The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2). Lady Isabel Burton
the usual attendants were lizards and bandicoot rats. As each tenant went away he carried off his furniture, so it was necessary to procure bed, table, and chairs. That, however, was easily done by means of a little Parsee broker, who went by the name of "The General," and who had plundered generations after generations of cadets. He could supply everything from a needle to a buggy, or ten thousand rupees on interest, and those who once drank his wine never forgot it. He was shockingly scandalized at the sight of my wig. Parsees must touch nothing that come from the human body.
His Moonshee.
He recommended as moonshee, or language-master, a venerable old Parsee priest, in white hat and beard, named Dosabhai Sohrabji, at that time the best-known coach in Bombay. Through his hands also generations of griffins have passed. With him, as with all other Parsees, Gujarati was the mother tongue, but he also taught Hindostani and Persian, the latter the usual vile Indian article. He had a great reputation as a teacher, and he managed to ruin it by publishing a book of dialogues in English and these three languages, wherein he showed his perfect unfitness. He was very good, however, when he had no pretensions, and in his hands I soon got through the Akhlak-i-Hindi and the Tota-Kaháni. I remained friends with the old man till the end of his days, and the master always used to quote his pupil, as a man who could learn a language running.
The Sanitarium was not pleasantly placed. In latter days the foreshore was regulated, and a railroad ran along the sea. But in 1842 the façade was a place of abominations, and amongst them, not the least, was the Smashán, or Hindú burning-ground. The fire-birth was conducted with very little decency; the pyres were built up on the sands, and heads and limbs were allowed to tumble off, and when the wind set in the right quarter, the smell of roast Hindú was most unpleasant. The occupants of the Sanitarium were supposed to be invalids, but they led the most roystering and rackety life. Mostly they slept in the open, under mosquito-curtains, with a calico ceiling, and a bottle of cognac under the bed. One of these, who shall be nameless, married shortly after, and was sturdily forbidden by his wife to indulge in night draughts when he happened to awake. He succumbed, but pleaded permission to have an earthen gugglet of pure water. The spouse awoke one night in a state of thirst, which she proceeded to quench, and was nearly choked by a draught of gin-and-water compounded in what are called nor'-wester proportions, three of spirit to one of water. One of the invalids led me into all kinds of mischief, introducing me to native society of which the less said the better.
The Governor of Bombay at the time was Colonel Sir George Arthur, Bart, K.C.H., who appears in "Jack Hinton, the Guardsman." He was supposed to be connected with the Royal Family through George IV., and had some curious ideas about his visitors "backing" from the "Presence." The Commander-in-Chief was old Sir Thomas Macmahon, popularly called "Tommy." He was one of the old soldiers who had served under the Duke of Wellington, who had the merit of looking after his friends, as well as looking up his enemies; but he was utterly unfit for any command, except that of a brigade. It would be impossible to tell one tithe of the stories current about him. One of his pet abominations was a certain Lieutenant Pilfold, of the 2nd Queen's, whose commanding officer, Major Brough, was perpetually court-martialling. Pilfold belonged to that order of soldiers which is popularly called "the lawyer," and invariably argued himself out of every difficulty. Pilfold was first court-martialled in 1840, then 1841, and 1844, when, after being nearly cashiered, he changed into a regiment in Australia, and died. At last he revenged himself upon the Commander-in-Chief by declaring that "as hares go mad in March, so Major-Generals go mad in May"—the day when "Tommy" confirmed one of the court-martials, that was quashed from home.
Indian Navy.
The Bombay Marine, or, as the officers preferred it to be called, "The Indian Navy," had come to grief. Their excellent superintendent, Admiral Sir Charles Malcolm, was a devoted geographer; in fact, he was the man who provoked the saying, "Capable of speaking evil, even of the Equator." Under his rule, when there was peace at sea, the officers were allowed ample leave to travel and explore in the most dangerous countries, and they did brilliant service. Their names are too well known to require quotation. But Sir Charles was succeeded by a certain Captain Oliver, R.N., a sailor of the Commodore Trunnion type, and a martinet of the first water. He made them stick to their monotonous and wearisome duties in the Persian Gulf, and in other places, popularly said to be separated by a sheet of brown paper. He was as vindictive as he was one-ideaed, and the service will never forget the way in which he broke the heart of an unfortunate Lieutenant Bird.
English Bigotry.
Captain Cleland, of the John Knox, had introduced me to his sister, Mrs. Woodburn, who was married to an adjutant of the 25th Regiment of Sepoys, and she kindly introduced me to Bombay society. I stood perfectly aghast in its presence. The rank climate of India, which produces such a marvellous development of vegetation, seems to have a similar effect upon the Anglo-Indian individuality. It shot up, as if suddenly relieved of the weight with which society controls it in England. The irreligious were marvellously irreligious, and the religious no less marvellously religious. The latter showed the narrowest, most fanatic, and the most intolerant spirit; no hard-grit Baptist could compare with them. They looked upon the heathen around them (very often far better than themselves) as faggots ready for burning.3 They believed that the Parsees adored the sun, that the Hindús worshipped stocks and stones, and that the Mohammedans were slaves to what they called "the impostor Mahomet." They were not more lenient to those of their own blood who did not run on exactly the same lines with them. A Roman Catholic, as they called him, was doomed to perdition, and the same was the case with all non-church-going Protestants. It is hardly to be wondered at if, at times, they lost their wits. One man, who was about the wildest of his day, and who was known as the "Patel" of Griffin-gaon, suddenly got a "call." He used to distinguish himself by climbing a tree every morning, and by shouting with all his might, "Dunga Chhor-do, Jesus Christ, Pakro," meaning, "Abandon the world, and catch hold of the Saviour." This lasted for years, and it ended in his breaking down in the moral line, and dying in a mad-house.
The worst of all this was, that in 1842, there were very few white faces in Bombay, and every man, woman, and child knew his, her, or its religious affairs, as well as their own. It was, in fact, a garrison, not a colony. People lived in a kind of huge barracks. Essentially a middle-class society, like that of a small county town in England, it was suddenly raised to the top of a tree, and lost its head accordingly. Men whose parents in England were small tradesmen, or bailiffs in Scotland, found themselves ruling districts and commanding regiments, riding in carriages, and owning more pounds a month than their parents had pounds a year. Those who had interest, especially in Leadenhall Street, monopolized the best appointments, and gathered in clans at the Residency, as head-quarters were called. They formed the usual ring—a magic circle into which no intruder was admitted, save by the pain fort et dure of intermarriage. The children were hideously brought up, and, under the age of five, used language that would make a porter's hair stand on an end. The parents separated, of course, into cliques. At that time Bombay was ruled by two Queens, who in subaltern circles went by the name of "Old Mother Plausible," and "Old Mother Damnable."
To give a taste of "Mother Damnable's" quality: I had been waltzing with a girl, who, after too much exertion, declared herself fainting. I led her into what would at home be called the cloak-room, fetched her a glass of water, and was putting it to her lips, when the old lady stood at the door. "Oh dear! I never intended to interrupt you," she said, made a low bow, and went out of the room, positively delighted. "Mother Plausible's" style was being intensely respectable. She was terribly "exercised" about a son at Addiscombe, and carefully consulted every new cadet about his proficiency in learning. "But does he prefer the classics?" she asked a wild Irishman. "I don't know that he does," was the answer. "Or mathematics?" The same result. "Or modern languages?" "Well, no!" "Then what does he do?" "Faix," said the informant, scratching his head for an idea, "he's a very purty hand at football."
But it was not only Society that had such an effect upon me. I found the Company's officers, as they were called, placed in a truly ignoble position. They had double commissions, and signed by the Crown, and yet they ranked with, but after, their brothers and cousins in the Queen's service. Moreover, with that strange superciliousness, which seems to characterize the English