Kundry

“ The overmastering rush of desire unseals his eyes, clears his mind. Heart-wounded by the shaft of passion, he feels Amfortas' torture thrill through him. The pain of the physical wound is his, but far more, the agony of the sinner who has been unworthy his high trust, and who, soiled by carnal sin, must yet daily come in contact with the Grail, symbol of the highest purity and holiness. The strength which comes of the new-born knowledge enables him to resist sensual longing, and thereby to release both Kundry and Amfortas. ”

“ Whilst the old and the young knight talked thus together, a female figure had come forth from the hermit's hut close by, and, drawing slowly nearer, had stood beside them with bowed head and humble mien. This was Kundry, who, in her wild witch-maiden form, Gurnemanz had that morning found in the forest, wrapped in the usual deep slumber, into [492] which she had sunk upon being released from the influence of the sorcerer, Klingsor; and, having gently revived her, the good old man had permitted her to perform for him the menial services she ever did at such times. ”

“ The steady development of his reforming zeal led to a split in the society, which broke into two sections, Chunder Sen putting himself at the head of the reform movement, which took the name “Brahma Samaj of India,” and tried to propagate its doctrines by missionary enterprise. Its tenets at this time were the following: (1) The wide universe is the temple of God. (2) Wisdom is the pure land of pilgrimage. (3) Truth is the everlasting scripture. (4) Faith is the root of all religions. (5) Love is the true spiritual culture. (6) The destruction of selfishness is the true asceticism. ”

“ It is late in the afternoon, the atmosphere misty and irradiated with the hues of sunset, so that we seem to be floating in a rosy haze, through which the pale green shores of the land we are leaving gleam faintly. There is scarcely any wind, and the sea is as smooth as a lake in midsummer.
—I have been fortunate enough to find a person on board who can help me in my Persian and Sanskrit studies. He is, or seems to be, a pure Indian, by name Chunder Singh, such a handsome fellow, tall, well put together, with a face whose fine cast and quiet dignified expression, impress one at once! ”

“ We were to mould a new world, where righteousness would be the law and happiness—happiness, instead of misery—the common lot.'
He paused. 'Dreams!' said Chunder Singh. 'Yet I wish now that they might return.'
'Dreams!' echoed the rajah. 'We know—you and I—that we are deathless. What need of elixirs for us? Though I seem to die—though to-morrow you will take out this body and burn it—the chain of existence has not run out to its limit. I remain.'
'But not with us—not with us!' cried Chunder Singh, flinging himself down with his face to the marble pavement. ”

“ In the meantime, and in the light of this conversation, it was no little curious to hear what Chunder Singh had to say on the relations between England and India. Our conversation took place this evening; in fact, as I have only just come down from the hurricane-deck, which we have pretty nearly to ourselves, every word of it is fresh in my mind.
'The situation is a strange one,' said the Indian meditatively. 'I doubt if the world has ever seen a stranger. You have come to us—not as a great nation that conquers another by the resources of a higher civilisation—but as a company of traders. ”

“ Kundalla lies upon a mountain plateau. There are several pretty country-houses here, to which many European families, from the neighbourhood of Bombay, resort during the hot weather.
In the Deccan, and the province of Bombay, I found the natives were less handsome than in Bengal and Hindostan; their features were much coarser, and not so open and amiable.
For several days we have again met very large trains of oxen, some of the drivers of which had their families with them. The females of these people were very ragged and dirty, and at the same time loaded with finery. ”

“ Then Chunder Singh rose and dried his eyes, and the rajah spoke. 'There was a moment when I thought that this death would be my last; that when I left the prison of this mortal body I should go forth into the liberty of unconditioned existence; for I have lived as a sage. By day and by night, at the ordered hours, I have meditated upon the sacred books. I have conquered appetite and passion, and have worked for the sake of others, looking not for reward. ”

“ Great changes have taken place in the territory which once belonged to Kunduz. Kulab, Muminabad, Kabadian, have passed into the possession of Russia; while Ghori, Narin, Kunduz, Baglan, Anderab, Rustak, Wakhan and Faizabad have been shorn from its territories and handed over to the province of Badakshan for administrative purposes. In the days when the Khan of Kunduz exercised jurisdiction over a belt of country extending from the Wakhan valley to the Kunduz river, the population was returned at 420,000 people, in the main composed of Uzbegs and Tajiks. ”

“ Such delay practised now would mean, if not the total subversion of the English power in India, at least the temporary ruin of those who had accepted her as the Paramount Power. It did not need the threatening letters which, in spite of all their efforts, were continually poured into Gumilcund to advertise them of what their fate would be if the English forces—coming down from the Punjaub and up from Calcutta and Bombay—met with any serious defeat. Chunder Singh and his friends knew very well what assault and sack meant when a baffled Asiatic army were inside the gates of a wealthy city. ”

“ When my lord enters he will be received with acclamations.'
'I will only go amongst them upon one condition,' said the young rajah. 'You know that, Chunder Singh.'
'I know it well; but let my lord have no fear! We know by whose favour we live and prosper, and in all Gumilcund I believe there is no one who would be traitorous to the Paramount Power.'
The eyes of the young rajah glistened as he held out his hand, over which Chunder Singh, whose eyes were wet with tears, bent reverently, for he knew now that his old master had come back to him. ”

“ There was a gentleman and a member of the Bengal Civil Service who had won his place and a university degree to boot in fair and open competition with the sons of the English. He was cultured, of the world, and, if report spoke truly, had wisely and, above all, sympathetically ruled a crowded district in South-Eastern Bengal. He had been to England and charmed many drawing-rooms there. His name, if the Viceroy recollected aright, was Mr. Grish Chunder Dé, M.A. In short, did anybody see any objection to the appointment, always on principle, of a man of the people to rule the people? ”

“ The story of Chunda Sahib is full of tragedy. He joined his fortunes with those of the French, and during the early part of the war he had every hope of seeing himself master of the Carnatic. Later, when the French were suffering defeat at the hands of Clive and Lawrence, Chunda Sahib recognised that his cause was lost. It was after the English had taken the Island of Srirungam and defeated Law that the Nabob's officers and most of his troops forsook him, leaving him broken in health and spirit without the means of flight. ”

“ Still it will be a change, and I suppose that sometimes I shall have to ride out from Mooltan to see people in the district. Your being a Pathan will be a great advantage, Bhop Lal, on this occasion, just as Akram Chunder's being a native of Cashmere got me out of a bad scrape last time. As a Pathan you will be able to gather intelligence, as the population is largely composed of your countrymen. Of course, on your journey you will take your arms with you, but you will have no occasion for them there as the followers of a peaceable civil servant."
"Arms are always useful," Akram Chunder said. ”

“ Here Chunder Singh trembled.
'Be still,' said the rajah, laying a long brown hand upon his arm. 'Hear me to the end; for I have still stranger things to tell. Across the sea, in the land from which my father's father came, there lives a youth, to whom I desire to send you. He thinks himself wholly of the West; but our blood runs in his veins. ”

“ The old man was a retired native official, and on an income of five pounds a month contrived to allow his son two hundred pounds a year, and the run of his teeth in a city where he could pretend to be the cadet of a royal house, and tell stories of the brutal Indian bureaucrats who ground the faces of the poor.
Grish Chunder was a young, fat, full-bodied Bengali dressed with scrupulous care in frock coat, tall hat, light trousers and tan gloves. ”

“ Mr Bhosh's seconder, a young poor-hearted chap, entreated him to renounce his plan of campaign, while Lord Jack and Mr Bodgers protested that it was downright tomfolly.
Chunder, however, remained game to his backbone. "If," he ironically said, "my honble friend prefers to admit that he is inferior in physical courage to a native Indian who is commonly accredited with a funky heart, let him apologise. ”

“ Indeed! indeed! no one has come to us. Oh! don't you believe me?'
'Let me assure you, before those here, who will remember my words,' said Chunder Singh, 'that we mean you no harm. If you fear, let Missy Sahib and her ayah come with you. Our rajah has gone. How he has gone, or why, we cannot as yet find out; and as Hoosanee, the servant who brought you to Gumilcund, has gone also, we would ask you the questions which we would have asked him had he been here. Miss Sahib I ask to come because she is most interested in what has happened. ”

“ Would it surprise you to know that Ranjoor Singh visits Yasmini?"
"Wouldn't interest me."
"What follows is in strict confidence, please."
"I'm listening."
"I want you to hear reason. India, the whole of India, mind, has its ear to the ground. All up and down the length of the land—in every bazaar—in the ranks of every native regiment—it's known that people representing some other European Power are trying to sow discontent with our rule; and it's obvious to any native that we're on the watch for something big that we expect to break any minute. ”

“ She met a man first of her own race, and he made her go! Would she have gone if a coward asked her, think you? Sahib—women are good—at the other end of things! We will ride and fetch her. Ha! I saw! My eyes are old, but they bear witness yet!—Now, food, sahib—for the love of Allah, food, before my belt-plate and my backbone touch!”
“I wonder what the damned old infidel is dreaming of!” swore Cunningham, as Mahommed Gunga staggered to the chamber in the rock where a serving-man was already heaping victuals for him.
“Have me called in four hours, sahib! In four hours I will be a man again!” ”

“ Chunder Singh obeyed. On the instant the marble pavement round the rajah's couch was thronged with the figures of men in white and coloured garments, whose weeping and lamentation filled the air of the apartment.
But when the rajah lifted his hand there was silence. Then every one of them fell down with their faces to the ground. In a voice that faltered with weakness he bade them rise and listen to his last words. ”

“ A Northerner who did not seem to understand Punjabi almost cost King his balance as he thrust broad shoulders between him and the bunnia.
The bunnia chattered like an outraged ape; but King, the person most entitled to be angry, actually apologized! That being a miracle, the babu forthwith wrought another one, and within a minute King's one trunk was checked through to Delhi.
“Delhi is right, sahib?” he asked, to make doubly sure; for in India where the milk of human kindness is not hawked in the market-place, men will pay over-measure for a smile. ”

“ Within these few short years a new cult had begun to grow around the person of Chunder Sen, like those around a thousand others well known in the history of India. He became to some of his followers not only a great religious teacher, but also something of an incarnation on his own account, so that it seemed to them blasphemy for any living being to aspire to speak from the pulpit of the beloved dead master. ”

“ The servants whom Chunder Singh gathered round the young heir as soon as he arrived in Bombay—intelligent men all of them, and trained to their work by that notable man, Byrajee Pirtha Raj, the late rajah of Gumilcund—have given him many useful details. He has also been in communication with the friends and acquaintances whom Tom made on the road. ”

“ This the rajah heard at Gumilcund, whither, as there is nothing in his further journey to deserve a special record, we must now return.
The English ladies in the palace had settled down, as we shall remember, into a peaceful and well-cared-for, if somewhat monotonous, life. They never went out into the streets of the city. This was by the advice of Chunder Singh and Lutfullah, who feared that the people, looking upon them as, in some sort, responsible for the loss of their rajah, might show signs of hostility if they appeared amongst them. ”

“ Their wives are just as much "property" as their slaves. A little below Kuram they struck off to the right by a direct route to Kunduz, and passing over a district which had "a wavy surface," "affording excellent pasturage," which involved the crossing of the pass of Archa, they finally crossed the Kunduz River, and making their way through the swampy district of Baglan and Aliabad, reached Kunduz on December 4. 422
Wood is not enthusiastic about Kunduz. He calls it one of the most wretched towns in Murad Beg's dominions. "The appearance of Kunduz accords with the habits of an Uzbek ”