With the Connaught Rangers

by Edward Herbert Maxwell

Ackbar was the founder of Futtehpore Sekri, and he built it with the full intention of making it the seat of government. His hall of judgment is a curious erection, consisting of a single apartment, with a massive pillar in its centre. He was throned on the summit, and on four cross beams branching out from the centre were seated his four principal ministers to administer laws to the world. There is the hide-and-seek palace, full of tortuous passages, where the ladies of the court amused themselves. In a court near this palace is Ackbar’s chess-board. The pavement is laid in squares of marble, and tradition says that the knights, bishops, and pawns were his queens. His durgah, or holy palace, is a magnificent structure, with its splendid mosque on one side, and on the other an enormous gate. In the durgah is the exquisite marble shrine of a holy man. The elephant gate, guarded by two monster elephants with intertwined trunks, has an uncommon effect. Beyond it is a tower, bristling with very good stone imitations of elephants’ tusks. From this tower Ackbar used to review his troops. We had our friend, the Assistant-Commissioner at Agra, with us, and he most kindly acted as cicerone, and told us what we were looking at. In all my wanderings I never saw anything more entrancing than this deserted city. The dry climate has not touched the red sandstone of which the palaces are built, and we could imagine its streets swarming with busy life, its edifices filled with the splendour of Ackbar’s magnificence. But the dream faded away, and left the reality of utter desolation.

Tradition says that Ackbar deserted his capital to satisfy the caprice of a very holy faqueer who had been in possession before Ackbar made his appearance. Certain it is that, as suddenly as they had come, kings, queens, courtiers, nobles, followers, and men of lesser degree, vanished away, taking up their quarters twenty-two miles off on the banks of the sacred Jumna, and called the place Agra.

The general commanding, having been summoned away for some reason, I got command of the division, and it became my duty—a very pleasant one—to proceed to Mussoorie and Landour, to inspect the dépôt at the latter-named station. It was no new ground to me, for I had paid a visit to Mussoorie during the hot weather of several years, and I was well acquainted with its many beauties. I was also glad to take a farewell glance at old remembered haunts. My wife accompanied me. We travelled by train as far as Seharanpore. In spite of all that has been done to make railway travelling luxurious in the hot weather, it is a terrible ordeal. The dust sifts through the closed, jalousied windows in clouds, and, swiftly as we may fly through the air, it is the atmosphere of a furnace that we breathe. Cases of heat apoplexy were so common that at all the principal stations shells were ready for the bodies of those who had succumbed, and at each stoppage a scrutiny was made of every carriage to see who required assistance. We had a huge block of ice with us to cool the atmosphere, so we arrived in safety at the end of the railway part of our journey. A dāk-gharry was waiting for us, and we rattled along the dusty high-road, past miles and miles of ripe corn-fields.

In the distance, through the haze of heat, we saw the well-remembered giant mountains of the Himalayas. Before reaching them an advance low ridge of hills, known as the Sewallic range, has to be crossed. It is a wild, jungly country. Tigers and huge snakes have their haunts in the fastnesses of the Terai. At the Mohun Pass we changed from gharry to doolies, and were borne at a steady trot by four bearers up and down, the way abounding in huge boulders and rocks. They keep up a monotonous chant as they move along, the words often applying to the burden. I was not a light weight; and ‘Oh, the elephant! oh, the elephant!’ was the refrain of their song, which changed occasionally to ‘Oh, the great man, the great prince! Backsheesh from the great king.’

Dawn was breaking as we emerged from the pass, and apparently immediately before us, though really fourteen miles distant, towered the mighty Himalayas. A rest for a bath and breakfast at the delightful, cool, and clean hotel at the foot of the mountains, prepared us thoroughly to enjoy our steep climb up to Mussoorie. As we rose higher and higher, we got, as it were, into the very heart of the hills, and to us, direct from the breathless plains, the air seemed strangely rarefied, and gave one a sensation of deafness, which passed away after a short time. We were pleasantly lodged at a private hotel not far from the club.

After the duty was performed which had brought me away from the heat to the delightful temperature of the hills, we wandered about among many well-remembered places, not forgetting Landour, where we had passed some months a year or two before this visit. Mussoorie is the fashionable part of this hill station, but is not to be compared with Landour in purity of air and grandeur of scenery. In the early morning there is nothing to equal the view. When the sun has just risen above the mountains, and the soft breeze fans you gently, the distant sounds are heard like far-off music, and it is difficult to realize—looking down on the plains, which extend in the boundless horizon like a glistening sea—that the thermometer, which marks 70° in this mountain retreat, is registering well over 100° in the beautiful country on which you are now gazing. Then on the other side of the heights, far off in the heavens, tower the snowy range. In the world, there can be nothing more superb than the view of the snowy range as it bursts suddenly into sight, peak upon peak glittering bright and cold under the cloudless sky. There is a hitherto unknown, intense feeling of solemn awe as one gazes on the still grandeur of perpetual snow. Nearer and nearer come mountains and valleys. Down hundreds of feet below appears a silver line, so far off that it requires glasses to discover the washer-men beating the clothes with fearful energy in the stream. The mountain on whose spur Landour’s many cottages are gathered, is two thousand feet higher than the one on which Mussoorie is built, and the air is so exhilarating that one feels inclined to shout out for joy. I was grieved to say farewell to this favoured spot, and often, when a cold east wind is blowing, the remembrance of Landour and its soft, sweet breeze comes back to my memory like a dream.

As we prepared to descend the mountain to Rajpore and Dehra, we had to pass the club, where we saw the well-dressed young officers lounging forth, on their way to the Mall, where all Mussoorie assembled to talk sense or nonsense, as suited the occasion. Some delicate ladies and children were in jampans, while others rode or walked.

At Dehra we got into our dāk carriage, and proceeded on our journey to Agra. Dehra is a green and wooded station, with bungalows, most of which have gardens round them; and, although sometimes fever and cholera visited the place, it was not generally unhealthy. The great attraction to many was that Dehra was the Newmarket of the north-west provinces. The stables were filled during the hot weather with horses in training for the first meeting of the season, which generally took place in October. I had a stable in charge of Henry Hackney, whose knowledge and care, added to his great honesty, made me fully appreciate his value. My stable consisted of thirteen horses, and, as the leave season began in April, I used to proceed to Dehra as early in that month as I could get away. What a pleasant time it was! Up every morning at sunrise, a light-hearted lot of fellows would meet in the stand on the race-course, and there criticise the different horses as they took their long slow gallops. When these performances were over, coffee would be discussed, and then, before the sun had dried the dew on the grass, the various members of that little coterie would disperse to their several stables to see the horses rubbed down, and to get the opinion of the different trainers. Some would then mount their hacks and gallop off up the mountain to the Mussoorie Club, in time to eat the good breakfast which early rising and exercise entitled them to enjoy. I always liked the training season better than the race week, for the watchful interest was over when that week came round, although it was very satisfactory to win the rupees, which helped to pay the expenses of the stable.

For days before the races took place, Dehra assumed a very gay appearance. Tents were pitched everywhere, and the whole station was excited and merry; and, when the first day came, four-in-hands, dog-carts, carriages, and pedestrians assembled on the course. A week after the races were over, Dehra looked deserted, for not only had all the tents disappeared, but the leave season was past, and the Mussoorie Club empty.

The natives in India do not flock to a race-course the way our country-people do, nor do they take such interest in the sport as Irishmen did. When I was quartered at Boyle, a sporting squire had a horse called Harry Lorrequer, which was entered for a steeple-chase to be run near our barracks. A young, fresh-looking Englishman had just joined our dépôt as ensign, and the owner of Harry Lorrequer, having seen him ride, liked his seat, and fancied the way he managed his horse, so he asked the new-comer to ride for him. The young officer did not know what he was undertaking when he agreed to pilot the nag in the Boyle Steeple-chase. The day was fine, and a great crowd of countrymen, staunch supporters of the owner of Harry Lorrequer, were assembled near the temporary stand. They were all armed with shilelaghs, and were very vehement in their declarations ‘that niver another horse would win’ but their one. The start took place amid shouts of defiance, ‘the boys’ ran like madmen over the course, but Harry had it all his own way, and won in a canter. ‘The boys’ were frantic with delight; they crowded round the winner, seized hold of the young Englishman, roaring and cheering as if they were going to murder him, carried him on their shoulders everywhere, and at length allowed the exhausted youth to escape.