Читать книгу The Life of Captain Sir Richard F. Burton (Vol. 1&2) - Lady Isabel Burton - Страница 18

Arriving in London, I was received by the family harem with some little astonishment, for they already knew enough of "terms" to be aware that the last was unfinished. I was quite determined to have two or three days in peace, so I thoroughly satisfied all the exigencies of the position by declaring that I had been allowed an extra vacation for taking a double-first with the very highest honours. A grand dinner-party was given, quite the reverse of the fatted calf. Unfortunately, amongst the guests was the Rev. Mr. Phillips, a great friend of mine, who grinned at me, and indirectly ejaculated, "Rusticated, eh?" The aunts said nothing at the time, but they made inquiries, the result of which was a tableau.

This Phillips was the brother of Major-General Sir B. T. Phillips, who served long and well in the Bengal army, was rather a noted figure as a young-old man in London, and died in Paris in 1880.

You will say that these are wild oats with a vengeance, but most thus sow them, and it is better that they should sow them in early youth. Nothing is more melancholy than to see a man suddenly emancipated from family rule, and playing tricks when the heyday is passed. Youth is like new wine that must be allowed to ferment freely, or it will never become clear, strong, and well flavoured.

He gets a Commission and begins Hindostani.

I was asked what I intended to do, and I replied simply that I wished to go into the Army, but that I preferred the Indian service, as it would show me more of the world, and give me a better chance of active service. There was no great difficulty in getting a commission. The Directors were bound not to sell them, but every now and then they would give a nomination to a friend, and my friend did not throw away the chance. My conviction is that the commission cost £500.

It was arranged that I should sail in the spring, and meanwhile I determined to have a jolly time. I made a number of new acquaintances, including old Mr. Varley, the artist, of whom I was very fond. He had just finished a curious book that he called "Zodiacal Physiognomy," in order to prove that every man resembled, after a fashion, the sign under which he was born. Readers will kindly remember, that in the old Zodiacs, all the figures were either human or bestial. Mr. Varley was a great student of occult science, and perhaps his favourite was astrology. It is curious how little London knows of what goes on in the next-door house. A book on "Alchemy" was printed, and the curious fact came out, that at least one hundred people in London were studying the philosopher's stone.

Mr. Varley drew out my horoscope, and prognosticated that I was to become a great astrologer; but the prophesy came to nothing, for, although I had read Cornelius Agrippa and others of the same school at Oxford, I found Zadkiel quite sufficient for me. Amongst the people that I met was the Rev. Robert, popularly called Satan Montgomery, who had come up from Scotland deadly tired of Glasgow punch, and was making a preaching campaign. He had written a quantity of half-nonsense verses, which were very much admired by his feminine devotees, and which were most savagely mangled by Lord Macaulay in the Quarterly. He was an effective figure in the pulpit; he had a very pale face, and tolerably straight features, very black hair, and very white hands, with a large diamond and a very white pocket-handkerchief.

He had, to a marvellous extent, what is vulgarly called the "gift of the gab;" he spoke for an hour without a moment's hesitation. But there was something solid below all this froth, and he had carefully read up all the good old theological works. The women, including the aunts, went literally mad; they crowded the little Gothic chapel, they mobbed as he came in and went out, and they literally overwhelmed him with slippers, chest-protectors, and portable articles to administer the Sacrament. His reign was short; he married, came up to London, took a chapel, subsided into the average popular preacher, and soon died. Amongst others that I met was a certain Robert Bagshaw from Calcutta, who was destined afterwards to marry my aunt Georgina Baker. I managed to offend him very much. He was rather boasting of a new dress-coat, when I delicately raised the tail, and said, "You don't mean to say that you call this a coat?"

With all this wasting of time, I kept my eye steadily fixed upon the main chance. I gave up boxing at Owen Swift's, and fencing at Angelo's, and spent all my spare time in learning Hindostani with old Duncan Forbes. A very curious old Scotchman it was. He had spent a year or so in Bombay, and upon the strength of it, he was perfect master of Oriental languages. He had two passions: one was for smoking a huge meerschaum, stuffed with the strongest possible tobacco, and the other was for chess, concerning which he published some, at that time, very interesting and novel studies.

Perhaps his third passion was not quite so harmless; it was simply for not washing. He spoke all his Eastern languages with the broadest possible Scotch accent; and he cared much more for telling anecdotes, than for teaching. However, he laid a fair foundation, and my then slight studies of Arabic, secured me the old man's regard. He published a number of books, and he certainly had not the suaviter in modo. He attacked Eastwick, the Orientalist, in the most ferocious style.

He goes to be sworn in at the India Office.

Presently the day came when I was to be sworn in at the India House. In those days the old building stood in Leadenhall Street, and gave Thackeray a good opportunity of attacking it as the "Hall of Lead;" a wonderful dull and smoky old place, it was, with its large and gorgeous porter outside, and its gloomy, stuffy old rooms inside, an atmosphere which had actually produced "The Essays of Elia." In those days it kept up a certain amount of respect for itself. If an officer received a gift of a sword, he was conducted by the tall porter to the general meeting of the Directors, and duly spoken to and complimented in form; but as times waxed harder, the poor twenty-four Kings of Leadenhall Street declined from Princes into mere Shayhks. They actually sent a Sword of Honour to one of their officers by a street messenger, and the donee returned it, saying, he could, not understand the manner of the gift; and so it went on gradually declining and falling, till at last the old house was abandoned and let for offices. The shadowy Directors flitted to the West End, into a brand-new India House, which soon brought on their Euthanasia.

My bringing-up caused me to be much scandalized by the sight of my future comrades and brother officers, which I will presently explain. The Afghan disaster was still fresh in public memory. The aunts had been patriotic enough to burst into tears when they heard of it; and certainly it was an affecting picture, the idea of a single Englishman, Dr. Brydone, riding into Jellalabad, the only one of thirteen thousand, he and his horse so broken as almost to die at the gates.

Poor General Elphinstone, by-the-by, had been my father's best man at his marriage, and was as little fitted for such field service, as Job was at his worst. Alexander Burns was the only headpiece in the lot. He had had the moral courage to report how critical the position was; but he had not the moral courage to insist upon his advice being taken, and, that failing, to return to his regiment as a Captain.

MacNaghten was a mere Indian civilian. Like too many of them, he had fallen into the dodging ways of the natives, and he distinctly deserved his death. The words used by Akbar Khan, by-the-by, when he shot him, were, "Shumá mulk-e-má mí gírid" ("So you're the fellow who've come to take our country").

But the result of the massacre was a demand for soldiers and officers, especially Anglo-Indians. Some forty medical students were sent out, and they naturally got the name of the "Forty Thieves." The excess of demand explained the curious appearance of the embryo cadets when they met to be sworn in at the India House. They looked like raw country lads, mostly dressed in home-made clothes, and hair cut by the village barber, country boots, and no gloves. So, my friend, Colonel White's son, who was entering the service on the same day, and I looked at one another in blank dismay. We had fallen amongst young Yahoos, and we looked forward with terror to such society. I was originally intended for Bengal, but, as has been seen, I had relations there. I was not going to subject myself to surveillance by my uncle by marriage, an old general of invalids. Moreover, one of my D'Aguilar cousins was married to a judge in Calcutta. I was determined to have as much liberty as possible, and therefore I chose Bombay. I was always of opinion that a man proves his valour by doing what he likes; there is no merit in so doing when you have a fair fortune and independent position, but for a man bound by professional ties, and too often lacking means to carry out his wishes, it is a great success to choose his own line and stick to it.

The next thing to do was to obtain an outfit. This was another great abuse in those days. As the friends of the Directors made money by the cadets' commissions to the friends, the friends made money by sending them to particular houses. The unfortunate cadets, or rather their parents, were in fact plundered by everything that touched them. The outfit, which was considered de rigueur, was absurdly profuse. Dozens upon dozens of white jackets and trousers, only fit to give rheumatism—even tobacco, niggerhead, and pigtail, as presents for the sailors. Even the publishers so arranged that their dictionaries and grammars of Hindostani should be forced upon the unhappy youths.1 The result was absolutely ridiculous. As a rule, the bullock trunks were opened during the voyage, the kit was displayed, and on fast ships it was put down as a stake at cards. Stories are told of sharp hands landing in India after winning half a dozen outfits, which literally glutted the market. Guns, pistols, and swords, and saddles were of the most expensive and useless description, and were all to be bought much better, at a quarter the price, in any Indian port.

The average of the voyage lasted four months. Two or three changes of suits only, were necessary, and the £100 outfit was simply plunder to the outfitter.

An unusual article of outfit was ordered by me, and that was a wig from Winter in Oxford Street. In early life I found the advantage of shaving my head, enabling me to keep it cool, when it was usually in the other condition.

An old Joe Miller was told in Bombay about a certain Duncan Grey, a Scotch doctor, who was famous for selling hog-mane ponies to new-comers. He was in medical attendance upon the cadets, and took the opportunity of pocketing his wig, and persuading them that shaved heads were the official costume. He accompanied them for the first official visit, and as they were taking off their caps he whipped on his wig, and presented to the astonished Commanding Officer half a dozen utterly bald pates, which looked as if they belonged to as many lunatics.

My only companion was a bull-terrier of the Oxford breed, more bull than terrier. Its box-head and pink face had been scratched all over during a succession of dog-fights and various tussles with rats. It was beautifully built in the body, and the tail was as thin as a little finger, showing all the vertebræ. The breed seems to have become almost extinct, but I found it again at Oxford when I went there in 1850. The little brute bore a fine litter of pups, and died in Gujarat, as usual with every sign of old age, half-blind eyes, and staggering limbs. The pups grew up magnificently. One, which rejoiced in the name of Bachhûn, received the best of educations. He was entered necessarily on mice, rats, and Gilahris, or native squirrels, which bite and scratch like cats. He was so thoroughly game, that he would sally out alone in the mornings, and kill a jackal single-handed. He was the pride of the regiment, and came as usual to a bad end. On one of my journeys, dressed as a native, I had to leave him behind in charge of my friend Dr. Arnold, surgeon of the regiment. Dr. Arnold also, when absent, confided him to the care of a brother-medico, Dr. Pitman, who had strict opinions on the subject of drugs. The wretch actually allowed the gallant little dog to die of some simple disease, because he would not give him a dose of medicine belonging to the Company.

1. Our boxes were stuffed with Wellington's despatches, Army Regulations, Mill's ponderous "History of India," and whatever the publisher chose to agree upon with the outfitter.