The Naulahka – IX

Notes on the text

by Sharad Keskar

[Heading] These fifteen lines were collected in Songs from Books, 1912.

Tarvin sees the dangers which threaten him and Kate, and thinks she should be glad he is there to protect her. [P.H.]

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[Page 111, line 2] Brown Bess or flint-lock Brown Musket was the earlier name in the British Army. brown referred to the walnut stock. See Kipling’s poem “Brown Bess”.

[Page 111, line 5] children of the Sun and Moon the word Rajput means King’s son. Of the many clans of Rajputs some are believed to have originated from the sun, some from the moon and some from fire. (See the attached note on the Royal Races of Rajput)

[Page 111, line 7] bull to Rajputs, who are Hindus, the bull is the mount of Vishnu, one of the Great Hindu gods, and, therefore, sacred.

[Page 111, line14] rock salt mined in southern Rajasthan. Pachbhadra is the best known mine.

[Page 111, line18] Jeysulmir or Jaisalmer, a desert city about 100 miles west of Jodhpur.

[Page 112, line 3] Meriden a town in Connecticut, as well as one in England.

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[Page 113, line 25] Ibsen (Henrik, 1828-1906). Norwegian dramatist. His best known plays in England are “A Doll’s House” (1879) and “The Wild Duck” (1884), and “Ghosts” (1881) .

[Page 113, line 26] Tolstoi (Count Leo Nikolaevich, 1828-1910), Russian novelist famous for “War and Peace” and “Anna Karenina”.

[Page 114, lines 6 and 10] Nora a character in Ibsen’s “The Doll’s House”.

[Page 114, line 9] Mitrailleuse a breech-loading machine-gun, discharging a stream of bullets with great rapidity: first brought into use by the French in 1870-71 in the Franco-Prussian War.

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[S.K.]