Madras, however, they were told that evening, was not to be taken as a sample of India. It was a mere collection of huts, which had sprung up round the English factories. But when they went to a real Indian city, they would see a very different state of things.
Chapter 5: Madras
After the young writers had seen the native town, they returned to the beach, and spent the afternoon watching the progress of landing the cargo of the Lizzie Anderson. They were pleased to see their own luggage safely ashore; as it would have been greatly damaged, had the boat containing it been swamped; a misfortune which happened to several of the boats laden with cargo. It was very amusing, each time that one of these boats arrived, to see a crowd of natives rush down into the water, waist deep, seize it, and drag it up beyond the next wave. Many of them would be knocked down, and some swept out by the retreating wave, only to return on the next roller. All could swim like fish, and any of these events were greeted with shouts of laughter by the rest.
When the packages were landed a rope was put round them, and through this a long bamboo pole was inserted, which would be lifted on to the shoulders of two, four, or six porters, according to its weight; and these would go off, at a hobbling sort of trot, with their burden to the factory.
Their own baggage was taken up to the quarters allotted to them, and at the hour named for dinner the newcomers met, for the first time, those with whom they were to be associated. All were dressed in white suits, and Charlie was struck with the pallor of their faces, and the listless air of most of them. The gentleman to whom they had first been introduced made them acquainted with the others.
"How refreshingly healthy and well you look!" a young man of some six and twenty years old, named Johnson, said. "I was something like that, when I first came out here, though you'd hardly think it now. Eight years of stewing, in this horrible hole, takes the life and spirits out of anyone.
"However, there's one consolation. After eight or ten years of quill driving in a stuffy room, one becomes a little more one's own master, and one's duties begin to be a little more varied and pleasant. One gets a chance of being sent up, occasionally, with goods; or on some message or other to one of the native princes, and then one gets treated like a prince, and sees that India is not necessarily so detestable as we have contrived to make it here. The only bearable time of one's life is the few hours after dinner, when one can sit in a chair in the veranda, and smoke and look at the sea. Some of the fellows play billiards and cards; but if you will take my advice, you won't go in for that sort of thing. It takes a lot out of one, and fellows that do it are, between you and me, in the bad books of the bigwigs. Besides, they lose money, get into debt, and all sorts of mischief comes of it."
The speaker was sitting between Charlie and Peters, and was talking in a tone of voice which would not be overheard by the others.
"Thank you," Charlie said. "I, for one, will certainly take your advice. I suppose one can buy ponies here. I should think a good ride every morning early, before work, would do one good."
"Yes, it is not a bad thing," Johnson said. "A good many fellows do it, when they first come out here. But after a time they lose their energy, you see, though some do keep it up.
"What appetites you fellows have! It does one good to see you eat."
"I have not the least idea what we are eating," Charlie said, laughing; "but it's really very nice, whatever it is. But there seems an immense quantity of pepper, or hot stuff of some kind or other; which one would have thought, in this tremendous heat, would have made one hotter instead of cooler."
"Yes," their new friend answered. "No doubt all this pepper and curry do heat the blood; but you see, it is done to tempt the appetite. Meat here is fearfully coarse and tasteless. Our appetites are poor, and were it not for these hot sauces, we should eat next to nothing.
"Will you have some bananas?"
"They are nice and cool," Peters said as, having peeled the long fruit as he saw his companion doing, he took a bite of one; "but they have very little taste."
"Most of our fruit is tasteless," Johnson said, "except, indeed, the mango and mangostine. They are equal to any English fruit in flavour, but I would give them all for a good English apple. Its sharpness would be delicious here.
"And now, as you have done, if you will come and sit in the veranda of my room, we will smoke a cigar and have something cool to drink; and I will answer, as well as I can, the questions you've asked me about the state of things here."
When they had seated themselves in the extremely comfortable cane chairs, in a veranda facing the sea, and had lit their cigars, their friend began:
"Madras isn't much of a place, now; but you should have seen it before the French had it. Our chiefs think of nothing but trade, and care nothing how squalid and miserable is the place in which they make money. The French have larger ideas. They transformed this place; cleared away that portion of the native town which surrounded the factory and fort, made wide roads, formed an esplanade, improved and strengthened the fortifications, forbade the natives to throw all their rubbish and offal on the beach; and made, in fact, a decent place of it. We hardly knew it when we came back, and whatever the Company may have thought, we were thoroughly grateful for the French occupation.
"One good result, too, is that our quarters have been greatly improved; for not only did the French build several new houses, but at present all the big men, the council and so on, are still living at Fort Saint David, which is still the seat of administration. So you see, we have got better quarters; we are rid of the stenches and nuisances of the native town; the plague of flies which made our life a burden is abated; and we can sit here and enjoy the cool sea breeze, without its being poisoned before it reaches us by the heaped up filth on the beach.
"It must have wrung Dupleix's heart to give up the place over which they expended so much pains, and after all it didn't do away with the fighting. In April we sent a force from Fort Saint David–before we came back here–four hundred and thirty white soldiers and a thousand Sepoys, under the command of Captain Cope, to aid a fellow who had been turned out of the Rajahship of Tanjore. I believe he was a great blackguard, and the man who had taken his place was an able ruler liked by the people."
"Then why should we interfere on behalf of the other?" Charlie asked.
"My dear Marryat," their host said compassionately, "you are very young yet, and quite new to India. You will see, after a time, that right has nothing at all to do with the dealings of the Company, in their relations to the native princes. We are, at present, little people living here on sufferance, among a lot of princes and powers who are enemies and rivals of each other. We have, moreover, as neighbours, another European colony considerably stronger than we are. The consequence is, the question of right cannot enter into the considerations of the Company. It may be said that, for every petty kingdom in Southern India, there are at least two pretenders, very often half a dozen. So far we have not meddled much in their quarrels, but the French have been much more active that way. They always side with one or other of these pretenders, and when they get the man they support into power, of course he repays them for their assistance. In this manner, as I shall explain to you presently, they have virtually made themselves masters of the Carnatic, outside the walls of Fort Saint David and this place.
"Well, our people thought to take a leaf out of the French book, and as the ex-rajah offered us, in payment for our aid, the possession of Devikota, a town at the mouth of the river Kolrun, a place likely to be of great use to us, we agreed to assist him. Cope, with the land forces, had marched to the border of the Tanjore territory, and the guns and heavy baggage were to go by sea.
"But, unfortunately, we had a tremendous gale just after they sailed. The admiral's flagship, the Namur, of seventy-four guns; the Pembroke, of sixty; and the hospital ship, Apollo, were totally lost; and the rest of the fleet scattered in all directions. Cope entered the Tanjore territory, but found the whole population attached to the new rajah. It was useless for him, therefore,