On the whole the Lahore museum was a well-chosen and arranged museum, judiciously limited to Indian art, and it was interesting to see the groups of natives—men, women, and children—apparently scanning the different objects with the greatest interest and with much animated conversation among themselves. One afternoon we drove to the Waza Khan Mosque, and I made the sketch reproduced [here] of the entrance to the mosque from the carriage. The crowd was curious, but not nearly so troublesome as elsewhere, and our conductor, or running footman, kept them off pretty well. The square had large pools of mud in it here and there after recent rains. Zebus were straying about, or lying down. Fruit and good stalls occupied other parts of the ground, and ox-carts deposited loads of wood. Men sat in groups in the porch of the mosque, or on the steps, from which boys flew their little diamond-shaped paper kites. The mysterious-looking white figures of the Mohammedan women wandered about like substantial ghosts. We saw a pretty little gazelle at one of the stalls, perfectly tame, and a great pet of the native who owned it.
The Cashmere travelling merchants, who display their tempting wares at all the hotels, spread out their stuffs in profusion—Bokhara embroideries, Persian covers, kincobs, turbans, and portières of black, red, or green grounds, effectively decorated with designs in the raised wax, such as we saw in the museum—and used all their persuasive arts to effect sales.
We did not stay long enough in Lahore to see much of the Society there, but before leaving we had a visit from the Princess Duleep Singh and her sister, who, hearing from friends at Amritzar that we were there, came to see us at the hotel. The princess was dressed as a Parsee lady in beautiful classical draperies, white with embroidered borders, and she drove herself in a dog-cart, but the sister was in European dress. The princess recalled the circumstance of my having made a little sketch in her brother the prince’s cottage on the Norfolk coast, which had been designed for him by Mr Detmar Blow, which we visited when staying in the neighbourhood.
THE MERCHANTS OF KASHMIR
We left Lahore the mid-day Lucknow Mail, after a long wait, the platform covered with picturesque groups of squatting natives. We eventually shared a compartment, as far as Umballa, with an English official, his German wife and a little girl. As far as Umballa on this line, coming north, we had already journeyed. The chief incident after leaving Lahore was the catching fire of one of the boxes of one of the carriages of our train, which caused the passengers hastily to leave it, and crowd into other parts of the train, when it was stopped and the burning carriage taken off at a small station just before Amritzar.
LAHORE—THE MOSQUE OF WAZA KHAN
At Umballa, the dining station, which we reached when it was dark, some said we had to change, others said not. This was puzzling. One official with more authority than the others said emphatically “no,” at last. So, having just time, we scurried across the bridge to the refreshment room with light hearts and sharp appetites, snatched a hasty meal and hurried back to find Moonsawmy, who acted as courier and took charge of the tickets, in some difficulty with the officials about the tickets. One official (the stationmaster) came up, and then said we ought to have changed into the train which was just at that moment steaming out of the station, excusing his mistake by saying that he had not till then seen our tickets, fussily ordering a humble Hindu clerk to take the numbers.
After this we got into our compartment again and settled ourselves for a sleep, as we were not due at Lucknow until next morning. During the night we were constantly disturbed by people opening the carriage door and peering in—no doubt in search of lower berths, which we occupied. At one place a Eurasian got in with a quantity of baggage, and got out again only a few stations off. On leaving, perceiving he had disturbed us he said he was “sorry for the trouble.”