Francis John Bellew

“ Tom and I escorted her to her bungalow on foot; the former making seven-league strides, in order to converse a little by the way; I pelting away after him as vigorously as the man with the steam leg, though not having an equal interest in such violent locomotion.
The period was now approaching when I was to bid adieu to Barrackpore for the Upper Provinces, and exchange the life of mingled drill and gaiety, of which the foregoing little tableaux may serve to give some idea, for one of constant change from scene to scene, and more in consonance with a roving disposition. ”

“ Well done, Frank; ably put, my boy. I see you’re as great an inductive philosopher as ever; it’s a true bill though; the strongest fortress, too, has its weak points. There’s the colonel, for example, a deeply-read man, understands everything, from metaphysics to a red herring; will touch you off a page of Xenophon, or a chapter of Sanscrit, with perfect ease; a man who has thought and read, and read and thought, in that Fortunatus’ cap and those curly-toed slippers of his, for the last thirty years, in all the leisure of camp and out-station, fort and jungle ”

“ How vividly can I recall the scene which this march so often presented! the waning sunlight of the cold winter evenings, a few bright streaks just tinging the horizon, my hackery slowly wending its way over the plain, and my scattered servants crawling behind it, in a cloud of dust; the mango groves—villages—mud huts, and all the accompaniments of a country life in Upper India!
I must not here omit to mention that, prior to my leaving Cawnpore, I received a letter from my friend and patron Captain Marpeet, with whom I occasionally corresponded ”

“ For the first time, indeed, though previously imbued with the common and illiberal European prejudice against black, I began to experience a wavering, and to think that dark languishing eyes and a dash of bronze imparted what is often wanted in English beauties, somewhat of soul and character to the countenance. Music, lights, the excitement of the ball-room, are, however, it must be confessed, sad deceivers, producing illusions full oft, which painfully vanish with the morning’s light. ”

“ As we shot along the creek for a few miles, each turn gave us peeps of the rich and luxuriant scenery of this part of Bengal. Gardens of plantain, mango, and jack-trees lined the banks, intermixed with clumps of the tapering bamboo; clusters of neat huts, with arched roofs, appeared half-buried beneath their umbrageous foliage, through openings of which, in the dim, chequered light, village girls, with water-pots on their heads, might be seen gliding along, and imparting to the whole scene an air of primeval and truly Eastern simplicity. ”

“ Madras, from the roads, wore to me a very picturesque and interesting appearance; the long ranges of white verandahed buildings, the noble fort, with England’s meteor standard floating from the flag-staff, the beach, the blue sky, the cocoa-nut trees, the white wreaths of breaking surf, the shipping, the Massoolah boats, the native craft, all constituted a novel and striking coup d’œil, which fully realized what in imagination I had pictured it. ”

“ Full joyous was I when an invitation came for Master Frank Gernon and his brother Tom to drink tea at Dr. Anodyne’s. How motherly and kind was good Mrs. Anodyne on these occasions! how truly liberal of her pound-cake and syllabub!
Dear woman! spite of thy many failings, which all “lean to virtue’s side,” in the sweet relations of mother, wife, sister, friend, thou art a being to be almost worshipped. ’Tis you who hold man’s destinies in your hands. Harden your minds without the limits of blue-stockingism, as a counterpoise to the softness of your hearts ”

“ After many years’ residence in the Upper Provinces, amongst rajahs, hill forts and Hindoo temples, holy shrines and sacred prayagas, groves resounding with the cry of the peacock, and Mahomedan ruins of departed grandeur, exploring the haunts of the savage Bheel, and pursuing the plundering Pindarry through the scenes of his maraudings, familiarized with scenes, manners, and customs wearing the impress of a hoary antiquity, and as far removed from the go-ahead things of European civilization as it is possible to imagine, I once more found myself off Calcutta. ”

“ How I longed to be the fifer, or even the little duck-legged drummer, as he strode valiantly through the mud, with his long gaiters—very little older than myself, too, and yet privileged to wear a real sword! Even the gawky smock-frock clowns, won by the sergeant’s eloquence, touching the joys of a soldier’s life, and forming a part of the tail of this flaming meteor, came in for a share of my envy.
“Ah!” I used mentally to exclaim, “I’ll certainly be a soldier when I am a man!” ”

“ Rattleton trotted alongside, talking incessantly, and in a short time the military cantonment of Barrackpore broke in view.
We crossed the parade, where all was life and animation; soldiers drilling, recruits on one leg doing the goose-step, drums beating, drill-sergeants shouting, and bugles sounding.
We passed through the lines, thronged with sepoys in their graceful undress, and were soon at my friend’s bungalow, in which, after dismissing my bearers, I entered to take up my quarters. Rattleton gave me another shake, as if he had been working a pump handle and cordially bidding me welcome. ”

“ There was a delicious tranquillity in the hour which produced a soothing effect on my feelings. The sun had just dipped his broad orb in the ocean, and his parting beams suffused with a ruddy warmth the truly Oriental scene around. Flocks of paroquets, screaming with delight, were wheeling homewards their rapid flight; the creak of the well-wheel, an Indian rural sound, came wafted from distant fields, and the ring-doves were uttering their plaintive cooings from amidst the shady bowers of the neighbouring garden—
The air, a chartered libertine, was still. ”

“ If any future Clive should fight a battle in Bengal, decisive of the fate of India, and feel at all desirous that the field of his fame should remain intact, I would respectfully advise him not to come to blows within twenty good miles of the Ganges, if he can possibly avoid it, for that headlong flood, in the course of its erratic movements, will sooner or later be sure to sweep it away. ”

“ The silence of death was around, broken only at intervals by the distant crow of the jungle fowl, the cry of the deer, or the blowing of a porpoise, and the measured dash of our oars, as we swept along, sometimes on the surface of a broad river, with bright green trees on each side, and black-faced monkeys chattering in the branches; at others, in some lateral creek, where the boughs almost brushed our deck. ”

“ Nations, like individuals, have their stages of existence—their infancy, their manhood, and their decline; some fall into premature decrepitude and dissolution, and leave but the memory of evil deeds behind them; whilst others sink in glorious maturity, under the weight of years and honours, leaving the fruits of a well-spent life behind them, to be embalmed for ever in the hearts of a grateful posterity. ”

“ If we must have splendour, let it be in unison with the age.
The next day, having replenished our stores with several additions from the colonel’s garden and farm-yard, for it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge this liberality—a truly Indian virtue—we once more resumed our voyage.
Burhampore, like most of the great military stations of India, is intended to operate as a check on a large and important city; not that from Moorshedabad—once the capital of Bengal, a place long since sunk into comparative insignificance—much danger is now to be apprehended. ”

“ Delaval united a countenance, which, if not regularly beautiful, still beamed with goodness and intelligence—sensible, lively, yet modest and discreet, she was all that man should desire, and woman wish to be. Above the common littlenesses of the world, her heart was deeply fraught with feeling and sensibility—though, unlike her sex in general, she could direct and restrain them both by the powers of a clear and masculine understanding. ”

“ This was my first Christmas Day in India; the weather was as cold as an English October, and I enjoyed the trip.
The pretty invalid station of Chunarghur is a few miles from Sultanpore, on the opposite bank of the river; as you approach it, the fort, crowning a lofty table rock, and abutting on the Ganges, has, with its numerous Moorish buildings and lines of circumvallation, a very striking and picturesque effect; and its reddish hue and that of the rock contrast pleasingly with the verdant gardens and white residences of the European inhabitants. ”

“ The boatman plied their oars with redoubled vigour, their cheerful songs and shouts bespeaking that buoyancy of hearts which an approach to “home” ever inspires amongst all mankind.
We now neared the white building, which proved to be a small temple, crowning a little ghaut or flight of steps, running down to the water’s edge, backed by something like an old ruined fort or factory, overshaded by masses of foliage of the banyan and peepul trees, growing out of fissures of the walls. ”

“ As the empire of opinion—the awe which our superior energy and science have inspired—dies away, and even now it is on the wane—it will be well to have a store of affection on which to fall back—an anchorage in the hearts of the people of India, when our power over their prejudices has relaxed its hold. ”

“ Viewed, then, as the head-quarters of the tigers, and the scene of this memorable exploit of one of their body, and also as the outpost of our destination, I deemed Saugor a sort of classic ground, and gazed upon it with a proportionate interest. Many an eye, too, besides my own, was bent towards the island, which wore a most sombre and miserable aspect.
Thinking Mr. Merryweather a person likely to be well informed on the subject, I ventured to ask him, civilly, if tigers were as numerous on the island as in young Mr. Munro’s time. ”

“ Occasionally we came suddenly upon a market, with its congregated fleet of boats, and its busy, squabbling assemblage of villagers, fish, grain, and vegetable venders, &c.; or a thannah, or police station, would break into view, known by its picturesque burkundazes lounging about in front, armed with spears or tulwars, and the portly, bearded thannahdar, en déshabille, smoking his kulian under the projecting thatch of the entrance. The novelty of the scene, so truly un-English and Oriental, delighted me, and my heart bounded with joy from a feeling of vitality and freedom. ”

“ Affection, if it has not something external on which to rest, turns to gall, embittering the life which, under a happier state of things, it would have sweetened. Marpeet’s benevolence displayed itself in his kindness to youth: rearing griffins, till fully fledged, constituting his extreme delight. ”

“ No more did I nail the unhappy snippets to the bank from my bolio window nor disturb the ’lorn cooings of the turtle-dove in her bower of mango shade, by a rattling irruption of No. 6; but in a steady, sportsmanlike form, accompanied by Ramdial (who, by the way, had no sinecure of it) , laden with chattah (umbrella) , game-bag, and brandy-pawney bottle in leathern case, and Nuncoo, the dog-keeper, with Teazer and the bull-dog, I was almost daily in the jheels and swamps, mud-larking after the ducks and snipes. ”

“ There was no lack of this shining talent, oratorical power, and technical tact, amongst the auctioneers of Calcutta, seasoned with humour, pathos, or persuasion, according to the occasion. How often have I heard the merits of a venerable steed proclaimed; his infirmities and defects (with a delicate regard to his presence) lightly touched upon, or at most so disposed, like the shades in a picture, as to heighten and improve the general effect! ”

“ The colonel was a gaunt figure of six feet two, or thereabouts, with sallow sunken cheeks, and two little tufts of grizzled whisker near the corner of his mouth; he was dressed in a not uncommon morning dishabille, consisting simply of a shirt and red camlet jacket, a pair of immense pajammas, or native trousers, tied with a silken string at the waist, whilst an immense pair of spangled Indian slippers, with curly toes as long as rams’ horns, adorned his feet ”

“ Under a couple of tamarind trees, four or five beautiful horses were picketed; amongst them a milk-white Arab, with a flowing tail. This was the judge’s favourite steed. “Pretty well all this,” thought I, “for one man, and he, too, perhaps, the son of some small gentleman.”
My arrival caused a considerable stir at the large tent. Two or three chupprassies, or silver-badge men, darted in to announce me; the hearer caught up the huge red umbrella or chattah, to be prepared for the great man’s exit, and to guard his honoured cranium from the rays of the now declining sun. ”