The Days Before Yesterday

et-The mistaken Ministre-The "Gordons"-Barrackpore-A Swiss Family Robinson aerial house-The child and the elephants-The merry midshipmen-Some of their escapades-A huge haul of fishes-Queen

left Ottawa for Calcutta, taking on the way a three months' well-earned holiday in England.

ernor-General of Canada up to 1878, after which he had served as British Ambass

th positions, serving in Canada from 1898

Indian ex-capital, though the river banks are flat and uninteresting. The Hooghly is one of the most difficult rivers in the world to navigate, for the shoals and sand-banks change almost daily with the strong tides, and the white Hooghly pilots are men at the very top of their profession, and earn some L2000 a year apiece. They are tremendous swells, and are perfectly conscious of the fact, coming on board with their native servants and their white "cub" or pupil. There is one shoal in particular, known as the "James

zam of Hyderabad, who alone ranks as a Sovereign, to nine for the smaller princes. Should the British Government wish to mark its strong displeasure with any native ruler, it sometimes does so by reducing the number of guns of his salute, and correspondingly, to have the number increased is a high honour. Sulkily and unwillingly the Rajah of whom I am thinking journeyed to Calcutta, and sulkily and unwillingly did he attend the Durbar. On occasions such as these, visiting native Princes are the guests of the Government of India at Hastings House (Warren Hastings' old country house in the suburbs of Calcutta, specially renovated and fitted up for the purpose), and the Viceroy's state carriages are sent to convey them to Government House. Everything in the way of ceremonial in India is done strictly by rule. The precise number of steps the Viceroy will advance to greet visiting Rajahs is all laid down in a little book. The Nizam of Hyderabad is met by the Viceroy with all his staff at the state entrance of Government House, and he is accompanied through all the rooms, both on his arrival and on his departure; but, as I said before, the Nizam ranks as a Sovereign. In the case of lesser lights the Viceroy advances anything from three to twenty steps. These points may appear very trivial to Europeans, but to Orientals they assume great importance, and, after all, India is a part of Asia. At right angles to the Calcutta throne-room is the fine Marble Hall, with marble floor and columns and an entirely gilt ceiling; empty except for six colossal busts of Roman Emperors, which, together with a number of splendid cut-glass chandeliers of the best French Louis XV. period, and a full-length portrait of Louis XV. himself, fell into our hands through the fortunes of war at a time when our relations with our presen

not to be!' Now, danger happily averted, His Highness has seldom reposed under the canopy of a sounder brain than at present." Another long pause, and the second invariable question: "I trust that your Highness' Army is in its usual efficient state?" The surly Rajah, "Khirr Virr." The native interpreter, "Without doubt His Highness' Army has never yet been so efficient. Should troubles arise, or a pretty kettle of fish unfortunately occur, His Highness places his entire Army at your Excellency's disposal; as Swan of Avon says, 'Come the three corners of the world in arms, and we shall shock them.'" A third question, "I trust that the crops in your Highness' dominion are satisfactory?" The Rajah, "Ghirrr Firrr." The interpreter, "Stimulated without doubt by your Excellency's auspicious visit to neighbouring State, the soil in His Highness' dominions has determined to beat record and to go regular mucker. Crops tenfold ordinary capacity are springing from the ground everywhere." One has seen a conjurer produce half a roomful of paper flowers from a hat, or even from an even less promising receptacle, but no conjurer was in it with that interpreter, who from two sulky monosyllabic grunts evolved a perfec

sels with their graceful lines and huge spars, all clean and spick and span with green and white paint, the ubiquitous Calcutta crows perched in serried ranks on their yards. To my mind a full-rigged ship is the most beautiful object man has ever devised, and when the dusk was falling, with every spar and rope outlined in black against the vivid crimson of the shor

lly excluded from its green expanse, so it wears a curiously home-like appearance. The Maidan is very reminiscent of Hyde Park, though almost double its size. There is one spot, where the Got

osaics, and stained glass. It possesses the finest organ in Asia, and a really excellent choir, the men Europeans, the boys being Eurasians. These small half-castes have very sweet voices, with a curious and not unpleasing metallic timbre about them. At evening service in the cathedral, should one ignore such details as the rows of electric punkahs, the temperature, and the dingy complexio

l, four hundred Gordons were marched to a parade service at St. Andrew's. The most optimistic mosquito had never in his wildest dreams imagined such a succulent banquet as that afforded by four hundred bare-kneed, kilted Highlanders, and the mosquitoes made the fullest use of their unique opportunity. Soon the church resounded with the vigorous slapping of hands on bare knees and thighs, as t

The French Republic had declared war on Great Britain in 1793, and the Government had made an urgent appeal for fresh levies of troops. Duchess Jean, by her novel osculatory methods, raised the Gordons in four months. My father and mother were married at Gordon Castle in 1832, and the wedding guests grew so excessively convivial that they carried everything o

n be no doubt but that you are in Asia. A "green" would be a palpable misnomer for the parched grass of an Indian dry season, still a "brown" comes as a shock at first. The gardens merit their reputation. There are innumerable ponds, or "tanks," of lotus and water-lilies of every hue: scarlet, crimson, white, and pure sky-blue, the latter an importation from Australia. When these are in flower they are a lovely sight, and perhaps compensate for the myriads of mosquitoes who find in these ponds an ideal breeding-place, and assert their presence day and night most successfully. There are great drifts of Eucharis lilies growing under the protecting shadows of the trees along shady walks, and the

cked up all the little things about the rooms into big cases. An hour later they were on their way up the river by steamer, and when we arrived at Barrackpore for tea, the house looked as though it had been lived in for weeks, with every object reposing on the tables in precisely the same position it had occupied earlier in the day in Calcutta. Late on Sunday night this process was reversed for the return jo

d-daughter. It was to be a sort of "Swiss Family Robinson" tree-house, infinitely superior to the house on the tree-tops of Kensington Gardens, which Wendy destined for Peter Pan. The house was duly built, with bamboo staircases, and little fenced-off bamboo platforms fitted with seats and tables, at different levels up the tree. The Swiss Family Robinson would have gone mad with jealousy at seeing such a desirable aerial abode, so imm

and his temper could be absolutely relied on. It is curious that natives, in speaking of a quiet, good-tempered animal, always speak of him as "poor" (gharib). The little boy was perpetually feeding Warren Hastings with oranges and bananas, and the two became great friends. It was a pretty sight seeing the fearless small boy in his white suit, bare legs, and little sun-helmet, standing in front of the great beast who could have crushed him to a wafer in one second, and ordering him in the v

d out of the windows of the carriage with immense interest, as they drove through London from Charing Cross

ak the vernacular with greater ease than English, he picked up from the servants the mo

icularly intelligent, and was unable to help me. Though of tender years, he was regrettably lacking in refinement, for his conversation consisted chiefly of an endless repetition of three or four words, not one of which I had ever heard before. Carefully treasuring these up, as having a fine martial smack about them suitable to the military career I then proposed embracing, I, in all innoc

notion of riding, but managed to stick on somehow by clinging to pommel and mane, banging here into a sedate Judge of the High Court, with an apologetic "Sorry, sir, but this swine of a pony won't steer;" barging there into a pompous Anglo-Indian official, as they yelled to their ponies, "Easy now, dogs-body, or you'll unship us both;" galloping as hard as their ponies could lay legs to the ground, cannoning into half the white inhabitants of Calcutta, but always with imperturbable good-humour. When their panting ponies tried to pull up to recover their wind a little, these rising hopes of the British Navy kicked them with their heels into a gallop again, shouting strange nautical oaths, and grinning from ear to ear with delight, until finally four ponies lathered in sweat, in the last stages of exhaustion, returned to Government Hous

runken garments, which looked more like tights than trousers, every button and seam obviously strained to the bursting point, and set to work playing tennis with their accustomed vigour. Soon there was a sound of rending cloth, and the senior midshipman, a portly youth of Teutonic amplitude of outline, lay down flat on his back on the lawn. A minute later there was a similar sound, and another boy lay down on his back and remained there, and a third lad quickly followed their example. A charming lady had noticed this from the verandah above, and ran down in some alarm, fearing that these young Nelsons had got sunstrokes. Somewhat confusedly they assured her that they were quite well

their behalf by a friendly kitmutgar. The dragging of the tank was really a wonderful sight. As the net reached the far end it was one solid mass of great shining, blue-grey fish, of about thirty pounds weight each. The most imaginative artist in depicting the "Miraculous Draught of Fishes" never approached the reality of Barrackpore, or pictured such vast quantities of writhing, silvery finny creatures. They were a fish called cattla by the natives, a species of carp, with a few eels and smaller fish of a bright red colour thrown in amongst them. I could never have believed that one pond could have held such incredible quantities of fish. The Viceroy, an intrepid pioneer in gastronomic matters, had a great cattla boiled for his dinner. The first mouthful def

to test the relative progress they were making. Every six months or so a letter from the Queen, beautifully written in Persian characters, reached Calcutta, to which my sister duly replied. In strict confidence, I may say that I strongly suspect that Lady Lansdowne's letters were written by her Moonshee, and that she merely copied the Persian characters, which she cou

es with hot countries. In bars in the United States, any one wishing for whisky and water was (I advisedly use the past tense) accustomed to drain a small tumbler of neat whisky, and then to swallow a glass of water. In India everything is arranged on this principle; the whisky and the water are kept quite separate. The dead-flat expanse of the Northern plains is unbroken by the mo

ve before now slipped over their horses' tails going up that terrific ascent, and I cannot conceive how the horses' girths manage to hold. Naini Tal is a delightful spot, with bungalows peeping out of dense greenery that fringes a clear lake. As in most hill-stations, the narrow riding tracks are scooped out of the hillsides with a perpendicular drop of, say, 500 feet on one side. These khudd paths, in addition to being very narrow, are so precipitous that it takes some while getting used to riding along them. A rather tiresome e

cretary, a prince of organisers, at once took possession of the telegraph wires, and in two hours his arrangements were complete-or as an Anglo-Indian would put it, "he had made his bundobust." The Viceroy and my sister were to leave next morning at 6 a.m., and Lord William undertook to get them to Simla by special trains before midnight. He actuall

ower, and the hills were one blaze of colour. We were always going up and up, and as we ascended, the deep crimson rhododendron flowers of Naini Tal gradually faded to rose-colour, from rose-colour to pale pink, and from pink to pure white. It was a perfect education travelling with Colonel Erskine, for that shrewd and kindly old Scotsman had spent half his life in India, and knew the Oriental inside out. The French have an expression, "se fourrer dans la peau d'autrui," "to shove yourself into another person's skin," and therefore to be able to see things as they would present themselves to the mind of a man of a different race and of a different mentality, and from his point of view. All young diplomats are enjoined to cultivate this art, and some few succeed in doing so. Colonel Erskine had it to perfection. On arriving in a village he would call for a

and the villagers. He understood them and their customs thoroughly; they trusted him and loved him as their official father. I fancy that this type of Indian Civil servant, knowing the people he has to deal with down to the very marrow of their bones, has become rarer of late years. The Brahmin clerk was a very intelligent man, and spoke English admirably, but I took a great dislike to him, noting the abject way in which the natives fawned on him. Colonel Erskine had to discharge h

ing on the orthodox lace-paper mats, and the moment dinner was over he carefully replaced these in pickle-jars for use next evening. We would have broken his heart had we spoiled the symmetry of his dishes by eating any of these. It takes a little practice to master bills of fare written in "Kitmutar English," and for

clothed with dense growths of deodaras. In the early morning the view of the long range of the snowy pinnacles of the Himalayas was splendid. I lea

y dressed in plain white cotton. These grey-bearded, toothless old men with their high, aquiline features (they were nearly all Mohammedans), flowing white garments and turbans, might have stepped bodily out of stained-glass windows. They had brought with them all the little presents (principally watches) which my sister had given them; they remembered all the berths she had secured for their sons, and the letters she had written on their behalf. An Oriental has a very long memory for a kindness as well as for an injury done him. Lady Lansdowne, whose Hindustani had become rather rusty, began feverishly turning over the pages of a dictionary in an endea

n whom he could absolutely rely. The white printer had the papers handed to him early on the morning of the examination day, and he duly set them up on a hand-press in the building itself. The printer had one assistant, a coolie clad only in loin-cloth and turban, and every time the coolie left the room he was made to remove both his loin-cloth and turban, so that by no possibility could he have any papers concealed about him. In spite of these precautions, it was clear from internal evidence that some of the students had had a

tiful hall than the Diwan-i-Khas in Delhi palace. This hall, open on one side to a garden, is entirely built of transparent white marble inlaid with prec

be on the fac

it is this,

money ran out. Few people take in that the dome of the Taj, that great airy white soap-bubble, is actually higher than the dome of St. Paul's. The play of fancy and invention of Shah Jehan's architects seems inexhau

with which the city is studded will not bear examination after the wonders of Agra and Delhi. The King of Oude wished to surpass the Mogul Emperors by the magnificence of

thought that I had never in my life seen anything so beautiful. At the end of a long white marble-paved court, a stately black-and-white marble tomb with a gilded dome rose from a flight of steps. Down the centre of the court ran a long pool of clear water, surrounded by a gilded railing. On either side of the court stood great clumps of flowering shrubs, also enclo

ly beyond description, and for eighteen years I treasured in my mi

dry. What I had taken for black-and-white marble was only painted stucco, and coarsely daubed at that; the details of the decoration were deplorable, and the Husainabad was just a piece of showy, meretricious tinsel. The gathering dusk and t

ts. There are many things in India of which I would speak: of big-game hunts in Assam; of near views of the mighty snows of the Himalayas; of jugglers and their tricks, and of certain unfamiliar aspects of native life. The telling