Famine is in thy cheeks,Need and oppression startle in thine eyes,The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law.Then be not poor, but break it.
Famine is in thy cheeks,Need and oppression startle in thine eyes,The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law.Then be not poor, but break it.
Famine is in thy cheeks,Need and oppression startle in thine eyes,The world is not thy friend, nor the world’s law.Then be not poor, but break it.
G. and I walked down to the stables this morningbefore breakfast, and found such a miserable little baby, something like an old monkey, but with glazed, stupid eyes, under the care of another little wretch of six years old. I am sure you would have sobbed to see the way in which the little atom flew at a cup of milk, and the way in which the little brother fed it. Rosina has discovered the mother since, but she is a skeleton too, and she says for a month she has had no food to give it. Dr. D. says it cannot live, it is so diseased with starvation, but I mean to try what can be done for it.
Kynonze, Sunday, Jan. 7.
We go on from bad to worse; this is a large village, and the distress greater. Seven hundred were fed yesterday, and the struggle was so violent that I have just seen the magistrate, Mr. ——, who is travelling with us, and asked him for his police. We have plenty of soldiers and servants, but they hardly know what to do; they cannot strike the poor creatures, and yet they absolutely fight among themselves for the food. Captain M. saw three people drop down dead in the village yesterday, and there were several on our line of march. My baby is alive, the mother follows the camp, and I have it four times a day at the back of my tent, and feed it. It is rather touching to see the interest the servants take in it, though there are worse objects about, or else I have got used to this little creature.
This is a great place for ruins, and was supposed to be the largest town in India in the olden time, and the most magnificent. There are some good ruins for sketching remaining, and that is all. An odd world certainly! Perhaps two thousand years hence, whenthe art of steam has been forgotten, and nobody can exactly make out the meaning of the old English word ‘mail-coach,’ some black Governor-General of England will be marching through its southern provinces, and will go and look at some ruins, and doubt whether London ever was a large town, and will feed some white-looking skeletons, and say what distress the poor creatures must be in; they will really eat rice and curry; and his sister will write to her Mary D. at New Delhi, and complain of the cold, and explain to her with great care what snow is, and how the natives wear bonnets, and then, of course, mention that she wants to go home. Do you like writing to me? I hate writing in general, but these long letters to you are the comfort of my existence. I always have my portfolio carried on in my palanquin, which comes on early, because then, if I have anything to say to you before breakfast, I can say it, and I dare say it would be unwholesome to suppress a thought before breakfast.
Camp, Umreetpoor, Saturday, Jan. 13.
We have had three days’ rest at Futtehghur; rest at least for the horses and bullocks, who were all worn out with the bad roads, and we started again this morning; crossed the Ganges on a bridge of boats, and after five miles of very remarkably heavy sand, with hackeries and dying ponies, and obstinate mules sticking in it, in all directions, we came to a road available again for the dear open carriage and for horses. The others all rode, and I brought on Mrs. A., who has no carriage, and who gets tired to death of her palanquin and elephant.
G. and I went with Y., Dr. D., and A. and M. onemorning before breakfast to see a Dr. ——, who is supposed to be very scientific, but his science seems rather insane. He insists upon it that the North Pole is at Gwalior, about thirty miles from here, and that some magnetic stones he brought from there prove it by the direction in which the needle stands on them. One needle would not stand straight on one stone, and he said that stone must have been picked up a little on one side of the exact North Pole. Then he took us to a table covered with black and white little bricks, something like those we used to have in the nursery, and he said that by a course of magnetic angles, the marks of which he discovers on his magnetic stones, any piece of wood that was cut by his directions became immediately an exact representation of Solomon’s Temple.
‘Don’t say it is ingenious! I can’t help it; it is the work of magnetic power, not mine; Solomon’s Templewill fall outof whatever I undertake.’
I looked at G. and the others, but they all seemed quite convinced, and I began to think we must all be in a Futtehghur Bedlam, only they were all too silent. To fill up the pause, I asked him how long he was discovering Solomon’s Temple. ‘Only seven years,’ he said, ‘but it is not my discovery; itmustbe so according to my magnetic angles. When this discovery reaches Europe (which it will through you, ma’am, for I am going to present you with Solomon’s Temple), there will be an end of all their science; they must begin again.’
Then Mrs. —— put in: ‘Yes, the Doctor said, as soon as he heard you were coming up the country, “I’ll give Solomon’s Temple to Miss Eden;†and Isaid, “I shall send her some flowers and water-cresses;†pray, are you fond of water-cresses?’
‘Now, my dear, don’t talk about water-cresses; you distract Miss Eden and you distract me, and so hold your tongue. I was just going to explain this cube; you see the temple was finished all but one cube, and the masons did not like the look of the stone, they did not understand the magnetic angles, so they gave it a knock and smashed it. Upon which Solomon said, “There! what a precious mess you have made of it; now I shall have to send all the way to Egypt for another."’
Upon which Mr. Y. said, ‘But where do you find that fact, Dr. ——?’
‘My dear sir, just take it for granted; I never advance a fact I cannot prove. I am like the old woman in Westminster Abbey; if you interrupt me, I shall have to go back from George III. all the way to Edward the Confessor.’
That silenced us all. You never saw such a thing as Solomon’s Temple; not nearly so pretty as the bridges we used to build of those bricks.
Mrs. —— went fidgetting about with some bottles all the time, and began, ‘Now, Doctor, show your method of instantaneous communication between London and Edinburgh.’
‘Don’t bore me, my dear, I have not time to prepare it.’
‘There now, Doctor! I knew you would say that, so I have prepared it; there it all is, bottles, wire, galvanic wheels and all. Now, Miss Eden, is not hemuchthe cleverest man you ever saw?’ So then he showedus that experiment, and a great many of his galvanic tricks were very amusing, but still he is so eccentric that I think it is a great shame he should be the only doctor of a large station. A lady sent for him to see her child in a fit, and he told her he would not give it any medicine on any account; ‘it was possessed by the devil—a very curious case indeed.’
He sent me a bit of the Gwalior North Pole in the evening, which was such a weight I thought I should have to hire a coolie to carry it, and I wanted the servants to bury it, but luckily C. was longing for one of these magnetic stones, and took it. To-day I have had a letter from him, with fruit and flowers which Mrs. —— sent fifteen miles, and a jonquil in a blue glass, English and good, and a postscript to say that, though Solomon’s Temple would build itself almost without any help, still, if I found any difficulty I was to write to him. I am quite sure I shall never find the slightest difficulty in it—it is all carefully deposited at the bottom of a camel trunk.
Futtygunge, Jan. 17, 1838.
WEhave had a Sunday halt, and some bad roads, and one desperate long march. A great many of the men here have lived in the jungles for years, and their poor dear manners are utterly gone—jungled out of them.
Luckily the band plays all through dinner, anddrowns the conversation. The thing they all like best is the band, and it was an excellent idea, that of making it play from five to six. There was a lady yesterday in perfect ecstasies with the music. I believe she was the wife of an indigo planter in the neighbourhood, and I was rather longing to go and speak to her, as she probably had not met a countrywoman for many months; but then, you know, she might not have been his wife, or anybody’s wife, or he might not be an indigo planter. In short, my dear Mrs. D., you know what a world it is—impossible to be too careful, &c.
We never stir out now from the camp; there is nothing to see, and the dust is a little laid just in front of our tents. We have had a beautiful subject for drawing the last two days. A troop of irregular horse joined us at Futtehghur. The officer, a Russaldar—a sort of sergeant, I believe—wears a most picturesque dress, and has an air of Timour the Tartar, with a touch of Alexander the Great—and he comes and sits for his picture with great patience. All these irregular troops are like parts of a melodrama. They go about curvetting and spearing, and dress themselves fancifully, and they are most courteous-mannered natives. G. and I walked up to their encampment on Sunday.
They had no particular costume when first we came in sight, being occupied in cleaning their horses—and the natives think nature never intended that they should work with clothes on; but they heard G. was coming, and by the time we arrived they were all scarlet and silver and feathers—such odd, fanciful dresses; and the Russaldar and his officers brought their swords that we might touch them, and we walked throughtheir lines. My jemadar interpreted that the Lord Sahib and Lady Sahib never saw such fine men, or such fine horses, and they all salaamed down to the ground. An hour after, this man and his attendant rode up to W.’s tent (they are under him in his military secretary capacity) to report that they certainlywerethe finest troops in the world—the Lord Sahib had said so; and they begged also to mention that they should be very glad to have their pictures drawn. So the chief man has come for his, and is quite satisfied with it.
Bareilly, Saturday, Jan. 20.
This is one of our long halts: we are to be here till Tuesday. Yesterday we halted at Furreedpoor, where there was an excellent plain for the native horse to show off their manner of fighting, and we all went out in the evening to see them. They stick a tent-pin in the ground, drive it in with mallets, and then going full gallop drive a spear in it and draw it out again. They drop their bridles when the horse is going at his utmost speed, and then suddenly turn round in the saddle and fire at their pursuers. Then they tilt at each other, turning their horses round in a space not much more than their own lengths. Walter Scott would have made some fine chapters out of them, and Astley would hang himself from the total impossibility of dressing and acting like them.
The only other incident of the day was a trialby riceof all my servants. I had ten rupees in small money—coins worth little more than sixpence each—which I got in the distressed districts to give to any beggars that looked starving. I had a packet of them unopened,the last the sircar had given me, sealed with his seal, and I put this in my workbasket on the table. One of the servants very cleverly took it out. It was not loose money lying about: I consider they have almost a right to takethat: but this was sealed up and hid; so J. made a great fuss about it, and when all enquiries failed, he and Captain D., who manages the police of the camp, said they must try the common experiment of eating rice. The priest weighs out so much rice powder according to the weight of a particular rupee, an old coin which the natives look upon as sacred. The men all say their prayers and wash themselves, and then they each take their share of rice. It is not aniceexperiment. Those who are innocent spit it out again in a liquid state, but the guilty man is not able to liquefy it in the slightest degree.
J. came in with an air of conviction. ‘Well! we have found the thief: the last man you would have suspected—your chobdar.’ He is a sort of upper servant next in rank to the jemadar, and this man is a remarkably respectable creature, and, though still young, has been fifteen years at Government House—ever since he was twelve years old. The poor wretch came in immediately after, his mouth still covered with flour: he had not been able even to touch it, but he protested his innocence, and I believe in it. He is naturally very timid, and always trembles if anybody speaks quickly to him, and he might have robbed me at any time of any trinkets, or money, as he always takes charge of my room, or tent, when the jemadar is away. I am so sorry for him, he was in such an agony; but, luckily, it would have been impossible to send aman away merely on that sort of evidence, and to-day all the others have come round to him and say they are sure it was not him, for they all think too well of him. Yesterday they were glad to put it on anybody, and they have all great faith in the trial. It is very odd; twenty-two took the rice without the slightest reluctance, yet this man could not touch it.
Rosina told me that Ameer, my little boy, said to her, ‘It must be the chobdar, Rosina. What for he shake so and not eat rice? Me eat my rice directly; me have nothing in my heart against ladyship; me never take none of her money; me eat rice for ladyship any day.’ I never shall let them do it again, but it was done to satisfy them this time. In general the poordryvictim confesses directly.
Bareilly is famous for dust and workboxes. The dust we have seen, but the boxes have not yet appeared.
There has been some quarrel about our encamping ground. Captain P. put the tents in the right place, and the Brigadier said it was the wrong one, and had them moved again, and put between two dusty roads; and now we again saythatis quite wrong, and that wewillbe on the Brigadier’s parade ground; so last night’s camp, when it came up, was pitched there and with much dignity, but with a great deal of trouble in moving all our goods and ourselves. It was quite as bad as two marches in one day; but then, you know, we could not stand the idea of Brigadier —— presuming to interfere with the Governor-General’s camp.
The thieves at Bareilly are well educated, and pilfered quantities of things in the move. Still, Brigadier —— had the worst of it!
This is the most absurd country. Captain N. has a pet monkey, small and black, with a long white beard, and it sits at the door of his tent. It had not been here an hour when the durwar and the elders of the village came on deputation to say that it was the first of that species which had ever been at Bareilly, and they begged to take it to their temple to worship it. He did not much like trusting it out of sight, but it was one of the requests that cannot be refused, so ‘Hunamaun’ set off in great state with one of N.’s bearers to watch him. He came back extremely excited and more snappish than ever. The bearer said the priests carried the monkey into a temple, but would not let him go too. I suspect if N. washed the returned monkey, he would find the black come off.
Bareilly, Monday, Jan. 22, 1838.
WEwere ‘at home’ on Friday evening. There are ten ladies at this station, several of them very pretty, and with our own ladies there were enough for a quadrille; so they danced all the evening, and it went off very well.
There are two officers (Europeans) who command that corps of irregular horse, and dress like natives, with green velvet tunics, scarlet satin trousers, whiteboots, bare throats, long beards, and everything most theatrical. It does tolerably well for the young adjutant, who is good-looking; but the major, who commanded the regiment, would look better with a neck-cloth and a tight coat. He doats on his wild horsemen.
He says the officers come to him every morning, and sit down round him, and show him their Persian letters, and take his orders, just as children would; and to-day, when they were all assembled, they had been reading our Russaldar’s account of how well he had shown off all his exercises, and how I had drawn his picture, and how G. had given him a pair of shawls and some spears, &c. Just as they were reading this, the man himself arrived, and the others all got up and embraced him, and thanked him for keeping up the honour of the corps. They seem to be something like the Highlanders in their way.
The regiment is made up of families. Each Russaldar has at least six sons or nephews in his troop. They are never punished, but sent away if they commit any fault; and they will do anything for their chief if their prejudices of caste are respected. But there have been some horrible tragedies lately, where young officers have come out with their St. James’s Street notions of making these men dress like European soldiers.
Amongst other things, one young officer persuaded his uncle, a Colonel E., to order them to cut off their beards—a much greater offence than pulling all their noses. The men had idolised this Colonel E., but the instant they heard this order, they drew their swordsand cut him to pieces. There was great difficulty in bringing the regiment into any order again.
We had a great dinner (only men) on Saturday. Now G. has established that F. and I are to dine at thesemendinners; he likes them best, and in the short halts it is the only way in which he can see all the civilians and officers. They are neither more, nor less, tiresome to us than mixed dinners. The gentlemen talk a great deal of Vizier Ali and of Lord Cornwallis, and the ladies do not talk at all: and I don’t know which I like best.
The thing that chiefly interests me is to hear the details of the horrible solitude in which the poor young civilians live. There is a Mr. G. here, whom R. recommended to us, who is quite mad with delight at being with the camp for a week. We knew him very well in Calcutta. He says the horror of being three months without seeing an European, or hearing an English word, nobody can tell. Captain N. has led that sort of life in the jungles too, and says that, towards the end of the rainy season, when the health generally gives way, the lowness of spirits that comes on is quite dreadful; that every young man fancies he is going to die, and then he thinks that nobody will bury him if he does, as there is no other European at hand. Never send a son to India! my dear M., that is the moral.
The civilians gave us a dinner on Monday, which went off better than those ceremonies usually do.
It was at the house of an old Mr. W., who has been forty-eight years in India, and whose memory has failed. He asked me if I had seen the house atBenares where ‘poor Davies’ was so nearly murdered by ‘Futty Rum,’ or some name of that kind, and he seemed surprised, and went on describing how Mrs. Davies had gone to the top of the house and said—‘My dear! I see some dust in the distance,’ just like Bluebeard’s wife; and I kept thinking of that, and wondering that I had not seen the house, and at last I thought it must have happened since we left Benares, so I asked, at last, ‘But when did this take place?’
‘Why, let me see. I was at Calcutta in ’90; it must have been in ’91, or thereabouts.’
It was the most modern topic he tried. Mrs. W. has been thirty-seven years in India, and is a wonderful-looking woman. Our band came, and after dinner there was a great whispering amongst the seven ladies and forty gentlemen, and it turned out they were longing for a little more dancing; so the band played some quadrilles, and by dint of one couple dancing first on one side of the room and then on the other, they made it out very well, and it was rather a lively evening.
Camp, Jan. 26.
My own dearest Mary—I sent off another Journal to you yesterday. I think you ought to have a very regular supply of letters from me. I never am more than a fortnight now without sending one off. And such enormous packets too! Such fine fat children! not wholesome fat, only Indian, but they look puffy and large. We are at a place which in their little easy way they call Kamovrowdamovrow—how it is spelt really I cannot say, but that is the short way of expressing the sound. We have our first view of themountain to-day; so lovely—a nice dark-blue hard line above the horizon, and then a second series of snowy peaks, looking quite pink when the sun rises. We always travel half-an-hour by torchlight, so that we have the full benefit of the sun rising. The air is so nice to-day—I think it smells of mountains. The highest peak we see is the Gumgoutra, from which the Ganges is supposed to flow, and consequently the Gumgoutra is idolised by the natives. It was so like P., who by dint of studying Indian antiquities, believes, I almost think, in all the superstitions of the country. We were lamenting that we should lose the sight of these mountains in two more marches; but then we should be on our way to Simla. ‘Oh, Simla!’ he said, ‘what of that? There is no real historical interest about that. Simla is a mere modern vulgar mountain. I had as lief be in the plain.’ Poor Simla! which has stood there, looking beautiful, since the world began, to be termed a mere modern mountain; made of lath and plaster, I suppose. Our marching troubles increase every day. I wish wewereat Simla. The roads are soinfernallybad—I beg your pardon, but there is no other word for it. Those who ride can make it out pretty well, and I would begin again, only it tires me so that I cannot sit on the horse; but the riders can always find a tolerable path by the side. The road itself is very heavy sand with deep holes, and cut up into ditches by the hackeries that go on the night before. Our old horses bear it very well, but it has broken the hearts and tempers of the six young ones we got last year from the stud, and there is no sort of trick they don’tplay. Yesterday I nearly killed Mrs. A. by the excessive politeness with which I insisted on bringing her the last stage. Two horses kicked themselves out of their traces, and nearly overturned the carriage, and we plodded on with a pair; however, she is not the worse for it. This morning, before F. and G. left the carriage, one of the leaders, in a fit of exasperation, threw himself over the other leader and the postilion; of course they all three came down, but luckily neither man nor horses were hurt; but the carriage could not come on, so we all got on some elephants, which were luckily close at hand. They took us two miles, and by the time mine, which was a baggage elephant, had jolted me into very small pieces, we came to fresh horses. C. and G. rode on, and I sat down on the ground by a fire of dry grass, which the syces and bearers had made for themselves. I longed very much for an inn, or an English waiter, or anything, or anybody; but otherwise it was amusing to see the camp roll by—the Baboos in their palanquins, Mr. C.’s children in a bullock carriage, Mr. B.’s clerks riding like sacks, on rough ponies, with their hats on over their nightcaps; then the Artillery, with the horses all kicking. W. O. came up to me and sent back one of the guards to fetch up the carriage, and he always sets to work with his old regimental habits, and buckles the harness himself, and sets the thing off. His horse had run away with him for three miles, and then he ran away with it for six more, and now he hopes they will do better. G. is gone to-day to return the visit of the Nawâb of Rampore, who lives four miles off, and he has had to recross the river,which makes rather a melancholy addition to the fatigues of men and cattle. G. has set up for his pet a hideous pariah dog, one amongst the many that follow a camp; but this has particularly pretty manners, coaxing and intelligent, and G. says he thinks it will keep the other pets out of his tent. Chance, and F.’s lemur, W.’s greyhounds, and Dr. D.’s dog are always running through his tent, so he has set up this, not that it really ever can go into his tent, it is much too dirty, but we call it out of compliment to the Company ‘the Hon. John,’ and it answers to its name quite readily.
Moradabad, Saturday, Jan. 27.
Another station, where we are to stay for three days; but the travelling was worse than ever. I told W. O. last night I should walk, and he said he should hop, he had tried everything else. It will be my last resource too. The first stage did pretty well. I have set up Webb to ride by me when the others ride on, and he can direct his own postilions. He does not look the least like a head-coachman, or like the Sergeant Webb which he is—rather like a ruffian in a melodrama; but he is very civil, and by dint of encouragement and example, got the horses through a mile of deep sand, down to the river-side. We passed about fifty hackeries stuck fast, and there they and the oxen probably are now. The Y.s, be the road bad or good, always come to a misfortune. Yesterday they broke the spring of their dickey; to-day they had to harnessan elephantto their carriage to pull it out of the sand; and long after we had breakfasted we saw the eldest boy arrive on foot, with one of Mrs. A.’s hirkarus, Mrs. Y.and the little thing on one of our elephants, and Y. mounted on his own box, flourishing on with his tired horses. Our carriage crossed the ford very well, though the water was up to the steps, and when we had landed I said to Webb I thought we had better wait for Miss F., as the march was longer than we expected. He always speaks so like our old nurse Spencer: ‘Lord bless me, Miss Eden, we must not think of Miss F.; if the horses once stop in this sand, they will never stir again. Go on, coachmen. I think, Miss Eden, my Lord and Miss F. will make a bad job of this ford. I saw Lord William, that time he and I came up the country, up to his middle in water at this place, though he was on a tall English horse. Drive on!’ We proceeded another mile into the town, and then the horses went entirely mad, partly because the narrow street was full of camels, and partly from fatigue. Webb and the guards cleared off the camels, but the horses would not be quiet, so I got out and walked. There were immense crowds of natives waiting to see G.’s entry, but they are always very civil, and indeed must have been struck with the majesty of my procession—Webb with his long hunting-whip and Squire Bugle look, me in my dusty brown cloak and bonnet, over a dressing-gown, the ‘Hon. John’ frisking and whining after me with a marked pariah appearance, an old jemadar of G.’s, with a great sheet twisted over his turban to keep out the cold of the morning; then the carriages with the horses all kicking, and the syces all clinging to them, and Giles and Mars in the distance, each in a horrid fright about their ponies. I walked at least a mile and a half,and then met Captain C. riding out to meet us. ‘What accident has happened now?’ he said. ‘Nothing particular,’ I said, ‘I am only marching.’ He turned back and walked with me to the end of the town, and then the horses behaved pretty well through all the saluting and drumming, and our entry was made correctly; but I had no idea that I could have walked a mile and a half without dropping down dead. That is something learnt. We had all the station to dinner. There were only twenty-five of them altogether, and only two ladies. The band could not play at dinner, which is always a sad loss, as they cover all pauses, but their instruments and uniforms had stuck in the sands. Luckily there was a young Mr. J., the image of Lord Castlereagh, who talked unceasingly all through dinner. Another of the civilians here is Mr. B. O., son of the Mr. O. you know. He was probably the good-looking stepson whose picture Mrs. O. used to carry about with her, because he was such a ‘beautiful creature.’ He is now a bald-headed, grey, toothless man, and perfectly ignorant on all points but that of tiger-hunting. There is not a day that I do not think of those dear lines of Crabbe’s—
But when returned the youth? The youth no moreReturned exulting to his native shore;But in his stead there came a worn-out man.
But when returned the youth? The youth no moreReturned exulting to his native shore;But in his stead there came a worn-out man.
But when returned the youth? The youth no moreReturned exulting to his native shore;But in his stead there came a worn-out man.
They were always good lines, and always had a tendency to bring tears into my eyes; but now, when I look at either the youth or the worn-out men, and think what India does for them all, I really could not venture to say those lines out loud. Please to remember that I shall return a worn-out woman.
Moradabad, Monday, Jan. 29.
Mr. Y. gave us such an excellent sermon yesterday. The residents here only see a clergyman once a year, so I am glad they had a good sermon, and they all seemed pleased with it. Captain N. was taken ill at church—the second time it has happened—and Dr. D. was obliged to go out with him and bleed him. He looks very strong, but they say nobody ever really recovers a real bad jungle-fever. We all went out on the elephants, but there is not much to see at Moradabad, though it is a cheerful-looking station. Mrs. A. came to see me, and says she is quite baffled in her attempts to teach her little R. his Bible. He is only three years old, but a fine clever boy. She gave up the creation because he always would have it that the first man’s name was Jack; and to-day she tried the story of Samuel, which she thought would amuse him, and it went on very well, with a few yawns, till she asked, ‘What did Samuel say when the Lord called him the third time?’—‘I’m a-toming, a-toming, so don’t teaze I any more.’ She thought this hopeless, and gave up her Sunday lessons.
Camp, Tuesday, Jan. 30.
G. had a durbar yesterday, and then went to see the gaol. F. and I went with P. to the native town to see if we could find anything to sketch, but we could not. Mr. C. caught a very fine old native in the town, with a white beard down to his waist, and he was rather a distinguished character, fought for the English in the time of their troubles here; so he sat for his picture, and it was a good opportunity to make him a present. It is such an immense time since we have had anyletters—none by sea of a later date than August 5, nearly six months ago. For a wonder, we marched ten miles to-day without an accident.
Amroah, Wednesday, Jan. 31.
I went to see Mrs. S. yesterday, and the visit rather reminded me of you. Of course, as you observe, I should forget you utterly if it were not for these occasional remembrances of you, and the constant practice of thinking of you most hours of most days. The eldest little S. girl was ill, an attack of fever, and,Ithink, thrush, but at all events her mouth was in a shocking state; ‘and Dr. D. accused me of having given her calomel,’ Mrs. S. said, ‘but I really never do, I detest calomel; half the children in India are killed by it.’ Just then four of her children and two little Y.s rushed in, with guns and swords and paper helmets—‘Mamma, M. is gone on the elephant without us.’
‘No, my dears, there’s M. arranging my workbox. Now, don’t make a noise—Miss Eden’s here. Run along.’
‘But, mamma, may E. and F. Y. drink tea with us to-night?—we want them.’
‘Well, dears, we’ll see about it presently; now run along.’
‘But their mamma says she won’t let them come if you don’t write a note.’
‘Very well, dears, run along.’
‘But, mamma, will you give us the note to take?’
‘I’ll think about it, my love; perhaps I shall meet Mr Y. out walking; and now pray run along.’
Upon which M. looked up from the workbox she was arranging.
‘Mamma, may I have this seal?’
‘No, dear, certainly not; it was sent me by my little sister from England; and now run along after your brothers.’
I told her how much you were in the habit of saying ‘run along’ when you had any visitor with you—whereat we laughed. The poor little girl looked very sick, and I could not find anything to send her, not even a picture-book.
Amroah is a very long narrow town, where they make a very coarse sort of porcelain, which they paint and gild. G. had a quantity of it given to him, which he sent to me, and the native servants had great fun in dividing it amongst themselves. Captain N. drove me in the evening back to a gateway we had seen this morning—the first pretence at an object for a sketch we had had for many days. We saw a great crowd round it, and in the middle of them P. on his elephant, and in his spectacles, sketching away as hard as he could.
When we came back, I went to fetch out G., who never goes out when he can help it, and took him what I thought a prettier walk than usual—about half a quarter of a mile of sand ankle deep, to an old mosque, raised on an elevation of at least eighteen inches—‘a splendiferous creature’—(did you ever read ‘Nick of the Woods?’ you sent it out to us, and we do nothing but quote it)—but he thought it more tiresome than any walk he had taken yet. We found W. and F. there, just on the same tack, F. thinking it was rather pretty,and W. not able to guess why he was dragged all through that sand, and wishing himself at Calcutta. ‘Yes,’ G. said, ‘I am more utterly disgusted, more wretchedly bored than ever, so now I shall go back to my tent, and wish for Government House.’ In the meanwhile he is becoming a red-facedfat-ishman, and ‘if he aspires to play the leading villain of the plot, his corpulence will soon unfit him for that rôle.’ (See ‘The Heroine.’)
Gurmukteser Ghaut, Friday, Feb. 2.
We crossed the Ganges this morning on a bridge of boats, which was very well constructed, considering the magistrate had not had much notice. The elephants always go first, and if the boats bear elephants, they will bear anything. A Mr. F. and two assistants, and a Mr. and Mrs. T. had come out forty miles to meet us; and it is unfortunate we had not known it, for I had asked the B.s, D.s, General E., &c., to dinner, and unless there was another tent pitched, we had room only for three more, and it puts the aides-de-camp into consternation if any of these strangers are left out. Mrs. T. wears long thick thread mittens, with black velvet bracelets over them. She may have great genius, and many good qualities, but, you know, it is impossible to look for them under those mittens.
The weather is very changeable in these parts. On Wednesday morning the thermometer was at 41° and on Thursday at 78°, so we rush from fur cloaks, and shawls, and stoves, to muslin gowns and fans; and as far as I am concerned, I do not think it is very wholesome, but it seems to agree generally with the camp. The children are all rather ailing just now, and thereis a constant demand for our spare palanquin to carry on a sick child.
Shah Jehanpore, Sunday, Feb. 4.
G., with Major J. and Mr. M., went yesterday to Haupor, where there is a Government stud, and they came back this morning pleased with their expedition. George had had the pleasure of sleeping in a house, and thought it quite delightful. When we arrived here yesterday, we found Captain C., our former aide-de-camp, waiting for us. I always said he would come out to meet us, and W. betted a rupee that he would not, so now I shall have a rupee to spend on mymenus plaisirs, and may go in at half-price to the play at Meerut. Chance arrived so tired from his march. He was not the least glad to see Captain C., which was very shocking, but he made up for it in the course of the day, and to-night he is to go back with Captain C. in his palanquin, and pass two days with him, and to eat all the time I suppose. I discovered that C. had sent for Chance’s servant, and said that he thought him shockingly thin (you never saw such a ball of fat), and the man said it was very true, but it was the Lady Sahib’s orders, so then C. decided to borrow him for a few days and to feed him up. He will have a fit to a certainty.
It was so dreadfully hot yesterday—quite like a May day in Calcutta—and everybody was lying panting in their tents. It is lucky we have made the most of our six weeks of cold, which was very pleasant while it lasted. If we have rain, it may return again, but otherwise they say we have no notion what the hotwinds are on these plains, and we have still six weeks to live in these horrid tents.
Meerut, Tuesday, Feb. 6.
We had some rain on Sunday night, not enough to do good to the crops or the cattle, but it has made the air cool, and the dust was quite laid yesterday. The tents we came up to at Mhow were quite wet. If once they become really wet through, we should have to stop a week wherever we might be, and however short our supply might be, as the canvas becomes too heavy for the elephants to carry. We had a very pretty entry this morning. There are four regiments here—two of them Queen’s troops, and one of them is W.’s old regiment of lancers. They were all drawn out, and an immense staff met G. and rode in with him. The most amusing incident to me, who was comfortably in the carriage, was that one of the lancers’ horses escaped from his rider, and ran amongst all the gentlemen. It would be wrong to laugh in general at such an event, for a loose horse in this country is like a wild beast, and tears people off their horses and worries them; but this one only went curvetting about, and when he took to chase old Mr. A. round the others, it was rather interesting and pretty. I had no idea Mr. A. could have turned and doubled his horse about so neatly. Five or six lancers were riding about after him, without the least chance of catching the wild beast, who was captured at last by one of the syces.
Meerut is a large European station—a quantity of barracks and white bungalows spread over four miles of plain. There is nothing to see or to draw.
George had a levée in the morning and audiencesall day, and would not go out any more. F. and I went in the tonjauns wherever the bearers chose to convey us, and that happened to be to the European burial-ground. We could not discover any one individual who lived to be more than thirty-six. It may give Lady A. D. pleasure to know that Sir R.’s first wife is certainly dead and buried—at least she is buried—under a remarkably shabby tomb. People here build immense monuments to their friends, but Sir R. cut his wife off with a small child’s tombstone.
Wednesday, Feb. 7.
There now! there is the overland post come, of December 1st, with a letter from R. and one from Mr. D., both to George. It is a great thing to know you were all well at that time, but still it is very mortifying not to have any letters addressed to our noble selves. It falls so flat. I had long ago given up any sea letters, but we kept consoling ourselves with the notion of this overland business—that is, I never did; I always said we should not have our proper complement of letters, so I am not the least surprised, for I am confident that we have been here at least fifteen years, and are of course forgotten; but still it is very shocking, is not it? Lady G. used to write, but she has given it up too. I do not know what is to be done; and I consider it rather a grand trait of character that I go writing on as much as ever, considering it is six months and four days since the date of your last letter. The post brought in plenty of papers, and the Queen’s visits to Guildhall and to Covent Garden are very interesting. I think politics look ugly enough.
We had a very large party last night—the two large tents quite full of nice-looking people—and they danced away very merrily.
Meerut, Sunday, Feb. 11.
We have had so much to do I could not write. But first and foremost we have had some letters of September by the ‘Zenobia’ and the ‘Royal Saxon:’ not a line from you—you evidently have a little pet ship of your own; and but one from L., one from Lady G., &c.: in short, a good provision, but I still wish yours would come to hand. These are five months old, but that is not so bad.
We have had a ball on Wednesday from the artillery; a play on Thursday by amateurs—‘Rob Roy’—and ‘Die Vernon’ acted by a very tall lancer with an immense flaxen wig, long ringlets hanging in an infantine manner over his shoulders, short sleeves, and, as Meerut does not furnish gloves, large white arms with very red hands. Except in Calcutta, such a thing as an actress does not exist, so this was thought a very good ‘Die Vernon;’ but I hear that ‘Juliet’ and ‘Desdemona’ are supposed to be his best parts. Friday, the station gave us a ball, which was very full. There were two Miss ——s come out from England to join a married sister, the wife of an officer in the lancers. She is very poor herself, but has eight sisters at home, so I suppose thought it right to help her family; and luckily, I think, they will not hang long on her hands. They are such very pretty girls, and knowing-looking, and have brought out for their married sister, who is also very pretty, gowns and headdresses like their own. The three togetherhad a pretty effect. They are the only young ladies at the station, so I suppose will have their choice of three regiments; but it is a bad business when all is done. They arrived just in time for this gay week, which will give the poor girls a false impression of the usual tenor of their lives. The only other unmarried woman also appeared for the first timeas a lady. Her father has just been raised from the ranks for his good conduct. The poor girl was very awkward and ill-dressed, but looked very amiable and shy. I went and sat down by her, and talked to her for some time; and her father came the next day to G. and said he felt so grateful for the notice taken of his daughter. The poor girl evidently did not know how to dance.
Yesterday George gave another great dinner, at which we did not appear. I don’t think I ever felt more tired, but the weather is grown very warm again; and then, between getting up early when we are marching, and sitting up late at the stations, I am never otherwise than tired. We went to the church to-day instead of having service at home. It is rather a fine sight, as General N.’s ‘sax and twenty thoosand men’ were there. He is the Governor of the district, a good-natured old man, but he has quite lost his memory, and says the same thing ten times over, and very often it was a mistake at first. George asked him how many men he had at Meerut; he said, ‘I cannot just say, my Lord; perhaps sax and twenty thoosand’—such a fine army for a small place.
Tuesday, Feb. 13.
We were to have left Meerut to-day, but I wasobliged to tell George that no human strength could possibly bear the gaieties of yesterday, and a march of sixteen miles at four this morning.
We had a dinner at General N.’s of seventy people—‘sax and twenty thoosand,’ I believe, by the time the dinner lasted—but it was very well done. Mrs. N. is a nice old lady, and the daughter, who is plain, shows what birth is: she is much the most ladylike-looking person here. When the dinner was over—and I have every reason to believe it did finish at last, though I cannot think I lived to see it—we all went to the ball the regiment gave us. I look upon it as some merit that I arrived in a state of due sobriety, for old General N.’s twaddling took the turn of forgetting that he had offered me any wine, and every other minute he began with an air of recollection, ‘Well, ma’am, and now shallyouandIhave a glass of wine together?’ The ball was just like the others, but with a great display of plate at supper, and the rooms looked smarter.
Tell E. Mrs. B. is our ‘Dragon Green,’ only she does not imitate us with that exquisite taste and tact which the lovely Miss Green displays. I bought a green satin the other day from a common box-wallah who came into the camp;—how she knows what we buy we never can make out, but she always does—and the next day she sent her tailor to ask mine for a pattern of the satin, that she might get one like it from Calcutta. The same with some fur F. bought. I found some turquoise earrings last week, which I took care not to mention to her, but yesterday the baboo of Mr. B.’s office stalked into my tent with apair precisely the same, and a necklace like that I bought at Lucknow, and said his ‘Mem Sahib’ (so like the East Indians calling their ladies ‘Mem Sahibs’) had sent him to show me those, and ask if they were the same as mine. Having ascertained that the earrings were double, and the necklace four times, the price of mine, I said they were exactly similar, and that I approved of them very much. I hope she will buy them.
We saw a great deal of Captain C. at Meerut, and he would have been very happy if he had not thought Chance grown thin. F. left with him her tame deer, which is grown up and becoming very dangerous. It is a pity that tame deer always become pugnacious as soon as their horns come through.
I treated myself to such a beautiful miniature of W. O. There is a native here, Juan Kam, who draws beautifully sometimes, and sometimes utterly fails, but his picture of William is quite perfect. Nobody can suggest an alteration, and as a work of art it is a very pretty possession. It was so admired that F. got a sketch of G. on cardboard, which is also an excellent likeness; and it is a great pity there is no time for sitting for our pictures for you—but we never have time for any useful purpose.
Camp, Delhi, Feb. 20.
This identical Delhi is one of the few sights, indeed the only one except Lucknow, that has quite equalled my expectations. Four miles round it there is nothing to be seen but gigantic ruins of mosques and palaces, and the actual living city has the finestmosque we have seen yet. It is in such perfect preservation, built entirely of red stone and white marble, with immense flights of marble steps leading up to three sides of it; these, the day we went to it, were entirely covered with people dressed in very bright colours—Sikhs, and Mahrattas, and some of the fair Mogul race, all assembled to see the Governor-General’s suwarree, and I do not think I ever saw so striking a scene. They followed us into the court of the temple, which is surmounted by an open arched gallery, and through every arch there was a view of some fine ruins, or of some part of the King of Delhi’s palace, which is an immense structure two miles round, all built of deep red stone, with buttresses and battlements, and looks like an exaggerated scene of Timour the Tartar, and as if little Agib was to be thrown instantly from the highest tower, and Fatima to be constantly wringing her hands from the top of the battlements. There are hundreds of the Royal family of Delhi who have never been allowed to pass these walls, and never will be. Such a melancholy red stone notion of life as they must have! G. went up to the top of one of the largest minarets of the mosque and has been stiff ever since. From there we went to the black mosque, one of the oldest buildings in India, and came home under the walls of the palace. We passed the building in which Nadir Shah sat for a whole day looking on while he allowed his troops to massacre and plunder the city. These eastern cities are so much more thickly inhabited than ours, and the people look so defenceless, that a massacre of that sort must be a horrible slaughter; but I own I think a little simpleplunder would be pleasant. You never saw such an army of jewellers as we have constantly in our tents. On Saturday morning I got up early and went with Major J. to make a sketch of part of the palace, and the rest of the day was cut up by jewellers, shawl merchants, dealers in curiosities, &c. &c., and they begin by asking us such immense prices, which they mean to lower eventually, that we have all the trouble of seeing the things twice.
Yesterday we went to the church built by Colonel Skinner. He is a native of this country, a half-caste, but very black, and talks broken English. He has had a regiment of irregular horse for the last forty years, and has done all sorts of gallant things, had seven horses killed under him, and been wounded in proportion; has made several fortunes and lost them; has built himself several fine houses, and has his zenana and heaps of black sons like any other native. He built this church, which is a very curious building, and very magnificent—in some respects; and within sight of it there is a mosque which he has also built, because he said that one way or the other he should be sure to go to heaven. In short, he is one of the people whose lives ought to be written for the particular amusement of succeeding generations. His Protestant church has a dome in the mosque fashion, and I was quite afraid that with the best dispositions to attend to Mr. Y., little visions of Mahomet would be creeping in. Skinner’s brother, Major Robert Skinner, was the same sort of melodramatic character, and made a tragic end. He suspected one of his wives of a slightécartfrom the path of propriety—very unjustly, it is said—but he called her and all his servants together, cut off the heads of every individual in his household, and then shot himself. His soldiers bought every article of his property at ten times its value, that they might possess relics of a man who had shown, they said, such a quick sense of honour.
G. and I took a drive in the evening all round the cantonments, and there is really some pretty scenery about Delhi, and great masses of stone lying about, which looks well after those eternal sands.
In the afternoon we all (except G., who could not go, from some point of etiquette) went to see the palace. It is a melancholy sight—so magnificent originally, and so poverty-stricken now. The marble hall where the king sits is still very beautiful, all inlaid with garlands and birds of precious stones, and the inscription on the cornice is what Moore would like to see in the original: ‘If there be an Elysium on earth, it is this, it is this!’
The lattices look out on a garden which leads down to the Jumna, and the old king was sitting in the garden with a chowrybadar waving the flies from him; but the garden is all gone to decay too, and ‘the Light of the World’ had a forlorn and darkened look. All our servants were in a state of profound veneration; the natives all look upon the King of Delhi as their rightful lord, and so he is, I suppose. In some of the pavilions belonging to the princes there were such beautiful inlaid floors, any square of which would have made an enviable table for a palace in London, but the stones are constantly stolen; and in some of the finest baths there were dirty charpoys spread, with dirtierguards sleeping on them. In short, Delhi is a very suggestive and moralising place—such stupendous remains of power and wealth passed and passing away—and somehow I feel that we horrid English have just ‘gone and done it,’ merchandised it, revenued it, and spoiled it all. I am not very fond of Englishmen out of their own country. And Englishwomen did not look pretty at the ball in the evening, and it did not tell well for the beauty of Delhi that the painted ladies of one regiment, who are generally called ‘the little corpses’ (and very hard it is too upon most corpses) were much the prettiest people there, and were besieged with partners.
The Kootûb, Wednesday, Feb. 23, 1838.
WELL, of all the things I ever saw, I think this is the finest. Did we know about it in England? I mean, did you and I, in our old ancient Briton state, know? Do you know now, without my telling you, what the Kootûb is? Don’t be ashamed, there is no harm in not knowing, only I do say it is rather a pity we were so ill taught. I have had so many odd names dinned into me during the countless years I seem to have passed in this country, that I cannot remember the exact degree of purity of mind (which enemies may term ignorance) with which I left home; but after all that had been said, I expected the Kootûb would have been rather inferior to the Monument. One has thoselittle prejudices. It happens to be the Monument put at the top of the column in the Place Vendôme, and that again placed on a still grander base. It is built of beautiful red granite, is 240 feet high and 50 feet in diameter, and carved all over with sentences from the Koran, each letter a yard high, and the letter again interlaced and ornamented with carved flowers and garlands; it is between six and seven hundred years old, and looks as if it were finished yesterday, and it stands in a wilderness of ruins, carved gateways, and marble tombs, one more beautiful than the other.
They say that the man who built it meant it for one minaret of a mosque—a mosque, you are to understand, always possessing two minarets and three domes. But as some say Kootûb himself built this, and others say that a particular Emperor called Alexander II. has the merit of it, and as nobody knows whether there ever were a Kootûb or an Alexander II., I think it is just possible that we do not know what a man who never was born meant to make of a building that never was built. As it stands it is perfect. We went at six this morning to see a well into which divers are so good as to jump from the height of sixty feet. They seem to fly almost in the air, till they nearly reach the water, and then they join their feet together and go down straight, and the water closes over them. But they come up again, do not be afraid.
We had dispatched all our sights before seven, and had two hours’ good sketching before breakfast, and now it is as hot as ever I felt it in Bengal.
Delhi, Friday, Feb. 25.
Yesterday morning we found there was so much to do and to finish, that we settled to stay on here till Saturday, and to commit the sin for the first time of marching on Sunday, as we have not a day to spare. The heir-apparent of Delhi has been coaxed or threatened into waiting on G., so there was a second durbar to be held to-day, and when it came to the time, the prince had taken to his bed, and had sent for thirteen doctors to say he was too ill to come. However, he changed his mind again and came, and in the meanwhile, half our troops who were out for the durbar were fainting away from the heat. In the afternoon G. had to go and return the visits of the rajahs in the neighbourhood, and we went to see Humayun’s tomb, about six miles off, where we meant to sketch till G. came, but it turned out a failure after all we had heard of it.
However, there were some beautiful white marble tombs in the neighbourhood, carved like lace; and then we went to another well, or rather tank, entirely surrounded by mosques and buildings, on the roofs of which divers were all waiting to jump. We implored and begged they would not take us for the Lord Sahib, and take the fatal plunge in our honour, and the guards went and pushed the crowds off, and declared the Lord Sahib was coming, and we sat down and sketched, and at last, just as we were giving him up, he and all his people arrived, and the divers all bounded off. Some of them jumped from a height of eighty feet, clearing several buildings in their way. It is much the most curious sight I have seen, and I now cannotguess why they did not tumble head over heels twenty times before they reached the water. In the evening we went to a nautch at Colonel Skinner’s. His house is fitted up in the native fashion, and he had all the best singers and dancers in Delhi, and they acted passages out of Vishnu and Brahma’s lives, and sang Persian songs which I thought made a very ugly noise; but Mr. B., who speaks Persian as fluently as English, kept saying, ‘Well, this is really delightful—this I think is equal to any European singing—in fact, there is nothing like it.’
Thereisnothing like it that I ever heard before, but certainly the words, as he translated them, were very pretty. One little fat nautch girl sang a sort of passionate song to G. with little meaning smiles, which I think rather attracted his lordship, and I thought it might be too much for him if I forwarded to him Mr. B.’s translation. ‘I am the body, you are the soul: we may be parted here, but let no one say we shall be separated hereafter. My father has deserted me; my mother is dead; I have no friends. My grave is open, and I look into it; but do you care for me?’ The dancing is very slow and very dull, but the dresses and ornaments are beautiful.
Saturday, Feb. 26.
We had a melancholy catastrophe last night. There has been a great deal of pilfering in the camp the two last days, which has been the case with every great camp near Delhi, and our people were unluckily more awake than usual. A thief was seen running off with one of the servants’ cooking pots, and pursued. A syce of Mr. T. caught hold of him. The thief turned roundand stuck his knife into the man and killed him on the spot. He was dead before they could even fetch Dr. D. The thief is taken, but nobody is ever hanged in this country. Mr. T., who has been agent here for twenty-two years, takes it as a personal affront that we should have been robbed in his district, though I should have thought the affront lay the other way.
Paniput, Feb. 28.
Delhi turned out a very unwholesome place. All the servants have been taken with attacks of fever and sickness; the sudden hot days after the cold weather disagree with them. Our camp has grown much larger. There are more hangers-on. Mrs. —— has taken charge of a little niece and two nephews who lost their mother suddenly, and she is taking them up to the hills—I never saw such sickly little things. I see another little European girl every morning on the line of march, who has evidently nobody but bearers to take charge of her, probably going up to a school at Mussoorie, where parents who are too poor to send children home now send them. I forget whether I told you a story Mr. T. told me about the way in which children travel here, and which strikes me as very shocking, and would probably strike you more. I believe I have told it to you twice already in hopes of making your motherly hair stand on end. He said a palanquin was brought to his house containing three little children—a little girl nine years old and two smaller brothers. They were going up to Mussoorie, had been travelling three days, and had about a week’s more journey. They had not even their nameswritten on a piece of paper, or a note to the magistrates of the district, but were just passed on from one set of bearers to the other. You know the bearers are changed every eight miles like so many post horses, and it constantly happens on a dâk journey that the bearers get tired, or the fresh set are not at their posts, and the palanquin is put down on the road and the traveller left to help himself. The bearers who brought these children to Mr. T.’s, said they thought the children were tired, and so they had brought them to an European house for a rest. Mr. T. had them washed and dressed, and fed them and kept them half a day, when he was obliged to send them away for fear they should lose their dâk. He said they were very shy, and would hardly speak, but he made out their names and gave them notes to other magistrates, and some months afterwards he saw them at school at Mussoorie; but it is an odd way of sending children to school. I should like to see you packing off your three youngest boys for the chances of these naked half savages taking them and feeding them and looking after them on the road, without even a servant to attend to them.
When we came into camp this morning we found Mr. ——, whose turn it had been to come on with the guard of honour, perfectly desperate. His tent had been entirely stripped in the night, he and his bearers remaining in a profound sleep while the thieves cut entirely away one side of the tent, and carried off over his head a large camel-trunk and all his other boxes, with his sword, gun, and pistols. It was a sad loss for a poor lieutenant in the army, but luckily the police recovered most of his things in the course of theday, except, as he says with a most sentimental sigh, ‘a few rings of no value in themselves, but of value tome, and a fewchits.’ The magistrate, Mr. ——, treats with the greatest contempt the idea of recovering any sentimental goods. ‘I assure you,’ he says, ‘the dacoits atPannyputhave no idea of sentiment.’ Probably not—but that does not console Lieut. —— for the loss of hischits.
Kurnaul, March 2.
We arrived here yesterday; a great ugly scattered cantonment, all barracks, and dust, and guns, and soldiers; and G. had a levée in the morning, and we were ‘at home’ in the evening; and the officers of four regiments, with their wives and daughters, all came and danced. The fashions are even again behind those of Delhi. Mrs. V. appeared in a turban made I think of stamped tin moulded into two fans, from which descended a longpleureusefeather floating over some very full sleeves. Mrs. Z. did not aspire to anything fanciful, but was simply attired in a plain coloured gown made of a very few yards of sarcenet. We are going to dine with the General to-day—a dinner of sixty people.
Yesterday as we were stepping over the street to luncheon, there appeared an interesting procession of tired coolies carrying boxes—our English boxes that had come plodding after us from Allahabad. I was in hopes Mr. D.’s bonnets would have come out of one of them, but we heard in the evening that they are at least a month off, and in the meantime the unpacking of these was immense fun. There were two boxes of books, and I had just come to an end of the last set,and now there is Mrs. Gore’s ‘Stokeshill Park,’ and ‘My Aunt Dorothy,’ and some French novels, and, above all, dear Charles Lamb’s Letters, which I have been sighing for and have begun upon instantly. I cannot imagine what number of hill-bearers will take our goods up to Simla. Major J. has written for 1,500, and they are already at work taking the first division of goods up. Our camp will break up almost entirely in a few days. We three, with two aides-de-camp, the doctor, and one secretary, are going through the Dhoon, a sort of route that will not admit of a large party. It is a very pretty road, and likely to be cooler than the actual plains.
The rest of the camp and most of the servants will pursue the straight road. I long to get into the hills more than ever. It is grown so very hot now, quite as bad as Calcutta in May. I believe we shall not be able to take Wright and Jones this route, which will make them very unhappy. St. Cloup told me yesterday that he had at last had a letter from Madame St. Cloup, which had made him very happy, and that she was in an excellent place with a relation of ours. Poor woman! she little knows what a faithless man he is. However, he bought her a beautiful gold chain at Delhi, and he said that now he had had this letter, he had ‘quelque envie de lui acheter des boucles d’oreilles,’ but that he thought it would be better to take them home. It would make her more glad to see him.
Camp, Kurnaul, March 5, 1838.
ITgoes much against the grain with me to begin a fresh Journal on half a sheet, but it is an odd time for writing, so I must take what I can get and be thankful. The things are all put away for the night under the sentries. G. is sitting down to a dinner of forty men in red coats, ‘fathers and mothers unknown.’ F., W., and I have devoured such small cheer as St. Cloup would allow the kitmutgar to pick up from the outside of the kitchen at an early hour. W. O. is this moment gone off for his three weeks’ tiger-shooting; and now there is just one hour before I need dress for the station ball, so that I devote to writing to you. We could not help laughing at our private dinner, considering what people say of the luxuries of the East, and of the state in which the Governor-General lives. The dinner was very good, thanks to its being stolen from St. Cloup’s best company preparations; but we were in a small empty tent, lighted up by two candles and one night-lamp. The whole number of leaves of the dining-table were apparently wanted in the large tent, for they had given us a borrowed camp-table, two very dirty deal boards, covered with the marks of old slops, and of theroundsof glasses. I am sure at any of the London gin-palaces the scavengers would have grumbled at the look of it; and our three coffee-cups, with a plate of biscuits for Chance in the centre, did not look handsome. The purdahs were all up, as theevening is hot, so outside we had a good view of the kettle boiling for tea on some sticks of charcoal, and the bearers washing up the dirty plates and keeping the pariah dogs from helping themselves. W.’s dhoolie, a sort of bed on poles, was waiting for him in the distance, with two irregular horsemen for an escort. Altogether, I think a Blackheath gipsy would have sneered at us; but otherwise, nothing was absolutely wanting. I came back to my tent meaning to write to you, but found, as I told you, everything whisked off, except one table and my sofa; and that has now been carried away to serve as a bed for a Mr. ——, who has come dâk sixty miles on some business with G.
I can hardly write because I am in the middle of ‘Lamb’s Life and Letters’—such a nice book! I quite dread going on with it for fear of finishing it. It sometimes does almost as well as you to talk with for five minutes. I like the way in which he goes on revelling in a bad joke, making nonsense by the piece; and there are such good little bits of real feeling. ‘All about you is a threadbare topic. I have worn it out with thinking; it has come to me when I have been dull with anything, till my sadness has seemed more to have come from it, than to have introduced it. I want you, you don’t know how much.’ Such a jewel of a man to have put that into words, and it is so true! I often find myselfsaucingup my distaste for the present with regret for the past, and so disguising a little discontent with a great deal of sentiment; but yet that is rather unfair too, for I really should not mind India if you and three or four others were here. Thediscontent with it arises a great deal from want of the old familiar friends. However, we have at last done two years of it. I believe it has taken us forty English years to do these two Indian ones; but still it shows what time and longevity will effect. Mr. Y. brought rather an interesting individual to my tent this morning, a Christianised Indian; he has been a strict Christian for nearly twenty-three years, and last year the Bishop ordained him. He was a Brahmin of the highest class, and is a very learned man. I asked him how his conversion began, whether from discontent with his own belief, or from the persuasions of others; and he said he was dissatisfied with his own superstitions, and got a copy of Henry Martyn’s translation of St. John, and then of the Acts, and then went back to the rest of the Bible. Mrs. Sherwood, who lived at Meerut, was afterwards his chief instructress, and he speaks of her with the greatest gratitude. He keeps a school now, which is attended by about forty children, but he does not think he has made any real converts. I wish he could have spoken English: I wanted to know more about it all. He was here a long time, and I did rather a highly-finished picture of him, thinking the old Bishop would like it. He is rather like Sidney Smith blackened, and laughed about as heartily as Sidney would have done at his own picture.
Tuesday, March 6.
We went to our ball last night—it was pretty; the room was hung round with such profusion of garlands and a sort of stage, on which there were green arches decked out with flowers; but what particularly tookmy fancy was a set of European soldiers dressed up for the night as footmen,real red plush trousers, with blue coats and red collars, and white cotton stockings, and powdered heads, and they carried about trays of tea and ices. After the turbaned heads and ‘the trash and tiffany,’ as Hook says, with which we are surrounded, you cannot conceive what a pleasant English look this gave to the room. Such fat, rosy English footmen! It is very odd how sometimes the sudden recurrence of some common English custom shows the unnatural state of things in which we live—that red plush! it was just like Rousseau’s ‘Voilà de la pervenche,’ only not quite so romantic. To-day, before I was dressed, Rosina said that G.’s nazir wanted to speak to me, and I found him in my tent at the head of at least a hundred yards of ‘trash and tiffany,’ come to hope I would ask my lord to stay another day, as to-morrow is the great Mussulman holiday—they call it their Buckra Eed, or sounds to that effect; and it is, in fact, a commemoration of Abraham offering up Isaac, only they do it in honour of Ishmael. Nothing can be more inconvenient, but I never can refuse the nazir anything, he looks so timid and gentlemanlike; so I went to G. with the deputation, and we have altered all our plans, and may have to march on Sunday to make up for it. A shocking sacrifice of Christianity to Mahomedanism! only, as I said before, I cannot refuse the nazir; and also, the servants have in general borne the march very well, and deserve some consideration. We have written now to revive a play the privates of the Artillery had wanted to act, and which we had declined for want of time to go and see it.
Camp, one march from Kurnaul, Thursday, March 8.
I took Mrs. A. out in the carriage on Tuesday evening, and after I had taken her home, I was caught in a regular storm of dust, what they call a dry storm here, much worse than a thick London fog. The syces walked before the horses feeling their way, and hallooing because the postilions could not see them; and as it was, I came in at the wrong end of the camp with the syces missing. W. tried to go out to dinner, but could not find his way.
We went to the play last night, ‘Tekeli,’ and it really was wonderfully well acted. They did much better than the gentlemen amateurs at Meerut, and, except that the heroines were six feet high and their pink petticoats had not more than three breadths in them, the whole thing was well done: the scenery and decorations were excellent, and all got up by the privates. There was one man who sang comic songs in a quiet, dawdling way that Matthews could not have surpassed. It was all over by nine o’clock. We marched very early this morning, as it was a sixteen miles’ march, which is always a trial to the servants and to the regiment, the sun is so hot now after eight. The sergeant who sends back reports of the road the evening before, always writes them in rather a grand style, and he put down to-day: ‘First and second mile good; at the third mile, bridge over the canal which requires the greatest precaution—theroaring sluicesmay alarm the horses.’ I wish you had seen the ‘roaring sluices,’ something like the cascades we used to build when we were children in the ditch at Elmer’sEnd, but hardly so imposing. Sergeant —— is so unused to the slightest inequality either of land or water, that it astounds him. The servants enjoyed their holiday thoroughly. They all put off their liveries and went round the camp to make their little compliments, which they do in very good taste, and the old khansamah made a sort ofchapelof the hangings of tents, and there was one of their priests in the centre reading the Koran, and between four and five hundred of them kneeling round, all looking so white and clean in their muslin dresses. I really think they are very good people, they are so very particular about their prayers.
Friday, March 9.
We had our overland packet of December 27 yesterday. There never was anything so praiseworthy as the regularity of that Overland Mail lately, but where are your letters? You must send them to China with directions to climb over the wall and post on to Simla, or to ‘try New South Wales, or Tartary.’ I heard from R. and M. and L. all up to Christmas, and you are still at August 5th. It is very odd, because I am confident you write, but I should like to know what you write. We have heard from Mr. D. much later than from you.