Horses take a great part in most Indian weddings, Both Hindu and Muhammadan bridegrooms ride in procession, while the bride is borne in a canopied litter. In Bengal, however, all go on wheels, caparisoned horses being led to swell the show. In some hill regions both bride and bridegroom are carried in litters. The equestrian marriage parade is probably an ancient custom based, it may be, on the marriage by capture of which we hear so much. In Western India the bridegroom rides, covered with tinsel and gay clothing, in the midst of a moving square of artificial flowers and bushes, counterfeiting a garden, borne on long platforms on the heads of coolies. In the case of the trading Hindus of the cities this ride is often the first and last occasion of crossing a horse. The child bridegroom begins his progress with a light heart, but the weight of his finery, the smoke of the torches, the din of the throbbing, screaming music, and the ceaseless clamour soon tell, and you may see the poor little man crying as he is held in the saddle, or lifted off, half dead with sleep, and put into a litter. When the bridegroom is of mature age the effect is often absurdly quaint. Part of the wedding finery is a veil, which has come to be a dropping-well arrangement of tinsel or cut paper fringes through which the most sensible face alive looks foolish. But one of the peculiarities of India is that nothing there is absurd. Disguises that would be grotesque and laughable in the West are accepted in the East without comment.
Some religious mendicants habitually ride, especially on the Punjab frontier. You may also see strings of them entering the towns of the plains in picturesque procession. Mendicancy is an honourable profession, practised by many men of admirable character, and by a host of ruffians who lead vagabond lives, diversified by drunkenness, thieving, and debauchery. Some Bairágis, as distinguished from other ascetics, are gathered into monasteries, nor would it be easy for a purist in morals to find fault with their lives and conduct. Other sects that wander and beg have houses and lands; but there is no escape from the conclusion that the country, notwithstanding its hidden wealth, is too poor to keep vast armies of able-bodied priests and beggars. The wonder is that though the respectable classes complain bitterly of sanctified loaferdom, there is scarcely a house that does not periodically receive and entertain more or less godly loafers.
A BEGGAR ON HORSEBACK (HINDU DEVOTEE)
Concerning the mule there is not much that can be said with propriety, for his mixed descent points salt and perpetual gibes at ill-assorted marriages and bastards, whereon native opinion is very severe. As in Æsop, when the mule boasts of his mother's high family, he is asked for news of his father, whereupon the poor wretch is silent and ashamed. There is a strong prejudice in the minds of many Hindus against mule breeding as unnatural and improper. The degradation of the ass, the offscouring of all things, is probably at the root of this. It is wicked to couple a noble creature of good caste with the ignoble, impure, small-pox-defiled donkey. As to mere differences of kind, it is not likely that the Hindu would trouble his incurious mind; for stranger unions than this are recorded with approval. Thus, in a countryside saying current in the Deccan, the beauty of a breed of cows is popularly attributed to the interference of an antelope sire. So one might class the mule as a European introduction (he really is a Government institution); while the Hindu smiles complacently, seeing in the creature a type of the irregularity and inferiority of the mixed lineages of the West.
The mule, however, is bred in increasing numbers, for he is an ideal pack animal, born and made to carry the burdens of armies over difficult countries, and good at draught. Sure of foot, hard of hide, strong in constitution, frugal in diet, a first-rate weight carrier, indifferent to heat and cold, he combines the best, if the most homely characteristics of both the noble houses from which he is descended. He fails in beauty, and his infertility is a reproach, but even ugliness has its advantages. The heavy head of the mule is a mercy to him, for both in practice and the written orders of Government it is ordained that he is not to be bothered with bearing-reins. So that big chef serves its natural purposes and is an index, unerring as a steam engine's dial, to how much is left in him. When tired the ears droop back, losing the alert forward tilt of the morning, and the head drops lower and lower. This freedom of the head gives additional play to his heels, for he is a superb kicker. A spirited mule in full fling radiates a rainbow of kicks, an aurora made splendid by the flash and flicker of his iron hoofs. With his fore-feet as a centre he clears for himself a sacred inviolable circle. And there are mules as handy with a swift fore-foot as ever was Tom Sayers with his left. So it is written in Major Burn's official manual: "Examining a mule's mouth with the view of ascertaining his age is at times a risky operation, and the following method is recommended: Put a halter on the mule's head and blind-fold him; stand well in against the near fore-shoulder, pass the hand gently up the neck, patting the animal as it goes, and take a firm grip of the root of the ear with the right hand. Seize the upper lip and nose quickly and lightly with the left hand. This must be done quickly and resolutely, guarding against a blow from the fore-foot. In this way a glance at the incisors will be obtained, and it will be seen whether the corner tooth is temporary or permanent." It is to no common animal that a careful Government inscribes so respectful a tribute.
THE WHEELS OF A MOUNTAIN BATTERY
Perhaps the finest mules in the service of the Indian Government are those which carry its mountain artillery, an arm in which equipment, adaptation to work, smartness and efficiency in action seem to have reached their highest point. Some animals carry the guns, others ammunition chests, and others the wheels of the batteries, and all are able to go anywhere. In pictures by amateur artists you may see them represented in action on a mountain summit boldly outlined against the sky. But in practice this most picturesque position is not the best for the health of either gunners or mules, nor for efficient attack. There is a special science of mountain gunnery akin to good deer-stalking or ibex hunting. While watching a mountain battery at work, and studying the hill contours, you may gain some hint of the powers of an arm which delivers its fire from the most unexpected places, and seems to arrive by unseen and sheltered ways at exactly the proper point of attack. It is natural that the officers and men of so highly specialised a service should cherish an esprit de corps which is perhaps not exaggerated in a verse from my son's barrack-room ballad, "Screw-Guns"—