Chapter IV: Part 4

At Assansol, which we reached at 5 a.m., we had _chota-hazri_. Tea and toast, and most diminutive eggs, which we had to hold in our fingers as there were no egg-cups.

Simultala was my destination, and about eleven o'clock we reached it. Underneath the trees a few yards away from the little station we found a bullock-cart, which the Russels had sent for my luggage, and a doolie for myself. A doolie is a kind of string-bed hung on a pole, with a covering to keep off the sun. It is carried by four men, and two others run alongside to relieve their companions at intervals. I had sixteen miles to travel in this thing. I looked at Boggley very doubtfully, and he tried to encourage me.

"It is really quite comfortable," he said (and when he said so he lied), "and the men go very fast. You will be there in no time." So I bundled in somehow, said a wistful good-bye to Boggley, and we started. I can't honestly say I like a doolie. I would rather have been my luggage and gone in the bullock-cart. Whichever way I lay I very soon got an ache in my back. The conduct, too, of the coolies filled me with uneasiness. They kept up a continued groaning. One said, "Oh--oh--oh!" and the other replied, "Oo--oo--oo!" and you can't think what a depressing sound it was. (I know now that doolie-coolies always make that noise when on duty. It seems to keep up their hearts, so to speak, and cheer them on.) Feeling guiltily that it was my weight that made them groan, I lay perfectly still, and was even holding my breath in an effort to make myself lighter, when, for no apparent reason, we left the road, such as it was, and started across the trackless plain. There was nothing to be seen except an infrequent bush, no trace of a human habitation--nothing but the wind blowing and the grass growing. Awful thoughts began to come into my head. I was all alone in India, indeed worse than alone, I was in the company of six natives most inadequately clothed: of their language I knew not one single word; I didn't even know if they were carrying me in the direction I wanted to go. Suddenly the groaning ceased, and I found myself and the doolie planted on the ground. _Was_ my bright young life to be ended? Cold with terror, I shut my eyes tight, and when I opened them I found all the six coolies squatted round, all talking at once, all presumably addressing me. I made out one word which was repeated often, _baksheesh_. Reminding myself that I was of the Dominant Race, I sat up and waving a hand towards the horizon said sternly, "Jao!" I do think I must have intimidated them, for they meekly picked me up again and we resumed our journey. The longest lane turns, the darkest night wears on to dawn, the weariest river winds at last to the sea; and about tea-time, aching, dishevelled, hungry (having had nothing but a few chocolates since _chota-hazri_ at 5 a.m.), I was deposited before the verandah of the Russels' bungalow.

I don't suppose you know anything about mission work? Neither do I, which is very shocking, as I have had every opportunity of acquiring information. Perhaps, as a child, I was taken to too many missionary meetings, with their atmosphere of hot tea and sentiment, and heard too much of "my dear brothers and sisters in the mission field," for I grieve to say, before I came to India, I quite actively disliked missionaries and thought them a feeble folk. Mother was the only kind of missionary I liked. She has a mission--so we tell her--to the dreary people of this world. Not the very poor--they are vastly entertaining--but the not-very-rich, highly respectable, deadly dull people, with awkward, unlovable manners, whom no one cares very much to visit or to ask to things, and who must often feel very lonely and neglected. While others are taken up with more entertaining company Mother has time to trot to these people with a new book or magazine, or merely to talk for half an hour in the funny bright way which is like no one else's way; has them to the house to meet interesting people (in spite of the remonstrant groans of the family), and having brought them does not neglect them, but draws them out till they seem quite brilliant, and they go away warmed and enlivened by their social success.

Even the most determined distruster of missions couldn't stay long at Takai without being converted. Dr. Russel, very far from being feeble, is a most able man, who would have made his mark in his profession at home; but he prefers healing the bodies and saving the souls of the Santals in the jungle, to building up a lucrative practice, and even attaining the dizzy height of a knighthood.

To heal their poor neglected bodies; to be the first to tell them of Jesus--how did Festus put it?--"one Jesus, which is dead, whom Paul affirmed to be alive"; to teach them, to help and raise them until life becomes for these natives a new and undreamed-of thing--one can see how fine it is, how soul-satisfying!

Dr. Russel has built a hospital, and the natives come from far and near bringing their sick. As I sit here writing, they come trooping past, taking a short cut past the bungalow, stopping to stare at me quite unabashed, sometimes carrying a sick child, sometimes a blind old man or woman. They know they can come at any time and the Padre Sahib will never tell them to go away. It is different with a Government official. He is hedged round by _chuprassis_ who levy toll on the poor natives before they allow them to enter the presence of the Sahib. It is a scandal, but it seems impossible to stop it. You may catch a _chuprassi_ in the act, you may beat him and insist on his handing back the money, but almost before your back is turned the annas or pice have changed hands again! It is _dustoor_!

My first view of the hospital was rather a shock. Nothing was what I had expected. The beds are square blocks of cement, without even a mattress. The patients bring their own bedding and their cooking pots and pans, and generally a friend to look after them. The said friends camp all round the hospital, and it is pretty to see them at sunset, each cooking his evening meal over his own little fire. This morning being Sunday I went to a service at the hospital. The mingled smell of carbolic, hookahs, and coco-nut oil was, I confess, rather overpowering, but when Dr. Russel asked me, "Is this at all interesting to you, or is it merely disgusting?" I could reply truthfully that it was more interesting than disgusting. The patients sat rolled up in their blankets, and listened while the tale of the Prodigal Son was read to them, holding up their hands in horror when they heard he herded swine: they regard that as a very low job indeed. It is odd the way they respond: just as if during church service at home a man were to answer each statement made by the clergyman, "Right you are, guv'nor."

Coming home, we saw a native cooking his dinner on a little charcoal fire, and as I passed he threw the contents of the pot away. Surprised, I asked why. "Because," I was told, "your shadow fell on it and defiled it!"

One can hardly overestimate the boon a man like Dr. Russel is to a district. Trust is a plant of slow growth with the natives, but they have learned to trust him entirely, and go to him in all their troubles as children go to a father. And he has a very real helpmate in his wife. I never saw such a busy woman. If she isn't in the hospital helping at operations (she has a medical degree), she is teaching girls to sew, or women to read, and yet the children are beautifully cared for, and the house excellently managed. I suppose most women would pity Mrs. Russel sincerely. She passes her life in a place many miles from another European, with absolutely no society, no gaieties, no theatres, not even shops where she can while away the time buying things she doesn't want. Yet I never met a woman so utterly satisfied with her lot. Honestly, I don't think she has a single thing left to wish for: devoted to her husband, devoted to her children, heart and soul in her work.

"If only," she sometimes says, "it would go on! The children will have to go home very soon--the tragedy of Anglo-Indian life."

They are such dear children, Ronald and Robert and tiny Jean. The boys speak Santali like little natives, and even their English has an odd turn. When little Jean was born they were greatly interested in the first white baby they had seen, and Ronald said rapturously:

"Oh, Mummy, aren't ladies darlings when they are babies?"

Their mother found them one day bending over the cradle, arguing as to why the baby cried.

Ronald said, "She has no teeth, for that reason she cries."

Robert said, "She has no hair, for that reason she cries."

And Ronald finished, "She has no English, for that reason she cries."

I am not the only visitor at Takai. There are two missionary ladies here, resting after a strenuous time in some famine district. One is tall and stout, the other is short and thin; both have drab-coloured faces and straight mouse-coloured hair; both wear eye-glasses and sort of up and down dresses--the very best of women one feels sure, but oh! so difficult. You know my weakness for making people like me, but these dear ladies will have none of me, charm I never so wisely. Everything I do meets with their disapproval--how well I see it in their averted, spectacled eyes! I talk too much, laugh too much, tell foolish tales, mimic my elders and betters, and--worst sin of all--I have never read, never even heard of, the _Missionary Magazine_.

Something you said in your last letter, some allusion to religion, I didn't quite like, and at any other time I would have written you a sermon on the subject. In Calcutta (where I felt so self-righteous) nothing would have prevented me--but now I haven't the spirit. Mark, please, how the whirligig of Time brings its revenges! In Calcutta I thought myself a saint, in Takai I am regarded as a Brand Unplucked. It is rather dispiriting. I am beginning to wonder if I really am as nice as I thought I was.

_Takai, Jan. 22_.

This Gorgeous East is a cold and draughty place.

We have _chota-hazri_ in the verandah at 7.30, and at that early hour it is so cold my blue fingers will hardly lift the cup. Now the sun is beginning to warm things into life again, and I have been sitting outside basking in its rays, to the anxiety of Mrs. Russel, who, like all Anglo-Indians, has a profound respect for the power of the Eastern sun. The children are taught that one thing they must not do is to run out without a topi. They were looking over _The Pilgrim's Progress_ with me, and at a picture of Christian, bareheaded, approaching the Celestial City, with the rays of the sun very much in evidence, Robert pointed an accusing finger, saying, "John Bunyan, you're in the sun without your topi."

The poor Santals must feel dreadfully cold just now, especially the children, who have hardly anything on. Mrs. Russel has a big trunk full of things sent out from home as presents to the Mission--pieces of calico, and various kinds of garments--and these are given as prizes to the children who attend the Christian schools. The pieces of cloth which they can wind round them are the most valued prizes. Some of the garments are too ridiculous. Shapeless sacks of pink flannelette, intended, I suppose, for shirts; and such-like. This morning there was a prize-giving. The big trunk was brought into the verandah, and the children were allowed to choose. One small boy chose a dressing-gown of a material known, I believe, as duffle, of a striking pattern. In this he arrayed himself with enormous pride: a wide frilled collar stood out round his little thin neck, and, to complete the picture, he carried a bow and arrow. A quainter figure I never saw! I only wished the well-meaning Dorcas who made the garment could have seen him. A little missionary from somewhere in West Africa once told me about a small orphan native she had rescued and adopted.

"I had him christened," she said plaintively. "I had him christened David Livingstone, and I dressed him in a blue serge man-of-war suit; but he ran away." I murmured sympathy, but I couldn't feel surprised. Imagine a little heathen David Livingstone, in a hot, sticky serge suit!

These bows and arrows, by the way, are rather interesting. The natives make them of bamboo and strips of hide, and they are tipped with iron. They really shoot things with them--birds and wild animals, I mean. I bought one from the owner of the dressing-gown for four annas, to take home to Peter. It seemed very little for a real bow and arrow, but Dr. Russel said it was quite enough; and when one comes to think of it, it is double a man's day's wage. I _am_ enjoying myself at Takai. As the man said when he lost his wife, "It's verra quiet but verra peacefu'." After Calcutta, the quiet does seem almost uncanny.

It is a blameless existence one leads. I think I would soon grow very good, for there is no temptation to be anything else. One can't be very frivolous when there is no one to be frivolous with; nor can one backbite and be unkind, for there is no provocation. As for being vain and fond of the putting on of apparel, what is the good when one is the Best People if one wears a garment of any description?

Although there is nothing to do, the days never seem too long. After _chota-hazri_ I generally go for a walk with the children. There is one good broad road passing the bungalow which leads away to the Back of Beyond, but we prefer the little tracks worn by the feet of the natives, which criss-cross everywhere. Jean won't stir a step without a horrid, dilapidated rag doll called Topsy. I do dislike the faces of rag dolls, their lack of profile is so gruesome, and Topsy is a most depressing specimen of her kind; but Jean lavishes affection on her. A woman-child is an odd thing. I remember being taken into a shop to choose a doll, and I chose a most hideous thing with curly white hair. No one could understand why, and I was too shy to tell. It was because the doll was so ugly; I felt sure no one would buy her, and I couldn't bear to think of her loneliness. The boys christened her "Mrs. Smilie," after a lady of that name whom they thought she resembled, and the poor thing came to a tragic end. They were playing at the execution of Mary Queen of Scots, in the shrubbery, seized on "Mrs. Smilie" to play the title rôle, and with brutal realism chopped off her poor ugly head. I arrived just in time to see the deed, and rushed swiftly, with fists and feet, to avenge her fate.

Well, we set off every morning on our pilgrimage, Jean calling herself "Mrs. Jones," and walking primly till we reach what we pretend is the seashore, where she forgets her dignity and rolls about in the sand. A certain kind of tree that Dr. Russel has planted round about the bungalow makes a noise exactly like waves, so it is easy to pretend about the sea. We meet many pilgrims on their way to some holy place, and we create quite a sensation in the little clusters of huts--they could hardly be called villages--that we pass through. The inhabitants crowd around us, saying "Johar," which I take it is Santali for "Salaam," and we repeat "Johar" and grin broadly in reply; and the pie dogs sniff round us in a friendly way. The other day we met a boy who, on beholding me, stood stock still, threw back his head, and shouted with laughter. I never heard more whole-hearted merriment. I had to join in. Whether it was that he had never seen anyone with fair hair before, or whether there is something particularly droll in my appearance, I don't know, but he evidently found me the funniest thing he had met with for a long time. It is generally Topsy who is the centre of interest. They hustle one another to look at her and gurgle with delight. Jean told me solemnly, "I have to leave her at home when I go with Mummy to the villages. They won't listen about Jesus for looking at Topsy."

Jean's great desire is to meet "someone white." Yesterday I saw a horseman approaching in European riding kit and a topi. "Look, Jean," I said, "I believe that is an Englishman" but when he came up to us and raised his topi with a flourish Jean said mournfully, "No, it's nobody white," and I had to pick her up hurriedly in case she should say something more to hurt the poor Eurasian.

When we come in from our walk it is tiffin-time. After that the children are put to bed, and I sit in the verandah and write and rest. Did I say rest? This is what goes on:

"O-liv-i-a!"

I go into the nursery, and Jean, very wide awake, demands a needle and thread, as she wants to sew a dress for Topsy. I tie a piece of thread into a large darning-needle and supply her with my handkerchief, which she proceeds to sew into a tight ball. I return to my writing.

"Olivia!"

This time it is Robert.

"Olivia, if this bungalow fell into the tank would it splash out all the water?"

"Of course it would."

"Then what would the water do when it fell back from the splash and found the bungalow blocking up its tank?"

Unable to think of an answer, I tell him to be a good boy and not disturb people when they are writing. Ronald begs for a piece of paper and a pencil, and having got it, proceeds to write down everything beginning with G. I once told Peter to do that, and his list when I looked at it ran: "God--Gollywog--Gordon Highlanders."...

Immediately I resume my writing it begins again, "Olivia" in every tone, peremptory, beseeching, coaxing--but like the deaf adder I stop my ears and refuse to hear. I am using this opportunity to write my great work on the Mutiny, and it isn't nearly so easy to write a book as I thought. No matter how much I try, my sentences seem all to stand up on end. I can't acquire any ease or grace of style. I read somewhere lately that young writers use too many adjectives, that good writers depend more on verbs. It has made me rather nervous and I keep counting both, but a certain dubiety in my own mind as to which is which greatly complicates matters. My heroine, too, is a failure, I like her name--Belinda--but it is the only thing I like about her. What is the good of me laboriously writing down that she is beautiful and charming when I am convinced in my own mind she is nothing of the kind? However, I mean to persevere....

We all meet at tea--the nicest time of the day I think. My friend Katie says the world isn't properly warmed up till five o'clock, and certainly there is a feeling of comfort all over everything at the clink of the teacups. Mrs. Russel being Scots, knows how to give a proper tea, with plates, and knives, and scones, and jam; and I am as greedy as a schoolboy over it. Yesterday there was no milk--such a blow. The cows had wandered into a man's land, and he, as the custom is, marched them into the pound five miles away, and there we were--milkless!

The country round Takai is quite pretty--almost like Scots moorland. Yesterday we went for a picnic to a river at the opening of a pass--a most interesting place where not very long ago a native boy had been eaten by a tiger. You see, picnics in the jungle are not quite the insipid things they are at home! There is always the chance that the unwary may be devoured. Actually we did see yesterday the footprints of a tiger in the sand by the river--pugs I think is the proper expression. I was scared, but Robert advanced boldly into the bushes. Ronald, watching him admiringly, said, "He is very brave; he is as brave as Daniel."

Talking about tigers, they aren't nearly as prevalent as I thought. I had an idea they were prowling all over India waiting to spring, but one man told me he had been in India fifteen years and had never seen one. Boggley came on one once and took it for a cow--short-sighted Boggley! Dr. Russel says there was a man-eating tiger in the district lately, and a reward was offered for its capture. A young engineer sallied forth to slay. He directed the natives to dig a pit near where the tiger was known to be and cover it with branches, and the next day went and found it had walked into the trap. The natives removed the branches, the gallant engineer approached, but they had dug the pit on a slope, and the tiger _came walking up to meet him!_

I would rather like to see a wild beast from a safe distance. A native came into hospital only yesterday with his arm all torn and mauled by a leopard, but, though I have walked miles through the jungle, I have seen nothing more fearsome than a black-beetle, and _that_ I might have seen at home. The Santals are very keen _shikaris_, and go regularly to hunt armed with bows and arrows and a few guns.

One morning I watched them start. With them was a youth home on holiday from a situation in Calcutta--I liked his idea of a shooting costume. He wore a pair of bright blue socks and yellow shoes, a pink shirt worn over a dhoti, and over that a well-cut tweed coat (evidently an old one of his master's), a high linen collar, but no tie, a straw hat and enormous blue spectacles. The last-named were evidently worn more for effect than by order of the oculist, for the youth removed them when the time came to use his gun.

_27th_.

My home mail has just come in. I like to be in the verandah to see the dâk-runner bring in the letters. I hear him long before I see him, for he carries a stick with jingling bells at the end to frighten away animals as he comes through the jungle. Mine was a particularly nice mail to-day--good news from everyone. You have no idea how out here one loves to get letters, and how one gloats over every scrap of news. Do you really look forward to my letters? Your letters are the greatest comfort to me; indeed, I can't imagine what it would be like without them.

I must finish this up, for the mail goes to-morrow. My time here is nearly run. I hear from Boggley that he expects to arrive to-morrow, and we depart together the next day. I shall be sorry and glad--both. Sorry to leave Takai and the dear people, more than glad to be with Boggley.

Robert has just come in, excitedly clutching the tail of a lizard. He had caught it going up the wall, and the lizard had wriggled away and left its tail. Now I suppose it will perseveringly grow another.

Robert is holding the tail before Jean that she may see it wriggle, and saying, "God made it so. _Wasn't_ it clever?" The dear babies! How I shall miss them!

_Circuit House, Lakserai, Jan 31_.

This letter must begin in pencil, for Boggley has the only pen. By the bye, would you mind keeping my letters till I get home? I think it might be amusing to read them when my cold weather in India is a thing of the past.

Behold us on the first stage of our wanderings!

We left Takai on Wednesday, I in my old friend the doolie, Boggley on his bicycle. It is wonderful where a bicycle can go in India.

I was much sorrier to leave Takai than I thought I should be, and I think they were a little sorry to see me go. Even the missionary ladies unbent so far as to say they would miss my bright face and merry chatter. How differently people describe things! Bright and merry are hardly the adjectives I should have applied to my soulful countenance and brilliant conversation; but no matter. They all stood on the verandah to watch us go. Mrs. Russel, dear woman, was obviously sincerely sorry for anyone leaving such a delectable spot as Takai; and indeed there are many worse places. The boys grinned benignly, each hopping on one foot. Robert, looking rather like a toadstool with his topi and thin legs, said, "I'm going to Scotland soon, and I'm not coming back to India till I have a long beard."

Just as we were starting, an object hurtled through the air and fell at my feet, and Jean's voice explained, "It is Topsy, Olivia; you may have her"; then, self-sacrificing but heart-broken, she buried her head in her mother's lap. I am rather "tear-minded," as our old nurse used to say, at any time, and I saw things through a mist for the first mile or two.

It didn't seem nearly such a long way going to the station as coming from it, but Boggley on his bicycle was there long before me and my doolie men. We got a train to wherever we were going to about five o'clock. I had some sandwiches with me, and we got tea handed in at a station. It tasted of musty straw, and Boggley said the milk wasn't safe, but the cups made up for everything. Boggley's bore the legend _Forget-me-not_, and mine _A present for a good girl_ in gilt letters. About eight o'clock we came to another station--it is quite impossible to remember their ridiculous names--and got out. It was quite an important station, and the large refreshment-room had a long table set for dinner. Lining the walls of the room were tall glass cases filled with tinned meats, jam, biscuits, and other eatables, for in the Mofussil provisions are bought at the railway stations. After dinner Boggley produced a pencil and sheet of paper. "Now," he said, "we must make a list of provisions wanted." So we sat on the table and laid our heads together.

"We'll begin with necessaries," said Boggley "Butter."

"Jam," I added, "and cheese."

These being put down, we couldn't think of another single thing.

"Go on," said Boggley, biting his pencil "That can't be all."

"Biscuits," I said with a flash of inspiration, and we chose three boxes of biscuits, and stuck again.

When the attendant produced a list of provisions kept, we got on better, and soon had two large wooden boxes packed with things that sounded as if they might taste good. The only thing I do feel we have been extravagant in is mustard--it is an enormous tin, and one doesn't really eat such a vast deal of mustard.

The list finished and approved, I asked when our train came in.

"About 4.30," said Boggley. This was 9 p.m.

"What!" I cried, aghast, "Where are we going to sleep?"

Boggley waved his hands comprehensively. "Anywhere," he said; "we'll see what the waiting-room is like."

The waiting-room was like nothing I had ever seen before. A large, dirty, barn-like apartment, with some cane seats arranged round the wall, and an attempt at a dressing-table, with a spotty looking-glass on it, in one corner. One small lamp, smelling vilely, served to make darkness visible, and an old hag crouching at the door was the attendant spirit. It doesn't sound cheery, does it? The bearer, Autolycus by name (I call him Autolycus not because he is a knave and witty, but because he is such a snapper-up of unconsidered trifles), made up a bed on one of the cane seats, and there, in that dreary and far from clean apartment, with horrible insects walking up the walls and doubtless carpeting the floor, with no lock on the door and unknown horrors without, I slept dreamlessly. My last waking thought was, "I wish my mother could see me now!"

Boggley slept in the refreshment-room. Autolycus had gone to the stationmaster and demanded a bed for "a first-class Commissioner Sahib," and, so far does impudence carry one, got it.

I was awakened at 3 a.m., and the aged crone helped me to pack up my bedding. I gave her a rupee, which afterwards I regretted when Autolycus pointed out she had stolen a sheet.

We crossed the Ganges in the grey dawn, a clammy fog shrouding everything. Nothing was visible but a stretch of wan water, and one or two natives near the bank bathing in the holy river. We were the only Europeans travelling, till at one station a nice old priest came in, of what nationality we couldn't make out. I was pondering it when I discovered that my bangle with the miniature, which I always wear, wasn't on my wrist. We looked up, and down, and round about, and then I shouted, "Why, there it is!" And there it was lying on the priest's lap. He looked so utterly dumbfoundered, poor dear man, and blushed all over his fat, good-natured face, and I, when I realized I had pointed an accusing finger, was also covered with confusion. We tried to explain that it had come off with my glove, but he merely bowed repeatedly and made hurt ejaculations in some unknown tongue, so we were reduced to an uneasy silence.

About twelve o'clock we had breakfast in the refreshment-room of a station. We had wired for it, so it was ready. First we got ham and eggs. The ham was evidently tinned, and the eggs were quite black. I poked my share suspiciously and asked what made it so black. "Pepper," said Boggley, who was eating away quite placidly.

Pepper! As if I couldn't recognize plain dirt when I saw it. Our plates were the kind with hot water inside, and a cork, and as the venerable man removed them for the next course I, watching, saw him wipe them perfunctorily with the corner of his already none too clean garment, then gravely hand them back. After that, I thought dry bread was the safest thing to breakfast on.

Now we are installed in Lakserai Circuit House These rest-houses are kept up by the Government for officials on inspection duty. Dâk-bungalows are rather different. Any traveller may stay in them by paying so much. This house consists of one very large room, dining, drawing, smoking room in one, and two bedrooms. It is rather damp and dreary, but that doesn't matter, for we leave again to-morrow morning. We have been to call this afternoon on the wife of the Collector, Mrs. Edston, a pretty woman with nice manners and a sweet voice. We had tea with her and saw her small son. Her bungalow interested me. It was only the second Mofussil bungalow I had seen. The Takai drawing-room was delightful, a big, rather empty room, with one or two good reproductions of famous pictures on the walls, heaps of books, and an almost entire absence of ornaments--rather an ascetic room. It suited the simple, strenuous life there. Mrs. Edston's is quite different--bright and pretty, full of flowers and growing plants; tables laden with silver, and photographs of pretty women and children; comfortable chairs, with opulent cushions, soft rugs and hangings--altogether a very cosy room.

Mrs. Edston has kindly asked us to dine with her to-night.

_Later_.

We have just come back, and as I am not very sleepy I shall write a bit. It was pouring rain at eight o'clock, so a trap was sent for us, and a note asking us not to whip the horses too hard. I thought they must be very restive animals, but it turned out to be a joke. There were no horses in the trap, only coolies!

We had a very pleasant dinner. Mr. Edston is out in camp, but two young assistant officers were there. They live in tents in the compound, as the bungalow is small, and have their meals with the Edstons. Sitting to-night before a blazing fire, in the pretty drawing-room, listening to Mrs. Edston singing, I reflected that they were exceedingly fortunate young men to have such a home-like habitation and such a charming hostess. To do them justice, I think they quite realize their good fortune.

We depart to-morrow morning for some quite unpronounceable place about twenty miles from here, to stay at another rest-house till Monday.

_Madhabad, Sunday_.

We have reached the unpronounceable place after much prayer and fasting. What a day we had yesterday! We left the Lakserai Circuit House at 10 a.m., preceded by Autolycus and a crowd of coolies bearing luggage. Each coolie carries one thing, and as they are all paid the same without regard to the weight carried, of course there is great competition for the light packages. It is odd to see one man stagger under a trunk while another trots gaily off with a cushion or a kodak. We are allowed to take hand-luggage into the carriage, and we take such a broad view of the word that it means with us dressing-bags, suit-cases, tennis-rackets, gun-cases, polo-sticks, golf-clubs, and as much more as the compartment will hold.

The station, when we reached it yesterday, was crammed with natives squatting so thick on the platform one could hardly move without treading on them. A great festival is going on which only happens once in a long time--fifty years I think--and if they bathe in the holy Ganges while the festival lasts all their sins are washed away. They are flocking from all parts, eagerly boarding every train that stops, regardless of the direction it is going in. The festival ends to-day at twelve, so I greatly fear many will be disappointed. At all times the native loves railway travelling, and, as he has no notion of time-tables, he often arrives at the station the night before, sleeps peacefully on the ground, and is in comfortable time for the first train in the morning. Also, he has no idea of fixed charges, and when he goes to the ticket-office and asks for his "tickut," and the babu in charge tells him the price, he offers half. When that is refused he goes away, and returns in an hour or so and offers a little more. It may take a whole day to convince a native that he can't beat down the Railway Company.

This festival had so disarranged the trains that our train which should have left at ten didn't come in till twelve. Then we had to change at the next station and wait for the connection, and we actually sat there till eight in the evening, when our train sauntered in. They say of a certain cold and draughty station in Scotland that in it there is neither man's meat, nor dog's meat, nor a place to sit down, and it is equally true of the Indian junction. We had nothing to eat all day except ginger snaps, and they pall after a time, especially in a dry and dusty land where no water is. There were two other travellers in the same plight, a Mr. and Mrs. Blackie, and we sat together through that long hot day, too utterly hungry and bored even to pretend interest in each other. When the train did come in, something had gone wrong with the engine, and they lost more time pottering about with it--tying it up with string probably. It was then that my temper, and I do think I behaved with great fortitude up to that time, gave way, and I tried to bully the officials. It was no use. They merely smiled and said, "Cer-tain-lee," and Boggley irritated me more and more by solemnly repeating:

"It is not good for the Christian soul to hustle the Aryan brown,
For the Christian riles and the heathen smiles
And it weareth the Christian down.
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white
With the name of the dear deceased;
And the epitaph drear--'A fool lies here
Who tried to hustle the East.'"

We had nothing to look forward to at the end of the journey except a dâk-bungalow's cold welcome, but the Blackies, who live at Madhabad, insisted we should go home with them to dinner; so, instead of the tinned ham-and-egg meal we had expected, we had a dainty, well-cooked dinner in a cosy dining-room. Warmed and fed, we retired to our present resting-place, and found little comfort here. Autolycus and his coolies had only just arrived, and Autolycus was searching vainly for a lamp--a _bati_ he called it. The floors are stone and as cold as the tomb. Mr. Blackie begged us to go back to his place for the night, but we wouldn't hear of it. Autolycus ran a lamp to earth; we explored for bedrooms and found two, in which he hastily made up beds. They are damp, and far from clean; but one learns to put up with a lot in the Mofussil, and in a very short time we had forgotten our troubles in sleep.

This morning I rose betimes and went out to the verandah, and there I found--quite suddenly--a handsome young man. It seems he too is staying in this eligible mansion. He is an engineer--a bridge-builder, I think--and this is convenient for his present work. He was in bed and asleep, and didn't hear us arrive last night; so he was as surprised to see me as I was to see him. When Boggley appeared we had breakfast together. It was interesting hearing about the kind of life this young man leads. He says although Madhabad is not gay, it is Piccadilly compared to where he often is, out in camp, forty miles from another European, with not a soul to speak to from week to week. The evenings are the dreariest times, and he often goes to bed immediately after dinner. He was quite cheerful, and said he liked the life. Madhabad is a large village, but the Blackies are the only Europeans. There are a lot of planters, however, living round about. We had callers this morning. Mr. Royle, to whose place we go on Monday, rode over with his two small daughters, to say they would expect us to stay with them. We meant to camp, but it will be much pleasanter to stay with the Royles; everyone says they are charming people.

Boggley and I went for a walk after tea to see the country. There isn't much to see except a long, straight brown road and a most insanitary-looking tank. The village is more interesting with its queer booths. I do think it is an incongruous sight to see, as I saw this afternoon, a native, naked but for a loin cloth, plying a Singer's sewing-machine. The natives looked sullen and rather suspicious, or is it only that I imagine it because they are so unlike the broad-smiling Santals with their cheerful _johar_? There are four trees before this bungalow, and at present two vultures are perching on each--horrible creatures, with long, scraggy necks. I pointed them out to Boggley, who was immediately reminded of a tale of a bumptious young civilian, new to the country, who was told, by one who had suffered many things at his hands, that the birds were wild turkeys, a much-valued delicacy; hearing which the youth promptly shot some and sent them round to the ladies of the station. Do you believe that tale? I don't.

... We have just finished dinner--much the most amusing dinner I ever ate. There is an intense rivalry, it seems, between our cook and the engineer-man's cook; and although we dined together, our bills-of-fare were kept jealously apart. Autolycus, of course, waited on us, and when he handed me the fish, and I helped myself to one of the four pieces, he said sternly, "Two, please," and I meekly took the other. The engineer had no fish, but on the other hand he had an entrée which was denied us. Both cooks rose to a savoury. (They _will_ give you the savoury before the sweet. If you insist on anything else, it so demoralizes them that the dinner is a ruin.) Our savoury was rather ambitious--stuffed eggs rolled in vermicelli. It tasted rather like a bird's-nest, and one felt it had taken a lot of making and rolling in brown hands. I envied the simpler poached egg on tomato of the engineer. You can't _pat_ a poached egg!

_Rika, Feb. 9_.

I have no home letters to answer this week. We forgot to give the Calcutta people the new address, so on Monday night the dâk-runner with his bells would jingle with my precious home mail into the Takai verandah; Mrs. Russel, having no other address, would re-direct them back to Calcutta, and they may reach us here about Sunday, It is tantalizing, but I don't pine for news in Rika so much as in most places. I am so thoroughly at home. I find the Mofussil is simply full of nice people. When we rode out here on Monday morning, and Mrs. Royle, with a shy small girl on either side, came down the verandah steps to meet us, I knew I was going to love staying here. There is an atmosphere about that makes for peace and happiness, and every day I like the place and the people more.

Rika was rather a revelation. The civilians' bungalows have a here-we-have-no-continuing-city look about them; their owners are constantly being moved, and pitching their moving tents elsewhere; but the Royles have been at Rika for fifteen years, and have made a delightful home. The bungalow is built on a slightly rising ground with a verandah all round--a verandah made pleasant with comfortable chairs, rugs, writing-tables, books, and flowers. At one end a _dirzee_ squats with a sewing-machine, surrounded by white stuff in various stages of progress for the Mem Sahib and the children. From the middle of the verandah a broad flight of steps, flanked on either side by growing plants in pots, leads down to the road, and across the road lie the tennis-lawns and the flower-garden. I have read that one of the most pathetic things about this Land of Exile is the useless effort to make English flowers grow. In Rika they must feel at home, for the whole air is scented with roses and mignonette. When Mrs. Royle took us to see her flowers, Boggley pulled a sprig of mignonette, sniffed it appreciatively, and handing it to me said:

"What does that remind you of?"

"Miss Aitken's teas!" I said promptly. Always that scent takes me straight back to sunny summer afternoons when

"The day was just a day to my mind,
All sunny before and sunny behind,
Over the heather,"

and myself in a stiffly starched frock, accompanied by three brothers with polished faces and spotless collars setting out to drink tea with our friends Miss Aitken and Miss Elspeth. There was always honey for tea, I remember,--honey made by the bees that buzzed through laborious days in their thatched houses in a corner of the sunny garden,--and little round scones, and crisp shortbread; and, as we ate and chattered, through the open windows the roses nodded in, giving greeting to their friends, the roses of past summers dried and entombed in great vases; and the scent of mignonette so mixed itself with the sound of gentle old voices and childish trebles, the fragrant tea in the fragile china cups, the prancing dragons in the cabinet, that now, over the years, it brings them all back to me as surely, as potently, as if it had been indeed a sprig of Oberon's wild thyme or Ophelia's rosemary for remembrance. As I have told you, we were naughty children, sometimes even wicked children, but our conduct at this house was, "humanly speaking, perfect." The old ladies listened so sympathetically to our tales of how many trout we had that day _guddled_ in the burn; of the colt we had managed to catch and mount--as a family--by the aid of the dyke, and of the few delirious moments spent on its slippery back before it threw us--as a family; of the ins and outs of why Boggley's nose was swelling visibly and his right eye disappearing. They would look at each other, nodding wisely at intervals while they murmured, "Interestin' bit bairnies." Boggley, when young, was of a peculiarly fiery temper. At times one could hardly look at him without being confronted with squared fists and being invited to "come on"; but when Miss Elspeth, holding one of his pugnacious paws in her kind, soft hands, assured him he was the flower of the flock, and _her_ boy, he was a Samson shorn for mildness.

Speaking pure Lowland Scots, which was a delight to listen to; full of a gracious hospitality embracing everyone in the district from the highest to the lowest; fiery politicians and ardent supporters of their beloved Free Kirk, to the upkeep of which I believe they would cheerfully have given their last copper, Miss Aitken and Miss Elspeth were of a type now unhappily almost extinct.

Miss Elspeth was the plain, clever one. "In my youth", she loved to quote, "in my youth I wasna what you would ca' bonnie, but I was pale, penetratin', and interestin'."

Miss Aitken had been a beauty, and liked to tell us of the balls she had danced at, when, dressed in white muslin with heelless slippers and a wreath in her hair, she had been called "a sylph," Why she had never married was a puzzle to many. I remember she used to tell us of a wonderful visit to London, and of how she came home sick at heart about leaving all the "ferlies," as she called them. On her first evening at home Miss Elspeth had said, to cheer her, "Come and see the wee pigs." "Me!" said poor Miss Aitken. "What did I care about the wee pigs!" It was, perhaps, more than the "ferlies" she missed, but I don't know. She was no sylph when I knew her, my dear Miss Aitken, but she had a most comfortable lap, and a cap with cherry ribbons, and the kindest heart in all the world. Once, John, who thirsted always for information, and mindful of a point that had struck him in the chapter at morning prayers, said:

"Miss Aitken, are you any relation to Achan-in-the-Camp?"

Miss Elspeth, looking quizzically at her sister, answered for her: "Dod! Marget, I wouldna wonder but what ye micht hae been tempted by the Babylonish garment!"

They were very old when we knew them, these dear ladies, and they have been dead many years, but their simple, kindly lives have left a fragrance to sweeten this workaday world even as the mignonette in bygone summers scented their old-world garden.

How I do reminisce! It is entirely your fault for saying you liked it. You know it is a trait in the Douglas family. Our way of entertaining guests is to sit close together and recall happenings, and delightedly remind each other of childish escapades, shouting hilariously, while our guests sit in a bored and puzzled silence. Pleasant family the Douglases!

Well, as I said, Rika is a pleasant place and the Royles Irish, therefore charming. Mrs. Royle is a most purpose-like person. I like to go with her in the morning on her rounds. Through the gardens we go to see the bananas and pine-apples and tomatoes ripening in the sun, and make sure that the _malis_ are doing their work; then on to the wash-house, where the _dhobi_ is finishing the weekly wash; to the kitchens, to see that the cooking-pots are clean; finally, to stand on the verandah while the _syces_ bring the ponies and feed them before our suspicious eyes. I forgot the henhouse. As we live almost entirely on fowls in the Mofussil, the _moorghy-khana_ is a most important feature of the establishment; but just now, I regret to say, owing to a moorghy famine in the district, the stock is at a somewhat low ebb. Men have been scouring the country for fowls, but when we went to look at the result this morning we found about a dozen miserable chickens, almost featherless, standing dejectedly in corners, and Mrs. Royle wailed, "We can't kill these: it would be a sheer slaughter of the innocents!" It isn't easy to get beef or mutton in this part of the world, and when a sheep is brought to Rika it has to be carefully concealed, or Kittiwake ties a ribbon round its neck and claims it as her own, and terrible is the outcry if anyone dares to make away with her pet.

There are two Royle children--Kittiwake and Hilda. Kittiwake (christened, I believe, Kathleen Helen) is fat and broad and beaming, and very religious. Hilda is inclined to love the gay world, and finds Rika too quiet--the baby aged six! They are both thorough little sportsmen and mounted on their ponies go with their father almost everywhere. Yesterday I went for a ride with them, along dusty brown roads between rice-fields, and they gave me a wonderful lot of information about the place and the people. As we passed a little village temple Kittiwake stopped. "_That_," she said solemnly, pointing with her whip, "is where they worship false gods."

I told Mr. Royle about Peter being so anxious for a mongoose, and to-day when the children came running to beg me to come quickly and see what the fisherman had caught for me, my mind leapt at once to mongooses. When I saw, confined under a wicker basket, two animals with yellow fur and flat heads that moved ceaselessly, my heart sank. If they had been caught for me how could I be so ungracious as to refuse them, and yet how was it possible for me to carry these most terrifying creatures about with me, and perhaps, on the voyage home, have to share my cabin with them?

I looked round wildly. The fisherman was grinning delightedly at his own cleverness. Our two _chuprassis_, Autolycus, and a _syce_ stood round with the children, all waiting for my approval.

"They're rather nice, aren't they?" I stammered feebly.

"Oh--_sweet_!" said Hilda rapturously.

"Sweet!" I echoed. "But aren't they big ones?"

"Big!" cried Kittiwake. "Why, they're only _butchas_;" and she lifted the edge of the basket to get a better view, at which one of the _butchas_ made a rush for the opening and made straight at me. With a yell I snatched up my skirts, knocked over Hilda, leapt "like a haarse" on to the verandah straight into the astonished Mr. Royle, while the weird beast disappeared like a yellow streak.

"Whatever is the matter?" he asked as I sank to the floor.

"Olivia's afraid of the _butcha_ otter!" squealed Hilda, while she scampered about looking for the truant.

"Otter?" said I.

"Yes," said Mr. Royle; "they are baby otters that the fisherman found at the side of the lake. I thought of sending them to the Calcutta Zoo. They aren't very common in India."

"I'm _so_ glad!" I gasped; and Mr. Royle looked mystified. It didn't seem exactly a reason for fervent gladness, but suppose they _had_ been mongooses? My life, so to speak, was ruined.

Staying in the house with Mr. Royle is rather like being with Colonel Newcome in the flesh. He is such a very "perfect gentil Knight"--as courteous to a native woman as to the L.-G.'s wife. The people round about adore him and his wife; they are a kind of father and mother to the whole district. There would be little heard of disloyalty to the British if all the Sahibs were like Mr. Royle, He is so good--I'd be almost afraid to be so good in case I died--but not the least in a sickly way. He is a teetotaller, a thing almost unheard of in India; and he isn't ashamed to be heard singing hymns with the children before their bed-time; yet (why yet?) he is a crack shot, a fine polo player, an all-round sportsman.