The news, however, foreboded ample sport; we now had certain _khubber_
of at least two tigers; we were soon under weigh; the wounded man had
been sent back to the Major's head-quarters on an elephant, and in
time recovered completely from his mauling. As we jogged along, we had
a most interesting talk with the Major Capt[=a]n. He was wonderfully
well informed, considering he had never been out of Nepaul. He knew all
about England, our army, our mode of government, our parliament, and
our Queen; whenever he alluded to Her Majesty he salaamed profoundly,
whether as a tribute of respect to her, or in compliment to us as loyal
subjects, we could not quite make out. He described to us the route
home by the Suez canal, and the fun of his talk was much heightened by
his applying the native names to everything; London was _Shuhur_, the
word meaning 'a city,' and he told us it was built on the _Tham[=a]ss
nuddee_, by which he meant the Thames river.
Our magistrate had a Jemadar of Peons with him, a sort of head man
among the servants. This man, abundantly bedecked with ear-rings,
finger-rings, and other ornaments, was a useless, bullying sort of
fellow; dressed to the full extent of Oriental foppishness, and
because he was the magistrate's servant, he thought himself entitled
to order the other servants about in the most lordly way. He was now
making himself peculiarly officious, shouting to the drivers to go
here and there, to do this and do that, and indulging in copious
torrents of abuse, without which it seems impossible for a native
subordinate to give directions on any subject. We were all rather
amused, and could not help bursting into laughter, as, inflated with a
sense of his own importance, he began abusing one of the native
drivers of the Nepaulee chief; this man did not submit tamely to his
insolence. To him the magistrate was nobody, and the pompous Jemadar a
perfect nonentity. He accordingly turned round and poured forth a
perfect flood of invective. Never was collapse more utter. The Jemadar
took a back seat at once, and no more that day did we hear his
melodious voice in tones of imperious command.
The old Major chuckled, and rubbed his fat little hands, and leaning
over to me said, 'at home a lion, but abroad a lamb,' for, surrounded
by his women at home, the man would twirl his moustaches, look fierce,
and fancy himself a very tiger; but, no sooner did he go abroad, and
mix with men as good, if not better than himself, than he was ready to
eat any amount of humble pie.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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