Page:Littell's Living Age

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ROUSSELET'S TRAVELS IN INDIA.

of the greatest respect;" one, thus "surrounded with all the appliances of luxury imaginable," had been found "on a noisome manure-heap in the suburbs."

M. Rousselet was present at a mock marriage between two pigeons, adorned with collars, carried by pages, and placed on the sumptuously-decorated roof of the palace, surrounded by the guicwar, his courtiers, and the priests, who probably, says M. Rousselet, appropriated the considerable "sum given as a marriage portion to the two birds." Dances, and a grand banquet, followed by illuminations, concluded the festival. And so it went on—one day, diamonds for which all the jewellers' shops were ransacked; and another, pigeons, of which a collection gradually numbering sixty thousand was made, the guicwar spending his mornings in watching them take their flights together. The expedients for raising money were as outrageous as the manner in which it was squandered. On one occasion, when the guicwar, reckless as he was, felt that new taxes might be more than difficult to collect, he hit upon the expedient of appropriating a portion of the money extorted from the people by his own corrupt minions, to whom he issued the following proclamation:—

His Highness has seen with regret that corruption has found its way into various departments of the administration, but he hopes that this state of things will forthwith come to an end. He counsels all those officials who have allowed themselves to be corrupted to bring into the royal treasury the sums received in this way for the last ten years. His Highness, considering this restitution as making honourable amends, will forget the past. If, however, any karkhoon shall neglect to refund the full amount of the bonuses thus received, his Highness will feel himself under the painful necessity of taking rigorous measures.

Loud, of course, was the outcry; even the newspapers protested; but the karkhoons had to yield, and in a short time about £280,000 were in the hands of the guicwar, who himself "laughingly recounted the affair" to M. Rousselet. The other side of the picture is just as bad, and more repulsive. We do not refer to the elephant, rhinoceros, and buffalo fights, nor to the wrestling of every sort, in which the guicwar took much interest. These were seen and are well described by M. Rousselet. Some of them the Prince of Wales witnessed during his visit to the reformed court of Baroda; and the propriety of his doing so has been questioned, we think, most unreasonably, for though on the subject of these exhibitions tastes may well differ, it is a mistake to suppose that they involve anything like the amount of suffering inseparable from some of our own most cherished sports. But the same thing cannot be said of the nucki-ka-kousti, or fight with claws, thus described by M. Rousselet:—

The combatants, almost naked, but adorned with crowns and garlands, tear each other with claws of horn. . . . I was once present at a combat of this kind, but my heart was so moved by the horrible spectacle that I refused to go again. The wrestlers, intoxicated with bhâng—liquid opium mixed with an infusion of hemp—sing as they rush upon one another. Their faces and heads are soon covered with blood, and their frenzy knows no bounds. The king, with wild eyes and the veins of his neck swollen, surveys the scene with such passionate excitement that he cannot remain quiet, but imitates by gestures the movements of the wrestlers. The arena is covered with blood, the defeated combatant is carried off, sometimes in a dying condition, and the conqueror, the skin of his forehead hanging clown in strips, prostrates himself before the king, who places round his neck a necklace of fine pearls, and covers him with garments of great value. One episode, moreover, disgusted me to such a degree that, without any heed of the effect my sudden departure might have upon the guicwar, I at once withdrew. One of the wrestlers, whom the bhâng had only half intoxicated, after receiving the first few blows, made a show of wishing to escape. His antagonist threw him, and they rolled together on the ground before us. The victor, seeing the unhappy wretch demand quarter, turned to the king to know whether he should let the other rise; but, inflamed with the spectacle, the monarch cried out, "Maro! maro!" (Strike! strike!) and the scalp of the unfortunate fellow was torn without mercy. When he was taken away he had lost all consciousness. The same day the king distributed among the victorious wrestlers necklaces and money to the amount of more than £4000.

M. Rousselet refers to another horrible occurrence, which, however, took place before his arrival—the execution by an elephant of a criminal condemned to suffer death. We do not attempt to go into the revolting details of a process which M. Rousselet correctly describes as "one of the most frightful that can possibly be imagined." That the government of India were kept in ignorance of this case may be inferred from the fact of their having, when at a later date a similar execution elsewhere was brought to their notice, inflicted severe punishment upon the native ruler in whose territory it had been carried out.

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