Durbar

“ When we had got about a mile from the fort, we met a person attended by three others, all on horseback. He was a man of considerable rank in that Country, and I recollected to have seen him at the Jemadar’s Durbar, where he had manifested a favourable disposition towards me, looking always graciously, and nodding to me, which, considering my circumstances and his, was not a little extraordinary. ”

“ Here the notables, who had met for the election of the new chief, and all the townspeople assembled, and the Superintendent (as the Representative of the British Government) , supported by the General commanding and all the officers of the force, opened the Durbar. A broad, sturdy figure of a man, with a face that bore the marks of work and climate, a determined man, patient and considerate, but nevertheless a man accustomed to be obeyed. ”

“ There were no means of meeting its rapacity, as the treasury was empty. Anarchy reigned everywhere, and no revenue was forthcoming from the distant provinces. Stimulated by these internal dangers, the Durbar sought relief in external adventure. ”

“ He attended the Durbar held in 1877 at Vizagapatam in honour of Her Majesty Queen Victoria assuming the title of EMPRESS OF INDIA, and at this Durbar he and the late Maharajah, then the Kumar Raja, of Vizianagaram, were the only natives that were seated on the dais with the European officials. ”

“ T. and the other gentlemen help the rajahs into their gold coats. The instant the durbar was over we set off, an immense party, to see Patna, and we saw the Durgah, one of the largest Mussulman temples there is, and then went to a part of the town where the streets are too narrow for a carriage, and where they had provided tonjauns and elephants for us, and we poked along, through herds of natives, to a curious Sikh temple, which is kept up by contributions from Runjeet Singh. ”

“ Why should he want to come to durbar at all? When people change their dress they should change their desires, but the only effect our civilization has upon some men I know, is to make them want to keep their hat and their boots on at the same time! Well, that's done! I've found a place for him where Hodinuggur can't see the tail end of him unless he squints. Now--who's your next?"
While this sort of thing was going on inside the tent, Dya Ram and the Thakoor of Hodinuggur were in full view of each other, outside it. ”

“ The durbar was very orderly and handsome. G. and Scindia sat together on a gold throne with a canopy, and F. and I on two silver chairs next to G., and down each side of the room were his sirdars on one side and our officers on the other. After we had sat about ten minutes, the negotiations began for our going to see the ranee, and there were many preliminaries to arrange, and at last we condescended to walk through the two rooms that led to the zenana, for fear any of the bearers should catch a glimpse of anything, and no aide-de-camp was to go for the same reason, so we walked off with Mrs. ”

“ Such Durbars were the centres of culture in every country and not merely in ours. In the present day, the western parts of India, especially Rajputana, are much better off in this respect than Bengal, as something similar to these old Durbars still obtains there. ”

“ On this it would seem that Durward, one of the heads of the English faction, or ‘the king's friends’ as they were later called, took refuge in England. His leading associates were Malise, earl of Strathearn, Patrick, earl of Dunbar, Alexander, the steward of Scotland, and Robert Bruce, afterwards a claimant for the Scottish throne. Durward himself attended Henry III on the Gascon expedition of August 1253, on which occasion he seems to have been doing service for the Earl of Strathearn. ”

“ Feeling sure of wide sympathy in Northumberland and Durham, the Earls of Northumberland and Westmorland gathered retainers together, and restored the old order in Durham Cathedral, whilst the people of Durham, lowly kneeling, were absolved from the guilt of schism. But inferior leadership caused the rising to collapse outside the Bishopric, and when the Queen’s army marched through Durham it swept the undisciplined forces of the Earls across the Tyne to be dissipated in the rigours of a cold Northumbrian winter. But, although the rebellion came to nothing, passive resistance was maintained. ”

“ Sons of the mountain glen:
Fight for your Queen, and the old Scottish glory!”
July 11th.
A six-miles’ drive, through some of the most charming scenery in England, brought us into Durham. The city looks very imposing from the hilltop; its noble old castle, and grand yet solemn looking cathedral. Eight hundred years of age! What a terrible story they could tell could those grey old piles but speak! It would be a very sad one to listen to. Perhaps they do talk to each other at the midnight hour, when the city is hushed and still. ”

“ But there was great grief and anger on Dolar Durba, the eldest of the sons of Garb, that had stopped in the ship, and he made a great oath that he would have satisfaction for his brothers. And he went to the High King, and he said: "I will go alone to the strand, and I will kill a hundred men every day till I have made an end of the whole of the armies of Ireland; and if any one of your own men comes to interfere with me," he said, "I will kill him along with them."
The next morning Finn asked who would lead the battle that day. "I will," said Dubhan, son of Donn. ”

“ But this character alters as we approach Durham, six miles from which, on the summit of Fairy-hill, a fine view of that city and a vast tract, of circumjacent country, bounded on each side by hills, are at once unfolded. But the detail of the scenery in the neighbourhood of Durham is not made out till we get near its walls, when the singularity and beauty of it at once surprise and delight. A lofty circular hill, rising abruptly from the river Wear, which leads his waters round its rocky banks, has been chosen for the proud and secure situation of the castle and cathedral. ”

“ Two of these are of Durham provenance. One, from Houghton-le-Spring, has, besides the skin-clad ‘Tommy’ and the ‘Bessy,’ five dancers. These are King George, a Squire’s Son also called Alick or Alex, a King of Sicily, Little Foxey, and a Pitman [675] . The other Durham version has a captain called True Blue, a Squire’s Son, Mr. Snip a tailor, a Prodigal Son (replaced in later years by a Sailor) , a Skipper, a Jolly Dog. There is only one clown, who calls himself a ‘fool,’ and acts as treasurer. He is named Bessy, but wears a hairy cap with a fox’s brush pendent [676] . ”

“ At last, one beautiful evening in January, which is our hottest month, we steamed past the coast of Natal expecting to make Durban Point by sunset. It is a lovely coast all along from East London, with its red sandhills and wide sweeps of vivid green, dotted here and there with Kafir kraals, and bordered by a ribbon of white surf, which spouts up in pillars of foam where it hits the rocks. But just before you come to Durban there is a peculiar richness about the landscape. There are the sheer kloofs cut in the hills by the rushing rains of centuries, down which the rivers sparkle ”

“ To-day, Saint Cuthbert avails no man, as the county gaol and the assize courts sufficiently prove, and Durham city is essentially modern, from the coal-grit that powders its dirty streets to the awfully grotesque effigy of a Marquis of Londonderry that lends so diabolical an air to the Market-place, where the Statute Fair is held, and where he sits, a coal-black effigy across his coal-black horse, towering over the steam merry-go-rounds, like Satan amid the revelries of a Walpurgis Night. ”

“ When Durham had finished speaking, Dufrayer said slowly:
"There is little doubt what has happened."
"What do you mean?" cried Durham. "Is it possible that you have got a solution already?"
"I have, my poor fellow, and a grave one. I fear that you are one of the many victims of the greatest criminal in London. I allude to Mme. Koluchy."
"Mme. Koluchy!" said Durham, glancing from one of us to the other. "What can you mean? Are you dreaming? Mme. Koluchy! What can she have to do with my little boy? Is it possible that you allude to the great lady doctor?" ”

“ Durham gently raised the trap in the roof of Huang Chow's treasure-house. He was prepared for snares and pitfalls. No sane man, on the evidence which he, Durham, had been compelled to leave behind, would have neglected to fasten the skylight which so obviously afforded a means of entrance into his premises. ”

“ We have crossed over the boundary from Yorkshire into Durham, and upon the very crooked little river Wear there rise upon the tops of the precipitous cliffs bordering the stream, high elevated above the red-tiled roofs of the town, the towers of Durham Cathedral and Castle. They stand in a remarkable position. The Wear, swinging around a curve like an elongated horseshoe, has excavated a precipitous valley out of the rocks. At the narrower part of the neck there is a depression, so that the promontory around which the river sweeps appears like the wrist with the hand clenched. ”

“ In the night before the battle of Durham was strucken and begun, the 17th day of October, anno 1346, there did appear to John Fosser, then Prior of the abbey of Durham, commanding him to take the holy Corporax-cloth, wherewith St Cuthbert did cover the chalice when he used to say mass, and to put the same holy relique like to a banner-cloth upon the point of a spear, and the next morning to go and repair to a place on the west side of the city of Durham, called the Red Hills, where the Maid’s Bower wont to be, and there to remain and abide till the end of the battle. ”

“ The sense of the distance to which her American past had been removed was never more present to him than when, a day or two later, he went with his mother and sisters to return her visit. The region beyond the river existed, for the Durham ladies, only as the unmapped environment of the Bon Marché; and Nannie Durham's exclamation on the pokiness of the streets and the dulness of the houses showed Durham, with a start, how far he had already travelled from the family point of view. ”

“ But Colonel Hall--your father, my dear--saved Durban from being lynched in America, and Durban always pretended that he loved him dearly."
"I am sure Durban did," insisted Beatrice. "He is not a man who says one thing and does another."
"That is just what he does do," cried Lady Watson, fanning herself with a flimsy handkerchief all lace and scent. "Look at the way he has kept you in the dark all these years. ”

“ In the winter of 1068-69 Robert Cumin, the newly created Norman Earl of Northumberland, advanced to Durham with his troops, but as the Normans lay there they were surprised by a sudden rising of the whole population, and slain almost to a man. A year later news came that William himself was approaching Durham to avenge the death of Cumin, whereupon Bishop Egelwin and the priests took the sacred body of St. Cuthbert and such of the treasures of the church as they could carry and fled to Lindisfarne, followed by the people of the city, who dared not remain without the sacred relic. ”

“ The garden, surrounded, as we have said, upon two sides, by the buildings of the palace, was commanded, of course, by the windows of many apartments, but there was a sort of grotto of rock work, which the Chaplain had shown Durward with much complacency. To snatch up the billet, thrust it into his bosom, and hie to this place of secrecy, was the work of a single minute. He there opened the precious scroll, and blessed, at the same time, the memory of the Monks of Aberbrothick, whose nurture had rendered him capable of deciphering its contents. ”

“ To Dr LEWIS. DEAR DOCTOR,
I have now reached the northern extremity of England, and see, close to my chamber-window, the Tweed gliding through the arches of that bridge which connects this suburb to the town of Berwick.—Yorkshire you have seen, and therefore I shall say nothing of that opulent province. The city of Durham appears like a confused heap of stones and brick, accumulated so as to cover a mountain, round which a river winds its brawling course. The Streets are generally narrow, dark, and unpleasant, and many of them almost impassible in consequence of their declivity. ”

“ But all the beauty of Durham is confined to its outside; like all other old cities built in times, when men were content to sacrifice comfort to safety, or before they had attained to adequate ideas of refinement or convenience; the streets are narrow, dark, and dirty—the houses old, gloomy, and ugly. ”

“ Raise me from my lowly condition, sire! Who knows? one day you may have no one among your servants more devoted, more enlightened, than your poor John Durer!"
The thing that he pursued, fled—fled. Durer ran after it more wildly as he grew weaker, trying to raise his voice higher and higher, and stretching out his arms more and more eagerly. They were now at the Valley of Bushes. "Sire!" cried he once again.
"John Durer, scholar, of the village near Haerlem," replied a voice from the shadows of the wood, "his Majesty the Emperor does not love people who have lost their memory." ”

“ The old graveyard on the promontory was at most times the forlornest and least frequented spot about Durrus. The dead people who lay in crowded slumber within the narrow limits of the grey, briar-covered walls seldom heard any disturbing human voice to remind them of the life they had left. Their solitude was ensured to them{33} by the greater solitude of the sea, which on three sides surrounded them, and by the dreary strip of worn-out turf bog which formed their only link with the rest of the world. ”