Winter India/Chapter 23

by Eliza Ruhamah Scidmore

 

CHAPTER XXIII
ALWAR

HE superior tourist in India usually makes a point of his acquaintance with rulers of native states, generally harps on the fact unduly, and raises bitterness in the heart of the plain tourist and common sight-seer, who cannot refer casually to the rajas, diwans, residents, and political agents he knows. "I was the guest of the raja at So-and-So," "I was put up at the maharaja's bangla in Here-and-There," say such enviable beings. One listens with envy and deep humility if he does not know that a card from one's consul, even a courteously worded note from the tourist himself, will secure one the privilege of stopping at the government rest-house or raja's bangla in a native state—at a fixed price for his lodging and carriage. One makes the usual grand tour and sees the great sights of India without leaving British territory, although one third of the area and one fifth the population of India are under native rule. Hyderabad in the Deccan, where the Nizam rules twelve millions of people occupying a territory as large as Italy, Udaipur (spelled in seventy-two different ways), Jodhpur, Baroda, Indore, Alwar, Gwalior, and Kashmir are the native states the tourist finds most worth seeing. "I am only visiting native states on this trip," said one superior traveler. "I do not care for the beaten track." When we met him on the grand thoroughfare weeks later and asked as to his enjoyment of innermost India, he denounced native rulers in sweeping terms. "I arrived in ——— the day the raja died in Calcutta, so there was nothing doing there, unless I waited a week to see a funeral. I presented my letter to the diwan at ——— and he said: 'I am very sorry, but His Highness has been so intoxicated for the past fortnight that he has not seen any one. He is drinking a bottle of brandy and one of chartreuse a day, in addition to much champagne and Scotch and soda. I really cannot say when His Highness will be fit to receive visitors again.' At ——— it rained cats and dogs, the bangla leaked, the bedding was wet, and the food bad, and I came away without presenting my letter. All India is off the beaten track."

We stopped at Alwar, in Rajputana, on our way back to Agra to keep our engagement with the February moon in the garden of the Taj. We reached Alwar station, as we had reached so many other places, between one and two o'clock in the morning. There was no carriage, no khansamah, nor any one from the maharaja's bangla to meet us—only sodden darkness and the platform of the small railway station. A tiny ekka was found, and in some way we, with the luggage and bearer, managed to get in the absurd little cab, and a mite of a pony managed

 

THE OLD CITY OF AMBER, FROM THE TOP OF THE DESERTED PALACE

 

to pull us to the bangla. A sleepy khansamah made us comfortable for the rest of the night.

A relay of messengers, and finally a victoria with men in blue palace livery, came from the diwan, or prime minister of the tiny empire, at nine in the morning. We were driven to his house, and went through many anterooms to a cool, dark inner drawing-room, where a portly personage in a mixed Oriental and European costume of white flannel received us with great cordiality. His little daughter, in a woolen hood and many calico coats, but with only jingling anklets to keep her little bare brown feet and legs warm, was brought in and duly admired, and then he presented one Soorajbux, the learned librarian of the high school, who was detailed as our cicerone for the day. He took us first to the modern palace, a suburban villa full of European furniture and notions, where the young raja spent his occasional vacations from the Mayo College at Ajmir. Among the incongruities in the raja's study was a framed chromolithograph of Wood's single-apron binder at work in an American wheat-field. There were inclined planes as well as staircases that the ruler might ride to his bedchamber if he wished, and a beautiful durbar hall with carved window-lattices. From the upper windows we looked down upon a sunken garden, once a sacred tank, where fern- and orchid-houses overflowed with beautiful plants; and by avenues of bo- and banian-trees we reached the garden of the lions, tigers, and bears, home also of wonderful red, blue, and yellow parrots who uttered long Rajput sentences.

We drove rapidly back to the city and through the bazaars, where women in gaily embroidered phulkaris set with looking-glasses seemed to have walked away in those long-favored decorations of British drawing-rooms. We saw the stables, the five hundred horses, the forty elephants tramping and swinging their trunks in idleness "for the honor and glory of the raja," and then made another dash through city streets, with the populace saluting the palace equipage. In one court of the palace, an elephant in state trappings and a body-guard of soldiers waited before the temple where the raja's mother was praying. In the next court, the bearded keeper of the library waited for us in highly impatient mood. He had been waiting for hours, by the diwan's command, and, with much communing in his beard, he produced the books which are Alwar's pride—a beautifully illuminated Koran, a gorgeous Gulistan whose medallions, letters, and borders would excite a Western bibliophile, many Persian books illuminated by the best old Delhi painters,—and showed us one room full of sacred Vedas.

We were taken on to farther courts and through many marble halls to the banquet-hall, where the long dining-table was of solid silver. The water ran gurgling in silver channels down its length, and jeweled birds in gold and silver cages warbled over this precious garden-bed. There was a beautiful white-marble durbar hall with carved balconies and lattices, and a glittering Shish Mahal adjoining it, all a dazzle of mirrors and colored glass. It further overlooked a great tank or lake surrounded by marble terraces, balustrades, and pavilions, with a rugged mountain fortress crowning the perpendicular rock mass beyond the tank. It was a fairyland sight by day, and when illuminated for viceregal fêtes must transcend all Indian fantasies. A picturesque old turban claimed us and led the way to the armory, where room after room was filled with weapons with murderous and agonizing edges and points; their handles jeweled, carved, inlaid, and damascened; the blades wonderfully tempered, mottled and grained, often chased and inlaid with verses. One sword-blade had a shallow runnel near the hilt, in which a dozen loose pearls ran up and down in the gummy ooze of oil left by the zealous cleaners. Sword-hilts set with pearls, rubies, and diamonds; jade hilts jeweled all over; and hilts of Jeypore enamel were the delight of the gleeful, proud old armorer, who had a dramatic way of drawing a blade, giving it a flourish in air, and presenting it suddenly level with one's eyes for close inspection. We had finally to tear ourselves away from the array of more and more terrible weapons his minions brought from some inexhaustible storehouse—spears, daggers, elephant-goads, battle-axes, and chopping-knives of terrible ingenuity. The jewels of Alwar, the emerald cup, and the precious cabochon fringes would take pages to themselves, rivaling as they do the collections of temples.

We were hurried out to the white court overlooked by the zenana windows to see the return of the maharani,—such a spectacular scene that it was a pity the central figure in it was so curtained and veiled as not to be able to see it herself. Lancers on horse-back, state elephants and color-bearers, first appeared in the white archway and, with the troops, ranged themselves around the dazzling court. Silver palanquins with red silk curtains held the royal ladies, and three hundred women attendants muffled in red, yellow, and white draperies chanted as they walked beside them. It was such a brilliant pageant that we could hardly believe it the ordinary weekday proceeding. To prove how much more splendid Alwar rulers could be on gala occasions, they showed us a two-story red and gold elephant carriage in which fifty people ride in state processions, and store-houses full of jeweled elephant trappings.

Then we saw the chetahs, or hunting leopards, huge spotted yellow cats, blindfolded and wearing funny little leather caps, and tied head, tail, and legs to a cage or skeleton stall. They stood inert as wooden cats, and would neither growl, snap, nor even wink when the keepers tried to rouse them, two men lifting a chetah and setting it down as they might lift and move a four-legged table. In the jail yard and workshops the law breakers were contentedly weaving carpets, dhurries, and cloth, making paper, grinding corn, and otherwise making themselves useful. The leader, a red-handed murderer, chanted the carpet pattern, and his fellow-criminals bawled loudly in response, tying "one green, three white, two blue" automatically. There are already hereditary criminals in these modern, comfortable jails, and the jail caste is fast becoming a definite order.

 

THE DESERTED PALACE, FROM THE LAKE, AMBER

 

Soorajbux took us to his high-school building, showed us his illuminated Persian books, and asked many naïve questions about the outer world. "The Japanese—are they at all like the Hindus? Of what religious caste are they? Are they civilized like us?" And we left Soorajbux exclaiming: "What! they are the most refined and artistic people in the world! Their art a revelation to and the despair of all Europe! They are more esthetic than the English! How very wonderful! Do the English know it?"

In the afternoon the courteous old diwan returned our visit, his yellow turban and suite sending the bangla staff into such agitation that we barely made the station and train in time as a fierce thunder-storm came on. We dined and waited a few hours at Bandikui Junction, and then took train for Agra, arriving at half-past three in the morning; for, no matter from which direction the traveler comes, it seems impossible ever to reach Agra at a rational hour. We stopped this time at the hotel where the German professor had enjoyed the grilled mutton-chops, and a notice on the wall of my room requested: "Visitors will please not beat the servants, but report them to the manager, who will punish them."

We revisited the Taj on a gray, cloudy morning, the moist air heavy with the fragrance of flowers. We sat again on the balcony of the Jasmine Tower at the fort and watched a murky sunlight play upon the distant white bubbles of the Taj, and then took an afternoon train for Cwalior. The whole timetable of the Indian Midland Railway was put out of joint and our train made an hour late by the lamp dropping through the roof of our compartment. Guards and station-masters at three stopping-places chattered and gave frenzied orders, and while a small lamp was in some way tied into the large socket, nothing could bring a man of sufficiently ignoble caste to wipe the oil and broken glass from the floor.