HffiSfi M man HBH Jra sura S3 »H< His J m m msst am 1 — « hkhsr HasB 1 E. F. GORDON TUCKER, f j STAVEKTOfl RD., OXFOBD. n <^ NATIVE LIFE AND p CHARACTER ^ PniNTED AT Til* ASYI.OH PkES*, Bt W.U THOMAS. ^-dur> £~ ^as~~~ ak, ii/w^t fSiV' nit «, ^^f-^-w-' CONTENTS. Page. THE MOONSHEE 1 THE INDIAN TAILOR 11 THE NATIVE JEWELLER 20 THE INDIAN SKIPPER „ 29 THE SOWCAR 39 THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER 50 THE INDIAN COOK 60 THE HISTORY OF RAMASAWMY BUTLER 69 THE INDIAN BARBER , ... 78 THE AYAH 87 THE INDIAN HAWKER 96 THE BILL COLLECTOR 105 THE INDIAN WASHERMAN 113 THE PEON 122 THE NATIVE GROOM 131 THE INDIAN JUGGLER 141 THE INDIAN MILKMAN 148 THE RYOT 156 THE SHIKAREE 164 THE MADRAS SEPOY 171 THE NATIVE POLICEMAN 180 THE MOONSHEE, HO is this individual just now entering our gate, and improperly blowing his nose thereat without the assistance of a pocket handker- chief ? It is our moonshee, whose portly presence is a visible denial to the assertion, that tuition is an employ- ment in which one receives more kicks than half-pence. Our moonshee is manifestly well-to-do in the world. His lofty, and dignified tread declares, that education has raised him above his fellows. Walking with another native, one would expect him to " Sir" his humble companion after the manner of Dr. Johnson. His clothes are of the purest white, his turban, tied that morning by Mrs. Moonshee's own hands, is a triumph of cleanly art. His spectacles are of tortoise- shell, and a symbol of his profession. They would be an excellent pair of barnacles but, that one glass is a strong magnifier, and the other is not ; but our moon- shee thinks highly of them, for they have been seve- ral times broken by his pupils, and last time, were repaired by a young gentleman at his own cost in this curious fashion. A horn snuff box, and some volumes of Hindostani literature, completes our moonshee's equipment, who is presently seated and conversing THE MOONSHEE. upon a subject all engrossing to moonhsees,— the last Hindustani examinations, and the names of the gentle- men who were " passed" or " plucked" under the ordeal. Three of our moonshee's pupils, have been qualified for the " higher standard" in Hindostani, and the professor is greatly elated in consequence, more especially as a rival moonshee, whom he hates as a mungoose hates a cobra, has only succeeded in getting his students their " little goes." " Ah !" says our moon- shee taking a copious pinch of native " blackguard," " I knew, that fellow would never pass the poor gentle- men that reads with him. He is a lazy rascal and ' a fop' — he knows nothing of English — a low fellow" — and in disgust, our moonshee decently goes outside to expec- torate his contempt. We have all our weaknesses, and, perhaps, the princi- pal weakness of the moonshee, is, his hatred of all his brother professors. No Prima Donna, who has just heard of the undoubted success of a new Diva, no Colonel commanding a crack cavalry corps who learns that he has been jilted for a curate, can nourish such feelings of envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness in his, or her bosom, as the moonshee entertains for his rival tutor. He does not need the malicious spurring of his pupils, to run down his brother moonshee and to trample, figuratively, on his foe ; it is sufficient to allow him latitude to discourse on this congenial theme, and he will pursue it for an hour, forgetting even to take snuff in his virtuous indignation. Like all other sorts and conditions of men, there are good moonshees and THE MOOXSHEE. bad ones, clever moonshees and stupid moonshees, and, of course, the latter preponderate over the former. We have known moonshees who were really well educated men, notably one, who could read an English novel, and understand it. A few of them have the talent of imparting instruction rapidly, and agreeably, and such a moonshee is in great request, every student of black classics wishing to employ him. A moonshee of this type, is one of the hardest worked men in existence, for he commences his monotonous labor at six o'clock in the morning, and with the exception of an hour in the middle of the day for dinner, and a " hubble bubble," and the time spent in travelling from one pupil's house to another, he is hard at work until 6 p. m. — sometimes until 10 p. m., if he has a pupil who likes to study after dinner. A popular moonshee once told the writer, that he was making two hundred rupees a month by this continuous labor, but, that his brain could not stand the monotonous nature of his work, if it was not for Friday and Sunday. The first day moonshees insist upon having as a day of rest. Upon our Chris- tian Sabbath, they are often worked nearly as hard as any other day, hard reading pupils being not always Sabbatarians. The popular moonshee, indeed, is a pains-taking, hard-working man, who honestly earns every rupee that he gets. Not so, an inferior moonshee, who is usually a slothful rogue, and an arrant humbug. Regimental moonshees are frequently of this class, often receiving their appointments by " interest," without any regard THE MOONSHEE. to qualifications, Their English is " pigeon" English, and their unfortunate pupils generally find, that when reading with these men, they are actually giving les- sons in English to their teacher, while they fancy he is instructing them in Hindostani. Knowing how unfit- ted they are to give instruction, they endeavour to make up for their deficiencies by a cringing demeanour, and a firm faith in the success of "cribbing" and "cram- ming." They believe, that all examinations are more or less unfair, and, that all examiners can be induced to give judgments contrary to the dictates of their con- science, by means of a proper quantum of acquaintance- ship and flattery. " Never mind saar," said one of these worthies to a pupil who had grave doubts of his " form" for an examination. " I make everything all right. You read these two pages in " Char Durwesh," the story of Hassan very easy. Examiner say. Now you come read. You open book and read Hassan. Examiner say very good. Jones Sahib going up to this examination. Very clever gentleman, I tink he get " high proficiency," you sit next Jones Sahib, then you copy translation from Jones Sahib's paper. Make two or tree mistake, that also good. Colonel Thomp- son Sahib President, Colonel Thompson my Colonel Sahib. He say, ' Moonshee bring me some chits for examination,' I bring all chits master read. Then I tell sepoys speak plenty easy with master — oh ! its all raight." But who can trust a rogue ? This worthy, all the time, has not the slightest intention, that his pupil shall " pass" by fair means, or by foul. He knows, THE MOONSHEE. that it will be many months before his innocent victim discovers, that it is his moonshee's fault, and not his own, that he is invariably plucked, and these many months are each worth twenty rupees to the moon- shee, who would suffer severely in pocket by the loss of such a promising pupil. At the examination, he will, probably, tell his friends, the sepoys, to talk upon just those subjects which his pupil knows least about, for we repeat, who can trust a rogue ? This " artful dodger" knows far more about schemes for tricking examiners than about his own or the Eng- lish languages, and he will tell how a Sahib passed his examination and translated a most difficult paper by means of an ink-stand with a drawer, in which the test paper was sent out to the moonshee and returned by him. How B. Sahib, feeling faint under the exertion of translating was compelled to sustain himself with sherry and sea biscuits, between which, like sandwiches, the moonshee's penmanship was concealed. How C Sahib permitted the sea breeze to blow his translation out of doors and into the moonshee's clutch, and how the latter worthy, allowed it to blow back again revis- ed and corrected. All these tricks and many more too tedious to mention, the lower class of moonshee will relate with great gusto should he receive any encourage- ment. Haply, he sometimes obtains a " serious" pupil who cannot perceive any joke in deceit. Then our moonshee is the most respectable of sinners — and if he mentions these practices at all, it is in terms of the severest reprobation. Curiously enough, although Hin- THE MOONSHEE. dostani moonshees are generally good Musselmans, abhorring the heathen rites of the mohorum, they are not unfrequently fond of the bottle, and when full of new wine, the most jovial of topers. Many years ago there was a moonshee in Madras known by the soubri- quet of " Lord John Russell/' from his likeness to the statesman. " Lord John" was much given to tippling, a fact, of which his pupils being well aware, he was most hospitably entertained by all the young officers with whom he read, one of whom would give him rum, another gin, another brandy, another whiskey, and so on. Under these circumstances it was not surprising that by three or four o'clock in the afternoon " Lord John" would be much the worse for liquor. About this time he was often to be met with on the Mount Eoad, driving his old broken-down professional buggy, painted of a lively green, without his turban, and sing- ing English songs at the top of a lusty voice. The Police knew " Lord John" and let him pass, but as the proverb says " long as the pitcher goes to the well — in this case a spirituous one — it will be broken at last/' One afternoon poor " Lord John" being in an extra- ordinary state of mops and brooms, was pitched from his perch in the old buggy and his leg broken. He never recovered the shock, and was buried to the grief of many sorrowing cadets, whose Hindostani studies principally consisted in watching their drunken instruc- tor dancing sarabands and singing songs in a manner the most indecorous. The superiority of the Hindostani moonshee in clean- THE M00XSHEE. liness and many other respects, over the Tamil and Telugu moonshees is very remarkable, especially in the Mofussil. A Musselman moonshee has manners — often very good ones. The common Telugu moon- shee has none, and his habits are disgusting. It is in fact, a most unpleasant task to study Tamil or Telugu with one of these men. Being one and all of gentle king Jamie's opinion, that scratching is a luxury only fit for a monarch, they will give their cuticle little rest during the course of study. They will also highly scent themselves with assafcetida and indulge in so many eccentricities, that it is surprising the Government has never thought of offering a larger " moonshee allow- ance" for the study of these languages than for the study of Hindostani. The study of the vernaculars always disagreeable, more or less, is greatly enhanced by the close companionship of a soi disant moonshee, in reality no better than the commonest cooly in the bazaar. To return to the Hindostani tutor who is indeed the typical moonshee of India, he is, perhaps, on the whole, the most enlightened of the lower class of natives. That he is so, is not surprising, for his pro- fession brings him into contact with Europeans of all classes and dispositions, and he imbibes very freely, our proclivities and our prejudices — still, his career is not always a respectable one. Some years ago, there was a moonshee at the presidency who was much liked by his pupils as a merry old gentleman, and a good teacher. He obtained the appointment of treasurer, or something similar at the " lunger khana" or poor house, THE MOONSHEE. and his grave face and reverend beard, might have led any one to believe in him as a model of musselman propriety. Like Mr. Benjamin Higg, however, this moonshee created some sensation by a sudden disap- pearance, when it was found out, that acting on the maxim, that charity begins at home, "the treasurer" had made away with the paupers' rupees. Fearing a prosecution, this worthy fled to Hyderabad, the gene- ral refuge for bad characters, the America of the Madras Presidency, where he lived jovially, teaching officers in Secunderabad, who were unaware of his peccadillos, Hindostani as formerly. He disappeared from Hyderabad again on a hint of "York, your wanted," and the writer does not know what has since become of him. He has, probably, set up as a Moulvie, or a saint in some obscure village, where his talents as a priest, and a doctor, will command the reverence of the simple inhabitants. The moonshee, indeed, combines the professions of priest, or at least deacon and doctor, with that of tutor, and he is never in finer feather than when on Friday he reads the khoran at mosque to an attentive congre- gation. As a doctor, he is simply a herbalist, of the stamp of that individual on Tower Hill, who used to thrust a basket of Dandelion leaves, crowsfeet and weeds under the noses of the passers-by, with the knock em down argument of " Heaven made the 'erbs of the field and why shouldn't man eat em ?" Insects, as well as herbs, are of weight in the moonshee's pharmacopia, and we have known him to prescribe red THE MOONSHEE. bugs, taken internally, as the philospher's secret for the prolongation of life. Debarred by the rules of eti- quette, from enjoying during the day, except for one brief hour, the consolation and delight of the studious — a pipe ! the moonshee is an enormous snuff-taker, having great faith in the refreshing and stimulating action of pulverised tobacco. It used to be, nay ; per- haps, it is even now the custom, for youthful pupils to adulterate the moonshee's snuff box with red pepper and gunpowder, but it is a trick the professor can never forgive. Practical jokes, and " chaff," of an ordinary nature, the moonshee will submit to with dignity, and even good humour, but play tricks with his snuff box or his spectacles, and he is touched to the heart. He can make no allowance for trifling with such matters, and it is in his estimation an unpardonable offence meriting everlasting " plucking," at the least. Some- times our moonshee ambitiously attempts to make a name for himself as an author. A Mofussil moonshee, some years ago, proposed to translate Shakespeare into Hindostani, but never got further than a portion of " Hamlet." The translation was a tissue of ingenious absurdities, as may be imagined, when the translator rendered " the slings and arrows of outrageous for- tune" by a "pellet bow," arguing, that the weapon partook of the double character of a sling, and an arrow compelling instrument. In conclusion, it may be said, that the moonshee is a staunch conservative and deeply deplores the re-organization of the native army. He has lost many hundred rupees by this military change, 10 THE MOONSHEE. and his "grievances" in this matter, have taken the place, it is to be regretted, of the rollicking conversa- tions on things in general, which it was once the good pleasure of the moonshees to favor us with. 3E INDIAN TAILOR. — »-»^»af#s^^«^«i— ,ING David avers, he said in his haste all men were liars, and it is not unlikely, that the Royal Psalmist arrived at this conclusion after the purchase of some gems from an eastern jeweller of the period, for, of all the natives of the Orient, there are none to whom one might so suitably apply the stigma of class falsehood, as to the dusky Storers and Mortimers of the land of the sun. The first introduction of Europeans to Indian Jewel- lers, is not of a nature to give the latter a high place in western estimation. It usually takes place at Galle, in the Island of Ceylon, and at the " Mansion House Hotel," or in the cinnamon gardens. At these places, the native jewellers open their wallets, and display to the enchanted griffin, a profusion of precious stones of all the colors of the rainbow, and of, apparently, inestimable value. " Oh ma ! do look. Does it not remind you of "Alladin" and the Arabian Nights" cries, or rather gasps, Miss Greenhorn, just fresh from England, and consigned to the Calcutta market, while Ensign Hart who has loved the young lady with a THE NATIVE JEWELLER, 21 consuming and devouring passion all the way from Suez, clutches his letter of credit for £40, which he keeps for safety sake constantly in his breeches pockets, and thinks, how no sooner shall his charmer pass on, then he shall then and there negotiate his note, and invest its proceeds in the glittering baubles which cause bright Bella's eyes to dilate to twice, and even three times their natural size. But Mrs. Greenhorn puts a stop to raphsodies and monetary operations, — good woman, she has not lived many years in India for nothing. " Pshaw my dear !" she says, " they are all glass," and so they are. But all travellers are not so shrewd as Mrs. Greenhorn. The writer once saw a sporting nobleman on his way to the Indian jungles, give £30 for a Ceylon ruby ring, which was afterwards discovered to be a fine specimen of glassware, and he knew a Dutch officer, on the staff of a Governor of Java, to give £5 for an enormous cat's eye ring, which if real, would have been worth a fortune, the stone being nearly the size of a bantam's egg. Being of Brummagem manufacture, its intrinsic value was about half a crown, nevertheless the Dutchman wore the treasure on his thumb, where it had somewhat the appearance of a precious knuckle duster, nor, with Dutch phlegm, could he be induced to consider, that he had not made an excellent investment of his capital. " How ! you say dis cat his eye non ? Nevare mind ! It ver loike him" — and Mynheer was content. However, we must all pay for experience, though that experience is irritable, which is gathered from the spectacle of a friend paying 22 THE NATIVE JEWELLER. five shillings in the purchase of a similar article, to that, which half an hour before, cost us £5, as a bargain, but the more dealings we have with native jewellers, the more convinced we are of the necessity of putting only- cautious trust in their goods, and no confidence what- ever in their affirmations. Ceylon jewellers, with countenances as brazen as the metal they pass off for gold, will carry, not uncommonly, a box of Palais Royal jewellery, without a single real stone in their stock in trade, but such is not the practice of the Indian native jeweller. He has to deal with children who have been burnt and dread the fire, so he judiciously mixes real jewellery with false, and will even set bits of glass in bond fide gold, wherewith to beguile the unwary. It is no easy task for an amateur to detect the difference between an inferior emerald or ruby, such as a jeweller can afford to sell cheap, and a piece of colored glass, when the latter is set in 18 carat gold — and the purchaser's own imaginary shrewdness, plays into the jeweller's hand with a certainty that is refreshing. Thus we once knew a gentleman to purchase a green glass ring for an emerald ditto, because, with his own hands, and with his own phial of aqua fortis, he had tested the setting and found it real — vanity, in truth, plays us strange tricks. It has often struck us as admirable the patient manner in which a native jeweller will sit down in a verandah and turn out his treasures for inspection. He will modestly leave his coach at the gate, take off his slippers, and with the greatest humility reveal to THE NATIVE JEWELLER. 23 admiring eyes thousands of rupees worth of jewellery, which he will permit a total stranger to handle as he pleases, apparently, without any watch upon his motions, but he is all the time keenly alive to the safety of his property, as the following anecdote will show. Two young officers in Her Majesty's Regiment, talking after mess of this peculiarity of native jewellers, agreed to make a bet on the subject. One of them, who was remarkable for sleight-of-hand, and conjuring tricks with cards, wagered, that he would secrete some article of jewellery without the jeweller's knowledge, and accordingly, next day, a jeweller was sent for, and the trial commenced in the presence of several other officers. Article after article of glittering gold and burnished silver, was displayed, until on the floor there was a perfect heap of baubles, some of trifling cost, some of great value. At a favorable moment, and with- out even the knowledge of the other parties to the trick, the conjuror slipped a little silver elephant broach up his sleeve, from where it lay with a quantity of others, all of a pattern. The jeweller took no notice — one or two things were purchased, and the man of trinkets commenced to pack up his goods. The face of the other party in the bet grew long, while the conjuror was all smiles. Betting was fifty to one on the conjuror, and such odds were actually offered, and given, by two of the parties present, who went outside to transact their business. The jeweller calmly packed up everything, neatly tied his cloth round his bundle, and then, and not till then, astonished the mortified conjuror with a 24 THE NATIVE JEWELLER. request for five rupees the value of " elephant broach." " I bought no broach from you," he said with feigned indignation. The jeweller smiled. " Master know very well. Look master's sleeve/' he said, and so the conjuror was sold. He vowed a Houdin might possibly rob an Indian jeweller, but no one less eminent in the science of natural magic could hope to do so. Native jewellers are very chary of displaying their finest gems, nor will they readily show them to people whom they are aware cannot afford to purchase stones of great value. They keep their Kohinoors, and pearls of great price, securely bound in a cloth waist belt, and they seem to fear the evil eye of those who look upon them. Once, at our solicitation, a jeweller from whom we had purchased many things, mysteriously produced from his waist cloth a diamond of such size and splendour as we have rarely seen. The stone must have been worth 50,000 rupees ; he said a lakh, and his anxiety was extraordinary for the few seconds it remained in strange hands. The man was not easy until it was returned to safe hiding in his waist belt. This stone, he said, was carried down from Delhi in this fashion, for the purpose of being sold to a merchant in Bombay. How it was to be conveyed from Bangalore to Bombay, did not appear. We believe, however, that there is a sort of masonry among native jewellers, and that they trust one another to a considerable extent. They are also, paradoxical as it may appear, a very honest and dis- honest class of men at one and the same time. Give a native jeweller five gold mohurs to make into a trinket, THE NATIVE JEWELLER. 25 and he will restore you the full weight of your money. He might adulterate the gold, but he does not, and yet, the same man, will impose mock jewellery upon you if he can. No doubt, the surest mode of obtaining the value of one's money in native jewellery is to invite the jewel- ler to work in the employer's house, and under his eye, but this, jewellers are very averse to doing, as they work best at home. Happily, however, we never knew an instance in which the jeweller prigged, or adulterated any of the gold entrusted to him. The jeweller's profession is a popular one in Hindoo land, and it is surprising what a number of jewellers the country supports. As we wonder, how on earth, all the barristers in Great Britain get a living, so we may wonder how employment can be found for all the jewellers in India ? The large towns are full of them, and every small town, nay, almost every village, has some sort of jewellers or jeweller of its own. Possibly nose rings and bangles require a deal of repairing, but even allowing for the caprice and recklessness of the brown sex, we cannot account for the number of jewel- lers in the land. Perhaps, the secret is to be found in the profitable nature of the profession, and in the prizes which it offers to the fortunate of its members, for many wealthy sowcars have commenced life as jewel- lers, and many wealthy jewellers are professed money- lenders as part and parcel of their trade. It must also be taken into consideration, the immense quantity of jewellery required by natives who wear their fortunes in their ears and noses, and the absolute necessity of 26 THE NATIVE JEWELLER. jewellers to natives to convert money into securities. The jeweller is indeed the stockbroker of the lower class of natives, and he is the most loyal among his compatriots, well knowing, that peace, and an undis- turbed state of society are necessary to the profitable practice of his trade, In England whenever there is a popular outbreak, the people rush inevitably to the gunsmith's shops. Not so in India. Here, the first idea of the populace is to loot their jewellers, so the manufacturer of gold and silver ornaments, has a bad time of it in a " row." None suffered more in the mutinies than the jew r ellers, as they were looted indis- criminately by foes and friends, and jewellers, will even to this day, speak of "that bad time" with a sigh. We have been assured by one of them, however, that the mutinies put in circulation a great number of jewels which would otherwise have remained concealed or buried in out-of-the-way places by their owners. So far, the mutinies were good for trade. There was a time when Indian jewellery was more highly esteemed in Europe than it is at present. Some years ago, no person returned from India — at least if he could afford it — without a quantity of Delhi, Agra, Cuttack, and Trichinopoly jewellery, wherewith to delight his friends — now-a-days, to carry such jewellery home, is to take coals to Newcastle, many of the London jewellers having as good selection of Indian jewellery as is to be found in this country. Further in former years, the characteristics of Indian jewellery used to be solid weight, intrinsic value, but, clumsy workmanship. THE NATIVE JEWELLER. 27 Now, it is different. Since Indian jewellers have taken to copy the designs of the European trade, their trinkets are much more neatly finished, but not nearly so solid as they were of yore. There are Anglo- Indians, especially of the fair sex, with money and time not a little to spend, who take a delight in causing native jewellers to carry out in gold and silver designs originating in their own brains, and some of these designs are very j)retty, while others are just the reverse. A gold mohur set for a brooch, in a circle of gold, was a lady's idea, and a good one, — and a tiger claw, also set in gold for a brooch, was a unique idea, and the design of a well known sportsman in the Deccan, but what can be said of the taste of a man who wears a hog's tusk as a pin, or the refinement of a lady, who wears a huge royal male Bengal tiger stamped in gold with tail erect on her bosom? — and yet we have seen these trinkets, and many others equally absurd, in jeweller's boxes as the designs of Europeans. The native jeweller turns out his work so well, without proper instruction, that it has often struck us as strange, that the first-class jewellers of London, Paris, Vienna, etc., do not employ some Hindoo workmen in their establishments. In grotesqueness of design, and in delicacy of touch, the native jeweller, uneducated as he is, is not inferior to many a first class European artist, and with proper instruction, he should prove a very good speculation to a London jeweller. He is a hard-working, patient-laborer also, his feast days excepted, when, if he is idle, and drunken, it is as much 28 THE NATIVE JEWELLER. due to his " custom" as his inclination. In conclusion, it may be said, that Trichinopoly holds a place in the estimation of the jewellers of Southern India, similar to that which Edinburgh holds in the esteem of Scotsmen. Trichinopoly is the " Modern Athens" of these jewellers, and its rock is their " Arthur Seat.'* It is the head-quarters of the craft, and a great number of the best jewellers who w T ander over India, have graduated in the city of cheroots and filagree work, and there become expert in the manufacture of the most beautiful specimens of a beautiful art. <& THE INDIAN SKIPPEK, IDJJ |^ AN Y" years ago, before the British India Steam Navigation Company was in existence, it hap- pened, that the writer urgently desired to visit Ceylon, and failing any better accommodation, took his passage on board the native non-descript Futteh Salam, Runga Naidoo, Master, bound with a mixed cargo, chiefly evil-smelling, for Point de Galle. The Futteh Salam, as she lay tossing, and rolling in the Madras roads, would have puzzled a Deal boatman to declare her rig or her nationality. She was frightfully " down by the head/' and dipped her nose constantly into the briny element as if she was suffering from an influenza, and was vainly asking Father Neptune for the loan of a pocket handkerchief. Her stern was battered, and of an antique school of naval architecture, and was given to that " kicking up behind" which characterised the " Old Joe" of the Ethiopian melodists. Her sides were not any way remarkable for symmetry, but she appeared to be of good temper, and ever laughing at some sea- faring joke, for they were always drawn in as if she was ever about to take a good breath for a regular guffaw. Her rig was, as we have said, non-descript, but her masts, (she had two) raked so well forward as 30 THE INDIAN SKIPPER. to put to shame the aspirations of captains in crack frigates, who would have their fore top gallant masts bow gracefully to the flying jib-boom. In other words, she looked as if she was built, and rigged, to discover the secrets of " Davy Jones's Locker," and " Fiddler's Green" rather than to skim the surface of the capricious deep. An immense flag of dirty yellow bunting, on which was printed in red letters of great size Futteh Salam streamed from her main top gallant mast head, and her sails, which were partly cut in accordance with the English fashion, partly in accordance with the muster obtaining on board of Chinese junks, flapped in the wind, threatening to destroy themselves against the coir shrouds, as the skipper gave orders to weigh in, a fresh breeze fortunately blowing off the land. " Sons of dogs ! Of unclean female pigs ! Disgraceful off- spring of bestial grand-mothers/' he roared in the vernacular to his crew, " haul and heave away," and so saying, crammed the helm hard a-port, while the ship's company, a sorry lot, forcibly reminding one of Falstaff's recruits, howled, and yelled like distempered dogs, creating a kind of " Rataplan" accompaniment to the skipper's curses, as they rushed to and fro with their stamping naked feet over the hollow and resound- ing decks. " No saar ! no saar ! beg pardong saar !" roared the skipper, like a veritable black Bull of Bashan, as the result of these manoeuvres, was, to run the Futteh Salam, so close athwart the forefoot of a Yankee ship as to threaten her bowsprit — " No saar ! no saar !" in reply to the glance of the American THE INDIAN SKIPPER. 31 captain which gleamed bowie knives, and six shooters " not my fault saar !" " Tell you what, you cuss, next time you fall foul of me I'll make you smell h — 1," answered the Yankee, and with this blessing on our voyage, we literally staggered out to sea, the Fntteh Salam seeming more and more in want of a pocket handkerchief as we gained an offing. It was evening when we started, and close upon full moon, and as placid Luna rose above the waves, the sea went down, thereby affording the only European on board an opportunity to ferret out the accommoda- tion of the vessel. An opportunity, but no more, for accommodation there was none. The skipper, indeed, had the enjoyment of a species of bandycoot hole, in which he could coil himself away in the extreme stern of the craft, and this location he offered to give up to his passenger, but so impregnated was the den with the smells of hubble-bubbles, curry stuff, and insects whose names are not to be mentioned in ears polite, that we made up our mind to roughing it on the deck, trusting, that as the month was January, and we were skimming before the North- West monsoon, any inclemency of the weather would afford us but little annoyance. The sea was tolerably smooth, the heavens cloudless, and the bright moon shone forth deliciously on the waters, so we were not so badly off, after all, when, stretching a matrass on deck, we lit the everlasting manilla, (No. 1) and courted sleep by thinking, and calculating the odds whether Lord Harris, then Governor of Madras, would give us a staff appointment or not. But the Futteh 32 THE INDIAN SKIPPER. Salam was no sleeper. She was, like some of her sex, awake to mischief. She yawd terribly, sometimes turning her blunt nose to land, anon to sea. The skipper was in his bandycoot hole eating his evening meal ; the steersman for it is impossible to call him a " quarter master," was more than two-thirds in the land of Nod, there was nothing for it but to smoke and think of Lord Harris and shipwreck on the seven pagodas. Presently, all reveries were disturbed by the appearance of the skipper, who issued from his hole carrying a gourd-like pitcher under his arm. Seaman- like, he looked aloft on gaining the deck, but he did not ask " how was her head ?" " Keep three coss from the land," he said instead, and the man at the helm replied, not with an "Aye aye, sir!" but a " ho ! Sahib." u Saar ! this beautiful time for a glass of grog" said the skipper producing a tumbler. " I many year tindal in Hugh Lindsay" he continued " I know good grog — you try," and he poured out some capital rum, telling at the same time a sailor to bring water. The politeness was well meant, and accepted, and we presently found ourselves listening to the life and adventures of a Nacodah, the interest of his conversa- tion however, being somewhat marred by the aroma of garlic which was shockingly apparent, when, in polite language the narrator coughed — which he frequently did as the consequence of a heavy meal of native curry. " Yes Saar V he continued reflectively, after drink- ing a tin measure of raw rum, " I first go to sea in Hugh Lindsay, I small boy then, and 1st lieutenant THE INDIAN SKIPPER. 33 servant — many times I sailed to Suez, and one time we had a big fight with Arab Dhows in the Red Sea. We take out all the slaves, and bring back to Aden, that time my prize money 30 Rupees. Sometime Hugh Lindsay go to Calcutta, sometime go to Singapore. One time there we take Malay pirate, and burn and sink her, that time I made tindal." " And why did you leave the service ?" " Too much hard work, 1st lieutenant always cursing and swearing, like that Yankee man dere. No good. One day midshipman say " Lunga Naidoo, this very bad life, I tink I leave man-of-war and get country ship. I say, all right Saar, and for three year I sail with Robinson Sahib to Burmah and Madras in the Pestonjee Family. We bring teakwood from Rangoon, but very old ship and take in plenty water. Always too much pump. Robinson Sahib very funny man. He always have holes in his jacket and trowsers. For that reason they make plenty joke with him in man-of- war, so I tink he leave the service. That time, Captain of his own ship, he too much drinkee, and go mad. One day he jump into the sea, and we never see him again. I sail ship for Madras, but we see land in Pondicherry." " How is it you are not a Mussulman, most lascars are Mahomedans ?" The Nacodah smiled contemp- tuously. " When man go to sea, from that time he have no religion, no caste, I Christain, I Mussulman, I Hindoo, I everyting. The owners of dis ship they don't say 34 THE INDIAN SKIPPER. Runga Naidoo, what your caste ? but they say, Runga Naidoo, Can you sail ship, can you make ship run fast ? Starboard dere ! This very bad crew, don't know nothing. I take rope to dem sometime, but this no like man-of-war. Last year, making voyage from Galle, I give one man a dozen, and he put datura in the pot with my rice* I very near poison — after that I drove him overboard, and I say, now you dam rascal, you drown and go to the d — 1 — but he swim too well, and he got aboard a dhonie. I never see him again. The Futtek Salam a good ship, but the owners very stingy people, they won't pay for proper crew or for any ting. They give me 30 Us. a month and com- mission, but I have to do all the work myself. I tink time to take in sail, good night Saar." Our skipper was certainly a cautious navigator. Although the night was fine and a steady breeze blow- ing on the vessel's quarter, he would not take advantage of it, but — his invariable practice — must needs shorten sail for the night, to do which, he had to kick up the sleepy crew, one by one, and muster them, rubbing their eyes, and scratching their backs, on the forecastle. Two sails, one of the Chinese pattern, were taken in with great difficulty, when the ship losing speed, rolled along with an unsteady lurch from side to side, the ricketty old masts, creaking and groaning, as if sick of her society, and anxious to part company. Giving strict directions to the man at the wheel, on no account, to lose sight of land, but to keep " three coss out," the Nacoda disappeared in the bandycoot hole, and the THE INDIAN SKIPPER. 35 crew generally went to sleep, to judge from the snores which proceeded from all parts of the vessel. Next morning the weather was fine, but the wind died away, and for some hours we lay nearly becalmed. More sail was put on the vessel, when the skipper piped all hands " to fish" for breakfast. This summons, the crew obeyed with something like alacrity, and there was presently a dozen fishing lines over the sides. The skipper kindly offered his passenger a line, and a rude hook baited with the entrails of a fowl, and we fished in dignity, on twelve foot square of quarter-deck, which the skipper insisted his crew should salute, man-of-war fashion, whenever they set foot upon it. In a few moments, the skipper hauled up a large fish, species unknown, and taking a knife cut it into small pieces for bait which he distributed among the crew. Then the fun grew fast and furious. Fish of sorts, some of them veritable monsters, were dragged on deck as fast as the lines were thrown out, until, a breeze springing up, put a stop to the sport. Having a servant on board, with a supply of bread, etc., we had a good breakfast of fish curry preceded by a bath, the skipper himself, courteously drawing the water from the sea in a bucket and pitching it over his guest. After breakfast, a large shark was seen swimming after the vessel, and to this monster the worthy Captain and crew all did solemn " poojah" salaming to the fish with the greatest gravity. By and bye, the Nacodah explained, that the spirits of deceased evil Hindoos, are supposed occa- sionally to take up their abode in the interior of sharks, 36 THE INDIAN SKIPPER. and it is well to propitiate such spirits, lest they produce tempests, and swallow the crews of vessels when strug- gling in the water. He threw the monster a handful of rice of which it took no notice, and was shocked when we hinted a hook and a piece of pork would be more to the purpose. At twelve o'clock noon, the skipper with his own hands served out a ration of vile bazaar arrack all round to the crew, and taking a swig of about a pint of rum himself, Captain and men all courted the arms of Morpheus once more. Profound silence reigned in the dirty old dilapidated ship, which had evidently once seen better days, and even the steersman nodded at the helm, allowing the Futteli Salam to steer any course she pleased, which managed to be right before the wind. Reading under the shady side of a sail, the writer dropped into a siesta, from which he was rudely awakened by an uproar on deck. The skipper, a powerful, sinewy man, had a hold of the helmsman by the top knot on his head, and was kicking him viciously in the stomach. The cause was evident, the man had gone to sleep, and the Futteli Salam was most unpleasantly close to the surf which broke on the shore with a sullen roar. The crew were dragging about the yards on the fore mast, first one way, and then the other, but the jib saved us. It brought the watery nose of the Futteh Salam round with a jerk, and we rolled, and plunged, like a porpoise, off seaward once more. It was some time before the skipper recovered his equanimity, and before we steered our old course. He declared, his crew would be his ruin, and would lose THE INDIAN SKIPPER. 37 him the 30 Rupees a month on which he supported a wife and an interesting family. He sighed for the discipline of a man-of-war, and related some cruel punish- ments he had witnessed in the Indian navy with hearty gusto. " They always sleep, sleep, sleep, lazy lubbers," he said " they tink Captain do every ting," then he related how on a certain occasion, when master or Nacodah of the native ship Durea he Bagh or the Sea Tiger he fell in with bad weather off the gulf of Manaar, and how the crew were terribly frightened by seeing a number of seamen and women, or the mermaid of those waters, round the vessel. How they swallowed their whole stock of opium and bang, and drank all the arrack they could get hold of, and how, finally, the crew being all stupified, asleep, or drunk, the vessel was driven into the surf and dashed to pieces, he the skipper alone surviving to tell the tale. At this time, the quarter- master he had kicked, came aft with his hands clasped across his wame, complaining of internal pain. The skipper was equal to the occasion as a physician. Procuring some pepper and spices, he mixed them up in about half a pint of cocoanut-oil which he made the man swallow. We heard no more complaints from the patient. Our Nacodah now waxed confidential, and hinted, that he could put us in the way of making a fortune at a small outlay. After much unnecessary mystery, the El Dorado was discovered to be the purchase of a few barrels of pearl oysters which were sold publicly by the Ceylon Government, purchasers taking their chances of finding pearls therein, or, 38 THE INDIAN SKIPPER. nothing. It may be said here, that in a verdant youth, we invested 100 Rupees in the speculation and found — the latter. Finding this bait take, our Nacodah, during the rest of the voyage, proposed many specu- lations which he declared would yield a fortune to a capitalist. Smuggling from Pondicherry and Yanam, was one of these, and another was, to embark a number of his countrymen from the coast for Burmah and the Straits, and to take them up the Red Sea for sale to the Arabs. In short, our Nacodah was a living example of the proverb that " Familiarity breeds contempt," and the more we saw of him the less we liked him. We parted from him at Galle under the supposi- tion we should never see him again, but we did ; and of all places in the world, in the London docks, where he informed us, he was Serang of the native portion of the crew in a Bombay vessel then unloading a cargo from the west coast of Liverpool. The Futteh Salam had been wrecked off Point Divy, on a voyage to Bimlipatam, he informed us, owing to the abominable laziness of the crew, and being unable to obtain any other employment at Madras as a Nacodah, he had tried Bombay that refuge for the destitute. He spoke highly of the dock missionaries who were much interest- ed in him, and so we shall bid him farewell believing that taking him and his vessel all in all, we shall not readily look on their like again. THE SOWCAR. J Jf England, we occasionally hear a Crusade preach- fed against those Jew and Christian money- lenders, who profess to afford " accommodation" to gentlemen in the army, and gentlemen generally, and the intention of making public the rascalities of these money-lenders, is undoubtedly good, only, it is to be feared, that the money-lenders will suffer very little from anything severe the public can say of them. One need not study Adam Smith to know that a demand will create a supply, and that so long as officers and gentlemen in difficulties require money on bad security and at a usurer's rate of interest, so long will money- lenders be found to " accommodate" them, in the slang of the fraternity. The English Press has treated of Jew and Christian harpies, but has made no mention of those heathen usurers who are called " Sowcars" in this country, and who, in the case of military officers, not unfrequently commence the ruin which the Jews at home complete. The circumstance is not surprising, for the word " Sowcar" is an enigma to Englishmen who have not visited India. Once upon a time, a young officer serving in India, was told by his fond father to prepare a schedule of his debts for purposes of liqui- 40 THE SOWCAR. dation. The schedule was duly prepared, and an item of two thousand Rupees, set opposite the word " Sowcar." In process of time, the debts were all paid, but with a remonstrance from " the Governor" to this effect. " My dear boy," wrote the worthy old gentle- man, "Pray give up that hunting and shooting. ' Sowcars' are very expensive. No doubt, they are worthy people, and I have heard of them saving their employers from the grasp of infuriated tigers and elephants, but why not let the wild beasts alone ? How many elephants, how many tigers must you shoot, before you can hope to pay the hire of these people ? Take my advice, and give up shooting, it is a dangerous pursuit, and also a very expensive one." For a long time Master Jack could not discover the connection between Sowcars and field sports. He at last found out, to his intense enjoyment, that " the Governor" whose knowledge of Hindoostanee was very limited, had confused the words " Sowcar" and " Shikaree," whence the misunderstanding. Perhaps, the old gentleman was not so far wrong, after all, as his son supposed. Sowcars are hunters, mighty hunters, but their game is man, impecunious, or unfortunate man, whom their stamp paper cartridges knock over with a deadly precision. There are two remarkable species of the genus " Sowcar" in India. The Sowcar, who is also a banker, and has large dealings with Europeans, and the ordinary bazaar Sowcar, who is simply a money-lender and a usurer of the worst type. The banking Sowcar, is a THE SOWCAR. 41 pleasant individual to deal with, as long as it is unneces- sary to borrow money from him. Should such a con- tingency occur, his agreeability will vanish like a sprite in a pantomime. Natives of the better class, are usual- ly smoothly polite, but the smoothness of the wealthy banking Sowcar can only be compared to soaped ice. His politeness, is the politeness of the Spanish Grandee who tells his guest, that the house and all he has is at his disposal, and yet would be shocked at the rudeness which would take him at his word to the extent of a tooth-pick. It is a politeness which means nothing, and will only take in the veriest "griff" who sets his foot on India's burning shores. The banking Sowcar thinks of little else but the turning of Rupees, and unlike his European prototype, the wealthy and prosperous bill-discounter, does not take his pleasure while he makes his money. No fast trotters for him. No neat park hacks. No modest dinners at the Star and Garter, with the Lord Chamberlain's protegees. Our native bill-discounter is a man who lives for many months of the year a sober, frugal life, and only breaks out in extravagance when a son, or daughter is married, or upon the occasions of the great feasts of his caste. Then, indeed, he makes amends for previous self-denial, and will lavishly throw to the winds thousands which were the very life-blood of his victims, and thousands which he earned with the sweat of his own brow. Tem- perate all the rest of the year round, at these festivities, the " Sowcar" will worship Bacchus freely, but having been constantly drunk for a week, will return to his 42 THE SOWCAR. business as clear-headed as ever. Solomon expressed his surprise at " the ways" of certain puzzles, but among the wise king's enigmas, was not enumerated the way of the Sowcar with the subaltern, and yet it is a way that is wonderful. Only very recently, the writer was present at an interview, — supposed to tend to agreeable monetary transactions, — between Lieutenant Rakes, a Proba- tioner for the Central Indian Staff Corps, and Bobajee Balliah, Sowcar. The latter, a capitalist, worth, perhaps, £70,000, drove to the Lieutenant's gate in a dilapidated bullock coach, left his carriage standing out- side the compound, and taking off his shoes, approached his debtor with great humility — " I want Rupees 500 Bobajee," quoth Mr. Bakes in an off-hand manner. " Five hundred Rupees ! Oh o-oh !" said Bobajee, put- ting his hand to his mouth to conceal, apparently a laugh at such a tremendous joke. " Five hundred Rupees ! suppose master tell where I get 500 Rupees. See here" and fumbling in the pocket of his very dirty white dress, the capitalist produced two bonds for .Rupees 300 and 700, bearing the signature of Lieute- nant Rakes. " Put those things up, and let me have the money," said the Lieutenant testily. " The money ! Impossible" replied the Sowcar, " there is no money in the bazaar, and to get the money I should have to borrow it." An English money-lender would have told as great a lie, by saying, he would have to see " a gentleman in the city" first. Finally, after much "palaver," the Sowcar departed, no business having THE SOWCAR. 43 been done between the parties. As the settling day of the " Rutnagherry Sky Races," was fixed for the next week, and as Bobajee Balliah had ascertained the fact from Mr. Rakes's chief butler, a flirtation verbal, and epistolary, was, of course, kept up during the week between the subaltern and the capitalist. The money market was very tight in the estimation of both parties, and as the Lieutenant grew more hot, the Sowcar grew more cold, until, on the latest safe date, the latter con- sented to produce the money on conditions so ruinous, that the writer vainly entreated the Lieutenant not to accept them. The two former bonds on which 250 Rupees had been already paid, were destroyed, and a single bond made out for 1,500 Rupees to be repaid by instalments of Rupees 150 per mensem. In exchange for this bond, the Lieutenant got 380 Rupees ready money, and was at a dead loss of the 250 Rupees he had already paid in liquidation of his bonds formerly granted, and for which he had received in ready money only 700 Rupees. Thus, deducting Rupees 300, Rupees 250, and Rupees 226, from Rupees 1,500, it will be perceived that Rupees 796, or more than one- half of the total, was never received by the Lieute- nant at all ; who was as well fleeced in the transaction, as if, black sheep, that he was, he had fallen into the clutches of any advertising Jew usurer in the three kingdoms. It is true, that the Jew would have used the shears in a different manner. He would not have alarmed his victim by giving him £70 for a bond of £150. He would, probably, have given him £60 in cash 44 THE SOWCAR. and £10 in valuable " Murillos," shirt studs, and curious Amontillado, representing, in Jewish estimation, a value — as bargains — of £50. The Sowcar, however, has none of this meretricious stock in trade. He deals only in money, and he despises all the delicate deceits and refined arts of the bill-discounter's trade. He thinks, and thinks justly, that, people in difficulties require money more than " Murillos," and he goes straight to the point by offering money and hard cash to the needy at 100 per cent. When Europeans bank with these Sowcars, they will sometimes obtain 12 per cent, for their money, or more, but the Sowcar rarely is contented with less interest than 36 per cent. In the case of a used-up individual like Lieutenant Rakes, he will require, and obtain, 100 per cent. Such usury appears shocking at first sight. It must be remembered, however, that the Sowcar's investments are decidedly risky, for in many instances, they are biter's bit, and never see their money again. The writer has heard of a case, wherein a certain European regiment was indebted to a single Sowcar fifty thousand Rupees. The regiment was suddenly ordered to Europe, and it was years before the Sowcar recovered all his money, minus the compound interest he relied upon. Pro- bably, he made others suffer for this misfortune. He would not be a Sowcar of our type if he did not. In the good old days of pagoda trees, etc., etc., unless report greatly errs, some of the large fortunes which were brought home by " Nabobs" were mainly due to practises of usury. A company's servant possessed of THE SOWCAR. 45 five or six thousand Rupees, would place it in the hands of a banker Sowcar, to be laid out at usury. The European would obtain a high rate of interest on his money, and the Sowcar was either responsible, or not responsible, for the money in proportion, as the interest was moderate or exorbitant. It is unpleasant to think, that European gentlemen could be found unconscien- tious enough thus indirectly to sweat the miserable borrowing natives of the bazaars ; still the fact was notorious in days gone by, and may account for the rapidity with which the unlawful fortunes of the Nabobs melted away in their native land. The Nabob who shouted for " more curricles," we can readily believe, was a man who made his money in co-partnership with a Sowcar. If we desire to see the usurer in the light of a verit- able Indian Shylock, we must seek him, not among the higher class of banking Sowcars, who have their redeem- ing points, such as they are, but among the bazaar fraternity who carry on business on a trifling capital with a connection of petty tradesmen, servants, and poverty-stricken ryots. This Sowcar, fat, greasy, and keen-eyed, seated in his bazaar den, has ever reminded us of a bloated spider watching his web in the sun- shine. He is a wretch without a heart, or a single virtue of humanity, and although the dried carcases of his victims are not scattered about his " chabooter," we can make a shrewd guess at the number of unfortunates he has sucked dry. This man ruins many of our best servants. A wedding, a birth, or some other domestic 46 THE SOWCAR. occurrence, will in an evil moment induce a servant to borrow five, or ten Rupees from him. The interest charged will be most likely 50 per cent. The money is not punctually re-paid, and the debt increases. Per- haps, the borrower's family jewels have been pledged as security. The Sowcar threatens to sell them off. Driven to desperation, the hitherto honest servant, makes away with trifling articles of his master's property to keep down the interest. One fine day, a policeman, more energetic than his fellows, overhauls the bundle, which the dishonest servant is taking to the bazaar, perchance to a relative or connection of his creditor. The thefts are discovered, and the servant is put in chains and sent to work upon the roads. The sentence is just, still one cannot but regret, that the Sowcar, the cause of the crime, is not sent to bear his victim company. He is the worst of skinflints, and a man to whom mercy is unknown in dealing with a debtor. These Sowcars, not content with their other illegitimate gains, are frequently circulators of base coin, and if they find a Moses, like him in the "Vicar of Wakefield" among their clients, they are sure to pass off upon him three or four bad Rupees in twenty. In native regimental lines, or bazaars, they are dangerous pests, for they tempt the native ranks to borrow against the rules of the service, and having got the unfortunate soldiers doubly in a web, and completely in their power, they will use that power for the furtherance of intrigues which may seriously interfere with the discipline of the regiment. Many are the soubadars, jemedars, havil- THE SOWCAR. 47 dars, naiques, and sepoys, who have been utterly ruined by transactions with the bazaar Tarantula we refer to. Indian Sowcars are usually Hindoos, the craftiest of all natives, it being contrary to the " Khoran" for Musselmen to put out money at usury. The latter, however, evade the law, by lending their money to the Hindoo Sowcars, and so reaping a share of the profits. Remonstrating with a Musselman gentleman on this un-Musselman-like practice, he pithily replied, that as the Sowcars would be sure to be d d, a few Mussel- man Rupees could do them neither harm nor good in the other world, also, that as this consummation was devoutly to be desired, it was a good deed of a Mussel- man, to help them on their way to Jehannum, always, of course, with pecuniary advantage to the true believer. It has been said, that Sowcars humiliate themselves before their European debtors, and so act, in direct contradistinction, to X or Y or Z, the London money- lending capitalists whose advertisments we so often see in the English papers. This is, however, not always the case, for there are some Sowcars, who, apparently, take the same pleasure in entangling a European as a cat takes in playing with a mouse. Many years ago, the writer recollects an instance of a young officer being so plagued and dunned by a Sowcar for a trifling debt, that he could bear it no longer, but borrowed from another member of the Sowcar fraternity, the money wherewith to pay him. The first creditor was really grieved to get his money, and now took to pestering the young officer with offers of accommodation. 48 THE SOWCAR. Greatly exasperated, the latter determined to be reveng- ed and dissimulating, proposed a loan of Rupees 1,000. The disbursement of so large a sum required many con- sultations and " palavers," and in the course of the negotiation, the Sowcar was induced to trust his carcase to the tender mercies of a high-wheeled dog-cart, harnessed to an animal with blood-red eyes, and " cast" for incurable vice. It was a Tarn o'Shanter's ride. Cutting " Fly by Night" over his flanks, the owner threw the reins on the animal's back, then jumped to the ground unhurt. Not so the Hindoo capitalist. A burly man, he was compelled to hold on with might and main to the splashboard, when, if ever a Sowcar says his prayers, he said them in this moment of extreme peril. The jest was near proving a tragedy, even in those wild days, but the Sowcar received a lesson which he never forgot. He learnt, that wasps will sometimes get into a web as well as flies. It is a curious fact, that in India, where young men frequently borrow so recklessly, and at so high a rate of interest, we seldom hear of their coming to that untimely grief which rapidly overtakes the money- lender's client in England. This immunity on the road to Avernus, is probably due to the different policies pursued by Jews and Sowcars. The former " sell up" a client directly they conceive he is sucked dry. The latter cannot bear to part with him, even so long as he has the very shadiest "prospects," and nothing else. The immunity from extreme measures is, however, not of such a nature as to recommend itself to even the THE SOWCAR. 49 most thoughtless and extravagant. Those who have dealings with Sowcars, will some day sooner or later surely learn, that he who goes a borrowing, goes a sorrowing. THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER XJft readers who have frequently travelled up and down the Western Coast, must have met, more than once on board the coasting steamers, those picturesque Affghan, and North of India vagabonds, who annually bring strings of horses into Southern India for sale, marching the animals, and returning home by steamer when their stock is disposed of. Stalwart, swarthy men often with long hair flowing over their shoulders, and by no means over clean ; they are full of anecdote, and conversation if their venture has been successful, and a traveller may find a worse companion with whom to chat away the time on board- ship, than a North of India horse-dealer. It is astonish- ing what a number of " wrinkles" one of these worthies can impart to a European who seeks his confidence, for he will most unblushingly disclose the tricks of his trade, careless, or indifferent, that his hearer may one day be in a position to purchase a horse or a pony from him. These men are frequently accompanied by their wives and children. Strapping lasses of the complexion of English gypsies, and bow-legged, hinting that they have ridden many a long march astride their husbands' ponies. Like their lords, there is no false modesty THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. 51 about them. They will frankly, and fearlessly con- verse with a European, and they are keenly alive to any attention shewn to their Ishmael-like progeny. A hand- ful of almonds and raisins, or a mango from the cuddy table, bestowed on " the baby" will elicit many courteous expressions of gratitude, from these interesting people who are perhaps the shrewdest dealers in the world, the horse chaunters of Ballinasloe fair not excepted. It is popularly supposed, that the triumph of a dis- reputable horse-dealer's art, is to sell an unsound horse for a sound one, and it such is the case, these AfTghans are peerless in their profession. They might possibly be " taken in" in London or the Shires, or by a hunting squireen in the good country of Limerick ; but in India, upon their own ground, and dealing in country-bred horseflesh, they are incomparable in getting the better, not merely of Johnny Raws, but of men who profess to be, and are generally admitted to be, keen judges of a horse. For example. Once upon a time, a party of these men conveying about one hundred and fifty horses and ponies southward, rested a few days in a certain Central Indian station famous for the " horsy" and hog- hunting proclivities of its European inhabitants. It was known, that the Affghans had a batch of mixed horses in which were some good ones, and accordingly a Captain Z., who was notorious as a judge of a good horse, was in great request by more diffident gentlemen who feared to trust themselves unguided into the hands of the strangers. A few country-bred horses were purchased, under the Captain's advice, at fair prices, but 52 THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. the Captain himself became enamoured of a magnificent " gulf arab" stallion, and they always have such a show stallion decked with gawds in their train, for which a large price was asked. The horse was young, and only half broken, and was kept carefully blind-folded by a native cloth tied round his head. The Captain examin- ed his teeth. No deception there. Passed his hand down his legs. Clean as a whistle. Punched his sides. No organs to mend. Peeped under the bandage. Eyes bloodshot, but apparently all right. The horse apparently full of fire, lashing out right and left, but a splendid animal. At the request of the Captain, an Affghan mounted him bare backed, when it was perceived the horse had magnificent action, rather high, perhaps, but our Captain considered that hardly a fault. u Take off the bandage," cried the Captain more and more pleased. " I dare not. He would run away with me," answered the dealer. " Well take it off, and I'll ride him myself," quoth the Captain. " My lord, excuse me, this is a two-thousand rupee horse, he is only half- broken. The ground is rough, and he would injure himself. Suppose he hurts his knees on those stones, how can I sell him then ?" " Well, put him at that ditch, and let me see if he can jump ?" " Yes my lord." Putting the horse to a canter, the Affghan brought him up to the ditch. As he did so, he laid his hand on the animal's crupper. There was no mistake about his jumping, for he cleared the ditch at a bound and ten feet beyond it. " What will you take for him ?" was the next question of the enamoured Captain, and after THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. 53 much haggling, and bargaining, it was finally agreed, that the Captain should give 500 rupees in ready money, and a one-thousand rupee horse, a Bombay Arab, not quite up to his weight, for this blind-folded paragon. There was, of course, no question of war- ranty, considering the character and nationality of the dealer. The same evening, the horse, still blind-fold, was transferred to the Captain's stables, and next morning the AfTghans were gone. That night at mess, the happy purchaser, a rare occurrence with him, boasted loudly of his purchase. He would not take 3,000 Rupees for him, etc., etc., and now, that the horse was his own, he would ride him next morning", broken, or unbroken, without the blind-fold. The morning came, and the horse was brought round saddled at gun-fire for his master, the syce keeping on the bandage, which he had feared, for the sake of his own limbs, to remove. The Captain mounted. " Take off the cloth," he said setting himself firmly in his seat in the expectation of a "to do," but the horse submit- ted quietly to the owner's surprise. There was no time to remark on the subject, however. " The Bobbery Pack" met at daylight outside the station, and to the meet the Captain betook himself, wondering at the mag- nificent action of his steed when put to a trot. " A splendid horse ! Never saw a finer ! By jove. You got a bargain !" These, and such like exclamations, greeted the delighted owner in the gloaming as he joined the meet. The sun was just rising, when a "Jack" was found and away went the hunt, helter 54 THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. skelter, over a fine level " maidan," the Captain lead- ing, and having it all his own way. Presently, a toler- ably deep nullah loomed ahead. " Now for a jump," muttered the Captain cramming his steed at it. What was his horror to find the horse never rose, but ran into it. Horse and man tumbled into the bottom in a nasty heap and were with difficulty extricated. " Hanged if I don't think the brute is blind," said the Captain shak- ing himself, and proceeding to take a look at his quiver- ing steed's optics and no doubt of it, the horse was blind, stone blind, only it required a searching examination to detect it. " Oh what an infernal do — never was so done in my life," muttered the enraged victim, " and yet he jumped all right yesterday. Stay, what a fool I was. I see the trick." Mounting again, the Captain put his steed into a canter on some level ground, laid his hand on the animal's crupper, when the horse at once made a bound of some fifteen feet. The knowing Captain was done, and by the simple agents of a trick and some ginger. He never offered to give advice in horseflesh again, or evermore dealt with an Affghan, that we are aware of. So much for a horse afflicted with " Amarosa." From the above anecdote it may be justly inferred, that native horse-dealers are sometimes kittle folk with whom to deal, and that it requires a pretty large development of the bump of seeing into a millstone, to play Rowland to their Oliver. There is no greater mistake than to imagine, as some people do, that the best plan in dealing with them is to throw yourself on THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. 55 their mercy and trust to their honor. A young friend of the writer's, once tried this little game, and was indignant at the results. We were fortunately present at the experiment, which took place in the yard of a Mofussil dealer, whom we shall call Jute Mahommed. Entering the arena wherein of all places, a man had best keep his own counsel, our young friend accosted Mr. Jute Mahommed with the utmost candour in these terms. " Oh I want a horse, a good sound, quiet horse, you know, and I will give four hundred, or if I like him very much, five hundred rupees for him. I don't know anything about horses whatever, and I trust altogether to your honesty and your interest to give me a really good horse.'' If a comic actor could have caught the expression which flitted over the countenance of the follower of the prophet he might have made his fortune by it. Suspicion, amusement, greed, and roguery were all blended in the glance with which he took stock of our young friend ; but our Y. F. bore the scrutiny unflinchingly. "All right Sarr you may depend upon me." When a gentle- man trusts me, I always give him the best I have. Alii Khan ! bring out No. 22. He is a beautiful horse, Sarr, and many people want to buy him, but I won't let him go under my own price." No. 22 is led out, and it only requires a glance to perceive, that he is lame, and has been under treatment for lameness, perhaps for the past month. " There's a horse for you," says master Mahommed. "As quiet as a lamb, I bought him from Mrs., Mrs., I forgot the name, wife of the 56 THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. Colonel of the 9th Cavalry. She was very fond of this horse, and when she was going to England she says to me, "Jute Mahomraed, I'll sell him to you, because I know you will get a kind master for him." She wouldn't make him a present to any of her friends for the reason she could trust none of them as she could trust me. There's action for you ? He is a little soft on the near forefoot, for he was pricked the other day by a black- guard, drunken Nalbund, but it's nothing, he will be well in a day or two." " Oh, that's it is it?" said our Y. F. " Really ! I almost thought the horse was lame, but it was in the hind leg I fancied." Again, that strange expression flitted against Jute Mahommed's coffee- colored physiognomy. " Alii bring me a light," he said, and commenced puffing a long Trichinopoly cheroot thoughtfully, "Sarr !" he said at last, apparently with an effort, "I'll do one foolish thing — I'll give you that horse for 450 rupees, because I like your look. You won't put him into a gharry and drive him from morn- ing till night, or flog him about the cantonment roads like Captain Smeeth who offered 600 rupees for him yesterday. No, I gave my word to Mrs., Mrs., I for- get her name, and though you gentlemen think we native dealers rogues, and cheats, I'll keep it. Here Sarr ! take him, he is a present at 450 rupees, but you are a good gentleman, and if you ever see Mrs., Mrs., I forget the name, you will tell her I keep my promise and I lose 200 rupees." "He seems a very nice horse. Hadn't I better take him," whispers our young friend, and to take him then and there he was ready, if, in THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. 57 defiance of a furious glance from Mr. Jute Mahommed, we had not pointed out, that the horse was not worth 20 rupees if so much, as a dealer's speculation. Nothing daunted, the dealer was for producing more steeds, but our young friend was disgusted and quitted the yard a sadder but a wiser man. The horse trade is a very speculative one, and it is therefore not surprising to find dealers rich one day, and poor the next. Of course, we do not allude to a few dealers at the top of the profession, who are as immaculate, and as steadily wealthy as Anderson him- self. These men have no picturesque points to sketch, for they are not Bohemians, but respectable members of society. We refer only to the Bohemians of the trade. A celebrated Irish horse dealer used to say, that it was as easy to make butter out of dew as a fortune out of horses; and the wandering dealers of Hindostan are probably of the same opinion. Now and then, they make a successful venture of which the pro- fit may be some thousands of rupees, but although they hoard their money in Southern India, they spend it recklessly when they return to their own countries. All, but the most successful among them, are overhead and ears in debt to their compatriots in the North. It is a risky speculation to march horses about over hun- dreds of miles of country among peoples who are fearful and distrustful of the dealers. Horses are poisoned, or they break down, or they suffer from epidemic diseases, and one or more of these unavoidable contingencies fall heavily upon the dealers. Like the desert-born, it 58 THE INDIAN HORSE-DEALER. might almost be said of them, that every man's hand is against them and their hand is against every man's ; for so innate is their passion for dealing, that if report does not sadly belie them, they deal as freely in human as in horseflesh. Villagers, in all parts of the coun- try through whose locations they periodically pass, believe, apparently with justice, that our wandering dealers are little better than professed kidnappers of pretty female children whom they take away into slavery in the wild countries of the North and North West; together with English calicoes ; consequently, parents in the South, look distrustfully on their horse- dealing visitors, and especially when the faces of these gentry are turned northwards. Their advent is an exciting event among the youth of the hamlet, and a good-looking child is easily snapped up while playing about their camp ignorant of what is in store for her. Possibly, many a handsome child of the South, whom her parents believe has found a watery grave in a well or has served as a feast for wild beasts in the jungle, is at this moment an almond-eyed houri in the town resi- dence of some filthy chieftain at Jellalabad. A good- looking female child will very likely fetch as good a price in Affghanistan as a gulf horse will fetch in Mysore; and our horse-dealers are greatly averse to making the return voyage in ballast. Their expenses are great, as they are frequently compelled to settle down in a favorable location for months together in the expectation of getting rid of their stock, and if they can eke out the expenses of a hired yard by the THE [NDIAN HORSE-DEALER. 59 abduction of Hindoo children, it is to be feared, their consciences will not prick them for the sin. In conclu- sion, it may be said, that the itinerant native dealer is generally a better judge of a bad horse than a good one, and this is not surprising, as the profits of his trade are to be gathered rather from the former class of animal than the latter. j : . : n?^" 2 THE INDIAN COOK, J] have frequently had occasion to remark upon the elasticity of the native character, and its readiness to adapt itself to circumstances. Thus, a punka cooly's daughter, whose whole knowledge of the duties of a tire woman have been necessarily con- fined to the exigencies which compel her bazaar friends to submit their heads to her inspection, after the manners and customs of monkeys, will most unblushing- ly, offer herself to a European lady as a professed ayah and an abigail aufait in all the mysteries of the toilette. Or a horse-keeper, who knows about as much of a horse as of conic sections, and has been the greater part of his life a bullock-driver, will audaciously borrow a roll of groom's characters, and change his profession as readily as his clothes. But of all the lower class of natives, the cook is the individual who sings excelsior the loudest, and usually with the very least reason. Far be it from us to assert, that there are no good cooks in India, no dusky Chevaliers of the Cordon Bleu. Excellent cooks are to be found among the native population. But unfortunately they are somewhat rare, being like Captain Cuttle's texts, when found, made a note of. It has long been an interesting question to Th of fin- to ms iy, an Oi as hi! of re ns th F in E P ( b« nov THE INDIAN COOK. Gl Indian gourmets, whether Madras, or Bombay, produces the best cooks. Madras cooks are unequalled in their curries, but they fall away in entrees, and not one in one hundred, can make pastry ; the Bombay cooks, on the other hand, will imitate French " plats" un- commonly well, but make very indifferent curries. The palm is, probably, to be divided between the two, Bengal cooks being out of the running altogether. It is difficult to find out where and how, a good Indian cook picks up a knowledge of his professional duties, for they are themselves averse to giving information on the subject. A Madras cook, desires to be considered a heaven-born genius, and he will not allow, even although such may have been the case, that he ever sat at the feet of the French " chefs" at Guindy or the Club. He is a peculiarly sensitive native, and easily huffed, for he has a very just idea of his own importance. He delights to enter into consultation with his mistress or master upon the merits of various dishes, but he is grievously affronted if any attempts are made to instruct him in his art. He has but one answer for these. "If missy think I no good cook, send me away." It is the retort courteous, but inexorable — and if he really is a good cook, " missy" will do well to make friends with the autocrat of the kitchen, for he is a man in authority, and one who can sooth or exasperate her lord at his pleasure, when the said lord, wearied after a day's work in a tropical climate, sits down to dinner sometime between 7 and 8 p. m. of the clock. The higher class of Madras cooks have a tradition, G2 THE INDIAN COOK. that sometime or other, one of their number was cook to " King George" (George IV), but we have never elsewhere heard, that such was the fact. The Marquis of Hertford, the nobleman from whom Lord Lytton is said to have drawn his character of Lord Guselton, had an Indian cook for the especial purpose of concocting curries, whence, perhaps, the Madras Bobachee's belief, that one of his craft was a royal favorite. A first class Indian cook is very willing to go to Europe with a good master, as he entertains the most extravagant notions of the dignities and honors to which cooks attain, in Frankistan ; but he, unhappily for us all, seldom gets the chance of a free passage to England, our homeward bound countrymen, being generally of opinion, that to take cooks to Europe is a freak similar to taking coals to " Canny Newcassel." The Indian cook's forte is to be found in the cunning manufacture of highly spiced dishes, and savoury curries. He can also roast, boil, and broil, very well when he pleases, but his pastry is a lamentable failure, and the very commonest "plain cook" who advertises in the home journals for situations in Protestant families, can beat him in pie crust. He cannot hold a candle to her in this branch of his art, his pastry being inevitably heavy, and cloying, and a caution to dyspeptics. But he is not deficient in invention, or in an originality which Soyer believed was common to cooks and poets registered A 1 on Mount Parnassus. He has devised some standard Indian dishes, and we believe, that subtle compound, " Woodcock-toast," which approaches so THE INDIAN COOK. 63 closely the true flavor of the best of game birds, is the creation of a Madras cook's fancy. Since the chef of a Roman Emperor performed the feat of creating ancho- vies one thousand miles from the sea coast, no cook has artificially imitated nature so well, as the Bobachee who can make good woodcock-toast. We have hitherto only treated of first-class Indian cooks, the grain in a handful of threshed corn. The ordinary situation-seeking Indian cook, the chaff of the profession, is a very different kind of person, and a man who causes his Anglo- Indian master and mistress, more trouble than all the rest of their servants put together. This is the true " excelsior" cook, whose presumption is only equalled by his ignorance, and at whose door a pyramid of stomach disorders might be erected. This charlatan, who professes to be able to cook anything, and talks glibly of " Pullits a la by jingo" (Query Maringo ?) " Soup and bullys" and " cutlets a la Fain- tingon," has only three dishes, in honest truth, which he can cook eatably well. One of these is "duck ee shtew," another is " muttony chops," and the third is "greelfowl." Anything else is beyond his role, al- though, to do justice to his audacity, it must be allowed, he will undertake to cook anything, even such a royal pie as, that which cost Manchester £500 on the occasion of the Queen's visit. Hoyle says of whist, " When in doubt, play a trump," and this sorry specimen of Bobachees, although no card player, has a maxim of his own equally bold and decisive. " When in doubts about a dish, make a mixture," is his idea, and he acts 64 THE INDIAN COOK. upon it. Sweets and sours, liquids and solids, lie mixes recklessly up in a greasy heap, and calls the diabolical stew "made dishes" which indeed is the truth. Nor is he above instruction, for he knows, that if a youthful mistress will turn a teacher of cooks — a rarity in these days of ultra young ladyistm — some one must pay the piper, but not the cook. Mrs. Meagrims, for instance, would like to teach her " chef" to make some nice little plats, for Colonel Meagrim is an officer who has had losses by amalgamations, and staff corps, and one who cannot say his prayers comfortably for Lord Halifax and all men, unless his interior has been previously highly spiced with hot dishes and cayenne. The cook is called to the front, and Mrs. Meagrims, with a volume of " Riddell" open before her, proceeds to give instruction. " Oh cook I" she says, as if it was the simplest thing in the world. " I want you to make a nice dinner for Thursday next." " Yes maam." " Colonel Nimbo and Major Soursop are coming to dine, so mind you are very particular." " Yes maam, what missy like ?" " Let me see, some tomata soup." " Tomatas very dear maam." " Well carrots will do as well." " Carrots no good these times maam." Well ? " what soup can you make ?" " Suppose missy please, "make 'washermans soup?'" "No! no! you know your master is very angry when you make that soup." " Just as missy please, I can make any kind of soup." "Well then, we'll have hare soup and some fish, and mutton cutlets with sauce piquante." " Bazaar no got peas maam," " Oh you stupid, I suppose I must teach THE INDIAN COOK. 65 you to make this sauce, here, listen now, and write it down." And so follows half a page of " Riddell." The cook is an apt scholar, he makes notes of his instructions, his eyes brightening as he calculates the expense of those ingredients he knows not how to put together, but vive la bagetelle? If his mistress is "fool- ish womans," as he will presently call her in confiden- tial discourse with the tunnycatch, it is her own look out. He will make some rupees out of the articles to be purchased, and has he not his standard dishes, his " duck ee shtew" and his " muttoney chops" which can be transmogrified into anything ? Poor Mrs. Meagrims, groaning over the trials of house-keeping with the thermometer at ninety, at last brings her lesson to a close, fancying it is all right, in which she is much mistaken. Thursday night arrives, and with it the Colonel and Major. They come together in a hack coach, and speculate upon the way what sort of dinner they will get. " I fear a deed bad one," says the Colonel, "for Meagrims was never famous for his cook, and Mrs. M. looks as if she knew more about flounces than fricassees." " I don't know," answers Soursop, " Meagrims told me he had just got a new cook, who asks 16 rupees a month wages. He ought to be a good one." " Scandalous waste of money for a married man in these times. Why I only give mine twelve,'' grumbles the Colonel, "but here we are!" "I hope Belinda, that } T ou taught that cook to make something eatable," says Colonel Meagrims, while he puts on his white tie. " That old guttler, Nimbo, is like a tiger if 66 THE INDIAN COOK. he gets a bad dinner." " Oh ! its all right" answers Belinda, from her dressing room, " pray don't bother ! its half-past seven, and I can't find my hair pins." How pleasant it is to sit down to a well-furnished, and well-lit dinner table, after that intolerable half hour in the drawing room, where one's attention is kept on the rack between the forced conversation of the hostess, and the disputes of the servants in the veran- dah. How comfortable, to unrol one's napkin, take therefrom the bread, and eye complacently the soup- tureen whose cover is about to be removed, The Colonel occupies the foot of the table in this instance, for Mrs, Meagrims "does not carve." Why? what? Can there be any thing wrong ? No. And yet the Colo- nel's brow grows black as midnight, and he snorts like a war horse. ". Pon my soul ! its too bad my dear," says the host. " Heres, washerman's soup, again." "I told the cook to make hare soup my dear," retorts the agitated hostess. "It is hare soup, Maam," says the butler, "suppose master try with spoon, he find the head." Somewhat maliciously, the Colonel gropes with the soup ladle, and brings to light the grinning head and teeth of a hare. " Oh! it is hare soup, he mutters." Eager to distract attention from the soup, Colonel Meagrims dashes into the latest intentions of the India Council with reference to unemployed field officers. A subject, with its interpretations, which he had reserved for the desert, but needs must, when the cook or the d 1 drives. Colonel Nimbo will not rise to the bait, nevertheless .but regards society with a stony THE INDIAN COOK. 67 store. " Eli what's this?" he enquires, as an entree is handed to him. "Mutton chops! No thank j t ou. What's in the other dish "grilled fowl?" "No! no!" " My dear/' says the hostess hysterically, in answer to a thunder and lightning glance from the head of the table. " I told him to make cutlets." "And so they are cutlets," says Major Soursop good naturedly. " See, here are the bread crumbs, and the egg and the sauce, only on a separate plate." "Oh dear! dear! it is impossible to teach those dreadful cooks," groans Mrs. M. "Well thank heaven ! the roast mutton is all right," says the host in anything but a voice attuned to the thanksgiving. " No ! as I live, it's raw ! take it away ?" The Colonel won't eat anything now. He munches his bread gloomily, and in silence. The others discuss, with what appetite they may, boiled chickens smother- ed in onions and soap suds. The course is removed, and maccaroni placed before the Colonel. Alas! the favorite food of Divas, and Bassos, is a swimming soup which one must needs eat with a spoon. Nimbo's long pent-up wrath explodes. "Meagrims," he roars in a voice awful to hear, "excuse the lady, but I tell you solemnly that if I had that infernal and doubly infernal cook of yours, I'd flog him, I'd salt him, I'd pickle hirn, aye, and by, by Jupiter! I'd eat him." Is the cook drunk ?" enquires Mrs. M. vaguely and generally. "He is too much drunk maam," answers the butler promptly. In fact, intoxication had overtaken the bewildered student in " Riddell" for, arguing, as Indian 68 THE INDIAN COOK. cooks are prone to do on the occasion of dinner parties, that the feast was a general festival, and that the odds are nothing so long as one is happy, he had ascended to the ninth round on the ladder of drunken- ness, and feeling giddy at such an elevation, had tumbled and was even then stretched beneath the kitchen dresser weeping bitterly and singing ribald songs alternately, the latter in praise of the rum his mistress gave him " for the pudding." But we have somewhat digressed from our subject, even when painting him in his true colors ; and it is true to hint, that besides being totally ignorant of his art, the ordi- nary Indian cook is also a dirty vagabond, unclean in his cuisine. This phase in his character is unpleasant to dwell upon, but we will conclude his sketch with an anecdote to the point. In a certain regimental mess, in which the bachelor dining members paid little attention to the dispositions of the cook-room, an officer, by good, or ill-fortune, conceived the desire to inspect the culinary arrangements of the kitchen. What did he behold? Upon the centre of the floor a vast round of beef for that day's dinner. Seated on the beef a little black boy — as the vulgar song says " as naked as Venus" and kicking his little heels in mid air. The intruder was horrified. Not so the cook, who said proudly, " my son saar !" — Then with a grin, for he was a facetious Bobachee, "he make beef nice and tender for gentlemans." -■- —J Qi3»3S3QQQa3's nn THE HISTOEY OF KAMASAWMY BUTLEK. SCREjAT was t ne rejoicing in the house of Rama- sawmy Butler, and of Lutchmee his wife, when the latter, after repeated failures in female Picanninies, presented her lord with a fine black boy, the very image, and the very color of its reputed papa. No time was lost in giving inform- ation of the happy event to Sir Thomas Wigsby, the Puisne Judge, and fortunate master of the butler Rauiasawmy ; when, Sir Thomas granted the usual bottle of brandy to help the lady over her confinement, as well as the equally usual three days' leave of absence to the male parent in which " to perform some ceremonies" or, in other words, to become drunk upon other bottles of spirituous liquor, the property, but not the gift of the learned Judge. Three days having elapsed, and the happy male parent having recovered from the intoxication of his own feelings and his master's cognac, in company with numerous friends and guests of the Ramasawmy family (generally speaking, " maties," " bobachees," " gorawal- lahs," etcetera, who " took leave," there being no more green mangoes and festive curries to consume,) Lutch- mee, and the elder Ramasawmy, were left at leisure to 70 RAMASAWMY BUTLER. contemplate the dusky pledge of their tender loves, and to prognosticate a hopeful future for the slumbering infant who yet slept, uninfant-like, but to the joy of his sire, with one eye open and winking. " He will be a butler" hiccupped Ramasawmy " like his father." "Ah bah!" quoth Lutchmee "a butler!" No. He will be a writer in the Court. Perhaps, a sheristadar ! Was the baby not born under a lucky planet V " Be silent," retorted Ramasawmy angrily, " what does a woman know of life. I tell you there is no profession so full of ease and dignity as that of the butler. The boy shall be a butler. I have said it." Time passed, and the younger Ramasawmy arrived at those years of discretion when his sagacious parent thought it high time to place him in service. The child displayed extraordinary precocity and acuteness, prigging from his parent even the very articles of trifling value which the elder Ramasawmy was won't to prig from Sir Thomas, and at ten years of age it may be said he was His father's hope, his mother's joy — ■ That thieving little nigger boy. It was high time, however, for the comfort of his male parent, that he should procure his own livelihood, and long and anxiously the fond father pondered over the names of many European " gentlernans" whose service, he imagined, would suit the intelligence of the boy Ramasawmy. Of course, it would be easy to obtain " a chokraship" for his son in the employment of Sir Thomas Wigsby. The butler had only to accuse a HAMAS AWMY BUTLER. 71 chokra sparrow already in the Judge's employ, of mis- demeanour to turn him out of his nest to give place to the Ramasawniy cuckoo ; but service in a great man's establishment, was not what our butler considered good training for a youth of his son's acuteness ; and there- fore, just as a prudent paterfamilias will put a military young hopeful into the line for a year or two, pre- vious to purchasing him a commission in the Guards, Ramasawmy senior, sought, and found for his son employment very much to his satisfaction. A Lieuten- ant in a European Cavalry Regiment, fresh from England, was the Mecsenas under whose auspices the elder Ramasawmy chose his son should make his debut in the world, and accordingly, at 1 4 years of age, the boy Ramasawmy was despatched up-country with his youthful and verdant master. " Dry your tears Lutchmee," said the male parent with reference to the parting of mother and son, " I have made careful inquiry, and find that Green Sahib has an excellent kit, silver spoons, rings, diamonds and too many good things. He does not know a rupee from eight annas. He will be a father to our boy, may blessings fall upon them both" — and the old hypocrite squeezed out a tear which was largely adulterated with some of the Judge's choice curacoa as appropriate to the occasion. Lieutenant Green was one of those youth- ful plungers, who look upon the world as a pleasant vision of gold lace and romance, in which ready money need play no part. Money, he declared, was made like a wheel, in order to roll, and the Lieutenant turned his 72 RAMASAWMY BUTLER. coin — (generally borrowed at 36 per cent, from Balliah, the Hindoo sowcar) in a manner so different from the turning process of solvent bankers, that a considerable portion of the dross rolled into the boy Ramasawmy's strong box of necessity. Into the same box, trifling articles, such as the gold tops of scent bottles, and whips, native bijoutrie, etc., found their way, so, that at the end of three years — the brief extent of the Lieutenant's military career— the boy Ramasawmy found himself " worth" as the stock-brokers say, five hundred rupees, judiciously laid out at compound interest in the bazaars. Rupees 500, producing a monthly revenue of rupees 20 is a fortune to a native youth of 17 and acting in accordance with European notions on the subject, the boy Ramasawmy now determined "to range" himself by a brilliant alliance with the almond-eyed ayah of a great Madras lady, — a lady possessed of a passion for jewellery and of a demon for mislaying it. The almon- eyed " Mootamah" had also " saved," and the match, in the language of Belgravia, was " in all respects a suit- able one." The youthful couple having spent their honeymoon under the roof of the elder Ramasawmy, an old gentleman who was sore displeased that he could no longer teach his son any of the niceties of the pro- fession, returned to public life, the one as the trusted servant of her mistress, the other as the " head boy" of a prudent Scottish Competition Wallah under engage- ment of marriage to a Hieland lassie, and a foe to extravagance of every description. One would imagine, that the bawbees of Mr. Donald Cawmil were too care- RAMASAWMY BUTLER. fully under supervision to meet the boy Ramasawmy's views of life ; nevertheless, the latter notably increased his funded capital in the service of the Scot, for we have all our hobbies, and Mr. Cawmirs hobbies were bargains. The boy Ramasawmy was a wonderful bargainer, and could naggle over any article from a horse to a piedish with such discretion, that even to the satisfaction of the North Briton, he invariably obtain- ed for himself 20 per cent, private commission on his master's purchases — a percentage beyond the ken it is needless to say of even the canny Scot. This gentleman proceeding to Scotia upon love-sick certificate in order to bring out his bonny bride to the land of scorpions, jeramundels, and insectivorous crea- tion, the boy Ramasawmy was cast upon his own resources sufficiently long to convince his acute mind, that the time had arrived when he might worthily fill his parent's shoes as butler to Wigsby Burra Sahib. To be sure, there was a slight, but not an insurmount- able difficulty in the path of his ambition. The elder Rarnasawmy held the coveted appointment, but of late had fallen into pecuniary difficulties from which his affectionate offspring had relieved him. In consider- ation of all pecuniary transactions being cancelled between father and son, the parent consented to retire into private life, bitterly bemoaning the while, the little comforts necessary to a green old age which the Judge supplied him with. Ramasawmy the butler, in short (the boy Ramasawmy no longer) was duly installed in an office which he filled with great pomp 10 74 RAMASAWMY BUTLER. and dignity. Clothed in snowy garments, and imma- culate turband, the subject of our sketch might now be seen of an early morning, an umbrella over his head, and his familiar behind him, proceeding to market like the Justice of the Divine William, " his fair round belly with good capon lined." " Dookandars" and " Bunneas" clasped their hands, and bowed profoundly before the prosperous chief butler. His " commissions" were so lucrative that he proposed to the antelope-eyed wife of his bosom, to set up a Hotel or a Punch house in Black Town but was dissuaded from this project by the logical reasoning of his better-half. " Why V she enquired " fleece the Sahib Logue publicly, when we can fleece them in private ?" Ramasawmy perceived the gist of the argument, and became a greater man morally and physically day by day. About this time, he accompanied the Judge to England, a country with which he was much pleased in every respect but one. The dishonesty of London- ers shocked him. The manner in which his good master was cheated by his English servants, and tradesmen, was a fertile theme of complaint with him on his return solus to the east. A European trip, however, wonderfully improved his knowledge of the English language and he now called coolies " Porters," and Bungalows " Cottages." No longer did he com- plain of the cook (the butler's mortal enemy) giving him "gallee" or abuse. He simply declared the man " arrogant." In short, Butler Ramasawmy at the height of his worldly prosperity, was a most accom- RAMASAWMY Bl'TLER. 75 plished vagabond, when — pride will have a fall — a sad calamity came upon him ! Full of years and compound interest, he was yet susceptible to the tender passion which has ruined many a better man. In an evil moment, and in company with the antelope-eyed one, he was persuaded to take service with a great Bengal Civilian well-known in Calcutta for the liberality of his menage. The boy Ramasawmy and his better-half licked their lips in anticipation of the pickings off a Member of Council, but such pickings and stealings were doomed to prove almost as mythical as those mentioned in the Church Catechism. Unhappily the Hon. Mrs. Cossitollah, b.c.s., was possessed of a Bengal Premiere Aayah, fat, fair, and forty, and with the Juno- like eyes of a Brahminy bull. This moon-faced damsel was too much for our poor butler. He saw, he loved, and loved not wisely but too well. One night, as Paddy says " about two o'clock in the morning," Mr. Cossitollah's house at Garden Reach, was disturbed by a frightful scratching and tearing match, of which Butler Ramasawmy was the passive, and Mootamah and Lall Bee the active parties. Mootamah lost the tip of her ear, bitten off in the argument, and frantic with defeat and jealousy, hysterically made confession to the incensed Mrs, Cossitollah of her lord's peccadil- loes. Our model Madras Butler was ignominiously placed in " chokee" and his boxes broken open. Who shall describe the little mementoes of former " good masters" which these safes disclosed ? A Bangalore auctioneer could scarcely make out the catalogue, so 76 RAMASAWMY BUTLER. diffuse were their contents. At any rate a signet ring bearing the Cossitollah arms, (a dead Hindoo with an adjutant perched thereon) being found in our butler's box, that worthy was had up in Court where he aston- ished the Judge by the vigor of his defence. His sentence, on conviction, was seven years' transportation beyond the seas, and in vain did the prisoner explain, that this punishment was illegal, and, that having served many years in a Puisne Judge's service, he was better acquainted with the law than a simple Magis- trate. Muttering, that he was convicted on circum- stantial evidence, and that Mootamah was an accessory before the fact, the prisoner was conveyed out of Court and transported as he richly deserved to be. The intelligence of his son's disgrace was received with surprising composure by the elder Ramasawmy, who could never forgive the pecuniary transactions above alluded to. In truth, the old gentleman was secretly proud, that his self-taught son had reaped the reward of his independence of paternal counsel. " To think" he confided to the sorely distressed Lutchmee " that Ham should be convicted on a seal ring out of which he never took the stone. Ah Lutchmee, if he had been proper mans like his father and have melted the gold, he would not be across the black water now." A few years afterwards the elder Ramasawmy with Lutchmee crossed another water — the Styx, and were burnt in the odour of sanctity. About the same period, the boy Bamasawmy, some how or other, obtained a remission of his sentence, and returned to the coast RAMASAWMY BUTLER. 77 a politer and greater rascal than ever, as a consequence of foreign travel. Proceeding to Bombay, he acted as butler and confidential servant to certain confiding " ducks" until he had saved enough money again to set up as a " dubash." He is at present, the writer believes, a member of that profession, and an oracle among seafaring men, whose heads the boy Ramasawmy fills with new rum while he lightens their pockets of their cash. " Know master ? No master plenty well," said the scoundrel the other day with a grin. " I've lef; Madras a long time. Madras is a poor place. There is no speculation there now ; Bombay a plenty fine place. I tink I live in Bombay for ever." And here let us take leave of him, thankful he has not robbed us. THE INDIAN BARBER. 'NGLOINDIANS are wont to class barbers in that catalogue of mosquitoes, prickly heat, " pooches" and minor nuisances, which renders India intolerable as a place of residence to an irritable man ; and, no doubt, there is something very exasperat- ing in the manipulation of a barber, and of a not over- clean barber also just before breakfast. In olden times, there was a celebrated barber at the Presidency who was known by the soubriquet of " Tom," but as bells and barbers are commonly gifted with this cognomen, it will hardly suffice to distinguish him from others of his craft, although indeed he was a whale among sprats, "a great Tom" among Toms. So crafty was this Hindoo " Sweedlepipe" in his art, that he would shave a sleeping gentleman, just as well as a gentleman awake, and fast young cadets and ensigns who had cherished their down upon the lips in a voyage round the Cape with the most tender interest, and affection, were often surprised and indignant to find, on the morn- ing after a night of "blind hooky" and "brag," that Tom, the assassin, had shaved them as they slept, in obedience to the suggestion of some practical joker. The great Tom, was a wonderfully clean barber, but his cleanliness may be accounted for by the fact that he never shaved TUT? TATTkT A TVT T>AT>T>tfQ 79 great )b, as . the I the were I, the men, mity, draw with, nsign om?" ins, I lyou Saar ! nents >oint- [ say, good, him. unga 7 and ien I lyou 'Yes 3 say ; ative x em , you India in man ; ai ing in th clean bai there wa was kno"v and barb< it will ha: his craft, , "a great Hindoo " a sleeping awake, an cherished t the Cape were often ing after a r the assassin to the sug£ Tom, was a may be accc THE INDIAN BARBER. 79 a native. In truth, Tom held his countrymen in great contempt, and was, we believe, regarded by the mob, as a man of considerable weight and influence in the Government. This was only natural, for among the great Tom's clients, whose chins he daily shaved, were the Commander-in-Chief, the Members of Council, the Chief Justice and the Judges. Of all these great men, Tom would speak reverently and discreetly ; his vanity, however, was a bank on which he could not but draw freely for fact and fiction, endorsing his cheques with, the names of some of these bigwigs. Thus, Ensign Green would enquire, " what's the news to-day Tom V " All good news Saar ! Chief Justice got belly pains, I give him some physic, he soon be all right." " Did you shave the Chief this morning* Tom ?" " Yes Saar ! Commande re Sheef plenty busy writing appointments for Gashette. He say Tom ! Who I give this appoint- ment to ? Dam fine appointment, noting to do. I say, suppose, Master give to Green Sahib, very good. Green Sahib very good gentlemans, I shave him. Then he say, ' I can't Tom ! Green Sahib too young a gentlemans for such dam fine appointment. By and bye, when Green Sahib grow big gentleman, then I keep one appointment ready for him.' " Tom ! did you hear any news at Mr. Z's. ? (Member of Council)" Yes Saar ! Z. Sahib keep me a long time waiting. He say, Governor Sahib going to put plenty tax on native people. He say, Torn what you tink ? I say tax em and be dam to dem. He say, Tom you are right, you are the only man that always right. True Saar." 80 THE INDIAN BARBER. This swearing excepted, — which Tom considered a proof of his moving in fashionable circles — the great Tom was a pious man, and so far a Christian, that he was neither a Hindoo nor a Musselman. He delighted in the society of Europeans, and his occupation was a pleasure to him. Clad in spotless white, and scrupulous- ly clean in his person, to be shaved by the great Tom of the past, was by no means the affliction which shaving is to-day, at the Presidency, and in the Mofussil, but more especially in the latter. A promiscuous barber, a shaver who operates upon sepoys, bazaar folk, and Europeans, all by turns, is a terrible man, and it is no wonder, that the latter loathe the very sight of him. It requires no keen olfactory per- ception to know, that this barber is unclean. He is, in fact, highly scented with garlic but even that vegetable, pungent as it is, cannot conceal the odour of sepoys which hangs about him like a cloud. He is a sneaking, prying wretch, devoid of all sense of wit, or humour, and his patients are constantly kept in alarm, when being shaved, lest he should either put his dirty fingers in their mouths, or cut their throats. One of these actions would be nearly as bad as the other and is a probability. He is a true " natives" barber, and shaves after the native fashion, — what that fashion is, let those learn who are curious enough to watch a sepoy under- going the operation. The shave is a very important item in the sepoy's day. As old gentlemen in London eating houses hail " the Times" and retain it as long as possible, so the sepoy hails his barber, never forgetful THE INDIAN BARBER. that he pays four annas a month for his luxury. A conversation upon the news of the day serves to beguile the time while the "shavee" is preparing for the razor — the shaver, in the meanwhile, making a good lather about the quantity of which there is frequent discussion. The sepoy is determined to have the value of his money, and if he does not get plenty of soap in his mouth, soap in his nose, and soap everywhere, the conversation which was commenced with much politeness, is likely to degenerate into vile abuse on both sides. However, we will suppose, that in this instance, the shavee obtains his full allowance of soponacious filth, and that he fairly comes under the razor. The operation must not be a hasty one. Slowly, the barber seizes the patient by the nose and twists his head on one side ; the pair squatting down upon their hunkers. A sweep of the razor, and the barber stops to expectorate ! The sepoy, meanwhile, surveying the commencement of the opera- tion in a cracked piece of looking-glass with great satisfaction. A little badinage, or scandal, is now enjoyed, while the barber generously lathers again. Another sweep, and the same pause, w 7 hile the barber stops to search for a " Norfolk Howard" which is causing him some uneasiness, a posteriori. As before, the sepoy again critically examines his chin. The search proving without result, there is more lather and two or three scrapes, when the barber deliberately commences to whet his razor. All these delays would be intolerable to a European, but to the sepoy they are certain indications, that he is being shaved in 11 82 THE INDIAN BARBER. dignity. There are more scrapes, more pauses, and at length the operation is performed, and the shavee resumes his " puggery," the shaver, going off to perform the same ceremonies with other sepoys, and with the same brush and soap, plentifully adulterated by this time with black stubble if not the elements of skin disease. It is curious to consider the estimation in which natives hold barbers. These shavers have played important parts in Indian history, and they have frequently been the prime ministers of Princes. The King of Oude's barber was the most powerful man in the kingdom, and like the barber of Louis the Eleventh of France, instigated many an execution. Some of the noblest native families of India are said to owe their origin to barbers, just as "the Newcomes" traced their descent from the Barber Surgeon of Edward the Con- fessor ; but, while barbers have fallen from their high estate with us, they remain as great men in native estimation as ever. A prosperous barber, indeed, enjoys the most important claims to native respect ! He is wealthy, he is fat, and he has the ear of clients who are influential, or well-to-do in the world. He is also a perambulating newspaper, and very often, as was the case during the middle ages in Europe, a bit of a doctor also. He is generally supposed to be well up in plaisters, and an adept in the cure of " belly pains," for which his favorite prescription is a purgative and an emetic administered in one. If this does not kill, it will cure, and accordingly the barber, although no THE INDIAN BARBER. 83 regular native practitioner, is held in the same esteem among his countrymen as we hold a quack doctor in England — as a plausible rogue, in short. There are Europeans in India who take pleasure in listening to the barber's daily gossip. To us it is terribly dull, and monotonous. It is too much of a good thing to hear as the stock-piece of intelligence, that such and such an hotel is full, and upon the inquiry with what, or with whom, this the barber does not know, but that there are two gentlemen in it, "one gentlemans with big whisker, one gentlemans with leetle whisker, and a lady." Being garrulous, however, a barber as a rule, can be " drawn out" by those having a taste for such sport, when he can be either shockingly obscene, or hypocritically pious in his discourse. The writer was once acquainted with such a Pecksniff of the razor, who shaved all sorts and conditions of men, including clergymen and cadets, and had suitable conversation for them all. He was an extraordinary rascal, and under a native regime, might have become a Vizier. Barbers declare, that the palmy days of their pro- fession are gone by, and making allowances for the croaking of valetudinarians, we are inclined to think, that they are correct in their supposition. Anglo- Indians are not nearly so lazy as they used to be, and a great many Europeans are now sufficiently energetic to shave themselves, to the great disgust of the barbers, who affect to regard such independence as undignified, if, indeed, not practiced for the sake of economy. Times have changed in the last twenty years, and we 84 THE INDIAN BARBER. do not often hear now of men being shaved in their sleep, or of men being so effeminate as to require a barber to cut their nails, oil, and brush their hair, etc., etc., and yet, in former years, these were import- ant items in the barber's duty. If now-a-days, a barber can cut hair, as little as possible after the "bit hoff" fashion, and can quickly shave without cutting the skin, or the use of a superfluity of soap, he will pass muster, whereas in old times, a barber who could not "shampoo" and act up to the natives' estimate of the professional shaver, would have been held of no account whatever. If the barbers have lost in one respect, however, they have gained in another. They are no longer bullied by wild young officers and civilians as of yore. Once upon a time, the regimental barber shared with the regimental moonshee, and the regimental monkey, the horrors of tormentation from the subalterns, and the writer can recollect an instance in which a barber and a bear were cast adrift in a boat on the Nerbudda River. The results of this involun- tary and uncongenial companionship were ludicrous in the extreme, the voyagers, distrustful of each other, being both prepared for instant action. The barber in the stern, pale with terror, brandished his razor, while Bruin in the bow, opened his mouth, and roared horribly. The strange pair would doubtless have come to close quarters eventually, had not the barber, thinking discretion the better part of valour, jumped into the river, leaving Bruin the master of the situation. Another barber — a Palaveram shaver— was tarred and THE INDIAN BARBER. feathered, in which guise he proceeded to make his complaint to the Commandant, but the latter was so overcome by the ridiculous appearance of the complain- ant, that he was quite unable to take into consideration the grievance of the barber who held his own beard in his hand, it having been shaved off with his own razors by some new arrivals in the country. Such were the indignities to which the ancient barbers were subjected, nevertheless, they hardly could have felt them so keenly as the General Order of Sir Gaspard Le Marchant permitting officers to wear beards. The barbers pined, and sickened under that cruel G. O. C. C., and the European's barber would have, possibly, been extinct in the Mofussil now, had not the present Commander-in-Chief revived the moribund shaver when at the last gasp. He is alive again, and brisk now, and we all know him with his hateful box of coarse soap, his yellow brush, and his blunt razors, a demon, sternly carrying out the decrees of fashion upon our scarified chins. It is a curious fact, that civilians, as well as military men, have of late years, generally speaking, sacrificed their beards at the barber's feet. This is the more remarkable, as the Prince of Wales, the ostensible leader of fashion, wears a beard in London. We can only account for the circumstance on the supposition, that Anglo-Indians are commencing to prefer their appearance to their comfort, but, to whatever cause shaving can be attributed, it is an excellent fashion for the barbers. The native barber is excessively proud of his skill as 86 THE INDIAN BARBER. a shaver, and yet he cannot be compared to the most ordinary European practitioner in this respect. His tools are bad for one thing, being the cheapest that can be purchased, and his hand shakes for another, whether from old age or the bottle, it is hard to deter- mine. In private life the barber is an excellent husband and father. Early to bed and early to rise is his motto, the last virtue being a necessity to enable him to go his rounds. By ten o'clock a. m. the barber has shaved his European customers, when, he is popu- larly supposed to do no more work for the day ; but this is a delusion. It is to be feared, that actuated by greed of gain, the barber who rasps our chins in the morning is to be found at two o'clock p. m. busy at work on the countenances of Black Town bnnneas. If fashion, or necessity, compels us to submit to the excoriations of a barber, it is, at least, as well to provide ourselves with razors, soap, and brush, for private use ; otherwise, it would be very hard to enumerate the number of customers to whom we are jointly indebted for the use of these articles. THE AYAH, U.R Anglo-Indian Materfamiliases are ever com- plaining of the difficulty of obtaining a really- good ayah. One of them has reduced the difficulty to arithmetic, and declares, that it is as easy to obtain six head boys, a tailor, three or four maties, and two tolerable cooks as one satisfactory ayah ; and we can readily believe it, for, as a general rule, ayahs are of that class of people whom one may fairly designate as " aggravating creatures," if even otherwise of good character. Madras has the credit of producing the best ayahs in India, but she can hardly boast of her preten- sions in this respect, seeing, that in. every twelve ayahs she gives to the Indian world, there is, probably, not more than three good ones. The ayah market is as uncertain as the horse market. Sound animals, vicious animals, and broken-down animals, are all jumbled up together, and it is a lottery whether one's selection turns out well or ill in either one or the other. There are many varieties of the species ayah. The com- monest perhaps, is the severe, wizened old hag, who obtains constant employment on the strength of a bundle of characters dating back to remote times. This woman is usually hired by lady Griffins on their arrival THE AYAH. in the country, and she makes herself so disagreeable as a rule to master and mistress, that she rarely retains her situation more than a year or so. She is perfectly correct in her behaviour, and scrupulously clean in her dress, and person, but her epidermis is so flabby, and wrinkled, that all her good gifts will not disabuse the mind of the idea, that she is related in some unaccount- able manner to a hippopotamus, and that her skin would make excellent whips wherewith, to drive obstreperous bullocks. This ayah is a tyrant and a bully if her mistress permits her to have her own way, and she will moralise, and lecture to that extent, that ladies have been known to look forward with secret dread to that matatutinal half-hour devoted to brushing the hair. " Misses must do this" or " It is not proper misses do that" is her unwearying croak, and although her mistress may, occasionally, and in despair kick against her authority, she is soon settled by the ever ready and dignified assertion. " I have lived with many ladies, maam." This ayah is the bugbear and terror of children —she has no affection for them, but she delights to worry and physic them. She lives with her master and mistress as long as they will keep her, or it is con- venient, and she parts with them and their children with the greatest equanimity, returning to the Pre- sidency, if she is discharged in the Mofussil, to look out for a fresh arrival in search of an ayah and a pest in one. A remarkable contrast to this old dame, is the coquettish ayah. This is a comely damsel, who has THE AYAH. 89 seen some sixteen summers, and spends a considerable portion of her leisure moments in front of the looking- glass. The reflection she sees there is satisfactory. The hair is so black and glossy, that it reminds one of patent leather. Her eyes are large and almond-shaped. She has an excellent figure and makes the most of it by the coquettish manner in which she wears her cloth. The chokra is madly in love with her, but she considers him "a mere boy." Her pas de facination are all intended for the butler, a grim, middle-aged man, who has saved some money, but is not altogether impervious to the darts of this moon-faced damsel. Truth compels us to state, that her good looks are the best part of this young woman. She hates hard work, and is, what old maiden ladies at home call u a hussy" and "an idle slut." She takes no pleasure in her work, except in that portion of it, which consists in dressing her mistress. Indeed she dearly loves to finger silks, satins and jewel- lery, and alas ! for fair frailty, items of the latter, have been known to stick to her fingers. It is as safe to trust a child to this ayah, as it is to trust a retriever dog with a bunch of keys. She will " drop it" when she tires of it, and when no one is looking, or she will let it fall out of its perambulator when ogling, the butler, just as English nursery maids perform the same feat daily in Hyde Park before Life Guardsmen. After a by no means long probation, she commits some fault more than usually flagrant, and her mistress is compel- led to discharge her. If the mistress is herself youno- ; and pretty, this is a painful business, " She was such a 12 90 THE AYAH. clean good-looking girl" says madame. "Deuced neat," quoth Monsieur. " We shall neyer get such another" say both, but they know very well, that it is impossible to keep " the hussy" notwithstanding, and accordingly she departs, screwing a tear into one eye, half of which token of affection, and sincerity, is given to her mis- tress, and half to the uncompromising butler. That worthy's motto, like that of the Orangemen, being "no surrender," our poor hussy has to range herself else- where. She marries a shopkeeper in the bazaar, as a widow with one child — who she married before this, or where the ceremony took place, is unknown to every one but herself. The conclusion of her history is, that she will probably have her nose taken off some fine day as a reward for a Chillypillay Raidoo Street flirtations with dandy " Bunneas" of the bazaar. Having treated of extremes, let us take the medium, wherein, according to the old drinking song, " True joys are found." It is not among Ayahs grey, and ayahs old Ayahs young, and ayahs bold that a diamond of rare water, a perfect ayah, is to be found ; but rather among middle-aged women whose children are grown-up and fighting the battle of life, and whose husbands have gone down into silence. Such women are lonely, but brimful of an affection they seek to bestow somewhere or other. They will attach themselves as closely to a kind mistress, or to her child, as a barnacle hugs a ship's sheathing, and they will forsake country and kindred, to follow the one or the THE ATAH. 91 other, over the terrible black waters to a strange and unknown land, wherein, if they perish, their very bones have no certain resting place. Such ayahs will nurse their mistresses in illness with a motherly devotion, and they will regard the children entrusted to their charge as their own, and dearer than their own. Patient, cheerful, respectful and trustworthy, an ayah of this class is worth her weight in gold, and we recommend © 7 those who are fortunate enough to posse-- such a servant, to cherish her as a jewel of great price rarely to be met with. A verv slight knowledge of the na: character, is alone requisite to convince a European, that the lower class of natives excel in assurance. The commonest cooly in the bazaar, would smilingly take his seat on the woolsack — if he got the chance con- fident, that he was in all resj .-:> fitted to perform the duties of a Lord Chancellor ; and so with one. so with all, — ayahs, like heirs apparent, believe they are bora to the purple, and will solicit service with ladie- having the remotest ideas of what is required of them. It is sufficient, that the candidate's mama was sometime an ayah, to convince the applicant, that she is in all respects equal to the situation. Hence, the g: number of awkward, gocKl-for-nothing cooly girls, who, calling themselves ayahs, are to be found more plenti- ful than blackberries in all pans of India. As the: no servant so difficult to get as a good avah. so there is no servant so easy to find as a bad one. These so-called ayahs, disgust their mistresses constantly with all na: servants. Thev are uncleanlv in their dress and 92 THE AYAH. persons, and would be greatly the better for a daily sprinkling of eau-de-cologne. They are arrant, but cunning thieves ; and they compose that class of ayah which is prone to give restless children opium and bazaar drugs to keep them quiet. They have no merit but the moderation of their demands. They will take any wages their mistress offers, but they are dear at the money, expensive even at five rupees a month. If their mistresses become ill, they are also attacked with convenient sickness which requires their absence for some days. They care nothing for children, whom they regard with the most apathetic indifference, permitting them to work their own sweet childish wills, even to the concoction of dirt pies and the subsequent intro- tion of the infantile cookery into the infantile epigastrum. These women are not uncommonly grossly immoral also, and their only characters are those which they possess on paper. They are to be avoided. Another evil description of ayah is the professed traveller. This is a woman, who from sins of ill-temper, or love of the bottle, has been turned out of endless situations. Unable to continue the fight against her destiny upon terra firma, she takes to the water as naturally as a duck, and spends her existence travelling with ladies and children, between England and India. Sailing not long ago upon the A 1 East Indiaman Jeejee- boy bound from London to Madras, the writer observed a fine specimen of this description of ayah. Her mistress, a veritable griffin, had picked her up on the recommendation of a clerk in an Agency Office, and THE AYAH. 93 had paid 20£ for her passage. During the whole voyage, this treasure lay sleeping, sea-sick, or intoxicat- ed below, the quantity of opium which she daily consumed being such as to astonish even the vessel's " experienced surgeon." From Gravesend to Madras, she never performed a day's work, and on arrival at the latter port, she very coolly disappeared without leave- taking, probably to play the same game over again with some other victim. Ladies hurrying home — perhaps, in ill-health, have neither time nor opportunity, to enquire into the antecedents of these ayahs, and they are ready enough to take them under the impression, that "they only require them for the voyage," It is well if they do not get hold of professed sea-pirates as well as professed sluggards, many ladies, having been robbed and plundered on the passage by these vixens, who, of all ayahs, are the most expensive and the most dangerous with whom to have any dealings. The characteristic virtues of the ayah, are patience, an affectionate disposition, and fidelity. Her vices are a love of gossiping, of idleness, and of power. The ayah in a household, if she is at all a favored servant, considers herself to be the head of it, in so far as all the other servants are concerned, whence, vexatious bick- erings and complaints and constant enmity between herself and the butler. " Do you dare to disobey me," said an ayah to such a functionary on a certain occasion. " Take care or I will have you discharged." " Hold your tongue you immodest creature," retorted the butler, " I am master's servant." " Aye," replied the 94 THE AYAH. ayah with a world of meaning, " but I am misses' s." The butler was silent and disconcerted. He had nothing more to say. Ladies who know how clever English ladies' maids are with their needles, and how willing to employ them, in their mistress's service, rail at the sloth displayed by ayahs in this matter. It is hard to get the very best ayahs indeed to use their needles, or to do any work which is not strictly within the letter of their province ; but this is the case with all native servants, more or less, and we have to blame ourselves, and the encouragement we offer to servants to do nothing by employing double the number we require, if we find fault with the ayah on this point. Her love of gossiping is not to be treated so leniently, for as a gossip she is a perfect pest to society. Her mistress's most private, and confidential conversations, are secrets which she camiot respect. She will publish the conversation of the toilette in the bazaars, and it is her peculiar delight, should her mistress satirize a friend, to tell that friend's ayah the circumstance. Hence, some amusing complications. Mrs. Browne is at a loss to conceive why Mrs. Green should pass her on the drive with such an icy recognition, and she tells Mr. Browne, that Mrs. Green is giving herself " airs ;" when, in fact, Mrs. G. has heard from her ayah, who heard it from Mrs. B's ayah, how Mrs. Browne said the morning after the Artillery Ball, that she, Mrs. Green, was dressed " like a sack" and was " far too old to dance." But this is not the worst of it. In places where ayahs most do congregate with children such as THE AYAH. 95 bandstands, etc., the ball of conversation is kept briskly rolling, and the stock of gossip is soon expended by their glib tongues. Failing facts, they have recourse to fiction, and some rare stories of their mistresses, and, perchance, masters, are put in circula- tion. They may not do much harm, these stories ; still Mrs. Browne would hardly be pleased to learn, that she has the dickens of a temper, and drinks brandy, or Mr. Green, that he is far too fond of Mr. Black's wife. The ayah says so, however, and many believe her. In conclusion, although the ayah is a far inferior servant to a smart English ladies' maid, she is, even as a general rule, on the whole, a good servant. She has her failings, like all of us, and we must respect her virtues even while we deprecate her faults. THE INDIAN HAWKER. 'LL Anglo-Indians are acquainted with the tiny bullock cart, and weird green boxes of the hawker, and where these boxes were originally made, and by whom, would be a very puzzling subject of enquiry for an antiquary. The writer has sought to trace some of these boxes back to the trunk maker, but has invariably lost the trial in the mists of antiquity. " Saar ! dis very good box, dis my fader box." So says the hawker, and in this one instance, perhaps, he speaks the truth. The boxes are usually of great age, and generally lined inside with ancient copies of " the Illustrated London News." This lining, appears a fashion among hawkers, though, possibly, some of the portraits in the Illustrated, the physiognomy of the late Lord Brougham, notably, serve as " fetish" to which the hawker does " poojah" when he falls upon a more credulous customer than ordinary. These boxes have a magical power which we have never elsewhere observed, except in the hat of the " wizard of the north." They contain a bulk which it appears impossible can never be crammed into them, and indeed, the hawker, from long experience in the art, is the best " packer" in existence. No one but himself, THE INDIAN HAWKER. 97 could neatly pack into his green magical box, the heaps of muslin, jaconette, and cloth, which ladies examine, unfold, and cast about the verandah, in com- pany with packets of soap, quill pens, ink bottles, spools of thread, tape, etc., etc. The hawker and his box are, in truth, one, and it is difficult to say which contains the greatest quantity of deceit — the box or its owner. ' Familiar as Madrassees are with the green boxes, they are still more familiar with the war song of the Indian pedlar " Haw — ker me — am." To a nervous person, or one anxious to enjoy a siesta, this cry is literally "'pins and needles." It is unexpected, and strikes upon the tympanum in a manner so startling^ that we have seen, usually speaking, composed, and middle-aged gentlemen, jump from their chairs in a paroxysm of wrath, and bare-headed, pursue the fleeing hawker through the compound and down the road> breathing threats of manslaughter the while. Like the song of the Indian cuckoo, the hawkers cry is inex- pressibly monotonous, and we are thankful it is not now heard so frequently as formerly. During the last tenj or fifteen years, the number of hawkers who wandered through the Mofussil, have visibly decreased. We know not if any peculiar mortality has occurred among the fraternity — certainly, however, the fact remains) and hawkers are no longer so pestiferous as formerly. AVe trust, that as railways extend over the country, the trade may die a natural death, for we would willingly write the epitaph of the last hawker, feeling assured^ 98 THE INDIAN HAWKER. that we should not be put to much trouble in commemo- rating his virtues. However, the hawker still exists. He is not as yet a Mastadon or a Dodo, and our ladies, with a strange infatuation, purchase articles from him daily at twenty times their value — as " bargains." The manner and mode, by which the hawker can afford to sell goods cheaply, and yet make an enormous profit upon his transactions, is excessively simple, and we will here recount it for the benefit of the fair sex, if the fair sex does not know it already. Every now and then auctions are held at the Presidency of damaged goods such as the hawker loves to carry. Our vaga- bond pedlar is careful to attend these sales, where he often picks up a cart4oad of goods for a mere song. If possible, he renovates damaged pieces. If he cannot do so, he unblushingly advocates the purchase of his wares on the ground of this damage, and such is the weakness of human nature, and especially of bargain- loving nature, that he will often sell damaged goods to a person who would not pay the same price for goods in the best order. It is one of the nice arts of the pedlar's trade, to ask 1 00 per cent, more than he means to take, and by gradually abating his first charge, in deference apparently, to the wishes of his customer, he awakens a spirit of gambling in the latter's breast, which he generally finds very much to his profit. Customers, and lady customers especially, cannot understand how an article can be aught but cheap, when by force of their own powers of bargaining, they obtain it fifty per cent, cheaper than the hawker THE INDIAN HAWKER. 99 appraised it at ! They are indignant and unbelieving, when told that the hawker has only made 50 per cent. on the transaction after all. It is fair to say, however, that hawkers are sometimes driven to sore straits by feminine customers. When hawkers were more plentiful than they are at present, it was a common practice for ladies in the Mofussil to turn out hawkers' wares for the mere amusement of criticising them. This practice was too exasperating for even the patience of a hawker. Enraged bv what he considered an ex-: of meanness, he would sometimes (figuratively speak- ing) throw an article at the heads of his fair tormentors, pouching only 10 per cent, or a trifle on the sale. Some ladies were so sharp, or so critical, that no hawker would go near them, and the writer has been amused to observe hawkers pass a certain gate of a compound wherein such a dame dwelt. Invariably, they shook their heads with every appearance of dissatisfaction, muttering, we question, blessings on the head of their tormentor. In olden times, some of the Presidency tradesmen, employed hawkers to carry their wares about the Mofussil. Such hawkers had, of course, superior and dearer goods than the others, but we believe the practice has long fallen into disuse, and these hawkers were nothing more than barmen with whom we have not to deal at present. Like bagmen, and like beggars, how- ever, the hawkers are closelv bound together bv the bonds of a common interest. The fraternity have not indeed " commercial rooms" at their inns, in which to 100 THE INDIAN HAWKER. dine together, but they have a sort of freemasonry, like the beggars, which they find very useful. Thus a good, and a credulous customer, is known to every one of the band, and houses are noted carefully wherein fierce dogs and smarting pellet bows are kept by " too muchee bad gentlemans" for the benefit of "the poor hawker." The goods which "go down" at certain stations, are noted for the general advantage also, as well as the customers who pay ready money, and the customers who may receive credit — without probable loss. The hawker pretends to be a very humble individual, and rather illogically for his interest, is bent upon assuring us, that he is "one poor hawker" careless, or forgetful, that his poverty is no recommendation to a customer. The hawker is, however, by nature and profession, such a glib liar, that it may be supposed he cannot speak the truth even in his own interest ; and also, that he has some hazy ideas of the advantages of combining begging and trading together, and of exciting the compassion of ladies whose hearts are hard as stone on the subject of pice. It would be well, if the poor hawker was only a beggar as well as a trader. He is very frequently a receiver of stolen goods, and not uncommonly a thief and burglar besides. Hawkers enjoy great facilities of spying out the property, and the defences in a house. Perhaps, while the mistress of the mansion is examin- ing, in the verandah, the hawker's goods, the keen eye of that worthy, like the robber chief in Alii Baba, is curiously roving over the drawing room knick-knacks and the bars of the windows. If ladies and gentlemen TIIF. INDIAN HAWKER. 101 are unfortunate enough to have their houses broken open, let them " hark back" to the last visit they receiv- ed from " a poor hawker," before giving information to the police. Ten to one, the hawker is mixed up in the business as an asfent of house-breakers, if he is not the burglar himself — and knows more about the affair, than our model constables. A hawker is as convenient a friend to dishonest servants as ever Faain was to Master Charlev Bates and the Artful Dodger. The hawker's boxes — those wonderful green boxes — are capable of stowing away more than honestly purchased goods, and articles of wearing apparel, ornament, books, etc., very commonly find their way into hawker's boxes when they are suppos- ed to be " lost" by their grieving owners. An anecdote par example. A gentleman residing in Bangalore, lost a quaint, and rare edition of "Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy," a book which is caviar to the million. He went to England, and returned to Bangalore after a two years' absence to find a hawker offer this very book (his own property) to him for sale. His name had been carefully torn from the title page, but his crest, an unusual and colored one, had, apparently, so added to the attractions of the book, that the hawker had retained it. The poor hawker was at once seized by the throat, and in the compressive grasp of our friend, blurted out the answers to the following questions — " Where did you steal my book you scoundrel ?" "Master too much choke. I nev — er steal (guggle guggle) I poor hawker. Oh master ! master ! I surely 102 THE INDIAN HAWKER. die." " Where did you get my book ? answer ?" " Master not too much choke, and I tell. Master boy give." " What my boy gave it to you V "Oh ! (guggle guggle) master ! master ! I die. I tell truth, I never tell lie. I give one rupee for book." "Did he sell you anything else ?" " Oh master ! suppose choke I die. I buy one pair boots. Twelve annas I give. That boy dam rascal, I trust to him honor, and s'help me master ! I choke, he give me two right foot boots. Nobody buy." The hawker when, comparatively honestly, or outrageously burglariously, he has saved a sum varying from rupees 500 to two thousand, sets up a shop in the bazaar of a town which suits his fancy, and is content with a much more moderate percentage from his countrymen, than he thought fit to wrest from the Feringhees. He pays an annual visit to a Presidency town, where he purchases a sufficient yearly quantity of damaged goods in the presence of his son — if he has one — whom he usually designs for his own profession. Seated cross-legged before his " dookan," he delights to pass his time in gossip with the passers-by, if not purchasers, for gossip is the breath of a hawker's nostrils, and without gossip he would become a dyspeptic. As the barber is the "Times" of the bazaar, and the fountain head of city intelligence, so the hawker may be likened to " the Field" or the country gentle- man's newspaper, he, in his suburban perambulations, carrying intelligence more or less true to villages, and out-of-the-way places. Although regarding money as the main chance, and the end of life, the hawker will THE INDIAN HAWKER. 103 stop to gossip with any traveller he meets on the road, and will tell most astonishing, but imaginary tales of the perils of robbers and thugs he has survived in his travels. It is in truth, a curious fact, that hawkers are rarely, if ever robbed on the loneliest roads. Whether it is, that there really is "honor among thieves" or, that the undisguised robbers have some superstitious, or w T ell-founded dread of hawker's boxes, it is impossible to say. Certainly, hawkers appear to enjoy an immunity from professed thieves, and to be able to sing as merrily on the highway as the very emptiest of travellers, described by the Roman poet. Hawkers are of all creeds and castes, and some of them are wealthy men possessed of dozens of tiny bul- lock carts, and innumerable green boxes. As a rule, hawkers never have sound or lasting articles in their boxes. They could not afford to carry such. It is their policy to undersell the shops, and they can only do so by selling inferior goods, which an oily tongue " slavers" so as to render them digestible to the credulous. Indian hawkers are possessed of astonishing powers of " blarney" as necessary stock in trade, and being plau- sible rascals, they frequently make much money out of a new-comer before he is initiated in their tricks. To define them, however, generally, and adequately, we must borrow an Irishman's saying and declare, that " one is as bad as another and a great deal worse." If people must needs deal with hawkers there is but one golden rule to follow. Divide their prices by half; subtract 25 per cent, from the total, and then allow 104 THE INDIAN HAWKER. another native to bargain with the hawker for a price below that again. Even then, the hawker will probably obtain a handsome profit. THE BILL COLLECTOR. GREAT Poet depicted patience "on a monu- ment," but, in our opinion, patience might have been better pourtrayed as an Indian Bill Col- lector going his rounds about the commencement of the month, his pockets full of accounts and his head full of promises, the latter being expected to pay the former. For many years, we have observed the Indian Bill Collector as a curious study of human nature, and feel convinced, that he has as many claims to an article as other types of humanity which figure in the columns of some of our English satirical cotemporaries. The Indian Bill Collector, indeed, is not a brisk, lively subject to anatomize, like a girl of the period, or a frisky matron ; but still he has good and bad points which court criticism. The elder Mr. Weller assures us, that in England, misanthropists become "Pike men" — that disgusted with a weary and wicked world, there are many of our fellow-creatures who seek to hide their woes, and to chew the cud of bitter reflection, in a turnpike box — and, that there is truth in the assertion, no one will deny who has driven to the Derby "en famille" and heard the bad language indulged in by the turnpike men en route. But in India, happily, there are no "pikes," and consequently no openings ofretire- 14 106 THE BILL COLLECTOR. ment from the world for misanthropical natives. What then can the dusky hypochondriacs do, but, failing pikes to adopt the next best employment for a mind diseased — the bill-collecting business ? To dun ladies and gentlemen living somewhat beyond their means, to thrust bills in the repellant features of subalterns who have no means to speak of, or to live beyond, must be a gratification inexpressible to a misanthropical patriot of Hindostan, who can thus avenge his country's wrongs upon the conquering race. The bill collector may not be so wretched an individual, or have the means of making himself so wretched as a turnpike keeper, but he has a consolation. If he cannot make himself miserable, he can make others so. Our readers are no more to assume, that we consider all bill col- lectors lugubrious, than that they are to believe the writer does not liquidate his monthly bills from his experience of bill collectors. There are jovial, and pleasant visaged bill collectors, even as there are morose ill-featured individuals of the class ; and as regards our experience of this peculiar trade, "Our station," which is in the Mofussil, (and wherein everything is known, from the fact, that Mrs. Bomarsunds's silver teapot is German metal, to the sum Lieutenant Penury paid this month " on account" of his bill with Messrs. Rookemjee and Sucharow,) affords us unlimited opportunities of observation. Do not Mr. and Mrs. Rakes live next door to us, and Mr. Penury opposite ? Do we not on the 5th of every month — that day on which Government emoluments are distributed with one hand and taken THE BILL COLLECTOR. 107 away with the other, hear the inevitable rumbling of wheels which denotes that the Hindoo and Moham- medan, as common creditors, are running a race in hackeries and bandies of which the Pakes's house is the winning post ? Do we not see bill collectors of every hue and caste, some wearing peons badges, some umbrellas, but all with slips of blue paper in their hands entering the gate of Mr. Penury, and have we not heard that gentleman's voice strung to concert pitch telling his suitors to go — well, anywhere ? Of course we have, and have profited by our opportunities. Our experience leads us to suppose, that there are but two pronounced species of " bill man." The gloomily morose, and the hysterically jocular native. The first haunts one's house like a ghost, and appears to take a ghastly pleasure in- terrifying people of weak nerves. He makes no noise, for he carefully divests his feet of their wooden pie-dishes before he is within ear-shot of his victim. He creeps about the compound stealthily, as if about to stalk a kangaroo, and if there is a back entrance to a house, he prefers it to a front one. It is this individual's delight, though he betrays it not in smiles, to reach Mr. Owing without alarming that gentleman. Mr. O. may be intent on a book, or with his pen, and it is not until he happens to look up suddenly, that he perceives within a few feet of him, a ghostly figure something like the statue in Don Giovanni, beckoning him mysteriously with a slip of paper. How long has the wretch stood there silent as the grave ? Perhaps for minutes, perhaps for hours. 108 THE BILL COLLECTOR. Under no circumstances would this bill-man allow himself to be betrayed by the slightest noise or motion. Very likely Mr. O. is terribly startled, and irritated. He orders the monster to "jao" and he "jaos" according- ly, but with a dismal face of such intense, mute reproach, that it is a mercy if Mr. O. does not dream of the vision that night. We believe, that this is the best servant for creditors, since he has the unhappy knack of making debtors so irritable and uncomfortable, that they will act as sick people at home with organ-grinders — pay them to go away. The worst bill collector for his master's interests, is, we think, the merry and familiar bill-man. This individual on the strength of your being indebted to his master two rupees eight annas, will waddle, with a laugh into a verandah and accost one with " a good morning" as artificially hearty as the salutation of a cockney fox-hunter. He will enquire the news of the station while he is rummaging out his bill, and makes himself so intolerably familiar, that he is frequently kicked into the compound there to loosen the vials of his wrath in sarcasm. " Master beat and no pay bill. That ver-y good. Suppose my master know master such poor man, my master no give credit. Master no able to pay two rupee eight anna. Ver-y good — ne-ver mind. My master let master off other month." And if he is not again kicked out of the compound for his insolence, he will retire laughing heartily, but we trust at the wrong side of his mouth. Although many bill collectors deserve castigation for insolence, it must be recollected, that their occupation THE BILL COLLECTOR. 109 is one that Othello himself could not have regretted. They trudge out of a morning to go their weary rounds often without results. At the houses of " bad pays/' they have ofteQ to wait hours till master or missus " can see." Perhaps, the lady or gentlemen are only morally blind after all, and the bill-man is told to come some other time — away he goes to another house, where possibly he will awake an enraged subaltern from his siesta with the raven-like cry of " bring beel saar." When he is bedusted with all the abuse in the Hindoostanee tongue which that officer has picked up in that morning's study with his inoonshee, sorrowfully, but cut to the core, the " son of a pig" tramps home- ward, where he is roundly abused and perhaps his pay stopped, for returning without money. He lays himself down at night after his fruitless labors, in the full assurance, that he has no friends, and it is to be supposed that he goes about his business next day more misanthropical than ever. In former years, when young officers lived at a considerably faster pace than they do at present, and when the law was much less thought of than now, the bill collectors had a dreadful time of it. The writer has seen the wretched misanthropists tossed into tanks, hunted by dogs, and physicked with a patent medicine, and in some out-of-the-way Mofus- sil stations, a bill collector's life was hardly any better for insurance than that of a " gauger" in the Co. Galway thirty years ago. Bill collectors had need of animal courage for it was often put to the test against animals. We recollect a certain gallant officer of the 110 THE BILL COLLECTOR. Madras army, who was a greater sportsman than capital- ist, suffering much from the visitations of the misanthro- pists, until he hit upon the expedient of chaining two young tigers which he had picked up in the jungle, one on each side of his door. For a time the enemy was kept at bay and fruitlessly sought to present and fire their little accounts into the garrison, but at length one more wily than the rest discovered a back window in the very citadel of the fortress — the room, in fact, in which the commandant was wont to sleep unmindful of the solicitations without. The window was besieged, but only for a day. The commandant procured a fierce bear which was constantly chained in a friend's compound, and when the besieging force next assem- bled, he threw bruin out of the window among them. The stratagem was a complete success. The fur-coated ally scattered bill-men and bills like straws in a gale of wind. The misanthropists were routed and no promise of rewards would ever induce them to present an account to that " too muchy bad gentlemans" again. Bill collectors one would imagine, are not a promis- ing theme on which to exercise the poetic muse, and yet one Captain George De Blaguire of the 8th N. I., rendered a bill-man immortal by verses, a few of which we here transcribe and which are to be found in Colonel Napier's "Wild Sports":— " 'Tis sweet the dun's approach to hear, As slow and stately drawing near the door, Chiming sweet music in the ear Of him in bills most rich — in abstract poor, THE BILL COLLECTOR. Ill When comes " the day" the awful day Big with the fate of duns and pay. " 'Tis sweet to hear his voice's music sound Demand of "Sahib ghur may hy ?" 'Tis sweet to see him with salam profound Enter the room, but, sometimes a sigh Will 'scape you, that the servant did not saj' " Master's not at home to-day." " Upon my word, I am extremely sorry That I've not paid it long ago, But why and wherefore all this hurry, Why not a little patience show ? You must . In fact, at least, I pray That you will wait until pay day." " Same ting alway Master say, The money when I want to get, " Must come next month — or " Pisa nay" Or that you did the bill forget, Two or three days or weeks to wait, Or when I come, I come too late." The above doggrel shows very plainly the tortures which the unsuccessful bill collector has to endure from the fifth of the month to its termination. He is put off from day to day, from week to week ! Remember- ing what Solomon says, that "hope deferred maketh the heart sick" how excessively heartsore must be the poor bill-man ? No lover sighing to the moon breathes such vows of unbroken constancy to his " attraction" as the bill-man. He serenades the object of his most 112 THE BILL COLLECTOR. earnest aspirations not indeed in the night as if ashamed to show his face, but in the broad day-light, and his perseverance to obtain the objects of his desire is such, that he will patiently sit upon the door step all day long for a month for the slightest chance of obtaining his reward. The lover is often fickle and inconstant, the bill collector never ; so we agree with Captain De Blaguire that our bill-man has a claim to poetry as well as to prose. We have no space to enter into the religious belief of bill collectors who are usually Hindoos ; but we cannot conclude without a speculation as to what will become of deceased bill-men according to the Brahminical doctrine of the trans- migration of souls. Doubtless, the bill collectors must believe, that they will become Braminy ducks in a future state, the male and female of that bird being popularly supposed by the Hindoos to seat themselves on opposite banks of a river and to dun each other incessantly for a favor which is always answered in the negative. I THE INDIAN WASHERMAN- ^7\yYAH, this is really too provoking. The dhobie lias had the clean clothes now for twelve days, and he should have brought them in a week. What on earth is the matter with him ?" " This day I go to him house maam. Dhobie, gone to Vellore, to get married. This three day gone, and all the clothes wash but not iron. That Dhobie very bad man maam. What for, he go marry ?" Such, was some conversation, we once heard, between a Lady and Mrs. Abigail, and, doubtless, many a mistress of an Anglo-Indian household, is acquainted with its purport only too well, for dhobies are exasperating creatures in their want of punctuality, and don't care an unripe mangoe whether master or missy are left without collars or cuffs for the best part of a week. It is sufficiently aggravating indeed to have one's clean clothes detained beyond a stipulated time in the dho- bie's hovel, but it is enough to provoke the patience of a saint, to entertain, at the same time, a perhaps too well-founded suspicion, that the raiment entrusted to this worthy's care, is even then adorning the persons of East Indian bucks of low degree, who are willing to pay a small sum for the privilege of wearing European apparel of the latest fashion from Saturday night, until 15 114 THE INDIAN WASHERMAN. Monday morning at parcherry balls, Park town Soirees and at Divine Worship upon the grateful Sabbath. Ones " Corazas" and " Eureka" stockings may be none the worse from being aired by Mr. Xavier Pereira at a colored dance in Chilly Pillay Naidoo Street, and the bloom of the plum will not stick to shirt fronts of spot- less white in a manner beyond the eradication of a good wash and mangle, still, as the gentleman said who was horsewhipped, " It ain't pleasant, you know," and most people would feel infinitely obliged to the dhobie if his " dustoor" would permit of his giving every man his own — without favor, interest, or affection. There is an old story, by Joe Miller Sahib, to the effect, that when Indian washermen are engaged in their occupation, they vent a considerable portion of the spite which accompanies their muscular energy, upon " Europe goods" — and, that they excite an extraordinary tittilation of their demoniacal organs, by flaying a laced chemise, or thrashing a best " open work front," on the roughest stone in their sandy brooklets ; and from personal observation we believe this to be the fact, although candidly doubtful, whether, a guttural, and vindictive " ungreze," is the usual chorus to each smite tending towards tatters. Indeed, the word " ungreeze" (or " English") seems an exaggerated superfluity of the dhobie's speech and action, it being very apparent to any one who takes the trouble to watch his operations, that he is most impartial in his efforts to tear to shreds clothing of all sorts, whether of European or native manufacture. It is all one to THE INDIAN WASHERMAN. 115 him, so long as he gets his pay of eight or ten rupees a month, whether the property entrusted to his tender mercies comes home ragged, or intact, and it appears to us, that Europeans have themselves to blame, to a great extent, for the frightful wear and tear of their clothes in this country when "at the wash." It seems a bad system to pay the Indian washerman stipulated monthly wages, for under such circumstances, it is no easy task to fine him for his dilapidations. If a rupee — perhaps one-tenth of the value of the article destroyed, — is stopped from his monthly pay, he will generally either decline further custom, (taking, however, with him, some slight token of remembrance, such as a pair of socks or a silk necktie,) or, with the exasperation of outraged virtue, he will lay a plaint against his dock- ative employer in the nearest Small Cause Court, and, probably, gain his end, which is, to give his victim of misplaced confidence as much annoyance as possible, to say nothing of expense in bandy-hire while attending the shrine of the blind goddess. But, if dhobies were paid, as washerwomen are paid at home, by piece work, we think the poor dejected dominant race, might find an opportunity to make head against their tyrranous proceedings, and, that even a dhobie, might be brought to book for the loss or damage of a specific article— for which he was paid a certain sum to cleanse and iron, but not to mangle — at least in the native sense of the word. Certainly, the English system of checking the vagaries of washerwomen, would throw more toil and vexation upon the shoulders of those energetic Anglo- 1 in THE INDIAN WASHERMAN. Indian ladies, who take an account of their clothes ; still, it might be hoped, that the additional toil might be repaid by its beneficial results in mulcting the dhobie of his ill-got gains. Some years ago, at Bangalore, an attempt was made to establish a Public American washing machine in that fair city of wasted opportu- nities, and, as well as we recollect, many people, smart- ing under the grievous wrongs inflicted upon them by their dhobies, sent their buck baskets to the proposed extinguisher of the genus dhobie. Unfortunately how- ever, and from causes forgotten, or beyond explanation, this speculation in Yankee ingenuities came to naught, although, while it was in operation, it had the effect of raising the patriotic indignation of the dhobies to blood- heat. Nothing was talked of by the brothers of the craft in the Bangalore brooks, and the Bangalore tanks, but this infernal machine which was to destroy the old dhobies and the young dhobies with an epidemical fatality. The fraternity prognosticated the termination of the British Raj with the introduction of an invention which would ring the knell of dhobiedom, and it is said, they even went the length of organising an attack, vi et armis, upon the monstrous novelty, when the said novelty, happily for the public place, blew up, or explod- ed of itself to their infinite satisfaction. Since this confessed failure, however, the Bangalore dhobies have become more independent, and arrogant than ever, and the Bangalore dhobie of the present day, is pro- verbial, as possessing in his own person, all the worst characteristics of his calling and his craft. THE INDIAN WASHERMAN. 117 It is impossible to treat of the dhobie, without taking into consideration his donkey. What his goose is to a tailor, such is his ass to the Indian washerman. Damon and Pythias, Castor and Pollux, David and Jonathan, were never more firmly bound in the bonds of excessive familiarity than the dhobie and his " moke." No London costermonger, could make more of the thistle-loving quadruped, or treat the patient animal worse than the Indian dhobie. How often do we see the beast (the ass, not the dhobie) suffering from the effects of the brutal violence of his unfeeling, but mild, Hindoo master ? Sometimes, the unfortunate animal's legs are broken by fiendish blows from a " lattee." Sometimes, the poor beast's head is battered, and bleeding from blows of a stone or a brick- bat. His pitiful apology for a tail, is screwed, and re-screwed, according to the " dustoor" of bullock drivers, until there no longer remains a bone in it, and it hangs limply over his hocks like an eel that has died in process of skinning. The poor little wretch's back is bent and broken with the monstrous loads of foul linen which its cruel master heaps unsparingly upon it, and yet in all its suffering and in spite of the lamentable, and too apparent effects of ill-treatment, the dhobie's donkey is a pretty, tiny little specimen of ass-flesh,, such as might excite the pity of a less senti- mental philosopher, than the Pev. Lawrence Sterne. In fact, we think the donkey is the best part of the dhobie, although it must be admitted, that the dhobie's better-half is the deuce to bite and to kick too — more 118 THE INDIAN WASHERMAN. especially a stranger. The writer has seen a dhobie's donkey get the better of a bull-terrier, which foolishly interrupted its meditations on nutritive weeds and grasses. The donkey seized the dog by the back, and worried him as the astonished doggie would himself have worried Master Rattray, and the writer has also seen a dhobie's donkey take gallantly to the surf at a station north of Madras, when pursued by some Kangaroo hounds, thereby leading one to suppose, that he would not make a bad substitute for the red deer of Her Majesty's stag hounds, in this country. But we are unwilling to add to his troubles in life by more troublous suggestions, for his lot is an unhappy one, it being a well known fact, that his trials com- mence with his birth, and that his grave is unhonored because unknown. Young dhobies are suckled on his mother's milk, and old dhobies grow fat upon the allowance provided for him by nature, whence, perhaps, his wretched, dwarfish appearance at years of discre- tion, if ever donkeys arrive at such. He is a faithful beast, however, and the dhobie could not well get on without him. Dhobies, are subject to many sore complaints arising from their practice of standing a considerable portion of the day over their ancles in cold water. The horrible Indian disease of " guinea worm" being attributed by many medical men to the practice of bathing in Indian tanks, we have been at the trouble of inquiring, whether dhobies, in various parts of the country, are more sub- ject to this complaint than other people, but have failed THE INDIAN WASHERMAN. 119 to discover a single instance in which a dhobie suffered from the ill. Perhaps, the dhobie does not immerse his body sufficiently deep to give the worm a fair chance of entering his cuticle, or perhaps, the dhobie disturbs the water so much in his avocation, and pollutes it so horribly in his operations, that the ova of the guinea worm, if it really exists in water, is wafted away from him to others less fortunate than himself. At any rate, dhobies appear to be remarkably free from this pest. If he escapes guinea worm, however, his necessary ills are made up to him in the shape of rheumatism, from which, the dhobie sutlers acutely. So much so, that his walking gait frequently resembles that of his donkey after the latter miserable creature's legs have been smashed with a wattle for upsetting a ponderous load of clean clothes in a miry road. There is a cruel aphorism to the effect, that mankind delights in the sorrows of mankind, and for our own part, we think, if such evil gratification is ever excusable it is when we observe a dhobie in the rheumatism alongside his donkey. Put- ting aside all selfish reflections bearing upom the wilful destruction of choice articles of wearing apparel, it requires the exercise of sonic Christian forbearance not to exult in master and beast, in this instance being placed on a par — so far as bodily suffering is concerned. It is to be regretted however, that our philosophy is at fault in certain instances where we have observed rheu- matic dhobies bestriding broken-down asses, and man- kind paramount over-groaning bestiality. The Indian washerman craftily professes " to make 120 THE INDIAN WASHERMAN, up fine things" after a civilized fashion. It is possible, that if closely looked after, he will actually wash such fragile stuff as lace and needle-work, in a tub or a basin, and with his hands, but it is idle to put any trust in his promises. The cleansed pig will seize the first oppor- tunity to roll himself in the mire, and although the dhobie under supervision, may be kept straight for a time, nature impels him to wallow in " dustoor" and wal- low in it, he will, whenever he gets the chance to do so. His position in the domestic household, also, affords him opportunities of setting at nought the counsels of his master and mistress, such as are granted to none other of our servants. Unfortunately, the dhobie does not wash simply for ourselves but for every servant in our employ who holds a certain position in the establish- ment. The ayah, the butler, and the cook, the maty, nay even, occasionally the durzee, expect to have their clothes wsflshed by " master's dhobie" and woe betide the man, not of suds, but of rough rocks, if he dares to kick against these thorns in our flesh. Let him do so, and the ayah quickly discovers that cuffs and petticoat fringes are tattered or missing. The butler holds up his hands, and turns up the yellows of his eyes in holy horror at the evaporation of dinner napkins, while the durzee swears by needle and thread, that his whole time is taken up in repairing the holes which it appears to be the dhobie's business to make. What is he among so many ? He is dismissed, and the unfortunate " cherisher of the poor" — the exasperated master, finds too late, that he has been betrayed and, that the next THE INDIAN WASHERMAN. 121 dhobie is worse than the last. In conclusion, we would willingly say a good word for an individual whom we have not painted in the brightest of colors. That word is easily said, and is simply an eulogy on the dhobie's abstinence from ardent spirits — at least under our ken. Perhaps the dhobie gets drunk after the fashion of English washerwomen, perhaps he does not. At any rate we never see him the worse for liquor, and it must be said in his favor, that instances are rare in which he pawns our raiment for the gratification of a passion for gin and whiskey. 7i fo 16 THE PEON, 'MONG domestic servants, there is none who enjoys the otium cum digmtate of life so thoroughly as the peon, and his situation is, consequently, as eagerly desired by the lower class of natives as is ever the post of serious footman to an evangelical single lady by flunkies in England. But the similitude between an Indian peon, and a London " Jeames," does not terminate here. Both are common- ly selected for their stalwart and ornamental appearance, and the peon is as vain of his belt as was any oue of those Bath footmen who dazzled Mr. Samuel Weller of the gorgeousness of his " uniform." The peon's belt, of bright red, blue, or yellow, with its glittering gilt badge, has a very imposing effect upon the weak minds of the baser sort of natives, and so well is this fact known that it is a common practice for European travellers in the far Mofussil, to purchase a peon's belt and badge, wherewith to adorn their butler or cook, for purposes of intimidation. Supplies of eggs, milk, fowls, gram, grass and straw, under other circumstances not forthcoming, will appear in profusion under the moral influence of the belt and badge, and bullock proprietors, warned by the district Collector to provide posted THE PEON. 123 cattle for Ensign Smith, who would ordinarily be pre- pared to swear that the rinderpest was rife among them, or that their " biles" were all in the plough, will confess themselves slaves of the ring to three yards of red cloth and a big brass crown, if the same is judicious- ly worn by even a cook boy. It must be said, however, that this artful dodge is defeating itself, and, that it can now only be practised in the remoter districts with success. Upon highways much affected by European travellers, the most unsophisticated believer in Bramah can distinguish at a glance the bona fide peon from the makeshift. Taking a morning constitutional the other day, the writer was diverted by the conversation of a peon and his brother, the latter, a veritable "jungle wallah," upon the lucrative and easy duties of a peon's profes- sion. "Oh my brother," he said, "by the favor of heaven, and the great gentleman, my fate is most pro- pitious. My duties are light and agreeable. From eight o'clock to ten, I am in the presence of the great gentleman, also from two o'clock until four. In the evening, by the invitation of my lord, I also wait upon him. I eat my meals in comfort and with good appe- tite, heaven be praised for it, and oh ! my brother the salary is ten rupees a month — you are my brother, and I have the ear of the great man. Who knows, but with the favor of heaven, you also shall be a peon?" At which prophecy the brother from the country, wreathed his features into a nutcracker grin, meant to typify brotherly affection, gratitude, and hope all com- 124 THE PEON. bined, while he rung the hand of the successful mem- ber of the family, linked with his own by the fingers, violently to and fro in excess of sanguine emotion. Sometime afterwards, we saw this same peon, who was remarkable for a pair of fierce moustachios twisted towards his eye-lids, and a haughty swagger, actually at his duties, and they did not appear anything like so light as he had pourtrayed them to be. He was attend- ing upon four of master's children, varying in age from one to six years, and looked very miserable and deject- ed in his endeavours to keep them out of mischief. The eldest boy had a pellet bow, and another boy a toy gun, with which they shot what Justice Shallow calls "good shoots" at their guardian's shins, while the third, dug the spike of an aloe leaf into the no longer haughty official's back. It was truly pitiful to hear one so great, sing so small a tune. Hopping on one leg, with a smarting shin in his hand, the recipient of ten rupees a month, remonstrated in vain. "Master Willie, what for you hit me ? I tell your pa saar ! Master Tom, you fire gun, and you put out my eye. Amah ! amah! (to ayah) Master Jonny stick pin in my back — see blood come. That ' budzat' shild. I tell you ma saar, den you get 'tap tap.'" We passed him, his great gilt badge of office shining in the morning sun, with the reflection, that all is not gold that glitters. The most fortunate peons, are those who are never employed in the care of children, but are merely orna- mental adjuncts to a great man's state. This class of peon hangs about cutcheries, courts, and public offices, THE PEON. 125 where he is alike the dread and the admiration of the populace. Although no such thing as bribery and cor- ruption exists in our Indian courts, etc., it is to be feared, that two anna, four anna, and even eight anna pieces, will find their way into his pocket occasionally from suitors and others, who educated in a native system of govern- ment, believe that the way to a great Sahib is to be found through his subordinates. To tamper with the executive, is in our estimation a great fault. Native public opinion, however, considers such a very venial faux pas as long as anything is to be gained by it ; and the peon affects the gypsy's role and will tell any one his fortune if his palm is only crossed with silver. His chief harvest, however, is among witnesses, of which the Penal Code supplies him with a plentiful and never-failing crop. These unfortunates, who are often dragged a distance of miles from their farms and occu- pations to give evidence, believe firmly in the peon's powers of giving annoyance and vexation, and they are, consequently, willing to pay through the nose for, if not immunity, consideration. They believe, and perhaps justly, that the peon can swear they are non est, or, that a douceur will cause him to curtail the time and loss consequent on attending as a witness at a Court of Justice ; and as the peon is an imposing person, and "un homme gallant," it is very necessary for him to keep up his dignity, the unspotted purity of his robe, and the gorgeousness of his turban by accepting those trifling tokens of good-will, which pass current at Parliamentary elections in Great Britain. If the peon 126 THE PEON. was possessed of a tortoise shell female cat, we may depend, he would sell it for a "Tom" to a reluctant witness for £50 if he had the chance. The witness not having such a sum of money, unless indeed buried under the floor of his house, or the peon grimalkin, nothing passes between the representative of the Government and of the people, but perhaps a paltry shilling, which, we Britons, with all our love of purity of justice, not unfrequently slip into the hands of X 22 to obtain good standing room on our fellow-creatures' corns at a crowded exhibition. The strong arm of the law reaches every one, and must we regret that the said arm terminates in a hand given to covert closing on pieces of shining metal ? Allah forbid ! the peon would say, and honest man ! he speaks according to his lights, no doubt, in this matter. It is a grand thing to have an army of peons about one's house, but grandeur has its penalties. Idle people, are usually inquisitive people, and peons are no exception to the rule. Loafing about verandahs, even in scarlet and gold belts, is wearisome work, and " pour passer le temps," peons are somewhat given to opening wide their ears to scraps of conversation, and to peering through Venetians after the manner of Paul Pry. "We have heard an old world tale of how a great man, being much annoyed by this peeping propensity of his lictors, purchased a squirt, which, loaded with tobacco juice, he discharged into such brown and yellow eyes as he discovered intruding on his privacy, with the best results, until one day, his wife, a bilious THE PEON. 127 brunette, playfully peeping into his study window, received a solution of nicotine through the "jilmils" which gave her a kind of " country sore eye" for many days following, and put a stop to all such eccentricities of genius for the future. Curiosity and peons are, indeed, synonymous words. The insolence of London footmen has become proverbial, but we doubt if the most " pampered menial" of the class, could exceed in easy impudence the demeanour of some of the loafing peons who hang about great men's houses, and take visitors' cards into the "Burra Beebee." Their ex- pressive countenances seem to say, " I have taken stock of you, and should imagine you have an income of about five hundred rupees a month. My master has ten thousand. I note your hired gharry, and for my part, I think my mistress would do well not to see such riffraff. However, I will see what I can do, and remember, if you are admitted, you will be indebted to me for the circumstance." Further, unless he happens to be a very amiable individual of his class, he will allow a visitor to enter his carriage, careless about opening or shutting the door for him, and will watch his departure easily from the top door step with such graceful negligence that we could swear he would use a tooth pick if he only had one in his pocket. It must be remembered, however, and as some excuse for the impertinence of the peon, that natives in general think it becoming to be insolent in proportion to the dignity of their masters. The peon is a sad disturber of female domestic peace in a household wherein dwell " ayahs," 128 THE PEON. " tunnycatches" and such-like women-kind. Happily in India, we have no areas, no life guards-men, and no policemen alive to the attractions of stolen kitchen kisses and cold mutton. But some of us have peons, and in the peon is embodied the fascinations of the Life Guards Scarlet, and the Life Guards Blue. Time hangs heavy on the hands of the ornamental peon, and there are two moral texts which eminently apply to him, viz., " Satan ever finds some work for idle hands to do," and " Evil communications corrupt good manners." It is true, that the manners of a tunny catch are often not worth mentioning, still, such as they are, the peon seeks to make them worse, and his flirtations are too often the cause of much disunion among butlers, ayahs, cooks, horse-keepers and others. It is impossible for the ayah, for instance, to regard this exquisite with- out sly admiration. His whiskers are beautiful, and he appears to have nothing to do the best part of the day, but twist them, or to admire his teeth, and look down his throat with a piece of looking-glass. Then his uniform is excessively handsome, with its rich " puggery" and still richer belt. No wonder, when she is sent out with the children, under the magnificent escort of this fine idler, that her poor little heart flutters as she listens to his delightful discourse upon love and the price of rice, upon consuming passion and the emoluments of office. Forgotten is the betrothed butler, who is jealously watching the pair from his apartments in the godowns, forgotten the durzee, forgotten all mankind. She pops an opium pill into baby's mouth to stop its querrulous THE PEON. 129 interruptions to her pleasing reflections which are on marriage, — nothing is further from the peon's thoughts. Alas ! alas ! Indeed, like most " ladies' men," the peon is one to regard matrimony as an affair in extremis, and not to be lightly entered into save for weighty pecuniary con- siderations. Like some fashionable fops with neither pence nor brains, who value themselves at " thirty thou," the peon will calculate his worth at " three hundred rups," a sum of money he does not expect to find among ayahs and kitchen maids, but in the bazaars, among the heiresses of grain -and oil-dealers. When he marries, he " marries money," as Mr. Trollope has it ; therefore his intentions to female domestics breed mischief and nothing more. We have hitherto treated of the young and ornamental peon, but a great deal might be said of the old and faithful, Caleb Balderstone kind of peon if we had space to say it in. This faith- ful old rascal, whether he is in Government, or private employment, is excessively amiable in his address, and seductive in his manners. His snow-white moustache appeals to our reverence, and on a jemalbundy, or a shikar trip, or any tour which takes his master into the country, he is loud in his compassion for the poor people, and indignant of the dishonesty of younger peons, who, unknown to the sahib, would rob the villagers of a fowl or a handful of grain. There is but one way to avoid the practice of such iniquities, he declares — give every- thing over to him, the money especially, and he will see everything paid for, to the uttermost fraction. Alas ! 17 130 THE PEON. for the honesty of grey hairs. His experience of his profession is such, that where a younger peon would thrash a villager with whips, he would thrash him with scorpions, and he will rob his master and villager together, where another peon would only rob one. But he is a pleasanter peon to employ than one of the ornamental type, for age has worn out his passions for flirtations and prying, and his latter day thoughts are concentrated on rupees. He is affectionate too, and weeps copiously when his master goes to England ; but who can say how much his tears partake of the man, how much of the Saurian ? THE NATIVE GROOM, — 9^&3t&&4*r~~ \Y asked to point out the salient characteristics of fthe " Ghorawalla," we should without hesitation answer, drunkenness and domestic disunion, for we never yet had the good fortune to be possessed of a perfectly sober horse-keeper, or one who either did not beat his wife or was beaten by her. A late English Judge in a horse case, gave it as his opinion, amidst the loud laughter of his Court, that there was a dishonesty in horse flesh infectious to mankind, but, if his Lord- ship had sat upon the Indian bench, he might have added a dipsomania also, for our horse-keepers are undoubtedly the greatest tipplers among our servants. Inquiring, on a certain occasion, of an otherwise toler- ably decent specimen of his class, why he was so con- stantly intoxicated, he made reply, that the fault was entirely due to that " bad womans," his wife, and being required to give further explanation, stated, that his good lady, who filled the stable appointment of " horse- keeperess" or "grass-cutter," upon a salary of three rupees eight annas a month, in a manner very contrary to the spirit of the marriage vows, retained that income for her own use and benefit, whereby he was driven to drinking by ingratitude. As the effects of ingratitude 132 THE NATIVE GROOM. were very costly to the man's master, extending as they did, to the loss of a horse from cholic and neglect, and the everlasting smash of a self-driving phaeton, the presence of the female defendant in the case was required, when the following little scene took place in open Court — viz., the coach house. Master to defendant. — " Now, then, stop that howl- ing and yelling, and say is it true you give your husband cause to drink ?" Defendant. — "Ay, ay, yah ! wah ! yah ! wah ! wah !" Plaintiff. — " Do you not hear, immodest woman ? Answer my lord, if it is not true, that in a shameless and ever-to-be-considered reprehensible manner, you have not retained for dress and dissipation the fruits of my lord's generosity, purposely intended for the use of myself and my children ?" Defendant. — " A lie ! a lie ! my lord. Do not believe the drunken villain. Once a month, he takes my pay. Then he goes to the bazaar and drinks three measures of toddy, then he comes back and beats me. Master look ! (discloses contusion on the head, and swelling of the nose and left eye) so he does every day, till no more money. Oh Ram ! Ram ! Ram ! take me out of this pitfall into which I have descended by ill fortune !" Plaintiff (in English). — " Dis ver — y bad womans saar ! Suppose master no mind her, plenty better — she always drinkey, then bobbery come. True saar ! She make one jerkumcission, master see (exhibits a large THE NATIVE GROOM. 133 weal on the calf of his leg) I tell troot. She no good to be here — (resuming the vernacular.) Begone bare- face ! my lord informs me he is wearied with the multitude of your crimes — Begone I say !" Defendant. — "What! I bareface, you — (here the reader, if he pleases, may cull some choice terms of abuse from Smollet's works to fill up the vacuum) My lord, (kneeling) that man is one of no caste or character (jumps up, and in an incredibly short space of time, reappears with several bundles, and four children, one on her shoulder, one in her arms, one on her hip and one by the hand) I'll take my leave my lord (to husband) ah bah ! pig ! dog ! rogue ! Beater of women !" Master (exasperated). — " Get along the pair of you" (orders servants to drive them out. In the road, a furious scratching match, and cries which make the welkin ring. Enter Police in whose charge Mr. and Mrs. Ghora walla and family are taken off to " Chowkey)." So much for curiosity on the subject of domestic misdemeanor. Indeed, it is better not to be too inquisitive why horsekeepers and their wives cannot live like other married natives, in at least ostensible harmony and sobriety. Perhaps, as the Chief Justice inferred, the horse has really something to do with the circumstance. For a man notoriously intemperate, the activity of the horse-keeper is something marvellous. The most muscular of Christians might envy the thews and endurance whiclTenable him to run alongside a swift 134 THE NATIVE GROOM. horse or a light carriage for miles under a tropical sun, but it would be untrue to say he does not turn a hair under such exercise. On the contrary, he works himself into a fine lather when performing this portion of his duties, and there is an Indian tale which tells, how, in the Island of Singapore, the Malay horse-keepers, under these warm circumstances, are scraped with a slate, for the purpose of making the delicious cream ices for which that settlement is famous. However, this may be, the horse-keeper appears to think exercise trifling, which in severity would have killed the old running footmen of English fine people in the last century, when John Thomas had to run after the cum- brous coach of the period, even as "Mooneah" runs after our dog-cart of today. As a rule, the horse-keeper is so fond of his horse, that he loves to share his meals with the animal. His mode of displaying his good fellowship is so unique, too, as to merit description. Taking the horse's daily allow- ance of gram, he boils it some hours longer than there is any occasion for, whereby, a fine pea soup is produced most satisfying to the stomachs of little ghorawallahs. This soup the horse-keeper and family drink to the good health of Bucephalus whose share is the soup meat. Certainly the ghorawallah gets the best of the " carte" so properly associated with the horse, but he does not after all, behave much worse to his four-footed companion than the man who gives his guest " Cape" at 1 6 shillings a dozen for a fine dry Amontillado. The horse must, however, be considered the most charitable THE NATIVE GROOM. 135 of quadrupeds, for he supports not unfrequently, poor animal, a large human family, the horse-keeper and his wife being highly gifted with the bumps of philo-pro- genitiveness. Not satisfied that the horse should be merely a pur- veyor of food, the horse-keeper craves, that the horse should provide intoxicating liquors also, and so it happens that ghora wallahs in the service of old ladies, griffins, and grass widows, are fond of prescribing ale, brandy, toddy, and arrack for every variety of equine complaint. It is needless to say, however, that when credulity reaches to the extent of supplying these medical comforts to the astonished horse, the physic goes the way of the gram soup with the utmost rapidity. So we have heard of whiskey, rum, and gin, being applied to splints and spavins with the best results, and even an arrack clyster to an Ensign's "tatoo" when rolling in a cholic, a disease by the way, which is certain frightfully to alarm any of the three classes of horse- owners to whom we have alluded above, and to cause them to produce their brandy bottles in hot haste — to the secret satisfaction of the ghorawallah. It is a peculiarity of the horse-keeper, that he is the most uncivil of natives to every one but his own master. Ask a horse-keeper on the road, whose blanketted horse he is leading, and he will, probably, answer the civil question in a tone of voice calculated to provoke a breach of the peace. This incivility however, may possibly be attributed to that want of intercourse with polite society which lends to in-door native servants a charm all their 136 THE NATIVE GROOM. own. We have heard a story how a young married couple on their first arrival in India, determined to give what is vulgarly called "a splutter," but in more correct language a ceremonious dinner party, to hastily made acquaintances in the East. In the innocence of their loving and confiding hearts, the cook was to be depend- ed upon ; but the matter of " attendance" gave them some trouble as they were aware such " attendance" was a necessity in England. "Let us have in the horse- keepers," said Mrs. Angelina, "you know Papa always made the stable people wait at his large dinners ?" " A happy thought" replied Edwin Sahib, "but I'll first enquire if it's the custom of the place." " No ! no ! dear, you must not do that — they would only call us grffins, and all sorts of naughty names." So the three horse-keepers were directed to " wait" — in spite of all remonstrances from a faithful butler, and a conscientious maty boy. " What very strange ser- vants you have got, are they ghorawallahs V enquired Mrs. Ochre as she sat next the hostess at dinner. " Oh ! you wretch !" she continued " do let my hair alone V The last remark was addressed to the horse- keeper in waiting, who having knocked off the lady's wreath with his elbow, put it on again with a good firm pressure to make it stick. " Do you smell gram V enquired Major Oleander, just as Edwin recovered from this misadventure. " Egad ! there is an extraor- dinary aroma of boiled gram here !" Host and hostess were in agonies, for dishes and tumblers were being broken, and coats hitherto innocent of grease were THE NATIVE GROOM. 137 being dribbled with entrees and rich sauces, while the horse-keepers, regarding all strange servants as intruders, jostled them about the room. Finally, and not until the misadventure terminated in the joke of one of the waiters brushing the mosquitoes off Colonel Gobbleton's bald head with his scarlet and white horse- hair fly compeller, did Edwin and Angelina dare to lift their heads from their plates and confess their lament- able ignorance of Indian " dustoor." Anglo-Indians are not usually given to dressing their native servants in gorgeous livery, but the horse- keeper forms an exception to this rule. The ridiculous figures which these unfortunates are compelled to cut in compliance with the taste, or want of taste, of their masters and mistresses, have often aroused within us, feelings of admiration and compassion. The hat of the horse-keeper is, in itself, a study in the grotesque. Who invented this astounding head dress, history does not relate, but it is likely it owes its origin to the same master mind which devised the monstrous polished chimney pot surmounted with an immoveable weather vane, that until but recently, crowned the head of the Madras sepoy. The ghorawallah's hat is indescribable, but its general effect, when in combination with the rest of his apparel, is to cause him to look a wearer of motley as much as possible, though why, people should like to have haxiequins in green and yellow, orange and red, and other antagonistic colors running after their vehicles, it is impossible to say, unless we attribute the custom to fashion or, that grievous word " dustoor V 18 138 THE NATIVE GROOM. It must, however, be confessed, that a couple of ghora- wallahs neatly dressed in dark-blue, slightly reliev- ed with white and wearing well-tied turbands, and not hats, of the same color, with snowy nybrushers in their hands, do not detract from the tout ensemble of an otherwise well appointed Indian carriage. Horsekeepers, nevertheless, are as a rule so " jungly" in appearance, and so uncouth in their habits, that it seems almost a pity to waste any decent livery upon them but a breech clout. Some years ago, and before the introduction of railways into the Madras Presi- dency, it was said, and apparently with truth, that the " chucklers" of villages on the Mofussil trunk roads, were in confederacy with the horsekeepers whom new arrivals picked up in Madras, and, that it was a prac- tice of the latter, when taking up horses to stations in the interior, to halt conveniently for a day or so, while the former converted the unfortunate horse into leather by means of a judiciously administered dose of poison. Ellore, obtained an unenviable notoriety for this little game, but happily railways have to a great extent exploded the practice, although it still exists in many parts of the country to the cost of every one who keeps a horse, a pig or a cow, as the advertisement has it. It would be unfair to deny the horse-keeper the sav- ing good quality of courage for which he is remarkable, as any one will admit who has observed him attending a man-eating, or a vicious horse in a loose box, where his brains, it might be imagined, were not worth five seconds' purchase. He certainly, however, has a rare THE NATIVE GROOM. 139 influence over his horse, and he will coax and pet an obstreperous animal into good behaviour, where an English groom, under similar circumstances, would cause him to become a confirmed " Cruiser" by brutal treat- ment and vociferous objurgation, Indeed the horse- keeper, when not drunk, or in the meagrims from " ingratitude," is an excellent stable man though, somewhat lazy in giving his charge a fair allowance of " elbow grease." This is a fault of all grooms it may be urged as an apology, and we recollect an instance of an Indian officer who had been long in this country, going home, and entering, one day, his English stables, where the groom was manifestly in the category of lazy ghorawallahs in this respect. Thinking perhaps, he was still in India, the irate owner lent the man a box on the ear, when the stricken one, deliberately taking off his jacket, gave his surprised master such a quantum smT of the said elbow grease as caused the combatant officer to be sore upon the subject ever afterwards. In conclusion, it would be unfair not to give some credit to the ghorawallah's wife, and also usually the grass-cutter as well, for the distinguished patience and perseverance, with which she performs her half of the attendance upon a horse. This woman is a Cornelia in a small way, and it is impossible not to admire the constitutional strength which enables her to make long* marches loaded with children, baggage, and fodder, as well as the audacity which impels her to grub up grass on this Indian arid land wherever it is to be found in public or private, and also to return her affectionate 140 THE NATIVE GROOM. husband's blows, frequently with compound interest. "We have heard of such a woman, marching with a Battery of Artillery a distance of twenty miles, being confined upon the way of a lively little ghorawallah, and upon reaching the camping ground, deliberately walking back the whole distance to find some article of trifling value she had forgotten, only to return again the next day, thus performing a distance, in the whole, of 60 miles on foot, when in a very " delicate state of health." Although this story may appear incredible, there are officers at present in India who can vouch for its truth, and may we not say, that horse-keepers are the most remarkable of all natives for physical endur- ance when they are born of such mothers as these ? 14' nu W Ba coi ant wa tri: the of he* the its th( an< THE INDIAN JUGGLER >N days gone by, Madras was celebrated for the f excellence of its conjurors, but of late years, these wizards of the East, have been neither so numer- ous at the Presidency, nor so clever in their sleight of hand tricks as of yore. On making inquiry of a juggler of our acquaintance, whither the brethren of his craft had departed, he replied that a great number had sought fresh fields, and pastures new, in Cashmere and the North of Hindostan generally, in Burrnah, the Mauritius, Java, Europe, and Australia. Possibly, many of them had also gone to "Behisht" or "Jehanum" according to their actions in a sublunary sphere. He also stated that the progress of the times was much against the profitable practice of the juggler's art, and he candidly confessed that he had not a trick in his "repertoire" which could produce the wonder due to the locomotive. Finally he declared that jugglers were like prophets, in so far that they gained more honor out of their country than in it, and with this explanation, which may be either the truth or not, our informant packed up his professional bag, ramming the "mon- goose" down upon the snakes, and the iron sword, fire tow, and other " properties," upon the whole assort- 142 THE INDIAN JUGGLER. ment, which he shouldered, to depart to the next house, to judge from the lively strains of his elfish bagpipe, which were borne therefrom upon the breeze. A terrible instrument is the native necromancer's pipe, producing a sense of drowsiness, which it is not surprising his captive serpents succumb to. Indeed, such a sleep compelling dulcimer is this curious con- coction of the flageolet, and the bagpipes, that it is surprising our medicos do not prescribe it occasionally instead of the ordinary opiates in use. See the un- fortunate cobra-de-capello, when he first hears the monotonous strain ! Rudely awakened from serpentine repose by a snatch and a dab at his tail, he stands erect and fierce with hood expanded, and with the expression in his eye which we have often noted in lazy Anglo- Indians who are disturbed in their afternoon siesta upon a heavy tiffin, and which seems to say. " Now then. What the deuce do you want with me ?" but a few pipings changes his manifest anger into indifference to all around, the glittering eye dulls, a stupor steals over him, and the reptile droops gradually to the music. The antiquity of eastern jugglers dates back to periods too remote to be taken into consideration in this sketch. It is certain however that the juggler caste is one of the oldest in India, and that the profes- sion is hereditary in families, as are also the more occult secrets of the necromancer's art. For example, the famous trick of sowing a mango stone, and of making it to grow into a tree, to blossom and bear fruit, all in the course of some fifteen minutes, is a secret suppos- THE INDIAN JUGGLER. 143 ed only to be known to the lineal descendants of a great juggler of olden times, who resided at Delhi and possibly delighted the Great Mogul by a beautiful optical delusion, for the true secret of which, a Houdin or an Anderson would probably pay a modest fortune in sterling coin of the realm. This trick — the triumph of the juggler's art — is commonly attempted by every vagabond who, on the strength of a wizard's " properties," sets up to be a necromancer, and, consequently the trick has been clumsily performed in almost every Madras compound, appliances being a too perceptible blanket and the sprig of mango, shamelessly plucked from the nearest tree, but impudence is a part and parcel of the juggler's stock in trade, and without it he would be naught in his pro- fession. Probably the best place to witness the per- formance of Madras jugglers is the quarter deck of an inward bound P. and 0. Steamer, anchored in the roads on a calm day for the stipulated period prescribed by postal contract. Although the deck of a ship is not the most suitable locality for feats of necromancy, the jugglers appear to do better there than elsewhere, perhaps because they are warmed into enthusiasm by the applause of a griffinish, and appreciative audience. People fresh from England and startled at the novelty of the scene and its characters are not over critical spectators, so the jugglers, who indeed are usually the best to be found, play con amove, and are handsomely rewarded as a rule, for their performance, and their trip to and fro in masulah boats, whose crews not un- 144 THE INDIAN JUGGLER. commonly imagine they have got hold of the devil for conveyance. Although it may be said that the Madras jugglers cannot perform a single trick which has been done by European " professors" in the wizard's art, at home they have been considered worthy the attentions of specu- lators of the kidney of Phineas T. Barnum. A few years ago, a troop of Indian jugglers, and tumblers, partly Madrasees, made a grand tour through Europe and America, and had a great success in Paris, though we believe, they were not thought much of in London. As these gentry have not the appliances of prostituted science at hand, and could no more make a " Pepper's ghost" or a " headless criminal" than a new planet, or an ironclad, they are not in much esteem in civilised countries, though highly thought of in the large villages, and small towns of the far mofussil. The lower class of natives indeed believe that each juggler has a familiar fiend who is bound to obey him, and as the "juggler's" incantations are for the most part addressed to the evil spirit, it is no wonder that the magicians are. held in awful estimation by the poor and ignorant, or that a juggler fares well and gratuitously at the various villages he passes in his wanderings. The natives further entertain a notion, that the "juggler" is safe from the assaults of human enemies, and they have a popular tale of how, on a certain occasion, a " Thug" wishing in a very severe sense of the expression, to " make game" of an itinerant magician, stole up behind his prey, and slipped the fatal handkerchief round his THE INDIAN JUGGLER. 145 neck. But the " Phansidar" reckoned without his host. The juggler muttered the vernacular for his " Hi cockalarum jig ! jig ! jig ! and hey presto ! — the noose become a writhing serpent, which bit the strangler in in the thumbs for his trouble, and speedily consigned him to the grave he had carefully prepared for his supposed victim. The moral of this story is like many native morals, immoral ! Another native tale attributes a supernatural origin to the juggler. It appears that once upon a time the gentleman in black was taking a morning stroll on Mount Caucasus, when his steps were arrested by the sight of a new-laid egg in his path. A more respect- able person would have taken it home to breakfast. Not so the deil. Acting up to the proverb which says " idleness is the root of all mischief," nothing would do the fiend but to change himself thereupon into a cock and hatch it. The juggler was the result of this devil- ish incubation. Like many great men who appear mean in compari- son with their lackies, the juggler we think, is eclipsed by his accessories — his snakes and his mungoose. Although the juggler's and snake charmer's professions, are properly separaet, they are commonly combined either by one person who can practice both arts, or by two men, who unite their exhibitions — the snakes of the juggler have their poisonous teeth invariably drawn, but the snake charmer will often produce a cobra and handle a serpent, which will kill a fowl in a few minutes. Their ostensible remedies against snake poison, are 19 146 THE INDIAN JUGGLER. the snake stone and ' " betul. " Possibly, betul may really have the effect of neutralising the poison of serpents, for Sir John Bowring in his " visit to the Phillipine Islands," mentions the same use being made of it at Manilla and quotes the author of the " Flora of the Antilles," who says, " I was called to a Negro whose thigh had just been bitten by a snake. The poison had made frightful progress. All the remedies of art had been employed in vain. A Negro appeared and asked leave to apply the popular mode of cure. There was then no hope of the recovery of the patient, I did not hesitate. In a few moments the progress of the poison was stopped by the simple application of the " Piper Procumbans" — on the third application the cure was completed." The wound is first scarified, and either the juice or dried leaves of the plant, applied and frequently changed. The snakes of jugglers must have a fearful life of it, for they get no rest all day, and just at the time they would like to be about, viz., at night, they are shut up in their uncomfortable baskets, they are closed with " bang" and " betul" also, and they never get a chance of a week's torpid digestion after a full meal. Not so the mungoose. This pretty, but somewhat repellant animal, takes to the magician's bag as naturally as if it was his home among the stones of a tank " bund," and he eats his fill whenever he can get it. Once while watching some of the tricks performed by our friend at the head of this sketch, the writer was surprised to see the mungoose, which was sniffing and smelling THE INDIAN JUGGLER. 147 about, seize hold of the tail of a green tree snake, which the magician's confederate was handling. In a second, he had munched off an inch and a half of the extreme end of the indignant serpent's tail, and interrupted a performance in which this trick should have played no part. Lord Harris, while Governor of Madras, was a great patron of Indian jugglers, constantly hiring them to perform at his juvenile fetes — consequently Lord Harris Sahib lives gratefully in their recollections, which are highly retentive. The golden days of their magical art are gone. They declare still they are worthy of some patronage, for though the Indian juggler is com- monly stigmatized as a rogue and a scoundrel, we can- not consider him to be so black as he is painted. We never heard of a "juggler" committing any great crime, nor have we ever seen one in charge of the police. As far w T e can judge, the native magicians are the most inoffensive subjects of Her Majesty, though a pest to residents in Madras hotels, who are wearied of their tricks and tired to death of their ordinary incantation of " jegi, jegi, jegi. " In conclusion, it must be said, that the gains of the juggler are as uncertain as those of any dweller in Bohemia. One day when a steamer arrives or a Rajah gives a fete, he is rich — the next he is poor and driven to prey upon the credulity of old women for a meal, by threatening to raise the devil, at which occupation we will leave him. "THE INDIAN MILKMAN." — »->^«££5N Indian cold weather morning in the month of December ! How delightful the cool fresh- ness of the thin air of sunrise, as we make our way over the wide expanse of country on which goats and cattle are browsing their early breakfast, and kites, jays and hawks, are sunning themselves in their morn- ing dressing gowns of ruffled feathers. Our good steed, " Dot and go one," although purchased at public auction of a Government aweary of his services, steps out briskly under the influence of the refreshing north- eastern breeze, and forgets the load of five and twenty years in the exhilirating influences of the moment. Away in the distance and rising like a ghost from a hollow where water has gathered into a pool, and been taken advantage of to grow a scanty crop of " paddy," is a tall white figure, its head muffled in a " cumbly" to keep out the cold, and towards this figure well knowing it to be a ryot, we direct the paces of the aged but frisky " Dot and go one." " Hi !" cries the horse-keeper, with a rifle on his shoulder. " Are there any deer here ?" The tall figure turns its head, drops a portion of the muffling blanket and discloses a melancholic visage somewhat resembling Dore's idea of Don Quixote. L way o and C£ jays a ing dr "Dot of a i briskl; easter years Awaj holloa taken is a ta keep < it tob "Dot with here? of th visag* THE RYOT. 157 " Too many," he answers briefly with a shake of the the head. " Good, come show," answers the horse- keeper and away we go in the wake of our conductor whose long lank legs can take a stride like a pair of com- passes. Bye and bye we arrive at a small field of grain about half an acre in extent, and an oasis in the surrounding scrub of thorns and wild indigo. It has been carefully fenced in with a rude paling, eked out with bushes, but it is broken in one place, and our guide with lamentations, points to it significantly. A herd of antelope have been evidently enjoying them- selves on the grain during the night, for the black cotton soil discloses their hoof prints in every direction, and the vetch has been trodden down wantonly and tossed about without purpose. Loud and deep are the curses our conductor heaps on the depredators, as he temporarily mends his broken fence, and he explains apologetically that he is proprietor of the field and of a portion of the surrounding land, and proposes a walk of one coss to a spot where we are certain to meet the horned thieves. " My fortune is bad," says the ryot as we proceed. " Very bad, for the season has been a bad one and the few crops I have are destroyed by deer and wild pigs. I tried to shoot them with a matchlock belonging to the headman of the village, but I never could hit one. About a week ago, a learned priest was passing through my village and I made a complaint to him and sought his advice. He told me to poison them with rock salt and white arsenic. I did so, and one morning I found two deers dead that had licked the 158 THE RYOT. salt, but after that they would eat it no more. That paddy field there is mine, but it is all withering for want of water," and our friend getting upon that congenial theme of all farmers, east or west — the weather — abused and vilified it to his heart's content. Possibly there is no state of existence so little to be envied as that of a small Indian cultivator. From his birth to his death, his life is a constant struggle against poverty, debt, and the elements combined ; and his recreations are few and far between. He commences life as a small boy frightening birds from his papa's " cholum," and while other children are playing in the bazaar and swimming in the duck pools, this embryo ryot, is perched up on a stage some twelve feet high and three feet square with a pair of clappers in his hands to warn those birds who would pilfer but one grain of the ryot's treasure. Occasionally, and if he is an ingeni- ous youth, he is to be found with a pellet bow of his own construction, and this useful toy soothes the long hours of solitude which he passes on his platform ; but more frequently he has nothing to do in the way of entertainment, but to scratch the bites of the corn bugs and black ants, and ever and anon to lift up his voice in a prolonged lugubrious wail, which must set the bills of such singing birds as prig growing grain upon a very painful edge. When the harvest is reaped, the young agriculturist, is a little better off, for he returns to society bovine and human. Under the eye of his papa, mama, his aunts, his cousins, and perhaps some hired laborers, he superintends the THE RYOT. 159 muzzled and patient oxen as they tread out the corn, and he turns round and round with them so often, that it is surprising that he does not die of a vertigo and the giddiness which the song declares to have killed James Crow. It is in these hours of harvest that the young ryot first learns to twist a bullock's tail artistically, so as to inflict the greatest amount of pain upon the animal, with the slightest possible chance of receiving a kick in return. It is now also, should his father's estate be adjacent to a trunk road, that he learns to drive cattle in transit carts and to terrify travellers with upsets and broken springs, on such occasions as his father's bullocks are impressed into the " sahib logue's" services. Harvest passes away, and our young farmer commences to recognise the amphibious nature of his profession, by being sent into the wet paddy fields, to drive the plough bullocks there, or perhaps to grub in " slush" reaching up to his little pot-shaped corporation. There he learns the mysteries of paddy cultivation, subsoil mud, succession of crops, and other branches of native bucolic knowledge, too tedious to mention ; suffice to say he is glad when his avocations enable him to return to terra firma to enjoy the most pleasant of his duties — ploughing the uplands. Stand- ing upon the native wooden apology for a plough, he is drawn agreeably along by the toiling bullocks, and if another boy on a similar chariot is alongside him, and " feyther" is absent, the worthy pair have racing spurts for scurry stakes, horribly to the disgust of the groaning cattle. Ploughing over, ryot junior makes himself 160 THE RYOT. generally useful until the time comes round for him once more to hold conversation with the crows, and so life passes away until he arrives at an age when matri- mony is desirable. He has no more to say to the alli- ance in which he is so directly interested, than the Lady Agnes Longlands who is betrothed to the Earl of Broadacres. It is a marriage de convenance, arranged by the old ryots at the u Poongul" festival, and a paddy field and a gram "kaith," are joined together rather than two fond hearts. However that may be, there is great rejoicing and an immense amount of " liquoring up" at the wedding. Bullocks get a rest for once in their lives, and the proceeds of the last harvest are spent in riot and revelry. By and bye, the village resumes its sober appearance, by the inhabitants put- ting off their gala clothes, and appearing as usual in a state of nakedness disguised, all hands are piped to the paddy fields or the plough once more, and young farmer " Nursoo" with his landed heiress works hard and patiently until the death of two old ryots shall place him in comparative independence. In due course of time these expected events occur. The elder u Nursoo" dies of an ague and the village doctor, who treats his human patient for the murrain. The respectable parent of " Yellamall," is thrown from his pony while attend- ing a funeral, and shortly follows the corpse permanent- ly to the grave. " Nursoo" junior, steps into the joint landed property and rides his father-in-law's " tattoo" with a good deal of pomp and circumstance. But a terribly dry season, perhaps will come which withers THE RYOT. 1G1 the crops, and turns the liver of the ryot into water — the only water on the land. A rinderpest carries off' his cattle, or they die from pure exhaustion and want of food. The country is as bare as one's hand, and there is nothing to eat for man or beast. Yellamall's jewels go to the village monev lender, who finds a season of distress very profitable. — and money is borrowed at ruinous interest, and land is mortgaged to set the farm ao-oinor once more until the grateful rains again refresh the thirsty earth. Another such season and the young ryot who commenced life under the happiest auspices is sold up, and leaves his native village to become the lowest of ryots — (a common peasant laborer) upon the distant farm of some one more prosperous than himself. Happily, two bad seasons are rarely successive or the laud would be in the hands of the usurers, — so generally speaking the ryot recovers him- self after a blow of this kind, but rarely to the extent in which he first started in life. It is a curious subject for observation, that the small farmers of Southern India, care little or nothing for field sports, although their lands often teem with game. They keep neither hawks nor hounds, and their " stable" consists, at the best of a waddling pony, on which, if the ryot is too fine to work himself, he criticises and bullies his laborers, or rides to the distant feasts and festivals of his caste. This indifference to the sports of the field does not arise from want of leisure to pursue them, because there are many days in the year when the Indian ryot has no farm work to do, but passes his time under the village 21 162 THE RYOT. tree in company with other idlers, all crouched in a circle cleaning their noses and smoking their hubble bubbles contentedly. With the exception of feasts and funerals, perhaps, these are the happiest days of his existence, for give a country native "betul" and conversation, together with idleness to enjoy both, and he will ask for little more. The weather, the crops, witches, births, marriages, deaths, and speculations upon the wealth of various landowners, are the staple of these conversations, which indeed are very similar in sub- stance, to some we have heard in English country houses upon wet November days, when the mind is disposed to regard things in general in the gloomiest light imaginable. Among the peculiarities of the small landowner, is his frequent pride of birth. The writer knows an instance of one half-naked Indian squireen asserting that he was descended from the gods ! That some of them can trace their ancestry back to remote periods is however very true, and they are all ready to make affirmation on oath, that the land on which they stand, as far as the horizon in every direction, belonged to their great great grandfathers and grandmothers, which may be the case or not, just as one chooses to put faith in their veracity or the reverse. But our conductor ceases the conversation on which the above reflections are formed and points out the antelopes who have done him a damage he will bemoan for a month. A fine buck who looks emphatically " gram-fed" turns himself into a whirligig under the influence of a bullet through his loins, to the delight THE RYOT. 163 of the landed proprietor who cannot perceive that the poor beast is worthy the compassion of a second shot through the head which puts him out of his misery. Although a landowner, he bravely hoists the deer on his back and being close to his village, offers a drink of new milk which is accepted, for the ryot is a hospitable, and civil man unless affronted, when he Avill probably raise a mob armed with " latees" upon the offender with a rapidity not always pleasant. The cows have been milked and sent off to the jungle under the charge of a young agriculturalist com- mencing his education, but fortunately Yellamall has risen late this morning, and has not yet smoked the milk to make it keep until evening. It is fresh and sweet and the mistress of the " holding" is buxom and well looking, and not so overcome with false modesty, as to be unable to hand her husband's guest the little he has to offer in a brass "lotah." That worthy — the pleasure consequent upon the demise of a four-footed nuisance having evaporated — looks of a sorrowful a countenance as ever, and so we take leave of him, gaunt and strid- ing, to pursue his avocations among his " paddy" and his vetches with such success as the Indian Ceres may give to her adorer. . THE SHIKAREE, follow the footsteps of a wily Shikaree through a great Indian forest, is a task requiring a considerable amount of tact and patience, and some nerve also. Stealthily, the half-naked and supple guide, pursues his silent course — past the gnarled trunks of huge trees, festooned with snake-like creepers ; through dense undergrowth, in which he carves a passage with his heavy hunting knife, in and out of labyrinths, the clue to which is the track of some wild animal, and over the short green turf of jungle glades, where spotted deer brouse and toss their antlered heads in happy security. A heavy double rifle is carried lightly on his naked shoulder, for this occasion, in the place of his own long native gun. By and bye, when we come upon a charging elephant or bison, our friend, it is to be hoped, will be prepared to thrust this weighty weapon into our hands ; still as we regard him, he looks painfully active and lightly clad, produc- ing the impression that he could be " up a tree" like a Possum, in a moment of peril. Upon his head, he wears a dilapidated old tweed scull cap ; round his waist a dirty " cummerbund" of many folds ; and these articles of clothing compose his whole apparel. In the THE SHIKAREE. 165 latter, he carries a stock of tobacco, to be rolled into leaf cigarettes, a flint and steel, and his trusty shikar knife, and so equipped, he will walk from morning until night, without exhibiting a sign of fatigue. Lightly his naked feet fall on the dry earth. Not a twig snaps under his tread to alarm the very wariest of animals, not a word escapes his mouth, which could startle even the timid jungle fowl whose " cockadoodle doo" sounds like a clarion in the midday stillness of the deep dark forest. Silently, he points with his finger to a mark on the soil. It is the " pug" of a tiger and he smiles hopefully — keenly and suspiciously, he peers into the depths of surrounding foliage in a manner calculated to cause the heart of Griffin Sahib to rise and fall like the bulb of a barometer in an Indian typhoon ; but give him a fair chance and he will lead us to the particular description of game we seek, with an instinct as unerring as that of one of Fenimore Cooper's North American Indians of the sensational calibre. Such is a Shikaree of a good type; but there are others of the trade very dissimilar to this paragon. The loquacious and boastful Shikaree, is a terrible fellow in his way, and one who will exas- perate the most patient of " masters" to the borders of distraction. He is full of hair-breadth 'scapes, by flood and field, and will spin endless yarns of his adventures in the jungle. As an example here is one of this class fresh in our recollection. Upon a certain occasion this Shikaree was seated in a tree with his loaded matchlock across his knees, 166 THE SHIKAREE. waiting for a shot at any animal which might pass his post. Suddenly a large male elephant, accompanied by a prodigious sweetheart emerged from the sylvan recesses of the scene, and halted at a little distance from our story-teller's leafy perch. Here, this huge Cory don commenced to caress his elephantine Phyllis, in a manner so marked, as to cause the human specta- tor of love in the jungle, to cough significantly — as much as to say " Now then ! I'm looking at you." The results of this polite intention were unexpected. The ponderous lovers pricked up their ears, and sniffing the tainted breeze, soon " nosed" our peeping Tom. Wrathfully they growled like thunder confined in hogsheads. Shrilly they trumpeted their displeasure, as they marched round and round the tree in which our veracious Shikaree was seated most uncomfortably. Presently, the male elephant attempted to crush down the tree and to tear it up by its roots, the better to get at the helpless hunter who had dropped his matchlock in his fright. In these endeavours, the female ele- phant cordially assisted her lord, but the tree was too tough for their united strength and the assailants had recourse to stratagem. Leaving his " good lady" to keep guard at the foot of the tree, the male elephant took his departure, only presently to return with his trunk full of water with which he moistened the roots of the tree, his wife taking her turn as a water carrier in the meanwhile. In due time, the earth round the trunk was sufficiently wet, and trampled to expose the roots, when, with one mighty " heave altogether," the THE SHIKAREE. 167 elephants brought tree and Shikaree to the ground, from which he managed to crawl away and conceal himself during the confusion and search which ensued. But this tale, wonderful as it is, is but a mild story from the loquacious Shikaree's repertoire, of which it would be easy to give many more astonishing, if space per- mitted us to do so. This man's discretion is infinitely greater than his valour, and if he tracks an animal to its lair, it is all he will do — he swiftly disappears at the first sign of danger, leaving his employer to his fate. In common justice, however, it must be said, that he sometimes gets the worst of a runaway, as in the case of a certain notorious bear hunt. In this instance, the European fired at, and wounded a bear, which turned and charged its assailant. Putting out his hand for a second gun, the Shikaree's master became painfully alive to the fact, that his faithful servant had fled and was then speeding over the ground like a Kangaroo. There was no alternative but to follow his example and master and man were soon racing neck and neck, Bruin gaining upon them both. " There is nothing like pre- sence of mind," said one of the parties as he told the story afterwards. " I saw one of us must go, so I just put out one foot and tripped up the Shikaree's heels as we ran. He lost his scalp, and two or three pounds of beefsteak, off the best cut, but after all he deserved it. An entertaining specimen of the Shikaree, is the individual who shoots waterfowl on tanks, and sells his game at the nearest station, to European ladies and gentlemen. This sportsman's ideas upon gunnery are 168 THE SHIKAREE. unique, and would possibly astonish the instructors of the "long course" at Shoeburyness. Shooting one day in the Vizagapatam district, near a large shallow piece of water, half tank, and half morass, the writer was disappointed to observe that the wild ducks which were in abundance there congregated in the centre of the water and out of shot. There was no boat, but a Shikaree happily turned up a la bon heure with a long rusty native gun. A few words explained the position of affairs, when the new comer prepared to load his piece with our powder and shot after the approved native fashion. First, he carefully blew down the long small bore barrel, which was some five feet from breech to muzzle, next, he poured six ordinary charges of " Hall's rifle gunpowder" into the hollow of his hand, from which he chucked it into the gaping muzzle. Upon the top of this blasting charge, he rammed and jammed, probably a quarter of a pound of dried leaves which he gathered from under the trees. Six measured charges of shot, he placed upon this again, and he finally stowed away another quarter of a pound of leaves upon the whole to keep the monstrous charge in position. Prognostications of loss of life or limb, he treated with smiling indifference, as he undressed and stept, into the water, at the same time carefully crouching, so as only to leave his head and his gun above water. A bunch of water weed soon crowned the former, making it look like a water rail's nest, and the latter might have been easily mistaken for a long water snake, as it progressed gradually. This artful dodger, THE SHIKAREE. 169 steered his course towards the unconscious ducks, until within some thirty yards of the thickest bevy, when, there was a roar as of a heavy piece of ordnance, a volume of smoke, and the " snake" and the " bird's nest" disappeared beneath the waters. Our alarm was great, but happily the sportsman reappeared pre- sently, with no worse injuries than a slightly dislocated shoulder, and a stomach full of tank water and tadpoles. The slaughter of ducks and drakes was immense, the killed and wounded amounting to eighteen, all of which were brought to bag, but the sportsman declined taking another shot, one such lasting him he declared for a week. It is somewhat surprising, that the Shikarees who supply our tables in the season with wild fowl and venison, can ever make a " bag," for, their guns are of the rudest kind, and their ammunition of the very vilest description. It would appear, that with such tackle, they must fail to shoot snipe, and yet they will make a large score of this favorite bird in a single night, by aid of indomitable patience and perseverance. Seated near some well-known haunt of the snipe, the Shikaree will wait silently until a " wisp" of these birds drop, like a shower in the moonlight upon a spot within range. Then he bangs unscrupulously into the brown of them, and if his aim has been a successful one, he will very likely, in his single potshot kill as many birds as a couple of European sportsmen would bag in a day with their breechloaders. But the Shik- aree is not only a gunner. He is a skilful fisherman •2-2 170 THE SHIKAREE. and trapper to boot, and he is especially dexterous in his mode of catching antelope. Throwing a net over the horns of a tame buck, he lets him loose among a herd of wild deer. The stranger is at once assaulted by the jealous lords of the harem, and every " Black Buck" has a tussle with the new comer, and as certainly, has his horns entangled in the net which hangs about the head of the decoy. In " still hunting" also, by night, with a pan of fire, the Shikaree is equally successful among the spotted deer, slaughtering great numbers of the inquisitive or fascinated animals, as they stare blankly at the light. Tigers, Shikarees will poison for the sake of the Government reward, but it must be said, that they will also shoot the monarch of the jungles bravely, and upon foot, upon occasion. They love sport for its own sake, but they love money better and their skin best of all. In conclusion it may be said, that the Shikaree is a very good specimen of the lower class of native. He is a terrible liar and not always to be depended upon in a scrimmage with a wild beast, still he is pains-taking and tolerably courageous, and he wears, very naturally, an air of independence which entitles him to our favor. 170 and trapper tc his mode of c the horns of { herd of wild c the jealous loi has a tussle \ his horns ent head of the d with a pan o among the sp the inquisitr blankly at th the sake of said, that tl jungles brav love sport fo: and their ski] that the Shi class of nati\ be dependec still he is pa wears, very entitles him THE MADRAS SEPOY. ?X is sometimes amusing to listen to the difference of opinion expressed upon the subject of this article. Thus, six people will declare the sepoy to be a mild, inoffensive, lamb-like creature, brimful of devotedness to any power which will give him seven rupees per mensem and a pension — a wonderful type of human nature, in short, such as we are more accustom- ed to meet in Mrs. Henry "Wood's novels than in real life ; while, half a dozen will assert, that the sepoy is a deceitful, treacherous, cruel ruffian, only requiring opportunity to shine forth as a human demon sailing under the piratical flag of the death's head and cross- bones. Extremes of praise, and extremes of censure, are generally to be avoided, and when we hear people expressing opinions, one way or the other as above stated, we are wont to set them down, no matter what their experience of sepoys, as individuals knowing very little of the character of the native soldier of Southern India. In disposition, temperament — in almost every thing except bone and muscle — the sepoy is a child, and he must be treated as a child, and not as a reason- able man, if one desires to gain all the affection he has to bestow upon a European and an infidel of his caste 172 THE MADRAS SEPOY. or creed. To deal with him, as Europeans deal with their fellow-men, is usually to cause him to suspect his officer's motives, and to puzzle him beyond the powers of solution of enigmas existing in his uncultivated brain. A sepoy can hardly be ought else but childish in ideas and intelligence, if we reflect upon his life from the day of his birth as a black- eyed little Picanniny, to the day of his death, as, perchance, a grizzled and doating old Subadar. Freshly caught from the jungle, where he has had some " row" with the village " Reddy," or straight from the plough, and a love affair which was turning out unprosperously, " Rainasawmy," the equivalent of our English " John Smith," enlists with- out the conventional shilling, and curiously enough, unlike his European comrade, seldom repents the rash step he has taken, in after-life. Ramasawmy quickly becomes a soldier. If he is not so intelligent as John Smith, be has ten times the latter's patience, and to an Adjutant, it is an edifying sight to witness the cheerfulness, and unflagging atten- tion, with which the native recruit pursues the royal road to military glory day by day on the beaten path of the Pas de gras, or "the balance step without gaining ground." To his unsophisticated mind, there are strange and terrible mysteries hidden in the drill-book, and as little boys stand in awe of scientific savants, and their experiments in parlour chemistry, so, for years, perhaps, for life, the sepoy is fearful of the attainments of the Colonel and the Adjutant of his regiment. But fearful as the sepoy, childishly, is of his commanding THE MADRAS SEPOY. 173 officer, he can, on occasion, as childishly turn the commandant into ridicule. The writer recollects an instance of this anomalous state of feeling, when he once attended a " mohurrum" festival in some sepoy lines. The Colonel of the regiment, which assembled by night to do honor to the murdered saints, " Hassan" and " Hoossain," was a strict martinet, and a man whom the sepoys feared as schoolboys fear their head-master. He was a corpulent officer of the old school, given to swearing and snuff, and a rather remarkable character in his way. Seated in state at this native entertain- ment, a wreath of yellow flowers round his neck, he was a good subject for caricature, though we hardly imagined, that one of the fierce Colonel's own sepoys should attempt to turn the great man into ridicule ; and yet such was the case ! A clever mimic in the ranks stept forth from among the crowd, and to its boisterous delight, " took off' the Colonel so admirably, swearing his oaths, and snuffing his snuff, that the old officer was obliged to join himself heartily in the mirth his personification excited ; yet the sepoys held the commandant in a terrible awe, and must have been actuated in their mimicry by the same feelings which induce schoolboys to make a Guy Faux of Dr. Swishtail on the 5th of November. To return to recruit Ramasawnry. It might be imagined, that after a few years' service as a soldier he would become a far more intelligent man than he was at the time of enlistment, but this is not the case, or, at least, not remarkably so. The whilom "jungle wallah," 174 THE MADRAS SEPOY. may, by incessant drilling become perfectly " au fait" on all matters referring to drill and duty ; his general intelligence on things in general remains the same as ever. He never exhibits signs of becoming a native Cornelius O'Dowd, except upon such social subjects as rupees and " pisa," curry and rice, family occurrences, such as births, marriages, and deaths, and the chastity of his neighbours. These are the themes, the only themes, on which the native military mind expands. And hourly conversation upon them, occupy that place in the native day, which newspapers and literature hold with us. The currency and quotations of the lines bazaar, is as fruitful a subject for comment and specula- tion among sepoys, as are the fluctuations of the London money market among merchants on change. As a rule, sepoys are both gourmands and gourmets, and like to dine nicely and well, as men generally do, who are employed on monotonous duties, or find time hang heavy on their hands. No bottle-nosed Major at the Rag thinks more of the nice little dinner he has ordered at 7 o'clock, or blows up the waiter more furiously for unpunctuality, than the sepoy who speculates upon his midday rice, and who gives his wife " Mootamah" a bit of his mind, should the dish be late, or not precisely to his liking. In truth, Madame " Mootamah" has a hard time of it, and that portion of the feminine creation, which is devoted as wives to sepoys is devoutly to be pitied. With the exception of a brief siesta in the afternoon, every day, from sunrise to sunset, is devoted to hard THE MADRAS SEPOY. 175 work and to catering to the wants of her swaggering husband, who, in his hideous red coat, she is prone to consider a very Rochester in fascination and infidelity. Hence, many tears and mutual complaints from the husband and wife to the commanding officer. As in English society, it is very common to hear a sepoy abuse his wife roundly in public, the weaker vessel listening to the censure with conjugal meekness, but at home, in the hut, the tables are turned, and the domestic melo- drama of Caudle and Mrs. Caudle is acted nightly in the regimental lines, as in London — only that here, Mr. and Mrs. C. have black faces. Jealousy, is the snake which poisons, as a rule, native military domestic bliss. Sepoys are the most jealous of natives, which is saying a good deal in favor of their slavery to the green- eyed monster ; and it must be confessed, that both the militaires and their dames, are not immaculate. Dread- ful social scandals are constantly occurring in regimental lines, as every commanding officer, who has to listen to what the penny-a-liners call "the revolting details" knows to his cost. Havildar Syed Homed, a smart young man, will display his handsome figure, and chevrons, once too often in the lines for the peace of mind of Beebee Mootamah. No billet doux passes between them, because the lady cannot write ; still love laughs at lockers, and some day, a hideous suspi- cion crosses the mind of Ramasawmy, that he has a case for the Divorce Court. How does the injured husband act ? In the dead of night, a squeaking, as of a pig being killed, is heard in the hut from which love has flown 176 THE MADRAS SEPOY. out of the window. A crowd collects ! What is the cause of the squeaking ? It is Ramasawmy slitting false Mootamah's nose ! The courageous Subadars and Jemadars, break in the door. Havildar Syed Homed, throws himself on Private Ramasawmy, and a kicking and scratching match ensues between the betrayed and the betrayer. Grand tableau betokening murder at the least ! But next morning, all the parties concerned, hurry off to the Adjutant, " to tell on each other" (as children say) any number of hard-sworn lies without a blush. Their general proneness to lying, and petty deceit, is, indeed, in European estimation, the worst vice of sepoys. It is next to impossible to believe a sepoy if one knows that it is against his interest to speak the truth. He will lie without shame, even on oath, to gain his ends, which are often to get a comrade whom he dis- likes, or a superior whose shoes he hopes to fill, into trouble. Treacherous, and yet childish in every thing, childish in his treachery, it is not an uncommon practice with him to hide some article of property in his enemy's house, — and then accuse him of the theft, — a bungling trick, he is silly enough to think will escape detection, even though it has been detected over and over again to his certain knowledge. Another fault of the sepoy, which prepossesses a European against him, is his cring- ing demeanour to his superiors. The oldest and most distinguished sepoys, are generally as much given to cringing as the others, and it is common to see a fine old soldier with several medals on his breast, " kow- towing" in the most abject and sickening manner, to a THE MADRAS SEPOY. 177 man he probably detests and despises in his heart. Certainly, cringing is a common fault of natives in general, still, it is noteworthy that a military training under European officers cannot pluck the foul passion from their breasts. But if sepoys have vices, they have virtues, and their charity covers a multitude of sins. No one acquainted with them, can fail to be struck with the beautiful devotion to kith and kindred, they display under the most trying circumstances ; and their charity to people poorer than themselves is really surprising. There is many a Peabody in the native ranks. It is common to find half a dozen people, or more, living upon a single sepoy, whose pay does not exceed nine rupees a month, and among these will be found perhaps the man's grandmother, mother, aunts, uncles, nay even his mother-in-law, a lady beyond all Christian endur- ance. Cheerfully, and without a murmur, the over- weighted sepoy will fill all these mouths with conjee and rice, denying himself small luxuries dear to the native heart, in order that he may carry out his unosten- tatious charity to the best of his limited ability. That sepoys are also generous to a fault, may be observed on their monthly pay day, when crowds of beggars and cripples besiege them for alms, hardly ever denied from their scanty pittance of pay. Courage is usually allied to generosity, and sepoys form no exception to the rule, for whatever his faults of laziness, indolence, want of smartness, etc., placing him in the second rank of soldiers, the sepoy has plenty of animal courage which 23 178 THE MADRAS SEPOY. his detractors would deny him by simply giving his gift the name of " indifference to life." In the many battles in which Madras sepoys have been engaged, we cannot at present^ recollect an instance in which sepoys whether in numbers or singly, misbehaved themselves ; and the writer has known sepoys to display extraordinary courage, in what may be called their private life, and upon occasions where their courage could meet no reward. The sepoy is, in fact, a strange combination of virtues and vices which it is difficult to believe can exist together in a human breast. It is hard to reconcile his tender devotion to his family with the practices of treacherous enmity of which he is capable ; and it is difficult to believe that a man who can fight bravely in battle could be guilty of cutting off the nose and ears of a woman, and of practising other cowardly cruelties, of a similar nature. These anomalies can only be attributed to the gross ignorance of sepoys on all matters except their duties, — an ignorance that would adorn a savage. In conclusion, it is necessary to refer to the differ- ence of opinion which obtains among European officers upon the correct management of sepoys, high caste, no caste, Musselmen and Hindoos. An anecdote will illustrate our meaning. Some years ago, when native regiments were fully officered, the writer had an inti- mate acquaintance with a native corps which shall be nameless. In this regiment, were two officers who handled their companies upon different principles. One of them was an eminently theoretical officer, and if he THE MADRAS SEPOY. 179 ever swore, swore on "the general regulations." The other was a practical officer, and swearing a great deal (we make no apology for either one or the other) swore at that venerable tome. Captain A. treated the sepoys with a friendly condescension, and carried out the excellent instructions on " tact" inculcated by the "general regulations" to the letter. He so carefully " enquired into" sepoy complaints, that they wearied of making them. He was so kind and considerate to his men, that he expended certainly 10 Rs. per annum in doing them little kindness at 2 pie each. He was, in short, a model officer of the theoretical construction. Captain B. was rough and rude to his men. He swore at them — nay, he even struck them, as the writer has seen. He seldom listened to their complaints. When he did — he decided all disputes by tossing up a rupee. Occasionally, he would give his company a present of half a dozen sheep, to be turned quickly into kabobs and curry. In a word, he was passionate, reckless and generous. Now both these officers left the regiment nearly at the same time, and the writer had the curiosi- ty to enquire quietly which of the twain bore away the palm of popularity. " Sir," said a sepoy who repre- sented public opinion " Captain A. is a very good gen- tleman. When will Captain B. come back again?" Let the reader draw a moral from this tale, and solve from it, if he can, the puzzling riddle, Jack sepoy. THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. HEN M r - Hector Malone first landed in India, the mutual friend to whom this Irish import- er* ation was consigned, met the stranger upon the Madras beach, and drove him towards Nungam- baukum. "The sea and the ships, look pretty to-day, does it remind you of the bay of Dublin ?" enquired the mutual friend wishing to be kind. " Bedad, then, it doesn't," said Mr. Malone. "You would not mistake that pillar, now, for Nelson's monument in Sackville Street ?" asked the M. F. pleasantly, and pointing to the light-house. " Divil a fear of it," answered Mr. Malone. "Well !" cried the M. F. " Here is something, at last, which will remind you of Ireland. — A body of our Madras Police, modelled on the Irish constabulary." " Irish constabulary ! ! Is it them spalpeens ye mane ?" exclaimed Mr. Malone in amazement. " Arrah then, for the love of Mary will ye be telling us how many of those go to make an Inspecther ?" THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. 181 To a stranger from England, accustomed to the con- templation of those stalwart life guards blue, whose head-quarters are Scotland-yard, the Madras Policeman, appears a Lilliputian, and a nine pin to be knocked down with a bowl, and yet there is vigor in our "Bobby's" slender limbs, and he has sufficient stamina to place a countryman in durance vile, though he sets about a capture after a fashion unknown to Pieaceman X of Belgravian renown. The native policeman, has more faith in moral, than in physical force, and he believes, and doubtless justly, that his official uniform is more likely to strike terror into evil doers, than his baton, — hence, when he collars a culprit, it is metaphorically, and with his tongue, not his hand, wiling the prisoner to the police station with more con- versation than would appear necessary to the London blue-bottle, who is ordinarily a man of very few words. Natives delight in argument, even under the most dolorous circumstances, and we have often remarked a Madras policeman and his " charge" to argue the point in the most verbose manner while leisurely taking their way to the " thanna" where the latter is about to be incarcerated previous, perhaps, to transportation " By what authority do you drag me from my lucrative employment ?" cries the prisoner, stopping for the twentieth time in two hundred yards to argue the matter right out, " It is known you are a tyrant, that all police are tyrants, and, that you make false charges to rob the innocent of their money 'oh Budzat.'" " Has not your master given you into custody for 182 THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. the theft of five rupees, is not that sufficient ? What have you done with those five rupees ?" retorts the guardian of the peace. " I till you truth, I never saw those five rupees. My master a liar — Come — you may go on by yourself, I won't go a step further, no ! not for one tousand rupee !" " Do you see this stick ? (holding up baton) that's the Ranee's stick. If you fight against that stick, you will be transported by the Judge Sahib — come along now, or you will fall into a snare." " I'm coming aint I ? I'm not afraid. The innocent fear nothing, but you will certainly eat dirt for driving an innocent man along the road like a bullock. Stop until I tie my puggery." So, the pair proceed wrang- ling, and arguing on the way, until they both disappear within the station house as quietly as possible. Sometimes, the policeman has to use " the Ranee's stick," when he fights in a lively manner, with great cry and but little wool. Taking a ride one morning^ we came to cross roads, where two policemen and half a dozen handymen were in hot conversation on the subject of right of way. The policemen declared there was a municipal order to prevent the bandies, which were loaded with firewood, from passing along one of the roads. The handymen pleaded " dustoor" and taunted their opponents, by hinting, that the prohibi- tion was simply a ruse by which some of their small coins should be diverted into the pockets of the com- missioners of public safety. We passed the disputants, and returned by the same way some three-quarters of an hour afterwards, when the argument appeared to THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. 183 have assumed a different phase. The handymen, call- ing upon Dustoor to aid them, gallantly made a dash up the prohibited road, twisting the tails of the bullocks, and leathering the animals with stout "lattees," to give impetus to their charge. But the police were not to be daunted by the onslaught of bulls, or men. One " Bobby" courageously threw himself on the horns of an offending quadruped, while the other dragged a disobedient biped from his coin of vantage — the bandy pole. Then came the tug of war. Apparently, without creating the slightest impression, the policeman used the Ranee's stick on the turbaned head of his opponent, who, not to be behind hand, swept his " lattee" in a semi-circle, lending the Bobby some shrewd thwacks across the shins, and making him to jump like a school- girl over a skipping rope. In the melee, three of the bandies conveniently toppled over into the roadside ditch, while two more sped triumphantly along the forbidden path. Victory remained in the hands of the police, but they certainly suffered the most in the action, their legs displaying bruises, whereas the enemy's heads were as sound as if they had never been battered with truncheons for five minutes. Unlike the English " Force," which is never to be found when wanted, other " Bobbies" speedily turned up upon this occasion, and the enemy and his baggage were marched off to the nearest thanna, the enemy in tears and with his scanty stock of wearing apparel torn to tatters, which he pitifully held up to the compassionate gaze of his countrymen. Native policemen certainly do not lack 184 THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. courage in tackling their compatriots, but they are perfectly helpless when pitted against a European sol- dier full of bazaar wine, and pugnaciously disposed. Acting in accordance with native tactics, four or five of them would hamstring this monster, after the fashion of the sword hunters of the Humra Arabs described by Sir Samuel Baker, but this stratagem the laws for- bid them to entertain. Therefore, one by one the most courageous of the constables who attempt fairly to encounter their most terrible foe are knocked down by his brawny fist like skittles, and sit upon the road wiping their bleeding noses and spitting out their teeth with a philosophy which would excite the compassion of a Levite. Unable to use their fists, or for that matter, their batons either, with any telling effect, half a dozen policemen are no match for a single European soldier. It is therefore no shame to them, that they avoid an encounter in which they play the part of the skittles in that vulgar game. " The boxe" is peculiarly a British art, and natives no more than Frenchmen, can hold their ground against its practise in a street row. It is diverting to watch a native policeman upon his beat, when the said beat is beyond the ken of Inspectors and Head Constables. To a comic sculptor, he would offer an excellent model for " Ennui." He casts aside the " set up" which military drill has given him, and slouches, as if slouching was the only object in life. He gazes intently up into mango trees, as if discovering fugitive jail birds or at least bird's nests. He yawns hor- THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. 185 ribly and expectorates profusely. If a pariah dog hap- pens to pass by he seeks to engage him in conversation, but canine sagacity detects the half-concealed baton, and the dog trots off to his business or pleasure with a growl and sometimes too with an unmistakable gesture of contempt at the nearest corner. Disappointed in the dog, our blase constable will march towards a straying cow, with the intention, perhaps, of taking her in charge, but the law flits hazily over his brain and he is doubtful if it will bear him out in such aggression. He warns the milkman, the animal's proprietor, that generally speaking it is a penal offence to have a ferocious animal at large, and conscious that he has done his duty, he critically examines the labors of white ants on an adjacent gate post. He speculates upon the time it will take these active insects to bring the gate to the ground, but he does not inform the proprietor thereof, that his five bar is in a bad way. His instruc- tions are not clear on this point so he lets the subject drop. Some coolie girls who have just been paid double their proper fare by a stranger in the land for the con- veyance of a load of furniture, cross his beat, laughing and jabbering over the softness of the sahib, and he reproves them sternly as the embodiment of the law. He tells them that the roads of the Sirkar are not to be profaned by rioting and loose conversation, and recommending them to be more discreet, he asks if it is twelve o'clock, when his relief is due. The most forward of the hussies, enquires if he is in a hurry to 24 186 THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. get home to his wife, and the merry band laugh boister- ously in chorus. Amazed at their audacity, he threatens them with the Penal Code until they are out of hearino", when he resumes his arboriferous studies until the relief comes at last> and he is a free man to eat curry and rice to indiscretion. Regarded in the light of a detective of crime, the native policeman is also a very interesting individual, upon a certain occasion, having lost from a window sill, one night, some books and a box, which were placed upon it, we invoked the aid of a native constable to discover the thief, who had evidently smashed a pane of glass as a preliminary to abstracting the property. Like the celebrated sailor's parrot, this constable did not say much, but he was a very superior being to think. Nodding his head, like the stage Lord Burleigh, he surveyed the position inside and outside, askew, and upside down ; finally he called for a piece of cord. Had he the thieves already marked down, and was he making preparations to bind them ? No such thing. Deliberately he measured the window from its base to its top and across, from side to side. With great nicety he took the diameter of the broken pane ; and fastidiously he packed the ch^stal frag- ments in an old newspaper. " He knows all about it" said our excellent wife " what a blessing the police are to be sure !" " Well ?" we inquired " Ucha" (good) " replied the constable." "But the thief— what are you going to do ?" " Sir," replied the native detective with great solemnit}^ " the thief broke the glass, then THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. 187 he put in his hand " " Yes, yes" cried the anxious proprietress eagerly, for one of the missing articles was her work-box " he put in his hand" — " He put in his hand," repeated the constable with increasing importance. " He put in his hand, and what then ?" " Den, he run away," gravely replied the constable. Can you 'catch him?" cried the lady impatiently. "Who can catch a thief?" inquired the detective incredulously. " I've taken all the measurements for the Magistrate — what more can I do ? when the thief is caught, then the measurements will convict him ?" There was nothing to be made further out of this local Dogberry, whose gravity was indescribably ludicrous. He was sent about his business, and the thief was never discovered, it is hardly necessary to add to the tale ; but he acted according to his lights, which were dark lanterns. Taking native policemen all in all, it is surprising what influence they have over the general native pub- lic. Armed merely with a stick — a weapon which his countrymen regard with the utmost contempt — a police- man will by his mere presence, frequently disperse a crowd, unless there happens to be women in it. The native fair sex have no fear of the police, it must be admitted, and their tongues are sharp swords which Robertsawmy dreads nearly as much as the fists of the intemperate soldier. They regard him with intense dislike as an upsetter of " Dustoor," and a queller of nuisances dear to them from remote ages, and they are not slow to call him names whose foulness passes in 188 THE NATIVE POLICEMAN. native estimation for wit. Thus Kobertsawruy cannot escape the general lot of policemen, though he has the melancholy consolation of being " chaffed" by buxom damsels rather than by ribbald boys, n P (