TWO PICTURESQUE FIGURES IN THE JUBILEE.
WE wonder how many of the millions who will gaze at the Jubilee Procession will appreciate the historic marvel of some of its separate incidents. Take, for instance, the presence of Raja Pertab Singh, or Sir Pertab Singh, as barbarian heralds presume to call him, who is to ride, it is said, close to the Prince of Wales as one of his aides-de-camp. Pertab Singh, Premier and Regent of Jodhpore, represents a house which is the quintessence and pride of Hindooism, which contests with the house of Oodeypore the positive primacy in the Hindoo world, a primacy belonging, by the consent of all Hindcos, to one of these two families, which alike claim to be descended from Rama, and therefore from the gods. His family have been reigning as Sovereign Princes in Jodhpore. Rajpootana, for more than five hundred years, but ages before that they were obeyed by the Rahtore clan in Kanauj, the ancient Hindoo kingdom on the upper waters of the Ganges; and. even if they never aided Porus, which is the legend, they are older as independent Chiefs with power of life and death than any European house or any Asiatic except the Mikado of Japan. In India dignity springs primarily from antiquity of birth. and the Solar Race, as they style themselves, are prouder than Bourbons ; regarded the descendants of Timour, while they still reigned as the Great Moguls, as only 'upstart adventurers ; and must, we fear, regard the intruding English, in their own words, as "clouds that obscure the sun of Hindooism,"—works of God indeed, but works which of necessity will speedily pass away. It is said—we do not vouch for the story, but it is inherently probable—that the gentlemen who settle those high matters were only half aware of the rank of Pertab Singh, and decided that as he was not a reigning Prince, he must ride in the Procession after men who held that position, but whom he regarded as immeasurably his inferiors. The proud R,ajpoot would instantly have returned to India to brood for the rest of his life over the indignity ; but the Prince of Wales, who comprehends such pride, and perhaps sympathises with it—for, after all, neither the Guelfs nor the Coburgs are new people —heard of the difficulty, and settled it at once by giving the Raj poot Chief an honorary post in his own household. So a Chief who may be accepted by all men as repre- senting the heads of Hindooism will ride in the pro- cession of his own free will as directly belonging to the train of the future Emperor of Hindostan. The world, if you will think of it, has hardly witnessed a more picturesque incident than that since Zenobia walked behind Aurelian's chariot, and she had been conquered, which the Solar Race never has been. It is the voluntary character of the attendance which makes it so interesting. In a cold little island of the Atlantic the Empress of India leads a procession in her own honour, and so real is her authority, and yet so light and so well appreciated, that a Prince of the Solar Race—which refused a bride to a Mogul Emperor as altogether too low a suitor—the .representative of the faith of two hundred and fifty .millions of her subjects, themselves lost to sight in a huge 'peninsula of Asia, considers himself honoured by riding in her train. And no Hindoo will blame his presence, no Hindoo will declare himself misrepresented, no Hindoo, however discontented, will think of declaring— as so many Irishmen, for instance, declare—that the Empress is nothing to him, that the procession is none of his business, that the Regent of Jodhpore would do 'better if he sat sullenly in his palace meditating on the hour of his emancipation. While the Empress reigns let her be honoured, that is the judgment of the Hindoo mind, as well as the utterance of his lips. There must be some kind of political sense among millions who can act in that way ; for though you may call it resignation if you will, still the resignation of a hundred and twenty millions of fighting men, with a creed of their own, and traditions of their own, and a pride that knows no limit, cannot be mere servility to power. That the loyalty or acquiescence or resignation is there is proved by the presence of the Jodhpore Regent, who is, be it remembered, no foolish Princeling, but a man of special ability, who has governed a State larger than Greece thoroughly well, who under- stands alike his countrymen,and England, and who, if he is a courtier at all, is much such a courtier as the old feudal lords were to the English Kings. There are elements in Indian society which Englishmen are too apt to forget, and sometimes when we think of them we doubt whether the British method of obtaining Indian aid is altogether wise, whether we could not obtain from the great families assistance in governing which we shall seek in vain from men without foothold, without traditions, without pride of race, selected by a competitive literary examination. To those who know India it does not seem the best or the safest field for trying democratic experi- ments. If we departed from India, it is not to graduates of the Calcutta universities that power would go, but to men like Pertab Singh, to rough Sikh Sirdars, and to the Generals whom Mussulman society, wherever it is found, so easily throws up.
We hope, too, that the London multitude will cast a kindly glance 'at the Haussa troops. They are not picturesque persons like Pertab Singh, being simply fierce-looking negroes ; but their presence is a remarkable triumph of the English skill in governing. They are Mahommedan negroes from West Africa, and forty years ago they were considered dangerous savages, incapable of civilisation and hostile in their hearts to the intrusion of any civilised Power. Some Governor on the West Coast, however, driven to despair by the want of a cheap acclimatised force, resolved to enlist Hamm& Officers, quite ordinary officers, were set to organise them ; they were properly fed, honestly paid, and only flogged when justice or discipline required that penalty. They at once became excellent soldiers or armed policemen, and ever since they have been as trustworthy as any in her Majesty's service. They never dream of skulking, they will charge when ordered like Europeans or Ghoorka,s, and they will face the fatigues and privations of a campaign as well as Turks. There seems to be literally no reason for dis- trusting them, they like the service, and it would be perfectly possible to raise from among them an African legion of twenty thousand men, at least as good. as any Sepoys ever were. That means that if African negroes are treated with the proper mixture of justice, kindness, and severity, they are willing to follow the English, to die fighting for them, and to maintain, what is far more difficult, an order like that of British troops in garrison. African negroes, in fact, like military discipline, and are civilised by it when the officers are Englishmen. That is a very singular reservoir of power to have tapped, and one which may yet enable us to fulfil our great task in Africa, which is to establish there the Paz Britannica and introduce so much order that unarmed peasants may plough in peace as they do in Bengal, and that unarmed citizens may indulge the taste for trading which exists among the negroes of the whole continent, and is only kept down by the per- manent insecurity of life and property. There is hardly any manufacture so creditable to British skill and per- severance as the Hawes soldier, who, because he receives fair treatment, dies for a Queen who is neither of his continent, his colour, nor his faith, as if he had been born within her own island dominion. He is the best guarantee for the fact which a negro explorer and philanthropist has impressed on us, that wherever he went in Western Africa, negroes of every tribe told him that they were ready to follow the English, who, though violent and headstrong, alone among white men, as they perceived, heartily wished them well. As our special business in this world is ruling its dark masses, that is pleasant testimony, and the Hausa& private as he marches in the Procession is its concrete confirmation.
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