Twenty-One Days in India Part 13

No. 1

WITH THE VICEROY

The late Edward Robert Bulwer, First Earl of Lytton (1831-1891), Viceroy and Governor-General of India from April 12, 1876, to June 8, 1880, is here depicted from the superficial point of view of his character as a man, a poet, and a statesman generally current at the time.

Lord Lytton was thoroughly unconventional in all his manners and moods, and in his methods of conducting the affairs of his great office.

As a boy of seven he was already scribbling verses; and he wrote a poem, "The Prisoner of Provence," which turns upon the famous story of the Man in the Iron Mask, only two or three months before his death.

In fact, all through Lord Lytton's distinguished career, as his father had done before him, he found recreation in change of employment. As forcibly and eloquently stated by his daughter, Lady Betty Balfour, in her introduction to the 1894 edition of his Selected Poems, "The minds of both were ceaselessly active, and they turned without a pause from one kind of thought and business to another as readily as they turned from either to easy, disengaged conversation. Had the rival calls of his many-sided intellect been at variance, the poet in my father would always have had the preference."

Ali Baba, it may be taken for granted, did not intend to characterise as "a flood of twaddle" the whole of Lord Lytton's verse. Poetry which, as far as published up to 1855, called forth from Leigh Hunt warm praise for its beauties and mercy for its defects, in these words embodied in a letter to Mr. John Forster, the friend and biographer of Charles d.i.c.kens.--

"I have read every bit of Owen Meredith's [his now well-known pseudonym] volume, and it has left me in a state of delighted admiration. He is a truly musical, reflecting, impa.s.sioned and imaginative poet, with a tendency to but one of the faults of his contemporaries and that chiefly in his minor pieces--I mean the doing too much, and the giving too much importance and emphasis to every fancy and image that comes across him, so that his pictures lose their proper distribution of light and shade, nay, of distinction between great and small. On his greatest occasions, however, he can evidently rid himself of this fault."

During Lord Lytton's Indian career, those who were on political or self-interested grounds opposed to his policy--and there were many such--were wont, as recorded by his daughter, to attempt to discredit the statesman by reiterating that he was a poet.

As a matter of fact, Aberigh Mackay's acquaintance with Lord Lytton's poetry was mainly, if not entirely, based upon a volume edited by N.A.

Chick, and published in Calcutta in 1877, quaintly ent.i.tled: "The Imperial Bouquet of Pretty Flowers from the Poetical Parterre of Robert Lord Lytton, Viceroy and Governor-General of India."

Our Author's knowledge of Lord Lytton's Indian Administration was necessarily based upon the views--_pro_ and _con_--expressed by the daily newspaper writers of the period, who wrote, of course, uninitiated in political affairs as a rule, and without those full expositions now embodied in many notable recent publications, official and other, foremost among which we would cite Lady Betty Balfour's History of his Indian Administration, published in 1899, and her edition of her father's personal and literary letters, issued in two vols. in 1906.

Verily "Time tries All," and an impartial and notable summary of Lord Lytton's services to his country, written by the Reverend W. Elvin, is engraven on the monument to his memory in the crypt of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was designed and partially carried out by the sculptor, Mr. Gilbert.

+HE WAS A DIPLOMATIST RICK IN THE QUALITIES, OFFICIAL, AND SOCIAL, BY WHICH AMITY WITH FOREIGN NATIONS IS MAINTAINED.+

+A VICEROY INDEPENDENT IN HIS VIEWS, RESOLUTE IN ACTION, LOOKING FORWARD TO THE FUTURE.+

+A POET OF MANY STYLES, EACH THE EXPRESSION OF HIS HABITUAL THOUGHTS.+

+A MAN OF SUPERIOR FACULTIES HIGHLY CULTIVATED BE LITERATURE, ARDENT IN HIS AFFECTIONS, TENDER AND GENEROUS IN ALL THE CIRc.u.mSTANCES OF LIFE, LAVISH IN HIS COMMENDATION OF OTHERS, AND HUMBLE IN HIS ESTIMATE OF HIMSELF.+

As a good example of Lord Lytton's independent views, and tenderness and generosity in all the circ.u.mstances of life, the following incident may be quoted:--

Among many changes in Indian administration which he initiated, and which were severely decried at the time, but the benefits of which experience has amply vindicated, was the amalgamation of Oudh with, or rather annexation to, the North-Western Provinces, the final arrangements being completed at the Imperial a.s.semblage at Delhi on January 1 1877, with the concurrence--which he had sought previously--of all the princ.i.p.al Talukdars of Oudh there a.s.sembled.

The great pageant at Delhi (which formed the subject of Ali Baba's first contribution to _Vanity Fair_, and which he attended officially as the Guardian of the Raja of Rutlam), so far from being a mere empty show, as then decried by his political foes, enabled the Viceroy to settle, promptly and satisfactorily by personal conferences, a great many important administrative questions. All as recorded by him in his narrative letter of December 23, 1876, to January 10, 1877, to her late Majesty Queen Victoria, which embraced events at Delhi, Pattiala, Umballa, Aligurh, and Agra.

Among the Oudh officials who were dispossessed of their appointments in 1877, some of them with but scanty compensation, was the late Mr.

(afterwards Sir) E.N.C. Braddon, a kinsman of the novelist, who held the appointment of Superintendent of Stamps, Stationery, and Registration at Lucknow. Mr. Braddon was an uncovenanted servant of comparatively short service, and eligible for s very moderate compensation. Lord Lytton, unsolicited, took up his case, overruled various objections, obtained liberal terms for Mr. Braddon by which he was able to resign his appointment and proceed to Tasmania, where he entered political life, rising to be Premier and afterwards Agent-General for that Colony in London, and ultimately obtaining, in 1891, his K.C.M.G.

It was to Lord Lytton's personal action--in the face of would-be obsequious apathy in certain quarters--that Aberigh-Mackay, the youngest on the list, was nominated a Fellow of the Calcutta University in 1880, an honour usually reserved for officials of high standing. He then availed himself of that status to bring about the affiliation of the Rajk.u.mar College at Indore to the same University, with, as a matter of course, the concurrence of the Syndicate.

No. 2

THE A.-D.-C.-IN-WAITING

We have here an admirable summary of the highly important personal duties of a tactful A.D.C. to an Indian Viceroy. Not the least important being the superintendence of the Invitation Department. It was in this very connection that an A.D.C. to an Indian Governor, fresh from a West Indian appointment and Society somewhat on "Tom Cringle's Log" conditions, by issuing invitations to a _Quality Dance_, gave rise, in Southern India, to a social commotion which reacted very unfavourably as regards the efficient working of various departments of his Chief's general administration.

In pre-Mutiny days in India an officer who could not carve meat and fowl well had a very poor chance of such an appointment. Happily the inst.i.tution of _a la Russe_ fas.h.i.+ons in the service of the table has or many years past rendered such qualifications unnecessary.

To the regret of a very wide circle, the "loud, joyful and steeplechasing Lord "--the late Lord William Beresford--alluded to by Ali Baba, died in England in 1900. From 1875 to 1881 he was A.D.C. to Viceroys of India, and it was in the "distant wars" of the Jowaki expedition, 1877-8, in the Zulu War, 1879, where he gained the Victoria Cross, and in the Afghan War, 1880, that his military career was spent.

From 1881 to 1894 Lord William Beresford very ably served Viceroys of India as their Military Secretary. Services which were admirably summed up by a speaker on Dec. 30, 1893, when he was entertained at a farewell dinner at the Town Hall, Calcutta, by 180 friends, who declared that "he had raised the office to a science, and himself from an official into an inst.i.tution, and acquired a reputation absolutely unique."

The voluminous and noteworthy annals of Indian sport can show no keener sportsman and successful rider of steeplechases and polo player. He won the Viceroy's Cup six times and many other princ.i.p.al events at race-meetings in India.

In 1894 Lord William retired from India, and in England maintained a renowned racing stable, being in addition one of the first to own American horses and employ American jockeys.

No. 3

WITH THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF

An exceedingly important change affecting the power and functions of the Indian Commander-in-chief, together with various other reforms in the military administration of India, were all antic.i.p.ated, foreshadowed, and--it is believed--largely helped on by this very paper, and others under the general heading of _Things in India_, contributed by Ali Baba to _Vanity Fair_ during 1879.

Ali Baba, unlike some others that might readily be cited, would doubtless have been foremost in according most generous acknowledgments to the services in the cause of Indian Army reform, rendered in past days by many great Commanders-in-Chief in India.

Chief among such men might be cited Sir Charles James Napier (1782-1853), the conqueror of Scinde, who in 1849 returned to India, nominated by the Duke of Wellington to deal with the crisis caused by the Sikh campaign. Arriving in Calcutta on the 6th May, he at once a.s.sumed the command, the term of service of Lord Gough, who had brought the campaign to a successful end, being concluded. Napier's too short administration of little over eighteen months was rather judicial than military, but he effected many reforms on the parade ground and in cantonments.

The newspapers of the day eagerly chronicled the records of the proceedings in which he vigorously combated the vices of intoxication, gambling, insubordination, and other crimes and misdemeanours, both in officers and men of the Queen's and Company's forces alike.

It was during his command that separate barrack-room accommodation was provided for married soldiers. The state of affairs. .h.i.therto prevailing may well be imagined by an inspection of the barrack life pictures and caricatures of artists such as Ramberg, Gillray, Rowlandson, and others.

He also founded Soldiers' Inst.i.tutes, and encouraged soldiers in the Queen's army to rear such pets as monkeys and parrots by regulations for their transport on route and transfer marches, which afforded material for many humorous sketches and paragraphs in the pages of _The Delhi Punch_. Wise and considerate regulations which are continued in the existing concessions as to the carriage of "soldiers'

pets" by troop trains and homeward-bound Indian transports.

Colonel R.H. Vetch (_Dictionary of National Biography_) admirably sums up Napier's character by recording of him that "his disregard of luxury, simplicity of manner, careful attention to the wants of the soldiers under his command, and enthusiasm for duty and right won him the admiration of his men. His journals testify to his religious convictions, while his life was one long protest against oppression, injustice and wrongdoing. Generous to a fault, a radical in politics, yet an autocrat in government, hot-tempered and impetuous, he was a man to inspire strong affection or the reverse, and his enemies were as numerous as his friends."

Altogether a very different character from that which all and sundry are warned to avoid by the--to a great extent--satirical word-picture recorded by Ali Baba.

No. 4