Page 102 - Gertrude Bell (H.V.F.Winstone)

86 GERTRUDE BELL
some lame and stumbling with Mutiny wounds. And last of
all came an old blind man in a white turban, leaning on a stick.
As he passed us, he turned Ills blind eyes towards the shouting
and raised a trembling hand to salute the unseen thousands of
the race to which he had stood true. After that the Viceroys
and Kings went by almost without a thrill...
And then the great procession itself, Lord Curzon representing
the King, amid all the panoply of Imperial India.
First soldiers; then the Viceroy’s bodyguard, native cavalry;
then Pertab Singh at the head of the Cadet Corps, all sons of
Rajas; then the Viceroy and Lady Curzon, followed by the
Connaughts, all on elephants; and then a troop of some hundred
Rajas on elephants, a glittering mass of gold and jewels. The
Rajas were roped in pearls and emeralds from the neck to the
waist, with cords of pearls strung over their shoulders, and
tassels of pearls hanging from their turbans; their dresses
were shot gold cloth, or gold embroidered velvet. The
elephants had tassels of jewels hanging from their ears ... It
was the most gorgeous show that can possibly be imagined.
Lord Curzon had said before the show diat if there was a single
case of cholera in Delhi he would remove the entire event to
Agra. He need not have worried. It went off without a hitch, or
at any rate with none that the Viceroy himself was aware of.
Gertrude observed the arrival of Lord Kitchener; everyone
stood up and cheered him and the band played ‘See the Conquering
Hero’. And she noticed that the troops refused to cheer Curzon,
whose aides-de-camp moved up men of the Yorkshire Regiment
and other British soldiers to step into the breach, but they
remained silent. ‘It’s very curious collecting opinions about
Lord Curzon,’ she told her stepmother. ‘I am gradually coming
to the conclusion that he is something of a great man, but there
is no doubt that he is extremely unpopular ... Even Arthur
[Russell] who is by no means anti-Indian says, “Since Lord
Curzon’s time the natives have learnt to push you off the pave­
ment” ... [quoting an officer at the Durbar]: “You get sharp
words and bad manners from him, but you find that the thing
that needs doing gets done, without months of official letters,
and yards of red tape” ... Then again, all the Frontier people are
fire and flame for him; Mr Cox out in Muscat, Mr Hughes Buller
in Kashmir ... ’