Wanderings in India, and Other Sketches of Life in Hindostan

"Mrs. Apsley, I have some news for you."

"What is it, Captain Wall?"

"The club gives a ball on the 7th of June."

"You don't say so."

"And what is more, a fancy ball."

The tiffin is brought in. Mulligatawny soup and rice, cold lamb and mint sauce, sherry and beer. The Apsleys are very hospitable people; but Mary, who rules the household, never exceeds her means for the sake of making a display.

The soup and a glass of wine set Jack up; and he becomes quite chirpy. He proposes that he and I and Wywell shall go to the fancy ball as middies, and that Mary shall appear as Black-eyed Susan. Then, darting off at a tangent, he asks me if I remember when we were lying off Mount Edgecombe, just before sailing for South America? But he requires a little more stimulant, for the tears are glistening in his soft blue eyes when he alludes to the death of poor Noel, a middy whom we buried in the ocean a few days before we got to Rio. In a very maudlin way he narrates to his wife the many excellent qualities of poor Noel. She listens with great attention; but, observing that his spontaneous emotion is the result of the two over-night glasses of brandy – plus what he cannot remember drinking over-night – she suggests that Jack shall make some sherry cobbler. What a jewel of a woman art thou, Mrs. Apsley! Several of the men who returned home, as Jack did, none the better for their potations, have been driven by their wives' reproaches to the club, where they are now drinking brandy and soda-water to excess; while here is your spouse as comfortable as a cricket on a hearth; and now that he confesses he was slightly screwed, you, with quiet tact, contradict his assertion.

For the next week the forthcoming fancy ball to be given by the club will be the chief topic of conversation amongst the visitors at Mussoorie. Mrs. Ludlam is in immense demand. She knows the character that each lady will appear in; but it is useless to attempt to extract from her the slightest particle of information on that head. This ball will be worth seven hundred and fifty rupees to Mrs. Ludlam.

Let us keep away from the club for a few days; for, after several officers have been victimized at play, their friends are apt to talk about the matter in an unpleasant manner. This frequently leads to a quarrel, which I dislike to witness.

Where shall we go? To the Dhoon. It is very hot there; but never mind. No great-coat, no fires, an hour hence; but the very lightest of garments and a punkah. The thermometer is at eighty-five degrees there. The Dhoon is not a healthy place in the summer. It must have been the bed of an enormous lake, or small inland sea. Its soil being alluvial, will produce anything: every kind of fruit, European and tropical. You may gather a peach and a plantain out of the same garden. Some of the hedges in this part of the world are singularly beautiful, composed of white and red cluster roses and sweetbriers. There is an excellent hotel in the Dhoon, where we are sure to meet people whom we know.

Sure enough, I find a Party of five at the hotel; all club men, and intimate friends of mine. They, too, have come down to avoid being present on the first settling day; for if there should be any duelling, it is just possible that some of us might be asked to act as second.

We must dine off sucking-pig in the Dhoon. The residents at Mussoorie used to form their pig-parties in the Dhoon, just as the residents of London form their whitebait banquets at Greenwich. I once took a French gentleman, who was travelling in India, to one of these pig-parties, and he made a very humorous note of it in his book of travel, which he showed to me. Unlike most foreigners who travel in English dominions, he did not pick out and note down all the bad traits in our character; but gave us credit for all those excellent points which his experience of mankind in general enabled him to observe.

The Governor-General's body-guard is quartered just now in the Dhoon, and there is a Goorkha regiment here. The Dhoon will send some twenty couples to the fancy ball on the 7th. Every lady in the place has at this moment a Durzee (man tailor) employed in her back verandah dress-making. We are admitted to the confidence of Mrs. Plowville, who is going as Norma. And a very handsome Norma she will make; she being rather like Madame Grisi – and she knows it.

We return to the club on the 2nd of June. There has been a serious dispute, and a duel has been fought; but happily, no blood shed. The intelligence of the gambling at the club has reached the Commander-in-Chief at Simlah; and he has ordered that the remainder of the leave granted to Captains Locke and Bunyan be cancelled, and that those officers forthwith join their respective regiments. The victims also have been similarly treated; yet every one of these remanded officers came up here on medical certificate.

It is the morning of the 7th of June. The stewards of the ball are here, there, and everywhere, making arrangements. Several old hands, who hate and detest balls, and who voted against this ball, are walking about the public room, protesting that it is the greatest folly they ever heard of. And in their disgust they blackball two candidates for admission who are to be balloted for on the 10th instant. They complain that they can get no tiffin, no dinner, no anything. But the stewards only laugh at them.

The supper has been supplied by Monsieur Emille, the French restaurateur, and a very splendid supper it is. It is laid out in the dining-room. Emille is a great artist. He is not perhaps equal to Brazier – that great man whom Louis Philippe gave to his friend, Lord William Bentinck, when Lord William was going out to govern India – but Emille, nevertheless, would rank high even amongst the most skilful of cuisiniers in Europe.

It is a quarter past nine, and we of the club are ready to receive our guests. The ladies come in janpans; their husbands following them on horseback or on foot. It is a beautiful moonlight night. We are always obliged to wait upon the moon when we give a ball in Mussoorie. Before ten o'clock the room is crowded. There are present one hundred and thirty-six gentlemen, and seventy-five ladies. Of the former nine-tenths are soldiers, the remainder are civilians. Of the latter, seventy are married; the remaining five are spinsters.

Here we all are in every variety of costume – Turks, Greeks, Romans, Bavarian broom-girls, Medoras, Corsairs, Hamlets, Othellos, Tells, Charles the Seconds, and Quakers. Many have not come in fancy costume, but in their respective uniforms; and where do you see such a variety of uniforms as in an Indian ball-room? Where will you meet with so great a number of distinguished men? There is the old general: that empty sleeve tells a tale of the battle of Waterloo. Beside him is a general in the Company's service, one who has recently received the thanks of his country. He has seen seventy, but there is no man in the room who could at this very time endure so great an amount of mental or bodily fatigue. That youngster to the right of the general is to be made a brevet-major and a C.B. as soon as he gets his company. He is a hero, though a mere boy. That pale-faced civilian is a man of great ability, and possesses administrative talents of the very highest order. Seated on an ottoman, talking to Mrs. Hastings, is the famous Hawkins, of the Third Dragoons. Laughing in the side doorway is the renowned William Mumble. He is the beau ideal of a dashing soldier. Yonder is Major Starcross, whose gallantry in Affghanistan was the theme of admiration in Europe. And there is Colonel Bolt, of the Duke's Own. All of these men have been under very hot fire – the hottest that even Lord Hardinge could remember. All of them are decorated with medals and ribbons. Where will you see handsomer women than you frequently meet in a ball-room at Mussoorie or Simlah? Amongst those now assembled there are three who, at any court in Europe, would be conspicuous for their personal attractions – Mrs. Merrydale, Mrs. Plowville, and Mrs. Banks. Mrs. Apsley is a pretty little woman; but the three to whom I have alluded are beautiful.

The dancing has commenced, and will continue until four o'clock, with an interval of half-an-hour at supper-time. The second supper – the ladies being gone – will then commence, and a very noisy party it will be. Unrestrained by the presence of the fair sex, the majority of those who remain will drink and smoke in earnest, and the chances are, there will be several rows. Ensign Jenks, when the brandy and water inflames him, will ask young Blackstone, of the Civil Service, what he meant by coming up and talking to his partner during the last set of quadrilles. Blackstone will say, the lady beckoned to him. Jenks will say, "It is a lie!" Blackstone will rise to assault Jenks. Two men will hold Blackstone down on his chair. The general will hear of this, for Captain Lovelass (who is himself almost inarticulate) has said to Jenks, "Cossider self unarrest!" Jenks will have to join his regiment at Meerut, after receiving from the general a very severe reprimand.

While talking over the past ball, an archery meeting or a pic-nic is sure to be suggested. It must originate at the club; without the countenance of the club, which is very jealous of its prerogative, no amusement can possibly be successful. A lady, the wife of a civilian, who prided herself on her husband's lofty position, had once the temerity to try the experiment, and actually sent round a proposal-paper in her own handwriting, and by one of her own servants. She failed of course. All the club people wrote the word "seen" opposite to their names; but withheld the important word "approved." Even the tradespeople at Mussoorie acknowledge the supremacy of the Himalaya Club.

The season is over. The cold weather has commenced in the plains. It is the 5th of October, and everybody at Mussoorie is on the move – going down the hill, as it is called. Every house which was lately full is now empty, and will remain so till the coming April. The only exceptions will be the schools for young ladies and for little boys; the convent, the branch of the North-West Bank, and the Post-Office. Invalided officers who reside at the sanatarium during the summer will go down the hill, and winter in Deyrah Dhoon. In another month the mountains will be covered with snow, and it would be dangerous to walk out on these narrow roads, few of which are railed in.

Let us sum up the events of the season. Four young men were victimized – two at cards and two at billiards. Two duels were fought on the day after the ball. In one of these duels an officer fell dead. In another the offending party grievously wounded his antagonist. Four commissions were sacrificed in consequence of these encounters. There were two elopements. Mrs. Merrydale went off with Lieutenant Maxwell, leaving her children under the care of the servants, until her husband came to take them away. Mrs. Hastings, who used to bore us about the duties of a wife, carried off that silly boy Stammersleigh. These elopements led to two actions in H.M. Supreme Court of Calcutta, and seven of us (four in one case and three in the other) had to leave our regiments or appointments, and repair to the Supreme Court to give evidence. Some of us had to travel fourteen hundred miles in the month of May, the hottest month in India.

There was another very awkward circumstance connected with that season at Mussoorie. The reader knows that Captains Locke and Bunyan were ordered to join their regiments, the unexpired portion of their leave having been cancelled by order of his Excellency the Commander-in-Chief. In the hurry of his departure from the hills, Locke had left in the drawer of a table a letter from Bunyan, containing a proposal to victimize a certain officer – then in Mussoorie – in the same manner that they had victimized one Lord George Straw; namely, to get him to their rooms, and play at brag. Lord George Straw had lost to these worthies eighteen hundred pounds on one eventful night. The general opinion was, touching a very extraordinary fact connected with the play, that Lord George had been cheated. This letter from Bunyan to Locke was found by the servant of the officer who now occupied the apartments recently vacated by Locke. The servant handed it to his master, who, fancying that it was one of his own letters, began abstractedly to read it. Very soon, however, he discovered his mistake. But he had read sufficient to warrant his reading the whole, and he did so. A meeting of gentlemen at the club was called; and, before long, Locke and Bunyan left the army by sentence of a general court-martial. I have since heard that Locke lost his ill-gotten gains in Ireland, and became eventually a marker at a billiard-room; and that Bunyan, who also came to poverty, was seen driving a cab for hire in Oxford-street.

It behoves me, however, to inform the reader that, recently, the tone of Anglo-Indian society during the hot seasons is very much improved. Six or seven years ago there never was a season that did not end as unhappily as that which I have attempted to describe; but it is now four years since I heard of a duel in the Upper Provinces – upwards of four years since I heard of a victim to gambling, and nearly three since there was an elopement. It is true that the records of courts-martial still occasionally exhibit painful cases; but, if we compare the past with the present, we must admit that the change is very satisfactory. I do not attribute this altered state of things to the vigilance of commanding officers, or the determination of the commanders-in-chief to punish severely those who offend. It is due chiefly to the improved tone of society in England, from which country we get our habits and manners. The improvement in the tone of Indian society has been very gradual. Twenty years ago India was famous for its infamy. Ten years ago it was very bad. It is now tolerable. In ten years from this date, if not in less time, Indian society will be purged entirely of those evils which now prey upon it, and trials for drunkenness and other improper conduct will happen as rarely as in England. Year by year this communication between our fatherland and the upper part of India will become more speedy and less expensive; and thus will a greater number of officers be enabled to come home on furlough for a year or two. Nothing does an Indian officer so much good as a visit to Europe. When a man has once contracted bad habits in India, he cannot reform in India. To be cured he must be taken away for a while from the country. There have been instances of officers who have had strength of mind to alter their course of life without leaving the East; but those instances are very few.

The East India Company should do all in its power to encourage young officers to spend a certain time every seven years in Europe. Instead of six months' leave to the hills – which six months are spent in utter idleness, and too frequently in dissipation – give them nine months' leave to Europe. This would admit of their spending six months in England, or on the Continent, where they would improve their minds and mend their morals, as well as their constitutions.

The East India Company should also bring the Peninsular and Oriental Company to reasonable terms for the passage of officers to and from India. A lieutenant who wishes to come home, cannot at present get a passage from Calcutta to Southampton under one hundred and twenty pounds. So that he gives up more than four months' pay for being "kept" thirty-six days on board of a steamer. Three pounds ten shillings per diem for food and transit!

THE MAHOMMEDAN MOTHER

Mussoorie and Landour, situated in the lower range of the Himalaya mountains, form the favourite sanitarium of the upper part of India. The scenery is more beautiful than that of Simlah; for Mussoorie and Landour command a view of Dehra Dhoon, which resembles (except that the Dhoon is grander and more extensive) the plains of Italy as seen from the ascent of the Simplon. The mall of Mussoorie is crowded every evening with visitors; some on horseback, some on hill ponies, some on foot, and some in the janpan (something like a sedan-chair carried by four hill men). A gayer scene it would be impossible to conceive. Every one knows his neighbour; and, in passing along the narrow road, stoppages are frequent. Compliments must be exchanged, and the news or scandal of the day gossiped about. Every now and then you hear a cry of "What a shame!" from a terrified lady in a janpan, while a couple of lovers gallop past on spirited Arabs at full speed. Sometimes a shriek from a nervous mamma reverberates through the valleys, when she beholds her children in the way of the heedless pair.

Accidents sometimes occur. A few years ago, a lady and a gentleman were riding round a place called the Camel's Back; the road gave way, and they fell down a precipice several hundred feet. The horses were killed, but the riders miraculously escaped with only a few severe bruises. On another occasion, a gentleman of the civil service was taking his evening walk, when one of his dogs ran between his legs, and precipitated him. He was killed on the spot.

On the mall every evening was to be seen a native woman standing by the side of the road, near a large rock, watching those who passed by. She was well dressed, and her face was concealed, according to the custom of persons of her apparent station in life. There she stood, attracting general attention. She was a woman of slight, but graceful figure, and rather tall. Many persons were curious to know who she was, and to see her face; but she took care that in this respect none should be gratified. Sometimes she would go away early; at other times she would remain until it was quite dark. Some suspected – and I was amongst the number – that she was the native wife of some European officer who had divorced himself, and visited the "Hills," whither the woman, to annoy, had followed him; and there was no small amount of speculation as to whose wife she could be. Some of the guesses, if they were seriously made, were extremely ungenerous, for they included several elderly officials, who could not by any possibility have been married to this mysterious lady. I was determined to know who she was; and one night, when most people were thronged around the band, I approached her, and inquired if I could be of any service to her. She replied (her face closely covered), "Yes; by going away." She had a very sweet voice, and its sorrowful tones inspired me with pity, when she added, "I am a poor woman; my heart is crushed; do not add to my misery by remaining near me." I obeyed her, after apologizing for having intruded. Several other persons had attempted to extract some particulars from the lady, and had received the same sort of reply as that she had given to me.

The rains were about to commence, and storms were not unfrequent. The mall was less frequented; only a few – those who cared little about hearing "heaven's artillery thunder in the skies," or being pelted by hailstones as large as marbles – ventured out; but amongst that few was the native lady, who, punctual as the light of day, visited that huge, dismal-looking rock, and gazed upon the road.

I have seen a storm on the heights of Jura – such a storm as Lord Byron describes. I have seen lightning and heard thunder in Australia; I have, off Terra del Fuego, the Cape of Good Hope, and the coast of Java, kept watch in thunderstorms which have drowned in their roaring the human voice, and made every one deaf and stupified; but these storms are not to be compared with a thunderstorm at Mussoorie or Landour.

In one of these storms of thunder, lightning, wind, and hail, at about five o'clock in the afternoon, I laid a wager with a friend that the native lady would be found as usual standing near the rock. Something secretly assured me that she was there at that moment, looking on unmoved, except by the passions which had prompted her pilgrimage. How were we to decide it? "By going to the spot," I suggested. My friend declined; but declared that, as far as the bet was concerned, he would be perfectly satisfied with my word, either one way or the other; namely, whether I had won or lost.

I set off upon my journey. The rock was at least three-quarters of a mile distant from my abode. My curiosity was so much aroused – albeit I felt certain the woman was there – that I walked through the storm without heeding it. Every now and then I saw the electric fluid descend into a valley; then heard that strange noise which huge pieces of rock make when they bound from one precipice to another, tearing up trees, and carrying large stones and the earth along with them in their headlong career; but still my mind was intent on the woman, and nothing else.

Was she there?

Yes; there she sat, drenched to the skin; but I could not pity her wet and cold condition, for I could see that she cared no more about it than I cared about my own. She drew her garment so closely over her face, that the outline of her features was plainly discernible. It was decidedly handsome; but still I longed to see her eyes, to confirm my impression. I sat beside her. The storm still raged, and presently the lady said, "The heaven is speaking, Sahib." I answered, "Truly; but the lightning, the parent of that sound which I now hear, I cannot see." She understood me, and gave me a glimpse of her eyes. They were not like the eyes of a native; they were of a bluish hue, almost grey. I said to her, in Hindoostanee, "You are not a native; what do you do here in a native dress?"

"I would I were an European," she answered me. "My feelings, perhaps, would be less acute, and I should be sitting over a bright fire. Oh, how loudly the heaven is speaking! Go home, Sahib, you will catch cold!"

"Why do you not go home?" I asked. "You will see no one to-day. No – not even your beloved. I am the only being who will venture out in a storm like this; and I do so only for your sake."

"My heart is as hard as this rock," she said, flipping her finger against the granite, "to all except one being – a child. Oh, how the heaven is speaking, Sahib!"

"Do you not fear the lightning and the hail?" I asked her.

"I did once," she replied. "I trembled whenever it came near; but now, what does it signify? Bidglee (lightning), come to me," she cried, beckoning to a streak of fluid which entered the ground within a hundred yards of us. "Bidglee, come here, and make a turquoise of my heart."

What pretty feet! She had kicked off her shoes, which were saturated and spoiled.

"Go home, Sahib" (such was the refrain of her conversation); "you will catch cold!"

By degrees I had an opportunity of seeing all her features. She was most beautiful, but had evidently passed the meridian of her charms. She could not have been less than twenty-four years of age. On the forefinger of her left hand she wore a ring of English manufacture, in which was set a red cornelian, whereon was engraved a crest – a stag's head.

I took her hand in mine, and said, "Where did you get this?" pointing to the ring.

She smiled and sighed, and then answered, "Jee (sir), it belonged to an Ameer (a great man)."

"Where is he?"

"Never mind."

"Do you expect to see him soon?"

"No; never."

"Is he old?"

"No; not older than yourself. How the heaven is speaking!"

"Let me see you to your home."

"No. I will go alone."

"When do you intend to go?"

"When you have left me."

"You are very unkind thus to repulse my civility."

"It may be so; but my heart's blood is curdled."

I bade her farewell; and through the storm, which still raged, I went home and won my wager.

I could not rest that night. The beautiful face of the native woman haunted me. In vain I tried to sleep, and at last I arose from my bed, and joined a card-party, in the hope that the excitement of gambling would banish her from my brain. But to no purpose. I knew not what I was playing, and ere long I left off in disgust.

Almost every one who visits the Hills keeps a servant called a tindal. His duty is to look after the men who carry your janpan, to go errands, to keep up the fire, and to accompany you with a lantern when you go out after dark. These tindals, like the couriers on the Continent, are a peculiar race; and, generally speaking, are a very sharp, active, and courageous people. I summoned my tindal, and interrogated him about the native lady who had caused so much sensation in Mussoorie. The only information he could afford me was, that she had come from a village near Hurdwar; that she was rich, possessed of the most costly jewels, kept a number of servants, moved about in great state on the plains, and, for all he knew, she might be the wife or slave of some Rajah.