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CHAPTER XVII
WITH THE PRINCE IN INDIA

In September, 1875, I was appointed A.D.C. to the Prince of Wales (our late King) to accompany his Royal Highness upon his visit to India. The complete list of the suite was as follows: The Duke of Sutherland, K.G.; Sir Bartle Frere; Lord Suffield, Head of the Prince's Household; Major-General Lord Alfred Paget, Clerk-Marshal to H.M. the Queen; Lord Aylesford; Major-General Probyn, V.C., Equerry to the Prince, in charge of the transport and sporting arrangements; Colonel Arthur Ellis, Grenadier Guards, Equerry to the Prince; Mr. Francis Knollys (afterwards Lord Knollys), the Prince's private secretary; Surgeon-General Fayrer, Physician to the Prince; Captain H. Carr Glyn, Royal Navy, A.D.C. to H.M. the Queen commanding H.M.S. Serapis; Colonel Owen Williams; Lieutenant Lord Charles Beresford, Royal Navy, A.D.C. to the Prince; Lord Carington, A.D.C. to the Prince; the Rev. Canon Duckworth, Chaplain; Lieutenant (afterwards Colonel) Augustus FitzGeorge, Rifle Brigade extra A.D.C. to the Prince; Commander Durrant, Royal Navy, commanding royal yacht Osborne; Dr. W. H. Russell, hon. private secretary to the Prince, chronicler of the voyage; Mr. Albert Grey (afterwards Lord Grey), private secretary to Sir Bartle Frere; Mr. Sydney Hall, artist.

The Indian officers, who joined the suite at Bombay, and whose energy and ability were beyond all praise, were Major-General Sam Browne, V.C., in charge of transport; Major Williams, in charge of horses and grooms; Major Bradford, head of the police and responsible for the safety of the person of the Prince; Major Sartorius, V.C., in charge of tents and servants; and Major Henderson, linguist.

The first announcement of the intention of the Prince to visit the Indian Empire was made by Lord Salisbury to the Council of India on 16th March, 1875. The matter was subsequently discussed at length both in Parliament and in the Press. The condition of affairs in India, where the mass of the ruling princes and chieftains had still to realise that the rule of the Honourable East India Company had given place to a greater governance, rendered the visit of the future Sovereign of paramount importance; and the Prince's sagacity was seldom more admirably exemplified than in his determination to visit India as the Heir-Apparent of the Crown. That the scheme was entirely and supremely successful in achieving the object for which it was designed, was due to the Prince's zeal, ability, tact and indomitable vigour. He gave his whole mind to the enterprise; thought of everything in advance; and set aside his personal comfort and convenience from first to last. Only one regret was present in the minds of all: the regret for the unavoidable absence of the Princess.

The whole history of the episode has been so excellently well told by the late Dr. William Howard Russell, the famous war correspondent, who was a member of the suite, in his The Prince of Wales's Tour (London, 1877; Sampson Low) that any detailed account of it on my part would be superfluous.

The Prince left England on 11th October, 1875, and embarked in H.M.S. Serapis at Brindisi on the 16th. In the Suez Canal we heard of the purchase of Suez Canal shares by the British Government. The Serapis arrived at Bombay on 8th November.

Thenceforward the Prince's tour was an unresting progress of Durbars, receptions, dinners, visits, processions, ceremonies, speeches, addresses, fireworks, entertainments, investitures, reviews, varied only by intervals of sport. From Bombay, the Prince went to Goa, and thence to Ceylon, visiting Colombo, Kandy, where he viewed the sacred tooth of Gotama Buddha, and Ruanwalla, where there was an elephant hunt. Then he went to Tuticorin, Madura, Trichinopoly, Madras, Calcutta, Bankipoor, Benares, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Delhi, Lahore, Cashmir, Umritsar, Agra, Gwalior, and Jeypoor. From Jeypoor he went into camp in the Terai and enjoyed excellent sport. Then, in Nepal, under the auspices of Sir Jung Bahadur, there was the great elephant hunt. From Nepal the Prince went to Allahabad, then to Bombay, whence he sailed on 11th March, 1876, having been in India seventeen weeks exactly. "The Prince," wrote Dr. Russell on that date, "has travelled nearly 7600 miles by land and 2300 by sea, knows more Chiefs than all the Viceroys and Governors together, and seen more of the country in the time than any other living man."

On the outward voyage his Royal Highness visited the King of Greece. When the King and Queen were leaving the Serapis after dining on board, we showed them compliment and honour by setting them alight. The blue lights burning at the main-yard being exactly above the boat in which their Majesties were going ashore, dropped flakes of fire upon them. The Prince also visited the Khedive. On the return voyage, the Prince met at Suez Lord Lytton, who was on his way to India to succeed Lord Northbrook as Viceroy; was again entertained by the Khedive; visited Malta; called at Gibraltar; and visited the King of Spain and the King of Portugal. The Serapis was accompanied by the royal yacht Osborne, Commander Durrant, and H.M.S. Raleigh, Captain Tryon. The Prince landed in England on 11th May, 1876.

It is worth noting that Lord Lytton went out in the Orontes, one of the Imperial Service troopships, as they were called. The troopship service was then at times conducted by the Royal Navy, a practice since discontinued. The Orontes was commanded by Captain E. H. Seymour (afterwards Admiral of the Fleet the Right Hon. Sir Edward Seymour, G.C.B., O.M., G.C.V.O., LL.D.) In his very interesting book, My Naval Career and Travels, Sir Edward Seymour writes: "At Suez, by arrangement, we met H.R.H. the Prince of Wales (our late King) on his way home in the Serapis. At Aden Lord Lytton landed in state, it being the first point reached of his new dominions." The point illustrates the working in detail of the great scheme of Imperial organisation which was conceived by the master-mind of Disraeli, and which he continued to carry into execution so long as he was in power.

Upon landing at Bombay, I rode up to Government House with my brother, Lord William, precisely as I had ridden up with another brother, Lord Marcus, exactly six years previously, on the same day of the year. Lord William was then extra A.D.C. to the Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, having been appointed to that post as a subaltern in the 9th Lancers. He was subsequently appointed A.D.C. to Lord Lytton, in which capacity he attended the Viceroy at the Durbar at which Queen Victoria was proclaimed Empress of India. He was afterwards military secretary to three successive viceroys, Lords Ripon, Dufferin and Lansdowne; altogether he served on the personal staff of five viceroys. From 1877 to 1879, while nominally in attendance upon the Viceroy, Lord William fought in the Jowaki expedition of 1877-78, the Afghan war, during which he was present at the capture of Ali Musjid, and the Zulu war of 1879. "In the latter," wrote a military correspondent of The Times (31st December, 1900), "he served as a staff officer during the reconnaissance across the White Umvolusi River and at the battle of Ulundi. It was in Zululand, in July, 1879, that Beresford won the V.C. for halting, when closely pursued by the enemy, to take a wounded non-commissioned officer on his horse. When the soldier at first declined to risk the officer's life by giving the latter's horse a double burden, Beresford is understood to have hotly declared that unless the man immediately got up on the saddle he would himself dismount and 'punch his head.'"

For his services in the Burmese expedition of 1886, he received a brevet-colonelcy; and in 1891 he was promoted full colonel; in 1894 he received the K.C.S.I.; and thereafter remained on the active list of the Army, but unemployed. Of his exploits on the turf it is not here the place to speak; but I may be pardoned if I have placed on record in this place some account of Lord William's Indian service which extended over nearly twenty years. Few men have earned so universal an affection as that which Lord William inspired, alike in European and native. His ability in matters of administration was remarkable, and he acquired an extraordinary influence over the natives of India. The correspondent of The Times, already quoted, observes that Lord William might have had a distinguished career in any profession; that he might have been a great soldier, a great diplomat, a great political officer, had not his passion for the turf diverted a part of his energies. It may be so; but perhaps one may be allowed to say that one liked him for what he was and not for what he might have been; and also that he did not do so badly. The warmest affection existed between my brother and myself; and his death, which occurred in 1900, was a great grief to me. But that was in the far future when I landed from the Serapis and we rode up to Government House together.

Of the other members of the Prince's suite I retain the most pleasant recollections. Among them I especially recall Major-General Probyn (afterwards General the Right Hon. Sir Dighton Macnaghten Probyn, V.C., etc. etc.); Major-General Sam Browne, V.C. (afterwards General Sir Samuel James Browne, V.C., K.C.S.I., etc.); Major Bradford (afterwards Sir Edward Ridley Colborne Bradford, Bart., K.C.S.I., G.C.V.O.); Surgeon-General Fayrer (afterwards Sir Joseph Fayrer, Bart.); and Dr. Russell (afterwards Sir William Howard Russell, C.V.O., LL.D.).

Major-General Probyn, of magnificent presence, black-bearded, hawk-eyed, a hero of the Mutiny, was universally respected and beloved by the native population, over whom he owned a great influence. He was one of the finest soldiers and most delightful companions it has been my fortune to know. In 1876, he already had twenty-five years' service, including the Trans-Indus frontier affair of 1852-57, the Mutiny (in which his name was a terror), in China in 1860, in the Umbeyla campaign of 1863. He was Colonel of Probyn's Horse, 11th King Edward's Own Lancers; afterwards Keeper of the Privy Purse, Comptroller and Treasurer of the Household of the present King when he was Prince of Wales; and since 1901, extra Equerry to the King.

Probyn and I assisted at a surgical operation. A mahout had his hand smashed; and we held him while the surgeon amputated his finger and thumb.

Major-General Sam Browne, V.C., had served in the second Sikh war with distinction, and during the Mutiny led the surprise attack upon the rebels at Sirpura, at dawn upon 31st August, 1858. Almost single-handed, he charged the guns, receiving the wound resulting in the loss of his arm. For this service, he was awarded the V.C. During the Prince's tour he represented the Indian Army; nor could a finer or more efficient representative have been selected.

Major Bradford had performed gallant and distinguished service in the Mutiny. He had lost an arm, under circumstances which may be worth repetition. Together with a brother officer, Captain Curtis, and a trooper, Bradford was tiger-shooting. Seated in a mechan (tree-shelter), he wounded a tiger, breaking its back; his second barrel missed fire; and Bradford fell from the mechan on the top of the tiger, which seized him. Bradford thrust his fist down the beast's throat; and while Curtis was trying to get another shot, the tiger mangled Bradford's arm up to the shoulder. Curtis eventually killed the animal. The party had a long and painful distance to traverse before they reached help. Bradford's arm was amputated without chloroform. In 1890, Bradford was appointed commissioner of police in the Metropolis, at a time when there was a good deal of discontent in the Force, and speedily proved the worth of his unrivalled experience and ability.

Surgeon-General Fayrer, I remember, had a remarkable way with snakes. He kept a selection of the most deadly reptiles in a wheelbarrow, nestled in straw. With his naked hands he would uncover them, and, deftly catching them by the neck, force them to exhibit their fangs.

Someone composed a set of irreverent verses dedicated to the surgeon-general:

 
    "Little Joe Fayrer
    Sent for his bearer
And asked for his Christmas pie.
    e put in his thumb,
    And pulled out a plum,
And found it a K.C.S.I."
 

Dr. W. H. Russell, the famous war correspondent, who in his letters to The Times during the Crimean war did so much good service, was a most delightful companion. He is remembered by all who knew him, both for his talents and for his sympathetic and affectionate disposition and his unfailing sense of humour. He was one of my greatest friends. During the voyage, he occupied the cabin next to mine.

The Prince having requested him to provide himself with a uniform, Dr. Russell designed a kind of Ambassadorial dress of great splendour, with so generous a gold stripe to his kersey breeches, that we told him he had gold trousers with a white stripe inside. These effulgent garments unfortunately carried away when the doctor was climbing upon an elephant, on his way to a Durbar. I executed temporary repairs upon his person with safety pins; and implored him not to stoop. But when it came to his turn to bow, bow he must; the jury rig parted, and a festoon of white linen, of extraordinary length, waved behind him. Fortunately, the assembled Indian Princes thought it was part of his uniform.

At Mian Mir, during the ceremony of a great review of troops, Dr. Russell, who was riding among the suite mounted on a half-broken Arab, was suddenly heard to shout, "Whoa, you villainous brute!" At the same moment, several of the suite were knocked endways. The Arab then got the bit in his teeth, and tore away past the Prince down the whole line. Dr. Russell's helmet was jerked to the back of his head, his puggaree unfurled in a long train floating behind him, he vanished into the distance and we did not see him again until dinner-time. He passed so close to the Prince, that had the doctor another thickness of gold on his gold trousers, there would have been an accident to his Royal Highness.

The Duke of Sutherland, during the Prince's journeys overland in India, took an intense delight in driving the engine, from which it was hard to tear him away. We had halted at a station where the customary ceremonial had been arranged, and had changed into uniform, all save the Duke, who was nowhere to be seen.

"Where can he be?" said the Prince.

I submitted that he might be on the engine, and went to see. Sure enough, the Duke was sitting on the rail, his red shirt flung open, his sun-helmet on the back of his head. In either black fist he grasped a handful of cotton waste, with which he was mopping up the perspiration of honest toil. He hurried to his carriage to change into uniform; and presently appeared, buttoning his tunic with one hand. In the other he still grasped a skein of cotton waste. The Prince looked at him.

"Can nothing be done?" said the Prince sadly.

The great elephant hunt in Nepal took place on the 25th February, 1876, under the auspices of Sir Jung Bahadur (afterwards the Maharaja Sir Jung Bahadur, G.C.B., G.C.S.I.). A herd of wild elephants, captained by a male of gigantic size and valour, who had already vanquished Sir Jung's most formidable righting elephants, had been tracked down in the forest. Sir Jung determined that, come what would, he should be captured. Sir Jung led the Prince and several of his suite, all well mounted on horses, into the forest, to the rendezvous, to which the wild herd was to be driven. But in the meantime, the big elephant had given the hunters the slip.

I was of the hunting party, and I had the stiffest run of my life, and at the end of it there were left besides myself only my companion – I think he was Mr. Greenwood – and six Indian notables. Mounted on swift pad elephants, we pursued that tremendous beast at top speed from four o'clock in the morning till six in the evening, bursting through the jungle, splashing through rivers, climbing the rocky steeps of hills upon which there appeared to be no foothold except for monkeys, and down which the elephants slid upon their bellies. So we rode hour after hour, hanging on the ropes secured to the guddee, lying flat upon the steed's back to avoid being scraped off his back by branches, until the quarry, escaping us ran straight into Sir Jung Bahadur's party of horsemen.

There, in an open space set with sword-like reeds, stood the elephant, his flanks heaving, his head and trunk moving from side to side. He had one huge tusk and the stump of the other.

It was the business of the horsemen in front to keep him employed in the open while the champion fighting elephants, Jung Pershaud and Bijli Pershaud, were being brought up. Again and again he charged, the riders eluding his rushes, the Prince among them. A stumble or a fall – and nothing could have saved the rider. Presently the elephant, wearying of these profitless tactics, wheeled and took refuge in a swamp, where the reeds and rushes hid him. But there was nothing to do but await the arrival of the fighting elephants. The fugitive employed his respite in cooling himself by pouring water over his heated person. In the meantime, Jung Pershaud, the terrible rogue elephant, somewhat fatigued like his quarry, was drawing near. Jung Pershaud, in order to give warning of his very dangerous presence, was hung about the neck with a large bell, like a railway-station bell. When he was not in action he was secured with ropes.

Presently, from out the jungle, there sounded the uneven, minatory clangour of the bell. Everyone shouted that Jung Pershaud was coming. The hunted elephant paused in his ablutions, turned about, and, pushing the foliage aside with his trunk, gazed in the direction of the warning note. Then emerged into view the vast head of Jung Pershaud, painted scarlet. He moved steadily and directly upon his quarry, who lowered his head, presenting his long sharp tusk. The tusks of Jung Pershaud were four to five feet long and ringed with brass.

Jung swung his trunk and dealt the hunted elephant a blow on the head, then charged him in the flank with a resounding impact, drew back and charged the reeling beast from behind. The hunted elephant took to flight, pursued by Jung Pershaud, heading straight for the place where I was watching the combat among the pads and smaller fighting elephants. These turned and fled in terror.

The hunted elephant plunged into the wood, ploughing his way through the undergrowth, leaving Jung Pershaud behind him. Sir Jung Bahadur, following with the Prince and the rest of the party, adjured us to keep out of the way of the fleeing beast while keeping him in sight. The quarry checked at an opening in the forest and remained in the shelter of the trees, while the Prince, with Sir Jung Bahadur and Dr. Russell, rode across a stream into the open space. Sir Jung Bahadur sat on his horse and cursed the elephant; who, after hearkening attentively for a few minutes, suddenly charged the horsemen.

At the same instant, the second fighting elephant, Bijli Pershaud, burst out of the jungle, and the two animals met forehead to forehead with a crash. Bijli Pershaud drew off and charged again, striking the hunted elephant on the shoulder, and running beside him, charged him heavily again and again, until the poor driven beast dropped his trunk and uttered a pitiable cry. He was beaten at last.

As we came up, it was discovered that the elephant was blind of one eye; everyone commiserated the defeated gladiator; and Sir Jung Bahadur offered to let him go free should the Prince so desire.

The Prince having accepted the suggestion, the elephant was led captive away and was secured with thick ropes to a tree. He bent his vast strength to a last effort to escape, so that the tree creaked and shook under the strain. He cried aloud in despair, and then stood silent, refusing all food.

They set him free upon the following day, having sawn off his great tusk; which was presented by Sir Jung Bahadur to the Prince.

A few days before the great hunt took place in Nepal, Sir Jung Bahadur's regiment of elephants paraded before the Prince. They numbered more than 700, and were drilled to manoeuvre in companies to the sound of the bugle. After the hunt, the Prince reviewed Sir Jung's army: a corps which, as the message from the Queen delivered by the Prince recalled in gracious terms, had tendered valuable help to the British arms upon an important occasion. The total strength of the army was 114,000 infantry and 420 guns. The infantry, in addition to rifle and bayonet, carried the kukri, or curved knife, the national weapon. We witnessed an exhibition of its use by the soldiers, who vied with one another in cutting, with a single action, slices of soft wood from a baulk, the cut making a diagonal section. More by good luck than by merit, I succeeded in cutting the widest section; and perceiving it to be extremely improbable that I could repeat the performance, I refused the invitation to try again. Sir Jung Bahadur presented me with the kukri I had used. I have the weapon now.

With this weapon, I slew a boa-constrictor. Riding an elephant after tiger, on which occasion shooting at any other game was forbidden, I saw a boa-constrictor, and dismounted. The great snake was lying asleep, coiled in a hole in the ground and half hidden in foliage. Selecting a narrowing coil, I cut nearly through it. The snake darted at me, and I finished it with a stick. Although it was dead, its body continued to writhe until sunset. For a long time I kept the skin, but unfortunately it decomposed.

My brother Lord William and I were out pig-sticking, and were riding after a boar. I got first spear, when the boar knocked both me and my horse clean over. The boar went on, then turned, and as I was in the act of getting up, came right at me. Remembering what an old pig-sticker, Archie Hill, had told me a man should do if he were bowled over and a boar attacked him, I rolled over on my face, presenting my least vital aspect to the enemy. But my brother, cleverly turning his horse, killed the boar within a few feet of me. The beast's head is preserved at Curraghmore.

During the whole time of the Prince's stay in India, one of his suite, the members of which took it in turns to discharge the duty, remained on guard over his person at night. I have in my possession the pair of pistols with which the gentleman on watch was armed.

On 10th January, 1876, the Prince visited the Cawnpore Memorial. "There was deep silence," writes Dr. Russell, "as the Prince read in a low voice the touching words, 'To the memory of a great company of Christian people, principally women and children, who were cruelly slaughtered here' – the name of the great criminal and the date of the massacre are cut round the base of the statue. No two persons agree as to the expression of Marochetti's Angel which stands over the Well. Is it pain? – pity? – resignation? – vengeance? – or triumph?" Perhaps my aunt, Lady Waterford, could have enlightened the learned doctor; for she it was who designed the monument, which was carried into execution by Marochetti.

A certain officer in high command was extremely agitated concerning the exact degree of precedence due to him – or rather, to the Service to which he belonged; a matter not easy to settle amid the throng of British dignitaries and Indian potentates. The officer chafed sorely at the delay; nor was he soothed by the injurious remarks of a junior member of the suite, who dealt with his dignity in a spirit of deplorable frivolity. At last, however, the junior member approached him with the aspect of sympathetic gravity proper to the occasion.

"I congratulate you, sir. That matter of your order of precedence has been settled at last."

"I am glad to hear it – very glad to hear it," said the officer. "The delay has been simply scandalous. What is to be my position?"

The junior member appeared to reflect.

"Oh, of course," he said, at length. "Now I remember. Your place, sir, is between the Ram of (something) and the Jam of (something else)!"

The distinguished officer: "…!!!"

On 30th November, 1875, while the Serapis was on her way from Bombay to Colombo, the Prince kindly presided at a dinner given in honour of my promotion to the rank of commander. In a letter written to me by his Royal Highness some years afterwards, he recalls that festivity, with a note of regret that those jolly days were gone. Three years afterwards, upon the occasion of my marriage, the suite presented me with a most beautiful silver bowl, which remains one of my most highly prized possessions.

There were many Babu poems composed to celebrate the Prince's prowess as a hunter. Among them, I remember the following: —

 
"Beautifully he will shoot
    Many a royal tiger brute;
Laying on their backs they die,
    Shot in the apple of the eye."
 

Seven years afterwards, I visited India again. It seemed to me that in the interval the relations between the Indian and the Englishman had changed for the better; in that the natives were less afraid of the white man, and that a better feeling had grown up between East and West. The principle upon which India is governed is the principle of establishing justice and humanity. India is governed by the sword; but the sword is sheathed.