Letters of Marque

by Rudyard Kipling

The State Engineer, who is also the Jodhpur State Line, for he has no European subordinates, conceived the idea of bringing the water from the Balsamand into the city. Was the city grateful? Not in the least. It said that the Sahib wanted the water to run uphill and was throwing money into the tank. Being true Marwaris, men betted on the subject. The canal—a built out one, for water must not touch earth in these parts—was made at a cost of something over a lakh, and the water came down because the tank was a trifle higher than the city. Now, in the hot weather, the women need not go for long walks, but the Marwari cannot understand how it was that the “waters came down to Jodhpur.” From the Marwari to money matters is an easy step. Formerly, that is to say up to within a very short time, the Treasury of Jodhpur was conducted in a shiftless, happy-go-lucky sort of fashion not uncommon in Native States, whereby the Mahajuns “held the bag” and made unholy profits on discount and other things, to the confusion of the Durbar Funds and their own enrichment. There is now a Treasury modelled on English lines, and English in the important particular that money is not to be got from it for the asking, and the items of expenditure are strictly looked after.

In the middle of all this bustle of reform planned, achieved, frustrated and re-planned, and the never-ending underground warfare that surges in a Native State, moved the English officers—the irreducible minimum of exiles. As a caste, the working Englishmen in Native States are curiously interesting; and the traveller whose tact by this time has been Wilfred-blunted by tramping, sits in judgment upon them as he has seen them. In the first place, they are, they must be, the fittest who have survived; for though, here and there, you shall find one chafing bitterly against the burden of his life in the wilderness, one to be pitied more than any chained beast, the bulk of the caste are honestly and unaffectedly fond of their work, fond of the country around them, and fond of the people they deal with. In each State their answer to a certain question is the same. The men with whom they are in contact are “all right when you know them, but you’ve got to know them first” as the music-hall song says. Their hands are full of work; so full that, when the incult wanderer said—“What do you find to do?” they looked upon him with contempt and amazement—exactly as the wanderer himself had once looked upon a Globe-Trotter, who had put to him the same impertinent query. And—but here the Englishman may be wrong—it seemed to him that in one respect their lives were a good deal more restful and concentrated than those of their brethren under the British Government. There was no talk of shiftings and transfers and promotions, stretching across a Province and a half, and no man said anything about Simla. To one who has hitherto believed that Simla is the hub of the Empire, it is disconcerting to hear:—“O Simla! That’s where you Bengalis go. We haven’t anything to do with Simla down here.” And no more they have. Their talk and their interests run in the boundaries of the States they serve, and, most striking of all, the gossipy element seems to be cut out altogether. It is a backwater of the river of Anglo-Indian life—or is it the main current, the broad stream that supplies the motive power, and is the other life only the noisy ripple on the surface? You who have lived, not merely looked at, both lives, decide. Much can be learnt from the talk of the caste—many curious, many amusing, and some startling things. One hears stories of men who take a poor, impoverished State as a man takes a wife, “for better or worse,” and, moved by some incomprehensible ideal of virtue, consecrate—that is not too big a word—consecrate their lives to that State in all single-heartedness and purity. Such men are few, but they exist to-day, and their names are great in lands where no Englishman travels. Again the listener hears tales of grizzled diplomats of Rajputana—Machiavellis who have hoisted a powerful intriguer with his own intrigue, and bested priestly cunning, and the guile of the Oswal, simply that the way might be clear for some scheme which should put money into a tottering Treasury, or lighten the taxation of a few hundred thousand men—or both; for this can be done. One tithe of that force spent on their own advancement would have carried such men very far.

Those who know anything of the internals of government, know that such men must exist, for their works are written between the lines of the Administration Reports; but to hear about them and to have them pointed out, is quite a different thing. It breeds respect and a sense of shame and frivolity in the mind of the mere looker-on, which may be good for the soul.

Truly the Hat-marked Caste are a strange people. They are so few and so lonely and so strong. They can sit down in one place for years, and see the works of their hands and the promptings of their brain, grow to actual and beneficent life, bringing good to thousands. Less fettered than the direct servant of the Indian Government, and working over a much vaster charge, they seem a bigger and a more large-minded breed. And that is saying a good deal.

But let the others, the little people bound down and supervised, and strictly limited and income-taxed, always remember that the Hat-marked are very badly off for shops. If they want a necktie they must get it up from Bombay, and in the rains they can hardly move about; and they have no amusements and must go a day’s railway journey for a rubber, and their drinking water is doubtful; and there is rather less than one lady per ten thousand square miles.

After all, comparative civilisation has its advantages.

XIV.

Among the Houyhnhnmns.

JODHPUR differs from the other States of Rajputana in that its Royalty are peculiarly accessible to an inquiring public. There are wanderers, the desire of whose life it is “to see Nabobs,” which is the Globe-trotter’s title for any one in unusually clean clothes, or an Oudh Taluqdar in gala dress. Men asked in Jodhpur whether the Englishman would like to see His Highness. The Englishman had a great desire to do so, if His Highness would be in no way inconvenienced. Then they scoffed:—“Oh, he won’t durbar you, you needn’t flatter yourself. If he’s in the humour he’ll receive you like an English country-gentleman.” How in the world could the owner of such a place as Jodhpur Palace be in any way like an English country-gentleman? The Englishman had not long to wait in doubt. His Highness intimated his readiness to see the Englishman between eight and nine in the morning at the Raika-Bagh. The Raika-Bagh is not a Palace, for the lower storey and all the detached buildings round it are filled with horses. Nor can it in any way be called a stable, because the upper storey contains sumptuous apartments full of all manner of valuables both of the East and the West. Nor is it in any sense a pleasure-garden, for it stands on soft white sand, close to a multitude of litter and sand training tracks, and is devoid of trees for the most part. Therefore the Raika-Bagh is simply the Raika-Bagh and nothing else. It is now the chosen residence of the Maharaja who loves to live among his four hundred or more horses. All Jodhpur is horse-mad by the way, and it behoves anyone who wishes to be anyone, to keep his own race-course. The Englishman went to the Raika-Bagh, which stands half a mile or so from the city, and passing through a long room filled with saddles by the dozen, bridles by the score, and bits by the hundred, was aware of a very small and lively little cherub on the roof of a garden-house. He was carefully muffled, for the morning was chill. “Good morning,” he cried cheerfully in English, waving a mittened hand. “Are you going to see my faver and the horses?” It was the Maharaj Kanwar, the Crown Prince, the apple of the Maharaja’s eye, and one of the quaintest little bodies that ever set an Englishman disrespectfully laughing. He studies English daily with one of the English officials of the State, and stands a very good chance of being thoroughly spoiled, for he is a general pet. Also, as befits his dignity, he has his own carriage or carriages, his own twelve-hand stable, his own house and retinue, and everything handsome about him.

A few steps further on, in a little enclosure in front of a small two-storeyed white bungalow, sat His Highness the Maharaja, deep in discussion with the State Engineer. He wore an English ulster, and within ten paces of him was the first of a long range of stalls. There was an informality of procedure about Jodhpur which, after the strained etiquette of other States, was very refreshing. The State Engineer, who has a growing line to attend to, cantered away, and His Highness after a few introductory words, knowing what the Englishman would be after, said:—“Come along, and look at the horses.” Other formality there was absolutely none. Even the indispensable knot of hangers-on stood at a distance, and behind a paling, in this most rustic country residence. A well-bred fox-terrier took command of the proceedings, after the manner of dogs all the world over, and the Maharaja led to the horse-boxes. But a man turned up, bending under the weight of much bacon. “Oh! here’s the pig I shot for Udaipur last night. You see that is the best piece. It’s pickled, and that’s what makes it yellow to look at.” He patted the great side that was held up. “There will be a camel sowar to meet it half way to Udaipur; and I hope Udaipur will be pleased with it. It was a very big pig.” “And where did you shoot it, Maharaja Sahib?” “Here,” said His Highness, smiting himself high up under the armpit. “Where else would you have it?” Certainly this descendant of Raja Maun was more like an English country-gentleman than the Englishman in his ignorance had deemed possible. He led on from horse-box to horse-box, the terrier at his heels, pointing out each horse of note; and Jodhpur has many. “There’s Raja, twice winner of the Civil Service Cup.” The Englishman looked reverently, and Raja rewarded his curiosity with a vicious snap, for he was being dressed over, and his temper was out of joint. Close to him stood Autocrat, the grey with the nutmeg marks on the off-shoulder, a picture of a horse, also disturbed in his mind. Next to him was a chestnut Arab, a hopeless cripple, for one of his knees had been smashed and the leg was doubled up under him. It was Turquoise, who, six or eight years ago, rewarded good feeding by getting away from his sais, falling down and ruining himself, but who, none the less, has lived an honoured pensioner on the Maharaja’s bounty ever since. No horses are shot in the Jodhpur stables, and when one dies—they have lost not more than twenty-five in six years—his funeral is an event. He is wrapped in a white sheet which is strewn with flowers, and, amid the weeping of the saises, is borne away to the burial ground.