Manners and customs -- Fiction; Short stories, English
They began the steep climb a little after noon, but it was near
sunset ere they reached the stone platform clinging to the side
of a rifted, jungle-covered hill, where Jan Chinn the First was
laid, as he had desired, that he might overlook his people. All
India is full of neglected graves that date from the beginning of
the eighteenth century - tombs of forgotten colonels of corps
long since disbanded; mates of East India men who went on
shooting expeditions and never came back; factors, agents,
writers, and ensigns of the Honourable the East India Company by
hundreds and thousands and tens of thousands. English folk
forget quickly, but natives have long memories, and if a man has
done good in his life it is remembered after his death. The
weathered marble four-square tomb of Jan Chinn was hung about
with wild flowers and nuts, packets of wax and honey, bottles of
native spirits, and infamous cigars, with buffalo horns and
plumes of dried grass. At one end was a rude clay image of a
white man, in the old-fashioned top-hat, riding on a bloated
tiger.
Bukta salamed reverently as they approached. Chinn bared his head
and began to pick out the blurred inscription. So far as he
could read it ran thus - word for word, and letter for letter:
To the Memory of JOHN CHINN, Esq. Late Collector
of................ithout Bloodshed or...error of Authority
Employ.only..cans of Conciliat...and Confiden. Accomplished
the...tire Subjection... a Lawless and Predatory
Peop......taching them to...ish Government by a Conquest
over....Minds The most perma...and rational Mode of
Domini....Governor General and Counc...engal have ordered
lhi.....erected...arted this Life Aug. 19, 184..Ag...
On the other side of the grave were ancient verses, also very
worn. As much as Chinn could decipher said:
..the savage band. Forsook their Haunts and b.....is
Comman..mended..rals check a.st for spoil. And.. a..ing Hamlets
prove his gene....toil. Humanit...survey......ights restor.. A
Nation..ield..subdued without a Sword.Forsook their Haunts and b
. . . . is Command mended . . rals check a . . . st for spoil And
. s . ing Hamlets prove his gene . . . . toil Humanit . . .
survey
ights restore A Nation . . ield. . subdued without a Sword.
For some little time he leaned on the tomb thinking of this dead
man of his own blood, and of the house in Devonshire; then,
nodding to the plains: "Yes; it's a big work all of it even my
little share. He must have been worth knowing. . . . Bukta,
where are my people?"
"Not here, Sahib. No man comes here except in full sun. They
wait above. Let us climb and see."
But Chinn, remembering the first law of Oriental diplomacy, in an
even voice answered: "I have come this far only because the
Satpura folk are foolish, and dared not visit our lines. Now
bid them wait on me here. I am not a servant, but the master of
Bhils."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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