Across India; Or, Live Boys in the Far East

by Oliver Optic

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  AT THE CAPITAL OF THE PUNJAB

  An early breakfast was provided for the travellers, and at this repast thefarewells were spoken. Speeches were made by all the principal persons ofthe party of Americans, and by the Moroccan magnate, expressive of the verygreat enjoyment of the visit, and in praise of the liberality of the kinglyhost's hospitality. Captain Ringgold returned his thanks quite eloquently.

  The Guicowar again enlarged upon the service the commander had rendered toIndia in saving the lives of two of his best friends, who had also been thefriends of his country, and his only regret was that the Americans couldnot remain longer. Lord Tremlyn and Sir Modava could not in a lifetimedischarge their obligations to their friends who had entertained them likeprinces on board of the Guardian-Mother.

  The ladies did not make speeches; but they expressed their gratitude to hisHighness in a less prominent manner for the kindness extended to them, andat the close of the entertainment Miss Blanche advanced to the king, andpresented to him a package containing the photographs of the whole company,and that of General Noury, each with the autograph upon it.

  "I am very sorry that our party are unable to present to your Highness agift in keeping with the magnificence of the hospitality extended to us,"said the beautiful young lady; "but this package contains the photograph ofevery member of our company, and we beg that you will accept them as theonly tribute of our gratitude for your kindness which is available to us atthis distance from our homes. We leave behind us our best wishes for theprosperity, health, and happiness of your Highness."

  The Guicowar declared that he should value the gift more than all the goldand gems that could have been gathered together, and he should alwaysremember with delight the fairy who had presented them to him, and it wouldafford him the greatest pleasure to look in the future upon the faces ofthose whose presence at the palace he had so greatly enjoyed.

  The actual parting was the scene of a great deal of hand-shaking, mingledwith pretty speeches. The Guicowar went with them to the station, and sawthem seated in the great carriage that had been prepared for them. Thetrain moved off, with handkerchiefs waving at every window, and with aprofusion of gestures on the part of the magnificent host. It required sometime to talk about the scenes at the court of the king, though all of theparty were observing the country through the windows.

  It was a strange country to the Americans; and they found something to lookat all the time, though it was a wild and rugged region for the first twohours, with only a single town that was noticeable in that time. As theywere passing out of Baroda, the viscount called their attention to abuilding at some distance from the road, and called it a "travellers'bungalow." It was a very comfortable house, where tourists may find hotelaccommodations, though they are hardly hotels. They are provided by thegovernment, and are to be found in all the travelled regions of India. Theyare sometimes free for the rooms, but the guest pays at a very low rate forhis food.

  "We are coming now to Ahmedabad, which is in Gujrat, or Goozerat, for youtake your choice in regard to many of these Indian names; and this city isits chief town, and the second in the province of Bombay. It was formerlyone of the largest and most magnificent cities of the East, as the ruinsstill indicate. It contains several elegant mosques, but the town has notmore than a seventh part of its former population of nine hundredthousand," said Sir Modava, as he opened a travelling-bag, and took from ita large bundle of photographs.

  "Oodeypore is the capital of a Rajputana state; and its palace is said tobe the largest and most magnificent in India, though the town has apopulation of less than forty thousand. The maharajah entertained thePrince of Wales in it when he made his progress through the country. It isbuilt in the mountains, and it would be a troublesome journey for us toreach it. The next city of any importance to which we shall come isJeypore, and we shall dine there."

  When the train stopped for water a lunch was sent to the compartments, towhich all the passengers now retired for the rest of the day. At Jeyporedinner was served, good enough, though not elaborate. At the table SirModava passed around some photographs of the place, including the palace ofthe Maharajah, the Golden Kiosk, and the temples of the valley of Ambir. Itwas impossible to visit all the wonderful structures on the road withoutspending at least a year in the country; and a dozen volumes would hardlycontain the description of them. The palace at Jeypore is half a mile long,and contains one seventh of the area of the town.

  Though the railroad passed within fifty miles of Delhi, the train sped onits way to the north all night and nearly the whole of the next day,arriving at Lahore at five in the afternoon. No towns of any considerableimportance were passed during this long stretch of 540 miles. Though LordTremlyn and Sir Modava, with their friends, were invited to the residenceof the lieutenant-governor, the party went to the Victoria Hotel, for theviscount thought it would be an imposition to quarter them on the chiefauthority, being eighteen in number.

  "We are now in the Punjab, the north-western corner of India," said theHindu gentleman, when they were seated in the parlor of the hotel. "It iswatered by the Indus and five of its branches, on one of which, the Ravi,Lahore is situated. Punjab means five rivers. It has a population of morethan twenty-five million; and, General Noury, it has more Mohammedans thanthe whole of Morocco. I will not give you any more statistics, for I fearyou would not remember them."

  "Thank you, Sir Modava," added Mr. Woolridge.

  "The manufactures of silk, cotton, and metals are very important; for thesoil is not very fertile, though cotton, rice, sugar, indigo, and all kindsof grains and fruits, are raised. Lahore is the capital of the Punjab, andhas a population of a hundred and seventy-seven thousand, though it oncecontained a million. At this point we are near the Himalaya Mountains.About a hundred and fifty miles east of Lahore is Simla, nearly eightthousand feet above the sea. This is a noted sanitarium; and in the hotseason it is the resort of thousands of people, including the highestofficers of the army and the government."

  "Is this as near the Himalayas as we are to go?" asked Scott.

  "About as near, though at Patna you will be about one hundred and fiftymiles from Mount Everest, the highest peak on the earth."

  "I should like to go there," added Scott.

  "You couldn't climb it; and what good would it do you? I could mention ahundred places in India I should like to visit; but it is not practicableto do so," added the commander. "We can only take along with us a fewspecimens of the wonderful country, and make the best of them."

  After dinner the party divided up according to their own fancy, and wentout to walk, though some were too tired to do so. Louis invited MissBlanche to go with him; and she was always glad to be in his company,especially as Sir Modava was to be his companion. The first sight they sawin the street was a regiment of Punjab sepoys, a well-drilled body of men,not very different from the soldiers they had seen in other countries.

  They wore frock-coats, buttoned tight to the throat, and a sort of turbanon the head. Their faces were swarthy, but none of them wore full beards.There were plenty of street sights after the regiment had passed. Thedifferent kinds of vehicles attracted their attention first. In a kind ofgig drawn by a horse, two men and two women were crowded together. Thedriver seemed to be seated behind, and one of the women was on the floor infront of the two who were seated. By the side of the man on the seat was agirl of sixteen or eighteen, and she was very pretty.

  In a two-wheeled cart drawn by a humped bullock were a couple of Hinduladies, under a canopy supported by four poles. Then came a camel bearingtwo bearded men on his back. Two or three palanquins were seen; but theywere an old story, and they turned their attention to the architecture ofthe houses that lined the street. There was an abundance of what we callbay-windows, and ornamented balconies. There was a great deal of variety inthe construction of these appendages of the houses; and all of them wereoccupied by ladies, who wore
no veils over their faces, though most of themwere doubtless Mohammedans, and the yashmak had evidently gone out offashion.

  "There is the dak-bungalow," said the Hindu gentleman as they passed abuilding of considerable size.

  "What is a dak-bungalow?" asked Louis.

  "It is one which answers the purpose of a hotel. I pointed one out to youat Baroda. Sometimes they are free so far as the rooms are concerned; buthere the guest pays two rupees a day, or fifty cents of your money, and thefood is furnished at a low price."

  "But this is not half so much of a place as I expected to find," saidLouis, after they had walked an hour, and it was time to return to thehotel.

  "It is a place of considerable importance, though there are not so manytemples, mosques, tombs, and other fine structures, as in many other citiesof India; and I wondered that the commander had placed it in his list ofplaces to be visited. Jeypore and Oodeypore would have been far moreinteresting to your party," replied Sir Modava. "Yet you will see some ofthe finest structures in the country before you reach Calcutta."

  The company returned to the hotel at an early hour, and all of them weretired enough to retire at once. But they were up at six in the morning, andthe four boys went out to explore the city by themselves for a couple ofhours. Even at this early hour the ladies, old and young, were in thebalconies, and they were much occupied in observing the latter. Though theyashmak, or veil, was not often used to cover the face, it appeared to havebeen only thrown back upon the head.

  After breakfast carriages were at the door to convey the party to the moreinteresting sights of the city. At the request of Lord Tremlyn, they weredriven first to the office of the lieutenant-governor, to whom they werepresented. The government buildings are in Lawrence Hall Gardens, wherethere is also a memorial building in honor of Lord John Lawrence, the firstlieutenant-governor, who won his distinction in subduing and ruling overthe Punjab.

  They were next conveyed to the mosque of Jehanghir, built of red stone, andso much like a score of other mosques that they were not much interested inthe building. The mosque of Vazir Khan pleased them more; for it was abeautiful edifice, though crumbling before the ravages of time. But evenhere they were more pleased on observing the loafers around the entranceand in the court in front of it. An old bald-headed Hindu, with a beard aswhite as snow, was a study to the boys; and perhaps it was fortunate thatthe subject of their remarks did not understand English, or there mighthave been another war in the Punjab.

  The cook-shops in the street were instructive to them, and they watched thecustomers with interest; but, as they had attempted to eat in a Turkishrestaurant in Constantinople, they were content with looking on. Theminarets of the Vazir Khan pleased all the party, for they were certainlyvery beautiful. They went to the Golden Temple of Amritsar in theafternoon, and were impressed with the beauty of its surroundings.

  Lahore was rather a disappointment to the tourists, though it would nothave been if they had not spent some days in Bombay before visiting it. Thetrain in which they had come from Baroda was to be used by them as far asCalcutta, and they were ready to leave that night. The journey was by adifferent route from that by which they had come, and through a moredensely populated region. It was a bright moonlight night when the trainpassed out of the capital of the Punjab.

  They had gathered in what they had come to call the Conference Hallcompartment; and as they looked out into the light of the evening theybelieved they could see some of the peaks of the Himalayas, though LordTremlyn doubted it. Possibly they saw some of the peaks, for Mount NaudaDevi was within a hundred miles of the point on the railroad where theywould be in the morning; and this is more than twenty-five thousand feethigh. Mont Blanc is seen in very clear weather at the distance of a hundredmiles, and it is about eight thousand feet less in height.

  They were awake very early in the morning, and they certainly saw some highmountains in the distance, but could not identify them by name. At eighto'clock the train rolled into the station at Delhi, perhaps the mostwonderful city of India.