Round the Wonderful World Part 16

"Did you indeed!" says the lady, taking the remark as if addressed to herself. "'Grace and I dined there and paid double that, and we did not think anything of it."

She then immediately turns, and seeing Ramaswamy standing outside mistakes him for a station-attendant, and orders him to tie up their bedding. He looks to me for orders. I nod to him to do it, and, hat in hand, make a sweeping bow--

"Only too glad if my boy can be of any service to you, Madam."

I think I also got my own back!

[Ill.u.s.tration: A BRa.s.s WORKER, DELHI.]

CHAPTER XVIII

THE CAPITAL OF INDIA

Delhi!

If you draw a line across the map of India from the north to the south at the greatest length, and another from east to west at the greatest breadth, the two will form a cross of the usual shape, with the cross-bar high up. Just at the point where they intersect stands Delhi, the chief city in India since the King-Emperor's proclamation in 1911.

Before that Calcutta was the capital, but Calcutta, like Bombay, is a city of trade, and has practically no historic memories. Delhi is full of the romance of history. In the Mutiny the question as to who should hold it was of the greatest importance, and if the British then had let it slip from their grip, without an effort to retake it, their power in India would have been gone for ever.

Now, on the first morning that we are here, let us drive round and see what we can of this splendid city. First we will go down the Chandni Chauk, the main street which cuts Delhi into two parts. It is immensely wide and lined with trees of a good size. These stand on each side of a broad walk for foot-pa.s.sengers, which runs down the middle of the street, foreign fas.h.i.+on, and makes a popular promenade. The gay colours of the natives' clothes flash in and out of the shadows of the trees as the people pa.s.s along, each on his own errand. On one side are the tram-lines and on the other you can see a fast bullock-cart with pretty little white trotting bullocks as dainty in their own way as antelopes, and as different from the slow yellow ones as carriage-horses are from cart-horses. There are on both sides shops for jewels, for sweetmeats, for the richest and most beautiful silks and ivory, and mingled with them grocers' shops filled with tinned stuffs from England, and others with every kind of modern utensil for a house. Such a mixture! They are all heavily protected against the sun by awnings, for even at this early hour of the morning it is strong. At the end of the street is a tall red sandstone tower with a clock in it. In the distance we see the spire of an English church, and down that opening we catch sight of a Mohammedan mosque. The shop here beside us is a blaze of colour with Eastern carpets hung out like banners; the native owner squats on a thing like a wooden bedstead by his door and chews betel-nut, which makes his tongue and lips a deep red. Next door is a vigorous agency for the sale of sewing-machines! A Hindu religious fanatic, smeared with ashes and with hardly any clothes to cover his lean body, walks ahead with eyes unseeing, and at the same moment a smart motor-car stops beside us and the voice of a high-bred English-woman says, "I will meet you at the Effinghams in an hour," as she waves a greeting to her companions and steps out.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A SHOP IN DELHI.]

Hullo! There is a band. Round the corner swings a company of Ghurkas, the st.u.r.dy little men who helped England to overcome the mutineers. They look very soldier-like in their neat holly-green uniforms, with small round caps set at a jaunty angle on their cropped heads. They are hill tribes from the north, and in appearance not unlike the j.a.panese. They are all so much of one size you could run a ruler along their heads.

Their swinging stride would delight a soldier's heart, for it is like clockwork in its precision. They are born soldiers, brave and easily disciplined, devoted to their officers and without the knowledge of fear. They have faults, of course. The Ghurka is apt to be rather a gay dog; he gets drunk, and the girls he loves are many, but he is of the right stuff, and his officers are proud of him.

I was talking to one of them as we came up the coast on the s.h.i.+p.

"Nothing like them anywhere else in the world," he said. "They take to drill like their mother's milk, they thrive on it and discipline--the slightest fault that might be overlooked elsewhere we punish severely.

They like it and live up to it. You could lead a Ghurka regiment anywhere; fighting is their pastime. They have nothing in common with the slothful races of Lower India; they are alert and vigorous and active as cats. The funniest thing is their love for the Highlanders; if a Highland regiment comes up the two meet and mingle as if they were brothers. You'll see a great Highlander in his kilt and feather bonnet arm in arm with one of these little chaps, hobn.o.bbing as if they had known each other all their lives. And the Ghurkas won't have anything to say to the other Indian regiments; they despise them all except the Sikhs--they get on with them all right."

We are lucky, for the Ghurkas are followed by a company of Sikhs, and anything less like the Ghurkas you could hardly imagine. The Sikhs are big men with stern bearded faces, they look like veterans and are a pleasant sight in their scarlet tunics with neat gaitered feet. There were many Sikh regiments belonging to our army in the black days of the Mutiny, and some wavered, but some held firm. Had it not been for the Sikhs things would have gone badly with us.

Now we are nearing the Lah.o.r.e Gate and you can see that Delhi is a walled city. The walls run all round for six miles, and are backed up by a twenty-five feet ditch, so that it is a tough city for any army to take. The gate itself is a fine building. When the British troops, who varied at times from 5000 to 10,000 men, set to work to attack this strong city, held by 40,000 to 100,000 natives, many of them trained and disciplined soldiers, taught by the very men against whom they were fighting, it seemed an impossible task. The audacity of it! This gate was one of the hardest of all to break through. Four attacking parties had been sent against the walls, the other three got in, but the one that came here failed. Then the others tried to work their way through, inside the city, to capture this gate. They crept along the narrow lane running inside the wall, but it was commanded everywhere from the heights of the houses by the enemy, who poured down a murderous fire into it. Again and again the reckless men, who determined to take the gate, started off on the deadly errand, again and again they were wiped off, and alas! one of those mortally wounded was General John Nicholson, whose utter disregard of danger and marvellous understanding of the native character had made many of the natives look on him as a G.o.d!

Now we are outside and driving up to the ridge. Every British boy and girl has heard of the ridge. It played a great part in the Mutiny. It is a long backbone of hill which runs close up to the city at one end. We will leave our carriage to go slowly along to the far end, where the road winds up, and we ourselves will scramble up at this side till we gain the Mutiny Memorial, a Gothic tower rising in many stages like a church spire. We can mount the steps inside to see the view. It is worth it, for miles and miles of country lie spread before us from this height.

I don't want to go into details of history, but if ever there is a place where history was made it is here. On this ridge for months was camped the British army, including some loyal native regiments, and all the time they never wavered in their determination to retake Delhi, then in the hands of the natives. Our men could not be said to besiege the city, because to besiege means to sit down all round a place and prevent the inhabitants from getting supplies from outside until they are compelled to give in or are too weak to resist the entrance of the besiegers; we never invested Delhi in this way. There were not enough men even to attempt it; the natives could always get supplies into the city, if they wanted, from the river Jumna, which runs past the other side. But the British sat steadily on their heights in grim determination, and never lost the chance of a move. They died in hundreds; remember it was during an Indian summer, and even under the best conditions, with ice and punkahs and shade, the European finds it hard to get through the hot weather. Here there were no conveniences and very few even of what might be considered necessaries. The men suffered from dysentery, fever, wounds, and sunstroke, and yet they carried through their forlorn hope triumphantly, and it was hardly a year later that the Queen of England was proclaimed Sovereign of India.

In that great plain, which stretches far as eye can see on the other side of the ridge, some twenty years later another proclamation was made, and the Queen was further proclaimed under the t.i.tle of Empress of India; while in 1911 her grandson, King George, himself proclaimed Delhi as the capital of India in place of Calcutta.

Over the screen of trees you can see beautiful Delhi lying within its h.o.a.ry walls. You can see the towers and steeples and minarets and domes of the city. Now look the other way, along the ridge. That great pillar close to us is very old; it was made by one of the Hindu kings, but it was only put up here ten years after the Mutiny, and is not interesting. That white house farther on is now a hospital; it was once a private house, and in it General Nicholson died. Look on again, much farther, past trees and other houses, and you will see a rounded building with turrets--that is the Flagstaff Tower so fiercely held.

Come down now to rejoin the carriage and we will go back to the city by the Kashmir Gate. Of all the gates this is the one with the most daring story of adventure attached to it.

When the British had resolved to make an a.s.sault on the city they detailed four parties, as I said, to attack in four places. One of them was this gate. The other three places had been partially broken in by the guns, and there was a chance for those heroic madmen to get through, but this was entire. The a.s.saulting party had first to break a way in and then get through.

And they did it!

The five told off to make the breach were Lieutenants Home and Salkeld, and Sergeants Carmichael, Burgess, and Smith. Some carried bags of gunpowder, and others, the fire to set them off. It was daylight when they ran towards the gate across a single plank spanning the ditch, so that they had to go one by one in full range of the enemy's fire from the walls. The marvel is that any lived to reach the gate alive. When one fell another leaped forward to carry on his task. The bags were flung down, and those who placed them tumbled back into the ditch, while their comrades set the powder alight and rolled down too. Out of the whole party only Home and Smith survived. The wicket of the gate was burst open by the explosion, and the storming party, also crossing that single plank, made for it, got inside, and beat back the foe, meeting their comrades, who had burst in at other points, inside.

The tale of "how Horatius kept the bridge" pales before this amazing pluck.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A CARPET SHOP, DELHI.]

We must get out and look at the gate where this actually happened not sixty years ago.

There are two wide arches in the shattered wall, and the coping above is half gone; it remains unrestored just as it was that day. On a slab is an inscription telling of this n.o.ble deed when men died for their country without hesitation.

Close by is the cemetery where General Nicholson is buried. You can see his statue in the city raised high on a pedestal. He stands with bared head and drawn sword. But Nicholson's is not the only name immortalised by the Mutiny--there are the two brothers, John and Henry Lawrence, Outram and Havelock, Hodson, Sir Colin Campbell, and many another name which is a household word in England. These men, in those days of fierce fighting and desperate stress, made history and wrote themselves in its pages by deeds that still cause every British boy's heart to ring within him. We have pa.s.sed through the Kashmir Gate, and here, on one side of the street, is a battered bit of arcade, another Mutiny memorial. In the early days, just at the first outbreak, when no one realised what was going to happen, the mutineers marched on Delhi. This bit of wall was part of the powder magazine, then in charge of nine men. They defended it against a swarming army of Sepoys, as the native soldiers were called, and when they found that they could not hold it in spite of their desperate defence, they calmly blew up the powder magazine, and themselves with it, to prevent its falling into the hands of the mutineers and being used against their kinsmen. The most incredible part of the whole story is that three of those who blew up the magazine actually escaped with their lives!

We are now approaching the fort and palace, the kernel of the city, which it is best to see after the ridge.

It is a fine building that faces us, with an ornamental arcade running along the upper part. We pa.s.s in on foot under the gateway and see another, a Hall of Public Audience, with red sandstone pillars. Inside is a great throne of white marble, inlaid with mosaic work, where the old kings of Delhi used to sit and listen to their ministers. The last of this line was still living in the palace when the Mutiny broke out.

He was a poor specimen, given up to indulgence and sloth; but the British had left him the state of royalty and all his wealth until the rising made it impossible any more. His sons and grandson, who, when the Mutiny broke out, themselves actually murdered and tortured helpless English women and children, and watched their agonies as "sport," were rightly shot out of hand, and the old king became a prisoner.

Coming out of this hall our eyes are caught by a gleam of something l.u.s.trously white against a sky which is now burning blue. This is another Hall of Audience, the Diwan-i-Khas, more beautiful than the first. It is of white marble, which, in this clear atmosphere, remains white, and it is richly ornamented with gilt. It is in the form of a square cloister or arcade, with a little dome at each corner, and if we stand inside and look out between the white pillars to see the lawns and the trees in the old palace gardens, we shall find it difficult to realise that this place of beauty and peace was ever a scene of fierce revolt. The rest of the palace is now used partly as a barracks.

When the British, having beaten their way through the narrow streets, and swept them clear of the foe, arrived here on that fateful day, the 14th September 1857, they found the palace deserted, except for a stray sentry, holding his position with sublime courage. The rest had fled,--thousands flying from hundreds,--and well they might, for the British troops were wrought up by the cruelties of the Sepoys to a sublime and just fury that made them seem like avenging angels. It is said in one place that the sternness of the expression of the Sikhs'

faces made the wretched Sepoys fly without a shot being fired. The palace area is full of beautiful buildings, and we shall see many more specimens of this kind of Oriental architecture when we visit the mosques in the town this afternoon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE KUTAB MINAR.]

So much is there to see, indeed, that it is not until the next day we can ride out for a sight beyond the walls.

Pull up your horse and look ahead. Do you see that huge column rising skyward from the plain? It is called the Kutab Minar and is two hundred and forty feet high. As we get under it and gaze up at it it seems to tower into the very sky. It is forty-seven feet across the base and narrows to the top, it is fluted all the way down, and has frills in stone around it here and there--truly a curious sight! There are three hundred and seventy-nine steps to climb to the top; do you want to try them? If so, I will wait here and hold your horse. You shake your head.

Wise boy!

There are other buildings around, parts of a mosque, and inside is an iron pillar said to be one of the oldest things in India. The Kutab Minar is supposed to have been built about the reign of our King John, though there are some who put it further back; the pillar is considerably older than that, but it cannot compare in antiquity with many things we have seen in Egypt. After the Hindu kings came a line of Moghul or Mohammedan kings who swept the others away; of these the old king of Delhi, living at the time of the Mutiny, was the last, and it is supposed that it was at the beginning of the rule of the Moghul kings that the Kutab Minar was erected.

Notice that brown-faced, scantily clad boy, who keeps beckoning and shouting "Sahib." We follow him as he leads us to a well, and almost before we realise what he is doing he goes down head first, a drop of at least eighty feet, into the black water below. There is a tradition that the water of this well cannot drown anyone. At anyrate it hasn't rid the world of this rascal, for here he comes shaking the water off his oily body and grinning. He has earned his baks.h.i.+s.h.!.+

As we are in Delhi for several days more we can go at our leisure through the bazaars, which really are well worth seeing. We choose a late afternoon, when there is no hurry and we can watch the people in their daily life and get a glimpse into the real India.

The streets are narrow, mere pa.s.sages mostly, and lined by the open-air stalls or wooden sheds which are what the native understands by shops. A marvellous array of slippers greets us first, for all of one trade tend to congregate together, a curious custom and one which you would think was not very good for trade, though convenient to the customer. There are slippers of all colours from scarlet to brown; you would never have thought they could be so decorative. They hang in bunches, festoons, and chains. Every man here wears slippers when he puts anything at all on his feet. Boots would be of no use to him, for he has so often to shuffle off his foot-gear in a hurry. Modern streets, with their stones and liability to nails and broken gla.s.s and other sharp things, has led to the native taking to strong soled slippers when he walks about his business.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HE GOES HEAD FOREMOST INTO THE BLACK WATER.]

There is a sizzling and a delicious smell from the next shop, and peeping in we see a huddled form crouched over a pot placed on a few red embers; it might be a witch stirring potions and muttering incantations.

But it is only a native looking after a pan full of Indian corn popping out in the most fluffy and tempting way. I have often popped it on a shovel over the school fire. A native soldier, who is pa.s.sing, stops and bargains for a handful, and carries it off, eating it as he goes; when he has had enough he will stow the rest in his turban, which serves as his pocket, his private trunk, and play-box all in one. This is the food he best thrives on, so his wants are easily supplied. A tailor sitting cross-legged on his board attracts us next; he is a good-looking old man with a grey beard and kindly eyes blinking behind horn spectacles. His garments are of the dark red colour seen sometimes in certain parts of the country when the earth is ploughed. His turban is a mighty erection of green arranged with much dignity. You would think it hot and heavy to carry all those yards of stuff on your head, but the habit has probably arisen to protect the head from sunstroke.

"He is a _dhurzi_, Sahib," says Ramaswamy, who has followed us to interpret if we want. "He making all clothes for mem-sahibs. Very clever man and not asking too much money."

Yes, a _dhurzi_ will come and sit outside on a verandah and work by the day and copy any garment you give him; sewing is a man's job here, and not a woman's.