The result of all this was, that half a battalion and a couple of six-pounders were ordered down to the city in the evening, and occupied the chowk, or marketplace, during the night. This grievously offended both parties, and they kept quietly within their several bounds. But for this interference, there can be little doubt that blood would have been spilt.
CHAPTER XXIII.
The cornet took me with him to breakfast and dine with his friend, the old invalid general commanding at Chunarghur. This was my first Christmas Day in India; the weather was as cold as an English October, and I enjoyed the trip.
The pretty invalid station of Chunarghur is a few miles from Sultanpore, on the opposite bank of the river; as you approach it, the fort, crowning a lofty table rock, and abutting on the Ganges, has, with its numerous Moorish buildings and lines of circumvallation, a very striking and picturesque effect; and its reddish hue and that of the rock contrast pleasingly with the verdant gardens and white residences of the European inhabitants.[[49]]
The general, a hoary old Indianized veteran, gave my friend, with whom he appeared to be on intimate terms, a very hearty reception. It being Christmas Day, he had mounted his red uniform coat, which, from the hue of the lace, and other unmistakable signs, it was very clear, had been laid up in ordinary for a considerable time; but though his upper works were European, all below indicated one who had imbibed, in the course of fifty or sixty years’ service, a taste for the luxurious appliances of an Indian existence. His legs, like those of Colonel Lolsaug, were encased in voluminous pajammas, which finished off with a pair of Indian gilt slippers.
We had a capital breakfast, at which an abundance of solid cheer, interspersed with glasses of amber jelly, and garnished with evergreens and flowers, “jasmin and marigolds,” produced a truly Old English effect.
The old general leaned back in his easy chair, stretched his legs on a morah, smoked his magnificent hookha, and prepared to receive a host of people waiting outside to pay their respects.
In India, Christmas Day is called by the natives our “Burra Din,” or great day. Our native soldiers and dependants attend in their best attire, to pay their respects, and present, according to their means, little nuzzurs or gifts, as tokens of good-will and fidelity. Your Kansaman brings a basket of sweetmeats; the shepherd, a kid from the flock; the gardener, a basket of his choicest fruit, flowers, and vegetables; the bearers deck the bungalow with evergreens, or plant a young tree in front of the door, and so forth.
It is a pleasing homage to master and his faith; and altogether, with the temperature of the weather and the solidity of the fare, tends strongly to awaken bygone recollections of youth, and all the charities and endearments of our island home at that delightful and merry season.
The chick, or blind, being now rolled up, a posse of venerable veteran native officers entered, exhibiting on their persons the various obsolete costumes of the Indian army of half a century back, gradually approximating from the uncouth attire of the sepoy of the olden time, with its short vandyked jangheeas, half-way down the thigh, cut-away coat, and ludicrous triangular-fronted cap, to the more perfect Europeanized dress at present worn.