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February 22, 2004
EXCERPTS: A grand encounter
Baron Charles Von Hugel describes his meeting with Maharaja Ranjit Singh in his darbar
Wednesday, January 13: At nine o’clock, Khalifa Sahib came to conduct me to the palace. He brought with him three elephants, with European howdahs, in which a person can sit upright and stretch out his feet; a huge escort was likewise in attendance under the commandant of Lahore. Mr Mackeson had also received an invitation. We entered Lahore by the south gate. When we arrived at the outer ward of the old imperial palace, the Maharaja’s officers who formed our escort, all alighted from their horses, while the elephants marched up some steps through a second gate into a garden, in an excellent state of cultivation, and where I observed one of those beautiful little marble buildings, belonging to the pure taste of the Akbar dynasty...
We proceeded through a wide gate straight before us, and opening on a small square, where a company of soldiers was drawn up, and presented arms to us. The Maharaja was sitting in a small armchair with a low back, in a little pavilion; the walls were covered with gold brocade, and the floor with a large Kashmirian carpet. I had no sooner put my foot on the carpet, than he rose and received me at the entrance, taking my hand and leading me to an armchair close to his own. Before I had seated myself, I took a bag containing 750 rupees out of my Munshi’s hands, and giving it a preliminary wave over his head from left to right, handed it to his dependants.
This ceremony is considered necessary whenever the Maharaja is ill, in order to drive away evil spirits, who are the sole cause of the royal infirmities.
My uniform had not arrived and I had no boots with me. I had therefore to appear in shoes. To cross a carpet in them, is considered in India not so much an offence against the king’s majesty as the English suppose, as a mark of extreme ill-breeding and rudeness, and the king himself would be considered wholly deficient in politeness, if he were to walk over the carpet of a room with his shoes on, no matter how inferior to himself the owner of the house might be.
Knowing this, I left mine outside the border of the carpet. It is the English custom to offer their presents through a Munshi; but as I knew that the Maharaja would feel flattered if I performed that ceremony myself, and I saw no degradation in it, I determined to do so. He asked me if I had served as a soldier, to which I answered in the affirmative, upon which he questioned me about our Austrian army, and our wars with France.
Mr Mackeson was a capital interpreter. Seeing Mohan standing behind me, he inquired about him, and finding that he was my interpreter, and that my former one, the Brahmin from Agra, had fallen ill, he desired Mohan to sit down at my feet, and inquired who he was. Mohan told him that he was a Gurkha, a kshatriya, (of the military caste), and the son of a subhedar, or captain.
The Maharaja then turned to me, and asked me whether Mohan was able to translate everything that I wished to say; and on my replying that he was, he said he would try him, and forthwith ordered the youth to ask me what I thought of his army, and whether it was in a state to encounter a European force. I answered that the Sikhs had long been remarkable for their bravery, and the discipline now introduced must no doubt have rendered them quite equal to such an encounter; “With equal forces?” he asked.
“Doubtless,” said I. “You have seen the whole world, which country do you like best?” — “My own native land.” “You have seen Kashmir, what do you think of it?”
“That sickness and famine have of late years so depopulated it, that it must produce a revenue of small amount.” “I have ordered Mohan Singh to give money to the poor. Do you think he robs me?” — “I think not.” “Do not you think that I should do well to remove him from the government? He has no intellect.” “I think the Governor a worthy man, and that you will not easily find a better one. The country needs indulgence, in order to recover itself.”
During the time this questioning was going on, and while Mr Mackeson was translating it into Persian and Khalifa Sahib into Panjabi, I took the opportunity of surveying the company. On a chair near the Maharaja, sat Hira Singh, a youth of sixteen, the son of the favourite, Raja Dhyan Singh, the Prime Minister; all the other great officers of state were seated on the ground. Everyone had his eyes fixed on me to guess at the answers I was giving, before they were translated for the Maharaja’s information.
The court colour of the Durbar is yellow or green; and the chiefs and officers were all clothed in yellow garments of the wool of Kashmir, except Hira Singh, who wore a satin dress of light green and pink.
Ranjit Singh is now fifty-four years old. The small-pox deprived him, when he was a child, of his left eye, whence he gained the surname of Kana, one-eyed, and his face is scarred by the same malady. His beard is thin and gray, with a few dark hairs in it; according to the Sikh religious custom, it reaches a little below his chin, and is untrimmed. His head is square and large for his stature, which, though naturally short, is now considerably bowed by disease; his forehead is remarkably broad. His shoulders are wide, though his arms and hands are quite shrunk; altogether, he is the most forbidding human being I have ever seen. His large brown, unsteady and suspicious eye seems diving into the thoughts of the person with whom he converses, and his straightforward questions are put incessantly and in the most laconic terms. His speech is so much affected by paralysis that it is no easy matter to understand him, but if the answer be delayed for an instant, one of his courtiers, usually the Jemidar, repeats the question.
After I had been subjected to this examination for a whole hour, without one moment’s intermission to put a single question in return, he turned to Mr Vigne, and asked; “And what can you do?” To which my fellow traveller, with his usual simplicity, replied, “I can draw.” The Maharaja did not seem to comprehend how an art so little esteemed by himself, could possibly occupy the time of a great white man, one of the Sahib Log.
I now took occasion to thank him for the protection afforded to me throughout his territories, which made travelling as safe under his vigorous government, as in the dominions of the East India Company. “The strict friendship between the two countries,” I added, “is a great source of satisfaction both in Hindustan and the Panjab.” This was a remark particularly agreeable to him, and in answering his first letter, I had instinctively let fall a few flowers of oriental rhetoric on this same friendship, which procured me in a short time a most flattering epistle, enlarging on my amplifications.
He now asked me, “Who writes your letters?” I named Thakur Das. He praised him much, adding; “I hope Lahore will please you. Issue your commands, everything here is yours.” A company of soldiers were stationed in the court, and he asked me if I should like to see them go through their manoeuvres. To this I bowed assent; he then stood up, took my left hand, and Mohan’s right, and stationed himself at the entrance while the men marched past; the word of command was given in French, and the exercise was gone through with much precision. He begged me to excuse anything amiss. I observed that I was surprised to find his troops so proficient in European tactics.
“Are the troops of your Emperor exercised in this manner?” he inquired. I answered, that there was a great similarity in the discipline of all the European States, although in the Austrian army there were some essential points of difference; we, for instance, execute in three maneuvers what the French do in two. “What is your pay?” said he. I replied, that I received none, having quitted the service ten years ago, peace having deprived it of every attraction, and as none but officers on active service and invalids had any pay, I now lived on my own income. “What is the pay of an Austrian Colonel?” said he. I told him that it was less than that of an English Colonel, but that, as they have not to purchase their steps, they do in reality receive more money.
“Have you seen Lord William Bentinck?” — “No; he had left Calcutta before I arrived there.” “Do you know Mr Burnes?”-”Only through his works”. “Do you wish to see my troops exercise?” This, I told him, I should consider a great mark of his Highness’ favour.
While the soldiers were marching about the little court, he continued his endless questions about the military resources of Austria, France, and England, and the number of disposable troops kept up by the different states of Europe. He then asked me what I meant to do with Mohan when I left the Punjab and prepared for my return to Europe. I answered that I had not yet decided, but that I could take him with me, if he liked to go on adding that I believed he had a great wish to do so. I guessed what the Maha Raja was thinking of, and presently he said, “You can make his fortune if you will but leave him behind; send the youth to me, and I will take care of him.”
After we had seated ourselves again, he observed that I must be tired with answering all his questions. That, I replied, was impossible, but taking the hint to leave him, I departed, the Maha Raja accompanying me to the door.
Excerpted with permission from
Travels in Kashmir and the Panjab
By Baron Charles Von Hugel
Oxford University Press, Plot # 38, Sector 15, Korangi Industrial Area, Karachi
Tel: 111-693-673
Email: ouppak@theoffice.net
Website: www.oup.com.pk
ISBN 0-19-579857-0
423pp. Rs795
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