Lang John
Wanderings in India, and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan
Teree is the residence of a Rajah, named Soodersain Saha, whose family, before the Goorkha invasion, ruled over the provinces of Gurhwal and Sirmoor, and indeed over the whole hill country as far as Simlah, and from the snowy range to the plains. Expelled by the Goorkhas, he sought refuge with the British: and after defeating the Goorkhas, was replaced by us in the greater part of his territories; a part of them we retained as the price of our assistance, namely, a portion of Gurhwal, the whole of Dehra Dhoon, and a part of the Terai. And we hold Landour and Mussoorie from him at a nominal annual rent. The Rajah is extremely civil to Europeans, and the moment he heard of our arrival he sent a deputation to wait upon us. The deputation brought with them a variety of presents, consisting of milk, sweetmeats, dried flour, dried fruits, and a couple of goats. The deputation gave us to understand that it would afford the Rajah very great pleasure to make our personal acquaintance; and we were just on the point of starting for his Highness's abode, when his arrival was unexpectedly announced to us. At Srinugger, in a portion of the country we took from him, is situated the family palace, a handsome and substantial building. This is rather a sore point with the old Rajah, and as he considers the more modern abode which he now inhabits beneath his dignity, he prefers going to see any one with whom he is desirous of having an interview.
Having caused chairs to be placed in the front of our tents, we advanced to meet the Rajah, who, dismounting from a large Cabul horse, joined us, shook hands with us very cordially, and remained with us for upwards of an hour. He was a very small and rather an old man; active and intelligent. He talked to us about the Goorkha war, of which he had been a spectator in the British camp; and he was very eloquent on Punjab politics, and greatly praised Lena Singh, whom he described as "very far in advance of any of his countrymen in point of humanity, civilization, and prudence." The little man told us, amongst other things, that he was thinking of having an iron suspension-bridge over the Bhagaruttee, but that he could not find an engineer; and that his applications to the Government, although he was ready to defray every expense, had not met with any reply. The present bridge is a sling or swing, and constructed in the following manner. Two lines of coir rope, each consisting of a number of smaller ropes, are suspended from the rocks on either side of the stream, and apart from each other about four feet. From these ropes depend, at intervals of about two feet, smaller lines or ropes about three or four feet deep. These support slight wooden ladders, the ends of which are lashed firmly to one another. The whole affair has a very frail appearance, and at first it requires no small amount of nerve to step from ring to ring of the ladder, over that roaring torrent beneath. Of course this bridge is only passable by men. Cattle and mules swim across the river much higher up, where the torrent is not so rapid.
We asked the Rajah where he had got his idea of an iron suspension bridge, and he replied: "From a picture-book which was given to me by a gentleman who was out on a shooting excursion some years ago in these hills."
We stayed two days at Teree, and, despite the heat, enjoyed ourselves amazingly. Our next encampment ground was at a place called Pon, a march of eleven miles. Our route at first lay along the south bank of the Billung river, and then up a deep glen at the foot of a mountain, whose summit was some five thousand feet above the level of the ocean. The monotony of this day's journey was broken by meeting with another marriage party, some of whom carried parasols of evidently Chinese manufacture, and made out of painted paper. We shot also several green pigeons – a very different bird from the green pigeons of the plains, and much better eating. By-the-by we also met a pilgrim and his wife on their way to Gungootree, the source of the Ganges: both of them were painted and bedaubed after the most grotesque fashion. The Frenchman took a sketch of this couple, and I have heard that it now adorns an album in the possession of the Empress of the French.
Our next march was to a place called Tekowlee, where we halted beneath the shade of some large trees, and near the banks of a clear stream of water. On one side of the stream there grew a quantity of wild mint, some of which we gathered and cooled, preparatory to using it for "cup." There is a moderate-sized village near Tekowlee, and a Gosains' house or monastery, which is inhabited by a large number of this sect: we visited, and entered into conversation with them. The building was composed of a large square court-yard, surrounded by a range of two-storied barracks, or rather cells, the lower story of which is protected by a verandah. The place was full of men, women, and children: the Gosains being the only monastic order who are permitted by their tenets to marry.
We had been out sixteen days before we reached Loba, near to which place the Commissioner of Kumaon resides during the rains and the autumn. His bungalow is built upon the spur of a hill of considerable length, and there is a good quantity of flat ground in the vicinity. Not far from the bungalow is an old fort, a Goorkha stronghold, which commanded the pass leading to Almorah. It is chiefly celebrated, however, as the place where Moorcroft and Hearsey were discovered on their return from the Munsarowar lake, whither they had gone disguised as Bairagis; and so well had they sustained their characters, that they would have returned undetected, had not a rumour of their attempt reached the ears of the authorities and excited their vigilance. They were harshly treated for some days, but eventually released on a promise that they would return direct, and without delay, to the British territories.
The Commissioner was not at the bungalow when we arrived. Mr. West, however, knew him sufficiently well to warrant our taking possession of it for the day. After a residence for some time in tents, a house is a very agreeable change.
On leaving Loba we came upon the Pilgrim road, constructed by a former Commissioner of Kumaon to facilitate the progress of the pilgrims to the sacred places within the British Himalayas. It was a very humane project, for many of the unfortunate pilgrims used formerly – overcome by the difficulties of the route – to lie down and perish by the way-side. Of these pilgrims we met swarms – hundreds, if not thousands – and with some we occasionally stopped to converse.
Our encamping ground, at which we arrived at four in the afternoon, was a short distance from a village called Guniah. Our tents were pitched beneath a clump of trees, and close to a clear stream called the Ram Gunga, in which we caught a quantity of fish with a casting-net. There are some mines between Loba and Kumaon, but we did not go out of our way to visit them. Here an accident happened to the Baron. He sprained his ankle and could not walk; so the next morning we put him into a Dandi, and he was carried along the road by four of the coolies. A Dandi is a pole, upon which is hung by its two ends, which are gathered together, a piece of cloth or canvas, open in the centre. This forms a hollow seat, not a particularly comfortable one, until you get accustomed to it, when the motion is rather pleasurable than otherwise. During this day's march we shot a quantity of black partridge, a hill fox, a deer, and a wild dog of enormous size.
On the third day after leaving Loba we sighted our (then) destination – the town of Almorah. On nearing the place we came upon a hill to the right, which bears the name of Brown's Hill; so called after an officer of the 31st Native Infantry, who, in the Goorkha war, volunteered to take it with his company, though it had a stockade on the top which was obstinately defended. And he did take it, after a very severe loss. A monument is erected on this hill to the memory of those who fell in the engagement. A little further on is a large tree now used as a gallows. This tree was the scene of a well-remembered occurrence, just after the above-mentioned battle. A Goorkha, shot through the leg, had fallen here. The fighting over, a British officer was standing over him, and giving directions to a party of Sepoys to have him taken to the hospital; when, raising himself with his left hand, with his right he cut the officer down with his kookeree – a deadly weapon with which the little Goorkhas now chop up the rebels.
Apropos of a kookeree in the hands of a Goorkha, I must relate a little matter which I now know to be a fact, but which I could scarcely credit when it was first told to me. A party of Goorkhas – say fifteen or twenty – will proceed to a jungle in which they know there is a huge tiger. They will surround the jungle, form a circle, and closing in gradually, hem in the ferocious beast. Every man will then drop down on the right knee, as soldiers do forming a square, and, kookeree in hand, wait for the spring of the tiger, who becomes somewhat bewildered and anxious to make his escape. After moving about for a brief while in this den, of which the bars are human beings (about five feet high), and glaring first at one and then at another, he lashes himself into a fury and makes his spring: then the nearest Goorkha delivers a blow with his kookeree which divides the tiger's skull. Wonderful as this feat is, I once saw at Jutog, near Simlah, a sight that struck me as even more wonderful. A Goorkha battalion was (and now is) quartered at Jutog. There was a festival at which the Goorkhas sacrifice an ox. The adjutant of the battalion asked me if I should like to witness the ceremony; as it was something new to me, I replied in the affirmative, and we walked to the parade ground, where the whole regiment, in undress, was assembled, and surrounding the victim and the executioner. The ox was forced to kneel, and by the side of him knelt the little Goorkha, armed with the kookeree, which is nothing more than a huge curved knife, but very heavy, and as sharp as a razor. At a given signal he struck the ox immediately behind the hump over the shoulder, peculiar to all Indian cattle; and the body was divided into two parts. He had, with a single blow, gone though the ox just as completely and as cleanly as a butcher with his hatchet would remove a chop from a loin of mutton. They are a very odd race of people, those little Goorkhas; wonderfully honest even among themselves; light-hearted almost to childishness; capable of enduring any amount of toil; obedient and respectful, without cringing to, fawning on, or flattering their superior, the white man. The great blot upon their characters is their frightful jealousy of their wives. Woe betide the woman who gives her Goorkha husband the faintest reason to suspect her of infidelity! He at once takes the law and the kookeree into his own hands, and slays both the wife and her (real or supposed) gallant. I am glad to say this is not a frequent occurrence, though it does happen now and then. As a body, the Goorkha women are as virtuous as their husbands are honest and brave.
The Commissioner of Kumaon received us at Almorah, his head-quarters, with great cordiality and kindness, and offered us rooms in his house. This offer we declined, inasmuch as our party consisted of four, and his house was not a large one. Besides, he had other visitors who were putting up at his bungalow. We accepted, however, his invitation to dine, and on our way rode through the town, which is considered the best in the British hill possessions. Bishop Heber writes that Almorah reminds him of Chester. It consists of one street about a mile and a half long, and about sixty feet wide, paved with large slabs of slate, and closed at either end by a gate. One half of the town is much higher than the other, and the street is divided in the middle by a low flight of steps on which the ponies pass up and down with extraordinary self-possession. The houses are small, but neat and whitewashed. They all consist of two or more stories. The lower ones are shaded by wooden verandahs more or less carved. At one end of the town is the old Goorkha fort; at the other end Fort Moira, a small English fortification, near to which were the Sepoy lines. A neat little church has just been erected at Almorah. The people of the place are all fair-complexioned, and some of the children as white as those born of European parents.
RETURNING
At Almorah I parted company with my foreign friends. They intended crossing the mountains – the snowy range – to pay a visit to Kanawur. This was a journey for which I had not much inclination; besides I was doubtful whether I could breathe at an elevation of eighteen thousand feet above the level of the sea. As it was, several of the coolies died of cold and the rarity of the atmosphere. In fact, both of my friends themselves had, as they informed me afterwards, a very narrow escape. On several occasions they were compelled to huddle themselves amongst the coolies in their tent, and the sheep which they were taking with them for food were kept alive for the sake of the warmth they could impart in the canvas abode. The grandeur of the scenery, they said, would defy any attempt at describing it. What they most wondered at was the impudence of that insect, man, in daring to climb up into such regions.
My friend, the assistant magistrate, had still a fortnight of unexpired leave, and proposed to me that we should pay a visit to a friend of his at an out-of-the-way station, called Bijnore. I had not the least objection, and thither we went. We were most hospitably received, partly out of regard for ourselves in particular, but chiefly because our host had not seen a white face for five weeks.
The cutcherry, or court-house, was undergoing repair, and the magistrate, therefore, was obliged to administer the duties of his office in his own abode, or rather in the verandah; for a large number of half-clad natives in a hot country do not impart to a confined space an agreeable perfume by any means. To me this scene – the native court – was particularly interesting. There sat the covenanted official in an arm-chair, with his solah hat on and a cheroot in his mouth, listening very attentively to the sheristadar, or head clerk, who was reading or singing aloud the entire proceedings in the case then pending.
The prisoner, surrounded by half-a-dozen native policemen, all with drawn swords, was standing ten paces off. Ever and anon he interrupted the court by protesting his innocence, and assuring the Sahib that the whole of the depositions were false from beginning to end. This interruption was usually – I may say invariably – rebuked by the words, "Choop raho, suer!" ("Hold your tongue, you pig!") And, not unfrequently the nearest policeman accompanied this mandate by giving the culprit a smart blow on the back or a "dig in the ribs." I have seen prisoners well thrashed in our Indian courts of justice by order of the presiding magistrate for talking out of their turn; but that was not the case in the present instance. No more violence was resorted to than was absolutely necessary for the maintenance of order and the progress of the trial. The offence of which the prisoner stood charged was that of forging a bond for five hundred rupees, and suing thereon for principal and interest. The defence was, that the signature to the bond was not a forgery, and that the money had been advanced to the prosecutor; to prove which, no fewer than seven witnesses were called. Each of them swore, point blank, that, upon a certain day and at a certain place, they saw the prisoner pay over the money, and saw the prosecutor execute the deed. To rebut this, the prosecutor called eleven witnesses who swore, point blank, that, upon the day and at the hour mentioned as the day and hour on which the deed was executed, they met the prosecutor at a village forty miles distant from Bijnore. In short, if their testimony was to be relied upon, the eleven witnesses had proved an alibi.
This was one of those cases which happen continually in courts of justice in India; where the magistrate or judge must not be, and is not, guided by the oaths of the witnesses, but entirely by circumstances. It is one of those cases, too, in which it would be dangerous to consult the native officers of the court; for having received bribes from both parties, their advice would be dictated entirely by pecuniary considerations. With them the question would be simply out of which party – the accused or the prosecutor – could most money be got in the event of "guilty" or "not guilty." With regard to the characters of the witnesses, they are pretty equal, and generally very bad on both sides. Indeed, in nearly all these cases, the witnesses are professionals; that is to say, men who are accustomed to sell their oaths, and who thoroughly understand their business. They know exactly what to say when they come into court, just as an actor, who is letter perfect in his part, knows what to say when he comes on the boards. In fact, a case is got up exactly as a play is. Each man has his particular part and studies it separately; before the day of trial comes they meet and rehearse, and go through "the business" till they verily believe (such is my opinion) that they are not perjured, but are speaking the truth. As for shaking the testimony of men so trained to speak to a certain string of facts, I would defy the most eminent nisi prius advocate in Europe. Besides, even if you should reject one part of a statement, it does not follow, in a native court, that you should reject the whole. The price paid to these professional witnesses depends, in a great measure, on the nature and magnitude of the cause. It is about twelve per cent. out of the sum in dispute. I believe it is distributed amongst the witnesses, and the like sum amongst the native officers of the court. This, of course, does not include little extra presents given secretly to those who are supposed to have the greatest amount of influence with the Sahib, and who pretend that they will speak to him favourably. The personal servants, also, of the European magistrate or judge expect some gratuity, and hang about a client like the servants of badly regulated hotels where attendance is not charged in the bill. It is this that makes litigation so expensive in India that even the successful party is often ruined before the suit is half concluded.
"Tiffin is ready, Sahib," said the khansamah, coming into the verandah, and placing his hands together in a supplicating attitude. "It is on the table, Sahib."
"Then we will adjourn," said the magistrate, bowing to me, and rising. This was at once the signal for breaking up the day's proceedings.
The tiffin over, we began to play at whist, and continued to do so until the sun had lost his power, when the buggies were ordered, and we took a drive in couples along a very bad road. It fell to my lot to be the companion of the magistrate, a very able and excellent man: one of the most efficient officers in the East India Company's civil service. He was, moreover, an admirable linguist, and spoke Hindostanee as well as any native.
"You understood the proceedings to-day?" he asked me.
"I followed them; yes."
"And you heard the evidence?"
"Yes."
"What would you say? Is he guilty or not?"
"I cannot say, although I have thought a good deal on the point. Even while we were playing whist, to-day's proceedings were uppermost in my mind. Nothing can be clearer than that either one side or the other is perjured."
"Both sides are perjured. If the bond be genuine, the men who really witnessed the execution and who subscribed their names as witnesses will not come forward, or else they are such fools that the native lawyer for the defence will not trust to them lest they should be confused and commit themselves."
"But what do you think? Is the bond a genuine document or not?"
"That is the very question. And when there is no evidence to weigh, how are you to act?"
"I suppose that in those cases you give the prisoner the benefit of the doubt?" I remarked.
"Not always. If I did that, I should acquit almost every culprit that is brought before me, and so would every judge throughout the length and breadth of the land. By the way, about a year ago, I sent a case to the sessions judge – a case of murder. I fancied there could be no doubt as to the guilt of the accused; which was the opinion of the sessions judge and of the Sudder Court of Appeal. The man was hanged about six weeks ago; and now I have discovered, beyond all question, that he was hanged for the offence of which his prosecutor was guilty! It may be all very well for people in England to rail at the administration of justice in this country; but they would be less severe upon some of us if they could only come out here and see the material with which we have to deal. The administration of justice may be, I confess, very much reformed and improved, but where the great bulk of the people are corrupt, it can scarcely be in anything like a perfect state." This statement, remember, was made, by a magistrate who speaks as well as writes the native language as well as the natives themselves. But conceive the confusion and injustice in those courts, where the magistrates solely depend on corrupt moonshees for what they know of the evidence.
There is but very little twilight in India; and by the time that we had returned from the drive it was dark. Shortly afterwards, dinner was announced. Dinner over, we resumed our whist, and played until midnight.
The following day was a native holiday – a Hindoo holiday. What with Hindoo holidays and Mahommedan holidays, nearly a third of every year is wasted: for, upon these days public business is suspended and the various offices closed. It is devoutly to be hoped that, when our rule in India is completely re-established, these absurd concessions – these mere pretexts for idleness – will no longer be suffered to prevail. It is only the pampered native servants of the Government, civil and military, who are clamorous for the observance of these "great days," as they call them. Go into the fields or ride through a bazaar on one of these holidays and you will see the people at their work, and the shopkeepers pursuing their respective avocations. You pass the court-house, the treasury, the magistrate's office, and observe that they are all shut up. You ask the reason, and are informed that it is a native holiday. You go to an establishment founded and conducted by private enterprise – a printing-office, for instance – and you observe Hindoos of every caste, and Mussulmans also, at their daily labour. Why? Because the head of such an establishment stipulates that those who wish for employ must work all the year round, and they prefer employ on such terms to no employ at all. So it is in some mercantile firms in Calcutta, and at the other Presidencies; albeit such firms experience very great inconvenience from the circumstance of the Government banks being closed on these holidays; if a merchant wishes to get a cheque cashed, or a bill discounted, he must wait sometimes for days together. Even the doors of the Queen's courts are often closed, and the judges and the counsel left unemployed, notwithstanding that the litigants are British subjects; and this because the native writers in these courts and the officers attached to them, are paid by the Company's Government, which recognises absence from duty on these holidays.
It would be hard to deprive either of the great sects of certain holidays in every year. The Doorgah-Poojah, for instance, or the Mohurrum; but it is sheer folly, and profitless withal, to sanction these constantly repeated interruptions to public business. The idlers of the covenanted civil service in India are, naturally, in favour of closing the doors of the various offices as often as possible; but the hard-working portion, those men who take some interest in the discharge of the duties for which they draw their pay, regard the native holidays as an intolerable nuisance which ought, long since, to have been abolished.
Whilst we were enjoying ourselves after dinner, on the evening of the Hindoo holiday, the khansamah came in, and announced that two Sahibs had arrived.
"Two Sahibs?" said our host. "Who are they?"
"They are strangers to me, Sahib," said the khansamah, "and they do not speak Hindostanee; but their bearers say that they are Lord Sahibs."
"Who on earth can they be?" said the magistrate of Bijnore (loudly) to himself; and, rising, he left the table to make inquiry in person, and offer the travellers every hospitality.
"O, I beg your pardon," said a voice from one of the palanquins. "But would you be good enough to tell me where I am?"
"You are at Bijnore," said the magistrate, blandly.
"Bij-what?"
"Bijnore."
"Then, how far am I from Meerut?"
"A very considerable distance – forty miles at least."
"How the deuce is that?"
"Well, sir – in the words of the Eton Latin Grammar – I may reply: —
Felix qui potuit rerum cognoscere causas
But where have you come from?"
"From Seharry something or other; but confound these nores, and pores, and bores! There's no recollecting the name of any place, for an hour together. The magistrate – I forget his name just now; but it was Radley, Bradley, Bagley, Ragley, or Cragley, or some such name – told me he would push me on to Meerut, and here am I, it seems, forty miles out of my road! Well, look here. I am Lord Jamleigh."
"Indeed! Well, you are welcome to some refreshment and repose in my home, in common with your friend; and whenever you desire to be 'pushed on,' I will exert my authority to the utmost to further your views."
"O, thank you. My friend is my valet. Here, Mexton, jump out and take my things into a room."
While Mexton is obeying this order, and while his lordship is following his host, let us inform the reader who his lordship was, and what was the object of his mission to India.
His lordship was a young nobleman, who was about to enter Parliament, and, being desirous of acquiring information concerning India in order to be very strong when the question for renewing the charter came on in eighteen hundred and fifty-two or fifty-three, he resolved on travelling in the country for a few months: the entire period of his absence from home, including the journey overland, not to exceed half a year. After a passage of thirty-four days – having already seen the Island of Ceylon, and approved of it – his lordship landed at Madras, was carried up to Government house, where he took a hasty tiffin, and was then carried back to the beach, whence he reembarked on board the steamer, and was, three days afterwards, landed at the Ghaut in Calcutta, where he found a carriage ready to convey him to the vice-regal dwelling. After two days' stay, he was "pushed on," at his own request, to the Upper Provinces: his destination being Lahore. The newspapers got hold of his name, and came out with something of this kind: – "Amongst the passengers by the Bentinck is Lord Jamleigh, eldest son of the Right Honourable the Earl of Dapperleigh. His lordship leaves Calcutta this evening, and will pass through the following stations." Then came a list. At many of the stations he was met – officiously met, by gentlemen in authority, who dragged – literally dragged – him, in their anxiety to have a lord for a guest, to their houses, and kept him there as long as they could: taking care to have the north-west journals informed of where and with whom his lordship had put up. He was not allowed to stay at a dâk bungalow for an hour or two, and then proceed, taking – in the strictest sense of the phrase – his bird's-eye view of India, its people, its institutions, and so forth. Some of them threw obstacles in the way of his getting bearers, so that he might remain with them for four-and-twenty hours, and thus thoroughly impregnate and air their houses with an aristocratical atmosphere. Others lugged him to their courts and collectorates, albeit he had seen one of each at Burdwan and Bengal, and consequently had seen the working of the Indian judicial and revenue departments, and knew all about them! This sycophantic importunity of a few government officials soured his lordship's temper, which imparted to his manners a rudeness which was perhaps foreign to his nature. His lordship was led to believe that all Indian officials were a parcel of sycophants – progress-impeding sycophants – and hence he grew to treat them all alike: and he did not scruple, at last, to extract his information from them much in the same way that a petulant judge who has lost all patience with a rambling witness, takes him out of the hands of counsel, and brings him sharply to the point. For instance, "I know all about that, but tell me this," – note-book in hand – would Lord Jamleigh in such wise frequently interrogate his civil hosts, who insisted on doing themselves the honour of entertaining his lordship. The fact was that, in his own opinion, he knew all about India and its affairs long before he touched the soil, for he had read a good deal in blue books and newspapers. His object, as we have before hinted, was simply to see the country and travel in it, or through it, and thus arm himself with a tremendous and telling weapon in a contested debate, should he take part therein. And therefore when his lordship asked questions it was not so much with a view to obtain information as to test the accuracy of that already acquired by reading, over the fireside in the library, of his father's mansion in Bagdad Square. Thus, the entries in his lordship's note-book were, after all, merely a matter of form.
Having divested himself of the dust with which he was covered, and having restored himself to his personal comforts, his lordship joined our little party, and partook of some dinner which the khansamah had prepared for him. His repast concluded, his lordship moistened his throat with a glass of cool claret, and proceeded, in his own manner, to interrogate his host, who was not only an accomplished scholar, but a ready and refined wit. It was thus that the dialogue was commenced and continued: —
