Gurkha

“ The Garhwalis, like the Dogras, are direct descendants of the Rajputs who cut out kingdoms for themselves in the hills centuries ago. There is no Mongol blood in them, save in the case of intermarriage with Nepal. They are a distinct race, yet being hillmen and neighbours, they naturally have much in common with the Gurkha, in habit as well as look. They have the cheerfulness and simplicity of the Gurkha, and the same love of a scrap for its own sake, and, what is more endearing, the same inability to grow up. They are always children. ”

“ The relations between officers and men are as close as between boys and masters on a jaunt together out of school, and the Gurkha no more thinks of taking advantage of this when he returns to the regiment than the English schoolboy does when he returns to school. It is part of his jolly, boyish, uncalculating nature that he is never on the make. ”

“ GURKHA (pronounced góorka; from Sans. gāu, a cow, and raks, to protect) , the ruling Hindu race in Nepal (q.v.) . The Gurkhas, or Gurkhalis, claim descent from the rajas of Chitor in Rajputana. When driven out of their own country by the Mahommedan invasion, they took refuge in the hilly districts about Kumaon, whence they gradually invaded the country to the eastward as far as Gurkha, Noakote and ultimately to the valley of Nepal and even Sikkim. ”

“ Whereat the Highlanders smote the Gurkhas as to the head, and told them not to vilify a British Regiment, and the Gurkhas grinned cavernously, for the Highlanders were their elder brothers and entitled to the privileges of kinship. The common soldier who touches a Gurkha is more than likely to have his head sliced open. ”

“ The Gurkha in battle is terrible, and almost weird in his methods. His ways are the ways of no other living soldier. And this brings us to a consideration of that remarkable weapon, the kukri. It is a heavy, curved knife, as sharp as a razor, and its drawing cut, inflicted with much skill and little force on anything in motion, has terrible effects. For instance, the intrepid Gurkha will wait for the tiger of the jungle to spring, and then, at the right moment, will step aside, leaving his deadly knife to follow the movement of his arm across the tiger's throat. ”

“ He thus laid the foundation of the Gurkha dynasty, which has lasted until the present day. But the reign of the Gurkhas in Nepal has not been without its vicissitudes. Sandwiched as this small country is between the great empires of Tibet and India, it has several times come into conflict with both powers with varying success. ”

“ In the first place, then, it is permissible to say that real Gūrkhas are rarce aves out of Nipal, and a race by themselves; so much so indeed that if they should ever have occasion to leave their country, it is never for any length of time. True, the Government of India has several so-called Gūrkha regiments in its service; but the men of those regiments, though excellent soldiers, are not Gūrkhas, but belong to the numerous tribes of the Himalaya, and not to the Khas or real Gūrkha race. ”

“ It is interesting to note that this yogi Guraknath is still held in great veneration by all Gurkhas, and to-day their battle-cry may be heard in Europe—"Guru Guraknath Kijai" ("Victory to Guraknath!") .
The Gurkhas are conquerors of no mean order. Their principal conquests took place in the middle of the eighteenth century. In the year 1599 Drabiya Sah elected himself Gurkha Rajah, and, about 140 years later, the eighth in descent from him—one Narbupal Sah—invaded the Nepal valley. The invasion was unsuccessful and he was driven back, but the spirit of invasion was not defeated. ”

“ When the news spread that the Gurkhas had been awarded the post of honour, the soldiers assembled to cheer their comrades from the mountains of Nepal as they marched away. Never did general make a wiser selection. Prominent amidst the glorious achievements during the siege of Delhi stands out the dogged pluck of the Gurkha picket, who successfully held the house of Hindu Rao during a hundred days of terrific fighting and bombardment, though only a handful escaped death or wounds. ”

“ Throughout the morning detachments of Sepoys of the Indian Army and Imperial Service Troops continued to arrive at the wharf and to embark. Bertram was much interested in a double-company of Gurkhas under a Gurkha Subedar, their yellowish Mongolian faces eloquent of determination, grit, and hardiness.
They contrasted strongly with a company of tall, hairy Sikhs, almost twice their size, man for man, but with evidences of more enthusiasm than discipline in their bearing. ”

“ Phari Jong.
In the fort the first thing one meets of a morning is a troop of these grimy sirens, climbing the stairs, burdened with buckets of chopped ice and sacks of yak-dung, the two necessaries of life. The Tibetan coolie women are merry folk; they laugh and chatter over their work all day long, and do not in the least resist the familiarities of the Gurkha soldiers. Sometimes as they pass one they giggle coyly, and put out the tongue, which is their way of showing respect to those in high places ”

“ The Magars and the Gurung are the basic type, the "everyman" among Gurkhas, the backbone in numbers of the twenty battalions. As regards pluck there is nothing to choose between any of them, and if one battalion goes further than another the extra stiffening is the work of the British officers.
One's impression of the Gurkha in war and peace is of an almost mechanical smartness, movements as quick and certain as the click of a rifle bolt. Soldiering is a ritual among them. ”

“ Newnham-Davis, writing in "Town Topics," declares that "The Gurkha is the most thorough little man I have ever met in campaigning; he will never go back. He tackles any job that is given him like a bulldog, and he is never beaten. In manœuvres, as in action, one thing a Gurkha regiment will not do is to go back.
"I have seen the Chief Umpire and all his satellites vainly trying to explain to the native officers of a Gurkha company on manœuvres that they were surrounded and outnumbered and out of action, and that they must therefore retire from the mimic fight. ”

“ The Gurkha is good at this kind of night-work; he has the nerve of a Highlander and the stealth of a leopard. His great fault in a general attack is that he does not know when to stop. Without his Sahib he would not survive many battles. And that is why the casualties are so heavy in regiments when the British officers fall early in the fight. When the Gurkhas were advancing at Beit Aieesa, I heard an officer in a Sikh regiment say, "Little blighters. They're always scurrying on ahead, and if you don't look after them they will make a big salient and bite off more than they can chew." ”

“ English ladies in smart frocks go by in rickshaws or reclining in chairs carried on the shoulders of strong coolies. Officers and civilians on well-groomed ponies trot past groups of sturdy-limbed Bhuttias or rosy-cheeked Lepcha women hung with turquoise and silver ornaments. British soldiers in khaki stop to chat with small, cheery Gurkha policemen by the roadside. ”

“ They make splendid infantry soldiers, and by agreement with their government about 20,000 have been recruited for the Gurkha regiments of the Indian army. As a rule they are bold, enduring, faithful, frank, independent and self-reliant. They despise other Orientals, but admire and fraternize with Europeans, whose tastes in sport and war they share. ”

“ I saw one of them pull up the body of a British Tommy who had been attached to the regiment as a signaller and was bombed into a mess. The Gurkha patted him on the shoulder and disappeared behind the traverse without a word.
left. Havildar Chandrahoj (Raj) .
right. Tekbahadur Ghotam (Khas) .
The Gurkha fights as he hunts. Parties of them go into the jungle to hunt the boar. They beat the beast up and attack him with kukris when he tries to break through their line. It is a desperate game, and the casualties are a good deal heavier than in pig-sticking. ”

“ They are jealous of their women, whom they do not beat nor usually turn into beasts of burden like the natives of India, and they show great pride in displaying their women-folks loaded with jewellery from head to foot. The women are quite pretty, cheery, and do not exhibit the affected shyness of the women of the Indian plains, for instance.
One of the most notable features about a Gurkha is the marvellous skill with which he handles his heavy-bladed kukri. ”

“ Our casualties were: the isolated Gurkha killed, two men in the fort wounded by stones, and three of the 2nd Gurkhas severely wounded—two by sword-cuts, one by a bullet in the neck.
But what was the flame that smouldered in these men and lighted them to action? They might have been Paladins or Crusaders. But the Buddhists are not fanatics. They do not stake eternity on a single existence. They have no Mahdis or Juggernaut cars. The Tibetans, we are told, are not patriots. Politicians say that they want us in their country, that they are priest-ridden, and hate and fear their Lamas. ”

“ In the Gurkha's experienced hand its sharp edge carves through both bone and sinew, proving it to be a weapon as formidable as can be conceived. The method of this little warrior with the kukri, then, may be described as an inhibition of force and an exhibition of skill, for by means of it he will quickly cut to pieces any man of gigantic strength and build who does not understand his mode of attack. ”

“ Without further difficulty we reached the Gurkha mess, where we found our friends on the point of setting out to visit the Great Wall. So the whole party walked back along the road by which Labertouche and I had come, and at the stream found our ferryman awaiting us with a beaming smile. ”

“ The stately Sikh throws away his food if a white man's shadow falls upon it, and between the Mahomedan and the Christian is always the bar of religion, but on a campaign the Gurkha eats his food with as few formalities as Tommy Atkins drinks his wine, and is good company at the camp-fire. ”

“ Once during the occupation of Shanhaikwan, when a similar deluge rendered the Chinese huts occupied by some foreign troops there untenable, their commander sought the aid of the colonel of the Gurkha Regiment, who offered to share the village in which his men were quartered with the167 others. The offer was gratefully accepted. The Gurkhas made their guests welcome; but the latter soon began to jeer at and insult them, and call them coolies—the usual term of reproach which the Continental troops hurled at our sepoys. Now, the Gurkhas are not naturally either pacific or humble ”

“ It is true of the Gurkha, as of the Indian of the plains, that he gives up more when he leaves his home to fight in a distant country than the European. The age-worn traditions and associations which make up homeliness for him, the peculiar and cherished routine, cannot be translated overseas. And it must be remembered that the sepoy has not the same stimulus as we have. It is true that he is a soldier, and that it is his business to fight, and that he is fighting his Sahib's enemy. ”

“ In one of the engagements, Surpratap Sah, a brother of the Gurkha leader, Prithi Narain, lost one of his eyes, and this, together with the protracted nature of the siege, so enraged the conqueror that he ordered the noses and lips of every male in the town, above twelve years of age, to be cut off; those only being spared who could play on wind instruments, and who therefore might be of use as musicians in the army of the victor. ”

“ By race they are both Rajput and Jat, but their clans are many. From their wealthy families are recruited many fine cavalry regiments. They have a particular leaning towards mountain cavalry work, and this tendency has been fostered by the Government. Taking them all round, they are most efficient and courageous soldiers, and their attachment to their officers is proverbial.
As to the Gurkha, he needs but slight introduction. He is, so to speak, the "Little Benjamin" of the force from India, and excites great interest by his high courage and remarkable skill. ”

“ Before the end of the siege Riflemen and Gurkhas spoke of one another as “brothers”, and at the close of the war the Sirmur Battalion begged that it might be granted a uniform similar to that of their brethren of the 60th, the request being willingly granted. The 2nd Gurkhas are very proud of the little red line on their facings, and the uniform thus gained at Delhi they wore in London at King Edward’s Coronation forty-five years later.
By this time the Gurkha hospital was very full. More than half of those five hundred men had been stricken down, and the Guides had also suffered severely. ”

“ The States of Gurkha and of Tibet have both respected the Emperor of China up to the present time. The country of Tibet is merely the shrine or place worship of the Lama, for which reason the Gurkha Government will in future give all the assistance that may be in its power to the Government of Tibet, if the troops of any other 'Raja' invade that country. ”

“ Formerly Nepal was divided into twenty-four principalities in addition to the Gurkha kingdom, but since the invasion by the latter of the entire country they have been divided into five provinces—viz. Gurkha, Malibam, Palpa, Pokra, and Khachi.
In the space at my disposal I cannot enter into the history nor go into a detailed description of the many tribes which inhabit Nepal, but generally speaking, in the aboriginal stock a Mongolian origin is evident, particularly in the population of the central zone, where recent Tibetan influence is marked ”