and don't want to rouse them to Mutiny or do anything desperate, but Boggley discouraged me at the outset. "You needn't grin at them so affably," he remarked, "they will only think you are weak in the head." They quite evidently regard me as a poor creature, even Bella, though she humours me and condescends to say "pretty pretty," or "nicey nicey" when I am dressed in the evening. I think she must once have nursed children, for the words she knows are baby words; she always calls me "poor Missy baba" and strokes me! The pani-wallah finds amusement in practising his English on me. When he sees G. come through the compound, he bounds to my room, holds up the chick and announcing "Mees come," retires, stiff with pride at his knowledge of the language.
I have learned a few useful Hindustani words. Qui hai means roughly, "Is anyone there?" and you cry that instead of ringing a bell, and it brings the instant response "Huzoor," and a servant springs from nowhere to do your bidding. Lao means "bring" and jao "go." You never say "please," and you learn the words in a cross tone—that is, if you want to be really Anglo-Indian. Radical M.P.s of course will learn "please" at once, if there is such a word in the language, which I doubt. One nice globe-trotting old lady, anxious, like me, to conciliate the natives, was having a cup of chocolate at Peliti's, and she insisted on sending out to see if the tikka-gharry wallah would like a cup!
A tikka-gharry is a thing like a victoria, hired by the hour. There are first, second, and third class tikka-gharries. The first class have two horses, the second one horse, and the third is closed, and, having no springs, is a terrible vehicle indeed. The drivers of these carriages have, as a rule, long whiskers, and are dressed in khaki. They have bags of provender for the horses tied behind the conveyance, where also precariously hangs another man who might be the twin-brother of the driver. I don't know why he is there, but there he is.
G. and I love to set out in a tikka-gharry and practise our Hindustani. Starting early when it is fairly cool—Indian cold weather mornings are the most wonderful things, so fresh and so bright and so blue—G. starts us off at a mad gallop by shouting Juldi jao, which I have to calm down with Asti asti (slower). When we reach Peliti's we cry Roko (stop), and get out to buy caramels, chocolates, and cakes for tea. Peliti has a peculiarly delicious kind of chocolate cake, the recipe for which I wish he would confide to Fuller or Buszard. But it isn't the European shops, good as they are, that occupy our mornings. Much more fascinating haunts await us, the New Market and the China Bazaar. The former is a kind of arcade which contains everything that any reasonable person could require; fragrant fruit and flowers, fresh-smelling vegetables, and the wares of butcher and baker and candlestick-maker, all laid out on booths and stalls for the world to choose from.
There, very early in the morning, come the khansamahs of the various Mem-sahibs and buy all that is needed for the day, while the Mem-sahibs are cosy in bed, needing not to worry about house, visitors, or forthcoming dinner-parties. Housekeeping is easy in India. Boggley thought we had better ask some people to dinner, so we did, though I pointed out that we had no silver or anything to make the table decent; and the boarding-house things are none too dainty. "It'll be all right," said Boggley, "leave it to the servants;" so I engaged the private dining-room—and left it. I rather trembled when the evening came and our party walked in, but I needn't have. The servants were worthy of their trust. The table looked charming, and, as I had never seen any of the things before, I had a more interesting time than usually falls to the hostess. What I sincerely hoped was that none of the guests had seen any of the things before either, but if they had they possessed great control of their countenances.
Eatables, however, are by no means the only things to be found in the New Market. Silks, muslins, chicon-work, silver ornaments, and jewellery keep us breathless, while the pleasant shopman in a frock-coat and turban offers them at what he calls "killin'" prices.
The China Bazaar is much farther into the city, quite in the native quarter. It is a real adventure to make an expedition there, and the owners allow us to poke in back rooms from which we unearth wondrous treasures in the way of old brass vases; queer, slender-necked scent-bottles still faintly smelling of roses; old lacquer boxes, and bits of rich embroidery. I am becoming a Shylock in the way I beat down prices. I shouldn't wonder a bit when I go home and am ruffling it once more in Bond Street if, when told the price of a thing is a guinea, I laugh in a jocular way and say, "Oh! come now, I'll give you ten shillings."
But to return to Hindustani. I haven't told you all I know. I can ask for tunda beef, which is cold beef, just as tunda pani is cold water, gurrum pani being hot! I can order what I want at meals. At first when I wanted boiled eggs and heard Boggley order unda bile, I remonstrated, "Not under-boiled, hard-boiled," until it was explained to me that unda meant egg. The native can't say any word beginning with s without putting a y before it, thus—y-spice beef, y-street. When men come to see us I cry, "Qui hai?" and, when the servant appears, order "Peg lao—cheroot lao," and feel intensely Anglo-Indian and rather fast. One trait the language has which appeals greatly to me is that one can spell it almost any way one likes, but that is enough about Hindustani for one letter.
23rd.
I have come in from a ride with Boggley. The proper time to ride is early morning, but I am too lazy and too timid to go when the place is crowded, and so we ride in the cool of the evening, when we have the race-course almost to ourselves. I ride one of Boggley's polo ponies, Solomon by name. Boggley says he is as quiet as a lamb, but I am not sure that he is speaking the strict truth; he has some nasty little ways, it seems to me. He bites for one thing. We were riding with a man the other night and quite suddenly his pony got up in the air and nearly threw him. Solomon had bitten him. The man looked at me as if it were my fault, and I regret to say I laughed. He has also an ungentlemanly way of trying to rub me off against the railings, and then again, for no apparent reason, he suddenly scurries wildly across the Maidan while I pull desperately, but impotently, with fingers weak from fright. Boggley coming behind convulsed with laughter, merely remarks that I am a funk-stick—which, I take it, means the worst kind of coward.
29th.
Think where I have been for the last three days!
Down the river in a launch. That kind Mrs. Townley was taking G. and asked Boggley if I might go. We had to leave on Saturday morning before seven to catch the tide, so I warned Bella that she must bring my chota-hazri before six; but I woke and found it was after six, and there were no signs of the perfidious little black Bella. I wasn't nearly ready when G. rushed in, but I threw on garments and we fled, while Boggley, in his dressing-gown, followed with a parting benediction of Peliti's cake as a substitute for tea and toast. We found the launch delightfully comfortable, not to say luxurious. It had been done up for some of the royalties who were out here. There were only we three on board and three young sailor men, so it was a blessedly peaceful three days. We lay on deck and watched the life of the river, all the ships a-sailing, big ships from Dundee and Greenock, German ships, French ships, every kind and nationality of ships down to the curious native craft. Sometimes we passed a little village on the river-bank with a temple and an idol on a mound. When we anchored in the afternoon two of the officers went on shore to shoot, and the sailors let down a net and caught delicious fish for dinner. I did wish Peter had been there. He would have felt like Robinson Crusoe and rejoiced in it all. At dinner the young men told us wonderful stories of their adventures with snakes and tigers. One man said that he was having his bath one morning when a snake came up the pipe. When it saw him it went down again, but as it was disappearing he pulled it back by its tail. Again it tried to go down and again he pulled it back, and then the snake took a look at him and went down tail first. I believed every word, but when I came home and related the amazing tales to Boggley he received them with derisive shouts of laughter, and said they had been spinning us sailors' yarns.
The mail was waiting here when I came back yesterday. Thanks so much for your letter. I am immensely interested in all your news, but I have left myself no time to answer you properly, as this must be posted
