[5] Colonel Yule gives an illustration of these gates in his second volume of "Marco Polo."
[6] I was at this time a child in the schoolroom; we had no knowledge of each other's existence; I therefore had no part in the matter. He did not tell me of it until we had been married for some time, as he wished, he said, to see if he was paramount in my mind, and that I would make the sacrifice for him, which was necessary for our marriage later on. He then said, "that if a man had a religion, it must be the Catholic; it was the religion of a gentleman—a terrible religion for a man of the world to live in, but a good one to die in." I have often wondered that this step never excited any comment; he wrote of it freely; he spoke of it freely until his latter years; but as he did not like me to do so, I never did. Nobody ever dared to question his action till after he was dead; but when the master-mind, the witty tongue was powerless, when the scathing pen the strong right sword-arm could no longer wield, people fell foul of me for speaking of it as a simple and natural fact. I never called him a devout practical Catholic; I only said he was received into the Church, and that he meant to have its rites at the time of his death.—I. B.
[CHAPTER VII.]
THE REMINISCENCES WRITTEN FOR MR. HITCHMAN IN 1888—INDIA.
A Later Chapter on same events differently told.
When I landed at Bombay (October 28th, 1842), "Momba Devi" town was a marvellous contrast with the "Queen of Western India," as she thrones it in 1887; no City in Europe, except perhaps Vienna, can show such a difference. The old Portuguese port-village temp. Caroli Secundi, with its silly fortifications and useless esplanade, its narrow alleys and squares like places d'armes, had not developed itself into "Sasson-Town," as we may call the olden, and "Frére-Town" the modern moiety.
Under the patriarchal rule of the Court of Directors to the Hon. East Indian Company, a form of torpidity much resembling the paternal government of good Emperor Franz, no arrangements were made for the reception of the queer animals called "cadets." They landed and fell into the knowing hands of some rascals; lodged at a Persian tavern, the British Hotel, all uncleanliness at the highest prices. I had a touch of "seasoning sickness," came under the charge of "Paddy Ryan," Fort Surgeon and general favourite, and was duly drafted into the Sanitary Bungalow—thatched hovels facing Back Bay, whence ever arose a pestilential whiff of roast Hindú, and opened the eyes of those who had read about the luxuries of the East. Life was confined to a solitary ride (at dawn and dusk), a dull monotonous day, and a night in some place of dissipation—to put it mildly—such as the Bhendi bazar, whose attractions consisted of dark young persons in gaudy dress, mock jewels, and hair japanned with cocoa-nut oil, and whose especial diversions were an occasional "row"—a barbarous manner of "town and gown." But a few days, of residence had taught me that India, at least Western India, offered only two specialities for the Britisher; first Shikar or sport, and secondly, opportunities of studying the people and their languages. These were practically unlimited; I found that it took me some years of hard study before I could walk into a bazar and distinguish the several castes, and know something of them, their manners and customs, religion and superstitions. I at once engaged a venerable Parsee, Dosabhai Sohrabji, also a mubid, or priest, as his white cap and coat showed, who had coached many generations of griffs, and under his guidance dived deep into the "Ethics of Hind" (Akhlak-i-Hindi) and other such text-books.
This was the year after the heir-apparent was born; when Nott, Pollock, and Sale revenged the destruction of some 13,000 men by the Afghans; when the Chinese War broke out; when Lord Ellenborough succeeded awkward Lord Auckland; and when Major-General Sir Charles J. Napier, commanding at Poonah, was appointed to Sind (August 25th, 1842), and when his subsequent unfriend, Brevet-Major James Outram, was on furlough to England; lastly, and curious to say, most important of all to me, was the fact that "Ensign Burton" was ranked and posted in the G. G. O. of October 15th, 1842, to the 18th Regiment, Bombay N.I.