TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.

NO. II.

We left our friend the Khan, at length comfortably established in London, and pursuing his observations on the various novel objects of interest which every where presented themselves to his gaze. The streets lighted by gas (which the Persian princes call "the spirit of coals") are described in terms of the highest admiration—"On each side, as far as the eye could see, were two interminable lines of extremely brilliant light, produced by a peculiar kind of vapour here called gas, which made the city infinitely more interesting to look at by night than by day; but the most extraordinary thing in reference to the flame in the lamps was, that this appeared to be produced without the medium of either oil or wick, nor could I discern the cause of the lighting. The houses have from three to seven stages or stories, one of which is underground—each stage containing at least two rooms. The walls fronting the streets are of brick or stone, and the interior of woodwork; but the wood of the rooms inside is covered with a peculiar sort of paper of various colours and curious devices, highly elaborate and ingenious. The balconies outside were generally filled with flowers of various hues: but notwithstanding the wonders which surrounded me, and made me fancy myself in a world of talismanic creation, my spirits were for some time depressed, and this immense city seemed to me worse than the tomb; for I had not yet recovered from the bewilderment into which all that I had seen had thrown me."

This fancied metamorphosis of the sturdy beef-eaters with their partisans, whose costume has never been altered since the days of Henry VII., into Hindustani peons and chuprassees, seems to show that the enthusiasm of the Khan must have been considerably excited—and after this cruel disappointment he dismisses the remainder of the procession in a few words. To a native of India, indeed, accustomed to see every petty rajah or nawab holding a few square miles of territory as the tenant of the Company, surrounded on state occasions by a crowd of the picturesque irregular cavalry of the East, and with a Suwarree or cavalcade of led horses, gayly caparisoned elephants, flaunting banners, and martial music, the amount of military display in attendance on the Queen of Great Britain must naturally have appeared inconsiderable—"The escort consisted of only some two hundred horsemen, but these were cased in steel and leather from head to foot, and their black horses were by far the finest I have yet seen in this country. But though the multitudes of people were immense, yet the procession tell much short of what I had expected from the monarch of so great and powerful a nation! I returned home, however, much gratified by the sights I had seen to-day."

The sight of this ceremony naturally leads to a digression on the origin and constitution of the English parliament, and its division into the two houses of Lords and Commons. The events leading to these institutions, and the antecedent civil wars between the king and the barons, in the reign of Henry III. and Edward I., are given by the Khan, on the whole, with great accuracy—probably from the information of his English friends since the knowledge of the ancient history and institutions of the country, which he displays both here and in other parts of his narrative, can scarcely have been acquired through the medium of a native education in Hindustan. The deductions which he draws, however, from this historical summary, are somewhat curious; since he assumes that the power of the crown, though limited in appearance by the concessions then made, and the legislative functions vested in parliament, was in truth only strengthened, and rendered more securely despotic:—"But this is entirely lost sight of by the people, who, even at the present day, imagine that the parliament is all-powerful, and the sovereign powerless. But I must be allowed to say, that those ancient monarchs acted wisely, and the result of their policy has not been sufficiently perceived.... For when parliament was constituted, the power of retaining armed vassals and servants, which the barons had enjoyed for so long a period, was abolished, and has never been resumed even by princes of the blood; so that they could no longer resist the authority of the king, who alone had the privilege of raising and maintaining troops—a right never conceded to parliament. Besides this the powers of life and death, and of declaring war, were identified with the person of the sovereign; and with respect to the latter, it is never, until it has been decided upon, even intimated to the parliament, which possesses only the power of collecting the taxes, from which the expenses of the war the king may enter into must be paid. The possession, therefore, of these two rights by the king, is equivalent to the tenure of absolute power." The possibility of the supplies being refused by a refractory House of Commons, seems either not to have occurred to the khan, or to have escaped his recollection at the moment of his penning this sentence; and though he subsequently alludes to the responsibility of ministers, he never seems to have comprehended the nature and extent of the control exercised by parliament over the finances of the nation, so fully as the Persian princes, who tell us, in their quaint phraseology, that "if the expenses that were made should be agreeable to the Commons, well and good—if not, the vizirs must stand the consequences; and every person who has given ten tomâns of the revenue, has a right to rise up in the House of Commons, and seize the vizir of the treasury by the collar, saying, 'What have you done with my money?'"—a mode of putting to the question which, if now and then practically adopted by some hard-fisted son of the soil, we have no doubt would operate as a most salutary check on the vagaries of Chancellors of the Exchequer.

Relieved, it is to be hoped, by this tirade against the ignominious submission of the Franks to taxation, the Khan resumes the enumeration of the endless catalogue of wonders which the sights of London presented to him. On visiting the Polytechnic Institution—"which means, I understand, a place in which specimens of every science and art are to be seen in some mode or other, there being no science or art of any other country unknown here"—he briefly enumerates the oxyhydrogen microscope, "by which water was shown so full of little animals, nay, even monsters, as to make one shudder at the thought of swallowing a drop"—the orrery, the daguerreotype, and the diving-bell, (in which he had the courage to descend,) as the objects principally deserving notice, "since it would require several months, if not years, to give that attention to each specimen of human industry which it demands, in order thoroughly to understand it." The effects of the electrical machine, indeed, "by which fire was made to pass through the body of a man, and out of the finger-ends of his right hand, without his being in any way affected by it, though a piece of cloth, placed close to this right hand, was actually ignited," seem to have excited considerable astonishment in his mind; but it does not appear that his curiosity led him to make any attempt in investigating the hidden causes of these mysterious phenomena. His apathy in this respect presents a strong contrast with the minute and elaborate description of the same objects, the mode of their construction, and the uses to which they may be applied, given in the journal of the two Parsees, Nowrojee and Merwanjee. "To us," say they, "brought up in India for scientific pursuits, and longing ardently to acquire practical information connected with modern improvements, more particularly with naval architecture, steam-engines, steam-boats, and steam navigation, these two galleries of practical science (the Adelaide and Polytechnic) seemed to embrace all that we had come over to England to make ourselves acquainted with; and it was with gratitude to the original projectors of these institutions that we gazed on the soul-exciting scene before us. We thought of the enchantments related in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments, and they faded away into nothingness compared with what we then saw."

A few days after his visit to Madame Tussaud, we find the Khan making an excursion by the railroad to Southampton, in order to be present at a banquet given on board the Oriental steamer, by the directors of the Oriental Steam Navigation Company, from whom he had received a special invitation. With the exception of the brief transit from Blackwall to London on his arrival, this was his first trip by rail, but, as his place was in one of the close first-class carriages, he saw nothing of the machinery by which the motion was effected, "though such was the rapidity of the vehicles, that I could distinguish nothing but an expanse of green all round, nor could I perceive even the trunks of the trees. Every now and then we were carried through dark caverns, where we could not see each others' faces; and sometimes we met other vehicles coming in the opposite direction, which occasioned me no small alarm, as I certainly thought we should have been dashed to pieces, from the fearful velocity with which both were running. We reached Southampton, a distance of seventy-eight miles, in three hours; and what most surprised me was, being seriously told on our arrival, that we had been unusually long on our way. I was told that this iron road, from London to Southampton, cost six crores of rupees, (L.6,000,000.)" The town of Southampton is only briefly noticed as well built, populous, and flourishing; but he had no time to visit the beautiful scenery of the environs, as the entertainment took place the following afternoon in the cabin of the Oriental, "which is a very large vessel, well constructed, and in admirable order, and is intended to carry the dak (mail) to India, which is sent by the way of Sikanderîyah, (Alexandria.)" Our friend the khan, however, must have been always rather out of his element at a feast; unlike his countryman, Abu-Talib—who speedily became reconciled to the forbidden viands and wines of the Franks, and even carried his laxity so far as to express a hope, rather than a belief, that the brushes which he used were made of horsehair, and not of the bristles of the unclean beast—Kerim Khan appears (as we have seen on a previous occasion) never to have relaxed the austerity of the religious scruples which the Indian Moslems have borrowed from the Hindus, so far as to partake of food not prepared by his own people; and on the present occasion, in spite of the instances of his hosts, his simple repast consisted wholly of fruit. The cheers which followed on the health of the Queen being given, appeared to him, like those which hailed her passage at the prorogation of Parliament, a most incomprehensible and somewhat indecorous proceeding; his own health was also drunk as a lion, but "not being able to reply from my ignorance of the language, a gentleman of my acquaintance thanked them in my name; while I also stood up and made a salaam, as much as to say that I highly appreciated the honour done me." While the festivities were proceeding in the cabin, the steamer was got underway and making the circuit of the Isle of Wight; and on landing again at Southampton, "I was surrounded by a concourse of people, who had collected to look at me, imagining, no doubt, that I was some strange creature, the like of which they had never seen before." Whether from want of time or of curiosity, he left Portsmouth, and all the wonders of its arsenal and dockyard, unvisited, and after again going on board the Oriental the next day, to take leave of the captain and officers, returned in the afternoon by the railway to London.

"Some days after this," continues the khan, "I paid a visit to the Tower, which is the fortress of London, placed close to the Thames on its left bank. Within the ramparts is another fort of white stone, which in past times was frequently occupied by the sovereigns of the country. It is said to have been constructed by King William, surnamed Muzuffer, or the Conqueror; others are of opinion that it was founded by Keesar the Roman emperor; but God alone can solve this doubt. In times past it was also used as a state prison for persons of rank, and was the scene of the execution of most of the princes and nobles whose fate is recorded in the chronicles of England. They still show the block on which the decapitations took place." Among the trophies in the armoury, he particularizes the gun and girdle of Tippoo Sultan, "which seemed to be taken great care of, and were preserved under a glass case;" but the horse armoury and the regalia, usually the most attractive part of the exhibition to strangers, are passed over with but slight notice, though, from the Parsees, the sight of the equestrian figures in the former, draws the only allusion which escapes them throughout their narrative to the fallen glories of their race. "The representations of some of these monarchs was in the very armour they wore; and we were here very forcibly put in mind of Persia, once our own country, where this iron clothing was anciently used; but, alas! we have no remains of these things; all we know of them is from historical works." The crown jewels might have been supposed to present to a native of India an object of peculiar interest; but the khan remarks only the great ruby, "which is so brilliant that (it is said) one would be able to read by its light by placing it on a book in the dark. I made some enquiries respecting its value, but could not get no satisfactory answer, as they said no jeweller could ascertain it."

It would appear that the Khan must now have been for several months resident in London, (for he takes no note of the lapse of time,) since we next find him a spectator of the pomps and pageants of Lord Mayor's day. He gives no account, however, of the procession, but contents himself with informing his readers that the Lord Mayor (except in his tenure of office being annual instead of for life) is the same as a "patel" or "mukaddam" in the East: adding that "he is the only person in England, except the sovereign, who is allowed to have a train of armed followers in attendance on him." It is not very evident whether the idea of civic army was suggested to the mind of the khan simply by the sight of the men in armour in the procession, or whether dark rumours had reached his ear touching the prowess of the Lumber troopers, and other warlike bodies which march under the standard of the Lord Mayor; but certain it is that this most pacific of potentates cannot fairly be charged with abusing the formidable privilege thus attributed to him—the city sword never having been unsheathed in mortal fray, as far as our researches extend, since Wat Tyler fell before the doughty arm of Sir William of Walworth. On returning from the show, the khan was taken to see Newgate, with the gloomy aspect of which, and the silent and strict discipline enforced among the prisoners, he was deeply impressed; "to these poor wretches the gate of mercy is indeed shut, and that of hardship and oppression thrown open." His sympathies were still more strongly awakened on discovering among those unfortunate creatures an Indian Moslem, who proved, on enquiry, to be a Lascar sailor, imprisoned for selling smuggled cigars—"and, in my ignorance of the laws and customs of the country, I was anxious to procure his liberation by paying the fine; but my friends told me that this was absolutely impossible, and that he must remain the full time in prison. So we could only thank the governor for his attention, and then took our departure."

Following the steps of the Khan from grave to gay, in his desultory course through the endless varieties of "Life in London," we are at once transported from the dismal cells of Newgate to the fancy-dress ball at Guildhall for the aid of the refugee Poles. This seems to have been the first scene of the kind at which Kerim Khan had been present since his arrival in England; and though he was somewhat scandalized at perceiving that some of those in male attire were evidently ladies, he describes with considerable effect "the infinite variety of costumes, all very different from those of England, as if each country had contributed its peculiar garb," the brilliant lighting and costly decoration of the rooms, and the picturesque grouping of the vast assemblage. But his first impressions on English dancing are perfectly unique in their way, and we can only do justice to them by quoting them at length. "It is so entirely unlike any thing we ever heard of in Hindustan, that I cannot refrain from giving a slight sketch of what I saw. In the first place, the company could not have been fewer than 1500 or 2000, of the highest classes of society, the ministers, the nobles, and the wealthy, with their wives and daughters. Several hundreds stood up, every gentleman with a lady; and they advanced and retired several times, holding each other by the hand, to the sound of the music: at last the circle they had formed broke up, some running off to the right, and some to the left—then a gentleman, leaving his lady, would strike out obliquely across the room, sometimes making direct for another lady at a distance, and sometimes stooping and flourishing with his legs as he went along: when he approached her, he made a sort of salaam, and then retreated. Another would go softly up to a lady, and then suddenly seizing her by the waist, would turn and twist her round and round some fifty times till both were evidently giddy with the motion: this was sometimes performed by a few chosen dancers, and sometimes by several hundreds at once—all embracing each other in what, to our notions, would seem rather an odd sort of way, and whirling round and round; and though their feet appeared constantly coming in contact with each other, a collision never took place. And those who met in this affectionate manner were, as I was told, for the most part perfect strangers to each other, which to me was incomprehensible! Several ladies asked me to dance with them, but I excused myself by saying that their dancing was so superlatively beautiful that it was sufficient to admire it, and that I was afraid to try—'besides,' said I, 'it is contrary to our customs in Hindustan.' To which they replied that India was far off, and no one could see me. 'But,' said I 'there are people who put every thing in the newspapers, and if my friends heard of it I should lose caste.' The ladies smiled; and after this I was not asked to dance." The Persian princes, when in a similar dilemma, evaded the request by "taking oath that we did not know how, and that our mother did not care to teach us; and thank God," concludes Najef-Kooli with heartfelt gratitude, "we never did dance. God protect the faithful from it!" Independent of the above recorded opinions on the singularity of quadrilles and waltzes, the khan takes this occasion to enter into a disquisition on the inconsistency (doubly incongruous to an Oriental eye) of the ladies having their necks, arms, and shoulders uncovered, while the men are clothed up to the chin, "and not even their hands are allowed to be seen bare," and returned from the ball, no doubt, more lost than ever in wonder at the strange extravagances of the Feringhis.

These opinions are repeated, shortly after, on the occasion of the Khan's being present at an evening party at Clapham, which, as the invitation was for the country, he seems to have expected to find quite a different sort of affair from the entertainments at which he had already assisted in London. He was greatly surprised, therefore, to find the assemblage, on his arrival, engaged in the everlasting toil of dancing, "the men, as usual in this country, clad all in dismal black, and the ladies sparkling in handsome costumes of bright and variegated colours—another singular custom, of which I never could learn or guess the reason." But, however great a bore the sight of quadrilles may have been to the khan, ample amends were made to him on this occasion by the musical performances, with which several of the ladies ("though they all at first refused, evidently from modesty") gratified the company in the intervals of the dance, and at which he expresses unbounded delight; but this does not prevent his again launching out into a tirade against the unseemly methods, as they appear to him, used by the English to signify applause or approbation. "The strangest custom is, that the audience clapped their hands in token of satisfaction whenever any of the ladies concluded their performance.... The only occasion on which such an exhibition of feeling is to be witnessed in Hindustan, is when some offender is put upon a donkey, with a string of old shoes round his neck, and his face blackened and turned to the tail, and in this plight expelled from the city. Then only do the boys—men never—clap their hands and cry hurra! hurra! Thus, that which in one country implies shame and disgrace, is resorted to in another to express the highest degree of approbation!"

At Rundell and Bridge's, to a view of the glittering treasures of whose establishment the Khan was next introduced, he was not less astonished at the incalculable value of the articles he saw exhibited, "where the precious metals and magnificent jewellery of all sorts were scattered about as profusely as so many sorts of fruit in our Delhi bazars"—as surprised at being informed that many of the nobles, and even of the royal family, here deposited their plate and jewels for safe custody; and that, "though all these valuables were left without a guard of soldiers, this shop has never been known to be attacked and plundered by robbers and thieves, who not unfrequently break into other houses.' Among the models of celebrated gems here shown him, he particularizes a jewel which, for ages, has been the wonder of the East—"the famous Koh-in-Noor, (Mountain of Light,) now in the possession of the ruler of Lahore and well known to have been forcibly seized by him from Shah-Shoojah, king of Cabul, when a fugitive in the Panjab;" as well as another, (the Pigot diamond,) "now belonging to Mohammed Ali of Egypt." The Adelaide Gallery of Science is passed over with the remark, that it is, on the whole, inferior to the Polytechnic, which he had previously visited. But the Diorama, with the views of Damascus, Acre, &c., seems to have afforded him great gratification, as well as to have perplexed him not a little, by the apparent accuracy of its perspective. "Some objects delineated actually appeared to be several kos (a measure of about two miles) from us, others nearer, and some quite close. I marvelled how such things could be brought together before me; yet, on stretching out the hand, the canvass on which all this was represented might be touched." But all the wonders of the pictorial art, "which the Europeans have brought to unheard of perfection," fade before the amazement of the khan, on being informed that it was possible for him to have a transcript of his countenance taken, without the use of pencil or brush, by the mere agency of the sun's rays; and even after having verified the truth of this apparently incredible statement by actual experiment in his own person, he still seems to have entertained considerable misgivings as to the legitimacy of the process—"How it was effected was indeed incomprehensible! Here is an art, which, if it be not magic, it is difficult to conceive what else it can be!"

"Soon after, all the dishes, spoons, &c., were removed by the servants. I thought the dinner was over, and was preparing to go, not a little astonished at such scanty hospitality, when other dishes were brought in, filled with choice viands of every kind—bears from Russia and Germany—hogs from Ireland—fowls and geese from France—turtle from the Mediterranean(?)—venison from the parks of the nobility—some in joints, some quite whole, with their limbs and feet entire. Operations now recommenced, the carvers doling out the same small quantities as before: but though many of the gentlemen present were anxious to prevail on me to partake, and recommended particular dishes, one as being 'a favourite of the King of the French'—another as particularly rare and exquisite, I could not be prevailed upon to partake of any. Thus did innumerable dishes pour and disappear again, the servants constantly changing the plates of the guests: till I began to form quite a different idea of the appetites of the guests, and the hospitality of the Lord Mayor, on which I had thought that a reflection was thrown by the small portions sent to them. I now saw that many of them, besides being served pretty often, helped themselves freely to the dishes before them—indeed, their appetite was wonderfully good: some, doubtless, thinking that such an opportunity would not often recur. Nor did they forget the juice of the grape—the bottles which were opened would have filled a ship, and the noise of the champagne completely drowned the music. One would have thought that, after all this, no men could eat more: but now the fruits, sweetmeats ices, and jellies made their appearance, pine-apples, grapes, oranges, apples, pears, mulberries, and confectionaries of such strange shapes that I can give no name to them—and before each guest were placed small plates, with peculiarly shaped knives of gold and silver. Of this part of the banquet I had the pleasure of partaking, in common with the selfsame gentlemen who had done such honour to the thousand dishes above mentioned, and who now distinguished themselves in the same manner on the dessert. The price of some of the fruit was almost incredible; the reason of which is, that in this country it can only be reared in glass-houses artificially heated ... thus the pine-apples, which are by no means fine, cost each twenty rupees, (L.2,) which in India would be bought for two pice—thus being 640 times dearer than in our country. Thus in England the poorer classes cannot afford to eat fruit, whereas in all other countries they can get fruit when grain is too dear.

"The guests continued at table till late, during which time several gentlemen rose and spoke: but, from my imperfect knowledge of the language, I could not comprehend their purports beyond the compliments which they passed on each other, and the evident attacks which they made on their political opponents. I at last retired with some others to another room, where many of the guests were dancing—coffee and tea were here taken about, just as sherbets are with us in the Mohurrum. I must remark that the servants were gorgeously dressed, being covered with gold like the generals of the army; but the most extraordinary thing about them was, there having their heads covered with ashes, like the Hindoo fakirs-a custom indicative with us of sorrow and repentance. I hardly could help laughing when I looked at them; but a friend kindly explained to me that, in England, none but the servants of the great are privileged to have ashes strewed on their heads, and that for this distinction their masters actually pay a tax to government! 'Is this enjoined by their religion?' said I. 'Oh no!' he replied. 'Then,' said I, 'since your religion does not require it, and it appears, to our notions at least, rather a mark of grief and mourning, where is the use of paying a tax for it?' 'it is the custom of the country.' said he again. After this I returned hone, musing deeply on what I had seen."

With this inimitable sketch, we take leave of the Khan for the present, shortly to return to his ideas of men and manners in Feringhistan.