Put the remains of any cold flesh or fowl into a saucepan, and cover with cassaripe—which has been already described in the Curry chapter as extract of Manioc root. Heat up the stew and serve.
Our pepper-pot was usually made in a gipsy-kettle, suspended from a tripod. The foundation of the stew was always a tin of some kind of soup. Then a few goat chops—mutton is bad to buy out in the jungle—and then any bird or beast that may have been shot, divided into fragments. I have frequently made a stew of this sort, with so many ingredients in it that the flavour when served out at table—or on the bullock-trunk which often did duty for a table—would have beaten the wit of man to describe. There was hare soup “intil’t” (as the Scotsman said to the late Prince Consort), and a collop or two of buffalo-beef, with snipe, quails, and jungle-fowl. There were half the neck of an antelope and a few sliced onions lurking within the bowl. And there were potatoes “intil’t,” and plenty of pepper and salt. And for lack of cassaripe we flavoured the savoury mess with mango chutnee and Tapp sauce. And if any cook, English or foreign, can concoct a more worthy dish than this, or more grateful to the palate, said cook can come my way.
The old dak gharry method of travelling in India may well come under the head of Camping Out. In the hot weather we usually progressed—or got emptied into a ditch—or collided with something else, during the comparative “coolth” of the night; resting (which in Hindustan usually means perspiring and calling the country names) all day at one or other of the dak bungalows provided by a benevolent Government for the use of the wandering sahib. The larder at one of those rest-houses was seldom well filled. Although the khansamah who prostrated himself in the sand at your approach would declare that he was prepared to supply everything which the protector-of-the-poor might deign to order, it would be found on further inquiry that the khansamah had, like the Player Queen in Hamlet, protested too much—that he was a natural romancer. And his “everything” usually resolved itself into a “spatch-cock,” manufactured from the spectral rooster, who had heralded the approach of the sahib’s caravan.
A Rajah’s
ideas of hospitality are massive. Labouring under the belief that the white sahib when not eating must necessarily be drinking, the commissariat arrangements of Rajahdom are on a colossal scale—for the chief benefit of his major domo. I might have bathed in dry champagne, had the idea been pleasing, whilst staying with a certain genial prince, known to irreverent British subalterns as “Old Coppertail”; whilst the bedroom furniture was on the same liberal scale. True, I lay on an ordinary native charpoy, which might have been bought in the bazaar for a few annas, but there was a grand piano in one corner of the apartment, and a buhl cabinet containing rare china in another. There was a coloured print of the Governor-General over the doorway, and an oil painting of the Judgment of Solomon over the mantelshelf. And on a table within easy reach of the bed was a silver-plated dinner service, decked with fruits and sweetmeats, and tins of salmon, and pots of Guava jelly and mixed pickles, and two tumblers, each of which would have easily held a week-old baby. And there was a case of champagne beneath that table, with every appliance for cutting wires and extracting the corks.
Another time the writer formed one of a small party invited to share the hospitality of a potentate, whose estate lay on the snowy side of Simla. The fleecy element, however, was not in evidence in June, the month of our visit, although towards December Simla herself is usually wrapt in the white mantle, and garrisoned by monkeys, who have fled from the land of ice. Tents had been erected for us in a barren-looking valley, somewhat famous, however, for the cultivation of potatoes. There was an annual celebration of some sort, the day after our arrival, and for breakfast that morning an al fresco meal had been prepared for us, almost within whispering distance of an heathen temple. And it was a breakfast! There was a turkey stuffed with a fowl, to make the breast larger, and there was a “Europe” ham. A tin of lobster, a bottle of pickled walnuts, a dreadful concoction, alleged to be an omelette, but looking more like the sole of a tennis shoe, potatoes, boiled eggs, a dish of Irish stew, a fry of small fish, a weird-looking curry, a young goat roasted whole, and a plum pudding!
The tea had hardly been poured out—Kussowlie beer, Epps’s cocoa, and (of course) champagne, and John Exshaw’s brandy were also on tap—when a gentleman with very little on proceeded to decapitate a goat at the foot of the temple steps. This was somewhat startling, but when the (presumed) high-priest chopped off the head of another bleating victim, our meal was interrupted. The executions had been carried out in very simple fashion. First, the priest sprinkled a little water on the neck of the victim (who was held in position by an assistant), and then retired up the steps. Then, brandishing a small sickle, he rushed back, and in an instant off went the head, which was promptly carried, reeking with gore, within the temple. But if, as happened more than once, the head was not sliced off at the initial attempt, it was left on the ground when decapitation had been at length effected. The deity inside was evidently a bit particular!
Nine goats had been sacrificed, ere our remonstrances were attended to; and we were allowed to pursue our meal in peace. But I don’t think anybody had goat for breakfast that morning.
Later on, the fun of the fair commenced, and the paharis, or hill men, trooped in from miles round, with their sisters, cousins, and aunts. Their wives, we imagined, were too busily occupied in carrying their accustomed loads of timber to and fro. Your Himalayan delights in a fair, and the numerous swings and roundabouts were all well patronised; whilst the jugglers, and the snake charmers—in many instances it was difficult to tell at a glance which was charmer and which snake—were all well patronised. Later on, when the lamps had been lit, a burra nâtch was started, and the Bengali Baboos who had come all the way from Simla in dhoolies to be present at this, applauded vigorously. And our host being in constant dread lest we should starve to death or expire of thirst, never tired of bidding us to a succession of banquets at which we simply went through the forms of eating, to please him. And just when we began to get sleepy these simple hill folks commenced to dance amongst themselves. They were just a little monotonous, their choregraphic efforts. Parties of men linked arms and sidled around fires of logs, singing songs of their mountain homes the while. And as they were evidently determined to make a night of it, sleep for those who understood not the game, with their tents close handy, was out of the question. And when, as soon as we could take our departure decently and decorously, we started up the hill again, those doleful monotonous dances were still in progress, although the fires were out, and the voices decidedly husky. A native of the Himalayas is nothing if not energetic—in his own interests be it understood.