*Calcutta Review*, 29 (1918), 1-29.
The Story of My Life, the autobiography of Colonel Meadows Taylor, completed in 1874 and published by his daughter in 1877, is one of those rare books that throw light not only upon a striking personality, but on the conditions of the life and work of Englishmen in India before and during the Mutiny.
The spare energy of men compelled to the routine of official labour in the East, seldom takes literary form; and the student of English life in India will fail to discover that abundance of memoirs, biographies, letters, and the like, that lies to the hand of every investigator into any period of European history. Their rarity has given an almost undeserved value to what records remain of early English life in India; but some works of peculiar interest have been produced, and amongst these “The Story of my Life” holds an undisputed place. This autobiography has a double value. In the first place it gives to the reader a progressive narrative of responsible political work done in India by an Englishman outside of the service of the Crown and of the Company: work carried on in intimate relationship with the people of the land, in full sympathy with their condition and in complete knowledge of their requirements. Probably no other record sets forth so convincingly the success of those peculiar methods of government that are associated with “the good old days” when the country was passing from a period of crime and chaos to one of settled and orderly rule. In the second place this work traces the literary development of an author who must be justly described as the greatest English novelist whose themes are exclusively Indian. No other writer has depicted Indian life in its varied phases with greater detail or in range more extensive than the author of the Confessions of a Thug, Tippu Sultan and Tara; and no other has set himself the task of illustrating the three great modern periods of Indian history at intervals of a century up to and including the Mutiny.
Philip Meadows Taylor was born in Liverpool in 1808. He relates with undisguised satisfaction that he could claim descent from two ancient English families; but unfortunately this pride of pedigree had no financial support; and his youth passed without the advantages of a good school or university education. In 1824 his father became acquainted with a Bombay merchant named Baxter who held out flattering prospects of promotion in his Indian firm. An arrangement was made to admit the boy to this business; and in September of that year Meadows Taylor landed in Bombay where, to his future advantage, his mother’s cousin, William Newnham, was Chief Secretary to the Government. During the voyage he had learned with dismay that the merchant Baxter of large promises was a small shopkeeper; but his relative came generously to his assistance, and through the agency of Sir Charles Metcalf, then resident at Hyderabad, he secured for him a commission in the army of the Nizam. He joined his new post immediately at Aurungabad; and in the next five years, at an age when most English boys are preparing for junior examinations, he became an enthusiastic student of three Indian vernaculars, an expert shot and an experienced officer in military and civil affairs.
“The Story of my Life” covers in its first part about thirteen years up to 1837, when Queen Victoria came to the throne of England. This is a convenient point of time for the reader’s memory; and it marks a decisive epoch in the life of Meadows Taylor who, in 1837, set out on his famous journey to England by way of Arabia and Egypt, and on arrival achieved immediate recognition as the author of the Confessions of a Thug. The years preceding his early fame were full of interesting and useful work in the state of Hyderabad. From the beginning of his career he lived in closest touch with the people; and became a diligent student of the Persian, Mahratti and Hindustani languages. He records with pride that he had learned to speak the latter tongue “like a gentleman”. He was of opinion that “it may be a little more difficult to acquire the idioms but it is well worth while. There are modes of address suitable to all ranks and classes, and often our people unintentionally insult a native gentleman by speaking to him as they would to their servants through ignorance of the proper form of address”. The knowledge here advocated was an undoubted means of gaining insight into the habits and customs of the people. Life at this period in a native state seems to have been of an agreeable kind, and intercourse between English and Indian gentlemen appears to have been unrestrained. Meadows Taylor speaks of a resort of the local gentry in Hyderabad to which he went by habit. “I was often asked to sit down with them”, he writes, “while their carpets were spread and their attendants brought hookahs”. It would have been interesting to hear some of the topics of conversation at these informal gatherings, and to have learned what the pre-Victorian substitute was for the modern “sympathy.” From the first he appears to have been peculiarly sensitive to the appeal of the East, and to have given a patient ear to the magician and the astrologer. He relates with enthusiasm how, owing to his knowledge of the Mahratti tongue, he was able to hold converse with a Brahmin who cast his horoscope and asked him to sign the papers. Long after when his career was about to close, he records that every incident of the prophecy came true, that the aged Brahmin revisited him with the original papers he had signed, and recalled with triumph the accuracy of his forecast.
The state of the country in the early portion of the 19th century has been described time and again by economists and historians. There was plenty of personal risk and much scope for strength and initiative in the Hyderabad State. Meadows Taylor writes that his district was “much cut up by private estates whose owners or managers defied or evaded the orders of the Nizam’s Executive Government, and would only obey their own masters some of whom were powerful nobles of Hyderabad who jealously resented any interference by the executive minister while their agents were well known protectors of thieves and robbers whose booty they shared.” The country had not yet recovered from the anarchy following upon the dismemberment of the Mogul Empire; and as yet the influence of British authority was but lightly felt. Thuggee was at this time a flourishing enterprise; and in the investigation of this type of crime Meadows Taylor must be given the credit of having been the pioneer. In this early period of his service he anticipated the researches that were to establish the fame of Colonel Henry Sleeman. Mysterious murders had been perpetrated in his district; and as these pointed to some form of organisation, he convinced the Resident of the need for careful investigation. Permission for his continuance in a post that would have made this possible, was refused; and he records with a certain regret that, had he been allowed to remain, he would have been the first to disclose the horrible crime of Thuggee to the world. He was destined to give to this weird form of criminality a lasting literary monument, and to veil its horrors in a romance of unexampled interest and fascination.
His system of conducting administration was that upon which the prestige of British authority and justice has been established. Space forbids the extensive illustration of his methods, but his treatment of the flour-sellers of Tuljapur (the place of Sivaji’s immortal murder of Afzool Khan) deserves a full report. Of this incident he writes: “My tent was beset by hundreds of pilgrims and travellers, crying loudly for justice against the flour-sellers, who not only gave short weight in flour, but adulterated it so distressingly with sand, that the cakes made of it were uneatable, and had to be thrown away. I sent for the civil officer of the town, who declared the flour-sellers to be incorrigible, and that the complaint was perfectly true; so I determined to take my own course.
“That evening I told some reliable men of my escort to go quietly into the bazars, and each buy flour at a separate shop, being careful to note whose shop it was. The flour was brought to me. I tested every sample, and found it full of sand as I passed it under my teeth. I then desired that all the persons named in my list should be sent to me, with their baskets of flour, their weights and scales. Shortly afterwards they arrived, evidently suspecting nothing, and were placed in a row, seated on the grass before my tent.
“‘Now,’ said I, gravely, ‘each of you are to weigh out a seer (two pounds) of your flour,’ which was done.
“‘Is it for the pilgrims?’ asked one.
“‘No,’ said I, quietly, though I had much difficulty to keep my countenance. ‘You must eat it yourselves.’
They saw that I was in earnest, and offered to pay any fine I imposed.
“‘Not so,’ I returned; ‘you have made many eat your flour, why should you object to eat it yourselves?’
“They were horribly frightened; and, amid the jeers and screams of laughter of the by-standers, some of them actually began to eat, sputtering out the half-moistened flour, which could be heard crunching between their teeth. At last some of them flung themselves on their faces, abjectly beseeching pardon.
“‘Swear,’ I cried, ‘swear by the holy mother in yonder temple, that you will not fill the mouths of her worshippers with dirt. You have brought this on yourselves, and there is not a man in all the country who will not laugh at the bunnias (flour-sellers) who could not eat their own flour because it broke their teeth.’
“So this episode terminated, and I heard no more complaints of bad flour.”
Meadows Taylor found the purely military life congenial enough; but it is easy to see in the events of his life story how well he was fitted for civil administration. His relations with his soldiers were most cordial; and in the minor military operations carried on in the state of Hyderabad he earned reputation and respect. In 1836, after twelve years’ service, he was promoted to the rank of captain. Immediately before his promotion he had much domestic trouble. His wife and children fell ill. His own health became undermined by fever from which relief was sought in the Neilgherry Hills. At Ootacamund he became worse and was ordered to England by the doctors. At this time no furlough would have been possible, had not Lord William Bentinck, then living in Coonoor, personally intervened on his behalf and secured for him a three years’ holiday. In the society of the Imperial Government then resident in the Neilgherries, he had the good fortune to meet some of the men who were shaping India’s destiny. His duty confined him to a comparatively unimportant political sphere, and he never once visited Calcutta or Bengal. But here in the hills he met Macaulay, at that time the guest of the Governor-General, and he has left a pleasing account of the impression created by the great historian. “His conversation I found intensely fascinating. His seemingly boundless knowledge of life, his acquaintance with history and philosophy, his fiery zeal in argument and his calm eloquence in oratory, opened to me new subjects of thought for future study.” It is interesting also to know his opinion of the work of Lord William Bentinck who at this time quitted India. The latter had shown him much consideration. This fact combined with his own constant desire for progress and reform in the Indian administration, compelled his sincere praise of the great statesman. He writes with earnestness: “I feel I must add my tribute to his integrity of purpose, liberality of action and the commencement of that system of progress which is now bearing ample fruit.”
In 1837 Captain Meadows Taylor proceeded to England on a three years’ holiday. The voyage home is probably one of the most interesting events of his autobiography. The record of this journey might have been written nearly two hundred years earlier in the pages of Bernier or Manucci; and would have delighted the heart of Richard Burton. To the modern traveller by luxurious train and palatial steamer, it is amusing to read of an English official arriving in Bombay with his wife and pitching his tents on the Esplanade. The only vessel about to start for Europe was full; and so without hesitation Meadows Taylor took his passage on board a large Arab buggalow bound for Mocha. His fellow passenger was an Armenian who spoke Arabic and could act as interpreter. His Indian servants appear to have been willing to accompany him, and with a supply of liquor and live-stock, the party set sail. The voyage was one of easy stages. The vessel skirted the Arabian coast, calling in for provisions and receiving occasional visits from the local Sheikhs. The first serious adventure came at Aden which, unknown to the travellers, was about to be attacked by the English. Meadows Taylor landed with his Arab captain and was entertained by the Sheikh; but the latter had determined to have his English visitor seized and held to ransom. On hearing that he was a soldier in the Nizam’s service and on good terms with certain Arab officials in Hyderabad, he reluctantly allowed him to leave the town. At Mocha Meadows Taylor transferred to another Arab vessel and proceeded to Jeddah. Here he had arranged to leave his wife in the care of the mother of the ship’s captain; and with the latter he intended to journey to Mecca. “No one will recognize you”, said the captain; “you are browner than I am, and I will lend you clothes: we shall do the journey in the night.” Unfortunately the scheme got abroad, and the consul at Jeddah had to refuse permission to the travellers to proceed.
Time seems to have been the least consideration in this adventurous journey towards Europe; and for a whole month the Taylors lived on board an English ship in Jeddah harbour. They chartered another buggalow sailing for Suez, and arranged to land at Tor in order to visit Mount Sinai and Jerusalem at Easter. It was the Haj; and on rising in the morning, after reserving his vessel for what he believed his exclusive use, Meadows Taylor found the deck swarming with pilgrims. For once his love of orientals failed him, and he writes with some heat: “men and women constantly intruded into our cabin, a frightful crowd, the effluvia and vermin from which were sickening and quite impossible to describe: added to this we suffered abuse for being infidels.” At Yembo, the port of Medina, relief came. The local Pasha courteously provided a fresh boat as far as Tor; and the travellers set sail with a handsome present of dates, Turkish sweetmeats and new live-stock. They sailed at leisure between the reefs and the mainland, and anchored at night, enjoying the magnificent variety of colour in the shallows, deepest violet and purple blue to the most brilliant turquoise, emerald green and red. At Tor, after many pipes and much coffee with the local Sheikh, it was found impossible to proceed to Palestine without an escort and without a firman from the Sultan. The only alternative course was to cross over to Kosseir and to take the route through Egypt. At this point the journey took a completely new turn. The Red Sea vessels were abandoned for camels and donkeys; and the party set out along the ancient beaten track of Egyptian, Greek and Roman traders who through successive ages had carried on a tedious commerce between East and West. Between Kosseir and Keneh, before getting sight of the green cultivation of Egypt, Meadows Taylor began to discover that his novel methods of travel were perhaps not the wisest for a convalescent Indian official. The medical treatment of a camel-camp was of the crudest type. Of one day’s experience he writes: “I had never left my camel and towards evening became very tired. I lay down on some warm sand near our tents and gradually stiffened to the great alarm of my wife; but my servant and the camel-men said they would soon cure me. 1 was turned on my face and my back rubbed with castor oil well heated. By this time some large cakes of Dhoura meal had been prepared and partly baked, and these smeared with oil were bound on my back, the whole length of the spine, and partially covering my ribs. They were almost too hot to bear, but I obeyed orders, and allowed myself to be swathed up like a mummy. Next morning to my great delight I had neither pain nor ache: the remedy, rough though it was, had been effectual.” At Keneh the English agent took the travellers in hand; and although a Copt and unable to speak any European language save a little Italian, he seems to have entertained his visitors well. Two dishes in particular have been recorded---one of quails fried in vine-leaves and another of long cucumbers stuffed with delicately flavoured mince-meat.
The journey continued by boat with ample leisure past Thebes and Philae. The travellers lingered amid the ruins of ancient Egypt, taking such rough comfort as they could secure and dwelling for some days in the Memnonian Palace. One of the tombs of the Kings was opened for them, and an amount of curious loot secured. For turquoise necklaces and scarabs found on this occasion, the British Museum paid Meadows Taylor fifty pounds on his arrival in London. At Cairo he was attacked by severe Opthalmia and nearly lost his sight; but an English physician treated him with success, and the travellers were able to reach Alexandria where they shipped on board a Messagerie steamer and went to Malta touching at Smyrna and Crete. On departure from Malta the party sailed along the Italian coast by way of Naples and Leghorn and ultimately reached Marseilles on the 3rd of July, 1838. The whole journey covered about nine months, and is an amazing record of pluck, enthusiasm and endurance. It has to be remembered that when the journey was begun, Meadows Taylor had just recovered from severe illness in India, that his wife accompanied him, and that she herself had but recently suffered from Malaria and the death of her two children.
The visit to England was of value in so far as it laid the foundation of his literary career and brought him into public notice. He was fortunate in meeting some of the outstanding people of that time. The Duke of Wellington received him kindly. Prince Louis Napoleon, whom he met at the house of Lady Blessington, planned to visit India in his company; and Queen Victoria, whose interest in the Confessions of a Thug had been aroused by Bentley, the court printer, received the author with every mark of favour. He was appointed special correspondent to the Times, and continued his connection with this paper long after his return to India. By February of the year 1840 he rejoined his post in Hyderabad; and for about ten years from this date he was engaged in the anxious work of controlling affairs in Shorapur.
His narrative of events in this small principality within the Nizam’s dominions reads like the true romance it is. A lascivious Ranee with all the concomitants of a debased and petty court; the Rajah, a minor, of uncertain claims, parasites, mercenaries, warlike tribes and financial chaos make up the picture. Meadows Taylor produced some order out of this romantic confusion; and to the dismay of the Shorapur people, left in order to take over charge of one of the five Berar districts ceded to the Nizam. At this time his life had little leisure, but his experiences were of immense value: as he himself writes, “I could not go on with literary work, as, at the day’s close, my brain was generally wearied out. My work was seldom less than twelve hours a day with little variation, so to write was impossible; but I felt I was gaining more and more real knowledge of native life and character, under circumstances that fall to the lot of very few Englishmen, and that, hereafter if life were spared, I might turn my experience to good account.” In his new charge he worked strenuously up to the outbreak of the Mutiny, and then received a prompt order of transfer from the Resident as follows: “Go to Berar directly and hold on by your eyelids. I have no troops to give you, and you must do the best you can.” Here, in a district 250 miles long and with a population of two millions, he managed to control whatever forces tended towards anarchy. Berar was a barrier between upper India and the dominions of the Nizam, and so its integrity was of the first importance. In this critical position the popularity of Meadows Taylor went for half the battle. His knowledge of Mahratti and his insight into Indian life and character were as useful as regiments of troops. On the quelling of the Mutiny his work was handsomely recognized; and he was given the post of commissioner of Shorapur, his old district, which the urgency of the rebellion had compelled him to leave. Here confusion had come with the Mutiny. The youthful Rajah whom in his childhood Meadows Taylor had tried hard to guide aright, had joined the mutineers. He was captured and under sentence of banishment, when he died by his own hand. In 1860, after waiting for the settlement of affairs in Shorapur, Meadows Taylor was compelled, by illness, to leave India. Continued weakness made his resignation imperative, and from this date his life of retirement in Europe was devoted to literature.
Twice only in his long career was Meadows Taylor able to begin writing: during his early furlough of three years ending in 1840, and during his enforced retirement after 1860. Literary work was to him a mere pastime; and seldom to any author has an established reputation come with so little effort. But his whole career in India was a preparation for the type of literary work in which he was destined to excel; and he came finally to the illustration of Indian life, character and history with an unrivalled and intimate knowledge of his subject. In 1837, after a sharp attack of fever, he occupied his convalescence by writing a few chapters of the Confessions of a Thug. The subject was one that had always fascinated him. He had been one of the pioneers in the investigation of Thuggee; and during the period of Colonel Sleeman’s special duty, he had assisted in compiling reports from various informers. No better subject could have been chosen than this extraordinary form of crime. Thuggee had been brought to the notice of the whole civilized world, which by the year 1832 was roused to horrified curiosity by Colonel Sleeman’s disclosures. To write on this subject, therefore, was to provide an amount of first hand material that any publisher would have been quick to exploit. Begun as if by accident, the manuscript as it progressed, called for more. The whole work was taken on the famous voyage to England; and when the Taylors had completed their adventurous journey as far as Malta, the book was handed over to a relative to avoid the delay of quarantine. The latter gave the manuscript to Bentley, the publisher, who had some connection with the court. The work was shown to Queen Victoria who became intensely interested in the tale, and had sent to her the proof sheets as they were revised. This was a fortunate start for any author; and Meadows Taylor soon found himself drawn into a vigorous current of literary activity. In 1839 he writes “The Confessions had been received with much greater interest and success than I had ever ventured to hope for. It was curious to hear people wondering over the book and discussing it. Evidently the subject was a new sensation to the public. I was asked to write another book which should take the place of a historical novel, and become the forerunner of a series of such Indian works and Tippu Sultan was chosen as the subject.” Here then was the origin of Meadows Taylor’s literary career. A startling journalistic success, based upon the sensationalism of Thuggee, led to various offers from publishers and the projection of a historical novel. This work, along with the Confessions, was completed before the author returned to India on the termination of his first furlough.
The circumstances in which the Confessions were produced made a certain “artlessness” almost inevitable. The work reads rather as a fascinating narrative of events directly observed than as a skilfully constructed tale. Indeed the book can scarcely be classed amongst works of fiction, as the main events described were all actual facts. What the imagination of the author supplied, served merely as a connecting link to each essential episode. Ameer Ali, the central figure of the story, was one of the Thug informers whom Meadows Taylor had to interrogate in the Nizam’s territory. He had been concerned directly in the murder of seven hundred and nineteen people; and in the investigation of Thuggee, his confessions were amongst the most sensational of all the disclosures made. To describe the activity of a character like this over a period of years was, in the nature of the case, to produce a work of progressive and arresting interest; and so the Confessions of a Thug owes its success to the skilful and truthful presentation of an absorbing subject. The central figure moves relentlessly from one hideous scene of bloodshed to another; and the horror of it all is intensified by his extraordinarily human features. Ameer Ali is no ghoul or demon begotten of Eastern romance, no such figure as Vathek provides, but a man moved by like passions with ourselves---a lover, a father and at times something of a sentimentalist. He revelled in the pageantry of war and recognized the romance of the freebooter’s age in which he lived. But when it came to killing, his spirit was as relentless as steel. The naiveté of his attitude to crime cannot be better illustrated than in his admission that he had killed seven hundred and nineteen people, but that had he not been in prison twelve years, the number would have been a thousand. It would be useless to reflect deploringly upon depravity of this kind. The man comes within no moral catalogue. In the exercise of his trade, he is simply non-moral, and makes capital stuff for the weaving of the fabric of romance. There is little in the Confessions that does not bear strictly upon the central figure. Ameer Ali holds the writer and the reader from start to finish: and, whatever digressions are allowed from the main theme, are strictly subordinated to the scheme of the story. The continuous record of murder is relieved by the stirring account of the Pindaree raids when Chetoo, the freebooter, was joined by the Thug. Here the author reveals for the first time that love of the picturesque in eastern military life that found completer illustration in his later novels.
The Confessions established no literary tradition. In his second work, Tippu Sultan, produced in 1840 immediately after the appearance of the first, Meadows Taylor had a different subject and a different method. In this venture he became a conscious literary artist working out a scheme suggested to him by his publisher: he was no longer the absorbed recorder of events that had come within his own observation. The career of Tippu Sultan had roused much interest in England; and the chief campaigns of the English against Mysore were still within living memory. Meadows Taylor took up the task of weaving a romance round this historical material, and at once got into touch with those who could give him first-hand information. He was granted an interview with the Duke of Wellington who, when in India, had official relations with the family of Tippu. How interesting in the autobiography is the record of his conversation with the great soldier: "His memory was perfectly clear, and he had forgotten nothing in regard to his own part in the first Mahratta war. He told me the Confessions had fairly taken him back to India." The events described in the new novel, which was rapidly completed, were within living memory. The action of the story lies between the year 1782 and 1799: that is the period of the second, third and fourth Mysore wars when Tippu, the successor of Hyder Ali, fought against the British and was overthrown during the Governor-Generalship of Lord Wellesley. The main historical events mentioned in the novel are as follows
The last two military campaigns have not been exhaustively described by Meadows Taylor. As he himself said, they were of too recent a date to lend themselves to imaginative treatment. Some of the earlier events in the career of Tippu, notably the attack upon Travancore, have called forth the author’s best descriptive efforts; but his representation of these events is not so much historical as imaginative, presenting to his English readers the pomp and magnificence of the princes of southern India, and the extravagant disorder of their military operations. Most of the important historical events of the period have been embodied in the novel, but they are a mere background against which the characters move in the romantic setting created by the varied and unsettled life of their time. At no period in the history of India was the country more restless. Central government had disappeared; and amid the general anarchy, a few temporarily powerful princelings were wrangling for recognition and sovereignty. Not only so, but India had become the eastern battle ground of two mighty European nations who, until the supremacy of one of them had been determined, increased the confusion resulting from the decay of the Mogul Empire. French influence had been vigorously revived with Napoleon’s initial successes in Egypt; and the union of the southern Indian princes with France might have involved the expulsion of the British from India. That the latter achieved decisive success, was due to the dazzling victory of Nelson at the battle of the Nile, and to the firm diplomacy of Lord Wellesley. At this time India was passing through her last terrible phase of political anarchy and social misery, before the peace of British rule came upon her like a benediction. It was a period the record of which gave the fullest possibilities to the novelist: such a period as Sir Walter Scott, or Alexander Dumas, would have loved to re-create for the modern world.
In his presentation of the history and life of Mysore, the method of Meadows Taylor resembles that of those greater masters. Amid events already historical, and needing little of the novelist’s art to increase their attraction for the reader, his characters have been created and made to illustrate the life and manners of their age. The story has been given the sustained interest of a double romance through which are connected the lives of English and Indian men and women. But the real interest of the novel lies, not in the development of its plot, but in the vivid portrayal of certain types. The warlike nature of the age is skilfully presented in the characters of Abdul Rahman Khan and the youthful Kasim Ali, capable soldiers of fortune and with something of the chivalry of medieval knighthood. Peculation, oppression and low cunning are impersonated in Jaffar. Ameena and the intriguing ladies of the Khan’s harem provide that atmosphere of romance indispensable to the sustained interest of a novel. The whole moving life of the Indian road-way, where high and low jostle in company, is admirably portrayed. We hear the gossip of the cook, the whispered confidences of the waiting-women, and all the wrangle of the camp. The disturbed state of the country is illustrated by the description of the Mahratta raid when blazing homes and murdered villagers were encountered in the march of the Khan from Hyderabad to Mysore. While the hero of the tale may be Kasim Ali, the young Patel, the sinister figure of Tippu towers above all others and compels our interest and curiosity. There is no need to question the accuracy of the novelist’s presentation of this character. History has nothing worthy to record of “the Tiger of Mysore;” and in addition to the historical fact, there was the personal evidence of the Duke of Wellington to assist the author in securing a truthful portrait. He has been shown to the reader in court and in camp, and in his private and public life. There is nothing to admire in him save a certain quality of physical courage and an abundance of animal vigour. These qualities appealed to the many soldiers of fortune who thronged his court; but their leader’s appalling cruelty and superstition revolted the best of these men who found Tippu a miserable creature in the final crisis of his fortunes. But his court and his state were gorgeous, and have been re-created in the pages of the novelist with a wealth of extravagant detail. There are parts of the story that move like a pageant to the sound of military trumpets, and everywhere there is profusion of colour.
The production of two successful novels during a period of furlough and recreation was enough to justify some respite. On his return to India the constant strain of official duty before and after the Mutiny made literary work impossible; and not until 1860 was Meadows Taylor able to continue those imaginative studies of Indian history that began with Tippu Sultan. The series foreshadowed by this work included the following novels
These works illustrate the great modern periods of Indian history at exact intervals of one hundred years. Of the three Tara was the most ambitious, and its success was considerable. One other novel, A Noble Queen, with Chand Bibi as heroine, was produced in 1875. If his many contributions to the Times on political subjects be excluded, a brief history of India completes the list of his literary works. This was written in order to provide for the student and the general reader a single narrative of the main events of Indian history in an accessible form. The work was published in 1871 after two years of patient study and research.
The circumstances in which Tara was written are full of interest. Towards the close of the year 1861 Meadows Taylor’s leave in England had expired; but, as his health had failed to improve, he was compelled most reluctantly to resign his service. This was an unexpected hardship for one whose interests were centred in the people of India, and it was aggravated by the fact that his mental energy appeared to be seriously impaired. Any attempt to write had the most exhausting effect, and he was compelled to set aside his many early plans for literary work. Fortunately this condition did not continue long. His physician permitted him to attempt to begin writing; and, in the experiment then allowed, Tara was begun and completed. In this connection the record of the autobiography is full of interesting details. Meadows Taylor writes: “The incidents and actions of the story had been planned for nearly twenty years; and I knew all the scenes and localities described, as I had the story in my mind during my visit to Bijapur and had noted the details accurately. My long residence in an entirely Native State, and my intimate acquaintance with the people, their manners, habits and social organisation, gave me opportunities which I think few Englishmen have ever enjoyed, of thoroughly understanding Indian life.” The completion of the new novel was hastened by one of the author’s friends who said that, as the plot was clearly in his mind, he should have it written out chapter by chapter. After six hours unremitting work, a complete sketch of the whole tale was made, and the details were afterwards filled in. The author then writes: “After this, I felt sure of my object, and wrote confidently, but very slowly, for my brain had not yet regained its full strength; but the occupation interested me, and was a source of infinite delight.” The book was accepted by Blackwood and published in 1863. It was most favourably received. The leading journals were generous in their praise; and the author, as he himself records, was delighted at the warmth of his reception after an absence of more than twenty years from the world of letters. Tara is the largest and most ambitious of all Meadows Taylor’s works, and upon it his reputation as a novelist must rest. It is strange that a work of such design and elaborate finish should have been, as it were, the plaything of a period of convalescence. The Confessions of a Thug was begun after an attack of fever; and Tara, the most comprehensive novel of Indian life ever written by an Englishman, was planned and completed while the author was recovering from a condition of health that had compelled him to resign his service in India.
The Deccan seems to have had a peculiar fascination for Meadows Taylor. At the close of his autobiography he stated that, when the story of his life was finished, he hoped to revert to the romantic and medieval period of Deccan history, and to write in illustration of it a novel the plot of which he had been considering. This work was done in A Noble Queen published in 1875, of which Chand Bibi was the heroine. In this, and in Tara, the illustration of Deccan history, long desired by the author, has been amply and brilliantly accomplished. The period of Tara was that of the middle of the seventeenth century when the Mahomedans of the Deccan weakened by their struggle with the Moguls of Delhi, had become exposed to the attack of the Mahrattas. The historical events described in the novel do not extend over any lengthy period of time. The action of the story is concentrated within the year 1657: when Ali Adil Shah was on the throne of Bijapur; when intrigues between his nobles and the Mogul court had weakened his authority; and when Sivaji had come forward as the acknowledged leader of the Mahratta Confederacy. With these events as a background, the novel provides a comprehensive and detailed picture of contemporary life. As the autobiography shows, Meadows Taylor had long pondered the theme of Tara, and the story has every sign of elaborate and careful planning. The action of the tale is developed almost as symmetrically as the plot of a drama, and falls naturally into four main divisions. A brief synopsis of each will show the scope of the novel and the extent of its illustration of the life of the time.
Section One.---The story opens with an intimate description of upper class Hindu life and introduces Tara, the heroine. The character of her parents, Vyas Shastri and his wife Anunda, are portrayed with sympathy and accuracy. Anunda stands forth as the ideal type of Hindu matron finding her Mahomedan counterpart later in the story. Tara’s dedication to the goddess Kali; the entrance of Gunga, the temple girl, with Moro Trimmul the priest; and the arrival in the Shastri’s home of Radha, the second wife whose previous connection with Sivaji had been kept secret by her brother Moro Trimmul, at once provide the nucleus of romantic interest and plot. The story is essentially one of Hindu life; and, while other contrasted elements are introduced later, the central theme remains undisturbed. Had the author produced nothing more than the series of pictures contained in these first eight chapters, he would have earned his reputation as a sympathetic observer of the domestic and religious ritual of Hinduism.
Section Two.---The story now changes abruptly and the warlike note is struck for the first time. Golap Singh and Pahar Singh represent the freebooters of the period, secure in their hill fortresses and acknowledging the right of the sword alone. In sharp contrast is the sleek and unscrupulous Lalla Tulsi Das. With stolen papers of value he had travelled from the Mogul court and found adventures little to his taste. Captured by Pahar Singh’s men he at once became a valuable prize, as the papers he had stolen revealed treason at the court of Ali Adil Shah. Here the author shows great dramatic power and great breadth of outlook upon life. The writer who can describe the scene where Tulsi Das falls into the hands of Golap Singh and his men-at-arms, and later when he has to face Pahar Singh, the robber chief, captures at a stroke the confident interest of his readers. But these scenes are as yet only preliminary to the fuller development of the plot in the third and largest division of the novel.
Section Three.---Once more the story changes abruptly and introduces upper class Mahomedan life in Bijapur. Fazil, the son of Afzal Khan, and his sister Zyna are idealised types beautifully portrayed. With their stepmother, Lurlee Khanum, the counterpart of the Hindu Anunda, they have been made to represent in great accuracy of detail a Mahomedan household of wealth and dignity. So carefully has this been done that the interest of the Hindu family of the Shastri is for the time eclipsed, and the reader moves in a new world of Islamic romance. The whole political life of the time is described. The Vazier of Bijapur and Jehandur Beg represent the secret influence of the Mogul court in southern India. In this atmosphere of intrigue, for the first time in the tale both Hindu and Mahomedan characters are brought together. This has been accomplished with great skill in the famous scene in the temple. Through the capture of Tulsi Das, treasonable papers implicating the Vazier and Sivaji had been discovered by Pahar Singh, the robber chief. The latter, in the disguise of a Yogi, accompanied Tulsi Das to a temple near Bijapur where they were met by the King and his secretary. This meeting was secretly witnessed by Fazil Khan and his Hindu friend Bulwunt Ray. The whole incident is of the very essence of romance, and recalls many a scene in the novels of Sir Walter Scott. Here are grouped the representatives of every faction in the State: Pahar Singh, the independent freebooter, owning no allegiance; Tulsi Das, the trembling and avaricious scribe of the Mogul court; Ali Adil Shah, the chivalrous King of Bijapur; Fazil Khan, the faithful young Mussalman, watching from without and attended by his Hindu retainer Bulwunt Ray. The scene ends in a swift mingling of noble and base passions characteristic of the age. Pahar Singh’s promise of allegiance to the young king who faced him boldly, contrasts strangely with his brutal treatment of the miserable Lalla whose murder was prevented only by the timely interference of the indignant Fazil Khan. The outcome of the discovery of the plot leads to the execution of Jehandur Beg, the enemy of Fazil and his father; to the king’s public exposure of treason and to the declaration of war upon Sivaji whose daring spy, Maloosray, had been busy in the city, and whose attempt to foster the Mogul power in order to make himself supreme in Bijapur had been discovered in the papers stolen by Tulsi Das. At this stage the various threads of the narrative are skilfully drawn together; and from this point the Hindu and Mahomedan elements of the story are interfused.
Section Four.---The tale now returns to the original theme; and Tara is again shown in the service of the Temple of Tooljapur. The character of Moro Trimmul, who combined the functions of priest and political spy, is now more fully developed. He is the real villain of the story. In contrast with violent robbers like Pahar Singh who had at least some nobility of character, he appears in the most sinister light, devoid of truth and honour, false to his faith and a victim of the basest passions. The king’s declaration of war upon Sivaji had one terrible result, the sacking of Tooljapur and the desecration of the temple by the troops of Afzal Khan. The scene is one of horror, butonly too true in its representation of the life of the time. In this massacre the household of Vyas Shastri is scattered. Tara is carried off by Moro Trimmul and rescued by Fazil, the son of the Mahomedan leader, in whose home she finds refuge. At this stage the contrasted types of Hindu and Mahomedan womanhood are carefully described. There is much here of idealisation; but the description of Zyna, the daughter of Lurlee Khanum, in her relations with Tara gives a picture of domestic happiness and peace that contrasts delightfully with the wild and passionate life that surges without the walls of the Khan’s residence. At this point for the first time Sivaji comes prominently forward. The declaration of war by Ali Adil Shah found the Mahratta leader acknowledged by the whole confederacy. Maloosray, the spy, appears to the assembled Mahrattas and tells of the desecration of the temple of Tooljapur and of the projected Mahomedan invasion. Concerted action at once results, and the host of Afzal Khan is lured into the mountainous Mahratta country. Sivaji’s passionate attachment to his mother, and the superstitious awe surrounding his reputation, are cleverly shown. His meeting with the Khan alone at the fortress and his terrible act of treachery have never been better described. The horror and pathos of the scene are heightened by the fact that Afzal Khan has already won the respect and admiration of the reader by his chivalry and skill in war. The reverse now suffered by the Mahomedans once more throws Tara into the power of Moro Trimmul; and the distracted girl, to save her honour, declares herself Sati. The events of the story now move to a swift conclusion. The family of the Shastri, scattered at the sack of Tooljapur, are reunited, but only in time to discover their beloved daughter’s intention. At the last moment when the fatal rites had been prepared and Moro Trimmul was awaiting the consummation of his vengeance, Fazil Khan with his men disguised as Mahratta troopers, swept down on the crowd and carried off the victim, slaying Moro Trimmul. The marriage of Tara with the young Mahomedan noble follows; and this need not be regarded as improbable in the light of the history of the Moguls who were accustomed to take Hindu Rajput wives.
In this ambitious work Meadows Taylor reached the height of his power as a writer of fiction; and at the same time he exhausted the vigour of his oriental inspiration. The two later novels, Ralph Darnell and Seeta, dealing with the period of Clive and of the Mutiny, are less convincing in their appeal to the reader. The first deals with a period somewhat alien to the author’s sympathy; and the second treats of facts that were much too recent to admit of artistic and imaginative handling. Ralph Darnell is a long novel in five sections of which the two first are devoted to descriptions of English life in the middle of the 18th century. The remainder tell the story of Suraj-ud-Dowlah, the tragedy of the Black Hole and the rise of the English power up to the time of Plassey. Incident there is in plenty; and one vein of eastern romance runs through the last three sections in which the Afghan concubine of the Nawab is a living, if not an historic, figure. Seeta does not profess to give a detailed history of the Mutiny, but deals with the essential features of the rebellion as observed by a contemporary. The work has passages of arresting interest when the author is dealing with facts that came directly under his own observation. There is a splendid description of a criminal character, and of an organized dacoity followed by the record of a trial that is of great interest in the light of present day conditions. But if these events are eliminated, there is little of value in the book.
The idealistic picture of the marriage of a high-minded English official with a Brahmin girl fails to convince the reader; and the story ends on a note of conventional romance with the hero safe in England. A Noble Queen, the last of Meadows Taylor’s novels, does not follow the historical sequence of its three predecessors, but harks back to a time when Elizabeth was on the throne of England. The heroine is the historic Chand Bibi whose court-life and campaigns are described with a zest that holds the attention of the reader. The Portuguese figure largely throughout the work, and much care has been given to the character of the ecclesiastical adventurer, Dom Diego, who falls in the siege of Ahmednaggur. There arc many portraits of a purely idealistic type; but the work has a certain charm of its own, and is unique in attempting to describe a period of Indian history but little investigated.
The career of Meadows Taylor as a man of letters is such as might be expected from an officer with literary and historical interests, whose chief concern was the immediate duty of his administrative work. This he put first at all times. His autobiography reveals nothing more interesting than his renunciation of a remunerative and attractive literary career in 1840, when the Confessions had established his fame. This renunciation was a fortunate thing for India; but it delayed for the long period of twenty years the fruition of his literary talent; and made impossible his cherished scheme of illustrating the main periods of Indian history until such time as his mental vigour was in decline. In themselves, his three last novels produced between the years 1865 and 1875 would not have established his reputation; and these may be conveniently overlooked in any final estimate of his work as a writer of fiction. The Confessions were deservedly successful in their portrayal of a life of criminality that had recently startled the civilized world. But a greater service than this was done to literature by the narrative of the adventures of the Thug. Perhaps without conscious intention, Meadows Taylor had in his first literary venture, definitely ranged himself with those writers to whom fact was more than fancy, and to whom the East was something more tangible than a nebulous world of romance. If we remember what books dealing with the East were in vogue in the early 19th century, our sense of gratitude to Meadows Taylor will be increased. Beckford in 1782 had written his extravagant Vathek; and he was followed by Southey and Moore who had taken up eastern themes. The first expounded Indian religion in two incredibly dull poems; and the second warbled soothingly of Mogul court life in Kashmir. The orient of these writers was no more eastern, than was Horace Walpole’s residence at Strawberry Hill a Gothic structure. But at last, in 1824, a decisive blow was struck at all the false sentiment attaching to an East as little understood as visited, when James Justinian Morier launched upon the world his immortal hero, Hajji Baba of Ispahan. Here at last was the oriental Gil Blas, naked and unashamed. Sir Walter Scott, who never lost touch with the facts of life, declared in the Talisman that Morier had described eastern manners with the fidelity and humour of LeSage and the ludicrous power of Fielding himself.
In the year of Hajji Baba’s appearance William Brown Hockley was compelled to leave India; but in his retirement he published two novels, Pandurang Hari and Tales of the Zenana. Both are works of outspoken realism. The first presents a character of true eastern type, and of a naiveté in things moral that would not have inconvenienced Amir Ali himself. The story moves rapidly, and in its progress holds the interest of the reader from start to finish. The second book is a series of tales, likewise devoted to realism, that illustrate various aspects of Indian character. For its scheme this work is indebted to the Arabian Nights, but the stories are original and of a delightful piquancy. The fate of these two books has not been happy; and now they are known only to the curious; but in the time of Meadows Taylor they were popular in Western India, and in his preface to the Confessions he refers specially to Pandurang Hari as a work that depicts faithfully the thoughts, manners and customs of the Indian people. With Morier and Hockley the author of the Confessions must be classed. All three followed the tradition of the picaresque novel which, from the time of the Elizabethans has been one of the delights of English fiction. The name denotes vigour, movement and incident. It derives from the Spanish word for a rogue; and in the Moll Flanders of Defoe its connotation is elaborately and lovingly developed. Into no class of literature could Amir Ali, the Thug, be more appropriately introduced; and the success of his appearance was due in part to the earlier and triumphant entry of the immortal Hajji Baba of Ispahan.
With the publication of Tippu Sultan in 1840 Meadows Taylor ceased to adhere to the methods of the picaresque novel. His new theme had been, as it were, thrust upon him by an enterprising publisher, and he had come somewhat unwillingly to his task. But the work gradually absorbed his interest, and made possible the more elaborate tale of Tara which was planned originally at the time of the completion of Tippu Sultan. Both works rank definitely as historical novels and upon them his reputation as a delineator of India’s past must rest. His new method involved adherence to the main facts of history, the truthful presentation of Indian manners and customs that change little from age to age, the creation of characters to illustrate fully the life of their time, and the production of certain idealised types setting forth human nature as it ought to be, rather than as it is. This method involved a complete departure from the traditions of Morier and Hockley; but in illustration of India’s varied life, Meadows Taylor continued to create many a minor character of startling vitality and convincing realism.
When Tara was first planned, Sir Walter Scott had been dead for only seven years; and one cannot fail to trace the influence of his style and method upon the author of Tippu Sultan. The latter subject had attracted the great novelist who touched upon the history of Mysore in the Surgeon’s Daughter. For any writer of historical romance to escape his influence in the year 1840, would have been impossible; and Meadows Taylor learned in the school of Scott to conjure up the past as a romantic picture, to create alternately the ideal and the realistic human type, and, whenever the temptation offered, to abandon himself to the delight of recalling the pageantry and the glamour of an oriental court. With his great teacher he had much in common. Both were busy men of affairs to whom literature was, at least to begin with, a gentlemanly pastime. Both loved the outdoor life and both were sportsmen. A simple dignity of purpose marked the character of both; and this has been beautifully expressed by Meadows Taylor when, at the close of his life, he referred to his literary work and wrote: “I wanted to bring India nearer to England---to bring its people nearer to our people; and if, by my simple descriptions of life among the natives any have felt more interest in their Indian brothers and sisters, or have been led to read and study more, my object has been attained.”
T. O. D. DUNN.
Calcutta.