A little Brahman village at the railway station of Rajpaira is reached in the middle of the afternoon; but it provides little or nothing in the way of accommodation for a European. The chow-keedar of the dak bungalow blandly declares his inability to provide anything eatable for a Sahib, and the Eurasian employes at the railway station are unaccommodating and indifferent, owing to the travel-stained and ordinary appearance of my apparel. The Eurasians, by the by, impress me far less favorably as a race than do the better-class full-blood natives. It seems to be the unfortunate fate of most mixed races to inherit the more undesirable qualities of both progenitors, and the better characteristics of neither. No less than the mongrel populations of certain West Indian islands, the Spanish-speaking republics, and the mulattoes of the Southern States, do the Eurasians of India present in their character eloquent argumentation against the error of miscegenation.
A little Brahman village is anything but, an encouraging place for a traveller to penetrate in search of eatables. A thin, yellow-skinned Brahman, with a calico fig-leaf suspended from a cocoa-nut-fibre waist-string, and the white-and-red tattooing of his holy caste on his forehead, presides over a big lump of goodakoo (a preparation of tobacco, rose-leaves, jaggeree, bananas, opium, and cardamom seed, used for hookah-smoking), and his double performs the same office for sickly, warm goats' milk and doughy, unleavened chup-patties. Uninviting as is the prospect, one is compelled, by the total absence of any alternative, to patronize the proprietor of the latter articles.
As I step inside his little shed-like establishment to see what he has, he holds up his hands in holy trepidation at the unhallowed intrusion, and begs me to be seated outside. My entrance causes as much consternation as the traditional bull in the china shop, the explanation of which is to be found in the fact that anything I might happen to touch becomes at once defiled beyond redemption for the consumption of native customers. With the weather wilting hot, doughy chuppaties and lukewarm, unstrained, strong-tasting goats' milk can scarcely be called an appetizing meal, and the latter is served in the usual cheap, earthenware platter, which is at once tossed out and broken.
The natives of India are probably less concerned about their stomachs than the people of any other country in the world. They seem to delight in fasting, and growing thin and emaciated; their ordinary meal is a handful of parched grain and a few swallows of milk or water. Among the aesthetic Brahmans are many specimens reduced by habitual fasting and general meagreness of diet to the condition of living skeletons; yet they seem to enjoy splendid health, and live to a shrivelled old age. The Brahman shop-keeper squats contentedly among his wares, passing the hours in dreamy meditation and in consoling pipes of goodakoo. Nothing seems to disturb his calm serenity, any more than the reposeful expression on the countenance of a marble Buddha could be affected—nothing but the approach of a Sahib toward his shop. It is interesting to observe the mingled play of politeness, apprehension, and alarm in the actions of a Brahman shopkeeper at the appearance of a blundering, but withal well-meaning Sahib, among his wares. Knowing, from long experience, that the Englishman would on no account wilfully injure his property or trample wantonly on his caste prejudices, he is at his wits' end to comport himself deferentially and at the same time prevent anything from being handled. Money has to be placed where the Brahman can pick it up without incurring the awful danger of personal contact with an unhallowed kaffir.
The fifty miles, that from the splendid condition of the roads I have thought little enough for the average day's run, is duly reeled off as I ride into the splendid civil lines and cantonment of Um-balla at dusk. But my few days' experience on the roads of India have sufficed to convince me that fifty miles is entirely beyond the bounds of discretion. It is, in fact, beyond the bounds of discretion to be riding any distance in the present season here; fifty miles is overcome to-day only by the exercise of almost superhuman will-power.
The average native, when asked for the dak bungalow, is quite as likely to direct one to the post-office, the kutcherry, or any other government building, from a seeming inability to discriminate between them. At the entrance to Umballa one of these hopeful participants in the blessings of enlightened government informs me, with sundry obsequious salaams, that the dak bungalow is four miles farther. So thoroughly has my fifty-mile ride used up my energy that even this four miles, on a most perfect road, seems utterly impossible of accomplishment; besides which, experience has taught that following the directions given would very likely bring me to the post-office and farther away from the dak bungalow than ever.
Above the trees, not far away, is observed the weathercock of a chapel-spire, plainly indicating the location of the European quarter. Taking a branch road leading in that direction, I discover a party of English and native gentlemen playing a game of lawn-tennis. Arriving on the scene just as the game is breaking up, I am cordially invited to "come in and take a peg." To the uninitiated a "peg" is a rather ambiguous term, but to the Anglo-Indian its interpretation takes the seductive form of a big tumbler of brandy and soda, a "long drink," than which nothing could be more acceptable in my present fagged-out condition. No hesitation is therefore made in accepting; and, under the stimulating influence of the generous brandy and soda, exhausted nature is quickly recuperated. While not an advocate of indiscriminate indulgence in alcoholic stimulants, after an enervating ride through the wilting heat of an Indian day I am convinced that nothing is more beneficial than what Anglo-Indians laconically describe as a "peg."
This very opportune meeting results, naturally enough, in a pressing invitation to stay over and recruit up for a day, a programme to which I offer no objections, feeling rather overdone and in need of rest and recuperation. Mine hosts are police-commissioners, having supervision over the police-district of Uniballa. One of their number is on the eve of departure for his summer vacation in the Himalayas and, in honor of the event, several guests call round to partake of a champagne dinner, the sparkling Pommery Sec being quaffed ad libitum from pint tumblers. At the present time, no surer does water seek its level than the after-dinner conversation of Anglo-Indian officials turns into the discussion of the great depreciation of the silver rupee and its relation to the exchange at home. As the rate of exchange goes lower and lower, and no corresponding increase of salary takes place, the natural result is a great deal of hardship and dissatisfaction among those who, from various causes, have to send money to England. From the Anglo-Indians' daily association with Orientals and their peculiarly subtle understandings, it is perhaps not so surprising to find an occasional flight of fancy brought to bear upon the subject that would do credit to a professional romancer. One ingenious young civil officer present evolves a deep, deep scheme to get even with the government for present injustice that for far-reaching and persistent revenge speaks volumes for the young gentleman's determination to carry his point. His brilliant scheme is to retire on a pension at the proper time, live to the age of eighty years, and then marry a healthy girl of sixteen. As the pension of an Anglo-Indian government officer descends to his surviving widow, the ingenuity and depth of this person's reasoning powers becomes at once apparent. He proposes to take revenge for the present shortcomings of the government by saddling it with a pension for a hundred years or more after his retirement from active service.
Tusked and antlered trophies of the chase adorning the walls, and panther and tiger skins scattered about the floor, attest the police-commissioners' prowess with the rifle in the surrounding jungle. The height of every young Englishman's ambition when he comes to India is to kill a tiger; not until with his own rifle he has laid low a genuine Tigris Indicus, and handed its striped pelt over to the taxidermist, does he feel entitled to hold his chin at a becoming elevation and to indulge in the luxury of talking about the big game of the jungle on an equality with his fellows. Among the pets of the establishment are a youthful black bear that spends much of its time in climbing up and down a post on the lawn, a recently captured monkey that utters cries of alarm and looks badly frightened when approached by a white person, and a pair of spotted deer. These, together with several hunting dogs that delight in taking wanton liberties with the bear and deer, form quite a happy, though not altogether trustful family party in the grounds.
The day's rest does me a world of good, and upon resuming my journey the voice of my own experience is augmented by the advice of my entertainers, in warning me against overexertion and fatigue in so trying a climate as India. It has rained during the night, and the early morning is signalled by cooler weather than has yet been experienced from Lahore. Companies of tall Sikhs, magnificent-looking fellows, in their trim karki uniforms and monster turbans, are drilling within the native-infantry lines as I wheel through the broad avenues of one of the finest cantonments in all India, and English officers and their wives are taking the morning air on horseback.