Chapter 4

KARACHI TO ABBOTABAD

This morning we awoke to find ourselves rattling and shaking our way through the Sind Desert—an interminable waste of sand, barren and thirsty-looking, covered with a patchy scrub of yellowish and grey-purple bushes.

I can well imagine how hatefully hot it can be here, but to-day it has been merely pleasantly warm.

Jane and I were deeply interested in the novel scenes we passed through, which, while new and strange to us, were yet made familiar by what we had read and heard. The quiet-eyed cattle, with their queer humps, were just what we expected to see in the dusty landscape. The chattering crowds in the wayside stations, their bright-coloured garments flaunting in the white sunlight—the fruit-sellers, the water-carriers, were all as though they had stepped out of the pages of _Kim_—that most excellent of Indian stories.

And so all day we rattled and shook through the Sind Desert in the hot sunlight till the dust lay thick upon us, and our eyes grew tired of watching the flying landscape.

In the afternoon we reached Samasata junction, where the Twinings parted company with us, being bound for Faridkot.

Sorry were we to lose such charming companions, especially as now indeed we become as Babes in the Wood, knowing nothing of the land, its customs, or its language!

Henceforward, Sabz Ali shall be our sheet-anchor, and I think he will not fail us. His English is truly remarkable, so much so that I regret to say I have more than once supposed him to be talking Hindustani when he was discoursing in my own mother-tongue. But he certainly is extraordinarily sharp in taking up what I and the “Mem-sahib” say.

He presented to me to-day a remarkable letter, of which the following is an exact copy. I presume it is a sort of statement as to his general duties:—

“_To the_ MAGER SAHIB.

“Sir,—I beg to say that General ’Oon Sahib send me to you. He order me that the arrangement of Mager Sahib do.

“To give pice to porter kuli this is my work. This is usefull to you.

“You give him many pice.

“Your work is order and to do it my work. You give me Rupee at once. Then I will write it on my book, from which you will see it is right or wrong. Now I am going to Cashmir with you and Cashmiree are thief.

“If you will give me one man other it will usefull to you. I ask one cloth. All Sahib give cloth to Servant on going to Cashmir.

“If will give cloth then all men say that this Sahib is good. I am fear from General ’Oon Sahib. It is order to give cloth.

“I can do all work of cook and bearer. I wish that you will happy on me, also your lady, and say to General ’Oon Sahib that this man is good and honest man.

“I have servant to many Sahib.

“I have more certificate.

“You are rich man and king. I am poor man. I will take two annas allowance per day in Cashmir, you will do who you wish.

“I wish that you and lady will happy on me. This is begging you will.—I remain, Sir, your most obedient Servant,

“SABAZ ALI, _Bearer_.”

_Wednesday, March_ 22.—We slept again in the train on Monday night, and arrived in Lahore about 6 o’clock yesterday morning.

We had been advised to tub and dress in the waiting-rooms at the station, as we had a break of some six hours before going on to Pindi; but, upon investigation, Jane found her waiting-room already fully occupied by an uninviting company of Chi-chis (Eurasians), and several men—their husbands and brothers presumably—were sleeping the sleep of the just in mine, so we left all our luggage stacked on the platform under the eye of Sabz Ali, and hurried off to Nedou’s Hotel. Ye gods! What a cold drive it was, and how bitterly we regretted that we had not brought our wraps from their bundle.

I was fearfully afraid that Jane would get a chill—an evil always to be specially guarded against in a tropical climate, but a very hot tub and a good breakfast averted all calamity, and we set forth in a funny little trap to inspect Lahore.

This is the first large and thoroughly Indian city that we have seen—Karachi being merely a thriving modern seaport and garrison town—and we set to work to see what we could in the limited time at our disposal. We whisked along a road—bumpy withal in parts, and somewhat dusty, but broad. On either hand rose substantial stone mansions, half hidden by trees and flowering shrubs. Many of these fine-looking buildings were shops. I was impressed by their importance, for they were quite what would be described by an auctioneer or agent as “most desirable family mansions, approached by a carriage drive … standing within their own beautifully wooded and secluded grounds in an excellent residential neighbourhood,” &c. &c.

Anon we whirled round a corner, and plunged into the seething life of the native city. The road was crammed with an apparently impenetrable crowd of men and beasts, the latter—water-buffaloes, humpy cattle, and donkeys—strolling about and getting in everybody’s way with perfect nonchalance, while men in strange raiment of gaudy hue pursued their lawful occupations with much clamour. The variety of smells—all bad—was quite remarkable.

We could only go at a walk, as the streets were very narrow and the inhabitants thereof—particularly the cows—seemed very deaf and difficult to arouse to a sense of the need for making room, though our good driver yelled himself hoarse and employed language which I feel sure was highly flavoured. Our progress was a succession of marvellous escapes for human toes and bovine shoulders, but our “helmsman steered us through,” and we emerged from the kaleidoscopic labyrinth into the open space before the Fort of Lahore, whose pinkish brick walls and ponderous bastions rose above us.

The last thing I would desire would be to usurp in any way the functions of grave Mr. Murray or well-informed Herr Baedeker, but there are certain points to which I will draw attention, and which it seems to me very necessary to keep in mind.

To the ordinary traveller in the Punjab and Northern India no buildings are more attractive, no ruins more interesting, than those of the Mogul dynasty, and the rule of the Mogul princes marks the high-water limit of Indian magnificence. It was but for a short time, too, that the highest level of grandeur was maintained.

For generations the Moguls had poured in intermittent hordes into Northern India, but it was only in 1556 that Akbar, by defeating the Pathans at Panipat, laid India at his feet. Following up his success he overthrew the Rajputs, and extended his dominion from Afghanistan to Benares. Having conquered the country as a great warrior, he proceeded to rule it as a noble statesman, being “one of the few sovereigns entitled to the appellation both of Great and Good, and the only one of Mohammedan race whose mind appears to have arisen so far above all the illiberal prejudices of that fanatical religion in which he was educated, as to be capable of forming a plan worthy of a monarch who loved his people and was solicitous to render them happy.”[1] This “plan” was to study the religion, laws, and institutions of his Hindu subjects in order that he might govern as far as possible in conformity with Hindu usage. The Emperor Akbar was the first of the Mogul monarchs who was a great architect. The city of Fattepur Sikri being raised by him as a stately dwelling-place until want of water and the unhealthiness of the locality caused him to move into Agra, leaving the whole city of Fattepur Sikri to the owls and jackals, and later to the admiration of the Sahib logue.

[1] Robertson’s _India_, Appendix.

A palace in Lahore, the fort at Allahabad, and much lovely work in the city of Agra testify to the creative genius of that contemporary of our own Good Queen Bess, the first “Great” Mogul. Jehangir, his son and successor, has left few buildings of note, but his grandson, Shah Jehan, was undoubtedly the most splendid builder of the Mogul Mohammedan period. To him Delhi owes its stately palace and vast mosque—the Jama Masjid—and Agra would be famous for its wonderful palace of dark red stone and fretted marble, even without that masterpiece of Mohammedan inspiration, the world-famed Taj Mahal. The brief period of supreme magnificence came to an end with the last of the “Great” Moguls—Aurungzeb, died in 1707—having only blazed in fullest glory for some century and a half, but leaving behind it some of the noblest works of man.

It seemed somehow very curious, as we drove up through the stately entrance of the Hathi Paon, or Elephant Gate of the fort, to be saluted with a “present arms” by British Tommies clad in unobtrusive khaki, and to reflect that we are the inheritors of the fallen grandeur of the Mogul Emperors; that we in our turn, on many a hard-fought field, asserted our power to conquer; and that since then we have (I trust) so far followed the sound principles of Akbar as to keep by justice and wise rule the broad lands with their teeming millions in a state of peace and security unknown before in India.

Opposite the entrance rise the walls of the Palace of Akbar, curiously decorated with brilliant blue mosaics of animals and arabesques.

We visited the armoury—a remarkably fine collection of weapons—not the least interesting being those taken from the Sikhs and French in the earlier part of the last century. Opposite the armoury, and across a small beautifully-paved court, were the private apartments of Shah Jehan. They reminded me very much of the Alhambra, only, instead of the honeycomb vaulted ceilings, and arches decorated in stucco by the Moors, the Eastern architect inlaid his ceilings with an extraordinary incrustation of glass, usually silvered on the back, but also frequently coloured, and giving a strange effect of mother-o’-pearl inlay, bordering on tawdriness when examined in detail.

It is possible that this coloured glass actually had its intended effect of inlaid jewels, and that the gem-encrusted walls, so enthusiastically described by Tavernier and others, as almost matching the peacock throne itself, may have been but imitation.

Many of the pilasters were, however, very beautiful—of white marble inlaid with flower patterns of coloured stones—while the arched window openings were filled in with creamy tracery of fair white marble.

Leaving the fort after an all too short visit, we crossed to the great mosque built by Aurungzeb. Ascending—from a garden bright with flowers and blossoming trees—a flight of broad steps, we found ourselves at the end of a rectangular enclosure, at each corner of which stood a red column not altogether unlike a factory chimney. In the centre was a circular basin, very wide, and full of clear water, while in front, three white marble domes rose like great pearls gleaming against the cloudless blue. The mosque itself is built of red—dark red—sandstone, decorated with floral designs in white marble.

We climbed one of the minarets, and had a view of the city at our feet, and the green and fertile plains stretching dim into the shimmering haze beyond the Ravee River.

Then back to the hotel through the teeming alleys and down to the station—the road, that we had found so bitterly cold in the early morning, now a blaze of sunlight, where the dust stirred up by the shuffling feet of the wayfarers quivered in the heat, and the shadows of men and beasts lay short and black beneath them.

We were not sorry to seek coolness in the bare railway carriage, and let the fresh wind fan us as we sat by the open window and watched the flat, monotonous landscape sliding past.

The journey from Lahore to Rawal Pindi is not a very long one—only about 170 miles, or less than the distance from London to York; but an Indian train being more leisurely in its movement than the Great Northern Express, gave us ample time to contemplate the frequent little villages—all very much alike—all provided with a noisy population, among which dogs and children were extremely prevalent; the level plains, broken here and there by clumps of unfamiliar trees, and inhabited by scattered herds of water buffaloes, cattle, and under-sized sheep, all busily engaged in picking up a precarious livelihood, chiefly roast straw, as far as one could see!

We had grown so accustomed to the monotony of the plains, that when we suddenly became aware of a faint blue line of mountains paling to snow, where they melted into the sky, the Himalayas came upon us almost with a shock of surprise.

As we drew nearer, the rampart of mountains that guards India on the north, took form and substance, until at Jhelum we fairly left the plain and began to ascend the lower foothills.

Between Jhelum and Rawal Pindi the line runs through a country that can best be described by that much abused word “weird.” Originally a succession of clayey plateaux, the erosion of water has worn and honeycombed a tortuous maze of abrupt clefts and ravines, leaving in many cases mere shafts and pinnacles, whose fantastic tops stand level with the surrounding country. The sun set while we were still winding through a labyrinth of peaks and pits, and the effect of the contrasting red gold lights and purple shadows in this strange confused landscape was a thing to be remembered.

We rolled and bumped into Pindi at 8 P.M., having travelled nearly 1000 miles during our two days and nights in the train.

Our friends the Smithsons were on the platform waiting to receive us and welcome us as strangers and pilgrims in an unknown land. They have only remained here to meet us, and they proceed to Kashmir to-morrow, sleeping in a carriage in the quiet backwater of a siding, to save themselves the worry of a desperately early start to-morrow morning.

The direct route into Kashmir by Murree is impassable, the snow being still deep owing to a very late spring following a severe winter. This will oblige us to go round by Abbotabad, so I wired to my friend General Woon to warn him that we propose to invade his peaceful home.

_Sunday, March 26._—We stayed a couple of days at Pindi, in order to make arrangements for transporting ourselves and our luggage into Kashmir. The journey can be made _viâ_ Murree in about a couple of days by mail tonga, but it is a joyless and horribly wearing mode of travel. The tonga, a two-wheeled cart covered by an arched canvas hood and drawn by two half-broken horses, holds a couple of passengers comfortably, who sit behind and stare at the flying white ribbon of road for long, long hours, while the driver urges his wild career. The horses are changed every ten miles or so, and horrible and blood-curdling tales are extant of the villainy and wrong-headedness of some of these tonga ponies, how they jib for sheer pleasure, and leap over the low parapet that guards them from the precipice merely to vex the helpless traveller. When we suggested that to sit facing the past might be conducive to a sort of sea-sickness and certainly to headache, and that a total absence of view was to be deprecated, it was impressed upon us that if the horses darted over the “khud,” we could slip out suddenly and easily, leaving the driver and the ponies to be dashed to pieces by themselves! This appeared sound, but, upon inquiry I could not hear that any accident had ever happened to any traveller going into Kashmir by tonga.

Besides the tonga, there are other modes of going into Kashmir. For instance, the sluggish bullock-cart—safe, deliberate, and affording ample leisure for admiring the scenery; the light native cart, or ekka, consisting of a somewhat small body screened by a wide white hood, and capable of holding far more luggage than would at first sight seem possible, and drawn by a scraggy-looking but much enduring little horse tied up by a wild and complicated system of harness (chiefly consisting of bits of old rope) between a pair of odd V-shaped shafts.

Finally, there is the landau—a civilised and luxurious method of conveyance which greatly appealed to us. We decided upon chartering a landau for ourselves and servant, and two ekkas to carry the heavy baggage.

Mr. de Mars, the landlord of the hotel, was most obliging in helping us to arrange for our journey, promising to provide us with carriage and ekkas for a sum which did not seem to me to be at all exorbitant.

I soon found, however, that the worthy Sabz Ali did not at all approve of the arrangement. It was extremely hard to find out by means of his scant English what he proposed to do; but I decided that here was an excellent opportunity of finding out what he was good for, so we determined to give him his head, and let him make his own arrangements.

A smile broke over his swarthy face for a moment, and he disappeared, coming back shortly afterwards just as the already ordered ekkas made their appearance.

These he promptly dismissed—much to the vexation of Mr. de Mars; but I explained to him that I intended to see if my man was really to be depended upon as an organiser, and that I should allow him to work upon his own lines.

We had arranged to sleep in a carriage drawn into a siding at the station, to avoid a very early start next morning. So after dinner we strolled down towards our bedroom to find our henchman on the platform, full of zeal and energy. I found out (with difficulty) that he proposed to go on to Hassan Abdal with the luggage that night by goods train; that we should find him there next morning, and that all would be right. So he departed, and we rolled ourselves up in our “resais,” and wondered how it would all turn out.

On Friday morning we rattled out of Rawal Pindi about seven, and slowly wound through a rather stony and uninteresting country, until we arrived at the end of our railway journey about ten o’clock, and scrambled out at the little roadside station.

Our excellent factotum, Sabz Ali, awaited us with a capacious landau, and informed us that the heavy baggage had gone on in the ekkas. So we set forth at once on our 42-mile drive to Abbotabad without “reposing for a time in the rich valley of Hussun Abdaul, which had always been a favourite resting-place of the Emperors in their annual migrations to Cashmere” (_Lalla Rookh_).

The landau, though roomy and comfortable, was, like Una’s lion, a “most unhasty beast,” and we rolled quite slowly and deliberately over a distinctly uninteresting plain for about twenty miles, until we came to Haripur, a pretty village enclosed in a perfect mass of fruit trees in full bloom.

Here we changed horses, and lunched at the dâk bungalow—a first and favourable experience of that useful institution. The dâk bungalow generally consists of a simple wooden building containing a dining-room and several bedrooms opening on to a verandah, which usually runs round three sides of the house. The furniture is strong and simple, consisting of tables, bedsteads, and some long chairs. A khansamah or cook provides food and liquor at a fixed and reasonable rate.

Travellers are only permitted to remain for twenty-four hours if the rooms are wanted, each person paying one rupee (1s. 4d.) for a night, or half that amount for a mere day halt.

The khansamah would appear to be the only functionary in residence until the hour of departure draws near, when a whole party of underlings—chowkidars, bheesties, and sweepers—appear from nowhere in particular; and the lordly traveller, having presented them with about twopence apiece, rolls off along the dusty white road, leaving the khansamah and his myrmidons salaaming on the verandah.

We made the mistake of over-tipping at first in India, not realising that a couple of annas out here go as far as a shilling at home; but it is a mistake which should be rectified as soon as possible, for you get no credit for lavishness, but are merely regarded as a first-class idiot. No sane man would ever expend two annas where one would do!

On leaving Haripur the road began to ascend a little, and at the village of Sultanpur we entered a valley, through which a shrunken stream ran, and which we crossed more than once.

Then a long ascent of about eleven miles brought us near our destination.

It had been threatening rain all the afternoon, and now the weather made its threat good, and the rain fell in earnest. It grew dark, too; and, finally, not having had any reply to my telegram to General Woon, we did not know whether we were expected or not.

Sabz Ali, however, had no doubts on the matter. We were approaching his own particular country, and whether “Gen’l ’Oon Sahib” was there to entertain us or not, _he_ was; and so it was “alright.”

Our poor horses were done to a turn, a heavy landau with five people in it, as well as a fair amount of luggage, being no trifle to drag up so long and steep a hill. So we had to walk up the last rise to the General’s house in the dark and rain, mildly cheered, however, by finding the two ekkas just arrived with the baggage.

A most hearty greeting from my old friend and his charming wife awaited us, and after a hasty toilet and an excellent dinner we felt at peace with all the world.

Both yesterday (Saturday) and to-day it has been cold and disagreeable. The past winter, I am told, has been a very severe one, and the melancholy brown skeletons of all the eucalyptus trees in the place show the dismal results of the frost.

This forenoon the day darkened, and a very severe thunderstorm broke. So dark was it at lunch that candles had to be lighted in haste, and even now (4 P.M.) I can barely see to write.

_Thursday, March_ 30.—Monday was showery, and Tuesday decidedly wet; but, in spite of the hospitable blandishments of our kind hosts, we were most anxious to get on, as, having arranged with the Smithsons to go into the Astor district to shoot, it was most important to reach Srinagar before the first of April—the day upon which the shooting passes were to be issued to sportsmen in rotation of application. Knowing that only ten passes were to be given for Astor, and that several men were ahead of me, I felt that we were running it somewhat fine to leave only three days for the journey.

General Woon, who knew Kashmir well, did his very best to dissuade us from attempting the passes into Astor, reading to us gloomy extracts from his journal, and pointing out that it was no fit country for a lady in early spring.

He did much to shake our enthusiasm, but still I felt we must do our best to “keep tryst” with the Smithsons. So, on Tuesday, we sent on the heavy luggage in two ekkas which Sabz Ali had procured, the two others being only hired from Hassan Abdal to Abbotabad.

Sabz Ali had pointed out that, although he himself was a wonderful man, and could do almost, if not quite, everything, a second servant would be greatly to our (and his) advantage. So, acting on my permission, he engaged one Ayata—a gentle person of a sheep-like disposition, who did everything he was told, and nothing that he was told not to, during our sojourn in Kashmir.