Sher Singh hunting in the environs of Lahore
How does one recreate the landscape of place from a 100 years ago, 200, or even more? You go through historical texts, looking for references to the natural world. Like this reference to a hunt that I found.
Prince Alexis Soltykoff (an image that accompanied his obituary in 1859)
Prince Alexis Soltykoff (or Saltykov) was a Russian diplomat and artist who retired at the age of 35, in the year 1840, and settled in Paris. The next year he embarked on his first voyage to India (March 1841 - January 1843). He sailed to Bombay and from there on to Ceylon, where he spent some time before coming to India, spending time in the south and then taking a ship from Madras to Calcutta. He then travelled across the northern plains to Punjab, with hopes of going to Kashmir but unrest in the valley prevented this. He travelled to Shimla and spent time in the Western Himalayas before returning to Delhi. He then travelled back up to Ferozepur and took a boat down the Indus and then a ship to Bombay and from there, returned home.
Prince Soltykoff was in Punjab in March 1842, accompanying the Political Agent, George Clerk on his visit to Amritsar and Lahore. Here they met Maharaja Sher Singh, then ruler of the Sikh Empire and were invited to a hunt which is described in Prince Soltykoff’s book,
Maharaja Sher Singh, painting by the Hungarian painter August
Schoefft who spent a year in Punjab. He is wearing the Koh-i-noor diamond
in an armlet on his right arm and Darya-i-Noor on his left.
“The day after our arrival in Lahore, the king invited us to a hunt, and you can imagine that the event was on a grand scale when I tell you that we presented in the plain a front of fifty elephants, richly harnessed, with brocade saddlecloths and gold haoudars, on which we were seated; that we were preceded and followed by a cloud of splendidly hairy and armed horsemen, on superb horses, glittering with gold and jewels; and by a crowd of men on foot with falcons in their hands or perched on their heads: There were several hundred falcons; we calculated with Mr. Clerk that there must have been as many as five hundred.
“Chir Singh, King of Punjab, and his entourage hunting near Lahore”
Lithograph from the book, Voyages dans l'Inde
(Travels in India)
"Behind them came a battalion of regular Sikes, beating the
drum and blowing the horn and trumpet to flush out the game. The king was very
attentive to the game, as was everyone else, except me. From time to time he
would let loose a shot and almost never miss.
They were simply quail, which were killed by the hundreds: but, when we entered the jungles from the plains, whose brushwood and reeds rose to the height of the elephants, we saw wild boars in fairly large numbers. However, only one was killed, and they cut him to death for a long time before finishing him off. It was a disgusting butchery of the highest order. It was fine for the poor Sikes who were only carrying out the orders of the Maharaja, and who even seemed to be disgusted with this bloody task; but to see an English colonel take pleasure in hacking with his saber a wretched beast who was struggling under the blows of a dozen relentless executioners was heartbreaking. As the sun was getting bad (it was morning), we retired.”
The impression one gets from reading Prince Soltykoff's account is that the hunt took place is a grassy savannah. The tall reeds would indicate the proximity to a marsh or a body of water, maybe even the river Ravi, that flowed close to Lahore. This image of the landscape is reinforced in another painting of the Maharaja's entourage travelling from Amritsar to Lahore, that shows no trees, but lush grass all around.
“Chir Singh, Maharaja of the Siks, King of the Punjab, with his entourage.”
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