BETTER LUCK AT LUCKNOW—THROUGH THE CHOWK ON AN ELEPHANT
We visited another friend who had been spending the winter at Lucknow—Mrs Jopling-Rowe, the well-known artist, whose son is a Magistrate here, dining with them at their charming bungalow one evening. Mr Commissioner Jopling very courteously placed elephants at our disposal on which to ride through the chowk.
An irrigation well near the hotel interested me, and I made a sketch of it in a chequered shade. The yoke of oxen and two natives at work hauling up the water for the garden in a leather bucket. While thus engaged another friend travelling in the East came up, so that as regards friends we were quite in luck’s way at Lucknow.
After this it was time to go and meet the elephants our friends had ordered at the chowk. Mrs Jopling-Rowe took us in her carriage through Wentworth Park, and past the palaces to the gate of the city, where we found two fine elephants in waiting. My wife and I mounted one of them by the usual ladder, the animal kneeling. A young officer who was of the party, however, showed us another way. He got a leg up by means of the trunk, and so over the elephant’s head on to his back. We then processed through the bazaar (the chowk), preceded by a native policeman, in khaki with a scarlet turban, to clear the way, and two more behind. The elephants seemed to quite fill up the narrow street, so that there was danger of a block when we met an ox-cart. A very comprehensive view is to be had from an elephant’s back, as one can see not only a long way ahead, but well into the shops where the people are at work, and also command the balconies and roofs, where there were often interesting groups.
IRRIGATION WELL, LUCKNOW
We threaded our way through the chowk, passing at its end under one of the old arched gateways and along a narrower street, which led us out into the broad military road, which the British, after the revolt, ruthlessly cut right through the old city, uglifying it, of course. There is a wonderful variety and richness, again, here, in the old house fronts with arcaded balconies and doorways of carved wood. The patterns, chiefly running borders, treated very fancifully and delicately. The native houses were not so high as in Lahore, but the carving might compare with the same sort of work there in detail.
We lunched at the charming abode of another English official and his wife (Mr and Mrs Saunders), who were very pleasant and hospitable. The lady had considerable taste in furniture and decoration, and her rooms showed the influence of white and green, and looked cool and agreeable in a light key.
Afterwards we drove to see the celebrated Martinière, the young officer accompanying us. The Martinière is the fantastic palace built by the French General or Captain Martin, before mentioned, and is a curious conglomerate sort of scenic design of late Italo-French Renaissance character, reminding one rather of Isola Bella, semi-classical figures being perched on every pinnacle and balustrade, and there were two grotesque lions, doing duty as supporters or consoles, with mouths so open that the sky could be seen through them. The building towered high in several stories in the centre, and spread out wide into two curved long and low wings of one story, opening on to broad terraces and steps leading to a small lake, from the middle of which rose a fluted column. The general’s heart is said to be buried beneath this. The Martinière was intended by him to be a college for boys. He founded another at Calcutta, and another in his native town—Lyons—in France. Martin seems to have had a curious, eventful history, beginning as a French prisoner, under the British, afterwards entering the British army and becoming a captain, when he took service under the Nawab of Oudh and became general of his army, finally accumulating by some means a large fortune, which he spent on this building and in founding the schools which bear his name.
We passed another house ruined at the time of “the Mutiny,” whence the women and children were removed to from the Residency, and where Lieutenant Paul is buried.