Life in an Indian Outpost Part 14

"Salaam, Sahib. Good-bye."

They were his last words.

CHAPTER XIII

IN AN INDIAN HILL STATION

To Darjeeling--Railway journeys in India--Protection for solitary ladies--Reappearing rivers--Siliguri--At the foot of the Himalayas--A mountain railway--Through the jungle--Looping the loop--View of the Plains--Darjeeling--Civilisation seven thousand feet high--Varied types--View from the Chaurasta--White workers in India--Life in Hill Stations--Lieutenant-Governors--A "dull time" in Darjeeling--The bazaar--Types of hill races--Turquoises--Tiger-skins for tourists--The Amus.e.m.e.nt Club--The Everlasting Snows--Kinchinjunga--The bachelors' ball--A Government House ball--The marriage-market value of Indian civilians--Less demand for military men--Theatricals--Lebong Races--Picturesque race-goers--Ladies in India--Husband hunters--The empty life of an Englishwoman--The dangers of Hill Stations--A wife four months in the year--The hills _taboo_ for the subaltern--Back to Buxa.

Sixty or eighty miles west of Buxa Duar and seven thousand feet above the sea is the pleasant Himalayan Hill Station of Darjeeling. Less than a day's journey by rail from Calcutta, it attracts to it the fortunate mortals who, in the summer months, can escape from the heat of that crowded city and the Bengal plains and plunge into a whirl of gaieties on the cool heights of the Pleasure Colony. To it I had my first change from Buxa. About a year after my arrival I got fourteen days' leave to Darjeeling in order to meet the officer of my regiment commanding our detachment at Gantok in Sikkim, who was coming there to appear at one of the many examinations that plague the soldier's soul. The month was October, perhaps the unpleasantest time of the year in India, when the Rains are almost ended and the heat is intensified by the dampness of earth and atmosphere.

To reach my destination required a very round-about journey by rail.

First from Buxa Road to the junction at Gitaldaha, where I could get on to the main line which took me to Siliguri at the foot of the mountains again; thence up the toy Himalayan Railway which crawled in spirals and zigzags up the face of the giant hills. The Indian first-cla.s.s railway carriage is very unlike an English one. It is divided into two compartments, each entered by a door at the end and containing along each side a broad, leather-covered couch, used as a seat by day, a bed by night. Above each is a hanging bed, hooked up until it is required for use. There is thus sleeping accommodation for four in the compartment, off which is a lavatory, which on some lines contains a bath, a luxury much needed on a long journey in India. In the hot weather the carriages are fitted with electric fans, which only serve to stir the heated air, and hardly cool the perspiring occupants. Every traveller carries his roll of bedding, which his servant spreads down at night and in the morning ties up and stows out of the way. Until comparatively recently restaurant cars were unknown; and the trains halted three times a day for half an hour to allow their pa.s.sengers to descend at stations where meals could be obtained. For long journeys, and in India three or four days in a train is not unusual, the type of carriage I have described is more comfortable than the corridor carriages which are now being introduced. This change is greatly due to the number of running-train thefts and the murder of a Eurasian girl; for of course in the corridor system travellers are less isolated.

Recent occurrences have somewhat scared ladies travelling alone. To rea.s.sure them the railway companies allow them to have their _ayahs_ or native female servants to share the carriage, the window-shutters have been provided with bolts, and the guards have instructions to lock the doors of their compartments.

As my train rolled along through the level country I was surprised to note the number of rivers we crossed. These were the streams which vanish at the foot of the hills and reappear above ground farther south.

The country we pa.s.sed through was typical of Bengal--level plains well cultivated and dotted with clumps of bamboos, numerous villages and prosperous-looking farms.

In the early morning we reached Siliguri where we had to change to the Himalayan Railway. A crowd of sleepy pa.s.sengers descended and entered the refreshment-room in search of breakfast, while their servants gathered their luggage together. Then we took our seats in the tiny open carriages of the small train which climbs the steep slopes of the mighty mountains. At first it plunged into forest between huge trees clothed with orchids, walled in by dense undergrowth; for we were in the Terai again. Then it wound among the jungle-clad foot-hills and climbed ever higher, while the forest grew thinner and spa.r.s.er. Anon it emerged on the sides of the open bare mountains; and we looked down on the dark belt of trees and the plains spread like a map below us. We could trace for miles the winding course of the Tista, the wide river that flows down through the hills from Sikkim. Here and there we pa.s.sed by long stretches of tea gardens. In one place the railway forms a complete circle, looping the loop; so that, with a long train, the engine would be crossing over a bridge while the last carriage was still under it.

Beside the line ran the mountain road, by which heavily laden coolies toiled between the villages of rough wooden huts. At last the greatest elevation was reached at the small station of Goom; and the train ran down for a thousand feet and ended its journey in Darjeeling.

Mark Twain was enraptured by the beauties and marvels of engineering of this Himalayan Railway. But to me it seemed far less wonderful and lovely than the lines over the Rocky Mountains of his own country. I have crossed them by the Denver and Rio Grande route, where in broad Pullmans and big-windowed observation-cars we sat in comfort, and at an elevation of ten thousand feet gazed at the snow-clad peaks towering above us or, lower down in the deep gorges, strove to see the tops of the sheer, two-thousand feet high walls of the Grand Canyon, painted in brilliant colours by the lavish hand of Nature.

But Darjeeling was unique in my experience; for I had visited no other Himalayan Hill Station. A town on the mountain-tops, a town of pretty villas, large hotels, clubs and churches, of big English shops with plate-gla.s.s windows, of jumbled native bazaars thronged with thousands of men and women of a dozen different hill races. Broad, well-kept roads run along the ridges and up and down the steep hill-sides, lined with lovely gardens, in which stand fascinating European houses like the villas of Trouville and Deauville under the shade of giant orchid-clad trees. English ladies in smart frocks go by in rickshaws or reclining in chairs carried on the shoulders of strong coolies. Officers and civilians on well-groomed ponies trot past groups of st.u.r.dy-limbed Bhuttias or rosy-cheeked Lepcha women hung with turquoise and silver ornaments. British soldiers in khaki stop to chat with small, cheery Gurkha policemen by the roadside. Pig-tailed Sikkimese and Tibetan lamas fingering their rosaries stare into the plate-gla.s.s windows of shops that would not be out of place in Oxford Street and which display to the bewildered heathen Paris fas.h.i.+ons or the latest pattern of coloured s.h.i.+rts and smart waistcoats.

The central point of Darjeeling is the cross roads at the Chaurasta.

Here on one side the ground rises a thousand feet or more to the summit of Jalapahar, crowded with barracks and European bungalows. To the other the hill-sides slope steeply away covered with tea gardens. Along the ridge the road runs by a trim English Church in pretty grounds, the straggling building of the Amus.e.m.e.nt Club with tennis courts terraced one above the other, and on to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal's summer residence set in a lovely park. To the north the ground falls sharply another thousand feet; and one looks down on the roofs of the bungalows and British Infantry Barracks of Lebong, with its race-course around the polo ground and the rifle-range, seeming like a toy station set out far beneath. Below, the deep valley; and beyond it rises a jumble of mountains on mountains in bewildering profusion. And at dawn and evening above the clouds hangs high in air the long line of the Everlasting Snows. Over it towers Kinchinjunga, twenty-eight thousand feet high, with its jagged white peaks gleaming in the morning or pink-flushed in the rosy light of sunset; forty miles away, yet so clear and distinct that the beholder imagines he would be able to see a man on it, if some climber could scale its untrodden heights.

The abrupt change from the sweltering heat of the Bengal plains, seven thousand feet below, to the cool climate and refres.h.i.+ng breezes of Darjeeling is marvellous. In less than twenty-four hours the English dwellers in the hot and crowded city of Calcutta are borne to this gay Hill Station, which must seem another world to them. In the brisk mountain air the jaded visitors from the Plains revive and are filled with renewed energy; and one and all plunge feverishly into social gaieties. In India only in such places as this does one find the Englishman unoccupied by work; for in the East there is no leisured cla.s.s of Europeans. Even the Viceroys and Governors are busy mortals, and perhaps the hardest-worked individuals in the dominions they rule.

Every white man in India has his employment; for he is a soldier, a civil servant, a judge, a lawyer, a railwayman or a merchant. Each has his work and his place in the scheme of things. But in the Hills, save for those at the military or civil headquarters, he is on leave, and has come to enjoy a well-earned rest.

The life in an Indian Hill Station is unlike anything that we have in England. Gaiety reigns supreme. Games, races, dances, theatricals, and all such entertainments abound. To take Darjeeling as an example. In the mornings and forenoons the roads are thronged with riders or with ladies in chairs or rickshaws, going to pay calls or on their way to luncheon-parties. In the afternoons on the polo ground of Lebong the players on their agile little ponies jostle each other, or race after the ball. The tennis courts in the grounds of the Amus.e.m.e.nt Club are full. The skating rink inside the Club is thronged in the mornings, and when dusk falls, the lamps are lighted and the tea-tables are set out beside the polished floor. The nights are never dull; dinner-parties in the bungalows, restaurants and hotels, dances and theatricals at the Club, fill them.

In these Hill Stations the summer residents in the bungalows, the visitors at the hotels or boarding-houses, though they come from places in the Plains far apart, are of the same cla.s.s in life and know each other or of each other. For, except for the lawyers and merchants, the names of all are set forth in either of the two great books of India, the Civil Service or the Army List. And they are linked by the bond of a similar profession. All are members of the Club and see each other there every day. To all are sent invitations to each big festivity. The Lieutenant-Governor of the province has his summer residence in its Hill Station and gives a series of official entertainments to which are asked all those who have written their names in the book which, guarded by red-coat servitors, lies on a table in the veranda of Government House.

He is constrained by his position to give dances, dinners, and garden-parties, regardless of his private inclinations. For he is a very important personage, and lives in almost regal state. He has his military aides-de-camp, his military or police guard; the Union Jack flies from a flagstaff on his lawn as a sign of his dignity. He rules over a province as big as England and is supreme in his dominions unless the Viceroy chances to visit them. Think what a change it must be for such a proconsul when he has to retire and takes up his abode in a London suburb or a small country town, where he is unknown to fame, and unhonoured!

Life is indeed gay in these Hill Stations. To them flock the ladies to escape the burning heat of the Plains, leaving their poor husbands to grill and earn their pay while their wives are enjoying themselves up in the cool mountains. And the fair ones must be amused. So the bachelors, who can more easily afford to take leave than the married men, are at their service to ride, play tennis, dance and flirt with them.

The fortnight of my stay in Darjeeling was supposed to be quite a dull time in the Station; for it preceded the holidays of the Poojahs, a Hindu feast, when all the Government and mercantile offices in Bengal are closed and the Englishmen thus set free flock up to the Hills. These holidays lasted two weeks; and an elaborate programme of festivities was prepared for them. Yet during the period of my stay I found that there were to be three b.a.l.l.s, four afternoon dances, two days' races and two separate amateur theatricals. So it seemed to me a whirl of gaiety after the hermit-like seclusion of Buxa Duar.

On the first afternoon I rickshawed down into the bazaar or native quarter thronged with representatives of many hill races. St.u.r.dy little Gurkhas, pig-tailed Sikkimese, broad-shouldered Bhuttias, dusky Hindu women and fair-complexioned, red-cheeked Lepcha girls jostled each other in the narrow, hilly streets. In the open market-place were stalls of vendors of cheap commodities; and harsh-featured old women sat behind trays of rough-cut turquoises or smoothly polished imitations of the blue stone dear to the hearts of the female hill dwellers. In the bazaar many of the dingy native shops were filled with curios to attract the white resident or globe-trotter. Tibetan prayer-wheels, lama devil-dancers' masks, Chinese embroideries and roughly hammered bra.s.s G.o.ds were heaped in confusion. Trays of cut turquoises and lumps of matrix stood on the counters. The window of one shop was filled with skins of tigers, bears, and panthers; a sight to move the sportsman to wrath, for to him such things are trophies to be won in fair chase, not articles to be exposed for sale to the American tourist. I noticed that tiger-skins were ticketed at 20, the pelts of other animals at lower prices. Beyond the market-place, on a knoll, stood the European sanatorium, in which I was to find myself a patient months afterwards.

As I entered the Amus.e.m.e.nt Club at sunset, after my visit to the bazaar, I was quite bewildered by the sight of so many white folk. Outside, the tennis courts were emptying as the dusk fell. Inside the building the rink was crowded with skaters. Along one side of it were set out scores of tea-tables, around which sat ladies attired in the latest fas.h.i.+ons.

The card-room was full. People were changing books in the Club library or looking at the English ill.u.s.trated papers and magazines in the reading-room. And in the bar was gathered together a festive crowd of men of many professions and callings, though the military predominated, chatting and disposing of the "short drinks" beloved of the Anglo-Indian. Here I met two subalterns of my regiment, one on leave, the other on his way back to headquarters from Gyantse in the heart of Tibet, where he had been commanding the escort to the British Trade Agent. In that isolated spot, thirteen thousand feet above the sea, he had lived for eighteen months, solacing his solitude by stalking the wily ibex. Here, too, I came across the major of the Punjabi regiment whom I had relieved nearly a year before at Buxa Duar. After a cheery greeting he asked me pityingly how I managed to endure the loneliness of my little outpost. When he heard that I liked the existence there immensely he seemed to regard me as a half-demented individual. While I was chatting with him there descended upon me emissaries of a frantic amateur stage-manager who, having heard that I had had much experience in theatricals, besought me to take the place of one of his actors who had suddenly fallen ill, as the performance was to come off in two days'

time. The dress rehearsal of the piece, a well-known London comedy, was just about to commence in the Club theatre. Having consented I was borne off to it, a typed book placed in my hand and I dragged into the dressing-room to be "made up." I was already caught in the grip of the amus.e.m.e.nt machine.

Next morning I was up before the sun to see the gorgeous panorama of the Everlasting Snows. As the day dawned the lower hills were shrouded in clouds; but high above them rose the long line of snow-clad summits, seeming to float in air, unreal, unsubstantial in their beauty; and Kinchinjunga's white and jagged crest towered over them all and was the first to flush with rose colour in the rays of the morning sun. Then a veil was slowly drawn over the glorious picture, as the clouds soared slowly up from the lower levels and hid the gorgeous vision from sight.

I spent the day paying calls, rehearsing my part in the theatricals, and becoming acquainted with Darjeeling. I visited the beautiful Botanical Gardens, picturesquely situated on a steep slope and giving a wide view over the deep valleys below.

I found that the transition from the two thousand feet height of Buxa to the seven thousand of Darjeeling was rather trying at first; as the least exertion of walking and climbing soon left me breathless. In a few days I was quite accustomed to the superior alt.i.tude.

That night the bachelors of the Station gave a large ball in the Amus.e.m.e.nt Club. Their coat-of-arms--a bottle, slippers, and a pipe crossed with a latch-key--was blazoned on the walls. Gay was the revelry, which lasted well into the small hours; and I was glad that I was on leave and no early parade could claim me in the morning.

On the following night came another ball given by the Lieutenant-Governor in his official residence. Government House was filled with the wearers of pretty frocks and varied uniforms; and in the glamour of scarlet and blue mess-jackets the black-coated civilian was for once at a discount. But, alas! for the mercenary nature of the fair s.e.x; if he belong to the Indian Civil Service he is preferred to the soldier as a husband. For he is worth "400 a year dead or alive"; for his widow will get that amount as a pension. Whereas an ungrateful country dowers a lieutenant's relict with 40 a year, a captain's with 70, a major's 100 and a colonel's 120. So how can the red-coat compete with him in the matrimonial stakes?

The illuminated grounds of Government House and the cunningly-devised "kala juggas," as sitting-out places are termed in India, lured many of the dancers from the ball-room. At supper that night I sat at a small table with a merry little party consisting of the subaltern of my regiment on leave, Prince Rajendra of Cooch Behar and his partner, a pretty Armenian girl. And of the four of us two are now dead. The subaltern died a few months after attaining to his captaincy. Prince Rajendra soon succeeded his father as Maharajah, but only lived to enjoy his dignities two short years.

Next night the Club theatre was filled with a kindly disposed and enthusiastic audience to witness our performance of the comedy. As India is rarely visited by professional companies, which only appear in the large cities, it is mainly dependent on the efforts of its amateur actors. But these often, through natural talent and much practice, attain a degree of excellence that would not disgrace the London stage.

And few would gainsay this who saw the performances of "The Country Girl" given by another troop of amateurs before the end of my stay. They were under the direction of His Highness the Maharajah of Cooch Behar, who had lavished money on the production. The scenery and dresses had come from London; and the piece was magnificently staged. The singing, acting, and even the dancing could not be surpa.s.sed by at least any first-cla.s.s touring company in England.

The Maharajah had a house in Darjeeling where his entertainments were princely and his hospitality profuse. The ladies of his family were absent in Simla; but his sons were with him. Prince Rajendra, as befitted the heir apparent, had a separate house and an establishment of his own. Here one night I was present at a merry supper-party, after renewing my acquaintance and dining informally with the Maharajah.

Every day of my short stay seemed to have its particular gaiety. The races at Lebong were a sporting and a fas.h.i.+onable event. Down the steep hill roads from Darjeeling, a thousand feet above, poured the stream of Europeans in rickshaws or on ponies and of natives afoot early in the afternoon to the miniature race-course which is built on the cut-away hill-top. There is scant room for any horse to bolt out of it; for a few yards will bring it to the edge of the precipitous slopes around. In fact, the "straight" for the run home is gained by finis.h.i.+ng up the Darjeeling road. Most of the events were for hill ponies, st.u.r.dy and plucky little animals; and the jockeys were mainly natives. But the excitement of the crowds of race-goers of many shades of colour, the keenness of the plungers on the totalisator or with the few bookmakers, and the gaiety of the pleasure-seekers, could not be exceeded at Ascot or Epsom. The scene was an animated one. The enclosure was gay with the colours of the English ladies' frocks, the bright hues of Pa.r.s.ee women's _saris_, the white refreshment tents, and the uniforms of the military bandsmen; while outside was the varied crowd of British Infantry soldiers in red, gunners in blue, and natives of a score of different races, each in their distinctive garb. And over it all towered the heights of Darjeeling and Jalapahar; while on three sides lay the deep valleys, beyond which stood the mountains that barred the way to Sikkim and Tibet.

Such is life in a Hill Station. To a man not devoted to social frivolities existence in them soon palls. He tires of the sameness of tennis in the afternoons, the vapid conversation of the tea-tables, and nights spent in the heated atmosphere of ball-rooms. But to the fair s.e.x it appeals strongly; and they gladly hail the approach of the hot weather, which will free them from the monotony of small Stations in the plains and send them flocking to Simla, Darjeeling, Missourie or Naini Tal.

Who would not be an English woman in India?

As Gilbert says:

"They are treasured as precious stones And for the self-same reason--for their scarcity."

But they are not inclined to recognise this, and are apt to attribute the attentions paid them by the men to their own charms and not to the paucity of their s.e.x in the land. Consequently they are too liable to become conceited and over-bearing and forgetful of the fact that courtesy _is_ a ladylike quality. It is perhaps not to be wondered at that their heads get turned. The plainest girl, who in England would spend most of her time at a ball sitting with her chaperon, in India can fill her programme thrice over. She, who in her country village sees no men of her own cla.s.s except the parson and the doctor, out here finds herself among crowds of military officers and better-paid civilians who, prudence whispers, are more eligible _partis_. But the day has pa.s.sed when any failure in the English marriage-market can be s.h.i.+pped off to India, sure of securing a husband there. Frequent leave and fast steamers have altered all that. When men can find themselves back in England in a fortnight they are not so p.r.o.ne to wed plain-featured and dowerless maidens, sent out in search of a spouse, as were their predecessors in the old days when it took six months in a sailing s.h.i.+p to reach London from Calcutta or Bombay. The attractive but penniless girl in India has still a better chance of marrying than she would in England; for she is thrown in daily companions.h.i.+p with a large number of bachelors. But many a damsel who, dispatched by her parents with a single ticket to distant relatives or mere acquaintances in the East, thinks on first arrival that she has only to pick and choose among the surplus men and give herself airs accordingly, is forced to write home for her return fare and go back reluctantly to the unwelcome existence of an old maid. To my mind there is something almost immoral in the custom which prevails of girls going out to India as paying-guests in the known, if unavowed, hope of securing a husband. But the practice grows every year.

Yet the existence of a white woman in India is not all unalloyed pleasure. Her lot may be cast in some small out-of-the-way Station, where there is little society and less amus.e.m.e.nt. And even in larger places her life is empty enough. In the morning, perhaps, she goes for a ride and then has to shut herself up in her bungalow on account of the heat, until in the cool of the afternoon she can drive out to play tennis or golf and then go to the club, where she sits on the lawn and talks scandal with her female friends or, possibly, flirts with her male ones. She is not occupied with the cares of the household as is her less fortunate sister in England. Her cook goes to the bazaar early in the morning and then later appears before her to show her his account book and take her orders for the day. And she has little else to do to fill in the long, weary hours in the house from breakfast until tea-time. An occasional caller may come to pay his or her visit; but otherwise the time hangs heavy on her hands. Any accomplishments she may possess are apt to be neglected. Her reading is generally confined to novels from the Club library; and she seldom tries to improve her mind by more strenuous studies. In a land where all the white men are workers, she is idle. And so the English woman in the East is generally uninteresting.

The gossip and scandal of the Station are her chief topics. The wonders of the country she lives in, the strange life of the peoples outside her door, the greater questions of Empire, are a sealed book to her; and she is generally as commonplace as her untravelled sisters in English country towns. The clever Mrs Hauksbees that Kipling depicts are rare--more's the pity, for Anglo-Indian society would be brighter if there were more of her type.

The petty squabbles among the ladies of a small Station are pitiful.

The Anglo-Indian wife too often takes little interest in her husband's work, and so cannot prove very companionable to him. And this probably accounts for the extraordinary lat.i.tude he allows her in seeking the society of some particular bachelor with whom she rides, drives and sits in the Club every day, who becomes a standing feature in her life. The _menage a trois_ flourishes in India.

Hill stations have much to answer for in the frequency of domestic trouble in Anglo-Indian society. In the old days before they existed, and pa.s.sages to England were long and costly, the wives stayed by their husbands' side for weal or woe. What the latter could endure their spouses were not afraid of. Now, at the first signs of the approach of the hot weather, the married ladies, as well as the maidens, fly to the Hills. In Darjeeling I met many who said they had not seen their husbands for eight months--and yet I found them in October booking their rooms in the hotels for the following March. Naturally this separation does not tend to the continuance of conjugal love. And there is a still greater danger. A married woman arriving from the Plains to take up her residence in a hotel probably finds no other woman in it whom she has known before. Among the guests there is sure to be a preponderance of her own s.e.x; and though many ladies may call on her, they will probably be too much engrossed in their own concerns to give her much of their society. She sits by herself at table at meals and spends most of her time alone in her own room. Then some bachelor on leave, and staying perhaps at the same hotel, makes her acquaintance. He finds her pleasant and attractive, offers to join her in her solitary rides and walks, comes in often to chat with her in her private sitting-room, takes her to the many dances, and, as men are scarcer at them than in the ball-rooms of the Plains, engages half her programme and escorts her back to their hotel afterwards. Even from sheer loneliness she accepts his attentions and allows him to drop into the acknowledged position of her _cavaliere servente_. Two or three months of this daily, hourly companions.h.i.+p and--well, another Hill scandal is caused.

The man who brings a pretty wife to India is brave; the one who sends her away from him for six or eight months in the year is, to say the least of it, unwise. It is not fair to her to expose her thus to temptation. Far be it from me to a.s.sert that every Hill gra.s.s-widow forgets her absent husband. But many do; and all the blame should not rest on them.

The careful commanding officer of a regiment discourages his young subalterns from taking leave to Hill Stations. He knows that in such places mischief is too often found for idle hands. He urges them rather to go shooting in the jungles or in Kashmir. And certainly this latter is a better way for the youngster to spend his holiday than loafing about a Hill Station.

Despite the novelty of the life in Darjeeling and its social gaieties I did not repine when my time came to quit it; and my heart rejoiced as I got out of the train at Buxa Road, mounted the elephant awaiting me, and rode through the silent forest towards my lonely hills.

CHAPTER XIV