From Edinburgh to India & Burmah Part 26

Perhaps it was because I was tired with sight-seeing, perhaps because the Ghats are really so terrible that I felt their picturesqueness was lost on me, so I told my guide to direct my rowers' little energy towards the far side of the river where there are no houses, and there is quiet and clean river sand.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

On the sands we found a fakir had established his camp--quite a low church fellow, I suppose, to the Brahmin mind. He sat over against this sacred Benares, and told those freethinkers, who came across at times, that his was the only one and true religion, and that the Phallic saturnalia on the opposite sh.o.r.e was d.a.m.ned, and the Ganges water was of no use whatever in the way of religion.

His camp covered an acre of sand and was fenced with cane, and he had camels and cows and many followers, and though they had only one yellow waist-cloth between them all, which he wore, he must have been well enough off to provide the loaves and fishes for so many. He sat all the time with his legs crossed, and read Sanskrit in a low, very well modulated voice, whilst people from far and near came and bowed, and sometimes, if they were worthy, touched his feet, and he would give them a little look from his quiet intense eyes, and the least inclination of his head, a movement and look a king might have envied, it was at the same time so reserved and yet graciously beneficent. His hair and beard were long and slightly curling and tawny at the ends, and his face was dusted with grey ash which emphasised his rather potent eyes. His features in profile were pure Greek, and on his low forehead there was a touch of gold. His particular followers or disciples had the silly expression of a mesmerist's subjects; they sat in the dust stark naked and unashamed, and looked happy and exceedingly foolish.

The way this fakir made money I was told, is simplicity itself; he merely gives a pa.s.s with his hand above his head, and lo there is a sovereign in his palm, or he makes a pa.s.s at his toe and there is another!

My Mohammedan guide, who told me about this fakir, was rather a fine specimen and had read much; and though he did not belong to the same church as the fakir, he held him in great respect, and he told me very seriously--that he could raise the dead--he knew a man who knew another man who had actually seen it done!

The fakir sat on a little dais in front of a hut with an awning over him. He pa.s.sed word to a satellite in a cloak that he would be pleased were I to land, and I told my guide to tell him I would be pleased to alight from my ramshackle tub and make his portrait, and he gently inclined his head, so I descended from my barge roof, and stood opposite him on the sand and drew, and after half-an-hour or so he saw that I was tired standing and sent for a seat, but I of course could not change my point of view, and no doubt his followers wondered why I bothered standing in the sun when I might have easily sat in the shade and done nothing. Next day I went on the river and stopped in pa.s.sing his place and showed him the coloured portrait, of which he gently expressed his approval and signified that he would be pleased to accept a copy. So I made one, and it is now glazed and framed and wors.h.i.+pped by his disciples. He gave me his blessing in exchange--he did not make any pa.s.ses for sovereigns--but he gave me a seed or two to eat for a particular purpose, and there is no result so far--and though he did not convert me I left him with a certain respect for his great dignity of manner, and for his evident desire and ability to obtain power over men's minds. Perhaps with all his study and knowledge he still wonders why a man should stand some hours in the heat playing with pencil and paper and water colours. I am told he believes in only one G.o.d, unfortunately I forget which; but there are 333,000,000 G.o.ds in India, so perhaps it's a matter of no great consequence to them, or the Deity, or us.

One is conscious at Benares just now of a pervading effort to proselytise. There is this fakir on one side of the river with his troop, covering their nakedness with a little dust and ashes, and priests of all kinds and the populace painting themselves red on the other side; then there is Mrs Besant running some new sort of Hindooism or "d.a.m.ned charlatanism," as Lafcadio Hearn would have put it. And there are various Scottish and English Church Missions making special efforts to secure converts, but they pay far more than my fakir does per head--soul I mean. The fakir has secured two hundred recognised converts and disciples in his own camp; he, however, has the advantage over other missionaries in his method, which I have described, of obtaining supplies. Each disciple costs him only one rupee per day, so my guide tells me, and he says he is absolutely reliable; so they must do themselves well. If I stayed a few days longer I'd start some new philosophy myself, or revive an old one. And now I think of it, I believe mine once floated would knock all the others endways--to begin with I'd have my Benares or Mecca in some art bohemia, and I'd raise a blue banner inscribed with the word BEAUTY in gold, and that would be the watchword.... No one to enroll who could not make, say a decent rendering of the Milo in sculpture or drawing--or write or play....

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Fakir at Benares]

Our places of study would be the churches that are empty during the week--we surely could not be refused the use of them for the five or six days they are not used! the last half of the sixth day would give us time to remove all our beautiful things, so they would be the same as usual on Sundays--nothing like detail in going in for a scheme of this kind. And he or she who could produce something beautiful in either sculpture, colour, music, or being, or even making a hat, would be high in the priesthood, and might receive offerings of food and raiment in return for instruction given (like the Burmese Phoungies from the general public), so the general public would obtain merit, and men like Sargent (if they could drop their academical degrees), La Touche, Anglada Camara.s.sa, Sarolea, Sidannier would be very high in the priesthood; and we'd have Velasquez and Whistler, Montecelli and the like for saints and--I see I have left no place for scientists and musicians. But we'd have heaps of room for them, of course.

This isn't all nonsense you know!--in fact it is possibly all sense. I'd like to see the philosophy carried out experimentally say for three years in a bad district, such as between Edinburgh Castle and Holyrood.

I believe the people would look handsomer and happier than they are at present after the second year. Given Beauty for our standard and first goal, Goodness, Mercy, Courage, Manliness, and Womanliness, and good looks, would surely follow, and the Creator might be trusted for the rest.

I am positively anxious, in the present condition of things, about what will happen when some of us come to the gates of Heaven.--I very much doubt if a knowledge of the ten Commandments will pa.s.s us in--and even if we do get in, and secure a mansion, and it is really as beautiful as described, how uncomfortable many of us will feel who have not been made familiar with the subject of beauty below! I fear there may be awkward questions put about what we have learned besides the ten Commandments; we may be asked what we have observed of G.o.d's works. For example, "What is the colour of wood smoke across a blue sky," or "the colour of white marble against a yellow sunset." Perhaps you may be pa.s.sed in with even a solfeggio, but just think!--suppose you are asked to "describe the most expressive movement in the action of a man throwing a stone," or "how many heads there are in the Milo!"...

Such philosophising is quite the thing here at Benares--everyone does.

But to go back to the people and the Ghats I must--for my own protection--for some one who reads these notes may have also waded through the exquisite writing of Pierre Loti on the subject, and may conclude I am untruthful. He says, he saw on the steps bathing, people "a la fois sveltes et athletiques," and lovely women, dead and alive, with clinging draperies that resemble the "Victoire aptere,"--well, I vow!--I've studied the human form for about twenty-five years and I repeat that what I say is true, that of the hundreds of men I saw distinctly of the thousands bathing, I only saw one man pa.s.sably well made. I saw very finely built Sikhs from northern India in Burmah, and others at Madras, but all the people on the banks of the Ganges had very poor muscular development. And these lovely women whom Pierre Loti sees in such numbers--they have no calves--whoever saw beauty without the rudiments of a calf! But perhaps Pierre Loti does; if he can write about India, sans les Anglais--(he means British[39]) he may fancy Hamlet without the Prince, or Venus with an Indian shank. But we forgive him; for that picture, off Iceland, "the stuffy brown lamplit cabin in the fis.h.i.+ng lugger, the tobacco smoke and the Madonna in the corner, and outside on deck the silvery daylight and the pure air of the Arctic midnight."

[39] "L'Inde sans les Anglais."

I think military life in Benares must be slow, the soldier seems to have so much routine work in India when there is no frontier campaign going on. It must be irksome for anyone fond of fighting. My cousin here (a Captain) is Cantonment Magistrate, which means he has to turn his sword into a foot rule and do Government's factory work--lets you a plot of land for your house and sees your neighbour hangs out his was.h.i.+ng in proper order--then will hang a man for murder or fine another for selling you goat instead of mutton, and so on and so forth. Multifarious little things on to many of which might hang a history--for instance taking a stray bull across the river with the respect due to such a sacred enc.u.mbrance and without hurting the religious feelings of the Emperor's Hindoo subjects.

Another soldier host we had in India in Delhi--a Fettesian by the way; in his palace we studied the Red Chupra.s.sie and received an inkling of how States are governed, and how the hot-bed of Mohammedan and Hindoo revolution is kept in order. Five to five were his office hours, you advocates of eight hour bills! In the rest of the twenty-four hours he was on the alert for sudden duty calls, yet he painted with me after five, with more keenness than professional artists I know at home.

So within a few months out here I have met more men of arms, art, and manners than I meet in as many years at home. It is a very sad part this of our extended Empire--the good men taken from home to the frontiers, and I don't know that we can afford it. Personally I'd rather have our little country as it was in the time of James IV.--well defended--with our good men at home, a chivalrous Court, and the best fleet of the time, than to be as at present without a name or Court--a milch cow to the Empire.

I had the pleasure of seeing this host engaged in a congenial duty--that of raising the statue to Nicholson. We were taken to the spot where he fell, and saw where Roberts stood, and heard tales of many other great "Englishmen"--be--dad!

We lived almost on the Ridge and its russet-coloured boulders, and looked slightly down to Delhi (I'd always pictured the besiegers looking up at the walls). How astonis.h.i.+ngly fresh it all is; the living deadly interest. Gracious--the stones on the wall haven't yet rolled into the ditch from the bombarding--you can almost smell the powder smoke in the air--and it is still hot!

It was very hot going to Agra. I've a recollection of the journey which seems funny now; "When pleasure is, what past pain was." We had been saving a thirst all morning, and at a junction went absolutely parched with heat and fatigue for ice and soda, and perhaps a little mountain-dew, for we were very faint. And there was no soda water!--and there was no ice!--but there was whisky--and warm lemonade! I'd to sprint along the metals to our carriage in the white heat, and there got two bottles of hot soda. So we finally had a little tepid toddy, and sat and grimly studied our countrymen's expressions as they came into the restaurant hot and tired, from different trains, and asked for the drink of our country. You'd have thought they would have sworn, but they did not, which gives you an idea of the climate; they mostly looked too tired; at mid-day on an Indian railway one has barely sufficient energy left to say tut-tut!

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Delhi Street Scene]

Getting near Agra from the plains was very pleasant!--the ground rises a little and becomes sandier and less cultivated, so the air is clean and refres.h.i.+ng.

We saw the Taj at first in distance over this almost white sandy soil and grey ferash bushes--saw it slightly blurred by the quivering heat off the ground, and against a pale, hot, blue sky, and through thin hot brown smoke from our engine, and its general outline in the distance was that of a cruet stand--and as we came within a mile it seemed to be made of brick, white-washed!

Then we whirled into the station and came out amongst solid Mogul architecture of dull, red, sandstone--splendidly ma.s.sive and simple--what a surprise! Then we visited the Taj Mahal, and ever hence, I hope the vision of white marble and greenery will be ours!

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

AGRA.--I find India generally speaking is a little vexatious, and think that perhaps the youth who stays at home may after all score over the youth who is sent to roam. There is a little feeling all the time which you felt as a child on seeing all sorts of delights arranged for dinner guests, and you had toast and eggs in the nursery. Here we have just time to see what sport there is; jolly social functions, pig-sticking, picnics, shooting of all kinds, riding, splendid things to paint, and subjects to study, pleasant people to meet--and have to cut up our time between trains and guides and sights.

I think if I were to come to India again, I'd spend the cold weather in one place, get to know the white people and the surrounding districts, and merely listen to tales of fair Cashmere.

This preamble leads to notes of a somewhat qualified day at Black Buck: two day's dip into sport against time. I got one buck the first day, and could have taken more, they were literally in hundreds: this is how the story unrolls itself.

Got away at 6.30 A.M., before dawn, in a two-horse open carriage, a s.h.i.+kari on the box, a syce behind, and interpreter on the front seat, and beside me a regular Indian luncheon basket big enough for an army, and a great double 450 cordite express that would have done for the Burmese Gaur.

The roads and mud huts were all the one warm clay-colour, and the light was becoming violet, with a faint pink in the sky. In the country the roads and fields were almost milk-colour, and trees with yellow flowers were on either side. We met white donkeys with their burdens, and white oxen drawing heavy wooden-wheeled carts all dust coloured, and the only black in the soft colouring was that of the early crows.

... On the plains to either side there are patches of green crop, and away to our right the minarets of the burial place of Akbar. Doves, pigeons, starlings, kites, green parrots sit or flutter overhead as we pa.s.s, all as tame as hens. Gradually the trees throw long shadows, and old Sol comes up behind us, and grins at our overcoats.

From the eighth milestone I see a doe, and the s.h.i.+kari spots it at the same instant; and two adjutant cranes, silvery grey with dark heads like ostriches--about six feet high, and a pair of horn-bills pa.s.s overhead--lots to interest one every mile of the drive. At ten miles out I spotted three does, and we got out to see if there wasn't a buck somewhere, and a few minutes after I found him (first, being some inches taller than the s.h.i.+kari). There was only a chance of getting within range by a barefaced walk-round and then a crawl behind a knoll of old clay wall--this we did, and I let off at about fifty yards and went over the buck's shoulder and couldn't get in a second. Truth to tell I wasn't quite sure whether I wasn't dreaming, the whole proceeding was so unexpected and unfamiliar--ten miles out from a town, at eight in the morning and to have a shot at a deer with no one to say you nay, I could hardly believe it. And besides, to add to the unfamiliarity of this kind of deer shooting, there were native cultivators all round, within every half mile or so, in groups of two or three.

I was very sad. The s.h.i.+kari said nothing, but counted it out at seventy yards. Looking over the top of the d.y.k.e I'd thought it a hundred and probably took too full a foresight; anyway it was an abominably easy shot to miss. I wished very much I'd taken a few practice shots with the c.u.mbersome weapon.

... We wander many a mile and it begins to get warm. We rest in the shade of a group of mangrove trees on the hard, dry earth, and beside us waves a patch of green corn. I am very sad indeed--I have missed two beautiful black buck, or worse, the last I fired at, a lying down shot (on thorns), after a run and a stalk to about 140 yards, was a trifle too end-on, and I hit the poor beggar in the jaw I believe, and we followed it for miles. Then my heart rejoiced, for a native said it had fallen behind some bushes, but another said he'd seen it going on, very slowly, and on we went after it; meantime we saw many other buck and does, but we did our best and failed to pick up the one fired at.

So at ten we rest and I sit like Gautama Buddha under a tree and think life is all a misery, and my followers bring food and drink and I refuse almost all, but smoke a little and swear a lot. Overhead a pigeon tries to coo to the end of its sentence and loses the word at the end every time, and a green parrot fights with a crow and finally drives it into another tree, and flies eat my lunch, or breakfast rather, and ants eat me, and I gnaw my pipe with vexation.

I go over all excuses--new rifle--far too heavy--accustomed to single barrel--unaccustomed to blaze of light,--Really, at the first shot, the rising sun on backsight and foresight made them sparkle like diamonds, and the buck in shadow was a ghost--and being out of condition with travel--and so on and so on--and say fool at the end.--We get up after half-an-hour, but my belief in my luck is shaken; we walk into the heat again and dazzling light and white hard sandy soil and come to bushes and patches of corn here and there, and natives lifting water for them from wells.

I've had a grand day's exercise, and feel much more human and fit again.

I've sent a soul into the invisible so my man tells me--shot a buck at full split--shot it aft a bit. As its gore dyed the hard hot earth and its exquisite side, I asked my tall Mohammedan guide, when it was dead, where its soul had gone. "To G.o.d," he said shortly--"And where will mine go?" "To h.e.l.l," he replied quite politely but firmly, but he added to qualify the statement, something about some Mohammedans believing in reincarnation. I suppose I am d.a.m.ned in his opinion because I am not a follower of the prophet, not because I have taken life, but d.a.m.ned or not it wasn't a bad shot; it was the fourth time too, I spotted deer before my s.h.i.+kari, and pulled him back in time, and so in a way I felt comforted for bad shooting.

Five does and no buck were visible, but we trusted the buck was hidden by some of the soft feathery green ferash bushes they were feeding in.

We made a circuit and came close to a group of natives and oxen drawing water, and for some reason or another, possibly the guide I'd left behind alarmed the deer, they came galloping past and a buck with a very good head in the middle; a doe beyond, pa.s.sing to the front made me hit him a little far back in lumbar region, instead of behind the shoulder.

It restored my faith in hand and eye a little, and yet the killing qualified the day's enjoyment. I suppose we will never quite understand whether we should or should not kill. I suppose killing this buck will save a little of the natives' corn, and they will have some meat and I shall have a head to show.

To see these exquisitely graceful deer galloping across the plains is a sight never to be forgotten: it is the nearest thing to flying. The bucks with their twisted black horns and blackish brown coats and white underneath, the does cream-coloured and white, almost invisible against the soil in the glare of light. All spring into the air with their feet tucked up at the same spot, with a spurt of dust as if a bullet had struck the soil beneath their feet. You see poor sheep trying to do the same thing.