Forty Thousand Miles Over Land and Water

In the centre of this ruined temple stands the Iron Pillar of the famous legend. It rises twenty-two feet above the ground, and it has been proved by excavation that its foundation is at least sixty-two feet below the surface.

Rajah Pithora consulted the Brahmins, or priests, as to the length of his dynasty. They replied that if he could sink an iron shaft into the earth, and pierce the snake-god Lishay, who upheld the earth, it would endure for ever. Time elapsed, and the Rajah became curious to know the result of the sinking of his iron shaft, and against all the Brahminical warnings had the pillar uprooted. Great was the consternation when it was found that the end was covered with blood. It was hastily put back again into the earth, but the charm was broken. The kingdom of Pithora was shortly conquered, his life was taken, and no Hindu king has ever reigned in Delhi since.

It was a pretty sight to see the sacred goats living about the temple, looking down over the ruined wall on a caravan of camels, whose drivers had gone up the tower, where some took the opportunity for saying their prayers.

When they came down again, I suddenly thought what a good opportunity this would be to try riding on a camel. Seated on the edge and hindermost point of his back, it was an awful moment when the camel sat forward on his front knees, and then rose to the full length of his fore-legs. Then I was at a very acute and ticklish angle, and he took his time, too, to raise his hind-legs and bring me to a comfortable level once more. The motion is easy and pleasant (though it makes your head "waggle" in a ridiculous way) when taken at the slow deliberate walk that the driver carefully led me; but I can well imagine the agony of the trot, when no action of your body can keep time or swing with such an incomprehensible motion. The worst part undoubtedly is the getting off. Down goes the first division of the animal, the legs to the knees, and then the second, at which the body rests on the ground, when you are in danger of being precipitated over his head. Lastly the hind-legs subside, and you slide off over his tail. At the word of command he performs these various evolutions, but it is generally accompanied by a discontented snort and grunt. I like the deliberate way the beast always walks, with that affected turning of the head from side to side, and the nose disdainfully held high in the air.

In returning home we passed the beautiful white dome of the mausoleum of Sajdar Jang; but though beautiful outside, there is nothing to see in the interior, and we were fairly weary of mosques, mausoleums, and tombs to-day. Nor did we linger at the Junter Mundir, or Observatory, as we had seen that finer one of Benares. From the distance we traced its gigantic sun-dial, and the two towers exactly alike, with the pillars that mark the 360°, so that one observation could be corrected by the other. Needless to say that we were extremely tired at nightfall.

Thursday, January 29th.—We drove up on to the Ridge, seeing Ludlow Castle, of Mutiny fame, in front of which was stationed battery No. 2, which was to open the main breach by which the city was stormed. Here also is the Flagstaff Tower, to which the ladies of the station were first taken when the hope of speedy relief from Meerut was yet with them. It is a fitting and commanding situation for the red brick monument erected to the British and native troops who "died in action, of wounds, or of disease" during the mutiny "by their comrades, who lament their loss, and the Government they served so well." "The Ridge" is also celebrated for a well-known pacific measure of our times, for it saw the great Durbar of the 1st of January, 1877, when The Queen was proclaimed Empress of India. It and the surrounding plain presented a marvellous sight, covered with the tents of rajahs and maharajahs, and of the thousands gathered there, forming the largest camp that had ever been seen.

We left Delhi that morning. In the afternoon we had a very interesting meeting at Gaziabad with Syed Ahméd Khán, C.S.I., the founder and Honorary Secretary of the Mohammedan Oriental College, and who is looked up to by all the Mohammedans of India as their intellectual head. He came thus far to meet us, and travelled back with us to Allyghur, where the college is situated, as being most central for all parts of India. This allowed of C. having two hours' conversation with him, and learning much about the great Mohammedan community of India.

We reached Agra late that evening, about ten o'clock, when we made our visit to the Taj by moonlight.

CHAPTER XIX

GWALIOR AND RAJPUTANA

Friday, January 30th.—Left Agra at 7.30 on our way to Gwalior.

After crossing the Chumbla on one of the finest bridges in India, we came to a very strange bit of country. Every foot of the bare ground was gulched, upturned, upheaved, into conical mounds. We saw a quantity of curious little sugar-loaf cones, apparently of natural origin, and the whole represents a series of miniature valleys and mountains. This broken ground alone would form a formidable obstacle to the enemy's approach to Gwalior, without its celebrated fort.

Long before we reached Gwalior we saw the great ridge of rock some two miles in length, though only one in width, which rises up out of the plain. It is the Gibraltar of India, and, standing out of the plain instead of out of the sea, was called, before modern cannon brought the fort within range of neighbouring heights, the key of Hindustan. It is a grand rampart of nature, and the range of fortress walls which crown the summit well become the site. They frown down upon the palace of Sindhia himself, lying immediately underneath, in mockery guarding his territory, for though the maharajah's standard floats from the flagstaff, British soldiers occupy the stronghold.7

Sir Lepel Griffin, the Governor-General's agent to the princes of Central India, was on his annual tour, and in camp at Morar, the adjacent military station. He had asked us to stay with him at Indore, Holkar's capital, where he is permanently located, and now offered us the hospitality of his camp. But all our ideas of having to rough it melted before the Oriental luxury of the temporary town.

We drove through a neat "street" of tents, and were set down before a handsome pavilion. This was the entrance-hall with visitors' book, and where the scarlet-clad chuprassies are in constant attendance. Through this we passed into a drawing-room lined with brocade, thickly carpeted with rugs, full of easy-chairs and of tables covered with photographs, books, newspapers, flowers, &c. An anteroom, again, leads into the dining-room. The tents for the remainder of the party are ranged on either side of the pavilion.

Here we are in far greater luxury than in any Indian hotel, and save for the supporting-pole in the centre, and the pebbles crunching under the carpet, we might think ourselves in a comfortable room. All around there are the cheerful sounds of camp-life, the chattering of servants, the stamping of the picketed horses, or the whistling proceeding from your opposite neighbour's tent. Some officers of the regiment are playing polo in the adjoining ground, and their horses' feet resound as they scamper about on the hard earth.

All commissioners and collectors have to camp out for one or two months in the year on their tours of inspection, and so it comes to be quite a feature of Indian life. The rule then is for one set of tents to be sent on in advance over night. The réveillé is sounded at 5 a.m., or some such early hour, and the ten miles' march is accomplished before the heat of the day, and they sit down to breakfast on the new camping-ground, with the tents ready pitched. Not the least wonderful part of the camp is the kitchen. Everything is cooked out in the open, and there is but one tent for the culinary department. There are one or two mud ovens and holes in the ground filled with charcoal, and with this and a very few pots and pans a native cook manages to turn out a most elegant dinner for eighteen. Rarely, if ever, are the dishes or sauces smoked, even when a contrary wind is blowing.

We went to a small tennis party in the evening, and returning home along the "Mall," Sir Lepel stopped and took us into the club, where there is one room set aside for the use of the ladies. It is a most popular institution, and prevails at many of the stations. The ladies walk down here in the evening before dinner, and have a gossip, or read the papers, whilst their husbands are playing billiards in an adjoining room.

This reminds me also of another, but a very different kind of club,—the "Mutton Club," which exists at most stations. There are few butchers in India, as none are called for among the Hindu population. So the ladies on a station frequently join together and keep their own flock of sheep and a shepherd, which supplies them with meat twice a week, and they take it in turns for the prime joints. Some energetic member of the community keeps the accounts and collects the subscriptions.

There was a dinner party in the evening, and during dinner the band of the native infantry regiment, the Duke of Connaught's Own, played outside the tent, and afterwards conjurors performed some well-known Indian tricks. It strikes you as curious at first, when you step out of your tent into the moonlight in full evening dress, and walk across to the pavilion to dinner, to see the guests arriving up the "street," which looks so pretty with its row of lamps.

Saturday, January 31st. In camp at Gwalior.—Awoke at 7 a.m. to the merry noises of an awakening camp—bugles braying, horses neighing, a band playing in the distance, soldiers parading on the plain near by under their officers' shouts of command, and gongs sounding at intervals from all sides.

It was very chilly work turning out, for in the early morning and late at night the cold in the tents is intense.

At eight o'clock we started, muffled up in winter wraps, yet shivering much, and drove to the bottom of the Gwalior hill. Here we found one of the Maharajah's elephants waiting to take us up the very steep climb to the fort, which it is impossible to ascend in a carriage. Those who have been on an elephant know well the first sensation of fright that comes with the acute angle, as the beast raises himself on his hind-legs, when his fore-legs bring us to a level; and then we seem to be on a height which is dwarfing to all below us. The motion is a painfully uneven one, to which you never seem able to find a corresponding one for your body, and the howdah becomes anything but a comfortable seat, however pleased you may be at first with the novelty of the situation. I think the mahout, with his two-pronged fork, sitting astride the elephant's neck, and guiding him by the pressure of his knees under the flopping ears, has the more comfortable position of the two.

"The Little Fairy," as the elephant was poetically and inappropriately termed, was very slow, and our progress proportionally tedious. Our party must have presented a very picturesque appearance, as perched aloft on the red and yellow trappings of the howdah, our bell sounding out melodiously with the deliberate swaying walk of the elephant, we wound up under the walls of the old fort.

The strength of the position is marvellous, and we do not wonder that the chiefs of India would hardly believe when told that it had fallen into our hands, a little more than a century ago.

We passed through two gateways, and then were beneath the castellated walls, where under the protection of each battlement is a row of glazed tiles of bright colours, in blue and green. One wonders how the decoration, so strangely out of place, ever came there, and in other parts of the fort it appears again. In one place, yellow geese are represented by these means, walking in single file along the length of a wall.

The whole of this narrow ridge is taken up with cantonments and barracks laid in parallel lines on its perfectly flat surface. It is so narrow that passing along the road in the centre you can almost see down on to the plain immediately below on either hand.

One beautiful bit of antiquity still remains inside the fort in a wonderful Hindu temple, surrounded by a museum of ancient outdoor monuments, stone mummies, Jain idols, and monstrosities of hydra-headed beasts, looking at each other from over a pillar. The temple is very high, square, and narrow—a peculiar kind of formation, and unlike most Hindu temples, which taper towards the top. It is built of small stones, which seem to form Gothic arches in out-of-the-way corners, and the whole temple presents an intricate mass of irregularities. To finish all, it is covered in at the top by a modern addition, a huge white stone semicircular roof, ending squarely, and looking entirely like a huge sarcophagus.

As we passed the parade ground we saw the general reviewing a body of troops. The tramp of their feet, and their regular lines, with bayonets gleaming in the morning sun, was a cheerful sight.

The views from the fort are magnificent. There is old Gwalior lying away among its sprinkling of trees, with the open space where the large square of buildings shows the Maharajah's palace and gardens. The mud huts of the large village of Lashkar, the city proper of Gwalior, is at our feet, and away to the left is the defile of the Urwai Gorge, whose summit, on a level with the fort, is the only weak point in the defences.

We had breakfast on returning at eleven o'clock, a very usual hour, when chota hazri supplies all earlier wants, and from 12 p.m. a string of callers were coming and going. The Indian etiquette requires calls to be paid between the hottest hours of the day, from 12 till 2 p.m.

A combat of animals had been organized for that afternoon for us. The natives squatting round formed a bright ring of colour, and somewhat against our will we were obliged to witness a typical Indian entertainment.

Some cocks were the first to appear on the arena, but, save one couple, were not at all "game." Then some little partridges were brought, loudly calling challenges to each other from their wicker cages; but when brought face to face they only showed us a succession of clever dodgings. They were followed by a pair of bul-buls, those fluffy-headed bullfinches whom we hear chirping in the trees in the evening with such a deafening noise. But the rams showed the best fight. Let fly from opposite ends of the circle, they met in the centre with tremendous force, the repeated dull thud of their horns echoing for days after in our ears. Provided that they meet with their heads well down, it is their horns that have the full force of the concussion, and it does not hurt them. A white ram was produced, which was held back with difficulty, springing and showing fight to all the rams that came near him. He proved too strong and heavy for all the others, and they fled in terror before him, and could hardly be persuaded to meet him. Then he would take a mean advantage of their retreat and go after them, butting at their backs and sides, and turning them contemptuously over.

We saw a snake pitted against a mongoose, but, curiously enough, little fury as the mongoose is, he refused to touch the very handsome spotted snake, and retreated at every hiss. The second and smaller one, however, he succeeded in apparently killing, flattening his neck, till blood poured out of his mouth. This was the signal for a wonderful exhibition. The man declared he could bring the snake to life again, and, making a hole in the earth, he laid the head in, and poured water on it. The effect was magical; the neck stiffened and moved, and gradually the serpent reared its head. Then the cure was completed by the sweet dirge-like music charming the snake, and making it wave its head in time, intently following each undulation—unconscious of all save the magic music.

A buffalo-fight was tried in another part of the camp, but it was evident that they, in common with the other animals, had no natural animosity for one another.

Later in the afternoon we went to the cantonment to see some tent-pegging by the Fourth Bengal Native Cavalry. This was a very different kind of tent-pegging to any performance of the kind that you see at the Agricultural Hall at Islington. Here the men were on a large open space, and flew by at full speed with a wild rush, balancing the long spear low, and carrying off the tiny peg (almost lost in such a space) by piercing it through.

The dress of the native cavalry is splendid: scarlet coats, or more crimson perhaps, with blue and white striped turbans; white that of the infantry is buff with dark-blue turbans and facings. We walked through the cavalry lines of horse pickets, and the horses of this regiment are exceptionally fine, either "country-bred" or "Australians." Each man is obliged to keep a grass-cutter for his horse, and a pony or mule is shared by two, which goes out in the early morning and returns to camp at night with the next day's load of grass.

We drove home through the bazaar, which is considered almost the model bazaar of India. It is hardly credible what order and brightness by whitewashing and a uniformity of red-striped blinds has been introduced by the encouragement of Brigadier-General Massey, of Crimean fame, when he commanded here. A great deal of the native-carved woodwork has been used with great effect in balconies and over gateways, particularly in that of the "serai," or the house of hospitality for native travellers, which you find in all villages.

We drove out to dinner by moonlight that evening in an open carriage, the usual way at "mofussil" stations, where a close carriage is so rarely wanted. The word "mofussil" sounded so funny to me at first, but it is very expressive of the station and up-country life of India.

Sunday, February 1st.—To church in the morning. The scarlet of the infantry in the nave, and the blue of the artillery lining the transepts, made a very effective addition to the congregation. The choir was formed of soldiers, and accompanied by a brass band.

Captain Robertson, First Assistant to the Agent, showed us to-day a kharita, or a letter to a native prince. The paper is specially made for this purpose, and is sprinkled with gold leaf. Only the last few lines of the somewhat lengthy document contain the purport of the letter, while the remainder is made up of the usual roundabout and complimentary phrases. It is folded in a peculiar way, with the flaps outwards, and inserted into a muslin bag, and this latter into one of crimson and gold tint, with a slip-knot of gold thread, attached to which is a ponderous seal. The superscription and address on a slip of paper is passed into the bag between this latter and the muslin one. I have given these details in full, because they are important to Indian epistolary art, as, should any of them be omitted, it would be thought that an insult had been offered to the person addressed.

It may not be generally known that the native States still extant in India are 800, though out of them only 200 are of any importance. The Nizam of Hyderabad, the Maharajahs Sindhia and Holkar, each have an income of over a million sterling a year; and the kingdom of the first named is as large as Italy. This gives us some idea of the importance and power which still remains in the hands of the native princes—added to which, many of them maintain their own army, consisting of several regiments. This is the Maharajah Sindhia's great pride—the strength and efficiency of his army; and we were so sorry to have come a few days too late to see the review which he had just held, when he commanded his troops in person, and also to have missed the durbar, when his Highness was received in state by Sir Lepel. Since then he has been laid up with fever, and we were, therefore, unable to see him or his palace which contains one of the finest durbar-halls in India.

We left the camp at daybreak the next morning, and this will ever be remembered as the coldest and most disagreeable of our many early morning starts, collecting our things, and leaving as we did in the dark. We returned to Agra for the third and last time, where we spent the night. Again all the next day we were travelling on the Rajpootana State Railway to Jeypore, which we reached at six in the evening.

The country around Jeypore is of that peculiar formation which presents a flat plain of untold limits, interrupted at frequent intervals by conical-shaped hills that often attain to the height of mountains. Surrounded by a semicircle of these mountains, lying in the hollow of their midst, is Jeypore.

The white walls and towers of the great Tiger Fort, accessible only from this one side, stands guard over the city. Beneath it, on the rocks, has been painted in gigantic letters the one word "Welcome," inscribed there for the visit of the Prince of Wales.

Jeypore, the city of victory, as its name implies, is considered the model city of a native State, and it also carries off the palm for picturesqueness amongst all those artist-loved cities of India.

The native quarter, surrounded by a wall, forms a city within the city. The broad streets of its bazaar are wider and different to anything of the kind that we have seen before. The low shops are surmounted by a trellis carving, uniform throughout the long street, and all are coloured that soft Eastern pink, deep enough here to be a terra-cotta colour. The square market-place, with its marble fountain in the centre, and flocks of pigeons, looks like some old Italian piazza, and the story is told that it was built to please the Italian love of one of the Maharajahs of Jeypore. In keeping with the cleanliness and the air of brightness that generally pervades Jeypore, are the painted horns in red and green of the bullocks, the spirited and caparisoned horses of the Maharajah's attendants and messengers, and the bullock-carts and smartly curtained ekkas, with their magnificent yokes of trotting-bullocks. A more than ordinarily large number of sacred bulls seem to be lying or wandering about the streets. There is the unusual sight of familiar rows of lamp-posts once more, for Jeypore is the only city of a native State that is lighted with gas, and presently we pass the smoky chimney of "His Highness the Maharajah's Gasworks," as the inscription over the gate tells us. It is the late Maharajah who has made Jeypore what it is.

Jeypore seems too more advanced in art, education, and culture, looking at its school of art, where the native manufactures of pottery are sold, the public library in the square, and the museum. This latter is formed by the specimens of native manufactures, such as kincob, Benares and Moorshabad work, Multan and other potteries, exhibited at the Jeypore Exhibition two years ago, and which owes its origin and tasteful arrangement chiefly to Dr. Hendley, the Civil Surgeon.

At the end of a long street is the "Palace of the Moon," which is attractive from its name, but not from anything in its interior. There are the usual ranges of courtyards, and two durbar-halls, gaudy in the extreme, of a glaring mural decoration of flowers and fruit. We were taken to the bottom of the garden, which commands a fine view of the Tiger Fort, and were rather disgusted to find it was only to see a billiard-room in the pavilion. The zenana, a palace in buff and blue, in the form of a roof of terraces ascending and diminishing towards the gold moon at the summit, is the prettiest thing about the Palace of the Moon. Adjoining is the large courtyard with the tower in the centre, round which the maharajah's 300 horses are stabled.

Facing the palace at the other end of the long street is a cage, where seven magnificent tigers are kept for the amusement of the public. Bars not as thick as the little finger are alone between us and these ferocious animals. They crouch and glower in the furthermost corner, and then spring forward as the keeper approaches, with a wild roar that re-echoes down the street, making the cage quiver with its reverberation. The grandest tiger of all alone has double bars, having once broken two with a forward spring.

Then we drove to the "Palace of the Winds," a charmingly poetic name, in keeping and resembling the fantastic façade in pink and white. A series of little turrets, with trellis-work windows filled in with green gratings, allow of the wind passing freely through. The palace ends with a succession of steps, each one being crowned with a flag on a golden staff, till they meet in the crowning step, the keystone of the façade. It stands at the top of a hill, and is used as a summer residence. There is nothing to see inside; the whole idea has been exhausted on the exterior.