Show 3IY MAJf TOnS His Virtues and Exploits II By Archibald Forbes > War Correspondent I Goa is a forlorn and decayed settlement on the west coast of Hindnstan the last remaining relic of the once wide dominions domin-ions of the Portuguese inIndia Its inhabitants are Roman Catholic I ever since in the sixteenth century St j Francis Xavier the colleague of Loyola I in founding the Society of Jesus baptised the Goanese in a mass I I I Its once splendid capital is now a miasmatic I mias-matic wreck its cathedrals and churches are ruined and roofless and only a few I black nuns remain to keep alight the sacred j I cred firo before a crumbling altar I I j Today the adult males of Goa such of I i them as have any enterprise emigrate into j in-to less dull and dead regions of India j I and are found everywhere as cooks hip I stewards messengers and in similar i menial capacities They all call themselves i them-selves Portuguese and own highsound i ing Portuguese surnames Domingo de i Gonsalvez de Soto will cook your curry and Pedro de Guiterrez is content to attend at-tend your children The vic of those dusky noblemen is their addiction to drink The better sort are eager to servo BS traveling servants and when you have the luck to chance on a reasonably sober fellow no better servant can be found anywhere Being a Christian he has no caste and has no religious scruples preventing pre-venting him from wiping your razor after you have shaved or from eating his din ner after your shadow has happened to fall across the table I A SERVANTS CLUB In Bombay there is a regular club or society of those Goanese traveling servants I ser-vants ana when the transient wayfarer lands in that city from the Peninsular and Oriental mail boat one of tHe first things j he is advised to do is to send round to the < Goa club and desire the secretary to I send him e traveling servant I The rssult is a lottery l The man arrives ar-rives mostly a good looking fellow tall I and slight of very dark olive complexion with smooth glossy hair large soft eyes and well cut features lIe produces a I packet of chafed and dingy testimonials testi-monials of character from previous employers all full of commendation I and not one of which is worth the I paper it is written on because the good natured previous employer was too soft of heart to speak his mind on paper If by chance a stern and ruthless person has characterized Bartolomeo de Braganza as drunken lazy and dishonest Bartolomeo who has learnt to read English promptly destroys the chit and the stern mans object is thus frustrated But you must take the Goa man as he comes lorI is a law of the society that its members are offered in strict succession succes-sion and that no nicking and choosing is to be allowed G P HENTYS LUCK When with the Prince of Wales during his tour in India the man who fell to me good steady honest Franciswas simply a dusky jewel My comrade Mr Heuty the wellknown author of so many boys books rather crowded over I me because Domingo his man seemed more pry than did my Francis But Francis had often to attend on Henty us I well as on myself when Domingo the quickwilled was lying blind drunk at the back of the tent and once and again I have seen Henty carrying down on his back to the departing train the unconscious uncon-scious servant on whom at the beginning he had congratulated himself Ju the summer of 1S78 Shore Ali the old Ameer of Afghanistan took it into his head to pick a quarrel with the Viceroy of British India Lord Lytton was always spoiling for a fight himself and thug tLera was every prospect of a lively little war If war should occur it was my duty to be in the thick of it and I reached Bombay Bom-bay well in time to see the opening of the campaign Knowing the ropes within an hour of landing I sent to the Goa club for a servant begging that if possible I might have worthy Francis who had fully satisfied sat-isfied me during the tour of the prince Francis was not available and there was sent me a tall prepossessinglooking young man who presented himself as John Assissis de Compostella de Crucis but was quite content to answer to the name of John I CURED JOHN OF FUDDLING John seemed a capable man but was occasionally muzzy After visiting Silma the headquarters of the viceroy 1 started for the irontier where the army was mustering mus-tering On the way down I spent a couple of days at Umballa to buy a kit and saddlery The train by which I was going to travel up country was due at Umballa about midnight I instructed John to have everything at the depot in good time and went to dine at the mess of the carbineers In due time I reached the station accompanied ac-companied by several officers of that fine regiment The train was at the platform my belongings I found in a chrotic heap crowned oy John fast asleep who when awakened proved to be extremely drunk I could not dispense with the man I had to care him There was but one chance I of doing this I gave him then and there a severe beating A fatigue of carbineers pitched my kit into the baggage car and threw John i nafter it Next day he was sore but penitent He was redeemed without resorting to the chloride of gold cure and in his case at least I was quite as successful a practitioner practi-tioner as any DoctorKeeley could have been John de Compostella etc was a dead sober man during my subsequent experiences of him at least till close on the time we parted JOHN IN THE BLOODY PASSES And once cured of fuddling he turned out a most worthy and efficient fellow He lacked dash but was as true as steel In the attack on Ali Musjio In the throat of the Khyber pass the native na-tive groom who was leading my horse behind me became demoralized by the rather heavy fire of big cannon balls from the fort and skulked to the rear with the horse John had no call to come under fire since the groom was specially paid for doing so but abusing the latter for a coward in the expressive vernacular of India he laid hold of the reins and was up rightat my back just as the close musketry fighting began He took his chances through it manfully had my pack pony up within half an hour after the fighting was over and before the darkness fell had cooked a capital little dinner for myself and a comrade whose commissariat had gone astray Next morning the fort was found evacuated evac-uated I determined to ride back down the pass to the fieldtelegraph post at its mouth The general wrote in my notebook note-book a telegram announcing the good news to the commanderinchief and poor Cavignari the political officer who was afterwards massacred Cabul wrote another message to the same effect to the I Viceroy i expected to have to walk some distance back to our bivouac of the night I but lot as I turned to go there was John with my horse close up In one of the hill expeditions the advanced I ad-vanced sections of the force I accompanied accom-panied had to penetrate a narrow and gloomy pass which was beset on either i side by swans of Afghans who slated us severely with their long range jezails I With this leading detachment there somehow was no surgeon and as men I were going down and something had to I be done it devolved upon me as having I some experience in this kind of work in previous campaigns to undertake a spell I of amateur surgery John behaved magnificently as my assistant I as-sistant With his light touch and long I I lissom hands the fellow seemed to hay i I a natural instinct for successful bandag I ing 1 was glad that we could do no more t than bandage and that we had no instruments i in-struments else I believe that John would i i not have hesitated to undertake a capital operation As for the Afghan bullets he I did not shrink as they splashed on the stones around him he did not treat them with disdain he simply ignored them I The soldiers swore that he ought to have the war medal for the good and I plucky work he was doing and a major I I t t ff 11 O I I i il I I I I WI t fi 11 1t I I w 1 < I oj I f I r f I I I II JI 11 I Wi i I I J i tl I 4P z I l fdP I I liill J I f I It Ilf lj1 II l ii I I JJV I I I protested that if lit ull titles which John always gave in full when his name I i was asked had not been so confoundedly long he would have asked the general to mention the Goa man in despatches John liked war but he was not fond of the rapid changes of temperature upon the roof of the world in Afghanistan I During one twentyfour hours at Jellala bad we had one man killed by a sunstroke j I sun-stroke and another irozen to death on I I sentry duty in the night On Christmas morning when I arose at sunrise the i thermometer was far below freezing point the water in the brass basin j i i in my tent was frozen solid and I was glad to wrap myself in I furs At noon the thermometer was over a hundred in thcishade and we were all so hot as to wish with Sidney Smith 1 that we could take oti our flesh and sit in our bones John was delighted when as there seemed no immediate prospect of further hostilities in Afghanistan I departed I de-parted therefrom to pay a visit to King Thebaw of Burmah who has since been i disestablished I JOHN AND I START FOR ZULU LAND I When in his capital of Mandalay there came to me a telegram from England informing I in-forming of the massacre by the Zulus of a thousand British soldiers at Isandl I wana in South Africa and instructing I I me to hurry thither with all possible 1 speed John had none of the Hindoo dis 1 lito to cross the darfe water and he l accompanied me to Aden where we made I connection with a potty little steamer J which called into every paltry and fever I smelling Portuguese port all along thiT I east coast Africa and at length dropped us atDurbami the seaport of the British colony col-ony of Natal in South Africa and the base j of the warlike operations against the Zulus I l There are many Hindoos engaged on I the Natal sugar plantations and in that particularly onehorse colony every ua j i tire of India is known indiscriminately by the term of coolies John it is true was a native of India but he was no coolie he could read write and speak English and was altogether a I superior person I would not lake him up country to be bullied and demeaned as a coolie and I made for him an arrangement with the proprietor of my hotel that during my absence John should help to wait in his restaurant During the Zulu campaign I was abominably abom-inably served by a lazy Africander and a lazier St Helena boy When Ulundi was fought and Cetewayos Kraal was burned I I was glad to return to Durban and take passage for India i I John I found had during my absence become one of the prominent inhabitants of Durban He had now the full charge of the hotel restaurant was the cent j cen-t rion of the dinner table with men under un-der him to whom he said do this and I they didit His skill in dishes new to Natal especially in curries had crowded the restaurant and the landlord had taken the opportunity of raising his t riff r-iff He came to me privily J and said frankly that John was making his fortune for him that lie was willing to give him a share in his business in a rears time if he would but stay and meantime was ready to pay him a stipend of twenty dollars dol-lars a week The wages at which John served me and 1 had been told I was paying him extravagantly ex-travagantly were 11 month told the landlord that I should not think of standing stand-ing in the way of my mans prosperity but would rather influence him in favor I of an opportunity so promising Then I sent for John explained to him I the hotel keepers proposal and suggested sug-gested that he should take time to think I the matter over John wept I no stay I here master not if it was lOOrupes a day I I go with master I no stop in Durban I Nothing could shake his resolve and so John and I came to England together I JOHN MAKES A SENSATION IN ENGLAND The only thing John did not like in England was that the street boys insisted I I on regarding him as a Zulu and treating him contumeliously accordingly His great delight was when I went on around I a-round of visits to country houses and took him with me as valet Then he was the hero of the servants hall I will not say that he lied but from anecdotes of him that occasionally came to my ears it would seem he created the impression that he habitually waded in kneedeep gore and that he was in the habit of contemplating con-templating with equanimity battlefields littered with the slaughtered combatants I 0 ohn was quite the small lion of the hour He had very graceful ways and great skill in making tasteful bouquets These he would present to the ladies of the household when they came downstairs down-stairs of a morning with a graceful salaam and the expression of a hope that they had slept well The spectacle of John seen from the drawing room windows of Chevening Lard Sranhopes seat in Kent as he swaggered across the park to church one Sunday morning in frock coat and silk hat with a buxom cook on one arm and a tall and lean ladys maid on the other will never De effaced from the recollection of those who witnessed it with shrieks of laughter HOW CAME TO PART WITH JOHN In those days Ilived in a flat my modest I mod-est establishment consisting of an old housekeeper and John For the most part my GWO domesticts were good I friends but there were periods of estrangement es-trangement during which they were j I not on speaking terms and then they sat on opposite sides of the kitchen table and communicated with each other exclusively I exclusive-ly by written notes of an excessively formal character passed across the table I This stiffness of etiquette had its amusing side but was occasionally embarrassing since neither was uniformly intelligible I with the pen The result was that sometimes I got no I dinner at all and at other times when I was dining alone the board groaned with i the profusion and when I had company there would not be enough to go round those awkwardnesses arising from the I absence of a good understanding between mytwo domestics I could not part with the old hoi e I keeper and began rather tire of Jo > i whose head had become cons de1 > i > I swollen because of the notice whic d j been takf n of him It wa < < all very J ito i J cI 1J i J1 7V1f v I 1 I 7 I 7 un04 V fro p f 1 r Bw i i 11 4 < i I II 1 IJ 1 t r fJ f i < iI = I fff iII r t I I ffl4 r l I IJI JI 0 II I f1 I fit iilllfi m i 1 t n i I t i I I J fn i tI IC I 1 r I r it l I 1 I I < I I I I I Ito I II Ii i I = = = S to be lu lI > posiuua to gratify ladies who were giving dinner parties and who wrote me little notes asking for the loan for a few hours of John to make that wonderful prawn curry of which he hud I the sole recipe But John used to return j from that culinary operation very late and with indications that his beverage II I I during his exertions had not been wholly I confined to water To my knowledge he had a wife in Goa j yet I feared he had his flirtations here in I London Once I charged him with inconstancy in-constancy to the lady in Goa but he repudiated re-pudiated the aspersion with the quaint denial No master many ladies are loving me but I dont love no ladies However I had in view to spend a winter win-ter in the states and resolved to send John home He wept copiously when I told him of this resolve and professed his anxiety to die in my service But I remained firm and reminded him that he had not seen his wife in Goa for nearly three years That argument appeared to carry little weight with him but he tearfully submitted to the inevitable inevita-ble I made him a good pres nt and obtained for him from the Peninsular and Oriental people peo-ple a free passage to Bombay and wages besides in the capacity of a saloon I steward I saw him off from Southampton Southamp-ton at the moment of parting he emitted lugubrious howls I He never fulfilled his promise of writing to me and I gave up the expectation of hearing of him any more I MEET ME COMPOSTEIDA DE CRUSTSJ > I Some two years later I went to Australia Aus-tralia by way of San Francisco and New I Zealand At Auckland I found letters and newspapers awaiting me from Sydney Syd-ney and Melbourne Among the papers was a Melbourne illustrated journal on a page of which I found a fulllength portrait of the redoubtable John his manysyllabled name given at full length with a memoir of his military experience affixed to which was a facsimile of the certificate of character which I had given I him when we parted It was further stated that Mr Com I pestella de Crucis was for the present serving in the capacity of butler to a financial fi-nancial magnate in one of the suburbs of I Melbourne but that it was his intention to purchase the good will of a thriving I restaurant named Among the first to greet me on the I Melbourne jetty was John radient with delight and enger to accompany me I I throughout my projected lecture tour I dissuaded him in his own interest from doing so and when I finally quitted the pleasant city by the shore of Hobsons S bay John was running with success the I Maison Dore in Bourke street |