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THE ROYAL VISIT TO INDIA
191 1-1912
MACMILLAN AND CO., Limited
LONDON • BOMBAY • CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK • BOSTON • CHICAGO
DALLAS • SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd.
TORONTO
THE KING-EMPEROR AND THE OUEEN-EMPRESS.
Frontispiece.
NARRATIVE
OF THE
VISIT TO INDIA
OF
THEIR MAJESTIES
KING GEORGE V. and QUEEN MARY
AND OF
THE CORONATION DURBAR HELD AT DELHI
12th DECEMBER lyil
BY
The Hon. JOHN FORTESCUE
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1912
COPYRIGHT
DEDICATED
(by gracious permission)
TO
HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS
THE PRINCE OF WALES
ye f-'^-^i '^ i^A
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACE I'AOE
I. The King-Emperor and the Queen-Empress Frontispiece
2. The Oueen and her Ladies ....
3. Watching a Spar-and-Pillow Fight
4. A Spar-and-Pillow Fight ....
5. Watching the Sports on H.M.S. Medina
6. The Reception at Bombay ....
7. The King-Emperor's Camp, Delhi
8. The Arrival at Selimgarh Bastion
9. The Durbar — The Arena and Spectators' Mound
from the Top of the Stand .
10. The Durbar — Distant View of the Royal Pavilion
and the Spectators' Mound .
11. The Maharaja of Bikaner and Their Imperial
Majesties' Pages .....
12. The Shamiana — Delhi Durbar ...
13. The King-Emperor's Chobdars ...
14. H.H. The Begum of Bhopal leaving the Roya
Reception Tent .....
15. The Durbar — The Royal Pavilion
85
104
105
106
108
116
117
H3
147
151
152
155
158
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACE PAGE
1 6.
Their Majesties at the National Festival
• 174
17-
Their Majesties at the National Festival
^75
i8.
The Review at Delhi ....
I'jb
19.
An Indian Camel Corps
177
20.
The Maharaja of Bikaner, and Sir Pratap
Singh
185
21.
The Royal Party in Nipal .
189
22.
A close Shot by the King .
193
23-
The King, and the Spoil of his Rifle .
197
24.
A good Bag in Nipal ....
198
25.
In the Palace of Bundi
220
26.
In the Palace of Bundi
222
27.
The Procession into Calcutta — The
Queen -
Empress in her Carriage
231
28.
An Indian Greeting to Their Majesties
240
29.
Arabs alongside at Port Sudan
246
30-
Arab Tribes at Sinkat ....
248
31-
The Return to London
PLAN
261
Du
rbar, Delhi, 12th December 191 1 .
At end oj
" Volume
vni
/I
I
India. What does this name signify to ninety-
nine out of a hundred of us beyond a triangle,
coloured red, upon the map of Asia ? We are
told that the said triangle measures nineteen
hundred miles in length from north to south, and
about the same in breadth, at its widest point,
from east to west ; and that it contains an area
rather larger than that of Europe west of the
Vistula. The statement conveys little to us.
We accept it as undoubtedly true, and, if we
look at a map of India superimposed upon one
of Europe on the same scale, we are perhaps a
little staggered. But we in our little island are
accustomed to reckon by acres, not by thousands
of square miles ; and, strive as we may against
the tendency, we find ourselves always attempt-
ing to apply our own puny standards to things
Asiatic. We hear of great rivers, and instinctively
recall the Thames at London Bridge, forgetting
that a great Indian river in flood would fill the
space from Westminster Abbey to the Crystal
Palace. We are told of mighty mountains, and
commit to memory the bald fact that some of
I B
THE VASTNESS OF INDIA
them soar to twice the height of Mont Blanc ;
we are aware, perhaps, that they form a barrier
practically impassable by man along the immense
northern frontier of India ; possibly we may
even realise with awe that they make the vast
reservoir of water, in the form of snow, which
feeds the gigantic rivers already mentioned. So
much we may gather, with moderate intelligence,
from our maps. But there is one thing more,
the most important thing of all, and of all the
most impossible to grasp. This red-coloured
triangle contains three hundred and twenty
million people, six times the population ot
France, thrice the population of the United
States, one-fifth, as it is reckoned, of the men,
women and children living upon this planet.
No one man has ever seen, nor will ever see,
the hundredth part of them. No one man has
ever seen, nor will ever see, in spite of motor
cars and aeroplanes and railways, one hundredth
of the eighteen hundred thousand square miles
over which they are spread. No one man has
ever visited, nor will ever visit, all the cities,
living and dead, which they have builded. No
one man has ever mastered, nor will ever master,
all the languages which they speak. More than
this, though for centuries men of mighty and
commanding genius strove from time to time to
bring the whole of India under their sole sway
and sovereignty, not one of them succeeded ;
and it was only in the nineteenth century that
the task was at last accomplished by the agents
THE GREATNESS OF INDIA
of an alien Queen, the first ruler in Indian
history who looked upon all races in India as
her children, the great and good Queen Victoria.
We English take this thoughtlessly as a
matter of course ; yet surely it is one of the
strangest circumstances recorded in history.
Here is a country which, while we were sunk
in barbarism, had worked out a great civilisation
and a very remarkable scheme of social organisa-
tion for itself; had produced great engineers,
great astronomers, great thinkers, great artists,
great poets, great soldiers and great adminis-
trators ; and has always abounded, as it still
abounds, in men of signal ability and exceptional
valour. Could we teach her anything in the
matter of commerce ? On the contrary, bills ot
exchange have been in use in India for countless
centuries ; and her credit, based on the thrift of
the peasantry, is stabler than that of any Western
race, even than that of the French. Could we,
except by keeping the peace — a very important
exception — better the social relations of man
with man ? We may think so ; and yet let us
take the most insoluble of the problems that for
centuries has confronted ourselves, the question
of the relief of the poor. India has solved it.
There is not, nor has ever been, a poor law
in India, for there is no need of one. The
difficulties which demand a complicated, yet
always imperfect and unsatisfactory mechanism
of State in the West, are not so much vanquished
as quietly and imperceptibly suppressed by the
3
THE PEOPLE OF INDIA
organisation of the village and the caste in the
East. Could we offer higher ideals of citizenship,
or stronger bonds of civil obligation ? The
native of India fulfils far more readily than
ourselves the duty v^hich w^e have laid down as
owing to a neighbour. He is imperfect, as are
all other men, yet he loves, honours and succours
his father and mother ; he honours and obeys the
King and those that are set in authority under
him ; he orders himself lowly and reverently to
all his betters ; he learns and labours truly to
get his own living ; and he has mastered, better
than the Western races, the crowning lesson —
whatsoever his station is, therewith to be content.
It is useless to broach to him in his natural state
the theory, with the conclusions which follow
upon it, that all men are equal. He knows that
they are not, and is content to accept the con-
sequences. In time of famine he will lie dying
slowly, hard by the bountiful table spread for
the British Commissioner, without envy and
without complaint. It is not that he knows or
cares that the said Commissioner, for all that he
eats so well, is killing himself in the effort to
save starving men from death. To the Indian it
is the order of a higher power that a few shall
be full while many shall fast, and he bows him-
self before it without a murmur. We call such
resignation fatalism. It makes us impatient
that men should submit tamely to eternal in-
justice. As a younger nation, we — or at any
rate some of us — are still confident that we can
THE ROMANCE OF INDIA
set the whole world right ; and we have accepted
the phrase divine discontent to dignify our aspira-
tions. But the native of India, untainted by
European thought, sees nothing divine in dashing
himself against the decree of the Most High.
He has the courage to face inexorable fact, and
sets little store by this transitory life. Not the
more, however, on that account, does he hold
himself released from his duty towards his neigh-
bour. Every Hindu from the moment of his
birth is bound over to good behaviour by his
caste, under the terrible penalty of being cut off
from communion with it, and thrown upon the
world alone, without a friend, without a hearth,
without a hope, until he joins the great company
of the dead.
Lastly, could we offer India any romance of
leadership or sovereignty which she enjoyed not
before ? On the contrary, she has for centuries
possessed, natural leaders and a nobility whose
social pre-eminence is recognised throughout the
length and breadth of the land, a nobility prouder
and with longer and sublimer traditions of
chivalry and heroism than any that is to be
found between the Atlantic and the Ural
Mountains. The pedigree of the Guelphs is
one of the grandest among all European families,
yet it pales before that of the oldest of the
Rajputs. None the less, India has passed under
the sway of a nation which is, comparatively
speaking, of yesterday, which hails from an
insignificant island six thousand miles away in
5
HINDOSTAN AND THE DEKHAN
the most distant corner of Europe, and which is
as remote from the Asiatic in character, training
and environment as can be one race of men from
another. The great position which was denied
to the Mogul Emperors has been attained by
English kings ; and, so far as they are conscious
of a ruler at all, the three hundred millions of
India acknowledge one ruler only. King George,
the grandson of Queen Victoria.
How did this come about ? It is worth
while to look back very briefly over the history
of the past, for only thus can we realise the true
significance of His Majesty's visit to India. It
will give us at least an opportunity to unite with
our Indian fellow-subjects in praising famous
men and the fathers that begat us.
II
India, as every one knows, is divided into
a northern portion named Hindostan, which
extends from the Himalayas south-west to the
Vindhya Mountains and the Narbada River,
and a southern portion, named the Dekhan, which
includes the remainder of the Peninsula south-
ward from those boundaries to Cape Comorin.
This division at first sight seems arbitrary, until
we realise that India is, in fact, nearly cut in two
by a belt of rugged, broken and mountainous
country, through which for all practical purposes
there was, before the days of railways, but one
6
THE BEGINNINGS OF INDIA
principal passage, famous in military history as
the Ajanta Pass. Within this belt have taken
refuge the remnants of the aboriginal tribes,
which in remote times were driven from the
more favoured districts by an invading host of
Dravidians. Whence these Dravidians were
derived and what they were is unknown.
Possibly they came from over the sea, as did the
Maoris in New Zealand, for they were a sea-
faring folk ; but they were at any rate a fighting
race which founded kingdoms. In later times
— apparently about the seventh century before
Christ — they in turn were subdued by a fresh
horde of invaders, the Aryans, who entered
India from the north-west ; but, though they
took from their conquerors some veneer of the
Hindu religion, the Dravidians remained distinct
and apart from them, preserving their own
languages, of which the most important are
Telugu, Kanarese, Malayalam and Tamil, the
last named a speech of many dialects. Besides
these there is one Aryan language, Marathi,
spoken by the Aryan invaders who now occupy
the north-west of the Dekhan, and several more
tongues confined to small tracts. Hindostani
is alien to Southern India, and is used only
as a kind of lingua franca for purposes of
convenience.
But though, as shall be seen, the English,
owing to peculiar circumstances, were concerned
at the outset mainly with the Dekhan, the India
alike of history and romance is the vast tract,
7
THE FOUR FIRST CASTES
for the most part alluvial plain, which bears the
name of Hindostan. For not only is it the
richest, and therefore the most attractive to
invaders, but it was, until men dared the naviga-
tion of the high seas in the fifteenth century,
the only portion of the huge peninsula which
was accessible from without, through the well-
known passes of the north-west. By those passes
the Aryan conquerors swarmed into the plain,
where in due time they developed the institution
of the four original castes, now swelled to over
two thousand. These four were the priests
or Brahmans, the warriors or Rajputs, the agri-
cultural class, and the Sadras, which last are
presumed to have been the original conquered
races. Of the early history of the Aryans little
authentic is known ; but it must be noted that
in the sixth century before Christ the sage,
Gautama Buddha, was born in a kingdom on the
Ganges, and became the founder of a religion
which, though practically extinct in India, still
reigns in Ceylon, Burma, Tibet, China and Siam.
It may help us in our chronology to bear in
mind that the death of Buddha occurred prob-
ably in 487 B.C., three years after the battle of
Marathon.
A century and a half later, in 327 B.C., came
the first European invasion of India by Alexander
the Great. He penetrated no farther than to
the Satlaj, the most easterly of the five rivers of
the Panjab ; and after his death in 324 his work
was utterly undone by a powerful native Govern-
8
THE TWO CHANDRAGUPTAS
ment under one of the first of the great native
rulers, Chandragupta. A century passed away,
and there came a second Greek invasion
from Bactria ; but after two generations these
strangers gave place to Indo- Parthian kings,
who, about a hundred years later, were in
turn swept away by nomad hordes from Central
Asia. Then for three hundred years all is
obscure, until there arose a second Chandragupta
and a new native dynasty at the beginning of
the fourth century of our era. The second of
this line, Samudragupta, an enlightened monarch
and a great administrator, formed the design of
conquering all India, and did indeed penetrate
almost to Cape Comorin, but was unable to hold
the Dekhan, though he subdued Hindostan.
Then about 450 a.d. arrived a fresh invasion
from Central Asia ; the native dynasty fell, and
there followed a century of confusion, from
which emerged in 606 another great native
sovereign, Harsha, who after much hard fighting
subdued Northern India, and essayed, but in
vain, the conquest of the South. He died in
648, and India relapsed for three centuries into
intestine confusion and anarchy.
Meanwhile a new power had arisen in
Arabia. Mohammed had died in 632, be-
queathing to the world a religion which, by its
blending of devotional and military enthusiasm,
was fated to affect the destinies of many lands,
and above all of India. The aggressive Arabs,
after a futile attempt to reach India by sea,
9
MOHAMMEDAN INVASIONS
finally invaded it at the beginning of the eighth
century from Persia, and established themselves
in Scinde. Two hundred years later a Turkish
slave founded a separate kingdom in Afghanistan ;
and one of his descendants, the great Mahmoud,
began in 999 a series of incursions, which took
him farther and farther into Hindostan. His
successors were supplanted by the rulers of a
petty kingdom between Ghazni and Herat,
one ot whom, Mohammed Ghori, in 1176
entered upon a new course of raids, which
ended finally in the establishment of a per-
manent Mohammedan kingdom, extending from
Peshawar eastward to the sea.
The conquest, however, occupied nearly
thirty years, and was not accomplished without
hard fighting, not indeed at first without serious
reverses. For out of the chaos which followed
upon the death of Harsha had arisen the great
Hindu power of the Rajput clans, whose
territory stretched from the Rann of Cutch to
Rohilkand, including, above all, the kingdoms of
Kanauj and Gujarat. The days of their fame, dis-
tinguished by high pre-eminence in art, learning,
and science, lasted for two centuries ; but above
all things the Rajputs were soldiers. These
were the proud warriors, divided by countless
jealousies, yet united always by religion and
their code of honour, insubordinate in temper,
yet obedient ever to the chief of the clan,
who were the champions of Hinduism against
Mohammedanism.
FALL OF THE RAJPUTS
The greatest of these champions, Prithwi
Raj, the hero of countless legends, had already
made himself famous by the capture of Delhi in
1 1 53, and by other exploits in love and war,
when he was called upon to repel the Mussul-
man invaders. Brilliantly successful against
them at first, he was presently deserted by
fortune, and slain, together with his son, in a
great battle in 1192. Delhi was captured in
the following year ; and before the close of the
first decade of the thirteenth century the ascend-
ancy of the Rajputs in India was overthrown,
and that of the Mohammedans erected in its
place. But the Hindu warrior clans maintained
and still maintain their position about Ajmer ;
and the memory of that great struggle has never
perished from among them.
The Mohammedans now established their
headquarters at Delhi ; but their kingdoms
were not one but many, and, although the Kings
of Delhi claimed suzerainty over all others of
their faith, they were not always able to enforce
it. Nevertheless, by the mere fact that they
held Delhi itself, they were potential when not
actual masters of India. For it was not mere
chance which made that famous city the capital
of Hindostan. Broad though the entrance to
the plains of India may appear on the map
when once the passes of Afghanistan are
traversed, it is none the less narrowed at one
point to a breadth of little more than one
hundred miles between the mountains on the
THE KINGS OF DELHI
north and the desert on the south. Almost in
the centre of that hundred miles stands Delhi ;
and it is there or within a radius of some
fifty miles to north and south of it — between
Panipat and Aligarh — that countless battles
have been fought for the supremacy of India.
It is in fact the key of the country ; and it can
hardly be taken in rear but by a nation which
has command of the sea.
During the course of three centuries — 1206
to 1526 — from the reign of our King John to
midway through the reign of King Henry the
Eighth, thirty-four kings of five different houses
held sway at Delhi, of whom no fewer than
twelve were dethroned, assassinated or killed in
action. They fought among themselves, they
fought against other Mohammedan kings, they
fought against revolting Hindus, and they
fought against invading Tartars under Zinghis
Khan. At the beginning of the fourteenth
century the Tartars were finally driven back by
King Ala-ud-din, who then conceived the pro-
ject of conquering all India, and actually carried
his raids almost to Cape Comorin. This great and
famous sovereign died in 1316, when our King
Edward the Second was on the throne ; and
then, as has too often happened in India, he was
followed by a feeble successor, who brought the
realm into confusion, and his own life to an
ignominious end. The new dynasty lasted for
less than eighty years, producing one great ruler,
Firoz Shah, after whose death in 1388 the
12
TIMUR AND BABAR
kingdom of Delhi fell to pieces. Thereupon a
new invader appeared, Timur the Turki, who
in a campaign of two years penetrated to Delhi
and beyond it, and then withdrew, leaving the
unhappy country in greater confusion than
before. It would be wearisome even to give
the number of the Mohammedan states, and the
names of the men who ruled, or aspired to rule
them ; much more to dwell on the endless
struggles between sovereigns, usurpers, rebels and
adventurers, which signified desolation to the
land and misery to the inhabitants. But all
things come to an end ; and in 1526 the Turkis,
after many raids, finally invaded India in force
under Timur's descendant Babar. The de-
cisive battle was fought at Panipat ; and with it
began the age of the giants, when for nearly two
hundred years strong man succeeded strong
man upon the throne of Delhi, and made and
consolidated the Mogul Empire.
Even so, however, that dynasty was not
without its vicissitudes. Babar, a very great
man, died in 1 540. His successor, Humayun,
while engaged in the conquest of the south,
was recalled by a rebellion in the north, and
being defeated in battle wandered in exile for
fifteen years before he could recover his capital.
But upon his death in 1556 he left a son,
Akbar, who was one of the great rulers not
of India only, but of the world. Akbar was
confronted everywhere with rebellion, both of
his co-religionists and of the Hindus, but after
13
THE REIGN OF AKBAR
eleven years of hard fighting he crushed all his
internal adversaries. Then turning from the
work of restoring order to that of conquest
he dealt out blows impartially upon Rajputs,
revolting generals and fanatic Afghans, until
by 1594. he had gathered all India north of
the Narbada, from Kandahar to the Bay of
Bengal, into a single Empire. He was pro-
ceeding with the conquest of the south, and
had already reached Ahmednagar, when death
overtook him in 1605, after a strenuous reign
of just upon forty years. Akbar was not only
a great conqueror but a great statesman. Bred
in the most bigoted of all faiths he saw that
India could be permanently unified only by the
reconciliation of Hindus and Mohammedans ;
and to this end he spared no pains to favour
the first, and to repress the stern and uncom-
promising spirit of the second. Finally, he
essayed the bold experiment of piecing together
the best elements of both religions, and launch-
ing the compound upon India as a new faith
which should command the allegiance of all.
To us who conceive of religious, political and
social life as three things distinct and apart,
such a policy may appear ridiculous ; but in
the East, where the three are one and in-
separable, this heroic measure presents a
different aspect. It is, however, manifest that,
even under an autocrat of broad mind, imperious
will, resolute character and the highest adminis-
trative genius, such a new creed must demand
14
JAHANGIR AND SHAH JAHAN
constant and careful nurture for a period
exceeding the life of one man. The intellectual
satisfaction of feeling that oneself is right, and
that one's neighbour is wrong, appeals so
strongly to poor mankind that militant intoler-
ance, such as that of Islam, must always find
readier welcome with the majority than a
gospel of forbearance. Toleration has been
the distinguishing mark of all the greatest
rulers of India ; and the greatest of them,
because the most earnest striver to heal human
differences, was Akbar.
His death was followed, as is the rule in the
East, by a dispute over the succession, which
after the usual war was decided in favour of
his younger son Jahangir (1605— 27), who was fol-
lowed in turn by his eldest son Shah Jahan (1627—
1658). Both were strong and capable sovereigns,
but both were much troubled by rebellious sub-
jects ; and Shah Jahan, after a desperate struggle
between his four sons, was finally deposed by
the third of them, Aurangzeb. Neither Jahan-
gir nor Shah Jahan made great progress in the
Dekhan ; and in the north-west, after bitter
fighting, the Persians finally in 1653 established
themselves in Kandahar, and severed it from
the Empire. This was the beginning of the
end. Shah Jahan's court was the most magnifi-
cent ever seen in India, and the buildings which
he erected have made his name immortal ; yet
he died a prisoner in the fort of Agra, looking
to the last at the Taj Mahal, the lovely tomb
15
REIGN OF AURANGZEB
which he had raised over the body of the wife
whom he had adored. This was in the year of
the great fire of London, 1666. His successor,
after three years' fighting, disposed of his three
brothers ; and then, reviving Mohammedan
bigotry in its extremest form, he set himself
to crush down alike the infidel Hindus and
the two heretical Mohammedan kingdoms,
Golconda and Bijapur, in the Dekhan. Oppres-
sive persecution of the Hindus soon raised them
up in fury. The Rajputs fought against him
with desperate valour, and only after a most
heroic resistance were at last brought down to
sullen impotence. But both in the north and
in the south Aurangzcb's mad intolerance called
into being new champions of the old faith, who,
from the lasting eminence which they attained
in India, must receive more than passing
attention.
The first of these were the Sikhs, a religious
sect which traced its origin to Nanak, a pious
Hindu born in the fifteenth century, who may
be called the Calvin of Hinduism, inasmuch
as he held that religion was a matter of the
intellect rather than of the feelings. He
preached the abolition of caste, the unity of
the Godhead, and the need for holier and purer
life ; and he was followed by ten Gurus or
apostles, whose succession ended in 1708
with Govind Singh. To the persecution of
Aurangzeb the Sikhs could oppose only un-
fearing martyrdom ; for the great leader who
16
SIKHS AND MARATHAS
was to turn them into a powerful military state
had not yet been born ; but the heart of such
movements is of greater significance than the
head ; and the heart of the Sikhs was already
beating true and strong in the seventeenth
century, against the time when the advent of
a head should convert them into one of the
great powers of India.
Meanwhile the task of resisting Aurangzeb
called less for a saint than for a man of action ;
and such a man appeared in the person of Sivaji
Bonsla, the son of a chief of no great property
in the neighbourhood of the Western Ghauts
to the east of Bombay. Born in 1627 — the
year when George Villiers, Duke of Bucking-
ham, led his abortive expedition to Rochelle
— he was brought up at Puna, and early
conceived the ambition of dispossessing the
Mohammedans of the south, and setting up a
Hindu kingdom in their stead. His men were
hardy peasants from the mountains ; his horses,
not less important than his men, were drawn
from the valleys ; and with these he sallied
forth to capture hill-fortresses, and to use them
as bases for raids upon the surrounding country.
Being a great military genius he rapidly
achieved success ; and by 1664 had carried his
incursions so far as to seize and sack the
imperial city of Gujarat. This was a direct
defiance to Aurangzeb, who sent an army to
crush him, and succeeded in forcing him to
surrender upon terms ; but the wily chief soon
17 c
RISE OF THE MARATHAS
contrived to escape, and returning to the
Dekhan quickly re - established and widened
his ascendancy. He died in 1680, but he had
already done his work in founding the power
of the Marathas.
What the Marathas exactly were or are no
one seems able accurately to define. They were
not a caste, they were not a sect, they were not
a nation ; and, though some of them claim to
be of Rajput origin, this pretension seems to
be disposed of by anthropometric tests. Their
name is taken from the territory of Maharashtra,
and their language is called Marathi ; but they
are not the only inhabitants of that territory
nor the only speakers of that tongue. In 1901
they numbered only five millions ; and yet in the
seventeenth century they ruined the armies of
Aurangzeb, shattered the might of the Moguls
and bade fair to become the masters of India.
It is difficult therefore to predicate anything
certain of them except that they were and are
emphatically a power, and that they rose to that
eminence wholly by the sword. Yet, though
they were valiant warriors, their military organ-
isation was loose enough ; while their military
tactics, if one may coin an expression, were of
the ofi^ensive-elusive order. They swarmed out
as great disorderly bodies of horse, devouring
the country like locusts, carefully avoiding any-
thing like a pitched battle, but hovering always
about their enemy's flanks and communications,
swift to see and to make profit of the slightest
18
THEIR POWER AND WEAKNESS
advantage, equally swift to perceive and to avoid
any danger. Thus they w^ore out the Mogul
armies, and broke the hearts of their generals
by remaining alw^ays near enough to inflict
much mischief, but alw^ays remote enough to
suffer no harm. If they were suddenly com-
pelled to assume the defensive, they had a
perfect genius for choosing and occupying a
position where they could resist attack ; and
woe to the army that retreated before them.
Their leaders have always included some of the
deepest and subtlest intellects in India ; and yet
their genius, so long as their ascendancy lasted,
revealed itself as mainly destructive, and their
instincts as wholly predatory. They levied
tribute remorselessly, under pain of pillage,
upon vast districts, and on condition of payment
suffered them to escape famine and desolation.
They showed, indeed, remarkable administrative
talent in the collection of that tribute ; but
there their constructive work came to an end.
It is therefore hard to see how India could have
improved — how indeed it could have failed to
deteriorate — under their mastery. The history
of the country, so far as we have traced it, has
been a continuous record of wars, revolts and
intestine divisions ; in the midst of which, at
rare intervals of precarious repose, there had
sprung up noble monuments of art and litera-
ture. There was nothing creative about the
Marathas. Their reign, it is true, was short ;
but, even had it been prolonged, we can hardly
19
COMING OF THE PORTUGUESE
conceive of the association of poetry or archi-
tecture with their name. For all their valiance
and subtlety their rule was a blight rather
than an influence. Once indeed, and in one
particular, they imitated a foreign model in
their own domain of war ; and we must now
examine where they found this model, and how
it was turned to their own ruin.
Ill
From the conquest of Persia and Egypt by
the followers of Mohammed until the sixteenth
century, the sole line of communication between
India and Europe had been by land through the
passes of Afghanistan and Central Asia to the
Black Sea and to Constantinople ; but in 1492
Christopher Columbus, seeking the Indies by
way of the Atlantic westward, discovered
America; and in 1497 ^^sco da Gama doubled
the Cape of Good Hope, and cast anchor oiF
Calicut in May 1498. Then came the Papal
Bull of 1502 which divided the New World
between Spain and Portugal, assigning the west
to the former, and the east to the latter. Two
great men, Almeida by valour against the fleets
of the Sultan of Egypt, and Albuquerque
by wise policy towards the Hindu natives,
strengthened the hold of Portugal upon her
new empire ; and for a century, until annexation
to Spain in 1580 gradually killed all enterprise
THE EAST INDIA COMPANY
in them, the Portuguese enjoyed a monopoly
of Oriental commerce. But meantime the two
great maritime powers of the future, the English
and the Dutch, had arisen to contest with Spain
her empire at every point ; and their pioneers,
busy since the beginning of the sixteenth
century in attempting to find north-west and
north-east passages to Asia, at last made their
way round the Cape, the Englishman John
Lancaster in 1591, and the Hollander Cornelius
Houtman four years later. Companies to trade
with the East Indies were speedily formed, that
in England receiving its charter in 1600, and
that in the Low Countries in 1602.
There was, however, a wide difference
between the two companies. In Holland
politics were commerce, and commerce was
politics ; and the States-General, though nomin-
ally distinguishing the Company from the State,
virtually backed the adventure with all the
weight and resources of the Republic. In
England the Company was left severely to look
after itself, the State being quite ready to take
a share in the profits, but by no means disposed
to partake in the risks. In truth it is hardly
recognised that our East India Company was
but the first of a long series of adventures of the
same kind. The first half of the seventeenth
century was more prolific in chartered companies
than any period of our history. There was a
regular mania for speculation in the New
World ; and King James the First granted away
DUTCH AND ENGLISH
many hundreds of thousands of square miles, not
only above the sea but under it, to a com-
paratively small number of " Undertakers,'* as
they were called. Naturally there were many
failures and even more quarrels among these
companies ; but their solid and visible results
are the United States of America and the British
Empire in India.
It need hardly be said that the Portuguese
bitterly resented the intrusion of the Dutch and
English upon their chosen field ; and hard blows
were exchanged between the rival parties, invari-
ably to the disadvantage of the Portuguese. But
though the two northern powers were always
ready to combine against their common enemy,
they were none the less furiously jealous of each
other, and they pursued their commercial com-
petition with the weapons not of trade but of
war. Few ships went to sea unarmed in those
days, so that a trading company was almost of
necessity a militant association ; and from fight-
ing at sea to the attack of a factory by the sea-
shore the step was very short. The Dutch,
most practical and cold-blooded of nations,
proved this in 1623 by seizing ten Englishmen
and their native assistants at Amboyna in the
Moluccas, and murdering every one of them
after a mockery of a trial. This massacre, as
it was called, caused furious indignation in
England ; but it was not until thirty years later
that Cromwell took vengeance for it in the
seven furious naval actions which marked the
COMING OF THE FRENCH
beginning of Dutch decay and of English pre-
dominance upon the seas. Meanwhile the East
India Company had established factories at Surat
in 1612, at Masulipatam in 16 16, at Madras in
1640, and at Hoogly in 1651. Finally, in 1661
Bombay passed to the British Crown as part of
the dowry of Charles the Second's queen,
Catharine of Bragan9a, and was leased to the
Company by the King for ten pounds.
Just three years later a new European com-
petitor came upon the scene in the shape of
the French Compagnie des Indes, founded by
Colbert in 1664;^ and in 1674 Fran9ois Martin
founded Pondicherry on the eastern coast and
established the first French factory in Bengal at
Chandernagore. It was just at this time that
our countrymen were first brought into conflict
with native enemies. In 1664 and 1670 the
British only with difficulty held their own at
Surat against the incursions of Sivaji ; while in
Bengal they suffered from the reaction of the
wars of Aurangzeb and from the active oppres-
sion of his viceroy. In 1686 the Company
initiated a new policy of reprisals against both
Moguls and Marathas, and declared its intention
to found " a large, well-grounded, sure English
* There are in the gardens of Government House, Calcutta, some brass
cannon which bear the mark of the French East India Company in its
early days. From constant cleaning with sand, however, the marks are
in some cases almost obliterated, and in every case are in process of obli-
teration. Similar treatment has irretrievably damaged other beautifully
ornamented guns, taken from Tipu Sahib and others, which are preserved
in the same spot. Not a single Viceroy, apparently, has intervened to
arrest the process of destruction, which for more than half a century has
been going forward, and is still going forward, under their eyes.
23
THE MOGUL EMPIRE'S DECAY
dominion for all time to come." Their first
operations ended in ignominious failure ; and
they were forced to fly from Bengal and to
purchase their rights to return thither by an
abject surrender and payment of a heavy fine to
Aurangzeb. Nevertheless, in that same year,
1690, was witnessed the founding of Calcutta;
while the nucleus of an European army had
already been formed in Madras in 1644, and in
Bombay in 1668. The first native troops of
the Company's army had been enlisted, likewise
in Bombay, in 1683-84.
Such was the position when in 1707
Aurangzeb died, a beaten and heart - broken
man, at the age of ninety -one, leaving the
Mogul Empire in ruins. Between that date and
1759 five Emperors ascended the throne of the
Moguls with the empty title only of their great
ancestors, while the Empire itself crumbled
rapidly away. The viceroy of the Dekhan, the
Nizam - ul - Mulk, established the independent
dynasty which still reigns at Hyderabad ; but
even within his realm, the Carnatic, which
bordered on the English and French settle-
ments on the east coast, had become a semi-
independent principality. Farther south a
Hindu dynasty had established itself in Tan-
jore ; and soldiers of fortune of various de-
scriptions were setting themselves up as petty
chieftains in hill-fortresses. In the north affairs
were no better. Bengal had passed to one
adventurer, Rohilkand to another, and Oudh
24
FRENCH AND ENGLISH
was usurped by an official. Rajputs rebelled in
one quarter, Sikhs in another. Every succession
was disputed with arms ; and amid all the
vicissitudes of the various combatants the
devastating flood of the Marathas rose higher
and higher, till it threatened to overwhelm the
whole of India. Moreover, as if these mis-
fortunes were not sufficient, the fall of
Aurangzeb's garrisons in Afghanistan allowed
a Persian invader to penetrate the passes and to
sack Delhi in 1737. Two years later an officer
of his army, Ahmad Shah of the Abdali tribe
of Afghans, seized Afghanistan, and from thence
invaded and conquered the whole of the
Western Panjab between 1748 and 1751.
Never had India been in a more appalling
welter of confusion, nor in more crying need
of a master.
The struggle between the two aspirants to
mastery had already begun. Its issue depended
upon the command of the sea, for victory was
bound to favour the side that could pour reinforce-
ments into India regularly from Europe ; but the
fact seems to have been but dimly apprehended
at the outset. On the scene of action everything
appeared favourable to the French. A very
able naval officer of that nation, Bertrand de la
Bourdonnais, had in 1735 founded a naval base
and arsenal at Mauritius ; while in India itself
two Governors of Pondicherry, Dumas and
Dupleix, had instituted a policy of active inter-
ference with the internal affairs of the neigh-
25
THE FRENCH CAPTURE MADRAS
bouring native states ; and Dumas had made such
diplomatic intervention the more efficacious by
creating an army of some seven thousand trained
sepoys. These Frenchmen intended to play the
part of statesmen in controlling the future of
India, and they had an autocratic government at
their back. The British, on the other hand,
were still a trading company, independent of the
Government ; and their Governor at Madras was
a man of mere ledgers and invoices, with,
however, a quiet young clerk in his office
named Robert Clive. France and England had
come to blows over the Spanish Succession, and
had opened the war which is remembered by
the names of Dettingen, Fontenoy, Culloden,
Roucoux and Lauffeldt. The news of the
outbreak of hostilities reached India in 1744, at
a time when no French fleet was on the coast ;
but the Nawab of the Carnatic informed the
British at Madras that he intended to enforce
neutrality within his province, and the English
Governor meekly gave way. In July 1746 the
fleets of the two nations met ; and after an
indecisive action the British Commodore sailed
away with discreditable readiness, leaving the
French free to land as many soldiers as they
would. They accordingly laid siege to Madras,
and in September forced it to capitulate. The
Nawab attempted to intervene to enforce
neutrality ; but the French troops, readily
facing odds of ten to one, swept his raw levies
from the field without an eflfort. More than
26
LAWRENCE AND CLIVE
one writer of the seventeenth century had
predicted that a small body of disciplined
European troops would suffice to rout the most
formidable of native armies ; and now that
prediction was verified. This incident assured
supremacy in India to an European power.
The British settlements seemed now to be at
the mercy of Dupleix, who had three thousand
European troops at his disposal ; but the tide
was turned by the arrival of a British squadron
with reinforcements ; and instead of a British
fort it was Pondicherry itself that was besieged,
though most clumsily and unsuccessfully, by
Admiral Boscawen. The operations, however,
revealed the rise of a great British leader,
Major Stringer Lawrence, who was not only a
master of military manoeuvre but a trainer of
commanders. Simple and uneducated, for he
could hardly write more than his name, he had
none the less great insight into the characters ot
men, and finding a promising pupil in the
gloomy and discontented clerk, Robert Clive, he
took the latter's military education in hand and
practically adopted him as a son.
The peace of Aix-la- Chapelle in 1748
brought the war of the Austrian Succession to
an end, seemingly with no great advantage
anywhere to either party, but really with the
very solid result that France was left almost
powerless at sea. Madras was restored to
England in exchange for the French fort of
Louisburg, to the huge indignation of the British
27
LAWRENCE AGAINST DUPLEIX
colonists in North America, who had captured
Louisburg with no assistance from British
troops. Nevertheless, the British Government
was right to make the exchange, for, as Admiral
Saunders pointed out at the time, Louisburg was
a source of weakness rather than strength to
the French, being always at the mercy of the
power that was superior at sea.
The rival companies in India meanwhile
found it easy to continue the struggle, nominally
as allies of native states but in reality as
principals. Dupleix was anxious to make
French influence supreme at the court not only
of the Nawab of the Carnatic at Arcot, but also
of the Viceroy of the Dekhan at Hyderabad ;
and the death of both potentates, with the
inevitable result of a disputed succession, gave
him the opportunity that he desired. The British
naturally supported the candidates who were
opposed to the French ; but their best com-
mander. Stringer Lawrence, had gone to England,
and in his absence British military operations
went sadly wrong. The contest centred around
Trichinopoly ; and in 1751 the situation was so
desperate that it was only saved by a diversion
made against Arcot by the young volunteer,
Robert Clive. But at the end of that year
Stringer Lawrence returned, and in action after
action during 1752 and 1753 worsted the French
before Trichinopoly. In 1754 Dupleix was
recalled for gross misconduct in his office ; and
in January 1755 the contest in the Carnatic was
28
THE BLACK HOLE
brought to a close by a suspension of arms.
The French should have had the better of the
British, for, France and England being at peace,
their fleets could not intervene ; and in India
itself Dupleix had enjoyed superiority of
numbers, though his commanders were inferior
to those of the British. Yet a step had been
taken which ultimately assured the victory of
the red-coats, for the British Government had
initiated a new policy of sending the King's
troops to assist those of the Company ; and in
September 1754 the first battalion arrived, the
Thirty-ninth Foot, now the Dorsetshire Regi-
ment— Primus in Indis — under the command of
Colonel Eyre Coote.
But suddenly the centre of British interest
was shifted to Bengal. That province in
1756 passed upon the death of Alivardi Khan
to his adopted son Suraj- ud-Daula (Surajah
Dowlah), a potentate of the most contemptible
type. The Seven Years' War was on the point
of breaking out in Europe ; and the Governor at
Calcutta, being warned of the fact, was setting
his fort in order, when the Nawab chose to take
offence at the action and marched upon the town.
The tragedy of the Black Hole followed ; and
troops were hastily sent up from Madras under
Clive, escorted by three ships of Admiral Watson's
squadron, to recover Calcutta. This was done
with little difficulty ; but a French fleet and army
were expected at Pondicherry ; and it was
essential to place Calcutta speedily beyond reach
29
PLASSEY AND CONDORE
of danger from Suraj-ud-Daula, so that the ships
and forces might return to Madras. Finding a
disaffected party in the Nawab's own camp, CHve
negotiated with the chief of them, Mir Jaffir,
and with his help routed Suraj-ud-Daula's army
at Plassey (June 23, 1757). He then set Mir
Jaffir upon the Nawab's throne, appointing as
Resident at his court a young man of twenty-five,
named Warren Hastings, and himself became
Resident at Calcutta, while the troops returned
to Madras.
It was not, however, until April 1758 that
the expected French armament arrived at Pondi-
cherry under command of Count Lally de
Tollendal. For a time superiority of numbers
gave Lally some measure of success ; but towards
the end of the year Clive made a diversion by
sending an expedition under Colonel Forde of
the Thirty-ninth against the French settlements
in the Northern Sirkars. Forde, whose name
is far too little known, fulfilled his mission
brilliantly by defeating the Marquis de Conflans
at Chundoor (Condore), and by the storm of
Masulipatam — the latter a most daring feat of
arms. Meanwhile the French fleet was driven
off the coast by the British ; and the arrival of
reinforcements from England reduced the in-
equality of numbers. For a moment there arose
unexpected peril, owing to a wanton and un-
provoked attempt of the Dutch from Java and
Chinsura upon Calcutta ; but Clive faced the
danger boldly, and at Badra on the 25th of
30
BADRA AND WANDEWASH
November 1759 Forde, with a force of inferior
numbers, practically annihilated the Dutch troops
in half an hour, and decided for ever the down-
fall of that nation in India. A few weeks later
(Jan. 8, 1760) Coote, once again with inferior
numbers, by brilliant manoeuvring defeated Lally
decisively at Wandcwash ; and a year later he
received the surrender of Pondicherry. The
first stage of the great struggle was over. It
was now certain that if India was to pass under
the rule of Europeans, those Europeans would
be the British.
IV
Meanwhile internal confusion had increased,
and the Mogul Empire was crumbling away
more rapidly than ever. The Marathas had by
this time organised themselves into their con-
federacy of five coequal parts under five principal
chiefs. The degenerate descendants of Sivaji
had long since been displaced, except in form,
by an hereditary dynasty of mayors of the palace,
who bore the title of Peshwa, with headquarters
at Puna. The four remaining members were
Sindia of Gwalior, Holkar of Indore, the Gaekwar
of Baroda, and Bonsla of Nagpur ; and although
the five were constantly quarrelling among them-
selves, the confederacy at this moment was under
the direction of Balaji Baji Rao, the ablest of all
the Peshwas. After the capture of Delhi, Ahmad
Shah Abdali had appointed a viceroy to administer
31
MARATHAS AT THEIR ZENITH
his conquests, and had himself returned to
Afghanistan. The Marathas in 1758 seized the
moment to lay hold on Delhi, expel Ahmad
Shah's garrison from Lahore, and establish
Maratha domination in the Panjab. The action
shows the high - water mark of the flood of
Maratha conquest ; but the intrepid horsemen
had gone too far. The Mohammedans were not
disposed to stand quietly by while a Hindu power
of yesterday overthrew their rule in Northern
India. In the winter of 1759-60 Ahmad
Shah descended in his wrath from Afghanistan,
recovered Lahore at a blow, fell upon Holkar and
Sindia, who were ravaging the southern districts,
and, smiting them heavily, one after the other,
drove them away with great loss. He then
occupied Delhi, and never paused upon his march
south-eastward until he had pitched his camp
upon the Ganges. The Peshwa, undismayed by
these misfortunes, sent up a powerful army to
retrieve them; and in January 1761 the two hosts
met at Panipat. On each side the fighting men
numbered over one hundred thousand, and the
combat was long and stubborn ; but the Marathas
were at last defeated ; and defeat in the cir-
cumstances almost signified annihilation, for the
villagers turned savagely upon the plundering
horsemen* who for two years had ridden rough-
shod over them. The disaster was the death of
the great Peshwa ; and the Marathas, though
they recovered with singular rapidity, never
again reached such a height of power as they had
32
THE COMPANY'S EVIL DAYS
attained from 1758 until 1760. But the victor
took no advantage of his triumph. The Afghans
were anxious to carry home their booty, for the
Persians were menacing their western frontiers ;
and thus it was that Ahmad Shah retired again
to his own place, closing with a worthy majesty
the long series of invasions of India from the
north-west. In reality the Afghans and the
Marathas were but rival vultures fighting over
the carcase of the Mogul Empire ; but the only
result of their struggle was to exhaust them-
selves, and to leave Northern India as masterless
as ever. So momentous were the events that
occurred in the twelve months from the 22nd of
January 1760 to the 29th of January 1761.
Unfortunately at this critical time the guid-
ing hand of the master was withdrawn, for
Clive went home in February 1760, leaving the
supreme power in Bengal in the hands ot the
Company's clerks. These saw their opportunity
for enriching themselves, and, being miserably
paid and under no restraint of law or of honour,
did not fail to seize it. The government and
all responsibility for the expenses of administra-
tion lay nominally with Mir Jaffir, but his rule
was wholly dependent upon British troops,
which therefore held him at their mercy. He
quickly chafed against the necessity of paying
his masters ; whereupon the Company's servants
matured a plan tor deposing him and setting up
his finance-minister, Mir Kassim, in his place, in
the hope that more willing submission would
33 D
CAILLAUD, KNOX AND ADAMS
be found in a new puppet. At this juncture,
however, there intervened a complication from
without. The titular Emperor, Shah Alam,
being an exile from Delhi, took refuge with
the Nawab of Oudh, and with the latter's
help threatened to enforce his claim to
the sovereignty of Bengal. Major Caillaud
marched forward with a small force to meet
him ; but the Emperor contrived to out-
manoeuvre the British and to appear before
Patna, which was only saved by a wonderful
march and a most daring action conducted under
the command of Captain Knox. The danger
being over the Company's servants duly deposed
Mir Jaffir, and installed Mir Kassim, insisting,
however, on commercial privileges for their own
advantage, which were so exorbitant as to
exhaust Mir Kassim's patience very speedily.
Therefore they displaced him in favour of their
former puppet Mir Jaffir ; and Mir Kassim very
justifiably sought redress with arms.
He was a dangerous enemy, for he possessed
a certain number of regular troops trained after
European fashion and commanded by an Alsatian,
whose nickname, Sombre, had been corrupted by
the natives into Sumroo. Moreover, the Com-
pany's servants had nothing ready, neither men nor
arms nor supplies, nothing indeed excepting one
marvellous commander. Major Thomas Adams.
In July 1763 Adams began his campaign, fought
one sharp action near Katwa on the 19th ; a
second at Suti on the 2nd of August ; and a
34
THE ADVANCE BEYOND BENGAL
third, a crowning victory against odds of twenty
to one, at Undwa Nala on the 5th of September.
In despairing rage Mir Kassim ordered the
massacre of all the British in Patna, an order
which was faithfully executed by Sumroo, and fled
to the camp of the Emperor Shah Alam and of
his vizier the Nawab of Oudh. On the 6th of
November Adams took Patna by storm, and then,
worn out by hard work, he sickened, and died
a few months later. A feeble and incompetent
successor. Major Carnac, played for a while un-
successfully with the united forces of the Allies ;
but was soon displaced by a stronger man. Major
Hector Munro. After first quelling a mutiny
in his own army, Munro utterly overthrew
the Emperor and his confederates on the 23rd
of February 1764 at Buxar. The victory con-
verted Shah Alam from an enemy into an ally ;
and the army penetrating into Oudh captured in
succession the commanding cities of Lucknow
and Allahabad. Thus for the first time the
British advanced beyond Bengal, and found
themselves in contact with the new principalities
created by sundry adventurers since the death of
Aurangzeb — Mohammedan Pathans in Rohil-
kand, Mohammedan officers of the fallen Empire
in Agra and Delhi, Hindu Jats in Bhurtpore.
There was no stability in any of them. Any
one of these states, rising under some leader of
genius, might encroach upon the others, or,
falling under some incompetent successor to an
able man, might be swallowed up by the bold
35
THE RETURN OF CLIVE
and ambitious owner of a few villages. In other
words, they were dangerous neighbours which,
as all experience of conquering nations has
taught, can only be made safe by absorption into
the system of the conquerors.
Fortunately at this moment Clive returned
to India, and laid down clearly the policy of
the Company. The first step was to take over
the administration of Bengal, paying a definite
tribute to the Emperor as his viceroy, and so to
put an end to puppet Nawabs and to corrupt
practices among the Company's servants. The
second was to resist the temptation to annex
Oudh, to reinstate the former ruler in it as a
friend and ally, and so to establish what is called
a buffer-state between the British in Bengal and
the confusion in the north-west. Whatever was
to come in the future, there was to be for the
present an end of territorial expansion.
But in the south there were more dangerous
neighbours than in the north. In addition to
the presence of the Marathas, Madras was
threatened by the rise of a Mohammedan soldier,
Haidar Ali, who through sheer military genius
had acquired the sovereignty of the Hindu prin-
cipality of Mysore, and from that base was lay-
ing violent hands upon Southern India generally.
His chief adversaries were the Nizam of Hyder-
abad, from whom he was constantly taking
territory, and the Marathas, with whom he
had fought many sharp actions. The Madras
Government, in consideration of recovering from
36
WAR WITH HAIDAR ALI
the Nizam the Northern Sirkars, from which
the British had driven the French, had engaged
themselves vaguely to support him in case of
war ; and Haidar by entering the territory ot
Hyderabad in 1767 obliged them to fulfil their
pledges to the Nizam, which they did by sending
an army towards Mysore. Very soon, however,
both Nizam and Haidar turned against the British.
The former enemy was quickly disposed of; but
Haidar was not so easily beaten, and the Madras
Council did their best by extreme imbecility
to second him. There was indeed one British
officer. Colonel Joseph Smith, whose very name
sufficed to make Haidar tremble, and who, in
spite of a thousand embarrassments put in his
way by his masters, contrived always to beat
the Indian chief in the field. But the Madras
Council deliberately displaced him to make room
for an incompetent nominee of their own ; and
the result was that in 1769 Haidar advanced to
within five miles of Madras itself, and forced
the Council to conclude an humiliating peace.
Worse than this, Haidar had established friendly
relations with the French, who were burning
to recover their lost ground in India ; and the
British had hampered themselves not only by
taking the Marathas into their pay, but by
binding themselves to a defensive alliance with
the Nizam, with Haidar Ali, and with the
Marathas against any one or more of the three
parties who should aggressively attack the other.
The Marathas shortly afterwards did attack
WARREN HASTINGS
Haidar, who appealed to the Madras Govern-
ment for assistance and was refused it. From
that moment he became the irreconcilable enemy
of the British in India.
Meanwhile Parliament, after enquiring into
Indian affairs, had passed in 1773 an act to
reconstitute the Government of India, which,
though it contained some wise provisions, was
vitiated by one fatal blunder. Hitherto the
three Presidencies had been coequal ; but now
a Governor-General and Council were set up in
Bengal with general authority over Bombay and
Madras also, which change in itself was eminently
sensible. But unfortunately it was ordained not
that the Governor- General should be supreme,
but that he should be ruled by a majority of the
Council, having himself no more than a casting
vote in case the Council were equally divided.
Nothing could have been worse devised for
purposes of Asiatic government. The Governor-
General, happily, was Warren Hastings, but his
Council contained men who from personal spite
laid themselves out to thwart him at every turn.
Yet the times were most critical. England was
entering upon the fatal quarrel with the American
colonies, which was destined to turn the swords
of half of Europe against her. In India the
Maratha chiefs, without forsaking their original
confederacy under the Peshwa, were just begin-
ning to carve out for themselves independent
sovereignties, and every year descended in pre-
datory raids upon Oudh and Rohilkand. In
38
THE ROHILLA WAR
1773 the Nawab called upon the Rohillas and
the British to aid him against the invaders ; and
the armies of all three in combination drove the
Marathas back. When, however, the question
of the cost of the war was raised, the Rohillas
refused to pay to the Nawab the contribution
which they had engaged themselves to discharge ;
and the Nawab therefore asked Hastings to join
him in compelling them. Hastings consented ;
and thereupon followed the first Rohilla War, in
which the Rohillas were utterly defeated by the
British, and their territory annexed to Oudh for
the consolidation of the buffer-state.
This was the only war initiated by Hastings,
but in Bombay the President and Council,
anxious as their peers to annex territory, en-
tangled themselves in hostilities with the Mara-
thas ; and Hastings, while utterly condemning
their folly, felt bound to support them. The
war, for the most part miserably conducted,
dragged on and on, the only redeeming feature
being the storming of Gwalior, an almost in-
accessible fortress, by Captain Popham. Then
came bad news of disasters in America, of war
with France, and of a coming effort of the
French to recover what they had lost in India.
Finally Haidar AH, the Nizam and the Marathas
formed a confederacy for the total expulsion of
the British from India. The campaign against
Haidar, directed by Hector Munro of Buxar,
opened disastrously in 1780 with the complete
destruction of a strong detachment of the British
39
THE YEARS OF DISASTER
Army. Sir Eyre Coote was then called to the
command, and saved the situation by the victory
of Porto Novo in 1781, and by further successes
at Sholingur and Arni. The diplomacy of
Warren Hastings broke up the confederacy, and
Haidar Ali died at the end of 1782 ; but mean-
while French troops and a French fleet had
arrived, and the war was carried on by Haidar's
son, Tipu Sahib. Another British detachment
was annihilated at Bednore. The French fleet
under Suifren had the advantage of the British,
and affairs were coming to an utterly disastrous
issue after an obstinate action between the
British and French armies at Gadalur, when
the news of peace with France fortunately saved
the British dominions in India. Humiliating
treaties with the Marathas in 1782 and with
Tipu Sahib in 1784 brought the struggle at last
to an end. Hastings had been obliged to extort
money from the Rajah of Benares and the Begums
of Oudh in order to carry on the war at all ; and
but for his indomitable courage all would have
been lost. The twenty years from 1764 to 1784
are the most dismal and discreditable of all
Anglo-Indian history. Of the three Presidencies
it is difficult to say which Council was the
worst, Bombay and Madras for crookedness and
folly, or Bengal from malignity of faction and
personal spite.
Happily the fools have been forgotten, and
the great man, Warren Hastings, is remembered.
His enemies, as is well known, pursued him on
40
GROWTH OF THE SIKHS
his return to England, and contrived to work
up against him the attack which is dignified
by the name of his impeachment. A more
infamous proceeding is not to be found in our
history ; infamous, not because there was no
ground for enquiry into the administration of
Hastings, but because, though it was conducted
partly by honest but mistaken men, it was helped
forward by politicians, who had not an atom
of principle, and stooped to be the instruments
of personal rancour not from any zeal for the
right, but from sheer conceit of their own
oratory.
It may be gathered that the position of the
British in India at the close of the war
of American Independence was none of the
strongest ; but fortunately a new power had
arisen in the north to deliver them from their
most pressing dangers. This was the Sikhs,
whose organisation and enthusiasm had been
so far quickened by persecution that they had
by 1785 mastered the whole of the Panjab
between the Jhelum and the Satlaj ; where
they formed at once a barrier against any new
invasion from the north-western passes, and a
dam against the flood, which was once again
rising, of the Marathas. It was pretty certain
that before long there must be a struggle
4^
PITT'S EAST INDIA BILLS
between British and Marathas for the final
mastery of India ; for Sindia had not only
reoccupied Delhi and Agra, but had actually
called upon the East India Company to pay
tribute for the tenure of Bengal. For the
present, however, a policy of aggression was
the last thing that was favoured either in
England or at Calcutta. The British Parlia-
ment had been very busy with enquiry into
Indian affairs, with the result that in 1784 and
1786 new India Bills had been passed by Pitt.
Thereby the immediate Government in Calcutta
was placed in the hands of a Governor-General,
who was no longer merely a member of his
Council with a casting vote, but was authorised
upon extraordinary occasions to act upon his
own responsibility, no matter what the opinions
of his councillors. Simultaneously, superin-
tendence of the civil, military and financial
business of the Company in England was
committed to six commissioners, nominated by
the Crown, and known as the Board of Control.
Thus the chief officials in India ceased to be
answerable to the Company, and became
answerable to Parliament, with the result that
the standards of integrity and efficiency were
rapidly raised, and many of the old abuses
banished.
Lord Cornwallis was the first Governor-
General appointed under the new system. He
was a good soldier and an inflexibly upright
man, but otherwise of little distinction ; and
42
FIRST WAR WITH TIPU SAHIB
he was hampered by a clause in the new India
Act which forbade him to declare war except
for the defence of British territory or of that
of their allies. So fatuous an enactment practi-
cally bade the Governor-General sit still while
his enemies completed their preparations for
war ; and Tipu Sahib, puffed up by his recent
successes, did not fail to take advantage of
the fact. Ultimately, in 1791, Cornwallis was
obliged to take the field against him in person ;
and after two arduous campaigns Tipu was
forced to sign a treaty which deprived him of
half his territory and resources.
In 1793 began the long war with revolu-
tionary France ; and the last act of Cornwallis
before he left India in that year was to seize
the French settlements. He was succeeded
by Sir John Shore, a cautious and feeble man,
who allowed both the Marathas and Tipu to
increase their strength at the expense of the
Nizam, and by his weakness encouraged Tipu
to court the alliance of the French. Mean-
while the Hindu power of the Marathas was
gaining upon the Mohammedans in all
quarters ; and the five chiefs of the confedera-
tion had by this time practically established
themselves as independent rulers ; the most
powerful of them, Sindia of Gwalior, being
master of the old capital of the Mogul Empire.
The control of the Peshwa over his sub-
ordinates had ceased ; and these combative
leaders were indiscriminately fighting each
43
THE AGE OF ADVENTURERS
other, or any one else who might tempt their
cupidity. The whole country was overrun by
mercenary bands, ready to sell themselves to
the highest bidder ; and, in fact, those were
the golden days of adventurers in India.
Accordingly they swarmed thither not only
from all parts of the Peninsula, but also from
Europe. From the seventeenth century onward
Europeans had resorted to the courts of Indian
potentates as soldiers of fortune. Now they
came in numbers, French, Italian and British,
perhaps the most remarkable of them being
George Thomas, an Irish sailor, who by rare
courage and undoubted military skill became
for a time a reigning prince with an army of
ten thousand men. Indirectly these adventurers
exerted an influence which was highly favour-
able to the British, for they persuaded the
Indian chiefs to train their troops after the
European model, or, in other words, to fight
the British with their own weapons. Tipu
Sahib succumbed to this temptation, as Haidar
his father had succumbed before him ; so like-
wise did Sindia, and the error was fatal to
both of them.
At last, in 1798, came a new Governor-
General, who from the first made it the
foundation of his policy that Britain must be
the paramount power in India, and reduce the
prevailing anarchy to order. This was Richard,
Lord Mornington, better known by his later
title of Marquess Wellesley ; and he was
44
FALL OF TIPU SAHIB
accompanied by his brother Arthur, a rather
sheepish young man of twenty-nine, whom the
Indian cUmate in a few months suddenly
ripened to the full measure of an unsuspected
genius. Tipu of Mysore, as the open ally
of the French, was the first enemy with whom
iVLornington grappled; and in 1799 Seringa-
patam was stormed by General Harris, and
Tipu was slain. It is noteworthy that in this
campaign Arthur Wcllesley held his first high
command, and suffered his greatest failure,
which might have wrecked any officer who
had not the Governor- General for a brother.
It is noteworthy also that, if Tipu had stuck
to the old principle of reliance upon light
cavalry only, instead of trusting to trained
infantry after the European fashion, he might
have evaded any decisive issue, and wearied out
the British with an endless and unprofitable
war. As things fell out he was destroyed, and
his dynasty swept away ; a menace which had
hung over Southern India for a whole genera-
tion was removed ; and the Carnatic and
Tanjore were annexed by Lord Mornington
to the British dominions.
The Governor-General's next step was to
endeavour to restore the authority of the Peshwa
over the confederate chiefs, and so to keep them
not only from aggression against their neighbours
but at peace with each other. The Peshwa
readily signed a treaty of offensive and defensive
alliance, but Sindia and Holkar refused to join
45
THE FIRST MARATHA WAR
in it, and it was soon discovered that Sindia was
endeavouring to form a Maratha combination
against the British. General Arthur Wellesley
was accordingly set in motion against Sindia's
dominions in the south, and General Lake against
those in the north-west. Then followed the
series of desperate actions which have immortal-
ised the year 1803. Wellesley won the battles
of Assaye and Argaum ; Lake stormed Aligarh,
captured Agra and gained the two signal victories
of Delhi and Laswari. But the Marathas fought
most nobly. Both at Assaye and Laswari their
troops displayed a power of manoeuvre which
disconcerted the British commanders, while the
Maratha gunners stood by their guns with heroic
tenacity until they were slain by the bayonet.
On the evening of Assaye the iron Wellesley,
who had been miraculously calm all day, sat down
and dropped asleep among the dead and dying,
with his head on his knees, worn out with the
exertions and anxiety of the day. Lake, when
the battle of Laswari had at last been gained,
wrote to Lord Wellesley that he had never been
in so critical a position before, and hoped that
he never would be again.
These victories shattered the strength and
influence of Sindia ; but Holkar, who had never
abandoned the traditional tactics of the Marathas,
was far more difficult to deal with. He nearly
destroyed one of Lake's detachments under
Colonel Monson, and, though subsequently de-
feated by this same Monson at Deig, led Lake
46
THE WORK OF MORNINGTON
a long chase almost to Attock before he was
finally brought to terms.
Thus after three years of bitter fighting the
great Maratha war came to an end in 1806;
having gained for the British the imperial cities
of Delhi and Agra with the contiguous tracts on
both banks of the Jumna, and the entire country
between the Jumna and the Ganges, together
with the province of Cuttack. Thereby British
territory was carried forward continuously from
Bengal to the upper Jumna in the north, and
from the presidency of Bengal to that of Madras
in the south. Mornington also instituted the
principle of subsidiary treaties, which provided
that the native states which accepted them should
keep no troops except those hired from the
Anglo-Indian government ; should not take up
arms against each other but refer all disputes to
British arbitration ; should remain within the
territorial limits imposed upon them ; and should
enter into no negotiations with foreign powers.
Incidentally he earned the eternal gratitude of
the Rajputs, the great fighting clans of India, in
delivering them from extinction by the Marathas.
Above all, as we have seen, he took possession of
Delhi, the key of Northern India ; and the
object of all these vast designs and enterprises
was to give the country, what it had never yet
enjoyed, the blessing of peace.
Mornington's policy was in the highest sense
imperial, but it had cost much money ; and by
1805 both the Directors of the Company and
47
CORNWALLIS AND MINTO
the Board of Control were of opinion that he
would be better at home. He returned,
therefore, to be honoured with the title of
Marquess Wellesley, but not with that to which,
in his sublime conceit, he aspired, of Duke of
India. He was succeeded by Lord Cornwallis,
too commonplace a man to sympathise with
Wellesley's masterful views of political supre-
macy and of keeping the peace in India. He
thought that England should remain strictly
within her own boundaries and not interfere with
her neighbours ; but before he could carry his
opinions into action he died, bequeathing them
first to a temporary successor, Sir George
Barlow, who is remembered chiefly by the fact
that he goaded the officers of the Madras Army
into open mutiny. Lord Minto, who presently
superseded Barlow, endeavoured likewise to
follow the precepts of Cornwallis and to avoid
all foreign complications ; but being confronted
with the schemes of Napoleon and Alexander
for invasion of India, he was fain to send missions
to Persia, Afghanistan and the Sikhs to secure
his north-west frontier ; and to despatch expedi-
tions to Mauritius and Java, which extinguished
every French and Dutch settlement in the East.
The quarrel between the two European poten-
tates, and the invasion of Russia by Napoleon,
released him from any further apprehension from
the west ; and meanwhile he had the good sense
to make a firm stand in another direction. A
man of genius, Ranjit Singh, having reorganised
48
RANJIT SINGH AND THE SIKHS
the Sikhs as a military power, had united all the
petty chieftainships of the Panjab into a great
military despotism. In 1808 he was inclined to
extend his frontier to south of the Satlaj ; but
desisted in consequence of representations from
Lord Minto that England would not permit it.
Checked thus on the south-eastern side, Ranjit
Singh came to a friendly agreement with the
British as to his south-eastern border, and took
advantage of civil dissensions in Afghanistan to
carry his sovereignty beyond the Indus and to
annex Kashmir.
But though severely bitten with the doctrines
of Cornwallis, Lord Minto found himself obliged
once again to interfere beyond the British
frontiers. True to his principle he had allowed
Central India to take care of itself; and there
had arisen in it bands of freebooters, some of
which under a celebrated leader. Amir Khan,
were finally united into a compact force of thirty
thousand men. These bands were known as the
Pindaris, but were mere brigands who overran
all territories impartially, plundering and devas-
tating not only with ruthlessness but with
barbarous cruelty. This Amir Khan fastened
himself upon Rajputana, which from internal
strife and general weakness was powerless against
him ; and, in spite of Wellesley's effort for their
salvation, the Rajputs were once more in danger
of being eaten up. Minto was obliged to send
an army to check Amir Khan's entry into the
territory of England's allies, but he made no effort
49 E
THE EXPEDITION TO NIPAL
to extinguish the evil of these predatory bands
altogether. The danger was the greater, for the
Maratha leaders Sindia, Holkar and Bonsla
were still chafing over their lost predominance,
and might well look to the Pindaris as useful
auxiliaries.
Happily, upon the departure of Lord Minto
his place was taken by a true disciple of Wellesley
and a very able soldier. General, Lord Hastings.
Soon after his arrival, in 1814, his attention was
claimed by the encroachments of the Gurkhas in
Nipal who, having trained and equipped their
men after the European fashion, conquered easily
the local chiefs in the hills and descended upon
the English territory in the plain. An expedi-
tion was sent to punish them under Sir RoUo
Gillespie, a man who, if it were safe to fasten
such a title upon a single individual, might be
described as the bravest soldier that ever wore
the red coat. He failed, however, at the outset,
and was himself among the killed ; nor was it
until 1815 that Sir David Ochterlony reduced
the Gurkhas to sue for peace, in return for which
they ceded a long tract of the lower Himalayas,
thus carrying the British frontier up to that of
the Chinese Empire. This was the first of our
many expeditions into the mountains in the north
and north-west, and our first and last war with
the Gurkhas, whose regiments have made so
famous a name for themselves under the British
Meanwhile the situation in Central India
so
HASTINGS AND CENTRAL INDIA
grew worse and worse ; and the Pindaris, secretly
abetted by the Maratha chiefs, made raids upon
the presidencies both of Bengal and of Madras.
The Rajput Raja of Jaipur, groaning under the
oppressions of these robbers, appealed to the
Governor-General for help ; and Lord Hastings
decided that Central India must be reduced to
order once for all. Sindia with some difficulty
was overawed into co-operation with the British ;
but the Peshwa, Bonsla and Holkar openly
sided against them, only to meet with decisive
repulses after hard fighting near Puna, in
Nagpur and at Mehidpur. The Pindaris were
hunted down by the British cavalry ; and their
leader, Chitu, was driven into the jungle and
there killed by a tiger. The Peshwa was deposed,
his office extinguished, and most of his territory
annexed.
The boundaries of the dominions of Sindia,
Holkar and Bonsla were carefully laid down, and
the predatory system of the Marathas was brought
to an end. Furthermore, it was ordained that
in every state in Central India the British Govern-
ment should in future control all foreign relations,
arbitrate in all disputes with neighbours, super-
vise generally through a Resident the domestic
administration, and hold superior command of all
subsidiary forces and contingents. Thus the
peace of Central India was not only enforced for
the present, but assured for the future ; and the
policy of Lord Wellesley was carried to its
appointed end. Few remember the merit of
51
THE FIRST BURMESE WAR
Lord Hastings, either by that name, by his earlier
title of Lord Moira, or by his earliest as Lord
Rawdon, which he bore when he first won fame
as a commander at the action of Hobkirk's Hill
in the American War. As a politician at home
he was a failure ; as a military commander he
lacked opportunity of distinction in his mature
age ; but he was none the less a great soldier
and a great administrator, whose hand impressed
itself permanently upon the future of India.
There were now but two points at which the
frontier of India was threatened with disturbance,
in the north-west by the Sikhs and in the north-
east by the ruler of Burma. This last had
been welded into a single kingdom by conquest
while England was still busy over the subdual
of Bengal; and the Burmese armies in 1823
carried their aggression so far to the south
and west as to invade border-states which were
under British protection. Lord Amherst, the
Governor-General, therefore, sent an expedition
to Rangoon, which, after a campaign of two
years, dictated at Ava terms of peace, under
which the British gained a safe frontier by the
cession of Assam, Arakan and Tenasserim, and
by the recognition of their protectorate over
sundry minor states. But while the army was
engaged in Burma, the throne of Bharatpur
(Bhurtpore), a protected state, fell vacant, and
was usurped by a pretender. Such usurpation
was a direct menace to the peace of India, and
Sir David Ochterlony, who was then Resident
52
LORD WILLIAM BENTINCK
at Delhi, promptly assembled a considerable
force to march against Bharatpur, and to vindi-
cate the principles laid down by Hastings. So
little, however, did Amherst understand his duty
that he countermanded Ochterlony's prepara-
tions in terms of preposterous harshness. The
veteran general, a man worth twenty Amhersts,
thereupon resigned ; but he was so much cha-
grined alike by his chief's departure from sound
policy, and by the slight put upon himself, that
he died shortly afterwards. However, Amherst
after all was obliged to do himself what he had
forbidden to Sir David ; and the fortress of Bharat-
pur, which had foiled four successive assaults of
the fiery Lake, fell before a systematic siege by
Lord Combermere in 1826.
Then in 1828 came a new Governor-General,
Lord William Bentinck, who combined with the
office that of Commander-in-Chief also. As a
soldier he had served with no great distinction in
Spain and in Italy, and as an administrator he had
been recalled from Madras in 1807 on account
of his responsibility for the mutiny at Vellore ;
wherefore it is upon his later work in India that
his reputation, unduly exalted by the fact that
Macaulay wrote his epitaph, must be taken to
rest. He is remembered chiefly for his aboli-
tion of the rite of sati, or widow-burning, and
because he was the first Governor-General who
made the material progress of the country his
special care ; and in virtue of these peculiar
services he holds a just title to fame. On the
53
MIXED VIRTUES AND FAILINGS
other hand, his name is associated with certain
acts of economy and false humanity which leave
a terrible blot upon his memory. He blew up
the celebrated great gun of Agra to make money
out of the metal ; he tried to sell the Taj Mahal ;
and, in order to save twenty thousand pounds,
he nearly caused a mutiny among the British
officers of the Bengal army, by cutting off, in
direct breach of faith, one of their allowances.
The Directors of the East India Company had
pressed this last measure upon previous Governors-
General, but every one had refused to take it ;
and its most mischievous result was that it
lowered their officers in the eyes of the Sepoys,
contributing not a little to create the spirit
which brought about the Mutiny in 1857.
Not content with this, Bentinck injured the
discipline of the Sepoys still more by abolishing
the punishment of the lash in native regiments,
in the face of unanimous advice to the contrary
both from Europeans and Indian officers.^
Further, he threw to the winds the policy of
Wellesley and Hastings, by abstaining, so far as
possible, from intervention in the internal strife
of protected states. In other words, he tried
to abjure his responsibilities as constable for the
maintenance of peace in India ; allowing in the
name of humanity full scope to disorder, which
is only another name for human misery, until
more than once even he at last found himself
obliged to interfere. Lastly, it was Bentinck
1 This measure was in fact revoked by his successors.
54
AUCKLAND AND AFGHANISTAN
who was answerable at the very end of his term
of office for the decree that made English the
official language of India, and thereby held up
the acquisition of a little superficial Western
culture as the ideal to be attained by young
Indians of talent. On the whole, excuse could
be found for a Governor-General if he prayed
that the record of his rule might be better than
that of Bentinck.
Still during Lord William's term there was
no war ; very far otherwise was it with his
successor Lord Auckland. After the fall of
Napoleon Russia had resumed her march east-
ward, and very soon was pressing upon Persia.
Though bound by a treaty of alliance to defend
the Shah against aggression, England, in dismay
at finding herself in contact with an European
power, decided in 1828 to ask release from
her obligations, and drew back her defensive
frontier to Afghanistan. She thereupon became
supremely interested in that country, where the
sceptre, by a transition common in the East,
had passed from Shah Shuja, the legitimate de-
scendant of Ahmad Shah Abdali, to the prime
minister. Dost Mohammed. Matters were
brought to a crisis in 1837 ^7 ^^^ advance of
a Persian army on Herat ; the Shah, who had
ceded territory to Russia in the west, being
anxious to compensate himself by encroach-
ments to the east. Russia promptly offered
assistance to Dost Mohammed, who, however,
was much more inclined to throw himself upon
55
THE YEAR OF DISASTER
British protection. But Auckland received his
overtures coldly ; and, though a British expedi-
tion to the Persian Gulf sufficed to raise the
siege of Herat, yet the Governor-General deter-
mined to settle the Afghan question in another
way by entering into a treaty with the Sikhs
and with Shah Shuja to replace the latter on
the throne. Accordingly, in 1838 a British
force advanced to Kandahar, and Shah Shuja
was restored with little difficulty.
The only means of maintaining his rule,
however, was through a military occupation of
Afghanistan by the British, and this, not less
than the original invasion, was an undertaking
of extreme danger. The base for the expedi-
tion was Scinde, a foreign country whose rulers,
the Baluchi Amirs, were not too friendly to the
British ; while on the flank of our communica-
tions was the Panjab, now organised into a great
military power by the genius of Ranjit Singh,
and exceedingly suspicious of our movements.
The occupation was much resented by the free
Afghan tribes, whose discontent in 1841 ripened
into a general insurrection. The supplies of the
British were cut off, and the troops were harassed
by eternal petty fighting before the evacuation
of Kabul, unwisely deferred until the winter,
was finally carried out. The result, as is well
known, was disastrous, for out of a total force
of sixteen thousand men but one escaped. Lord
Auckland, absolutely unnerved by a catastrophe
unparalleled in the history of the British in
56
NAPIER IN SCINDE
India, made no effort to retrieve their fallen
fortunes ; Lord Ellenborough, who succeeded
him in February 1842, shrank equally from a
task so formidable ; and it was left to two
British generals, Nott and Pollock, to advance
upon their own responsibility from Kandahar
and Jelalabad to Kabul, and to restore the
reputation of the British arms by a final
triumphant campaign.
Even so, however, the capital of Afghanistan
was recaptured only to be speedily abandoned,
together with every political object which
Auckland's aggression had sought to attain.
Moreover, the destruction of the British force
at Kabul had dangerously shattered the prestige
of the East India Company, and raised up a
large crop of enemies. First the Amirs of
Scinde, for violation of an unwelcome treaty
which had been thrust upon them, were
attacked by Sir Charles Napier, defeated in two
great battles at Miani and Hyderabad, and com-
pelled to cede to us Karachi and the estuary of
the Indus. This was on the whole the most
brilliant campaign ever fought by the British
in India. Next the Sikh army, released from
the iron discipline of Ranjit Singh in 1839, had
become uncontrollable, while at the same time
the army of Sindia had been augmented to
dangerous dimensions and, owing to a contest
over the guardianship of an infant ruler, might
easily become an element of danger. Rightly
perceiving the menace to the peace of India
57
THE FIRST SIKH WAR
involved in the existence of these two master-
less hordes, Ellenborough dealt first with the
Marathas, who in two battles, Maharajpore and
Panniar, fought on the same day (December
29, 1843), were reduced to powerlessness for
mischief. But these masterful methods of
anticipating and averting peril did not commend
themselves to the Directors of the East India
Company, and in 1844 Ellenborough was
unceremoniously recalled.
His successor. Sir Henry Hardinge, a soldier
of deserved reputation, found that Ellenborough's
forebodings were well justified ; for within less
than six months after his arrival the Sikhs
crossed the Satlaj into British territory (Dec.
1844). Then followed the severest fighting
ever experienced by the British in India, for
their General-in-Chief was unskilful and their
enemy most gallant and steadfast. Four well-
contested actions, Mudki, Ferozeshah, Aliwal
and Sobraon, were necessary to bring the army
of the Sikhs to reason. Hardinge thereupon
confiscated all Sikh territory on the left bank
of the Satlaj and the tract between that river
and the Beas, exacted an indemnity of a million
and a half, enforced the disbandment of many
Sikh regiments, and, limiting the full number of
their army to thirty-two thousand men, fondly
imagined that he had given India permanent
peace. In vain men of deeper insight urged the
annexation of the Panjab, and the Government
of Lahore predicted a second rising of the army
58
THE SECOND SIKH WAR
against itself: Hardinge, not without reason,
thought his armed force insufficient to execute a
more thorough policy ; so he did what he could
and hoped for the best. All was still quiet
when at the end of 1847 he made over the
viceroyalty to his successor Lord Dalhousie.
Within three months after Hardinge's
departure the peace was broken. Upon a
trifling pretext the Sikhs again rose in insurrec-
tion, and, after a very bloody and indecisive
action at Chilianwala, they were finally crushed
by the victory of Gujrat. They had fought
nobly, but had been ruined by their own
indiscipline. Dalhousie, refusing to risk further
trouble in the Panjab, annexed it ; and its
administration was refounded from the very base
under the inspiration of Henry Lawrence, but
under the actual rule of his brother John, aided
by such young officers as John Nicholson and
Herbert Edwardes. The like work is now in
hand in the Soudan, where British officers are
proving themselves worthy successors of their
forerunners in the Panjab. The annexation
brought the British frontier up to the foot of
the Afghan hills, and made the conquerors re-
sponsible for checking any further invasions of
India from the north-west. This was and is no
trifling burden, even though recent events have
tended somewhat to lighten it ; for the task of
punishing the raids of the predatory tribes in
the mountains has been continuous and endless.
The second Sikh campaign, however, was the
59
POLICY OF DALHOUSIE
last campaign of conquest to be fought within
the bounds of India, for it assured the British
their supremacy in the country.
Hardly had this most important object been
accomplished in the north-west, when Dalhousie's
attention was called to the south-east by the
impracticable conduct of the government of
Burma. A short campaign in 1852 sufficed to
defeat the Burman armies ; and the province of
Pegu in Lower Burma, with the estuary of the
Irawadi, was likewise annexed by the British,
completing their hold on the entire coast-line of
the Bay of Bengal. But Dalhousie did not stop
at annexations by conquest. He was not only a
Governor-General of Wellesley's type, who took
it to be England's highest duty to maintain the
peace of India, but he was also a typical Whig
of the early nineteenth century, firmly convinced
that British institutions were the last word in
political wisdom, and quite satisfied that British
rule was not only the best but the most
acceptable that could be offered to every part of
India, Hence, when the sovereignty of a native
state lapsed through want of natural heirs to
the reigning dynasty, he thought it not only
expedient but morally binding upon him to
disallow the adoption of an heir, and to take the
state permanently into British possession. For
this reason he annexed Satara, Jhansi, Nagpur,
and some less important states. Finally, in 1856
he annexed Oudh upon the perfectly sufficient
ground that the misgovernment of its rulers was
60
RESULTS OF THAT POLICY
insufferable, and in fact kept the entire state in a
condition bordering upon anarchy.
There can be no question of the honesty of
Dalhousie's plans and intentions for the good of
India ; but he had not sufficiently pondered
Burke's saying, that most of the evils of this
world arise from the efforts of one set of men to
determine concerning the happiness of others.
The failing was, and is, by no means confined
to him ; indeed there are signs that England
herself is entering upon an era of compulsory
happiness, which is without a precedent in her
history. In India, however, Dalhousie's feverish
haste and boundless self-confidence in the
substitution of British for native ideas and
prejudices begat suspicion and unrest. His
eagerness to do away with misrule was construed
as rapacity of power ; and his zeal to abolish
usages, which shocked his Western sensibility,
was misinterpreted as a deep design to over-
throw ancient custom and tradition. He
brought, in fact, to a head all the discontent
which had been bred by the mistakes, mis-
conceptions and offences of every Englishman
who had lived in India from the beginning of
British rule. But it is due to him to add that
he foresaw that trouble might come of some of
his measures, until their good intent had been
proved by experience, and that he asked, though
in vain, for an increase of the British garrison to
avert all peril meanwhile.
Now, however, the establishment of peace
6i
THE MUTINY OF 1857
through the length and breadth of India left the
native army idle. In the course of a century
the Sepoys, joined to the British, had met and
vanquished every armed force in the land, and
seeing their British officers steadily belittled both
by the East India Company and by successive
Commanders-in-Chief, the native soldiers thought
that they themselves had accomplished every-
thing and were invincible. An insult to their
religious prejudices, which seems to have been
fancied, though by them believed to be real,
sufficed to make them break out in May 1857
into open mutiny and murder ; and they were
joined, as was natural, by all the bad characters
and very many of the dissatisfied in India at
large. The insurrection was, as has been well
said, a wild fanatic outbreak ; yet, viewed soberly
at a distance of more than fifty years, its weak-
ness and helplessness are the facts that show
themselves in strongest relief. Though in more
than one quarter British officials and officers
blundered seriously, yet it can hardly be said
that the issue was doubtful after the first two
months, though the final restoration of peace and
order was delayed, owing not a little to military
mismanagement, until 1859.
Some months earlier, on the ist of November
1858, it was announced by proclamation that the
East India Company was abolished, and that the
Government of India had been taken over by the
Queen, with Lord Canning, the reigning Governor-
General, for her first Viceroy. Incidentally the
62
INDIA UNDER THE CROWN
suppression of the mutiny had laid the uneasy
ghosts of certain great names and offices which
had long perished in substance from India. "The
phantom of a Mogul Emperor and his Court
vanished from Delhi ; the last pretender to the
honours of the Maratha Peshwa disappeared
from Cawnpore." The East India Company,
whose authority had been long threatened and
continually weakened by successive Acts of
Parliament, was finally extinguished. The
British Crown assumed the unquestioned sove-
reignty of India ; the new ruler. Queen Victoria,
announced that she would always labour for the
prosperity of her newly acquired dominions ;
and she faithfully kept her word.
VI
Since that time there has been unbroken
internal peace in India. Dalhousie's policy of
annexation was definitely repudiated in i860,
and all ruling chiefs received the Queen's assur-
ance that, in default of natural heirs, successors
chosen by adoption according to the law and
custom of their families would be recognised
and upheld by the British Government. Twice
indeed the Government has intervened to depose
rulers convicted of culpable misconduct or mal-
administration, but in each case the vacancy has
been filled by another representative of the
reigning family. So far indeed is the Crown
63
NORTH-WEST FRONTIER WARS
from desiring to absorb native states that in 1881
it actually restored Mysore to the ancient Hindu
family from which Haidar Ali had taken it in
the eighteenth century, though the burden of
reconquest had fallen wholly upon the British.
On the other hand, on the frontiers, and
particularly in the north-west, there has been
constant trouble with predatory tribes, and a long
succession of expeditions. In 1863 the moun-
taineers about the Peshawar valley needed to be
taught a stern lesson by what is known as the
Umbeyla campaign. In 1864 it was necessary
to send troops into Bhutan, a small state lying
to east of Nipal, which, however, soon saw the
advisability of submission, and has since given
no trouble. In 1876 Baluchistan, whose unruly
clans were constantly troubling the British
border, was by successful diplomacy turned into
a British protectorate ; and two years later a
similar result was brought about, principally by
force of arms, in Afghanistan. In 1878 as a
consequence of European complications, Russia
sent an envoy to Kabul, who drew up a treaty
of alliance with the Amir, Sher Ali, on the
strength of which that potentate, in defiance of
all warning, refused to receive a British mission.
His territory was therefore invaded. The
Amir fled ; and after his death in 1879 his son
Yakub Khan, in return for certain concessions,
was set up by us as Amir, agreeing at the same
time to admit the British envoy whom his father
had excluded. Within three months that un-
64
THE AMIR ABDUR RAHMAN
fortunate gentleman was assassinated, and the
whole country rose up in arms against Yakub Khan
and his British allies. Not without difficulty
and danger Kabul and Kandahar were held, but
the outbreak seemed to be hopeless, for the
Government of India had never contemplated
the subdual of the whole country, and yet there
appeared to be no prospect of an end to anarchy if
the British garrisons were withdrawn. Happily
at this moment came forward Abdur Rahman,
nephew of a still earlier Amir, whom the Viceroy
offered to accept as Yakub Khan's successor and
to protect against foreign aggression. In 1880
the matter was finally settled, and the British
troops were about to withdraw, when a younger
son of Sher Ali, Ayub Khan, marched with
an army from Herat, routed a British force
which attempted to check him, and invested the
British garrison at Kandahar. He was, however,
presently attacked and defeated by Sir Frederick
Roberts, who had marched from Kabul to the
relief of Kandahar ; and Abdur Rahman was left
in charge of the country. Being a man of
remarkable ability and indomitable will he soon
established his authority on all sides, and put an
end to the internal disorder which had distracted
Afghanistan for generations. There was a criti-
cal moment in 1885 when a dispute about the
frontier brought the Russians and Afghans into
actual collision, and Russia and England to the
verge of war ; but hostilities were averted, and
the border was demarcated by international
65 F
CHITRAL; BURMA; TIBET
agreement. Since then the convention of 1907
has still further improved relations betw^een
England and Russia, and, thanks to the removal
of this long-standing cause of quarrel and to the
firm rule of Abdur Rahman, Afghanistan for
more than twenty years has been unusually quiet
and prosperous. Upon the death of Abdur
Rahman in 1901 his place w^as taken by his
son, the present Amir, without a sign of any
revolt or contest for the succession.
There was no further disturbance in the
north-west until 1896, when the British pro-
tectorate was extended to the tribes on the
western border of Kashmir. These rose and
besieged the British garrison in Chitral, which
was not rescued without hard fighting and a
dangerous and difficult expedition. This pro-
tectorate brought the British frontier up to that
of the Chinese Empire in Kashgar.
The next quarter in which there was trouble
was Burma, where the King had not only mal-
treated British subjects, but was secretly favour-
ing French interests in his country to the
prejudice of the British. As he seemed deaf
to all warnings, a British force marched to
Mandalay in November 1885. Upper Burma
was annexed, and after two years of hard work
order was restored in the land. The tribes
on the extreme east in due time became our
tributaries ; and on this side again we have
come into contact with China.
Lastly, the expedition to Lhasa in 1903—4,
66
ADMINISTRATIVE PROGRESS
put an end, as was thought, to the encroach-
ments of the last of our northern neighbours.
But the situation was presently complicated
by the expulsion of the Grand Lama from
Tibet by Chinese troops, and has since been
still further confounded by the return of the
Grand Lama to his capital in consequence
of the domestic troubles of China. Recent
occurrences, indeed, have revived in great
measure our anxieties not only in the north,
but in the north-west ; for with complete
anarchy in Persia, and vast changes which may
signify anarchy, or at least long intestine dis-
turbance, in China, it is not easy to forecast
where troubles may begin or end upon the
Indian frontier.
So much for external affairs since i860 ;
let us now glance for a moment at internal
progress within the same period. The first
great administrative measures were the recon-
stitution of the Governor-General's Council for
purposes of legislation in 1861 ; the enactment
of the Penal Code and the Code of Criminal
Procedure in the same year, and the passing of
a succession of Acts to serve, as well as could
be designed, in lieu of codification of the Civil
Law. This great and essential preliminary
work having been done for the foundation of
a stable order, it remained to carry administra-
tive reforms gradually into every department,
and to endeavour by patience, tact, and under-
standing, to train the people of India to
67
MATERIAL PROGRESS
sympathy with the, to them, new idea of
government by fixed law. Concurrently, educa-
tion was promoted according to the ideas laid
down by Lord William Bentinck, and conse-
crated by the approval of Lord Macaulay.
Latterly Indians have been admitted more and
more freely to high administrative and judicial
offices ; and a first step has been made towards
representative institutions by the introduction
of municipalities into all considerable towns,
and of Legislative Councils first into the
provinces and recently into the seat of supreme
government.
Material enterprise has kept pace with
administrative progress. Great public works
have been undertaken ; the country has been
covered with a network of railways ; and
gigantic schemes of irrigation have made huge
areas productive which were formerly sterile,
already disarming the spectre of famine of some
of its terrors, and bidding fair, with further
development, to weaken it still more. With
peace and order assured, with fertility enhanced,
with improved means of transport from the
interior to the sea, the wealth of the country
has been augmented, the population has in-
creased, and the habits of the people have been
sensibly affected. Finally, the assumption by
Queen Victoria of the title of Empress of India
emphasised the incorporation of the great
Peninsula into the British Empire, while her
deep personal interest in Indian affairs brought
68
THE MEANING OF EDUCATION
home to all her Indian subjects that they were
indeed the children of the Great White Queen.
Yet the administrative policy and actions of
England, honestly and unselfishly designed for
the good of India, have not borne the fruit
which was hoped for. The results of higher
education, in the Western sense, have not always
fulfilled the hopes and aims of its advocates.
It is true that this experience is by no means
confined to India among British possessions, nor
to British possessions in the world at large ;
but nevertheless the real end of education seems
to be more dangerously misconceived in India
than elsewhere, or at any rate the consequences
of such misconception are peculiarly disturbing
to Indian students. The truth perhaps is that
there is much confusion of thought as to the
meaning of the word education, for the term
is used to cover two descriptions of training —
that of the intellect and character for making
a good citizen, and that of the hand, eye and
brain for the making of a good craftsman. The
latter is a means to an end, the former is an end
in itself; but modern enthusiasts for so-called
education have confounded these two things.
They have breezily assumed that if a man be
taught in theory to conduct himself fittingly as
a social unit, all other things shall be added
unto him ; that, if he be trained in theory to
exercise the suffrage, he will thereby be qualified
to earn an honest living. In brief, they have
forgotten that a full belly, and not a full
69
THE TWO CIVIC VIRTUES
brain is the vital condition of individual human
life.
In former days in England the distinction
between the two kinds of education was care-
fully observed ; and indeed it may be said that as
a rule both kinds were rarely given to one man.
The English gentleman, having higher civic
duties imposed upon him than, as a rule, had the
craftsman, trained himself to fulfil them by study
of the laws of his country. The craftsman
learned his craft through apprenticeship to a
guild, and, having mastered it, could claim
that he too had done his part as a good
citizen ; even though private bounty had estab-
lished many schools where the poorer children
might learn at any rate to read, write and
cipher. But the children of both rich and
poor were brought up on perhaps the noblest
brief code of citizenship ever drawn up by
human hand — the exposition of one's duty
towards one's neighbour in the Church Cate-
chism. Hereby they were taught that the
two great civic virtues are self-respect and self-
sacrifice ; and this is a lesson which cannot be
improved upon. Since then times have changed
greatly. The right of voting at parliamentary
elections has been given practically to every
adult male ; and the obligation to learn how
to read, write and cipher has been forced without
cost to parents upon every child. Knowledge
of the law has, for quite sufficient reasons,
perished from among the gentry ; and know-
70
RIGHTS AND DUTIES
ledge of their duty towards their neighbour is
perishing from among all classes. It seems to
have been hoped that what is called a literary
education would make good and more than make
good all that has hereby been lost, for train-
ing the young to self-respect and self-sacrifice.
Now it must be observed that self-sacrifice
has always been exacted in the form of taxation
by every state, as well as in other forms, such
as service on juries, in the militia, and so forth.
With the more elaborate organisation of society,
however, the tendency in England has been to
make fewer and fewer claims upon the citizen ;
to encourage him, in fact, to think much of his
rights and little of his duties. Other nations
exact from all adult males a period of military
training ; England not only makes no such
demand, but has swept away the old militia
through which it was — perhaps still is — the law
that every man must pass. British state educa-
tion in the matter of self-sacrifice must therefore
be set down as imperfect : let us now examine
it in the matter of self-respect. The first step
to self-respect is undoubtedly self-dependence ;
and it is probable that the old system which
made the power to earn a livelihood the first
point in the education of the mass of the people,
was at least as good as the new. On the other
hand, since the franchise has now been extended
to all men, it is arguable that they should be
trained to exercise that privilege aright ; and
that therefore the key to all knowledge should
71
LITERARY EDUCATION
be placed impartially in the hands of all.
Hence more and more time is given to deliver-
ing the rudiments of a literary education to
children ; and 2i still higher literary education
is taken to be the ideal for those whom fortune
has not compelled to work with their hands.
Yet literary education, the advantage of
which I am not concerned to deny, is after all
a luxury and hardly a necessity. At its highest
it aims at imparting " the knowledge of the
best that has been thought and said in the
world," or what is often called culture ; and,
if such culture were more widely diffused, it
would undoubtedly be the better for all of us.
But much time, much labour and peculiar
gifts are needed for its acquisition, and still
more peculiar gifts for its rightful employ-
ment. It may perhaps be called the highest
of all luxuries, too much despised by the rich,
who can best afford to gain it ; never perhaps
so truly prized as by the honourable poor, who
sometimes starve themselves to win it ; but in
any case a luxury of luxuries, enjoyable only by
the few. Shepherds on different sides of the
world are perhaps the most remarkable of its
votaries. In Scotland there is the born
shepherd, unmatched in his own business of
tending sheep, but happy in the industry and
devotion which has made him learn Shakespcre
by heart, and master thoroughly the history of
ancient Greece and Rome. In Australia there
is the young graduate of Oxford or Cambridge,
72
AN END IN ITSELF
an intelligent student and no mean scholar
who, finding no work to do, has become a
shepherd — and probably an indifferent shepherd
— in Australia upon " five bob a day and his
tucker," and consoles himself for a dreary out-
look in life with his Homer and his Aeschylus.
These are men who use their literary educa-
tion aright as an end in itself; but they are
the exception. It is hard to see how they
should be otherwise. In the first place, the
State gives facilities for technical education to
follow upon the earlier literary education ; and
technical education is simply a means to a
commercial end. In the second place, parents,
schoolmasters and tutors never cease to hold
up to students the commercial as well as the
intellectual value of a good degree at the
University ; while the State itself has made
competitive examinations in literary subjects
the means of ingress to the Civil Service.
The truth is, that a great many students, unless
they had a vague idea that culture would
ultimately in some way provide them with a
livelihood, would not pursue it at all ; they
would abandon it for more practical work,
perhaps, though not certainly, to return to it
later with joy. But few teachers have the
heart to damp the ardour of an eager lad by
telling him that his desperate struggles with two
dead languages must be their own reward, and
cannot stand between him and starvation.
Hence when the time comes for the youth's
73
EDUCATION IN INDIA
entry in earnest upon the battlefield of life
there is bitter disillusion and disappointment.
There is not room for more than a very few
in the ranks, already overcrowded, of the public
service or of the learned professions ; and he must
seek his bread elsewhere. The English-
speaking world is wide ; he crosses the ocean
to seek his fortune ; and after many humiliations
he settles down to be a shepherd or a boundary-
rider, happy or embittered according to his
temperament, but sometimes broken-hearted, and
always a little astonished.
In India the case of the student is still worse.
It is difficult enough even for an European to
assimilate with discrimination the best that has
been thought and said in his world ; for in the
first place there is considerable difference of
opinion as to what is the best, and in the
second, the best, unless rightly understood, may
easily become the worst. The true value of
education is to teach people to realise their own
ignorance ; but no common knowledge is
necessary to master this lesson, and no ordinary
courage in the young to accept it as worth
learning. Youth always craves for certainty,
and finds it easiest to treat the knowledge, which
flatters its own crude prejudices, as the best. In
India the danger of haste and misunderstanding
is multiplied an hundredfold. There public
instruction is a new thing, and in its higher
branches is based on foreign thought embodied
in a foreign literature, while the intellects to
74
ENGLISH HISTORY AT FAULT
which it is offered are singularly quick, subtle
and voracious. What is its object ? To train
young men to good citizenship ? But citizen-
ship in the East is a very different thing to
citizenship in the West. The most eloquent
passages in English history and oratory are
those devoted to conflict with Royal authority,
the dethronement of Kings, and the conquest
of what is called civil and religious liberty.
The most famous of English legal enactments
are those which strike at the power of the
Crown and curb the domination of the priest-
hood. Pontiffs and autocrats have undoubtedly
been responsible for much of the evil that has
plagued the world, but they have also been re-
sponsible for much,— perhaps most— of the good
that has improved it ; and it may be questioned
whether the Anglo-Saxon is not over prone to
exalt resistance to authority as something m
itself meritorious. In any case the classical
incidents of English history do not furnish sound
models for good citizenship in India. ^ How
should an intelligent Indian see any profit in such
literary training if it is not to yield him a liveli-
hood ? But outside the public service and the
legal and medical professions there is no demand
for Indians of European education ; and the
number of candidates far exceeds the places that
can possibly be found for them. The Indian
cannot, like the Englishman, smother his dis-
appointment and bury himself in the Colonies.
The natural result is that the unsuccessful are
75
THE PAX BRITANNICA
bitterly discontented, that they cry out for the
vote which they have been educated in theory
to employ, and that they agitate for Society to
be altered in order to fit their needs, because
they find that Society in its present state offers
no outlet for their accomplishments.
Again, the bare enforcement of the pax
Britannica^ though of infinite relief and benefit
to the peasant, that is to say, to perhaps three
hundred out of the three hundred and twenty
millions, is galling to more ambitious spirits.
The old medium of competition in India
was the sword, and the country was the
Paradise of adventurers. A soldier of genius at
the head of a handful of villagers might carve
out a kingdom and found a dynasty, enlisting
the unhappy peasants, whose homesteads he had
ruined, as his mercenaries. Then in due time
the Court gathered about itself artists and crafts-
men to build temples and palaces, to compose
poems and histories, and to preserve those
compositions in a beautiful script embellished
with even more beautiful illuminations. The
prosaic work of peace is not yet found to be
equally inspiring ; the railway and the canal,
even though the canal may mean the difference
between life and death to tens of thousands,
awake no lyrics. All is quiet, but all is
uninteresting. As a French critic said, the
British Government is just, but it is not lovable.
To many of us at home this fact will seem
strange and even mortifying. The British
76
AN AUSTERE GOVERNMENT
civilian's ideal of duty towards India is very
high, and he labours honestly and conscientiously
to fulfil it. The British military officer, being
thrown daily and hourly with his Indian officers
and men, is even more closely in touch with
Indian thought and feeling than the civilian, and
frequently makes the more successful adminis-
trator of the two. We know the names of men
in both services whose deep interest in the
Indians and sympathy with them has found
expression in what may be termed the classic
literature of British India, in the writings of
Orme and Grant Duff, Henry Maine and Alfred
Lyall among civilians, and of Mark Wilks and
Meadows Taylor among soldiers. One soldier,
John Nicholson, as is well known, is still
worshipped by some Indians as a god. More-
over, we may confidently believe that there are
men of this stamp always to be found among
the British servants of the Indian Government.
And yet that Government as a whole is to the in-
habitants something distant and aloof; respected,
indeed, as is the austere father of a family by his
children, but not loved. It is often accused of
trampling ruthlessly upon native custom ; but
one, who knew its excellences and its failings
well, long ago vindicated it from this slander.
"The interference of the British Government,"
he wrote, " has rarely taken the form of high-
handed repression or contemptuous discourage-
ment." On the contrary, he urged that since
1857 British administrators had been too nervous
77
THE BENEVOLENT ELEMENT
about altering native custom, alleging that the
Indians are not so closely wedded to their usages
as to be unwilling to surrender them for any-
tangible advantage. And this complaint is
echoed by educated Indians at the present day,
who appeal to the Government to come down
from its high place and give the people a lead in
certain social reforms ; for if, say these writers,
Government will not take the matter in hand,
no one else will or can. There are, of course,
two sides to such a question as this ; and a man
who is not intimately acquainted with India is
wise to hesitate before he takes either the one
or the other. Nevertheless, the defect of our
administration seems to be that its functions are
identified in the native mind chiefly with those
of the constable and the engineer. The
Government is just, but it is insufficiently human.
Its benevolent element exists indeed, but has its
dwelling-place in the heart of a White Queen or
a White King many thousands of miles away
across the sea.
VII
In 1906 His present Majesty, then Prince of
Wales, visited India, together with his Princess,
and was profoundly touched by the cordial
welcome which he received in every quarter.
On his return he was publicly entertained by
the Lord Mayor of London at the Guildhall,
78
'A LITTLE MORE SYMPATHY'
and took occasion to appeal for a " little more
sympathy " in the relations of the Indian
Government with the Indian people. The
native press caught up the phrase with joy and
gratitude, and repeats it constantly to this day.
But sympathy is a personal and not an official
matter, a quality of the heart and not of the
head, and therefore an attribute of a ruler and
not of a Government. Hence the words of the
Prince of Wales seemed after analysis to be
rather a counsel of perfection. Within four
years, however, the Prince, through the lamented
death of his father. King Edward the Seventh,
was suddenly called to the throne and to the
headship of the British Empire. He then
bethought himself of the words that he had
spoken, and conceived at once an earnest desire
to revisit India as King-Emperor. The idea,
wholly his own, commended itself to his
Ministers, and in his first speech to Parliament
on the 6th of February 191 1 His Majesty
announced that he purposed to journey to India
during the ensuing winter. The declaration
caused the greatest surprise in England, and
there was much difference of opinion as to the
wisdom of this unprecedented step. Upon the
whole, perhaps, the croakers were in the majority,
partly no doubt because such a novelty as the
King's visit to India had never occurred to
more than ten in half a million of them ; partly
because prognostication of evil is generally rated
a higher form of sagacity than anticipation
79
THE DEPARTURE FROM LONDON
of good. This was no more than was to be
expected from human nature ; but underlying
these predictions of failure was a very sincere,
though generally silent, apprehension for the
King's safety. His Majesty, however, had no
misgivings ; and many gentlemen with great
experience of India declined even to listen to
gloomy forebodings of any kind.
Their Majesties were crowned in Westminster
Abbey on the 22nd of June 191 1, the anniversary
of Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee ; and long
before that date the details of the ceremonies at
Delhi were under incessant discussion, while
the plan of the amphitheatre for the Durbar had
been marked out on its full scale with flags in
Windsor Home Park. After the Coronation
followed the Royal progresses to Wales, Ireland
and Scotland, and these had not long been over
before the preparations for the voyage to India
required attention. Their Majesties were able
to enjoy a few weeks of well-earned rest at
Balmoral ; but the state of public affairs in the
autumn, owing to the tension between France
and Germany, the Railway Strike, and the war
between Italy and Turkey, gave rise to constant
rumours that the visit must be deferred. Never-
theless the date of departure was but very little
later than that which had been first appointed.
At ten o'clock on the morning of the i ith of
November, 191 1, Their Majesties left Bucking-
ham Palace with the Prince of Wales and
Princess Mary, and drove by a circuitous route
80
DEPARTURE FROM PORTSMOUTH
amid great crowds of people to Victoria Station. Nov. i
There Queen Alexandra, Queen Maud, Princess
Victoria and Prince Arthur of Connaught were
waiting to accompany the King to Portsmouth ;
and many other members of the Royal Family,
besides several of the Ministers, and of their
Majesties' friends were assembled to bid them
farewell. At 10.30 the Royal train left Victoria,
and punctually at 12.30 ran alongside the jetty at
Portsmouth. There the King, after inspecting
the Guard of Honour, came aboard the Medina^
together with the Queen, Queen Alexandra, the
Queen of Norway, the Prince of Wales, Princess
Mary, Princess Victoria, and Prince Arthur of
Connaught. The captains of the escorting ships
were then presented to the King by Sir Colin
Keppel, after which they returned immediately
to their commands. His Majesty's guests at
luncheon, including the suite that was accompany-
ing him to India, numbered in all fifty-three.
At a little after half-past two these guests
took leave of Their Majesties and returned to the
shore, Queen Mary supporting Queen Alexandra
to the gangway. Three tugs came alongside to
haul the Medina off from the jetty, and the great
ship slowly got under way. By this time the
weather had grown more threatening, the wind
was blowing fairly hard from the south-west
with every symptom of freshening, and the
rain had begun to fall in angry stinging drops.
Still, all adverse circumstances notwithstanding,
the scene was a remarkable one. The bunting,
81 G
THE SCENE AT SPITHEAD
Nov. II. with which every ship in the harbour was
dressed, could hardly find time to be gay in
its desperate striving against wind and rain ;
but the salute from the guns of the Victory
could not but, from old association, be stately
and solemn. Ashore, the strand on the side of
Portsmouth was thronged by crowds of people,
with and without umbrellas, all watching to
see the last of the King, who was conspicuous
upon the upper bridge. I read afterwards in
the newspapers that they cheered loudly ; but
not a sound of it was to be heard on board.
The last persons distinguishable on land were
two military officers in full uniform who, with
cloaks fluttering madly to leeward, brought their
heels together, not without difficulty, and came
to the salute.
The Admiralty yacht, Irene, with the First
Lord on board, led the Medina to Spithead,
where her escorting squadron of four cruisers
was awaiting her, namely the Cochrane, Defence,
Argyll and Natal, which took their places in
the order named astern of her, in single line
ahead. Presently the yacht drew away, having
signalled a respectful message of farewell to
Their Majesties ; and an hour or so later eleven
great ships appeared on the starboard bow, all,
to the landsman's eye, in utter confusion. But
presently the Medina altered course nearly a
quarter of a circle, when as if by magic the
seeming disorder disappeared, and the Home
Fleet was discovered steaming in two parallel
82
THE HOME FLEET
lines ahead ; the starboard division consisting Nc
of the Neptune (flagship of Admiral Sir Francis
Bridgeman), Vanguard^ Superb^ St. Vincent and
Collingwood ; the port division of the Indomitable^
Indefatigable, Invincible, Temeraire and Dread-
nought, v^^ith the Gloucester cruiser (to use a
military phrase) on the flank. Into the gap
between the two divisions entered the Medina
and her escort, and the fifteen great ships, some
of the most powerful war-vessels afloat, steamed
away into the teeth of the increasing gale in
three parallel lines, with the Medina leading,
one and all in such perfect order that the
whole seemed to be driven by a single engine.
Darkness fell rapidly, the more rapidly as the
weather grew steadily worse ; and the ships of
the Home Fleet could hardly be distinguished
except by the signal -lights that flickered in-
cessantly at their foremast-heads, showing that
the perfection of orderly movement was no
mechanical matter, but the fruit of practised
skill and unintermittent vigilance. There are
few things more striking to a landsman than
the silent garrulity of a fleet at sea. To him,
a mere passenger, everything seems to go on
with monotonous smoothness ; and only if
admitted to a sight of the signal-logbook does
he realise how incessant is the interchange of
messages between ship and ship.
Soon after night fell Sir Francis Bridgeman,
having permission from the King to take his
ships back to their anchorage, signalled to Their
83
H.M.S. MEDINA
Nov. II. Majesties the Home Fleet's farewell ; and at
this point, when the Medina and her escort
were for the first time left alone, it becomes
time to say something of this vessel, and of
those that sailed in her.
The Medina herself was in November 1 9 1 1
the latest addition to the fleet of the Peninsular
and Oriental Company, built of steel, with
reciprocating engines and twin screws ; and her
burden, measured by the standard of the mercan-
tile marine, is thirteen thousand tons.^ Hired
by the Admiralty to convey the King and Queen
to India, she was commissioned, together with
the four escorting cruisers, for particular service,
and, when Their Majesties were not on board,
carried the flag of Rear-Admiral Sir Colin
Keppel, who commanded the whole squadron.
Sir Colin's flag-captain was Captain Chatfield ;
and the ship's full complement was thirty-two
officers and three hundred and sixty petty officers
and men of the Royal Navy, over and above
four officers and two hundred and six non-com-
missioned officers and men of the Royal Marines,
including the band of the Royal Marine Artillery.
The total number of souls of all classes and
denominations on board the ship was seven
hundred and thirty-three.
Built to accommodate about six hundred and
fifty passengers of all classes, it may be guessed
that the Medina aflForded ample space for the
King and Queen and their suite of twenty-two
^ Eighteen thousand, Admiralty measurement.
84
I
MISS BARING. DUCHESS OF DEVONSHIRE. COUNTESS OF SHAFTESBURY.
THE QUEEN AND HER LADIES.
To /ace J>agc 85.
H.M.S. MEDINA
persons. She possesses a great many decks, Nov. n
called by sundry arbitrary names, of which it must
suffice to say that the uppermost was occupied
by the officers of the ship, the next by the
junior members, and the third by the senior
members of the suite ; Their Majesties' cabins
being forward on the same deck with the
senior members, but separated from most of
them by the entire length of an immense saloon.
This proved to be a bad arrangement. The
cabins of Their Majesties and of the ladies and
gentlemen who were near them were so far
forward as to be very trying in a seaway, though
in other respects they were luxurious. No
pains, however, had been spared to ensure the
comfort of all ; and, to speak only for myself, I
can say that I have in other voyages in distant
seas shared with seven other persons a smaller
space than was in the Medina assigned to me
alone. Being old enough to remember that
thirty years ago subaltern officers were forced to
be content with a hammock in the lower troop-
deck of the old Indian troop-ships, and having
seen " the pandemonium " (as it was called) with
the troops actually in it, I am glad to think that
the enormous increase in the size of ships has
brought augmented comfort to many thousands.
The suite consisted of the Duchess of Devon-
shire, Mistress of the Robes ; Lady Shaftesbury,
Lady of the Bedchamber ; Miss Venetia Baring,
Maid of Honour ; and Lord Shaftesbury, Lord
Chamberlain, in attendance upon the Queen.
85
THE KING'S SUITE
Nov. II. In attendance upon the King were H.S.H. the
Duke of Teck, personal Aide-de-Camp ; Lord
Crewe, Secretary of State for India ; Lord
Durham, Lord High Steward ; Lord Annaly,
Lord-in-Waiting ; Lord Stamfordham, Private
Secretary ; Lieutenant-general Sir Horace Smith-
Dorrien, Aide-de-Camp General ; Sir Derek
Keppel, Master of the Household ; Captain
Godfrey Faussett and Commander Sir Charles
Cust, Majors Lord Charles Fitzmaurice and
Wigram, Equerries ; Major-general Sir Stuart
Beatson, Extra Equerry ; Lieutenant-colonel Sir
Havelock Charles, late of the Indian Medical
Service, Serjeant Surgeon ; Sir Edward Henry,
Chief of the Metropolitan Police, and Extra
Equerry ; Sir James Dunlop Smith, Political
Officer ; Mr. Frank Lucas of the India Office,
private secretary to Lord Crewe ; Mr. Jacomb
Hood, the official artist ; and the present writer.
Of the above-named gentlemen all but three
had visited India before, as travellers or on duty ;
and five had spent a good part of their lives there.
No fewer than thirteen had begun life in the
Army or Navy, or are still serving in one or the
other, of whom eight had seen active service in
the field ; and strangely enough there were among
them representatives of the Household Cavalry,
Cavalry of the Line, Indian Cavalry, Artillery,
Foot Guards, and Infantry of the Line. Taking
the whole body together there were few portions
of the British Empire, to say nothing of foreign
countries, which were not known to one or other
86
A GALE IN THE BAY
of them at first hand, and few campaigns of the Nov. 12.
past thirty years in which one or other of them
had not taken a share. There were only two
who had travelled less than thirty thousand
miles, and only three who had travelled less
than fifty thousand miles by sea ; while one, not
a naval officer, had traversed over two hundred
thousand miles.
The wind continued to freshen ; and after
rounding Ushant, early in the morning of the
1 2th, the Medina encountered a full gale from
the south-west. In order to reach Gibraltar at
the appointed time the Admiral increased speed
to seventeen knots ; and thereupon matters
became uncomfortable. The huge bulk of the
Medina seemed to promise that she would be
comparatively still in any sea ; but driven
against the long rollers of the Atlantic she was
sufficiently lively, and pitched heavily. At
every plunge she took in green seas over her
bows, while the flying spray drenched her from
stem to stern. Considering that most of the
people in her were old travellers or sea-faring
men, the amount of sea-sickness was astonishing.
Officers, men and passengers, all suffered alike,
the men perhaps most severely of all. Doubtless
this was due in part to the fact that their
quarters were very far forward, where the
motion of the ship was felt at its worst ; but the
truth is that the British sailor of these days so
rarely leaves home-waters that he has little
experience of long heavy seas. Thirty years
87
CRUISERS IN A GALE
Nov. 12. ago a naval officer twenty-one years of age had
probably served in at least three different foreign
stations ; now it is a common thing to find
officers of still longer standing who have never
travelled so far even as Gibraltar. Be that as it
may, the number of seamen prostrate was extra-
ordinary ; and the attendance of the passengers
at meals was very scanty. The cruisers astern
thought that the Medina was making bad weather
of it, and we certainly thought the same of them.
Low in freeboard and weighed down forward
by huge guns, the cruisers took the water over
their bows in tons ; and at every plunge they
were hidden to their topmast-heads by clouds
of spray — a very grand sight. Nevertheless
they suffered little harm. In the morning
the Argyll's torpedo-netting broke loose, and she
dropped out of the line to secure it, the Natal
standing by her to give assistance. All day the
gale continued, and in the course of the night a
heavy sea struck the Medina amidships, broke
the window of a cabin on the second deck, tore
down all the fittings of the electric light, and
flooded the cabin itself. Had any one been
sleeping there he would have been unpleasantly
awakened, but, as it happened, there was no one,
the place having been set apart as a writing-
room for myself. I am bound to say that the
first aspect of the cabin after the mishap filled
me with dismay ; but fortunately little of my
stuff had been unpacked, the trunks were water-
proof, and the damage done was trifling.
OFF CAPE ST. VINCENT
By daylight of the 13th the gale had Nov. 13.
greatly moderated, the sea had gone down, it
was brighter and warmer, the passengers were
reappearing one after another, and altogether
it was pleasant cruising. Another twenty-four
hours brought still greater improvement ; and
at a little past eight in the morning of the
14th we were off Cape St. Vincent, steaming over
the waters where Sir John Jervis fought his
memorable action of the 14th of February
1797. Even now, when Captain Mahan's books
have been in our hands for nearly twenty years,
we have hardly done full justice to the great
commander, who in the sixth year of a war of
almost uninterrupted failure boldly attacked
twenty-one ships with twelve, because " England
had great need of a victory at that moment."
Meanwhile, however, the wind continued always
dead in our teeth, checking our way, and
making it impossible to reach Gibraltar at half-
past four, which was the appointed time. It
was therefore necessary to cancel all previous
arrangements ; and in the forenoon the Admiral
sent the four cruisers forward at a speed of
nineteen knots, so that they might have the
more time to coal, and thus save delay in the
departure on the morrow. They left us accord-
ingly ; and after one of the most glorious
sunsets that I ever beheld we steamed into
Gibraltar, guided by the search-lights of the
Atlantic fleet, which was anchored in two lines
outside the mole.
89
GIBRALTAR; KING'S BASTION
Nov. 15. The town was a blaze of illumination, which
forbade all sight of the Rock itself; and hardly
was the Medi?jas anchor down at a little before
nine o'clock than a flotilla of steam-launches
swarmed out all round her, playing their little
search-lights in all directions, and sparkling like
fireflies. The fleet knows how to keep watch
over the Sailor King.
Dawn of the 15th revealed the Rock in all
its majesty, with the curious zigzag walls which
mark the remains of the old fortifications, and
the modern guns stark against the sky-line.
Over against us lay the King's Bastion, its glory
departed, if indeed the glory can ever depart
from such a relic. For here it was that stout
old Eliott strode up and down in the thick of
the French and Spanish shot during the long
night of the 13th and 14th of September 1782,
until day dawned at last and showed the enemy
discomfited. Within it, too, there is the
grave of General Robert Boyd, the engineer
who designed the bastion ; who was Eliott's
second in command during the famous siege ;
who urged upon him the use of red-hot
shot against the French floating batteries ; and
who finally begged that he might be buried
on the spot which he had defended so well.
In the King's Bastion, accordingly, he lies,
too much forgotten by the thousands of English-
men who week after week pass and repass
Gibraltar, without a thought for those who
kept the flag flying on the summit through
90
THE ATLANTIC FLEET
some of the darkest years of recent English Nov. 15.
history.
At eight o'clock the ten ships of the Atlantic
fleet fired a salute ; and two hours later the
chief officers of the garrison and the fleet came
on board to pay their duty to the King, — the
Governor, Sir Archibald Hunter and his staflf;
Vice-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe ; Rear-Admirals
Cradock and Burney ; Captains Hopwood,
Sinclair, Ward, Prendergast, Sheppard, Chapman,
Kemp, Hodges, Grant and Heaton Ellis, all of
the Atlantic fleet ; and Rear-Admiral Pelham,
Admiral Superintendent of the Dockyard. The
Spanish Governors of Cadiz and Alge^iras, the
captain of His Spanish Majesty's ship, Principe
Regente, the captain of the Portuguese w^arship,
Adamaster^ and the foreign consuls were also
received by His Majesty.
The escorting cruisers, having completed
their coaling, steamed out shortly afterwards ;
and at a little past eleven the Medina followed
them, every ship of the Atlantic fleet saluting,
with her seamen lining the decks and her
marines on the superstructures. The King,
always in his uniform as Admiral of the Fleet,
was on the bridge of the Medina^ and as she
steamed past the fleet the men gave him three
cheers, ship after ship, the marines holding their
white helmets high aloft in their left hands. It
was a fine sight, for disciplined men are always
a fine sight ; and when they cheer from their
hearts it is an inspiriting sound. Within an
91
THE MEDITERRANEAN
Nov. hour the Medina had overhauled the cruisers
^5-20- and taken her place at the head of the line ; and
thus ended the King's outward visit to Gibraltar,
so far abridged, owing to the inevitable delay
caused by foul winds, as to be practically
deferred until the return journey.
Beautiful weather followed Their Majesties
on their passage through the Mediterranean ;
and the whole party, being recovered from sea-
sickness, settled down to the regular routine of
life at sea — breakfast at 8.30, luncheon at i.o,
dinner at 7.30, and the band at all hours. The
prayers, which are read daily (except on
Saturdays) in the King's ships, were regularly
attended by Their Majesties ; and on Sunday
mornings (excepting during the gale in the Bay
of Biscay) Divine Service was held on deck by
the chaplain. Early in the voyage the King
expressed his desire, though he did not make it
his command, that such members of the suite
and their servants as required it, should be
revaccinated. To so wise a measure there were
no conscientious objectors ; and for a day or two
Sir Havelock Charles and the naval surgeons
were besieged by a crowd of patients.^ On the
night of the 19th the Admiral reduced speed
to thirteen knots, so as to avoid too early an
arrival at Port Said. About four in the after-
noon of the 20th, the two rearmost of the cruisers
came up on the Medina s port quarter, and in
^ It may be mentioned that at least one visitor at the Durbar — an
American gentleman — caught small-pox and died at Delhi on the very
day when the camp was broken up.
92
PORT SAID
this new formation the squadron steamed up to Nov. 20.
the anchorage.
It was now ascertained that one of the
colliers appointed to bring coal to the squadron
had gone ashore some eighty miles from Port
Said, and that in consequence fresh arrangements
for coaling must be made. It was therefore
decided that three of the cruisers should be
sent forward to Aden to coal there, and that
the Argyll^ after coaling at Port Said, should
form the Medina's sole escort to Aden. The sun
went down in gorgeous colours behind the low
land and palm trees before us ; and at about six in
the evening the Medina picked up her moorings
opposite to the Custom House and about a
hundred yards from it. The entire town was
illuminated, making a very pretty effect, which
was heightened by the reflection of the lamps
in the water. Shortly afterwards Lord Kitchener
came on board with his staff, followed by the
Sirdar and by General Maxwell ; all of whom
having been received by the King went ashore,
returning later to dine with Their Majesties.
In the midst of all the hubbub by land and
water the Argyll came up into the narrow
passage, all crowded with shipping, where the
Medina lay, her vast bulk creeping on silently and
very slowly like a huge grey ghost. It seemed
almost incredible that so powerful an engine of
destruction should be so noiseless, and her appear-
ance suggested astonishing possibilities of surprise
against an unwary enemy, if there should arise
93
THE KHEDIVE'S VISIT
Nov. 21. such another master of that difficult art as the
famous Dundonald.
All night the process of coaling the Medina
went forward, with extraordinarily little sound
and disturbance considering the circumstances ;
and dawn revealed great activity in the camp of
a British battalion which lay a few hundred
yards distant from the ship. That activity was
presently explained by the appearance of a guard
of honour of the Scots Guards, and of a second
guard of the Seventh Egyptian battalion, before
the Custom House. The Egyptians were fine
men, well set-up ; and in their uniform of dark
grey-blue, red tarboosh and white Zouave gaiters,
they looked uncommonly smart. At half-past
ten His Highness the Khedive, wearing Egyptian
uniform and the star and ribbon of the Bath,
came on board, attended by his brother. Prince
Mehemet Ali, his Prime Minister, and the two
British Ministers of Finance and the Interior.
H.I.H. Prince Zia-ed-Din, son of the Sultan of
Turkey, attended by the Turkish Grand Master
of the Ceremonies, arrived at the same time.
Lord Kitchener, the Sirdar, and General Maxwell
had already preceded them ; and the Governor
of Suez, Kiamil Pasha, and the principal officials
of the Suez Canal Company also came on board.
The King, who wore the uniform of an Admiral
of the Fleet, and the ribbon and star of the
Medjidieh Order, received their Highnesses in
the drawing - room above the dining saloon,
where Kiamil Pasha read aloud a letter of
94
NEW AND OLD EGYPT
welcome to His Majesty from the Sultan in Nov. 21.
Turkish, of which the Master of the Ceremonies
read a translation in French. The King then
replied in English. Shortly afterwards the King
returned the Khedive's visit on board His
Highness's yacht, which was lying close by, and
the King and Khedive then inspected the two
guards of honour. At one o'clock His Highness,
Kiamil Pasha and the whole of the visitors of
the morning returned to the Medina for luncheon,
and at a little before three His Highness took
leave. No one could fail to remark the very
cordial bearing of the Khedive towards Lord
Kitchener, bearing witness to the good relations
which evidently reigned between the head of the
Egyptian State and the British Consul-General.
Late in the afternoon the Queen went ashore
privately, and most of the suite also went ashore
upon their own account. To the present writer,
who had not visited Egypt since 1878, the
change in the appearance of the natives was
startling. Their bearing was independent and
self- respectful, and their physical condition
greatly improved ; while the number of the
blind, of the one-eyed, and of those marked with
small-pox was reduced beyond belief. It was
difficult to credit that these were the same people
which one had seen sometimes working in chains
in the fields, sometimes trussed like fowls and
carried away to Cairo as refractory conscripts,
nearly always abject and cowering. One must
not draw hasty conclusions from superficial
95
THE SUEZ CANAL
Nov. 22. observation, but, even after all that one has heard
and read of the benefits thatEgypt has derived from
British direction of her Government, I confess
that I was amazed at the transformation which
had been accomplished within thirty years. One
change, however, though doubtless welcome to a
section of Englishmen, seemed to me deplorable,
namely the substitution of vulgar Manchester
goods for the older cotton garments, woven and
dyed at home, which formerly clothed the
Egyptian peasant.
The Royal dinner-party in the evening
included Lord Kitchener, the Sirdar, Admiral
Gamble, and Captains Culme Seymour, Tothill,
Moubray, and Tyrrwhitt of His Majesty's ships
Argyll y Lancaster^ Suffolk and Bacchante^ of which
ships the three last were lying at Port Said when
the Medina came in. After dinner there was a
display of fireworks given by the Suez Canal
Company ; and as water was not lacking to
reflect the blaze, which is of the essence of a
successful show of fireworks, the effect was
extremely beautiful.
The Medina weighed anchor at 6 a.m. on the
22nd November, and shortly afterwards entered
the Suez Canal. The Khedive had taken every
precaution for the safety and honour of his
Royal guest during the passage. At every
kilometre-post stood a sentry ; and patrols of the
Egyptian camel-corps or of Bedaween followed
the ship throughout on both banks, relieving
each other from time to time. Sometimes a
96
THE KING'S EGYPTIAN ESCORT
group of fifteen or twenty Bedaween would Nov.
assemble together in their picturesque robes of
black and white, fire their muskets in salute, and
trot alongside for a few hundred yards. Hardly
less picturesque were the men of the Egyptian
camel-corps in khaki coat, tarboosh and putties,
mauve-grey breeches, brown bandoliers and
brown goat-skin saddles ; a beautiful combina-
tion of greys and browns which admirably sets
off their jet-black faces for purposes of parade,
and yet makes for the extreme of invisibility on
active service. Curiously enough the actual
speed of one of the camels was just that of
the ship ; and this animal kept his station exactly
off a certain point of the starboard quarter for
fully six miles. But the most remarkable feat
of all was that of an Austrian officer of the
Egyptian gendarmerie, who followed the ship
from Port Said to the lakes without a moment's
halt. He was well mounted, changing horses
about every ten miles, and moved generally at
a trot with an occasional break into a canter, but
sat always bolt upright without rising in his
stirrups. He crossed Lake Timsah in a steam-
launch, and on reaching the other side mounted a
camel which was waiting for him, when he con-
tinued his trot until he reached the Bitter Lakes,
forty-seven miles from his starting-point, and
could go no farther. I watched him constantly,
and I could not see that he displayed the
slightest symptom of fatigue, for he sat erect
and soldierlike from beginning to end.
97 H
SUEZ AND THE RED SEA
Nov. At Ismailia, where Sir Garnet Wolseley
23-27- landed in 1882, the whole population was on
the banks ; and when the Medina reached Suez
at seven in the evening the entire front of the
canal was lined with people, bands were play-
ing, and the town was ablaze with rockets
and illuminations. One party of Englishmen,
apparently at the Club, gave three tremendous
cheers ; and when Their Majesties showed
themselves on deck, a stentorian voice cried out
" One cheer more for their coming up," which
evoked a final prodigious roar. We did not stop
at Suez, however, but only slowed down to take
on board some telegrams, and proceeded onwards
down the Red Sea.
VIII
And now for the first time the three flags
borne by a royal yacht — Admiralty flag at the
fore. Royal standard at the main, and the Union
Jack of an Admiral of the Fleet at the mizzen
— were seen east of the Mediterranean ; and it
seemed a pity that there was but one escorting
cruiser to do honour to the occasion. In the
Red Sea we were lucky in encountering calm
weather and no oppressive heat. Indeed at
sunset on the 25th we ran into heavy squalls of
rain, lit up by an incessant flicker of blue sheet-
lightning, which not only was better than any
display of fireworks, but also considerably
ARRIVAL AT ADEN
reduced the temperature. At one in the Nov. 27.
morning of the 27th we passed Perim, and at a
little after nine the Argyll went ahead to join
the remaining cruisers at Aden. An hour and a
half later the Medina dropped her anchor in
Aden harbour, amid a thunder of salutes from
the four cruisers of the escort and from the
Royal Arthur^ which, together with three
destroyers, was awaiting Their Majesties' arrival.
Each of the large ships fired one hundred and
one guns, for we were now within the territory
of the Indian Empire, where salutes of twenty-
one guns are given to native princes, and are no
longer sufficient for the King-Emperor and the
Queen-Empress.
Aden is generally known in England as the
abomination of desolation, and it is not difficult
to believe that it is a dreary quarter for a
garrison. Nevertheless, for all their aridity, its
cinder -coloured peaks and mountains are
singularly wild and grand ; while the ancient
lines of fortifications, wall within wall, invest it
with some halo of romance. Probably, how-
ever, Aden has never in the whole of its history
presented such an aspect as it did on the 27th
of November 191 1. The five men-of-war in
the harbour were all dressed with bunting ; the
entire foreshore was hung with festoons of gay
colours ; the houses were brightly decorated,
and the native population in a hundred gaudy
hues were clustered like bees upon the lower
slopes. Towering above them the cold grey-
99
THE LANDING AT ADEN
Nov. 27. purple mountains looked down with a cer-
tain kindly condescension upon the swarming
humanity below. The weather was for Aden
decidedly cool ; the sunshine was frequently
broken by clouds ; and heavy showers during
the past forty-eight hours had imparted to the
place generally an unwonted savour of freshness.
Soon after the Medina s arrival the Resident,
Major-general John Bell, came on board with
his staff and was received by His Majesty, who
conferred on him the second class of the Victorian
Order, and knighted him there and then. At
half-past three Their Majesties went ashore,
whither the bulk of their suite had already
preceded them, the King in the white uniform
of an Admiral of the Fleet with the ribbon and
star of the Order of the Star of India and the
star of the Bath ; and the Queen in pale-blue silk.
A pavilion had been erected by the landing-stage,
where the Resident and Lady Bell, with the
members of the staff and the leading officials,
were waiting to receive them. On the left of
Their Majesties, as they landed, was drawn up
the Aden troop of Native Cavalry, principally
Sikhs, in khaki uniform with red girdles and
turbans of khaki, blue and yellow ; a very smart
body of men and in one respect unique, inasmuch
as the front rank was composed of lancers mounted
on Arab horses, and the rear-rank of riflemen
mounted on camels. In front stood a guard of
honour of the Lincolnshire Regiment, a fine
body of men in white, with the King's colour —
THE PEOPLE OF ADEN
evidently a very old one — still showing the Nov. 27.
former regimental number Ten. The Resident
having presented the leading officials and their
ladies to the King and Queen, Their Majesties
drove off, followed by their suite, in five more
carriages, to the bronze statue of Queen Victoria,
which is the most conspicuous object on the
small area of flat ground that faces the harbour.
On its own limited scale this short progress
was probably one of the strangest ever made by
a British sovereign. In the first place the van
of the escort was composed of horsemen and
the rear of camel-men ; and in the second it
is probably for once a literal truth to say that the
entire population was out to see the procession.
The entire population of Aden, to be sure, is not
very large, though far larger than I, for one, had
imagined ; but it is very decidedly mixed.
Within the course of half a mile it was easy to
distinguish at a glance Sikhs, Pathans, Bengalis,
Parsis, Somalis, Arabs, Negroes, Jews, Greeks,
Levantines — what not ; and, since the principal
street has for the most part houses upon one side
only, there was plenty of room for all the men
and children by the roadside and for the maturer
ladies on the house-tops. The variety of colour
was not so great as, say, in Rajputana, but two
or three very young ladies in gorgeous gowns of
magenta silk made a bright touch here and there,
contrasting strongly with the white which was
worn by most of the spectators and with the
copper skins of a certain number who had little
RECEPTION AT ADEN
Nov. 27. clothing of any kind. The route was lined by
a body of Sikh infantry, and here for the first
time we heard the English words of command
delivered by native officers and non-commissioned
officers, curiously combining the foreign accent
with the traditional vigour and intonation of the
British drill-sergeant — " Sacund Sekshan, slo-p-e
arms." The procession trotted briskly on, the
camels keeping their distance in rear of the Royal
carriage with admirable accuracy, and producing
a most imposing effect ; and finally, when the
Victoria Memorial was reached, they formed line
to the left with a precision that the Life Guards
themselves might have envied. These may seem
to be small things, but they make all the
difference to the success or failure of a pageant.
Adjoining the Victoria Memorial a pavilion,
which was really a large tent, had been erected ;
and with excellent judgment Indian stuffs and
Indian dyes had been selected for the decoration
of the roof. The native taste, while not shrink-
ing from strong colours upon occasion, delights
especially in pale and tender tints, than which
none look more beautiful under the Eastern sun.
The roof of the tent at Aden was in broad stripes
of pale yellow and rose-madder, which gave
sufficient dignity to the interior and yet was cool
and restful to the eye. The carpet was of
the commonplace red which the official mind
— quite unnecessarily in the East at any rate —
appears to regard as inseparable from any royal
function, and at the far end were two carved
RECEPTION AT ADEN
thrones heavily gilt and upholstered in crimson Nov. 27.
velvet. To these thrones Their Majesties then
walked in procession between a great throng
of the more distinguished inhabitants. A Parsi
gentleman, Mr. Cowasji Dinshaw, read an
address of welcome, to which His Majesty
read a reply, not failing among other things
to commend the happy choice of the place of
his reception at the foot of Queen Victoria's
statue. The Resident then presented the fore-
most of the native gentlemen to the King, and,
the ceremony being over. Their Majesties drove
to the Residency, some two or three miles
distant, on an eminence overlooking the sea. It
is noteworthy that the latter part of the route
was lined by the Fifty -second company of
Garrison Artillery, which had saluted His
Majesty when Prince of Wales from Colombo
in 1 90 1 and from Madras in 1906, and had on
this same morning fired the first salute ever paid
on East Indian Territory to the King-Emperor
in person.
At the Residency Their Majesties drank tea,
and after conversation with the guests who had
been honoured with an invitation to meet them,
took their leave soon after five and returned to
the Medina. As their launch moved off from
the quay the foreshore and all the principal
buildings burst suddenly into a blaze of illumina-
tion, making an extremely pretty and striking
end to a very successful day. The rain, though
often threatening, happily held off; but, as the
103
FIRST MESSAGE FROM DELHI
Nov. 28- sun fell low, the wind became positively cold.
Dec. I. jt ^as something to have felt the want of a
great-coat at Aden.
On the 28th the Medina entered the Indian
Ocean, which was pleasantly cooler than the
Red Sea ; and, as we were now drawing near
our destination. Sir Havelock Charles took
occasion to give a short lecture both to the
suite and to the servants, laying down a few
simple rules for the preservation of health in
India. Knowing India, as a medical man, by
heart, he succeeded so well in impressing his
lessons upon them that none but trifling cases of
sickness occurred among them throughout the
whole of the visit to the East. It was, however,
difficult to realise that a few days more would
find us at Delhi, until on the night of the 29th
the Defence transmitted the following wireless
telegram, which had just been received direct
from the Mogul capital over a distance of sixteen
hundred miles : " Marconi Wireless Telegraph
Company, Fort, Delhi, beg to offer their most
loyal greetings on His Majesty's approach to
India." If all wireless telegrams received during
the voyage had been of the like innocent tenour,
the King would have enjoyed more repose in the
course of it than he did.
For the rest, the last three days at sea, the
29th of November to the ist of December, were
in part taken up by sports among the ship's
company. There was not — indeed there could
hardly be — much variety from the usual pro-
104
^
SPORTS ON THE MEDINA
gramme of obstacle-races, three-legged races, Nov. 28-
potato-races and so on ; but there was one form ^^^- '•
of contest which possessed an irresistible fascina-
tion both for combatants and onlookers, that
namely in which two men sit astride of a greased
spar, which they are forbidden to touch with
their hands, and strike at each other with pillows
until one or other falls off the spar into a sail
suspended below. The number of aspirants to
fame in this particular field was extraordinary.
Marines, bluejackets, officers, even to the Captain
himself, members of the King's suite, their
servants, the photographer and the barber, all
came down to try their fortune amid breathless
excitement and shouts of laughter from every
soul in the ship who was not on duty. Lord
Annaly after a strenuous conflict was defeated
but not disgraced by Lord Shaftesbury ; Captain
Godfrey Faussett vanquished a bluejacket, but
was overthrown by the Fleet-Surgeon, a most
dangerous opponent. Soon it became apparent
that Major Phillips of the Marine Artillery, a
gentleman of herculean strength, and not less
skilled in parrying with his left hand than in
striking with his right, was superior to all rivals ;
and after three battles, which can only be
described as Homeric, he finally swept the
Fleet-Surgeon's legs from under him, and was
hailed as victor among the officers. A private
of his corps won the same distinction among the
men.
In the evening the Queen presented prizes to
105
THE ROYAL MARINES
Dec. I. the winners ; but the passengers secured very
few of these trophies ; and indeed their credit
was only saved by one of the King's footmen, an
old Coldstreamer and the most powerful man on
the ship, who vanquished all rivals in the gentle
art of cock-fighting. Nearly every prize fell to
the marines ; and in truth the marine is a wonder-
ful person. The press is fond of holding up the
bluejacket as a handy man ; but in these days
the epithet should be transferred to the marine.
On the ist of December, the last day of the
voyage out, there was a concert on board. The
suite could produce in Lord Shaftesbury a trained
singer who naturally eclipsed all other performers;
but setting him aside, the marines had matters
all their own way. One of them was a sufficiently
accomplished vocalist to be accompanied by the
band, while several others played an astonishing
number of instruments and played them in tune.
The credit of the bluejackets was mainly saved
by the proficiency, in a sister art, of Mr. Staples
the boatswain, who danced a hornpipe quite
admirably. Their Majesties were of course
present ; and so passed away the last evening of
real freedom which they were to enjoy for some
weeks.
Early in the morning of the 2nd of December
the low land and palms of Bombay were seen ;
and at about ten o'clock the Medina and her
escort anchored about two miles from the
shore in a dead calm and rather oppressive
heat. Three-quarters of an hour later the
io6
THE LANDING AT BOMBAY
Viceroy ^ came on board to wait upon the King ; Dec.
presently followed by the Governor of Bombay,
Sir George Clarke. The Commander-in-Chief
of the East India Squadron, whose flagship
the Highflyer was lying in the harbour, and
other officials followed ; and the Viceroy with
his staff remained to luncheon. At half- past
three the greater number of the suite went
ashore to be ready to receive Their Majesties,
who shortly afterwards left the ship and
steamed, amid a salute of one hundred and
one guns, to the landing-place at the Apollo
Bandar. The King-Emperor wore the white
uniform of an Admiral of the Fleet, with the
ribbon and star of the Star of India, and the
Queen-Empress wore on her dress the star and
the ribbon of the Garter, the latter fastened on
the shoulder by a brooch of a single row of
diamonds and clasped below by a diamond
George. The Viceroy and the whole of the
Imperial suite were in full-dress white uniform.
At the pavilion the principal officials of the
Bombay Government and Corporation and the
foreign consuls, in all about forty gentlemen, were
presented by Sir George Clarke to His Majesty ;
after which a procession was formed, and Their
Majesties advanced a distance of about one hundred
yards to a second and smaller pavilion, where two
thrones upon a dais had been prepared for them.
1 singularly enough, among the King's suite there were no fewer than
three gentlemen who had been school-fellows of Lord Hardinge at Harrow,
two of whom had also been his fellow-undergraduates at Trinity College,
Cambridge.
107
THE RECEPTION AT BOMBAY
Dec. 2. Over against the pavilion an amphitheatre
had been made ready for the accommodation of
several hundred spectators w^ho, it is to be feared,
must have suffered not a little from the fierce
and unusual heat of the day. All, however,
rose and cheered enthusiastically as Their
Majesties took their places ; and then Sir
Pherozsha Mehta, President of the Bombay
Municipal Corporation, stepped forward and
read an address welcoming Their Majesties to
India, vindicating the right of Bombay, as part
of the dowry of Queen Katharine of Bragan^a,
to be the first to welcome them, and recalling
the fact that this was not the first time that
Bombay had had the honour of entertaining
them. His Majesty having received the address
in the silver casket which had been given to
him with it. Sir Pherozsha presented to him the
members of the Corporation.
Then to the great surprise, as was afterwards
discovered, of the majority of the spectators,
the King-Emperor delivered his reply in a loud
clear voice, which could be heard by every one
of them. Catching up at once the note which
had been struck by the Corporation, " I can
heartily respond," said His Majesty, " that I
feel myself no stranger in your beautiful city " ;
and proceeded next to speak of his earnest desire,
as soon as he found himself called to the Throne,
to revisit his good subjects in India. Ignoring
all accepted traditions of etiquette, the audience
broke in again and again with loud applause,
io8
•n
DRIVE THROUGH BOMBAY
which culminated in a great outburst of cheering Dec. 2.
at the close. Their Majesties then entered the
carriage prepared for them, and started forth,
the suite following in six more carriages, to
drive in procession round the city.
The troops that took part in the procession
were the Seventh Dragoon Guards and Y Battery
of the Royal Horse Artillery in advance ; the
Governor's bodyguard of Lancers in scarlet
and gold forming the immediate escort of the
Imperial carriage, and King George's own regi-
ment of the Twenty-sixth Lancers, in French
grey with dark -blue turbans, the rearguard.
But in India it is not, as in England, the troops
that supply the bulk of the colour in the
pageant. Much care had been devoted to the
decoration of the streets of the European quarter
with arches, masts and festoons, and the effect
was decidedly better than I have ever seen in
London. The Indian sun may have been partly
responsible for this, but not wholly. On one or
two buildings there was a bold and successful
scheme of colour ; but in adorning their houses
the Europeans too often bound themselves to
the slavery of English decoration — trophies of
European flags and even worse displays of crude
and tasteless colour. It is strange that the
British in India cannot make better use of the
native materials and dyes, which can hardly be
dearer, and are certainly much more beautiful,
than those of the West. Fortunately the eye
was distracted by the far more lovely decoration
109
THE BEAUTIES OF BOMBAY
Dec. 2. presented by the people themselves. The crowd
was immense, and the variety of shades inde-
scribable— here a group of men in rich dark-
red turbans, with perhaps one of vivid grass
green flaming among them ; there a group of
children, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, with
one or two little maids in blazing crimson
silk huddled into their midst ; there again a
body of Parsi ladies in simple gowns of the
palest pink, blue or dove-colour, draped on
one side with light transparent muslin in
graceful folds, which made the delicate hues
more dainty still. There was no rest for the eye
in the ever-changing feast of colour.
But most striking of all was the scene in the
quaint irregular buildings and narrow streets of
the native town. There is no appearance of
wealth in the houses, the stucco being often
decayed and fortunately rarely repainted ; but
there are quaint wooden stairways, balconies
and loggias, which the wealthy owners had
beautified with the best and simplest of all
street-decorations by simply throwing over them
rugs and carpets, or occasionally a great sheet
of rich dark silk shot with gold. The houses
were crammed with spectators. The housetops
and the highest stories were occupied chiefly by
peeping women, nearly all of whom displayed at
least a scrap of costly red material ; the lower
windows were simply packed with tier upon
tier of heads — I counted over thirty in one of
no extraordinary size — and even the steep narrow
A SULTRY EVENING
scraps of verandah over the native shops were Dec. 2.
swarming w^ith men and boys. In the East it
is not considered respectful to make even a
joyful noise in the presence of the great ; yet
the native inhabitants of Bombay upon this
occasion cheered loudly and continuously, and
in fact gave Their Majesties an enthusiastic
reception.
The entire route measured about six miles,
which was traversed at a slow trot, the procession
returning through the suburbs and round Mala-
bar Point to the Apollo Bandar. Here the King
inspected the guard of honour of the Norfolk
Regiment, and then returned to the ship, which
was reached at a little before six o'clock. The
sun went down in a gorgeous blaze of orange
and scarlet, against which the palms on the low
spit of Malabar Point showed black as ink.
For a short time the temperature fell slightly,
but soon rose again, and the thermometer, even
in the King's cabin, stood at eighty-five degrees.
In the evening Their Majesties gave a state
dinner on board the Medina, at which fifty-four
guests, including the suite, were present ; but,
though the dinner was held on deck, the heat
was such as to make full-dress European uniform
very trying to wear. None the less the Queen,
who was wearing a white dress embroidered
with gold, never looked better than on that
evening ; and the guests soon discovered that the
temperature made no difference to the welcome
accorded to them by their Royal hosts.
SUNDAY AT BOMBAY
Dec. 3. On the morning of Sunday the 3rd Their
Majesties attended Divine Service as usual on
board ; but the day was no idle one for the
King or for his Secretaries, for over six hundred
telegrams of welcome had been received from
different persons and societies in India since the
Medina had dropped anchor in Bombay, and all
required an answer. In the afternoon Their
Majesties honoured the Governor of Bombay
with their presence at luncheon at Government
House, and in the evening attended Divine
Service in the Cathedral. The weather was
hotter than ever, and the Bishop of Bombay
who preached the sermon, wisely ascended the
pulpit in his rochet only, though the building
was kept fairly cool by electric fans. Later on
Their Majesties gave a second official dinner
on board the Medina, under even more trying
conditions than on the previous day, the heat
being more intense and the air perfectly still.
This was a misfortune which could not have
been anticipated at the time of year. Perhaps
the only one of the guests on either evening
who felt himself not only in comfort but in
luxury was the Captain of H.M.S. Fox, who,
after months of service in prevention of " gun-
running " in the Persian Gulf at a temperature
of one hundred and ten degrees, found the
eighty -five degrees of Bombay very pleasantly
cool. It was a good lesson for any of us who
were inclined to complain, for the work in
the Fox signified not merely existence, in itself
CHILDREN'S FETE, BOMBAY
sufficiently trying, in the Persian Gulf, but Dec. 4.
incessant watchfulness and hard labour for all
on board, with many a difficult diplomatic
problem for the commander in addition. For
the rest, Bombay, being illuminated on both of
these nights, presented a most beautiful appear-
ance when looked on from the sea.
On the 4th of December Their Majesties
left the Medina soon after nine o'clock, landed at
the Apollo Bandar at half-past nine and drove,
with their suite in attendance, to a children's
fete in the grounds adjoining the Bombay Gym-
khana Building. Here in an open space some
twenty-six thousand children had been drawn
up in a large semicircle, over against the centre
of which was a dais for the King and Queen.
As Their Majesties drove up at a quarter to ten,
four selected groups of children, belonging to
European, Urdu, Gujarati and Marathi schools,
sang each two verses of the National Anthem
in their own tongue. The bare fact is a lesson
to those who talk glibly about the " Indian
people." Twenty-six thousand children is not
a very great many ; yet to gather that number
together as representatives of the Presidency of
Bombay it was necessary to include the speakers
of three diffisrent tongues (or four if we include
the Europeans), each of them with its own
literature and its own written character, and
one of them — Marathi — with three principal
dialects, and sub-dialects innumerable. How-
ever, to return to our main narrative, it was
113 i
A BEAUTIFUL CEREMONY
Dec. 4. curious to note the difficulty which the Indian
children evidently found in singing a western
melody in the major mode. To them it was
obviously a noise, compounded of strange in-
tervals, with an over-monotonous rhythm ; and
the cause was soon sufficiently apparent.
Immediately after the children had fallen
silent at the close of their singing, some fifty to
a hundred Gujarati girls performed a Gurbi or
rhythmic dance and song — one might rather
call it a prayer, for the ceremony is of a religious
character — for behoof of Their Majesties. They
formed two concentric circles, the older girls
wearing simple, loose-flowing gowns, mostly of
very pale pink, blue or orange, varied occasionally
by the mixture of two pale colours or by vivid
magenta or still more vivid green, and relieved
in nearly every case by a scarf of transparent
white muslin. Many of the younger children
unfortunately wore European clothes, which,
being white, were comparatively harmless, but
were too frequently marred by atrocious Euro-
pean button- boots reaching to mid-calf. The
dance consisted of rhythmic waving of raised
arms, rhythmic clapping of hands, and curious
interlacing movements of the performers in the
two circles. The language of the song was
Gujarati ; and the music, of course in the minor
mode, was not only curious but effective. The
rhythm, however, was very difficult to seize ;
duple, triple and quintuple time being each of
them easily perceptible by the ear, but no one
114
THE JOURNEY TO DELHI
of them continued for long consecutively. The Dec. 3-5.
dance was extremely graceful and impressive,
being carried out in a religious spirit without
a trace of self-consciousness on the part of the
performers. At its close Their Majesties drove
through the heart of the semicircle, where a
way had been left clear, so that all the children
might see them, and the young people, both
white and brown, shouted themselves hoarse
with delight. Their Majesties then inspected
some historic exhibits in the old Bombay
exhibition hard by, and returned to the Medina
soon after eleven o'clock-
Owing to the number of the King's suite, an
advanced party of nine gentlemen ^ was sent
forward to Delhi on the evening of the 3rd.
The total length of the journey was nine hundred
and eighty-two miles, and, thanks to those who
were charged with the care of us, we made the
journey of thirty- six hours with all possible
comfort. But India is the land of dust, and it
is impossible to travel there by rail in the dry
season without realising that fact to the full.
The route lay by Baroda, which took us through
a dreary and monotonous country, but incident-
ally through the famous Mokandara pass, the scene
of the military blunder which led to the de-
struction of Monson's detachment in 1804. The
most singular point about railway travel in India
' Prince George of Battenberg (midshipman on H.M.S. Cochrane),
Lord Annaly, Lord C. Fitzmaurice, Lt. - Gen. Sir H. Smith Dorrien,
Maj.-Gen. Sir Stuart Beatson, Sir J. Dunlop Smith, Mr. Jacomb Hood,
Major Ashburner, Mr. Fortescue.
THE CAMP AT DELHI
Dec. 5. is that one rarely, if ever, sees a town. There are
not, relatively speaking, many towns in India ; and
stations are, for good reasons, as a rule situated
two or three miles from them. Hence one seems
to traverse an interminable land of jungle and
villages. The changes of temperature also were
trying, varying in our carriage from eighty
degrees by day to forty-eight or lower by night.
However, this was a matter concerning which
we had been amply warned ; and soon after eight
o'clock on the morning of the 5th of December
we arrived at the Kingsway station at Delhi,
whence motors conveyed us to our camp.
Certainly the first sight of the great canvas
city, covering in all twenty-five square miles,
was very wonderful, and all the more so when
we saw the trim grass lawns which marked the
camps of the greater officials, and remembered that
a year ago this was a mere brown waste. The
King-Emperor's camp lay at the extreme edge,
being in the form of a huge semicircle, with
the arc facing towards the remaining camps, and
the base formed by the road to Delhi city.
Opposite the central point of this arc was a large
open space with a tall flag-staff, and over against
this staff lay three huge reception-tents, facing
almost west, with the Viceroy's camp to the left
or north, and the King- Emperor's, with the
circuit-house behind it, on the right or south.
A circuit- house, it must be explained, is a
residence kept up, somewhat like the judges'
lodges in England, for the reception of the
116
'<^
ROYAL ARRIVAL AT DELHI
Viceroy or of minor great officials when on tour. Dec. 7.
The Viceroy's staff was encamped round the
curve of the semicircle to the north, and Their
Majesties' round the corresponding curve to the
south.
At ten o'clock on the morning of the 7th
Their Majesties arrived at the Selimgarh station
upon a detached bastion of the great fort of
Delhi, where the Viceroy, Lady Hardinge, the
leading officials of India and several Indian
princes were assembled to receive them. Among
these last was the Maharaja of Udaipur, the
Ruling Chief in Waiting and the representative
of the bluest blood in India, an elderly prince
dressed in a flowing gown of white satin
edged with gold ; Sir Pratap Singh and the
Maharaja of Bikaner, the former in the white
frock and sky-blue turban of the Imperial Cadet
Corps, and the latter in the beautiful uniform of
his own Camel Corps. As Their Majesties
alighted, the guns of the fort opened a salute of
one hundred and one guns, twice broken and
finally concluded by a feu de joie from the troops
in the plain without. Within the bastion, ringed
about by the pink sandstone of the walls, was
drawn up a guard of honour of the second battalion
of the Berkshire Regiment, with the remainder of
the battalion in rear ; the rest of the space being
filled by selected men from every corps in the
Native Army and representative sections from
every corps present at Delhi, with three squadrons
of the Thirtieth Native Lancers, part mounted
117
IN THE FORT, DELHI
Dec. 7. and part dismounted, in rear of all. The great
space was thus worthily filled, and presented a
fine mass of colour, topped by the bright points
and waving pennons of the lances. After the
presentation of several high officials in a pavilion
which had been erected on the platform, the King
inspected the guard of honour, and observing
four representative veterans, one English and
three Indian, just outside the right of the line,
stepped aside to shake hands with each and ask
them as to the campaigns where they had won
their medals. The old fellows drew themselves
up and saluted after the fashion of their youth,
with the hand parallel to the horizon, remem-
bering bygone times. They will not readily
forget this day.
A procession was then formed with the heralds
at its head, followed by the staffs of the Viceroy
and the King- Emperor ; and Their Majesties
advanced over the crenellated bridge that spans
the moat, between a line of men drawn from
each of the King's own regiments ; then entering
the inner courtyard they turned sharp to the
right, where a large tent had been set up for
the formal reception of the native princes by the
King. It was perhaps a pity that the Dewan-
i-am, or public hall of audience of Shah Jahan,
which was likewise within the fort, had not been
selected for this ceremony. It is true that the
original tent designed for the purpose, the Baha-
walpur State " Shamiana," was so superb that it
might well have been worthy of the occasion ;
118
THE HOMAGE IN THE FORT
but this had perished by fire on the 5th, and the Dec. 7.
new tent hastily improvised to take its place,
though in no degree mean, appeared small and
low, strait and dark. The great open space of
the courtyard, with a splendid regiment of native
lancers drawn up in hollow square, and four
companies of British and native infantry, seemed
to dwarf it still more ; but there was no help for
it. The staff parted to right and left at the
entrance. Their Majesties, advancing up the
centre, took their seats upon the thrones erected
for them ; and the ceremony of presentation
began.
First came the Nizam of Hyderabad in plain
black with yellow mitre-like head-dress, then
the Gaekwar of Baroda, the Maharajas of
Mysore and Kashmir, and the rest of the Ruling
Chiefs in succession according to territorial
arrangement ; but it will be more convenient to
speak in detail of this homage when we come
to the repetition of it on a greater scale at the
Durbar. The presentations ended, His Majesty
mounted his horse, and a procession, or rather
three processions, were formed, first that of the
principal British officials in carriages with their
escorts and bodyguards ; then that of the King-
Emperor ; and lastly that of the Ruling Indian
Chiefs. In the King's procession twenty-eight
officers of the King's staff led the way ; then
came the Viceroy's bodyguard, gigantic lancers
in scarlet and gold ; then three non-commissioned
officers of the First and Second Life Guards and
119
THE STATE ENTRY, DELHI
Dec. 7. Blues, in cuirasses and brazen helmets, the Duke
of Teck, two equerries, and finally the King-
Emperor, with the Viceroy and Lord Crewe
immediately behind him. The Queen followed in
a carriage drawn by six horses, conspicuous by the
huge golden fan and crimson and gold umbrella
held over her by the Indian attendants ; then
came the Imperial Cadet Corps ; and lastly the
remainder of the suite in five carriages, with a
rearguard of native lancers. A salute of one
hundred and one salvos announced the departure
of the procession for what was described as the
State entry into Delhi.
Every yard of the route was crammed with
spectators ; and where, as in the progress round
the Jama Masjid, there was an architectural
setting to the crowd, the scene was most striking.
The sky overhead was cloudless, and the white
marble domes of the great mosque fairly flamed
above the dull pink sandstone of the walls.
Below it the turbans of the people made a
nodding flower-bed of every shade of blue and
green and every variety of brown, tawny, yellow
and orange. In more than one place members
of some school or college had been grouped
together, making a sheet of blue or pink or
yellow ; but such colours are better scattered
than massed. In the main street, the once
famous Chandni Chauk, the diversity of colour
in the dress of the spectators was even more
pleasing against the background of rather un-
kempt white houses ; but it was painful to
THE STATE ENTRY, DELHI
notice that a few occupants had decorated their Dec. 7.
balconies with some of the vilest colours pro-
duced by Manchester. The whole body of the
spectators, Europeans only excepted, was silent
after the Oriental fashion ; but the truth must
be told outright that the King-Emperor was not
recognised as he passed. He alone wore the
uniform of a Field-Marshal, but this does not to
a native eye differ materially from that of a
general or staff-officer ; while the ribbon of the
Star of India, which he wore over his tunic, was
also to be seen over the shoulders of every great
official present. Again, our military head-dresses,
from the helmet to the bear-skin, entirely conceal
the face when the lip-chain is down, and this is
doubly true of the white helmet, necessarily wide
and overshadowing, of the British Army in India.
His Majesty's equerries could hear the spectators
murmuring as they passed that the King was not
there ; and when the Queen followed, marked
out conspicuously by the gorgeous fan and
umbrella, the natives noticed that she was alone,
and decided that His Majesty was not present.
There was a certain irony in the situation ;
for the King had deliberately chosen to ride
a horse instead of an elephant, as had been done
by Lord Curzon in 1902, so that he might
more easily be seen of the people. Critics were
ready immediately after the event with a score
of recommendations as to what should have
been preferred. The King ought to have worn
a special dress ; he ought to have ridden an
THE STATE ENTRY, DELHI
Dec. 7. elephant ; he ought to have driven with the
Queen ; he ought to have ridden a horse w^ith a
Royal Standard before him ; he ought to have
had four, eight, a dozen standards all round him.
" Malignant officialism," such was the phrase,
had deliberately destroyed the pageant. In con-
sideration of all this it must be remembered that
the troops formed the most essential part of the
pageant ; that indeed there can be no true pageant
without disciplined men ; that in the last resort
everything in India depends upon the British
soldier — a fact which the Indian civil officials
nowadays appear not always to remember — and
that in such a huge concourse of soldiers, British
and native, lining the route and taking part in the
procession, it was fitting and right that the King
should appear in the uniform which distinguished
him at once as their chief and as one of them-
selves. From an Oriental point of view probably
the ideal arrangement would have been that the
King-Emperor should have ridden a horse, and
that the Governors and Lieutenant-Governors,
instead of riding in carriages, each with his own
petty escort to indicate his comparative insig-
nificance, should have walked afoot in a body
surrounding him ; and it was perhaps unfortunate
that the climate makes such a thing impossible.
Nothing could have exalted both His Majesty
and those high officers so truly in the Indian
mind ; and the latter would have gained rather
than lost honour by such an act of voluntary
self-abasement. The Indian takes no account
ADDRESS AT THE RIDGE
in the Sovereign's presence of his deputies, Dcc.17.
much less of Ministers of State, Parliaments and
the like appendages. His attention fastens itself
for better or worse wholly upon the person of the
Sovereign ; and in comparison with him all other
officials are as nothing. Plainly, therefore, on any
future occasion the person of the King should be
notably distinguished. Should he ride — and a
chief who is a man, a soldier, and a horseman is
very dear to the greatest of the Indian Princes —
a standard should be borne before him, and a
host of native attendants with Imperial insignia
should be about him. Should His Majesty drive
in the same carriage with the Queen, they
should be surrounded with the like pomp and
circumstance.
After leaving the city the procession halted
at a pavilion on the summit of the historic ridge
on the way to the camp, where were assembled
representatives of British India, that is to say.
Members of the Imperial and Provincial Legisla-
tive Councils, the Judges and other high officers.
Here the Hon. Mr. Jenkins, the Vice-President
of the Governor-General's Legislative Council,
read a short address of welcome and loyalty to the
King- Emperor, which was then handed to His
Majesty on a silver tray. His Majesty read his
reply as usual in a loud tone, which could be
heard by all present. At about half-past twelve
the Imperial camp was reached, and here was
drawn up a quadruple guard of honour, one of
bluejackets, one of Marine Artillery, one of the
123
A GUARD OF HONOUR
Dec. 7. Royal Fusiliers and one of the 130th Baluchis,
this last the King's own regiment, picturesquely
dressed in green coats and loose cherry-coloured
knickerbockers. The whole formed a magni-
ficent body of men ; and the contrast was great
from the broad sturdy bluejackets on the right
of the line to the lean slender Pathans, long-
haired, hawk-eyed and hawk-nosed, on the left.
There was little to choose between the four
companies when they saluted, but the Marines
showed just the slight superiority over the rest
which made perfection. Presently the guards
filed away, and revealed the person of Sergeant
Trotter of the King's company of the Grenadier
Guards, standing solitary in his bearskin at
attention by the flag-staff, an unrehearsed effect
which, owing to the huge stature and disciplined
bearing of the Sergeant, was sufficiently im-
pressive.
In the afternoon the King held his first
reception of the Ruling Chiefs individually,
giving to each one of them an audience of at
least ten minutes, and welcoming them as his
friends. The Queen, whose interest in historic
buildings is inexhaustible, with the Viceroy, her
ladies, and a few gentlemen in attendance, paid
a visit to Shah Jahan's palace, built in 1638-48,
within the fort of Delhi. This volume is not a
guide-book and no place for a description of the
famous building, which in extent, and many
would contend in beauty also, far outdoes any
palace in Europe. But Her Majesty, and
124
THE OLDER DELHIS
others who had visited the place before, were Dec.
amazed at the improvements which, under the
impulse of Lord Curzon, had been effected
through the sweeping away of modern excres-
cences, the restoration of gardens, fountains,
watercourses and grass-plats, — in a word, the
general rehabilitation of order, amenity and
good taste. The British are by no means solely
responsible for the debasement of some of the
noblest buildings in India ; but it is incontest-
able that it was a British Governor-General, a
sentimental Whig and an arch-Philistine, who
proposed to sell the Taj Mahal ; so that it is not
surprising if officers boldly erected coarse
partition-walls and carved out spaces from the
(j-ems of Oriental architecture in order to make
an orderly-room or an ordnance-store.
On the morning of the 8th the King
continued his reception of the Ruling Chiefs ;
and the Queen, attended by a small party of
the suite, visited the Kutab Minar, the Mosque
of Kutab-ud-din, and the tomb of Ala-ud-din,
buildings which date from the twelfth to the
fourteenth centuries of the Christian era, and
preserve the memories of far older Delhis than
the present. In the afternoon, soon after three
o'clock, Their Majesties drove, under escort of a
squadron of the Tenth Hussars and a squadron
of native cavalry, to lay the first stone of the
memorial to the late King Edward the Seventh.
The site of this memorial, which will ultimately
take the form of a bronze equestrian statue, is
125
KING EDWARD MEMORIAL
Dec. 8. well chosen, being in a garden which stands on
a sHght eminence in the open space between the
Jama Masjid and the fort ; and a huge crowd of
Indians filled a series of stands running down
from the Jama Masjid to the scene of the
ceremony. Here a pavilion had been erected ;
and the way from the entrance of the garden to
this pavilion was lined by guards of honour of
the Gordon Highlanders and the Second Gurkha
Rifles, both of them King Edward's own
regiments. The ceremony itself was brief
enough. The Viceroy read an address setting
forth that the cost of the memorial was to be
defrayed by subscription, which had been
contributed by " thousands and thousands " of
loyal subjects of all ranks and conditions in
India, testifying to their love and reverence for
the ruler whom they had lost. His Majesty
replied in a few feeling words, and with due
ceremony laid the first stone. A salute of one
hundred and one guns was then fired ; Their
Majesties drove off, and all was over. But for
the vast throng of Indians present one would
have thought that the function was one that
would hardly have appealed to them. There
were no masonic rites, in which many might
have joined, yet they watched the brief spectacle
by tens of thousands.
In the evening Their Majesties gave a state
dinner to one hundred and six guests, including
the Viceroy and Lady Hardinge, six Indian
Princes and several members of the Vicerov's
126
PRESENTATION TO THE QUEEN
Council. The banqueting tent offended against Dec. 9.
the elements of sanitary science in the matter
of ventilation ; and it must here be added, as a
warning for future occasions, that being very
long, very narrow and low, it presented neither
a dignified nor an inviting appearance. The
reception - tent beside it, to which Their
Majesties and their guests withdrew after dinner,
was less open to such reproach, except in respect
of ventilation, being both lofty and spacious ;
while the roof, in broad stripes of pale blue and
white, was, though somewhat paltry, at least
pleasing and restful to the eye.
On the morning of the 9th the King held
his third reception of Ruling Chiefs ; and the
Queen likewise received a number of Indian
ladies who came to present an address of wel-
come and a historic jewel and necklace to Her
Majesty. The address, having been read by
Lady Hardinge, and the presentation having
been made by H.H. the Maharani of Patiala,
the Queen read her reply of thanks, which was
then interpreted in Urdu, after which the whole
of the ladies were presented to Her Majesty. In
the afternoon Their Majesties drove to the polo-
ground, arriving there at half-past three, just at
half time, in the middle of two matches between
the King's Dragoon Guards and Bhopal upon
one ground, and between the Inniskilling
Dragoons and Kishengarh upon another. These
matches were semi-final ties, for the final
decision of which, as the day's work proved, the
127
THE KING AND HIS SOLDIERS
Dec. 9. Inniskillings and the King's Dragoon Guards,
both of them fine teams, were destined to meet
again. The ground was thronged with private
soldiers, both British and native ; and it was
pleasant to see a tall British red-coat take up an
excited little Gurkha on his back to enable him
to witness a thrilling moment in the game.
But beyond the polo-ground was another field,
where a football- match was going forward
between the Lancashire Fusiliers and the Border
Regiment, with an even greater crowd, composed
chiefly of private soldiers. To this the King
presently made his way, walking across the polo-
ground attended by the Viceroy and by his staff-
in -waiting. The visit to the polo being
informal. His Majesty wore a simple grey suit
with a grey topee and broad gold puggaree ; the
Viceroy was as simply dressed ; and the whole
proceeding came upon the soldiers, as indeed
upon every one else, as a surprise. However, on
recognising their visitor they made a rush to see
His Majesty enter the stand with roars of de-
lighted cheering. The sound naturally increased
the crowd, and when, after watching the
match for half an hour, the King went back to
rejoin the Queen, it was only with the greatest
difficulty that he was able to pass through the
masses of enthusiastic, shouting men.
In the evening Their Majesties attended a
torchlight tattoo on the polo-ground, of which
it is unnecessary to say more than that, owing to
the extremely heavy work thrown upon the
128
THE CHURCH PARADE
troops at Delhi, it was impossible for them to Dec. lo.
find time to prepare a really effective display of
that kind. At Calcutta, as we shall see, the case
was different, and the spectacle was very fine.
But at Delhi the men were on duty every day
lining the streets ; they were turned out very
early, some ventured to think unnecessarily early ;
they had long marches to make from their own
camps ; they were out in the sun during the
fiercest heat of the day ; and, though the
oiling of most of the roads about the camp
delivered them from a certain amount of dust,
yet it did not deliver them from all ; while finally,
owing to the long distances to be traversed, they
frequently did not get back to their tents until
late. In such circumstances the preparation of
the elaborate manoeuvres which go to make an
effective tattoo was out of the question. The
parade, therefore, was necessarily too simple to
be really striking.
On Sunday the loth of December Divine
Service was held at Jagatpur Island, on the far
side of the Military Camp, eight thousand
British troops being present. Although the
King and Queen attended, all arrangements were
of the simplest, three small shelters for Their
Majesties and for the clergy alone testifying to
the fact that some ceremony was going forward.
The clergy and the massed bands with a body of
singers selected from the troops were placed
upon a slight eminence at the edge of the con-
gregation, with the natural result that both
129 K
THE CHURCH PARADE
Dec. lo. voices and music reached the mass of the troops
indistinctly, and after an interval. It seemed a
pity that the men had not been grouped around
the clergy and bands as a centre. The service
was admirably intoned in unison by Archdeacon
Nicholas and the Rev. W. Foster. The Bishop
of Lahore read the prayers slowly and earnestly,
in a voice that could be heard by all ; and the
Bishop of Madras likewise made his sermon
reach the ears of at least the majority of those
present. But the soldiers would not sing. In
fact the British soldier at best will rarely sing
more than two or three hymns, and those
unfortunately not of the highest quality ; while
unless he is brought into a proper frame of
mind (which is difficult when he considers
himself to be more or less on duty) and unless
he is well supported by a band close to him, he
will not sing at all. The element of a great
body of sound was therefore wanting to this
huge congregation ; and its absence was a dis-
appointment to many. On the other hand, the
approach to the site of the ceremony through
the military camp had a grandeur that was all
its own — a huge brown dead flat plain, covered
with little humble tents and streaked with bodies
of troops, moving, both mounted and on foot, in
all directions. It presented a fine contrast to our
own luxurious camp with its great marquees,
fringed with palms, its broad drives and refresh-
ing grass -plats, its bustling orderlies and
chuprassies gorgeous in scarlet and gold. At
130
PRESENTATION OF COLOURS
one point could be seen a swarm of little Dec. u.
Gurkhas climbing about the decayed walls of a
ruined building from mere schoolboys' love of
adventure, and grinning over the pleasure of it.
One could hardly believe that they were ready
to march, fully equipped for service in the field,
within twenty-four hours, and to give a good
account of themselves against any enemy.
The morning of Monday the iith witnessed
what was perhaps the prettiest and most perfect
of all the pageants that were crowded into the
eventful eight days at Delhi, namely the presenta-
tion of colours to seven battalions of British
infantry on the polo-ground. The ground was,
of course, perfectly flat, though reasonably green
for India in the dry season ; and the seven
battalions, each of them in quarter-column with
fixed bayonets, were drawn up in a hollow
square. On the left, as one faced the interior of
the square, stood the Northumberland Fusiliers
and the Durham Light Infantry ; in the centre
the Black Watch, Seaforth Highlanders and
Gordon Highlanders ; and on the right the High-
land Light Infantry and the Connaught Rangers.^
The Scottish Borderers were to have received
new colours at the same time, but could not be
brought to Delhi owing to an outbreak of
cholera.^ Thus two English battalions formed
^ To give them their old numbers in succession the battalions were the
i/5th, 68th, 73rd, 72nd, 93rd, 71st and 88th.
2 Here it must be remarked that it was only by unremitting vigilance
and care that the awful spectre of cholera was kept at a distance.
At Bombay the King's suite was to have been provided with Indian
servants. Half of these servants could not come, owing to an outbreak of
PRESENTATION OF COLOURS
Dec. II. one side of the square ; three kilted battalions the
second side ; and a Scots battalion in trews and
an Irish battalion the third side, with the massed
pipes in rear of the Black Watch, and the massed
drums and bugles in rear of the Gordons.
Before the King's arrival parties marched out
from each battalion and built up a small pyramid
of drums, those of the Connaught Rangers
solitary in front, those of the two English
battalions next behind them, and those of the
four Scottish battalions in rear of all, the drums
thus arranged being in the form of a triangle
with the apex towards the saluting point. The
new colours were laid crosswise upon the drums,
and a guard of two sergeants and a colour-sergeant
was left over each. The clergy then advanced
and grouped themselves near the drums, the
Bishop of Lahore and the chaplains of the
English Church in front of the English battalions :
Father Gentilli, the Roman Catholic Archbishop
of Agra and his chaplains over against them ;
and the six Presbyterian ministers in their black
gowns in front of the kilted battalions and at
right angles to their brethren of England and of
Rome ; each one of the clerical parties moving
with as stately precision as if they had been
themselves soldiers. Presently the King at the
cholera in their district, and I was told that two of them had actually died
in Bombay that morning. At Delhi other servants were provided, but
some of them were again withdrawn from the same cause. All this was
rightly kept very quiet ; but from these circumstances the reader may
judge of the anxiety and trouble which was thrown upon those who
were responsible for such matters.
132
PRESENTATION OF COLOURS
head of a very large staff rode on to the parade- Dec. u.
ground and into the hollow square ; and the five
thousand men, acting under an admirable v^ord
of command, presented arms as one man. Then
with the same perfect unity the five thousand
bayonets flew up together and came down to the
" slope," and the King rode round the hollow
square to inspect the troops. The inspection
over. His Majesty rode to the saluting point and
dismounted ; and the sergeants guarding the new
colours marched back to join their battalions.
Then Bishop Lefroy came forward to the
English drums and read the prayers of consecra-
tion, slowly and impressively in a penetrating
voice which must have been audible not only to
the troops but to most of the spectators. After
him the six Presbyterian ministers came forward
to do the like for the Scottish colours ; and
lastly the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Agra,
vested with cope and mitre, read the prayers of
his church and sprinkled the colours of the
Connaught Rangers with holy water. Each
group of the clergy retired in rear of His
Majesty when its work was done, and then the
commanding officer, the two senior Majors, and
the two senior subalterns of each battalion
advanced to the drums ; the Majors took up the
new colours, and the parties advanced in three
columns towards the King and halted. The
massed bands played a slow march, and each
party in succession marched in slow time to
the King, who took the colours from the
PRESENTATION OF COLOURS
Dec. II. Majors and handed them to the kneehng
subalterns. Each party having received its
colours moved back in slow time to its drums,
and the commanding officers again advancing
took each of them in succession a written address
from the hand of the King.
It is usual in presenting colours for the
Sovereign to address the battalion that receives
them by word of mouth, but, this being
impossible on so large a parade. His Majesty
substituted a written address signed with his
own hand — no unwelcome novelty, for the docu-
ment can be framed and hung up in the mess-
room as a perpetual memorial of the occasion.
The opening exhortation was the same for all ;
but at the close were a few special words for
each corps. The Northumberland Fusiliers
were reminded specially of St. Lucia in 1778 ;
the Durham Light Infantry of their latest feat
at Vaal Krantz more than a century later ; the
Black Watch of their share in the old campaigns
of India ; the Seaforths of a yet longer list of
Indian honours ; the Gordons of the great name
which they have made greater during every
successive campaign during the past century ;
the Highland Light Infantry of the defence of
Gibraltar and the action of Porto Novo ; and
the Connaught Rangers of their superb behaviour
at Bussaco. It is true that the very names of
these great feats of arms are absolutely unknown
to an overwhelming majority of the British
nation, who make money out of East Indian and
134
PRESENTATION OF COLOURS
colonial trade without remembering who gained Dec. n,
that trade for them ; but regiments happily
never forget such deeds and rejoice to find that
others too have kept them in mind.
Having received their addresses, the com-
manding officers, always moving at slow march,
rejoined the colour-parties, and amid a great roll
of drums the colour -parties advanced each
towards its own battalion ; upon which the seven
battalions as one man presented arms to their
new colours. Then came the singularly pathetic
incident which is inevitable at this ceremony —
" Old colours, march off." The bands struck
up " Auld Lang Syne," and the subalterns
bearing the old colours marched slowly from
their places in the centre of battalions across the
front and round the flank to the rear, where the
old colours, some of them mere ragged ends of
silk at the end of a staff, were veiled in their
cases, to be seen no more on parade. Finally
the troops again presented arms, and the new
colours were borne to the place of the old and
let fly, while the band played " God Save the
King." His Majesty then remounted his horse,
the seven battalions, removing their helmets,
gave him three cheers, and the ceremony was
over.
All who witnessed the parade — and there were
officers present of very many years' service —
agreed that it was the most perfect thing of the
kind that they had ever seen. An inspection of
a brigade of Guards in Hyde Park by the Duke
135
AN EFFICIENT SENTRY
Dec. II. of Cambridge thirty years ago was a sight not
easily to be forgotten ; but in these days, when
parade movements are rightly held to be of little
account, such a display is very rare. But it
must not be thought that such perfection in
mere manual movement of arms is valuable for
spectacular purposes only ; for, as every military
man knows, it is indicative of the greater unity
that is produced by good discipline. A rather
curious example of discipline in another form
came under my immediate notice on (I think)
this same day. The pavilion of the polo-ground
was reserved for such spectators only as had been
provided with a ticket ; and two sentries of the
Gordon Highlanders were posted at the entrance
to see that none but ticket-holders were admitted.
Among others the Adjutant-General of the army
in India presented himself, advancing in full uni-
form with many decorations, so that there could
be no mistake as to his rank or as to his claim
to be present. He was stopped by the sentry and
required to produce his ticket. By accident or
mishap he had none, and was proceeding to
explain, when the sentry cut him short with
" Beg pardon, sir, but my orders are to admit no
one without a ticket," to which unanswerable
statement the Adjutant-General, being responsible
for the discipline of the army, cheerfully bowed
his head, and fetched a wide compass to seek
legitimate entrance elsewhere.
From the British regiments the King-
Emperor rode next to two Indian battalions, the
136
INSPECTION OF VETERANS
Eighteenth Infantry and the Ninetieth Panjabis, Dec. n.
to which he presented colours with the same
formaHties, omitting the consecration. His
Majesty then proceeded to the veterans and
holders of the Order of British India, who were
present to the number of eight hundred and
eighty, thirty of them being Europeans. As he
passed down the line he said a few words to each
of the Europeans, giving particular attention to
Major Allum of the old Bengal Horse Artillery,
who is eighty-four years of age, and was wearing
two medals of earlier date than the Mutiny.
Two more veterans — Mr. Thitton and Mr. James
Roots, the latter of whom wears the Victoria
Cross — also received special notice, both from the
King and the Queen. Among the Indian soldiers
were many grand old fellows, notably a father
and a son, the one seventy-eight, the other fifty-
eight years old, both of them late of the Twenty-
third Sikhs, and both wearing five or six medals.
One younger man explained to the King that
he had received twenty -two wounds in Chitral,
showing some of them as he spoke, but added
proudly that he had killed two of the enemy.
Altogether the King devoted a full hour to these
gallant old men, the Queen following him
closely in her carriage ; and never was an hour
better spent. Even from an ordinary European
the Indian officer or soldier rates no compliment
so highly as a glance at his medals and a salute
paid to them, from which it may be guessed that
the appreciation of the King-Emperor and the
137
THE GREAT DAY COME
Dec. 12. Queen -Empress was received as the highest of
honours and gratifications.
In the afternoon Their Majesties again visited
the polo-ground to witness the final contest for
the championship of the Delhi Durbar Polo
Tournament, between the King's Dragoon
Guards and the Inniskillings. After a very fine
and hard-fought game the Inniskillings were
victorious ; whereupon both teams were sum-
moned to the pavilion and presented to Their
Majesties, the Inniskillings also receiving the
cup from the hand of the Queen.
IX
And now Tuesday the 1 2th day of December
was come, the great day around which all other
events of the Imperial visit were centred, and for
which preparations had been going forward for
many months. The general arrangements were
entrusted to a Committee, of which Sir John
Hewett was the chief and the leading spirit ;
and it may be well first to take account of these
and of the many difficulties which confronted
the Committee in getting ready for the
ceremony.
It was early decided by the King that the
Durbar must not be held in any building, no
matter how superb its intrinsic magnificence or
how interesting its historic associations, but in
the open air, so that it might be witnessed by
138
s
SCENE OF THE DURBAR
the greatest possible number of spectators of all Dec. 12.
races and conditions. The ground does not
naturally lend itself to the convenience of
spectators, Delhi being situated on a level plain
with no eminence near it except the famous ridge,
which is only sixty feet high and ill-suited for
any such purpose. His Majesty therefore urged
that a semicircle should be marked out in the
plain ; that the outer circumference should be
raised into a mound, so as to afford room for
fifty or seventy thousand spectators ; that at the
centre of the semicircle there should be erected
a pavilion, high enough to enable Their
Majesties to be seen from all points of the
amphitheatre ; and that the stands for the Indian
Princes and for privileged spectators should like-
wise be curved about the Royal pavilion for the
same object.
Upon this plan the ground was laid out.
From the Royal pavilion as a centre a semicircle
with a radius of about two hundred and forty yards
was marked out to the north, and a mound was
erected round the circumference for spectators.
All round the base of the mound ran a
processional road, so that Their Majesties could
drive under the very eyes of the onlookers. A
broad road also led from the pavilion due north,
called the central road, and two more due east
and west, called the east and west vistas
respectively, all of them designed to open a clear
view of Their Majesties from every quarter.
From the same centre of the Royal pavilion,
139
THE DURBAR; PREPARATIONS
Dec. 12. but on the opposite side to the mound, a
circular road was marked out on a radius of
about one hundred and twenty yards ; and round
the southern margin of this road was erected a
huge stand with seating accommodation for some
ten thousand spectators, and with closed apart-
ments up above for the great Indian ladies.
Southward from the Royal pavilion ran a paved
way leading to a second royal canopy called
by the native name (which I shall retain for
convenience) of the Shamiana, which abutted
immediately upon the stand above mentioned.
The general plan having been decided, the
formation of the mound and the sowing of the
arena with grass became a question of labour,
severe and trying enough no doubt in itself,
but still comparatively speaking simple ; and the
problem now was to work out the remaining
details. It was here that the Committee's
difficulties began, and they were very many and
great. It was plain that the body of the spectacle
at the Durbar must be furnished by soldiers ; and
it was therefore rightly decided that the main
space of the arena must be filled with troops.
But the great mass of the King's soldiers are
dressed in scarlet, and though I should be the
last to say a word against the historic red coat,
which is now approaching the age of three
centuries, it must be confessed that it does not
look its best under the Indian sun. It is hard,
crude and glaring, and there is no escape
from the fact. The Indian army, of course,
140
THE DURBAR ; AMPHITHEATRE
affords a greater variety of colour than the British. Dec. 12.
There is plenty of khaki, which looks far better
in India than in England, often blended with
turbans of blue, green or orange ; and there are
regiments of cavalry in light blue, yellow, and
other less difficult colours. Still the prevailing
tone, even with twenty thousand troops massed
within the arena, was bound to be scarlet, and
the only thing that could be done was to blend
the scarlet well with other less glaring colours.
To accomplish this, as well as to make the
troops within the amphitheatre visible, it was
necessary that the arena should be terraced, for
it is obvious that, if it were left at its original
unbroken level, not one tenth part of the soldiers
could be seen. This terracing could be accom-
plished in two ways. The first was to raise the
earth from the circumference towards the centre,
so that the Royal pavilion would have risen as
the highest point, above tier upon tier of troops,
and above successive waves of colour. This
would have been highly effective ; and though
no doubt there would have been some difficulty
in adjusting this arrangement to the smaller space
to south of the greater semicircle, yet this need
not have proved insuperable. On the other
hand, it would have been possible to terrace
the arena from the centre outwards, so that it
should rise in continuous tiers up to the extreme
circumference at the spectators' mound. This
would have been both less effective and more
costly than the other, for it would have involved
141
THE DURBAR; BUILDINGS
Dec. 12. the raising both of the spectators' mound, and
therefore of the Royal pavilion also, to much
greater height. However, whether these diffi-
culties of terracing were invincible or not, no
attempt was made to overcome them. The body
of the arena was left at its original dead level,
and hence for the vast majority of the beholders
three-quarters of the troops contributed in no
degree whatever to the spectacle.
Another point must also be noticed. With
excellent judgment the Committee left a gap
in the north centre of the spectators' mound, so
that there should be a vista of Their Majesties
upon their thrones from north, east and west ;
but none the less the effect of the mound was
such as to make a hard unbroken straight line
against the horizon. By unhappy mischance
no trees grew anywhere near the amphitheatre
to break this line, and it was of course impossible
to plant trees of sufficient size for the purpose.
It must be added that no attempt was made to
break it by artificial decoration. If the experi-
ence of the past is to be used for the profit of
the future, this hard line should be noted with
a view to possible amendment.
As regards the minor details, the architecture
selected for the stand and for the pavilion was
rightly Oriental in its general character. The
stand, however, presented a compromise between
East and West, for it had a steep sloping roof,
a thing so rarely seen in the East that the tiny
Oriental cupolas with which it was liberally
142
THE DURBAR; PAVILION
sprinkled could not disguise its foreign character. Dec. 12.
Moreover, this sloping roof, being abruptly cut
off at the ends, presented an appearance so far
from Oriental as to recall painful visions of a
grand stand at Ascot. As the roof was not
occupied by spectators, this unhappy effect might
have been avoided, and should be avoided at any
future durbar.
The Royal pavilion rose from a broad base
in three tiers, ascended by broad stairways, to
a central structure supported by four slender
columns and surmounted by a huge gilt bulbous
dome. This dome rose out of a kind of balu-
strade of gilt fretted work with four small domes
at the four corners, beneath which extended a
kind of gilt verandah, and beyond this a canopy
of crimson velvet with a broad straight fringe of
crimson and gold. The canopy was carried out
as far as to the second tier of the pavilion, upon
which it was supported by a number of thin
gilded iron poles. These very slight supports
were necessary, lest the view of the interior of
the pavilion should be obstructed ; but at a short
distance they gave the impression that the heavy
dome and canopy were resting upon nothing,
and the more so inasmuch as the bulbous dome,
which is typical of late Mohammedan architec-
ture, seems even in the finest buildings to weigh
very heavily on the substructure and to threaten
to crush it. It may therefore be doubted whether
the dome and its adjuncts would not have been
better of white, picked out with gold ; the
THE DURBAR ; A BLEMISH
Dec. 12. canopy itself of white, or of some pale colour,
embroidered in gold ; and the straight fringe
(which was not beautiful) made lighter by being
broken up.
Indeed it may be questioned whether too
slavish an adherence to crimson as the Royal
colour, even though it was in some sort the
Imperial colour of the Moghuls, be not a
mistake. The canopy over the Shamiana and
the embroidered mat at its foot might well
have been, as they were, of crimson and gold ;
but the carpet round the foot of the stand and
that leading from the Shamiana to the pavilion
were of the commonplace red baize which
is, perhaps, most generally associated with
weddings at churches in the west end of London.
The colour is not a good red, and at the
foot of the stand made a very poor background
for the rich dresses of the Indian Princes. But
it was still worse on the paved way which led
to the pavilion. There were officers in one
shade of scarlet to walk on it ; soldiers in a
slightly different shade of scarlet all round it ;
Their Majesties' Indian attendants in a deeper
and nobler shade of scarlet to stand by it ; the
Imperial trains of rich purple to be held up
against it ; and the deep crimson of the pavilion's
canopy to overhang it ; and the miserable baize
swore vigorously and irreconcilably with one
and all of them. Moreover, its appearance was
lamentably mean and paltry. A decent border
would have done something to redeem it, but
144
DAWN OF THE TWELFTH
even this was wanting. Indeed to me it seemed Dec. 12.
that the circumstances positively demanded a
pale tint both in this carpet and in the canopy
of the pavilion. The Shamiana lay in shade,
screened by the grand stand. The paved way
and the pavilion lay out in the full glare of the
Indian sun. Their Majesties were to march
from the first, where they could hardly be seen
by the spectators on the mound, to the second,
where they were in full view. The transition
from the homage of the Princes, which was practi-
cally hidden, to the homage of the whole people,
which was in the full light of day, should have
been marked by a change of hue ; and it must
be repeated that the Indian dyers excel in the
production of pale and tender colours.^
So much must be said for the preparations, in
order that the reader may imagine the setting of
the scene in which the King-Emperor and the
Queen-Empress were to play their most difficult
part of the central figures. The morning of the
1 2th, to the general relief, broke fine and cloud-
less. On the two previous days the sky had
become overcast, and the evening temperature
^ Objections may of course be raised to the foregoing criticisms on the
ground of expense ; but a glance at the distribution of the funds would
seem sufficient refutation. According to figures supplied to me, the cost
of the Government of India's camp — 60 people — for the week was 500,000
rupees ; the expenditure on four persons alone out of those 60 was 22,000
rupees ; the grant for the whole of the head-quarter camp of the army,
160 people, was 25,000 rupees. From this it would seem to be a legitimate
conclusion that if the leading civilians of India had meted out to themselves
the allowance which they thought sufficient for the leading soldiers, there
would have been more money to spare for the proper decoration of the
amphitheatre on the great occasion, perhaps the greatest in the history of
India, of the 12th of December 191 1.
14s L
THE SPECTATORS' MOUND
Dec. 12. had risen, both of them signs of coming rain
which were accentuated by gloomy forecasts
from the Meteorological Office at Simla. All
misgivings were happily set at rest at dawn of
the 1 2th. Long before that, the air had been
alive with the song of bugles and trumpets, with
the braying of bands, the roll of drums and the
tramp of marching troops. By nine o'clock the
royal escort was beginning to form ; a battery of
Horse Artillery was halted in the avenue of the
King-Emperor's camp, with its guns and harness
looking fit to be placed on a lady's dressing-table ;
and the three huge non-commissioned officers of
the Household Cavalry, with cuirasses flaming in
the sun, were seeking their horses. At half-past
ten such of the suite as were not in personal
attendance began to leave camp in motors for
the amphitheatre, which, owing to the excellent
arrangements of the police, was reached within a
quarter of an hour. By that time the spectators'
mound was already more than three parts full,
and presented generally a huge dark mass of
black and white, dotted with the red tunics of
British soldiers who, with inexhaustible patience
and good temper, mingled with a certain per-
emptoriness of manner, were guiding people into
their seats. On one side of the central gap
broad bands of yellow, white, green and blue
showed the presence of some college or similar
institution. On the other, a still happier mixture
of turbans of every imaginable hue gave the
appearance of a giant bed of flowers. Round
146
THEIR MAJESTIES' PAGES
the base of the stand most of the principal Dec. 12.
officials and of the Ruling Chiefs were already
assembled ; and grouped on the steps of the
Shamiana were Their Majesties' pages, ten in
number, all of them either themselves Princes
or the descendants of Princes.^ They were
charmingly dressed, no two of them alike, in
the usual long-skirted cassock of white or pale-
coloured silk, buttoned to the waist, with turbans
of another pale shade or of orange, shot with
gold, jewelled swords, priceless necklaces and
armlets of precious stones, and a brooch of the
King - Emperor's initials in diamonds — the gift
of His Majesty — fastened in their turbans. They
varied in age from fourteen to six ; but the
centre of all their attention at the moment was
the Lord High Steward, gorgeous in gold lace
and the collar of the Garter, who was blandly
explaining, amid shouts of laughter, that the true
use of his long wand of office was to whip little
boys at durbars.
The arena was already full of troops, beauti-
fully turned out, but a little too monotonously
scarlet. There was abundance of variety if it
' The King-Emperor's pages : —
(1) His Highness The Maharaja of Jodhpur.
(2) His Highness The Maharaja of Bharatpur.
(3) The Maharaj Kunvvar of Bikaner.
(4) Maharaj Kumar Himmat Singh of Idar.
(5) Bhanwar Vir Singh of Orchha.
(6) Sahibzada Muhammad Wahid-uz-Zafar Khan of Bhopal.
Queen-Empress's pages : —
The Thalcur of Palitana.
Maharaj Kumar Gulab Singh of Rewa.
Kumar Mandhata Singh of Sailana.
Kumar Ramchandra Singh of Sailana.
THE VICEROY'S ARRIVAL
Dec. 12. could have been seen ; but only the waving
pennons of the lancers, green, blue and white
above their heads, softened the glare of the red,
though the prominent place assigned to the
Hundred and Thirtieth Baluchis in their green
and crimson also gave a little relief. The guards
of honour were furnished by bluejackets, Royal
Marines, the Black Watch, and by the Fifty-
third regiment of Native Infantry, this last being
specially chosen for the honour, because it is
recruited from every part of India. Dressed in
khaki with touches of bright orange in their
turbans, they made a remarkable foil to the
scarlet doublets and dark kilts of the Black
Watch.
The first episode was the entry of the
Veterans, who were loudly cheered, though a
repetition of the pathetic scene at Lord Curzon's
durbar was not to be expected. On that occa-
sion their entry was new and a surprise ; now it
was looked for, and people were prepared. The
massed bands played " See the conquering hero
comes " ; and then one realised how nobly
Handel's music, no matter how much hackneyed,
can sound on a great occasion. At half-past
eleven the Viceroy and Lady Hardinge arrived
with their escort, and the massed bands played the
march which he had selected for himself during
the King's visit, most fortunately that from
Scipio, again by Handel. Thus, so far as music
was concerned, the day was opened with dignity.
His Majesty meanwhile had begun the day
148
THEIR MAJESTIES' ESCORT
characteristically with holding a Council ; for, Dec, 12.
no matter what may be going forward, the King
is never free from the routine of business. At
half-past eleven Their Majesties left the camp in
an open landau drawn by four horses, with two
Indian attendants behind them, carrying the
crimson umbrella embroidered in gold and the
huge gold fan-like sunshade which belong to
their Imperial rank. Both were arrayed in Royal
attire ; the King in the raiment of white satin
which he wore at the Coronation in Westminster
Abbey, with robes of purple velvet bound with
gold, and wearing further his Imperial crown,
which was one great sheet of diamonds, the collar
of the Garter, and the star of the Order of the Star
of India in diamonds. The Queen was dressed in
white embroidered with gold, with a robe of
purple, a circlet of emeralds and diamonds on her
head, and the Orders of the Garter and of the
Crown of India. For their escort the Tenth
Hussars, V Battery of Horse Artillery, and the
Bodyguard rode in front of the carriage ; General
Rimington, Sir Pratap Singh, and two equerries
alongside it ; and the Imperial Cadet Corps and
Eighteenth Indian Lancers in rear. Over and
above these the Third battalion of the King's
Royal Rifle Corps, and the First Ghurkha Rifles,
awaited them, also as part of the escort, at the
south-eastern corner of the amphitheatre.
Just before noon Their Majesties reached this
entrance, their arrival being heralded by a salute
of one hundred and one guns. The whole of
149
THEIR MAJESTIES' ARRIVAL
Dec. 12. the vast assemblage rose to its feet ; and the
procession, reducing its pace to a walk, passed
amid the salaams of the Indians and the cheers
of the Europeans, round the eastern half of the
spectators' mound and thence down the central
road. Here the Tenth Hussars and the battery-
turned out of the route, while the Bodyguard,
the Royal carriage and the Imperial Cadet Corps —
let me call it the Noble Guard for brevity — pro-
ceeded down the eastern side of the circular road
to the Shamiana. The steady array of the blue-
clad hussars ; the less compact but not less perfect
order of the Horse Artillery, in their bright
yellow-embroidered jackets ; the tall stature and
dignified bearing of the Bodyguard, all scarlet
and gold ; the gleaming helmets and cuirasses of
the three Lifeguardsmen ; the huge crimson
umbrella and golden fan which marked the
Royal carriage ; the scarlet tunic of General
Rimington and the spotless white of the veteran
Sir Pratap Singh, followed by the gleaming white
frocks, sky-blue turbans and glittering aigrettes of
the Noble Guard — all this long parti-coloured
procession winding its devious way half seen
above the immovable forest of turbans, helmets,
bayonets and lance-pennons, presented a spectacle
of amazing majesty and grandeur. Nothing
could have been better conceived or more
admirably executed.
Arrived at the Shamiana the King and Queen
alighted, the Viceroy coming forward to receive
them ; the pages gathered up the long purple
150
SCENES AT THE SHAMIANA
trains ; and Their Majesties, standing for a Dec 12.
moment before their thrones on the dais, bowed
right and left to the huge ring of spectators in
the stand, and then took their seats with their
pages grouped on the steps before them. The
Viceroy then seated himself with Lady Hardinge,
Lord Crewe and the Lord High Steward on the
lower stages of the dais to the right of the King ;
the Duke of Teck, the Duchess of Devonshire,
Lord Shaftesbury and Miss Baring occupying the
corresponding place to the left of the Queen.
The remainder of Their Majesties' suite and the
Viceroy's staff were behind them on both sides ;
and the Noble Guard, which had dismounted,
was seated in rear of all. It must be added that
for the first time in British history members
of the corps of Gentlemen-at-arms and of the
Scottish Archers were in waiting simultaneously
upon the King upon this unique occasion ; and
that among all the thousands of soldiers of the
King's own regiments, the Royal bodyguard of
England, represented by four men, held its place
of honour ; a mounted Lifeguardsman being
stationed at the northern, eastern and western faces
of the Royal pavilion, and the solitary sergeant
of the Grenadier Guards half-way up the steps
on the southern face. But perhaps the most
striking figures of all were Their Majesties' Indian
attendants, fourteen of them carrying maces, and
the remaining four the fans of yaks' tails and of
peacocks' feathers, which are the eastern emblems
of royalty. All were dressed in long scarlet
151
THE DURBAR OPENED
Dec. 12. gowns covered with gold embroidery, and wore
white turbans striped with gold about their
heads ; but there was no mistaking these grand
grey warriors for anything but old soldiers, even
if the row of medals upon their breasts had not
proclaimed the fact aloud. Immensely proud of
their office, they never for a moment took their
eyes off their sacred charge, while from time to
time a whisk of the yak's tail or a sudden lunge
of the peacock's feathers, aimed at imaginary
insects, proclaimed alike their readiness and their
vigilance. They were grey, as I have said, and
their natural force was abated with age, but any
one approaching the King-Emperor with evil
intent would have reached him only over their
dead bodies.
All being ready, Sir Henry McMahon, as
Master of the Ceremonies, asked His Majesty's
permission to open the Durbar, which being
granted, the massed bands by the pavilion
sounded a noble flourish of trumpets culminating
in a mighty roll of drums. Then His Majesty
rose, the whole assembly, of course, rising with
him, and read slowly and clearly a short speech
expressive of his desire to announce the ceremony
of his Coronation in person to his subjects in
India. " To all present," His Majesty ended,
raising his voice and glancing round the sea of
upturned faces, " feudatories and subjects, I
tender my loving greetings." A purely Oriental
audience would have received such an allocution
with a silent obeisance ; but the leaven of Euro-
152
HOMAGE OF THE PRINCES
peans in the stands was large, and the English, Dec. 12.
being too self-conscious to express satisfaction by
mute gesture, broke into loud cheers. Oriental
taste showed at this moment to advantage.
Then the Viceroy came forward to do
homage, bowing low thrice as he approached the
throne, and finally kneeling to kiss His Majesty's
hand, a distinction confined to him alone. To
Lord Hardinge succeeded the members of his
Executive Council ; and then followed the
Ruling Chiefs of Hyderabad, Baroda, Mysore,
Kashmir, Rajputana, Central India, Baluchistan,
Sikkim and Bhutan, led by the Nizam, who was
dressed entirely in black but for his yellow
mitre-like head-dress, his simple dignity en-
hancing the respect of his obeisance. After them
came the Chief-Justice and Judges of the High
Court, and the Viceroy's Legislative Council ;
and then in succession the Governors and Lieu-
tenant-Governors of Madras, Bombay, Bengal,
the Panjab, Burma and Eastern Bengal and Assam,
and the Chief Commissioners of the Central and
North-West Frontier Provinces ; followed in
each case, first by their Executive Councils, next
by the Ruling Chiefs in relation with their
Governments, and lastly by the representatives
of their provinces.
The entire ceremony occupied a full hour,
and was not only often extremely picturesque,
but, to those who know anything of the history
of India, of surpassing interest. The British
officials, for the most part in staid blue uniforms
153
HOMAGE OF THE PRINCES
Dec. 12. with little adornment, quietly and unpretendingly-
made the military salute and passed almost un-
noticed ; though now and again attention was
arrested by a giant such as Sir Charles Bayley,
the Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam, or
by a Hercules, such as Sir George Roos-Keppel,
who, for all his civil uniform, bore the unmistak-
able brand of the soldier and the fighting man,
ready to wring the life out of an opponent at any
moment, and able by sheer personal prowess to
overawe an angry mob of the wildest tribes on
the marches. No one would have suspected that
the quiet, low-voiced Master of the Ceremonies
himself is most at home on the Baluchi Frontier,
where he has made his reputation as a patient,
* tenacious and successful diplomatist. But all
eyes were naturally reserved for the Indian
Princes, resplendent in gorgeous robes, hung with
priceless jewels, and employing every variety
of salutation. Very many used the gesture of
throwing earth on the head once or oftener ;
others simply bowed, sometimes over their hands
placed palm to palm, sometimes over their
tendered swords. The Rajput chiefs almost
without exception laid their swords first at the
feet of the King -Emperor, and then of the
Queen- Empress, with deep obeisance ; and not
the least striking of these was the young
Maharaja of Jodhpur, who, together with
another of the Imperial pages, left his place by
the throne for a moment to do homage. The
Begum of Bhopal, veiled from crown to heel in
154
HOMAGE OF THE PRINCES
cloth of gold, made her reverence with a stately Dec. 12.
gravity which impressed the beholders not a
little. The little Maharaja of Bharatpur, quite a
child, bore himself with childish naturalness and
grace. Then occasionally the ordinary course
would be broken by the homage of one of the
Noble Guard, who, with moustache curling up
to his eyes, and sky-blue turban low over his
forehead, marched upright as a dart to his place,
halted with heels together, pressed the scabbard
of his curved sword to his side, and saluted with
the conscious pride of a soldier of the King-
Emperor. Most reverential of all were the
chiefs of Bhutan and of Sikkim, who, after
bowing profoundly and throwing earth by gesture
seven times on their heads, drew from their
breasts two white shawls, such as they use
only to drape the most sacred images of their
gods, spread them before the King and Queen,
and finally raising their quaint caps from their
heads, passed on. Their homage was a solemn
religious ceremony. One chief only marred the
proceedings for a moment by a laboured un-
gainliness of bearing which lent itself to mis-
interpretation. It was a pity, for Indian Princes
do not generally need lessons in deportment ;
and it may be hoped that after this occurrence
no further lessons will be necessary.
Incidentally the Durbar afforded curious
illustrations of the past history of India. The
greatest of the chiefs were the latest, the Nizam
and the Marathas having no more lengthy pedi-
155
RAJPUTS AND BENGALIS
Dec. 12. grees of sovereignty to show than have the
English themselves in India. There w^as, how-
ever, a goodly company of the old proud families
and of the heads of the fighting clans which,
even after repeated defeats, had defied the Moguls
in the plenitude of their power, and with un-
quenchable pride and independence even rejected
alliances with them by marriage. These were
they who laid their swords at the feet of Their
Majesties, remembering that Lord Mornington
and Lord Hastings had saved them from utter
extinction at the hands of the Marathas. They
had ruled India once and, if their brains had
been commensurate with their bravery, would
have ruled it for longer. Very noticeable, on
the other hand, were the absence of any Bengali
chiefs enjoying independent relations with the
central Government, and the very small number,
no more than two, of those who stood in the like
relation to the Government of Bengal. For the
Bengali is the converse of the Rajput, a thinking
man rather than a fighting man, who surrenders
his outward independence with little ado, trust-
ing, not without justification from past history,
that his intellect will give him the greater
sovereignty which belongs to those who govern
the Governors.
For the rest it would be impossible to
describe the richness and variety of colour
displayed by the dresses of the native princes.
The head-dresses alone would require several
pages, from the voluminous turban of Kashmir
156
THE HOMAGE ENDED
to the small golden jewelled cap (I know not Dec. 12.
how else to describe it) of Travancore, and
the pagoda -like structures of Burma. In the
surroundings and against the infelicitous back-
ground selected by the Committee, one costume
of white shot with gold, with a broad girdle
and turban of bright green silk, was perhaps the
most effective ; but taken as a body nothing
could exceed the group of the Imperial pages.
At length the homage was over. Few if any
of those who saw it could have found it tedious,
and, if they did, the monotony was broken by
the applause with which the different personages
were greeted as they advanced to the throne.
Such applause perhaps suggested rather prize-
giving than reverence, but the instincts of the
public meeting are strong in Englishmen ; and,
if cheers were out of place, it may at least be
pleaded that they were more freely bestowed upon
the Indian Princes than upon the European gentle-
men. The last outburst died away. The fourteen
mace-bearers faced about and formed in column,
two and two, on the paved way ; and the Lord
High Steward and the Queen-Empress's Lord
Chamberlain presently took their places behind
them. The King and Queen rose ; the pages
gathered up the purple trains ; the massed bands
blared out a march ; and the whole assemblage
sprang to its feet. Then with joined hands and
measured step Their Majesties moved slowly up
the paved way towards the Royal pavilion.
Immediately before them and facing towards
157
THE ROYAL PAVILION
Dec. 1 2. them walked Lord Durham and Lord Shaftesbury,
with the mace-bearers in front of all. Imme-
diately behind them marched the four remain-
ing Indian attendants ; then after an interval the
Viceroy, Lady Hardinge, the Duke of Teck,
Lord Crewe and the Duchess of Devonshire ;
and after a second interval the remainder of the
suite and the Viceroy's staff, four abreast, in all
nearly fifty persons. At the foot of the pavilion
the mace-bearers halted, and turning right and
left lined the way on each side ; and Their
Majesties, slowly ascending the steps to the
highest stage, took their seats on two gorgeous
thrones, with their four Indian attendants behind,
and the pages grouped before them. On the
stage next below them the Viceroy, Lady
Hardinge, Lord Crewe and Lord Durham stood
upon the King's (or eastern) side ; the Duke
of Teck, the Duchess of Devonshire, Lady
Shaftesbury and Miss Baring upon the Queen's
side ; while the remainder of the suite divided
themselves between the two sides of the lowest
stage.
The scene at this moment was extremely fine.
As a matter of spectacular effect the lower tiers
of the pavilion might perhaps with advantage
have been more thickly covered, while some
Oriental dresses would have brought a welcome
relief of soft colour to the hard blue and scarlet
of the uniforms. Still the presence of the
Maharaja of Bikaner and of Sir Pratap Singh
gave at any rate a touch of white and sky blue ;
158
THE ROYAL TRUMPETERS
and on the Queen's side the three ladies — the Dec. 12.
Duchess of Devonshire in creamy white, Lady
Shaftesbury in buff with a pale-pink sunshade,
and Miss Baring, tall and graceful, in pale
blue — provided just what was needed. But
this was merely a question of the setting, for
all eyes were rightly fixed on the topmost
stage, where Their Majesties sat, all white and
gold against the rich purple and creamy ermine
of their trains, with the soft-coloured robes of
the pages grouped about their feet. And this
was beautiful as well as imposing.
The massed bands again sounded a superb
flourish of trumpets, with a thundering roll of
drums : a shrill fanfare answered them from
without the amphitheatre, and the trumpeters
advanced on horseback to the north entrance of
the central road, with the two heralds, Brigadier-
General Peyton and the Hon. Malik Umar
Hyat Khan, in tabards, at their head. The
trumpeters numbered twenty -four, drawn in
equal numbers from British and Indian cavalry
regiments, with one drummer from the
Thirteenth Hussars. They were dressed in the
crimson and gold worn by the State trumpeters
at home, the British wearing white helmets,
and the natives white and gold turbans ; and all
were of course mounted on white horses.
Arrived before the entrance to the central road
at the cut through the spectators' mound, they
halted and blew a second fanfare. Then
advancing up the central road to the Royal
159
THE ROYAL PROCLAMATION
Dec. 12. pavilion the drummer again spread his arms
wide, and at his signal the flourish was repeated
a third time.
Then the chief herald rode up before the
pavilion and read the King-Emperor's proclama-
tion, announcing, in efl^ect, that the solemnity of
his Coronation had been celebrated in Westminster
Abbey on the 22nd of June, and that it was his
wish and desire to make this known in person to
all his loving subjects in India. " Now" (ran
the closing words), "We do by this Our Royal
Proclamation make announcement thereof, and
extend to all Our officers and to all Princes,
Chiefs and Peoples now at Delhi Our Royal and
Imperial Greeting, and assure them of the deep
affection with which We regard Our Indian
Empire, the welfare and prosperity of which are,
and ever will be. Our constant concern." The
Indian herald then repeated the Proclamation in
Urdu, in tones which, though less deep and
powerful than General Peyton's, were more
penetrating and carried much farther. " God
Save the King-Emperor," cried the shrill voice
in Urdu ; and the drummer once more opened
his arms wide for a last flourish ot trumpets.
The supreme moment was come. The bugler
of the commanding General sounded a note ; the
troops presented arms ; and with a crash the
massed bands burst into the National Anthem.
The last note was hardly silent when a battery
of artillery at the north end of the amphitheatre
fired the first salvo of six guns, which was repeated
160
THE SUPREME MOMENT
by a second battery to west, and a third to east, Dec.
the salute passing round and round in the same
order until thirty-four salvos had been fired.
Then came a faint sound as of rending paper,
which died away into a faint mutter and swelled
again into an angry snarl, as the Jeu de joie of the
troops that lined the roads sped away for three
miles from the amphitheatre to the King's Camp,
and rushed back from thence to the amphitheatre
again. The bands once more played the opening
bars of the National Anthem ; the batteries fired
three more salvos ; and the same procedure was
followed until one hundred and one salvos and
three y^'WAT de joie had been completed.
Throughout this time, full fifteen minutes, the
whole of the great congregation remained silent
and motionless. The sun, high in the heavens,
beat down fiercely upon all within the amphi-
theatre— upon all except the King-Emperor and
the Queen-Empress, who stood, even as the rest,
erect and still in all the pomp and glitter of robes
and crown, under the shadow of the canopy.
They alone, being seen of all men, could command
at a glance of the eye the huge concourse of men
that encircled them. At their feet in long
curved concentric lines stood great ranks of dis-
ciplined soldiers, standing patiently, in contempt
of all muscular strain, with presented arms —
light little English townsmen from London,
Birmingham, Sheffield, Durham and fifty other
cities ; heavier country lads from Berkshire, from
the Midlands and from Northumberland ; solemn
l6l M
THE SUPREME MOMENT
Dec. 12. Highlanders from Banff and Aberdeen ; sturdy
bluejackets from Hants and Devon ; lean, eager-
eyed Pathans from the north-west ; bearded
Sikhs with the steel quoits glittering round their
turbans ; tall Rajputs with traditions of centuries
of fighting behind them ; Dogras, Panjabis,
Marathas, and last, and least in stature though by
no means least in fighting power, battalion on
battalion of short Mongolian Gurkhas. At the
head of them all an officer in high command sat
on his horse before the pavilion, through salvo
after salvo, with his hand glued to his helmet ;
a little to his rear stood the solitary gigantic
Guardsman, equally with hand held fast to
his bearskin. For this mingled host of many
ranks and many races and many tongues was
united into one by the bond of discipline as
soldiers of the King. Let men revile as they
will the noble profession of arms ; it will always
form the strongest of human brotherhoods, for
military discipline is the organised abnegation
of self.
And beyond these ranks of scarlet and blue and
yellow and khaki lay the vast ring of the peoples,
no mere claque of the populace of Delhi, but a
great assembly gathered together from every
part of India. It would be difficult to say how
many languages and dialects were used as mother-
tongues within the small compass of those two
semicircles that day, certainly not fewer than
twelve, and quite possibly more than twenty ;
but not a voice was heard among them. The
162
UNDER THE GOLDEN DOME
huge mass of spectators stood silent and awe- Dec. 12.
struck, gazing at the two resplendent figures
beneath the golden dome, with thoughts that
were presently to be revealed in a manner for
which no one had looked. And through boom
after boom of the cannon Their Majesties gazed
upon the great throng before them, with simple,
tranquil dignity and, though deeply moved, with
perfect outward calm. One would have said, and
said truly, that they were present as earnest and
devout leaders and partakers in a great religious
celebration. It was indeed the reverential spirit
in which they regarded the ceremony that
brought them into sympathy with the feelings of
the large majority of the spectators about them.^
None who saw them during that long salute
will speedily forget the sight ; and those, I
think, who were privileged to stand near the
Queen will never quite lose the vision of her
noble bearing as, with head slightly thrown back,
she stood out in majestic gentleness against
the radiant grey-blue of the Indian sky.
The tension had become almost unbearable
when the last sound of the salute died away, and
the bugle sang out three quiet notes : " Slope
arms " ; " Order arms." The supreme moment
was over ; and after another preliminary blast
from the trumpeters the Viceroy, by the King-
* A Madras Brahman, a very successful pleader both in British and
Hyderabad courts and in sympathy with the India Congress, turned with
tears in his eyes to an English friend at the close of the Durbar, and said,
" This is what I have always dreamed the procession of a God must be.
If the Bengalis give any more trouble, they will get no support from any
other province in India."
163
THE ROYAL ANNOUNCEMENT
Dec. 12. Emperor's order, stepped forward and read a
proclamation of boons to be conferred in honour
of the occasion. These may be summarised
shortly as increased expenditure on education ;
grant of half a month's pay to all non-com-
missioned officers and soldiers and to minor civil
officials ; concession of additional privileges in the
matter of honours and rewards to native officers,
and release of certain criminals and of poor
persons imprisoned for debt. Then after yet
another preliminary flourish of trumpets the
chief herald stood up to his full height in his
stirrups and, doffing his helmet, called for three
cheers for the King-Emperor, and three more
for the Queen-Empress ; and with this final roar
of sound the ceremony at the pavilion came to
an end. The trumpeters galloped away to a
new station, and Their Majesties descending,
returned hand in hand to the Shamiana to the
worthy music of German's Coronation March, in
like procession as they had advanced from it.
There the trumpeters sounded another fanfare,
and then to the general surprise, for the official
programme gave no hint of such a thing. His
Majesty rose, holding a paper in his hand.
With clear voice and just emphasis he announced
that the capital of India would be transferred
from Calcutta to Delhi, and that a Governorship
would be created for the Presidency of Bengal, a
new Lieutenant-Governorship for Behar, Chota-
Nagpur and Orissa, and a Commissionership, as
before, for Assam, with a general redistribution
164
THE PEOPLE'S HOMAGE
of boundaries. In other words, Lord Curzon's Dec. 12.
partition of Bengal, which had caused so much
agitation, was revised, and a new and different
partition projected. Admirably delivered though
this announcement was, no human voice could
have reached more than a small portion of the
spectators in the stand ; and the news flew from
the centre to both flanks with a buzz as of
passing bees. But the trumpeters now blew
their last fanfare, and galloped out of the arena.
The Master of the Ceremonies received per-
mission to close the Durbar, the massed bands
again played the National Anthem, all present
rising to their feet and singing with the bands ;
and Their Majesties, re-entering their carriage,
drove off amid loud cheers and a last salute of
one hundred and one guns in the same order as
that of their arrival, only taking this time the
road along the western corner of the amphi-
theatre. The Viceroy followed next, and after
him the members of the Imperial suite. And
then, when all seemed to be over, came the most
impressive scene of all. The people rushed
down by thousands from the mound to the
Royal pavilion on which Their Majesties had
sat, and prostrating themselves, pressed their
foreheads against the marble steps. Soon, as
the crush became too great, they were fain to
touch the pavilion with their hands and press
their fingers to their foreheads, content with this,
so only they could pay their homage to the one
supreme ruler of all India. For the East has
165
THE DURBAR CLOSED
Dec. 12. not yet lost the ancient habit of exalting their
Emperor above all human kind, a habit which
the West, with its Divus Julius and Sanctus
Carolus, formerly shared, and perhaps may yet
again share, with them. So strong is the im-
pulse in men to deify the power which keeps
them in discipline and order, and thus brings
to them the divine blessing of peace.
In the evening Their Majesties gave a State
dinner in the banqueting tent to one hundred
and seventy-three guests, no light addition to a
heavy day's work ; but every one was cheerful
and of good heart on that evening after the
brilliant success of the Durbar. It may fairly
be said that everything passed off without the
slightest hitch or mishap. That the preliminary
arrangements might possibly have been some-
what improved, many were disposed to agree ;
but as regards the actual transaction of the
ceremony in every detail from beginning to end
there were not two opinions. The filling and
emptying of the huge amphitheatre was accom-
plished without the slightest difficulty, and the
patience and gentleness of the police, both
British and native, were beyond praise. The
appearance of the troops was faultless ; the
massed bands played their part admirably, alike
in whiling away for the spectators the tedious
hours of waiting, and also in accompanying the
most solemn moments of the ceremony. The
selection of music was, on the whole, good, and
the flourish of trumpets and drums magnificent.
i66
A BRILLIANT SUCCESS
The trumpeters likewise did themselves credit. Dec. 12.
The fanfare composed for them was stately and
stirring ; they played it exceedingly well ; and
their appearance, with its alternation of white
faces and brown, of white helmets and gorgeous
turbans, was well fitted to the spectacle at large.
There were, it is true, critics who objected to
the headlong speed at which they galloped
round the circular road, half of them on the east
side and half on the west, when the time came
for them to change stations. But though there
was certainly high speed, there was no disorder ;
the men kept their distances admirably ; they
had their horses perfectly in hand ; and they
rode particularly well. Further, it must be
acknowledged that their movements filled up
very suitably the short pauses that necessarily
intervened between different stages of the
ceremonial. But by general consent the success
of the Durbar was ascribed, above all, to the
sympathetic bearing and perfect dignity of Their
Majesties.
X
On the morning of the 13th the King-
Emperor was on horseback before eight o'clock,
riding through the camps of the naval contingent
and of the Infantry brigades which had worked
so hard for him on every day of his stay. At
eleven o'clock he presented the Albert medal
167
A GREAT RELIGIOUS SERVICE
Dec. 13. to ten officers and sergeants of the Indian
Ordnance Corps, who had distinguished them-
selves by conspicuous gallantry in saving life
after the explosion of cordite at Hyderabad and
Ferozpur in 1906. He then held a levee of
the officers of the Volunteers, of the Indian
officers of the Imperial Army, and of the Imperial
service troops of the native princes, touching the
swords which they tendered to him according to
the graceful custom of India. He then accepted
addresses from deputations from the Presidency
of Madras and the municipality of Delhi, while
the Queen-Empress received one hundred and
twenty ladies of the families of the Ruling Chiefs.
In the King-Emperor's camp that morning all
functions seemed to be of minor importance after
the Durbar, and yet in those very hours there
was taking place at Delhi the most remarkable
ceremony of all.
It had been arranged that three separate pro-
cessions of Hindus, Jains, Mohammedans and
Sikhs should start early in the morning by three
different routes, and, after offering prayer for the
King-Emperor each in their own congregations,
should proceed, the chiefs to the fort of Delhi
and the remainder to the plain beneath it, where
all should meet and together make their common
supplication to the Most High. The earliest
of these processions started at half-past six in
the morning, and before nine o'clock a vast
crowd was assembled at the fort. I personally
was unable to see more than the Sikhs, and
168
THE PRAYER OF THE SIKHS
among them chiefly the followers of the Maha- Dec. 13.
raja of Patiala. These included wild horsemen,
some clad in orange, with breastplate, matchlock,
lance and shield ; others similarly armed, but
dressed in blue, with ring upon ring of steel
encircling their high caps ; foot-soldiers similarly
attired ; gorgeously caparisoned horses, and two
elephants, upon one of which was seated the
High Priest. Every Sikh soldier of the British
Army who could be spared was present ; and
the aspect of the Maharaja and his suite, all with
yellow garlands about their necks, showed that
this was no common occasion. They had already
visited the shrine in the Chandni Chauk of Guru
Teg Bahadur, who in 1675, when dying in
torment at the hands of Aurangzeb, had flung
at the fanatical Emperor this prophecy — "I
behold coming from across the ocean a race of
men, who will spread peace and justice, and root
out tyranny and oppression." Before this shrine
they had uttered the following thanksgiving :
" By Thy Mercy, O God, his words have proved
true ; for the British Government, which confers
happiness on its subjects, has been established in
India. We Sikhs of the Gurus in the midst
of our happiness and rejoicing to-day specially
render Thee our humble thanks that our beloved
Emperor has come to the City where our holy
Guru, the Bestower of Salvation, uttered this
fateful prophecy, in order to place the crown of
many realms upon his head. O Eternal God,
may this peaceful and just Sovereignty ever
169
THE MOHAMMEDANS' PRAYER
Dec. 13. endure, and may the Emperor George, and his
gracious Consort, Queen Mary, abide in happi-
ness, and may the Empire extend and prosper."
At the shrine Sir Louis Dane, Lieutenant-
Governor of the Panjab, had met them, a
welcome guest, and joined in their wishes for
the welfare of the King- Emperor and of the
Khalsa. Presently these gaily dressed warriors
began to move down from the fort to the plain
below, following the High Priest on the elephant.
There hundreds of the King's Sikh soldiers
joined them and, massing themselves together,
watched at a little distance, while some scores
of yellow turbans swarmed round the High
Priest's elephant, repeating with endless iteration
a plaintive chant ^ to the accompaniment of
drums and tambourines.
Meanwhile the Mohammedans had met in
vast numbers in the Jama Masjid, and since early
morning the most famous preachers of their faith
in Upper India had discoursed to them of the
value and virtue of loyalty. From the Sikhs
Sir Louis Dane passed to this mosque, where,
after listening for some time to the address of a
learned Maulvi from Lucknow, he was begged
by the leading men to say a few words, which
request was confirmed by the entire assembly.
He therefore spoke briefly, thanking them and
joining in their prayers for the prosperity of the
King-Emperor who on the preceding day had
1 Curiously enough this chant was identical with the first six notes of
Sullivan's air " Prithee, pretty maiden " in Patience.
170
THE HINDUS' PRAYER
restored the glories of Delhi by making it again Dec. 13.
the capital of India. That a Christian should
deliver an address, which was itself in the nature
of a sermon, to thirty thousand Mohammedans
in a mosque by their own invitation, is a fact
which sounds almost incredible ; yet so it was ;
and the vast congregation not only heard him
with eager respect, but greeted the conclusion of
the exhortation with fervent shouts of " Amin."
The Hindus likewise were holding their
religious service — an oblation with sacrifice —
under the auspices of the Maharaja of Darbhanga
and the Sanatam Dharm Mahamandal upon the
traditional site by the Jumna where Yudisthira
(as related in the Mahabharata) performed his
oblation and horse-sacrifice when he was crowned
Emperor of all India.
Finally the whole of the processions met
under the walls of the fort, immediately facing
the historic balcony where the Mogul Emperors
were wont to show themselves to the people.
The British Governors and Lieutenant-Governors,
and the Ruling Chiefs thereupon descended from
the fort where they had met together, and took
their appointed places, the British officials in the
centre of all, and the Ruling Chiefs at the head
of the groups formed by the leaders of their
religions. A gun was then fired as a signal from
the Selimgarh bastion, and all present offered up
united thanksgivings for the success of the great
solemnity of the Coronation, and prayers for the
King- Emperor and the Royal Family. The
171
THE PRAYER OF ALL CREEDS
Dec. 13. Imam of the Jama Masjid led the Mohammedan
prayers, two Pandits those of the Hindus ; two
Granthis those of the Sikhs ; and the Archbishop
of Simla read a prayer to the little body of
British officials. To any one who knows aught
of the history of India the spectacle was almost
staggering in its impressiveness. In that country
religious differences are accentuated by the fact
that religious observance governs the minutest
details of daily social life ; yet Christian English-
men— descendants of the men who had fought
savagely to rescue the Holy Sepulchre from the
followers of Islam — Hindus, Jains, Sikhs and
Mohammedans by a common impulse laid aside
all prejudice and crushed down all intolerance in
order to unite in one heartfelt prayer for the
King -Emperor. For the first time they felt
that they were possessed by a sentiment common
to them all, and so paramount as to dominate all
the impulses bred by divergence of creed,
dissimilarity of custom and rivalry of race — the
sentiment of loyalty to one sovereign. That
Sovereign was no longer a mere legend to them.
He had come over the sea many thousand miles
to visit them ; they had seen him with their
eyes ; he was even then near them, and in a few
hours would be in the fort actually moving in
their midst. The white men from overseas
bowed down to him even as they themselves ;
under his rule, as past years had shown, all
might live, if they would, in peace — in peace
after endless centuries of war and devastation.
172
THE PARTY IN DELHI FORT
Therefore were they met together to give God Dec. 13.
thanks.
In the afternoon Their Majesties drove to the
fort and there held a garden-party — a name too
paltry for the reception of many hundreds of
guests in such surroundings as the beautiful
buildings of Shah Jahan's palace and the stately
and peaceful gardens which connect them to-
gether. Even these, however, formed not the
most remarkable feature of the occasion. A
great national festival had been organised by
Sir Louis Dane for this day, and the plain
between the eastern wall of the fort and the
Jumna was thronged by a vast assembly of
half a million people, all waiting to defile past
the King-Emperor. The spectacle was one that
bewildered the oldest inhabitants, whether native
or English, of India. Scattered about in open
spaces were to be seen groups of entertainers ; in
one place a handful of jugglers ; in another a
musical ride of green - clad lancers from some
Indian Prince's contingent; in another a war-dance
of wild warriors with sword and shield ; in a
fourth a group of lightly-clad sowars, leaping to
and from their steeds at full gallop and perform-
ing other feats of horsemanship. But these were
mere islands in a vast sea of brown faces and
many-coloured turbans. To prevent dangerous
crushing, barriers had been erected at intervals
leading on to two broad ways, like racecourses,
which met below Shah Jahan's balcony already
mentioned, and there parted right and left
173
THE NATIONAL FESTIVAL
Dec. 13. parallel to the wall of the fort. Within these
barriers the people had been assembled in parties
according to the several districts from which
they came ; and, as many of them had taken a
distinguishing colour, one could see looking
down upon them fringe after fringe of white,
backed by great blocks of yellow and red and
green and blue in every imaginable shade. At
the outermost edge of each lay a thin line of
khaki topped with the turbans of red and blue
which distinguish the Panjab police.
In due time Their Majesties appeared at the
historic balcony. The King had come to the
garden-party in the undress uniform of a field-
marshal and the Queen in a plain mauve
morning dress ; but they had determined not to
disappoint the expectations of the people, and,
before they showed themselves, they had put on
their robes of purple and ermine, the Imperial
crown and the tiara worn at the Durbar. They
stepped into the balcony without sound of
trumpets to herald their coming, and their
appearance was therefore not recognised by all
of the onlookers simultaneously. The buzz of
voices suddenly died down, giving place for a
few seconds to a low hum ; and then tens of
thousands of arms leapt into the air and the hum
swelled from front to rear and from flank to
flank into one mighty shout of wonder and
acclaim. The balcony, however, being small.
Their Majesties left it and took their seats upon
two thrones on the ramparts where, with their
174
THEIR MAJESTIES AT THE NATIONAL FESTIVAL.
To /ace page 174.
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THE NATIONAL FESTIVAL
pages grouped around them, they remained in Dec. 13.
full view of all for nearly an hour. Presently
the foremost string of khaki police shrivelled up
quietly into a knot, and the first great masses of
colour moved forward to defile past the King-
Emperor. The effect was indescribably beautiful.
The hard blocks of yellow dissolved into a soft
confusion of yellow and white, and streamed away
on one hand with the varied hues of a flight of
canaries. The rigid masses of blue and green
and red melted into a wave of mingled colour, and
flowed away to the other hand as though they had
been floating feathers from a parrot's wing. Com-
pany after company was released in due time by
the patient police to add their volume to the flood,
until for a full mile in length and half a mile in
depth the plain was inundated with one great
sea of colour, which moved and halted, eddied
and swayed, deepened and lightened with ever
new combinations, until the eye turned from it
in sheer bewilderment and amaze. And so the
defile continued with increasing shouts of
acclaim, until at last there arose a kind of wail,
and the one or two hundred thousand who were
still crowded before the thrones stretched out
their hands in appeal. The King and Queen
had risen and were withdrawing themselves
from sight. Their Majesties did not reach the
camp until nearly six o'clock, concluding the
day as usual with a dinner-party to ninety-seven
guests.
On the morning of the 14th Their Majesties
T7S
THE MILITARY REVIEW
Dec. 14. motored to the village of Dahirpur, where the
King-Emperor mounted his charger to review
the troops, which were drawn up in two lines to
receive him under the command of General Sir
O'Moore Creagh. The total strength of the
force was close upon forty-nine thousand men,
of which rather more than sixteen thousand,
including officers of native regiments, were
British, and the remainder Indian officers and
soldiers of the King's army and of the Imperial
Service Corps, After the usual Royal salutes
the troops marched past, the Horse Artillery in
line of batteries, and the cavalry by brigades
in brigade-mass, at the walk ; and the infantry
by brigades in line of quarter-columns. The
infantry being for the most part brigaded as
if for active service, that is to say with one
British to every three Indian battalions, the march
past was not so perfect to the eye as it might
have been had the brigades been composed
of homogeneous units, such as Gurkhas or
Highlanders ; but on the other hand its interest
was enormously increased by the mingling of
the soldiers of both nations, and by the
knowledge that it was in this order that they
would take the field. Perhaps, however, the
most gratifying sight of all was the Imperial
Service troops, which made an astonishingly fine
display. Of the cavalry the Bhopal Lancers
had perhaps rather the best appearance in the
walk past : but it was difficult to choose between
the diiferent contingents, whether in cavalry or
176
TWO PROMISING OFFICERS
infantry. A word must be said, too, in praise of Dec. 14.
the European Volunteers, and in particular of
a composite battalion of infantry, over eight
hundred men strong, which had been raked
together from all quarters, many of the men
paying their own travelling expenses. They
marched past with a steadiness and a swing
which did them much credit.
The Indian chiefs generally led their cavalry
past in person, and by no means always as
amateurs. Few men can handle a brigade of
cavalry or of infantry better than the Maharaja
of Gwalior, who was conspicuous in his uniform
of a British Major-general. The Maharaja of
Bikaner, again, is at home both with his infantry
and his camel-corps. But the leaders that
attracted the most attention were naturally the
young Princes. The Maharaja of Jodhpur, one
of the Queen's pages, rode at the head of his
lancers. As he reached the saluting point his
horse swerved away from the waving plumes of
the King and his staff; and it was pretty to
see how this young soldier, without taking his
eyes for a moment off the King, and without
apparent movement of a muscle, brought the
animal square to the front again and completed
his salute. A still younger officer, the child
Maharaja of Bahawalpur, led his camel-corps
past, himself riding a camel in front of a grave
and trusty trooper. Dressed in full uniform of
khaki with gold-embroidered skirts the little
fellow boldly faced the King-Emperor at the
177 N
IMPERIAL SERVICE TROOPS
Dec. 14. saluting point, threw out a baby's right arm to
its full length, and with perfect correctness and
time in every motion brought down his tiny
sword to the salute. Seventy or eighty years
hence, it may be, he will be conspicuous as the
only survivor of the many gallant gentlemen
who rode past King George on that day.
The Horse Artillery then galloped past by
batteries and the cavalry by regiments, in line ;
and, as is so common in the British Army, the
effect was too often spoiled by excessive speed.
In both batteries one gun was at least a length
in rear of the rest ; and its drivers could be seen
punishing their horses, not because the animals
were sluggish, but because the highest speed of a
slow team is not so rapid as that of a fast team.
All of the British regiments, except the King's
Dragoon Guards, galloped too fast, and con-
sequently were in very ragged order ; and their
example led most of the Indian cavalry astray,
though the Ninth and Tenth Indian Lancers
were an exception. The Imperial Service
Cavalry mostly followed the lead of the British,
though the Patiala Lancers held their horses
well in hand until close upon the saluting point,
when a shrill whistle from a veteran Indian
officer sent them flying past like a whirlwind.
Considering that British Generals first en-
deavoured to check this tendency to headlong
speed one hundred and fifty years ago, it seems
a pity that they should not have succeeded yet.
The parade ended with an advance in review
178
THE INVESTITURE
order, which was exceptionally magnificent and Dec. 14..
impressive ; and altogether the military display
was extremely successful.
In the evening at half-past nine the King
held an investiture in the largest of his reception-
tents. It must, I fear, be remarked that the
decorations of the tent were not worthy of such
an occasion, which indeed demanded something
more magnificent than stripes of light blue and
white in cheap materials. However, nothing
better had been provided ; and the tent, just
as it was, was packed with from three to
four thousand ladies and gentlemen. The first
candidate for investiture was the Queen-Empress
who, dressed in pale blue, made a graceful obei-
sance, knelt before the King, and was invested
with the Order of the Star of India. Her
Majesty then kissed His Majesty's hand, received
his kiss on her cheek, and took her seat on the
throne by his side robed, with the happiest and
most becoming effect, in the light-blue mantle of
the Order. The remaining candidates, of whom
there were a very large number, then came for-
ward one after another, and the ceremony was
about half- completed, when suddenly the fire-
alarm was heard without, and a strong smell
of burning became evident to every one. The
electric light at the same time flickered up and
down, threatening to go out at every moment,
and continued to do so for two or three minutes.
Presently some one cried out " Fire^' and two or
three hundred people rose to their feet. The
179
A DANGEROUS MOMENT
Dec. 14. officials who were taking part in the Investiture
pursued their functions with perfect calmness
and indifference ; the Queen, who has a peculiar
horror of fire, sat motionless and apparently
unconcerned ; and His Majesty continued to
throw ribbons over heads and to pin stars to
breasts as if he had been at St. James's. Never-
theless, the assembly was within a hair's-breadth
of a panic, and might have succumbed to it,
had not some gentleman in the body of the
tent sternly growled out " Sit down," where-
upon the timid reluctantly resumed their seats.
Presently the light became steady ; and confidence
being restored, the ceremony came success-
fully to an end.
The danger, however, had been real and
great. The tent of Lord Crewe's private
secretary, not above one hundred yards away,
had caught fire, and from thence to the recep-
tion-tent there was one continuous spread of
canvas. Happily there was no wind, and the
fire-picquets had immediately cut the ropes of
the adjoining tents, so that the conflagration
spread no farther. Three hundred men were
on duty round the reception-tent with orders to
cut away the sides instantly if anything should
go wrong, but even so a panic must have led to a
great catastrophe ; and this warning is one which
should not be neglected in future. It is not safe
to pack people by the thousand into a single tent
in the midst of a great camp. Mr. Lucas's tent
was burning for about three minutes, and after
FOUNDING OF NEW DELHI
that brief space he was left literally with nothing Dec. 1 5.
except the civil uniform which he wore on his
back. Tin trunks with the whole of their
contents had vanished as if they had been made
of wax, and only the corners of a stout leather
portmanteau had made some little resistance to
the fierce heat and flame. It must be added
that no man could have accepted so trying a
misfortune with more perfect cheerfulness and
good temper that did Mr. Lucas.
On the morning of the 15th at ten o'clock
Their Majesties drove to the avenue of the
Indian Government's camp to lay the first stone
of the new capital city of Delhi. By dint of
working day and night the Public Works
Department had raised a wall seven feet high
upon solid foundations, and over this wall were
hung two huge blocks of dressed stone. The
ceremony was extremely simple, and those that
attended it were necessarily few, since there was
no space for more. A small but very beautiful
tent had been erected hard by, where Their
Majesties upon arrival were received by the
Viceroy and the members of the Executive
Council ; a guard of honour of the Gordon
Highlanders being drawn up in the avenue.
The Viceroy then addressed a short allocution
to the King - Emperor, dwelling upon the
importance and advantages of the change of
capital, and announcing at the close that the
Maharaja of Gwalior had expressed his intention
of presenting a statue of the King-Emperor to
AN ARCHITECT'S OPPORTUNITY
Dec. 15. the new city. His Majesty, having made a
brief reply, advanced to lay the first stone, after
which the Queen came forward and laid the
second stone. The heralds, British and Indian,
then proclaimed the fact with a flourish of
trumpets ; Sir Louis Dane called for three
cheers for Their Majesties ; and the brief cere-
mony was over. The change of capital having
been kept a secret until the afternoon of the
1 2th, there was no possibility of making greater
preparations, and it must be confessed that the
inception of the new Delhi was decidedly
modest. This, however, is no great matter.
What is of more importance is that its progress
should be in accordance with the aspirations
expressed with no uncertain voice by the King.
" It is my desire," said His Majesty, " that the
planning and designing of the public buildings
to be erected should be considered with the
greatest deliberation and care, so that the new
creation may be in every way worthy of this
ancient and beautiful city." Here is an oppor-
tunity indeed for a great architect of original
genius and ideas, not only to give India a capital
worthy of herself, but to obliterate the reproaches
to British architecture which at present stand
unabashed in Calcutta and Bombay.
From the avenue Their Majesties drove to
the polo-ground, where a force of over twenty-
seven hundred Indian Police had been drawn
up for the King-Emperor's inspection. Con-
siderably more than half of them were from
182
INSPECTION OF POLICE
the Panjab, about one -fifth from the United Dec 15.
Provinces, and the remainder small contingents
from all the other provinces of India, all of
whom had been on duty at the Durbar.
Having ridden up and down the line the King
dismounted, and the men filing past received
each a medal from his hand ; after which His
Majesty expressed to the Inspector-General, Sir
E. Lee- French, his satisfaction at the arrange-
ments made and the work done by the police
during the past week. The compliment was
well deserved, for, though on every occasion
when His Majesty drove out at Delhi the way
was lined with troops, the strain upon the police
was very heavy and was admirably met. No
one who had not seen it would credit how
immense were the mass and variety of vehicles,
and the rush of traffic with which they had to
contend, and the patience and good temper with
which they handled the native crowds. Privi-
leged motors by the score were dashing along
the roads at all hours, imperiously demanding
passage ; and the way was always cleared
somehow, without bustle and without bullying.
A word, however, must be added in praise of the
additional police, both mounted and afoot, which
was drawn from the British regiments of cavalry
and infantry. Any one might have thought that
they had passed an apprenticeship in the
Metropolitan Police under Sir Edward Henry,
and I know of no higher praise that could be
given them. As to the work done by British
183
THE MILITARY TOURNAMENT
Dec. 15. officers of the Indian police force, I saw with
my own eyes during the religious processions on
the 13th a young fellow, who could not have
been more than twenty-three, gently manoeuvring
a mass of from two to three thousand Sikhs
into their right places, single-handed, without
putting his horse into a trot, without a harsh
word, without so much as a violent gesture.
In the afternoon Their Majesties drove to the
polo-ground to witness point-to-point races and a
military tournament. The Indian cavalry may
be called the creators of our military tourna-
ments, and their feats of horsemanship, fully
equal to those of many circus-riders, in leaping
on and off a galloping horse, picking up objects
from the ground without quitting a horse's back,
and such like, are too well known to need
description here. But when the whole, or at
any rate the greater part, of a regiment of Sikhs
charges forward together, every man galloping
at the top of his speed to pick up his tent-peg —
this is not an ordinary spectacle. For the rest,
■ the British Seventeenth Lancers, as usual fault-
lessly turned out, performed a musical ride with
great skill. Possibly indeed many of the
spectators did not appreciate that skill, nor
realise how much more difficult it is to make
two equine quadrupeds waltz together than two
human bipeds. Finally, a battery of Horse-
Artillery in line charged a mud-wall three feet
high ; and the whole of the six teams, with their
guns, jumped it simultaneously without mishap
184
THE RULING CHIEFS' FAREWELL
to drivers or horses. When one reflects that the Dec. i6.
sUghtest mismanagement of any one of the
eighteen pairs of horses would have thrown
down a part, if not the whole of the team, this
stands out as a great feat of driving.
The last day was now come, and it began
early for the King-Emperor. At half-past nine
His Majesty received a number of civil and
military officials who had been concerned with
the arrangements for the Durbar, and distributed
among them medals in honour of the occasion.
At a quarter-past eleven the Ruling Chiefs came
to the reception -tent to take leave of His
Majesty, and among the last of them were the
Maharana of Udaipur, Ruling Chief-in-Waiting,
and the chiefs and distinguished Indian soldiers
who are aide-de-camps to the King- Emperor.
These were the Maharaja Sindia of Gwalior, the
Maharaja of Bikaner, the Nawab of Rampur,
Sir Pratap Singh of Jodhpur, and Colonels
Sir Muhammad Aslam Khan and Nawab Sir
Muhammad Abdullah Khan ; though some
of them, as shall be seen, were again in waiting
on the King at Calcutta. This farewell was
a mere formality, as recorded in the dry official
manner for readers of the newspapers, but
a very different matter for those who took
part in it. All felt that a great occasion,
without a parallel in the history of India, was
come and gone ; few could count upon seeing
the King again ; and the great majority knew
that they would look upon his face no more.
185
THE DEPARTURE FROM DELHI
Dec. 1 6. He had received every one of them, not only in
public as their suzerain, but in private as their
friend ; and they had realised the true secret
of His Majesty's coming, namely that he cared
very much for them and for India.
Therefore they parted from him in sorrow.
There v^ere few who were not profoundly
moved, while some could hardly restrain their
tears ; and the King himself was not less troubled
than they. Many harsh criticisms had been
passed in England upon his resolution to visit
India ; but the fervent welcome accorded to him
by all classes from the Ruling Chiefs to the
humblest peasant had proved to him that he had
done well. It is small wonder that he was
grieved at taking leave of such friends.
At noon Their Majesties drove in procession
to the Selimgarh station. The last farewells
were spoken ; the last salutes were fired ; the train
steamed away, and the first great meeting of the
King-Emperor with his subjects of all India was
over. To say that its success exceeded the most
sanguine expectations is to say little. English-
men with the longest experience of the country
stood amazed at the enthusiasm manifested by
the inhabitants assembled at Delhi ; and the
phrase constantly recurred " Such a thing has
never been seen, no nor even dreamed of, in
India before." And what was it that brought
forth these extraordinary results ? It was not
the mere organisation of pageants. Great praise
is due to the Committee of Management for
i86
THE KINGS' INDIAN SUBJECTS
its labours ; but they would be the last to Dec. i6.
claim that all their arrangements had, from a
spectacular point of view, been faultless. Yet
even if all the setting had been perfect, it would
have availed nothing without the precious stone
in its midst. It was the King and not the King's
clothes or the King's surroundings that so pro-
foundly impressed India. The inhabitants, it
must be repeated, believe in no vague abstraction
called a Government ; they believe in the one
ruler whom God has set over them ; and when
he comes among them they fall down and
worship. Nor, if the matter be considered, is
this surprising. In the ordinary routine of life
one man is better than another ; but in the pre-
sence of the King all men are so immeasurably
below him as to be merged together on the
same footing. The King is the King. All others
are his subjects ; as such they are equal ; and
in the King's presence the humblest peasant
feels himself on the same level with the Viceroy.
In the King's absence, indeed, the Viceroy is
above all, but only as the King's vicegerent ;
and it is solely in virtue of the powers deputed
to him by his Sovereign that he may enjoy
respect and command obedience. In the pre-
sence of the King the Viceroy is nothing ; and
no number of guards, salutes and escorts will
make him anything in the eyes of the people.
If he effaces himself and walks humbly before
his Sovereign, he will be honoured ; and the
greater and truer his humility the higher will
187
THE KING'S INDIAN SUBJECTS
Dec. 1 6. be his honour and his influence among those
who are placed under his rule. For he can then
say to any who offer him disrespect, " If I bow
to the ground before the King, you owe the
like homage and obedience to me as his vice-
gerent." If on the other hand any Viceroy
should aspire to take rank with his Sovereign in
that Sovereign's presence and put himself forward
as of equal importance, so much the worse for
him. He would be set down not only as ill-
mannered, but as a foolish man who knows not
that all subjects alike sink into insignificance
before the King. This is the reason why His
Majesty's visit to India filled even the poorest
classes with a mysterious joy — a joy which was
mightily increased when King George showed
himself to be in true sympathy with all his
subjects. The lowest peasant feels that he has
a part in this Sovereign Lord, which no man
can take from him, and his heart is uplifted as
to something given of Heaven.
XI
At the Selimgarh station the King and Queen
took different routes, the first to Nipal, and the
second to Agra. It will be convenient first to
follow the movements of His Majesty. Travel-
ling by special train the King reached Arrah at
ten o'clock on the morning of Sunday the 17th of
December ; where he stopped for two hours and
t z
KING'S JOURNEY TO NIPAL
a half in order to attend Divine Service. Before Dec. 17.
starting again he went to visit the bilHard-room
which was the scene of the famous defence
against the mutineers in 1857.^ Two Indians
who had taken part in the defence were present,
the one a bowed and shrivelled old man over
one hundred years old ; the other younger in
years, having been at the time a boy, who stole
out of the compound and gave information to
the relieving force concerning the beleaguered
garrison. To both of them the King said a few
words, ordering also a present to be given to
them of a certain sum for every year that they
had lived. Returning to the train before one
o'clock the King on arrival at Bankipore
embarked at Digha Ghat and steamed for three
or four miles down the Ganges, the vessel hug-
ging the bank on the side of Patna city, which
was lined with crowds of cheering inhabitants.
Here there was leisure to think of the fatal
errors of the Agent at Calcutta, which led to
the massacre at Patna in 1763, the desperate
fighting of the victims before they finally
succumbed, the escape of the sergeant who bore
a charmed life, and the vengeance taken for the
massacre by Major Adams.
Soon after ten on the morning of the i8th
the train arrived at Bikna Thori, on the borders
of British India and Nipal. Here the Hereditary
' The story of the defence of Arrah has been written once for all by Sir
George Trevelyan, to whose book any readers who do not know it should
turn without delay. I have no intention of spoiling their enjoyment, nor
of marring a noble narrative by attempting to abridge it.
i8q
THE MAHARAJA OF NIPAL
Dec. 17. Prime Minister and actual ruler of Nipal, Sir
Chandra Sham Sher Jang Bahadur Rana, G.C.B.,
was awaiting His Majesty with his three sons,
his military commander-in-chief, the British
Resident, Colonel Manners Smith, V.C., and one
or two more. Having presented the members
of his suite to the Maharaja,^ the King-Emperor,
followed by the rest of the party, motored by a
road, specially cut through the jungle for some
thirteen miles, to a spot where elephants were
awaiting him.
The ground here was flat and undulating,
being in fact the lower slopes of the lower hills
of the Himalayas, the main range of which,
rising to a height of twenty-five thousand feet,
could be seen in all its majesty of unbroken
snow, apparently twenty miles, but really seven
times that distance, away to the northward.
Below this great wall of white the lower hills
loomed gaunt and blue, and below them again
the blue melted into the green of the nearer
thicket and forest. For many months the
Maharaja had been making preparations for the
King's visit, clearing the ground for camps,
cutting roads for miles through the jungle,
and keeping careful watch upon the game. In
all he had six hundred and forty-five elephants
ready for the sport, the need of which number
1 The Duke of Teck, Lord Durham, Lord Stamfordham, Lord Annaly,
Lord C. Fitzmaurice, Sir E. Henry, Sir H. Smith -Dorrien, Sir Derek
Keppel, Sir Colin Keppel, Sir C. Cust, Sir Havelock Charles, Capt. G.
Faussett, Major Wigram, Sir R. Grimston, Col. Watson, Capt. Hogg,
Mr. Jacomb Hood.
190
THE CHASE OF THE TIGER
will be more readily understood when the Dec. 17.
methods of proceeding are explained.
Over night, or in the afternoon bullocks are
tied up in likely places for a tiger, generally at
the edge of thick jungle ; and in the morning
the shikaris (or gamekeepers as we should call
them) go round to see if any of these have been
killed. A tiger does not necessarily kill his
victim because he is in want of food, for he will
often do so from sheer wantonness ; but having
done so he generally, though not always, drags
it a little way into the thick jungle, devours
enough to satisfy himself if he is hungry, or
simply leaves it and lies down not far away to
sleep. In the morning the shikaris come in
with reports of the " kills," upon which about a
hundred and fifty " pad " elephants, that is to say
elephants not intended to carry guns, proceed to
the appointed place. These include many of
the female elephants, with their young ones
roped to them to train them up in the right way.
The whole, having been formed into line a mile
or more from the "kill,' advance through the
jungle, and, as they approach nearer to it, the
flanks of the line move forward from right
and left and meet beyond it, thus forming a ring
of perhaps half a mile in diameter. All of
the elephants in the ring then advance towards
the centre, closing in gradually until they almost
touch each other, by which time the diameter
of the circle is reduced to two or three hundred
yards. At this point the " howdah-elephants,"
191
THE KING IN NIPAL
Dec. 17. which carry guns or privileged spectators, enter
the ring at intervals which leave eight or twelve
pad -elephants between each of them. It is
necessary to keep the guns pretty close together,
otherwise an incautious or erratic shot might
slay his neighbour on the other side of the
circle.
Such a ring was already formed when the
King arrived. A ride of a mile and a half
through the jungle on pad - elephants brought
the whole party to the howdah - elephants,
to which they transferred themselves, His
Majesty being accompanied by the Maharaja,
and took their places in the ring. Four or
five staunch pad - elephants then went inside
the ring, tramping through the grass to move
the tiger ; and here it must be explained
that the grass and reeds are incredibly high,
often rising not merely above the backs of
the elephants but over the very tops of the
howdahs. In such an undergrowth, if the term
may legitimately be employed, a tiger or a
rhinoceros looks like a rabbit among rushes,
visible only in open patches and disappearing
very rapidly. Very soon a tiger dashed out
with a roar, leaped over a nullah (watercourse),
and disappeared, but presently charged back
straight upon the King, who fired and wounded
him badly. Again he disappeared, but a second
tiger came out, rose in the air to leap the nullah,
and fell stone-dead, in sight of every one except
the King, who had killed him with a snap-shot
IQ2
THE KING IN NIPAL
through the neck as if he had been a rabbit. Dec. i8.
The howdah - elephants then advanced, the
wounded tiger was presently found and
despatched by His Majesty ; and a move was
then made in motors to another ring, nineteen
miles away ; the Duke of Teck, Sir Charles
Cust and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien going in a
different direction in search of another tiger.
After luncheon the howdah-elephants entered
the new ring, His Majesty announcing that Lord
Durham and Lord Annaly should have first shot.
The tiger presently charged. Lord Annaly fired
and hit him ; but the animal went on until, as it
was turning back into the long grass, Lord Dur-
ham stopped its progress for ever. The elephants
then formed line to beat for rhinoceros, and
soon a very fine one broke away at great speed,
offering a difficult shot to the King, who fired
without apparent effect, for the huge creature
disappeared into impassable jungle, and was seen
no more. The line continued to advance, and
by chance the King happened upon two more
rhinoceros, killed the first dead with one barrel,
and with his second wounded the other, which
was followed, and in due time despatched by His
Majesty. Yet another was wounded by Lord
Durham and Lord Annaly, and led his pursuers
a long chase, being quite invisible in the tall
grass ; and it was not until many shots had been
fired into the moving reeds that he was at last
killed.
By half- past five the camp, being close at
193 o
THE KING IN NIPAL
Dec. 19. hand, was reached, a most beautiful spot from
which the jungle had been cleared on the bank
of the Rapti river, with a noble view of the
great wall of the Himalayas to northward.
Here the Maharaja had erected a spacious
wooden hut with six rooms, replete with
every comfort, for the King, and tents close by
for the suite, the whole being lit by electric
light. This camp offered a very pleasant con-
trast to that at Delhi which, so far as the suite
was concerned, was incomparably the worst in
every respect that we encountered in India.
The nights were cold, and the dew after sunset
so heavy that it was hopeless to think of reaching
the mess-tent dry-shod without waterproof over-
shoes, which, however, the King's Indian staff
had been careful to provide. In the mornings
there was always thick fog until ten o'clock or
rather later, when it cleared off, giving place to
a very hot sun. Reports of the " kills " during
the preceding night could not therefore come
in until that time, nor could a start be made for
the day's shooting.
On the 19th no news of tiger came in until
half an hour after noon, when His Majesty, the
Duke of Teck, Lord Durham and Lord Annaly
set off at once on pad- elephants, travelling at
good speed, and therefore with considerable
shaking and discomfort, to the spot where the
ring was formed. A tiger was soon found, but
wisely kept himself under cover, charging con-
tinuously from side to side in the long grass,
194
THE KING IN NIPAL
until at last he fell to the King's rifle. After Dec. 20.
luncheon a line was formed to beat home-
ward, but nothing was seen. The remainder of
the suite went out in several different parties,
among whom Sir Charles Cust got a tiger, and
Sir Colin Keppel and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien
each a rhinoceros.
News came in earlier on the 20th, and three
parties started out, two after tiger and one after
rhinoceros. In the first His Majesty was the only-
gun, though several were with him as spectators ;
and the ring being close at hand was reached
before eleven o'clock. In the first ring the King
shot a tigress ; after which a second ring was
formed close by. Here there was another tiger,
but also a cow-rhinoceros and calf, which charged
straight at the ring and broke it at once, for no
elephant will face the charge of a rhinoceros.
The tiger probably slipped out at the same time,
for no more was seen of him. After luncheon
yet another ring was reached in which four
tigers were enclosed ; and here the sight was a
wonderful one. The imprisoned tigers charged
the line of elephants at various points ; and
everywhere the mahouts scared them back by
throwing sticks at them and by frantic shouts,
which the elephants swelled by loud trumpetings
and screams. One succeeded in breaking the
ring, but some elephants were quickly passed
round him and again he was hemmed in ; another
actually made a spring at an elephant, mauling
its trunk with his claws ; but for the most part
195
THE KING IN NIPAL
Dec. 20. the elephants plucked branches of trees, stripped
them of leaves and small twigs, and holding them
horizontally under their trunks, kept brandishing
them to avert any such assault. Ultimately
every one of the four tigers fell to the King's
rifle. A line was then formed to move home-
ward, when a solitary bull rhinoceros suddenly
appeared before His Majesty, and though only
wounded by his first shot, was eventually killed
by him. Five tigers, a rhinoceros and a hog-
deer were the King's bag for the day ; to which
Captain Godfrey Faussett and Sir Colin Keppel
added each one tiger ; Captain Godfrey Faussett
and Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien each a bear ; and
the Duke of Teck a rhinoceros.
By great good fortune this party witnessed a
very singular scene. A tiger, slightly wounded
by Sir Colin Keppel, took refuge in thick grass,
where he came upon a she -bear and cub.
Furious at being disturbed the enraged mother
at once fell upon the tiger, standing up to her
full height and striking at him savagely with
her fore-paws. The tiger, whose temper had
been ruffled by his wound, was in no mood
to endure such aggression tamely ; and the two
settled down to a regular fight with savage
grunting and snarling, until the bear made oil-
in one direction and the tiger in another, both
of them to meet their end by a rifle bullet. But
perhaps the most exciting experience was that
of Major Wigram, whose pad-elephant, while
on the way home, was pursued by a rhinoceros.
196
THE KING IN NIPAL
The elephant of course ran madly away through Dec 21.
the jungle, and the Major was obliged to lie down
at full length on his back, clinging with all his
strength to the pad, with the second mahout on
top of him. After a burst of half a mile the
rhinoceros fortunately abandoned the chase of
Major Wigram, and transferred his attentions to
another pad-elephant, which he hunted for four
miles before at last allowing it to go in peace.
The mahouts, however, had the enjoyment of this
latter pursuit to themselves.
On the 2 1 St the King reached the first ring,
not far from home, before noon, and found in
it four tigers and a Himalyan bear — the last
named a very rare visitor in the low country —
all of which he killed, one tiger and the bear
right and left, each with a single bullet. This
ended his day's sport, for a second ring in the
afternoon proved to be blank. On this day
Captain Faussett and Lord Charles Fitzmaurice
went out in another direction after rhinoceros ;
and the former underwent the uncomfortable
experience which had befallen Major Wigram
on the 20th, his elephant being hunted for some
distance by a fine bull rhinoceros, which he
eventually killed.
On the 22nd Sir Charles Cust and Captain
Faussett accompanied the King with rifles,
several other gentlemen going as spectators.
The first ring, being near home, was reached
before noon, and three tigers were found to be
within it. Two at once dashed out towards the
197
THE KING IN NIPAL
Dec. 23. King, who killed with his first barrel but missed
with his second. The second tiger, however,
again charged towards him and was killed ; and
the third met with the same fate at a single shot.
A line was then formed to beat for rhinoceros,
and after a long time one was reported to be on
the left of the line. All the elephants therefore
started in that direction at once, and in ten
minutes the whole were scattered about the
dense jungle in hopeless confusion. From the
midst of them there suddenly emerged a fine
bull rhinoceros. He received a bullet from
Sir Charles Cust, blundered on past the King
who had an awkward shot at him, but missed,
and finally charged three pad-elephants close to
Captain Faussett, who killed him just as he had
passed them. On this day Lord Durham, Lord
Charles Fitzmaurice, Sir Derek Keppel, Sir
Colin Keppel and Sir Henry McMahon killed
between them seven tigers and a Himalayan
bear, making a total bag of ten tigers, a bear and
a rhinoceros ; a wonderful day's sport.
On the 24th, being Sunday, the King and
suite attended Divine Service, which was
conducted by the Rev. J. Godber, chaplain to
the Bishop of Calcutta. In the evening His
Majesty with the whole of his suite moved to a
new camp at Kasra, a duplicate of the former
camp at Sakhi Bar and about eight miles from it.
Early on the 25th all again attended Divine
Service ; and towards noon the whole party
went with the King to the jungle about three
198
^
THE KING IN NIPAL
miles away, where a ring had been formed. Dec. 25.
With hardly any delay a very fine tiger came
charging through the grass, and was killed stone
dead by the King with a shot through the heart.
He measured 9 feet 6 inches in length. Another
ring had been formed two miles away, but His
Majesty made this over to the Duke of Teck
and Lord Durham, preferring to beat for
rhinoceros. After a time a cow with a well-
grown calf was found, which made off, but
being fired at and missed by the King, turned
back at once and charged at the top of her
speed. A second bullet from His Majesty's rifle
laid her stone dead with a shot through the
chest ; and every effort was then made to
capture the calf by forming a ring about him.
But the gallant little fellow rushed straight at
the circle of elephants, broke through it and
disappeared. The ladies and Colonel Manners
Smith's three little girls came out to luncheon
by the King's invitation ; and when the meal
was over, another line of elephants was formed,
when the King again killed a rhinoceros dead
with a single shot. Meanwhile the Duke of
Teck's party had found four tigers, and had
enjoyed some excitement with them, no fewer
than three of the animals having jumped on to
the elephants' trunks, and one having actually
climbed up within striking distance of the
mahout. They then hid themselves in thick
grass, growling continually, while the mahouts
shouted and the elephants trumpeted all round
199
THE KING IN NIPAL
Dec. them, afraid to come nearer. Ultimately they
26-27. were dislodged by three or four bullets, and the
party returned with three tigers and a rhino-
ceros, making four tigers, three rhinoceros and
a hog-deer (shot by the King) for the day. In
the evening, being Christmas night, the whole
of the suite dined with His Majesty.
The sport of the previous days by this time
had begun to tell on the quantity of game still
afoot. The reports of the morning of the 26th
set forth that though sixty bullocks had been
tethered in the jungle on the previous night, one
only had been killed. The King appointed that
the Duke of Teck, Lord Durham and Lord
Annaly should draw lots for the single tiger, and
the lot fell upon Lord Durham, who duly killed
him. His Majesty himself, with Sir Charles
Cust, Sir Henry McMahon and Lord Charles
Fitzmaurice beat for rhinoceros with a line of
elephants. One only was found, which was
killed by the King ; and the afternoon was
absolutely blank. There was therefore little
surprise, when on the 27th there came news that
not a single bullock had been killed. However
the King started forth at noon on an elephant
to a place where a tiger had been tracked ; and
a ring was formed, but no tiger was within.
After luncheon therefore the party was divided ;
and a line of elephants was formed in which
His Majesty, Sir Henry McMahon and Colonel
Watson carried rifles. Presently the King
noticed the grass moving before him ; a tiger
200
THE KING IN NIPAL
dashed out, and the flank elephants were quickly Dec. 28.
thrown round to form a ring. The tigress,
however, for such she was, was one of those who
would not be pent in. Charging straight at the
ring, she broke through it not far from the
King, who missed her with his first barrel, but
rolled her over stone dead outside the ring with
his second, making the twentieth tiger that he
had shot since his arrival in Nipal.
On the 28th there was again news of a tiger,
and the King started at a little before noon for
his last day's sport. A ring had been formed,
but it was some time before the tiger broke,
crossing straight in front of the King and the
Duke of Teck. Both fired simultaneously, and
the beast fell dead with two bullets in the neck.
After luncheon a move was made by motor to
another ring twelve miles distant, where the
King killed his twenty-first tiger, and fired his
last shot in India. The total bag for the ten
days was thirty-nine tigers, eighteen rhinoceros,
of which the King killed eight, and four bears,
of which the King killed one. An unexpected
addition was made to the tale of the killed by
the motor mail-cart while on its way from the
camp to Biknathori on the night of the 27th,
when it ran over a full-grown panther, smashing
the lamps and the glass shield and apparently
breaking the unlucky animal's back, for he could
only with difficulty struggle again into the
jungle by the help of his fore-paws. Were it not
that the next rains will infallibly wash away all
201
THE DEPARTURE FROM NIPAL
Dec. 28. the roads made by the Maharaja, motorists in
search of new emotions might do worse than
take their vehicles to Nipal.
In the evening His Majesty took leave of the
Maharaja, who had housed him and his suite
with such admirable comfort and provided him
with such excellent sport. On Christmas Eve the
King had pinned on his breast the Grand Cross
of the Victorian Order and a golden Coronation
medal ; but the Maharaja's gifts to His Majesty
were not so easily carried away, for they included
a young elephant, a young rhinoceros, bears,
panthers, snow panthers, a Tibetan jackass (very
wild and very active with his heels), a pair of
Tibetan mastiffs (both rather savage), bara singh
deer, sambhur deer, hog deer, cheetul, jackals,
and others of the same order, mongeese and other
smaller quadrupeds, with peacocks, jungle fowl,
pheasants, partridges, and all manner of lovely
birds, besides beautiful products of native art
in various kinds. But no such remembrances
will be necessary to recall to memory the most
courteous and hospitable of hosts, from whom
His Majesty, and not less the whole of his suite,
parted with deep gratitude and very sincere
regret.
At six o'clock in the evening the Royal
train steamed away to the sound of a salute of
one hundred and one guns, and of cheering from
a great crowd of natives, many of whom ran
alongside the train for so long as they could keep
up with it. At every station where the train
JOURNEY TO BANKIPORE
stopped throughout the night there was a crowd Dec. 29.
of natives shouting in their own tongue " Victory
to the King," and on the following day, the
29th, at every crossing and every station, whether
the train stopped or not, they were assembled
in thousands to greet him with the same cry.
At Muzaffarpur the throng broke through the
barriers and swarmed round both sides of the train,
trying only to touch the feet of His Majesty,
as he stood visible to all on the platform of his
saloon-car with his suite about him. Arriving
at Paleza Ghat on the Ganges in the afternoon,
the King and his party embarked on a steamer,
and went down the river towards the city of Patna,
again hugging the bank of the river for five
miles amid the uproarious enthusiasm of a great
multitude of people. Then landing at Digha
Ghat he entered the train, and twenty minutes
later met the Queen at Bankipore. It is now
time to follow Her Majesty's movements during
the days when the King was in Nipal.
XII
Leaving the Selimgarh station at Delhi with
a suite of eight persons,^ the Queen travelled by
train to Agra, arriving at the cantonment station
at five o'clock. Here Her Majesty was received
' Prince George of Battenberg, Duchess of Devonshire, Lord and Ladv
Shaftesbury, Miss Baring, Maj.-Gen. Sir S. Beatson, Lt.-Col. Bird (Indian,
Medical Service), Major Hill, Major Money, Mr. Fortescue.
203
THE QUEEN AT AGRA
Dec. 1 6. by Mr. Reynolds, Commissioner for the District,
and drove to the Agra Circuit House, which had
been made ready for her, with a camp pitched
about it for the suite. After the rush and turmoil
of Delhi the change to this quiet and beautiful
camp was very pleasant. The ground about the
Circuit House has been laid out as a park ; and
standing by the entrance one could see to the
left, two miles distant across the valley of the
Jumna, the noble red-sandstone fort of Agra, and
to one's right front the swelling dome and slender
minarets of the Taj Mahal gleaming white above
a bank of dark foliage a few hundred yards away.
In spite of the exhausting week at Delhi, a most
busy morning, and four hours of a very dusty
railway journey, the Queen went almost imme-
diately to the Taj to revisit it before the light
should fail. One after another the suite drifted
away in the same direction, to watch the scarlet
of the sunset blazing over the fort of Agra and
on the face of the Jumna, and blushing faintly
on the silent marble of the Taj, till the last light
died away, and dome and minarets again loomed
white against a sky of cold steel blue.
Our new camp, having been formed under the
superintendence of the King's Indian staff, con-
trasted very favourably with our late quarters
at Delhi. The tents were pitched at a proper
distance from each other, they were comfortably
warmed, and they were clean. All other arrange-
ments for messing and so forth were equally good,
and immeasurably superior to the corresponding
204
THE QUEEN AT AGRA
arrangements at Delhi ; while Colonel Banner- Dec. 17
man, the political officer who was in charge of
the Queen's tour, speedily installed himself among
the suite as the most attentive and courteous of
hosts, and a very welcome companion. To all
intent, between journeys and functions, this was
the first quiet night that we had enjoyed since
we left the Medina ; and the Queen, who needed
rest more than any of us, took advantage of it.
The suite, for their part, found very agreeable
guests in the officers of the Royal Irish and
of the Thirteenth Rajputs, which regiments
furnished the guards of the camp.
On the morning of the next day, Sunday the
17th of December, the Queen, attended by her
suite, drove to St. George's Church for Divine
Service, the sermon being preached by Dr.
Westcott, Bishop of Lucknow and son of the late
Bishop of Durham. The church, which was
built by the East India Company in 1828, has,
like all of its kind, no architectural pretensions,
but as usual carries on the walls many sad
memorials of young lives cut short, " Died of
exposure during the Indian Mutiny " is a curt
phrase which sums up a long and dreary account
of human misery, and reminds one that the
casualties of a campaign do not end at the
conclusion of peace. " Fell in action " are words
that stir the heart ; but "Died of cholera," "Died
of fever," leave behind a dull sense of pain, as
we reflect on the frightful toll of British lives
which has been levied during the last century
205
A FAULTLESS ESCORT
Dec. 17. and a half by India. Her Majesty had wished
to go to church as quietly as possible, but the
Thirteenth Hussars, who had escorted the Royal
procession from the station on the previous
day, begged permission to have the honour of
furnishing a full escort. We had remarked the
regiment at Delhi ; but even so we were not
quite prepared for what we saw on that Sunday.
All the officers in the suite agreed that the
escort was the most perfect that they had ever
seen, so admirably were the distances and the
dressing preserved. This may seem to be a
small matter, but such details count for much in
the discipline of a regiment ; for those that are
careful in small matters are unlikely to be care-
less in great. Moreover, it is a real pleasure in
this imperfect world to see anything faultlessly
done.
In the afternoon the Queen, still attended by
her suite, motored to the fort of Agra, where
Mr. Sanderson of the Archaeological Depart-
ment guided her over the huge palaces of Akbar,
Jahangir and Shah Jahan. Excellent work has
been done here in clearing away modern
excrescences and excavating the foundations of
ruined buildings. The palaces are too well
known to need description by me ; but one or
two points respecting the Mohammedan archi-
tects may be noted. First, they thoroughly
realised — what has too often been forgotten in
England — that, if a court is to look beautiful,
the buildings around it must be low ; and hence
206
THE PALACES OF AGRA
their courts wear a peculiar grace of spaciousness. Dec. 17.
Secondly, their construction was often very
slovenly ; Akbar's palace, for instance, having a
very loose core of brick, held together by a great
deal of soft mortar, and very thinly faced with slabs
of red sandstone. The walls of Delhi fort are
another example of this, being simply rubble with
a thin stone face. Thirdly, they delighted in
architectural puzzles. They seldom if ever built
a true arch, so that the structure of arch-shaped
apertures often presents some mystery ; but this
pales beside the problem presented by a ceiling
of flat marble slabs. According to all the rules of
gravity this ought to fall on the floor, being to all
appearance an inverted pavement ; but it does not ;
and although no doubt there are many ways of
performing the trick, it would be interesting to
know how in this instance it is accomplished.
From thence the Queen proceeded a short
distance farther to the tomb of Etmad-ud-
dowlah, a very marvellous example of fretted
marble -work, beautiful in detail but lacking
the imposing simplicity of earlier and ruder
Mohammedan tombs. There was still time
for another visit to the Taj after our return ;
but indeed being so near at hand, we wandered
into its silent garden at all unoccupied hours, the
most constant visitor and admirer of all being
the Queen. In the evening Her Majesty gave
a small dinner-party, in which the Bishop of
Lucknow, the Commissioner and Mrs. Reynolds,
and a few more were included.
207
FATEHPUR SIKRI
Dec. 1 8. On the morning of the i8th the Queen with
her suite started early in motors to the deserted
palace of Akbar at Fatehpur Sikri, some twenty
miles distant. It is easy to understand why it
was deserted, but difficult to comprehend why
even an Oriental despot should have set down
a gigantic palace in so barren and waterless a
region. Mr. Sanderson again acted as guide to
the Queen, to the great good fortune of those
who were lucky enough to be with Her
Majesty ; and the hours passed rapidly as we
wandered through the deserted courts and
chambers or stood in the hall of audience with
its marvellously carved superstructure, where the
greatest of the Mogul Emperors received the
petitions of suitors and meted out justice to high
and low. The buildings are interesting, too, as
including an effort at a feature which the
Mohammedan architects as a rule neglected, a
great flight of steps. What they understood
best was gateways, but steps for some reason
were beyond them. The stairways in the build-
ings of the Mogul period are always bad, so
high, steep and narrow indeed, even in the
zenanas, that one wonders how the little ladies
of the harem can have climbed up them.
Even the different levels of the platforms of
the Taj are connected by stepping-stones and
not by steps. At Fatehpur Sikri, however,
below the magnificent gateway is an attempt at
a flight of steps, which, if executed, as it might
have been, on a great scale and carried down the
208
THE QUEEN AT JAIPUR
side of the height, on which the palace stands, to Dec. 19.
the plain, would have been one of the most
magnificent architectural objects in the world.
On the morning of the 19th, after a last visit
to the Taj, the Queen left Agra by train for
Jaipur, where she arrived in the evening. At
the station she was met by the Maharaja, who
laid his sword at her feet with the chivalrous
courtesy of the East ; and from thence she
drove some two miles to the Residency through a
host of the Maharaja's armed retainers. Very
picturesque was the spectacle that they presented,
in colours of every variety and shade — red,
orange, dark green, pea -green, sage-green.
Here there was a long row of stately mace-
bearers ; hard by a troop of gorgeous spearmen on
Arab horses ; beyond them imposing ranks of
matchlockmen. Here again were companies of
fifty or sixty camels, some carrying wild-looking
warriors with lances, others heavy swivel-guns,
which must have been most dangerous in the field,
yet others a few kettle-drummers of inexhaust-
ible thumping power ; there stood a noble array
of forty elephants with their faces coloured in
fantastic patterns, and gorgeous housings of gold
and silver on their backs ; here an assembly of
half- naked Nagas with gigantic quivering
swords ; there a train of great grey bullocks
harnessed to gorgeous litters, to humbler
carriages or to quaintly painted guns, their sleek
hides often hidden by pea-green housings and
their horns by pea-green cases, but their great
209 p
RECEPTION AT JAIPUR
Dec. 19. soft eyes looking kindly upon the world. And
the drummers drummed, and the pipers piped,
and the horses pranced, and the patient elephants
saluted, and the Nagas leaped, and the spearmen,
flintlockmen and matchlockmen brandished or
presented arms ; and so through a blaze of colour
and every description of gleaming weapon Her
Majesty drove to the Residency. It was a true
Oriental welcome, where a host displays all that
he has as a courtly intimation that it is at the
disposal of his guest. Arrived at the Residency
the Queen was received by the Resident, Colonel
Showers ; and the suite had just time before dark
to learn the ways of a very comfortable camp,
pitched in the garden. The day ended with a
small dinner-party given by Her Majesty.
On the morning of the 20th the Maharaja
had motors waiting at the door ; and the Queen
with her suite drove to the deserted town of
Amber, which lies in a deep cleft of the hills,
seven miles from Jaipur. Here Her Majesty
mounted an elephant and, followed by her suite
likewise on elephants, went up the steep ascent
to the palace built by Raja Man Singh, the
favourite of the Emperor Akbar, in 1592.
Amber has been described by Mr. Kipling, and
therefore needs no description from me. In
bygone ages it was a stronghold of the aboriginal
Meenas who were dispossessed, through highly
questionable methods, by a family of Rajputs at
the end of the tenth century of our era ; and
with the Rajputs it has remained ever since. A
VISIT TO AMBER
huge deserted city set with deserted temples and Dec. 20.
crowned by a deserted palace, none of them of any
great architectural interest, is a sufficiently bleak
and melancholy object, even when repeopled by
such an imagination as Mr. Kipling's. But
there is eloquent testimony to the troubled past
of India in the choice of such a site for a city as
a gap in the barrenest hills of a barren country,
approachable only through narrow and dangerous
dehles and defended by ring within ring of walls
and towers and circular bastions. The fortifica-
tions crumble without, and the houses clustered
upon the steep hillsides crumble within. The
men who dwelt in them must have lived in fear
and trembling. One may still see in the palace
a hall supported by columns which at their core
are of carved sandstone, but have been cased in
stucco. The Emperor Jahangir, hearing that
there were pillars at Amber which vied with
the glories of Agra and Delhi, in high wrath
sent commissioners to overthrow them. The
Raja, however, had been warned ; and when the
commissioners arrived they found nothing more
ambitious than stucco, with which he had
prudently veiled the perilous glory of the sand-
stone. No doubt he was wise in his generation ;
but in so strong a place as Amber one would
have preferred him to defy the Emperor and
stand a siege.
In the evening the Queen gave a second
small dinner-party, at the close of which the
Maharaja's Naga warriors danced a war-dance.
VISIT TO MAYO COLLEGE
Dec. 2 1. The characteristics of all war- dances are the
same — much brandishing of weapons, much
leaping in the air, and remarkably little clothing
— so that it is not worth while to describe this
one at greater length. One is inclined to agree
with Corporal Trim that one push of the
bayonet is worth the whole of it.
On the morning of the next day the Queen
took leave of the Maharaja and started with her
suite for Ajmer, which was reached early in the
afternoon. At the station she was received by
the Resident, Sir Elliot Colvin, and from thence
drove straight to Mayo College, the place of
education favoured by all ruling Princes for their
sons, and therefore called the Eton of India.
After inspecting the college buildings under the
guidance of the Principal, Mr. Waddington, Her
Majesty proceeded to the cricket pavilion, on the
sloping front of which were banked up the whole
of the two hundred students, making the most
beautiful group of colour which we saw in India.
All wore native dress — a cassock of rich material
and delicate colour buttoned from neck to waist,
and with long skirts from the waist to the heel,
and a turban of stronger and more decided tint.
The Queen requested that every one of them
might be presented to her individually ; and
accordingly they filed past her, each bowing
gracefully over his hands pressed palm to
palm before him, and returning to his place.
The Queen then obtained for them an extra
week's holiday, the grant of which they received
THE CITY OF AJMER
in silence, bowing almost to their knees. One Dec. 21,
could not help contrasting their behaviour both
on this occasion and when presented to the
Queen with the awkward self-consciousness of
English boys in parallel circumstances. The
elder students then withdrew, and presently
reappeared mounted on polo-ponies, on which,
while the Queen drank tea with the Principal,
they went through such sports as tent-pegging by
sections, jumping by sections, and a "bending
race." Finally, when the light began to fail
Her Majesty drove to the quarters prepared for
her at the Residency.
This building, beautifully situated on the top
of a steep eminence, overlooks the lake of Ajmer,
along one side of which lies the town with a
stern fortified height rising behind it ; while on
the other is a narrow stretch of plain bounded
by a wall of rugged rocky hills. The situation
and surroundings of the town suggest a home of
romance, and such a home Ajmer undoubtedly
was. The foundation of the citadel by the
royal race of Chauhan Rajputs is lost in extreme
antiquity, but it seems certain that as early as
A.D. 712 these Princes were the most determined
opponents of Mohammedan invasion. Three
hundred years later the mighty Mahmoud of
Ghazni fell back, foiled and wounded from before
Ajmer; and it was not until 1556 that it was
finally occupied by Akbar, upon whom, as also
upon both of his two immediate successors, it
exerted an irresistible fascination. Here it was
AJMER ILLUMINATED
Dec. 2 1. that Jahangir received Sir Thomas Roe, the
ambassador of King James the First of Britain,
in 1 615, and here it was that the same Emperor
and his son Shah Jahan spent their happiest days
with their adored wives Nur Mahal and Mumtaz
Mahal. Possibly it was the place last recalled
to memory by the dying Shah Jahan, as he
looked with dim eyes from his palace at Agra to
the Taj, and knew that the time was come at
last for him to rejoin his beloved under the
white dome where they still sleep side by side
in peace.
The hill on which the Residency stands is so
steep that only a few tents could be pitched near
the house ; and the main most comfortable camp
was situated on the plain at its foot. The Queen
gave a small dinner-party in the evening ; and
after dinner every one sought the terrace of the
Residency to see the illuminations of the lake,
the fort and the city. The art of illumination is
nowhere so perfectly understood as in India,
where it is not confined to hard straight lines of
glaring electric light on public buildings, but
follows the beautiful curves of lake and hill,
fortress and bastion, in myriads of tiny flames fed
by oil only. The cost is trifling, for little
earthenware bowls, wicks and oil are all alike
cheap ; and hundreds of natives can be found,
for the reward of a few pence, to arrange them
by natural instinct in perfect order.
On the morning of the 22nd the Queen with
her suite drove in motors through a pass in the
214
THE QUEEN AT PUSHKAR
ring of hills to Pushkar, a village about nine miles Dec 22.
distant, where there is a tank which is of peculiar
sanctity to the Hindus and therefore the resort
of many pilgrims. Part of the road was ex-
tremely steep, and the country, as commonly in
Rajputana, is miserably barren and inhospit-
able ; but as usual on every progress of the
Queen during this tour, the people swarmed up
from no one knew whence to see her go by.
Pushkar itself, a picturesque village of a single
long narrow street, was alive with spectators, the
women being clustered like flies on the roofs,
where their deep red clothing made a delight-
ful mass of rich colour. The tank itself is
about five hundred yards in diameter, and
surrounded on all sides by the houses of Rajput
and Maratha chiefs, with steps down to the
water. At the end of the village is a temple, to
which the Queen ascended by many steps to
wild music of pipe and tabor, and left, after the
precedent of all distinguished visitors before her,
a present of fifteen hundred rupees. As usual
on such occasions the ministers of the temple
were ready with garlands which they hung
round the necks of all their visitors. At a i^iat
(landing-stage) hard by the inhabitants presented
the Queen with an address, and there was more
hanging of garlands. In curious contrast to the
festal appearance of the village, fakirs, smeared
with ashes, sat here and there about the shrines,
with limbs hideously deformed and atrophied by
sitting for months and even years in the same
215
MOSQUE AND TEMPLE
Dec. 22. natural or distorted posture. One of them, who
sat motionless but for the twitching of his fingers
as he told his beads, had a singularly beautiful
face, and would have seemed from his closed
eyes and grey-stained features to be dead indeed
to the world, had not close observation revealed
that, when not conscious of being watched, he
opened his eyes and took a lively interest in
things mundane.
In the afternoon Her Majesty, with her suite
in attendance, again drove out ; and the Cadet
Corps of Mayo College asked and obtained
permission to furnish her escort. A very fine
appearance they made in the white tunics and
sky-blue turbans of the Noble Guard ; and if
there was more cantering and less trotting than
an orthodox riding-master might have approved,
the Queen at any rate found no fault with the
characteristic eagerness of young men mounted
on young horses. The objects of Her Majesty's
visit were a Mohammedan mosque and a Hindu
temple of peculiar holiness, named respectively
the Dargah and Adhai-din-ka-Jhoara, the former
of little architectural interest, but the latter
possessing a fine Hindu screen and hall of pillars.
As usual the adornment was in detail most
beautiful, but the general effect, to an eye trained
in the Hellenic school, was marred by the
impression of excessive decoration. It is im-
possible, however, to visit any Hindu or
Mohammedan building of any architectural
pretension without lamenting that our Roman
216
THE JOURNEY TO BUNDI
and Gothic scripts fall so far behind the Arabic Dec. 23.
and Persian, or indeed almost any Oriental
character, in grace and variety. Bands and
panels filled with texts possess in the East a
decorative value such as we cannot approach in
the West.
On the morning of the 23rd the Queen and
her suite left Ajmer on a journey of about one
hundred miles by motor to Bundi. Her Majesty
stopped on the way to visit the sites of projected
memorials to King Edward VH. and Sir Curzon
Wyllie, and to receive the valedictory salutations
of the students of Mayo College, who were drawn
up at the entrance to the grounds. She also
caused speed to be reduced when passing by the
orphan school of the Scotch mission at Nasirabad,
so that the children might see her. A drearier
country it would be difficult to traverse — mile
upon mile of stony desert dotted with thorns, or
from time to time varied by a patch of uncomely
and unprofitable jungle. Here and there only
was a patch of cultivation. The sole excitement
was the overhauling of motors which had broken
down, and the only amusement the multitude of
conflicting opinions as to the best method of re-
storing their suspended animation. After three
hours we reached an oasis — Deoli — where Her
Majesty was received at the Agency by the
Agent, Major Peacock, and a halt was made
for luncheon. The Deoli Regiment has its
quarters here, and Colonel Waller and his officers
had most kindly arranged for shooting a large
21 7
A TANK IN RAJPUTANA
Dec. 23. tank^ or mere, about eleven miles farther on the
road, in case any of the Queen's suite should care
for the sport. Two of them were very ready for
it, and were well rewarded. The evening was
delightfully warm and nearly cloudless, and the
sun went down slowly and reluctantly in a blaze
of scarlet and orange, which was reflected on the
still surface of the mere — a sheet of water perhaps
three miles in circumference, dotted with tiny
islands, overhung in places with low-roofed
temples, and fringed with a margin of green,
doubly refreshing to the eye after some days of
travel through the desert of Rajputana. And in
the air was every description of water-bird,
cranes and storks and coots and endless varieties
of duck. When they came within range, they
taxed one's best skill to bring them down, and,
when they did not, it was an equal pleasure to
watch them and the beautiful scene around.
After about two hours, darkness drove us
reluctantly back to our motors, with a bag of
close upon one hundred and fifty duck, widgeon
and teal to five guns ; and we were fain to take
leave of our most hospitable hosts and resume
our journey.
The Maharao Raja of Bundi, true to the
^ It is curious that the word tank should be invariably used in India
where in England we should employ the words, pond, mere or even lake.
Derived through the French estang, itang from the Latin stagnum, the
word tank (or, in its earlier form, stank) is known to me best through old
deeds, where it generally signifies the reservoir of water for turning a water-
mill. On the other hand, the word creek universally used in America and
the Australasian Colonies to signify a stream or river, is never heard in
India, and rarely, if ever, in this sense in England.
218
BUNDI BY NIGHT
courtesy of his race, had meanwhile come forward Dec. 23.
to the marches of his territory to escort Her
Majesty to her camp. We belated ones of
the shooting-party, however, had the rare
experience of traversing the city of Bundi after
dark. We entered a narrow defile between high
rocky hills, and plunged into a labyrinth of
narrow, tortuous streets, through which it seemed
hopeless to attempt to make one's way. Again
and again, not knowing the road, we found our-
selves in what appeared to be a blind alley, from
which sometimes, though not always, a narrow
lane turning at the sharpest of angles led us into
a fresh puzzle of the same kind. But these
delays were welcome, for the sight was extra-
ordinary. The whole city was lit up in honour
of the occasion, and was swarming with people,
whose brilliant sashes and turbans of orange and
yellow and red, passing continuously from deep
shadow into glaring light, against the background
of their white robes, presented marvellous effects
of colour. At length we passed through the
city and reached our tents, which were arranged
in three sides of a square on a carefully prepared
lawn of grass, making the prettiest and most
comfortable camp that we encountered in the
whole of the tour. Even Her Majesty was for
once lodged in a tent, and was well content to be
so in such a camp.
On the morning of the 24th the Maharao
Raja came with carriages to escort the Queen to
his palace, and Her Majesty accordingly drove
219
THE PALACE OF BUNDI
Dec. 24. off with him followed by her suite. The
palace, a huge white building, stands on the
side of a very steep hill within a fortified
enceinte, with two outer lines of fortification
above, and the town crouching below it. The
entrance is reached by a very steep paved ramp,
from three to four hundred yards long, at the
head of which one turns at right angles in to the
gateway. The scene here was one which an
artist might have despaired of setting on canvas.
The Maharao Raja had provided palanquins to
carry the whole party up the ascent ; and the
bearers, some in scarlet robes and yellow turbans,
mingled with guards in rich dark green or in
yellow, were scattered about at the foot of the
ramp ; the gorgeous silver palanquin, which was
to be occupied by the Queen, blazing like fire in
the midst of them. Hard by stood the leading
nobles of Bundi, a group of some twenty or
thirty splendid figures with beards brushed
fiercely away from the face, but all, whether
the beards were grey or white, bearing the
unmistakable mark of high lineage and ancient
race. The Maharao Raja was dressed in a black
gown with an orange turban, and a broad orange
shawl of different shade round the waist. Most
of the nobles wore the same colours over a white
linen gown with bell-shaped skirts ; but a few
added new and different touches of colour. One
was in sky blue with three shades of yellow —
from sulphur to orange — in turban and shawl ;
another had a gown of deep chocolate brown,
'I HK MAHARAO. THE Q^UEEN-EMPR tSS.
IN THE PALACE OF BUNDI.
To face page 220.
THE PALACE OF BUNDI
relieved by brilliant green round head and waist ; Dec. 24.
and a third, whose hair was white, wore dove-
colour and crimson. All looked well ; it seems
to be impossible for them to err in the choice
and blending of colours. Then the palanquin-
bearers took up their burdens, and the whole
party — royal, noble and simple — streamed in
irregular procession up the ramp under the lofty
weather-worn white walls of the inner enceinte,
with the sun blazing down upon them — a sight
such as a man does not see twice in a lifetime.
Over the gateway, as usual, pipers and drum-
mers made strenuous music as Her Majesty
entered ; and within the courtyard we came
upon the lower walls of the main building,
towering up to a gigantic height and looking
all the higher for being somewhat narrow.
The palace, which was built in 1644, shows
no great variation from the usual Hindu archi-
tecture of the period, though to me, personally,
it was more pleasing than most, being chaste and
subdued in decoration. A detailed description
would be tedious, and it can only be said that
under the guidance of the Maharao Raja, Her
Majesty and her suite roamed with perfect
contentment over the palace for an hour and a
half. Above all, they admired the armoury, a
beautiful little hall, supported by columns which
(a rare thing in India) were ornamented on the
capital only and were perfectly plain in the shaft,
so that for once they looked stout enough to carry
the roof. From the very summit the view of city
THE VALHALLA OF BUNDI
Dec. 24. and lake below was magnificent, while in the
foreground the grace of the cupolas and of the
inner courts of the ladies' apartments was delight-
ful. Altogether I think that of all the sights
seen in the Queen's tour in Rajputana, the palace
of Bundi was the most enjoyable, and in some
respects the most interesting.
From the palace the Maharao escorted the
Queen to a very beautiful garden, which is the
place of cremation of the dead of the reigning
family, and contains domed pavilions which are
the cenotaphs erected to their memory. Simple
and unpretentious, yet lacking neither richness
nor dignity in due measure, this Valhalla has a
pathos and a charm that is all its own. The
garden has no ostentatious gloom of cypresses,
but cheerful spreading trees and broad spaces of
sunlight and shade in which the domes stand
white and silent, telling that this is a resting-
place of the dead, indeed, but of the happy
dead.
A visit to the Maharao Raja's hunting-box
through three miles of jungle brought the
morning and a too short visit to Bundi to a
close. After luncheon His Highness came to
take his leave of the Queen ; and Her Majesty,
followed by the suite, started by motor for
Kotah, under thirty miles away. Here again
the Maharao of Kotah came forth to escort Her
Majesty when she entered his borders, with
artillery to fire a salute, musicians, elephants
and a host of armed retainers. Very welcome
CHRISTMAS AT KOTAH
was the sight of the Chambal, flowing broad Dec. z\
and deep, for we had wandered for days through
arid country over endless dry watercourses, but
without a ghmpse of a running stream. Here,
too, memory called up a thought of the remnants
of Monson's army of 1804, weary, dispirited and
demoralised, dragging themselves painfully away
from the city where the Raja dared not ofl^er
them asylum. Her Majesty proceeded to the
Agency, where she was received by the Political
Agent, Colonel Berkeley, while the rest of us
found quarters in a camp, as usual most comfort-
able, in the grounds. In the evening Her
Majesty, her suite, and the few Europeans at
Kotah attended Divine Service in a tent.
Christmas Day opened with Divine Service
in the same tent ; and in the afternoon the
Maharao provided two launches for a trip up the
Chambal, himself accompanying Her Majesty
in one, and leaving three rifles with the men of
the party, as he had arranged to beat the jungles
on the banks. Her Majesty returned in time
for tea, having seen four bears making away ;
and the second launch was following hers when
the villagers shouted that they could see a
leopard. The banks of the Chambal rise in
sheer cliffs of sandstone to a height of about
forty feet above the water ; and on a ledge just
below the summit we caught sight of the
leopard from the launch, while he at the same
moment caught sight of us and crouched down.
It was curious to watch him. The animal was
223
A VIGILANT HOST
Dec. 26. halting between two opinions, having one eye
upon us, and the other upon a bullock fifty yards
away, which had been tied up for his delectation
and towards which he was making his way.
For half an hour he remained motionless, until
some beaters crossed the river from the other
bank and moved him, when he bounded quietly
along a ledge of the cliff like a cat on a garden
wall. A lively fusillade greeted him from the
launch, and he fell down the face of the cliff
as if dead, but recovered himself and continued
his flight along a lower ledge, where he crept
into a deep cleft and disappeared, no doubt to die.
On this evening, being Christmas night. Her
Majesty asked the whole of her suite to dine
with her, even as the King at the same moment
was entertaining the whole of his suite in Nipal.
As the party broke up, we came upon the
Maharao on his way to inspect the sentries and
turn out the guard of the Kotah Regiment
at the Agency, a duty which His Highness
fulfilled punctually on every night of the Queen's
stay.
On the morning of the 26th the Queen drove
with her suite to the Maharao's palace, the
Maharao in person commanding the escort of
Her Majesty's carriage, and afterwards conducting
her over the building. Perhaps the most
remarkable thing to be seen in it was the
collection of arms and armour, which included
some wonderfully beautiful specimens of native
workmanship. Indeed it may be questioned
224
THE PALACE OF KOTAH
whether Indian art ever exhibits itself to greater Dec. 26.
advantage than in the decoration of weapons,
whether it be applied to the handle of a sword
or to the barrel of a matchlock. After luncheon
the Queen and her party, under the Maharao's
guidance, went to the tank of Abhera, at a short
distance from the city, where a dozen alligators,
one of them very large, came swimming up
from a distance at the call of the keeper to be
fed. Great efforts were made to induce them to
put their heads on the landing steps in search of
food, in order that their portraits might be taken
by photograph, but they were too shy to make
the venture. An endeavour to hold them in the
necessary position by a rude wooden hook was
equally unsuccessful. They swallowed the bait
greedily, but speedily disgorged it on feeling the
strain of the line. They therefore forfeited
such chances of immortality as the camera can
confer.
In the evening the Queen gave a small
dinner-party ; and at night the city, the banks
and the islands of the Chambal were illuminated
with very beautiful effect. The Indians have a
real genius for seizing the finest lines of a
contour for illumination, and for making the
most of the effect by breaking those lines at
intervals with little structures of bamboo which,
at a short distance, present the appearance of tiny
towers of flame. While the Queen was still
watching and admiring, there arose a sound of
much trumpeting on the other side of the house ;
225 Q
TIGER-HUNT AT KOTAH
Dec. 27. and there were seen six or eight elephants and as
many horses, gorgeously caparisoned, while the
verandah was literally covered with the most
costly and beautiful of Indian and Persian fabrics,
mingled with a few caskets of priceless jewels.
This was the ceremony of the Pesh Kash^
signifying that the Maharao laid all of his most
precious possessions at the feet of Queen Mary
for her acceptance. Her Majesty accordingly
inspected the costly gift, and then, as is
customary, remitted it, fully appreciating that
this compliment is the highest and most sincere
that an Indian Prince can tender to his suzerain.
On the 27th the Maharao, being very anxious
to show the Queen a wild tiger in the jungle,
arranged to beat the Bundi jungle some eight
miles from Kotah, and conveyed Her Majesty
and the suite thither in motors, providing rifles
for such of the gentlemen as had not brought
them from England. Arrived at the jungle Her
Majesty with her ladies and Lord Shaftesbury
were stationed on a broad platform constructed
at some height up a tree. Other guns were
likewise installed in trees to right and left ; and
it was I think the inward wish of every one that
the tiger might pass close to the Queen and fall,
if not to Lord Shaftesbury's rifle, then to that of
Prince George of Battenberg, who was as keen
as only a midshipman ashore can be. The
beaters, quite half of them native soldiers in
khaki uniform, then started to drive the jungle
towards the guns with wild shouts and screams,
226
FELINE PERVERSITY
mingled with terrific aspersions upon the tiger's Dec. 27.
ancestry and upon the virtue of his female relations.
All the most nervous inhabitants of the jungle at
once hurried forward, a crowd of pea-hens the
foremost, then the young cocks and finally the
old cocks, the most cunning of which lay fast just
in sight of the guns, watching for an opportunity
to fly back. Last of all came the tiger, slowly
slinking forward ; but such is the perversity of
the feline nature that instead of passing near the
Queen, he made straight for the two guns next
to the right of Her Majesty, who happened to
be the one a man of letters and the other a man
of drugs. The former had drawn by lot the
right of first shot, but so intensely interested was
he in watching the creature's movements that
he quite forgot the rifle in his hand, and
waiting far too long, he let slip his chance of an
easy shot, and only sent an erratic bullet
crashing through the bushes when it was too
late.
However, it was thought that the tiger
would not have gone far, and the Maharao
determined to drive the jungle back in the hope
of recovering him. The new beat therefore
began, and with diabolic persistence everything
again made for the same two guns — first a
sambhur, then a pig, both of which were
allowed to go by, and lastly the tiger, this
time galloping fast. Happily he came in full
view of the Queen, but unfortunately not of
Lord Shaftesbury, who had more ground to
227
A BEAR SLAIN
Dec. 27. command than one gun could watch ; and hence
it was that for the second time he passed nearest
to the two erudite guns on the right flank.
This time it was the man of drugs who fired.
Tiger-shooting was no novelty to him ; but the
shot was a difficult one, and the animal galloped
off unhurt. The Maharao, however, tried yet
another beat over the same ground ; and the
beaters, being now reinforced by drums, bugles
and abundance of blank cartridge, raised din
enough to make any self-respecting animal seek
new lodgings at once in a quieter neighbourhood.
Nothing, however, came forward but a black
bear, which was killed by Lord Shaftesbury.
Her Majesty therefore had at least the satisfac-
tion of seeing the picturesque assembly of men
and elephants which gathers together on such
occasions for the removal of the corpse ; and so
ended a very amusing day, unfortunately the last
of Her Majesty's tour.
The morning of the 28th was taken up in
preparations for departure ; and with keen regret
we had to take leave not only of the generous
host who had done so much for the amusement
and pleasure of Her Majesty and her suite, but
of Colonel Bannerman, who was in charge of all
the arrangements for the tour. At noon the
Queen entered the Royal train ; the Maharao,
with the princely courtesy which had marked
his every action, attending Her Majesty to the
last minute ; and our rambles about Rajputana
had come to an end. Everything concerning it
228
FAREWELL TO RAJPUTANA
had been easy and pleasant from beginning to Dec. 28.
close. The evenings and nights had grown
steadily warmer at every change of station,
while the days were so gloriously fine and cloud-
less as to make us very sympathetic with sun-
worship. The air of Rajputana is incredibly
bracing ; it is, in fact, rather too like champagne,
for it sometimes causes headache in the morning.
The people are both friendly and courteous, while
their tall figures and the daring colours which
they wear make them a perpetual delight to the
eye. At every progress of the Queen they came
in swarms to greet her ; even on the railway there
were crowds at every station, whether it were a
stopping-place or not, and not a man allowed
the Royal train to pass without a salute. As
to the Rajput nobles and their chiefs. Her
Majesty's hosts, they were delighted beyond
measure at the opportunity of displaying their
loyalty and devotion to the King-Emperor and
the Queen-Empress ; and that with no fulsome
ostentation of self-abasement, but with the
chivalry that comes naturally to a proud and
ancient race.
Arriving at five o'clock at Guna the Queen
found the Thirty-eighth Central India Horse
drawn up by the station to receive her, and
alighted to see them pass in review before her,
and to drink tea with the officers. The two
regiments of Central India Horse were formed
in 1859 and i860 to suppress the brigandage to
which the defeated mutineers had resorted after
229
THEIR MAJESTIES REUNITED
Dec. 29. the British victories at Delhi and Lucknow.
They are not what is called parade -regiments,
and I have seen many that marched past better
than the Thirty-eighth ; but a finer body of men
it would be hard to find, and their appearance
showed them to be what they actually are,
ready for work in the field at the shortest notice.
After the review Her Majesty resumed her
journey, always through great crowds of people,
and rejoining the King on the evening of the
29th at Bankipore, travelled from thence to
Calcutta in company with His Majesty.
XIII
Calcutta was reached at noon of the 30th.
Their Majesties were received at the station by
the Governor-General and Lady Hardinge ; and
after the presentation of the officials of the railway
and the inspection of the guard of honour, they
embarked on the steamship Howrah to cross the
river Hugli. At the moment of embarkation a
salute of one hundred and one guns was fired by
H.M.S. Highflyer^ whose men lined decks and
gave three cheers for Their Majesties as they
passed. All the ships in the river were dressed
with bunting, and the bridge of boats was packed
from end to end with a dense crowd of spectators.
Upon landing at Prinsep's Ghat a procession was
formed to an amphitheatre containing some two
thousand spectators, where a dais and thrones
230
ENTRY INTO CALCUTTA
had been erected under a canopy. Here Their Dec. 3<
Majesties took their seats ; and the Lieutenant-
Governor then presented first the members of his
Executive Council, next the Indian Princes of
Bengal, and lastly, in groups, the members of the
principal municipal and administrative bodies.
This done, an address of welcome was read from
the Corporation, to which the King read a
cordial reply ; and Their Majesties then entered
a carriage drawn by six horses for their State
entry into the city ; the escort being composed
of the Viceroy's bodyguard, two regiments of
regular cavalry, a battery of Horse Artillery
and a body of Volunteer Light Horse.
The greater part of the route was lined with
stands, and for some distance it ran alongside the
Maidan, which is the Hyde Park, on a greater
scale, of Calcutta. The crowd of spectators was
enormous. For days the country people around
had been pouring into the city. There was
ample space for them to stand in the Maidan,
and they were ranked to an amazing depth in
this open space, where, the ground being a dead
flat, it is to be feared that tens of thousands
could see nothing. Whole lengths of plaster
balustrade were thrown down by the press, but
there was no disorder ; and, whether they could
see or not, all the people were enthusiastic to a
degree which astonished every English resident.
The Bengali is a man who rarely smiles, unless
at jests which perhaps he would do better to
receive with gravity ; but he proved by grave
231
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CALCUTTA
Dec. 30. salutations and loud acclaim that he shared the
deep feeling of reverence, manifested alike at
Delhi and on the journey in Nipal, for the person
of the King-Emperor.
On arrival at Government House the King
and Queen were received by the Viceroy and Lady
Hardinge ; a great number of other officials, civil
and military, being also in attendance, some
of whom were presented to Their Majesties.
Government House was, pardonably enough, too
small to hold Their Majesties, Lord Hardinge's
guests and the whole of the King's suite ; so a
great many of us found ourselves again under
canvas, very comfortably lodged in the garden
within a stone's throw of the house. The only
drawback was that we were within a stone's
throw also of the public street and of some very
noisy trams ; but that was in the circumstances
inevitable, being due entirely to the persons, long
since forgotten, who blundered in the planning
of Government House grounds a century ago.
It is satisfactory to think — or at any rate to
hope — that the Governor-General will be more
worthily housed in the new capital than he is
at present in Calcutta. In the afternoon Their
Majesties, attended by the Viceroy and Lady
Hardinge, visited the Zoological Gardens, which
it may be remarked are exceedingly good and
attractive in Calcutta ; and so the first day in the
capital came to an end.
On Sunday the 31st the King and Queen
attended Divine Service in the cathedral, where
232
REVIEW AT CALCUTTA
the Bishop of Calcutta preached the sermon, and Jan. 1-2.
in the afternoon the Queen visited the Botanical
Gardens under the guidance of Major Gage, the
superintendent. Monday, the i st of January 1 9 1 2,
was also comparatively a quiet day, the only func-
tions being Their Majesties' visit to the polo-
ground in the afternoon to witness a match be-
tween the Thirteenth Hussars and the Scouts,
and a State dinner to nearly one hundred guests
at Government House. The festival of the
Mohurram being in progress, the streets were
densely crowded. On Tuesday the 2nd there was
the usual " Proclamation Parade " to commem-
orate the assumption of the title of Empress of
India by Queen Victoria, which took place in
the presence of Their Majesties ; but this,
being an affair of fewer than ten thousand men,
seemed small after the fifty thousand at Delhi.
Curiously enough, however, the excellences and
defects of Delhi were exactly reproduced. The
Volunteers, both cavalry and infantry, made a
very creditable display ; but the gallop past of
the regular cavalry and horse artillery was too
headlong, with the usual result that there was a
lagging gun in the battery and great appearance
of raggedness among the cavalry. The Six-
teenth Lancers, a Hindu regiment, was per-
haps that which acquitted itself best. In the
afternoon the King and Queen were present at
a garden party, to which the Viceroy had in-
vited some two thousand guests ; and in the
evening His Majesty held a levee at Govern-
233
THE TORCHLIGHT TATTOO
Jan. 3. ment House, at which there was a very large
attendance.
On the 3rd the King drove to the polo-ground
to witness the final match of the Calcutta
Coronation Polo Tournament between the Tenth
Hussars and the Scouts, and at the conclusion
handed the cup, which was his gift, to the Scouts
who were the winning team. In the afternoon
Their Majesties drove to the Calcutta Races, the
fourth race being for a cup presented by the
King- Emperor, which was won by Mr. J. C.
Galstaun's horse. Brogue, and placed in the
owner's hands by His Majesty. In the evening
after dinner Their Majesties witnessed a torch-
light tattoo in the Maidan from a pavilion erected
near the southern entrance to Government House.
First, the Sixteenth Cavalry executed a
musical ride, carrying torches at the end of their
lances, and ended a very good performance by a
wild charge down to the Royal pavilion, where
they halted sharply, saluted and retired. Next
men of the Black Watch danced a sword-dance,
and men of the Twenty-seventh Punjabis some
description of war-dance round a huge fire.
The infantry, about two thousand strong, then
advanced, all dressed in white, and after a number
of intricate manoeuvres, both at the quick step
and at the double, formed battalion before the
Royal pavilion, and saluted. Their movements
were executed principally in single file, which is
the right formation for a tattoo, so that they
covered the plain with winding fiery lines ;
234
THE TORCHLIGHT TATTOO
while the illumination of the trees, as usual in Jan. 3.
admirable taste, made a fine background of
fixed beacons. Altogether this tattoo was ex-
tremely well managed and a very beautiful sight.
Even the fireworks, with which the display
ended, could not outshine it. But perhaps the
most remarkable spectacle of all was the crowd.
Natives of India love nothing better than
illuminations and fireworks, and they were
present literally in hundreds of thousands. A
great length of stands had been erected along the
Maidan for spectators who had paid sufficient sums
for a seat ; but the greater part of the space, so
far as I could see, was silently appropriated by
the populace before the ticket- holders arrived.
The roads of approach were more hopelessly
blocked than any that I have ever seen even
in London on the greatest occasions ; and the
police — perhaps they could hardly be blamed
— completely lost control of the traffic, at any
rate for some time. Yet the crowd was most
orderly, civil and good-tempered, and there was
no trouble of any kind, though many carriages
were unable to come near the ground at all, and
many that did reach it can hardly have been
released before dawn.
On the morning of the 4th the King-Emperor
drove in a motor to the site of the Victoria
Memorial Building, and later proceeded to the
Calcutta Museum, where the treasures designed
for exhibition in the Memorial Hall are
temporarily displayed. The Queen-Empress also
235
PESH KASH FROM BENGAL
Jan. 4-5. visited the Museum in the course of the morning,
under the guidance of Mr. Percy Brown, and
was particularly interested in the exquisite
drawings by native artists, and in the portraits of
the so-called " Patna School," who were native
artists under the influence of English miniaturists.
In the afternoon Their Majesties went to a horse-
show and jumping competition at the Tollygunge
Club, at the close of which the Queen distributed
the prizes to the successful competitors, one of
whom was the Commander-in-Chief. In the
evening, after the King had held an investiture.
Their Majesties held a court in the Throne-room
at Government House.
On the 5th the King and Queen went down the
Hugli to visit the jute factories of Sir David Yule,
who had been knighted on the previous day ; and,
enlightened by his explanations, inspected with
the greatest interest everything that was to be seen
of this important Indian industry. In the after-
noon Their Majesties drove to the Maidan to wit-
ness a pageant which had been organised for the
occasion. On arriving at the pavilion set apart
for them they were received by the Lieutenant-
Governor of Bengal, the Nawab of Murshidabad,
the Maharajadhiraja of Burdwan and other
members of the committee ; and then followed
an interesting ceremony. The Maharaja of
Gidhour handed a purse of one hundred and one
gold mohurs to the Nawab, who presented it as
Pesh Kash to His Majesty from the people of
Bengal, Orissa and Behar, Eastern Bengal and
236
THE PAGEANT AT CALCUTTA
Assam. The Nawab was of course attired in Jan. 5.
rich native dress, and wore on his right arm an
enormous flat engraved emerald, more than an
inch square — an historic jewel and talisman which
attracted many covetous female eyes.
The pageant itself came next, and consisted of
two processions, first the Nawroz or New Year's
Day procession of Murshidabad, and secondly the
Dasehara. The festival of Nawroz itself goes
back to very remote times in Persia ; but the
processions were first instituted by Akbar, the
contemporary of Queen Elizabeth, and adopted
by the Nawabs of Murshidabad in the time of
our Queen Anne, since which date they have
been regularly kept up. The Dasehara traces
its origin far back to the mythological traditions
of the Hindus, having been established to com-
memorate the final triumph of Rama the King
of Oudh, in whom the god Vishnu for the good
of men took incarnate shape, over Ravana, the
King of an island, now submerged, in the south
of India. Both processions in the Maidan
strictly followed former precedents, and the
equipment of " properties," if the term may be
permitted, was furnished by the generosity of
some of the greatest of the Ruling Chiefs. The
pageant displayed a train of elephants, camels and
horses, all in sumptuous housings and trappings,,
interspersed with small parties of men armed
with every description of weapon ; and in the
case of the Dasehara a special feature was.
furnished by two gorgeous gilded cars, drawn by
237
THE PAGEANT AT CALCUTTA
Jan. 5. elephants, the one containing court poets and
literary men, and the other personations of the
Indian King and his courtiers. Otherwise the
pageant was simply a defile of much the same
interesting and picturesque figures as the Maha-
raja of Jaipur had stationed along the road for
the reception of the Queen, and depended not
a little for its effect upon schemes of colour.
As such it was certainly successful. Elephants
are so staid and wise that it is always a pleasure
to see them in numbers ; and their stately carriage
makes them worthy bearers of huge cloths that
are one sheet of gold thread and of howdahs that
gleam with the precious metals. Camels also, if
well groomed and of good breed, can wear fine
raiment with dignity, though no camel can share
in the doings of man without evincing, at any
rate outwardly, intense and unconquerable bore-
dom. Arab stallions can also carry off the
splendour of sumptuous trappings ; and dancing
horses, especially when they dance past for a
hundred yards on their hind legs, are at least a
surprise. Scatter these broadcast among troops
of horsemen and of footmen, each troop in
flowing robes of green and blue, or red and
yellow, no two being of the same shade ; let
the whole file past in not very regular order ;
and there, roughly speaking, is the pageant. If
there be a criticism which might justly be
passed upon it, it is that the clothes of the actors
were rather too new, and in many cases suggested
aniline dyes.
238
THE PAGEANT AT CALCUTTA
As an interlude there was a war-dance of j^
Paiks, a relic of ancient warriors of Orissa,
whose duties are now practically those of
Palace - guards to the native princes of that
province. Half of them were stained grey with
ashes and dressed in scanty garments of blue, and
the other half stained with yellow and arrayed
in pink, so that the contrast of colour should be
complete. Lastly, it must be mentioned that
the entire pageant went forward to the accom-
paniment of music by living Indian composers,
arranged for performers whose instruments had
been carefully copied from ancient models — a
new and interesting experiment upon which only
a well -trained musician could pronounce an
opinion. To the inexpert ear the music seemed
to bear very strong traces of European influence.
Perhaps the most striking moment of the whole
display came after all the actors had defiled past
the King, when, having formed an irregular line
a thousand yards in length across the Maidan,
they made a general advance in review order, to
use a military phrase, towards Their Majesties.
So much must be said for the pageant itself,
but an even more wonderful scene was to follow.
An immense crowd had assembled to witness the
show, the great bulk of which was gathered
in a huge semicircle behind the stage, so to speak,
and in face of Their Majesties and of the stands
erected for privileged spectators. At the close
of the entertainment the King and Queen entered
their carriage and drove very slowly along the
239
THE BENGALIS' HOMAGE
Jan. 5. whole length of this great ring and within a
couple of yards of it, so that all could see them.
It was a happy inspiration. The people — and
these really were the people — received them
with deep reverence and joyful acclaim ; the
men bowed to the ground, and the women
uttered the peculiar guttural sound which is
reserved for the religious service of the temple
only. There was nothing to restrain them, or
prevent them from swarming over the carriage,
but they made no attempt to do so, well content
to have looked upon the face of their King.
Only when the Royal procession had at last
moved off did they break loose, and then with
one impulse they flew across the open sward to
the King's pavilion, pierced through the guard
of soldiers as if it had been made of paper, and,
catching up the earth which had been trodden by
the King's feet, pressed it in lowly homage to
their brows. To our cold Western notions such
an action may seem to be extravagant ; but the
multitude which shouted " Life and Victory to
Charles Augustus, crowned by God, the peace-
giving Emperor," round the basilica of St. Peter
on Christmas Day of the year 800, would have
understood it. The Bengalis in the past have
been a patient but never a combatant people.
They did not struggle desperately like the
Rajputs, and fall back into the desert sooner
than yield their independence. They remained
upon their rich lands, and bowed their heads in
submission to each succeeding wave of conquest ;
240
"<.
VISITS TO HOSPITALS
and the testimony to the keenness of their pro- Jan.
longed suffering is their adoration of the peace-
giving Emperor, through whose authority the
poor man may sow in full confidence that he
will also reap. It may be that in the West
also coming years will see political differences
decided by the primitive method of force, and a
weary people prostrating themselves before some
soldier, as did the French before Napoleon in
1799, because he has restored order and enabled
inoffensive citizens once more to do their daily
work in quietness.
During the drive home the people again
burst the barriers and swarmed all round the
Royal carriage with an enthusiasm such as not
only had never been seen, but had never even been
dreamed of. The evening of the 5th closed with
a ball at Government House, to which a select
number of guests were invited by the Viceroy
and Lady Hardinge to meet Their Majesties.
At half-past eight on the morning of the
6th the King was on his horse, riding out to
visit the camps of the troops. In the forenoon
His Majesty received a deputation from the
University of Calcutta, while the Queen visited
a number of philanthropic institutes and hospitals.
Their Majesties could not even make their way
to PoUygunge steeplechase in the afternoon
without taking two hospitals on their way. In
the evening the King and Queen honoured the
Governor - General and Lady Hardinge with
their presence at a dinner-party, after which they
241 R
DEPARTURE FROM CALCUTTA
Jan. 7-8. ascended to the roof to see the illumination of
Calcutta, a most wonderful and beautiful sight ;
for, as I have said before, the humblest native of
India seems instinctively to possess the secret of
artistic illumination ; and these were the finest
ever known in Calcutta. It is a pity that those
who are responsible for such decorations in
London do not pay the East a visit in order to
learn their business. The crowds in the street
were gigantic ; and it was curious to see the tall
Pathan sentries watching the endless flow of
sleek, white-robed, bare-headed Bengalis with a
hungry look, as of a captive fox that eyes
chickens playing just beyond the length of his
chain.
On Sunday morning Their Majesties were
present at Divine Service in the Cathedral, and
in the afternoon went down by river to Barrack-
pur, attended by the Viceroy and Lady Hardinge
and a number of their suite, to enjoy a few hours
of peace in the beautiful gardens. On the
morning of the 8th half of the suite left for
Bombay betimes ; at half-past ten the principal
officials assembled at Government House to take
leave of Their Majesties ; and a few minutes
later the King and Queen drove away with the
like escort as upon their arrival to Prinsep's Ghat.
The people had assembled in vast crowds to see
them pass, and received them with unexampled
enthusiasm. At the Ghat representatives of
the principal local bodies and associations were
gathered together to meet them, and an address
242
A MELANCHOLY PARTING
was presented by the Legislative Council of Jan.
Bengal, to which the King read a reply. Their
Majesties then crossed the river in the steamship
Howrah^ under a salute from the British warships,
to the station ; and here the King-Emperor bade
farewell to the three Indian Princes of his
personal staff, the Maharajas of Gwalior and
Bikanir, and Sir Pratap Singh. The parting
was a very melancholy one, for the Maharaja
Scindia, an honoured friend of the King, could
not repress his tears, and the gallant veteran Sir
Pratap could only stammer out that he was
growing an old man before he broke down
completely. At noon the Royal train steamed
away under a final salute of one hundred and one
guns from the ramparts of Fort William.
At noon on the loth Their Majesties arrived
at the Victoria Terminus, Bombay, where they
were received by the Governor- General, who
had preceded them, and drove in procession at a
slow pace to the Apollo Bandar. The demon-
stration as they passed through the streets
showed the impression that they had made
during their visit, for the Indians threw off all
reserve, shouting and waving with unrestrained
enthusiasm. Upon arrival at the appointed
place the King and Queen alighted opposite the
amphitheatre, which was once again crowded
with spectators, and a procession was formed to
the pavilion at the edge of the landing-steps.
Here Their Majesties took their seats upon their
thrones, and the Vice-President of the Legislative
243
THE KING'S LAST SPEECH
Jan. lo. Council of Bombay presented a happily-worded
address of farewell. The King then read his
reply slowly and clearly, as is his wont ; and it is
worth while to reproduce here the concluding
sentences : " It is a matter of intense satisfaction
to me to realise how all classes and creeds have
joined together in true-hearted welcome which
has been so universally accorded us. Is it not
possible that the same unity and concord may
for the future govern the daily relations of their
public and private lives ? The attainment of
this would indeed be a happy outcome of our
visit to India. To you, the representatives of
Bombay, who have greeted us so warmly on our
arrival and departure, I deliver this our loving
message of farewell to the Indian Empire."
Here the King's voice broke, and for some
seconds he was unable to speak further. Then
collecting himself, he read on : " May the
Almighty ever assist me and my successors to
promote its welfare and to secure to it the
blessings of prosperity and peace."
The members of the Legislative Council
were then presented to Their Majesties, next
several of the leading officials, civil and military,
and lastly the Indian Chiefs, conspicuous among
whom were the Maharaja of Kolhapur,the Begum
of Bhopal and the Maharao of Bundi. With
many of these high personages Their Majesties
shook hands on taking leave, and with none more
warmly than with the Begum and the Maharao,
the courtly host of the Queen at Bundi. All
244
THEIR MAJESTIES' LAST FAREWELL
farewells had been said, and all present were Jan. lo.
expecting the King and Queen to enter their
launch, when, by a sudden impulse, Their
Majesties walked forward quite alone towards
the amphitheatre. The King was in the plain
white uniform of the Army in the tropics, the
Queen was dressed in a dress of cream-colour shot
with gold ; there were not even the Indian attend-
ants by them with umbrella and shade, and they
stood at the edge of the sunlight, two white figures
on the red carpet, the King with his hand to his
helmet and the Queen as quietly bowing, to pay
their farewell greeting to the last assembly of
their Indian subjects. The movement was so
evidently unpremeditated, so simple and so
natural, that for a moment the two or three
thousand spectators hardly realised what was
going forward ; and then they leaped to their
feet with one accord, not a few with the tears
streaming down their cheeks, and answered the
salute of the King and Queen with a storm of
cheers. Slowly and reluctantly Their Majesties
turned round, walked back to the launch that
was awaiting them, and embarked. The Viceroy
followed them, remaining to luncheon on the
Medina^ a meal to which the King had invited a
large party of guests, including the Governor of
Bengal and Lady Clarke, and the Aga Khan.
After luncheon His Majesty presented Delhi
Coronation medals to a number of officers and
men of the Royal Navy, first, however, investing
the Maharao of Bundi with the Grand Cross of
245
HOMEWARD BOUND
Jan. lo. the Victorian Order. Then followed more fare-
wells, never very pleasant things, and doubly
unhappy when they involve parting from such
unselfish friends as the officers of the King's
Indian staff had been to all of us. How great
and endless were the labours, anxieties and
worries of Brigadier Sir Rollo Grimston, Major
Stockley, Major Money, Captain Hogg, Captain
Amir Ahmad, and their coadjutors during the
Royal visit, only they can know ; but I may at
least bear grateful testimony to their inexhaust-
ible courtesy, patience and good temper. Last
of all the Viceroy took leave of Their Majesties ;
and at six o'clock in the evening the great white
ship and her four escorting cruisers spun round,
so to speak, on their heels, and steamed away in
single line ahead.
XIV
Of the homeward voyage there is little to
be said. We had beautiful calm warm weather
until we reached Port Sudan on the 17th,
where, as Lord Kitchener had warned us, the
temperature suddenly cooled. The Med'ma came
alongside the wharf early, and immediately the
foreshore was crowded with people. Pipers and
drummers presently set to work at their instru-
ments with frantic energy, and in a very few
minutes black warriors with long woolly locks
were bounding about like long slips of india-
246
■^
PORT SUDAN AND SINKAT
rubber, with terrific brandishing of sword and Jan- 17-
spear. At eight o'clock Their Majesties disem-
barked, and were received by Lord Kitchener, Sir
Reginald and Lady Wingate, Sir Rudolph Slatin
Pasha and other gentlemen. An address of wel-
come was read, and answered by the King ; and
then a number of Sheikhs in red robes em-
broidered with gold were presented to His
Majesty, who gave them decorations and gifts.
It was strange to see them. Many of them had
fought against us ; one had been reader of the
Koran to the Khalifa ; another had been the
right-hand man of Osman Digna. There they
were, all peaceful and friendly, wearing dresses of
honour given by the Government of the Soudan,
and excessively proud of them.
After half an hour the King and Queen
returned on board for breakfast ; and at about
ten started with their suite by train for Sinkat,
a name well known in 1884 and 1885 as the
centre of Osman Digna's operations. The
journey occupied close upon five hours, the
climb being long and steep from the sea to
the lofty plateau of Sinkat. Shortly before
two o'clock a great crowd of men and camels,
between two and three thousand according to
one account, were seen alongside the railway,
and presently the train stopped at a small station,
opposite to which was a line of troops of all
arms, chiefly Soudanese, drawn up on parade.
Here Their Majesties alighted, and taking their
place in a tent, saw the troops march past, very
247
REVIEW AT SINKAT
Jan. 17. Steadily and well, cavalry, camel corps, artillery
and infantry, to the music of Soudanese military
bands, which played native march-tunes with a
magnificent swagger of drummers. The cavalry
and camels then trotted past, and the infantry
came by again at the double, one of them — a
newly raised corps of wild Arabs — with a lightness
and spring delightful to see. We heard without
surprise that they were astonishing marchers.
Then the camel- men marched past in irregular
array, tribe by tribe, with their chiefs at the
head, and returned again at a more rapid pace.
The programme promised us a gallop past of
these wild levies ; but not above half a dozen
galloped, and only one camel whirled by at the
top of his speed. It was interesting to see the
British soldiers of the Nineteenth Yorkshire
Regiment quite as much at home upon their
camels as any of the Arabs. Then there was a
war-dance of Dinkas, a wild jet-black tribe from
the south of Fashoda, the performers wearing a
little clothing for this occasion only ; there was
a sham fight of other tribesmen, who threw
stones at each other with great accuracy and
parried them very skilfully with their shields ;
and there was yet another dance of woolly heads
such as we had seen in the morning. Altogether
it was a very remarkable scene, and it became
the more so when we learned that many of
the tribes had, not many years before, fought
desperately against us ; that some had travelled
hundreds of miles to see the King ; and that the
248
KING GEORGE'S DAY
greater part had never seen nor hardly heard Jan. 17.
of each other before. However, having met
upon this occasion, they decided that it would
be well to meet again ; and so they have
arranged to assemble every year at Khartoum
upon the 17th of January to celebrate King
George's Day.
At the close of the review Their Majesties
motored into Sinkat to see the wells, their
equerries, for the first time in the history of
the British monarchy, attending them on
camels ; and at four o'clock Their Majesties
re-entered the train for Port Sudan, the tribes-
men running and galloping by hundreds along-
side the train until it distanced even the fleetest
horses and camels. Upon our journey we had
the advantage of travelling with some of the
leading officials of the Soudan, governors of
districts and so forth, all without exception
military men, though many were holding civil
office. Few people realise that the Soudan
means roughly one million of square miles,
and that under this little knot of Englishmen
it is making very remarkable progress. I am
afraid that I could not help contrasting the modest
and manly simplicity of these gentlemen with the
very different demeanour of civil officials in other
parts of the Empire. The truth is that, as I have
already hinted, the British officer in command
of native troops has this great advantage over
the civilian, that he is in constant touch with
the native mind through the medium of his
249
ARRIVAL AT MALTA
[an. 20- native officers and men, and thus learns how to
^+' handle the inhabitants with tact and ease.
Soon after dusk the Medina resumed her
journey, Lord Kitchener by the King's invitation
taking a passage on board as far as Port Said,
which was reached on the 20th. Here once
again His Highness the Khedive came on board
to greet the King, and the ceremonies of His
Majesty's first visit in November were in great
measure repeated. Two of the cruising
squadron, which had been detached at Aden
to coal, rejoined us, and five hundred tons of
coal were put on board the Medina herself in
an hour. At noon on Sunday the 21st we
sailed again, and on the 24th at ten o'clock
in the morning entered Malta Harbour. Five
French ships, the Danton^ yustice, Verite, Cara-
binier and Lansquenet were lying in the harbour,
under the flags of Admiral Boue de Lapeyrere
and Rear- Admiral Moreau ; and the roar of
salutes from them as well as from the British
ships of the Mediterranean squadron,^ as the
Medina entered into that narrow, echoing inlet
was deafening. Unfortunately, after picking up
her mooring the Medina^s hawser parted, and
she was obliged to go astern, with the result
that the cable of a mooring aft became entangled
1 Exmouth, flagship of Admiral Sir E. Poe, Capt. Stuart Nicholson ;
Duncan, flagship of Rear-Ad. Jerram, Capt. F. L, Field ; Triumph, Capt.
Waymouth ; S^ftsure, Capt. Tower ; Cornivallis, Capt. Anstruther ;
Russell, Capt. R. H. Anstruther ; Bacchante, flagship of Rear-Ad. Sir
Douglas Gamble, Capt. Tyrwhitt ; Hampshire, Capt. Hunter ; Lancaster,
Capt. Tothill ; Barham, Capt. Cotton ; Medea, Commander Keane ;
Hussar, Commander Diggle.
250
THE FRENCH BLUEJACKETS
round the shaft of her starboard screw. Divers Jan. 24.
were at once sent down to cut the cable away ;
and meanwhile the Governor, Sir Leslie Rundle,
and several naval officers came on board to wait
upon the King and Queen.
Shortly before noon Their Majesties landed
and went to the Governor's palace, where the
leading civil and ecclesiastical dignitaries were
presented to them ; after which they witnessed
a defile of the troops of the garrison. For the
first time since the island has been in British
hands an armed force of French bluejackets
was landed — sturdy active men, who marched
past the King with the light jaunty step for
which the French are famous. A British naval
brigade numbering over twenty -five hundred
from the Duncan^ Triumph^ Exmouthy Hampshire
and Bacchante, had also been disembarked, and
these went past with a swing which left the
soldiers far behind. In due time followed the
Old Fourteenth West Yorks, to the music of Qa
ira, which they have played ever since their
colonel at Famars in 1793 bade them beat the
French Republicans " to their own d d tune " ;
the Forty -eighth Northamptons, a very fine
battalion, the Ninetieth Scottish Rifles, and the
Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders. But a defile
past in column of fours is an over-lengthy process.
Their Majesties lunched at the palace with
the Governor, the King subsequently visiting
Admiral Boue de Lapeyrere on the Danton. In
the evening Their Majesties dined with Admiral
251
ST. JOHN'S CATHEDRAL
Jan. 25. Sir Edmund and Lady Poe at their house in
Valetta, after which they attended a gala per-
formance at the Opera.
On the 25th the Queen went to St. John's
Cathedral to see the celebrated Flemish tapestries,
made after designs of Rubens, which were given
to it by the Grand Master in 1707. The
Archbishop and all the principal ecclesiastical
dignitaries were present to receive Her Majesty,
and Canon Alfredo Mifsud, Librarian of the
Public Library, acted as guide and interpreter.
The Canon's great historical knowledge and
enthusiasm for the romance of the Knights of
Malta made the visit of no ordinary interest ;
and he pointed out with quiet humour to one ot
the suite the effigy, on the roof, of his ancestor,
an English knight who had been beheaded in
the sixteenth century by one of His Majesty's
ancestors on the throne of England. In the
afternoon the Queen was present, together with
the King, at a gymkhana at Messa ; and in
the evening Their Majesties dined with the
Governor at the palace, and held a levee after-
wards. The palace at Malta, I may remark, is
incomparably the finest and most interesting
Government House in the British dominions, as
is perhaps natural, seeing that it was built in the
sixteenth century for the Grand Master of the
Knights of Malta.
On the 26th the Medina was brought early
in the morning into dry dock, where the slight
damage done on the 24th was made good in a
252
THE HYPOGiEUM
few hours, enabling the ship to return to her Jan. 26.
moorings before dark. The King this morning
visited the three flagships Kxmoutli^ Duncan and
Bacchante^ proceeding afterwards in company
with the Queen to the Naval Hospital, which
Their Majesties inspected very thoroughly.
Early in the forenoon the Queen also made a dash
into the country to see a subterranean temple
known as the Hypogsum, which was acci-
dentally discovered a year or two ago. Seemingly
unique of its kind, both in design and decoration,
and reckoned to be at least three thousand years
old, this Hypogasum is of extraordinary interest ;
nor did Her Majesty leave it until, under the
guidance of Professor Zamit, she had explored
every corner, and heard all that was to be told
concerning it. Then in the afternoon the King
and Queen motored out some nine miles to the
Governor's summer residence at Verdala, return-
ing in time to drink tea at the mess of the Royal
Artillery and Engineers in another palace at
Valetta. The people assembled in thousands
to see them pass, and received them with an
enthusiastic welcome; in fact it was not easy for
the motors to make their way through the press
in the villages. This unfortunately left the Queen
little time for the pastime which she enjoys most
keenly. The Museum at Malta contains very
much that is of the greatest interest ; the Library
possesses some beautiful illuminated manuscripts
and some remarkably fine old bindings ; and the
walls of the main guard are covered with
253
MOURNFUL NEWS
Jan. 27- perhaps the most striking collection of military
^9- caricatures, painted by generations of British
officers, that is to be found in the Empire. Her
Majesty contrived to see at least something of all
three of these institutions, lamenting greatly that
there was no time to go through them more
thoroughly. Malta at large, in fact, offers a
great field, both to historian and antiquarian ; and
its old fortifications, apart from their stupendous
magnitude and remarkable comeliness, contain
the graves of more than one modern hero, the
greatest of whom are Thomas Maitland, once
famous as King Tom of the Ionian Islands, and
gentle old Sir Ralph Abercromby.
On the 27th the Medina sailed from Malta,
and on the 28th ran into cold, rough, unpleasant
weather. On the evening of the 29th the King
received the sad news of the death of the Duke
of Fife at Khartoum. Few had realised that, at
the height of the festivities at Delhi, Their
Majesties had been kept for some hours in
anxious suspense as to the fate of the Princess
Royal, the Duke, and the two Princesses their
daughters, after the wreck of the steamer Delhi
on the 13th of December. Not indeed until the
morning of the 15th had the King at last
received a reassuring telegram from the Princess
Royal to say that, after passing through great
peril, she and all of her family were safe. But
it now appeared too evidently that shock and
exposure had left a fatal mark upon the Duke
of Fife ; and the mournful intelligence came
254
ARRIVAL AT GIBRALTAR
with the greater bitterness to the King, inasmuch Jan. 30.
as it was impossible for him to go to the Princess
Royal, upon whom this sorrow had come when
she was far away from home and from all relations
and friends. At ten o'clock on the morning of
the 30th the Medina went alongside the dockyard
quay at Gibraltar, in dismally wet and windy
weather. The Venerable, Captain Chapman, and
Ctitnberland, Captain Boyle, were lying in
harbour, the latter filled with naval cadets.
The Governor, Sir Archibald Hunter, the
captains of the two cruisers above mentioned.
Sir Reginald Lister from Tangier, Sir Maurice
de Bunsen from Madrid and other high officers
presently came on board to wait upon the King ;
but in consequence of the sad news of the
previous day most of the arrangements had to be
cancelled. At two o'clock in the afternoon the
King received addresses from the inhabitants
of Gibraltar, the Roman Catholic priests, the
Jews and the Moorish mission, the last named
to the number of eight or ten attending in
their graceful white robes. They read their
address in their native tongue, an interpreter
being present to translate it and to render into
Moorish His Majesty's reply. In the afternoon
Their Majesties went ashore and inspected first
the Colonial Hospital, and next the huge tanks
recently made to store water for the fortress,
afterwards drinking tea with the Governor and
returning to the ship to dine quietly on board.
Early on the morning of the 31st three
255
AN HISTORIC OCCASION
Jan. 31. Spanish men-of-war were seen steaming over
from Alge9iras, forming the escort of the Infante
Don Carlos of Spain, who was come to bid the
King welcome in the name of His Most Catholic
Majesty. This was said, probably with truth,
to be the first time since 1704 that a Spanish
Prince and a Spanish man-of war had come to
Gibraltar except with hostile intent ; and there
was no want of salutes to do honour to the
occasion. His Royal Highness presently came on
board with his suite, attended further by the
Admiral of the Spanish squadron and his staff.
The King a little later returned the visit on board
the Spanish flagship Cataluna^ whereupon the
saluting was renewed ; and it may be said that
first and last the guns were not silent until nearly
three o'clock in the afternoon, when the Spanish
squadron returned to Alge9iras.
Meanwhile, after paying the return visit, the
King went ashore with the Queen to the
Alameda, which I suppose may be described as
the Hyde Park of Gibraltar. His Majesty
having promised to present new colours to
the first battalion of the South Stafix^rdshire
Regiment, better known, perhaps, as the old
Thirty-eighth, the whole of the garrison was
drawn up on this small space, the Thirty-eighth
being formed up in line opposite to the saluting
point, and the remainder massed on both flanks.
The parade was an extremely pretty one, and
the occasion was worthy of it ; for the Thirty-
eighth, albeit a corps of which newspapers, and as
256
THE OLD THIRTY-EIGHTH
a natural consequence the public, knows nothing, Jan. 31
has one of the most remarkable records of service
to be found in the Army. The regiment has been
in existence two hundred and ten years, of which
it has spent one hundred and sixty abroad, fifty-
eight of them consecutively in the West Indies,
and has missed very few campaigns during the
last century and a half " North America,
Central America, South America," said His
Majesty in his address to them, " North Africa
and South Africa, Northern Europe and Southern
Europe, the plains of India and the mountains of
India — nothing has come amiss to you ; and you
have served in all these countries with honour."
One could not help reflecting that if this
regiment wore the kilt the whole British
Empire would ring with its fame. However, it
matters not. They can uphold their great name
without the help of newspapers, these sturdy,
solid, old English battalions of the Line.
The ceremony of presentation over, the
garrison marched past the King. Owing to the
straitness of the space, the troops could not be
passed from one end of the ground to the other
without some extremely clever manoeuvring of
the old-fashioned kind, which gave one some
idea of what must have happened when
Wellington formed his lines of battle. More-
over, as they all started for the march down a
considerable decline, they swung past with such
a stride as I have rarely witnessed. There was
a large crowd to see this parade, and the
257 s
DEPARTURE FROM GIBRALTAR
Jan. 31. inhabitants did not fail to give the King an
enthusiastic welcome ; but it was very hard
upon all in Gibraltar that, after twice making
every preparation for the reception and entertain-
ment of Their Majesties, Fate should have
interfered on both occasions at the last moment
to disappoint them. In the afternoon Their
Majesties drove round Gibraltar, and after visiting
the Naval and Military Hospitals, drank tea
with Admiral and Mrs. Pelham, who together
with the Governor and Lady Hunter and Bishop
Corfe were Their Majesties' guests at dinner in
the evening.
At six P.M. on the 31st of January the Medina
steamed away from Gibraltar for Spithead. A
melancholy reminder of the loss that had befallen
the King came before us next morning as we
sighted the masts and funnel of the ill-fated
steamer Delhi \ but it was pleasant to hear the
deep sympathy with which every naval officer, past
and present, from the highest downwards, spoke
of her most unlucky commander. At night we
became aware that the southerly wind, under
which we had started, had shifted to south-
westward and was freshening rapidly. By the
morning of the 2nd it was blowing a full gale,
and in fact we were repeating our experience of
the outward voyage in the Atlantic, only with
the wind more or less abaft instead of straight
ahead. We made good way, therefore, in spite
of a heavy sea, though nearly every ship that
we passed was comfortably lying to ; and the
258
A HOMEWARD GALE
casualties from sea-sickness were considerably Feb. 1-3.
fewer than in November. Nevertheless, it was so
long since we had experienced any bad weather
that few, if any of us, had taken any precautions
against it. The result was that on the first night
we were roused by a succession of crashes, and
jumped out of bed to find the floors of our cabins
a chaos of loose articles, which were rolling
joyously to and fro. Fortunately we were all
too much occupied in securing them, and in
maintaining our equilibrium meanwhile, to
listen to each other's language, which, I fancy,
must have amused the sentries in the passages
considerably.
On the afternoon of the 3rd we entered the
Channel, by which time the wind had shifted
to the north-east, blowing bitterly cold with
occasional savage snowstorms — by no means a
pleasant thing for the Admiral in a water-way
crowded with traffic. In the night these storms
became so blinding that it was impossible to see
a hundred yards ahead, and Sir Colin signalled
the squadron to reduce speed from sixteen to
eight knots. Wild whooping of the siren
proclaimed this fact to us more fortunate mortals
as we lay snug and warm in our beds ; but the
Admiral and his officers on the bridge spent a
very comfortless and anxious night. Fortunately
the squalls diminished in severity, and before
daylight the Medina and her escort were
anchored at Spithead.
On the morning of Sunday the 4th of
259
LAST DAY ON BOARD
Feb. 4. February therefore, we woke to see, through
falHng snow, the Home Fleet of battleships on
one side, and the shore of England on the other.
There was no mistaking the fact that we were
at home and not in India, for it was freezing at
sea, and there were eighteen degrees of frost
ashore, with a bitter wind to make matters more
pleasant. The Medina^ being intended for
voyages in hot latitudes, was not well-equipped
for such a visitation ; and after seeking in vain
for some warm spot outside the engine-room, we
were fain to huddle on greatcoats, and live
generally as if we were making a cold journey
by railway. As soon as Divine Service was over
Their Majesties entered upon a task, which few
excepting themselves would have thought of
undertaking, that of giving to every soul in the
ship with their own hands a memento of the
voyage to India in the Medina ; the more
highly privileged being summoned to the King's
cabin, while the ship's company, marines and
servants filed past the King and Queen in the
saloon. Then came the last dinner, at which
Lord Durham asked permission to propose in a
few words the health of Their Majesties, and to
offer them the congratulations of the suite upon
the splendid success of their visit to India ; and
the King with equal brevity but much feeling
replied. There were few, I think, among the
suite who did not regret the breaking up of a
party in which it may truly be said that not an
unpleasant word had passed from the beginning
260
THE RETURN TO LONDON
to end of the journey. It still remained for Feb.
us to take leave of our friends in the wardroom,
to which we repaired as soon as Their Majesties
had retired. Our stay there was protracted
until late ; and the evening in such good com-
pany was of the cheerfulest.
Early next morning Queen Alexandra, the
Prince of Wales and Princess Victoria, who had
slept on the Royal yacht on the previous night,
came on board ; and soon after ten the Royal train
started in bitter cold for London. As it whirled
past Arundel Castle the Duke of Norfolk with
stately courtesy dipped his flag, which was flying
on the tower — the last flag of many hundreds to
salute the King on his progress to India and back.
On arriving at Victoria the Ministers and other
officials were present to receive Their Majesties.
Their Majesties and the Prince of Wales then
drove in procession to Buckingham Palace by
way of Victoria Street, Whitehall and the Mall,
followed by the suite in six carriages ; and, in
spite of a savage north - east wind, large and
enthusiastic crowds were assembled in the streets
to welcome them. At the Palace the suite took
leave of the King and Queen, assembling again
for the last time on the morrow at St. Paul's
Cathedral, whither Their Majesties drove in pro-
cession to attend a special service of thanksgiving
to God for His mercies vouchsafed to them. The
noble chorale. Nun danket alle Gott, sung by the
massed choirs and a vast congregation, brought to a
worthy close theepisode of theKing's visit tolndia.
261
RESULTS OF THE VISIT
XV
Will the results of the visit be permanent and
lasting for good ? That is a question which
many have asked and are still asking. Beyond
all doubt a great wave of emotion swept over
India during the King's progress, and found vent
in such outward manifestations of loyalty as aston-
ished both Indians and Europeans. But has the
wave spent its force in these demonstrations, or is
it itself but the visible forerunner of a great tide,
" too full for sound or foam," which will bear
India steadily on her course of peace and content-
ment ? If we are to believe the utterances,
transparently genuine and sincere, of thoughtful
Indian writers, the good effects of the King's
visit will not be transient, but enduring. Of
course we cannot look for all evil to vanish and
for the golden age to return forthwith. We
cannot expect all difficulties to be smoothed
away, and future, or even present, mistakes to
recur no more. Endeavour as we may, neither we
nor the people of India can hope to escape from
the decrees of Fate or from the consequences of
our own faults. The task which men set them-
selves, who strive to live together in peace, is
beset by many and great dangers ; and by reason
of our frailty we cannot always stand upright.
We seem to have found our footing and to be
walking cautiously indeed, but stably ; when
262
THE INDIAN PRINCES' MESSAGE
some gust of passion, or prejudice, or intolerance,
or it may be of sheer folly only, sweeps down upon
us, and in a moment we are overthrown. How
long and painful is the effort of recovery, and
how deep the humiliation through which it is
at last accomplished, is written large for those
who will read in the pages of history.
To occasional falls and failures, then, both
English and Indian, being human, must look
forward ; yet not without cheerfulness and good
courage. Very full of hope and comfort is the
message sent by the Princes and people of India
to the Prime Minister upon the day of the King's
return to England: —
" The Princes and people of India desire to
take the opportunity afforded by the conclusion
of the Royal visit, to convey to the great English
nation an expression of their cordial good-will
and fellowship ; also an assurance of their warm
attachment to the world-wide Empire of which
they form a part, and with which their destinies
are now indissolubly linked. Their Imperial
Majesties' visit to India, so happily conceived
and successfully completed, has produced a pro-
found and ineffaceable impression throughout
the country.
" Their Imperial Majesties, by their gracious
demeanour, their unfailing sympathy, and their
deep solicitude for the welfare of all classes, have
drawn closer the bonds that unite England and
India, and have deepened and intensified the
traditional feeling of loyalty and devotion to the
263
INDIAN OPINION
Throne and person of the Sovereign, which has
always characterised the Indian people.
" Conscious of the many blessings which
India has derived from the connection with
England, the Princes and people rejoiced to
tender in person their loyal and loving homage
to their Imperial Majesties. They are confident
that the great and historic event marks the
beginning of a new era, ensuring greater happiness,
prosperity and progress to the people of India
under the aegis of the Crown."
The British press, with few exceptions, failed
altogether to appreciate the profound interest and
significance of this message. Never before has
any body of men attempted to speak with one
voice on behalf of an united and one- minded
India ; and never before has it been possible that
such an attempt should be made. Yet here
the one voice cries aloud, resonant, sincere and
spontaneous, finding utterance for many peoples,
nations and languages in the Imperial tongue. I
say the Imperial and not the English tongue,
because no Englishman was concerned with this
message. It sprang straight from the hearts of
the Indian Princes and peoples, and sped on its
way untouched by any British pen, untaught by
any British inspiration.
And the language of the message has found
both anticipation and echo among thoughtful
contributors to the Indian periodical press. " We
are on the threshold of a new era," says a writer
in the Indian magazine East and West, " with the
264
HOPE FOR THE FUTURE
King's message of hope still ringing in our ears ;
and we shall strive for greater unity in our
endeavours for the common good, and tread the
path of progress w^ith a larger hope in our hearts
and a firmer faith in our destiny." In other
words, India is proud of her place in the British
Empire ; and to prove herself worthy of it
she will try to quench old internal animosities,
and to co-operate heartily with England in
working out her future. And England on
her side, who has long worked honestly accord-
ing to her lights for India, will try to work
more and more with India. For a long time
she must lead, and India will be content to
allow her to lead, provided that she will also
learn. What is needed in both parties is
sympathy and patience. It is patience, as the
great Marlborough said, " which conquers all
things " — patience, not faith in education, nor in
representative institutions, nor in heroic phrases,
nor even in heroic measures. Englishmen are
too fond of proclaiming that Parliamentary
institutions have made them a great nation ;
whereas it is really because they are a great
nation, very peculiarly situated, that they have
been able for two hundred years to make of
Parliamentary institutions a comparatively success-
ful form of government. When India, after long
and patient search and many inevitable errors,
has found for herself a path of true progress,
which she can follow with faith and with hope,
then she may, if she will, make trial of repre-
265
THE ROAD TO UNITY
sentative institutions ; but let her not suppose
that by snatching at them prematurely she will
abridge that search or diminish the number of
those errors. Rather let both England and India
remember that though for countless centuries
men have put forth their petty remedies for the
evils of this vv^orld, there is one reform and one
only that has ever availed them — the inw^ard and
spiritual reform which bids every man seek first
to abate the evil that is in himself. So shall we
strive, not in vain, for greater unity in our
endeavours for the common good.
266
APPENDIX A
November 1 1, 191 2.
THE ASSEMBLAGE AT VICTORIA.
Prince and Princess Christian of Schlesvvig-Holstein, with Princess
Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Louise (Duchess of Argyll)
and the Duke of Argyll, Princess Beatrice (Princess Henry of Battenberg),
with Prince Alexander, Prince Leopold, and Prince Maurice of Battenberg,
the Duchess of Albany, the Grand Duke Michael Michailovitch of Russia,
the Duchess of Teck, the Countess Feodora Gleichen, the Lady Valda
Machell, and the Duke of Fife took leave of Their Majesties at Victoria
Station.
The following Members of the Government in the Cabinet were
present : —
The Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P. (Prime Minister and First Lord
of the Treasury) and Mrs. Asquith, the Viscount Morley of Blackburn
(Lord President of the Council), the Earl Carrington (Lord Privy Seal) and
the Countess Carrington, the Viscount Haldane (Secretary of State tor
War), the Rt. Hon. R. McKenna, M.P. (Secretary of State for the Home
Department) and Mrs. McKenna, and the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Grey,
Bt., M.P. (Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs).
Members of the Corps Diplomatique : —
Their Excellencies the German Ambassador (Count Paul Wolff-
Metternich), the Russian Ambassador (Count Benckendorff), the Austro-
Hungarian Ambassador (Count Mensdorff-Pouilly-Dietrichstein), the
United States Ambassador and Mrs. Whitelaw Reid, the Spanish
Ambassador (Seiior Don Wenceslao de Villa Urrutia), the Turkish
Ambassador (His Highness Tewfik Pasha), the Italian Ambassador and
the Marchesa Imperiali, the Swiss Minister (Monsieur Gaston Carlin), the
Belgian Minister and the Countess de Lalaing, the Swedish Minister and
the Countess Wrangel, the Danish Minister (Monsieur Constantino
Brun), the Uruguayan Minister (Seiior Don Federico R. Vidiella), the
Colombian Minister and Madame Perez Triana, the Norwegian Minister
and Madame Vogt, the Liberian Minister (Mr. J. P. Crommelin), the
Argentine Minister and Madame de Dominguez, the Chilian Minister
and Madame Edwards, the Siamese Minister (Phya Akharaj Vardthara),
267
APPENDIX A
the Persian Minister (Mirza Mehdi Khan Mushir-ul-Mulk), the Mexican
Minister (Seftor Don Miguel de Beistegui), the Portuguese Minister (Senhor
M. Teixeira Gomes), the Haytian Minister-Resident and Madame Heraux,
and the Peruvian Charge d'Affaires and Madame de Lembcke, the
Bolivian Charge d'Affaires and Madame Saurez, the Servian Charge
d'AfFaires and Madame Grouitch, the Netherlands Charge d'AfFaires and
Madame van der Goes, the Japanese Charge d'AfFaires and Mrs. Yamaza,
and the Roumanian Charge d'AfFaires (Prince Antoine Bibesco).
There were also present : —
The Archbishop oF Canterbury, the Marchioness oF Salisbury, the
Marchioness oF Crewe, the Marquis de Several, the Viscount Esher, the
Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal (High Commissioner For the Dominion
oF Canada) and the Lady Strathcona and Mount Royal, the Rt. Hon. Sir
George Reid (High Commissioner For the Commonwealth oF Australia),
the Rt. Hon, Sir Thomas Crosby (Lord Mayor oF London) and the Lady
Mayoress, Field-Marshal Sir W. G. Nicholson (ChieF oF the Imperial
General StafF and First Military Member oF the Army Council), the Hon.
Sir Richard Solomon (High Commissioner For the Union oF South AFrica),
Lieut. -General Sir A. Paget (General Officer Commanding in ChieF,
Eastern Command), the Hon. Sir William Hall- Jones (High Commissioner
For the Dominion oF New Zealand), Major-General Sir A. E. Codrington
(General Officer Commanding the London District), and Major Sir
Frederick Wodehouse (Acting Commissioner oF Police).
ARRIVAL AT PORTSMOUTH.
Their Majesties were received on arrival at Portsmouth by —
The Duke oF Wellington (Acting Lord Lieutenant oF the County oF
Hampshire), the Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer-Churchill, M.P. (First Lord
oF the Admiralty), Admiral oF the Fleet Sir Arthur K. Wilson (First
Lord Commissioner oF the Admiralty), Admiral the Lord Charles BeresFord
(M.P. For Portsmouth), the Mayor oF Portsmouth, and by Admiral Sir
Arthur Moore (Commander-in-ChieF at Portsmouth), General Sir C. W.
H. Douglas (General Officer Commanding in ChieF, Southern Command),
Rear-Admiral A. G. Tate (Superintendent oF Portsmouth Dockyard),
Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel, and Major-General W. E. Blewitt
(General Officer Commanding Southern Coast DeFences), and the respective
StafFs.
THEIR MAJESTIES' LUNCHEON-PARTY.
Their Majesties' luncheon party on board H.M.S. Medina included : —
Queen Alexandra, the Queen oF Norway, the Prince oF Wales, the
Princess Mary, the Princess Victoria, Prince Arthur oF Connaught, the
Duke oF Teck, the Duke oF Devonshire, the Duke oF Wellington, the
Hon. Lady Keppel, the Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer-Churchill, M.P.,
Mrs. Winston Spencer-Churchill, the Rt. Rev. Bishop CorFe, D.D., Sir
Walter Lawrence, Bt., Admiral oF the Fleet Sir Arthur K. Wilson,
Admiral the Lord Charles BeresFord, Sir Thomas Sutherland, Admiral Sir
Arthur Moore, General Sir C. W. H. Douglas, Sir Richmond Ritchie,
268
APPENDIX A
Rear-Admiral A. G. Tate, Major-General W. E. Blewitt, Lieut. -Colonel
Sir Charles Frederick, the Hon. Charlotte Knollys, Colonel Sir Arthur
Davidson, the Hon. John Ward and the Suite in attendance upon the
King and Queen.
November 1 5.
GIBRALTAR.
This morning Their Majesties received the Governor (General Sir A.
Hunter), the Governor of Alge9iras, the Governor of Cadiz, the Captain of
the Spanish cruiser Reina Regente, the Captain of the Portuguese cruiser
Adamaster, Vice-Admiral Sir John Jellicoe, Vice-Admiral Commanding
the Atlantic Fleet, and the Captains of the ships of the Atlantic Fleet, and
Rear-Admiral Frederick Pelham, Admiral-Superintendent and in charge
of all Naval Establishment at Gibraltar.
November 20.
PORT SAID.
The following, with the Duke of Teck and the Ladies and Gentlemen
in Attendance, had the honour of dining with Their Majesties : — Field-
Marshal the Viscount Kitchener, Lieut.-General Sir F. Reginald Wingate,
Major-General Sir John Maxwell, and Captain Michael Culme-Seymour,
R.N., H.M.S. Argyll.
November 21.
PORT SAID.
The King this morning received a visit from His Highness the
Khedive and also from his Imperial Highness Prince Zia-ed-Din, who had
been deputed by the Sultan to greet Their Majesties and to deliver to the
King a letter from His Imperial Majesty.
His Highness the Khedive was attended by His Excellency Said
Zoulificar Pasha (Grand Master of Ceremonies) and His Excellency Lewa
Ramzi Tahir Pasha, Chief A.D.C.
His Imperial Highness Prince Zia-ed-Din was attended by His Excellency
Djenani Bey, Grand Master of Ceremonies of His Imperial Majesty the
Sultan, Colagarhi Ahmed Bey, A.D.C, and Murtaza Bey, Private Secretary.
His Majesty then received a visit from His Highness Prince Mohamed
Ali.
After the Khedive's visit the following had the honour of being presented
to the King by Field-Marshal the Viscount Kitchener : — His Highness
Kiamel Pasha, ex-Grand Vizier ; His Excellency Mohateed Said Pasha,
President of the Council of Ministers ; His Excellency Hussein Rushdi
Pasha, Minister of Foreign Affairs ; Sir Paul Harvey, British Adviser for
269
APPENDIX A
Finance ; Mr. Ronald Graham, British Adviser for Interior ; and the
French Minister, Monsieur De France, who presented Monsieur Ribot
(Secretary), Monsieur Charles Roux, Director of the Suez Canal ; and the
three principal Officials of the Suez Canal, Count De Serionne (Agent
Superieur), Monsieur Perier (Ingenieur en Chef), Monsieur Coullant
(Chef du Transit).
Field - Marshal the Viscount Kitchener also presented Mahomed
Mahmud Bey, Governor of the Suez Canal ; and Mr. E. C. Blech, British
Consul-General at Port Said.
Later His Majesty visited His Highness the Khedive on board His
Highness's yacht Mahroussa, attended by Field - Marshal the Viscount
Kitchener, the Duke of Teck, the Marquis of Crewe, Commander Sir
Charles Cust, Bt., R.N., and Captain B. Godfrey-Faussett, R.N.
At the conclusion of the visit His Majesty landed and inspected the
Guards of Honour of the ist Batt. Scots Guards, under the Command of
Major Carpenter Garnier, and of the 3rd Batt. Egyptian Army, under the
Command of Captain Ali Effendi Fahmi.
The King and Queen gave a luncheon-party on board the Medina in
honour of the Khedive and Prince Zia-ed-Din. Prince Mohamed Ali
was present, and the following had the honour of being invited : — His
Highness Kiamel Pasha, His Excellency Mohamed Said Pasha, His
Excellency Djenani Bey, Monsieur De France, Field-Marshal the Viscount
Kitchener, His Excellency Hussein Rushdi Pasha, Major-General Sir John
Maxwell, Sir Paul Harvey, Lieut.-General Sir Reginald Wingate, Mr.
Ronald Graham, His Excellency Said Zoulificar Pasha, His Excellency Lewa
Ramzi Tahir Pasha, Mohamed Mahmud Bey, Monsieur Charles Roux,
Mr. E. C. Blech, and Mr. R. H. Greg (Diplomatic Secretary to Field-
Marshal the Viscount Kitchener).
This evening Field-Marshal the Viscount Kitchener, Major-General Sir
John Maxwell, Lieut.-General Sir R. Wingate, El Lewa Watson Pasha,
Rear-Admiral Sir Douglas Gamble (H.M.S. Bacchante), Captain Tyrwhitt,
R.N. (H.M.S. Bacchante), Captain Tothill, R.N. (H.M.S. Lancaster), and
Captain Moubray, R.N. (H.M.S. Suffolk), were included in Their Majesties*
dinner-party.
December 2.
BOMBAY.
Walking Procession from the Landing Pavilion to the Dais.
Staff of Governor of Bombay.
Staff of Governor-General.
King-Emperor's Indian Staff.
The Hon. J. Fortescue. Sir R. H. Charles. Mr. F. H. Lucas.
Capt. B. Godfrey-Faussett. Comr. Sir C. Cust. Hon. Sir D. Keppel.
Sir J. Dunlop-Smith. Rear-Admiral Sir C. Keppel.
Sir Edward Henry. Lieut. -Gen. Sir H. Smith-Dorrien.
The Lord Stamfordham. The Lord-in-Waiting.
270
APPENDIX A
The Lord Chamberlain to the The Lord Hig^h Steward.
Queen-Empress.
THE 2UEEN-EMPRESS. THE KING-EMPEROR.
The Governor of Bombay. The Governor-General.
The Duke of Teck. Mistress of the Robes. The Marquis of Crewe.
The Hon. V. Baring. Lady Clarke. The Countess of
Shaftesbury.
The Military Secretary. Major-Gen. Sir S. Beatson.
Major Clive Wigram. Major the Lord C. Fitzmaurice.
The Procession through the Citv.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — The Governor-General, The Marquis of Crewe.
Third Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Duke of Teck, the
Lord-in-Waiting, the Lord Chamberlain to the Queen.
Fourth Carriage. — The Governor of Bombay, Lady Clarke, the Lord
Stamfordham, Lieut.-General Sir Horace Smith-Dorrien.
Fifth Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Lord High Steward, Sir
Edward Henry, Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel.
Sixth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, Lieut.-Colonel Sir James
Dunlop-Smith, Commander Sir Charles Cust, the Hon. Sir Derek
Keppel.
Se'venth Carriage. — Captain B. Godfrey-Faussett, R.N., Sir Richard Have-
lock Charles, Mr. F. H. Lucas, the Hon. John Fortescue.
The following Equerries were in attendance on horseback : — Major-
General Sir Stuart Beatson, Major the Lord Charles Fitzmaurice, Major
Clive Wigram.
The route of the procession was by Apollo Bandar Road, Esplanade
Road, Hornby Road, Cruickshank Road, Kalbadevie Road, Pare! Road,
Sandhurst Road to Sandhurst Bridge, Queen's Road, Church Gate Street,
Mayo Road, and thence to the Apollo Bandar. The Escort was furnished
by the Y Battery Royal Horse Artillery, 7th Dragoon Guards, 26th
Cavalry, the Bombay Light Horse, and the Governor's Bodyguard.
The King-Emperor and the Queen-Empress gave a dinner-party on
board the Medina at night, to which the following had the honour of being
invited : — The Governor-General, the Military Secretary to the Governor-
General, the Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Forces in the East
Indies and Lady Slade, the Hon. Mr. M. B. Chaubal, the Hon. Sir Narayen
G. Chandavarkar and Lady Chandavarkar, the Hon. Mr. Justice D. D.
Davar, the Hon. Mr. Justice J. J. Heaton and Mrs. Heaton, the Hon. Mr.
Justice N. C. Macleod and Mrs. Macleod, the Hon. Sir Sassoon J. David,
the Hon. Sir Vithaldas Thakersey, the Hon. Mr. C. H. Armstrong and
Mrs. Armstrong, the Hon. Mr. W. H. Lucas, the General Officer Com-
manding the 6th (Poona) Division and Mrs. Anderson, the Roman Catholic
271
APPENDIX A
Archbishop, the Consul-General for Portugal, Mr. Ratan Tata and Mrs.
Tata, and Colonel R. W. L. Dunlop and the Captains of H.M.S. Argyll,
H.M.S. Cochrane, H.M.S. Natal, and H.M.S. Defence.
December 3.
BOMBAY.
Their Majesties guests at dinner on board H.M.S. Medina included the
following : — The Governor of Bombay and Lady Clarke, the Hon. Sir
Basil Scott, the Lord Bishop of Bombay, the Hon. Mr. W. T. Morison,
the Hon. Mr. R. A. Lamb and Mrs. Lamb, the Aga Khan, the Hon. Mr.
Justice L. P. Russell and Mrs. Russell, the Hon. Mr. Justice S. L. Batchelor
and Mrs. Batchelor, the General Officer Commanding the Bombay Brigade,
the Hon. Sir Henry Procter, the Director Royal Indian Marine and Mrs.
Lumsden, Sir Jamsetji Jeejeebhoy, Mr. C. A. Kincaid and Mrs. Kincaid,
Mr. P. R. Cadell, Mr. Shapurji Burjorji Broacha. The Captain of H.M.S.
Fox and the Captain of H.M.S. Highflyer had the honour of dining with
the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress on board H.M.S. Medina this
evening. Lady Jeejeebhoy had the honour of being invited, but was
unavoidably prevented from obeying Their Imperial Majesties' commands.
December 4.
BOMBAY.
A Guard of Honour of the 127th Baluchis was mounted at the Apollo
Bandar. ^
Procession to the Children's Fete.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE ^UEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, The Marquis of Crewe, the
Lord Chamberlain to the Queen-Empress, the Lord-in-Waiting.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Duke of Teck, Lieut.-
General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien, Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel.
Fourth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, the Lord High Steward,
Lieut.-Colonel Sir J. Dunlop-Smith, Captain B. Godfrey- Faussett, R.N.
An escort was furnished by the 7th Dragoon Guards and the 20th
Cavalry.
The route was by the Mayo Road and Esplanade Road.
Guards of Honour of the Bombay Volunteer Rifles and Cadets for the
same Corps were mounted at the entrance and within the arena.
December 5.
BOMBAY.
This afternoon the King-Emperor and the Queen-Empress, attended by
the members of their Household, visited the Caves of Elephanta.
272
APPENDIX A
At 10 P.M. Their Imperial Majesties, attended by the Mistress of the
Robes, the Marquis of Crewe, the Duke of Teck, the Lord High Steward,
and Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel, left H.M.S. Medina. The remainder
of the Suite, having previously landed at 2.25, were in attendance at the
Apollo Bandar, where a Guard of Honour of the 104th Wellesley's Rifles
was mounted.
The King-Emperor and the Queen-Empress then drove to the Victoria
Terminus Station, a procession being formed in the following order : —
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
Secoiui Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Marquis of Crewe,
Brigadier-General R. E. Grimston and Commander Sir Charles Cust.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Duke of Teck, the
Lord Chamberlain to the Queen-Empress, and Lord Stamfordham.
Fourth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, the Lord High Steward, and
Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel. Major CHve Wigram (Equerry-in-
Waiting), and Major L. O. Graeme and Captain B. S. Grissell (Extra
Aides-de-Camp) were in attendance on horseback.
An Escort was furnished by the 7th Dragoon Guards and the 26th
Cavalry.
On arrival at the station Their Imperial Majesties were received by the
Governor of Bombay, Lady Clarke, the Chief Justice, the Bishop of
Bombay, the Members of the Executive Council, the General Officer
Commanding the Bombay Brigade with the Brigade Staff, the Inspector-
General of Police, the Municipal Commissioner, the Commissioner of
Police, the Executive Engineer to the Presidency, the Under-Secretary to
the Government (Political Department), and the Deputy Inspector-General
of Police (Southern Range). A Guard of Honour of the 96th Berar
Infantry was mounted on the platform, and was inspected by His Imperial
Majesty.
At 10.45 ^•^- ^^^ Royal train left for Delhi.
December 7.
DELHI.
Their Imperial Majesties alighted at Selimgarh Station at 10 a.m.
Guard of Honour at the station : Royal Berkshire Regiment. Guard of
Honour before the Reception-Tent : i6th Rajputs.
The Royal Procession Mounted.
Captain Raban. Captain H. Hill.
Capt. L. F. Ashburner. Capt. R. E. T. Hogg. Major the Hon.
W. G. S. Cadogan.
Major H. R Stockley. Hon. Col. Hafiz Major E. D. Money.
Muhammad Abdullah
Khan.
273 T
Hon. Col. Sir
Muhammad Aslam
Khan.
Col. H. E. Stanton.
Br.-Gen. Birdwood.
The Hon. Sir Derek
Keppel.
Sir Edward Henry.
Sir Henry McMahon.
H.H. The Maharaja
of Bikaner.
APPENDIX A
Col. Viscount Hardinge.
Col. F. Goodwin.
Br.-Gen. H. D'U.
Keary.
Capt. B. G. Godfrey-
Faussett.
Br.-Gen. R. E.
Grimston.
Gen. Sir E. Barrow.
The Lord-in-Waiting.
Br.-Gen. C. J. Melliss.
H.H. Prince George
of Battenberg.
Commander Sir C.
Cust.
Lt.-Gen. Sir H. Smith-
Dorrien.
Lord Stamfordham.
H.H. The Maharaja
of Gwalior.
Bodyguard.
Household Cavalry Orderlies.
H.E. The Commander-in-Chief H.H. The Duke of Teck.
Major C. Wigram. Major Lord C. Fitzmaurice.
THE KING-EMPEROR.
O.C. Escort.
The Marquis of Crewe. H.E. The Governor-General.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS
(in a carriage with the Duchess of Devonshire and the Earl of Durham).
The O.C. Bodyguard riding on the right of the carriage ; Major-
Gen. Sir Pratap Singh on the left.
Lt.-Col. Watson, Major-Gen. Sir Stuart Beatson (on horseback).
Second Carriage. — Lady Hardinge, the Earl of Shaftesbury, and A. D.C. -in-
Waiting.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Hon. Venetia Baring,
Mr. J. H. Du Boulay.
Fourth Carriage. — Mr. F. H. Lucas, Sir James Dunlop-Smith, Rear-
Admiral Sir Colin Keppel.
Fifth Carriage. — Lieut.-Colonel Bird, the Hon. J. Fortescue, Sir R. Have-
lock Charles.
The route of the procession was by —
Delhi Gate of the Fort.
Khas Road.
Round the Jumma Musjid.
Esplanade Road.
Chandni Chowk.
Fattehpur Bazar.
Queen's Road.
DufFerin Bridge.
Mori Gate.
Boulevard Road.
274
APPENDIX A
Rajpur Road.
Chouburja Road.
Through the pavilion on the ridge.
A Guard of Honour of the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, the Royal
Fusiliers, and the 130th Baluchis, was mounted in front of the Royal Tents
in the King-Emperor's Camp.
In the afternoon the King-Emperor held a reception of the Ruling
Chiefs in the Reception-Tent. Their Highnesses were conducted to the
Audience Chamber, and were in turn received in audience by His
Imperial Majesty.
The following had the honour of being received : — The Nizam of
Hyderabad, the Gaekwar of Baroda, the Maharaja of Mysore, the
Maharana of Udaipur, the Maharaja of Jaipur, the Maharaja of Jodhpur,
the Maharao Raja of Bundi, the Maharaja of Bikaner, the Maharao of
Kota, the Maharaja of Kishengarh, the Maharaja of Bharatpur, the
Maharawal of Jaisalmer, the Maharaja of Alwar, the Maharaj Rana of
Dholpur, the Maharao of Sarohi, the Maharawal of Dungarpur, the
Maharaja of Kollahpur, the Rao of Kutch, the Maharaja of Idar, the Mir
of Khairpur.
During the ceremony a Guard of Honour of the Royal Berkshire
Regiment and the i6th Rajputs was mounted in front of the Reception-
Tent.
December 8.
DELHI.
This morning the King-Emperor held a reception of the Ruling Chiefs.
Their Highnesses were conducted to the Audience Chamber, and were
received in turn by His Imperial Majesty.
The following had the honour of being received : — The Maharaja of
Travancore, the Raja of Cochin, the Maharaja of Jammu and Kashmir,
the Maharaja of Gwalior, the Maharaja of Indore, the Begum of Bhopal,
the Maharaja of Rewa, the Maharaja of Orchha, the Raja of Dhar. the
Raja of Dewas (senior branch), the Raja of Dewas (junior branch), the
Maharaja of Patiala, the Nawab of Bahawalpur, the Raja of Nabha, the
Maharaja of Bhutan, the Maharaja of Sikkim, the Khan of Kalat.
A Guard of Honour of the King's Royal Rifle Corps and the King's
Own Sappers and Miners was mounted in front of the Reception-Tent
during the ceremony.
Procession to the site of the King Edward Memorial.
¥irU Carriage.
THEIR IMPERIAL MAJESTIES.
Second Carriage. — The Duchess of Devonshire, the Marquis of Crewe,
the Lord Chamberlain to the Queen-Empress, the Lord-in-Waiting.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Duke of Teck, the
Lord Stamfordham, Sir John Hewett.
275
APPENDIX A
Fourth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, the Lord High Steward, Sir
H. Smith-Dorrien, Sir Edward Henry.
Fifth Carriage. — The Commander-in-Chief, General Sir Edward Barrow,
Sir Stuart Beatson, Colonel J. Dunlop-Smith.
An Escort was furnished by the loth (Prince of Wales's Own Royal)
Hussars and the iith King Edward's Own Lancers.
The route was by the Alipur Road, Kashmir Gate and Elgin Road,
and was lined throughout by troops.
Guards of Honour of the Royal Navy, Royal Marine Artillery, the
Gordon Highlanders, and the 2nd Batt. 2nd King Edward's Own Gurkha
RiBes, were mounted within the enclosure, and detachments of the follow-
ing regiments (of which the late King-Emperor was Colonel-in-Chief) with
standards and colours were grouped around the base of the memorial -. —
loth Royal Hussars, Royal Regiment of Artillery, King's Own Royal
Lancashire Regiment, Norfolk Regiment, Gordon Highlanders, 6th King
Edward's Own Cavalry, iith King Edward's Own Lancers, 102nd King
Edward's Own Grenadiers, 2nd King Edward's Own Gurkha Rifles, the
33rd Queen's Own Light Cavalry, the Queen's Own Corps of Guides, the
2nd Queen's Own Sappers and Miners, 2nd Queen's Own Rajput Light
Infantry.
Procession to the Shamiana.
Governor-General's Staff.
Sir Hafiz Mohamed. Sir Aslam Khan.
Major Wigram. Major the Lord C. Fitzmaurice.
Capt. Godfrey-Faussett. Sir D. Keppel. Commander Sir C. Cust.
Sir J. Dunlop-Smith. Gen. Sir Edmund Sir H. Smith-Dorrien.
Barrow.
Sir Edward Henry. The Lord-in-Waiting.
Sir J. Hewett. The Lord Stamfordham.
The Lord Chamberlain The Lord High
to the Queen-Empress. Steward.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS, THE KING-EMPEROR.
The Marquis of Crewe. The Governor-General.
The Duchess of Devonshire. The Duke of Teck.
The Hon. Venetia Baring. The Countess of Shaftesbury.
Hon. Col. H.H. the H.H. the Maharana H.H. the Maharaja
Maharaja Sir Pratap of Udaipur. Scindia of Gwalior.
Singh.
H.H. the Maharaja of Bikaner. Hon. Col. H.H. the Nawab of
Rampur.
Brigadier-General R. E. Grimston. H.E. the Commander-in-Chief.
On returning to the Camp His Imperial Majesty inspected the Guards
of Honour of the King's Royal Rifle Corps and King George's Own
Sappers and Miners, which were mounted in front of the Royal Tents.
Their Majesties' Dinner-Party.
The Governor-General and Lady Hardinge, Sir Arthur Lawley and
Lady Lawley, the Earl and Countess of Sefton, Lord Alington, the Jam
276
APPENDIX A
Saheb of Nawanagar, the Raja Saheb of Dhrangadra, the Raja of Rajpipla,
the Nawab of Radhanpur, the Thakur Saheb and Thakurani of Gondal,
the Nawab of Jangira, Sir Mohamed Ali Muhammed Khan of
Mahmudabad, the Hon. Mr. M. Mazarul Haque, the Hon. Maung Bah
Too and Mrs. Bah Too, the Hon. Mr. M. B. Dadabhoy and Mrs.
Dadabhoy, the Hon. Mr. G. M. Chitnavis, the Hon. Sir Vithaldas
Damodar Thackersey, the Hon. Mr. G. K. Gokhale, the Hon. Mr.
Mohammad Ali Jinnah, the Hon. Nawab Abdul Majid, the Hon. Mr. F.
C. Gates and Mrs. Gates, the Hon. Mr. F. A. ff. Phillips and Mrs. Phillips,
the Hon. Sir Sassoon David, the Hon. Sir Trevredyn Wynne, the Hon. Mr.
J. S. Meston and Mrs. Meston, the Hon. Mr. J. B. Brunyate and Mrs.
Brunyate, the Hon. Mr. C. Stewart-Wilson and Mrs. Stewart-Wilson, the
Hon. Rao Bahadur R. N. Mudholkar, the Hon. Mr. B. Robertson and Mrs.
Robertson, the Hon. Mr. L. C. Porter, the Hon. Major-General M. H. S.
Grover and Mrs. Grover, the Hon. Mr. C. H. Armstrong and Mrs.
Armsti'ong, the Hon. Mr. Ghulam Muhammad Khan, walad Khan
Bahadur Wall Muhammad Bhurgri, the Hon. Mr. W. H. Vincent and
Mrs. Vincent, the Right Rev. Eyre Chatterton, D.D. (Bishop of Nagpur),
and Mrs. Chatterton, the Right Rev. R. S. Fyffe (Bishop of Rangoon),
the Right Rev. G. H. Wescott (Bishop of Lucknow), Mr. W. H. Wood
and Mfrs. Wood, Mr. S. Finney, CLE., and Mrs. Finney, Mr. G. W.
Shaw, the Hon. Mr. Justice H. S. HartnoU and Mrs. HartnoU, the Hon.
Mr. Justice E. W. Ormond and Mrs. Ormond, Mr. W. W. Drew and
Mrs. Drew, Sir John Benton and Lady Benton, Surgeon-General F. W.
Trevor and Mrs. Trevor, Major-General B. T. Mahon, Major-General Sir
A. A. Barrett and Lady Barrett, Mr. Claude Hill and Mrs. Hill, the
Hon. Mr. D. C. Baillie, the Hon. Mr. G. A. Tweedy, Colonel P. Z. Cox
and Mrs. Cox, the Raj of Chhota Udaipur, the Raja of Baria, the Raja
Saheb of Wankaner, the Nawab of Cochin, the Thakur Saheb of Limbri,
the Thakur Saheb of Rajkot, Brigadier-General W. E. Peyton, D.S.O.,
and Mrs. Peyton, Brigadier-General H. V. Cox and Mrs. Cox, Lieut. -
Colonel F. A. Maxwell and Mrs. Maxwell, the Aides-de-Camp-in-Waiting
to His Excellency the Governor-General, the ladies and gentlemen of
Their Imperial Majesties' Household in attendance — the Duke of Teck,
the Marquis of Crewe, the Lord High Steward, the Mistress of the Robes,
the Earl of Shaftesbury, the Countess of Shaftesbury, the Lord-in-Waiting,
Lord Stamfordham, the Hon. Venetia Baring, Lieutenant-General Sir H. L.
Smith-Dorrien, Sir E. R. Henry, Prince George of Battenberg, the Hon.
J. W. Fortescue, Commander Sir Charles Cust, and Rear -Admiral Sir
Colin Keppel (Ecjuerries-in-Waiting).
December 9.
DELHI.
The King-Emperor this morning held a further reception of the Ruling
Chiefs, when the following had the honour of being received in turn by
His Imperial Majesty in the Audience Chamber : —
Bombay Chiefs. — The Nawab of Palanpur, the Jam of Navanagar, the
Maharaja of Bhavanagar, the Raj Saheb of Dhrangadra, the Raja of
277
APPENDIX A
Rajpipla, the Nawab of Cambey, the Nawab of Radhanpur, the Thakur
Saheb of Gondal, the Nawab of Janpira, the Sultan of Lahej, the Sultan
of Sherer and Mokalla, the Fadhli Sultan, the Raja of Dharampur, the
Raja of Bansda, the Raja of Chhota Udepur, the Maharawal of Bariya,
the Nawab of Sachin, the Rao Saheb of Wankaner, the Thakur Saheb
of Palitana, the Thakur Saheb of Limbdi (Limri), the Thakur Saheb of
Rajkot, the Chief of Bhor, the Chief of Mudhol.
Rajputana. — The Maharaja Rana of Jhalawar.
Central India. — The Maharaja of Samthar, the Nawab of Jaora, the
Raja of Rutlam, the Maharaja of Panna, the Maharaja of Charkhari, the
Maharaja of Bijawar, the Maharaja of Chhatarpur, the Raja of Sitamau,
the Raja of Sailana, the Raja of Rajgarh, the Raja of Narsinghgarh, the
Rana of Barwani, the Raja of Alirajpur.
Bengal. — The Maharaja of Cooch Behar, the Raja of Karond.
United Provinces. — The Nawab of Rampur, the Maharaja of Benares,
the Raja of Tehr (Garhwal).
Panjab. — The Raja of Jhind, the Raja of Kapurthala, the Raja of
Mandi, the Raja of Sirmur (Nahan), the Raja of Bilaspur (Kohlra), the
Nawab of Kotla, the Raja of Faridkot, the Raja of Chamba, the Raja of
Suket, the Nawab of Loharu.
Madras. — -The Raja of Pudukota.
Eastern Bengal and Assam. — The Raja of Hill Tippera, the Raja of
Manipur.
Burma. — The Sawbwa of Kengtung, the Sawbwa of Yanghur, the
Sawbwa of Hsipaw.
Baluchistan. — The Jam of Las Bela.
After the reception the King-Emperor inspected the Guards of Honour
of the I St Batt. Northumberland Fusiliers and the istBatt. King George's
Own Gurkha Rifles, which were mounted in front of the Reception-
Tent.
Procession to the Polo-Ground.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — The Duke of Teck, the Duchess of Devonshire,
Captain G. Godfrey-Faussett.
Third Carriage. — The Marquis of Crewe, the Lord High Steward, Major
the Lord C. Fitzmaurice.
The Escort was furnished by the 13th Hussars and 3rd Skinner's
Horse.
December 10.
DELHL
Procession to the Church Parade Ground.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
278
APPENDIX A
SeconJ Carriage. — The Duchess of Devonshire, the Lord High Steward,
the Marquis of Crewe, and Lord Shaftesbury.
Third Carriage. — The Duke of Teck, the Countess of Shaftesbury, the
Lord-in-Waiting, and Lord Stamfordham.
Major Lord C. Fitzmaurice and Major Clive Wigram were in attendance
on horseback.
The Escort was furnished by the 6th Inniskilling Dragoons and the gtli
Hodson's Horse. The route of the procession, which was by the Kings-
way and the Military Road, was lined throughout by British and Indian
Infantry and the Imperial Service Troops.
The return route was by the Military Road, Parade Road, and Prince's
Road.
December 1 1 .
DELHI.
Mounted Procession to Parade Ground for Presentation
OF Colours.
First Division of Escort.
Orderly. Orderly.
Orderly with Royal Standard.
THE KING-EMPEROR.
The Duke of Teck. The Gov. -General.
Major C. Wigram. Sir Charles Fitzmaurice.
The Maharaja of The Nawab of Maj.-Gen. The Maharaja of
Bikaner. Rampur. Sir Pratap Singh. Gwalior.
Gen. Sir E. Barrow. Lord Annaly. The Commander-in-
Chief
Maj.-Gen. Sir S. Beatson. Lt.-Gen. Sir H. Smith- Lord Stamfordham.
Dorrien.
Colonel Maxwell. Br.-Gen. Grimston.
Royal Groom. Royal Groom.
THE ^UEEN-EMPRESS
(in a carriage with the Mistress of the Robes and the Lord High
Steward).
Captain Hill. Lt.-Colonel Watson.
LADY HARDINGE
(in a carriage with the Marquis of Crewe and Capt. P. Burn).
Second Division of Escort.
The Escort was furnished by the 13th Hussars and 36th Jacob's Horse.
Guards of Honour at the King-Emperor's Camp were furnished by the
2nd Batt. King's Royal Rifle Corps and 2nd Batt. King Edward's Own
Gurkha Rifles.
279
APPENDIX A
December i 2.
DELHI.
Programme of the Ceremonies to be observed on the Occasion
OF the Coronation Durbar, December 12, 191 1.
The Members of the Household, including the Minister in Attendance,
will leave the King-Emperor's Camp at 10.45 A-*^- ^"^ ^i^^ proceed by the
Kingsway to the Durbar Amphitheatre, where they will be conducted to
their places.
2. Their Excellencies the Governor-General and Lady Hardinge will
leave the King-Emperor's Camp at 11. 10 a.m. with an escort of one
regiment of British Cavalry and one regiment of Indian Cavalry.
On approaching the Amphitheatre, their carriage will pass to the right
along the front of the Spectators' Mound, turn down the Centre Road
and proceed to the left by the Circular Road to the Durbar Shamiana,
where they will be received by the Governor-General's Staff and conducted
to their seats.
On arrival in the Amphitheatre they will be received with salutes by the
troops massed in the arena and by the Guards of Honour. All present will
rise and remain standing until Their Excellencies have alighted and taken
their seats.
3. Their Imperial Majesties the King-Emperor and Queen-
Empress will drive from the Camp at 11.30 a.m. attended by two
equerries-in-waiting on horseback and with an escort of one regiment of
British Cavalry (loth Hussars), a Battery of Royal Horse Artillery, the
Bodyguard, the Imperial Cadet Corps, and one regiment of Indian
Cavalry (i8th Lancers).
The cortege will proceed to the Durbar Shamiana by the route
described above.
The Imperial Cadet Corps and the Bodyguard will remain in the pro-
cession throughout, but the remainder of the escort will leave the proces-
sion as it is about to enter the Circular Road to pass in front of the
Amphitheatre and will form up outside the arena.
4. As Their Imperial Majesties enter the Amphitheatre a salute ^
of loi guns will be fired, and when they reach the Durbar Shamiana the
Royal Standard will be hoisted, a Royal Salute will be given by the
Guards of Honour and all the troops present, and the Massed Bands will
play the National Anthem.
Their Imperial Majesties will be received by His Excellency the
Governor-General as they alight from their carriage, and conducted to
their Thrones.
All present will rise as Their Imperial Majesties enter the arena
and will remain standing until they have taken their seats.
^ The salute will be timed so as to terminate as Their Imperial Majesties enter
the Durbar Shamiana.
280
APPENDIX A
5. On the conclusion of the salute the Master of the Ceremonies will
obtain the King-Empkkor's command to open the Durbar.
The opening of the Durbar will be signalised by a flourish of trumpets
and roll of drums from the Massed Bands in the arena.
The King-Emperor has announced his gracious intention of then
addressing the assemblage.
6. After this, the Governor-General, the High Oflicials and the Ruling
Chiefs will do Homage in the following order : —
(i) His Excellency the Governor-General.
(2) His Excellency the Commander-in-Chief and the Ordinary
Members of the Governor-General's Executive Council.
(3) The Ruling Chiefs in political relations with the Government ot
India, and the Agents to the Governor-General and Residents,^ in the
following territorial order, i.e. —
Hyderabad.
Baroda.
Mysore.
Kashmir.
Rajputana.
Central India.
Baluchistan.
Sikkim and Bhutan.
4) The Chief Justice and Puisne Judges of the High Court, Bengal.
5) The Governor-General's Legislative Council.
6) His Excellency the Governor of Madras.
7) The Governor's Executive Council.
Ruling Chiefs in political relations with the Government of Madras.
Provincial Representatives of Madras.
His Excellency the Governor of Bombay.
The Governor's Executive Council.
Ruling Chiefs in political relations with the Government of Bombay.
3) Provincial Representatives of Bombay.
4) His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal.
5) The Lieutenant-Governor's Executive Council.
6) Ruling Chiefs of Bengal.
7) Provincial Representatives of Bengal.
8) His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces.
9) Ruling Chiefs of the United Provinces.
20) Provincial Representatives of the United Provinces.
His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjab.
Ruling Chiefs of the Panjab.
Provincial Representatives of the Panjab.
24) His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of Burma.
Ruling Chiefs of Burma.
26) Provincial Representatives of Burma.
27) His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam.
Ruling Chiefs of Eastern Bengal and Assam.
^ The Agents to the Governor-General and Resiiients will each precede their
Chiefs and remain until the last of these has done Homage.
281
APPENDIX A
(29) Provincial Representatives of Eastern Bengal and Assam.
(30) The Hon. the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces.
(31) Representatives of the Central Provinces.
(32) Representatives of Baluchistan.
(33) The Hon. the Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier
Province.
(34) Representatives of the North-West Frontier Province.
7. At the conclusion of the ceremony, the King-Emperor and Queen-
Empress will move in procession from the Durbar Shamiana to the
Royal Pavilion.
They will advance hand-in-hand, their robes being held by Pages and
the golden umbrellas held over their heads.
Then will follow Their Excellencies the Governor-General and Lady
Hardinge, the Minister in Attendance, His Highness the Duke of Teck,
the Duchess of Devonshire, and at a suitable interval the remainder of the
suite in attendance.
All will rise as the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress leave the
Thrones in the Durbar Shamiana and will remain standing until Their
Imperial Majesties are seated in the Royal Pavilion.
Their Excellencies the Governor-General and Lady Hardinge, the
Minister in Attendance and His Highness the Duke of Teck with the
Duchess of Devonshire, the Countess of Shaftesbury and the Hon.
Venetia Baring will stand on the second tier of the Royal Pavilion ; His
Excellency and Lady Hardinge on the right and the others above named
on the left of the Thrones, round which the Pages will be grouped.
The Staffs will stand on the next lower platform.
8. The Bands within the arena will then sound a summons to the
Heralds.
The Heralds with the Trumpeters, who will be posted outside, will
reply with a flourish of trumpets and will ride up to the Amphitheatre.
They will halt at the entrance to the Centre Road beyond the Spec-
tators' Mound and sound another flourish of trumpets. They will then
ride to the front of the Royal Pavilion, form up and sound a third flourish.
The Herald will then be commanded to read in English the Royal
Proclamation announcing the Solemnity of His Imperial Majesty's
Coronation in London on the 22nd June 191 1, after which it will be read
in Urdu by the Assistant Herald.
When the Proclamation has thus been read, the Trumpeters will sound
another flourish.
As this flourish concludes, the Massed Bands will play the National
Anthem, and the Guards of Honour and troops massed in the arena will
present arms. All the spectators will rise from their seats and remain
standing while the National Anthem is being played. On its completion
a salute of loi guns by salvos of batteries will be fired, and the troops
outside the arena will fire ^.feu dejoie.
9. When the Royal Salute has been fired, the Herald and Trumpeters
will sound a prolonged flourish, after which His Excellency the Governor-
General will make such announcement as His Imperial Majesty may
command.
282
APPENDIX A
Tlie Herald and Trumpeters will then sound another flourish, and the
Herald, raising his helmet, will call for three cheers first for the King-
Emperor and then for the Queen-Empress, which will be joined m by
all the spectators and the troops inside the Amphitheatre. As soon as
these cheers have subsided, the General Officer Commanding the Troops
outside the arena will similarly call for cheers from them.
10. Their Imperial Majesties will then return to the Durbar
Shamiana in procession i as before, and, when they are again seated, the
Trumpeters will sound another flourish, after which the Herald and
Trumpeters will retire from the arena.
The Master of the Ceremonies will next request the King-Emperor s
permission to close the Durbar, whereupon the Massed Bands will play the
National Anthem, which will be sung by the whole assembly.
11. Their Imperial Majesties will then depart in the same manner
and with the same ceremonies as when they came. All present will
remain standing until they have left the arena.
The procession will pass to the Centre Road by the Circular Road on
the opposite side of the Durbar Shamiana to that by which it arrived and
when it reaches the end of the Centre Road, will turn to the left and
proceed below the Spectators" Mound to the Prince's Road and thence by
that route to the King-Emperor's Camp.
The first gun of the salute will be fired as the procession leaves the
arena by the Prince's Road. .
After the departure of the Royal cortege. Their Excellencies the
Governor-General and Lady Hardinge will leave the Durbar in the same
way and with the same honours as on their arrival, the spectators rising as
they enter their carriage. . , „ , ^^ i u -n
After the Governor-General, the members of the Royal Household will
depart. , .
High Officials and Ruling Chiefs will then be conducted to their
carriages.
irriageb. -i i u u
All others are requested to remain in their places until the above have
left, and they will then leave in the same manner as on arrival.
Full dress 2 will be worn. Gentlemen not entitled to wear uniform
will appear in Court or Morning Dress.
Collar Day. ^ ,t .* ivt
A. H. McMahon.
Durbar Procession from the Shamiana to the Pavilion.
Lord Chamberlain to the Lord High Steward.
Queen-Empress.
THE 2UEEN-EMPRESS. THE KING-EMPEROR.
Pages.— The Thakur Saheb Pages. — The Maharaja of
of Palitana, Rajkumar Ram- Bharatpur, Maharaja Kumar
Chandra Singh of Sailana, Himmat Singh of Idar, Ver
1 The Massed Bands will play a March during the procession.
2 With trousers and not knee-breeches.
283
APPENDIX A
Maharaja KunwarGulab Singh
of Rewa, Maharaja Mandhata
Singh of Sailana.
Singh (grandson of the Maha-
raja of Orchha), the Maharaja
of Jodhpur, Maharaja Kunwar
Sadul Singh of Bikaner, Sahib-
zada Muhammad Wahid-uz-
Zafar Khan of Bhopal.
Lady Hardinge.
The Duke of Teck.
The Hon. Venetia
Baring.
Sir Pratap Singh.
The Maharaja of Bikaner.
Sir John Hewett.
Sir Edward Henry.
Attendants.
The Duchess of
Devonshire.
The Governor-General.
The Marquis of Crewe.
Maharana of Udaipur.
The Lord Annaly.
Sir H. McMahon.
Lt.-Col.
Sir J. Dunlop-Smith.
Major
Lord C. Fitzmaurice.
Lt.-Col.
H. D. Watson.
Col. Lord Harris.
Br.-Gen. Mercer.
Major Stockley.
Sir C. Keppel.
The Countess of
Shaftesbury'.
Maharaja of Gwalior.
The Nawab of Rampur.
The Lord Stamfordham.
Lt.-Gen. Sir H.
Smith-Dorrien.
Sir Stuart Beatson. Br.-Gen. Grimston.
Hon.
Sir D. Keppel.
H.H. Prince
George of
Battenberg.
Br.-Gen.
H. D'U. Keary.
Col. Goodwin.
Hon. Col.
Nawab Sir Hafiz
Mohamad
Abdullah Khan.
Hon. J. Fortescue.
Capt. Ashburner.
Commander
Sir C. Cust.
Major Wigram.
Capt. B. G.
Godfrey-Faussett.
Sir R. H. Charles.
Br.-Gen.
Birdwood.
Col. Viscount
Hardinge.
Hon. Col.
Nawab Sir Mohamad
Aslam Khan.
Br.-Gen.
C. J. Melliss.
Col. Stanton.
Major Money.
Lt.-Col. Bird. Hon. J. Fortescue. Mr. Lucas. Captain Hogg.
Captain Raban. Capt. Ashburner. Major Cadogan. Captain Hill.
Governor-General's Staff (8).
Gentlemen-at-Arms.
Royal Archer.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress gave a State banquet this
evening, to which the following had the honour of being invited : — The
Governor-General of India and the Lady Hardinge of Penshurst, the
Governor of Bombay and Lady Clarke, the Governor of Madras and Lady
Carmichael, the Lieutenant-Governor of the Panjab and Lady Dane, the
Governor of Ceylon and Lady McCallum, the Governor of the Straits
Settlements and Lady Young.
The Nizam of Hyderabad, the Gaekwar of Baroda, the Maharaja of
Kolhapur, the Commander-in-Chief in India and Lady Creagh, Sir John
Hewett (President Coronation Durbar Committee) and Lady Hewett, the
284
APPENDIX A
Lieutenant-Governor of Burma and Lady Adamson, the Lieutenant-
Governor of Eastern Bengal and Assam and Lady Bayley, the Lieutenant-
Governor of the United Provinces, the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and
Mrs. Duke, the Chief Justice of Bengal and Lady Jenkins, Sir Guy Fleet-
wood Wilson (Ordinary Member of the Council of His Excellency the
Governor-General), Mr. J. L. Jenkins (Ordinary Member of the Council
of the Governor-General) and Mrs. Jenkins.
Mr. R. W. Carlyle (Ordinary Member of the Council of the Governor-
General) and Mrs. Carlyle, Mr. S. H. Butler (Ordinary Member of the
Council of the Governor-General) and Mrs. Butler, Mr. Syed AH Imam
(Ordinary Member of the Council of the Governor-General), Mr. W. H.
Clark (Ordinary Member of the Council of the Governor-General) and
Mrs. Clark, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Simla.
The Earl and the Countess of Mar and Kellie, Lord Charles Montagu,
Admiral the Hon. Sir H. and Lady Meux, Major-General the Maharaja of
Gwalior (Hon. A.D.C. to the King-Emperor), the Maharaja of Indore,
Major-General the Maharaja Sir Pratap Singh Bahadur, Regent of Jodhpur
(Hon. A.D.C. to the King-Emperor), Colonel the Maharaja of Bikaner
(Hon. A.D.C. to the King-Emperor), the Maharaja of Patiala, the Maha-
raja of Bhutan, the Raja of Behar, the Raja of Dewas (senior branch), the
Raja of Dewas (junior branch), the Maharaja of Keshangarh, the Maha-
raja of Alwar, the Maharaja of Sikkim, the Maharaja Rana of Dholpur,
the Maharawal of Dungarpur, the Maharaja of Idar, Colonel the Nawab
of Rampur (Hon. A.D.C. to the King-Emperor), the Nawab of Jaora, the
Raja of Hill Tippera, the Aga Khan.
The Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's Naval Forces in the East
Indies and Lady Slade, Lieut. -Colonel Sir Henry McMahon (Master of
Ceremonies) and Lady McMahon, Sir Charles Arnold White (Chief
Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Madras) and Lady White, Sir
Basil Scott (Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature at Bombay),
Mr. H. G. Richards (Chief Justice of the High Court of Judicature for the
North-Western Provinces) and Mrs. Richards, the Bishop of Madras and
Mrs. Whitehead, the Bishop of Bombay, Sir Murray Hammick (Ordinary
Member of Council, Madras) and Lady Hammick, Mr. M. B. Chaubal
(Ordinary Member of Council, Bombay), Mr. W. T. Morison (Ordinary
Member of Council, Bombay), Mr. R. A. Lamb (Ordinary Member of
Council, Bombay) and Mrs. Lamb.
Mr. Krishnaswami Aiyer (Ordinary Member of Council, Madras), the
General Officer Commanding the Southern Army and Lady Barrow, the
Chief of the General Staff and the Hon. Lady Haig, the General Officer
Commanding the Northern Army and Lady Willcocks, the Agent to the
Governor-General in Rajputana and Mrs. Colvin, the Resident in Kashmir
and Mrs. Eraser, the Chief Commissioner of the Central Provinces and
Mrs. Craddock, the Chief Commissioner of the North-West Frontier
Provinces, the Resident in Mysore and Mrs. Daly, Mr. F. A. Slacke
(Member of the Executive Council of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal)
and Mrs. Slacke, Rai Kisori Lall Goswami Bahadur (Member of the
Executive Council of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal), the
Agent to the Governor -General of Baluchistan and Mrs. Ramsay, the
Agent to the Governor-General in Central India and Mrs. O'Dwyer, the
285
APPENDIX A
Resident in Hyderabad and Mrs. Pinhey, Mr. R. F. Greer (Member of the
Executive Council of the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal) and Mrs. Greer.
Justice Sir G. H. Knox (Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature
for the North -Western Provinces) and Lady Knox, Mr. Justice P. C.
Banerjee (Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature for the North-
Western Provinces), Justice Sir Ralph Benson (Puisne Judge of the High
Court of Judicature at Madras) and Lady Benson, Justice Sir Richard
Harington, Bart. (Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Fort
William, in Bengal) and Mrs. Harington, Mr. Justice C. N. W. Brett
(Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Fort William, in Bengal)
and Mrs. Brett, Mr. Justice H. L. Stephen (Puisne Judge of the High
Court of Judicature at Fort William, in Bengal) and Mrs. Stephen, Mr.
Justice J. E. P. Wallis (Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature at
Madras) and Mrs. Wallis, Mr. Justice C. Sankaran Nair (Puisne Judge of
the High Court of Judicature at Madras) and Mrs. Sankaran Nair, Mr.
Justice H. D. Griffin (Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature for
the North-Western Provinces) and Mrs. Griffin, Mr. Justice Abdur Rahim
(Puisne Judge of the High Court of Judicature at Madras), Sir Charles
Fox (Chief Justice of the Chief Court of Burma) and Lady Fox, Sir
Arthur Reid (Chief Judge of the Chief Court, Panjab) and Lady Reid, the
Lieutenant-General Commanding the ist (Peshawar) Division and Lady
Nixon, Lieut.-General Sir A. R. Martin (commanding the 2nd (Rawalpindi)
Division), the Lieutenant-General Commanding the 7th (Meerut) Division
and Lady Lake, the Lieutenant-General Commanding the 3rd (Lahore)
Division and Lady Pearson, Lieut.-General Sir J. B. Moon (commanding
the 9th (Secunderabad) Division), the Lieutenant-General Commanding the
4th (Quetta) Division and Mrs. Sclater, the Bishop of Lahore, Mr. J. B.
Wood (additional Secretary to the Government of India in the Foreign
Department) and Mrs. Wood, Brigadier-General R. E. Grimston (Military
Secretary to the King-Emperor), Mr. H. V. Cobb (Resident at Baroda),
Major F. W. Wodehouse (Political Agent, Kolhapur), Mr. C. A. Bell
(Political Officer, Sikkim), the Private Secretary to the Governor-General
and Mrs. Du Boulay, Captain the Hon. E. Hardinge (Aide-de-Camp-in-
Waiting to the Governor-General).
Ladies and gentlemen of the Household in attendance : — The Duke of
Teck (Silver Stick and personal A.D.C. to the King- Emperor), the
Marquis of Crewe (Minister in Attendance), the Earl of Durham (Lord
High Steward), the Duchess of Devonshire (Mistress of the Robes), the
Earl of Shaftesbury (Lord-in- Waiting), the Lord Annaly (Lord in-Waiting),
the Lord Stamfordham (Private Secretary to the King-Emperor), the Hon.
Venetia Baring (Maid of Honour), Lieut.-General Sir H. L. Smith-Dorrien
(Aide-de-Camp), General Sir E. R. Henry (Extra Equerry to the King-
Emperor), Major-General Sir S. B. Beatson (Private Secretary to the
Queen-Empress), Rear-Admiral Sir C. R. Keppel (Extra Equerry to the
King-Emperor), Lieut. -Colonel Sir J. R. Dunlop-Smith (Political A.D.C.
to the Secretary of State), Commander Sir C. L. Cust, Bart. (Equerry-in-
Waiting to the King-Emperor), Lieut.-Colonel the Hon. Sir D. W. G.
Keppel (Master of the Household), Captain B. G. Godfrey - Faussett
(Equerry to the King -Emperor), Lord Charles G. F. P. Fitzmaurice
(Equerry to the King-Emperor), Major Clive Wigram (Assistant Private
286
APPENDIX A
Secretary and Equerry to the King-Emperor), Prince George of Battenberg,
Lieut. -Colonel Sir R. Havelock Charles (Sergeant-Surgeon to the King-
Emperor), Mr. F. H. Lucas (Private Secretary to the Secretary of State for
India), the Hon. J. W. Fortescue (Official Historian to the King-Emperor),
Mr. Jacomb Hood (Official Artist to the King-Emperor).
The Nawab of Tonck also had the honour of being invited, but was
unavoidably prevented from obeying His Majesty's commands.
December i 3.
DELHI.
The King-Emperor left camp by motor at 8 a.m. this morning, attended
by the Duke of Teck, the Commander-in-Chief, the Lord Annaly, General
Sir E. Barrow, Lieut. -General Sir H. L. Smith-Dorrien, Brigadier-General
R. E. Grimston, Major Lord C. Fitzmaurice, Major Clive Wigram.
On arrival at the camp of the Naval Contingent, His Imperial Majesty
mounted his charger and rode through the camps of the Naval Contingent,
the 19th Infantry Brigade, the 20th Infantry Brigade, the 21st Infantry
Brigade, the 9th Brigade, the 8th Brigade, the 7th Infantry Brigade, the
I St Composite Infantry Brigade.
His Imperial Majesty returned to camp by motor by the Kingsway.
Procession to the Shamiana.
Presentation of Volunteer Officers, Indian Officers, and Officers of the
hnperial Ser--vice Troops.
Brigadier-General Grimston. Two Equerries-in-Waiting.
THE KING-EMPEROR.
The Duke of The Commander- The Governor- The Marquis of
Teck. in-Chief. General. Crewe.
Nawab of Rampur. Maharaja Sir Maharaja of Maharaja of
Pratap Singh. Gwalior. Bikaner.
Sir E. Henry. Gen. Sir Lord Lt.-Gen. Sir H.
E. Barrow. Stamfordham. Smith-Dorrien.
Lord Harris. The Hon. D. Keppel. Br.-Gen. Birdwood.
Col. Goodwin. Br.-Gen. Melliss. Br.-Gen. Keary. Col. Viscount
Hardinge.
Col. Stanton. Nawab Sir Hafiz Col. Sir Aslam Br.-Gen. Mercer.
Muhammad Khan.
AbduUa Khan.
Governor-General's Staff.
The Volunteer officers first had the honour of being presented to the
King-Emperor. The Indian officers and Imperial Service officers then had
the honour of being presented.
The Governor - General's Bodyguard, the Governor's Bodyguard
(Madras), the Governor's Bodyguard (Bombay), the Escort to the
Lieutenant-Governor of Burma.
287
APPENDIX A
3rd Skinner's Horse, 8th Cavalry, 9th Hodson's Horse, nth Lancers,
30th Lancers, 36th Horse.
31st Mountain Battery, 32nd Mountain Battery, ist Sappers and
Miners, 2nd Sappers and Miners, 25th and 26th Railway Companies*
Sappers and Miners, 31st, 32nd and 33rd Delhi Signal Companies.
16th Rajputs, 1 8th Infantry, 25th Panjabis, 23rd Pioneers, 28th Pan-
jabis, 33rd Panjabis, 34th Pioneers, 36th Sikhs, i-39th Garhwal Rifles,
2-39th Garhwal Rifles, 41st Dogras, 45th Sikhs, 47th Sikhs, 48th
Pioneers, 53rd Sikhs, 57th Rifles, 74th Panjabis.
90th Panjabis, 107th Pioneers, 11 6th Maharattas, 126th Pioneers, 130th
Baluchis, i-ist Gurkha Rifles, 2-ist Gurkha Rifles, 2-2nd Gurkha Rifles,
I -3rd Gurkha Rifles, 2-3rd Gurkha Rifles, 2-4th Gurkha Rifles, 2-9th
Gurkha Rifles, 2-ioth Gurkha Rifles.
ist Lancers, 6th Cavalry, 26th Cavalry, 38th Horse, 39th Horse, 104th
Rifles, 6ist Pioneers, 102nd Grenadiers, i-2nd Gurkha Rifles, 33rd Cavalry,
the Corps of Guides, 2nd Infantry, Malay States Guides, 14th Lancers, 3rd
Sappers and Miners, 31st Lancers, 2nd Lancers, 12th Cavalry, 7th Rajputs,
60th Panjabis.
Indian Aides-de-Camp to the Governor -General, the Commander-in
Chief, the General Officer Commanding Northern Army, the General
Oflfiicer Commanding Southern Army.
Medical Department, Transport units.
Imperial Service Troops. — Alwar Lancers, Bhavnagar Lancers, Bhopal
Lancers, Gwalior Lancers, Hyderabad Lancers, Jodhpur Lancers, Kashmir
Lancers, Mysore Lancers, Navanagar Lancers, Patiala Lancers, Rampur
Lancers, Kashmir Artillery, Faridkote Sappers, Malar Kotla Sappers,
Sirmur Sappers, Tehri Garhwal Sappers, Bhawalpur Camel Corps,
Bikaner Camel Corps, Khairpur Camel Corps, Alwar Infantry,
Bharatpur Infantry, Bikaner Infantry, Gwalior Infantry, Jind Infantry,
Kapurthala Infantry, Kashmir Infantry, Nabha Infantry, Patiala Infantry,
Rampur Infantry, Gwalior Transport Corps, Indore Transport Corps,
Jaipur Transport Corps.
At the conclusion of the presentation His Imperial Majesty inspected
the Guard of Honour of the 1st Batt. Connaught Rangers, ist King
George's Own Sappers and Miners.
Before the presentation of the above officers took place the King-
Emperor presented Albert Medals to the following officers, warrant and
non-commissioned officers of the Indian Ordnance Department, which
were conferred on them for their gallantry in saving life on the occasion of
the explosion of cordite at Hyderabad (Sind) and Ferozepur in 1906.
Albert Medal of the First Class. — Captain G. C. Donovan and Sub-
Conductor A. E. Purkis.
Albert Medal of the Second Class. — Major-General C. A. Anderson,
Major M. S. Clarke Campbell, Captain H. Clarke, Assistant Commission-
ary and Hon. Lieutenant F. Hensely, Conductor H. Pargiter, Sergeant A.
J. Robinson, Sergeant G. Smith, and Sergeant D. Daw.
Their Imperial Majesties gave a dinner-party this evening, to which the
following had the honour of being invited : — The Governor-General of
India and Lady Hardinge of Penshurst, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of
Agra, the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Madras, the Raja of Jhind, the
288
APPENDIX A
Raja of Kapurthala, the Raja of Pudukottai, the Maharaja Rana of
Jhalawar, the Nawab Bahadur of Murshidabad.
Additional Members of the Council of the Governor-General. — The
Hon. Mr. C. W. N. Graham (President Bengfal Chamber of Commerce),
the Maharaja Adhiraja Bahadur of Burdwan, the Hon. Raja of Dighapatia,
the Hon. Maulvi Syed Shamsul Huda, the Hon. the Raja of Kurupam,
the Hon. Nawab Saiyid Muhammad Sahib Bahadur, the Hon. Babu
Bhupendra Nath Basu, the Hon. Mr. Sachchidananda Sinha.
The Commissioner (Fyzabad Division) and Mrs. Holmes, the Hon.
Khan Zulfikar Ali Khan of Maier Kotla, the Hon. Malik Umar Hayat
Khan, Tiwana, the Hon. Mr. J. M. Macpherson, the Director-General
of the Indian Medical Service and Mrs. Lukis, the Director-General of
Telegraphs in India and Mrs. Dempster, the Inspector-General of Excise
and Salt and Mrs. Todhunter, the Hon. Mr. G. H. B. Kenrick (Advocate-
General, Bengal), the Hon. Mr. C. H. Kesteven, the Hon. Kour Sir
Ranbir Singh of Patiala, the Hon. Sir Ghulam Muhammad Ali Khan
Bahadur, K.C.I.E., Prince of Arcot.
The Secretary to the Government of India in the Home Department,
the Hon. Mr. E. D. MacLagan (Secretary to the Government of India in
the Department of Revenue and Agriculture), the Hon. Mr. H. Sharp
(Secretary to the Government of India in the Department of Education),
the Hon. Mr. W. B. Gordon (Secretary to the Government of India in
the Public Works Department), the Financial Commissioner of Panjab
and Mrs. Meredith, the Hon. Mr. P. C. Lyon (Member of the Board of
Revenue, Eastern Bengal and Assam) and Mrs. Lyon, the Hon. Mr. R. C.
C. Carr, I.C.S. (Member of the Board of Revenue, Madras), the Com-
missioner of Northern India Salt and Revenue and Mrs. Arthur.
The Hon. Mr. Justice F. A. Robertson (a Judge of the Chief Court,
Panjab) and Mrs. Robertson, the Hon. Mr. Justice A. Kensington (a
Judge of the Chief Court, Panjab) and Mrs. Kensington, the Hon. Mr.
Justice D. C. Johnstone (a Judge of the Chief Court, Panjab) and Mrs.
Johnstone, the Chief Secretary to the Government of Madras and Member
of the Madras Legislative Council and Lady Stuart, the Director of
Supplies and Transport and Mrs. Mansfield.
Major -General W. Du G. Gray (Inspector-General of Volunteers in
India), the General Officer Commanding the 5th (Mhow) Division and
Mrs. Blomfield, Major-General T. D. Pilcher (commanding the Sirhind
Brigade), Major-General G. C. Kitson (Quartermaster-General in India).
The Hon. Mr. A. K. L. Stuart (Senior Member of Board of Revenue,
Madras, and a Member of the Madras Legislative Council), the Hon. Mr.
J. McC. Douie (First Financial Commissioner, Panjab, and a Member of
the Panjab Legislative Council) and Mrs. Douie.
The Hon. Mr. P. G. Melitus (Member of Board of Revenue, Eastern
Bengal and Assam, and a Member of the Eastern Bengal and Assam
Legislative Council) and Mrs. Melitus, the Hon. Mr. A. H. Diack
(Second Financial Commissioner, Panjab, and a Member of the Panjab
Legislative Council) and Mrs. Diack, Surgeon-General W. B. Bannerman
and Miss Bannerman, the Hon. Mr. D. J. Macpherson (Member of Board
of Revenue, Bengal, and Member of the Bengal Legislative Council) and
Mrs. Macpherson.
289 U
APPENDIX A
The Rev. J. C. R. Ewing (Vice-Chancellor of the Panjab University),
the Commissioner of Delhi Division and Mrs. Dallas, the Political Agent
of the Phulkian States and Bhawalpur and Mrs. Atkins, Colonel
Viscount Hardinge (C.B., A.D.C. to the King-Emperor) and Viscountess
Hardinge, Colonel Nawab Sir Muhammad Aslam Khan, Sardar Bahadur
(A.D.C. to the King-Emperor), Raja Sir Harnam Singh of Kapurthala
and Rani Lady Harnam Singh.
The Inspector-General of Police ot the Panjab and Mrs. Lee-French,
the Raja Dhiraj of Shahpura, the Maharaja of Moharbhanj, the Nawab of
Bhanganapalle, the Raja of Sarangarh, the Surgeon to the Governor-
General of India and Mrs. O'Kinealy, the Comptroller of the Governor-
General's Household and Mrs. Mackenzie, Captains Burn and Todd
(Aides-de-Camp-in-Waiting to His Excellency the Governor-General).
Ladies and Gentlemen of the Household. — Duke of Teck (Silver Stick
and personal Aide-de-Camp), the Right Hon. the Marquis of Crewe
(Minister in Attendance), the Right Hon. the Earl of Durham (Lord High
Steward), the Duchess of Devonshire (Mistress of the Robes), the Earl of
Shaftesbury (Lord Chamberlain to Her Imperial Majesty), the Countess
of Shaftesbury (Lady-in- Waiting), the Lord Annaly (Lord-in-Waiting),
the Lord Stamfordham (Private Secretary to His Imperial Majesty), the
Hon. Venetia Baring (Maid of Honour), Major-General Sir S. S. Beatson
(Private Secretary to Her Imperial Majesty), Lieut. -Colonel Sir J. R.
Dunlop-Smith (Political A.D.C. to the Secretary of State), Lieut. -Colonel
the Hon. Sir D. W. G. Keppel (Master of the Household), Lieut.-
Colonel Sir R. Havelock Charles (Sergeant -Surgeon to His Imperial
Majesty), Captain B. Godfrey-Faussett, Rear-Admiral Sir C. Keppel.
December 14.
DELHI.
Mounted Procession to the Review Ground.
The Governor-General's Personal Staff.
Capt. R. Raban.
Major H. R. Stockley.
Hon. Col. Sir
Muhammad Aslam
Khan.
Col. Goodwin.
Br.-Gen. Birdwood.
Lt.-Gen. Sir H. L.
Smith-Dorrien.
Lord Stamfordham.
Capt. R. E. T. Hogg.
Hon. Col. Nawab Sir
Hafiz Muhammad
Abdulla Khan.
Col. Viscount Hardinge.
Br.-Gen. H.D'U.Keary.
Sir E. Henry.
Major Hon. W.
Cadogan.
Major E. D. Money.
Col. Stanton.
Br.-Gen. C. J. Melliss.
Br.-Gen. Mercer.
Gen. Sir E. Barrow.
The Lord-in-Waiting.
Bodyguard.
Household Cavalry Orderlies with Standard.
290
APPENDIX A
Adjutant, Bodyguard.
The Duke of Teck.
Major Lord C.
Fitzmaurice.
The Maharaja of Bikaner
Royal Groom.
THE KING-EMPEROR.
Commandant, Bodyguanl.
The Governor-General.
Col. Maxwell.
Br. -Gen. Grimston.
The Maharaja of Gwalior.
Royal Groom.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS
(in a carriage with the Mistress of the Robes and the Lord High Steward).
Commandant, Imperial Cadet Corps. Major-Gen. Sir Pratap Singh.
Lt.-Col. H. D. Watson. Major-Gen. Sir Stuart Beatson.
Capt. K. Hill. Capt. L. F. Ashburner.
Second Carriage. — Lady Hardinge, Marquis of Crewe, Lord Chamberlain
to the Queen-Empress, Aide-de-Camp.
Imperial Cadet Corps.
Order of March, Royal Review.
His Imperial Majesty the King-Emperor's Procession.
Army Headquarters Staff.
Foreign General Officers and Military Attaches.
The Commander-in-Chief's Personal Staff.
The Governor-General's Personal Staff.
Capt. Raban.
Major Stockley.
Hon. Col. Muhammad
Aslam Khan.
Col. Goodwin.
Br. -Gen. Birdwood.
Lt.-Gen. Sir H. L.
Smith-Dorrien.
Lord Stamfordham.
Capt. Hogg.
Hon. Col. Hafiz
Muhammad Abdulla
Khan.
Col. Viscount Hardinge.
Br.-Gen. Keary.
Sir E. Henry.
Major Cadogan.
Major Money.
Col. Stanton.
Br.-Gen. Melliss.
Br.-Gen. Mercer.
Gen. Sir E. Barrow.
The Lord-in-Waiting.
First Division Bodyguard.
Household Cavalry Orderlies with Standard.
THE KING-EMPEROR.
Adjutant, Bodyguard.
The Duke of Teck.
Major Lord C.
Fitzmaurice.
The Maharaja of
Bikaner.
Royal Groom.
Commandant, Bodyguard.
The Governor-General.
Br.-Gen. Grimston. Col. Maxwell.
Second Division Bodyguard.
291
The Maharaja of
Gwalior.
Royal Groom.
APPENDIX A
Her Imperial Majesty the Queen-Empress's Procession.
First Division, Imperial Cadet Corps.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS
(in a carriage with the Mistress of the Robes and the Lord High Steward).
Commandant, Imperial Cadet Corps. Hon. Major-Gen. Sir Pratap Singh.
Lt.-Col. H. D. Watson. Major-Gen. Sir Stuart Beatson.
Capt. H. Hill. Capt. Ashburner.
Second Carriage. — Lady Hardinge, Marquis of Crewe, Lord Chamberlain
to the Queen-Empress, Aide-de-Camp.
Second Division, Imperial Cadet Corps.
Guards of Honour were furnished : —
At the Saluting Point by Royal Navy and Royal Marine Artillery.
At the Imperial Camp by the ist Batt. Seaforth Highlanders and
45th Sikhs.
THE INVESTITURE.
Procession to the Dais.
Delhi Herald, Major Stockley, Captain Hogg, Major Money, Lieut.-
Colonel Bird, Lieut.-Colonel Sir H. Charles, Prince George of Battenberg,
Major C. Wigram, Lieut.-Colonel Sir D. Keppel, Major Lord C. Fitz-
maurice. Captain Godfrey-Faussett, Commander Sir C. Cust, Sir James
Dunlop-Smith, Major-General Sir Stuart Beatson, Sir Colin Keppel, Sir
Edward Henry, Lieut. -General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien, Sir J. Hewett, the
Lord-in-Waiting, the Lord Stamfordham, the Lord Chamberlain to the
Queen-Empress, the Lord High Steward.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS. THE KING-EMPEROR.
Pages. — Maharaja Kishen Singh of Bharatpur, Maharaja Sumer Singh
of Jodhpur, Maharaja Kunwar Sadul Singh of Bikaner, Vir Singh
(grandson of the Maharaja of Orchha), Maharaja Kumar Kimmatsinghji
of Idar, Sahibzada Muhammad Wahidaz Zafar Khan of Bhopal, the
Thakur Saheb of Palitana, Raja Kumar Chandra Singh of Sailana,
Maharaja Kumar Gulab Singh of Rewa, Maharaja Mandhata Singh of
Sailana.
The Duke of Teck, the Hon. Venetia Baring, the Mistress of the
Robes, the Marquis of Crewe, Sir H. McMahon, the Assistant Herald.
The Guard of Honour mounted outside the Investiture Tent was
furnished by the ist Batt. Seaforth Highlanders and the 5th Sikhs.
December i 5,
DELHI.
Procession to lay Foundation-Stone of New Delhi.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
292
APPENDIX A
Second Carnage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Marquis of Crewe, the
Lord High Steward, and the Duke of Teck.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Sliaftesbury, the Hon. Venetia Baring,
the Lord Chamberlain to the Queen - Empress, and the Lord
Stamfordham.
Brigadier-General Sir R. Grimston and Major Lord C. Fitzmaurice
were in attendance on horseback.
Procession to the Review of Police.
First Division of Escort.
Orderly. Orderly.
Orderly with Royal Standard.
THE KING-EMPEROR.
The Duke of Teck. The Governor-General.
Major Lord Charles Fitzmaurice. General Sir R. Grimston.
The Maharaja of The Nawab of Major-Gen. Sir The Maharaja of
Bikaner. Rampur. Pratap Singh. Gwalior.
Gen. Sir E. Barrow. Lord Annaly. The Commander-in-
Chief.
Major-Gen. Sir Lt.-Gen. Sir E. Smith- Lord Stamfordham.
S. Beatson. Dorrien.
Colonel Maxwell. A.D.C. to Governor-General.
Royal Groom. Royal Groom.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS
(in a carriage with the Mistress of the Robes and the Lord High Steward).
Captain Hill. Lt.-Col. Watson.
Lady Hardinge
(in a carriage with the Marquis of Crewe and the Lord Chamberlain to
the Queen-Empress).
Second Division of Escort.
The Escort was furnished by the 13th Hussars and the 17th Cavalry.
Procession to the Military Tournament.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Marquis of Crewe, the
Duke of Teck, and the Lord High Steward.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Hon. Venetia Baring,
and the Lord Chamberlain to the Queen-Empress.
Major Lord C. Fitzmaurice and Major Wigram were in attendance on
horseback.
The route was by the Kingsway, Princess Road, and the Parade Road.
The Escort was furnished by the Volunteer Light Horse, detachments
of the 1st Lancers, the 6th Cavalry, and the 39th Central India Horse.
293
APPENDIX A
December i6.
AGRA.
Queen-Empress's Camp.
Guards of Honour were mounted at the station by the 13th Rajputs,
and at the Circuit House by the i8th Royal Irish Regiment.
December 17.
King-Emperor's Camp.
The King-Emperor's train stopped at Arrah this morning and His
Imperial Majesty, attended by his Suite, was present at Divine Service in
Arrah Church. After the Service the King-Emperor inspected the Behar
Light Horse and visited Arrah House and returned to the train, which
left for Bikna Thori.
AGRA.
Queen-Empress's Camp.
In the evening Her Imperial Majesty gave a dinner-party, to which the
following ladies and gentlemen had the honour of being invited : — The
Bishop of Lucknow, Mr. and Mrs. Reynolds, Mr. and Mrs. Lyle, Mr.
and Mrs. Mardan, Colonel and Mrs. Downing, Colonel and Mrs.
Camilleri, Major and Mrs. Austin Smith, and Major and Mrs. Buchanan.
December 19.
JAIPUR.
Queen-Empress's Camp.
Guard of Honour at Agra : Royal Irish Regiment.
Escort at Agra : 13th Hussars.
Guard of Honour at Jaipur Station : 30th Rajputs.
Guard of Honour at Jaipur Residency : 42nd Deoli Regiment.
Her Imperial Majesty gave a dinner-party this evening. The following
ladies and gentlemen had the honour to be invited : — Colonel and Mrs.
Showers, the Hon. Nawab Sir Faiyaz Ali Khan, Major Fisher, Sir
Swinton and Lady Jacob, Major Shelley, Mr. Lanson, Mr. Berkeley, the
Rev. Dr. Jameson, and Mrs. Stothard.
December 21.
AJMER.
Queen-Empress's Camp.
Guards of Honour were furnished at Ajmer station by the 44th
294
APPENDIX A
Merwara Infantry, and the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway
Rifle Volunteers.
Her Imperial Majesty proceeded direct from the station to the Mayo
College, the Escort being supplied by the 27th Light Cavalry.
In the evening Her Imperial Majesty gave a dinner-party, to which the
following ladies and gentlemen had the honour to be invited : — Sir Elliot
and Lady Colvin and Miss Colvin, Colonel Stratton, Lieut. - Colonel
Poingdestre, Lieut. -Colonel Deane, Mr. and Mrs. Waddington, and Mrs.
Saunders.
December 24.
KASRA, NIPAL.
King-Emperor's Camp.
The King-Emperor arrived at Kasra Camp last night.
His Imperial Majesty attended Divine Service in camp this morning.
The sermon was preached by the Rev. John Godber.
Sir Henry and Lady McMahon, Miss McMahon, and Lieut. -Colonel
and Mrs. IVIanners-Smith had the honour of being invited to luncheon
with His Imperial Majesty.
Christmas Day.
The King-Emperor attended Divine Service in camp this morning.
His Imperial Majesty was attended by the whole of his Suite.
December 26.
KOTAH.
Queen-Empress's Camp.
In the evening Her Imperial Majesty gave a dinner-party, to which the
following ladies and gentlemen had the honour to be invited : — Colonel and
Mrs. Mathews, Lieut. -Colonel and Mrs. Carr White, Mr. and Mrs.
Robinson, Mr. and Mrs. Devon, and Mr. Sutton.
December 28.
NARKATIAGANJ.
King-Emperor's Camp.
The King-Emperor, attended by the whole of his Suite, left Kasra
Camp this morning.
His Imperial Majesty was accompanied to Bikna Thori Station by His
Excellency the Prime Minister of Nipal. After His Excellency with his
sons (General Mohan Shum Shere Jung Rana Bahadur, Lieut. -General
Baber Shum Shere Jung Rana Bahadur, and Lieut.-General Kishen Shum
295
APPENDIX A
Shere Jung Rana Bahadur) had taken leave of His Imperial Majesty, the
Royal special train left Bikna Thori Station at 6 p.m. Lieut.-Colonel
Manners-Smith and Mr. H. C. Streatfield were in attendance on the
platform.
December 30.
CALCUTTA.
Arrival at Howrah.
Walking Procession from Howrah Station to the Pontoon
AND from the Landing-Stage AT Prinsep's Ghat to the Pandal.
H.E. the Governor-General's Staff.
Captain Maclachlan. Major the Hon. W. Captain Holmes.
Cadogan.
Captain Hogg. Lt.-Col. Bird.
Hon. J. Fortescue. Br.-Gen. Mercer. Mr. F. H. Lucas.
Colonel Stanton. Br.-Gen. Birdwood. Br.-Gen. Keary.
Lt.-Col. Sir R. Major Lord Charles Major C. Wigram.
Havelock Charles. Fitzmaurice.
Captain B. G. Godfrey- Commander Sir The Hon. Sir D. Keppel.
Faussett. C. Cust.
Sir James Dunlop- Major-Gen. Sir Stuart Rear-Admiral Sir C.
Smith. Beatson. Keppel.
Sir E. Henry. Gen. Sir E. Barrow. Lt.-Gen. Sir H. L.
Smith-Dorrien.
Lord Stamfordham. The Lord-in-Waiting.
The Lord Chamberlain to the The Lord High Steward.
Queen-Empress.
THE (JUEEN-EMPRESS. THE KING-EMPEROR.
Attendants. Attendants.
H.E. Lady Hardinge. H.E. the Governor-General.
H.H. the Duke of Teck. The Mistress of the The Marquis of Crewe.
Robes.
The Hon. Venetia Baring. The Countess of Shaftesbury.
H.H. the Maharaja of H.H. the Maharaja of Hon. Major-Gen. Sir
Bikaner. Gwalior. Pratap Singh.
Br.-Gen. Sir R. Grimston. Sir Henry McMahon.
Mounted Procession from Prinsep's Ghat to Government
House, Calcutta.
G.O.C. 8th Lucknow Division and Staff.
Captain Maclachlan. Major the Hon. W. Captain Holmes.
Cadogan.
Captain Hogg. Br.-Gen. Mercer.
Colonel Stanton. Br.-Gen. Birdwood. Br.-Gen. Keary.
Captain B. G. Godfrey- Commander Sir The Hon. Sir D.
Faussett. C. Cust. Keppel.
296
APPENDIX A
Br.-Gen. Sir R. Sir E. Henry. Major-Gcn. Sir Stuart
Grimston. Beatson.
Lt.-Gen. Sir H. Smith-Dorrien. General Sir E. Barrow.
The Master of The Lord-in-Waiting. The Lord Stamfordham.
Ceremonies.
The Maharaja of The Maharaja of Sir Pratap Singh.
Bikaner. Gwalior.
Composite Squadron of Light Horse.
Calcutta Light Horse.
O.C. Calcutta THEIR IMPERIAL MAJESTIES O.C. O.C.
Light Horse. (in a carriage). Bodyguard. Escort.
The Duke of Teck.
Major C. Wigram. Major the Lord Charles Fitzmaurice.
Royal Groom. Royal Groom.
Carriage Escort of 2 N.C.O.'s and 4 Sowars of the Bodyguard.
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Marquis of Crewe,
Rear-Admiral Sir C. Keppel.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Lord High Steward,
Lt.-Col. Sir J. Dunlop-Smith, Lt.-Col. Sir R. Havelock Charles.
Fourth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, the Lord Chamberlain to
the Queen-Empress, Mr. F. H. Lucas.
Fifth Carriage. — Lieutenant-Colonel Bird, the Hon. J. Fortescue.
The Bodyguard.
Indian Cavalry Regiment.
The route, which was lined by troops, was by the EUenborough course
south of Havildar's Tank, Red Road, Government Place East, and Old
Court House Street, entering Government House by the north gate.
The Escort was furnished by U Battery Royal Horse Artillery, the 8th
Hussars, Calcutta Light Horse, Light Horse Composite Squadron, the
Governor-General's Bodyguard, 4th Cavalry (one squadron), i6th Cavalry.
On arrival at Government House the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress
were received by the Governor-General and Lady Hardinge.
The following were also assembled at Government House to receive
Their Imperial Majesties : — The Commander-in-Chief with his Staff, the
heads of Local Governments and Administrations, the Most Rev. the Bishop
of Calcutta, the Metropolitan of India and Ceylon, the Members of the
Governor-General's Executive Council, the Naval Commander-in-Chief of
the East Indies with his Staff, the Chief of the General Staff, the President
and Members of the Railway Board, the Additional Members of the
Governor-General's Legislative Council, the Secretaries and Deputy Secre-
taries of the Government of India, the Headquarters Staff of the Army,
the heads of Civil and Military Departments, the Hon. the Chief Justice of
Bengal, the Puisne Judges of the High Court.
The King-Emperor inspected the Guard of Honour of the East York-
shire Regiment and the 66th Panjabis. After the inspection the following
had the honour of being presented to Their Imperial Majesties by the
Governor-General :— The Chief Justice, the Bishop of Calcutta, the Members
of the Executive Council, the Naval Commander-in-Chief, the Chief of the
General Staff, the President and Members of the Railway Board, the
297
APPENDIX A
Additional Members of the Legislative Council, the Secretaries to the
Government of India, after which the senior officers of the Army Head-
quarters Staff had the honour of being presented by the Commander-in-
Chief, and the Puisne Judges by the Chief Justice.
December 31.
GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CALCUTTA.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress attended Divine Service at the
Cathedral this morning.
The procession from Government House to the Cathedral was as
follows : —
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE gUEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Duke of Teck, and
Captain Godfrey-Faussett, R.N. (Equerry-in-Waiting).
Third Carriage. — The Marquis of Crewe, the Lord High Steward, and
Major Lord Charles Fitzmaurice (Equerry-in-Waiting).
The route to the Cathedral was by the Red Road, Mayo Road, and
Chowringhee.
The Escort was furnished by the 8th Hussars.
"January 2.
CALCUTTA.
Mounted Procession from the Dufferin Statue to
THE Review Ground.
Army Headquarters Staff.
H.E. the Governor-General's Staff.
Captain Maclachlan. Captain Holmes.
Major the Hon. Captain Hogg. Major Graeme.
W. G. S. Cadogan.
Major Money. Colonel Stanton. Br.-Gen. Mercer.
Br.-Gen. Keary. The Hon. Sir Derek Br.-Gen. Birdwood.
Keppel.
Lieut. -Gen. Sir H. Gen. Sir E. Barrow.
Smith-Dorrien.
Lord Stamfordham. The Lord-in-Waiting.
First Division Bodyguard.
N.C.O., 8th Hussars with Standard.
THE KING-EMPEROR.
Commandant, Bodyguard.
H.E. the Commander- H.E. the Governor- H.H. the Duke of Teck.
in-Chief. General.
Major Lord Charles Br.-Gen. Grimston. Colonel Maxwell.
Fitzmaurice.
298
APPENDIX A
H.H. the Maharaja of H.H. the Maharaja of Sir Pratap Singh.
Bikaner. Gvvalior.
Royal Groom. Royal Groom.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS
(in a carriage with the Mistress of the Robes and the Lord High Steward).
Adjutant of the Bodyguard.
Major H. R. Stockley. Major Gen. Sir Stuart
Beatson.
H.E. Lady Hardinge
(in a carriage with the Marquis of Crewe and the Lord Chamberlain to
the Queen-Empress).
Second Division Bodyguard.
January 3.
CALCUTTA.
This afternoon the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress honoured the
Calcutta Races with their presence.
Their Imperial Majesties left Government House at 2.30 P.M., and a
procession of carriages was formed as follows : —
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Marquis of Crewe, the
Duke of Teck.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Lord Chamberlain to
the Queen-Empress, General Sir E. Barrow.
Fourth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, Lord Stamfordham, Sir
Henry McMahon.
Fifth Carriage. — Commander Sir C. Cust, Rear-Admiral Sir C. Keppel
(Equerries-in-Waiting).
Major Lord Charles Fitzmaurice and Major Wigram were in attendance
on horseback.
The Escort, under the command of Major Keighley, was furnished by
the Governor-General's Bodyguard.
The route of the procession was by the Red Road, the Jail Road, and
the east side of the Racecourse to the Grand Stand.
January 4.
CALCUTTA.
Last night the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress honoured with their
presence a military tattoo, and also witnessed the illuminations and a display
of fireworks, which took place on the Maidan between Government House
and the fort.
Their Imperial Majesties arrived at the Lawrence Statue at 9.30, and
299
APPENDIX A
were conducted to their seats on the dais by the Governor-General and
Lady Hardinge. The following gentlemen — members of the Illuminations
Committee — then had the honour of being presented to the King-Emperor
and the Queen-Empress by His Excellency : —
Mr. J. G. Apcar, Raja Kristo Das Law, Mr. Emerson, Babu Charu
Chandar Malik. Colonel Ward, Captain Brancker, and Risaldar Chapal
Singh, organisers of the torchlight tattoo, also had the honour of being
presented.
Their Imperial Majesties* Suite in attendance were assembled below to
the right and left of the dais.
At the conclusion of the display the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress
returned to Government House.
The King-Emperor this night held an Investiture.
His Imperial Majesty entered the Throne-room at 9 P.M., attended by
the Governor-General, the Duke of Teck, the Marquis of Crewe, the Lord
High Steward, and the Equerries-in-Waiting.
The following gentlemen were then severally introduced into His
Imperial Majesty's presence, when the King-Emperor conferred upon them
the honour of knighthood, and invested them with the insignia of the
division of the Order into which they had been admitted : —
To be Knights Commander of the Royal Victorian Order. — The Nawab
Bahadur of Murshidabad, Major-General B. T. Mahon, Major-General
Sir A. A. Barrett, Major-General G. C. Kitson.
To be Knights Bachelor.— Mr. D. Yule, the Hon. Mr. F. L. Halliday.
To be Commanders of the Royal Victorian Order. — The Hon. Mr. C. J.
Stevenson-Moore, Mr. C. B. Bayley.
To be Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire. — The Hon.
Mr. W. C. Madge, Colonel B. W. Marlow, Major L. Rogers, Mahama-
hopadhyaya Hara Prasad Shastri, Mr. J. H. Kerr.
To be Members of the Fourth Class of the Royal Victorian Order. —
Captain G. H. Wills, Lieut.-Colonel R. Bird, Major the Hon. H. J. Eraser,
Captain the Hon. A. O. W. Weld-Forester, Captain V. A. S. Keighley.
To be Members of the Fifth Class of the Royal Victorian Order. —
Mr. C. Stead, Mr. F. C. T. Halliday, Mr. C. A. Tegart, Mr. H. S. H.
Pilkington, Mr. Amir Ahmad.
To be Companions of the Imperial Service Order. — Mr. H. L. French,
Shaikh Shadi, Babu Upendra Nath Chatterji, Rai Bahadur Rala Ram, Mr.
T. W. Payne, Babu Narayan Kishen Sen, Mr. T. O. Drake, Mr C. W.
Caston, Mr. J. E. Lacey, Mr. Ahsan-ud-Din Ahmad, Mr. G. W. Marshall.
The Kahar-i-Hind Medal of the First Class.— Mr. J. T. Stark, Rai Hari
Mohan Chandra Bahadur, Mr. E. G. Barton.
After the Investiture the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress held a
Court.
"January 5.
CALCUTTA.
Procession to the Pageant.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
300
APPENDIX A
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Marquis of Crewe, the
Duke of Teck, the Lord High Steward.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Lord Chamberlain to
the Queen-Empress, Lord Stamfordham, Commander Sir C. Cust.
Fourth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, the Commander-in-Chief,
Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel.
Major Lord Charles Fitzmaurice and Major Wigram were in attend-
ance on horseback.
The remainder of the suite were in attendance in the panJal, in front
of which a Guard of Honour of the Middlesex Regiment and the 27th
Panjabis was mounted. On arrival the King-Emperor and Queen-
Empress were received by the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, the
Nawab of Murshidabad, the Maharajadhiraja of Burdwan (President of
the Imperial Reception Executive Committee), Hon. Sir Cecil Graham
and Dr. Rash Behari Ghose (Vice-President), the Maharaja of Darbhanga
(President of the Pageant Sub-Committee), and the Hon. Mr. Norman
MacLeod, and were conducted to the front of the pavilion, where Their
Imperial Majesties were received by the Governor-General and Lady
Hardinge and conducted to their seats on the dais.
The Maharaja of Gidhour then handed a Pesh Kash of loi gold mohurs
on a tahli to the Nawab of Murshidabad, who on behalf of the people of
Bengal, Behar, and Orissa and Eastern Bengal and Assam, handed it to
the King-Emperor.
The following then had the honour of being presented to Their
Imperial Majesties by the Nawab of Murshidabad : —
The Maharajadhiraja of Burdwan, Prince Amir Adr Mirja Abid Ali,
the Maharaja of Gidhour, the Maharaja of Darbhanga, the Hon.
Maharaja of Dinajpur, Maharaja Sir Prodyot Coomar Tagore, the
Maharaja of Chota Nagpur, the Maharaja of Surang, the Maharaja of
Nattore, the Hon. Maharaja of Cassimbazar, Maharaja of Narsingpur, the
Maharaja of Krishnagar, Raja Bahadur Benod Krishna Deb, Raja Peary
Mohun Mookerjee, the Hon. Raja of Dighapatiya, Nawab Shamsh-ul-
ulama, Saiyed Imdad Imam, the Maharaja Kumar of Hathwa, Sir
Alexander Apcar, Sir Rajendra Nath Mookerjee, the Hon. Sir Cecil
Graham, Major-General Drummond, Dr. Rash Behary Ghose, the Hon.
Mr. F. H. Stewart, the Hon. Babu Bhupendra Nath Basu, Mr. R. H. A.
Gresson, the Hon. Mr. Norman MacLeod, the Hon. Mr. J. G. Apcar,
the Hon. Babu Deva Prasad Sarvadicary, Mr. E. O. Emerson, Sir Jyoti
Singh, Sir Jyoti Singh of Pachote.
The Maharajadhiraja of Burdwan presented the programmes to Their
Imperial Majesties, and the Pageant, which consisted of the Nawroz
Procession and the Dasehara Procession and the dance of the Orissa Paiks,
then commenced.
At the conclusion of the Pageant the following had the honour of
being presented to their Imperial Majesties : —
Dr. Dennison Ross, Mr. Lascelles, Captain Meadows, Mr. Thornton.
After taking tea the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress left the
dais and were conducted to their carriage, attended by the Maharaja Sir
Prodyot Coomar Tagore and the Maharaja of Nattore, who held the State
301
APPENDIX A
umbrellas, and also by the Maharaja Kumar of Mourbhang and the
Mirza of Murshidabad, pages to the Queen-Empress. Their Imperial
Majesties then drove in procession, making a circuit of the grounds on
which the Pageant took place, and returned to the Government House by
the Red Road.
The Escort, under the command of Major McClellan, was furnished
by the 8th Hussars and 4th Cavalry.
January 6.
CALCUTTA.
This morning at 8.30 the King-Emperor mounted his charger and left
Government House, attended by the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of
Teck, General Sir E. Barrow, Major-General Sir G. C. Kitson, Major-
General Sir B. T. Mahon, Brigadier-General Sir R. Grimston, Major
Lord Charles Fitzmaurice, and Major Wigram (Equerries-in-Waiting).
The King-Emperor inspected the following military camps on the
Maidan : — U Battery Royal Horse Artillery, 74th Battery Royal Field
Artillery, 8th Hussars, No. 70 Company Royal Garrison Artillery, 2nd
Batt. East Yorkshire Regiment, 2nd Batt. the Black Watch, 3rd Batt.
Middlesex Regiment, a wing of the 1st Batt. Middlesex Regiment, the 66th
Panjabis, the 2nd Batt. loth Gurkha Rides.
His Imperial Majesty then rode to Kidderpur and Allpur, and inspected
the camps of the detachment of the 2nd Lancers, the 4th Cavalry, the i6th
Cavalry, and the 27th Panjabis.
The King-Emperor returned from Alipur to Fort William, where the
2nd Rifle Brigade and the 88th Carnatic Infantry were drawn up in line
on their parade grounds.
His Imperial Majesty returned from the Fort to Government House by
motor.
In the forenoon the King-Emperor received a deputation from the
University of Calcutta. His Imperial Majesty entered the Throne-room
at 10.30, attended by the Governor-General, the Lord Steward, the Duke
of Teck, Lord Stamfordham, Lieut. -General Sir H. L. Smith-Dorrien,
Brigadier-General W. R. Birdwood, Brigadier-General H. D'U. Keary,
Colonel Stanton, Brigadier-General Mercer, the Maharaja of Gwalior, the
Hon. Major-General Sir Pratap Singh, the Maharaja of Bikaner, Captain
Godfrey-Faussett, R.N., Major Lord Charles Fitzmaurice (Equerries-in-
Waiting).
Dr. Ashutosh Mukerjee (Vice-Chancellor) then, on behalf of the
University, presented an Address to the King-Emperor, to which His
Imperial Majesty was graciously pleased to read a reply.
Before entering the Throne-room the King-Emperor was graciously
pleased to present to Dr. Ashutosh Mukerjee portraits of Their Imperial
Majesties to be preserved by the University as mementoes of the King-
Emperor's visit to Calcutta.
This morning the (^ueen - Empress visited the Young Women's
Christian Association, the Presidency General Hospital, the Dufferin
Hospital, and the Medical College Hospital.
302
APPENDIX A
Her Imperial Majesty left Government House by motor, attended by
Lady Hardinge, the Duchess of Devonshire, Sir Havelock Charles, and
Colonel O'Kinealy.
On arrival at the Young Women's Christian Association the Queen-
Empress was received by Mrs. Noel Paton, the President.
After making an inspection of the institute, Her Imperial Majesty pro-
ceeded to the Presidency General Hospital, where the Queen-Empress was
received by Surgeon-General Sir Charles Lukis, Colonel Harris, Colonel
Pilgrim, and the staff of the hospital. Her Imperial Majesty visited the
various wards in the main building and in the Woodburn block, and then
proceeded to the Dufferin Hospital. The Queen-Empress was received by
the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal and Miss Platts (the surgeon-in-charge).
After inspecting the hospital Her Imperial Majesty visited the Medical
College Hospital, on arrival at which the Queen-Empress was received
by Colonel Drury and the staff of the hospital. Her Imperial Majesty
inspected the Prince of Wales's block and the Eden Hospital, and then
returned to Government House.
January 7.
CALCUTTA.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress attended Divine Service at the
Cathedral this morning.
The procession from Government House to the Cathedral was as
follows : —
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, the Duke of Teck, Captain
Godfrey-Faussett, R.N. (Equerry-in-Waiting).
Third Carriage. — The Lord High Steward, Commander Sir Charles Cust
(Equerry-in-Waiting).
Captain Holmes and Captain Maclachlan (extra Aides-de-Camp) were
in attendance on horseback.
The route to the Cathedral was by the Mayo Road and Chowringee.
The Escort was furnished by the 8th Hussars and i6th Cavalry.
January 8.
CALCUTTA.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress proceeded from Government
House to Prinsep's Ghat at 1 1 a.m. this morning.
The following gentlemen had the honour of taking leave of Their
Imperial Majesties at Government House : —
The Commander-in-Chief with his Staff.
The heads of Local Governments and Administrations.
The Most Rev. the Bishop of Calcutta, Metropolitan of India and
Ceylon.
303
APPENDIX A
The Members of the Governor-General's Executive Council.
The Naval Commander-in-Chief with his staff.
The President and Members of the Railway Board.
Additional Members of the Governor-General's Legislative Council.
The Secretaries and Deputy Secretaries to the Government of India.
The Headquarters Staff of the Army.
The heads of Civil and Military Departments.
The Chief Justice of Bengal.
The Puisne Judges of the High Court.
Ruling Chiefs.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress then entered their carriage and
drove from Government House to Prinsep's Ghat.
The procession was in the following order : —
Captain Holmes. Major the Hon. W.
Cadogan.
Major Graeme. Brigadier-General
Mercer.
Colonel H. R. Stanton. Brigadier-General Brigadier-General
Birdwood. Keary.
General Sir E. Barrow. Sir Henry McMahon.
The Maharaja of The Maharaja of Hon. Major -General Sir
Bikaner. Gwalior. Pratap Singh.
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE ^UEEN-EMPRESS.
(On Horseback) (On Horseback)
Colonel Apostolides. Major Keighley.
Brigadier-General Cookson.
Major Wigram. Brigadier-General Sir R.
Grimston.
Second Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, The Marquis of Crewe,
Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel.
Third Carriage. — The Duke of Teck, the Countess of Shaftesbury,
Commander Sir C. Cust, Sir Derek Keppel.
Fourth Carriage. — Hon. Venetia Baring, the Lord High Steward, Sir
R. Havelock Charles.
Fijth Carriage. — The Lord Chamberlain to the Queen-Empress, Lord
Stamfordham, Mr. F. H. Lucas.
As Their Imperial Majesties entered their carriage the National
Anthem was played, and a salute of loi guns was fired from the ramparts
of Fort William.
The Escort, under the command of Brigadier-General Cookson, was
furnished by —
U Battery Royal Horse Artillery.
8th Hussars.
The Calcutta Light Horse.
Composite Squadron Light Horse.
APPENDIX A
The Governor-General's Bodyguard.
1 6th Cavalry.
On arrival at the Ghat the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress were
received by the Governor-General and Lady Hardinge. The following
were also present : —
The Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal with his Staff.
Members of the Bengal Executive Council.
The Ruling and feudatory Chiefs of Bengal.
The principal nobles of Bengal.
Members of the Bengal Legislative Council.
Representatives of —
The Bengal Chamber of Commerce.
The Commissioners of the Port of Calcutta.
The British Indian Association.
The Trades Association.
The Bengal National Chamber of Commerce.
The Bihar Landholders' Association.
The University of Calcutta.
The Commissioners of the Calcutta Corporation.
The Hon. Mr. Slacke (Vice-President) then, on behalf of the Legislative
Council of Bengal, presented an Address to Their Imperial Majesties, to
which the King-Emperor was graciously pleased to read a reply.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress then proceeded on board the
steamer Hon.vrah, where Their Imperial Majesties were received by the
Vice-Chairman of the Port Commissioners, the Port Officer of Calcutta,
and the Deputy Conservator of the Port of Calcutta.
The procession from the Ghat to the steamer was in the following
order : —
The Governor-General's Staff.
Captain Holmes. Major Graeme. Major the Hon. W.
Cadogan.
Mr. F. H. Lucas. Colonel Stanton. Brigadier-General
Mercer.
Brigadier-General Sir R. Havelock Charles. Brigadier-General
Keary. Bird wood.
Major Wigram. Sir Derek Keppel.
Commander Sir C. Cust. Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel.
General Sir A. Barrow. Lord Stamfordham.
The Lord Chamberlain to the The Lord High Steward.
Queen-Empress.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS. THE KING-EMPEROR.
Lady Hardinge. The Governor-General.
The Duke of Teck. The Mistress of the The Marquis of
Robes. Crewe.
The Hon. Venetia Baring. The Countess of Shaftesbury.
The Maharaja of The Maharaja of Hon. Major-General Sir
Bikaner. Gwalior. Pratap Singh.
Brigadier-General Sir R. Grimston. Sir Henry McMahon.
305 X
APPENDIX A
As the steamer left Prinsep's Ghat a salute of loi guns was fired by
H.M.S. Highflyer.
The steamer, escorted by six ferry boats manned by the Calcutta Port
Volunteers, proceeded up the Hugli River to Howrah landing-stage,
where Their Imperial Majesties disembarked and were received by the
Commissioner of the Burdwan Division, the Magistrate of Howrah, and
the Agent of the Bengal-Nagpur Railway.
The procession was then re-formed, and the King-Emperor and Queen-
Empress proceeded to Howrah Station.
The Governor-General and Lady Hardinge then had the honour of
taking leave, and Their Imperial Majesties entered the Royal train, which
left for Bombay at 12.15 p.m.
The National Anthem was played, and a salute of loi guns was fired
from the ramparts of Fort William as the train left Howrah Station.
Guards of Honour of the 3rd Batt. Middlesex Regiment and the
2nd Batt. loth Gurkhas, the 2nd Rifle Brigade and the Eastern Bengal State
Railway Volunteers, and the Bengal-Nagpur Railway Volunteer Rifles,
were mounted at Government House, the Prinsep's Ghat, and Howrah
Station respectively.
y^nuary 9.
KING-EMPEROR'S CAMP, NAGPUR.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress, with their Suite in attendance,
arrived at Nagpur at 2.15 p.m. to-day, and on alighting from the train
were received by the Chief Commissioner, the Lord Bishop of Nagpur, and
the General Officer Commanding the Jubbulpur Brigade.
Their Imperial Majesties paid a visit to the Fort, and proceeded again
at 3.15 P.M. by special train for Bombay.
January 10.
H.M.S. MEDINA, BOMBAY.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress arrived at Bombay at 12
noon.
Their Imperial Majesties were received at the Victoria terminus by the
Governor-General, the Governor of Bombay and Lady Clarke.
A Guard of Honour of the Great Indian Peninsula Railway Volunteers
was mounted at the station.
The King-Emperor having inspected the Guard of Honour, Their
Imperial Majesties were escorted to their carriage and a procession was
formed as follows : —
First Carriage.
THE KING-EMPEROR. THE QUEEN-EMPRESS.
Second Carriage. — His Excellency the Governor-General, the Marquis of
Crewe.
306
APPENDIX A
Third Carriage. — The Mistress of the Robes, His Highness the Duke of
Teck, Commander Sir C. Cust, Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel.
Fourth Carriage. — His Excellency the Governor of Bombay, Lady Clarke,
Lord Stamfordham.
Fifth Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, the Lord High Steward,
the Hon. Sir Derek Keppel.
Sixth Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring, the Lord Chamberlain to the
Queen-Empress, Sir R. Havelock Charles.
Major-General Sir R. Grimston and Major Clive Wigram were in
attendance on horseback.
The route was by Hornby Road, Esplanade Road, and Apollo Bandar
Road.
The Escort was furnished by Y Battery Royal Horse Artillerj', 7th
Dragoon Guards, Bombay Light Horse, 26th Cavalry, and the Governor's
Bodyguard.
On arrival at the amphitheatre Their Imperial Majesties alighted from
their carriage, and the King-Emperor having inspected the Guard ot
Honour of the Norfolk Regiment, a procession was formed to the pavilion
in the following order : —
Procession at the Bandar, Bombay.
H.E. The Governor of Bombay's Staft".
H.E. The Governor-General's Staff.
Captain Grissell. Captain Hogg. Major Humphreys.
Mr. Jacomb Hood. Mr. F. H. Lucas. The Hon. J. Fortescue.
Sir R. Havelock Charles. Captain Godfrey- Major Lord C.
Faussett. Fitzmaurice.
The Hon. Sir Derek Sir James Dunlop- Commander Sir C.
Keppel. Smith. Cust.
Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Sir Edward Henry. Major-Gen. Sir Stuart
Keppel. Beatson.
Gen. Sir H. Smith- The Lord-in-Waiting. Lord Stamfordham.
Dorrien.
The Lord Chamberlain to the The Lord High Steward.
Queen-Empress.
THE QUEEN-EMPRESS. THE KING-EMPEROR.
H.H. the Duke of Teck. H.E. the Gov.-Gen. The Marquis of Crewe.
Lady Clarke. H.E. the Gov. of The Mistress of the
Bombay. Robes.
The Hon. Venetia Baring. The Countess of Shaftesbury.
Major C. Wigram. Brig.-Gen. Sir R. Grimston.
Their Imperial Majesties having taken their seats in the pavilion, Sir
R, Lamb, Vice-President of the Bombay Legislative Council, on behalf of
the Council, read an Address of Farewell, to which the King-Emperor
was graciously pleased to reply.
The following gentlemen then had the honour of being presented to
Their Imperial Majesties by the Governor of Bombay : — The Chief Justice
307 X2
APPENDIX A
of Bombay, the Bishop of Bombay, the Judges of the High Court, the
Additional Members of the Legislative Council of His Excellency the
Governor-General, the Commissioner of Customs, the General Officer
Commanding the 6th (Poona) Division, the General Officer Commanding
the Bombay Brigade, the Commissioner (Northern Division), the Foreign
Consular Officers, the Native Chiefs present, and the Sheriff of Bombay.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress, attended by the Governor-
General, the Governor of Bombay, and Lady Clarke, and the ladies and
gentlemen of the Suite in attendance, then embarked and left the Apollo
Bandar for H.M.S. Medina.
The King-Emperor and Queen-Empress gave a luncheon-party on
board H.M.S. Medina, to which the following had the honour of being
invited : — The Governor- General, the Governor of Bombay and Lady
Clarke, His Highness the Aga Khan, Captain Lumsden, Sir Charles
Cleveland, Lieut.-Colonel Maxwell, Major Greig, Captain Tod, Captain
Muir, Major-General Sir R. Grimston, Major Money, Captain Mac-
lachlan. Captain Hogg, Captain Raben.
After luncheon the King-Emperor invested the Maharao Raja of
Bundi with the insignia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Victorian Order.
His Imperial Majesty's Indian Suite took leave of the King-Emperor
and Queen-Empress.
At 6 P.M., the Governor-General having taken leave of their Imperial
Majesties, H.M.S. Medina left for Port Sudan.
January IJ.
H.M.S. ME DIN J, PORT SUDAN.
The King and Queen arrived at Port Sudan at 7.15 A.M.
This morning a salute of 2 1 guns was fired from the saluting battery as
H.M.S. Medina entered the harbour.
At 7.30 A.M. His Majesty received Field - Marshal the Viscount
Kitchener, and afterwards the King received the Governor-General, who
was the bearer of a letter of greeting to Their Majesties from His
Highness the Khedive.
The Governor - General was accompanied by Lewa Ramzi Taher
Pasha, chief A.D.C. to the Khedive.
At 8 am. the King and Queen disembarked, attended by their Suite,
and were received on the quay by Field-Marshal the Viscount Kitchener,
the Governor-General and Lady Wingate, and Major-General Sir R.
Baron von Slatin, with their respective Staffs, and Mr. Graham Kerr
(Governor Red Sea Province).
Guards of Honour of the ist Batt. Alexandra Princess of Wales's Own
Yorkshire Regiment and the 8th Batt. Egyptian Army were mounted
opposite the pavilion on the quay.
Having inspected the Guards of Honour, His Majesty returned to the
dais.
The Governor-General then read an Address of Welcome to the King
and Queen, to which His Majesty was graciously pleased to reply.
308
APPENDIX A
Certain Sheikhs and notables then had the honour of receiving presents
from His Majesty.
JaJiuary 20.
H.M.S. MEDINA, PORT SAID.
The King and Queen arrived at Port Said this morning.
At 1. 15 P.M. the King received a visit from the Khedive. His
Highness remained to luncheon with Their Majesties on board H.M.S.
Medina, and the following had the honour of being invited : —
His Highness Kiamel Pasha (ex-Grand Vizier), Muzuffer Bey Kiamel,
Major-General Sir John Maxwell, His Excellency Said Zoulificar Pasha
(Grand Master of the Ceremonies), El Leja Watson Pasha, Prince
D'Arenberg (President Suez Canal), Mr. H. T. Anstruther, Mr. R. S.
Donkin, Count de Serionne, Mahomed Mahmund Bey (Governor of
Port Said), Councillor M. Cheetham, Mr. E. C. Blech (British Consul-
General, Port Said), Captain O. A. G. FitzGerald, and Captain Darell
(A.D.C. to the General Officer Commanding the troops in Egypt).
After luncheon the Khedive having taken leave of the King, His
Majesty disembarked and inspected the Guards of Honour of the ist'Batt.
Scots Guards under the command of Major Carpenter-Garnier, and the
3rd Batt. Egyptian Army, imder the command of El Yusbashi Mahom-
med Effendi Bahgat.
In the afternoon the Queen received a deputation of ladies from Port
Said, and Her Majesty was graciously pleased to accept a bouquet,
presented by Mrs. Blech.
The following, with the Suite in attendance, had the honour of being
included in Their Majesties' dinner-party on board H.M.S. Medina this
evening : —
Field-Marshal the Viscount Kitchener of Khartoum, Major-General
Sir John Maxwell, El Lewa Watson Pasha, Colonel Macauley, Councillor
M. Cheetham, Captain William Goodenough, R.N., Captain Michael
Culme-Seymour, R.N., Captain Henry Bruce, R.N., Captain Clement
Greatorex, R.N., Flag-Captain Alfred Chatfield, R.N., and Commander
George Tomlin.
January 24.
H.M.S. MEDINA, MALTA.
The King and Queen arrived at Malta at 10 a.m. this morning.
As H.M.S. Medina entered the Grand Harbour, salutes of 21 guns
were fired from Forts Ricasoli and St. Elmo, from His Majesty's ships, and
the ships of the French Fleet in harbour, and from the saluting battery.
On arrival the King received the Governor on board H.M.S. Medina.
His Majesty then received the Naval Commander-in-Chief, by whom
the Admirals and Captains of the Mediterranean Fleet had the honour of
being presented to His Majesty. Admiral A. E. H. Boue de Lapeyrire,
309
APPENDIX A
Rear-Admiral F. P. Moreau, and the Captains of the ships of the French
Fleet also had the honour of being presented to Their Majesties by the
Commander-in-Chief.
Later the King honoured Admiral A. E. H. Boue de Lapeyr^re with a
visit on board the French flagship Danton.
This evening the King and Queen honoured the Naval Commander-in-
Chief and Lady Poe with their presence at a dinner-party at Admiralty
House, and afterwards attended a gala performance at the Opera. The
Duchess of Devonshire, the Countess of Shaftesbury, the Hon. Venetia
Baring, the Duke of Teck, the Marquis of Crewe, the Earl of Shaftesbury,
the Lord Annaly, the Lord Stamfordham, Lieut. -General Sir Horace
Smith-Dorrien, Rear-Admiral Sir Colin Keppel, Commander Sir Charles
Cust, and Captain B. Godfrey-Faussett, R.N., were in attendance.
Guards of Honour of the Royal Marine Light Infantry and the 2nd
Batt. King's Own Malta Militia were mounted at Admiralty House and
the Opera House respectively.
Jatiuary 30.
H.M.S. MEDINA, GIBRALTAR.
The King and Queen arrived at Gibraltar at lo o'clock this morning.
As H.M.S. Medina entered the harbour salutes of 21 guns were fired
from the Portuguese men-of-war, His Majesty's ships in harbour, and from
the saluting battery.
On arrival His Majesty received the Governor, the Colonial Secretary,
the Captain of the Portuguese man-of-war, Rear-Admiral Pelham, and the
Captains of His Majesty's ships in harbour.
The King then received in audience Sir Maurice de Bunsen, British
Ambassador, Madrid.
His Majesty also received Sir Reginald Lister, British Minister, Tangier.
Deputations from the Exchange Committee and Chamber of Commerce,
the Roman Catholic Community, and the Hebrew Community, were after-
wards received in turn by Their Majesties, followed by a Special Mission
sent by the Sultan of Morocco.
Si Mohammed el Guebbas (Commissioner for Foreign Affairs), the Pasha
of Tangier, and the Members of the Mission were introduced to Their
Majesties by Sir Reginald Lister.
Si Mohammed el Guebbas then read an Address of Welcome from the
Sultan, to which His Majesty was graciously pleased to reply.
In the afternoon the King and Queen drove to the Colonial Hospital,
where they were received by Dr. W. Turner (Colonial Surgeon), Sir
Frederick Evans (Chairman), and the Members of the Board of Hospital
Commissioners.
After visiting the various wards Their Majesties drove to the Water-
works, where they were received by Mr. W. W. Copeland (Engineer),
Colonel A. Grant (Chairman), and the Members of the Board of Sanitary
Commissioners.
The Queen then opened the new reservoir works by firing the first mine.
310
APPENDIX A
The King and Queen honoured the Governor and Lady Hunter with a
visit at Government House, where they remained to tea and then returned
on board H.M.S. Medina.
January 31.
H.M.S. MEDINA, GIBRALTAR.
This morning at 9 a.m. the Infante Don Carlos, escorted by a Spanish
naval squadron, arrived at Gibraltar.
Salutes of 21 guns were fired from His Majesty's ships in harbour and
the saluting battery as the squadron entered the harbour.
At 9.30 A.M. the Infante visited the King and Queen on board H.M.S.
Medina, where he was received by the Duke of Teck and the Lord High
Steward.
His Royal Highness was accompanied by the Governor of Alge(;iras,
and attended by his personal Suite and the Admiral and Captains of the
ships of the Spanish squadron, who had the honour of being presented to
Their Majesties.
The King afterwards visited the Infante on board the Spanish flagship.
This afternoon Their Majesties drove to the Military Hospital.
Firtt Carriage.
THE KING, THE QUEEN, and THE Governor.
Second Carriage. — Lady Hunter, the Duke of Teck, Lieut. -General Sir H.
Smith-Dorrien, and Commander Sir Charles Cust.
Third Carriage. — The Countess of Shaftesbury, The Marquis of Crewe,
the Earl of Shaftesbury, and Sir Richard Havelock Charles.
After visiting the hospital Their Majesties proceeded to the Mount,
where they honoured the Admiral-Superintendent and Mrs. Pelham with
a visit and remained to tea.
After tea Their Majesties returned on board H.M.S. Medina.
February 4.
H.M.S. MED IN J, SPITHEAD.
H.M.S. Medina arrived at Spithead at 10 a.m. this morning.
The King and Queen attended Divine Service on board at 10.30 a.m.,
and afterwards Their Majesties received the Captains of the cruisers of the
Escort : —
Captain Goodenough, H.M.S. Cochrane ; Captain Michael Culme-
Seymour, H.M.S. Argyll ; Captain H. H. Bruce, H.M.S. Defence ; and
Captain Greatorex, H.M.S. Natal.
3"
APPENDIX A
February 5.
ARRIVAL AT PORTSMOUTH.
Previous to disembarking this morning the King received on board
H.M.S. Medina the Rt. Hon. Winston Spencer-Churchill, M.P. (First
Lord of the Admiralty), and Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty,
Admiral Sir Arthur Moore (Commander-in-Chief at Portsmouth), Rear-
Admiral A. G. Tate (Superintendent, Portsmouth Dockyard), and the
Flag Officers with their personal Staffs, and the Captains of His Majesty's
ships in harbour and at Spithead.
Their Majesties disembarked shortly after 10 o'clock, and were received
on the jetty by the Duke of Wellington (Acting Lord-Lieutenant of the
County of Hampshire), General Sir C. W. H. Douglas (General Officer
Commanding-in-Chief, Southern Command), and Major-General W. E.
Blewitt (General Officer Commanding Southern Coast Defences).
Royal salutes were fired from His Majesty's ships and the land forts at
Portsmouth at 9 o'clock, and Guards of Honour of the Royal Marine Light
Infantry (under the command of Captain Norman O. Burge) and of the
Royal Marine Artillery (under the command of Captain Lancelot D.
Briscoe) were mounted at the South Railway Jetty.
An Address was presented to Their Majesties by the Mayor of Ports-
mouth (Sir Scott Foster) on board H.M.S. MediJia on behalf of the
Corporation of Portsmouth, to which the King handed a reply.
ARRIVAL AT VICTORIA.
The King and Queen were met on arrival at Victoria Station by Prince
and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein with Princess Victoria and
Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Louise (Duchess of
Argyll) and the Duke of Argyll, the Duchess of Albany, Princess Louis
of Battenberg and Princess Louise of Battenberg, the Countess Feodore
Gleichen and the Countess Helena Glelchen.
The Members of the Corps Diplomatique as follows were present : —
Their Excellencies the French Ambassador, the German Ambassador,
the Countess Benckendorff, the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, the Spanish
Ambassador, the Turkish Ambassador, the Italian Ambassador and the
Marchesa Imperial!, the Netherlands Minister, the Countess de Lalaing,
the Brazilian Minister, the Swedish Minister and the Countess Wrangel,
the Danish Minister, the Uruguayan Minister, the Colombian Minister,
the Norwegian Minister and Madame Vogt, the Liberlan Minister and
Madame Cromelin, Madame Gennadius, the Bulgarian Minister and
Madame Tzokow, the Argentine Minister and Madame de Dominguez,
the Chilian Minister and Madame de Edwards, the Siamese Minister, the
Persian Minister, and the Mexican Minister and Madame de Belstigui.
The Haytian Minister-Resident, the Guatemalan Charge d'Affalres, the
Peruvian Charg^ d'Affalres, the Cuban Charge d'Affalres, the Bolivian
Charge d'Affalres and Madame Suarez, the Japanese Charge d'Affalres, the
Portuguese Charge d'Affalres, the United States Charge d'Affalres, the Swiss
312
APPENDIX A
Charg-e d'Affaires, the Servian Charge d'Affaires and Madame Grouitch,
and Monsieur Vouros (Greek Legation).
Their Excellencies the Russian Ambassador, the Belgian Minister, the
Greek Minister, the Chinese Minister, the Charges d'AfFaires for Costa
Rica and tor Roumania, Madame de Villa Urrutia, Madame Regis de
Oliveira, Madame Perez Triana, and Mrs. Yamaza were unavoidably pre-
vented from attending.
The following members of the Government in the Cabinet were present
at Victoria Station upon the arrival of the King and Queen :
The Rt. Hon. H. H. Asquith, M.P. (Prime Minister and First Lord of
the Treasury), the Earl Carrington (Lord Privy Seal) and the Countess
Carnngton, the Viscount Haldane (Secretary of State for War), the Rt.
Hon. R. McKenna, M.P. (Secretary of State for the Home Department)
and Mrs. McKenna, the Rt. Hon. Sir Edward Grey, Bt., M.P. (Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs), the Rt. Hon. L. Harcourt, M.P. (Secretary of
State for the Colonies) and Mrs. Harcourt, and the Rt. Hon. H Samuel,
M.P. (Postmaster-General).
There were also present :—
The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Norfolk, the Duke of
Devonshire, the Marquis and Marchioness of Lansdowne, the Marchioness
of Crewe, the Marquis de Soveral, Earl of Aberdeen, the Earl and Countess
of Bessborough, the Earl and Countess Grey, Field -Marshal the Earl
Roberts, the Viscount Esher, General the Lord William Seymour, the Lord
and Lady Sandhurst, the Lord Revelstoke, the Lord Strathcona and Mount
Royal (High Commissioner for the Dominion of Canada), the Rt. Hon. Sir
George Reid (High Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Australia),
the Rt. Hon. Ameer Ali (member of the Judicial Committee of the Privy
Council) and Mrs. Ali, Admiral the Hon. Sir Edmund Fremantle (Rear-
Admiral of the United Kingdom), Field-Marshal Sir W. G. Nicholson
(Chief of the Imperial General Staff), the Hon. Sir Richard Solomon (High
Commissioner for the Union of South Africa), Lieut.-General Sir Arthur
Paget (General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Command), Sir
Richmond Ritchie (Permanent Under-Secretary of State for India), the
Hon. Sir W. Hall Jones (High Commissioner for the Dominion of New
Zealand), Sir Theodore Morison and the Members of the Council of the
Secretary of State for India, Rear-Ad miral Sir Adolphus FitzGeorge,
Colonel Sir Augustus FitzGeorge, Major-General Sir A. E. Codrington
(General Officer Commanding the London District), Colonel R. Scott-Kerr
(Commanding Grenadier Guards), Colonel the Hon. W. Lambton (Com-
manding Coldstream Guards), Colonel G. J. Cuthbert (Commanding Scots
Guards), and Mr. Edward White (Chairman of the London County
Council).
The Lady Gweneth Ponsonby had the honour of presenting a bouquet
to the Queen.
The Rt. Hon. Sir Thomas Crosby (Lord Mayor of London) and the
Lady Mayoress, the Sheriffs of London, and the Lord Mayors of Birming
ham,_ Bristol, Cardiff, Dublin, Liverpool, Leeds, Manchester, Norwich,
Sheffield, and York, and the Lord Provosts of Aberdeen, Dundee, Edin-
burgh, Glasgow, and Perth were present.
A Guard of Honour of the 3rd Batt. Grenadier Guards, with the Colour
313
APPENDIX A
and Band of the regiment, under the command of Captain B. N. Brooke,
was mounted at the station.
PROCESSION TO THE PALACE.
The King having inspected the Guard of Honour, a Royal carriage
procession was formed in the following order : —
First Carriage.
(Plain Road Landau and Four Bay Horses.)
HIS MAJESTY THE KING.
HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN.
His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.
Second Carriage.
(Plain Road Landau and Four Bay Horses.)
The Duchess of Devonshire (Mistress of the Robes), the Duke of Teck
(Personal Aide-de-Camp to the King), the Earl of Durham (Lord
High Steward), Commander Sir Charles Cust, Bt., R.N. (Equerry-in-
Waiting).
Third Carriage.
(Plain Road Landau and Four Bay Horses.)
The Countess of Shaftesbury (Lady-in-Waiting), the Marquis of Crewe
(Secretary of State for India), the Earl of Shaftesbury (Lord Chamber-
Iain to the Queen), the Lord Annaly (Lord-in- Waiting).
Fourth Carriage.
(Plain Road Landau and Four Bay Horses.)
The Hon. Venetia Baring (Maid of Honour), the Rt. Hon. Sir William
Carington (Keeper of the Privy Purse), the Lord Stamfordham (Private
Secretary), the Hon. Sir Derek Keppel (Equerry-in-Waiting).
Fifth Carriage.
(Plain Road Landau and Four Bay Horses.)
Lieut. -General Sir H. Smith-Dorrien (A.D.C. General-in-Waiting), Sir
Edward Henry (Commissioner of Metropolitan Police), Major-General
Sir Stuart Beatson (extra Equerry), Captain Bryan Godfrey-Faussett,
R.N. (Equerry-in-Waiting).
Sixth Carriage.
(Plain Road Landau and Four Bay Horses.)
Colonel Sir James Dunlop-Smith (Political A.D.C. to the Secretary of State
for India), Sir Richard Havelock Charles (Sergeant-Surgeon), Mr.
F. H. Lucas (Private Secretaiy to the Secretary of State for India), the
Hon. John Fortescue (Librarian).
APPENDIX A
Major Lord Charles Fitzmaurice and Major Clive Wigram (Equerrles-
Jn-Waiting) were in attendance upon horseback.
Their Majesties were escorted from Victoria Station to the Palace by a
Captain's Escort of the Royal Horse Guards, under the command of Major
the Viscount Crichton.
The route of the Royal procession was by Buckingham Palace Road,
Victoria Street, Parliament Square, Parliament Street, Whitehall, the
Admiralty Arch, and the Mall.
Princess Mary, Prince George, and Prince John met Their Majesties
at the Grand Entrance to the Palace.
The Earl Spencer (Lord Chamberlain), the Master ot the Household,
the Hon. Sidney Greville (Paymaster of the Household), Sir Walter
Campbell, Mr. Harry L. Verney, and Captain Philip Hunloke (Grooms-
in-Waiting), Sir Francis Laking, Bt., the Countess of Minto, the Lady
Ampthill, and the Lady Desborough (Ladies in Waiting), the Lady Eva
Dugdale (Woman of the Bedchamber in Waiting), the Hon. Katharine
Villiers and the Hon. Mabel Gye (Maids of Honour in Waiting), the
Hon. A. Nelson Hood, Mr. E. W. Wallington, and Lieut.-Colonel F.
Dugdale (Treasurer, Private Secretary, and Equerry to the Queen), Mile.
Dussau and Mr. H. P. Hansell, were in attendance at the Palace upon the
arrival of the King and Queen ; and the Earl of Granard (Master of the
Horse), Colonel Sir Douglas Dawson (Comptroller in the Lord Chamber-
lain's Department), the Hon. Arthur Walsh (His Majesty's Master of
the Ceremonies), the Hon. Richard Moreton (Deputy -Master of the
Ceremonies), Captain the Hon. Sir Charles Wentworth FitzWilliam
(Crown Equerry), Lieut.-Colonel Sir F. Ponsonby (Equerry to the King),
and Colonel G. C. Nugent (Field Officer in Brigade Waiting) were in
attendance at the railway station.
February 6.
BUCKINGHAM PALACE.
The King and Queen were present this morning in St. Paul's Cathedral
at a Service of Thanksgiving for Their Majesties' safe return to this
country.
Their Majesties, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, Princess Mary
and Prince George, left the Palace at 1 1.40 o'clock, escorted by a Captain's
Escort of ist Life Guards, under the command of Captain the Lord Hugh
Grosvenor, a State Procession having been formed in the following order : —
First Carriage.
THE KING. THE QUEEN.
The Prince of Wales and Princess Mary.
The following were in attendance on horseback : —
Major-General Sir A. E. Codrington Lt.-Gen. Sir H. L. Smith-Dorrien
(General Officer Commanding (Aide-de-Camp General-
the London District). in-Waiting).
APPENDIX A
Major the Lord Charles Major Clive Wigram Capt. the Hon.
Fitzmaurlce (Equerry-in-Waiting). Sir Charles
(Equerry-in-Waiting). Wentworth Fitzwilliam
(Crown Equerry).
Colonel G. C. Nugent Lieut. -Colonel the Duke of Teck
(Field Officer in Brigade Waiting). (Silver-Stick-in-Waiting).
Capt. the Hon. J. F. Forbes Trefusis Captain G. E. M. Mundy
(Adjutant in Brigade Waiting). (Silver Stick Adjutant).
Second Carriage. — Prince George, the Duchess of Devonshire (Mistress of
the Robes), the Countess of Shaftesbury (Lady-in-Waiting), the
Earl of Granard (Master of the Horse).
Third Carriage. — The Hon. Venetia Baring (Maid of Honour in Waiting),
the Earl of Durham (Lord High Steward), the Earl of Shaftesbury
(Lord Chamberlain to the Queen).
Fourth Carriage. — The Lord Annaly (Lord-in-Waiting), Lieut. -Colonel
the Rt. Hon. Sir W. Carington (Keeper of the Privy Purse), Lieut.-
Colonel the Lord Stamfordham (Private Secretary), Captain Philip
Hunloke (Groom-in- Waiting).
Fifth Carriage. — Commander Sir Charles Cust, Bt., R.N., Equerry-in-
Waiting), the Hon. Sir Derek Keppel (Equerry-in-Waiting), Lieut. -
Colonel Sir Frederick Ponsonby (Equerry-in-Waiting), Captain B.
Godfrey-Faussett, R.N. (Equerry-in-Waiting).
The King's Guard of the ist Batt. Grenadier Guards, with the Colour
and Band of the regiment, under the command of Captain L. V. Colby,
was mounted in the Quadrangle of the Palace.
The route of the Royal Procession was by the Mall, Marlborough Gate,
Pall Mall, Trafalgar Square, the Strand, Fleet Street, and Ludgate Hill to
St. Paul's Cathedral.
The Procession halted at Trafalgar Square, and the King received a
deputation from the Westminster City Council, headed by the Mayor,
who presented an Address of Welcome to the King and Queen, to which
His Majesty handed a reply.
The King and Queen were received at Temple Bar by the Lord Mayor,
the Sheriffs, and members of the Court of Aldermen and Common
Council.
The Lord Mayor, in accordance with ancient custom, surrendered the
City Sword to the King, which His Majesty returned.
The King and Queen afterwards proceeded to the Cathedral, where a
Guard of Honour of the ist Batt. Coldstream Guards, under the command
of Captain W. A. Fuller-Maitland, was mounted.
A Detachment of the London Diocesan Church Lads' Brigade lined the
steps leading to the West Door of the Cathedral.
Queen Alexandra, accompanied by the Princess Victoria, attended by
Her Majesty's Suite, and escorted by a Captain's Escort of ist Life Guards
under the command of Lieutenant L. H. Hardy, had proceeded before-
hand to St. Paul's Cathedral.
316
APPENDIX A
Prince and Princess Christian of Schlesvvig-Holstein, Princesses Victoria
and Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein, Princess Louise (Duchess of
Argyll) and the Duke of Argyll, the Duchess of Albany, Prince Arthur
of Connaught, Princess Louis of Battenberg, with Prince George and
Princess Louise of Battenberg, the Duchess of Teck and Prince George
of Teck, and the Countesses Feodore and Helena Gleichen had previously
arrived and taken their appointed places.
Their Majesties were received at the Cathedral by the Dean and
Chapter, together with the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs.
The Archbishop of Canterbur)% the Archbishop of York, and Bishop
Boyd Carpenter (Clerk of the Closet) were present.
The King, the Queen, and Queen Alexandra were conducted to their
scats, a procession being formed in the following order : —
Minor Canons.
Prebendaries.
Bishops.
Clerk of the Closet.
Archbishop of York.
Archbishop of Canterbury.
Canons Residentiary.
Sheriffs.
The Lord Mayor (bearing the Pearl Sword).
THE KING. Dean of St. Paul's.
Senior Canon. THE gUEEN
Prince of Wales.
The Princess Victoria. Prince George
The Earl of Durham (Lord High
Steward).
The Countess of Shaftesbury (Lady
of the Bedchamber to the Queen).
Admiral Sir M. Culme-Seymour, Bt.
(Vice-Admiral of the United Kingdom)
The Earl Howe
(Lord Chamberlain
to Queen Alexandra).
The Hon. Venetia Baring
(Maid of Honour to the
Queen).
The Earl of Gosford
(Vice-Chamberlain
to Queen Alexandra).
Capt. B. Godfrey-
Faussett
(Equerry to the King).
The Lord Annaly
(Lord-in-Waiting
to the King).
The Countess of
Gosford (Lady of the
Bedchamber to Queen
Alexandra).
Lieut. -Colonel
the Rt. Hon.
Sir William Carington
(Keeper of the Privy
Purse).
Commander Sir Charles
Cust, Bt., R.N.
(Equerry to the King).
Queen Alexandra.
Princess Mary.
The Earl of Granard (Master of
the Horse).
The Duchess of Devonshire
(Mistress of the Robes to the Queen).
Field-Marshal the Lord Grenfell
(Gold-Stick-in- Waiting).
The Earl of Shaftesbury
(Lord Chamberlain
to the Queen).
The Hon. Charlotte
KnoUys (Woman
of the Bedchamber to
Queen Alexandra).
The Lord Stamfordham
(Private Secretary
to the King).
The Hon. Sir Derek
Keppel
(Equerry to the King).
APPENDIX A
Lt.-Col. Sir Frederick Capt. the Lt. -Gen. Sir Major-Gen. Sir
Ponsonby (Equerry Hon. Sir Charles H. L. Smith- A. E. Codrington
to the King). Fitzwilliam Dorrien (Aide-de- (General Officer
(Crown Equerry). Camp General-in- Commanding the
Waiting). London District).
Major the Lord Charles Captain Philip Hunloke Major Clive Wigram
Fitzmaurice (Groom-in-Waiting (Equerry-in- Waiting
(Equerry-in-Waiting to to the King). to the King),
the King).
Colonel Henry Streatfeild Colonel Sir Arthur Davidson
(Equerry-in-Waiting to Queen (Equerry-in-Waiting to Queen
Alexandra). Alexandra).
Colonel G. C. Nugent (Field Lieut.-Colonel the Duke of Teck
Officer in Brigade Waiting). (Silver-Stick-in-Waiting).
The National Anthem was then sung, being followed by the special
form of service appointed for the occasion.
At the conclusion of the service the Recessional Hymn was sung, during
which Their Majesties were conducted by the Lord Mayor, the Clerk of
the Closet, and the Dean and Chapter to the West Door of the Cathedral,
where the Royal Procession was re-formed and proceeded by way of
Ludgate Hill, New Bridge Street, the Embankment, Northumberland
Avenue, Admiralty Arch, and the Mall to Buckingham Palace.
In addition to Their Majesties' Suites, the following were on duty in
the Cathedral : —
Colonel Sir Douglas Dawson (Comptroller of the Lord Chamberlain's
Department), the Hon. Arthur Walsh (Master of the Ceremonies), the
Hon. Richard Moreton (Marshal of the Ceremonies), the Rt. Hon. Sir S.
Ponsonby-Fane, Mr. Lionel Cust, Sir David Erskine, Mr. Arnold Royle,
Major-General Sir John Slade, Mr. Horace West, Mr. Percy Armytage, Vice-
Admiral Charles Windham, Mr. Thomas Kingscote, Captain Gerald Ellis,
Colonel H. Fludyer, Mr. Montague Eliot, and Colonel Lord William Cecil
(Gentlemen Ushers), and Mr.R. F.Synge (Deputy-Marshal of the Ceremonies).
Major J. C. Brinton (late 2nd Life Guards), Captain Phillips and
Lieutenant A. Leigh Bennet (Coldstream Guards), Major McCalmont and
Lieutenant Lord Arthur Hay (Irish Guards), and the gentlemen of the
Lord Chamberlain's Department were also on duty in the Cathedral.
Amongst those present at the Service were : —
Their Excellencies the Ambassadors, Foreign Ministers and Chefs de
Mission, the Cabinet Ministers and other Members of the Government, ex-
Cabinet Ministers, the Speaker, Members of the Houses of Parliament, the
Lord Mayors and Lord Provosts of the United Kingdom, the Mayors of
the Metropolitan boroughs, the Chairman and Members of the London
County Council, the Permanent Officials of the various departments of the
State, the Council of the Secretary of State for India, officers of the Army
and Navy, a detachment of officers and men from H.M.S. Medina, His
Majesty's Judges, the Aldermen and Common Councilmen of the City of
London, representatives of the City Companies, the Households of the King
and Queen, Queen Alexandra and the Royal Family, officials and visitors
from India and the Colonies.
The route to and from Buckingham Palace and St. Paul's Cathedral was
lined with troops.
.-.18
APPENDIX B
THE KING-EMPEROR'S STAFF IN INDIA.
Permanent Staff.
Brigadier-General R. E. Grimston, Militarj' Secretary.
Major E. D. Money (ist Gurkha Rifles), Assistant Military Secretary.
Major A. R. Stockley (ist Sappers and Miners), Assistant Military
Secretary.
Captain R. E. T. Hogg (38th Central India Horse), Assistant Military
Secretary.
Lieut. -Colonel R. Bird (Indian Medical Service), Surgeon.
EXTRA STAFF AT DELHI.
Attached.
Sir John Hewett, President Durbar Committee.
Colonel Sir Henry McMahon, Master of the Ceremonies.
The King's Honorary Aides-de-Camp.
Hon. Major-General the Maharaja of Gwalior.
Hon. Major-General Sir Pratap Singh.
Hon. Colonel Nawab Sir Aslam Khan.
Hon. Colonel the Maharaja of Bikaner.
Hon. Colonel the Nawab of Rampur.
Hon. Colonel Nawab Sir Hafiz Khan.
Extra Equerry.
Lieut. -Colonel H. D. Watson (9th Gurkha Rifles).
The King's Aides-de-Camp.
Brigadier-General W. R. Birdwood.
Brigadier-General H. D'U. Keary.
Brigadier-General C. J. Melliss.
APPENDIX B
Colonel H. E. Stanton.
Colonel Viscount Hardinge.
Colonel F. Goodwin.
Extra Aides-de-Camp.
Major the Hon. W. G. S. Cadogan (loth Hussars),
Captain L. F. Ashburner (Royal Fusiliers).
Captain H. Hill (Royal Welsh Fusiliers).
Captain R. Raban (ist Skinner's Horse).
British Officers from Indian Regiments.
Captain G. Craster (6th Cavalry).
Captain J. K. Gatacre (nth Lancers).
Major E. C. Corbyn (i8th Lancers).
Captain E. L. Pophani (26th Cavalry).
Captain A. B. Eckford (39th Central India Horse).
Captain F. E. G. Talbot (14th Sikhs).
Captain B. E. A. Manson (6ist Pioneers).
Captain T. Oakes (102nd Grenadiers).
Captain N. R. Anderson (130th Baluchis).
Major F. G. C. Ross (2nd Battalion 2nd Gurkha Rifles).
Lieut.-Colonel H. L. Roberts (16th Cavalry).
Indian Officers from Indian Regiments.
Cwvalry.
Risaldar Ismail Khan (ist Lancers, Skinner's Horse).
Risaldar Ramjas (6th Cavalry).
Ressaidar Anup Singh (nth Lancers).
Risaldar Gul Nawaz Khan (i8th Lancers).
Risaldar Saiyid Abdullah (26th Cavalry).
Risaldar Lall Khan (38th Central India Horse).
Risaldar Mumtaz Ali Khan (39th Central India Horse).
Infantry.
Subadar Gulab Singh (14th Sikhs).
Subadar Ram Das (6 ist Pioneers).
Subadar Sahib Din (102nd Grenadiers).
Subadar Sultan Mir (130th Baluchis).
Subadar Jangbir Thapa (ist Batt. ist Gurkha Rifles).
Subadar Rudrnarain Nagarkoti (2nd Batt. ist Gurkha Rifles).
Subadar Jangbir Thapa (ist Batt. 2nd Gurkha Rifles).
Subadar Sital Singh Lama (2nd Batt. 2nd Gurkha Rifles).
Subadar Mihr Din (ist Sappers and Miners).
STAFF IN NIPAL.
Brigadier-General R. E. Grimston.
Captain R. E. T. Hogg (38th Central India Horse).
Lieut.-Colonel H. D. Watson (9th Gurkha Rifles).
APPENDIX B
STAFF FOR THE QUEEN-EMPRESS'S RAJPUTANA TOUR.
Lieut. -Colonel A. D. G. Bannerman.
Major E. D. Money (ist Gurkha Rifles).
Captain H. Hill (Royal Welsh Fusiliers).
Lieut. -Colonel R. Bird, Surgeon.
EXTRA STAFF AT CALCUTTA.
The King's Honorary Aides-de-Camp.
Extra Aides-de-Camp.
Major Hon. W. G. S. Cadogan (loth Hussars).
Captain A. F. C. Maclachlan (King's Royal Rifles).
Major L. O. Graeme (Cameron Highlanders).
Captain H. Holmes (Royal Irish Fusiliers).
EXTRA STAFF AT BOMBAY.
Extra Aides-de-Camp on Arrival.
Captain B. S. Grissell (Norfolk Regiment).
Major L. O. Graeme (Cameron Highlanders).
Captain L. F. Ashburner (Royal Fusiliers).
Major G. G. P. Humphreys (127th Baluch Lifantry).
Extra Aides-de-Camp on Departure.
Major G. G. P. Humphreys (127th Baluch Infantry).
Captain R. Raban (ist Lancers).
Captain A. F. C. Maclachlan (King's Royal Rifles).
Captain B. S. Grissell (Norfolk Regiment).
321
APPENDIX C
REGIMENTS IN INDIA WITH WHICH THE KING
IS ASSOCIATED AS COLONEL-IN-CHIEF.
British Service.
loth Prince of Wales's Own Royal Hussars.
Royal Artillery.
Royal Engineers.
The Royal Fusiliers.
The Norfolk Regiment.
The Royal Welsh Fusiliers.
The King's Royal Rifle Corps.
The Queen's Own Cameron Highlanders.
Princess Victoria's (Royal Irish Fusiliers).
Indian Service.
ist Duke of York's Own Lancers (Skinner's Horse).
6th King Edward's Own CavalrJ^
nth King Edward's Own Lancers (Probyn's Horse).
102nd King Edward's Own Grenadiers.
2nd King Edward's Own Gurkha Rifles (the Sirmoor Rifles).
1 8th King George's Own Lancers.
26th King George's Own Light Cavalry.
38th King George's Own Central India Horse.
39th King George's Own Central India Horse.
I St King George's Own Sappers and Miners.
14th King George's Own Ferozepur Sikhs.
61st King George's Own Pioneers.
130th King George's Own Baluchis (Jacob's Rifles).
I St King George's Own Gurkha Rifles (The Malaun Regiment).
REGIMENT WITH WHICH THE QUEEN IS ASSOCIATED.
127th Queen Mary's Own Baluch Light Infantry.
322
APPENDIX D
THE PRAYER OF THE SIKHS ON THE
13th of DECEMBER.
SRI WAHGURU JI KI FATAH !
Having first remembered the Sword meditate on Guru Nanak ;
Then on Guru Angad, Amar Das, and Ram Das ; may they assist us !
Remember Arjan, Har Gobind, and the holy Hari Rai ;
Meditate on the holy Hari Krishan, a sight of whom dispelled all
sorrow.
Remember Teg Bahadar, and the nine treasures shall come hastening
to your homes.
Ye holy Gurus, everywhere assist us !
May the tenth King, the holy GURU GOVIND SINGH, everywhere
assist us.
God Himself knoweth, He Himself acteth ; it is He who adjusteth.
Standing in His presence, NANAK, make supplication.
Sikhs of the true Immortal God, turn your thoughts to the teachings of
the Granth Sahib and the deeds of the Khalsa ; utter Wahguru !
Meditating on the Deathless One, endowed with all power, compassion-
ate, and just, utter Wahguru !
Meditating on the deeds of those who worshipped the Name, plied the
sword, ate and distributed their food in companionship and overlooked
others' faults, O Khalsa, utter Wahguru !
O Deathless Creator, illimitable, this creature forgetting Thy name is so
attached to worldly goods, that he hath forgotten the Real Thing. With-
out Thy Supreme mercy how shall we cross the ocean of the world ? O
great King, lust, wrath, greed, worldly love, jealousy, and other evil
passions greatly trouble our minds, but on coming towards Thee worldly
maladies and afflictions are healed and dispelled. Show us such favour
that we may by word and deed be Thine, and that in all things we may
obtain Thine assistance and support.
Grant to thy Sikhs the gift ot Sikhism, the gift of the Guru's instruction,
the gift of faith, the gift of confidence in Thee, and the gift of reading and
understanding the holy Granth Sahib.
May the Sikh choirs, mansions, and banners ever abide ! Victory to
323
APPENDIX D
the faith ; May the minds of the Sikhs be humble but their intellects
exalted ! Utter Wahguru ! Wahguru ! ! Wahaguru ! ! !
O Primal Father, Everlasting Creator, we Thy humble worshippers are
to-day assembled at the spot where our Messenger of salvation, the true
Guru Teg Bahadar, seeing the people of India the victims of an oppressive
and unjust Government, made the following prophecy in 1675 ^■^■
"I behold coming from across the ocean a race of men who will spread
peace and dispense justice and root out tyranny and oppression." By Thy
mercy, O God, his words have proved true, for the British Government,
which confers happiness on its subjects, has been firmly established in India.
We Sikhs of the Gurus in the midst of our happiness and rejoicing to-day
specially render Thee our humble gratitude and thanks that our beloved
Emperor has come to the City where our holy Guru the Bestower of
salvation uttered the above fateful prophecy, in order to place the Crown
of the realm of many lands on his head.
O Eternal God, may this peaceful and just sovereignty ever endure and
may the Emperor George and his gracious consort Queen Mary with their
family abide in happiness, and may their Empire extend and prosper !
Beloved Sikh brethren, let us of one mind thank the Cherisher of the
world through Whose favour we have beheld this magnificent coronation
ceremony, and let us conclude the great event with three cheers of Sat Sir:
Akal for the safekeeping and prosperity of Their Majesties and the Royal
Family.
THE END
Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinhirgk.
DURBAR.
DELHI, 12th DECEMBER. 1911.
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