HORDE AT DELHI DURBAR.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 173, 20 January 1912, Page 5

HORDE AT DELHI DURBAR.

: THE MANY RACES OF INDIA., -,Jgj A MULTICOLORED PAGEANT. ■V || • Writing from Delhi to a Sydney paper,/ the Rev. S, Waddy thus describes the ' | multicolored hordes which filled Delhi to ■ attend the Durbar:— '* 1 They came from all parts of India— ; yes, and from all parts of the world—to see what promises to be one of the great ■>. show events of history. On the P. and 0. liner upon which our own party of "m Australian boys made their passage the®# were Englishmen, Irishmen, Scotchmen, -ij Australians Americans, Belgians, French s . J Germans, New Zealanders; and amidst these of the white stein Bhowedthe va*-' ied tinges and contrasting garments of the colored races. There was a Cinga- /'M lese noble, whose wealth we, guessed at by the fact that he brought two motor cars along with him, and a glorious "chaprassi," whose coat could hardly be y ,iS seen for corded gold lace. There were two Chinamen, who wore long pigtails, v • s|| and in good English told us of the fighting they had seen .before leaving. Evi- , dently they had no strong political opin- aj ions either for or against the present up- | heaval in China, but they considered that - China was a good place to be absent for the time, and thfe Coronation Durbat' a good excuse for a trip. There wera ' wiry little Japanese, men, wives and children; Parsees, Bengalis, and not a few rf'H who evidently mingled the blood of va?- .:M ied nationalities. And as one walks thfi ' '>3| streets of Delhi, amidst the never-ceai- -i| ing flow of carriages, can be distinguish: t'M ed types of faces so different that it '.jfi seems as if all the world, except the &b-, solutely black' races and the vanishing ,p r Jf weaklings of Melanesia and- America, hadsent their quota to the great show; -3$ while the voices sound as if the Tower ?Jj of Babel were close by, and' he would ,{§& be a wonderful linguist indeed who could '*sl speak and answer to every unit of this thronging crowd. ' THE NATIVE PRINCES. H The guests whom the Kii.g delights tp, "jj honor, those for whose special benefit ,V»a this Durbar is arranged, are the native ' vs Princes of Hindustan. Even at an ordin- , ary time the scene in the busy Delhi w l'\ bazaars is bright and varied, so pictures- .;j3ri que is the mingling of colors and raqes, ; ;4 ji and so numerous the types of mankind— . not of womankind, for the only women seen are the lower class of Hindus; the - v upper classes and the Mahommedan ' ladies are "purdah." They dwell behind the J curtains; they peep through the carved ' "fi lattice screens; perhaps they take an , J occasional outing heavily veiled, or in a ■ carriage with shuttered .windows. - The - visitor usually classes all, dark faces to- ■ iJ! gether ag; "natives." But India is not a '';-J country; Jt ;is a continent. We should a ■ias thimk of it as we think of Europe, where CjfJ varied nations dwell, very closely distin- Jjg guished from one another. There is at least as much difference between a native 1 f'-J of Madras , and a Ghoorka or Sikh or •''■ij Pathan, or or Bengali or Raj- 'f| •put, as there is between an Englishman and a Greek, between a Spaniard and a '-'1 Russian or Hungarian. And in the streets, tn *9 of Delhi jugt may see thpm Even the most casual visitor can see that S they are different. The experienced .An- "*3 glo-Indian can. tell that every twist of , ,i(l the Turban, every little hain't of dress and bearing, has its meaning, and is an 1 J outward and visible sign of differences 'yi tliat go very deep. They are no more ont v nation, this colored, varied crowd than if we took the people who attended let lis " i say, the Franco-British Exhibition in <1 London, and classed them all as one peo- ■ pie. •• - , But ,it is the Rajahs and the Mahara-. _ jahs who are the most picturesque- arrive als. During these few days, before the • t|jj actual arrival of the King the native'' Princes come in thick and fast. There is a boom of pun after gun from the fort; ,'4l we. count—-"nine guns"—no such srreat "swell" then, but probably it will be worth while td -see him,- and our eyer are fixed upon the arch of honor ns';fchaif-' fl s|| great railway station, through nobles alone, are allowed to pas* . number of guns to which each Rajah is ' 3 entitled itf carefully fixed; and they stand 'sl greatly on their dignity, and it would be t'J] a dire insult if their arrival passed un- *ffl| heralded by the due number of guns. WHICH RAJAH IS WHICH# '. 1 The ofily drawback to the interest of it is that no one can tell us which Rajah is i'i?» wHich. The frivolous thought would pass , through ouif minds: "How much better it yl would be if they all wore oj; had '*' numbers lifce our players in a big football match!" Still, there is interest enough, There are the splendid houses, grbomed - :p| till the sun glints on their statin skins, as 1 it would make a path in. a stream of *|| dark water. There are carriages pf aW most barbaric magnificence—lamps of Solid silver; even .carriages ipf laid- and ornamented with gold." are lancers, , whose horses caracole before Til and behind the, swift carriage where the .*«§| potentate st> proudly sits. And it must" be confessed that when it com'es to liwries. <Jf-the- coafchme'n and'foofirien, the\ 4M taste of some of these, native Princes if} a little more gaudy than altogether ap- . S peals to the soberer Australian. Where . but an Indian sun could* one see fll retainers in bright purple cloaks, law 1-a with gold, edged with fur, and set off by the most orange yellow of turbans? Yet ii '<| here it seems all in place, and but adds to ■'•l'm the total impression of gay color. And' '"f| there no doubt that the proud .-'SI wearer thinks his costume the very best'fflt thing in becoming and beautiful garb. /'S We even saw one man who kept the price , ~-rS label on his coat—no doubt to prove that ■ it was neither cheap nor nasty. And titles of these noWes and princes are as - r varied as their liveries. There it-'twill Nizam of Hvderbad, the Gaekwar of Bar- ''-'w oda, the Maharajahs of Mysore, Kashmir. ' VII Gwalior, and a dozen other States, the ~~M Begum of Bhopal, the Rajahs of many i, place, the Nawab of Tonk. On a lower" .'lra level are Khan Bahadurs, Pandits, IJeWr ans, Wuns, and Imlajs, Jagidars, Vakils,,and a host of other titles; and to V. : M mention but one more, there is tho Jam '.*•s of Jamnagar. far better known to crick- • 'M et-loving Australians, as Ranji Sinhji, the ■ -,11 prince of batsmen, now a native Prince '''Jl in the Bombay Presidency. THE REALITY OF POWER. ' 'jk It is a thing that sets one thinking to /Si notice hojr all the stir and ceremonial is kept for £e arrival of the native Prince; "'J whereas the men who really hold the , 5 power, the British Residents and Com- ' missioners and Indian civilians, come in .1 their quiet British clothes, and make '*■ their way with no boom of guns to their >*? appointed places. There speaks the Bri- "if t tish race, which has always cared rather for the realitv of power than the show of -,",J it In fact, the Britisher rather dislikes 5 "fuss" and pomp. There is a smart re- ...« ply of a,-typical British small ,boy that J shows the ingrained character of the race. He wished to have a knife that be- '-"I longed to another boy. The owner i naturally asserted his ownership. "Well," said the first boy, proposing an ingenious ,a| compromise, "von call it vnurs and T ' will use it." That boy had the makings j of an Anglo-Indian statesman. Ts it not . what we have done with the power of' sp these native Princes? They mnv call it theirs—-we exorcise it. Tliev may swagger into a Durbar in % carriages, while hoarse booms thunder from the iron throats of the cannon; the real power-holder drives almost . . m noticed to his place in a less gorgeoun, vS| camp, v '>43l