(Continued from last fortnight)

December 9:They sang in the Cathedral this evening No.379 of Hymns Ancient and Modern.

December 15: I have a new avenue laid out, running from this house to the gate which leads to the Marmalong Bridge. It is formed chiefly of Dillenia speciosa and Anogeissus acuminatus, the latter being seedlings from the very fine tree in the compound of Mr. Price, the Collector of Chingleput, which was probably planted by my maternal grandfather.¹

* * *

December 18: Sir Frederick Roberts had a parade and marchpast of about 2200 men on the Island to-day, which I attended officially.

* * *

December 20: The usual ball in the Banqueting Hall – always a pretty sight.

December 20: The usual reception of natives, etc. in the Banqueting Hall, with fireworks on the Island opposite, beyond the branch of the Coum, which bounds the Government House park.

* * *

December 27: In the afternoon to the Observatory with Miss Martin, Captain Agnew, and Mr. Webster, the Chief Secretary. We saw the comet of 1812, not at present a very striking object, Venus just now very distant from us, Saturn in great splendour, and Aldebaran. I asked Mr. Pogson how long light took to come to us from him. “Certainly over a hundred years,” was the reply, “but how much longer, I know not.” New to me, too, was the cluster in Perseus – a celestial rendering of my table the day Mr. Jacob came. Still more interesting was Alcyone which may, we understood, be the centre round which the universe revolves.

* * *

December 30: On the 28th, we transferred ourselves from Guindy to Government House, Madras.

Next morning we went to the Central Station to meet my wife and Clara. Breakfast was hardly over when Dr. Mackenzie came to tell that Davis, my valet, was attacked with cholera, and we must forthwith return to Guindy. This we did. The case ended fatally at 4 a.m. to-day. He was a negro from the Gold Coast, and the best valet I ever had, though I have been fortunate in that behalf. He appeared in my room at Parell on 31st October 1881, and I have hardly ever given him an order since. Everything I wanted, while he was there, seemed to happen as I wished it, without anything being said.

A red sunset – clouds half-veiling Venus and the crescent moon. The air was cool, in the earlier seventies, and, from time to time, we heard the gurgling cry of the great owl, the call of the spotted deer, and the dry rustle of the palmyra.

* * *

January 21: We had the string-band at dinner, and afterwards sat in front verandah listening to a very pretty selection of Scotch airs which my wife has made for it. We remembered, as we breathed the soft delicious air, Keats’s description of this evening in a northern climate:

“St. Agnes’ eve, – Ah bitter chill it was!

The owl for all his feathers was a cold;

The hare limped trembling through the frozen grass,

And silent was the flock in woolly fold.”

I learn, by the way, that the little owl, who makes so much noise here at nights, bears one of the proudest names in the animal creation: Athene Brama, if you please – nothing less!

* * *

January 31: The Viceroy, Lady Ripon, and a large staff, landing this afternoon with appropriate ceremonies and amidst an enormous concourse, drove with me to Guindy, where the house and gardens were lighted up, and the principal people came to meet them. We sat down to dinner, a party of forty-three.

* * *

February 14: On the evening of the 9th, the Viceroy, with his suite, returned and remained with us at Guindy till the 13th.²

From Bangalore there came to meet the Viceroy, and to stay with us, Mr. and Mrs. Lyall with Major Wylie, the Assistant Resident. We had as many people at dinner as we could manage, except on Sunday the 10th, when we had a quiet little party of twenty-eight.

On the 9th, 11th and 12th, respectively, we sat down fifty-one, fifty-three, and fifty-one.

A large number of persons also came to breakfast on several of these days.

The house and gardens of Guindy were illuminated every night, while on the 11th we had a concert directed by Dr. Macleane, and on the 12th a ball. My wife also held a reception on the 11th in the grounds of Government House, Madras, after the Viceroy’s levée, which took place at half-past four in the Banqueting Hall. On the 10th, I went with the Viceroy to the Convent, and thence to Vespers and Benediction.

On the 11th, he received a variety of formal visits; I, those of the Maharajah of Mysore and the Princess of Tanjore, besides which there were all the usual accompaniments of Viceregal or gubernatorial progresses – interviews, institutions, addresses, and the like.

The only contretemps was the illness of Lady Ripon, who was unable to appear at all either on the 11th or 12th, and had to be taken on board the Clive by Dr. Anderson early on the 13th. We had a slight alarm about the Viceroy’s health on the night of the 11th, but it came to nothing.

Yesterday, after luncheon, I drove with the Viceroy on the pier, saying good-bye at the place where I welcomed him to this Presidency on the 31st January. Shortly afterwards, the Clive slipped from her moorings, and the visit to which South India had looked forward, with so much interest, was a thing of the past.

* * *

(At Government House, Madras)

February 22: Undesirable fauna have been a little too prominent here of late. Echis carinata was killed last week in the very middle of the house. A bandicoot had a fight two nights ago in Cavendish’s own bedroom with his own cat, and towards the end of the year Agnew and I saw a wolf chasing a young antelope close to the farm.

* * *

February 28: Our drive took us this evening to a point in the Poonamallee Road, whence we wandered for half an hour amongst the rice-fields and betel-topes, with scant results.

The “new moon with the old moon in her arms” was exceedingly beautiful over the after-glow, and under the evening star.

In the cloudy skies of Scotland, this phenomenon, here so familiar, is rare, and passes for a portent. I remembered “The Grand Old Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens.”

* * *

March 1: To the Observatory, soon after sunset. The newest object to me was Mars. I could not distinguish the snow which my wife saw distinctly at one of his Poles.

I looked again at Venus, but, as Mr. Proctor happily observes, “there is an annoying glare and much false colouring about the lovely lady.”

* * *

March 3: I spent the last hour of daylight in a remote part of the Park, where our botanical plunder was much greater than in the excursions of last week – too great, indeed, to be recorded here; but I note, amongst characteristic sights, not elsewhere mentioned, the paddy-birds going to roost on a tree protected by water, during the largest portion of the year, from all ordinary dangers, the young green coming on the Pongamia glabra, the Palmyras standing up against the after-glow, and the pools in the now rapidly-shrinking tanks reflecting its golden glory.

* * *

March 4: As we walked in the Park this evening, we came across the harmless green snake, Passerita mycterizans, in a bush of Acacia Sundra. He allowed both Cavendish and myself to touch him gently, without moving. One was caught the other night, and doomed to be preserved in spirits as a specimen; but we ruled that he was far too pretty, and he was allowed to escape into a tree.

...Kept one of the species without food for three months, and though thinner(!), he was quite lively when he was liberated at the end of that time.

A few mornings ago, a man brought a fine specimen of the large, but non-venomous, Ptyas mucosus. A Russell’s viper was slain in the Park, supposed to be our friend of the 22nd February, and a huge cobra with twenty eggs was dug out from under a Banyan near the house.

* * *

March 14:Someone asked at breakfast, “Which is the snake of which the natives say that when it bites you, it does not wait to ascertain the effect, but goes straight off to the burning³ ground, climbs a tree, and sees the last of you?”

The most conspicuous flower at this moment in the Park is the pretty Carissa Carandas. It is nearly related to the periwinkle, not at all to the jessamine, of which its little stars nevertheless always make one think.

The jackals are exhibiting a “shocking tameness.” One stood in front of us, as we rode to-day, and shook himself like a dog. In the interest of our fawns, their numbers should be diminished. Have I anywhere mentioned that, when the first were shot, the French cook asked Evans-Gordon how “ce gibier la” was to be cooked!

* * *

March 15: The sunset excursions noticed above, and others which have not been noticed, to the waste region near the lattice bridge, to the forsaken bungalow at Pulikani, to the country behind Saidapet, have had such scant botanical results, as to have led me to the conclusion that, at least at this season, walks in the Park, poor as is its laterite soil, are much more profitable. In it, too, one has always pleasant slights – a group of spotted deer, a herd of the black antelope, a mungoose crossing the road, a large owl startled out of its tree by our approach, and so on.

The cooing of the pretty little doves belongs rather to our morning rides than to our evening walks.

* * *

March 25: As last year, the stars are a great pleasure. When we walk on the terrace after dinner, Orion is very glorious. So is the Great Bear. Jupiter and Mars are just overhead. When I look from the verandah of my rooms, now in the garden-block of the house, a little after ten, the Southern Cross is rising over the solitary Casuarina; the False Cross is straight opposite me and higher; Canopus is nearer to the garden.

Later in the night, when I return, as I often do, to the verandah, the Scorpion has become a splendid object in the south-east, and the Southern Cross is standing nearly erect, where the False Cross lay inclined.

* * *

March 27: Presided in the Senate House in my capacity of Chancellor of the University of Madras, and admitted the candidates to their degrees.

It was mentioned by the Surgeon-General, in the course of the proceedings, that out of 1346 graduates, 899 are Brahmins – a significant fact. There are, I think, only 7 Mahemedan graduates, but 117 native Christians.

* * *

(At Government House, Guindy)

March 29: With Mr. Price, the Collector of Chingleput, to Vellicherry, just outside one of the Park gates, where I saw the Monegar or headman, the Karnam or accountant, the Taliari or policeman, the Vetti or gatherer of revenue, and watched a potter, a weaver, a carpenter, and a jeweller working at their respective trades.

The first made me think of Omar Khayyam:

“For I remember a stopping by the way

To watch a potter thumping his wet clay;

And with its all-obliterated tongue,

It murmered, ‘Gently, brother, gently pray.’

Listen – a moment listen! – of the same

Poor earth from which that human whisper came;

The luckless mould in which mankind was cast,

They did compose and called him by the name.”

To-night we lingered on the terrace till Orion had gone down, and Canopus was almost below the horizon. Mr. Stiffe, the Port Officer at Calcutta, pointed out the Northern Crown, with e-Coronae showing very bright, just clear of the house, as we stood close to the garden gate, near the great entrance. Then came Arcturus, while beyond him high up and towards the south were the four bright stars of Corvus. The Southern Cross and both its pointers were already up before we went to our rooms. Sirius looked especially beautiful, seen through the delicate foliage of the Casuarina.

* * *

(At Government House, Madras)

April 2: Before breakfast to inspect the Napier battery. All the three batteries, which I have been pressing on, are now as good as finished. Each is armed with two twelve-ton guns.

* * *

(At Government House, Guindy)

June 29: We reached Guindy this morning.

Hardly any rain has fallen, and the lawns are sandy deserts dotted with Dipteracantha dejecta and Evolvulus alsinoides.

We drove straight to the swimming bath and admired, on the way back to the house, the grand Cassia fistula, which is loaded with its faintly fragrant clusters of great yellow flowers. Ten days ago the spectacle would have been even more delightful, for on some trees many of the clusters are partly withered – primrose instead of laburnum-coloured.

In the afternoon I opened the new drainage works for Black Town, received an address and spoke in reply.

Later I gave a small dinner at the Madras Club.

* * *

August 27: Mr. Rees read to me the other day an amusing passage from a book by Mr. Monier Williams with regard to two of our Vishnuvite sects – the men of the northern and the men of the southern school – the Vada-galai and the Then-galai:

“After Ramanuja’s death, his numerous followers corrupted his teaching in the usual manner, introducing doctrines and practices which the founder of the sect had not enjoined and would not have sanctioned. Then, about six hundred years ago, a learned Brahman of Kanjivaram, named Vedantacarya, put himself forward as a reformer, giving out that he was commissioned by the god Vishnu himself to purify the faith – to sweep away corrupt incrustations, and restore the doctrines of the original founder. These doctrines, he affirmed, had been more carefully preserved by the Northern Brahmans than by those in the South. Hence rose irreconcilable differences of opinion, which resulted in two great antagonistic parties of Ramanujas – one called the northern school, Vada-galai (for Vada-kalai, Sanskit Kala), the other the southern school, Ten-galai (for Ten-kalai). “They are,” he observes, “far more op po sed to each other than both parties are to Saivas. The northern school accept the Sanskrit Veda. The southern have compiled a Veda of their own, called “the four thousand verses” (Nalayira), written in Tamil, and held to be older than the Sanskrit Vedas, but really based on its Upanishad portion. In all their worship they repeat selections from these Tamil verses.

“An important difference of doctrine, caused by different views of the nature of the soul’s dependence on Vishnu, separates the two parties. The view taken by the Vada-galais corresponds, in a manner, to the Armenian doctrine of ‘free-will.’ The soul, say they, lays hold of the Supreme Being by its own will, act, and effort, just as the young monkey clings to its mother. This is called the monkey-theory (Markatanyaya). The view of the Ten-galais is a counterpart of that of the Calvinists. It is technically styled, ‘the cat-hold theory’ (Marjaranyaya). The human soul, they argue, remains passive and helpless until acted on by the Supreme Spirit, just as the kitten remains passive and helpless until seized and transported, nolens volens, from place to place by the mother-cat.”

* * *

(At Government House, Madras)

October 25: We reached Madras this morning.

The Park of Government House is as green as eye could wish, our friend the Plumeria alba is in full flower, and the lovely Millingtonia hortensis showing its white blossoms along the avenues.

There is much water about, and the charming little egrets (Herodias egrettoides) are very happy.

* * *

October 26: I do not think I have anywhere noted the fact, which came into my head to-day, that, as I was travelling in Tinnevelly in 1882, I observed the trunks of many of the trees whitewashed. “What is that done for,” I asked. “It is done in your honour, sir,” was the reply. Presently we came to a little devil-temple also whitewashed. “Is that whitewashed in my honour also?” I said. “Oh no! sir,” was the answer, “that is whitewashed in honour of the cholera!”

* * *

November 10: At 11 o’clock Cavendish came down from the top of the house, and told me that a large steamer, presumably the Kaiser-i-Hind, was visible on the southern horizon. By twenty-five minutes past twelve the two guns, which denote Su-ez, were fired, and soon afterwards we drove to the harbour. Before two my wife, with Evelyn, Lily, and Mrs. Awdry, had returned with us to Government House.

With them came to stay here Mr. Eliot, a young Oxford man of twenty-two, who won the Balliol, the Hertford, Ireland, the Craven, and the Boden Sanskrit Scholarships, as well as a Classical First and a Trinity Fellowship.

The weather, which has been alarmingly bad – some twenty-five inches of rain falling in Madras since 3rd November – has to-day become again fine.

Since my arrival in Madras I have made twelve visits to the Museum in the early morning.

* * *

November 21: Early this morning a short but violent cyclone burst over Madras, doing frightful damage. It was much more furious than that of November 1881, but in this neighbourhood blew chiefly off the land. Mr. Pogson makes the velocity of the wind, at 7 o’clock, forty-nine miles an hour. In the cyclone of May 1872 it rose to fifty-three. In the cyclone which damaged our harbour three years ago, the force of the wind in Madras has no relation, so far as could be traced, to the fury of the sea.

The Millingtonia suberosa, of which I am so fond, does not send its roots deep into the ground, and we have lost a great many beautiful specimens of it.

* * *

November 29: St. Andrew’s Eve – The Scotch dinner, for which I lent the Bangqueting Hall, and at which I presided, making a long speech in proposing the toast of the evening – “St. Andrew for Bonny Scotland.” The accident of the headquarters of the 21st Regiment, being on its way through Madras to Burmah, gave us no less than six pipers! I will not deny that when they were all behind my chair, I thought of the answer of a musical Green merchant to my father, at Eden, when cross-questioned as to his feelings when he first heard the bagpipes, he said, “Mr, Grant Duff, I did feel myself upon the brink of rain.”

(To be concluded)

¹ Sir Whitelaw Ainslie.

² Those who arrived and departed with Lord and Lady Ripon were –Mr. H.W. Primrose, Private Secretary, Captain Lord William Beresford, V.C., 9th Lancers, Military Secretary, Surgeon-Major J. Anderson, C.I.E. The Rev. Father Ker, Post Captain (retired) R. N. Captain the Honourable C. Harbord, Scots Guards, A.D.C. Lieutenant F. S. St. Quintin, Bengal Staff Corps, A.D.C. Lieutenant C. R. Burn, 8th Hussars, A.D.S. Lieutenant Pollen, Royal Engineers, A.D.C. Mr. Durand, C.S.I., Acting Secretary to the Government of India, in the foreign department, Captain Hext, Royal Navy, Director of Indian Marine, Lieutenant-Colonel Henderson, C.S.I., Madras Staff Corps, Special Political Officer, remained with us a little longer.

³ See infra under date of 27th November 1886.