Letters of Marque

by Rudyard Kipling

“Duck and drake, by Jove! Confiding beasts, weren’t they? Hi! Lalla, jump out and get them!” It was a brutal thing, this double-barrelled murder perpetrated in the silence of the marsh when the kingly wild-duck came back from his wanderings with his mate at his side, but—but—the birds were very good to eat. After this and many other slaughters had been accomplished, the boat went back in the full dusk, down narrow water-lanes and across belts of weed, disturbing innumerable fowl on the road, till she reached open water and “the moon like a rick afire was rising over the dale,” and—it was not the “whit, whit, whit” of the nightingale but the stately “honk, honk” of some wild geese, thanking their stars that these pestilent shikaris were going away.

If the Venetian owned the Pichola Sagar he might say with justice:—“See it and die.” But it is better to live and go to dinner, and strike into a new life—that of the men who bear the hat-mark on their brow as plainly as the wellborn native carries the trisul of Shiva.

They are of the same caste as the toilers on the Frontier—tough, bronzed men, with wrinkles at the corners of the eyes, gotten by looking across much sun-glare. When they would speak of horses they mention Arab ponies, and their talk, for the most part, drifts Bombaywards, or to Abu, which is their Simla. By these things the traveller may see that he is far away from the Presidency; and will presently learn that he is in a land where the railway is an incident and not an indispensable luxury. Folk tell strange stories of drives in bullock-carts in the rains, of break-downs in nullahs fifty miles from everywhere, and of elephants that used to sink “for rest and refreshment” half-way across swollen streams. Every place here seems fifty miles from everywhere, and the “legs of a horse” are regarded as the only natural means of locomotion. Also, and this to the Indian Cockney who is accustomed to the bleached or office man is curious, there are to be found many veritable “tiger men"—not story-spinners but such as have, in their wanderings from Bikaneer to Indore, dropped their tiger in the way of business. They are enthusiastic over princelings of little known fiefs, lords of austere estates perched on the tops of unthrifty hills, hard riders and good sportsmen. And five, six, yes fully nine hundred miles to the northward, lives the sister branch of the same caste—the men who swear by Pathan, Biluch and Brahui, with whom they have shot or broken bread.

There is a saying in Upper India that the more desolate the country the greater the certainty of finding a Padre-Sahib. The proverb seems to hold good in Udaipur, where the Scotch Presbyterian Mission have a post, and others at Todgarh to the north and elsewhere. To arrive, under Providence, at the cure of souls through the curing of bodies certainly seems the most rational method of conversion; and this is exactly what the Missions are doing. Their Padre in Udaipur is also an M. D., and of him a rather striking tale is told. Conceiving that the City could bear another hospital in addition to the State one, he took furlough, went home, and there, by crusade and preaching, raised sufficient money for the scheme, so that none might say that he was beholden to the State. Returning, he built his hospital, a very model of neatness and comfort and, opening the operation-book, announced his readiness to see any one and every one who was sick. How the call was and is now responded to, the dry records of that book will show; and the name of the Padre-Sahib is honoured, as these ears have heard, throughout Udaipur and far around. The faith that sends a man into the wilderness, and the secular energy which enables him to cope with an evergrowing demand for medical aid, must, in time, find their reward. If patience and unwearying self-sacrifice carry any merit, they should do so soon. To-day the people are willing enough to be healed, and the general influence of the Padre-Sahib is very great. But beyond that.... Still it was impossible to judge aright.

VIII.

Divers Passages of Speech and Action whence the Nature, Arts and Disposition of the King and his Subjects may be observed.

IN this land men tell “sad stories of the death of Kings,” not easily found elsewhere; and also speak of sati, which is generally supposed to be an “effete curiosity” as the Bengali said, in a manner which makes it seem very near and vivid. Be pleased to listen to some of the tales, but with all the names cut out, because a King has just as much right to have his family affairs respected as has a British householder paying income-tax.

Once upon a time, that is to say when the British power was well established in the land and there were railways, there was a King who lay dying for many days, and all, including the Englishmen about him, knew that his end was certain. But he had chosen to lie in an outer court or pleasure-house of his Palace; and with him were some twenty of his favourite wives. The place in which he lay was very near to the City; and there was a fear that his womenkind should, on his death, going mad with grief, cast off their veils and run out into the streets, uncovered before all men. In which case, nothing, not even the power of the Press, and the locomotive, and the telegraph, and cheap education and enlightened municipal councils, could have saved them from sati, for they were the wives of a King. So the Political did his best to induce the dying man to go to the Fort of the City, a safe place close to the regular zenana, where all the women could be kept within walls. He said that the air was better in the Fort, but the King refused; and that he would recover in the Fort; but the King refused. After some days, the latter turned and said:—“Why are you so keen, Sahib, upon getting my old bones up to the Fort?” Driven to his last defences, the Political said simply:—“Well, Maharana Sahib, the place is close to the road you see, and....” The King saw and said:—“Oh, that’s it! I’ve been puzzling my brain for four days to find out what on earth you were driving at. I’ll go to-night.” “But there may be some difficulty,” began the Political. “You think so,” said the King. “If I only hold up my little finger, the women will obey me. Go now, and come back in five minutes, and all will be ready for departure.” As a matter of fact, the Political withdrew for the space of fifteen minutes, and gave orders that the conveyances which he had kept in readiness day and night should be got ready. In fifteen minutes those twenty women, with their hand-maidens, were packed and ready for departure; and the King died later at the Fort, and nothing happened. Here the Englishman asked why a frantic woman must of necessity become sati, and felt properly abashed when he was told that she must. There was nothing else for her if she went out unveiled deliberately.

The rush-out forces the matter. And, indeed, if you consider the matter from a Rajput point of view, it does.

Then followed a very grim tale of the death of another King; of the long vigil by his bedside, before he was taken off the bed to die upon the ground; of the shutting of a certain mysterious door behind the bed-head, which shutting was followed by a rustle of women’s dress; of a walk on the top of the Palace, to escape the heated air of the sick room; and then, in the grey dawn, the wail upon wail breaking from the zenana as the news of the King’s death went in. “I never wish to hear anything more horrible and awful in my life. You could see nothing. You could only hear the poor wretches!” said the Political with a shiver.