Memoirs of a griffin

by Francis John Bellew

The next day, having replenished our stores with several additions from the colonel’s garden and farm-yard, for it would be ungrateful not to acknowledge this liberality—a truly Indian virtue—we once more resumed our voyage.

Burhampore, like most of the great military stations of India, is intended to operate as a check on a large and important city; not that from Moorshedabad—once the capital of Bengal, a place long since sunk into comparative insignificance—much danger is now to be apprehended. It is the head-quarters of a brigade, partly composed of European troops.

The barracks and officers’ quarters are superb, and form a vast square, of which the former constitute the face farthest from the river; that nearest to it is a continuous range of handsome houses and gardens, with colonnades and verandahs, occupied by civilians and superior military officers.

There are also other ranges of buildings running perpendicular to the river, partly barracks and in part officers’ quarters. The whole is separated from the Baghiriti by a broad bund, or esplanade. The sepoy lines are about a mile inland, but the officers reside in the quarters, or in the fine bungalows scattered about.

The scene here in the evening was very lively; soldiers exercising in the square; officers riding on horseback, or driving in gigs; the band playing on the esplanade; groups promenading; in short, I was pleased with the place, and should have had no objection to have terminated my voyage there.

The morning of our departure, we were besieged by the vendors of silk piece-goods and handkerchiefs, as also of ivory toys and chessmen, for both of which this place and its neighbour, Cossim Bazar, have acquired a great reputation.

Some of the chessmen shown us were large beyond anything of the kind I had ever seen before; so much so, that to play with an irascible man with such ponderous and massive pieces might be unsafe.

The natives of India, it appears to me, though possessed of infinite perseverance and ingenuity, have no natural taste (at least, if they have any, it greatly wants cultivation); as respects progress in the fine arts, they appear on a par with our Anglo-Saxon ancestors at the time of the Conquest, and their sculpture, carving, and painting (and probably their music), in their leading and more marked peculiarities and defects, bear a considerable resemblance to those of such remains as we have of the olden time of England. It is, however, probable that the rude dawnings of knowledge are everywhere pretty much alike, though marked with more or less of native vigour and genius.

Of perspective, proportion, &c., they know little or nothing, and of this we had amusing examples, both in the carving and some pictures which were here offered us for sale, and which latter, in the richness of their colours and gilding, brought strongly to mind the illuminations of old missals, except that, in the false perspective and utter disregard of proportion, they beat them completely, outdoing Hogarth’s illustration of that ludicrous confusion into which an ignorance of these things is wont to lead the graphic tyro: full views at once of three sides of a square building, flat roof inclusive, visible from below; chiefs, in gorgeous apparel, seated on carpets as large as the adjoining garden, and holding “posies to their noses;” antelopes scampering over hills somewhat smaller than themselves; groups of figures taller than the buildings, with dislocated limbs, and legs like wooden stocking stretchers; water reversing the laws of hydrostatics, and running up-hill, and objects increasing with the distance.

Miss Belfield’s critical eye was shocked by these performances, though otherwise amused; and for my part, I do not think I enjoyed a heartier laugh since I was a griffin.