"THE GRYPHON'S ANABASIS"
The amiable and other idiosyncracies—-personal and official—of the late Sir Lepel Griffin, K.C.S.I., who, born in 1840, died on March 9, 1908, having retired in 1889 from the Bengal Civil Service, which he entered'in 1860 by open competition, and of which he was a distinguished ornament, are very well pourtrayed in this article. An article of very tragic interest, because its publication was the indirect cause, in all human probability, of the death of its Author.
This is not the place to recount Sir Lepel Griffin's career in many high places of Indian administration and diplomacy, latterly more particularly in the Punjab and Afghanistan.
Suffice it here to say that in 1880, when Chief Secretary of the Punjab, a post he had then held for upwards of nine years—earning the reputation of being the best occupant of that very important and responsible appointment ever known—Mr. (as he then was) Lepel Griffin was selected by the Viceroy—Lord Lytton—to proceed to Kabul, and arrange for its Government as a prelude to the termination of the British occupation of Afghanistan.
Under the Viceroyalty of Lord Lytton's successor, the Marquess of Ripon, and after anxious negotiations, Abdur Rahman was proclaimed Amir of Afghanistan, July 22, 1880. In a spirit of thoroughly good-natured banter the Gryphon's veritable "Expedition" from Lahore to the seat of Government to receive the Viceroy's instructions, and thereafter Afghanistan-ward to carry them out—made under very different conditions from that one by Cyrus the younger—is amusingly pourtrayed.
Travelling through the provinces then ruled over by the late Sir George Couper and Sir Robert Egerton respectively, until finally Kabul is reached, where Sir Frederick Roberts handed over his powers to the Civil authority, as embodied in the Gryphon. A progress which, as profusely chronicled by the correspondents of the innumerable newspapers, British, Indian, and Foreign, attracted to India by the second Afghan War, is lightly, yet not unkindly, satirized by Aberigh-Mackay under the nom de plums of "Your Political Orphan." Who also in this article gave expression to the general impression of the day, that by entrusting Mr. Lepel Griffin with the direct negotiations, the position of the then Foreign Secretary to the Government of India, Mr. (now Sir) Alfred Lyall had been somewhat ignored.
Be this as it may, for his undoubtedly great services, in which he was very greatly aided by his intimate acquaintance with the Persian language, still the French of Afghanistan and other Central Asian lands in diplomacy and etiquette, Mr. Griffin was created a K.C.S.I., and shortly afterwards appointed Governor-General's Agent in Central India and Resident in Indore—where Aberigh-Mackay was Principal of the Rajkumar College—the College for the "Sons of Nobles"—the first "Eton" established under British rule in India. These appointments Sir Lepel held from 1881 until 1888, when he was appointed Resident at Hyderabad, the last official position he held in India.
The article now under elucidation appeared on March 29 1880, in The Bombay Gazette, then edited by the late Mr. Grattan Geary, whose narrative of a journey from Bombay to the Bosphorus through Asiatic Turkey, published in 1878, did much to revive and stimulate interest in those important countries, where happily British trade and other influences are now being actively commented upon by the press of Western India, and developed by the merchants of Bombay, Karachi, and Western India generally.
Mr. Thomas Gibson Bowles, the proprietor of Vanity Fair, who had always warmly appreciated the literary work done for him by Aberigh-Mackay, about this time offered him the editorship of the paper. This post Aberigh-Mackay had virtually accepted.
Shortly before Sir Lepel Griffin took up his appointment as Governor-General's Agent, gossip, more especially at Indore and in Central and Western India, was very busy with surmises as to the fate in store for the writer of this article, as well as many other paragraphs commenting, inter alia, upon Afghan affairs, and, en passant Mr. Lepel Griffin, which had appeared in The Bombay Gazette from February to December, 1880, under the general heading of "Some Serious Reflections." These articles, hitherto anonymous, having being republished in book form, with their authorship avowed, at Bombay in 1880, shortly before the new Resident and Governor-General's Agent arrived at Indore.
The gossips were—as is nearly always the case—quite wrong, for one of the first men to extend a friendly welcome to Aberigh-Mackay when he arrived at Lahore on the 13th August, 1869, to take up his appointment of "Manager of the Government Zoological Collection" was Mr. Lepel Griffin, then the Deputy-Commissioner of the City and District.
Afterwards, at Simla and elsewhere, these two kindred spirits—in many ways—met frequently, and learnt to understand each other thoroughly well. They also had several common friends, civil, military, and non-official; and their literary pursuits in historical directions were also much in sympathy.
In 1881 they were not fated to meet, although Aberigh-Mackay had taken immediate steps to endeavour to do so, as soon as he became aware that a prevalent rumour was abroad to the effect that the Gryphon would—to use a colloquialism—now make it hot for him.
Aberigh-Mackay indignantly repelled any such surmises, and laughed to scorn the idea that Sir Lepel could possibly entertain any revengeful thoughts of the kind that were anticipated by those who knew absolutely nothing of the old and existing intimacies of either of the two men concerned.
To effectually dispel and give the lie to all such insinuations, he arranged to postpone his departure for England until after the arrival of Sir Lepel Griffin at Indore, and then make patent to official and other society the true inward state of affairs.
Aberigh-Mackay was a very keen all-round sportsman, and in the first weeks of December, 1880, had played at Mhow and Indore in the interesting polo matches between the 29th Regiment and the station of Indore, both matches being won by Indore, notwithstanding a good fight by the Regimental team, headed by Major Ruxton.
On the 7th January, 1881, he read and played with the Chiefs and Thakores of the Rajkumar class of his College; on the evening of the 8th he played lawn-tennis in the Residency garden, when he caught a chill. The next day—Sunday—symptoms of tetanus appeared which created anxiety among his relatives and friends. On Tuesday, the 11th January, signs of imminent danger became apparent, and at 11 a.m. on Wednesday, he died, some weeks before the new Governor-General's Agent arrived at Indore.
It is a very pleasing fact that the most eloquent and very evidently heart-felt testimony to the great and abiding worth of Abengh-Mackay's work at Indore and far beyond, came from the very pen of Sir Lepel Griffin in his "Report of the Central India Agency for the Year 1881-82," issued in July, 1883, as follows.—
'The death of Mr Aberigh-Mackay was for Central India, an almost irreparable loss. The patience, tact, and enthusiasm which he brought to his responsible educational duties were worthy of all admiration and those young Chiefs who had the benefit of his guidance will compare most favourably both in acquirements and manners with any students trained under the most favourable conditions in the colleges of British India. It so happened that at the time Mr Mackay was in charge of the Rajkumar College, a large number of important Chiefs were minors, including the Rajah of Rutlam, the junior Chief of Dewar, the Nawab of Jaora, and the two sons of His Highness the Maharaja Holkar. At present there are no Chiefs of the first rank in the Residency College. It will be well if the earnestness and devotion which animated the work of Mr. Abengh Mackay will be felt by those who succeed him.
In Elucidation No. 1—"The Viceroy"—Lord Lytton's personal nomination of Abengh-Mackay to a Fellowship in the Calcutta University has been referred to. This act of noblesse oblige, in the highest sense of the term, was happily known to Abengh-Mackay during his lifetime.