Further Adventures in the Tea Trade

English tea - a neo-colonialist celebration

Tea, apparently, is an evil and disgusting vestige of colonialism, a filthy brew of wickedness emblematic of oppression, racism and exploitation. Leftists and progressives who know imperialism when they see it never touch the stuff. Those that insist on drinking it are reprobates, fascists, villains, and probably homophobes as well.

This is the sort of thing that, as they say, you simply cannot make up. No. In all seriousness, it is a sentiment lifted from an article that appeared in the Guardian – where else? – by a supposed “journalist” Joel Golby written for all those pearl-clutching latte elitists desperately concerned to purge every last trace of colonialism from their miserable, guilt-ridden lives. “Liking tea,” he writes, “has its roots in colonialism…” and we wouldn’t want that, now, would we? The article – no kidding - was a follow up piece to how post-colonial social justice warriors should eliminate HP sauce from their diet! Both items – tea and HP sauce – are – horror of horrors! – British, and in these enlightened times only members of the Nazi Party or the Ku Klux Klan would even consider keeping such things in their kitchen.

The barking mad absurdity of this is unfortunately not isolated nor even a joke. Several posts ago (see here) these pages featured a restaurant in Portland named Saffron Colonial that had fallen foul of the lunatic self-righteousness of joyless cultural Marxists. In that case, the restaurant in question serves fine teas by local tea suppliers - and they may well serve HP sauce too - to accompany a British Empire themed menu. They have attracted protests and petitions, hatred and tantrums, because they dare to serve British food. This has become a favorite battle-field for contemporary Left-wing bullies. Not content with insisting that men sit down to urinate it seems these tedious busy bodies have decided that we must now eliminate all things British from our diet. 

The present author was therefore amused to be walking along in Muslim post-British Langkowi recently when he saw the following restaurant catering to tourists:

This classy and popular establishment is owned and operated by a young hard working Indian family. Not a social justice warrior in sight. The menu features cuisine from British India and celebrates the great diversity of India brought about by historical waves of invaders: Turkoman, Mughul, Portugese, French, British, etc., a heritage of which the Indian owners are proud. The menu also features a selection of excellent teas from the tea plantations of Malaysia, such as those in the Cameron Highlands, which were established, of course, by the British.

Inspired by Mr Golby's unhinged rant about the politically incorrectness of tea drinking, this page is duly dedicated to tea. 

* * * 

First, a note about coffee. In India - most notably Calcutta - tea (chai) is consumed with milk and sugar. It is more a confection than anything else. It is very milky and very sweet, and taken in small earthen cups. In Pe Nang, where the author has been resident for the last month or so, this mode of consumption is reserved for coffee - the renowned Penang White, a unique local speciality. It too is taken more as a confection than as a beverage. 

A 'Penang White', for those coffee connoisseurs who are unaware of it, is made from beans pan-fried in butter and sugar rather than roasted in the usual way. It is then served with condensed milk. It is enjoyed throughout the Prince of Wales Island and is a feature of many coffee establishments in the old quarters of George Town such as the ramshackle cafe on China Street pictured below: 

* * * 

The real joy of George Town, however, is the many Chinese tea houses and tea traders. It will no doubt come as a surprise to the Chinese that tea drinking is a vile colonialist habit to be eschewed and frowned upon by all right-thinking people: the Chinese tradition of tea drinking extends back thousands of years, and even in more recent times the Chinese of George Town (and the wider Malay peninsula) were supporters of the British and enthusiastically embraced British habits. This includes the British manner of preparing tea (the 'Western method'), although the more traditional methods ('Gong Fu') continue as well. 

TWG Tea Salon, Gurney Plaza, George Town.  An up-market store featuring the very finest (and most expensive) teas in the world. 

A traditional Chinese tea house, George Town

Residing in George Town allowed the present writer to explore a full range of fine Chinese teas. There are several categories listed below:

The Chinese character for tea

White Tea - very little processing. More or less fresh tea buds sun dried. Subtle and fresh. Extremely light in flavor. Sometimes with slightly nutty notes.

Yellow Tea - a rare grade of tea once preserved for the Imperial court. A flavor profile in between white and green tea with a lingering sweetness.

Green Tea - young buds and leaves, but unoxidised. Chinese green tea is pan-baked to stop oxyidization. Japanese green tea is steamed. The Japanese style has grassier flavours. The Chinese style is nuttier and more complex, less grassy. Fresh tasting with some astringency and a clean finish on the palette. 

Oolong Tea - semi-oxydized tea with a wide range of flavours depending on the extent of oxidization. Darker grades produce fruity notes. Suitable for serving with food. 

Black Tea - fully (or near fully) oxyidized tea. The Chinese refer to it as "hong cha" = red tea, because the liquor it produces is reddish. The most common grade of tea drunk in the West. Full flavoured. 

Pu Erh Tea - fermented dark teas. Often fermented for ten or more years. Very earthy flavours. These teas are a real joy - hearty with complex flavours - but can be quite expensive. 

Scented Teas - jasmine tea, rose tea, Earl Grey etc. 

The author's tea set with a collection of Chinese teas. Essential equipment when travelling. The small 'buttons' of tea shown are various grades of Pu Erh (fermented) tea. 

* * * 

PREPARING TEA

There are two main methods of preparing tea: the traditional oriental method – called Gong Fu (or 'Kung Fu', a term that merely indicates a subject of study that requires ritual and patience) – and the modern Western method. Everyone is familiar with the latter. You put some tea leaves in a tea pot, pour over boiling water, let it sit for a few minutes, then it is ready. This can be refined in several ways, such as by using high-quality loose leaf tea, and by using water at the optimum temperature and steeping for the optimum duration, but it is essentially a straight-forward method that requires little expertise. Gong Fu is rather more elaborate, an art, but it is not a difficult art to master. Below are some notes on preparing tea according to the traditional method:

GONG FU

1. Pour hot (not boiling*) water over the leaf tea to clean it. Dispense with the water immediately. This cleans and softens and activates the leaves.

2. Pour hot (not boiling) water over the leaves a second time. Let stand for about thirty seconds. 

3. Pour into a small cup. Drink. (You should "slurp" tea, taking plenty of air into the mouth when drinking. This maximizes flavour.) 

4. Repeat steps 2. and 3. for a second cup. 

Most good teas can be used for six or seven or more infusions. Each infusion will be slightly different. The idea is to taste the tea in small cups over many infusions to extract and experience the full flavour profile of the tea. 

In the 'Western method' the tea is left to infuse for two minutes or more and all of the flavours are extracted at once. In the 'Gong Fu Method' the flavours are extracted in a series of short infusions which are sampled from small tasting cups.

* = most grades of tea should be infused in water at about 80-90 deg.C., which is to say just under boiling point.  

Note: One of the surest ways to improve enjoyment of any tea is to purchase loose leaf tea from a single tea estate rather than a blend of teas from many estates. This will cost extra and only speciality stores will be able to oblige, but it makes a great difference. Tea from one location differs in flavour from tea from other locations. 'Blends' even out these differences are produce a uniform product. 

* * * 

The secret of tea is this: that while a stimulant, it is – quite unlike coffee – internalizing. It both stimulates and relaxes. This is the attribute of tea first discovered by the Chinese and adapted to the typical temperament of oriental spirituality. Coffee, by contrast, is an externalizing stimulant. It was, accordingly, adapted to the quite different spiritual temperament of the Saracens, namely an outward-looking and active mode of contemplation compared to the more quietist internalizing contemplation of the Far East. 

This is to generalize, certainly, but everything the present author has seen on his long journeys both recent and past confirm it. In the Sino-Asiatic world in which he is currently travelling, tea has historically been regarded as a spiritual adjunct, aside from its social roles. In the Near East and other parts of the Muhammadan world by extension, coffee tends to play this part; it has historically been used as a stimulant by the Soofis and the Irfans and assorted Islamic mystics. As a stimulant it is better adapted to the typical modes of Muhammadan spiritual life. These modes are externalist. The Muhammadans, for instance, do not have an institution of monasticism and world-renunciation, nor practices of internalizing meditation. As a stimulant – paradoxical though this seems – tea is better suited to the internalized modes of oriental spiritual life. It was for this reason that tea was revered as the fabled “celestial drink” of legend - a sacred drink - before it became a common beverage. The remarkable property of the drink is that it both stimulates and elevates.

We might compare the different modes of stimulation of coffee and tea, Islamic and oriental, with, say, the different narcotic properties of hashish on the one hand and opium on the other, where hashish is 'externalizing' (exciting the senses) and opium is 'internalizing' (dreamy, sleep-inducing). The differences are not absolute, but they are real enough. In general terms we can say that coffee is best adapted to Islamic modes of spiritual practice. Tea, on the other hand, goes naturally with the practices of Taoism, Boodhism and related oriental modes of spirituality. These are not merely historical accidents. The two stimulants, tea and coffee, have different effects upon the human sensorium and upon consciousness itself and so are each adapted to different temperaments. 

* * * 

Yours,

Harper Mc Alpine Black

Saffron Colonial - British Colonial Cuisine

A new café and bakery opened in Portland Oregon recently, catching this writer’s attention, even though he currently resides a thousand miles away. The new establishment has become notorious and is subject to media reports because it is the victim of on-going protests from leftist Thought Police who have taken exception to its theme: British colonial food. The restaurateurs are qualified chefs with extensive training and experience in fine restaurants in Paris and elsewhere and who happen to specialize in the diverse cuisines of the British empire. They have a deep professional interest in the historical synthesis of British foods with the more exotic fare of  the many lands that were once under British imperial dominion. Their restaurant, Saffron Colonial Café, at 4120 North Williams Ave, Portland, has a menu constructed around this theme, along with appropriate furnishings and decorations.

This, however, is simply too much for local Leftists. They have organized petitions and pickets and have taken to confronting and harassing customers on the grounds that all things to do with the British Empire are odious and taboo. The menu is simply too politically incorrect. They have urged the owners to change the name of the place and to eradicate all references to the Evil Empire from the menu. Thus far the owners have resisted. It is in celebration of this feat of brave resistance to leftist bullying that this page is devoted to promoting Saffron Colonial. 

Of course, the present author has not had the pleasure of enjoying either the ambience or the food, but would love to if ever he ventures to Portland. This post is a sort of endorsement in absentia. The fusion of British-influence with local cuisine has been a constant delight in his recent travels. British food on its own, to be frank, has a well-deserved reputation as bland, stodgy and uninspiring, but if you pepper this with the tastes of Hindoostan, or Ceylon, or the Malay Peninsula, it comes to life. The imperial experience has certainly done the British table some good. Conversely, native cuisine is often tamed and broadened and given both body and finesse by exposure to colonial tastes.

The self-indulgent intolerant stupidity of trying to close down a restaurant because it serves British food is yet another example of the political decay of American leftist culture and needs no further comment. We are happy to report, instead, that the reviews for Saffron Colonial are good. Leftist trolls have attempted to sabotage the review pages, but professional review sites such as Yelp have managed to filter them out. Reviews, with pictures, links and samples of the menu follow:

You can visit Saffrom Colonial online at:

Saffron Colonial

And the menu is here:

Saffron Colonial Menu

If you are in Portland, and feeling peckish, ignore the line of angry, unhappy Leftists in the street and venture in to enjoy the food, fine tea and pleasant company. 

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

The Forgotten Queens of India

We account for the rise of the modern Indian nation state through the retreat of the British Raj and the decline of the British Empire, but in fact it was more than that: more than a movement for independence among Indians, it was also a movement for republicanism and Indian unity and the end to the many centuries of all the various kingdoms and principalities that had existed as a shifting patchwork in the Hindoostani sub-continent. This was its wider ideological agenda. It was essentially a socialistic national movement - altogether typical of that part of the XXth century - that matched "anti-imperialism" with a liberal egaliatarian nationalist ideology. Independence activists were not only against the British but also, necessarily, against many time-honoured Indian institutions as well. The British Raj had, in fact, been an umbrella over a network of local kings, princes, maharajas, nizams and others. When the Raj ended - more because of the exhaustion of war against the Germans in Europe than because of the merits or methods of so-called 'freedom fighters' in India - the influence of Indian royalty ended as well. Today, the Maharajas have no official power, although many of them continue to be influential, wealthy and widely respected (where they have not degenerated into buffoons or tourist celebrities.) 

A new book, published on the last day of 2015, celebrates the forgotten queens and princesses of the wide lands of Hindoostan. The simple purpose of this post is to recommend it. The book, Maharanis: Women of Royal India, is a collection of exquisite photographs of the women of those royal houses that became officially defunct in 1947. The photographs have been collected from diverse sources and are presented with accompanying essays, mostly concerning the photography and the role of photography in modern Indian history. It is a book, that is, by and for photographers, first and foremost. But it is also a beautiful and timely book for those of us who remain firm in the conviction that royalty and monarchy are worthy expressions of human dignity, embodiments of the sublime, and not just "outmoded forms of inequality" as the envy-driven would have it.

The present writer, in any case, makes no secret of his fondness for royalty as an institution and for monarchy as an element of tradition and government. (The organic principle of monarchy is that the best analogy of the state is a family, not a corporation, not a contractual partnership, not a machine.) This book records and celebrates a dimension of the royal houses of Hindoostan - and some of their marital interconnections with royalty from other lands - that is usually overlooked or has, indeed, been kept from public view. Alas, in contemporary India these women have been replaced by the vamps and tramps of Bollywood - you cannot really abolish aristocracy, you only end up replacing it with secular dynasties and  ill-bred pretenders. 

The photographs are beautiful in themselves, as are the women, but also of interest in the way that royal portraiture developed in India, usually by the adoption of British Victorian conventions. In some cases, though, distinctive Indian traditions intrude, such as conventions borrowed from the traditions of the Moghul miniature, especially among official the court photographers in the larger royal courts in the north of the sub-continent. 

Click on any photograph for an enlarged view.

Thakorani Vijayalakshmi Devi Sahiba of Kotda Sangani, c. 1941 – 1942 

Rani Sethu Parvathi Bayi and Rani Sethu Lakshmi Bayi of Travancore

Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, c. 1960s

Rani Prem Kaur Sahiba of Kapurthala, Hyderabad 1915

Princess Rama Rajya Lakshmi Rana, undated

Princess Rafat Zamani Begum – Bari Begum Sahiba of Rampur, of Najiabad Family, 1960.

Kanchi Bada Maharani Balkumari Devi Rana of Nepal in 1908

Maharani Vijaya Raje Scindia of Gwalior, c. 1940s

Shrimant Maharajkumari Mrunalini Raje Gaekwad of Baroda, the Maharani of Dhar, 1940

Princess Durru Shehvar, Princess of Berar by marriage and Imperial Princess of the Ottoman Empire by birth. c. 1940–1945

Maharani Gayatri Devi of Jaipur, also known as Princess Ayesha of Cooch Behar, 1951.

Maharani Sita Devi of Baroda in 1948

Yours,

Harper McAlpine Black

Huysmans in Damascus (Post-Colonial Reflections)

Jan Baptiste Huysmans - 

Self-portrait of the artist in Damascus

Sitting in a palm-leaf café on the foreshore of the Arabian Sea in southern Goa, the author had a fascinating conversation recently with a native born Goan man. The upshot of it was that regardless of what one might read or hear otherwise, the people of Goa never wanted to be annexed into modern India and were instead eager to remain under the administration of the Portugese. “The Portugese were great,” he said. “Whereas the Indians are corrupt.” 

“But,” the author objected, “weren’t the Portugese quite brutal as rulers?” 

“There were phases, of course,” he said, “but centuries ago. No, no. They were very good to us.”

He then described the Indian annexation of Goa in 1961 as a hostile takeover and compared the situation of the Goans to that of the people of Hong Kong wanting to remain under the British. He shrugged his shoulders. “But the Portugese were no longer in a situation to do anything about it.”

Making a more general point, he said that “people everywhere” liked their colonial rulers, especially the poor, vulnerable and the downtrodden who generally fared much worse under independence. “It’s true in India too,” he said. “Ask the widows and the untouchables.” After independence, he said, corruption ran rampant and is now a permanent state of affairs.

It is a narrative that one can hear in many places in the Third World but which runs exactly counter to the conventional wisdom of the progressive class in the First. Certainly, this author has heard versions of it before – in Indonesia, Malaysia and indeed in India. He was once sitting in a temple in Bangalore, for example, and had a conversation with a young Brahman who cheerfully related how his grandmother just loved the British. “They brought law and order… and tinned food!” he smiled, relating his grandmother’s enthusiasm. But didn’t the Indian masses rally behind Gandhi and Co. clammering for the British to leave? In Bangalore railway station there is a large post-colonial mural of “Freedom Fighters” that lists with gory glee how many British each national hero had killed. “No, no,” he said. “They represented a certain class of financiers who wanted the British gone.” Moreover, he explained – a point also reiterated by the gentleman from Goa in some rather colorful language – they (Gandhi and Co.) stirred up the Muslims, offering promises of Sharia Law and the like, to advance their anti-colonialist cause – a strategy of folly that came back to bite them at Partition and has since created an ever-present monster, an appalling outcome.

Regardless of the particular case, whether Goa, India, Hong Kong or elsewhere, it is always instructive and expansive to encounter narratives and viewpoints concerning the colonial past different to those approved in progressive orthodoxy. In his many years in academia the present author was immersed in an intellectual environment where it was utterly axiomatic – beyond any question whatsoever, beyond the slightest hint of a suggestion - that colonialism and imperalism were, and are, unmitigated evils, and that the European colonialism that shaped the modern world (including the settlement of New South Wales) was a series of crimes that count among the most heinous in the whole of human history. In the new nation states of the post-colonial era one can find this same demonology, of course – especially among educated Leftist elites (who are pretty much the same everywhere) - but in quiet conversations with ordinary people on the street you can also find very different, more honest accounts. 

The state of the world, in any case, speaks volumes against the conventional story. It is plainly, manifestly untrue – glaringly, obviously untrue - that the colonial period was as bad as the period that has followed. In many instances (anyone care to holiday in Zimbabwe these days?) the post-colonial era of squabbling strife-torn corrupt petty nation states ravaged by rogues and dictators has been utterly catastrophic, and the progressive guilt narrative that blames this fact upon the colonial powers – generations after they had gone home – is stretching nonsense to its limits.

The present author cannot help but muse on these matters whenever he casts a mournful eye on newspapers and the obscene tragedy that is the Middle East. Can anyone who has the slightest intellectual objectivity claim that this is better than what prevailed in the colonial era, whether the colonialists were the British, the French or the Ottomans? We have hundreds of detailed first-hand accounts of life in the Levant in the 18th and 19th centuries. Can anyone honestly propose that life then was worst than now? 

The author remembers the jolt it gave to his own view of these issues when he first read Marmaduke Pickthall’s Oriental Travels and Mr.Pickthall’s descriptions of the beautiful and paradisiacal Orient he encountered in the Levant in the late 1800s. More recently the author has been reading the journals of Jan Baptiste Huysman, the Belgian painter, who travelled through Syria in that same era. And yet, for progressives, these ‘Orientalists’ were merely apologists for evil Empires covering up the real narrative of the “people’s” struggle for a glorious era of self-determination. Well, that glorious era has come. We are living in it. 

Once again, the progressive narrative answers by blaming the post-colonial shambles of most of these ugly little nation states upon “neo-colonialist interference” or the like. There is no gainsaying the fact that Arab modernity has been a comprehensive disaster. This is to say nothing of Africa. The failure to take responsibility for their own affairs and a destructive indulgence in victim narratives is a disease that plagues such countries the world over. 

* * * 

Against the horrific scenes the world has seen in Syria in recent years, at the head of this page is a painting by Jan Baptiste Huysmans that depicts his arrival in Damascus in the early 1860s - just to remind us of the world we destroyed in order to be rid of the evils of colonialism. And below are several more paintings by Monseiur Huysmans - an astute, sensitive and sympathetic obsever of fabrics and architecture and people and customs and manners - made during his sojourn in Syria. 

The Interlude

The Champagne Drinkers

A Private Meeting

The Presentation of the Bride

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

Kavanagh of Lucknow

Mr. Kavanagh, a clerk, volunteered last night to go out to Alum Bagh with plans and despatches from Sir James Outram; he disguised himself as a native, and reached the place safely. It was a splendid feat of gallantry and a most invaluable service. All the garrison were much delighted to hear that a flag had been hoisted at Alum Bagh, the signal of his having arrived.

- from The Seige of Lucknow, the diaries of Lady Julia Inglis

There were many instances of gallantry and heroics during the siege of Lucknow in 1857. The context, as is well-known, was the mutiny of Indian – largely Mahometan, but also Hindoo – troops against the Britishers, which led to a widespread uprising during which a compound of British citizens – soldiers, their wives and children - in the so-called ‘Residency’ in Lucknow were stranded and held under siege by a murderous mob for over eighteen months. Their situation was harrowing. Large numbers were killed, either by gunfire and artillery or by hunger and disease. They were surrounded on all sides and their enemy was literally tunneling underneath them. If the walls of the compound had been breached, everyone would certainly have been slaughtered. During this terrible ordeal many of the British, but also those Indian troops (Sepoys) who had remained staunch, and especially the Sikhs who stayed loyal throughout, displayed extraordinary bravery, as did those who endeavored to rescue them.

There are numerous accounts of the siege – it is one of the great dramas of British India. The best account by far is found in the diaries of Lady Julia Inglis, the wife of the officer Brigadier Inglis. She was present in the Residency compound, survived the ordeal and lived to publish her story in England many years later. The present writer was in Lucknow recently and visited the ruins of the Residency and read the diaries of Lady Inglis – vivid and detailed – during his visit. 

Modern Indian mythology knows the mutiny as the ‘First War of Independence’, but it was hardly that. The mutineers were unorganized. The rebellion descended into chaos. Mobs ransacked and looted throughout Lucknow and other cities, and there was no nationalist element to the violence – the rebels in Delhi were intent on re-establishing the Mughul Sultanate, not founding an independent Indian state. Certainly, the uprising was provoked by the gross mismanagement of the East India Company – although the spark that ignited it, as Lady Inglis notes, was a rumor that the British had laced the artillery of the new Enfield rifles with pig fat in order to deliberately offend and violate the Mahometans. 

It is clear, though, that the heroes of the day were the stoic British who displayed remarkable courage, nobility and chivalry in the face of swarming barbarity. The siege and the relief of Lucknow are great moments of British civilization. The British, let it be said (contrary to the popular post-colonial narratives of our benighted times), were one of the last people to maintain a cultivated chivalry, and the siege and relief of Lucknow represent compelling instances of it. If anyone doubts this, they should read the diaries of Lady Inglis, which can be found here. Dignity, nobility, courage, honesty, magnanimity, honour, integrity, virtue, decency, fearlessness, patience, valour, hardihood, strength, good humour - in the most appallingly dire and hopeless circumstances. 

The Relief of Lucknow

* * * 

The most unlikely hero of the siege was a wild Irishman by the name of Thomas Kavanagh. His exact origins are uncertain. He was possibly born in India, but in any case he certainly grew up there and so was fluent in Hindi and well-acquainted with local customs. He was one of that wayward class of British citizens who were not connected to the East India Company or the British government and so had no legitimate place in India – “uncovenented” as such people were called. He was a malcontent with a dull job in a clerical office and, by his own account, a wife and family that gave him no satisfaction in life. He was, in truth, an undistinguished character, a ratbag. When the Mutiny broke out in early 1857 he made his way to the Residency compound for shelter, as did other British citizens in fear of their lives (it being unclear what fate befell his family.) It was during the most desperate days of the siege, however, that he rose to the occasion and won himself a place in history.

At a certain point during the darkest days of the siege information reached the Residency that a relief force had managed to force its way to the outskirts of Lucknow, but there was no way to confirm this. Kavanagh then approached Major Outram, the officer in charge, and volunteered to attempt to reach the relief party, if indeed there was one. His proposal was that he disguise himself as a native and, along with his fluency in Hindi and knowledge of Hindoo and Mahometan ways, pass through the enemy lines. It was a mad plan. But it was the only plan they had. In a famous scene, therefore, Major Outram himself – much to the mirth of the other officers present - applied black boot polish to Mr. Kavanagh and helped him wrap a turban about his head. Kavanagh, readers must appreciate, was over six foot tall and had a shock of ginger Irish hair. He made a very unconvincing Indian. 

Nevertheless, he set off in the middle of the night, accompanied by a loyal Sepoy, and armed only with a pistol and two bullets. His journey that night is the stuff of legend. He was stopped several times by hostile forces and even, at one juncture, taken captive and interrogated. Remarkably, he convinced his captors that he was a Hindoo man returning to Lucknow from far away. Then, he became lost, had to swim across the Goomptee River holding his clothes above his head, ended in a swamp where he nearly drowned, until finally, by sheer accident, he stumbled into a camp of British soldiers under the leadership of Sir Colin Campbell at a place called Alum Bagh. This was the relief party of which Major Outram had received unconfirmed information. Kavanagh had managed to get through. It was a decisive moment. He carried dispatches from Major Outram and with these the relief party was able to assess the situation and plan a rescue for those stranded in the Residency. Kavanagh saved the day. 

Kavanagh of Lucknow

Later, Thomas Kavanagh was given a Victoria Cross for bravery – the first non-military person to ever receive that honor. But this honor aside, in the years that followed he returned to his clerical job and undistinguished life, finally leaving India and travelling to Gibraltar where he died and is buried.

* * * 

The author had the good fortune to spend a long warm morning exploring the ruins of the Residency in Lucknow recently. As Indian historical ruins are concerned, they are very well preserved - haunted by the ghosts of those who died during or endured the horrors of the Mutiny. Indeed, it should be said that the Residency is very tastefully presented with due respect to those who died there and without the imposition of Indian nationalist sentiment upon events. The Residency covers many acres and includes numerous buildings, most of them exactly as they were after the Mutiny. The church of St. Mary has been reduced to its foundations, but the cemetery at its side is well cared for. The mosque which was on the grounds of the Residency and which the British respected throughout the seige is not only still standing but is still occupied and in use. Some photographs follow:

Yours truly,

Harper McAlpine Black

Hashish: The Lost Legend

"Excuse me, sir, hashish?" asked the young Indian man on the corner near the small tumble-down Kali temple. The author had just been sitting in the famous Blue Lassi Cafe in the back alleys of the Benares old city, not far from the Burning Ghats, sipping on a pomegranate lassi and watching as no less than three funeral processions - groups of men carrying a body on a bamboo stretcher - hurried by down to the banks of the Ganges for the cremation. He looked over the young man. "Hashish?" he asked. "Yes sir," said the vendor. And at this the young man produced a large slab of dark brown aromatic hashish putty under which he waved a lit match so that a prospective buyer might smell the authenticity of the goods. He described it as "Afghani." He furthermore explained that the six or seven soldiers seated on the street corner two buildings back, armed with machine guns and other deadly weaponry, were only concerned with terrorists, not tourists.  "This is a holy city, sir," he said. "Bhang is sacred to Lord Shiva." The author was well aware of this fact, but also realised that it is not necessary to purchase the stuff from random Hindoos on the street when it can be procured from government approved bhang stores, of which there is one immediately across from the Blue Lassi Cafe. 

Nevertheless, the episode, and the scent of the hashish, did remind the author of a certain book that may be of interest to readers of this web log. There is, needless to relate, a small library of orientalist literature devoted to hashish, and the author has read the chief volumes. The sensuality of the drug was once synonymous with the sensuality of the east and it was celebrated in prose, poetry and the visual arts as a distinct orientalist theme. Beyond this sensuality, like opium it was renowned as a vehicle of the imagination. 

This, of course, was before prohibition, and before the advent of puritanical Mahometan nation states in the violent and chaotic catastrophe that has been the post-colonial age. Hindoo India has not been immune to this, but a city such as Benares - where the author now resides - resists change and the stupidities of modernity better than most. There has never been prohibition in Benares, although - as the street vendor said - "bhang" was and remains in a sacred rather than merely recreational context. It is a pity, it must be said, that Western hippys and ferals and the useless offspring of baby boomers frequent the city dressed as secular cheesecloth parodies of sadhoos abusing the sanctity of the herb and its celestial oils. 

The book that comes to mind, a classic of the genre, is the rare and intoxicating Hashish: the Lost Legend, by Fritz Lemmermayer, first published 1898. The present author has had the privilege of seeing a hard copy of this wonderful literary gem but was not able to purchase it at the time. Instead, he has had to read the text as an ebook, which is a travesty for such a work. One day, perhaps, when he is flush with cash, a hard copy will come his way. 

Hashish: the Lost Legend is a tale of star-crossed romance between a certain Ali and a voluptuous woman named Zuleyka. They fall in love even though they come from warring tribes. Of course. One day, however, Zuleyka bathes naked in an alleged fountain of youth and is seen by the villainous Rustan who determines to own her for himself. In a time honoured tradition, the evil Rustan raids their wedding, kills half the guests and makes off with the bride. So what is poor Ali to do? He is approached at this point by a certain "Yusuf" who introduces him to hashish, and fired by dreams, he is transformed into a passionate warrior. The story proceeds from there. It is a predictable tale of the oriental type - quasi-oriental, we might say, and an orientalist indulgence in that respect - and more like the plot of an opera than of a novel, but it is a famous book all the same and considered an orientalist treasure. In the genre of romantic hashish tales it deserves a prominent place. It celebrates the hashish dream as a mode of the romantic imagination. A very fine English edition - that rescued the text from Yiddish - was published by Process Books not long ago. 

(The other work that comes to mind here is Paul Verlaine's Hashish & Incense, but it is utterly impossible to find.)

The role of bhang in Shaivite spirituality is a matter for another post. Hashish, in fact, is a particular preparation of bhang and is preferred by the Mahometans rather than by the Hindoos. These things have a particular history and a particular affinity for certain spiritual modes, certain temperaments and certain ethnic propensities. The orientalists were struck by the powers of hashish upon the imagination, which, like all romantics, they regarded as the spiritual faculty par excellence. It does need to be said, though, that this was not a rootless and vapid imagination such as is known by the diminished rogues of our own time; it was axial and exact. Choofing on bhang - in whatever preparation - was not some idle indulgence but a method of transport to higher states. The ancient labyrinthine streets of Benares old city is perhaps the one place on earth today where this fact still seems a credible ideal.

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black

The Benares of James Prinsep

British India produced many genius orientalists, but few with such innate talent and breadth as Mr. James Prinsep. He showed great aptitude for drawing and draughtsmanship at an early age but had weak eyesight and so was directed away from the visual arts to a career as a metallurgist and assayist. It was as an assayist working for the British Mint that he ventured to India and took a position in Benares. There he became deeply interested in early Indian coins which led him to decipher the Kharosthi and Brahmi scripts, the feat of scholarship for which he is most renowned. 

But, in Benares, he also made extensive drawings and engravings of the sacred city and accomplished much else in both the humanities and the sciences. His drawings and lithographs are some of the finest ever made by an orientalist artist, a sublime record of British Benares. In an age where our intellectual elites are poisoned with post-colonial resentment, however, his genius and achievements have been forgotten. Few remember James Prinsep now, though he would have been an extraordinary character in any age. His contribution to the Benares and to its people was profound. More generally, he made a substantial contribution to a wide range of disciplines - a polymath of great imagination and talent. 

The life and times of this unsung hero - and the life and times of Benares, the most sacred city of the Hindoos - is presented in a charming documentary entitled The Benares of James Princep, thus:

The description of the movie:

James Prinsep landed in india in 1819.

He came to work in the mint as an essay master for the East India Company but destiny had bigger plans.

Truly a man for all seasons, his genius blossomed as an artist,linguist,architect,translator,wri­ter,engineer and scientist.

He died at the age of 40.

His brilliance has been ignored by the world.

May this documentary shed light on him and the holy city that he loved.

Readers can find a trailer and instalment of the movie here. 

* * * 

The present writer, having moved along from a week-long sojourn in Boodh Gaya, is now residing for a while in mystical Benares and is privileged to spend his days - especially his mornings - strolling along the ghats on the banks of the Ganges. He is pleased to report that, although less treed, spotted with graffiti and advertising, and suffering the usual cement degradations of Indian modernity, little of substance has changed on the riverfront since the time of James Prinsep. The city is thousands of years old, one of the oldest continually occupied cities in the world. The old city sections with its narrow streets - as opposed to modern commercial extensions - have remained more or less intact since the time of the British Raj. Some things, such as the open-air cremation grounds on the river banks, have remained unchanged since Vedic times. 

The following are some of Mr. Prinsep's engravings of the ghats and other features of Benares. Readers should click on the image for a larger version of each...

* * * 

The Prinsep Monument in Calcutta which, regrettably, is now dwarfed by the new bridge across the Hoogley.

James Prinsep became ill in India and returned to Britain to recover. Alas, he  died a young and untimely death in 1840. News of his demise was greeted with consternation throughout British India, and a beautiful monument was built in his honour beside the Hoogley River in Calcutta. The present author has spent time there too, and along the Prinsep Ghat which is, without question, one of the loveliest parts of Calcutta today. It is now gratifying to be in Benares to see first hand the faithfulness of Prinsep's renderings of the architecture of this ancient and most extraordinary of cities. 

Yours

Harper McAlpine Black