CHAPTER X

AMRITZAR AND LAHORE

We left Delhi by a night train—the Punjab Mail—for Amritzar, but we had a long wait at the station, as the train was two hours late. The station was thronged with natives bound for some religious festival connected with the approaching eclipse of the sun. There was a seething mass of dark humanity at the entrance, through which we had almost to fight our way to the platform.

Our route was by way of Umballa, which we reached in the early morning. The country was wrapped in a thick white mist before the sun rose, when it gradually cleared. Beyond Umballa the country was very flat, the dry lands varied with green crops and yellow with charlock, as before, and dotted with acacia trees. Occasionally we crossed wide rivers, or river beds, and the usual flocks of white cranes and brown kites were seen. Jullumpore was another junction where our train stopped. It looked an interesting place from the railway, a walled town with towers and ancient mosques. After leaving Pillour (the refreshment station) a very broad river was crossed, and on the wide sands of the dry part of its bed, almost like a desert, we saw a train of thirty camels moving slowly in single file.

We did not reach Amritzar until about 1 P.M., more than three hours after time! On emerging from the station, despite our bearer, we were nearly torn to pieces by hotel touts.

The Alexandra hotel had been named to us and we asked for its representative, but it appeared there was no such hotel at Amritzar. Each rival tout clamoured for our custom, declaring that the hotel he represented was the true and only successor to the mythical Alexandra.[A] One went so far as to say he had received a post-card from us, but when asked to produce it only showed a letter from some one else! Finally we got into a carriage, which was immediately stormed by the irrepressible touts, one seating himself on the box, one on the step each side, and I don’t know how many hanging on behind. Not liking the look of the first hotel they took us to, we tried a second and decided to put up there, and so gradually shook off the touts. There was more of an Eastern character about our quarters here than we had hitherto experienced. The hotel was quite an Oriental serai in an Eastern garden, our rooms being in a sort of Indian villa, opening on to a terrace with steps down into the garden, with its narrow straight paths between fruit trees, and our room was rather like a small temple or chapel with recessed walls and ogee arched doorways, a raftered ceiling, and clerestory windows. Built for coolness, no doubt, we now found it positively cold in the mornings and evenings, and although there was a fireplace the lighting of a wood fire made matters worse, for we were nearly smoked out.

[A] We learned afterwards that it was the custom to change the names of hotels every six months or so.

There were several English or Anglo-English at table preserving their characteristic frigidity in the presence of strangers. A gentleman from Manchester was the only one who showed a friendly disposition and who had any conversation.

Driving through the city we had recourse to smelling-bottles, as owing to the open drains each side the streets the odours which saluted our nostrils were rather trying. I had noticed these open gulleys at Delhi and in the native quarters in other towns. They run close in front of the houses and open shops of the bazaars, and are crossed by slabs of stone placed across them at intervals to give access to the houses, and as all sorts of refuse finds its way into them it is not surprising they should be offensive sometimes, though it had not been nearly so noticeable elsewhere. Amritzar is said to have the benefit of the advice of an English sanitary engineer.

The street did not strike us as so varied and interesting as other cities we had seen, and the house fronts seemed plainer and more modern, as a rule, though the streets were narrow enough.

From a sort of terrace we got our first view of the Golden Temple, which is built in the centre of the large tank or lake in the centre of the city. A broad paved causeway connects with the paved walk along two sides of the lake. After the magnificent and beautifully proportioned Mogul architecture of Agra and Delhi, the Golden Temple, built at the beginning of the nineteenth century is rather disappointing, despite its gilded domes, the building looking rather squat, though the gold reflected in the rippling water has a charming effect. The gilded dome of the Atal tower also shows over the buildings behind the temple seen from the terrace. Leaving our carriage at this spot we were surrounded and eyed by a curious crowd. Rival guides apparently contended for us, and there was a sudden quarrel, ending in a free fight, between two of them, the end of which we did not remain to see. The temple and its precincts is held most sacred by the Sikhs, Amritzar being their religious centre, the place is most jealously watched. It seemed impossible to get away from the crowd, who appeared to be none too friendly to strangers, and sketching was out of the question without a bodyguard.

We had a very courteous and kind reception from Dr Dinghra, three of whose sons we had known in London. One son and his wife were staying with him, and we spent a pleasant hour under his hospitable roof, and he presented us with handsome saddle bags, made of the local carpet, on leaving. He also introduced us to one of the leading citizens, a magistrate, who had an extensive pile carpet manufactory, and he showed us over the works. These were long sheds, having round arched arcades opening on to a court, and in these were a series of high-warp hand-looms with rows of shuttles filled with the different coloured wools hanging from the top. The weavers sat, or rather squatted, in a row on the ground in front of the warp and worked in the pattern. They were young boys and youths trained to the work early. They used a small curved knife like a small sickle to shear off the ends of their threads and press them home when a particular bit of coloured pattern was finished. Little oblong labels written in Arabic were placed on the warp in front of each weaver, which gave the written directions for the colours to be used in the work. No individual judgment or choice appeared to be exercised by the weavers.

There was a design room also open to the court under an arcade, here some quite aged natives were preparing designs, sketching them out in pencil or charcoal on squared paper, quite in the European method, and in some cases working from photographs of special carpets.

I learned from the manager that the working hours in this factory were from 8 A.M. till dark. The boy weavers only got one and a half annas a day! We finally were shown the finished product—a whole series of large handsome carpets being rolled out for us to see. One of these, of a Persian kind of design, would be priced at 200 rupees, the manager said. Before leaving we were requested to write our names, and any remarks on our visit, in a visitor’s book, where the list had been headed by the Prince and Princess of Wales, who visited these works on their tour in India in 1905.

In the forenoon of January 14th we saw the eclipse of the sun from our terrace. It rather took us by surprise—the light quickly becoming curiously pale like moonlight and the air unusually chilly. We could see the sun turned into a crescent quite distinctly, and pass through various phases like a moon, till it gradually regained its normal shape and power shortly after noon.

As we sat on the terrace a native pedlar approached with two portentous bundles. He salaamed, and proceeded to unload his wares in front of us. His stock, however, consisted entirely of European goods—small wares such as tapes and buttons, studs, soaps and perfumes, patent medicines, and such articles as are supposed to meet the wants of travellers. This Indian Autolycus addressed us as “Father” and “Mother,” and like the “Mad Hatter” commenced his speeches by saying “me very poor man,” following this announcement by urgent appeals to us to buy, after each purchase, beginning all over again afresh. Probably he felt he had to make the most of his English, as well as of his stock and his opportunities.

After another look at the Golden Temple, which it was impossible to approach without a crowd and without clumsy canvas shoes over our own, we made our way round to the Atal tower. Here, again, before entering the anything but clean marble court shoes had to be put off. It is an octagonal shrine, or tomb, having curious beaten metal plates, gilded figure designs in repoussé over the doors, but the decorative art here was much inferior in design and detail to what we had seen further south.

We then drove to the public gardens in which stands the pavilion of Ranji Singh. The gardens are full of beautiful palms and trees of many different kinds, including fine cypresses and splendid clumps of bamboos. The roads around Amritzar are lined with trees, and one sees enormous banyans spreading their great branches and masses of dark green foliage and casting deep shadows on the long avenues. Large plantations and fruit gardens, too, surround the city, so that it has a very attractive look although on a dead level.

Oranges of a large rough-skinned kind are grown here. They are deep-coloured, and more like lemons in shape. There was also a very small circular orange about the size of a large cherry in the hotel garden, where roses, pansies, and violets were blooming freely. The native gardener was generally to the fore in offering us small posies or buttonholes whenever he had an opportunity and for a consideration.

We left Amritzar for Lahore on January the 15th, having another long wait for the Punjab mail, this time three hours behind time. However, about noon another train came up and we were advised by the stationmaster to go on by that in preference to waiting longer for the mail. This train, he said, would take us to Lahore more quickly than the quick train, which sounds like a contradiction in terms. It is only about an hour’s journey.

The country between Amritzar and Lahore is, again, flat and has no striking features. Fields under irrigation green with young crops of corn, often smothered in charlock, alternated with dry fields or the standing canes of ripe crops, and stubbles of some newly reaped. The wells were plentiful. Some of the irrigation wells in this district are of a different pattern and mechanism to the simple draw-well seen generally. A pair of oxen turn a horizontal heavy wooden wheel which has slots at regular intervals around the outside of its rim. These slots catch the projecting spokes or straight cogs of another wheel, also horizontally placed and smaller in size, and this in turn by means of the cogs moves a large water wheel arranged in a vertical position, the projecting cogs catching the spokes of this wheel, which has a series of leather buckets or water pots attached to its broad rim, on the same principle as we see in dredging machines. As the wheel turns the buckets are dipped one after the other into the well, and as they rise again full empty their contents into a trough immediately in front of the wheel, which communicates with another trough connected with the irrigating trenches, which are thus supplied with water.

The station at Lahore was comparatively quiet and was a pleasing contrast to the turbulent crowd at Amritzar. The Charing Cross hotel received us, but anything less suggestive of the associations its name recalled it would be difficult to imagine. It was of the usual extended bungalow type, with long arcades in front of ranges of ground floor rooms, spacious and lofty and reminding rather of the vast rooms one sees on the stage with raftered ceilings and whitewashed walls. The lower wall of our sitting-room, however, was hung with very interesting Indian hand-painted cotton hangings, which gave it rather a distinguished appearance. There was a bedroom, something between a prison and a chapel, and dressing and the usual bath rooms, with zinc tubs, opening out beyond. There were large sitting and dining rooms, the latter an enormous one, like the nave of a church, lighted by a clerestory only, and cold enough, where people dined rather frigidly, each group at a safe distance at separate little round tables. We were glad of a log-fire in the evenings, though the sun was powerful enough during the day. “The Charing Cross post office” was close by, which had one pigeon hole, and where the stamps were sold outside under the verandah, by a native squatting on the ground.

A fine broad avenue through the English quarter is called “The Mall,” and here the principal government buildings are situated, the Law courts and the Museum, and the principal stores and bungalows. This British residential and business quarter is quite distinct and lies quite clear outside the walls of the native city of Lahore. It is laid out in broad drives with tan rides at the side, and bordered with trees. Bungalows and shops and stores in the shape of bungalows standing detached in gardens are arranged pleasantly from the modern residential point of view, and forms quite a “garden city,” only marred by the atrocious way in which the traders announce their names and business in staring white block-letters on black boards. One piano warehouse, I noticed, had even a sky sign. Even the private residences are often disfigured in the same way by black boards with the name of the occupier in the ugliest block-letters.

The gardens and hedges, often of roses trained on trellises of bamboo, are kept very trim up and down the Mall.

Smart English ladies and officers ride or drive about in their dog-carts with native tigers behind. We met a very imposing and original turn out—a fine pair of brown camels, well matched, were harnessed to a sort of barouche, each ridden, postilion-wise, by native servants in scarlet, one in the same colour behind the carriage, which contained two English ladies. This was probably the Lieutenant-Governor’s carriage. Bicycles were much in use both by Europeans’ (men and women) and natives—the turban and loose pyjama-like clothes of the latter looking strange on the machine. The natives, however, everywhere in the towns where the Europeans’ influence comes in seem to take to machines. The sewing machine is constantly seen in the bazaars, always, however, worked by a man. A certain firm’s poster of the eternal woman enclosed in a hideous S (like a modern Eve and the industrial serpent) looks particularly incongruous and out of place in India, where there seems to be no women working at crafts. The men do the washing too, the Dhobee in white with his bundle of linen being a frequent and characteristic figure.

No greater contrast could be imagined than that between the English quarter and the native city lying within its old walls and great gates, with its narrow picturesque streets and—stinks! Open drains as at Amritzar run along each side of the streets, close in front of the bazaar, where the people sit. The fronts of the houses above the open shops are mostly of wood of a dark rich tone, corbelled arcaded balconies and windows jutting out over the street at all sorts of angles, rich with delicate and varied carvings, as if the builders had vied with each other which should make the most interesting front. There are charming little covered verandahs and balconies with slender columns and ogee arches, and pierced screen-work painted here and there, but mostly the deep dusky brown tone of the natural wood, dark with age, which forms an effective background to the vivid colours and glitter of costumes and draperies of the bazaars. The newly dyed long strips of cotton or muslin in orange or pink, green or lemon yellow which are hung out to dry, wave like long banners over the busy life of the narrow streets, where the turbaned and many coloured, swarthy faced crowd, jostle along, or stand in chattering groups about the shops, buying and selling. The types, too, are very varied—the Hindu, the Mohammedan, the Afghan, the country folk; the Mohammedan woman in trousers, the Hindu woman in her graceful Sari, with her glittering silver anklets, and bracelets, toe-rings and nose-rings; dark eyes and shining whites momentarily seen, and gleaming teeth, the mysterious-looking figures covered from head to foot in flowing white drapery, pleated into a close fitting cap, with little perforations for the eyes, in front, the effect of the whole being ghostly, or even ghoulish. The white mystery being only betrayed by a brown foot beneath and the gleam of a silver anklet which tells one it is only the disguise of a Mohammedan woman.

Here again it was rather disappointing to see the native bazaars full of European goods, and a trivial cheap kind at that. European commerce has evidently got its foot in. Blue enamelled basins and cups, tin ware, tapes and buttons, braces, socks and ugly woollen scarfs in aniline colours are seen everywhere. It is true that one occasionally may see a native handicraftsman at work, such as the man who prints the ornamental borders on the edges of the muslin veils of the women, and picks them out in silver leaf, silver or orange being a favourite arrangement. The metal-worker is also frequent, though he often only makes zinc stoves. The food shops are the most numerous, set out with piles of curious yellow cakes and sweets of all sorts and sizes, the cooking stove being often in front of the shop, made of clay or mud with a tiny hole in which they produce hot little fires.

Through the bazaars our carriage worked its way as through a labyrinth. The mixed throng of buyers and sellers, beggars and brown babies, and cheeky little street Arabs, who are inclined to be rude to the stranger generally, tongas, buffaloes, herds of goats, stray zebu bulls, and fat-tailed sheep.

These latter we first saw at Delhi. They are originally from Tibet. The enormous development of the tail, or fleece of the tail, has a very extraordinary effect, as if the animal carried a bag of wool behind it, both broad and long and nearly touching the ground. Occasionally we saw one of these animals (rams) dyed with orange colour, and marked with curious patterns all over its fleece.

Passing through the bazaars we arrived at a large open space, and soon reached the (Roshanai) gate of the Fort on the other side of it. There the English sentry, after saying an order was necessary, called an orderly to take us round. Just inside the gate we got a view of the old wall of the palace decorated by tiles, the colours being similar to those used at Gwalior, at the Man Mandir palace, principally turquoise, green, and lemon yellow, the tile-work being arranged in bands or friezes of elephants and birds in profile, let into the red sandstone.

The very stolid British “Tommy” in khaki conducted us, in slow marching order and in solemn silence, up the long sloping road to the square of the Fort where he pointed out, without emotion, a colonnaded Hall of audience, and then took us through a gateway into the rather spacious court of the old palace of Akbar, who also built the Fort. On one side of the court was an interesting armoury of Sikh weapons, beginning with suits of fine chain mail and Persian-looking steel topis, damasceened and bossed circular targes up to flint-locks, and match-locks, and blunderbusses.

There was quite a mediæval-looking heavy steel mace, and many sabres, and sword sticks, some made with crutch handles terminating in horses’ heads. There were also a number of steel cuirasses. I believe this armoury was arranged by Mr Kipling, the father of Mr Rudyard Kipling, who was head of the art school of Lahore for many years, and to whom is due the extremely interesting museum.

There were relics of elaborate decoration on the walls and vaults of what remained of the palace, and some of the glass (convex-mirror-mosaic) work united with gesso-relief ornament, which we saw at Udaipur, Amber, Delhi, and other places: but the British occupation had tried its best, by introducing hideous chunks of barrack buildings, to take the romance and beauty out of the place.

Close to the Fort outside its gate is the Samadh, or burning-place of Ranjit Singh. A carved lotus flower, surrounded by eleven smaller ones, on a raised platform inside the pavilion-like building, mark the place where his body was burned with eleven ladies of his Zenana. Not far off rises the dome of the Jama Musjid and its noble minarets of red sandstone.

There is a fine park-like country beyond the walls on this side of the city with groups of old trees. The minarets and domes of Lahore have a striking effect seen from outside the gate. We returned through the bazaars a different way, passing the golden domed mosque and also the Wazar Khan mosque, the latter a very fine one fronting a small square in the middle of the city, and having two large minarets faced with enamelled tiles in blue and green and other colours, cobalt predominating. The spandrils of the main entrance, and in fact the whole of the front, being decorated with tiles in large arabesques and borderings, a large Arabic text in blue written boldly over the arch, and panels down each flank of smaller scale work. It was the first tiled mosque we had seen, and quite characteristic of the art of a district which culminates in the renowned tombs at Multan.

At the English club house on the Mall, the pipers of a Highland regiment were playing on the lawn in front. The club had well laid out and ample lawn tennis courts, large blue durries being hung at each end of the courts to stop the balls, and the players had native caddies to pick them up. There were zoological gardens near by where we saw nylghaus and antelopes and birds of various sorts.

A Victoria memorial on a large scale was in progress at a place where branching roads met. The work of the British sculptor in India cannot be said to be much more exhilarating than the work of the British architect, as a rule, to judge from the specimens we saw, chiefly of statues of the late Queen Victoria.

The courts of Justice at Lahore are more successful than most of the modern examples in India, perhaps because designed in what might be called the local style—the Mogul. Near by in a little garden enclosed by clipped hedges was a bronze statue of Lord Laurence offering the choice of government by pen or sword to the passer by. It had some dramatic expression, though the choice of a momentary attitude in a portrait statue is perhaps open to criticism.

We visited the museum, where Mr Percy Brown has succeeded Mr Kipling as director. Here is a most interesting collection of typical native textiles, including the raised wax designs gilded, silvered, and lacquered on grounds of different coloured cloths, an art which is still practised in the district with success, traditional designs of flowers and birds being repeated in a very skilful and effective way, and applied to the adornment of portières, covers, etc. There were also good collections of native jewellery and enamels. Champlévé enamel, such as is done at Lucknow, was illustrated by specimens in different stages from the commencement to the finish, side by side with cloissoné (Japanese) illustrated in the same complete way, as well as complete models showing native industries and handicrafts in operation; interesting old Hindu herbals and manuscripts on vellum with characteristic miniatures; drawings of local palaces and gardens in plan, elevation and bird’s-eye perspective.

There was a very notable collection of Greco-Buddhist sculptures, which were extremely interesting and unusual.

Very little wood-carving, curiously enough, except modern examples in screens and furniture, the work of the Art School, exhibited in a separate room. The city of Lahore being so rich in carved wood-work it was less necessary to have it in the museum, and, of course, much better to see it _in situ_. The modern way of selling the spoils of old buildings to private collections or to museums is carried on in Europe to an alarming extent, so that one begins to fear, in view of the rapid destruction of ancient houses now going on, whether there will soon be left any genuine bits of antiquity in this commercial world. It is better of course that relics of ancient art should find a haven in a public museum than that it should perish altogether, but any destruction or removal for the express purpose of transportation to a museum should be deprecated.

On the whole the Lahore museum was a well-chosen and arranged museum, judiciously limited to Indian art, and it was interesting to see the groups of natives—men, women, and children—apparently scanning the different objects with the greatest interest and with much animated conversation among themselves. One afternoon we drove to the Waza Khan Mosque, and I made the sketch reproduced here of the entrance to the mosque from the carriage. The crowd was curious, but not nearly so troublesome as elsewhere, and our conductor, or running footman, kept them off pretty well. The square had large pools of mud in it here and there after recent rains. Zebus were straying about, or lying down. Fruit and good stalls occupied other parts of the ground, and ox-carts deposited loads of wood. Men sat in groups in the porch of the mosque, or on the steps, from which boys flew their little diamond-shaped paper kites. The mysterious-looking white figures of the Mohammedan women wandered about like substantial ghosts. We saw a pretty little gazelle at one of the stalls, perfectly tame, and a great pet of the native who owned it.

The Cashmere travelling merchants, who display their tempting wares at all the hotels, spread out their stuffs in profusion—Bokhara embroideries, Persian covers, kincobs, turbans, and portières of black, red, or green grounds, effectively decorated with designs in the raised wax, such as we saw in the museum—and used all their persuasive arts to effect sales.

We did not stay long enough in Lahore to see much of the Society there, but before leaving we had a visit from the Princess Duleep Singh and her sister, who, hearing from friends at Amritzar that we were there, came to see us at the hotel. The princess was dressed as a Parsee lady in beautiful classical draperies, white with embroidered borders, and she drove herself in a dog-cart, but the sister was in European dress. The princess recalled the circumstance of my having made a little sketch in her brother the prince’s cottage on the Norfolk coast, which had been designed for him by Mr Detmar Blow, which we visited when staying in the neighbourhood.

We left Lahore the mid-day Lucknow Mail, after a long wait, the platform covered with picturesque groups of squatting natives. We eventually shared a compartment, as far as Umballa, with an English official, his German wife and a little girl. As far as Umballa on this line, coming north, we had already journeyed. The chief incident after leaving Lahore was the catching fire of one of the boxes of one of the carriages of our train, which caused the passengers hastily to leave it, and crowd into other parts of the train, when it was stopped and the burning carriage taken off at a small station just before Amritzar.

At Umballa, the dining station, which we reached when it was dark, some said we had to change, others said not. This was puzzling. One official with more authority than the others said emphatically “no,” at last. So, having just time, we scurried across the bridge to the refreshment room with light hearts and sharp appetites, snatched a hasty meal and hurried back to find Moonsawmy, who acted as courier and took charge of the tickets, in some difficulty with the officials about the tickets. One official (the stationmaster) came up, and then said we ought to have changed into the train which was just at that moment steaming out of the station, excusing his mistake by saying that he had not till then seen our tickets, fussily ordering a humble Hindu clerk to take the numbers.

After this we got into our compartment again and settled ourselves for a sleep, as we were not due at Lucknow until next morning. During the night we were constantly disturbed by people opening the carriage door and peering in—no doubt in search of lower berths, which we occupied. At one place a Eurasian got in with a quantity of baggage, and got out again only a few stations off. On leaving, perceiving he had disturbed us he said he was “sorry for the trouble.”

At Barielly another man (English) got in with his traps and rugs and settled himself to sleep on the middle berth—which in some carriages economises space between the two side ones—though he was at first a little taken aback at seeing that one of us was a lady. However, he turned out to be a very agreeable companion afterwards, and we got quite friendly as the train the next morning approached Lucknow, we having previously decided not to stop at Cawnpore.