The last day of my stay, De la Chasse and his fidus Achates dined with us, and we all appeared depressed at the prospect of separation, for our short acquaintance had already ripened into a friendly feeling.
Like towns in an ill-governed country, where, owing to the absence of sound laws and honest administrators of them, every one is afraid of his neighbour, hearts, in artificial England, are too often petty fortresses, in which pride, caution, and suspicion are incessantly on the watch to guard against surprise, and to break down these barriers and effect a lodgment is frequently the work of years; but in India, amongst Anglo-Indians, the case is reversed; the gates are thrown wide open, and intimacies and cordial (though, perhaps, not always lasting) feelings are generally the result of a few day’s acquaintance.
Both extremes are bad, as all extremes are; but it is indubitably far pleasanter to live amongst those, the approaches to whose confidence and kindness are supinely, rather than too rigorously guarded; the one system, ’tis my belief, shuts out more good than the other admits of evil.
“Sahib, ka daktiar hyr,” said a servant entering the apartment some time after dark, on the day of which I am speaking.
“Gernon,” observed Mr. Augustus, “the best of friends must part: your palankeen is ready outside, and only waits your orders.”
I arose, walked to the terrace, and there was my equipage. The sentimental St. Pierre, with all the accuracy of a Frenchman, thus describes the equipage of his truth-seeking doctor, who, if as subject to blundering as himself, might have been a long time in discovering that valuable treasure.
“The Company’s superintendent of Calcutta furnished the doctor with everything necessary for his journey to Juggernauth, consisting of a palankeen, the curtains of which were of crimson silk, wrought with gold; two relays, of four each, of stout coolies or bearers; two common porters; a water-bearer; a juglet-bearer, for his refreshment; a pipe-bearer; an umbrella-bearer, to shade him from the sun; a nuslogee (!) or torch-bearer, for the night; a wood-cutter; two cooks; two camels and their leaders, to carry his provisions and luggage; two pioneers, to announce his approach; four sepoys, mounted upon Persian horses, to escort him; and a standard-bearer, bearing the arms of England!”
I, being no philosopher, and bound on a less important mission, could pretend to none of this splendour; my turn-out consisted of a palankeen, eight or ten cahars or bearers (for in my time, whatever may have been the case in the doctor’s, it was not usual to carry the palankeens upon coolies); a bangby, or two baskets, containing my immediate necessaries, slung on an elastic bamboo; and a mussaulchee, or link-bearer; the torch carried by the latter being formed of rags rolled about an iron spindle, and looking something like a bandaged stump.
I thought there would have been no end to the handshaking and last “adieus,” with the repeated injunctions not to forget that I should always find a knife and fork and a hearty welcome at the Junglesoor Factory.
At last, however, I “broke away,” as the fox-hunters say, I believe, and threw myself into the palankeen; the bearers, with a groan, lifted their burthen on their shoulders; the mussaulchee poured oil on his link from its long-spouted receptacle, which, flaring up, brought out the whole scene, house, trees, and congregated group on the terrace, with a wild and spectral glare. I waved my hand, half-closed the doors of my palankeen, threw myself back:—the curtain had dropped on act the second of my griffinage, and I was soon on my journey to Barrackpore.