To Artists

Channapatna.—This is the third station south of Bangalore. It is just the place for an artist to come to to paint, and a mere step from Bombay. There's a Dak bungalow where he could put up, a charming place in a compound, with a servant in attendance. He'd just have to pack his sticks, take a second or third-class ticket on say the Massagerie—for an artist to be honest must be frugal—pick up a Boy in Bombay at twenty to thirty rupees a month, and once out here there's little to spend money on but the bare cost of living.

Almost no one comes this way to stop, so he could probably have the bungalow almost as long as he liked, personally I'd have a tent so as to be absolutely independent. Then for subjects, there's a wealth within arm's reach; village bazaar pictures every ten yards, and round about cattle and ruins, temples, moresque and Hindoo, palms and jungle trees, graceful figures of women and men. Not particularly nice people, I should say, but certainly picturesque and polite, with some lovely children. The little ones are nude, prettily shaped and brown and dusty as the bloom on fruit, and with such black eyes and wavy hair, the blackest black, with a polish, and very long eyelashes over dark eyes. Their faces seem refined and well shaped till they laugh or shout, when the lizard throat and regular monkey teeth show a little.

From daybreak, after chota hazri, the brother-of-the-brush would paint till eleven, then have breakfast proper, a read and loaf—possibly a little closing of the eyes to sleep would be more profitable—and paint again in the afternoon and evening. And if he didn't use all his stock of paints, water-colour, and oils before he left I'd be surprised. A great attraction would be the absence of distractions such as you'd have in larger centres, and very important, is the pleasant air here.

Arsikerry, a little further north the line, is better in this last respect, but I was not through the bazaar there, merely saw the place was fairly good for snipe, as previously remarked in these notes.

We put in here—Channapatna—yesterday afternoon. The sun was glowing on the rain-trees that shelter the station, and we selected a spot shaded by their foliage on a siding midst "beechen green and shadows numberless." In a minute the servants were out on the sand track blowing up the fire for tea, which R. had well-earned, as he'd been trollying since daybreak looking at bridges, viaducts, station-buildings, and the line, generally and practically, down to the stationmasters' gardens. Tiring work both for eyes and mind, for whilst trollying you are quite unsheltered, so the heat in the cuttings, and the glare from the quartz and lines, has to be felt and seen to be believed, and of course the track is the thing that has to be constantly regarded, so blue spectacles are absolutely necessary, but only a partial protection to the eyesight. No wonder R. takes such care to plant trees round stations and to encourage the stationmasters to grow flowers! Apropos, there were once prizes given to stationmasters with the best gardens. Water being a consideration, the prize was allotted to the best garden in inverse ratio to its distance from a water supply. The stationmaster who got first prize was five miles from a supply, and his exhibit was one, almost dead flower, in a pot of dried earth; so that "system" was shelved.

We walked round the village after tea and came to the above conclusions, that may possibly be useful to some brother artist. About the passage out, just one word more; I met a colonel here who had tried third-class home on a Massagerie boat, and said it wasn't half bad! He was fortunate in finding an uncrowded cabin.

Outside the little town were charming country scenes, and the village streets, busy on either side with all sorts of trades, were positively fascinating. In Bombay you have all the trades of one kind together, the brass-workers in one street, and another trade occupies the whole of the next street, and the houses are tall. Here are all sorts of trades side by side, and two-storied and one-storied houses, with the palms leaning over them. We bought for a penny or two an armful of curious grey-black pottery with a silver sheen on its coarse surface. The designs were classic and familiar; the cruisie, for instance, I saw in use the other day in Kintyre, shining on a string of fresh herring, and you see it in museums amongst Greek and Assyrian remains. At one booth were people engaged making garlands of flowers, petals of roses, and marigolds sewn together, and heavy with added perfume; at the next were a hundred and one kinds of grain in tiny bowls, and at a third vegetables, beans, and fruit.

As we come back to our carriages we pass a rest house or temple, I don't know which, perhaps both; steps lead up to it, and it is made of square hewn-stone, all dull-white against an orange sky. It forms as it were a triptych. As we pass we look into its shadowy porch; in the middle panel are two oxen, one black the other white, lying down, and a man standing beyond them, just distinguishable by a little fire-light that comes from the left panel. In it, there is a man sitting with his arms over his knees fanning a little fire. In the right panel another native sits on his heels cooking a meal; a bamboo slopes across the cell behind him, and supports a poor ragged cloth, a purda, I suppose, and behind, are just discernible his wife and child. These wayfarers make me at once think of a new and original treatment for a holy family, but hold! These passages of light and colour, form fading into nothingness, are they not worth understanding alone, are they not more pure art without being nailed to some tale from the past?

Our table looked very pretty in the evening, with our lamp lighting up my companions' faces, and the branches of the trees above us, with warm brown against the night blue sky.

… Now we are off again to Bangalore, loath to leave our leafy siding and the gentle faces at Channapatna, but R. has to be about business in the south again, so we go back planning our next move, and we think we will decide on Madras! We have been a long way and a long time from the sea, and would like to get a glimpse of it again; the thought of it is refreshing, even though it is but a tepid eastern sea which we will have to cross if we decide on going to Burmah or the Straits.

Bangalore, 20th December.—Back to "Locksley Hall" and big rooms, chairs, verandahs, everything feeling spacious and ample after our quarters in the train. The three days on the line feels like weeks, so much and so constantly have we been looking at interesting figures and scenes.

To-night, when cheroots were going, we talked of railway matters, big things and little things. A little thing was a dispute amongst natives on the line, settled satisfactorily the other day. Persons involved; gatekeepers, police, native carters and witnesses galore. The gatekeeper, long resident in a hut of railway sleepers roofed with red soil, surrounded by aloes, heated by the sun, and watered by nothing. Behold his portrait in day dress; at night he envelopes his noble form in ample, even voluminous draperies.

British justice makes further inquiry—finds possibly sixty rupees were expended somewhere, to produce the "No witnesses." Action taken—gatekeeper removed to more important trust—honesty established.

From strength of girders, cement v. lime, foundations of piers and curves of lines, we come to ghosts at night! These too, the engineer has to consider in his day's work. Only yesterday a ghost was reported on the line! And R. told me he came down the line in a trolley in the grey of morning lately, he vouched for this, and found on the line a patroller's lamp and no one holding it, then a turban, then top cloth, then a waist cloth, and finally the owner at station, collapsed, palpitating. R. asked him what he had seen. "It was a ghost" came after him. "What was it like," said R.; "had it arms?" "No;" "Legs?" "No." "How did it get along?" He couldn't tell. It was a shape came after him. So these ghosts are positive facts here to be dealt with by superintendents and workman between them.

R.—Spoke as follows:—

"Now, my man, what I have to tell you about ghosts is this—you must remember, it is very important. These ghosts you see here that frighten you and your friends, as they have frightened you this morning, cannot so much as touch you, or even be seen by you at all if you walk between the railway lines! The iron on each side of you prevents their having the least influence over you; I will not say this about tigers or bears, but ghosts—on the word of the Sahib, they cannot touch you between the rails!" So they go away and believe in the Sahib's magic, just as they believe his magic turns out the cholera devil when he pulls their tiles down and disinfects their houses. Also they stick between the lines and consequently to their patrol work, and don't go smoking pipes by little cosy fires beside the aloes. I think R.'s prescription was fairly shrewd. Many men would merely have laughed at the men's fears, and would neither have shaken their beliefs nor given them something new to think of. That was the way the great Columba scored off the Druids and Picts. "I don't know about your astronomy or your fine music, or tales of ancestors and heroes, but I'm telling you, old Baal himself, with all his thunder and lightning, will not be so much as touching the least hair on your head if you were just to hold up this trifle of two sticks of wood. And if you do not believe me you will be burning for ever, and for evermore!"

Saturday, 23rd.—Wrote to a friend in Madras to engage rooms and walked to the European Stores; they are excellent, you can get pretty nearly everything—I even found sketch books to my taste. The roads are the things to be remembered, their breadth and splendid trees are delightful, but their length is terrible. Not again will I take a long walk in cantonments! "The 'ard 'igh road" in the west is bad enough, but when it's glaring sun on this red, hard soil, however bright and light the air, you soon get fatigued on foot.

Met D. and G. at shops, they were shopping on their own account and I on mine, for I've never found men's shopping and ladies' go well together, though for two ladies together shopping seems to be pure joy. We went to the bank to change a cheque into something suitable for travel. You have choice in India of silver rupees, value 1s. 4d., a few of which weigh about a ton, or notes. The notes are like those we get in Scotland, if you can believe me! I held out for gold, so there was a call for the Bank Manager, and a procession to the safe; of self, Manager and keys, a clerk, and three or four "velvet-footed" white-robed natives. I wish some home bankers I know could have seen the classic bungalow Bank, with its Pompeian pillars, and the waiting customers seated in the verandah, and trailing, flowery, heavy-leaved creepers with blooms of orange and white dangling from the capitals of the pillars. One of the customers waiting in the verandah was a bearded priest, with black bombazine frock and white topee; a Celt for certain by his hand and eye; and by his polite manners and intelligent expression a Jesuit, I would guess; and there were two ladies—spinsters and country bred I'd say, and poor, to judge by pale, lined faces and the look of wear about their pith hats and sun-faded dresses. Inside were white-robed figures just distinguishable at desks, their faces invisible in the deep shadow. And there was heat! and a continual "chink, chink" of counted rupees, and outside in the sun, two impatient ladies waiting in a victoria. At last we got the coin, and were faint with heat and hunger by the time we got home to lunch,—this to show the climate of Bangalore; but perhaps my readings of the temperature make it out to be hotter than it is.

… I do not write much about cooking, and the table, in these notes, do I? so just one word here, allow me.… Do not waste pity on dear friends and relatives out here on the score of food. Truly the climatic conditions are not such as so give great appetite but the food itself is excellent, beef, par example; I'd never seen better beef than the hump you get here, and the fish would be considered quite good in London, and there are various vegetables and fruits; even strawberries you can get occasionally from the hills, and then the curries are just as good as they are said to be. The best way to make them is—but space forbids!… I think the reason they are cracked up so much is because they are almost half vegetable so they suit the climate; being suitable, they have been so long practised that their making is an art that only an amateur might imitate at home.

… That squirrel—to change the subject—on a branch outside the verandah, is cheeping so that one can barely think, or even write! It is as like a rat as a squirrel, with two yellowish stripes down the length of each side; its tail is carried in the same way as our squirrel's at home, but it is not half so bushy, and thank Heaven our squirrel has not a brain-piercing note like this little beast. It runs about every bungalow's verandah and the compound trees, and its note is like a creaking wheel-barrow going along slowly, then it gets faster till it is like the blackbird's scream when frightened out of the gooseberries. It makes many people grow quite bald—this, another piece of information, I have gathered from my cousin Robert! He also tells me they take wool out of his drawing-room cushions to line their nest. For further information of this kind the reader may care to refer to the writings of Mark Twain; he writes a great deal about this squirrel—says it is the same as the "chip munk" in his "erroneous, hazy, first impressions of India."

We have just been asked to a Christmas Tree over the way at twelve o'clock mid-day, but we think it will be rather too hot for us to go then. My often quoted informant tells me that seeing there are no fir trees here they use instead a tamarisk branch, and its feathery, pine-like needles look almost as well as our fir trees at home, and go on fire in much the same way. We do not have a Christmas Tree or a dance for the Servants' Hall, but R. and D. have sent them a notice and they appear tidied up till their black hair shines again. R. has some difficulty in remembering the names of the second and third generations, but makes a good attempt. I am certain I couldn't remember, or care for, even the senior male servants' names. They each get a small sum of money, which is received with beaming smiles. One little mite comes guilelessly round for a second payment and is told she must not. It is in vain you try to sketch them as they stand naturally; they see the corner of your eye with their's even though you are pretending to read the "Pioneer," and once they know you look they pull themselves together, if they are sitting they rise, and if they are standing they run, or go on salaaming.

To-day I'd such a sell in this respect—went to the Maharajah's Palace, a miniature Abbotsford, to leave cards, and just as were passing a neighbouring compound, there appeared under the trees a glorious covey of red chupprassies seated in a circle on the ground, their scarlet and gold and white uniforms glaring in the sunbeams that shot through the foliage—such purple shadows—such a suggestion of colour, and gossip, or tales of the East! We pulled up a hundred and fifty yards off, I am sure, with a hedge between us, and only looked sideways at them to make notes, but in two seconds they were all up and at attention, and two came running forward for Sahib's orders and cards, so I drove away lamenting. The Red Chupprassies, by the way, or "corrupt lictors," are official messengers wearing red Imperial livery, who are attached to all civil officers in India. See Mr Aberich-Mackay on the subject in "Twenty-one Days in India."

… Packing to go to Madras, and very sorry to leave Bangalore and its wide compounds and parks and bazaars, and our very kind hosts. I have not mentioned the military element in Bangalore, nor the Gymkhana, nor the Club, for, to my sorrow, I've seen nothing of them! The museum I did see—went to it twice; I believe few people stationed here have seen it once! There is a collection of stuffed Indian birds which interested and finally appalled me by its numbers; and models of Indian fish, also very interesting.

My packing brought me more natural history interest—my packing and R.'s unpacking. R., in his office on one side of the house, opened some bundles of papers and so dispersed a colony of small black ants; they apparently thought my dressing-room would be restful, and trekked across the matting of three rooms and settled in my pile of correspondence—thought they'd be undisturbed poor things,—they had had to climb to the top of a desk to settle in these papers. When I moved these one or two thousand ants, and white cocoons, were scattered on the matting, where they quickly collected themselves again under some sketches and a folio on the floor. Then I took up another paper, and in vexation shook ants and cocoons into a bowl of painting water which was on the floor, and the poor little devils who were able to swim, after their first surprise, began pulling the cocoons together in the centre of the bowl and piled one on the top of the other in a heap till the lowest became submerged. So I said, "here is honest endeavour, and help those who help themselves"—and dropped them a raft in shape of an inch of paper, and on to it the survivors went, and hauled in one whitey-blue chrysalis after another. Then an ant went up to the side of the bowl by the handle of the painting brush and shouted or signalled for help to another fellow below on the matting, and it went and got hundreds of willing helpers. Now they are saving the remainder, and wiring to their friends, I've no doubt.

I leant over the bowl like a minor clumsy Providence and watched the V.C. sort of action for quite a long time,—and suppressed cheers,—but Burmah called, and the Boy waited, so I had to leave them to Pucca Providence for a little. In half an hour by the clock all were rescued—(five hundred ants and almost as many cocoons!) Even the ants that had got under water, which I thought were drowned, were pulled out, and revived. Then they formed a new colony under my water colour, "The Landing of Lord Minto at the Appolo Bundar."

I have had an entertaining half-hour with them, but they will be glad we are gone. Here comes Krishna, the deft handed, to pack sketches and all; I must supervise him, and see that he does not pack my cousin's soap, matches, and pieces of string along with his increasing collection of these articles in a corner of my kit bag.