Soonair, Friday, Jan. 18, 1839.
WEhalt here till Monday. There is a great gathering of petty chiefs, and our arrival was very pretty. Each man came on his elephant, with a few wild followers on horseback, some with a second elephant, and they all scramble up to G., every individual giving him a bow and arrows, or a matchlock. His hand was soon full, then his howdah was hung with them; the hirkaru behind was buried in bows; then they boiled over into our howdahs, and at every break in the road a fresh chief and more bows appeared.
At last we came to Mr. E., bringing the Nahun rajah. Don’t you in your ignorance go and confound him with the oldNabunrajah. This is the Nahun chief whom we visited last year in the hills, and who is very gentlemanlike and civilised. I have found out why I was so glad to see him again. He has light blue eyes, and after three years of those enormous black beads the natives habitually see with, these were mild and refreshing. They all brought us to the camp in a drizzling rain, which came on to a pour in the course of the day, and a wretched business it always is. All the servants and camp followers look so miserable and catch such bad colds. I thought when we were at Nabun that an old man, a sort of prime minister of the rajah’s, would make a good drawing, and I told him so; and to-day he arrived, having made two marches to have the picture drawn. He gave me his matchlock,which I asked Captain D. to return with the usual speech, that it was much better in his hands than in mine; but the old man said no; it was a particularly good matchlock; he had shot with it very often, and I should not easily find so good a one, so C. gave me a watch to present to him in exchange, which quite delighted him. While Captain L. E. was gone to fetch the watch, the old man took the opportunity to question my jemadar about our habits, and I understood enough of the language to make out that he was asking how many times we eat in the day. The natives generally only eat once, but I believe they think our way of eating at several different times rather grand; at all events, the jemadar did not omit a spoonful, and it was rather shocking to hear how many times in the day we were fed, beginning with the cup of coffee before marching; and the afternoon cup of tea sounded wrong andwaste-not-want-not-ish. However, the old sirdar said it was all ‘wah wah’—excellent, to be able to eat so much.
Saturday, Jan. 19.
There was rather a pretty durbar this morning—two hundred of those Sikh chiefs who gave our great Apollo his bows yesterday; and as they were only shown in by fives and sixes, it made a very long durbar, and we went over to make a sketch of it. I never can make a likeness of G. to my mind, and yet there is always a look of your M. in my drawings of him, so there must be a likeness somehow, either in the sketches or in G. and M. That gentlemanlike Nahun rajah made Mr. A. bring him all across the tent to shake hands with F. and me, all owing to his blueeyes. Nobody with black eyes would have dreamed of so European an idea. G. went out shooting this afternoon. There are heaps of partridges and quails in this part of the country.
I thought of going out too, with my matchlock, only C. has claimed it for the Company. We had a large dinner to-day, forty-five; all the officers of the cavalry and artillery who leave us on Monday. One or two of them got particularly drunk. They say some of them are always so, more or less, but it happened to bemorethis evening.
Sunday, Jan. 20.
Mr. Y. set off after church to go back to Simla for his wife’saccouchement. He will go scrambling up to Simla in a shorter time than the post goes. He borrows a horse here, and rides a camel there, and the Putteealah rajah is to lend him a palanquin; and he set off with some cold dinner in one hand and ‘Culpepper’s Midwifery’ in the other, which he borrowed of Dr. D. at the last minute. He is very pleasant and amusing; more like R. than ever.
Such a pleasure! a letter from the agent at Calcutta to say a box of millinery has arrived at the Custom House per ‘Robert Small.’ Mine, to a certainty! It has been rather more than seven months making its voyage, and will be three more coming to the hills. I think it is about the last great invoice for which I shall trouble you. Calcutta may provide itself for the last few months; and my next order will be for a pelisse and bonnet, &c., atPortsmouth. Good!
Monday, Jan. 21.
Rather a long march; and that generally brings a large riding party together at the end; and once more W. and I had one of our hysterical fits of laughter at the extraordinary folly of a march. We feel so certain that people who live in houses, and get up by a fire at a reasonable hour and then go quietly to breakfast, would think us raving mad, if they saw nine Europeans of steady age and respectable habits, going galloping every morning at sunrise over a sandy plain, followed by quantities of black horsemen, and then by ten miles of beasts of burden carrying things which, after all, will not make the nine madmen even decently comfortable. We have discovered that a mad doctor is coming out here, and we think it must be a delicate attention of yours; but when he sees us ride into Rag Fair every morning, for no other reason than that we have left another Rag Fair ten miles behind, I am sure he will say he can do us no good. It is very kind of you to have sent him, but we are incurable, thank you, and as long as we are left at large we shall go about in this odd way. There is your missing September letter, with T.’s and E.’s dear Journals. It went to Calcutta, and came with the October packet. Newsalls sounds very delightful, and I mean to live there constantly, and to see a great many cricket matches. How very disagreeable that Sister should look so young. I look much older now than she did when we came away, so we shall never know which of us ought to respect the other.
Tuesday, Jan. 22.
We are more mad than ever!—at least we have got ourselves into one of those scrapes that mad people do. There is a wretched little rivulet, a thing not so big as that ditch by old Holledge’s, at Elmer’s End, which we were to have crossed this morning. This little creek, which is quite dry ten months of the year, and at the best of times is only called the Gugga, suddenly chose to rise in the night, and there is now seven feet of water in it, which puts crossing out of the question. There is only one boat, and a helpless magistrate on the other side.
The cavalry and artillery who left us yesterday will of course be stopped by the same river higher up, and Mr. C. has sent to carry off their one boat too; and in the meantime we are at a dead lock. Luckily, there is very good shooting here. I could not imagine this morning why Wright did not come to dress me after the bugles sounded, and I kept sending message after message to her, with a sort of wild idea that everybody would march, and I should be left lying in bed in the middle of this desert, with nothing to put on, and no glass to dress by; a sort of utter destitution.
The hirkaru who slept in the tent happened to speak no English, so I never understood a word of the long Hindustani speeches he kept screaming through the partitions, and at last Wright came, cold and sleepy. ‘Law, ma’am, did not you know the river was full, and we can’t go? and all the things have come back except the kitchen things, so I thought you would like a good sleep.’ Luckily, the kitchen recrossed before breakfast time.
Noodeean, Thursday, Jan. 24.
That little ditch the Gugga is quite pompous with twenty feet of water, and it has been dry for three years, and was nearly so on Monday, so we are just a day too late. We moved eight miles nearer to it merely for the love of moving, and are now at Noodeean—evidently a corruption of Noodleland, or the land to which we noodles should come. I want to leave the last camp standing, and to march backwards and forwards between the two; it would be just as good as any other Indian tour. We came on elephants to this place, careering wildly over the country, that the gentlemen might shoot; there never was anything like the tribes of quails and partridges, but it is very difficult to shoot them from an elephant. The hotty goes lumbering on, and it is just a chance whether the gun that is pointed at a hare on the ground, is not jerked up so as to kill a rock pigeon overhead. G. killed ten quails, which was more than anybody else did. Rajah Hindu Rao, who is now so habitually with us that we look upon him as a native aide-de-camp, took pains to miss, I think, that he might not seem to shoot better than G.
In the afternoon G. went out on foot with Captain X. and shot an antelope, which is really a great feat. There is a Mr. N., the magistrate to whom we rightfully belong to-day, and who ought to be wringing his hands constantly, and plying eternally between our camp and the river, a victim to remorse that he has not made a bridge of boats in time; instead of which, N.’s tents are seen in the distance the other side of the water, and he never stirs from them, and all the noticehe has taken of us is a message that perhaps he had better go back and prepare for us at Hansi, as there seems little chance of our crossing for a week. We tell Mr. C. that if he had been N. this never would have happened. He has got two boats from those unhappy regiments up the river, and moreover he has succeeded to-day in recovering great part of Mrs. B.’s stolen property, her bracelets and some of her gowns, which have beenburiedin some Sikh village, and I fancy are not the better for the operation. The thieves have been sent up to Runjeet, and his justice is rather severe, I am afraid.
C. set off yesterday with all his clerks and establishment, and writes word that by making the villagers work all night, he has passed them all, except the camels, who detest water and will not swim. X. and A. went off this afternoon to pass our goods, and W. went in the evening.
Friday, Jan. 25.
We marched this morning, that is, we rode five miles to this wicked little Gugga, which is not forty yards wide, and yet gives us all this trouble. Captain S. overtook us half-way, and said that he had been detained by finding Wright and Jones at the last camp left without any conveyance. Their elephant, by some mistake, had been sent on to the ghaut, and all the usual spare resources had been sent away last night, so he found themwalking. He sent them his elephant as soon as he could overtake it, but they had walked two miles, much to the wonder of the natives.
I never saw such a scene as the ghaut—such a conglomeration of carts, sepoys, bullocks, trunks, &c., and600 camels, who would not go any way. About 200 had been coaxed over. F. and I went down there after luncheon, and sat on the shore to see the fun. W., X., P., and L. E. had each taken the command of one of the boats; and with one European the natives work very well. They each had on their broad white feather hats to keep off the sun, and a long stick to keep the people from crowding into the boats, and looked like pictures of slave-drivers, and were screaming and gesticulating, and hauling packages in and out. The only way of passing the camels was by tying six of them in a string to the tail of an elephant, who then swam across, dragging them all after him. They did so hate it! I suppose it must be much the same as we should feel if we were dragged through a bed of hot sand, which is what the camels really love. The water was like a deep canal; nothing was to be seen of the elephant but his trunk, and the mahout standing on his back holding on like grim death by the elephant’s ears. The hackeries were pushed into the water, some of them very high covered carts, but they disappeared instantly, and were dragged under the water; then if they stuck anywhere, a dear, good elephant would go in and rake about and push them along with his great hard head. A little further up, there might be seen a troop of bullocks refusing to take the water, and at last driven in, and their owners swimming behind and holding on by their tails. This has been going on ever since Tuesday morning. Captain P. and his sergeant have not had their clothes off for three days, and look thoroughly exhausted. The tent pitchers have also been at work in the water for three days.What I hate most in a camp is the amount of human and brute suffering it induces; luckily, there were no lives lost this time; an elephant picked up one little boy who was drowning. Webb’s tame bear was nearly lost, and when he got into the boat, he turned round to X. and said, ‘I hope, sir, Miss Eden seed me a saving of my bear; it would make such a prettyskitch.’ The villain N. met us at the ghaut, and came to visit us in the morning—not the least ashamed of himself—but he is by no means an unpolishedjungle-man: rather the contrary, jolly and pleasant, only that he has nearly forgotten his English. He laughs like that Dr. G. we used to know, and says with a great ‘Ho! ho! ho!’ If it had not been an inconvenience on account of supplies, it is just as well you should have been stopped in this way. You ought to see the hard-shipsof a camp life.’ I wonder what the ships of a camp life are which are nothard-ships?
Saturday, Jan. 26, 1839.
WEmade our march this morning, but found all the people who had been obliged to come on last night so knocked up that I have persuaded G. to give up his intention of marching to-morrow. We seldom have marched on Sunday, and this is a bad time to begin. In short, it was nearly impossible. The sergeant who lays out the advanced camp is in bed with fever from fatigue.
Wednesday, Jan. 30.
It is four days since I have been able to write. I was ‘took so shocking bad’ with fever on Sunday, caught, it is supposed, at that river-side—that eternal Gugga. Captain L. E. was seized just in the same way, and several of the servants, so we all say we caught it there; but it is all nonsense—every inch of the plains in India has its fever in it, only there is not time to catch them all. I think the Gugga fever is remarkably unpleasant, and I did not know that one head and one set of bones could hold so much pain as mine did for forty-eight hours. But one ought to be allowed a change of bones in India: it ought to be part of the outfit. I hope it is over to-night; but as things are, I and L. E., with Captain C. and the doctor, are going straight to Hansi to-morrow—only a short march of ten miles, thereby saving ourselves two long marches of sixteen miles, which G. makes to Hissar, and giving ourselves a halt of three days to repair our shattered constitutions.
It is so absurd to hear people talk of their fevers. Mr. M. was to have joined us a month ago, but unfortunately caught ‘the Delhi fever’ coming up: he is to be at Hansi. Z. caught the ‘Agra fever’ coming up; hopes to be able to join us at Hansi, but is doubtful. Then N., our Hansi magistrate, looks with horror at Hansi: he has suffered and still suffers so much from ‘that dreadful Hansi fever.’ I myself think ‘the Gugga fever’ a more awful visitation, but that is all a matter of opinion. Anyhow, if N. wished us to know real hardship, fever in camp is about the most compendious definition of intense misery I know. Wemarch early each morning; so after a racking night—and I really can’t impress upon you the pain in myIndianbones—it was necessary at half-past five—just when one might by good luck have fallen asleep—to get up by candle-light and put on bonnet and cloak and —— one’sthingsin short, to drive overnoroad. I went one morning in the palanquin, but that was so slow, the carriage was the least evil of the two. Then on arriving, shivering all over, we were obliged to wait two hours till the beds appeared; and from that time till ten at night, I observed by my watch that there was not one minute in which they were not knocking tent-pins, they said into the ground, but by mistake they all went into my head—I am sure of it, and am convinced that I wear a large and full wig of tent-pins. Dr. D. put leeches on me last night, and I am much better to-day. L. E. is of course ditto: the Gugga fevers are all alike.
Hansi, Friday, Feb. 1.
I went to sleep at last last night, and am much better to-day; but I see what N. means about Hansi. Such a place!—not, poor thing! but that it may be a charming residence in fine weather; but we have had such a wet day. It began to pour in the night. I am very glad I resisted G.’s offer of giving me half the horses and the shut carriage, for I suspect even with all the horses they will have had some difficulty in making out their long march. Such a road as ours was!—nearly under water. I started in my palanquin, but after the first three miles the bearers could hardly get on at all: they stuck and they slipped, and theyhelped each other into holes and handed each other out again, but altogether we did not get on. Captain P. was to have driven me the last half of the way in his buggy; and as his elephant was like my bearers—slipping and sticking—we sent on one of the guards for the buggy, and contrived to get on very well in that. When we came to what is nominally called ‘the ground,’ it looked like a very fine lake, in which my tent and the durbar tent and Dr. D.’s were all that were not standing in the water. P. and the jemadar carried me in a chair into mine, and there I was left alone in my glory. He and L. E. took the durbar tent, their own tents having a foot of water in them.
Captain D. went to live with his brother, who has a bungalow here, which he very kindly offered me. It is pouring so again to-night that I wish I had taken it; but then if I had carried off the cook and the dining-tables and the lamps, &c., I thought the aides-de-camp would be wretched, and L. E. is not well enough to go out; but to be sure, these tents! If it were not for the real misery to so many people, the incidents of the day would have been rather amusing. There is not of course a tent for the servants, so they are living in the khenauts (the space between the outer covering and the lining of our three tents), and there are thirty sleeping in my outer room, if room it may be called. The difficulties went on increasing. W.’s greyhounds, ten of them, were standing where his tent (now at Hissar) usually is, and the men said they would die, so we put them in the khenauts and told the dogs that they must not bark and the menthat they must not cough, and hitherto they have been very quiet. My syce came to tell P. that my horse was not used to stand out all day in the rain, and that if it did Mr. Webb would kill him. I should assist at the execution, though how the poor syce could help it I don’t quite see. I would have given Orelio my own blankets willingly and put him to bed with my own nightcap on, but unluckily the bed did not come till the afternoon, and was then a perfect sponge. However, we lodged the horse somehow. Then F. had two Barbary goats, which she had ordered on the lemur’s death, thinking they were pretty, soft, hairy things, instead of which there arrived two days ago, large, smooth,bleak-looking English goats. However, she told me to take the greatest care of them when they came up. At twelve, a coolie without a stitch of clothes on, walked in with a Barbary kid on his back, stiff and stark. No interpreter at hand, so where the mother was remained a mystery. F. might have fancied to her dying hour that I had let her Barbary goats die—nobody ever thinks their children or pets are properly taken care of; so I set off rubbing, and made my two boys, Soobratta and Ameer, rub the kid too, and we poured hot things down its throat. We should have been worth millions to the Humane Society, but the kid would not come to. Then I made them dig a hole in the outer tent and put charcoal in it, and when it was quite hot we took out the charcoal and put in the kid—just like singeing a pig; but it was a bright idea, and quite cured it. Just as we had got the little brute on its legs, the mother was brought in, and we went through the same processwith her. When they were quite well, they were also sent to sleep in the khenauts.
The bandsmen, who are chiefly Europeans, came to say they had no shelter. ‘Sleep in the khenauts,’ was the only answer; and we gave them what remained of our dinner, for the kitchen was under water. Mr. —— arrived, and I asked him to dinner too. It is fine to-day, and the tents came up in the middle of the night. We have got a paper of the 24th November, so the overland has arrived, and G. will bring us some letters to-morrow.
Saturday, Feb. 2.
And he has brought plenty—your’s and E.’s Journals amongst others.
Mahem, Tuesday, Feb. 5.
I was taken with a worse attack of ague than ever as I was writing to you on Saturday, and was obliged to go to bed for two days. Luckily, it went off just before marching time yesterday morning, and I am taking narcotine at all convenient hours. I believe it is a remedy that has been invented in this country—at all events introduced—by Dr. O’Shaughnessy. Dr. D. has tried it in many cases, and it has never failed where the patients can bear it, but it makes many people quite giddy and delirious. I do not mind it at all, and am much better to-day. Two of our bearers, old servants, are dying of cholera from that last wetting.
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 1839.
ANOTHERrainy night, and we have come on to another sloppy encampment, and I am sorry to say those bearers, and two more, have died of cholera to-day—all owing to the wet, Dr. D. says. The magistrate here has politely offered us his house to-morrow, and as Captain P. sends back word he cannot find dry ground for half the dripping tents, U. Hall will be a God-send.
Thursday, Feb. 7.
Dear U.! such a nice, dry, solid house. I suppose it would strike us as small on common occasions, but it looks to me now like the dryest, best built, most solid little palace I ever inhabited, what people call ‘quite Palladian.’ I rather like hitting myself a good hard knock against the thick solid walls, and then the pleasure of walking along the hard floor without fur slippers and without hearing the groundsquelch! The quiet, too, is worth its weight in gold (though how it is to be weighed I don’t quite know).
F. and W. went out coursing this evening. G. was detained by letters just as he and I were going out, so I thought it would be polite and sent to ask U. to go out with X. and me; and he brought me a little wooden cup of his own turning, with which I was obliged to be quite delighted, in fact I was; it was a very good little cup, and then he said, ‘I did it fromrecollection of the famous vase in the Vatican. Does it remind you of Rome?’ I could luckily say I had never been there, but I am not very sure that that little box-wood cup and the mud walls of U.’s house would naturally have brought Rome into my mind.
Sunday Evening, Feb. 10.
We went into our tents again on Friday, with a long march of fifteen miles. The tents were still damp. By twelve o’clock I began to shiver, tried to go out in the afternoon and came back in a regular shake, had a horrid night, and after yesterday morning’s march was obliged to go to bed again with violent head-ache and fever. It has gone off this afternoon, and the day’s halt has been a great mercy; but Dr. D. says he does not think I shall get well in a camp, it disagrees so utterly with me. G. has ascertained there are four good rooms in the Residency at Delhi, which is never occupied now, so X. has gone on with my furniture and servants, and to-morrow I am going to drive straight on there; the camp will come to Delhi on Tuesday. I shall only be half a mile from them, but out of the noise and in a dry house. I have grown just like thatshakingwife of ‘Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaws.’
Monday, Feb. 11.
I made out my double march most successfully with three relays of horses. X. rode out to the other camp to show me the way in; he had had all the broken windows glazed, and Mrs. B. had sent curtains; the rooms look very clean and nice. The house stands in a small shady park, with a nice garden, and thequiet is delightful. I went to sleep directly after breakfast, and am better, thank you. W. came on to Delhi to set all his shooting expedition going, and he dines here with X. and Dr. D., who are encamped in the court-yard, and they will drink tea with me. I often think of former days and of being ill at Bower Hall and at Langley, with you and L. taking all the trouble of it, and that it is done in a differentmethodnow—X. coming in when I am in my dressing-gown on the sofa, to ask about the numberless articles that a crowded camp necessitates, and saying, ‘I have had relays of bearers for Rosina, because I should like her to be there with me, that she may show me how to arrange your rooms; and is there any particular diet the khansamah should provide? I shall send on the young khansamah, he says he knows what you like; and when I am gone, Captain L. E. begs you will send to him, if you think of anything that will make you more comfortable.’
It is very good of them, poor dears! and I think I give them a great deal of trouble; but then I never meant when I came into the world to be nursed by all these young gentlemen. It cannot be helped; everything in India must be done by men. Giles is very useful on these occasions, and what people do without an English man-servant, I can’t guess.
Tuesday, Feb. 12.
This must go. Such a volume! it may as well go to the Admiralty. G. and F. arrived at the camp this morning, and F. is sitting here. They are only half a mile off, but Dr. D. has made up his mind thatI shall not go near the camp till all parties and dinners are over. G. is going to drive me out this afternoon.
Residency, Delhi, Monday, Feb. 18.
I have been staying here a week to-day, with some degree of success, though I had a great deal of fever yesterday. F. went over yesterday with three or four of the sketching gentlemen to the Kootûb, and comes back to-morrow. Dr. D. would not let me go when it came to the time, and indeed it was impossible, as it turned into a fever day, but I should have liked to see it again. I heard from F. to-day, and she says it is more beautiful than ever, and that they shall stay till to-morrow afternoon, for they have found such quantities of sketching to do. It is certainlytheplace in the plains I should like to live at. It has a feeling about it of ‘Is not this great Babylon?’ all ruins and desolation, except a grand bit or two of magnificence kept up by the king. Then, in the modern way there are nice drives, and a considerable congregation of shawl merchants and jewellers. Our agate mania still continues, and there is no end to the curiosities that have been brought to light, or the price to which they have risen. They have been a great amusement, as I have not been able to sketch, and altogether this is rather a comfortable life for India. F. comes here for two hours in the morning. Captain X. and Dr. D. superintend breakfast and luncheon. At four, G. always comes, and we take a drive, and then, after six, I grow feverish and am glad to be quiet till bed-time; and there is a little undercurrent all the morning of W. O. and Captain L. E., and agates and presents offlowers, &c. Major J. and Captain T. have come over to see us; indeed the whole plain is dotted with the tents of people who have come to see G.; he says he never had so many applicants before.
Tuesday, Feb. 19.
W. set off this morning on his tiger-shooting expedition. It has failed in some respects. General E. is ordered off to join Sir S. R. at Bombay, and G. cannot give leave to a Mr. H. here, who is a great tiger-hunter; but he has a chance of another friend, and our native ally, Hindû Rao, is going with him, or rather after him, for he says he cannot possibly leave Delhi till the Lord Sahib goes, and every afternoon Hindû Rao comes to the door with the carriage, and trots by its side all the way, in his purple satin dress, and with his spear and shield. He says he knows G. likes him, and he also knows the reason—that he has nothing to ask for. He is very rich, and manages his money very well; and he likes G., because he says ‘he is real gentleman, as well as a Governor-General, and treats other people as if they were gentlemen too.’
Such a tea-pot to-day!—green serpentine, with a running pattern of small rubies set in it. Much too lovely!
F. came back this afternoon, rather tired, but says the ruins are all beautiful.
Wednesday.
I have had two Delhi miniature painters here, translating two of my sketches into ivory, and I never sawanything so perfect as their copy of Runjeet Singh. Azim, the best painter, is almost a genius; except that he knows no perspective, so he can only copy. He is quite mad about some of my sketches, and as all miniatures of well-known characters sell well, he has determined to get hold of my book.
There is a fore-shortened elephant with the Putteealah Rajah in the howdah, that particularly takes his fancy. However, I do not want them to be common, so I cut out of the book those that I wish to have copied, and I never saw a native so nearly in a passion as he was, because he was not allowed the whole book. Their miniatures are so soft and beautiful. F. has had your likeness of my father copied.
Camp, Thursday, Feb. 21.
I was quite sorry to leave the Residency yesterday, all the more so, from my ague having been particularly severe last night; it is very odd that nothing will cure it. However, we shall be at Simla in three weeks, and there was a good deal of rain again last night, which is against ague.
Friday.
We had such a frightful thunder-storm last night for three hours, with rain that might have drowned us all; I never heard such a clatter.Ourtents stood it very well, but a great many tents were beat down, and all the servants’ tents were full of water. Luckily, this advanced camp escaped great part of the storm, and the tents are much drier than those we left. This is not good weather for ague; it goes lingering on, and they say will do so, till I get to the hills. I keepvery quiet, but I shall be glad to be settled at Simla. You know I never could quite understand the Psalms, but I see what David means when he says, ‘Woe is me that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech, and to have my habitation in the tents of Kedar.’ Mesech I think he was wrong about. I should have no objection to dwell with him in a good house of his own, but the tents of Kedar are decidedly very objectionable and ‘woe-is-me-ish;’ double-poled tents, I have no doubt, and lined with buff and green.
Sunday, Feb. 24.
The idea of the December mail arriving this morning! letters of the 26th, less than two months old.
‘Oliver Twist’ we have read, doled out in monthly parts nearly to the end, and I like it very much—but ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ still better. We have left off there, at Miss Petowker’s marriage, and Mrs. Crummles’ walking tragically up the aisle ‘with a step and a stop,’ and the infant covered with flowers. There never was such a man as Dickens! I often think of proposing a public subscription for him—‘A tribute from India’—and everybody would subscribe. He is the agent forEuropefun, and they do not grow much in this country.
Paniput, Tuesday.
We are progressing every day, but this is the same road we passed over last year, so if there had been anything to say about it, you would not wish me to say it twice over. Mr. —— is with us, remarkably dull; but since I have got him to tell me anecdotes of the Delhi royal family shut up in their high walls, andof all the murders he has known, or suspected, I think the time passes pleasantly, and he goes away early.
I am much better, and began dining down again yesterday, and the weather has changed, which they say is to blow away all fevers; but Dr. D. says the hospital is quite full, and the deaths amongst the servants this year have been quite lamentable.
Gornadar, Wednesday, Feb. 27.
L. E. and Z. nearly had a tiff to-day. L. E. has taken charge of the stables since Captain M. went away, and as there are sometimes from sixty to a hundred horses there, while presents are going on from native princes on the march, besides all our own horses, it is like a little regiment occasionally, and L. E. is very gentle and quiet in his manner to the syces and with Webb.
Captain Z. came into my tent this morning and flung himself into my arm-chair—Mr. D.’s chair, that sacred piece of furniture. I thought it an odd measure, but could not help it, and he began: ‘I was just going to say—what a delicious chair this is! such a spring!—I was just going to say that I have been talking to Webb about your open carriage. I understand you want it up here. I think of sending it to Dehra, for, as I told Webb, the oxen can bring it back from Barr,’ &c. I looked rather frosty, and said I would think about it and let him know, and put it off; and then he launched out about Paul de Cocq’s novels, still seated on that much-loved chair—‘my goods, my property, my household stuff.’ As soon as he was gone, I got hold of X., who said he too had been surprised, butthought that perhaps Captain L. E., who is acting for W. in his absence, might have found he had too much to do, and so had made over the stables to Z.
Then L. E. arrived, saying he really had been quite annoyed, happened to be particularly fond of horses, had not a bit too much to do, had found Captain Z. the other day giving orders about the relays for the march, and had therefore taken the liberty of calling the four native coachmen together and desiring them never to take orders from anybody but himself. If Lord A. had chosen to ride that morning there would not have been a riding horse on the line of march; but of course if I had told Captain Z. to take charge of the stables, he would give it up, &c. I said I never told anybody anything, and so I suppose they will settle it between them.
Kurnaul, Thursday, Feb. 28, 1839.
WEcame in this morning with the usual fuss of a cantonment. I always dread coming back to the two or three regiments we have met before, because they are all so excessively astonished we do not know them all again. That would not be possible, but at the same time I feel that it is very stupid I should never know one. This time there is a hope—I always know Colonel S., because he has only one arm; and two of the other regiments went with us to the Punjâb, so we have not had time quite to forget them. L. E. andZ. have evidently ‘had it out,’ and L. E. has conquered. He was quite as firm as his natural gentleness would allow, at luncheon-time, about all his arrangements. He had heard of a new horse that would be worth looking at. He had sold a pony, found a coachmaker, chosen a lining, rather thought we must have a new open carriage, had made arrangements for leaving here my elephant, which has got a rheumatic fever and can’t move any one of its poor dear lumps of legs without screaming.
In short, Z. was defeated with great loss. This place looks quite as ugly as it did last year; all barracks and plain, and not a tree in sight. I cannot think how people bear their cantonment life so well as they do.
We have been setting ourselves up with mourning here, for poor ——, and collected all the black goods in the place, consisting of four pairs of black gloves, with a finger or so missing, and a pair of black earrings, which I thought a great catch; and so they were, in fact—I was caught quite out. They had evidently been made for the Indian market, and had only mock hinges and clasps. Nobody could wear them; but they are nice earrings if there were any way into them.
Friday.
We had an immense party last night. There are between sixty and seventy ladies living here—most of them deserted by their husbands, who are gone to Cabul; and they generally shut themselves up, but last night they all agreed to come out. There were some very pretty people among them; that littlewoman who marched with us last year, and whom we called ‘the little corpse,’ came out again more corpse-like than ever. The aides-de-camp had been agreeing in the morning to draw lots which of them should dance with her, but afterwards settled it was the business of the junior aide-de-camp; so they introduced Captain Z. to her, and he is in such a rage this morning.
I am sorry to say we heard of an accident to W. O. to-day. We hope it may turn out very slight, but it is alarming to think what it might have been. He and the K.s had just arrived at Mazuffernuggur, and he was driving their carriage, when a sudden jolt threw him first on the horses and then under the wheel, which went over him just above the left hip. No bone was touched, and there was evidently no internal injury, and General K. said he had had as yet no fever, but of course he must be laid up for a time, and probably will have to give up his shooting party, which will be a sad blow, after having taken so much trouble to organise it.
It must have been a frightful accident to see. ‘Mon Dieu! ce que c’est que de nous,’ as that old housekeeper at the Château de Bilhère used to say in her odd pâtois. An inch more or less might have been fatal to dear W.
Saturday, March 2.
W. has had a good deal of fever in the night, but wonderfully little pain. The shooting party is, however, quite out of the question; and as the K.s must be longing to go on with their expedition, we all thought it better that F. should go to take care of W. It isabout forty-five miles from here, and it takes about twenty-four hours to lay a dâk for that short distance, and then you only average about three miles an hour. One longs for a chaise and four and an inn under these circumstances. A railroad we cannot even understand with our limited locomotive capacities. F. has sent off her tents and baggage, and will go to-morrow with Jones and P. to take care of them. I think poor W. must want some of his own family. G. and F. went to the Station ball last night. F. says there never was anything so amusing as the speeches. A long one about G., and another about F. and me—what we had done for society—added to its gaiety, and raised its tone, &c. &c. I should have thought it was all the other way—that society had lessenedourgaiety, and lowered our tone; but who knows? there is a change somewhere, it appears.
Sunday, March 3.
A very good account of W. this morning; he writes a few lines himself: the next thing will be that he will go out shooting, so it is lucky F. will be there to stop him. G. had another great dinner yesterday, and then we went to a play that the privates of the artillery had got up, supposing, or rather ‘knowingthat we were very fond of theatricals.’ They acted very well last year, but this was very much after the fashion of Bottom the Weaver and Snug.
I only stayed through half of it, but F. said the second farce was worse than the first.
F. and P. set off at half-past three to-day. He drove her in his buggy the first sixteen miles, which will save her part of a long dâk journey. She willnot have quite thirty miles of palanquin, and will arrive about seven to-morrow morning.
Thanesir, Tuesday, March 6.
We left Kurnaul yesterday morning rather late (at least we call half-past six very late), for there was to be a great procession. All the colonels and various others insisted on riding half-way with G., so he cantered along in the sun, looking very hot, and very much obliged to them, and casting longing looks at the open carriage at his side. All our aides-de-camp turned back to pass another day at Kurnaul from the half-way halt. Q. alone, guarded by his engagement to Miss U., was enabled to go on steadily to take care of the camp. I never saw anything so happy as the aides-de-camp were at Kurnaul; flirting with at least six young ladies at once, visiting and luncheoning all the morning; then our band played on the course in the afternoon; then there were dinners, balls, plays, &c., and they always contrived to get a late supper somewhere, so as to keep it up till four in the morning. I dare say after four months of marching, during which time they have scarcely seen a lady, that it must be great fun to come back to the dancing and flirtation, which is, as we all know, very considerable amusement at their age. I often think that with us their lives must be necessarily dull and formal. Colonel T. had asked them all to dinner and music, and they have all come back to-day, having had a charming evening.
C. sung, and Mrs. C. sung, and there was a harp,and a bride, &c. I wish you could see Mrs. ——. She is past fifty—some say near sixty—wears a light-coloured wig with very long curls floating down her back, and a gold wreath to keep it on, a low gown, and she dances every dance; and her forward step, and side step, with an occasional Prince of Wales step, executed with the greatest precision, gave me sentimental recollections of Jenkins, our dancing-master. He would have looked admiringly at Mrs. ——’s performances.
P. got back this afternoon and brought a letter from F., who got over her journey very well. He says W. is really quite well, though very weak; but had begun smoking again, in defiance of the doctor.
They are to begin their march to-morrow, K.s and all together; W. in a palanquin. The K.s must have had a horrid fright; the great jolt that threw him off, shook them so, that they did not think of looking at the coach-box, and only thought the horses were going very wildly. The syces stopped the horses, and then told them that W. was lying in the road. They were luckily close to the tent. He spoke at first and then fainted; but he seems to have suffered very little pain. I hope he will not go out shooting; the heat is very great, and will increase every day.
We are going to halt here to-morrow. It is a famous place for Hindu devotion, I believe the most sacred in India; and all the Hindu sepoys of the escort were very anxious for a halt, and a religiouswashin the tank. G. and I stopped on our way in, to see the tomb, which has that famous temple in its centre, and all our bearers and syces rushed down to the water with great ardour. The Hindu religion hastwo merits—this constant ablution, and the sacredness of their trees. This place is really pretty from the avenues of peepul trees. It is so long since we have seen a tree, that I am quite glad we are going to stay a day with them; but our Mussulmaun followers will spoil them, they say.
Wednesday, March 6.
And so they have. G. and I went on the elephants yesterday evening to see the town with our dear Mr. C., who took us up again at Kurnaul, and J. and Mr. B. and various others. There was a great deal to see, and just as we were turning towards home, we heard a violentémeute, and several Brahmins came running after Mr. C. to say our camel drivers were cutting down the trees, close by their mosque. Mr. C. had in the morning sent sepoys with the camel drivers to prevent it, so he begged G. would go himself to see justice done. It was a wicked scene. About two hundred camel drivers working away, and three of the finest trees reduced to stumps, and about a thousand Brahmins tearing their hair and screaming, without daring to interfere.
We all flew into violent rages. G. sent off Captain Z. with one party of the body-guard, and hecapturedten camel drivers and sent them off to the camp. J. always throws out more legs and arms when he talks Hindustani than any other human being, and he looked like an enraged centipede, and finally jumped out of his howdah and began laying about him with one of the despoiled branches. Mr. C. preached withmuch unction to the Brahmins. Mr. B. looked vinegar at them, but was too Indianised to speak.
The result was, that we took sixteen of the ring-leaders, made them leave all the branches they had cut—so that the poor camels will be starved—and marched home in great glory.
Captain D. has levied a fine of a hundred rupees on the camel men, and paid it to the Brahmins, and as peepul trees grow again and rupees never do, the Brahmins are comforted.
Thursday, March 7.
We marched this morning only eight miles, which is pleasant; and what is still more so is, that there is a dâk bungalow close to our camp quite empty—not a traveller stirring—so I have my furniture put into it, and am comfortable. The heat of the tents the last three days has been dreadful, and when I went down to luncheon just now the thermometer was 91° in the largest and coolest tent. X. and P. had some plans to copy for G., and were so giddy they could not see. Q. had the headache. Z. was in bed with fever. The doctor was simply depressed to that degree he could not speak; and even G. thought it would be as well, if this heat lasted, that Dr. D. should give him a black dose just to put by his bedside. Of course there was no necessity for taking it, but he felt a little odd, and it would be as well to have it at hand. J. came back from luncheon quite charmed with this little bungalow, which is as cool as an English hothouse at least, and looks on some beautiful cornfields, and ‘the browsing camel bells are tinkling’ rather prettily.
I have not lived near the camels except at loadingtime, and had no idea they could be so quiet and merely tinkling. I have made such a nice little purchase to-day—two little girls of seven years old, rather ugly, and one of them dumb. I gave three pounds for the pair—dirt cheap! as I think you will own. They are two little orphans. The natives constantly adopt orphans—either distant relations, or children that they buy—and generally they make no difference between them and their own children; but these little wretches were very unlucky. They belonged to a very bad man, who was serving as a substitute for a sick servant whom we sent back to Calcutta. This man turned out ill and got drunk, upon which all the other Mussulmauns refused to associate with him, and he lost caste altogether. Giles was very anxious to get rid of him, as a drunken Mussulmaun is something so shocking we are all quiteaffectedby it. On Monday he gave us an opportunity to leave him at Kurnaul. I had tried to get hold of these children at Simla, hearing they were very ill-used, and that this man was just going to take them down to Delhi to sell them into the palace, where thousands of children areswallowed up. Luckily, his creditors would not let him go, and I told A. to watch that he did not carry off the little girls; so to-day he sent word I might have them if I would pay his debts, and the baboo has just walked in triumphantly with them. They have not a stitch of clothes on; and one of them is rather an object, the man has beat them so dreadfully, and she seems stupified. I hope to deposit them finally at Mrs. Wilson’s orphanage near Calcutta.
Simla, Tuesday, March 19, 1839.
DON’Tyou see, that now I am come back to Simla, a Journal will be out of the question; nothing to put into it.
‘Pillicock sits on Pillicock’s hill, Halloo Loo! Loo!’ (which I take to be a prophecy of our playing at Loo every evening.) We came up in two days from Barr, a very fatiguing business at all times, though Mrs. A. had sent me down a hill dhoolie, in which I could lie down, but it makes all one’s bones ache to be jolted in a rough sedan for eight hours. The second day it poured till we came within sight of Simla, and with a sharp east wind from the mountains, the misery of all the dripping Bengalee servants was inconceivable. The gentlemen looked unhappy enough, as the hill ponies make slow work of the journey; and Dr. D. had a violent fit of ague before we arrived at Hurripore. X. abjures the aide-de-camp on these hill excursions, and appears ‘en blouse,’ a mixture of ‘a brave Belge’ and a German student.
We found Simla very white with snow; the thermometer had been 91° in our tents that day week. But I do not think it at all uncomfortably cold here. Giles had preceded us by two days, and had got all the curtains up and the carpets down, and the house looked more comfortable than ever. It is a jewel of a little house, and my own room is quiteovercoming; so light and cheerful, and then all the little curiosities Ihave accumulated on my travels have a sweet effect now they are spread out. The only misfortune of my room is, that a long insect, much resembling a gudgeon on six legs, has eaten up your picture frame: the picture I took with me in my writing-desk, knowing that the gudgeon would have eaten that forthwith, but the frame, in an unguarded moment, I trusted to his honour, and this is the result. However, the glass he could not digest, and a wooden frame our own carpenter can make.
F. left W. O. after his first day’s tiger-shooting, and in marching up from Seharunpore with the K.s and Mrs. L., W. actually shot a tiger ten days after he had been run over, and he writes me word to-day that he is quite strong again, and that they had killed eight tigers in five days. One tiger got on an island about the size of the table, with a swamp all round it, that the elephants could not pass. The jungle was set on fire, and W. says it was beautiful to see him try to fight the fire with his paws, but when he found he could not conquer it, he charged the elephants, and was shot on the head of W.’s elephant.
Saturday, March 23.
We have had a little more snow and a great deal more rain, but now the weather is beautiful, and the servants are beginning to thaw and to move about. F. has had two dreadful days of rain in camp—a warning to her, and she says she is beginning to give up her love of tents. Q. is gone down to Barr to fetch her up the hill, but she will not now be here till Monday.
We have not had a great many visitors. There are forty-six ladies and twelve gentlemen, independent of our party, and forty more ladies and six more gentlemen are expected shortly, so how any dancing is to be managed at our parties we cannot make out. The aides-de-camp are in despair about it; they are all dancers, and they have engaged a house for the Miss S.s and their aunt quite close to ours—‘Stirling Castle,’ a bleak place that nobody will live in, and that in general is struck by lightning once a year; but then it is close by, and then they want a ball. They have got A. and all our married gentlemen to promise to dance every quadrille, but still we can’t make out more than twelve couple, and it will be dull for the sixty who look on. They are writing to their friends in the plains, and asking eligible young officers to come up and lodge with them. E. N. has settled to come here instead of going to Mussooree, and had taken a house and was toboardwith us; but Mr. J. has written to ask him to live with him—hemust dance. ‘At all events,’ said X. as we were riding home, ‘those two little windows in the gable end of Stirling Castle look well, and when two little female forms are leaning out of them, I can conceive nothing more interesting.’ Our band twice a week is to be a great resource. G. bought W. O.’s old house, and has made it over to the aides-de-camp, which saves them some money, and in the grounds belonging to it we have discovered a beautiful little terrace for the band, and the others have persuaded P., who is ‘laying out the grounds,’ to arrange a few pretty paths for two, and also to make the gates so narrow that jonpauns cannot come throughthem, so that the ladies must be handed out and walk up to the music.
Tuesday.
F. arrived yesterday. W. O. writes word that he has just killed his thirteenth tiger.
Saturday, March 30.
This must go to-day, G. says. It is a shockingly thin concern, but it is not three weeks since the last went, and, as I tell you, a second Simla year journalised would inevitably throw you into a deep slumber.
Simla, Wednesday, April 3, 1839.
I feel rather cold and hungry without my Journal. I have got such a habit of telling you everything, that somehow I cannot hinder myself from bestowing my tediousness upon you. I rather think I am like Mr. Balquwhidder, who found that the older he grew, and the more his memory failed, the more easy it was for him to preach a long sermon, only his congregation would not listen to it. You are my congregation. Our present set of gentlemen are solarking, I hope they will contrive to keep themselves and Simla alive this year. I think I told E. they had advertised a pigeon-shooting match for seven o’clock on the 1st of April, there not being a pigeon within twenty miles of this place.
Mr. C. arrived at the place, which was a mile from any house, armed with two guns, in a regular shooting dress, and followed by three hirkarus to pick up the birds, and he was met by one of X.’s servants with a note, enquiring ‘Does your mother know you’re out?’As he hates getting up before nine, he had some merit in taking it good-humouredly.
There are several very pretty people here, but we can hardly make out any dinners. Most of the ladies send their regular excuse, that they do not dine out while Captain So-and-so is with the army. Very devoted wives, but if the war lasts three years, they will be very dull women. It is wonderful how they contrive to get on together as well as they do. There are five ladies belonging to the regiment, all with families, who have now been living six months in one small house, with only one common sitting-room, and yet they declare they have not quarrelled. I can hardly credit it—can you?
Friday.
Therecoilfrom the plains to the dry, sharp air has a shocking effect on the household. Captain Z. has been very ill since Monday, Captain Q. knocked up with fever, Dr. D. ditto; a very severe case. F.’s ayah tumbled down a hill, and cut her knee dreadfully. Rosina and her husband and ten more servants all ill with fever. Mars a bad headache; Giles ditto. St. Cloup, a confirmed case of liver complaint. That puts us all in a great fuss; the instant he complains we all think of our dinners, and are full of little attentions to him; we are now trying to hope that gout may come out, but the fact is, they have all knocked themselves up by fancying that, because they are in the hills, they may go out in the sun without an umbrella, and nobody ever can, with impunity. If Shakspeare ever said a wrong thing, it was that thesun ‘looks upon all alike.’ It is anything but alike; he looks uncommonly askance at you, and quite full at us. The band played on Wednesday in a new place we have made for it in our garden. Such a view of the snowy range! and such a pretty spot altogether! and all theretiredladies come to solace themselves with a little music, and to take a little tea and coffee and talk a little.
W. O. has killed his seventeenth tiger. I had a letter from him to-day. They had been after a greatman-eater, who has carried off seven or eight people lately, and the Thanadars of the villages around had begged them to try and kill it. They took with them a Mr. P., an engineer they found making a bridge, who had never been out hunting before; and lent him an elephant and two guns. The first day they saw the tiger at a great distance, and Mr. A. and W. took care not to fire for fear of losing his track, but they ‘presently heard a tremendous shouting, and bang, bang, with both guns. This was P. at least half a mile off, and on his coming up, he said he had seen the tiger in the distance, and it was “dreadfully exciting work.” The next thing we heard of the tiger was upon my elephant’s head, but he was shaken off directly, and after two or three charges, killed. About five minutes after he was dead, up comes Mr. P. in an awful state of excitement, with a small umbrella neatly folded up in his hands, and carried like a gun. “Am I too late? Is he dead?" “Yes, but where are your guns?" “Good heavens! I thought this was them. I must have thrown them away in my excitement and taken this instead.” And so he had—and both A.’s and myguns which we had lent him were found in the jungles, after some trouble.’
Sunday, April 7.
W. and Mr. A. have at last killed another dreadful tiger, or rather tigress, which they have hunted for and given up several times. She has carried off twenty-two men in six weeks, and while they were at the village, took away the brother of the chief man of the place; took him out of his little native carriage, leaving the bullocks untouched.
They found her lair, and W. says they saw alegand quantities of human hair and bones lying about it, and they saw her two cubs, but the swamps prevented the elephants going near, and the mahouts would not go, so they gave it up.
But the next day she carried away a boy, and the villagers implored them to try again. They came to the remains of the boy, and at last found the tigress, and brought her out by killing one of her cubs, and then shot her—but the horrid part of the story is that the screams of the boy who was carried off were heard for about an hour, and it is supposed she gave him to her cubs to play with. Such a terrible death! Altogether, W. and Mr. A. (to say nothing of P. and his umbrella) have killed twenty-six tigers—twenty large ones, and six cubs—which is a great blessing for the country they are in.
Thursday, April 11, 1839.
WEhad Mrs. A., Mrs. L., and Mrs. R. to dinner yesterday, as we find it the best way to dine the most companionable ladiesen famillewhen we can furnish gentlemen enough of our own to hand them in to dinner.
G. ought to dress himself as an abbot, and with his four attendant monks receive as many nuns as the table will hold: the dress would make all the difference, and otherwise I do not see how society is to be carried on this year.
Friday, April 12.
I wish my box of gowns would ever arrive, don’t you? I believe now, if I see it when we go down from the hills this year I shall be lucky. Do you recollect sending me a pink striped gown, a long time ago, by a Mr. R.? I had it made up only lately, and put it on new last night: it was beautifully made, ‘and I never looked more truly lovely!’ but there was anodd rentin the sleeve which, Wright said, must be the tailor’s fault. I put on my sash and heard an odd crack under the arm; then Chance jumped into my lap, and there was an odd crack in front. I sat down to dinner, and there wasanotherodd crack behind. In short, long before bed-time my dear gown was what Mrs. M. used to call ‘all injommetry’—there was hardly a strip wider than a ribbon, rather a prettyfashion, but perhaps too undefined and uncertain: that comes of being economical in dress. The next gown you send me shall be made up the afternoon it arrives, but you need not send any more till we come out to India next time. I really thinkthisbanishment is coming to an end. Now we have broken into the last year but one, it seems like nothing. We have forsaken the buying of shawls and trinkets, and have gone into the upholstery and furniture line; everything is done with a view to Kensington Gore. I have just been writing to C. E. for a few Chinese articles—a cabinet, and a table or so, to arrive at Calcutta next year, and not to be unpacked. I have an arm-chair and a book-case concocting at Singapore, and a sort of table with shelves of my own devising, that is being built at Bareilly, under the magistrate there. That, I think, may prove a failure, but I have a portfolio and inkstand on the stocks that will be really good articles. I got some beautiful polished pebbles from Banda and Nerbudda. (I have not a notion where that is, but everybody here seems to know; I only know my pebbles were ordered eight months ago.) I thought they would have been small trashy things, but some of them are beautiful, like that great stone you had in a brooch, and I am having them set in silver, as a portfolio incrusted and enchased, and all that sort of thing. It will make a shocking item in my month’s expenditure, but then it will be an original device, and when I go home of course everybody will observe: ‘An Indian portfolio, I see, Miss Eden,’ and I shall carelessly answer, ‘Yes, those are the common Bazaar portfolios, but you can have very handsome ones made, if you liketo order them, and then, of course, everybody will write out for a common portfolio.
Saturday.
Nothing like a prophecy to ensure its not being fulfilled. Because I said that box would not come till next year, this very morning, after luncheon, a long file of coolies appeared ascending the hill, and the result was twenty-five boxes ofsorts—preserves and sweetmeats and sardines and sauces from France, a box of silks and books from ditto. More books from Rodwell, and though last, much the greatest, ‘in our dear love,’ my two boxes of gowns and bonnets.
Thank you again, dearest, for all the trouble you have taken, and very successful trouble it has been.
Tell E., Wright of course thought her tapes, pins, &c., the most valuable part of the cargo, as I was living on a few borrowed pins, large and pointless. I suppose I shall wear the head-dress eventually, and one cap with long streamers looks very tolerably, but there is another with quantities of loose tags, in which I look exactly like Madge Wildfire. It may perhaps be subdued by pins and stitches; but if not, it suits F. remarkably well.
Monday.
I thought it due to you and to myself to wear something new, so I put on that cap with the long tags for church yesterday morning, and Mrs. R. and Mrs. A. both found their devotions much interrupted thereby. We went to afternoon service at church in the Bazaar, to hear a new clergyman, who has come up for his health, and looks half dead, poor man.
Wednesday, April 17.
We had our first dance last night, and it has been one of the gayest we have had here; only fourteen dancing men, but they never sat down, and they had Quadrilles and English country-dances and waltzing, and altogether they all liked it, and beg to have another as soon as possible.
It is rather touching to see our serious Q. dancing away as if his life depended on it; and A. and C. and all the secretaries danced away too, and they were all amused at a small expense of trouble. Between the band and our dinners they are all becoming acquainted and good friends, which is lucky, for I think half the ailments in India come from the solitary lives people lead.
Friday, April 19.
W. O. arrived yesterday morning; he looks uncommonly well, considering that he has ridden sixty miles since three in the morning, and it is very hot even in the hills. He and Mr. A. have killed thirty-six tigers, the largest number ever killed in this part of the country by two guns, and his expedition seems to have answered very well.
I began Wilberforce’s Life when our new books came, but am disappointed. His journals are too short and terse, like heads of chapters; however, there are some good bits here and there, and I like the man himself very much. ‘The Woman of the World’ is a very amusing novel; evidently Mrs. Gore’s, though she writes so much that I suppose she does not put her name to all her works, but it is impossible to mistake them. ‘The Glanville Family’ we got from Calcutta,as you said so much of it, and we all thought it very amusing; but, in fact, ‘Boz’ is the only real reading in the amusing line—don’t you think so?
Our aides-de-camp gave a small fête champêtre yesterday in a valley called Annandale. The party, consisting of six ladies and six gentlemen, began at ten in the morning, and actually lasted till half-past nine at night. Annandale is a thick grove of fir-trees, which no sun can pierce. They had bows and arrows, a swing, battledore and shuttlecock, and a fiddle—the only fiddle in Simla; and they danced and eat all day, and seemed to have liked it throughout wonderfully. Oh dear! with my worn-out spirits and battered constitution, and the constant lassitude of India, it seems marvellous that any strength could stand that physical trial, but I suppose in our young Bromley ball days we should have thought it great fun. These young people did, at all events. They give another pic-nic next Thursday, and we are getting up some tableaux and charades which are to be acted here; the dining-room to be turned into a theatre. They are a very popular set of young men, and I bless their little hearts for taking so much trouble to carry on amusement; but I think theygo at itrather too eagerly, and it will end in disappointment to some of them. The expense of these parties will not be so great to them, for both St. Cloup and Mars came to me yesterday to know what they were to do. ‘Ces messieurs’ had asked for a few ‘petits plats’ and a cook or two; and the man who makes ice had been to Mars for French fruits to make it with.
Wednesday, April 24.
I had a young flying squirrel given me a week ago, its eyes shut, quite a baby; it sucks beautifully, and now its eyes are open. I keep thinking of Lord Howth and his rat. It is very like one, only with beautiful sable fur, and a tail half a yard long, and wings; at present very playful and gentle, but I detect much latent ferocity, that will be brought out by the strong diet of almonds and acorns to which he must come at last.
Saturday, April 27.
We had a large dinner yesterday of the chief actors and actresses, and I had had an immense gilt frame made, and put up in the folding-doors of the drawing-room; and after dinner proposed carelessly that they should just try how tableaux would look, and with our shawls and veils and W.’s armour we got up two of the prettiest little scenes possible; I dare say much better than if they had been got up with more care. Mrs. N., Mrs. C., X., and P. acted two scenes from ‘Old Robin Gray,’ while C. sang the ballad, and then W. and X., with Mrs. R. and Mrs. L., acted two scenes out of ‘Ivanhoe.’
It was a new idea to Indians, and had the greatest success, and the acting a ballad makes a great difference. It used to be dull at Woburn for want of ameaning.
Three of the ladies were really pretty; but the odd thing is, that Mrs. R., the plain one, looked the best of all, and sat like a statue. It was a very pretty sight.
Our gentlemen gave another pic-nic down at the waterfall yesterday, and they say nothing ever was so delightful; and it is to be hoped it was, as it began at seven in the morning and lasted till eleven at night.
Then there has been great interest about our theatricals on Tuesday, but it is a difficult matter to arrange the parts so as to give satisfaction to all the ladies concerned.
Saturday, May 4.
My flying squirrel is becoming familiar, and flies a little; that is, it takes long hops after me wherever I go, and I feelbe-ratted. The two little girls I bought are turning out very nice children. Wright and Jones are teaching them to work, and make quite an amusement of them. The dispensary which was built by our Fancy Fair proceeds was opened by Dr. D. this week. G. and I rode to see it yesterday, and it is a nice little place, with a very good room for surgical cases, of which, luckily, there are none at present, but Dr. D. had ten patients this morning; one was a Tartar woman, another a Cashmeree, and some Ladakh people. Such an odd result of drawings and work. One of the native doctors attends there, and has taken such a fancy to it that he has asked leave to remain here when we go down to Calcutta, and he means to give up Government House. God bless you, dearest. I suppose you are going out every evening. I cannot say how I like your London campaign. It is such an amusing story that I want it to begin again.