Lang John
Wanderings in India, and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan
[Whilst I write, it has just occurred to me that this old soldier and his family perished in the massacre at Meerut on the 10th of May. He was in some way related to, or connected by marriage with, Mrs. Courtenay, the keeper of the hotel, who, with her nieces, was so barbarously murdered on that disastrous occasion.]
"Why, bless my soul!" exclaimed the old man, stooping down and picking up something, "if the old gentleman hasn't shed his skin again! This is the skin of a very large snake, a cobra capella, that I have known for the last thirteen years. He must be precious old from his size, the slowness of his movements, and the bad cough he has had for the last four or five years. Last winter he was very bad indeed, and I thought he was going to die. He was then living in the ruins of old General Webster's vault and coughing continually, just like a man with the asthma. However, I strewed a lot of fine ashes and some bits of wool in the ruin to keep him warm by night, and some fine white sand at the entrance, upon which he used to crawl out and bask, when the sun had made it hot enough; and when the warm weather set in he got all right again."
"Rather a strange fancy of yours, to live upon such amicable terms with the great enemy of the human race?"
"Well, perhaps it is. But he once bit and killed a thief who came here to rob a child's grave of the iron railings, which its parents, contrary to my advice, had placed round it, and ever since then I have liked the snake, and have never thought of molesting him. I have had many an opportunity of killing him (if I had wished to do it) when I have caught him asleep on the tombstones, in the winter's sun. I could kill him this very day – this very hour – if I liked, for I know where he is at this very moment. He is in a hole, close to the Ochterlony monument there, in that corner of the yard. But why should I hurt him? He has never offered to do me any harm, and when I sing, as I sometimes do, when I am alone here at work on some tomb or other, he will crawl up, and listen for two or three hours together. One morning, while he was listening, he came in for a good meal which lasted him some days."
"How was this?"
"I will tell you, sir. A minar was chased by a small hawk, and in despair came and perched itself on the top of a most lofty tomb at which I was at work. The hawk, with his eyes fixed intently on his prey, did not, I fancy, see the snake lying motionless in the grass; or if he did see him he did not think he was a snake, but something else – my crowbar, perhaps. After a little while the hawk pounced down, and was just about to give the minar a blow and a grip, when the snake suddenly lifted his head, raised his hood, and hissed. The hawk gave a shriek, fluttered, flapped his wings with all his might, and tried very hard to fly away. But it would not do. Strong as the eye of the hawk was, the eye of the snake was stronger. The hawk for a time seemed suspended in the air; but at last he was obliged to come down, and sit opposite to the old gentleman (the snake) who commenced, with his forked tongue, and keeping his eyes upon him all the while, to slime his victim all over. This occupied him for at least forty minutes, and by the time the process was over the hawk was perfectly motionless. I don't think he was dead. But he was very soon, however, for the old gentleman put him into a coil or two, and crackled up every bone in the hawk's body. He then gave him another sliming, made a big mouth, distended his neck till it was as big round as the thickest part of my arm, and down went the hawk like a shin of beef into a beggarman's bag."
"And what became of the minar?"
"He was off like a shot, sir, the moment his enemy was in trouble, and no blame to him. What a funny thing nature is altogether, sir! I very often think of that scene when I am at work here."
"But this place must be infested with snakes?"
"I have never seen but that one, sir, and I have been here for a long time. Would you like to see the old gentleman, sir? As the sun is up, and the morning rather warm, perhaps he will come out, if I pretend to be at work and give him a ditty. If he does not, we will look in upon him."
"Come along," said I.
I accompanied the old man to a tomb, close to the monument beneath which the snake was said to have taken up his abode. I did not go very near to the spot, but stood upon a tomb with a thick stick in my hand, quite prepared to slay the monster if he approached me; for from childhood I have always had an instinctive horror of reptiles of every species, caste, and character.
The old man began to hammer away with his mallet and chisel, and to sing a very quaint old song which I had never heard before, and have never heard since. It was a dialogue or duet between the little finger and the thumb, and began thus. The thumb said:
"Dear Rose Mary Green!
When I am king, little finger, you shall be queen."
The little finger replied:
"Who told you so, Thummy, Thummy? Who told you so?"
The thumb responded:
"It was my own heart, little finger, who told me so!"
The thumb then drew a very flattering picture of the life they would lead when united in wedlock, and concluded, as nearly as I can remember, thus:
Thumb
"And when you are dead, little finger, as it may hap,
You shall be buried, little finger, under the tap."
Little Finger
"Why, Thummy, Thummy? Why, Thummy, Thummy? Why, Thummy, Thummy —Why?"
Thumb
"That you may drink, little finger, when you are dry?"
But this ditty did not bring out the snake. I remarked this to the old man, who replied: "He hasn't made his toilet yet – hasn't rubbed his scales up, sir; but he'll be here presently. You will see. Keep your eye on that hole, sir. I am now going to give him a livelier tune, which is a great favourite of his"; and forthwith he struck up an old song, beginning
"'Twas in the merry month of May,
When bees from flower to flower did hum."
Out came the snake before the song was half over! Before it was concluded he had crawled slowly and (if I dare use such a word) rather majestically, to within a few paces of the spot where the old man was standing.
"Good morning to you, sir," said the old man to the snake. "I am happy to see you in your new suit of clothes. I have picked up your old suit, and I have got it in my pocket, and a very nice pair of slippers my old wife will make out of it. The last pair that she made of your rejected apparel were given as a present to Colonel Cureton, who, like myself, very much resembled the great General Blücher in personal appearance. Who will get the pair of which I have now the makings, Heaven only knows. Perhaps old Brigadier White, who has also a Blücher cut about him. What song would you like next? 'Kathleen Mavourneen?' Yes, I know that is a pet song of yours; and you shall have it."
The old man sung the melody with a tenderness and feeling which quite charmed me, as well as the snake, who coiled himself up and remained perfectly still. Little reason as I had to doubt the truth of any of the old man's statements, I certainly should have been sceptical as to the story of the snake if I had not witnessed the scene I have attempted to describe.
"Well, sir," said the old man, coming up to me, after he had made a salaam to the snake and left him, "it is almost breakfast-time, and I will, with your permission, bid you good morning."
I thanked him very much for his information, and suffered him to depart; and then, alone, I wandered about that well-filled piece of ground. I have always had a melancholy pleasure in strolling from tombstone to tombstone, and reading the various epitaphs, and on that morning, after all that I had heard from the old pensioner, I was just in the humour for gratifying this morbid desire.
Some miles to the northward of Meerut is the station of Burnampore. No troops are quartered here; it is what is called in India a purely civil station, containing only a magistrate (who is also the collector of the revenue), an assistant (a covenanted civilian), the establishment of the office, and a small police force. To these two gentlemen and their few subordinates were entrusted the care and the collections of a district as large as Lancashire or Yorkshire, and containing, possibly, as many inhabitants. The idea of two gentlemen keeping in order a district of such dimensions was simply absurd; but they did their best, and that was all that could be expected of them. I remained four days and nights at Burnampore, and during that time was a guest of the assistant magistrate, whose acquaintance I had made at Meerut. Anything more monotonous and dreary than the existence of a gentleman stationed at such a place it would be very difficult to imagine. My host assured me that if it were not for an occasional visit paid by some traveller on his way up or down the country, both himself and his superior officer would have died of ennui. "If it were not for the shooting, which is very good in this district," he added, "I would rather be a permanent passenger on board ship, or the inmate of a debtors' prison in London, or any other part of England – in either case, one would have something like company, and one would have, at all events, a somewhat cooler and more congenial climate."
In the district of Burnampore there are a great number of wolves, and during my short stay, even, two were brought in, and the Government reward (two rupees a-head) claimed upon them. These ferocious creatures often carry off the young children of poor people and devour them. It was in this district that "a wolf child," as the natives of India express it, was found some years ago, and taken to Meerut, where it was exhibited as a curiosity. "There can be no question," said my friend and host, when I spoke to him one morning on this subject, "that the male wolf, in all these cases, seizes and runs off with the infant, and that when he has carried it alive to the den, the female, especially if she happens to have cubs at the time, instead of killing and devouring, suckles and fosters the little human being. So, after all, the story of Romulus and Remus may not be a mere fable."
"No," said I. "But what is that Greek epigram from the Anthology of Bland and Merivale? The she-goat that suckled the whelp of a wolf, which wolf, when she had no more milk to give it, killed her and eat her. Something about
'Be kind, be gentle, and do what you will,
A stubborn nature will be nature still.'"
"Yes," replied my host. "I do remember something about it; and by and bye we will talk the matter over, and refer to the volume, which I have amongst my books; but at present you must excuse me, for I have a duty to perform. You may come with me and witness the operation, if you like; but understand me, I shall not be offended if you decline to do so."
"What operation?"
"That of hanging."
"What? Hanging! Hanging what?
"A man – a culprit – a murderer. Is is a part of my duty to see this operation performed. Come," he added energetically, and slapping me on the shoulder. "Come, be a sort of Selwyn for once in your life."
Whilst I was hesitating, the magistrate approached in his buggy. He had been taking his morning drive, and had dropt in upon his assistant to have some friendly conversation. He had forgotten all about the forthcoming execution; and, on hearing that we were just about to start for the spot, he very kindly offered to take us there – an offer which was accepted by his assistant with many thanks. So, off we drove, three in a gig, like so many men going to witness a pugilistic encounter in England during the beginning of the present century.
When we had arrived at the place of execution, a field some distance from the gaol, in which had been erected a temporary gallows, I was surprised at not finding a mob. There was no one there but the culprit – who was eating as much rice as he could, and as fast as he could – a couple of native policemen with drawn swords guarding him; the gaoler, who was a Mahommedan, and a Bengalee writer (clerk), who stood with pen, ink, and paper in hand, ready to dot down the official particulars of the scene, preparatory to their being forwarded to Government, according to a certain regulation.
"Is everything ready?" said the assistant magistrate to the gaoler.
"Yes, Sahib," he replied; "but he has not yet finished his breakfast."
"In one minute, Sahib," cried the culprit, who overheard the conversation; and hastily taking into his stomach the few grains of rice that remained upon the dish, and drinking the remainder of his half-gallon of milk, he sprang up, and called out the word "Tyear!" signifying "I am ready." He was then led up to the scaffold, the most primitive affair that I ever beheld. It was only a piece of woodwork resembling a large crock or crate in which a dinner-service is packed for exportation. Upon this crock, which was placed under the beam, he was requested to stand. Having obeyed this order, the rope was adjusted around his neck. The assistant magistrate then called out to him in Hindostanee, "Have you anything to say?"
"Yes, Sahib," was the reply. And he began a long story, false from beginning to end, but every word of which the Bengalee writer took down. He spoke, and with vehemence, for about thirty-five minutes, when, having stopped, either finally, or to take breath, the assistant magistrate gave the signal to the gaoler, by waving his hand. The crock was then pulled from under the culprit by the two policemen, and down dangled the culprit's body, the feet not more than eighteen inches from the ground.
They are not adepts in the art of hanging in India; it took the culprit at least ten minutes to die. At times I feared, so desperate were his struggles, that he would break the beam, snap the rope, or bring down the whole apparatus. In the days of Henry Fielding, the vulgar used to speak of hanging as "dancing on nothing," and this horrible idea the Indian culprit on that morning amply realised. The reader must not, however, sympathize with his sufferings. He had been justly convicted, and was justly put to death for murdering, in that very field where he expiated his offence, a little girl of seven years of age, in order to possess himself of a single bangle she wore – a bangle valued at one rupee four annas – half-a-crown of English money. I cannot accuse myself of a cruel or brutal disposition; but, if the monster whom I saw hanged had had a thousand lives instead of one, I could have witnessed the taking of every one of them without a single atom of a desire to save him.
The cutting down of the culprit, as soon as it was discovered that life was extinct (for as there was no crowd of pickpockets and vendors of cakes and ginger-beer to take a moral lesson, the prescribed hour was unnecessary) was quite as primitive as the foregoing part of the operation. One of the native policemen with his blunt sword, severed the rope by sawing it just above the tie, and down came the corpse. I was tempted to jump out of the buggy in which, sitting between the magistrate and his assistant, I had witnessed the execution, and examine, or rather look attentively at, the deceased. A finer head, in a phrenological point of view, I had never seen, and across the naked chest was suspended the sacred thread, indicating that the culprit was a Brahmin.
"Is it not very odd," said I, on my return to the buggy, "that most of the diabolical crimes committed in this country are committed by Brahmins?"
"Not at all odd," replied my host. "Do you not know that they believe nothing can hurt their pure souls after death; and hence their comparative recklessness in this world? There was a Brahmin hanged here, about a year ago, who, just before he was turned off, made a speech such as that made by Napoleon on paper to Sir Hudson Lowe – 'You may convict me of what you please; you may make me a prisoner; you may, if you like, shackle these limbs, and consign me to a dungeon; but you will find that my soul will be just as free, just as proud, as when it awed all Europe!'"
"Ah, but that was the emanation of – "
"What the deuce is that?" cried the magistrate, who was driving us rapidly towards home. "See! That thing in the road." And coming up to it, he reined in the horse.
The syce (groom), who was running behind the buggy, picked up the object, at his master's bidding. It was a cloak – a lady's cloak – made of most costly materials – satin and silk, and wadded throughout. It had evidently fallen, unobserved, from some palanquin during the night, and an examination of the footprints showed that the last traveller who had moved along the road was journeying upward, and was then most probably staying at the dâk bungalow, at Deobund, a halting-place some twelve miles distant. The assistant magistrate, after we had breakfasted, proposed that he and I should drive to Deobund, and make inquiries. I was nothing loth, and a swift mare having been harnessed and put to the buggy, off we started, two sowars (native horsemen or mounted police) cantering behind us.
About two miles from the bungalow to which we were proceeding, we overtook a tribe of large monkeys. I should say there were as many as four hundred, and each carried a stick of uniform length and shape. They, moved along in ranks or companies, just, in short, as though they were imitating a wing of a regiment of infantry. At the head of this tribe was an old and very powerful monkey, who was no doubt the chief. It was a very odd sight, and I became greatly interested in the movements of the creatures. There could be no question that they had either some business or some pleasure on hand, and the fact of each carrying a stick led us to conclude that it was the former upon which they were bent. Their destination was, like ours, evidently Deobund, where there are some hundreds of monkeys fed by a number of Brahmins, who live near a Hindoo temple there, and perform religious ceremonies. They (this monkey regiment) would not get out of the road on our account, nor disturb themselves in any way, and my friend was afraid to drive through their ranks, or over any of them, for when assailed they are most ferocious brutes, and armed as they were, and in such numbers, they could have annihilated us with the greatest ease. There was no help for us, therefore, but to let the mare proceed at a walk in the rear of the tribe, the members of which, now that we were nearing Deobund, began to chatter frightfully. Just before we came to the bungalow, they left the road, and took the direction of the temple. Fain would we have followed them; but to do so in the buggy would have been impossible, for they crossed over some very rough ground and two ditches. My friend, therefore, requested the sowars to follow them, and report all they might observe of their actions. Meanwhile we moved off to the bungalow, in search of the owner of the cloak. The first person whom we saw was an ayah, who was sitting in the verandah, playing with a child of about five years of age.
"Whose child is that?" asked the assistant-magistrate of the ayah.
"The mem-Sahib's."
"What is the mem's name?"
"I don't know," she replied, with a smile which seemed to say that she was not warranted in being communicative. While travelling, few servants who know their business will tell strangers the name of their master or mistress.
"What is your name?" he then inquired of the boy, in English.
"I don't understand you," was the reply, in Hindostanee, accompanied by a shake of the head. It is wonderful how rapidly the children of Europeans in India take a cue from a native servant of either sex. Not always, but in very many cases, it is in deceit and falsehood that children are first schooled by the servants. The reader must understand that deceit and falsehood are not regarded as immoralities in the eyes of Asiatics. A man or woman who, by fraud and perjury wins a cause, or gains any other point, is not looked down upon as a rogue, but up to as a very clever fellow. Several other experiments were made in order to extract from the ayah the name of her mistress, but to no purpose. The only information we could learn was, that the lady was much fatigued, and was sleeping. We said nothing about the cloak, by the way.
The servants of the bungalow, and at Deobund (there were four of them) now came up to make their most respectful salaam to one of the lords of the district, the assistant-magistrate, on questioning them in private as to the name of the lady, we were in no way successful. All that the ayah would tell them, they said, was, that she had come from Calcutta, and was going to Simlah. "She is a burra beebee, however, Sahib," added the Khansamah; "for all along the road, after she left the steamer at Allahabad, until she arrived at Meerut, she was escorted by two sowars; and when she reaches the Saharunpore bungalow, she will find sowars ready. This is the only district in which she has had no escort."
This was a mystery that my friend could not unravel: why, if other magistrates had been indented upon (as magistrates very frequently were, when ladies were nervous and travelling with only an ayah), he should be omitted; especially as his district was as dangerous to pass through as any other (not that there was much or any danger in those days), was more than he could understand; and he very naturally became all the more curious (apart from the ownership of the cloak) to know the name of the lady who had broken the link of her escort when she came into his district. "Perhaps," said he to me, "either I have or my chief has given her husband some offence, and, possibly, he is small-minded enough to decline asking me to do what after all is only a matter of duty, or of civility and compliment, which amounts to pretty much the same thing. However, we shall see."
My friend now mentioned to the Khansamah, a very old but very active and intelligent man, the sight we had seen on the road – the regiment of monkeys.
"Ah!" exclaimed the old man, "it is about the time."
"What time?"
"Well, Sahib, about every five years that tribe comes up the country to pay a visit to this place; and another tribe comes about the same time from the up-country – the hills. They meet in a jungle behind the old Hindoo temple, and there embrace each other as though they were human beings and old friends who had been parted for a length of time. I have seen in that jungle as many as four or five thousand. The Brahmins say that one large tribe comes all the way from Ajmere, and another from the southern side of the country, and from Nepal and Tirhoot. There were hundreds of monkeys here this morning, but now I do not see one. I suppose they have gone to welcome their friends."
The sowars who had been deputed to follow the tribe now rode up, and reported that in the vicinity of the old temple there was an army of apes – an army of forty thousand! One of the sowars, in the true spirit of Oriental exaggeration, expressed himself to the effect that it would be easier to count the hairs of one's head than the number there assembled.
"Let us go and look at them," I suggested, "and by the time we return the lady may be stirring."
"But we will not go on foot," said my friend; "we will ride the sowars' horses. In the first place, I have an instinctive horror of apes, and should like to have the means of getting away from them speedily, if they became too familiar or offensive. In the second place, I do not wish to fatigue myself by taking so long a walk in the heat of the day."
We mounted the horses, and were soon at the spot indicated by the sowars. There were not so many as had been represented; but I am speaking very far within bounds when I state that there could not have been fewer than eight thousand, and some of them of an enormous size. I could scarcely have believed that there were so many monkeys in the world if I had not visited Benares, and heard of the tribes at Gibraltar. Their sticks, which were thrown together in a heap, formed a very large stack of wood.
"What is this?" my friend said to one of the Brahmins; for since his appointment he had never heard of this gathering of apes.
"It is a festival of theirs, Sahib," was the reply. "Just as Hindoos at stated times go to Hurdwar, Hajipore, and other places, so do these monkeys come to this holy place."
"And how long do they stay?"
"Two or three days; then they go away to their homes in different parts of the country; then attend to their business for four or five years; then come again and do festival, and so on, sir, to the end of all time. You see that very tall monkey there, with two smaller ones on either side of him?"
"Yes."
"Well, sir, that is a very old monkey. His age is more than twenty years, I think. I first saw him fifteen years ago. He was then full-grown. His native place is Meerut. He lives with the Brahmins at the Soorj Khan, near Meerut. The smaller ones are his sons, sir. They have never been here before; and you see he is showing them all about the place, like a very good father."
Having seen enough of these "sacred animals," we returned to the bungalow; we were only just in time, for the lady was about to depart, albeit the sun was very high in the heavens, and the day, for the time of year, was extremely hot. We caught sight of her in the verandah. My friend became deadly pale, and exclaimed: "Is it possible!"
"What?" I asked him.
"I will tell you on our way home. I must see her – speak to her – painful as our meeting must be. Only fancy, if that cloak should be hers!"
The lady, who must have learnt from the servants at the bungalow the name of my friend, the official, evidently desired to avoid an interview with him; for upon our approach she retired from the palanquin, which she was arranging, and entered hastily the room she had occupied. We (my friend and myself) went into the other room of the bungalow, which happened to be vacant. Presently we heard the voice of the ayah. She was very angry and was accusing the servants of the bungalow of being thieves. She had now, for the first time since they were lost, missed several articles, and amongst them the cloak of her mistress. She was perfectly ready to swear that she had seen them all since their arrival at the bungalow; that she had removed them from the palkees with her own hands; and if the servants had not stolen them who had? – who could have done so? Distinctly did we hear the lady command the ayah to be silent – to say nothing of the loss, and enter her palanquin; but the ayah, too much enraged to hear or to heed the command, repeated her accusation; whereupon the servants in a body rushed into the apartment in which we were standing listening, and after protesting their perfect innocence of the theft, referred to the character for honesty which every one of them had borne for many years. Strange to say, frequent as are the opportunities which the servants at these bungalows have of pilfering from travellers, they rarely or never avail themselves of such opportunities; and, whenever it has happened that a lady or gentleman has died in one of them, the money and effects have always been forthcoming, with nothing whatever missing.
The lady now forced the ayah to depart, and enter her palanquin, in which the little boy was sitting; she was about to follow, when my friend rushed into the verandah, and, seizing her by the hand, detained her. She was as agitated as he was; and quite as pale. He held her hand in his with a firm but withal a gentle grasp, and looked into her face, which must have been beautiful when she was a few years younger. As it was, she had still a charming profile and countenance, and a skin as white as snow. From the window, or rather looking through the Venetians, I beheld the scene, which reminded me of that exquisite picture of Mr. Frank Stone —The Last Appeal. There was a look of agony and despair in the face of the man; while the woman, who appeared to sympathise with his sufferings, did not for awhile raise her eyes from the ground. But at length she did so, and, looking mournfully into my friend's face for a few seconds, burst into tears, and presently her head, involuntarily as it were, rested on his shoulder. Suddenly recollecting herself, she again attempted to take her departure; but my friend, now grown desperate seemingly, placed her arm beneath his, and walked with her to a clump of shade-giving mango trees, in front of the bungalow, and there they held a conversation which lasted some ten minutes. The lady then tore herself away from my friend, and after bidding him farewell, she threw herself into her palanquin, which was speedily lifted by the bearers and borne away, followed by the two sowars, who were commanded to escort the fair traveller to the next station. My friend, from the verandah of the bungalow, watched the procession till it was out of sight, and then, seating himself on the steps, covered his face with his hands, and wept like a child.
"Come!" I said, after a time, laying a hand on his shoulder. "I am not very impatient to know your secret, but it is time that we thought of returning. What about the cloak? You have not restored it to the owner."
"No, my dear fellow, and I never intend to do so. She has consented to my retaining it. That cloak has warmed her dear limbs, and the sight of it shall warm my heart till the last hour of my existence."
On the way home my friend (who was accidentally drowned in the river Jumna, about two years ago) spoke as follows:
"Ten years have now elapsed since that lady and I were fellow-passengers on board of a ship bound from London to Calcutta. She was then seventeen years of age, and I twenty. On the voyage we became very much attached to each other, and eventually loved each other devotedly. And, what was more, we were betrothed. It was arranged that as soon as practicable we should be married, I was compelled, on arrival, to remain at the college at Fort William for a year, to pass an examination; she was obliged to proceed to a large station in Bengal, to join her family. Her father was a member of the civil service; previous to her arrival he had promised Alice (that is her name) to an old man, a judge, who had been twice married, and who was then a widower. This old man was very rich, and had – as he still has – a great influence with the government. A brother of his was one of the lords of Leadenhall-street, and of this country. For some time after our unhappy separation we corresponded regularly; but suddenly the correspondence ceased. Her letters to me, and mine to her, were intercepted. Meanwhile, the old judge, to whom she had been promised, paid his addresses to her. She refused him. Many devices were resorted to in order to wean her affections from me. They all failed. At length they hit upon one which had the desired effect. They caused a paragraph to be inserted in one of the Calcutta journals, to the effect that I had married the daughter of a half-caste merchant. Alice was permitted to see this paper, but none of those containing my indignant denial of the truth of the announcement.
