Here I planted my chair on one or two evenings, with my friend the sub, beneath the shade of these trees, and, soothed into a state of tranquillity by the cooing of numerous doves, which fill the groves, I gazed on the boats as they glided down the stream, and yielded up my mind to the influence of tranquil and pleasing emotions. I thought of home—my mother—the widow—when I should be a captain—and other things equally remote and agreeable.
The tamarind, to my taste, is the most beautiful tree of the East—not even excepting the banyan—the foliage, which is of a delicate green, droops in rich and luxuriant masses, like clusters of ostrich plumes—overhanging a piece of water, or half-enveloping some old mosque, durgah, or caravanserai—with the traveller’s horse picketed in its shade, or the group of camels ruminating in repose beneath it—nothing can be more picturesque.
This tree, beneath which no plant will grow, seems to be a great favourite with the natives, but particularly with the Mahomedans; it is almost invariably to be found near their mosques and mausoleums; and amongst them, I suspect, holds the place the yew, or rather the cypress, does with us—an almost inseparable adjunct of the tomb:
“Fond tree, still sad when others’ griefs are fled.
The only constant mourner o’er the dead.”
A nest of Brahmins is comfortably established in and about the ghaut and temple above mentioned, the duties of which latter they perform; these, with bathing, eating, sleeping, and fleecing European passers-by, constitute the daily tenor of their harmless lives. They regularly levy contributions from European travellers who pass this way, and make, I suspect, rather a good thing of it.
Their course of proceeding is as follows: one of the fraternity, with all the humility of aspect which characterized Sterne’s monk, waits upon the traveller with a little present of milk, fruit, or a pot of tamarind preserve—the last, by the way, uncommonly good there—this, in a subdued tone, and with a low salaam, he tenders for acceptance, and at the same time produces for inspection a well-thumbed volume—of which it might truly be said, in the language of the Latin grammar, “Qui color albus erat, nunc est contrarius albo”—partly filled with names, doggrels, and generally abortive attempts at the facetious. In this the traveller is requested to record his name, the date of his visit, with the addition of as much epigram as he can conveniently squeeze out, or of any extempore verses he may chance to have by him ready cut and dry for such occasions.
Having made his literary contribution, and returned the valuable miscellany to its owner, in whose favour the traveller’s romantic feelings are perhaps warmly excited, particularly if, like me, a “tazu wulait” (literally, a fresh-imported European), with some St. Pierre-ish notions of the virtuous simplicity of Brahmins and Gentoos, he begins to discover, from the lingering, fidgety, expectant manner of his sacerdotal friend, that something remains to be done—in fact, that a more important contribution is required—and that the “amor nummi” is quite as rife in a grove on the banks of the Ganges as anywhere else in this lucre-loving world. On making this discovery, he disburses his rupee in a fume, and all his romantic ideas of hospitable Brahmins, primitive simplicity, children of nature, &c. &c., vanish into thin air.
My friend the sub lent me a pony, and, accompanied by dogs, servants, and guns, we traversed a good deal of the surrounding country in search of game and the picturesque.
The country, for miles around Currah, is thickly covered with the ruins of Mahomedan tombs, some of great size, and combining, with much diversity of form, considerable elegance and architectural beauty. Two or three of these, more striking than the rest, are erected over the remains of peers or saints; one of these latter is, I was told, Sheik Kummul ud Deen, a very holy man, who, doubtless, in his day rendered good service to the cause of Islam, by dint, probably, of that very cutting and convincing argument the shumshere.[[50]] The adjacent village of Kummulpore derives its name from him.