The British in India

At the Durbar in 1903 the Viceroy made his entry into Delhi seated upon an  elephant at the head of horsemen in chain armour, warriors on camels, fighting men on stilts, Burmen in green and mauve velvet, monks in dragon masks, and with 30,000 of Lord Kitchener’s troops in attendance. For Lord Curzon was one of those Englishmen to whom the opulence and colour of India, rooted though they have always been in dust and poverty, made an irresistible appeal. So a century earlier, in the days of the Company, Lord Wellesley—who loved glitter so much that he wore his orders and decorations even on his night-attire—luxuriated as an Eastern Prince. He bewildered his successor Cornwallis by the display of guns and carriages and menials and sepoys with which he received him on Calcutta water-front. Cornwallis walked obstinately on foot behind the gaudy procession, intended to enfold him, to a breakfast at which he was deafened by martial airs, in a palace “in which I shall never be able to find my way about without a guide ...