,
sturdy children — frolic round the band^stand. The
people dance — but big as the institute is, it is get'
ting too small for their dances — they act, they
play billiards, they study their newspapers, they
play cards and everything else, and they flirt in a
sumptuous building, and in the hot weather the

115

FROM SEA TO SEA

gallant apprentice ducks his friend in the big
swimming'bath. Decidedly the railway folk make
their lives pleasant.

Let us go down southward to the big Giridih
collieries and see the coal that feeds the furnace
that smelts the iron that makes the sleeper that
bears the loco, that pulls the carriage that holds
the freight that comes from the country that is
made richer by the Great Company Bahadur, the
East Indian Railway.

116

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

117

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

CHAPTER I
On the Surface

SOUTHWARD, always southward and
easterly, runs the Calcutta Mail from
Luckeeserai, till she reaches Madapur in the
Sonthal Parganas. From Madapur a train, largely
made up of coaUtrucks, heads westward into the
Hazaribagh district and toward Giridih. A week
would not have exhausted 'Jamalpur and its
environs,' as the guide'books say. But since time
drives and man must e'en be driven, the weird,
echoing bund in the hills above Jamalpur, where
the owls hoot at night and hyenas come down to
laugh over the grave of * Quillem Roberts, who
died from the effects of an encounter with a tiger
near this place, a.d. 1864,' goes undescribed. Nor
is it possible to deal with Monghyr, the head'

119

FROM SEA TO SEA

quarters of the district, where one sees for the first
time the age of Old Bengal in the sleepy, creepy
station, built in a time^eaten fort, which runs out
into the Ganges, and is full of quaint houses, with
fat'legged balustrades on the roofs. Pensioners
certainly, and probably a score of ghosts, live in
Monghyr. All the country seems haunted. Is
there not at Pir Bahar a lonely house on a bluff,
the grave of a young lady, who, thirty years ago,
rode her horse down the cliff and perished ? Has
not Monghyr a haunted house in which tradition
says sceptics have seen much more than they
could account for? And is it not notorious
throughout the countryside that the seven miles
of road between Jamalpur and Monghyr are
nightly paraded by tramping battalions of spectres
— phantoms of an old'time army, massacred who
knows how long ago ? The common voice attests
all these things, and an eerie cemetery packed with
blackened, lichened, candle ^ extinguisher tomb^
stones persuades the listener to believe all that he
hears. Bengal is second — or third is it ? — in order
of seniority among the Provinces, and like an old
nurse, she tells many witch^tales.

But ghosts have nothing to do with collieries,
and that ever-present 'Company,^ the E. I. R.,
has more or less made Giridih — principally more.
^Before the E. I. R. came,* say the people, 'we

120

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

had one meal a day. Now we have two/
Stomachs do not tell fibs, whatever mouths may
say. That * Company/ in the course of business,
throws about five lakhs a year into the Hazaribagh
district in the form of wages alone^ and Giridih
Bazar has to supply the wants of twelve thousand
men, women, and children. But we have now the
authority of a number of high'Souled and intelli'
gent native prints that the Sahib of all grades
spends his time in * sucking the blood out of the
country,' and * flying to England to spend his ill'
gotten gains.'

Giridih is perfectly mad — quite insane I Geo^
logically, 'the country is in the metamorphic
higher grounds that rise out of the alluvial flats of
Lower Bengal between the Osri and the Barakar
rivers.' Translated, this sentence means that you
can twist your ankle on pieces of pure white, pinky,
and yellowish granite, slip over weather-worn
sandstone, grievously cut your boots over flakes
of trap, and throw hornblende pebbles at the dogs.
Never was such a place for stone'throwing as
Giridih. The general aspect of the country is
falsely park-like, because it swells and sinks in a
score of grass-covered undulations, and is adorned
with plantation-like jungle. There are low hills
on every side, and twelve miles away bearing
south the blue bulk of the holy hill of Parasnath,

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FROM SEA TO SEA

greatest of the Jain Tirthankars, overlooks the
world* In Bengal they consider four thousand
five hundred feet good enough for a Dagshai or
Kasauli, and once upon a time they tried to put
troops on Parasnath. There was a scarcity of
water, and Thomas of those days found the
silence and seclusion prey upon his spirits. Since
twenty years, therefore, Parasnath has been
abandoned by Her Majesty's Army.

As to Giridih itself, the last few miles of train
bring up the reek of the * Black Country/ Memory
depends on smell. A noseless man is devoid of
sentiment, just as a noseless woman, in this
country, must be devoid of honour. That first
breath of the coal should be the breath of the
murky, clouded tract between Yeadon and Dale
— or Barnsley, rough and hospitable Barnsley — or
Dewsbury and Batley and the Derby Canal on a
Sunday afternoon when the wheels are still and
the young men and maidens walk stolidly in pairs.
Unfortunately, it is nothing more than Giridih —
seven thousand miles away from Home and blessed
with a warm and genial sunshine, soon to turn into
something very much worse. The insanity of the
place is visible at the station door. A G.B.T.
cart once married a bathing-machine, and they
called the child tum4um. You who in flannel and
Cawnpore harness drive bamboo'carts about up'

122

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

country roads, remember that a Giridih itim4iim is
painfully pushed by four men, and must be entered
crawling on all-fours, head first. So strange are
the ways of Bengal I

They drive mad horses in Giridih — animals
that become hysterical as soon as the dusk falls and
the country-side blazes with the fires of the great
coke ovens. If you expostulate tearfully, they
produce another horse, a raw, red fiend whose ear
has to be screwed round and round, and round and
round, before she will by any manner of means
consent to start. The roads carry neat little
eighteen - inch trenches at their sides, admirably
adapted to hold the flying wheel. Skirling about
this savage land in the dark, the white population
beguile the time by rapturously recounting past
accidents, insisting throughout on the super-equine
* steadiness ' of their cattle. Deep and broad and
wide is their jovial hospitality; but somebody —
the Tirhoot planters for choice— ought to start a
mission to teach the men of Giridih what to drive.
They know howy or they would be severally and
separately and many times dead, but they do not,
they do not indeed, know that animals who stand
on one hind leg and beckon with all the rest, or
try to pigstick in harness, are not trap-horses
worthy of endearing names, but things to be pole-
axed I Their feelings are hurt when you say this.

123

FROM SEA TO SEA

* Sit tight/ say the men of Giridih ; * we*re insured I
We can't be hurt/

And now with grey hairs, dry mouth, and chat-
tering teeth to the collieries. The E. L R. estate,
bought or leased in perpetuity from the Serampore
Raja, may be about four miles long and between
one and two miles across. It is in two pieces, the
Serampore field being separated from the Karhar-
bari (or Kurhurballi or Kabarbari) field by the
property of the Bengal Coal Company. The
Raneegunge Coal Association lies to the east of all
other workings. So we have three companies at
work on about eleven square miles of land.

There is no such thing as getting a full view of
the whole place. A short walk over a grassy down
gives on to an outcrop of very dirty sandstone,
which in the excessive innocence of his heart the
visitor naturally takes to be the coal lying neatly
on the surface. Up to this sandstone the path
seems to be made of crushed sugar, so white and
shiny is the quartz. Over the brow of the down
comes in sight the old familiar pit'head wheel,
spinning for the dear life, and the eye loses itself
in a maze of pumping sheds, red^tiled, mud'walled
miners* huts, dotted all over the landscape, and
railway lines that run on every kind of gradient.
There are lines that dip into valleys and disappear
round the shoulders of slopes, and lines that career

124

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

on the tops of rises and disappear over the brow of
the slopes. Along these lines whistle and pant
metre^gauge engines, some with trucks at their tail,
and others rattling back to the pit'bank with the
absurd air of a boy late for school that an un^
employed engine always assumes. There are six
engines in all, and as it is easiest to walk along the
lines one sees a good deal of them. They bear
not altogether unfamiliar names. Here, for in'
stance, passes the * Cockburn ' whistling down a
grade with thirty tons of coal at her heels ; while
the * Whitly ' and the * Olpherts ' are waiting for
their complement of trucks. Now a Mr. T. F.
Cockburn was superintendent of these mines nearly
thirty years ago, in the days before the chord'lines
from Kanu to Luckeeserai were built, and all the
coal was carted to the latter place ; and surely Mr.
Olpherts was an engineer who helped to think out
a new sleeper. What may these things mean ?

'Apotheosis of the Manager,' is the reply.
* Christen the engines after the managers. You'll
find Cockburn, Dunn, Whidy, Abbot, Olpherts,
and Saise knocking about the place. Sounds
funny, doesn't it ? Doesn't sound so funny when
one of these idiots does his best to derail Saise,
though, by putting a line down anyhow. Look
at that line ! Laid out in knots — by Jove ! ' To
the unprofessional eye the rail seems all correct ;

125

FROM SEA TO SEA

but there must be something wrong, because ^one
of those idiots ' is asked why in the name of all
he considers sacred he does not ram the ballast
properly.

*What would happen if you threw an engine
off the line I Can't say that I know exactly.
You see^ our business is to keep them on, and we
do that. Here's rather a curiosity. You see that
pointsman ! They say he's an old mutineer, and
when he relaxes he boasts of the Sahibs he has
killed. He's glad enough to eat the Company's
salt now.' Such a withered old face was the face
of the pointsman at No. 1 1 point I The informa-
tion suggested a host of questions, and the answers
were these : * You won't be able to understand till
you've been down into a mine. We work our
men in two ways : some by direct payment — under
our own hand, and some by contractors. The
contractor undertakes to deliver us the coal, sup-
plying his own men, tools, and props. He's re-
sponsible for the safety of his mien, and of course
the Company knows and sees his work. Just
fancy, among these five thousand people, what sort
of effect the news of an accident would produce !
It would go all through the Sonthal Parganas.
We have any amount of Sonthals besides Maho-
metans and Hindus of every possible caste, down
to those Musahers who eat pig. They don't

126

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

require much administering in the civilian sense of
the word. On Sundays, as a rule, if any man has
had his daughter eloped with, or anything of that
kind, he generally comes up to the manager's
bungalow to get the matter put straight. If a
man is disabled through accident he knows that as
long as he's in the hospital he gets full wages, and
the Company pays for the food of any of his
women'folk who come to look after him. One,
of course ; not the whole clan. That makes our
service popular with the people. Don't you believe
that a native is a fool. You can train him to
everything except responsibility. There's a rule
in the workings that if there is any dangerous
work — we haven't choke-damp ; I will show you
when we get down— no gang must work without
an Englishman to look after them. A native
wouldn't be wise enough to understand what the
danger was, or where it came in. Even if he did,
he'd shirk the responsibility. We can't afford to
risk a single life. All our output is just as much
as the Company want — about a thousand tons per
working day. Three hundred thousand in the
year. We could turn out more ? Yes — a little.
Well, yes, twice as much. I won't go on, because
you wouldn't believe me. There's the coal under
us, and we work it at any depth from following
up an outcrop down to six hundred feet. That

127

FROM SEA TO SEA

is our deepest shaft. We have no necessity to go
deeper. At home the mines are sometimes fifteen
hundred feet down. Well, the thickness of this
coal here varies from anything you please to any^
thing you please. There's enough of it to last
your time and one or two hundred years longer.
Perhaps even longer than that. Look at that stuff.
That's big coal from the pit.'

It was aristocratic^looking coal, just like the
picked lumps that are stacked in baskets of coal
agencies at home with the printed legend atop
^Only 23s. a ton.' But there was no picking in
this case. The great piled banks were all equal
to sample, and beyond them lay piles of small,
broken, * smithy ' coal. * The Company doesn't
sell to the public. This small, broken coal is an
exception. That is sold, but the big stuff is for
the engines and the shops. It doesn't cost much
to get out, as you say ; but our men can earn as
much as twelve rupees a month. Very often when
they've earned enough to go on with they retire
from the concern till they've spent their money
and then come on again. It's piece' work and
they are improvident. If some of them only lived
like other natives they would have enough to buy
land and cows with. When there's a press of work
they make a good deal by overtime, but they don't
seem to keep it. You should see Giridih Bazar

128

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

on a Sunday if you want to know where the money
goes. About ten thousand rupees change hands
once a week there. If you want to get at the
number of people who are indirectly dependent or
profit by the E. I. R. you'll have to conduct a
census of your own. After Sunday is over the men
generally lie off on Monday and take it easy on
Tuesday. Then they work hard for the next four
days and make it up. Of course there's nothing
in the wide world to prevent a man from resigning
and going away to wherever he came from — behind
those hills if he's a Sonthal. He loses his employ'
ment, that's all. But they have their own point
of honour. A man hates to be told by his friends
that he has been guilty of shirking. And now
we'll go to breakfast. You shall be " pitted " tO'
morrow to any depth you like.'

s. s. Vol. IV 129

CHAPTER II

In the Depths

'TWITTED to any extent you please/ The
Is^ only difficulty was for Joseph to choose
JL , his pit. Giridih was full of them. There
was an arch in the side of a little hill, a blackened
brick arch leading into thick night. A stationary
engine was hauling a procession of coal ^ laden
trucks — 'tubs' is the technical word — out of its
depths. The tubs were neither pretty nor clean.
'We are going down in those when they are
emptied. Put on your helmet and keep it on, and
keep your head down.'

There is nothing mirth ^ provoking in going
down a coal-mine — even though it be only a
shallow incline running to one hundred and forty
feet vertical below the earth. 'Get into the tub
and lie down. Hang it, no! This is not a rail'
way carriage: you can't see the country out of
the windows. Lie down in the dust and don't lift
your head. Let her go I '
130

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

The tubs strain on the wire rope and slide down
fourteen hundred feet of incline, at first through a
chastened gloom, and then through darkness. An
absurd sentence from a trial report rings in the
head : * About this time prisoner expressed a desire
for the consolations of religion/ A hand with a
reeking flare'lamp hangs over the edge of the tub,
and there is a glimpse of a blackened hat near it,
for those accustomed to the pits have a merry trick
of going down sitting or crouching on the coupling
of the rear tub. The noise is deafening, and the
roof is very close indeed. The tubs bump, and
the occupant crouches lovingly in the coal dust.
What would happen if the train went off the line ?
The desire for the * consolations of religion ' grows
keener and keener as the air grows closer and
closer. The tubs stop in darkness spangled by
the light of the flare -lamps which many black
devils carry. Underneath and on both sides is the
greasy blackness of the coal, and, above, a roof of
grey sandstone, smooth as the flow of a river at
evening. * Now, remember that if you don't keep
your hat on, you'll get your head broken, because
you will forget to stoop. If you hear any tubs
coming up behind you step off to one side.
There's a tramway under your feet: be careful
not to trip over it.'

The miner has a gait as peculiarly his own as

131

FROM SEA TO SEA

Tommy's measured pace or the bluejacket's roll.
Big men who slouch in the light of day become
almost things of beauty underground. Their foot
IS on their native heather; and the slouch is a
very necessary act of homage to the great earth,
which if a man observe not, he shall without
doubt have his hat — bless the man who invented
pith hats ! — grievously cut.

The road turns and winds and the roof becomes
lower, but those accursed tubs still rattle by on the
tramways. The roof throws back their noises,
and when all the place is full of a grumbling and a
growling, how under earth is one to know whence
danger will turn up next ? The air brings to the
unacclimatised a singing in the ears, a hotness of
the eyeballs, and a jumping of the heart. * That's
because the pressure here is different from the
pressure up above. It'll wear off in a minute.
IVe don't notice it. Wait till you get down a
four-hundred'foot pit. Then your ears will begin
to sing, if you like.'

Most people know the One Night of each hot
weather — that still, clouded night just before the
Rains break, when there seems to be no more
breathable air under the bowl of the pitiless skies,
and all the weight of the silent, dark house lies on
the chest of the sleep-hunter. This is the feeling
in a coal-mine — only more so — much more so, for

132

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

the darkness is the 'gross darkness of the inner
sepulchre/ It is hard to see which is the black
coal and which the passage driven through it.
From far away, down the side galleries, comes the
regular beat of the pick— thick and muffled as the
beat of the labouring heart. * Six men to a gang,
and they aren't allowed to work alone. They
make six-foot drives through the coal — two and
sometimes three men working together. The
rest clear away the stuff and load it into the tubs.
We have no props in this gallery because we
have a roof as good as a ceiling. The coal lies
under the sandstone here. It's beautiful sand'
stone/ It was beautiful sandstone — as hard as a
billiard table and devoid of any nasty little bumps
and jags.

There was a roaring down one road — the roaring
of infernal fires. This is not a pleasant thing to
hear in the dark. It is too suggestive. 'That's
our ventilating shaft. Can't you feel the air
getting brisker ? Come and look.'

Imagine a great iron-bound crate of burning
coal, hanging over a gulf of darkness faintly show^
ing the brickwork of the base of a chimney.
'We're at the bottom of the shaft. That fire
makes a draught that sucks up the foul air from
the bottom of the pit. There's another down^
draw shaft in another part of the mine where the

133

FROM SEA TO SEA

clean air comes in. We aren't going to set the
mines on fire. There's an earth and brick floor at
the bottom of the pit the crate hangs over. It
isn't so deep as you think.' Then a devil — a
naked devil — came in with a pitchfork and fed the
spouting flames. This was perfectly in keeping
with the landscape.

More trucks, more muffled noises, more dark*'
ness made visible, and more devils — male and
female — coming out of darkness and vanishing.
Then a picture to be remembered. A great Hall
of Eblis, twenty feet from inky'black floor to grey
roof, upheld by huge pillars of shining coal, and
filled with flitting and passing devils. On a
shattered pillar near the roof stood a naked man,
his flesh olive^coloured in the light of the lamps,
hewing down a mass of coal that still clove to the
roof. Behind him was the wall of darkness, and
when the lamps shifted he disappeared like a ghost.
The devils were shouting directions, and the man
howled in reply, resting on his pick and wiping
the sweat from his brow. When he smote the
coal crushed and slid and rumbled from the dark^
ness into the darkness, and the devils cried Shabash !
The man stood erect like a bronze statue, he twisted
and bent himself like a Japanese grotesque, and
anon threw himself on his side after the manner of
the dying gladiator. Then spoke the still small

134

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

voice of fact : * A f irst'class workman if he would
only stick to it. But as soon as he makes a little
money he lies off and spends it. That's the last
of a pillar that we've knocked out. See here.
These pillars of coal are square, about thirty feet
each way. As you can see, we make the pillar
first by cutting out all the coal between. Then
we drive two square tunnels, about seven feet
wide, through and across the pillar, propping it
with balks. There's one fresh cut.'

Two tunnels crossing at right angles had been
driven through a pillar which in its under^cut
condition seemed like the rough draft of a statue
for an elephant. * When the pillar stands only on
four legs we chip away one leg at a time from a
square to an hour'glass shape, and then either the
whole of the pillar crashes down from the roof or
else a quarter or a half. If the coal lies against
the sandstone it carries away clear, but in some
places it brings down stone and rubbish with it.
The chipped'away legs of the pillars are called
stooks.'

* Who has to make the last cut that breaks a leg
through ? '

'Oh I Englishmen, of course. We can't trust
natives for the job unless it's very easy. The
natives take kindly to the pillar' work though.
They are paid just as much for their coal as though

135

FROM SEA TO SEA

they had hewed it out of the solid. Of course we
take very good care to see that the roof doesn't
come in on us. You would never understand
how and why we prop our roofs with those piles
of sleepers. Anyway, you can see that we cannot
take out a whole line of pillars. We work ^em en
echelon^ and those big beams you see running from
floor to roof are our indicators. They show when
the roof is going to give. Oh I dear no, there's
no dramatic effect about it. No splash, you know.
Our roofs give plenty of warning by cracking and
then collapse slowly. The parts of the work that
we have cleared out and allowed to fall in are called
goafs. You're on the edge of a goaf now. All
that darkness there marks the limit of the mine.
We have worked that out piece^meal, and the
props are gone and the place is down. The roof
of any pillar^working is tested every morning by
tapping — pretty hard tapping.'

* Hi yi I yi I ' shout all the devils in chorus, and
the Hall of Eblis is full of rolling sound. The
olive man has brought down an avalanche of coal.
* It is a sight to see the whole of one of the pillars
come away. They make an awful noise. It would
startle you out of your wits. But there's not an
atom of risk.'

('Not an atom of risk.' Oh, genial and
courteous host^ when you turned up next day

136

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

blacker than any sweep that ever swept, with a
neat half^inch gash on your forehead — won by
cutting a * stook ' and getting caught by a bound-
ing coal'knob — how long and earnestly did you
endeavour to show that ' stook'Cutting ' was an
employment as harmless and unexciting as wool'
samplering !)

'Our ways are rather primitive, but they're
cheap, and safe as houses. Doms and Bauris,
Kols and Beldars, don't understand refinements
in mining. They'd startle an English pit where
there was fire-damp. Do you know it's a solemn
fact that if you drop a Davy lamp or snatch it
quickly you can blow a whole English pit inside
out with all the miners? Good for us that we
don't know what fire-damp is here. We can use
flare-lamps.'

After the first feeling of awe and wonder is
worn out, a mine becomes monotonous. There
is only the humming, palpitating darkness, the
rumble of the tubs, and the endless procession of
galleries to arrest the attention. And one pit to
the uninitiated is as like to another as two peas.
Tell a miner this and he laughs — slowly and softly.
To him the pits have each distinct personalities^
and each must be dealt with differently.

137

CHAPTER III
The Perils of the Pits

AN engineer, who has built a bridge, can
strike you neariy dead with professional
facts ; the captain of a seventy 'horse'power
Ganges river'Steamer can, in one hour, tell legends
of the Sandheads and the James and Mary shoal
sufficient to fill half a Pioneeft but a couple of days
spent on, above, and in a coal-mine yields more
mixed information than two engineers and three
captains. It is hopeless to pretend to understand
it all.

When your host says, ^Ah, such an one is a
thundering good f ault^reader I ' you smile hazily,
and by way of keeping up the conversation, ad'
venture on the statement that fault^reading and
palmistry are very popular amusements. Then
men explain.

Every one knows that coaLstrata, in common
with women, horses, and official superiors, have

138

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

* faults ' caused by some colic of the earth in the
days when things were settling into their places.
A coal'seam is suddenly sliced off as a pencil is
cut through with one slanting blow of the penknife,
and onc'half is either pushed up or pushed down
any number of feet. The miners work the seam
till they come to this break-off, and then call for
an expert to 'read the fault.' It is sometimes
very hard to discover whether the sliced'off seam
has gone up or down. Theoretically, the end of
the broken piece should show the direction. PraC'
tically its indications are not always clear. Then
a good * fault-reader/ who must more than know
geology, is a useful man, and is much prized ; for
the Giridih fields are full of faults and Mykes.'
Tongues of what was once molten lava thrust
themselves sheer into the coal, and the disgusted
miner finds that for about twenty feet on each
side of the tongue all coal has been burnt away.

The head of the mine is supposed to foresee
these things and more. He can tell you, without
looking at the map, what is the geological forma^
tion of any thousand square miles of India; he
knows as much about brickwork and the building of
houses, arches, and shafts as an average P.W.D.
man ; he has not only to know the intestines
of a pumping or winding engine, but must be able
to take them to pieces with his own hands, indicate

139

FROM SEA TO SEA

on the spot such parts as need repair, and make
drawings of anything that requires renewal; he
knows how to lay out and build railways with a
grade of one in twenty^seven ; he has to carry in
his head all the signals and points between and
over which his locomotive engines work : he must
be an electrician capable of controlling the ap^
paratus that fires the dynamite charges in the pits^
and must thoroughly understand boring operations
with thousand ' foot drills. He must know by
name, at least, one thousand of the men on the
works, and must fluently speak the vernaculars of
the low castes. If he has Sonthali, which is more
elaborate than Greek, so much the better for him.
He must know how to handle men of all grades,
and, while holding himself aloof, must possess
sufficient grip of the men's private lives to be able
to see at once the merits of a charge of attempted
abduction preferred by a clucking, croaking Kol
against a fluent English-speaking Brahmin. For
he is literally the Light of Justice, and to him the
injured husband and the wrathful father look for
redress. He must be on the spot and take all
responsibility when any specially risky job is under
way in the pit, and he can claim no single hour of
the day or the night for his own. From eight in
the morning till one in the afternoon he is coated
with coal-dust and oil. From one till eight in the

140

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

evening he has office work. After eight o'clock
he is free to attend to anything that he may be
wanted for.

This is a soberly drawn picture of a life that
Sahibs on the mines actually enjoy. They are
spared all private socio-official worry, for the Com-
pany, in its mixture of State and private interest, is
as perfectly cold'blooded and devoid of bias as any
great Department of the Empire. If certain things
be done, well and good. If certain things be not
done the defaulter goes, and his place is filled by
another. The conditions of service are graven on
stone. There may be generosity; there undoubtedly
is justice, but above all, there is freedom within
broad limits. No irrepressible shareholder cripples
the executive arm with suggestions and restrictions^
and no private piques turn men's blood to gall within
them. They work like horses and are happy.

When he can snatch a free hour, the grimy,
sweating, cardigan 'jacketed, ammunition 'booted,
pick'bearing ruffian turns into a well'kept English
gentleman, who plays a good game of billiards, and
has a batch of new books from England every
week. The change is sudden, but in Giridih nothing
is startling. It is right and natural that a man should
be alternately Valentine and Orson, specially Orson.
It is right and natural to drive — always behind a
mad horse — away and away towards the lonely hills

141

FROM SEA TO SEA

till the flaming coke ovens become glow-worms
on the dark horizon, and in the wilderness to find
a lovely English maiden teaching squat, filthy
Sonthal girls how to become Christians. Nothing
is strange in Giridih, and the stories of the pits, the
raffle of conversation that a man picks up as he
passes, are quite in keeping with the place. Thanks
to the law, which enacts that an Englishman must
look after the native miners, and if any one be
killed must explain satisfactorily that the accident
was not due to preventable causes, the death-roll is
kept astoundingly low. In one 'bad* half-year,
six men out of the five thousand were killed, in
another four, and in another none at all. As has
been said before, a big accident would scare off the
workers, for, in spite of the age of the mines —
nearly thirty years— the hereditary pitman has not
yet been evolved. But to small accidents the men
are orientally apathetic. Read of a death among

the five thousand

A gang has been ordered to cut clay for the
luting of the coke furnaces. The clay is piled in a
huge bank in the open sunlight. A coolie hacks
and hacks till he has hewn out a small cave with
twenty foot of clay above him. Why should he
trouble to climb up the bank and bring down the
eave of the cave ? It is easier to cut in. The
Sirdar of the gang is watching round the shoulder

142

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

of the bank. The coolie cuts lazily as he stands.
Sunday is very near, and he will get gloriously
drunk in Giridih Bazar with his week's earnings.
He digs his own grave stroke by stroke, for he has
not sense enough to see that undercut clay is
dangerous. He is a Son thai from the hills. There
is a smash and a dull thud, and his grave has shut
down upon him in an avalanche of heavy'Caked
clay.

The Sirdar calls to the Babu of the Ovens, and
with the promptitude of his race the Babu loses his
head. He runs puff ily, without giving orders, any^
where, everywhere. Finally he runs to the Sahib's
house. The Sahib is at the other end of the collieries.
He runs back. The Sahib has gone home to wash.
Then his indiscretion strikes him. He should have
sent runners — fleet'footed boys from the coal'
screening gangs. He sends them and they fly.
One catches the Sahib just changed after his bath.
* There is a man dead at such a place ' — he gasps,
omitting to say whether it is a surface or a pit
accident. On goes the grimy pit'kit, and in three
minutes the Sahib's dogcart is flying to the place
indicated.

They have dug out the Sonthal. His head is
smashed in, spine and breastbone are broken, and
the gang'Sirdar, bowing double, throws the blame
of the accident on the poor, shapeless, battered

143

FROM SEA TO SEA

dead. * I had warned him, but he would not
listen ! Twice I warned him I These men are
witnesses/

The Babu is shaking like a jelly. *Oh, sar, I
have never seen a man killed before! Look at
that eye, sar ! I should have sent runners. I ran
everywhere ! I ran to your house. You were not
in. I was running for hours. It was not my fault I
It was the fault of the gang' Sirdar.' He wrings his
hands and gurgles. The best of accountants, but
the poorest of coroners is he. No need to ask
how the accident happened. No need to listen to
the Sirdar and his * witnesses.* The Sonthal had
been a fool, but it was the Sirdar's business to
protect him against his own folly. * Has he any
people here ? '

'Yes, his rukni, — his kept^woman, — and his
sister's brother-in-law. His home is far-off.'

The sister's brother-in-law breaks through the
crowd howling for vengeance on the Sirdar. He
will send for the police, he will have the price of
his brother's blood full tale. The windmill arms
and the angry eyes fall, for the Sahib is making
the report of the death.

* Will the Government give me pensin ? I am
his wife,' a woman clamours, stamping her pewter^
ankleted feet. * He was killed in your service.
Where is his pensin ? I am his wife.'

144

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

* You lie I You're his rukni. Keep quiet I Go I
The pension comes to us/

The sister's brother'in-law is not a refined man,
but the rukni is his match. They are silenced.
The Sahib takes the report, and the body is borne
away. Before to-morrow's sun rises the gang^
Sirdar may find himself a simple * surface^coolie/
earning nine pice a day; and in a week some
Sonthal woman behind the hills may discover that
she is entitled to draw monthly great wealth from
the coffers of the Sirkar. But this will not happen
if the sister's brother-in-law can prevent it. He
goes off swearing at the rukni.

In the meantime, what have the rest of the dead
man's gang been doing ? They have, if you please,
abating not one stroke, dug out all the clay, and
would have it verified. They have seen their
comrade die. He is dead. Bus ! Will the Sirdar
take the tale of clay? And yet, were twenty men
to be crushed by their own carelessness in the pit,
these same impassive workers would scatter like
paniC'Stricken horses.

Turning from this sketch, let us set in order a
few stories of the pits. In some of the mines the
coal is blasted out by the dynamite which is fired
by electricity from a battery on the surface. Two
men place the charges, and then signal to be drawn
up in the cage which hangs in the pit^eye. Once

s. s. Vol. IV 145 L

FROM SEA TO SEA

two natives were entrusted with the job. They
performed their parts beautifully till the end, when
the vaster idiot of the two scrambled into the cage,
gave signal, and was hauled up before his friend
could follow.

Thirty or forty yards up the shaft all possible
danger for those in the cage was over, and the
charge was accordingly exploded. Then it occurred
to the man in the cage that his friend stood a very
good chance of being, by this time, riven to pieces
and choked.

But the friend was wise in his generation. He
had missed the cage, but found a coal'tub— one of
the little iron trucks — and turning this upside down,
crawled into it. When the charge went off, his
shelter was battered in so much, that men had to
hack him out, for the tub had made, as it were, a
tinned sardine of its occupant. He was absolutely
unhurt, but for his feelings. On reaching the pit^
bank his first words were, ' I do not desire to go
down to the pit with that man any more.' His
v/ish had been already gratified, for ^that man'
had fled. Later on, the story goes, when ^that
man ' found that the guilt of murder was not at
his door, he returned, and was made a mere surface^
coolie, and his brothers jeered at him as they passed
to their better^paid occupations.

Occasionally there are mild cyclones in the pits.

146

THE GIRIDIH COAL-FIELDS

An old working, perhaps a mile away, will collapse :
a whole gallery sinking bodily. Then the displaced
air rushes through the inhabited mine, and, to
quote their own expression, blows the pitmen about

* lil<e dry leaves/ Few things are more amusing
than the spectacle of a burly Tyneside foreman
who, failing to dodge round a corner in time, is

* put down ' by the wind, sitting'fashion, on a
knobby lump of coal.

But most impressive of all is a tale they tell of
a fire in a pit many years ago. The coal caught
light. They had to send earth and bricks down
the shaft and build great dams across the galleries
to choke the fire. Imagine the scene, a few hundred
feet underground, with the air growing hotter and
hotter each moment, and the carbonic acid gas
trickling through the dams. After a time the rough
dams gaped, and the gas poured in afresh, and
the Englishmen went down and leeped the cracks
between roof and dam ' sill with anything they
could get. Coolies fainted, and had to be taken
away, but no one died, and behind the first dams
they built great masonry ones, and bested that
fire ; though for a long time afterwards, whenever
they pumped water into it, the steam would puff
out from crevices in the ground above.

It is a queer life that they lead, these men of
the coal'fields, and a * big * life to boot. To describe

147

FROM SEA TO SEA

one half of their labours would need a week at the
least, and would be incomplete then. * If you want
to see anything/ they say, * you should go over to
the Baragunda copper^mines ; you should look at
the Barakar ironworks ; you should see our boring
operations five miles away ; you should see how
we sink pits; you should, above all, see Giridih
Bazar on a Sunday. Why, you haven't seen any^
thing. There's no end of a Sonthal Mission here-
abouts. All the little dev — dears have gone on a
picnic. Wait till they come back, and see 'em
learning to read.'

Alas! one cannot wait. At the most one can
but thrust an impertinent pen skin-deep into
matters only properly understood by specialists.

148

IN AN OPIUM FACTORY

149

IN AN OPIUM FACTORY

ON the banks of the Ganges, forty miles
below Benares as the crow flies, stands the
Ghazipur Factory, an opium mint as it
were, whence issue the precious cakes that are to
replenish the coffers of the Indian Government.
The busy season is setting in, for with April the
opium comes up from the districts after having
run the gauntlet of the district officers of the
Opium Department, who will pass it as fit for
use. Then the really serious work opens, under
a roasting sun. The opium arrives by challans,
regiments of one hundred jars, each holding one
maund, and each packed in a basket and sealed
atop. The district officer submits forms — never
was such a place for forms as the Ghazipur
Factory — showing the quality and weight of each
pot, and with the jars comes a person responsible
for the safe carriage of the string, their delivery,
and their virginity. If any pots are broken or
tampered with, an unfortunate individual called

151

FROM SEA TO SEA

the fmport'officer, and appointed to work like a
horse from dawn till dewy eve, must examine the
man in charge of the challan and reduce his states
ment to writing. Fancy getting any native to
explain how a jar has been smashed I But the
Perfect Flower is about as valuable as silver.

Then all the pots have to be weighed, and the
weight of each pot is recorded on the pot, in a
book, and goodness knows where else, and every
one has to sign certificates that the weighing is
correct. The pots have been weighed once in the
district and once in the factory. None the less a
certain number of them are taken at random and
weighed afresh before they are opened. This is
only the beginning of a long series of checks.
Then the testing begins. Every single pot has to
be tested for quality. A native, called the purkhea,
drives his fist into the opium, rubs and smells it,
and calls out the class for the benefit of the opium
examiner. A sample picked between finger and
thumb is thrown into a jar, and if the opium
examiner thinks the purkhea has said sooth, the
class of that jar is marked in chalk, and everything
is entered in a book. Every ten samples are put
in a locked box with duplicate keys, and sent over
to the laboratory for assay. With the tenth
boxful — and this marks the end of the challan of
a hundred jars — the Englishman in charge of the
152

IN AN OPIUM FACTORY

testing signs the test'paper, and enters the name of
the native tester and sends it over to the laboratory.
For convenience' sake, it may be as well to say
that, unless distinctly stated to the contrary, every
single thing in Ghazipur is locked, and every
operation is conducted under more than police
supervision.

In the laboratory each set of ten samples is
thoroughly mixed by hand : a quarter^ounce lump
is then tested for starch adulteration by iodine,
which turns the decoction blue, and, if necessary,
for gum adulteration by alcohol, which makes the
decoction filmy. If adulteration be shown, all the
ten pots of that set are tested separately till the
sinful pot is discovered. Over and above this
test, three samples of one hundred grains each are
taken from the mixed set of ten samples, dried on
a steam'table, and then weighed for consistence.
The result is written down in a ten^columned form in
the assay register, and by the mean result are those
ten pots paid for. This, after everything has been
done in duplicate and countersigned, completes
the test and assay. If a district officer has classed
the opium in a glaringly wrong way, he is thus
caught and reminded of his error. No one trusts
any one in Ghazipur. They are always weighing,
testing, and assaying.

Before the opium can be used it must be

153

FROM SEA TO SEA

^alligated' in big vats. The pots are emptied
into these^ and special care is taken that none of
the drug sticks to the hands of the coolies. Opium
has a knack of doing this, and therefore coolies
are searched at most inopportune moments. There
are a good many Mahometans in Ghazipur, and
they would all \\ke a little opium. The pots after
emptying are smashed up and scraped, and heaved
down the steep river-bank of the factory, where
they help to keep the Ganges in its place, so many
are they and the little earthen bowls in which the
opium cakes are made. People are forbidden
to wander about the river -front of the factory
in search of remnants of opium on the shards.
There are no remnants, but people will not credit
this. After vatting, the big vats, holding from
one to three thousand maunds, are probed with
test-rods, and the samples are treated just like the
samples of the challans, everybody writing every-
thing in duplicate and signing it. Having secured
the mean consistence of each vat, the requisite
quantity of each blend is weighed out, thrown into
an alligating vat, of 250 maunds, and worked up
by the feet of coolies.

This completes the working of the opium. It
is now ready to be made into cakes after a final
assay. Man has done nothing to improve it since
it streaked the capsule of the poppy — this mys-

154

IN AN OPIUM FACTORY

terious drug. April, May, and June are the months
for receiving and manufacturing opium, and in the
winter months come the packing and the despatch.

At the beginning of the cold weather Ghazipur
holds, locked up, a trifle, say, of three and a half
millions sterling in opium. Now, there may be
only a paltry three'quarters of a million on hand,
and that is going out at the rate per diem of one
Viceroy's salary for two and a half years.

There are ranges and ranges of gigantic gO'
downs, huge barns that can hold over half a
million pounds' worth of opium. There are
acres of bricked floor, regiments on regiments of
chests ; and yet more godowns and more godowns.
The heart of the whole is the laboratory, which is
full of the sick faint smell of an opium'joint where
they sell chandii, TTiis makes Ghazipur indignant.
* That's the smell of pure opium. We don't need
chatidii here. You don't know what real opium
smells like. Chandu ^ khana indeed! That's
refined opium under treatment for morphia, and
cocaine, and perhaps narcotine.' * Very well, let's
see some of the real opium made for the China
market.' * We shan't be making any for another
six weeks at earliest ; but we can show you one
cake made, and you must imagine two hundred
and fifty men making 'em as hard as they can —
one every four minutes.'

155

FROM SEA TO SEA

A Sirdar of cake^makers is called, and appears
with a miniature wash-board, on which he sets
a little square box of dark wood, a tin cup, an
earthen bowl, and a mass of poppy^petal cakes.
A larger earthen bowl holds what looks like bad
Cape tobacco.

* What's that ?^

* Trash— dried poppy^leaves, not petals, broken
up and used for packing the cakes in. You'll see
presently.' The cake " maker sits down and
receives a lump of opium, weighed out, of one
seer seven chittacks and a half, neither more nor
less. * That's pure opium of seventy consistence.'
Every allowance is weighed.

'What are they weighing that brown water for ? '
'That's lewa — thin opium at fifty consistence.
It's the paste. He gets four chittacks and a half
of it.' 'And do they weigh the petal ^ cakes ? ^
' Of course.' The Sirdar takes a brass hemispheric
cal cup and wets it with a rag. Then he tears a
pctal'Cake, which resembles a pancake, across so
that it fits into the cup without a wrinkle, and
pastes it with the thin opium, the lewa. After
this his actions become incomprehensible, but there
is evidently a deep method in them. Pancake
after pancake is torn across, dressed with lewat and
pressed down into the cup; the fringes hanging
over the edge of the bowl. He takes half'

156

IN AN OPIUM FACTORY

pancakes and fixes them skilfully, picking now
first'class and now second-class ones, for there are
three kinds of them. Everything is gummed on to
everything else with the lewa, and he presses all
down by twisting his wrists inside the bowl till the
bowl is lined half an inch deep with them, and
they all glisten with the greasy lewa. He now
takes up an ungummed pancake and fits it care^
fully all round. The opium is dropped tenderly
upon this, and a curious washing motion of the
hand follows. The mass of opium is drawn up
into a cone as, one by one, the Sirdar picks up
the overlapping portions of the cakes that hung
outside the bowl and plasters them against the drug
for an outside coat. He tucks in the top of the
cone with his thumbs, brings the fringe of cake
over to close the opening, and pastes fresh leaves
upon all. The cone has now taken a spherical
shape, and he gives it the finishing touch by
gumming a large chupatti, one of the ' moon '
kind, set aside from the first, on the top, so
deftly that no wrinkle is visible. The cake is
now complete, and all the Celestials of the Middle
Kingdom shall not be able to disprove that it
weighs two seers one and three-quarter chittacks,
with a play of half a chittack for the personal
equation.
The Sirdar takes it up and rubs it in the bran^

157

FROM SEA TO SEA

like poppy trash of the big bowl, so that two^
thirds of it are powdered with the trash and one-
third is fair and shiny poppy ^petal. * That is the
difference between a Ghazipur and a Patna cake.
Our cakes have always an unpowdered head. The
Patna ones are rolled in trash all over. You can
tell them anywhere by that mark. Now we'll cut
this one open and you can see how a section
looks.^ One^half of an inch, as nearly as may be,
is the thickness of the shell all round the cake, and
even in this short time so firmly has the lewa set
that any attempt at sundering the skin is followed
by the rending of the poppy^petals that compose
the chupatti. * Now you've seen in detail what a
cake is made of — that is to say, pure opium 70
consistence, poppy ^petal pancakes, lewa of 52.50
consistence, and a powdering of poppy trash.'

^But why are you so particular about the
shell?'

* Because of the China market. The Chinaman
likes every inch of the stuff we send him, and uses
it. He boils the shell and gets out every grain of
the lewa used to gum it together. He smokes
that after he has dried it. Roughly speaking, the
value of the cake we've just cut open is two pound
ten. All the time it is in our hands we have to
look after it and check it, and treat it as though it
were gold. It mustn't have too much moisture

158

IN AN OPIUM FACTORY

in it, or it will swell and crack, and if it is too dry
John Chinaman won't have it. He values his
opium for qualities just the opposite of those in
Smyrna opium. Smyrna opium gives as much as
ten per cent of morphia, and if nearly solid — 90
consistence. Our opium does not give more than
three or three and a half per cent of morphia on
the average, and, as you know, it is only 70, or
in Patna 75, consistence. That is the drug the
Chinaman likes. He can get the maximum of
extract out of it by soaking it in hot water, and he
likes the flavour. He knows it is absolutely pure
too, and it comes to him in good condition.'

* But has nobody found out any patent way of
making these cakes and putting skins on them by
machinery ? '

'Not yet. Poppy to poppy. There's nothing
better. Here are a couple of cakes made in 1849,
when they tried experiments in wrapping them in
paper and cloth. You can see that they are
beautifully wrapped and sewn like cricket balls,
but it would take about half an hour to make one
cake, and we could not be sure of keeping the
aroma in them. There is nothing like poppy
plant for poppy drug.'

And this is the way the drug, which yields such
a splendid income to the Indian Government, is
prepared.

159

THE
SMITH ADMINISTRATION

s. s. Vol. IV 161

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION^

THE COW.HOUSE JIRGA

HOW does a King feel when he has kept
peace in his borders, by skilfully playing
off people against people, sect against sect,
and kin against kin ? Does he go out into the
back veranda, take off his terai-crown, and rub his
hands softly, chuckling the while — as I do now ?
Does he pat himself on the back and hum merry
little tunes as he walks up and down his garden ?
A man who takes no delight in ruling men —
dozens of them — is no man. Behold! India has
been squabbling over the Great Cow Question
any time these four hundred years, to the certain
knowledge of history and successive governments.
I, Smith, have settled it. That is all !

The trouble began, in the ancient and welL
established fashion, with a love-affair across the

^ The following arc newspaper articles written between
1887 and 1888 for my paper.— R. K.

16*^

FROM SEA TO SEA

Border, that is to say, in the next compound.
Peroo, the cow 'boy, went a ' courting, and the
innocent had not sense enough to keep to his
own creed. He must needs make love to
Baktawri, Corkler's coachwarCs (coachman) little
girl, and she being betrothed to Ahmed Buksh's
son, (Btat nine, very properly threw a cow'dung
cake at his head. Peroo scrambled back, hot
and dishevelled, over the garden wall, and the
vendetta began. Peroo is in no sense chivalrous.
He saved Chukki, the ayah*s (maid) little daughter,
from a big pariah dog once ; but he made Chukki
give him half a chupatti for his services, and Chukki
cried horribly. Peroo threw bricks at Baktawri
when next he saw her, and said shameful things
about her birth and parentage. * If she be not
fair to me, I will heave a rock at she/ was Peroo's
rule of life after the cow^dung incident. Baktawri
naturally objected to bricks, and she told her
father.

Without, in the least, wishing to hurt Corkler's
feelings, I must put on record my opinion that
his coachwan is a chamar ^Mahometan, not too
long converted. The lines on which he fought
the quarrel lead me to this belief, for he made
a Creed'question of the brick^throwing, instead
of waiting for Peroo and smacking that young
cateran when he caught him. Once beyond my

164

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

borders, my people carry their lives in their own
hand — the Government is not responsible for their
safety. Corkler's coachwan did not complain to
me. He sent out an Army — Imam Din, his
son — with general instructions to do Peroo a
mischief in the eyes of his employer. This
brought the fight officially under my cognisance ;
and was a direct breach of the neutrality existing
between myself and Corkier, who has * Punjab
head/ and declares that his servants are the best
in the Province. I know better. They are the
tailings of my compound— 'casters' for dishonesty
and riotousness. As an Army, Imam Din was
distinctly inexperienced. As a General, he was
beneath contempt. He came in the night with a
hoe, and chipped a piece out of the dun heifer,
— Peroo's charge, — fondly imagining that Peroo
would have to bear the blame. Peroo was dis'
covered next morning weeping salt tears into the
wound, and the mass of my Hindu population
were at once up and in arms. Had I headed
them, they would have descended upon Corkler's
compound and swept it off the face of the earth.
But I calmed them with fair words and set a
watch for the cow-hoer. Next night, Imam Din
came again with a bamboo and began to hit the
heifer over her legs. Peroo caught him — caught
him by the leg — and held on for the dear

165

FROM SEA TO SEA

vengeance, till Imam Din was locked up in the
gram'godown, and Peroo told him that he would
be led out to death in the morning. But with
the dawn, the Clan Corkier came over, and there
was pulling of turbans across the wall, till the
Supreme Government was dressed and said, ^ Be
silent I' Now Corkler's coachwan*s brother was
my coachwan, and a man much dreaded by Peroo.
He was not unaccustomed to speak the truth at
intervals, and, by virtue of that rare failing, I,
the Supreme Government, appointed him head
of the jirga (committee) to try the case of
Peroo's unauthorised love-making. The other
members were my bearer (Hindu), Corkler's bearer
(Mahometan), with the ticca^dharii (hired tailor),
Mahometan, for Standing Counsel. Baktawri and
Baktawri's father were witnesses, but Baktawri's
mother came all unasked and seriously interfered
with the gravity of the debate by abuse. But
the dharzi upheld the dignity of the Law, and
led Peroo away by the ear to a secluded spot near
the well.

Imam Din's case was an offence against the
Government, raiding in British territory and maim^
ing of cattle, complicated with trespass by night-^
all heinous crimes for which he might have been
sent to gaol. The evidence was deadly conclusive,
and the case was tried summarily in the presence

166

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

of the heifer. Imam Din's counsel was Corkler's
sais, who, with great acumen, pointed out that
the boy had only acted under his father's instruC'
tions. Pressed by the Supreme Government, he
admitted that the letters of marque did not specify
cows as an object of revenge, but merely Peroo.
The hoeing of a heifer was a piece of spite on
Imam Din's part. This was admitted. The
penalties of failure are dire. A chowkidar (watch^
man) was deputed to do justice on the person of
Imam Din, but sentence was deferred pending the
decision of the jirga on Peroo. The dharzi
announced to the Supreme Government that Peroo
had been found guilty of assaulting Baktawri,
across the Border in Corkler's compound, with
bricks, thereby injuring the honour and dignity
of Corkler's coachwan. For this offence, the
jirga submitted, a sentence of a dozen stripes
was necessary, to be followed by two hours of
ear-holding. The Corkier chowkidar was deputed
to do sentence on the person of Peroo, and the
Smith chowkidar on that of Imam Din. They
laid on together with justice and discrimination,
and seldom have two small boys been better
trounced. Followed next a dreary interval of
* ear-holding ' side by side. This is a peculiarly
Oriental punishment, and should be seen to be
appreciated. The Supreme Government then

167

FROM SEA TO SEA

called for Corkler's coachwan and pointed out
the bleeding heifer, with such language as seemed
suitable to the situation. Local knowledge in a
case like this is invaluable. Corkler's coachwan
was notoriously a wealthy man, and so far a
bad Mussulman in that he lent money at interest.
As a financier he had few friends among his co^
servants. On the other hand, in the Smith
quarters, the Mahometan element largely pre^
dominated ; because the Supreme Government
considered the minds of Mahometans more get'
at^able than those of Hindus. The sin of inciting
an illiterate and fanatic family to go forth and do
a mischief was duly dwelt upon by the Supreme
Government, together with the dangers attending
the vicarious jehad (religious war). Corkler's
coachwan offered no defence beyond the general
statement that the Supreme Government was his
father and his mother. This carried no weight.
The Supreme Government touched lightly on the
inexpediency of reviving an old creed'quarrel, and
pointed out at venture, that the birth and education
of a chamar (low ^ caste Hindu), three months
converted, did not justify such extreme sectarianism.
Here the populace shouted like the men of
Ephesus, and sentence was passed amid tumultuous
applause. Corkler's coachwan was ordered to give
a dinner, not only to the Hindus whom he had

168

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

insulted, but also to the Mahometans of the Smith
compound, and also to his own fellow'Servants.
His brother, the Smith coachwan, unconverted
chamar, was to see that he did it. Refusal to
comply with these words entailed a reference to
Corkier and the inspector Sahib,' who would
send in his constables, and, with the connivance
of the Supreme Government, would harry and vex
all the Corkier compound. Corkler's coachwan
protested, but was overborne by Hindus and
Mahometans alike, and his brother, who hated him
with a cordial hatred, began to discuss the arrange^
ments for the dinner. Peroo, by the way, was
not to share in the feast, nor was Imam Din. The
proceedings then terminated, and the Supreme
Government went in to breakfast.

Ten days later the dinner came off and was
continued far into the night. It marked a new era
in my political relations with the outlying states,
and was graced for a few minutes by the presence
of the Supreme Government. Corkler's coachwan
hates me bitterly, but he can find no one to back
him up in any scheme of annoyance that he may
mature ; for have I not won for my Empire a free
dinner, with oceans of sweetmeats ? And in this,
gentlemen all, lies the secret of Oriental adminis'
tration. My throne is set where it should be — on
the stomachs of many people.

169

FROM SEA TO SEA

A BAZAR DHULIP

I and the Government are roughly in the same
condition ; but modesty forces me to say that
the Smith Administration is a few points better
than the Imperial. Corkler's coaclzwatif you may
remember, was fined a caste ^ dinner by me for
sending his son, Imam Din, to mangle my dun
heifer. In my last published administration report,
I stated that Corkler's coachwan bore me a grudge
for the fine imposed upon him, but among my
servants and Corkler's, at least, could find no one
to support him in schemes of vengeance. I was
quite right — right as an administration with prestige
to support should always be.

But I own that I had never contemplated the
possibility of Corkler's coachwan going off to take
service with Mr. Jehan Concepcion Fernandez
de Lisboa Paul— a gentleman semi^orientalised,
possessed of several dwelling-houses and an
infamous temper. Corkier was an Englishman,
and any attempt on his coachwan*s part to annoy
me would have been summarily stopped. Mr.
J. C. F. de L. Paul, on the other hand . . . but
no matter. The business is now settled, and there
is no necessity for importing a race^question into
the story.

Once established in Mr. Paul's compound,

170

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

Corkler's coachwaii sent mc an insolent message
demanding a refund, with interest, of all the
money spent on the castC'dinner. The Govern^
ment, in a temperately framed reply, refused points
blank, and pointed out that a Mahometan by his
religion could not ask for interest. As I have
stated in my last report, Corkler's coachwan was
a renegade chamar, converted to Islam for his
wife's sake. The impassive attitude of the Govern-
ment had the effect of monstrously irritating
Corkler's coachwan, who sat on the wall of Mr.
Paul's compound and flung highly flavoured
vernacular at the servants of the State as they
passed. He said that it was his intention to make
life a burden to the Government — profanely called
Eschmitt Sahib. The Government went to office
as usual and made no sign. Then Corkler^s
coachwan formulated an indictment to the effect
that Eschmitt Sahib had, on the occasion of the
caste-dinner, pulled him vehemently by the ears,
and robbed him of one rupee nine annas four pie.
The charge was shouted from the top of Mr.
Paul's compound wall to the four winds of
Heaven. It was disregarded by the Government,
and the refugee took more daring measures. He
came by night, and wrote upon the whitewashed
walls with charcoal disgraceful sentences which
made the Smith servants grin.

171

FROM SEA TO SEA

Now it is bad for any Government that its
servants should grin at it. Rebellion is as the sin
of witchcraft ; and irreverence is the parent of
rebellion. Not content with writing, Corkler's
coachwan began to miscall the State — always from
the top of Mr. Paul's wall. He informed in^
tending mussalchis (scullions) that Eschmitt Sahib
invariably administered his pantry with a polo^
stock; possible saises (grooms) were told that
wages in the Smith establishment were paid yearly?
while khitmatgars (butlers) learnt that their family
honour was not safe within the gate'posts of the
house of 'Eschmitt.' No real harm was done,
for the character of my rule is known among all
first'class servants. Still, the vituperation and all
its circumstantial details made men laugh; and I
choose that no one shall laugh.

My relations with Mr. Paul had always — for
reasons connected with the incursions of hens —
been strained. In pursuance of a carefully
mature plan of campaign I demanded of Mr.
Paul the body of Corkler's coachwan^ to be dealt
with after my own ideas. Mr. Paul said that
the man was a good coachwan and should not be
given up. I then temperately — always temper'
ately — gave him a sketch of the ruffian's conduct.
Mr. Paul announced his entire freedom from any
responsibility in this matter, and requested that

172

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

the correspondence might cease. It was vitally
necessary to the well-being of my administration
that Corkler's coachwan should come into my
possession. He was daily growing a greater
nuisance, and had drawn unto him a disaffected
dog'boy, lately in my employ.

Mr. Paul was deaf to my verbal, and blind to
my written entreaties. For these reasons I was
reluctantly compelled to take the law into my
own hands — and break it. A khitmatgar was sent
down the length of Mr. Paul's wall to * draw the
fire' of Corkler's coachwan, and while the latter
cursed him by his gods for ever entering Eschmitt
Sahib's service, Eschmitt Sahib crept subtilely
behind the wall and thrust the evil-speaker into
the moonlit road, where he was pinioned, in
strict silence, by the ambushed population of the
Smith compound. Once collared, I regret to say,
Corkler's coachwan was seized with an unmanly
panic ; for the memory of the lewd sentences on
the wall, the insults shouted from the top of Mr.
Paul's wall, and the warnings to wayfaring table-
servants, came back to his mind. He v/ept salt
tears and demanded the protection of the law
and of Mr. Paul. He received neither. He was
paraded by the State through the quarters, that
all men and women and little children might look
at him. He was then formally appointed last and

173

FROM SEA TO SEA

lowest of the carriage'grooms — nauker'ke'tiauker
(servant of servants) — in perpetuity, on a salary
which would never be increased. The entire Smith
people — Hindu and Mussulman alike— were made
responsible for his safe 'keeping under pain of
having all the thatch additions to their houses
torn down, and the Light of the Favour of the
State — the Great Haiufyhi'Mehrbani — darkened
for ever.

Legally the State was wrongfully detaining
Gorkler's coachwan. Practically, it was avenging
itself for a protracted series of insults to its
dignity.

Days rolled on, and Corkler's coachwan became
carriage'S(j/s. Instead of driving two horses, it
was his duty to let down the steps for the State
to tread upon. When the other servants received
cold-weather coats, he was compelled to buy one,
and all extra lean-to huts round his house were
strictly forbidden. That he did not run away, I
ascribe solely to the exertions of the domestic
police — that is to say, every man, woman, and
child of the Smith Kingdom. He was delivered
into their hands, for a prey and a laughing-stock ;
and in their hands, unless I am much mistaken,
they intend that he shall remain. I learn that
my khansamah (head-butler) has informed Mr.
Paul that his late servant is in gaol for robbing

174

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

the Roman Catholic Chapel, of which Mr. Paul
is a distinguished member ; consequently that
gentleman has relaxed his attempts to unearth
what he called his * so good coachwanJ That
coachwan is now a living example and most lively
presentment of the unrelaxing wrath of the State.
However well he may work, however earnestly
strive to win my favour, there is no human
chance of his ever rising from his present position
so long as Eschmitt Sahib and he are above the
earth together. For reasons which I have hinted
at above, he remains cleaning carriage'wheels, and
will so remain to the end of the chapter ; while
the story of his fall and fate spreads through the
bazars, and fills the ranks of servantdom with
an intense respect for Eschmitt Sahib.

A broad'minded Oriental administration would
have allowed me to nail up the head of Corkler's
coachwan over the hall door ; a narrow - souled
public may consider my present lenient treatment
of him harsh and illegal. To this I can only reply
that I know how to deal with my own people. I
will never, never part wnth Corkler's coachwan.

THE HANDS OF JUSTICE

Be pleased to listen to a story of domestic
trouble connected with the Private Services

175

FROM SEA TO SEA

Commission in the back veranda, which did
good work, though I, the Commission, say so,
but it could not guard against the Unforeseen
Contingency. There was peace in all my borders
till Peroo, the cow^keeper's son, came yesterday
and paralysed the Government. He said his
father had told him to gather sticks — dry sticks
— for the evening fire. I would not check
parental authority in any way, but I did not
see why Peroo should mangle my s/ms^ trees.
Peroo wept copiously, and, promising never to
despoil my garden again, fled from my presence.

To'day I have caught him in the act of theft,
and in the third fork of my white Doon sirris,
twenty feet above ground. I have taken a chair
and established myself at the foot of the tree, pre'
paratory to making up my mind.

The situation is a serious one, for if Peroo be
led to think that he can break down my trees un^
harmed, the garden will be a wilderness in a week.
Furthermore, Peroo has insulted the Majesty of
the Government. Which is Me. Also he has
insulted my sirris in saying that it is dry. He
deserves a double punishment.

On the other hand, Peroo is very young, very
small, and very, very naked. At present he is
penitent, for he is howling in a dry and husky
fashion, and the squirrels are frightened.

176

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

The question is — how shall I capture Peroo?
There are three courses open to me. I can shin
up the tree and fight him on his own ground. I
can shell him with clods of earth till he makes
submission and comes down ; or, and this seems
the better plan, I can remain where I am, and cut
him off from his supplies until the rifles — sticks I
mean — are returned.

Peroo, for all practical purposes, is a marauding
tribe from the Hills — head-man, fighting^tail and
all. I, once more, am the State, cool, collected,
and impassive. In half an hour or so Peroo will
be forced to descend. He will then be smacked :
that is, if I can lay hold of his wriggling body.
In the meantime, I will demonstrate.

'Bearer, bring me the turn 'turn ki chabiiq
(carriage' whip).'

It is brought and laid on the ground, while Peroo
howls afresh. I will overawe this child. He has
an armful of stolen sticks pressed to his stomach.

'Bearer, bring also the chota mota chahuq (the
little whip) — the one kept for the punnia kutta
(spaniel).'

Peroo has stopped howling. He peers through
the branches and breathes through his nose very
hard. Decidedly, I am impressing him with a
show of armed strength. The idea of that cruel
whip'thong curling round Peroo's fat little brown

s. s. Vol. IV 177 N

FROM SEA TO SEA

stomach is not a pleasant one. But I must be
firm.

* Peroo, come down and be hit for stealing the
Sahib's wood/

Peroo scuttles up to the fourth fork, and waits
developments.

* Peroo, will you come down } *

* No. The Sahib will hit me.'

Here the goalla appears, and learns that his
son is in disgrace. ^Beat him well, Sahib/ says
the goalla, * He is a hudmash, I never told him
to steal your wood. Peroo, descend and be very
much beaten.'

There is silence for a moment. Then, crisp
and clear from the very top of the sirriSt floats
down the answer of the treed dacoit.

' Kubbif kuhhi nahin (Never — never — No !).'

The goalla hides a smile with his hand and
departs, saying: 'Very well. This night I will
beat you dead.'

There is a rustle in the leaves as Peroo wriggles
himself into a more comfortable seat.

* Shall I send a pimkha'coolie after him ? ' sug^
gests the bearer.

This is not good. Peroo might fall and hurt
himself. Besides I have no desire to employ
native troops. They demand too much batta.
The punkha-'coolie would expect four annas for

178

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

capturing Peroo. I will deal with the robber
myself. He shall be treated judicially, when the
excitement of wrong.doing shall have died away,
as befits his tender years, with an old bedroom
slipper, and the bearer shall hold him. Yes, he
shall be smacked three times,— once gently, once
moderately, and once severely. After the punish-
ment shall come the fine. He shall help the malli
(gardener) to keep the flower-beds in order for a
week, and then

' Sahib ! Sahib I Can I come down ? '

The rebel treats for terms.

' Peroo, you are a niiUcut (a young imp).'

' It was my father's order. He told me to get
sticks.'

' From this tree ? '

'Yes; Protector of the Poor. He said the
Sahib would not come back from office till I had
gathered many sticks.'

' Your father didn't tell me that.'

' My father is a liar. Sahib ! Sahib I Are you
going to hit me ? '

' Come down and I'll think about it.'

Peroo drops as far as the third fork, sees the
whip, and hesitates.

' If you will take away the whips I will come
down,'

There is a frankness in this negotiation that I

179

FROM SEA TO SEA

respect. I stoop, pick up the whips, and turn to
throw them into the veranda.

Follows a rustle, a sound of scraped bark, and
a thud. When I turn, Peroo is down, off and
over the compound wall. He has not dropped
the stolen firewood, and I feel distinctly foolish.

My prestige, so far as Peroo is concerned, is
gone.

This Administration will now go indoors for a
drink.

THE SERAI CABAL

Upon the evidence of a scullion, I, the State,
rose up and made sudden investigation of the
crowded serai. There I found and dismissed,
as harmful to public morals, a lady in a pink
saree who was masquerading as somebody's wife.
The utter and abject loneliness of the mtissalchi,
that outcaste of the cook-room, should. Orientally
speaking, have led him to make a favourable
report to his fellow^servants. That he did not
do so I attributed to a certain hardness of char^
acter brought out by innumerable kickings and
scanty fare. Therefore I acted on his evidence
and, in so doing, brought down the wrath of the
entire serai, not on my head, — for they were
afraid of me, — but on the humble head of
Karim Baksh, mussalchi. He had accused the

180

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

bearer of inaccuracy in money matters, and the
khansamah of idleness; besides bringing about
the ejectment of fifteen people — men, women,
and children — related by holy and unholy ties
to all the servants. Can you wonder that
Karim Baksh was a marked boy? Department'
ally, he was under the control of the khansamah,
I myself taking but small interest in the sub^
ordinate appointments on my staff. Two days
after the evidence had been tendered, I was not
surprised to learn that Karim Baksh had been
dismissed by his superior; reason given, that he
was personally unclean. It is a fundamental
maxim of my administration that all power
delegated is liable to sudden and unexpected
resumption at the hands of the Head. This
prevents the right of the Lord ' Proprietor from
lapsing by time. The khansamah* s decision was
reversed without reason given, and the enemies
of Karim Baksh sustained their first defeat.
They w^ere bold in making their first move so
soon. I, Smith, who devote hours that would
be better spent on honest money-getting, to the
study of my servants, knew they would not try
less direct tactics. Karim Baksh slept soundly,
over against the drain that carries off the water
of my bath, as the enemy conspired.

One night I was walking round the house when

181

FROM SEA TO SEA

the pungent stench of a hookah drifted out of the
pantry. A hoohaht out of place, is to me an
abomination. I removed it gingerly, and de'
manded the name of the owner. Out of the
darkness sprang a man, who said, * Karim Baksh I *
It was the bearer. Running my hand along the
stem, I felt the loop of leather which a chamar
attaches, or should attach, to his pipe, lest higher
castes be defiled unwittingly. The bearer lied,
for the burning hookah was a device of the groom
— friend of the lady in the pink saree—\.o compass
the downfall of Karim Baksh. So the second
move of the enemy was foiled, and Karim Baksh
asleep as dogs sleep, by the drain, took no harm.

Came thirdly, after a decent interval to give
me time to forget the Private Services Commission,
the gumnamah (the anonymous letter) — stuck into
the frame of the looking-glass. Karim Baksh had
proposed an elopement with the sweeper's wife,
and the morality of the serai was in danger. Also
the sweeper threatened murder, which could be
avoided by the dismissal of Karim Baksh. The
blear-eyed orphan heard the charge against him
unmoved, and, at the end, turning his face to the
sun, said : * Look at me, Sahib I Am I the man a
woman runs away with ? ' Then pointing to the
ayah, * Or she the woman to tempt a Mussulman ? '
Low as was Karim Baksh, the mussalchi, he could

182

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

by right of creed look down upon a she'Sweeper.
The charge under Section 498, I. P. C, broke
down in silence and tears, and thus the third
attempt of the enemy came to naught.

I, Smith, who have some knowledge of my
subjects, knew that the next charge would be a
genuine one, based on the weakness of Karim
Baksh, which was clumsiness — phenomenal inepti^
tude of hand and foot. Nor was I disappointed.
A fortnight passed, and the bearer and the khari'
samah simultaneously preferred charges against
Karim Baksh. He had broken two tea^cups and
had neglected to report their loss to me ; the
value of the tea^cups was four annas. They must
have spent days spying upon Karim Baksh, for he
was a morose and solitary boy who did his cup'
cleaning alone.

Taxed with the fragments, Karim Baksh at^
tempted no defence. Things were as the witnesses
said, and I was his father and his mother. By
my rule, a servant who does not confess a fault
suffers, when that fault is discovered, severe
punishment. But the red Hanuman, who grins
by the well in the bazar, prompted the bearer
at that moment to express his extreme solicitude
for the honour and dignity of my service. Liters
ally translated, the sentence ran, * The zeal of thy
house has eaten me up.'

183

FROM SEA TO SEA

Then an immense indignation and disgust took
possession of me^ Smith, who have trodden, as far
as an Englishman may tread, the miry gullies
of native thought. I knew — none better — the
peculations of the bearer, the vices of the khan^
samahf and the abject, fawning acquiescence with
which these two men would meet the basest wish
that my mind could conceive. And they talked
to me — thieves and worse that they were — of their
desire that I should be well served! Lied to me
as though I had been a griff but twenty minutes
landed on the Apollo Bunder I In the middle
stood Karim Baksh, silent ; on either side was an
accuser, broken tea^cup in hand ; the hhansamah,
mindful of the banished lady in the pink saree;
the bearer remembering that, since the date of the
Private Services Commission, the whisky and the
rupees had been locked up. And they talked of
the shortcomings of Karim Baksh — the outcaste —
the boy too ugly to achieve and too stupid to
conceive sin — a blunderer at the worst. Taking
each accuser by the nape of his neck, I smote their
cunning skulls the one against the other, till they
saw stars by the firmamentful. Then I cast them
from me, for I was sick of them, knowing how
long they had worked in secret to compass the
downfall of Karim Baksh.

And they laid their hands upon their mouths

184

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

and were dumb, for they saw that I, Smith, knew
to what end they had striven.

This Administration may not control a revenue
of seventy'two millions, more or less, per annum,
but it is wiser than — some people.

THE STORY OF A KING

If there be any idle ones who remember the
campaign against Peroo, the cow^ man's son, or
retain any recollection of the great intrigue set
afoot by all the servants against the scullion, — if,
I say, there be any who bear in mind these notable
episodes in my administration, I would pray their
attention to what follows.

The Gazette of India shows that I have been
absent for two months from the station in which
is my house.

The day before I departed, I called the Empire
together, from the bearer to the sais* friends^
hanger-on, and it numbered, with wives and babes,
thirty-seven souls — all well-fed, prosperous, and
contented under my rule, which includes free
phenyle and quinine. I made a speech — a long
speech — to the listening peoples. I announced
that the inestimable boon of local self-government
was to be theirs for the next eight weeks. They
said that it was 'good talk.' I laid upon the

185

FROM SEA TO SEA

Departments concerned the charge of my garden,
my harness, my house, my horse, my guns, my
furniture, all the screens in front of the doors,
both cows, and the little calf that was to come. I
charged them by their hope of presents in the
future to act cleanly and carefully by my chattels ;
to abstain from fighting, and to keep the serai
sweet. That this might be done under the eye of
authority, I appointed a Viceroy — the very strong
man Bahadur Khan, khitmatgar to wit — and, that
he might have a material hold over his subjects,
gave him an ounce' phial of cinchona febrifuge,
to distribute against the fevers of September.
Lastly — and of this I have never sufficiently
repented — I gave all of them their two months'
wages in advance. They were desperately poor,
some of them, — how poor only I and the money-
lender knew, — but I repent still of my act. A
rich democracy inevitably rots.

Eliminating that one financial error, could any
man have done better than I ? I know he could
not, for I took a plebiscite of the Empire on the
matter, and it said with one voice that my scheme
was singularly right. On that assurance I left it
and went to lighter pleasures.

On the fourth day came the gumnameh. In
my heart of hearts I had expected one, but not so
soon — oh, not so soon! It was on a postcard,

186

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

and preferred serious accusations of neglect and
immorality against Bahadur Khan, my Viceroy.
I understood then the value of the anonymous
letter. However much you despise it, it breeds
distrust — especially when it arrives with every
other mail. To my shame be it said I caused a
watch to be set on Bahadur Khan, employing a
tender Babu. But it was too late. An urgent
private telegram informed me: 'Bahadur Khan
secreted sweeper's daughter. House leaks.' The
head of my administration, the man with all the
cinchona febrifuge, had proved untrustworthy,
and — the house leaked. The agonies of managing
an Empire from the Hills can only be appreciated
by those who have made the experiment. Before
I had been three weeks parted from my country,
I was compelled, by force of circumstance, to rule
it on paper, through a hireling executive — the
Babu — totally incapable of understanding the
wants of my people, and, in the nature of things,
purely temporary. He had, at some portion of
his career, been in a subordinate branch of the
Secretariat. His training there had paralysed him.
Instead of taking steps when Bahadur Khan eloped
with the sweeper's daughter, whom I could well
have spared, and the cinchona febrifuge, which I
knew would be wanted, he wrote me voluminous
reports on both thefts. The leakage of the house

187

FROM SEA TO SEA

he dismissed in one paragraph, merely stating that
* much furniture had been swamped/ I wrote to
my landlord, a Hindu of the old school. He
replied that he could do nothing so long as my
servants piled cut fuel on the top of the house,
straining the woodwork of the verandas. Also,
he said that the bhisti (water-carrier) refused to
recognise his authority, or to sprinkle water on the
road' metal which was then being laid down for
the carriage drive. On this announcement came a
letter from the Babu, intimating that bad fever
had broken out in the seraU and that the ser^
vants falsely accused him of having bought the
cinchona febrifuge of Bahadur Khan, ex^ Viceroy,
now political fugitive, for the purpose of vending
retail. The fever and not the false charge inter-
ested me. I suggested — this by wire — that the
Babu should buy quinine. In three days he wrote
to know whether he should purchase common or
Europe quinine, and whether I would repay him.
I sent the quinine down by parcel post, and sighed
for Bahadur Khan with all his faults. Had he
only stayed to look after my people, I would have
forgiven the affair of the sweeper's daughter. He
was immoral, but an administrator, and would
have done his best with the fever.

In course of time my leave came to an end, and
1 descended on my Empire, expecting the worst.

188

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

Nor was I disappointed. In the first place, the
horses had not been shod for two months ; in the
second, the garden had not been touched for the
same space of time ; in the third, the serai was
unspeakably filthy ; in the fourth, the house was
inches deep in dust, and there were muddy stains
on most of the furniture ; in the fifth, the house
had never been opened ; in the sixth, seventeen
of my people had gone away and two had died
of fever ; in the seventh, the little calf was dead.
Eighthly and lastly, the remnant of my retainers
were fighting furiously among themselves, clique
against clique, creed against creed, and woman
against woman ; this last was the most over'
whelming of all. It was a dreary home'Coming.
The Empire formed up two deep round the
carriage and began to explain its grievances. It
wept and recriminated and abused till it was
dismissed. Next morning I discovered that its
finances were in a most disorganised condition.
It had borrowed money for a wedding, and to
recoup itself had invented little bills of imaginary
expenses contracted during my absence.

For three hours I executed judgment, and
strove as best I could to repair a wasted, neglected,
and desolate realm. By 4 p.m. the ship of state
had been cleared of the greater part of the raffle,
and its crew — to continue the metaphor — had

189

FROM SEA TO SEA

beaten to quarters, united and obedient once
more.

Though I knew the fault lay with Bahadur
Khan — wicked, abandoned, but decisive and
capable'of'ruling^men Bahadur Khan — I could
not rid myself of the thought that I was wrong
in leaving my people so long to their own
devices.

But this was absurd. A man can't spend all
his time looking after his servants, can he ?

THE GREAT CENSUS

Mowgi was a mehter (a sweeper), but he was
also a Punjabi, and consequently, had a head on
his shoulders. Mowgi was my mehter — the pro^
perty of Smith who governs a vast population of
servants with unprecedented success. When he
was my subject I did not appreciate him properly.
I called him lazy and unclean ; I protested against
the multitude of his family. Mowgi asked for
his dismissal, — he was the only servant who ever
voluntarily left the Shadow of my Protection, —
and I said; *0 Mowgi, either you are an irre^
claimable ruffian or a singularly self'reliant man.
In either case you will come to great grief.
Where do you intend to go?' ^God knows,'
said Mowgi cheerfully. 'I shall leave my wife

190

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

and all the children here, and go somewhere else.
If you, Sahib, turn them out, they will die ! For
you are their only protector/

So I was dowered with Mowgi's wife — wives
rather, for he had forgotten the new one from
Rawalpindi ; and Mowgi went out to the un'
known, and never sent a single letter to his
family. The wives would clamour in the
veranda and accuse me of having taken the
remittances, which they said Mowgi must have
sent, to help out my own pay. When I supported
them they were quite sure of the theft. For these
reasons I was angry with the absent Mowgi.

Time passed, and I, the great Smith, went
abroad on travels and left my Empire in Commis'
sion. The wives were the feudatory Native States,
but the Commission could not make them recog'
nise any feudal tie. Hiey both married, saying
that Mowgi was a bad man ; but they never left
my compound.

In the course of my wanderings I came to the
great Native State of Ghorahpur, which, as every
one knows, is on the borders of the Indian Desert.
None the less, it requires almost as many printed
forms for its proper administration as a real district.
Among its other peculiarities, it was proud of its
prisoners — kaidis they were called. In the old days
Ghorahpur was wont to run its dacoits through

191

FROM SEA TO SEA

the stomach or cut them with swords ; but now
it prides itself on keeping them in leg^irons and
employing them on 'remunerative labour/ that
is to say, in sitting in the sun by the side of a road
and waiting until some road-metal comes and lays
itself.

A gang of kaidis was hard at work in this
fashion when I came by, and the warder was
picking his teeth with the end of his bayonet.
One of the fettered sinners came forward and
salaamed deeply to me. It was Mowgi, — fat,
well fed, and with a twinkle in his eye. ' Is the
Presence in good health and are all in his house
well ? * said Mowgi. * What in the world are you
doing here ? ' demanded the Presence. * By your
honour's favour I am in prison,' said he, shaking
one leg delicately to make the ankle 'iron jingle
on the leg'bar. * I have been in prison nearly a
month.'

* What for— dacoity ? '

M have been a Sahib's servant,' said Mowgf,
offended. *Do you think that I should ever
become a low dacoit like these men here ? I am
in prison for making a numbering for the people.'

* A what ? ' Mowgi grinned, and told the tale
of his misdeeds thus : —

'When I left your service, Sahib, I went to
Delhi, and from Delhi I came to the Sambhur Salt

192

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

Lake over there!' He pointed across the sand.
' I was a Jemadar of mehters (a headman of
sweepers) there^ because these Marwarri people
are without sense. Then they gave me leave
because they said that I had stolen money. It
was true, but I was also very glad to go away,
for my legs were sore from the salt of the
Sambhur Lake. I went away and hired a camel
for twenty rupees a month. That was shameful
talk, but these thieves of Marwarris would not let
me have it for less.*

'Where did you get the money from?' I
asked.

* I have said that I had stolen it. I am a poor
man. I could not get it by any other way.'

* But what did you want with a camel ? '

* The Sahib shall hear. In the house of a certain
Sahib at Sambhur was a big book which came from
Bombay, and whenever the Sahib wanted anything
to eat or good tobacco, he looked into the book
and wrote a letter to Bombay, and in a week all
the things came as he had ordered — soap and sugar
and boots. I took that book ; it was a fat one ;
and I shaved my moustache in the manner of
Mahometans, and I got upon my camel and went
away from that bad place of Sambhur.'

' Where did you go ? '

* I cannot say. I went for four days over the
s. s. Vol. IV 193 o

FROM SEA TO SEA

sand till I was very far from Sambhun Then I
came to a village and said: '*l am Wajib Ali,
Bahadur^ a servant of the Government, and many
men are wanted to go and fight in Kabul, The
order is written in this book. How many strong
men have you ? " They were afraid because of my
big book, and because they were without sense.
They gave me food, and all the headmen gave
me rupees to spare the men in that village, and I
went away from there with nineteen rupees. The
name of that village was Kot. And as I had done
at Kot, so I did at other villages, — Waka, Tung,
Malair, Palan, Myokal, and other places, — always
getting rupees that the names of the strong young
men might not be written down. I went from
Bikanir to Jeysulmir, till my book in which I
always looked wisely so as to frighten the people,
was back'broken, and I got one thousand seven
hundred and eight rupees twelve annas and six
pies.*

* All from a camel and a Treacher's Price List ? *

* I do not know the name of the book, but
these people were very frightened of me. But I
tried to take my takhus from a servant of this
State, and he made a report, and they sent troopers,
who caught me, — me, and my little camel, and my
big book. Therefore I was sent to prison.'

* Mowgi,' said I solemnly, * if this be true,

194

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

you are a great man. When will you be out of
prison ? '

* In one yean I got three months for taking
the numbering of the people, and one year for
pretending to be a Mahometan. But I may
run away before. All these people are very
stupid men.'

* My arms, Mowgi/ I said, * will be open to you
when the term of your captivity is ended. You
shall be my body^servant.'

'The Presence is my father and my mother,'
said Mowgi. * I will come.'

* The wives have married, Mowgi,' I said.

* No matter,' said Mowgi. * I also have a
wife at Sambhur and one here. When I return
to the service of the Presence, which one shall
I bring?'

* Which one you please.'

'The Presence is my protection and a son of
the gods,' said Mowgi. 'Without doubt I will
come as soon as I can escape.'

I am waiting now for the return of Mowgi. I
will make him overseer of all my house.

195

FROM SEA TO SEA

THE KILLING OF HATIM TAI

Now Hatim Tai was condemned to death by
the Government, because he had stepped upon his
mahout,hrok.tn his near^hindleg'chain^and punched
poor old pursy Durga Pershad in the ribs till that
venerable beast squealed for mercy. Hatim Tai
was dangerous to the community, and the mahoufs
widow said that her husband's soul would never
rest till Hatim's little, pig'like eye was glazed in
the frost of death. Did Hatim care? Not he.
He trumpeted as he swung at his pickets, and he
stole as much of Durga Pershad* s food as he could.
Then he went to sleep and looked that * all the to<
morrows should be as to-day,' and that he should
never carry loads again. But the minions of the
Law did not sleep. They came by night and
scanned the huge bulk of Hatim Tai, and took
counsel together how he might best be slain.

Mf we borrowed a seven^pounder,' began the
Subaltern, * or, better still, if we turned him loose
and had the Horse Battery out ! A general in-
spection would be nothing to it! I wonder
whether my Major would see it ? '

* Skittles,' said all the Doctors together. * He's
our property.' They severally murmured, * arsenic,'
* strychnine,' and ' opium,' and went their way,
while Hatim Tai dreamed of elephant loves, wooed

196

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

and won long ago in the Doon. The day broke,
and savage mahouts led him away to the place of
execution ; for he was quiet, being * fey/ as are
both men and beasts when they approach the brink
of the grave unknowing. ' Ha, Salah I Ha,
Biidmash ! To'day you die ! ' shouted the mahouts^
* and Mangli's ghost will rode you with an ankiis
heated in the flames of Ptit, O murderer and tun^
bellied thief.' *A long journey,' thought Hatiin
Tai. * 'Wonder what they'll do at the end of it,'
He broke off the branch of a tree and tickled
himself on his jowl and ears. And so he walked
into the place of execution, where men waited with
many chains and grievous ropes, and bound him
as he had never been bound before.

^Foolish people!' said Hatim Tai. 'Almost
as foolish as Mangli when he called me — the pride
of all the Doon, the brightest jewel in Sanderson
Sahib's crown — a ''base-born." I shall break
these ropes in a minute or two, and then, between
my fore and hind legs, some one is like to be hurt.'

* How much d'you think he'll want ? ' said the
first Doctor. ' About two ounces,' answered the
second. ' Say three to be on the safe side,' said
the first ; and they did up the three ounces of
arsenic in a ball of sugar. 'Before a fight it is
best to eat,' said Hatim Tai, and he put away the
giir with a salaam ; for he prided himself upon his

197

FROM SEA TO SEA

manners. The men fell back, and Hatim Tat was
conscious of grateful warmth in his stomach.
'Bless their innocence!' thought he. 'TheyVe
given me a miissala. I don't think I want it ; but
ril show that Tm not ungrateful.'

And he did! The chains and the ropes held
firm. Mt's beginning to work/ said a Doctor.
'Nonsense/ said the Subaltern. 'I know old
HatinCs ways. He's lost his temper. If the
ropes break we're done for.'

Hatim kicked and wriggled and squealed and
did his best, so far as his anatomy allowed, to
buck'jump ; but the ropes stretched not one inch.

* I am making a fool of myself/ he trumpeted.
M must be calm. At seventy years of age one
should behave with dignity. None the less, these
ropes are excessively galling.' He ceased his
struggles, and rocked to and fro sulkily. * He is
going to fall ! ' whispered a Doctor. * Not a bit
of it. Now it's my turn. We'll try the strych^
nine,' said the second.

Prick a large and healthy tiger with a corking^
pin, and you will, in some small measure, realise
the difficulty of injecting strychnine subcutaneously
into an elephant nine feet eleven inches and one^
half at the shoulder. Hatim Tai forgot his dignity
and stood on his head, while all the world wondered.
'I told you that would fetch him!' shouted the

198

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

apostle of strychnine, waving an enormous bottle.
' That's the death-rattle ! Stand back all I '

But it was only Hatim Tat expressing his regret
that he had slain Mangli, and so fallen into the
hands of the most incompetent mahouts that he
had ever made string'Stirrups, * I was never
jabbed with an ankus all over my body before ;
and I worCt stand it I' blared Hatim Tai, He
stood upon his head afresh and kicked. * Final
convulsion/ said the Doctor, just as Hatim Tai
grew weary and settled into peace again. After
all, it was not worth behaving like a baby. He
would be calm. He was calm for two hours,
and the Doctors looked at their watches and
yawned.

' Now it's my turn,* said the third Doctor.
* Afim lao.' They brought it — a knob of Patna
opium of the purest, in weight half a seer. Hatim
swallowed it whole. Ghazipur excise opium, two
cakes of a seer each, followed, helped down with
much gur, *T\\\s is good,' said Hatim Tai,
'They are sorry for their rudeness. Give me
some more.'

The hours wore on, and the sun began to sink,
but not so Hatim Tai, The three Doctors cast
professional rivalry to the winds and united in
ravaging their dispensaries in Hatim Tai's behalf.
Cyanide of potassium amused him. Bisulphide of

199

FROM SEA TO SEA

mercury, chloral (very little of that), sulphate of
copper, oxide of zinc, red lead, bismuth, carbonate
of baryta, corrosive sublimate, quicklime, stra^
monium, veratrium, colchicum, muriatic acid, and
lunar caustic, all went down, one after another, in
the balls of sugar ; and Hatim Tai never blenched.

It was not until the Hospital Assistant clamoured :
* All these things Government Store and Medical
Comforts,^ that the Doctors desisted and wiped
their heated brows. * 'Might as well physic a
Cairo sarcophagus,' grumbled the first Doctor, and
Hatim Tai gurgled gently ; meaning that he would
like another gur^haW,

* Bless my soul I ' said the Subaltern, who had
gone away, done a day's work, and returned with
his pet eight'bore. * D'you mean to say that you
haven't killed Hatim Tai yet — three of you ?
Most unprofessional, I call it. You could have
polished off a battery in that time.' * Battery!'
shrieked the baffled medicos in chorus. 'He's
got enough poison in his system to settle the
whole blessed British Army ! '

'Let me try,' said the Subaltern, unstrapping
the gun'Case in his dog^cart. He threw a hand'
kerchief upon the ground, and passed quickly in
front of the elephant. Hatim Tai lowered his
head slightly to look, and even as he did so the
spherical shell smote him on the ' Saucer of Life '

200

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

— the little spot no bigger than a man's hand
which is six inches above a line drawn from eye to
eye. 'This is the end/ said Hatim Tai. M die
as Niwciz Jung died!' He strove to keep his
feet, staggered, recovered, and reeled afresh. Then,
with one wild trumpet that rang far through the
twilight, Haiim Tai fell dead among his pickets.

*' Might ha' saved half your dispensaries if you'd
called me in to treat him at first/ said the Subaltern,
wiping out the eight'bore.

A SELF.MADE MAN

Surjun came back from Kimberley, which is Tom
Tiddler's Ground, where he had been picking up
gold and silver. He was no longer a Purbeah. A
real diamond ring sparkled on his hand, and his
tweed suit had cost him forty'two shillings and
sixpence. He paid two hundred pounds into the
Bank; and it was there that I caught him and
treated him as befitted a rich man. ' O Surjun,
come to my house and tell me your story.'

Nothing loath, Surjun came — diamond ring
and all. His speech was composite. When he
wished to be impressive he spoke English checkered
with the Low Dutch slang of the Diamond Fields.
When he would be expressive, he returned to his

201

FROM SEA TO SEA

vernacular, and was as native as a gentleman with
sixteen^and'sixpenny boots could be.

* I will tell you my tale/ said Surjun, displaying
the diamond ring. * There was a friend of mine,
and he went to Kimberley, and was a firm there
selling things to the digger'men. In thirteen years
he made seven thousand pounds. He came to me
— I was from Chyebassa in those days — and said,
** Come into my firm.'^ I went with him. Oh
no ! I was not an emigrant. I took my own ship,
and we became the firm of Surjun and Jagesser.
Here is the card of my firm. You can read it:
*' Surjun and Jagesser Dube, De Beer's Terrace,
De Beer's Fields, Kimberley.*' We made an iron
house, — all the houses are iron there, — and we sold,
to the diggers and the Kaffirs and all sorts of men,
clothes, flour, mealies, that is Indian corn, sardines
and milk, and salmon in tins, and boots, and
blankets, and clothes just as good as the clothes
as I wear now.

^Kimberley is a good place. There are no
pennies there — what you call pice — except to buy
stamps with. Threepence is the smallest piece of
money, and even threepence will not buy a drink.
A drink is one shilling, one shilling and threes
pence, or one shilling and ninepence. And even
the water there, it is one shilling and threepence
for a hundred gallons in Kimberley. All things

202

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

you get you pay money for. Yes, this diamond
ring cost much money. Here is the bill, and
there is the receipt stamp upon the bill — ** Behrendt
of Dutoitspan Road." It is written upon the bill,
and the price was thirteen pounds four shillings.
It is a good diamond — Cape Diamond. That is
why the colour is a little, little soft yellow. All
Cape diamonds are so.

'How did I get my money? 'Fore Gott, I
cannot tell, Sahib. You sell one day, you sell the
other day, and all the other days — give the thing
and take the money — the money comes. If we
know man very well, we give credit one week, and
if very, very well, so much as one month. You
buy boots for eleven shillings and sixpence ; sell
for sixteen shillings. What you buy at one pound,
you sell for thirty shillings — at Kimberley. That
is the custom. No good selling bad things. All
the digger^men know and the Kaffirs too.

'The Kaffir is a strange man. He comes into
the shops and say, taking a blanket, " How much ? ''
in the Kaffir talk— So r

Surjun here delivered the most wonderful series of
clicks that I had ever heard from a human throat.

* That is how the Kaffir asks ** How much ? " '
said Surjun calmly, enjoying the sensation that he
had produced.

* Then you say, " No, you say," and you say it

203

FROM SEA TO SEA

so/ (More clicks and a sound like a hurricane of
kisses.) * Then the Kaffir he say : '' No, no, that
blanket your blanket, not my blanket. You say." '

* And how long does this business last ? ' * Till
the Kaffir he tired, and says,* answered Surjun.

* And then do you begin the real bargaining ? '

* Yes/ said Surjun, * same as in bazar here. The
Kaffir he says, *' I can't pay I " Then you fold up
blanket, and Kaffir goes away. Then he comes
back and says ** gohUy* that is Kaffir for blanket.
And so you sell him all he wants.'

* Poor Kaffir I And what is Kimberley like to
look at ? '

* A beautiful clean place — all so clean, and there
is a very good law there. This law. A man he
come into your compound after nine o'clock, and
you say vootsac — same as nicklejao — and he doesn't
vootsac ; suppose you shoot that man and he dies,
and he calls you before magistrate, he can't do
nothing.'

* Very few dead men can. Are you allowed to
shoot before saying *' vootsac " ? '

* Oh Hell, yes I Shoot if you see him in the
compound after nine o'clock. That is the law.
Perhaps he have come to steal diamonds. Many
men steal diamonds, and buy and sell without
license. That is called Aidibi.'

'What?'

204

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

*Aidibf/

'Oh! "I. a B." I see. Well, what happens
to them ? '

* They go to gaol for years and years. Very
many men in gaol for I. D. B. Very many men
your people, very few mme. Heaps of Kaffirs.
Kaffir he swallows diamond, and takes medicine to
find him again. You get not less than ten years
for L D. B. But I and my friend, we stay in our
iron house and mind shop. That too is the way
to make money.'

' Aren't your people glad to see you when you
come back ? '

*My people is all dead. Father dead, mother
dead ; and only brother living with some children
across the river. I have been there, but that is
not my place. I belong to nowhere now. They
are all dead. After a few weeks I take my steamer
to Kimberley, and then my friend he come here
and put his money in the Bank.'

* Why don't you bank in Kimberley ? '

*l wanted to see my brother, and I have
given him one thousand rupees. No, one hun^
dred pounds ; that is more, more. Here is the
Bank bill. All the others he is dead. There
are some people of this country at Kimberley, —
Rajputs, Brahmins, Ahirs, Parsees, Chamars,
Bunnias, Telis, — all kinds go there. But my

205

FROM SEA TO SEA

people are dead. I shall take my brother's son
back with me to Kimberley, and when he can talk
the Kaffir talk, he will be useful, and he shall come
into the firm. My brother does not mind. He
sees that I am rich. And now I must go to the
village, Sahib. Good day, sir.'

Surjun rose, made as if to depart, but returned.
The Native had come to the top.

* Sahib ! Is this talk for publish in paper ? '

'Yes.'

'Then put in about this diamond ring.' He
went away, twirling the ring lovingly on his
finger.

Know, therefore, O Public, by these presents,
that Surjun, son of Surjun, one time resident in the
village of Jhusi, in the District of Allahabad, in
the North^West Provinces, at present partner in
the firm of Surjun and Jagesser Dube, De Beer's
Terrace, De Beer's Fields, Kimberley, who has
tempted his fortune beyond the seas, owns legally
and rightfully a Cape stone, valued at thirteen
pounds four shillings sterling, sold to him by
Behrendt of Dutoitspan Road, Kimberley.

And it looks uncommonly well.

206

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

THE VENGEANCE OF LAL BEG

This is the true story of the terrible disgrace
that came to Jullundri mehter, through Jamuna, his
wife. Those who say that a mehter has no caste,
speak in ignorance. Those who say that there is a
caste in the Empire so mean and so abject that
there are no castes below it, speak in greater ig-
norance. The arain says that the chamar has no
caste ; the chamar knows that the mehter has none ;
and the mehter swears by Lai Beg, his god, that the
odf whose god is Bhagirat, is without caste. Below
the od lies the kaparid'hawaria, in spite of all that
the low'Caste Brahmms say or do. A Teji mehter
or a Sundoo mehter is as much above a kaparia^
bawaria as an Englishman is above a mehter, Lai
Beg is the Mehter 'god, and his image is the
Glorified Broom made of peacocks' feathers, red
cloth, scraps of tinsel, and the cast-off finery of
English toilette tables.

Jamuna was a Malka^sansi of Gujrat, an eater
of lizards and dogs, one * married under the basket,'
a worshipper of Malang Shah. When her first
husband was cast into the Lahore Central Gaol for
lifting a pony on the banks of the Ravee, Jamuna
cut herself adrift from her section of the tribe and
let it pass on to Delhi. She believed that the
Government would keep her man for two or three

207

FROM SEA TO SEA

days only ; but it kept him for two years, — long
enough for a sansi to forget everything in this
world except the customs of her tribe. Those are
never forgotten.

As she waited for the return of her man, she
scraped acquaintance with a mehtranee ayah in the
employ of a Eurasian, and assisted her in the
grosser portions of her work. She also earned
money, — sufficient to buy her a cloth and food.
^The sansi/ as one of their proverbs says, ^will
thrive in a desert.' 'What are you?' said the
mehtranee to Jamuna. * A Boorat mehtranee* said
Jamuna, for the sansit as one of their proverbs
says, are quick-witted as snakes. *A Boorat
mehtranee from the south,' said Jamuna ; and her
statement was not questioned, for she wore good
clothes, and her black hair was combed and neatly
parted.

Clinging to the skirts of the Eurasian's ayah^
Jamuna climbed to service under an Englishman
— a railway employe's wife. Jamuna had
ambitions. It was pleasant to be a mehtranee of
good standing. It will be better still, thought
Jamuna, to turn Mussulman and be married to a
real table^servant, openly, by the mullah. Such
things had been ; and Jamuna was fair.

But JuUundri, mehter, was a man to win the
heart of woman, and he stole away Jamuna's in

208

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

the duskt when she took the English babies for
their walks.

* You have brought me a stranger^wife. Why-
did you not marry among your own clan ? ' said
his grey'haired mother to Jullundri. * A stranger^
wife is a curse and a fire/ JuUundri laughed ; for
he was a jemadar of mehterSf drawing seven rupees
a month, and Jamuna loved him.

* A curse and a fire and a shame/ muttered the
old woman, and she slunk into her hut and cursed
Jamuna.

But Lai Beg, the very powerful God of the
melifers, was not deceived, and he put a stumbling'
block in the path of Jamuna that brought her to
open shame. 'A sa7isi is as quick-witted as a
snake ' ; but the snake longs for the cactus hedge,
and a sansi for the desolate freedom of the wild
ass. Jamuna knew the chant of Lai Beg, the
prayer to the Glorified Broom, and had sung it
many times in rear of the staggering, tottering
pole as it was borne down the Mall. Lai Beg was
insulted.

His great festival in the month of Har brought
him revenge on Jamuna and JuUundri. Husband
and wife followed the Glorified Broom, through
the station and beyond, to the desolate grey flats
by the river, near the Forest Reserve and the
Bridge'of'Boats. Two hundred mehters shouted

s. s. Vol. IV 209 p

FROM SEA TO SEA

and sang till their voices failed them, and they
halted in the sand, still warm with the day's sun.
On a spit near the burning ghat, a band of sansis
had encamped, and one of their number had
brought in a ragged bag full of lizards caught on
the Meean Meer road. The gang were singing
over their captures, singing that quaint song of the

* Passing of the Sa7isis/ which fires the blood of all
true thieves.

Over the sand the notes struck clearly on
Jamuna's ear as the Lai Beg procession re-formed
and moved Citywards. But louder than the cry
of worshippers of Lai Beg rose the song of Jamuna,
the sober Boorat mehtraneef and mother of Jul'
lundri's children. Shrill as the noise of the night'
wind among rocks went back to the sansi camp
the answer of the ' Passing of the Sansis* and the
mehters drew back in horror. But Jamuna heard
only the call from the ragged huts by the river^
and the call of the song —

* The horses, the horses, the fat horses, and the sticks, the little

sticks of the tents. Alio ! Aho !
Feet that leave no mark on the sand, and fingers that leave

no trace on the door. Aho ! Aho !
By the name of Malang Shah ; in darkness, by the reed and

the rope. . . . '

So far Jamuna sang, but the head man of the
procession of Lai Beg struck her heavily across the

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THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

mouth, saying, * By this I know that thou art a
sansi.'

HUNTING A MIRACLE

Marching - orders as vague as the following
naturally ended in confusion: 'There's a priest
somewhere, in Amritsar or outside it, or somewhere
else, who cut off his tongue some days ago, and
says it's grown again. Go and look.' Amritsar
is a city with a population of one hundred and fifty
thousand, more or less, and so huge that a tramway
runs round the walls. To lay hands on one par^
ticular man of all the crowd was not easy ; for the
tongue having grown again, he would in no way
differ from his fellows. Now, had he remained
tongueless, an inspection of the mouths of the
passers'by would have been some sort of guide. V

However, dumb or tongued, all Amritsar knew
about him. The small Parsee boy, who appears
to run the refreshment^room alone, volunteered
the startling information that the * Priest without
the tongue could be found all anywhere, in the city
or elsewhere,' and waved his little hands in circles
to show the vastness of his knowledge. A book^
ing'clerk — could it be possible that he was of the
Arya'Samaj ? — had also heard of the SadJni, and,
pen in hand, denounced him as an impostor, a
* bad person,' and a ' fraudulent mendicant.' He

211

FROM SEA TO SEA

grew so excited, and jabbed his pen so viciously
into the air that his questioner fled to a tkcd'-gharrit
where he was prompted by some Imp of Perversity
to simulate extreme ignorance of the language to
deceive the driver. So he said twice with emphasis^

* Sadhu ? ' * Jehan/ said the driver, * f ush-^class^
Durbar Sahib I' Then the fare thrust out his
tongue, and the scales fell from the driver's eyes.

* Bahut accha,* said the driver, and without further
parley headed into the trackless desert that encircles
Fort Govindghar. The Sahib's word conveyed no
meaning to him, but he understood the gesture;
and, after a while, turned the carriage from a road
to a plain.

Close to the Lahore Veterinary School lies a
cool, brick'built, tree^shaded monastery, studded
with the tombs of the pious founders, adorned
with steps, terraces, and winding paths, which is
known as Chajju Bhagat's Chubara. This place is
possessed with the spirit of peace, and is filled by
priests in salmon-coloured loin-cloths and a great
odour of sanctity. The Amritsar driver had
halted in the very double of the Lahore chubara —
assuring his fare that here and nowhere else would
be found the Sadhu with the miraculous tongue.

Indeed the surroundings were such as delight
the holy men of the East. There was a sleepy
breeze through the pipals overhead, and a square

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THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

court crammed with pigeon'hoks where one might
sleep ; there were fair walls and mounds and little
mud ' platforms against or on which fires for
cooking could be built, and there were wells by
the dozen. There were priests by the score who
sprang out of the dust, and slid off balconies or
rose from cots as inquiries were made for the
SadhiL They were nice priests, sleek, full-fed,
thick 'jowled beasts, undeffled by wood-ash or
turmeric, and mostly good'looking. The older
men sang songs to the squirrels and the dust'puffs
that the light wind was raising on the plain.
They were idle — very idle. The younger priests
stated that the Sadhu with the tongue had betaken
himself to another chiihara some miles away, and
was even then being worshipped by hordes of
admirers. They did not specify the exact spot,
but pointed vaguely in the direction of Jandiala.
However, the driver said he knew and made haste
to depart. The priests pointed out courteously
that the weather was warm, and that it would be
better to rest a while before starting. So a rest
was called, and while he sat in the shadow of the
gate of the courtyard, the Englishman realised for
a few minutes why it is that, now and then, men
of his race, suddenly going mad, turn to the
people of this land and become their priests; as
did on the Bombay side, and later , who

213

FROM SEA TO SEA

lived for a time with the fakir on the top of
Jakko. The miraculous idleness — the monu^
mental sloth of the place ; the silence as the priests
settled down to sleep one by one ; the drov/sy
drone of one of the younger men who had thrown
himself stomach'down in the warm dust and was
singing under his breath ; the warm airs from
across the plain and the faint smell of burnt ghi
and incense, laid hold of the mind and limbs till,
for at least fifteen seconds, it seemed that life would
be a good thing if one could doze, and bask, and
smoke from the rising of the sun till the twilight—
a fat hog among fat hogs.

The chase was resumed, and the gharri drove to
Jandiala — more or less. It abandoned the main
roads completely, although it was a * f ush'Class,*
and comported itself like an ekkay till Amritsar
sunk on the horizon, or thereabouts, and it pulled
up at a second chubara, more peaceful and secluded
than the first, and fenced with a thicker belt of
trees. There was an eruption under the horses^
feet and a scattering of dust, which presently
settled down and showed a beautiful young man
with a head such as artists put on the shoulders of
Belial. It was the head of an unlicked devil,
marvellously handsome, and it made the horses
shy. Belial knew nothing of the Sadhu who had
cut out the tongue. He scowled at the driver,

214

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

scowled at the fare, and then settled down in the
dust, laughing wildly, and pointing to the earth
and the sky. Now for a native to laugh aloud,
without reason, publicly and at high noon, is a
gruesome thing and calculated to chill the blood.
Even the sight of silver coinage had no effect on
Belial. He dilated his nostrils, pursed his lips,
and gave himself up to renewed mirth. As there
seemed to be no one else in the chubara, the
carriage drove away, pursued by the laughter of the
Beautiful Young Man in the Dust. A priest was
caught wandering on the road, but for long he
denied all knowledge of the Sadhu. In vain the
Englishman protested that he came as a humble
believer in the miracle ; that he carried an offering
of rupees for the Sadhu; that he regarded the
Sadhii as one of the leading men of the century,
and would render him immortal for at least twelve
hours. The priest was dumb. He was next
bribed — extortionately bribed — and said that the
Sadhu was at the Durbar Sahib preaching. To
the Golden temple accordingly the carriage went
and found the regular array of ministers and the
eternal passage of Sikh women round and round
the Grunth ; which things have been more than
once described in this paper. But there was no
Sadhu, An old Nihangt grey 'haired and sceptical
— for he had lived some thirty years in a church

215

FROM SEA TO SEA

as it were — was sitting on the steps of the tank^
dabbling his feet in the water. * O Sahib/ said he
blandly^ ' what concern have you with a miraculous
Sadhu'i You are not a Poliswala. And, O
Sahib, what concern has the Sadhu with you?*
The Englishman explained with heat — for fruitless
drives in the middle of an October day are trying
to the temper — his adventures at the various
chubaraSf not omitting the incident of the Beautiful
Young Man in the Dust. The Nihang smiled
shrewdly : * Without doubt, Sahib, these men have
told you lies. They do not want you to see the
Sadhu ; and the Sadhu does not desire to see you.
This affair is an affair for us common people and
not for Sahibs. The honour of the Gods is
increased ; but you do not worship the Gods.' So
saying he gravely began to undress and waddled
into the water.

Then the Englishman perceived that he had
been basely betrayed by the gharrudrwext and all
the priests of the first chiibara, and the wandering
priest near the second chuhara ; and that the only
sensible person was the Beautiful Young Man in
the Dust, and he was mad.

This vexed the Englishman, and he came away.
If Sadhus cut out their tongues and if the great
Gods restore them, the devotees might at least have
the decency to be interviewed.

216

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

THE EXPLANATION OF MIR BAKSH

My notion was that you had been
(Before they had this fit)
An obstacle that came between
Him and ourselves and it.

' That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard
yet,' said the king, rubbing his hands. So now let the
jury . . .'

'If anyone of them can explain it,' said Alice, 'I'll give
him sixpence, /don't believe there's an atom of meaning in
it.' — Alice in IVonderland.

This, Protector of the Poor, is the hissab
(your bill of house'expenses) for last month and a
little bit of the month before, — eleven days,— and
this, I think, is what it will be next month. Is it
a long bill in five sheets ? Assuredly yes. Sahib.
Are the accounts of so honourable a house of the
Sahib to be kept on one sheet only ? This hissab
cost one rupee to write. It is true that the Sahib will
pay the one rupee ; but consider how beautiful and
how true is the account, and how clean is the
paper. Ibrahim, who is the very best petition^
writer in all the bazar, drew it up. Ahoo I Such
an account is this account I And I am to ex^
plain it all? Is it not written there in the red
ink, and the black ink, and the green ink ? What
more does the Heaven'born want ? Ibrahim, who

217

FROM SEA TO SEA

is the best of all the petition'Writers in the bazar,
made this hissab. There is an envelope also* Shall
I fetch that envelope ? Ibrahim has written your
name outside in three inks — a very murasla is
this envelope. An explanation ? Ahoo I God is
my witness that it is as plain as the sun at noon.
By your Honour's permission I will explain, taking
the accounts in my hand.

Now there are four accounts — that for last
month, which is in red ; that for the month before,
which is in black j that for the month to come,
which is in green; and an account of private
expense and dispens, which is in pencil. Does the
Presence understand that ? Very good talk.

There was the bread, and the milk, and the
cow's food, and both horses, and the saddle^soap
for last month, which is in green ink. No, red
ink — the Presence speaks the truth. It was red
ink, and it was for last month, and that was fifty-
seven rupees eight annas ; but there was the cost
of a new manger for the cow; to be sunk into
mud, and that was eleven annas. But I did not
put that into the last month's account. I carried
that over to this month — the green ink. No?
There is no account for this month? Your
Honour speaks the truth. Those eleven annas I
carried thus — in my head.

The Sahib has said it is not a matter of eleven

218

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

annas, but of seventy'Seven rupees. That is quite
true ; but, O Sahib, if I, and Ibrahim, who is the
best petition^writer in the bazar, do not attend to
the annas, how shall your substance increase ? So
the food and the saddle^soap for the cows and the
other things were fifty-seven rupees eight annas,
and the servants' wages were a hundred and ten —
all for last month. And now I must think, for
this is a large account. Oh yes I It was in Jeth
that I spoke to the Dhohi about the washing, and
he said, * My bill will be eleven rupees two pies.'
It is written there in the green ink, and that, in
addition to the soap, was sixty-eight rupees, seven
annas, two pies. All of last month. A7id the
hundred and ten rupees for the servants' wages
make the total to one hundred and seventy-eight
rupees, seven annas, two pies, as Ibrahim, who
is the best petition-writer in the bazar, has set
down.

But I said that all things would only be one
hundred and fifty? Yes. That was at first.
Sahib, before I was well aware of all things. Later
on, it will be in the memory of the Presence that I
said it would be one hundred and ninety. But
that was before I had spoken to the Dhoti, No,
it was before I had bought the trunk-straps for
which you gave orders. I remember that I said it
would be one hundred and ninety. Why is the

219

FROM SEA TO SEA

Sahib so hot ? Is not the account long enough ?
I know always what the expense of the house
will be. Let the Presence follow my finger.
That is the green ink, that is the black, here is the
red, and there is the pencil'mark of the private
expenses. To this I add what I said six weeks
ago before I had bought the trunk^straps by your
order. And so that is & fifth account. Very good
talk I The Presence has seen what happened last
month, and I will now show the month before last,
and the month that is to come — together in little
brackets ; the one bill balancing to the other like
swinging scales.

Thus runs the account of the month before
last : — A box of matches three pies, and black
thread for buttons three annas (it was the best
black thread), khaS'hhas for the tatties twelve
annas; and the other things forty ^ one rupees.
To which that of the month to come had an
answer in respect to the candles for the dog^cart ;
but I did not know how much these would cost,
and I have written one rupee two annas, for they
are always changing their prices in the bazar. And
the oil for the carriage is one rupee, and the other
things are forty-one rupees, and that is for the
next month.

An explanation ? Still an explanation ? Khudd'
ha^kiisml Have I not explained and has not Ibrahim,

220

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

who is notoriously the best petition^writer in the
bazar^ put it down in the red ink, and the green
ink, and the black; and is there not the private
dispens account, withal, showing what should have
been but which fell out otherwise, and what might
have been but could not ?

Ai, Sahib, what can I do? It is perhaps a
something heavy bill, but there were reasons ; and
let the Presence consider that the Dhobi lived at
the ghat over against the river, and I had to go
there — two kos^ upon my faith I — to get his bill;
and, moreover, the horses were shod at the hospital,
and that was a kos away, and the Hospital Babu
was late in rendering his accounts. Does the
Sahib say that I should know how the accounts
will fall — not only for the month before last, but
for this month as well ? I do — I did — I will do !
Is it my fault that more rupees have gone than I
knew ? The Sahib laughs ! Forty years I have
been a khansamah to the Sahib'log — from mussalchi
to mate, and head khansamah have I risen {smites
himself on the breast), and never have I been
laughed at before. Why does the Sahib laugh?
By the blessed Imams, my uncle was cook to Jan
Larens, and I am a priest at the Musjid ; and I
am laughed at? Sahib, seeing that there were
so many bills to come in, and that the Dhobi lived
at the ghat as I have said, and the Horse hospital

221

FROM SEA TO SEA

was a kos away, and God only knows where the
sweeper lived, but his account came late also, it is
not strange that I should be a little stupid as to
my accounts, whereof there are so many. For the
Dhohi was at the ghat, etc. Forty years have I
been a kha?isamah, and there is no khansamah who
could have kept his accounts so well. Only by
my great and singular regard for the welfare of
the Presence does it come about that they are not
a hundred rupees wrong. For the Dhohi was at
the ghat, etc. And I will not be laughed at I The
accounts are beautiful accounts, and only I could
have kept them.

Sahih — Sahib! Garibparwar! I have been
to Ibrahim, who Is the best petition^writer in the
bazar, and he has written all that I have said — all
that the Sahib could not understand — upon pink
paper from Sialkot. So now there are the five
accounts and the explanation ; and for the writing
of all six you, O Sahib, must pay I But for my
honour's sake do not laugh at me any more.

222

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

A LETTER FROM GOLAM SINGH

From Golam Singh, Mistri, Landin, Belait, to Ram Singh,
Mistri, son of Jeewun Singh, in the town of Rajah Jung,
in the tehsil of Kasur, in the district of Lahore, in the
Province of the Punjab.

Wah Gooroojcc ki futteh.

Call together now our friends and brothers^
and our children and the Lambardar, to the big
square by the well. Say that I, Golam Singh,
have written you a letter across the Black Water,
and let the town hear of the wonders which I have
seen in Belait. Rutton Singh, the hmnia, who has
been to Delhi, will tell you, my brother, that I am
a liar ; but I have witnesses of our faith, besides
the others, who will attest when we return what I
have written.

I have now been many days in Belait, in this
big city. Though I were to write till my hand
fell from my wrist, I could not state its bigness. I
myself know that, to see one another, the Sahibs
log, of whom there are crores of crores, use the
railway dak, which is laid not above the ground as
is the Sirkar*s railway in our own country, but
underneath it, below the houses. I have gone
down myself into this rail together with the other
witnesses. The air is very bad in those places,
and this is why the Sahib^log have become white.

223

FROM SEA TO SEA

There are more people here than I have ever
seen. Ten times as many as there are at Delhi\
and they are all Sahibs who do us great honour.
Many hundred Sahibs have been in our country,
and they all speak to us, asking if we are
pleased.

In this city the streets run for many miles in
a straight line, and are so broad that four bullocks
carts of four bullocks might stand side by side.
At night they are lit with English lamps, which
need no oil, but are fed by wind which burns. I
and the others have seen this. By day sometimes
the sun does not shine, and the city becomes black.
Then these lamps are lit all day and men go to
work.

The bazars are three times as large as our
bazars, and the shopkeepers, who are all Sahibs,
sit inside where they cannot be seen, but their
name is written outside. There are no hiinnias*
shops, and all the prices are written. If the price
is high, it cannot be lowered; nor will the shop-
keeper bargain at all. This is very strange. But
I have witnesses.

One shop I have seen was twice as large as
Rajah Jung. It held hundreds of shopkeeper -
sahibs and memsahibs, and thousands who come to
buy. The Sahib'log speak one talk when they
purchase their bazar, and they make no noise.

224

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

There are no ekkas here, but there are yellow
and green ticca^gharries bigger than Rutton Singh's
house, holding half a hundred people. The horses
here are as big as elephants. I have seen no ponies,
and there are no buffaloes.

It is not true that the Sahibs use the helaitee
punkah (the thermantidote) like as you and I made
for the Dipty Sahib two years ago. The air is
cold, and there are neither coolies nor verandas.
Nor do the Sahibs drink belaitee panee (soda'water)
when they are thirsty. They drink water — very
clean and good — as we do.

In this city there are plains so vast that they
appear like jungle ; but when you have crossed them
you come again to lakhs of houses, and there are
houses on all sides. None of the houses are of
mud or wood, but all are in brick or stone. Some
have carved doors in stone, but the carving is very
bad. Even the door of Rutton Singh's house is
better carved ; but Rutton Singh's house could be
put into any fore-court of these belaitee houses.
They are as big as mountains.

No one sleeps outside his house or in the road.
This is thought shameless ; but it is very strange
to see. There are no flat roofs to the houses.
They are all pointed ; I have seen this and so have
the others.

In this city there are so many carriages and

s. s. Vol. IV 225 Q

FROM SEA TO SEA

horses in the street that a man, to cross over, must
call a poVice'Wallah, who puts up his hand, and the
carriages stop. I swear to you by our father that
on account of me, Golam Singh mistri, all the
carriages of many streets have been stopped that I
might cross like a Padshah. Let Rutton Singh
know this.

In this city for four annas you may send news
faster than the wind over four hundred kos. There
are witnesses ; and I have a paper of the Govern^
ment showing that this is true.

In this city our honour is very great, and we
have learned to shekattd like the Sahib4ogue* All
the memsahibSt who are very beautiful, look at us,
but we do not understand their talk. These mem"
sahibs are like the memsahibs in our country.

In this city there are a hundred dances every
night. The houses where they naiitch hold many
thousand people, and the naiitch is so wonderful
that I cannot describe it. The Sahibs are a
wonderful people. They can make a sea upon dry
land, and then a fire, and then a big fort with
soldiers — all in half an hour while you look. The
other men will say this too, for they also saw what
I saw at one of the nautches,

Rutton Singh's son, who has become a pleader,
has said that the Sahibs are only men like us black
men. This is a lie, for they know more than we

226

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

know. I will tell. When we people left Bombay
for Belait, we came upon the Black Water, which
you cannot understand. For five days we saw
only the water, as flat as a planed board with no
marks on it. Yet the Captain Sahib in charge of
the fire'boat said, from the first, * In five days we
shall reach a little town, and in four more a big
canal.' These things happened as he had said,
though there was nothing to point the road, and
the little town was no bigger than the town of Lod.
We came there by night, and yet the Captain
Sahib knew ! How, then, can Rutton Singh's son
say such lies ? I have seen this city in which are
crores of crores of people. There is no end to its
houses and its shops, for I have never yet seen the
open jungle. There is nothing hidden from these
people. They can turn the night into day [I have
seen it], and they never rest from working. It is
true that they do not understand carpenter's work,
but all other things they understand, as I and the
people with me have seen. They are no common
people.

Bid our father's widow see to my house and
little Golam Singh's mother ; for I return in some
months, and I have bought many wonderful things
in this country, the like of which you have never
seen. But your minds are ignorant, and you will
say I am a liar. I shall, therefore, bring my

227

FROM SEA TO SEA

witnesses to humble Rutton Singh, hunnia, who
went to Delhi, and who is an owl and the son of
an owl.

Ap'ki'das, Golam Singh.

THE WRITING OF YAKUB KHAN

From Yakut Khan, Kuki Khel, of Lata China, Malik, in
the Englishman's City of Calcutta with Vahbtahn
Sahib, to Katal Khan, Kuki Khel, of Lata China,
which is in the Khaihar. This letter to go hy the
Sirkar's mail to Pubhi, and thence Mahbub Alt, the
writer, takes delivery and, if God pleases, gives to my
son.

Also, for my heart is clean, this writing goes on to Sultan
Khan, on the upper hill over against Kuka Ghoz,
which is in Bara, through the country of the Zuka
Khel. Mahbub Alt goes through if God pleases.

To My Son. — Know this. I have come with
the others and Vahbtahn (Warburton) Sahib, as
was agreed, down to the river, and the rail'dak
does not stop at Attock. Thus the Mullah of
Tordurra lied. Remember this when next he
comes for food. The rail'dak goes on for many
days. The others who came with me are witnesses
to this. Fifteen times, for there was but little to
do in the dak, I made all the prayers from the
niyah to the mufiajat, and yet the journey was not
ended. And at the places where we stopped there
were often to be seen the fighting - men of the

228

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

English, such as those we killed, when certain of
our men went with the Bonerwals in the matter of
Umbeyla, whose guns I have in my house. Every^
where there were fighting ' men ; but it may be
that the English were afraid of us, and so drew
together all their troops upon the line of the rail'
dak and the fire^carriage. Vahbtahn Sahib is a
very clever man, and he may have given the order.
None the less, there must be many troops in this
country ; more than all the strength of the Afridis.
But Yar Khan says that all the land, which runs to
the east and to the west many days' journey in the
rail'dak, is also full of fighting^men, and big guns
by the score. Our Mullahs gave us no news of
this when they said that, in the matter of six years
gone, there were no more English in the land, all
having been sent to Afghanistan, and that the
country was rising in fire behind them. Tell the
Mullah of Tordurra the words of Yar Khan. He
has lied in respect to the rail'dak, and it may be
that he will now speak the truth regarding what
his son saw when he went to Delhi with the horses.
I have asked many men for news of the strength of
the fighting^men in this country, and all say that
it is very great. Howbeit, Vahbtahn Sahib is a
clever man and may have told them to speak thus,
as I told the women of Sikanderkhelogarhi to
speak when we were pressed by the Sangu Khel, in

229

FROM SEA TO SEA

that night when you, my son, took Torukh Khan's
head, and I saw that I had bred a man.

If there be as many men throughout the place
as I have seen and the people say, the mouth of
the Khaibar is shut, and it were better to give no
heed to our Mullahs. But read further and see
for what reasons I, who am a Malak of the Kuki
Khel, say this. I have come through many cities
— -all larger than Kabul. Rawal Pindi, which is
far beyond the Attock, whence came all the Eng'
lish who fought us in the business of six years
gone. That is a great city, filled with fightings
men — four thousand of both kinds, and guns.
Lahore is also a great city, with another four
thousand troops, and that is one night by the rail'
dak from Rawal Pindi. Amritsar has a strong
fort, but I do not know how many men are there.
The words of the people who go down with the
grapes and the almonds in the winter are true, and
our Mullahs have lied to us. Jullundur is also a
place of troops, and there is a fort at Phillour, and
there are many thousand men at Umballa, which is
one night, going very swiftly in the rail'dak, from
Lahore. And at Meerut, which is half a day from
Umballa, there are more men and horses ; and at
Delhi there are more also, in a very strong fort.
Our people go only as far south as Delhi ; but
beyond Delhi there are no more strong Punjabi

230

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

people — but only a mean race without strength.
The country is very rich here, flat, with cattle and
crops. We, of the villages of the Khaibar alone,
could loot these people ; but there are more fight-
ing^men at Agra, and at Cawnpore, and at Allaha-
bad, and many other places, whose names do not
stay with me. Thus, my son, by day and by night,
always going swiftly in the rail'dak we came down
to this very big city of Calcutta.

My mouth dripped when I saw the place that
they call Bengal — so rich it was ; and my heart
was troubled when I saw how many of the Eng'
lish were there. The land is very strongly held,
and there are a multitude of English and half-
English in the place. They give us great honour,
but all men regard us as though we were strange
beasts, and not fighting -men with hundreds of
guns. If Yar Khan has spoken truth and the land
throughout is as I have seen, and no show has
been made to fill us with fear, I, Yakub Khan, tell
you, my son, and you, O Sultan Khan ! that the
English do well to thus despise us; for on the
Oath of a Pathan, we are only beasts in their sight.
It may be that Vahbtahn Sahib has told them all
to look at us in this manner — for, though we
receive great honour, no man shows fear, and
busies himself with his work when we have passed
by. Even that very terrible man, the Governor

231

FROM SEA TO SEA

of Kabul, would be as no one in this great City of
Calcutta. Were I to write what I have seen, all
our people would say that I was mad and a liar.
But this I will write privately, that only you, my
son, and Sultan Khan may see ; for ye know that,
in respect to my own blood, I am no liar. There
are lights without oil or wood burning brightly in
this city ; and on the water of the river lie boats
which go by fire, as the rail'dak goes, carrying
men and fighting'men by two and three thousand.
God knows whence they come ! They travel by
water, and therefore there must be yet another
country to the eastward full of fighting'men. I
cannot make clear how these things are. Every
day more boats come. I do not think that this is
arranged by Vahbtahn Sahib ; for no man in those
boats takes any notice of us j and we feel, going
to and from every place, that we are children.
When that Kaffir came to us, three years agone, is
it in thy memory how, before we shot him, we
looked on him for a show, and the children came
out and laughed ? In this place no children laugh
at us ; but none the less do we feel that we are all
like that man from Kafirstan.

In the matter of our safe^conduct, be at ease.
We are with Vahbtahn Sahib, and his word is true.
Moreover, as we said in the jirgah, we have been
brought down to see the richness of the country,

232

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

and for that reason they will do us no harm. I
cannot tell why they, being so strong, — if these
things be not all arranged by Vahbtahn Sahib, —
took any trouble for us. Yar Khan, whose heart
has become so soft within him in three days, says
that the louse does not kill the Afridi, but none
the less the Afridi takes off his upper-coat for the
itching. This is a bitter saying, and I, O my son,
and O my friend Sultan Khan, am hard upon
believing it,

I put this charge upon you. Whatever the
Mullah of Tordurra may say, both respecting the
matter that we know of, which it is not prudent
to write, and respecting the going - out in spring
against the Sangu Khel, do you, my son, and you,
Sultan Khan, keep the men of the Khaibar villages,
and the men of the Upper Bara, still, till I return
and can speak with my mouth. The blood-feuds
are between man and man, and these must go
forward by custom ; but let there be no more than
single shots fired. We will speak together, and ye
will discover that my words are good. I would
give hope if I could, but I cannot give hope. Yar
PChan says that it were well to keep to the blood-
feuds only; and he hath said openly among us,
in the smoking-time, that he has a fear of the
English, greater than any fear of the curses of our
Mullahs. Ye know that I am a man unafraid.

233

FROM SEA TO SEA

Ye knew when I cut down the Malik of the Sipah
Khel, when he came into Kadam, that I was a man
unafraid* But this is no matter of one man's life,
or the lives of a hundred, or a thousand; and
albeit I cursed Yar Khan with the others, yet in
my heart I am afraid even as he is. If these
English, and God knows where their homes lie,
for they come from a strange place, we do not
know how strong in fighting men, — if, O my son,
and friend of my heart Sultan PQian, these devils
can thus fill the land over four days' journey by
this very swift raiLdak from Peshawar, and can
draw white light, as bright as the sun, from iron
poles, and can send f ire^boats full of men from the
east, and moreover, as I have seen, can make new
rupees as easily as women make cow-dung cakes,
—what can the Afridis do ?

The Mullah of Tordurra said that they came
from the west, and that their rail ^ dak stopped
at Attock, and that there were none of them
except those who came into our country in the
great fight. In all three things he has lied. Give
no heed to him. I myself will shoot him when I
return. If he be a Saint, there will be miracles
over his tomb, which I will build. If he be no
Saint, there is but one Mullah the less. It were
better that he should die than take the Khaibar
villages into a new blockade ; as did the Mullah

234

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

of Kardara, when we were brought to shame by-
Jan Larens and I was a young man.

The black men in this place are dogs and
children. To such an one I spoke yesterday^
saying, 'Where is Vahbtahn Sahib ?^ and he
answered nothing, but laughed. I took him by
the throat and shook him, only a little and very
gently, for I did not wish to bring trouble on
Vahbtahn Sahib, and he has said that our customs
are not the customs of this country. This black
man wept, and said that I had killed him, but
truly I had only shaken him to and fro. He
was a fat man, with white stockings, dressed in
woman's fashion, speaking English, but acting
without courtesy either to the Sahibs or to us.
Thus are all the black people in the city of
Calcutta. But for these English, we who are
here now could loot the city, and portion out
the women, who are fair.

I have bought an English rifle for you, my son,
better than the one which Shere Khan stole from
Cherat last summer, throwing to two thousand
paces ; and for Sultan Khan an English revolver,
as he asked. Of the wonders of this great city I
will speak when we meet, for I cannot write them.

When I came from Lala China the tale of blood
between our house and the house of Zarmat Shah
lacked one on our side. I have been gone many

235

FROM SEA TO SEA

days, but I have no news from you that it is made
even. If ye have not yet killed the boy who had
the feud laid upon him when I went, do nothing
but guard your lives till ye get the new rifle.
With a steady rest it will throw across the valley
into Zarmat Shah's field, and so ye can kill the
women at evening.

Now I will cease, for I am tired of this writing.
Make Mahbub Ali welcome, and bid him stay
till ye have written an answer to this, telling me
whether all be well in my house. My blood is
not cold that I charge you once again to give no
ear to the Mullahs, who have lied, as I will show ;
and, above all else, to keep the villages still till I
return. Nor am I a clucking hen of a Khuttick if
I write last, that these English are devils, against
whom only the Will of God can help us.

And why should we beat our heads against a rock, for we
only spill our brains :

And when we have the Valley to content us, why should
w^c go out against the Mountain ?

A strong man, saith Kabir, is strong only till he meet with
a stronger.

A KING'S ASHES

1888: On Wednesday morning last^ the ashes
of the late ruler of Gwalior were consigned to
the Ganges without the walls of Allahabad Fort.
Scindia died in June of last year^ and^ shortly

236

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

after the cremation, the main portion of the ashes
were taken to the water. Yesterday's function,
the disposal of what remained (it is impossible
not to be horrible in dealing with such a subject),
was comparatively of an unimportant nature, but
rather grim to witness.

Beyond the melon -beds and chappar villages
that stand upon the spit of sun'baked mud and
sand by the confluence of the Jumna and the
Ganges, lies a flag'bedizened home of fakirs^
gurus, gosains, sanyasis, and the like. A stone's
throw from this place boils and eddies the line
of demarcation between the pure green waters
of the Jumna and the turbid current of the
Ganges ; and here they brought the ashes of
Scindia. With these came minor functionaries of
the Gwalior State, six Brahmins of the Court,
and nine of Scindia's relatives. In his lifetime,
the Maharaja had a deep and rooted distrust of
his own family and clan, and no Scindia was ever
allowed office about him. Indeed, so great was
his aversion that he would not even permit them
to die in the Luskar, or City of Gwalior. They
must needs go out when their last hour came,
and die in a neighbouring jaghir village which
belonged to Sir Michael Filose, one of that Italian
family which has served the State so long and
faithfully. When such an one had died, Scindia,

237

FROM SEA TO SEA

by his own command^ was not informed of the
event till the prescribed days of mourning had
elapsed. Then notice was given to him by the
placing of his bed on the ground, — a sign of
mourning, — and he would ask, not too tenderly,
' Which Scindia is dead?'

Considering this unamiable treatment, the
wonder was that so many as nine of his own
kin could be found to attend the last rites on
that sun ^ dried mud^bank. There was, or
seemed to be, no attempt at ceremony, and,
naturally enough, no pretence at grief; nor was
there any gathering of native notables. The
common crowd and the multitude of priests had
the spectacle to themselves, if we except a few
artillerymen from the Fort, who had strolled
down to see what was happening to ^one of
them (qualified) kings.' By ten o'clock, a
tawdry silken litter bearing the ashes and ac-
companied by the mourners, had reached the
water's edge, where wooden cots had been run
out into the stream, and where the water'
deepened boats had been employed to carry the
press of sight'seers. Underfoot, the wet ground
was trodden by hundreds of feet into a slimy pulp
of mud and stale flowers of sacrifice ; and on this
compost slipped and blundered a fine white horse,
whose fittings were heavy with bosses of new

238

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

silver. He, and a big elephant, adorned with a
necklace of silver plaques, were a gift to the priests
who in cash and dinners would profit by the day's
work to the extent of eight or ten thousand rupees.
Overhead a hundred fakirs' flags, bearing de'
vices of gods, beasts, and the trident of Shiva,
fluttered in the air; while all around, like
vultures drawn by carrion, crowded the priests.
There were burly, bull ^necked, freshly oiled
ruffians, sleek of paunch and jowl, clothed in pure
white linen ; mad wandering mendicants carrying
the peacock's feather, the begging bowl, and the
patched cloak; salmon'robed sanyasis from up'
country, and evil^eyed gosams from the south.
They crowded upon the wooden bedsteads, piled
themselves upon the boats, and jostled into the
first places in the crowd in the mud, and all their
eyes were turned toward two nearly naked men
who seemed to be kneading some Horror in
their hands and dropping it into the water.
The closely packed boats rocked gently, the
crowd babbled and buzzed, and uncouth music
w^ailed and shrieked, while from behind the
sullen, squat bulk of Allahabad Fort the boom^
ing of minute-guns announced that the Imperial
Government was paying honour to the memory
of His Highness Maharaja Jyaji Rao Scindia,
G.C.B., G.C.S.I. , once owner of twenty thoU'

239

FROM SEA TO SEA

sand square miles of land, nearly three million
people, and treasure untold, if all tales be true.
Not fifty yards upstream, a swollen dead goat
was bobbing up and down in the water in a
ghastly parody on kidlike skittishness, and green
filth was cast ashore by every little wave.

Was there anything more to see } The white
horse refused to be led into the water and splashed
all the bystanders with dirt, and the elephant's
weight broke up the sand it was standing on
and turned it to a quag. This much was
visible, but little else; for the clamouring priests
forbade any English foot to come too near,
perhaps for fear that their gains might be
lessened. Where the press parted, it was
possible to catch a glimpse of this ghoulish
kneading by the naked men in the boat, and
to hear the words of a chanted prayer. But that
was all.

THE BRIDE'S PROGRESS

And school foundations in the act
Of holiday, three files compact,
Shall learn to view thee as a fact
Connected with that zealous tract
' Rome, Babylon, and Nineveh,'

The Burden of Nineveh.

It would have been presumption and weariness
deliberately to have described Benares. No man,

240

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

except he who writes a guide-book, * does ' the
Strand or Westminster Abbey. Hie foreigner
— French or American — tells London what to
think of herself, as the visitor tells the Anglo-
Indian what to think of India. Our neighbour
over the way always knows so much more about
us than we ourselves. The Bride interpreted
Benares as fresh youth and radiant beauty can
interpret a city grey and worn with years.
Providence had been very good to her, and she
repaid Providence by dressing herself to the
best advantage — which, if the French speak
truth, is all that a fair woman can do toward
religion. Generations of untroubled ease and
well'being must have builded the dainty figure
and rare face, and the untamable arrogance of
wealth looked out of the calm eyes. * India,'
said The Bride philosophically, *is an incident
only in our trip. We are going on to Australia
and China, and then Home by San Francisco and
New York. We shall be at Home again before
the season is quite ended.' And she patted her
bracelets, smiling softly to herself over some
thought that had little enough to do with
Benares or India — whichever was the ' incident.'
She went into the city of Benares. Benares of
the Buddhists and the Hindus — of Durga of the
Thousand Names — of two Thousand Temples,
s. s. Vol. IV 241 R

FROM SEA TO SEA

and twice two thousand stenches. Her high
heels rang delicately upon the stone pavement
of the gullies, and her brow, unmarked as that
of a little child, was troubled by the stenches.
* Why does Benares smell so ? * demanded The
Bride pathetically. * Must we do it, if it smells
like this?' The Bridegroom was high'Coloured,
fair^whiskered, and insistent, as an Englishman
should be. *Of course we must. It would
never do to go home without having seen
Benares. Where is a guide ? ' The streets were
alive with them, and the couple chose him who
spoke English most fluently. * Would you like to
see where the Hindus are burnt ? ' said he. They
would, though The Bride shuddered as she spoke,
for she feared that it would be very horrible. A
ray of gracious sunlight touched her hair as she
turned, walking cautiously in the middle of the
narrow way, into the maze of the byways of
Benares.

The sunlight ceased after a few paces, and the
horrors of the Holy City gathered round her.
Neglected rainbow^hued sewage sprawled across
the path, and a bull, rotten with some hideous
disease that distorted his head out of all bestial
likeness, pushed through the filth. The Bride
picked her way carefully, giving the bull the wall.
A lean dog, dying of mange, growled and yelped

242

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

among her starveling puppies on a threshold that
led into the darkness of some unclean temple.
The Bride stooped and patted the beast on the
head. *I think she's something like Bessie* said
The Bride> and once again her thoughts wandered
far beyond Benares. The lanes grew narrower
and the symbols of a brutal cult more numerous.
Hanuman, red> shameless, and smeared with oil,
leaped and leered upon the walls above stolid,
black stone bulls, knee'deep in yellow flowers.
The bells clamoured from unseen temples, and
half^naked men with evil eyes rushed out of dark
places and besought her for money, saying that
they were priests^)j(im, like the padris of her
own faith. One young man — who knows in
what Mission school he had picked up his speech ?
— told her this in English, and The Bride laughed
merrily, shaking her head. * These m.en speak
English,' she called back to her husband. * Isn't it
funny ! '

But the mirth went out of her face when a turn
in the lane brought her suddenly above the burning--
ghat, where a man was piling logs on some Thing
that lay wrapped in white cloth, near the water of
the Ganges. * We can't see well from this place,'
said the Bridegroom stolidly. * Let us get a little
closer.' TThey moved forward through deep grey
dust — white sand of the river and black dust of

243

FROM SEA TO SEA

man blended — till they commanded a full view of
the steeply sloping bank and the Thing under the
logS' A man was laboriously starting a fire at the
river end of the pile ; stepping wide now and again
to avoid the hot embers of a dying blaze actually
on the edge of the water. The Bride's face
blanched, and she looked appealingly to her
husband, but he had only eyes for the newly lit
flame. Slowly, very slowly, a white dog crept on
his belly down the bank, toward a heap of ashes
among which the water was hissing. A plunge,
followed by a yelp of pain, told that he had reached
food, and that the food was too hot for him.
With a deftness that marked long training, he
raked the capture from the ashes on to the dust
and slobbered, nosing it tentatively. As it cooled,
he settled, with noises of animal delight, to his
meal and worried and growled and tore. * Will ! *
said The Bride faintly. The Bridegroom was
watching the newly lit pyre and could not attend.
A log slipped sideways, and through the chink
showed the face of the man below, smiling the dull
thick smile of death, which is such a smile as a
very drunken man wears when he has found in his
wide^swimming brain a joke of exquisite savour.
The dead man grinned up to the sun and the
fair face of The Bride. The flames sputtered and
caught and spread. A man waded out knee^deep

244

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

into the water, which was covered with greasy-
black embers and an oily scum. He chased the
bobbing driftwood with a basket, that it might be
saved for another occasion, and threw each take on
a mound of such economies or on the back of the
unheeding dog deep in the enjoyment of his hot
dinner.

Slowly, very slowly, as the flames crackled, the
Smiling Dead Man lifted one knee through the
light logs. He had just been smitten with the
idea of rising from his last couch and confounding
the spectators. It was easy to see he was tasting
the notion of this novel, this stupendous practical
joke, and would presently, always smiling, rise up,
and up, and up, and . . .

The fire'shrivelled knee gave way, and with its
collapse little flames ran forward and whistled and
whispered and fluttered from heel to head. ■* Come
away. Will,' said The Bride, * come away I It is
too horrible. Tm sorry that I saw it.' They left
together, she with her arm in her husband's for a
sign to all the world that, though Death be in^
evitable and awful. Love is still the greater, and in
its sweet selfishness can set at naught even the
horrors of a burning'^/zi^/.

*I never thought what it meant before,' said
The Bride, releasing her husband's arm as she
recovered herself ; ' I see now.' * See what ? '

245

FROM SEA TO SEA

* Don't you know ? ' said The Bride, * what Edwin
Arnold says : —

For all the tears of all the eyes

Have room in Gunga's bed,
And all the sorrow is gone tO'inorrow

When the white flames have fed.

I see now. I think it is very, very horrible/
Then to the guide, suddenly, with a deep com-
passion, * And will you be — will you be burnt in
that w^ay, too ? ' * Yes, your Ladyship,* said the
guide cheerfully, 'we are all burnt that way/

* Poor wretch I ' said The Bride to herself. ' Now
show us some more temples.' A second time they
dived into Benares City, but it was at least five
long minutes before The Bride recovered those
buoyant spirits which were hers by right of Youth
and Love and Happiness. A very pale and sober
little face peered into the filth of the Temple of the
Cow, where the odour of Holiness and Humanity
are highest. Fearful and wonderful old women,
crippled in hands and feet, body and back, crawled
round her ; some even touching the hem of her
dress. And at this she shuddered, for the hands
were very foul. The walls dripped filth, the pave-
ment sweated filth, and the contagion of uncleanli-
ness walked among the worshippers. There might
have been beauty in the Temple of the Cow;
there certainly was horror enough and to spare j

246

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

but The Bride was conscious only of the filth of
the place. She turned to the wisest and best man
in the world, asking indignantly, ' Why don't these
horrid people clean the place out ? ' 'I don't
know/ said The Bridegroom ; * I suppose their
religion forbids it/ Once more they set out on
their journey through the city of monstrous creeds
— she in front, the pure white hem of her petticoat
raised indignantly clear of the mire, and her eyes
full of alarm and watchfulness. Closed galleries
crossed the narrov/ way, and the light of day
fainted and grew sick ere it could climb down into
the abominations of the gullies. A litter of
gorgeous red and gold barred the passage to the
Golden Temple. * It is the Maharani of Hazari'
bagh,' said the guide, 'she coming to pray for a
child.' *AhI' said The Bride, and turning
quickly to her husband, said, * I wish mother were
with us.' The Bridegroom made no answer.
Perhaps he was beginning to repent of dragging a
young English girl through the iniquities of Benares.
He announced his intention of returning to his
hotel, and The Bride dutifully followed. At every
turn lewd gods grinned and mouthed at her, the
still air was clogged with thick odours and the reek
of rotten marigold flowers, and disease stood blind
and naked before the sun. 'Let us get away
quickly,' said The Bride ; and they escaped to the

247

FROM SEA TO SEA

main street, having honestly accomplished nearly
twO'thirds of what was written in the little red
guide-book. An instinct inherited from a century
of cleanly English housewives made The Bride
pause before getting into the carriage, and, addresS'
ing the seething crowd generally, murmur, ' Oh I
you horrid people 1 Shouldn't I like to wash you.*
Yet Benares — which name must certainly be
derived from be^ without, and nareSt nostrils — is
not entirely a Sacred Midden. Very early in
the morning, almost before the light had given
promise of the day, a boat put out from a ghat
and rowed upstream till it stayed in front of the
ruined magnificence of Scindia's Ghat — a range
of ruined wall and drunken bastion. The Bride
and Bridegroom had risen early to catch their
last glimpse of the city. There was no one
abroad at that hour, and, except for three or
four stone-laden boats rolling down from Mirzapur,
they were alone upon the river. In the silence
a voice thundered far above their heads : ^ / hear
witness that there is no God but God,* It was
the mullah, proclaiming the Oneness of God in
the city of the Million Manifestations. The call
rang across the sleeping city and far over the
river, and be sure that the mullah abated nothing
of the defiance of his cry for that he looked
down upon a sea of temples and smelt the incense

248

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

of a hundred Hindu shrines. The Bride could
make neither head nor tail of the business. 'What
is he making that noise for, Will?* she asked.
'Worshipping Vishnu/ was the ready reply; for
at the outset of his venture into matrimony a
young husband is at the least infallible. The
Bride snuggled down under her wraps, keeping
her delicate, chilli pinked little nose toward the
city. Day broke over Benares, and The Bride
stood up and applauded with both her hands. It
was finer, she said, than any transformation scene ;
and so in her gratitude she applauded the earth,
the sun, and the everlasting sky. The river
turned to a silver flood and the ruled lines of
the ghcits to red gold. 'How can I describe
this to mother?' she cried, as the wonder grew,
and timeless Benares roused to a fresh day. The
Bride nestled down in the boat and gazed round'
eyed. As water spurts through a leaky dam, as
ants pour out from the invaded nest, so the people
of Benares poured down the ghats to the river.
Wherever The Bride's eye rested, it saw men
and women stepping downwards, always down^
wards, by rotten wall, worn step, tufted bastion,
riven water-gate, and stark, bare, dusty bank,
to the water. The hundred priests drifted down
to their stations under the large mat' umbrellas
that all pictures of Benares represent so faithfully.

249

FROM SEA TO SEA

The Bride's face lighted with joy. She had
found a simile. ^Will! Do you recollect that
pantomime we went to ages and ages ago— before
we were engaged — at Brighton? Doesn't it
remind you of the scene of the Fairy Mushrooms
— just before they all got up and danced, you
know ? Isn't it splendid ? ' She leaned forward,
her chin in her hand, and watched long and
intently J and Nature, who is without doubt a
Frenchwoman, so keen is her love for effect,
arranged that the shelLlike pink of The Bride's
cheek should be turned against a dulLred house,
in the windows of which sat women in blood^red
clothes, letting down crimson turban ^ cloths for
the morning breeze to riot with. From the
burning "ghat rose lazily a welt of thick blue
smoke, and an eddy of the air blew a wreath
across the river. The Bride coughed. ^Will,'
she said, 'promise me when I die you won't
have me cremated — if cremation is the fashion
then.' And 'Will' promised lightly, as a man
promises who is looking for long years.

The life of the city went forward. The Bride
heard, though she did not understand, the marriage^
song, and the chant of prayers, and the wail of
the mourners. She looked long and steadfastly at
the beating heart of Benares and at the Dead
for whom no day had dawned. The place v/as

250

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

hers to watch and enjoy if she pleased. Her
enjoyment was tempered with some thought of
regret ; for her eyebrov/s contracted and she
thought. Then the trouble was apparent. * Will I '
she said softly, 'they don't seem to think much
of us, do they ? ' Did she expect, then, that the
whole city would make obeisance to young Love,
robed and crowned in a grey tweed travelling dress
and velvet toque ?

The boat drifted downstream, and an hour or
so later the Dufferin Bridge bore away The Bride
and Bridegroom on their travels, in which India
was to be * only an incident/

'A DISTRICT AT PLAY'
1887

Four or five years ago, when the Egerton
Woollen Mills were young, and Dhariwal, on
the Amritsar and Pathankot Line, was just
beginning to grow, there was decreed an annual
holiday for all the workers in the Mill. In time
the little gathering increased from a purely private
tamasha to a fair, and now all the Gurdaspur
District goes a^merrymaking with the Mill-hands.
Here the history begins.

On the evening of Friday, the 20th of August,

251

FROM SEA TO SEA

an Outsider went down to Dhariwal to see that
mela. He had understood that it was an affair
w^hich concerned the People only — that no one
in authority had to keep order — that there were
no police^ and that everybody did what was
right in their own eyes ; none going wrong.
This was refreshing and pastoral, even as Dhariwal,
which is on the banks of the Canal, is refreshing
and pastoral. The Egerton Mills own a baby
railway — twenty 'inch gauge — which joins on
to the big line at Dhariwal station, so that the
visitor steps from one carriage into another, and
journeys in state.

Dusk was closing in as the locomotive — it
wore a cloth round its loins and a string of
beads round its neck — ran the tiny carriage into
the Mill:- yard, and the Outsider heard the low
grumble of turbines, and caught a whiff of hot
wool from a shed, (The Mills were running and
would run till eleven o'clock that night, because,
though holidays were necessary, orders were many
and urgent.) Both smell and sound suggested
the North country at once, — bleak, paved streets
of Skipton and Keighley; chimneys of Beverley
and Burnley; grey stone houses within stone
walls, and the moors looking down on all. It
was perfectly natural, therefore, to find that the
Englishmen who directed the departments of the

252

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

establishment were from the North also ; and
delightful as it was natural to hear again the
slow, staid Yorkshire tongue. Here the illusion
stopped ; for, in place of the merry rattle of the
clogs as the Mill-hands left their work, there
was only the soft patter of naked feet on bare
ground, and for purple, smoke 'girt moors, the
far-off line of the Dalhousie Hills.

Presently, the electric light began its work, and
a tour over the Mills was undertaken. The
machinery, the thousands of spindles, and the
roaring power^looms were familiar as the faces
of old friends ; but the workers were strange
indeed. Small brown boys, naked except for a
loin-cloth, 'pieced' the yarn from the spindles
under the strong blaze of the electric light, and
semi ' nude men toiled at the carding ' machine
between the whirring belts. It was a shock and
a realisation — for boys and men seemed to know
their work in almost Yorkshire fashion.

But the amusement and not the labour of the
Mill was v/hat the Outsider had come to see —
the amusement which required no policemen and
no appearance of control from without.

Early on Saturday morning all Dhariwal gathered
itself on the banks of the Canal — a magnificent
stretch of water — to watch the swimming ' race,
a short half 'mile downstream. Forty 'three

253

FROM SEA TO SEA

bronzes had arranged themselves in picturesque
attitudes on the girders of the Railway bridge,
and the crowd chaffed them according to their
deserts. The race was won, from start to finish,
by a tailor with a wonderful side ^ stroke and a
cataract in one eye. The advantage counter^
balanced the defect, for he steered his mid^stream
course as straight as a fish, was never headed, and
won, sorely pumped, in seven minutes and a few
seconds. The crowd ran along the bank and
yelled instructions to its favourites at the top
of its voice. Up to this time not more than
five hundred folk had put in an appearance, so
it was impossible to judge of their behaviour in
bulk.

After the swimming came the greased pole, an
entertainment the pains whereof are reserved for
light ^limbed boys, and the prizes, in the shape
of gay cloths and rupees, are appropriated by
heavy fathers. The crowd had disposed itself
in and about the shadow of the trees, where one
might circulate comfortably and see the local
notabilities.

They are decidedly Republicans in Dhariwal,
being innocent of Darbaries, C.I.E.'s, fat old
gentlemen in flowered brocade dressing-gowns, and
cattle of that kind. Every one seemed much on a
level, with the exception of some famous wrestlers,

254

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

who stood aside with an air of conscious worth,
and grinned cavernously when spoken to. They
were the pick of the assembly, and were to prove
their claims to greatness on the morrow. Until
the Outsider realised how great an interest the
Gurdaspur District took in wrestling, he was rather
at a loss to understand why men walked round
and round each other warily, as do dogs on the eve
of a quarrel.

The greasy'pole competition finished, there was
a general move in the direction of the main road,
and couples were chosen from among the Mill^
hands for a three-legged race. Here the Outsider
joyfully anticipated difficulty in keeping the course
clear without a line of policemen ; for all crowds,
unless duly marshalled, will edge forward to see
what is going on.

But the democracy of Dhariwal got into their
places as they were told, and kept them, with such
slight assistance as three or four self'constituted
office-bearers gave. Only once, when the honour
of two villages and the Mill was at stake in the
Tug'of'War, were they unable to hold in, and the
Englishmen had to push them back. But this was
exceptional, and only evoked laughter, for in the
front rank of all — yellow'trousered and blue-coated
— was a real live policeman, who was shouldered
about as impartially as the rest. More impartially,

255

FROM SEA TO SEA

in fact; for to keep a policeman in order is a
seldoni'given joy, and should be made much of.

Then back to the Mill bungalow for breakfast^
where there was a gathering of five or six English"
men, — Canal Officers and Engineers. Here follows
a digression.

After long residence in places where folk discuss
such intangible things as Lines, Policies, Schemes,
Measures, and the like, in an abstract and bloodless
sort of way, it was a revelation to listen to men
who talk of Things and the People — crops and
ploughs and water-supplies, and the best means of
using all three for the benefit of a district. They
spoke masterfully, these Englishmen, as owners of
a country might speak, and it was not at first that
one realised how every one of the concerns they
touched upon with the air of proprietorship were
matters which had not the faintest bearing on
their pay or prospects, but concerned the better
tillage or husbandry of the fields around. It was
good to sit idly in the garden, by the guava^trees,
and to hear these stories of work undertaken and
carried out in the interests of, and, best of all,
recognised by, Nubbi Buksh — the man whose mind
moves so slowly and whose life is so bounded.
They had no particular love for the land, and most
assuredly no hope of gain from it. Yet they spoke
as though their hopes of salvation were centred

256

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

on driving into a Zemindar's head the expediency
of cutting his wheat a little earlier than his wont ;
or on proving to some authority or other that the
Canal'rate in such and such a district was too high.
Every one knows that India is a country filled
with Englishmen, who live down in the plains and
do things other than writing futile reports, but it
is wholesome to meet them in the flesh.

To return, however, to the * Tug^of -War ' and
the sad story of the ten men of Futteh Nangal.
Now Futteh Nangal is a village of proud people,
mostly sepoys, full in the stomach ; and Kung is
another village filled with Mill-hands of long
standing, who have grown lusty on good pay.
When the tug began, quoth the proud men of
Futteh Nangal : * Let all the other teams compete.
We will stand aside and pull the winners.* This
hauteur was not allowed, and in the end it happened
that the men of Kung thoroughly defeated the
sepoys of Futteh Nangal amid a scene of the
wildest excitement, and secured for themselves the
prize, — an American plough, — leaving the men of
Futteh Nangal only a new and improved rice-
husker.

Other sports followed, and the crowd grew
denser and denser throughout the day, till evening,
when every one assembled once more by the banks
of the Canal to see the fireworks, which were im^

s. s. Vol. IV 257 s

FROM SEA TO SEA

pressive. Great boxes of rockets and shells, and
wheels and Roman^candles, had come up from
Calcutta, and the intelligent despatchers had packed
the whole in straw, which absorbs damp. This
didn't spoil the shells and rockets — quite the con^
trary. It added a pleasing uncertainty to their
flight and converted the shells into very fair imita^
tions of the real article. The crowd dodged and
ducked, and yelled and laughed and chaffed, at
each illumination, and did their best to fall into
the Canal. It was a jovial scuffle, and ended, when
the last shell had burst gloriously on the water,
in a general adjournment to the main street of
Dhariwal village, where there was provided a
magic'lantern.

At first sight it does not seem likely that a
purely rustic audience would take any deep interest
in magic'lanterns ; but they did, and showed a
most unexpected desire to know what the pictures
meant. It was an out-of-door performance, the
sheet being stretched on the side of a house, and
the people sitting below in silence. Then the
native doctor — who was popular with the MilL
hands — went up on to the roof and began a running
commentary on the pictures as they appeared ; and
his imagination was as fluent as his Punjabi. The
crowd grew irreverent and jested with him, until
they recognised a portrait of one of the native

258

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

overseers and a khitmutgar. Then they turned upon
the two who had achieved fame thus strangely, and
commented on their beauty. Lastly, there flashed
upon the sheet a portrait of Her Majesty the
Empress. The native doctor rose to the occasion,
and, after enumerating a few of our Great Lady's
virtues, called upon the crowd to salaam and cheer ;
both of which they did noisily, and even more
noisily, when they were introduced to the Prince
of Wales. One might moralise to any extent on
the effect produced by this little demonstration in
an out'of'the-way corner of Her Majesty's Empire.
Next morning, being Sunday and cool, was
given up to wrestling. By this time the whole of
the Gurdaspur District was represented, and the
crowd was some five thousand strong. Eventually,
after much shouting one hundred and seventy men
from all the villages, near and far, were set down
to wrestle, if time allowed. And in truth the first
prize — a plough, for the man who showed most
* form ' — was worth wrestling for. Armed with a
notebook and a pencil, the Manager, by virtue of
considerable experience in the craft, picked out the
men who were to contend together; and these,
fearing defeat, did in almost every instance explain
how their antagonist was too much for them. The
people sat down in companies upon the grass,
village by village, flanking a huge square marked

259

FROM SEA TO SEA

on the ground. Other restraint there was none.
Within the square was the roped ring for the
wrestlers, and close to the ring a tent for the dozen
or so of Englishmen present. Be it noted that
anybody might come into this tent who did not
interfere with a view of the wrestling. There were
no lean brown men, clasping their noses with their
hands and following in the wake of the Manager
Sahib. Still less were there the fat men in gorgeous
raiment before noted — the men who shake hands
* Europe fashion * and demand the favour of your
interest for their uncle's son's wife's cousin.

It was a sternly democratic community, bent on
enjoying itself, and, unlike all other democracies,
knowing how to secure what it wanted.

The wrestlers were called out by name, stripped^
and set to amid applauding shouts from their
respective villages and trainers. There were many
men of mark engaged, — huge men who stripped
magnificently ; light, lean men, who wriggled like
eels, and got the mastery by force of cunning;
men deep in the breast as bulls, lean in the flank
as greyhounds, and lithe as otters; men who
wrestled with amicable grins ; men who lost their
tempers and smote each other with the clenched
hand on the face, and so were turned out of the
ring amid a storm of derision from all four points
of the compass ; men as handsome as statues of

260

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

the Greek gods, and foul-visaged men whose noses
were very properly rubbed in the dirt.

As he watched, the Outsider was filled with a
great contempt and pity for all artists at Home,
because he felt sure that they had never seen the
human form aright. One wrestler caught another
by the waist, and lifting him breast'high, attempted
to throw him bodily, the other stiffening himself
like a bar as he was heaved up. The coup failed,
and for half a minute the two stayed motionless
as stone, till the lighter weight wrenched himself
out of the other's arms, and the two came down,
— flashing through a dozen perfect poses as they
fell, — till they subsided once more into ignoble
scuffle in the dust. The story of that day's strife
would be a long one were it written at length, —
how one man did brutally twist the knee of
another (which is allowed by wrestling law, though
generally considered mean) for a good ten minutes,
and how the twistee groaned, but held out, and
eventually threw the twister, and stalked round
the square to receive the congratulations of his
friends; how the winner in each bout danced
joyfully over to the tent to have his name recorded
(there were between three and four hundred rupees
given in prizes in the wrestling matches alone);
how the Mill ' hands applauded their men ; and
how Siddum, Risada, Kalair, Narote, Sohul, Maha,

261

FROM SEA TO SEA

and Doolanagar, villages of repute, yelled in reply ;
how the Sujhanpur men took many prizes for the
honour of the Sugar mills there ; how the event
of the day was a tussle between a boy — a mere
child — and a young man ; how the youngster
nearly defeated his opponent amid riotous yells,
but broke down finally through sheer exhaustion ;
how his trainer ran forward to give him a pill of
dark and mysterious composition, but was ordered
away under the rules of the game. Lastly, how
a haughty and most wonderfully ugly weaver
of the Mill was thrown by an outsider, and how
the Manager chuckled, saying that a defeat at
wrestling would keep the weaver quiet and humble
for some time, which was desirable. All these
things would demand much space to describe and
must go unrecorded.

They wrestled— couple by couple — for six good
hours by the clock, and a Kashmiri weaver (why
are Kashmiris so objectionable all the Province
over?) later on in the afternoon, was moved to
make himself a nuisance to his neighbours. Then
the four self'appointed office-bearers moved in his
direction ; but the crowd had already dealt with
him, and the Dormouse in Alice in IVonderland
was never so suppressed as that weaver. Which
proves that a democracy can keep order among
themselves when they like.

262

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

The Outsider departed, leaving the wrestlers
still at work, and the last he heard as he dived
through that most affable, grinning assembly, was
the shout of one of the Mill'hands, who had thrown
his man and ran to the tent to get his name entered.
Freely translated, the words were exactly what
Gareth, the Scullion ^ Knight, said to King
Arthur :—

Yea, mighty through thy meats and drinks am I,
And I can topple over a hundred such.

Then back to the Schemes and Lines and
Policies and Projects filled with admiration for the
Englishmen who live in patriarchal fashion among
the People, respecting and respected, knowing their
ways and their wants ; believing (soundest of all
beliefs) that * too much progress is bad,* and com^
passing with their heads and hands real, concrete,
and undeniable Things. As distinguished from
the speech which dies and the paper^work which
perishes.

263

FROM SEA TO SEA

WHAT IT COMES TO

' Men instinctively act under the excitement of the battle^
field, only as they have been taught to act in peace.' • . .
These words deserve to be engraved in letters of gold over
the gates of every barrack and drill-ground in the country.
The drill of the soldier now begins and ends in the Company.
. . . Each Company will stand for itself on parade, practically
as independent as a battery of artillery in a brigade, etc., etc.
Vide Comments on New German Drill Regulations, in Pioneer.

Scene. — Canteen of the Tyneside Tailtwisters, in full blast.
Chumer of B Company annexes the Pioneer on its arrival, iy
right of the strong arm, and turns it over contemptuously.

Chumer. — 'Ain't much in this 'ere. On'y
Jack the Ripper and a lot about O^vih'ans.
'Might think the 'ole country was full of Cu
vilians. G'vilians an' drill. 'Strewth a' mighty I
As if a man didn't get 'nuff drill outside o' his
evenin' paiper. Anybody got the fill of a pipe 'ere ?

Shuckbrugh of B Company {passing pouch), —
Let's 'ave 'old o' that paper. Wot's on ? Wot's
in ? No more new drill ?

Chumer. — Drill be sugared I When I was at
'ome, now, buyin' my Times orf the Railway
stall like a gentleman, / never read nothin' about
drill. There wasn*t no drill. Strike me blind,
these Injian papers ain't got nothin' else to write
about. When 'tisn't our drill, it's Rooshian or
Prooshian or French. It's Prooshian now. Brrh I

264

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

Hookey (E Company), — All for to improve
your mind, Chew. You'll get a first -class
school ' ticket one o' these days, if you go
on.

Chumer (whose strong point is not education). —
You'll get a first -class head on top o' your
shoulders, 'Ook, if you go on. You mind that
I ain't no bloomin* litteratoor but . . .

Shuckbrugh. — Go on about the Prooshians an'
let 'Ook alone. 'Ook 'as a — wot's its name?
— fas — fas — fascilitude for impartin' instruction.
'E's down in the Captain's book as sich. Ain't
you, 'Ook ?

Chumer (anxious to vindicate his education). —
Listen 'ere I 'Men instinck — stinkivly act under
the excitement of the battle-field on'y as they 'ave
been taught for to act in peace.* An' the man
that wrote that sez 't ought to be printed in gold
in our barricks.

Shuckbrugh (who has been through the Afghan
^^f).— 'Might a told 'im that, if he'd come to
me, any time these ten years.

Hookey (loftily). — O I bid fair he's a bloomin'
General. Wot's 'e drivin' at ?

Shuckbrugh. — 'E says wot you do on p'rade
you do without thinkin' under fire. If you was
taught to stand on your 'ed on p'rade, you'd do
so in action.

265

FROM SEA TO SEA

Chumer. — I'd lie on my belly first for a bit, if
so be there was aught to lie be'ind.

Hookey. — That's 'ow you've been taught.
We're alius lyin' on our bellies be'ind every
bloomin' bush — spoilin' our best clobber. Takin*
advantage o' cover, they call it.

Shuckbrugh. — An' the more you lie the more
you want to lie. That's human natur'.

Chumer. — It's rare good — for the henemy.
I'm lyin' 'ere where this pipe is ; Shukky's there
by the 'baccy-paper; 'Ook is there be'ind the
pewter, an' the rest of us all over the place crawlin'
on our bellies an' poppin' at the smoke in front.
Old Pompey, arf a mile be'ind, sez, * The battalion
will now attack.' Little Mildred squeaks out,
* Charrge ! ' Shukky an' me, an' you, an' 'im,
picks ourselves out o' the dirt, an' charges. But
'ow the dooce can you charge from skirmishin'
order ? That's wot I want to know. There ain't
no touch — there ain't no chello; an' the minut'
the charge is over, you've got to play at bein' a
bloomin' field-rat all over again.

General Chorus. — Bray-vo, Chew! Go it,
Sir Garnet I Two pints and a hopper for Chew I
Kernel Chew I

Hookey (who has possessed himself of the paper),
— Well, the Prooshians ain't goin' to have any
more o' that. There ain't goin' to be no more

266

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

battaliori'drill— so this bloke says. On'y just the
comp'ny handed over to the comp'ny orf' cer to do
wot 'e likes with.

Shuckbrugh. — Gawd 'elp B Comp'ny if they
do that to us I

Chumer {hotly). — You're bloomin' pious all of
a sudden. Wot's wrong with Little Mildred, I'd
like to know ?

Shuckbrugh. — Little Mildred's all right. It's
his bloomin' dandified Skipper — it's Collar an'
Cuffs — it's Ho de Kolone — it's Squeaky Jim that
I'm set against.

Chumer. — Well, Ho de Kolone is goin'
'Ome, an' may be we'll have Sugartongs instead.
Sugartongs is a hard drill, but 'e's got no bloomin'
frills about 'im.

Hookey {of E Company), — You ought to
'ave Hackerstone — ^'d wheel yer into line. Our
Jemima ain't much to look at, but 'e knows wot
'e wants to do an' he does it. '£ don't club the
company an' damn the Sargints, Jemima doesn't.
'E's a proper man an' no error.

Shuckbrugh. — Thank you for nothin'. Sugars
tongs is a vast better. Mess Sargint 'e told us
that Sugartongs is goin' to be married at 'Ome.
If 'e's thatt o' course 'e won't be no good ; but
the Mess Sargint's a bloomin' liar mostly.

Chumer. — Sugartongs won't marry — not 'e.

267

FROM SEA TO SEA

'E's too fond o' the regiment. Little Mildred's
like to do that first ; bein' so young.

Hookey {returning to paper), — ^ On'y the
company an* the company orf'cer doin' what 'e
thinks 'is men can do.' 'Strewth ! Our Jemima^d
make us dance down the middle an' back again.
But what would they do with our Colonel ? I
don't catch the run o' this new trick of company
officers thinkin* for themselves.

Shuckbrugh. — Give 'im a stickin' plaster to
keep 'im on 'is 'orse at battalion p'rade, an' lock
'im up in ord'ly^room 'tween whiles. Me an' one
or two more would see 'im now an' again. Ho !
Hoi

Chumer. — A Colonel's a bloomin' Colonel
anyway. 'Can't do without a Colonel.

Shuckbrugh. — 'Oo said we would^ you fool?
Colonel '11 give his order, * Go an* do this an* go
an* do that, an* do it quick.* Sugartongs *e
salutes an' Jemima *e salutes an* orf we goes ;
Little Mildred trippin* over *is sword every other
step. We know Sugartongs ; you know Jemima ;
an* they know us, * Come on/ sez they. * Come
on it is/ sez we ; an* we don* crawl on our bellies
no more, but comes on. Old Pompey has given
'is orders an* we does 'em. Old Pompey can't
cut in too with: 'Wot the this an' that are
you doin' there? Retire your men. Go to

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THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

Blazes and cart cinders/ an' such like. There's
a deal in that there notion of independent com^
mands.

Chumer. ^ There is. It's 'ow it comes in
action anywoys, if it isn't wot it comes on p'rade.
But look 'ere, wot 'appens if you don't know your
bloomin' orf'cer, an' 'e don't know nor care a brass
farden about you — like Squeakin' Jim ?

Hookey. — Things 'appens, as a rule; an' then
again they don't some'ow. There's a deal o' luck
knockin' about the worlds an' takin' one thing
with another a fair shares o' that comes to the
Army. 'Cordin' to this 'ere {he thumps the paper)
we ain't got no weppings worth the name, an'
we don't know 'ow to use 'em when we 'ave
— I didn't mean your belt, Chew — we ain't got
no orf'cers ; we *ave got bloomin' swipes for
liquor.

Chumer {sotto voce).— Yuss. 'Undred an' ten
gallons beer made out of heighty^ four -gallon
cask an' the strength kep' up with 'baccy. Yah !
Go on, 'Ook.

Hookey. — We ain't got no drill, we ain't got
no men, we ain't got no kit, nor yet no bullocks
to carry it if we 'ad — where in the name o' fortune
do all our bloomin' victories come from ? It's a
tail'Uppards way o' workin'; but where do the
victories come from ?

269

FROM SEA TO SEA

Shuckbrugh {recovering his pipe from Hookey*$
mouth). — Ask Little Mildred — 'e carries the
Colours. Chew, are you goin' to the bazar ?

THE OPINIONS OF GUNNER BARNABAS

A narrow - minded Legislature sets its face
against that Atkins, whose Christian name is
Thomas, drinking with the 'civilian/ To this
prejudice I and Gunner Barnabas rise superior.
Ever since the night when he, weeping, asked me
whether the road was as frisky as his mule, and
then fell head'first from the latter on the former,
we have entertained a respect for each other. I
wondered that he had not been instantly killed,
and he that I had not reported him to various
high Military Authorities then in sight, instead of
gently rolling him down the hillside till the danger
was overpast. On that occasion, it cannot be
denied that Gunner Barnabas was drunk. Later
on, as our intimacy grew, he explained briefly that
he had been ' overtaken ' for the first time in three
years ; and I had no reason to doubt the truth of
his words.

Gunner Barnabas was a lean, heavy-browed,
hollow-eyed giant, with a moustache of the same
hue and texture as his mule's tail. Much had he

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THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

seen from Karachi to Bhamo, and, so his bosom
friend, McGair, assured me, had once killed a man
* with 'e's naked fistes/ But it was hard to make
him talk. When he was moved to speech, he
roved impartially from one dialect to another,
being a Devonshire man, brought up in the slums
of Fratton, nearly absorbed into Portsmouth
Dockyard, sent to Ireland as a blacksmith's
assistant, educated imperfectly in London, and
there enlisted into what he profanely called a
'jim'jam batt'ry/ 'They want big 'uns for the
work we does,' quoth Gunner Barnabas, bringing
down a huge hairy hand on his mule's withers.
' Big 'uns an' steady 'uns.' He flung the bridle
over the mule's head, hitched the beast to a tree,
and settled himself on a boulder ere lighting an
unspeakably rank bazar'cheroot.

The current of conversation flowed for a while
over the pebbles of triviality. Then, in ansv/er to
a remark of mine. Gunner Barnabas heaved his
huge shoulders clear of the rock and rolled out
his mind between puffs. We had touched tenderly
and reverently on the great question of temper'
ance in the Army. Gunner Barnabas pointed
across the valley to the Commander'in'Chief's
house and spoke : * 'Im as lives over yonder is
goin' the right way to work,^ said he. * You can
make a man march by reg'lation, make a man fire

271

FROM SEA TO SEA

by reg'lation^ make a man load up a bloomin*
mule by regulation. You can't make him a Blue
Light by regulation, and that's the only thing
as 'ill make the Blue Lights stop grousin' and
stiffin'.' It should be explained for the benefit of
the uninitiated, that a * Blue Light ' is a Good
Templar, that * grousing ' is sulking, and * stiffing '
is using unparliamentary language. 'An' Blue
Lights, specially when the orf'cer commanding is
a Blue Light too, is a won'erful fool. You
never be a Blue Light, Sir, not so long as you
live.* I promised faithfully that the Blue Lights
should burn without me to all Eternity, and
demanded of Gunner Barnabas the reasons for his
dislike.

My friend formulated his indictment slowly
and judicially. * Sometimes a Blue Light's a blue
shirker ; very often 'e's a noosance ; and more
than often 'e's a lawyer, with more chin than 'e or
'is friends wants to 'ear. When a man — any man
— sez to me ** you're damned, and there ain't no
trustin' you," — meanin' not as you or I sittin' 'ere
might say ** you be damned " comfortable an' by way
o' makin' talk like, but official damned — why,
naturally, I ain't pleased. Now when a Blue
Light ain't sayin* that 'e's throwin' out a forty'
seven^inch chest hinside of 'isself as it was, an'
letting you see 'e thinks it. I hate a Blue Light.

272

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

But there's some is good, better than ord'nary,
and them I has nothing to say against. What I
sez is, too much bloomin' 'oliness ain't proper,
nor fit for man or beast/ He threw himself back
on the ground and drove his boot^heels into the
mould. Evidently, Gunner Barnabas had suffered
from the * Blue Lights ' at some portion of his
career. I suggested mildly that the Order to
which he objected was doing good work, and
quoted statistics to prove this, but the great
Gunner remained unconvinced. * Look 'ere,' said
he, 'if you knows anything o' the likes o* us,
you knows that the Blue Lights sez when a man
drinks he drinks for the purpose of meanin' to be
bloomin' drunk, and there ain't no safety 'cept in
not drinking at all. Now that ain't all true.
There's men as can drink their whack and be no
worse for it. Them's grown men, for the boys
drink for honour and glory — Lord *elp 'em — an'
they should be dealt with diff'rent.

'But the Blue Light 'e sez to us: ''You drink
mod'rate ? You ain't got it in you, an' you don't
come into our nice rooms no more. You go to
the Canteen an' hog your liquor there." Now I
put to you, Sir, as a friend, are that the sort of
manners to projuce good feelin' in a rig'ment or
anywhere else? And when 'Im that lives over
yonder' — out went the black'bristled hand once

S.S. Vol. IV 273 T

FROM SEA TO SEA

more towards Snowdon — 'sez in a — in a — pani'
phlick which it is likely you 'ave seen ' — Barnabas
was talking down to my civilian intellect — ^sez
''come on and be mod'rate them as can, an* I'll
see that your Orfcer Commandin* 'elps you;**
up gets the Blue Lights and sez: ''*Strewth! the
Commander-in-Chief is aidin* an* abettin* the
Devil an' all *is Angels. You can^t be mod'rate/'
sez the Blue Lights, an' that's what makes *em
feel 'oly. GarrnI It's settin* *emselves up for
bein' better men than them as commands *em, an*
puttin' difficulties all round an* about. That's a
bloomin* Blue Light all over, that is. What I
sez is give the mod'rate lay a chance. I s'pose
there's room even for Blue Lights an' men without
aprins in this 'ere big Army. Let the Blue Lights
take off their aprins an* *elp the mod'rate men if
they ain't too proud. I ain't above goin* out on
pass with a Blue Light if 'e sez I'm a m.an, an'
not an — -untrustable Devil always a^hankerin*
after lush. But contrariwise* — Gunner Barnabas
stopped.

' Contrariwise how ? * said I.

* If I was *Im as lives over yonder, an* you was
me, an' you wouldn't take the mod'rate lay, an'
was a'Comin* on the books and otherwise a'
misconductin* of yourself, I would say : ** Gunner
Barnabas," I would say, an* by that I would be

274

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

understood to be addressin' everybody with a
uniform, " you are a incorrigable in^tox^i^cator
— Barnabas sat up, folded his arms, and assumed
an air of ultra'judicial ferocity — * ** reported to me
as such by your Orf 'cer Commandin'. Very good,
Gunner Barnabas," I would say. ** I cannot,
knowin' what I do o' the likes of you, subjergate
your indecent cravin' for lush; but I will edger'
cate you to hold your liquor without offence to
them as is your friends an* companions, an' without
danger to the Army if so be you're on sentry-go.
I will make your life. Gunner Barnabas, such that
you will pray on your two bended knees for to be
shut of it. You shall be flogged between the guns
if you disgrace a Batt'ry, or in hollow square o'
the rig'ment if you belong to the Fut, or from
stables to barricks and back again if you are
Cav'lry. I'll clink you till you forget what the
sun looks like, an' I'll pack'drill you till your kit
grows into your shoulder-blades like toadstools on
a stump. I'll learn you to be sober when the
Widow requires of your services, an' if I don't
learn you I'll kill you. Understan' that. Gunner
Barnabas; for tenderness is wasted on the likes
o' you. You shall learn for to control yourself
for fear o' your dirty life ; an' so long as that fear
is over you, Gunner Barnabas, you'll be a man
worth the shootin'." '

275

FROM SEA TO SEA

Gunner Barnabas stopped abruptly and broke
into a laugh. *Vm as bad as the Blue Lights^
only t'other way on. But 'tis a fact that, in spite
o' any amount o' moderation and pamphlicks
we've got a scatterin' o' young imps an' old devils
wot you can't touch excep' through the hide o'
them, and by cuttin' deep at that. Some o' the
young ones wants but one leatherin' to keep the
fear o' drink before their eyes for years an' years ;
some o' the old ones wants leatherin' now and
again, for the want of drink is in their marrer.
You talk, an' you talk, an' you talk o' what a fine
fellow the Privit Sodger is — an' so 'e is many of
him ; but there's one med'cin' or one sickness that
you've guv up too soon. Preach an' Blue Light
an' medal and teach us, but, for some of us, keep
the whipcord handy.'

Barnabas had rather startled me by the vehe^
mence of his words. He must have seen this, for
he said with a twinkle in his eye : * I should have
made a first-class Blue Light — rammin' double-
charges home in this way. Well, I know I'm
speakin' truth, and the Blue Light thinks he is, I
s'pose ; an' it's too big a business for you an' me
to settle in one afternoon.'

The sound of horses' feet came from the path
above our heads. Barnabas sprang up.

* Orf'cer an' 'rf 'cer's lady,' said he, relapsing

276

THE SMITH ADMINISTRATION

into his usual speech. ''Won't do for you to
be seen E'talkin' with the likes o* me. Hutup
kurcha I '

And with a stumble^ a crash, and a jingle of
harness Gunner Barnabas went his way.

THE END

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