THE battle of Kirkee was the turning-point in the last Mahratta war, which sealed the fate of the Peishwa's dynasty and transferred the Deccan to British rule, and is naturally, in that part of India, still regarded by all whose recollections go back to those days, as the one great event of modern history.
When the collector of these tales was in India, the house temporarily occupied by the Governor of Bombay overlooked the field of battle, and among those who came to see the Governor on business or pleasure were some, natives as well as Europeans, to whom the events of half a century ago were matters of living memory.
Old soldiers would tell how the fidelity of the native Sepoys resisted all the bribes and threats of Bajee Row Peishwa, the absolute Brahman ruler of Poona, and thus, while the Peishwa hoped to effect his purpose by treachery, enabled Mr. Mountstuart Elphinstone to defer open hostilities—a matter of vital importance to the operations of Lord Hastings on the other side of India, in preparing for his great campaign against the Pindaries.
The veterans would recount all the romantic incidents of the struggle which followed. How the 'old Toughs' (H. M.'s 103d Regiment, now 2d Bn. Royal Dublin Fusiliers), the only European corps within reach, when at last slipped from the leash at Panwell, marched seventy-two miles straight up over the Ghauts to Poona, with but a single three hours' halt en route; how they closed up their ranks of travel-soiled warriors and entered the British lines with band playing and colours flying; and how not a straggler dropped behind, 'for all knew that there must be a battle soon.' Their arrival was the signal for the Peishwa to throw off the mask, and the British Residency being untenable, our troops moved out to take up a safer position at Kirkee, about three miles from the city of Poona; and as they marched they saw all the houses of the Resident and his suite fired by the enemy, who swarmed out of the city. As they formed in line of battle, they anxiously watched the native regiments coming up on their flank from Dapoorie, for that was the moment for successful treachery, if the native soldiers were untrue! Not a Sepoy, however, in the British ranks wavered, though before the junction was complete a cloud of Mahratta cavalry poured down upon them, dashed through the opening left between the two lines, enveloped either flank of the little army, and attacked the European regiment in the rear. Then, as a last resource, the European regiment faced about their second rank, and kept up such a steady rolling fire to front and rear at the same time, that but few of the eager horsemen ever came within spear's-length of the British bayonets.
In these days of rapid and far-reaching musketry fire, such a manœuvre bids fair to supersede the formation of squares to resist cavalry, but up to that day it had been but twice successfully attempted, as far as our military histories told, even by 'the terrible infantry' of England, and the veterans of the 'old Toughs' were not a little proud to have succeeded in a movement which had won for H. M.'s 28th Regiment (now 1st Bnt Gloucestershire Regt.) the unique honour of having a double number, on the back as well as the front of their caps.
One of the most touching recollections of those times attracted our notice almost the last day we spent at Kirkee. An old chief, Jadowrow of Malagaom, had come to take leave of the departing Governor. He was head of one of the oldest Mahratta families, for his ancestors were famous as a very ancient royal house, before the Mahomedans invaded the Deccan. The old man had borne arms as a youthful commander of horse, when the great Duke was at Poona in 1802, just before the battle of Assaye; had been greatly distinguished for his gallantry in the battle of Kirkee, so fatal to his race, and had followed the fortunes of the Peishwa to the last. Disdaining to make separate terms for himself with the English conqueror, he remained one of the few thoroughly faithful to his sovereign, not from love, for he loved not Bajee Row, but 'because he had eaten his salt,' and only after the Peishwa's surrender returned to his old castle near Poona. There for many years he lived, hunting and hawking over his diminished acres, and greatly respected as a model of a gallant and honourable old chief; but he could never be persuaded to revisit the capital of the Mahrattas after its occupation by the English. 'He had no child,' he said, 'and his race would die with him.' At last, as years rolled on, an only son was born to him; and then, touched by some unexpected act of liberality on the part of the British Government which would secure his ancestral estate to this child of his old age, he resolved to go to Poona, and visited the Governor, whose temporary residence happened to overlook the battle-field of Kirkee. He gazed long and wistfully from the drawing-room windows and said, 'This place is much changed since I was here last, fifty years ago. It was here the battle was fought, and it was from near this very spot that we charged down that slope on the English line as it formed beyond that brook. I never thought to have seen this place again.'
As these pages are written the overland mail brings a letter written on gold-flowered paper, in beautiful square Mahratta characters. It is from the old chief. It asks no favour, save a photograph of an old friend he can never see again, and conveys in terms of stately courtesy an assurance of his good-will and cordial recollection.
Not many miles from Poona a beautiful obelisk of black basalt, rising from the great plain which stretches eastward, marks the village of Koreigaom. There, a few weeks after the battle of Kirkee, a single battalion of Sepoys (the 1st Bombay Grenadiers), with a few British gunners of the Madras Artillery, and troopers of the Poona Horse, defended the open village for a whole day against the Mahratta army, commanded by the Peishwa in person, and infuriated by their then recent defeat at Kirkee.
Of the heroes of that little band few, of course, now survive. When we visited Koreigaom, the most conspicuous among the crowd of villagers was a little Mahratta boy, who over his ordinary garments had donned the full-dress coatee of a native officer's uniform of half a century ago. He was the son of a Jemadar (captain of native infantry), selected by Sir John Malcolm from among the heroes of the Grenadiers, to hold a small grant of land which the wise liberality of the old Court of Directors had given in perpetuity to insure the safeguard of the monument. The lad had carefully preserved his father's sword, sash, and cap, and had ranged them on a carpet in the little courtyard in front of his door, that we might see them as we passed by to examine the scene of the struggle. A few only of the elders of the village remembered the day, when, as terrified children, they had hidden themselves while the battle raged; but all could point out the spots where every incident occurred. The mud houses of the village are clustered now, as then, on the summit of a large mound which overlooks the river Bheema, and on the highest point, at the intersection of the two irregular streets, is a little open space (as usual in Mahratta villages), with the sacred tree, under which the elders congregate every evening to hear the news, and to sit in conclave in front of the village temple and choultry (or resting-place for travellers). These were the only stone buildings in the village. The massive square pillars of black basalt bear in bas-relief carvings of ages ago, scenes of battles of heroes and demigods taken from the ancient national epic. This little temple, though not many feet square inside, was, from its strength and situation, the key of the position. Commanding the street on one side, and overlooking the river on the other, it enabled a few men to protect the guns posted in the open space. Here was the only shelter for the wounded. Our men had but partial possession of the village, small as it was, for on the morning of the battle as they marched in to occupy it from one side, the advanced guard of the Mahratta army, of whose approach they had, till a few minutes before, been unaware, swarmed in from the other (the river side), and the contest began when a few yards only separated the leading combatants. The Peishwa took up his position on an eminence at a little distance, and through the livelong day one body after another of his choicest troops, Arabs and others, were sent to overwhelm the handful of British Sepoys. The enemy moved up under cover of the mud walls, and more than once succeeded in seizing our guns; but each time the Sepoys, advancing with the bayonet, as long as an English officer remained to lead them on, drove their foes back. Here, we were told, fell Pattinson, the gigantic adjutant. He was the son of a Cumberland clergyman, and was greatly beloved by his men. Early in the day he had been shot through the body, and otherwise sorely wounded, and the men thought he was dead; but when he heard the guns were taken by the enemy, he struggled to his feet, and, clubbing the musket of a fallen Sepoy, struck down an Arab, and led his men once more with a rush to recover the guns. At length every combatant European officer in that part of the position was killed or disabled, and then the young Assistant-Surgeons Wylie and Wingate, leaving their wounded in the temple, took their swords, and, calling the almost exhausted men to follow them, twice led them to the charge, retook the precious guns, and restored the fortune of the day. In one of these charges Wingate fell mortally wounded.
The greatest sufferings of the Sepoys were from thirst; the villagers had depended on the sacred waters of the Bheema, and our men could see the clear stream running within a hundred yards of them; but it was death to drink it, for those hundred yards were swept by the fire of the whole Peishwa's army, and no man could live to cross that space and return.
At length night closed on the unequal combat. The Peishwa, utterly dispirited by his failure to overwhelm even such a handful of British Sepoys unsupported by any body of Europeans, withdrew, and never again attempted to try the fortune of war in the field. The surviving remnant of the victors made good their retreat, carrying with them, among their other wounded, their gallant adjutant, to die and be laid in a soldier's grave at Seroor.[1]
Almost every hill-fort and large village round Poona has some tradition, not only of the days of Alumgeer, Sivagee, and of early Mahratta history, but of the campaigns of Wellesley in 1802 and of the last great struggle in 1817-18; and many were the tales, like those above referred to, that still survive, mingled with recollections of Elphinstone's wisdom and noble generosity, and Malcolm's frankness; which it was pleasant to hear and verify in these days of cynical scepticism which affects to doubt alike the power of unsupported European heroism, and the existence of courage, unselfish fidelity, and real gratitude among the natives; and which too often really does doubt the possibility of holding and governing India by the same means and in the same spirit by which our empire was acquired. Do we not, by such disbelief, sometimes risk the power to do such deeds as the last generation witnessed?
NOTE B.
Anna's remarks on the contrast between the present dearth and the 'good old times' of cheap bread, when the rupee went so much further than it does now, are very characteristic. The complaint, too, is very universal, and is to be heard in the household of public functionaries, the highest as well as the lowest, in every grade of native society, and more or less in all parts of India. It is a complaint which deserves far more attentive consideration than it has hitherto received. Economists and statisticians are well aware that the great and steady rise in prices of late years in India is one of the consequences of a great and long-continued influx of the precious metals, and therefore a symptom of the growing prosperity of the country; but the English subaltern or railway engineer finds only that it leaves him at the end of the year a poorer man than he would have been at home, when he expected to have been richer, and he is very apt to attribute his disappointment to the Government, and to imagine that he has been entrapped into a bad bargain.
The natives are naturally still less likely to weigh against the inconveniences of rising prices, the many advantages to all the labouring and mercantile classes with which high prices are accompanied, when caused by a cheapening of the precious metals; and very bitter are the invectives often directed against the 'Government which makes bread dear.'
The Narrator's notion that 'the English fixed the rupee at sixteen annas' is another specimen of a very widespread Indian popular delusion. The rupee always consisted of sixteen annas, for the anna means only the sixteenth part of anything, but to the poor the great matter for consideration in all questions of currency is the quantity of small change they can get for the coin in which their wages are paid. Formerly this used to fluctuate with the price of copper, and the quantity of copper change which a silver rupee would fetch varied as copper was cheap or dear, and was always greatest when the copper currency was most debased. The English introduced all over India a uniform currency of copper as well as of silver, and none of course were greater gainers in the long-run by this uniformity than the very poor. But, as usually happens in such cases, the memory of the occasional gain when the rupee brought more than its normal proportion of change, has outlived the recollection of the more frequent loss when it brought less; and the popular intelligence, however it may smart under the evils of an uncertain and irregular currency, is slow to recognise the benefits of uniformity.
NOTE C.
I am unable, at present, to give either the native words or music of this curious little Calicut song. It is probably of Portuguese origin, or may have been derived from the Syrian Christians who have been settled on that coast since the earliest ages.
The English translation of the words as explained to me by Anna, is as follows:—
PART I.
THE SONG FROM THE SHIP.
(To be sung by one or more voices.)
2. Now darkness, lightning, and very little rain; but big flashes, two yards long, that looked as if they fell into the sea.
3. On the third day the Captain looks out for land, shading his eyes with his hand. There may be land. The sailors say to him, 'What do you see?' He answers, 'Far off is the jungle, and, swinging in a tree, is an old monkey with two little monkeys in her arms. We must be nearing land.'
4. Again the Captain looks out; the sailors say to him, 'What do you see?' He answers, 'On the shore there walks a pretty little maiden, with a chattee on her head; she skips, and runs, and dances, as she goes. We must be nearing land.'It is all true, they have gained the shore.
PART II.
SONG FROM THE SHORE.
(To be sung by one or more voices.)
1.
The ship's on the sea—
Which way is it coming?
Right home to land.
What cargo has it?
The ship brings the sacrament and praying beads.
2.
The ship's on the sea—
Which way is it coming?
Right home to land.
What cargo has it?
The ship brings white paper and the Twelve Apostles.
3.
The ship comes home to land—
What cargo does it bring?
Silver money, prophets, and holy people.
4.
The ship comes home to land—
What does it bring?
All the saints, and holy people, and Jesus Christ of Nazareth.
5.
The ship comes to our doors—
Who brings it home?
Our Saviour.
Our Saviour bless the ship, and bring it safely home.
The second song, 'The little Wife watching for her Husband's Return,' Anna had almost entirely forgotten.
It was, she said, very pretty, being the song of the little wife, as she decks herself in her jewels to please her husband when he comes home. She laments his absence, and fears he has forgotten her, and bemoans her loneliness.
NOTES ON THE FAIRY LEGENDS.
PUNCHKIN.
Page 1.—The Rajah's seven daughters taking it by turns to cook their father's dinner would be nothing unusual in the household of a Rajah. To a Chief, or great man in India, it is still the most natural precaution he can take against poison, to eat only what has been prepared by his wife or daughter, or under their eye in his own zenana; and there are few accomplishments on which an Indian Princess prides herself more than on her skill in cookery.
RAMA AND LUXMAN.
Page 56.—The little black and white owls, which fly out at dusk and sit always in pairs, chattering to each other, in a singularly conversational version of owl language, are among the most widely-spread of Indian birds, and in every province where they are found are regarded as the most accomplished of soothsayers. Unlike other ominous creatures, they are anxious to do good to mankind, for they always tell each other what the traveller ought to do, and if mankind were not so dull in understanding their language, would save the hearer from all risk of misfortune.
LITTLE SURYA BAI.
Page 64.—The sang-froid with which the first Ranee, here and in the story of Panch-Phul Ranee, page 99, receives the second and more favoured wife to share her throne, however difficult to understand in the West, is very characteristic of Oriental life. In Indian households of the highest rank, it would not be difficult to find examples of several wives living amicably together as described in some of these stories; but the contrary result, as depicted in this story of Surya Bai and others, is far more common, for as a general rule human nature is too strong for custom, and under an external serenity bitter jealousies exist between the several wives of a royal Hindoo household, which are a constant source of misery and crime. Among the curious changes of opinion which are observable of late years in our Indian Empire, none is more remarkable than the conviction, now frequently expressed by the warmest supporters of native governments at native courts, that the toleration of polygamy is one of their most serious dangers, the removal of which is of vital importance to the safety of any Indian dynasty, and, indeed, to the permanence of any Indian family of rank.
THE WANDERINGS OF VICRAM MAHARAJAH.
Page 73.—The Dipmal or Tower of Lights is an essential feature in every large Hindoo temple. It is often of great height, and furnished with niches or brackets, each of which holds a lamp on festivals, especially on that of the Dewali, the feast of lamps celebrated in the autumn in honour of the Hindoo goddess Bowani or Kali, who was formerly propitiated on that occasion by human sacrifices.
Page 74.—The story of Vicram's act of devotion is thoroughly Hindoo. It is difficult for any European to understand the universal prevalence and strength of the conviction among Hindoos that the particular god of their adoration can be prevailed on, by importunity or self-devotion, to reveal to his worshipper some act, generally ascetic or sacrificial, the performance of which will insure to the devotee the realisation of the object of his wishes. The act of devotion, and the object of the devotee, are both often very trivial; but, occasionally, we are startled by hearing of some deed of horror, a human sacrifice or deliberate act of self-immolation, which is quite unaccountable to those who are not aware that it is only a somewhat extreme manifestation of a belief which still influences the daily conduct of the great majority of our Hindoo fellow-subjects.
And even Europeans, who have known the Hindoos long and intimately, frequently fail to recognise the extent to which this belief influences the ethics of common life and action in India. To quote an instance from well-known history: there are few acts regarding which a European traveller would expect the verdict of all mankind to be more generally condemnatory than the murder of Afzul Khan, the general of the Imperial Delhi Army, by Sivajee, the founder of the Mahratta Empire. Sivajee, according to the well-known story, had invited his victim to an amicable conference, and there stabbed him with a wag nuck[2] as they embraced at their first meeting. It was a deed of such deliberate and cruel treachery, that it could find few defenders in Europe even among the wildest advocates of political assassination. A European is consequently little prepared to find it regarded by Mahrattas generally as a most commendable act of devotion. The Hindoo conscience condemns murder and treachery as emphatically as the European; but this act, as viewed by the old-fashioned Mahratta, was a sacrifice prescribed by direct revelation of the terrible goddess Bowani to her faithful devotee. It was, therefore, highly meritorious, and the beautiful Genoese blade which Sivajee always wore, and with which his victim was finally despatched, was, down to our own days, provided with a little temple of its own in the palace of his descendants, and annually worshipped by them and their household not as a mere act of veneration for their ancestor's trusty sword, but because it was the chosen instrument of a great sacrifice, and, 'no doubt,' as the attendant who watched it used to say, 'some of the spirit of Bowani,' whose name it bore, 'must still reside in it.'
An attentive observer will notice in the daily life of those around him in India constant instances of this belief in the efficacy of acts of devotion and sacrifice to alter even the decrees of Fate. It is one of the many incentives to the long pilgrimages which form such a universal feature in Hindoo life, and the records of our courts of justice, and our Indian newspapers, constantly afford traces of its prevalence in cases of attempted suttee and other acts of self-immolation, or even of human sacrifice, like that above alluded to. It must be remembered that Hindoo sacrifice has nothing but the name in common with the sacrifices which are a distinctive part of the religion of every Semitic race. Many a difficulty which besets the Hindoo inquirer after truth would be avoided if his essential distinction were always known or remembered.
Page 76.—This belief in the omnipotence of 'Muntrs,' or certain verbal formulas, properly pronounced by one to whom they have been authoritatively communicated, is closely allied to, and quite as universal as, the belief in the efficacy of sacrificial acts of devotion. In every nation throughout India, whatever may be the variations of creed or caste usage, it is a general article of belief accepted by the vast majority of every class and caste of Hindoos, that there is a form of words (or Muntr), which, to be efficacious, can be only orally transmitted, but which, when so communicated by one of the 'twice born,' has absolutely unlimited power over all things, visible or invisible, extending even to compelling the obedience of the gods, and of Fate itself. Of course it is rather dangerous, even for the wisest, to meddle with such potent influences, and the attempt is usually confined to the affairs of common life, but of the absolute omnipotence of 'Muntrs,' few ordinary un-Europeanised Hindoos entertain any doubt, and there is hardly any part of their belief which exercises such an all-pervading and potent influence in their daily life, though that influence is often but little understood by Europeans.
The classical reader will remember many allusions to a similar belief as a part of the creeds imported from the East which were fashionable under the Empire at Rome. There is much curious information on the subject of the earliest known Hindoo Muntrs in the 'Aitareya Brahmana' of the learned Dr. Haug, the only European who ever witnessed the whole process of a Hindoo sacrifice. The English reader who is curious on such matters will do well to consult the recently published work of Professor Max Müller, which might, without exaggeration, be described as a storehouse of new facts connected with the religion and literature of the East, rather than by its modest title of Chips from a German Workshop.
HOW THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE WIND WENT OUT TO DINNER.
Page 115.—I have not ventured to alter the traditional mode of the Moon's conveyance of dinner to her mother the Star, though it must, I fear, seriously impair the value of the story as a moral lesson in the eyes of all instructors of youth. (M. F.)
SINGH RAJAH AND THE CUNNING LITTLE JACKALS.
Page 119.—This story is substantially the same as one well known to readers of Pilpai's Fables. The chorus of the Jackal's song of triumph is an imitation of their nocturnal howl.
THE JACKAL, THE BARBER, AND THE BRAHMAN.
Page 123.—The touch of the poor outcast Mahars would be pollution to a Hindoo of any but the lowest caste; hence their ready obedience to the Jackal's exhortation not to touch him. The offerings of rice, flowers, a chicken, etc., and the pouring water over the idol, are parts of the regular daily observance in every village temple.
MUCHIE-LAL.
Page 168.—The popular belief in stories of this kind, where the Cobra becomes the companion of human beings, is greatly strengthened by the instances which occasionally occur when particular persons, sometimes children or idiots, possess the power to handle the deadly reptiles without receiving any injury from them. How much is due merely to gentleness of touch and fearlessness, and how much to any personal peculiarity which pleases the senses of the snake, it is difficult to say, for the instances, though not few, and perfectly well authenticated, are sufficiently rare to be popularly regarded as his own voice, attract to himself and handle with impunity all the snakes which might be within hearing in any thicket or dry stone wall, such as in that country is their favourite refuge. So great was the popular excitement regarding him, under the belief that he was an incarnation of some divinity, that the magistrate of Poona took note of his proceedings, and becoming uneasy as to the political turn the excitement regarding the boy might take, reported regularly to Government the growth of the crowds who pressed to see the marvel, and to offer gifts to the child and his parents! The poor boy, however, was at last bitten by one of the reptiles and died, and the wonder ceased.
CHUNDUN RAJAH.
Page 174.—There are innumerable popular superstitions regarding the powers which can be conveyed in a charmed necklace; and it is a common belief that good and bad fortune, and life itself, can be made to depend on its not being removed from the wearer's neck.
CHANDRA'S VENGEANCE.
Page 188.—The picture of the childless wife setting forth to seek Mahadeo, and resolving not to return till she has seen him, is one which would find a parallel in some of the persons composing almost every group of pilgrims who resort to the great shrines of Hindostan. Any one who has an opportunity of quietly questioning the members of such an assemblage will find that, besides the miscellaneous crowd of idlers, there are usually specimens of two classes of very earnest devotees. The one class is intent on the performance of some act of ascetic devotion, the object of which is to win the favour of the Divinity, or to fulfil a vow for a favour already granted. The other class is seeking 'to see the Divinity,' and expecting the revelation under one or other of the terrible forms of the Hindoo Pantheon. There are few things more pathetic than to hear one of this class recount the wanderings and sufferings of his past search, or the journeys he has before him, which are too often prolonged till death puts an end to the wanderer and his pilgrimage.
Page 189.—The 'fire which does not burn' is everywhere in India one of the attributes of Mahadeo.
In many parts of the Deccan are to be found shrines consecrated to one of the local gods, who has been Brahmanically recognised as a local manifestation of Mahadeo, where the annual festival of the divinity was, within the last few years, kept by lighting huge fires, through which devotees ran or jumped, attributing their escape from burning to the interposition of Mahadeo. Except in a few remote villages, this custom, which sometimes led to serious accidents, has, in British territory, been stopped by the police.
Page 192.—This story of the wonderful child who was found floating in a box on a river is to be heard, with more or less picturesque variations, on the banks of all the large rivers in India. Almost every old village in Sind has a local tradition of this kind.
Page 197.—Most households in Calcutta can furnish recollections of depredations by birds at their nest-building season, similar to that of the Ranee's bangles by the Eagles in this story. But the object of the theft is generally more prosaic. I have known gold rings so taken, but the plunder is more frequently a lady's cuff, or collar, or a piece of lace; and the plunderers are crows, and sometimes, but very rarely, a kite.
Page 202.—Purwaris, or outcasts, who are not suffered to live within the quarter inhabited by the higher castes, are very numerous in Southern India, and a legend similar to this one is a frequent popular explanation of their being in excess as compared with other classes of the population.
HOW THE THREE CLEVER MEN OUTWITTED THE DEMONS.
Page 203.—Old residents at Surat may remember an ancient local celebrity named Tom the Barber, among whose recollections of former days was a chronicle of a renowned duellist, who used to amuse himself by shooting with his pistol, somewhat after the fashion of the Pearlshooter. The little tin can of hot water which Tom carried, slung from his forefinger, as he went his morning rounds, was a favourite mark. So were the water-jars on the heads of the women as they passed the duellist's house, coming from the well; and great was Tom's relief when an old woman, who could not be pacified by the usual douceur for the loss of her jar and the shock of finding the water stream down her back, appealed to the authorities and had the duellist bound over to abstain in future from his dangerous amusement.
So vivid were Tom's recollections of his own terrors, that, after the lapse of half a century, he could ill conceal his sense of the poetical justice finally inflicted on his tormentor, who was killed in a duel to which he provoked a young officer who had never before fired a pistol.
- ↑ For a full account of the military operations of this eventful period, see Grant Duff's admirable History of the Mahrattas.
- ↑ An instrument so called from its similarity to a tiger's claw. It consists of sharp curved steel blades, set on a bar which fits by means of finger-rings to the inside of the hand, so as to be concealed when the hand is closed; while the blades project at right angles to the cross-bar and palm, when the hand is opened. It is struck with as in slapping or tearing with the claws.