Chapter 60

SATAN (impatiently) to NEW-COMER. The trouble with you Chicago people
is, that you think you are the best people down here; whereas you are
merely the most numerous.
--Pudd'nhead Wilson's New Calendar.

We wandered contentedly around here and there in India; to Lahore, among
other places, where the Lieutenant-Governor lent me an elephant. This
hospitality stands out in my experiences in a stately isolation. It was
a fine elephant, affable, gentlemanly, educated, and I was not afraid of
it. I even rode it with confidence through the crowded lanes of the
native city, where it scared all the horses out of their senses, and
where children were always just escaping its feet. It took the middle of
the road in a fine independent way, and left it to the world to get out
of the way or take the consequences. I am used to being afraid of
collisions when I ride or drive, but when one is on top of an elephant
that feeling is absent. I could have ridden in comfort through a
regiment of runaway teams. I could easily learn to prefer an elephant to
any other vehicle, partly because of that immunity from collisions, and
partly because of the fine view one has from up there, and partly because
of the dignity one feels in that high place, and partly because one can
look in at the windows and see what is going on privately among the
family. The Lahore horses were used to elephants, but they were
rapturously afraid of them just the same. It seemed curious. Perhaps
the better they know the elephant the more they respect him in that
peculiar way. In our own case--we are not afraid of dynamite till we get
acquainted with it.

We drifted as far as Rawal Pindi, away up on the Afghan frontier--I think
it was the Afghan frontier, but it may have been Hertzegovina--it was
around there somewhere--and down again to Delhi, to see the ancient
architectural wonders there and in Old Delhi and not describe them, and
also to see the scene of the illustrious assault, in the Mutiny days,
when the British carried Delhi by storm, one of the marvels of history
for impudent daring and immortal valor.

We had a refreshing rest, there in Delhi, in a great old mansion which
possessed historical interest. It was built by a rich Englishman who had
become orientalized--so much so that he had a zenana. But he was a
broadminded man, and remained so. To please his harem he built a mosque;
to please himself he built an English church. That kind of a man will
arrive, somewhere. In the Mutiny days the mansion was the British
general's headquarters. It stands in a great garden--oriental fashion
--and about it are many noble trees. The trees harbor monkeys; and they
are monkeys of a watchful and enterprising sort, and not much troubled
with fear.