On leaving Elgin House we drove to the Gurdwara of Baba Ajabal Singh. A tall and handsome black-bearded priest of thirty-two years showed us over the building, but what most interested me was a wild-looking figure I saw hanging about the cloisters. He was armed with a sword and dressed entirely in black garments, with a huge black turban twisting in and out of steel circlets and irons, and bound over and round in its turn by a metal chain. This was an Akali, one of that still privileged sect of fighting fanatics who became famous in Ranjeet Singh's time under the daring and picturesque "Gardana Sahib"—Alexander Gardner (born on the shores of Lake Superior in 1785).
I had heard that the Akalis wear blue garments to perpetuate the memory of the blue clothes the Guru Govind Singh wore as a disguise, on the occasion of an escape from Moghul soldiers, and part of which he gave to one of his disciples to found a new order—that of the Akalis in question, but this man's habiliments were as black as a crow's feathers. Like their famous Rajah, Ranjeet Singh himself, this latter-day specimen of the bhang-drinking cut-and-thrust "immortals" had only one eye, and I asked whether he had by chance lost its fellow in a fight. "I have never had a chance of a fight," said the Akali—adding consistently with the tenets of his sect—"if I did I would never give in." While we were talking a thin old Sikh limped towards us; he had once been taller than the average man, but was now bent and emaciated with constant opium-eating. Mr Hira Singh told me that he took one "masha" (equal to 16 grains) at a time and took it twice in every twenty-four hours. The old rascal, his deep brown eyes twinkling, put to me a special petition that the Government should grant to all real opium eaters a large quantity gratis at regular intervals to make them happy. He said also, on my asking him what he dreamed about—"In my dreams I think of the Creator, and I feel very earnest to go to a better field and to fight there," which, as I was assured the man was an abandoned scoundrel, may be taken as Oriental humour expressed with an eye to backsheesh.
Driving back to the guest-house we passed an arena where wrestling matches are held, with six circular tiers of high stone steps as seats for the spectators, and a square "loge" built in the middle of one side for the notables, and here is conducted the only physical "fighting" that takes place at Nabha nowadays. The day of the Akalis is over, and while their brother Sikhs make some of the best material in the Indian Army, the devotees of this narrow sect have become wandering mendicants, privileged to carry warlike weapons, and truculently direct in their demands for alms.
The portrait sitting was fixed for eight o'clock the next morning, and ten minutes before his time the noble old Rajah stepped from his carriage and walked almost jauntily up the steps of Elgin House, where I was already installed with palette and canvas.
Gorgeously apparelled in a costume that was like a kiss between two halves of the Arabian Nights, and wearing upon pale greenish silk a galaxy of decorations which included the G.C.I.E. for his part in the last Afghan War (he is now an honorary Colonel in the British Army) and stars and medals from many great Durbars, the Chief of Nabha wore at the same time an air of vigour and joy in life that made the years sit lightly on his shoulders, years that a wrinkled forehead declared numerous.
One of his ministers told me through Mr Hira Singh that at the last Delhi Durbar His Highness had delighted every one by the spirited and boyish way in which he had galloped his horse along in front of the assembled princes. May he appear as hale and vigorous at the Durbar of December next!
After he had shaken hands with me and beamed cordial smiles, we walked through the Durbar hall to the room where I had set up my easel, and the Rajah sat, as arranged, in a chair of gilded brass with lion arms, and directed his gaze at a particular flower vase upon which we had fixed to keep his head in correct position for the portrait. The pupils of his eyes were brown, with a faint grey rim, and he had long waving moustaches as well as a long yellowish white beard. He carried a sword with scabbard of pale green and gold, a steel mace with spherical head, and a contrivance by which, when a catch was pressed at the end of the handle, a number of short sharp blades started out from the head, and also a steel trident of new pattern. The old man was bent upon having as many arms about him as possible, and sent for a large shield of black metal with four bright bosses and a crescent, a favourite rifle and another trident sceptre, so that I had all I could do to dispose these about him in such a way that he could sit comfortably and keep his head still. He seemed especially proud of the mace with the trick knives, and after explaining the mechanism to me with gusto he continued at intervals during the sitting to manipulate it, at which the whole court laughed heartily. They were grouped on either side in all the glory of official costume and included the Commander-in-Chief, who came to England for the Coronation of Edward VII., the Foreign Minister, the Finance Minister, the Chief Justice, the Medical Adviser, and various generals and councillors.
To paint a portrait in an hour! Well, I was not sorry that His Highness had arrived before the arranged time, and that I had already set my palette, and though it would have been intensely interesting to have talked with the Chief of Nabha through the excellent interpreter, when once the weapons were arranged to incommode him as little as possible, I went at the painting with the fury of an Akali and contented myself with smiling appreciatively at his occasional ejaculations.
Every now and then he made a peculiar coughing noise, which began softly and rose to a crescendo, sounding as formidable as the traditional catchwords of the giant of the bean-stalk. It was like "ahum, ahum, ahum—ahhum," and kept his ministers in lively attention.