—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.
A comfortable railway journey of seventeen and a half hours brought us to the capital of India, which is likewise the capital of Bengal—Calcutta. Like Bombay, it has a population of nearly a million natives and a small gathering1 of white people. It is a huge city and fine, and is called the City of Palaces. It is rich in historical memories; rich in British achievement—military, political, commercial; rich in the results of the miracles done by that brace2 of mighty3 magicians, Clive and Hastings. And has a cloud kissing monument to one Ochterlony.
It is a fluted4 candlestick 250 feet high. This lingam is the only large monument in Calcutta, I believe. It is a fine ornament5, and will keep Ochterlony in mind.
Wherever you are, in Calcutta, and for miles around, you can see it; and always when you see it you think of Ochterlony. And so there is not an hour in the day that you do not think of Ochterlony and wonder who he was. It is good that Clive cannot come back, for he would think it was for Plassey; and then that great spirit would be wounded when the revelation came that it was not. Clive would find out that it was for Ochterlony; and he would think Ochterlony was a battle. And he would think it was a great one, too, and he would say, “With three thousand I whipped sixty thousand and founded the Empire—and there is no monument; this other soldier must have whipped a billion with a dozen and saved the world.”
But he would be mistaken. Ochterlony was a man, not a battle. And he did good and honorable service, too; as good and honorable service as has been done in India by seventy-five or a hundred other Englishmen of courage, rectitude, and distinguished7 capacity. For India has been a fertile breeding-ground of such men, and remains8 so; great men, both in war and in the civil service, and as modest as great. But they have no monuments, and were not expecting any. Ochterlony could not have been expecting one, and it is not at all likely that he desired one—certainly not until Clive and Hastings should be supplied. Every day Clive and Hastings lean on the battlements of heaven and look down and wonder which of the two the monument is for; and they fret9 and worry because they cannot find out, and so the peace of heaven is spoiled for them and lost. But not for Ochterlony. Ochterlony is not troubled. He doesn’t suspect that it is his monument. Heaven is sweet and peaceful to him. There is a sort of unfairness about it all.
Indeed, if monuments were always given in India for high achievements, duty straitly performed, and smirchless records, the landscape would be monotonous10 with them. The handful of English in India govern the Indian myriads11 with apparent ease, and without noticeable friction12, through tact13, training, and distinguished administrative14 ability, reinforced by just and liberal laws—and by keeping their word to the native whenever they give it.
England is far from India and knows little about the eminent15 services performed by her servants there, for it is the newspaper correspondent who makes fame, and he is not sent to India but to the continent, to report the doings of the princelets and the dukelets, and where they are visiting and whom they are marrying. Often a British official spends thirty or forty years in India, climbing from grade to grade by services which would make him celebrated16 anywhere else, and finishes as a vice-sovereign, governing a great realm and millions of subjects; then he goes home to England substantially unknown and unheard of, and settles down in some modest corner, and is as one extinguished. Ten years later there is a twenty-line obituary17 in the London papers, and the reader is paralyzed by the splendors18 of a career which he is not sure that he had ever heard of before. But meanwhile he has learned all about the continental19 princelets and dukelets.
The average man is profoundly ignorant of countries that lie remote from his own. When they are mentioned in his presence one or two facts and maybe a couple of names rise like torches in his mind, lighting20 up an inch or two of it and leaving the rest all dark. The mention of Egypt suggests some Biblical facts and the Pyramids-nothing more. The mention of South Africa suggests Kimberly and the diamonds and there an end. Formerly21 the mention, to a Hindoo, of America suggested a name—George Washington—with that his familiarity with our country was exhausted22. Latterly his familiarity with it has doubled in bulk; so that when America is mentioned now, two torches flare23 up in the dark caverns24 of his mind and he says, “Ah, the country of the great man Washington; and of the Holy City—Chicago.” For he knows about the Congress of Religion, and this has enabled him to get an erroneous impression of Chicago.
When India is mentioned to the citizen of a far country it suggests Clive, Hastings, the Mutiny, Kipling, and a number of other great events; and the mention of Calcutta infallibly brings up the Black Hole. And so, when that citizen finds himself in the capital of India he goes first of all to see the Black Hole of Calcutta—and is disappointed.
The Black Hole was not preserved; it is gone, long, long ago. It is strange. Just as it stood, it was itself a monument; a ready-made one. It was finished, it was complete, its materials were strong and lasting25, it needed no furbishing up, no repairs; it merely needed to be let alone. It was the first brick, the Foundation Stone, upon which was reared a mighty Empire—the Indian Empire of Great Britain. It was the ghastly episode of the Black Hole that maddened the British and brought Clive, that young military marvel26, raging up from Madras; it was the seed from which sprung Plassey; and it was that extraordinary battle, whose like had not been seen in the earth since Agincourt, that laid deep and strong the foundations of England’s colossal27 Indian sovereignty.
And yet within the time of men who still live, the Black Hole was torn down and thrown away as carelessly as if its bricks were common clay, not ingots of historic gold. There is no accounting28 for human beings.
The supposed site of the Black Hole is marked by an engraved29 plate. I saw that; and better that than nothing. The Black Hole was a prison—a cell is nearer the right word—eighteen feet square, the dimensions of an ordinary bedchamber; and into this place the victorious30 Nabob of Bengal packed 146 of his English prisoners. There was hardly standing31 room for them; scarcely a breath of air was to be got; the time was night, the weather sweltering hot. Before the dawn came, the captives were all dead but twenty-three. Mr. Holwell’s long account of the awful episode was familiar to the world a hundred years ago, but one seldom sees in print even an extract from it in our day. Among the striking things in it is this. Mr. Holwell, perishing with thirst, kept himself alive by sucking the perspiration32 from his sleeves. It gives one a vivid idea of the situation. He presently found that while he was busy drawing life from one of his sleeves a young English gentleman was stealing supplies from the other one. Holwell was an unselfish man, a man of the most generous impulses; he lived and died famous for these fine and rare qualities; yet when he found out what was happening to that unwatched sleeve, he took the precaution to suck that one dry first. The miseries33 of the Black Hole were able to change even a nature like his. But that young gentleman was one of the twenty-three survivors34, and he said it was the stolen perspiration that saved his life. From the middle of Mr. Holwell’s narrative35 I will make a brief excerpt36:
“Then a general prayer to Heaven, to hasten the approach of the flames to the right and left of us, and put a period to our misery37. But these failing, they whose strength and spirits were quite exhausted laid themselves down and expired quietly upon their fellows: others who had yet some strength and vigor38 left made a last effort at the windows, and several succeeded by leaping and scrambling39 over the backs and heads of those in the first rank, and got hold of the bars, from which there was no removing them. Many to the right and left sunk with the violent pressure, and were soon suffocated40; for now a steam arose from the living and the dead, which affected41 us in all its circumstances as if we were forcibly held with our heads over a bowl full of strong volatile42 spirit of hartshorn, until suffocated; nor could the effluvia of the one be distinguished from the other, and frequently, when I was forced by the load upon my head and shoulders to hold my face down, I was obliged, near as I was to the window, instantly to raise it again to avoid suffocation43. I need not, my dear friend, ask your commiseration44, when I tell you, that in this plight45, from half an hour past eleven till near two in the morning, I sustained the weight of a heavy man, with his knees in my back, and the pressure of his whole body on my head. A Dutch surgeon who had taken his seat upon my left shoulder, and a Topaz (a black Christian46 soldier) bearing on my right; all which nothing could have enabled me to support but the props47 and pressure equally sustaining me all around. The two latter I frequently dislodged by shifting my hold on the bars and driving my knuckles48 into their ribs49; but my friend above stuck fast, held immovable by two bars.
“I exerted anew my strength and fortitude50; but the repeated trials and efforts I made to dislodge the insufferable incumbrances upon me at last quite exhausted me; and towards two o’clock, finding I must quit the window or sink where I was, I resolved on the former, having bore, truly for the sake of others, infinitely51 more for life than the best of it is worth. In the rank close behind me was an officer of one of the ships, whose name was Cary, and who had behaved with much bravery during the siege (his wife, a fine woman, though country born, would not quit him, but accompanied him into the prison, and was one who survived). This poor wretch52 had been long raving53 for water and air; I told him I was determined54 to give up life, and recommended his gaining my station. On my quitting it he made a fruitless attempt to get my place; but the Dutch surgeon, who sat on my shoulder, supplanted55 him. Poor Cary expressed his thankfulness, and said he would give up life too; but it was with the utmost labor56 we forced our way from the window (several in the inner ranks appearing to me dead standing, unable to fall by the throng57 and equal pressure around). He laid himself down to die; and his death, I believe, was very sudden; for he was a short, full, sanguine58 man. His strength was great; and, I imagine, had he not retired59 with me, I should never have been able to force my way. I was at this time sensible of no pain, and little uneasiness; I can give you no better idea of my situation than by repeating my simile60 of the bowl of spirit of hartshorn. I found a stupor61 coming on apace, and laid myself down by that gallant62 old man, the Rev6. Mr. Jervas Bellamy, who laid dead with his son, the lieutenant63, hand in hand, near the southernmost wall of the prison. When I had lain there some little time, I still had reflection enough to suffer some uneasiness in the thought that I should be trampled64 upon, when dead, as I myself had done to others. With some difficulty I raised myself, and gained the platform a second time, where I presently lost all sensation; the last trace of sensibility that I have been able to recollect65 after my laying down, was my sash being uneasy about my waist, which I untied66, and threw from me. Of what passed in this interval67, to the time of my resurrection from this hole of horrors, I can give you no account.”
There was plenty to see in Calcutta, but there was not plenty of time for it. I saw the fort that Clive built; and the place where Warren Hastings and the author of the Junius Letters fought their duel68; and the great botanical gardens; and the fashionable afternoon turnout in the Maidan; and a grand review of the garrison69 in a great plain at sunrise; and a military tournament in which great bodies of native soldiery exhibited the perfection of their drill at all arms, a spectacular and beautiful show occupying several nights and closing with the mimic70 storming of a native fort which was as good as the reality for thrilling and accurate detail, and better than the reality for security and comfort; we had a pleasure excursion on the ‘Hoogly’ by courtesy of friends, and devoted71 the rest of the time to social life and the Indian museum. One should spend a month in the museum, an enchanted72 palace of Indian antiquities73. Indeed, a person might spend half a year among the beautiful and wonderful things without exhausting their interest.
It was winter. We were of Kipling’s “hosts of tourists who travel up and down India in the cold weather showing how things ought to be managed.” It is a common expression there, “the cold weather,” and the people think there is such a thing. It is because they have lived there half a lifetime, and their perceptions have become blunted. When a person is accustomed to 138 in the shade, his ideas about cold weather are not valuable. I had read, in the histories, that the June marches made between Lucknow and Cawnpore by the British forces in the time of the Mutiny were made in that kind of weather—138 in the shade—and had taken it for historical embroidery74. I had read it again in Serjeant-Major Forbes-Mitchell’s account of his military experiences in the Mutiny—at least I thought I had—and in Calcutta I asked him if it was true, and he said it was. An officer of high rank who had been in the thick of the Mutiny said the same. As long as those men were talking about what they knew, they were trustworthy, and I believed them; but when they said it was now “cold weather,” I saw that they had traveled outside of their sphere of knowledge and were floundering. I believe that in India “cold weather” is merely a conventional phrase and has come into use through the necessity of having some way to distinguish between weather which will melt a brass75 door-knob and weather which will only make it mushy. It was observable that brass ones were in use while I was in Calcutta, showing that it was not yet time to change to porcelain76; I was told the change to porcelain was not usually made until May. But this cold weather was too warm for us; so we started to Darjeeling, in the Himalayas—a twenty-four hour journey.
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1
gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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brace
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| n. 支柱,曲柄,大括号; v. 绷紧,顶住,(为困难或坏事)做准备 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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fluted
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| a.有凹槽的 | |
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ornament
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| v.装饰，美化；n.装饰，装饰物 | |
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rev
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| v.发动机旋转，加快速度 | |
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7
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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remains
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| n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹 | |
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fret
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| v.(使)烦恼；(使)焦急；(使)腐蚀，(使)磨损 | |
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monotonous
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| adj.单调的，一成不变的，使人厌倦的 | |
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myriads
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| n.无数，极大数量( myriad的名词复数 ) | |
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friction
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| n.摩擦，摩擦力 | |
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tact
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| n.机敏，圆滑，得体 | |
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administrative
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| adj.行政的，管理的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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celebrated
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| adj.有名的，声誉卓著的 | |
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17
obituary
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| n.讣告，死亡公告；adj.死亡的 | |
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splendors
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| n.华丽( splendor的名词复数 )；壮丽；光辉；显赫 | |
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continental
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| adj.大陆的，大陆性的，欧洲大陆的 | |
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lighting
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| n.照明，光线的明暗，舞台灯光 | |
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formerly
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| adv.从前，以前 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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flare
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| v.闪耀，闪烁；n.潮红；突发 | |
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caverns
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| 大山洞，大洞穴( cavern的名词复数 ) | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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marvel
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| vi.(at)惊叹vt.感到惊异；n.令人惊异的事 | |
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colossal
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| adj.异常的，庞大的 | |
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accounting
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| n.会计，会计学，借贷对照表 | |
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engraved
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| v.在（硬物）上雕刻（字，画等）( engrave的过去式和过去分词 )；将某事物深深印在（记忆或头脑中） | |
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victorious
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| adj.胜利的，得胜的 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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miseries
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| n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人 | |
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survivors
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| 幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 ) | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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excerpt
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| n.摘录，选录，节录 | |
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misery
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| n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦 | |
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vigor
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| n.活力，精力，元气 | |
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scrambling
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| v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞 | |
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40
suffocated
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| （使某人）窒息而死( suffocate的过去式和过去分词 )； （将某人）闷死； 让人感觉闷热； 憋气 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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volatile
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| adj.反复无常的，挥发性的，稍纵即逝的，脾气火爆的；n.挥发性物质 | |
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43
suffocation
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| n.窒息 | |
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44
commiseration
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| n.怜悯，同情 | |
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plight
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| n.困境，境况，誓约，艰难；vt.宣誓，保证，约定 | |
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Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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47
props
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| 小道具； 支柱( prop的名词复数 )； 支持者； 道具； （橄榄球中的）支柱前锋 | |
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48
knuckles
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| n.（指人）指关节( knuckle的名词复数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝v.（指人）指关节( knuckle的第三人称单数 )；（指动物）膝关节，踝 | |
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49
ribs
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| n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹 | |
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50
fortitude
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| n.坚忍不拔；刚毅 | |
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51
infinitely
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| adv.无限地，无穷地 | |
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52
wretch
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| n.可怜的人，不幸的人；卑鄙的人 | |
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53
raving
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| adj.说胡话的；疯狂的，怒吼的；非常漂亮的；令人醉心[痴心]的v.胡言乱语(rave的现在分词)n.胡话；疯话adv.胡言乱语地；疯狂地 | |
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54
determined
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| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
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55
supplanted
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| 把…排挤掉，取代( supplant的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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labor
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| n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦 | |
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throng
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| n.人群，群众；v.拥挤，群集 | |
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sanguine
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| adj.充满希望的，乐观的，血红色的 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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simile
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| n.直喻，明喻 | |
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stupor
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| v.昏迷；不省人事 | |
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gallant
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| adj.英勇的，豪侠的；(向女人)献殷勤的 | |
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lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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64
trampled
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| 踩( trample的过去式和过去分词 )； 践踏； 无视； 侵犯 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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untied
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| 松开，解开( untie的过去式和过去分词 )； 解除，使自由； 解决 | |
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interval
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| n.间隔，间距；幕间休息，中场休息 | |
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duel
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| n./v.决斗；(双方的)斗争 | |
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garrison
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| n.卫戍部队；驻地，卫戍区；vt.派(兵)驻防 | |
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mimic
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| v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人 | |
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devoted
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| adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的 | |
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enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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antiquities
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| n.古老( antiquity的名词复数 )；古迹；古人们；古代的风俗习惯 | |
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74
embroidery
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| n.绣花，刺绣；绣制品 | |
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75
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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porcelain
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| n.瓷；adj.瓷的，瓷制的 | |
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