At night we drove to Malabar Hill to the new Viceroy's reception, and it was all pretty much the same as going to the reception given by their Royal Highnesses. The air damp, hot, and dusty, and for a long way heavy with the smell of roasting bodies, and this time inscriptions across the lamplit road were changed to "God bless our new Viceroy;" but we had the same waiting outside Government House, met the same people and heard much the same talk about Lord Curzon's Byculla speech and about this one and the other. "So and so is looking well isn't he?" "Yes, yes—ha, ha—laying it on a bit, isn't he! Must be a stone heavier since his leave—takes his fences though they say like a man. Oh! excellent speech. They must be tired—poor people—hear they were very pleased with our decorations. Well, you know they weren't bad, were they?" Of course the "excellent speech" was Lord Curzon's farewell, and "They" stands for their Royal Highnesses.
I noticed some Parsi ladies rather better looking than I had already seen. One was really beautiful, allowing a decimal point off her nose. This beauty moved briskly and firmly and had eyes to see and be seen. Many of them have slightly hen-like expressions and wear glasses and carry their shoulders too high. As they are the only native women who appear in public they naturally draw your attention. The Hindoos and Mohammedans shut their women up at home and glower on yours; but the Parsi goes about with his wife and daughters with him in public, and therefore enlists your sympathy. These Parsis were driven from Persia in pre-Mohammedan times by religious persecution. I suppose their belief was akin to our old religion which the masterful Columba rang out of Iona. I don't think I have seen any men on apparently such friendly relations with their women and children. You see them everywhere in Bombay, often in family groups, their expressions beyond being clever, perhaps shrewd, are essentially those of gentlemen and gentlewomen.[6] The only other native women I have seen have their mouths so horribly red with betel nut and red saliva that you dare not look at them twice, so perhaps it is as well that their absence is so conspicuous.
[6] The strength of intellectual capacity added to the material wealth which is possessed by this community have given it abnormal prominence, the measure of which may be estimated by the fact that out of a total of 287,000,000 inhabitants of India, the Parsis do not number even one-tenth of a million. See Sir Thomas Holdich's "India."
I need hardly say that Mrs H. and G. were the most beautifully dressed ladies in the crowd, and made the most perfect curtseys, and H. and I the most elegant bows to the Viceroy and Vicereine. They stood on a dais, and as we passed in file we were introduced, and the Viceroy bobbed and Lady Minto looked and smiled a little, just as if she knew your name and about you and saw more than men as trees walking, and we bowed and went on, thinking it nice to see people in so great and responsible a position attending to the little details so well, not forgetting that many littles make a mickle, and that those two servants of the Empire have been standing doing this for half an hour, and will still have to go on for an hour at least in this very tiring Bombay heat and crowd, and after a P. & O. voyage and landing! Their total effort for all the ceremonies of the day before, and years to come, rather appalled me to think of. Bravo! Public Servants, who work for honour and the Empire; how will the Socialist fill your places when he is on top. As before, gorgeously apparelled scarlet turbaned waiters gave us champagne, and native princes hemmed the tables for it, and chocolates. Here is a little picture of what I remember—you may suppose some of the figures represent our party after getting over the bow and into the straight for the cup. We then wandered about, and admired the uniforms of the governor's body guard, tall native soldiers standing round about the passages with huge turbans and beards, blue tunics, white breeches, and tall black boots, all straight and stiff as their lances, and barring their roving black eyes, as motionless. From a verandah opposite the Viceroy, we watched the new comers making their bows; ladies, soldiers, sailors, civilians, single or married passed, and never were two bows or curtseys absolutely alike, nor were two walks, but the Viceroy's bow and Lady Minto's pleasant smile and half look of recognition were equally cordial to all.
A Reception in Government House, Bombay.
Our departure—hours to wait again for our carriage. H. stood-by in front, waiting for our number to be shouted; fortune drove me wandering up the drive with a Government House cheroot, too fagged to speak to people, and lo and behold! our carriage driver and syce, asleep in a by-way. So I brought it along and sung out 658! 658! and away we all got hours sooner than might have been.
The road is full of carriages, gharries, and dog carts. Occupants—officers, sailors, and soldiers in batches, alone or with ladies; white shirts and skirts gleam green in the moonlight—the road—dusty, stuffy, and the pace go-as-you-please; past a lamplit bungalow in the shadows of trees and out into the open again and moonlight and dust—past a motor by the roadside, its owner, in court dress, sweating at its works—dust, moonlight, and black silk—a Whistler by Jove! Now we pass a slow going gharry, and now two young hatless soldiers in a high dog cart pass us under the trees, downhill at a canter, an inch between us, and half an inch between their off wheel and the edge of the road, and the sea ten feet beneath. Then along the lines of tents, with their curtains open and occupants going to bed.… We too must experience that tent life, but not in town if we can help it.
By all that's lucky the lift works still! That grand stairway is a climb, in the sma' hours—a pipe and a chat and this line in this journal, and under the mosquito curtains to sleep—I hope till past time for church; all the common prey of the grey mosquito, viceroy, public servant, private gentleman alike.