'Up the Country': Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India
by Emily Eden · English · Gutenberg #46260 · 634,456 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of 'Up the Country': Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: 'Up the Country': Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India
Author: Emily Eden
Release date: July 12, 2014 [eBook #46260]
Most recently updated: November 28, 2024
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/46260
Credits: Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 'UP THE COUNTRY': LETTERS WRITTEN TO HER SISTER FROM THE UPPER PROVINCES OF INDIA ***
Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was
produced from images available at The Internet Archive)
'UP THE COUNTRY'
Letters written to her Sister
FROM
THE UPPER PROVINCES OF INDIA
BY THE
HON. EMILY EDEN
AUTHORESS OF
'THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE' AND 'THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE'
NEW EDITION
[Illustration: colophon]
LONDON
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET
PUBLISHER IN ORDINARY TO HER MAJESTY
1867
LONDON
PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO.
NEW-STREET SQUARE
TO THE
LORD WILLIAM GODOLPHIN OSBORNE
MY DEAR WILLIAM,
I know no one but yourself who can now take any lively interest in these
Letters.
She to whom they were addressed, they of whom they were written, have
all passed away, and you and I are now almost the only survivors of the
large party that in 1838 left Government House for the Upper Provinces.
Many passages of this Diary, written solely for the amusement of my own
family, have of course been omitted; but not a word has been added to
descriptions which have little merit, but that they are true and that
they were written on the spot.
Now that India has fallen under the curse of railroads, and that life
and property will soon become as insecure there as they are here, the
splendour of a Governor-General's progress is at an end.
The Kootûb will probably become a Railway Station; the Taj will, of
course, under the sway of an Agra Company (Limited, except for
destruction), be bought up for a monster hotel; and the
Governor-General will dwindle down into a first-class passenger with a
carpet-bag. These details, therefore, of a journey that was picturesque
in its motley processions, in its splendid crowds, and in its 'barbaric
gold and pearl,' may be thought amusing. So many changes have since
taken place in Indian modes of travelling, that these contrasts of
public grandeur and private discomfort will probably be seen no more, on
a scale of such magnitude.
Believe me,
Ever your affectionate Aunt,
EMILY EDEN.
EDEN LODGE, KENSINGTON GORE:
_May_, 1866.
'UP THE COUNTRY.'
CHAPTER I.
On board the 'Megna' flat, Saturday, Oct. 21, 1837.
'Once more upon the waters, yet once more,' and so on. We are now fairly
off for eighteen months of travelling by steamers, tents, and
mountains--and every day of a cabin seems to me like so much waste. They
ought all to go to the great account of the long voyage that will, at
last, take us home again. And this cabin looks so like my 'Jupiter'
abode, in all its fittings and appointments, that it is really a pity so
to throw its discomforts away in going farther off. Well, I am sure it
is all for the best--I make no objection--I like to see things take
their course; but still I _do_ say, that for a person who required
nothing but to be allowed the undisturbed enjoyment of that small
Greenwich house and garden, with all its little Cockney pleasures and
pursuits, I have been very hardly treated and rather overworked. We got
up at five this morning; the servants were all in a fuss, and Wright was
in all the delusions of carpet-bags and nice bandboxes, in which she may
be indulged till we leave the steamer, and then she will be obliged to
wake from them, as the coolie is yet to be discovered who would carry a
carpet-bag, and a bandbox does not precisely meet the views of a camel.
When we came down for some coffee, the great hall was full of gentlemen
who had come to accompany his lordship to the ghaut--even Mr. Macaulay
had turned out for it. F. and I, with Captain P., soon took ourselves
off, and drove down to the landing-place. There were two lines of troops
from the door of Government House to the river, and the band was playing
that march in the 'Puritani' which, when we were at the Admiralty, used
to be played every morning by the Guards' band, and which, consequently,
always carries me back to the horrid time of our preparations for
leaving England, so I can always cry it all over again to that tune. The
road was covered with carriages and riders; and, at the ghaut, a large
set of our particular acquaintances were waiting for us, so we got out
and stood with them while G. made his progress on foot. It was really a
very pretty procession: such crowds of people and such diversities of
dress. He is not so shy as he used to be at these ceremonies, though I
think a long walk through troops presenting arms is trying to everybody.
The instant he arrived at the ghaut, he gave a general goodbye, offered
me his arm, and we walked off to the boats as fast as we could. The guns
fired, the gentlemen waved their hats, and so we left Calcutta. It has
really done handsomely by us, and we ought to be obliged to them for
_saying_--if it is no more--that they are sorry we are going. But I
daresay we are an amusement to them. They liked our balls and parties,
and whatever we did or said was the subject of an anecdote; and if we
said or did nothing they invented something for us--and it all served to
wonder at--which, in a country where there is little society and few
topics, was an advantage.
The Sunderbunds, Monday, Oct. 23.
We came into these lovely riant scenes on Sunday morning. They are a
composition of low stunted trees, marsh, tigers and snakes, with a
stream that sometimes looks like a very wide lake and then becomes so
narrow that the jungle wood scrapes against the sides of the flat--and
this morning scraped away all G.'s jalousies, which are a great loss. I
never saw such a desolate scene: no birds flying about--there is no
grain for them to eat. We have met only one native boat, which must have
been there since the Deluge. Occasionally there is a bamboo stuck up
with a bush tied to it, which is to recall the cheerful fact that there
a tiger has carried off a man. None of our Hindus, though they are
starving, will go on shore to cook--and, indeed, it would be very
unsafe. It looks as if this bit of world had been left unfinished when
land and sea were originally parted. The flat is dreadfully hot at
night; but not more uncomfortable than a boat must necessarily be in
this climate.
I must make you acquainted with the other flat, because then, once for
all, you will understand our prospect of travelling companions. You know
all about Mr. and Mrs. A. and their two children. Mr. and Mrs. B. are
our next couple. He is one of the Government secretaries, clever and
pleasant, speaks Persian rather more fluently than English; Arabic
better than Persian; but, for familiar conversation, rather prefers
Sanscrit. Mr. and Mrs. C. (belonging to Mr. B.'s office) are a very
pleasant couple; he acts and sings, and knows most of the people we
know, and she sings and plays on the harp like an angel; and they have a
small child, the least little sick thing possible, which I affection,
and I mean to borrow it when we are in camp to play in my tent. I often
_weary_ for a child to talk to. Captain and Mrs. D. are our commissariat
couple--she is very pretty. General E. is the public military
secretary--an astutious oldish man. The two steamers generally anchor
together at night; but the other comes in later than ours, and so we
have seen none of the other party but Mr. A., who says they do very well
together, all things considered. General E. is suspected of not being
partial to the small D., A., and C. children--there had been rather an
angry controversy about some apple and pear jam; and, in general, they
were all, like our noble selves, so much bored that they went to bed at
eight. Otherwise, they were all perfectly happy.
Wednesday, Oct. 25.
We stopped at Koolna yesterday for coals, and stayed an hour to let the
Hindus cook their dinner. We are out of the Sunderbunds now, and
steaming between two banks not quite so elevated, nor nearly so
picturesque as those flat marshes between Eastcombe and the river; and,
they say, we shall see nothing prettier, or rather less hideous, between
this and Simla, except at Raj Mahl. G. is already bored to death with
having nothing to do. He has read two novels and cannot swallow any
more, and is longing for his quiet cool room at Government House. The
nights are dreadful--all for want of a punkah--and hardly any of us get
a wink of sleep. However, we shall soon overtake cooler weather. The six
gentlemen passed the three first nights on deck, owing to the heat
below, and I sat up in bed fanning myself. The native servants sleep any
and everywhere, over our heads, under our feet, or at our doors; and as
there are no partitions but green blinds at the sides and gratings
above, of course we hear them coughing all night.
Thursday, Oct. 26.
They are steering us very badly; we go rolling about from one side of
the river to the other, and every now and then thump against the bank,
and then the chairs and table all shake and the inkstand tips over. I
think I feel a little seasick. Our native servants look so unhappy. They
hate leaving their families, and possibly leaving two or three wives is
two or three times as painful as leaving one, and they cannot endure
being parted from their children. Then they are too crowded here to
sleep comfortably. Major J. observed in a gentle, ill-used voice: 'I
think Captain K. behaved very ill to us; he said that between both
steamers and the flat he could lodge all the servants that were
indispensably and absolutely necessary to us, so I only brought one
hundred and forty, and now he says there is not room even for them.'
Certainly this boat must be drunk, she reels about in such a disorderly
fashion. I wish I had my cork jacket on.
I am glad that in your last letter you deigned for once to comment on
the 'Pickwick Papers.' I collected all the stray numbers, and began
reading them straight through to-day, because hitherto I have never had
time to make out exactly what they were about, delightful as they were.
I wish you would read over again that account of Winkle and the horse
which will not go on--'Poor fellow! good old horse!'--and Pickwick
saying, 'It is like a dream, a horrid dream, to go about all day with a
horrid horse that we cannot get rid of.' That book makes me laugh till I
cry, when I am sitting quite by myself. ---- There! I thought so. We are
aground, and the other steamer is going flourishing by, in grinning
delight.
Friday, Oct. 27.
We remained aground for two hours, and _touched_ several times after we
were afloat. Some of the other party visited us in the evening, and I
lent General E. a novel to help him on. I have been reading 'Astoria,'
out of that last box you sent us, and that great fat 'Johnsoniana.' The
anecdotes are not very new, but anything about Johnson is readable. G.
has got some Bridgewater Treatises, which he likes.
Beanleah, Saturday, Oct. 28.
We stopped at Surder yesterday, to take in some sheep. We ought to have
been there two days ago, if we had had better pilots and fewer
groundings. G. said, last night, when we again failed in landing there,
that it seemed to him Absurder rather than Surder. He made another good
pun to-day. How our intellects are weakened by the climate!--we make and
relish puns! The A.D.C.s are very apt to assemble over our cabins at
night, to smoke and to talk, and we hear every word they say. When it
is really time to go to sleep, I generally send old Rosina up to
disperse them, in her civilest manner. I was telling W. O. that they
were like so many old Chelsea pensioners; they go on prosing night after
night exclusively about the army, the King's army and the Company's
army; and that, if there were only a little levity in their talk, I
should not so much mind being kept awake by it. He said, 'Ah, yes, we
were very animated last night about the Company's army, and your old
Rosina came creeping up with "O sahib, _astai_ bolo" (_gently_ speak);
upon which G. observed, "Ah, if she had said, O sahib, _nasty_ bolo!"
that would have satisfied Emily much better.' This joke being founded on
Hindustani, and coming from the Governor-General, kept the whole suite
in a roar of laughter for half an hour. They really relished it.
Two young writers whom we had known at Calcutta came to Surder to meet
us, and we took them on board and took them back to Baulyah. How some of
these young men must detest their lives! Mr. ---- was brought up entirely
at Naples and Paris, came out in the world when he was quite a boy, and
cares for nothing but society and Victor Hugo's novels, and that sort of
thing. He is now stationed at B., and supposed to be very lucky in being
appointed to such a cheerful station. The whole concern consists of five
bungalows, very much like the thatched lodge at Langley. There are three
married residents: one lady has bad spirits (small blame to her), and
she has never been seen; another has weak eyes, and wears a large shade
about the size of a common verandah; and the other has bad health, and
has had her head shaved. A tour is not to be had here for love or
money, so she wears a brown silk cushion with a cap pinned to the top of
it. The Doctor and our friend make up the rest of the society. He goes
every morning to hear causes between natives about strips of land or a
few rupees--that lasts till five; then he rides about an uninhabited
jungle till seven; dines; reads a magazine, or a new book when he can
afford one, and then goes to bed. A lively life, with the thermometer at
several hundred!
Raj Mahl, Monday, Oct. 30.
We are now, after ten days' hard steaming, only 200 miles from Calcutta.
G. sighs for the Salisbury 'Highflyer' and a good roadside inn; but
to-day we have come to some hills, and a pretty bit of country. We
landed at four, saw the ruins, which are very picturesque, gave Chance a
run on shore, and we had time for one sketch. But the real genuine charm
and beauty of Raj Mahl were a great fat Baboo standing at the ghaut,
with two bearers behind him carrying the post-office packet. There were
letters by the 'Madagascar,' which left London the 20th July, and was
only three months on her passage. I had your large packet, and ten
letters. Altogether it was a great prize, was not it? and just at such
an interesting period. I think the young Queen a charming invention, and
I can fancy the degree of enthusiasm she must excite. Even here we feel
it. The account of her proroguing Parliament gave me a lump in my
throat; and then, why is the Duchess of Kent not with her in all these
pageants? There is something mysterious about that. Probably nothing is
more simple, or obvious, but still I should like to know what the
mother and daughter say to each other when they meet in private. To
return to your letters. There must have been one missing, because
Newsalls suddenly burst upon me as your actual residence, whereas I did
not know that there was such a place, that it had ever been built, or
that you ever thought of taking it.
Wednesday, Nov. 1.
We expect to be at Monghir to-morrow morning, whence I can send this. We
passed through some pretty scenery yesterday; but it is all over now, I
am afraid, and we shall see nothing but flat plains till we arrive at
Simla.
CHAPTER II.
The Ganges, Saturday, Nov. 4, 1837.
I sent off my Journal to you the day before yesterday from Monghir. We
arrived there early on Thursday morning, and G. found there were so many
people there whom he ought to see, and we saw so many objects that were
tempting to sketch, that he agreed to remain there all day. All the
English residents, _six_ in number (and that is what they call a large
station), came on board immediately, and amongst them Mr. D., Lord S.'s
son. I thought he had been married a month ago, but it appears he
prefers being married in a regular clerical fashion, and is waiting for
the bishop, who is travelling about marrying and confirming and
christening, and who is to be at Monghir in ten days.
We landed at half-past three, in a covered boat, with umbrellas, &c.,
and went straight to a tent, where the Resident had collected all the
Monghir manufactures for our inspection; but it is impossible to buy
anything, as what is to become of it in camp? Otherwise, the inlaid
tables and boxes were tempting, and there was the prettiest dolls'
furniture possible, tables, and cane-chairs, and sofas, and footstools,
of such curious workmanship. The vehicles of the place, amounting to
four _buggies_ (that is a foolish term for a cabriolet, but as it is the
only vehicle in use in India, and as buggy is the only name for said
vehicle, I give it) and a bullock cart, were assembled for our use.
We drove off to Seetakund, where there is a hot spring--a thing I never
believed in; I thought the water might be a little warm, just the chill
taken off, but it was impossible to keep one's finger in this even for a
moment, and it was the most beautiful, clear-looking basin of water, so
blue and bright. The drive there was a real refreshment; it is the first
time for two years I have felt the carriage going _up hill_ at all, and
this was not a simple slope, but a good regular hill. Then we came to
some genuine rocks--great bleak, grey stones, with weeds growing between
them, and purple hills in the distance. I felt better directly.
We all sketched away, and did not come back till it was dusk.
Altogether, it was a nice scrambling, homelike expedition, if I had not
come back with such a bad headache. But, though I did, I liked Monghir,
and respect J. for having organised such a good day.
Patna, Sunday, Nov. 5.
Here we are, in such a comfortable house, I never saw the like, and very
cool and pleasant it is.
We anchored last night within sight of the town; but Patna is six miles
long at least, and Mr. T. lives at Bankipore, a sort of Battersea to
Patna; so we got up at six this morning, and went on deck to see the
town. There never was anything so provokingly picturesque, considering
that the steamer goes boring on without the slightest regard for our
love of sketching.
It was a Hindu holiday. I must do the Hindus the justice to say that
they make as many holidays out of one year as most people do out of ten;
and I am not at all sure whether a small importation of Hindus would not
be acceptable to you, to accompany your boys to school as regulators to
their school-days. It would be a safeguard against their being
overworked. The whole bank was lined with natives bringing immense
baskets of fruit for 'the Ganges to look at,' as the Nazir[A] expressed
it; and they were dipping their baskets into the river with their
graceful salaams and then bowing their heads down to the water. They are
much more clothed here than in Bengal, and the women wear bright crimson
veils, or yellow with crimson borders, and sometimes purple dresses with
crimson borders, and have generally a little brown baby, with a scarlet
cap on, perched on their hips. I wish you would have one little brown
baby for a change; they are so much prettier than white children. Behind
these crowds of people, there were old mosques and temples and natives'
houses, and the boats of rich natives in front with gilded sterns, and
painted peacocks at the prow. In short, just what people say of India;
you know it all, but it is pretty to see; and I mean the 'moral' of my
Indian experience to be, that it is the most picturesque population,
with the ugliest scenery, that ever was put together.
[A] The head of the Governor-General's native servants.
We breakfasted at eight, and just as we had finished, Mr. T. came with
all the English resident gentlemen to take us on shore--Mr. G. amongst
the rest. Such a pleasure for Miss H. I think that little iron is coming
well out of the fire.
There were carriages without number at the ghaut; a regiment, brought
from Dinapore to receive his lordship, which lined the way up to Mr.
T.'s house; a band to play; a second breakfast to be eaten, and the most
comfortable house possible.
My room is lined with idle books, and these up-country houses all have
fire-places and carpets; and though it is still very hot, the idea that
it ever may be cold is reviving. G. and F. went to church, where Mr. T.
read prayers and another gentleman read a sermon, and they said it was
one of the best-performed services they have heard in this country. We
have taken a hideous drive this evening over some brown plains, and have
twenty-six people at dinner, I grieve to say. I am as stiff as a poker
with the fall into the hold of the flat, and was obliged to stay at home
all day.
Monday, Nov. 6.
A dull dinner, very! but Mr. ---- is in himself a jewel; and he looks
like that man in Matthews's 'At home' who used to say, with a melancholy
look, that he was 'fond of fun;' but still, in that melancholy way, he
is very pleasant. His eyebrows keep me in a continual state of
wonderment. They are thick masses of very long hair, and if they were my
eyebrows, or if he were my Mr. T., I should with a small pair of
curling-irons and a great deal of _huile antique_, make them up into
little ringlets, like a doll's wig. I think they would have a very
original and graceful effect. We have had such a fatiguing day--just
what we must have at every station--but still it is fatiguing. There
were about forty people at breakfast; then, from eleven to one, F. and I
received the ladies of the station, and most of the gentlemen came
again, even those who had been at breakfast. G.'s audiences went on for
four hours; so the aides-de-camp had a pleasant day of it.
Then there was company at luncheon; and, at half-past three, G. held a
durbar. Some of the rajahs came in great state--one with a gold howdah
on his elephant; another had a crimson velvet covering to his carriage,
embroidered with gold, and they all had a great many retainers. To some
of them G. gave gold dresses and turbans, and we went behind a screen to
see Mr. T. and the other gentlemen help the rajahs into their gold
coats. The instant the durbar was over we set off, an immense party, to
see Patna, and we saw the Durgah, one of the largest Mussulman temples
there is, and then went to a part of the town where the streets are too
narrow for a carriage, and where they had provided tonjauns and
elephants for us, and we poked along, through herds of natives, to a
curious Sikh temple, which is kept up by contributions from Runjeet
Singh. The priest read us a little bit of their Bible (not the Koran),
very much to our edification, and they brought out a sword in a red
scabbard, which they worship, and they gave George some petitions, and
then we went home to another great dinner.
Tuesday, Nov. 7.
We have had a much quieter day. In the morning the rajahs of yesterday
sent G. his presents--shawls, kincobs, &c., three very fine elephants,
and two horses. There was nothing very pretty in the presents, except an
ivory arm-chair and an ivory tonjaun inlaid with silver. F. and I had
two very picturesque camels and camel-drivers to sketch in the morning,
and the rajah to whom they belonged sent in the afternoon to beg we
would accept both camels and riders. Such nice little pets, in case of
anything happening to Chance or to F.'s deer. However, we returned them,
and I heard last night that he was quite puzzled and annoyed that we
would not keep them.
G. went to see the jail and the opium godowns, which he said were very
curious. There is opium to the value of 1,500,000_l._ in their
storehouses, and Mr. T. says that they wash every workman who comes out;
because the little boys even, who are employed in making it up, will
contrive to roll about in it, and that the _washing_ of a little boy
well rolled in opium is worth four annas (or sixpence) in the bazaar, if
he can escape to it.
We took a quiet drive with W., and then went to a large granary that was
built years ago, and then found to be useless, and now it is only
curious for the echo in it. There we found Mrs. A., Mr. G., and Miss H.
and some others; and Mr. G. had brought his flute, and Miss H. observed
that the echo repeated the notes of the flute better than anything else.
But then Mr. G. clapped his hands, and that was better still. He gave
her his arm as we came out, and she looked very shy; and we all tried to
look very stupid and unobservant. I have not seen such a promising
attachment for a long while. Half our party went on board to-night, and
G. goes at seven to-morrow morning; but F. and I are going to stay with
Mr. T. till the evening, and then drive straight to the ball at
Dinapore, only five miles, and A. stays for us. All the others go, as G.
has a levée in the morning.
Dinapore, Thursday, Nov. 9.
We arrived in excellent time for our ball, and to see G.'s landing,
which by moonlight and torchlight was a very pretty sight. The whole way
from the ghaut to the house where the ball was given was carpeted, and
there are plenty of troops here to make a street, and our own people
turned out in great force.
There were some very pretty people at the ball, which went off
remarkably well. Mr. G. danced three times with Miss H., which is
considered here equal to a proposal and a half. Dear stern old Mr. T. is
quite interested in that novel, and came two or three times in the
course of the evening with a melancholy face of fun, to say--'The
_little affair_ is going on remarkably well: he is dancing with her
again.' We are now going to a review, and then to a dinner given to us
by the Queen's 31st regiment, which is to end in another ball and
supper.
Well! it is lucky that anybody _can_ do anything they ought to do, but I
had only four hours' sleep last night.
Friday, Nov. 10.
The dinner went off well, and so did the review. The 31st is J.'s
regiment, so he was extremely anxious that they should do a great deal
to our honour and glory. We sat down seventy-four to dinner, Colonel B.
between G. and me, and the chief lady and the senior captain of the
regiment on our other sides; the old bishop, whom we met here, took F.
to the opposite side of the table. It was a less formal dinner than I
expected. G. had to make another speech, and longer than last night's,
and it was very original and neatly turned, and gave great satisfaction.
We stayed through part of the ball, and came away before supper, on
pretence of fatigue. Both Patna and Dinapore have distinguished
themselves, and it has really been all done so cordially and handsomely
that we can bear a little fatigue for the sake of the goodnature of the
people who entertain us. And, at all events, it makes a gay week for the
station. Some ladies came sixty miles to these balls. At the ball there
were some rajahs in splendid dresses; such magnificent jewels, and some
of them had never seen an English ball before. They think the ladies who
dance are utterly good for nothing, but seemed rather pleased to see so
much vice.
Such jewelry as we saw yesterday morning! A native was sent by one of
the gentlemen to show us some really good native jewelry. There is an
ornament called a surpéche, which the rajahs wear in their turbans, but
there is seldom such a handsome one as this man had for sale. It was a
diamond peacock holding in his beak a rope of enormous pearls, which
passed through an emerald about the size of a dove's egg; then there
came the tassel--the top was of immense diamonds, with a hole bored at
one end of them, and they were simply drawn together into a sort of
rosette, without any setting. Then there came strings of pearls each
ending in three large diamonds. These ornaments are often made with
discoloured pearls and diamonds with flaws, but this was quite perfect.
The man asked 8,000_l._ for it, but will probably sell it to some native
for 6,000_l._ They stick it into their turbans by a gold hook, and the
tassel hangs over one ear. We have steamed quietly along to-day, and I
have been asleep half the afternoon.
CHAPTER III.
Buxar, Saturday, Nov. 11, 1837.
As we were passing a place called Bullhga this morning, we saw an
enormous concourse of natives, and it turned out to be a great fair for
horses. So we stopped the steamer, and persuaded G. to go on shore, just
'to go to the fair,' as we should have done at home, only we sent all
the servants with silver sticks, and took our own tonjauns and two of
the body-guard, and went in the State barge and with all the
aides-de-camp. In short, we did our little best to be imposing,
considering that we have only the steamboat apparatus to work with; but
we had hardly landed when A. came breathless from the other steamer to
say that Mr. B. and Mr. C. were both half mad at the idea of a
Governor-General going on shore in this way, and that C. was actually
dancing about the deck with rage; and A. wanted us to turn back and give
it up. Luckily, G. would not be advised to do this. They said we should
be murdered amongst other things; but in my life I never saw such a
civil, submissive set of people. Our people and the police of the place
walked on first, desiring the crowd to sit down, which they all did
instantly, crouching together and making a lane all through the fair.
They are civil creatures, and I am very fond of the natives. There were
a great many thousands of them, and some beautiful costumes; the bazaars
were full of trinkets, and pretty shawls and coloured cottons. We went
in our tonjauns, and G. walked till he was tired, which is soon done;
and A. left us quite satisfied as to our safety, and almost persuaded it
was a dignified measure. We wanted him to tell C. that he had left G. in
one of the 'merry-go-rounds,' of which there were several, but it was
not a subject that admitted of levity. ---- said the Governor-General
should never appear publicly without a regiment, and that there was no
precedent for his going to Bullhga fair. I told him we had made a
precedent, and that it would be his duty to take the next
Governor-General, be he ever so lame or infirm, to this identical fair.
We went this evening to see the Government stud. It was rather fine to
see five hundred young horses rush at once out of their stalls, and all
kick each other and then run away; but, barring that little incident,
both studs on each side of the river are rather tiresome sights--such
ugly places!
Ghazeepore, Sunday, Nov. 12.
We arrived at three. Mr. T., the brother of our late dear T., is the
Resident here, and lodges us. He had made a ghaut with a flight of steps
to his house for our landing, and the 44th Regiment, with their band,
were drawn up all round his lawn.
There were two women on the landing-place with a petition. They were
Hindu _ladies_, and were carried down in covered palanquins, and very
much enveloped in veils. They flung themselves on the ground, and laid
hold of G., and screamed and sobbed in a horrid way, but without showing
their faces, and absolutely howled at last, before they could be carried
off. They wanted a pardon for the husband of one of them, who, with his
followers, is said to have murdered about half a village full of
Mussulmans, and these women say he did not do it, but that the Nazir of
that village was his enemy, and did the murders, and then laid it on
their party. These little traits are to give you an insight into the
manners and customs of the East, and to open and improve your mind, &c.
After we had made our way through all these impediments, we rested for a
time, and then went to see the cantonments, and to evening service,
which was read by two of the gentlemen remarkably well. Then we came
back to a great dinner, and one of the longest I ever assisted at. I
quite lost my head at last, and when second course was put down, asked
Mr. T. to give me some wine, thinking it was dessert, and that we might
get up and go.
The dinners certainly are endless, and I do not wonder they think us
very rapid at Government House. There is sometimes half an hour between
the courses. A Mr. S., the judge, sat on one side of me, and after some
discourse the man seemed to know his Kent! and I discovered he was one
of the George S.'s of E. Visions of country balls and cricket matches
came back. He knew Eden Farm and Penge Common; in short, I liked him
very much, and I think he too was refreshed with the reminiscences of
his youth.
Monday, Nov. 13.
G. went in the morning to see the stud. At eleven we received all the
station.
In the afternoon we went to see the opium godown, and then F., B., and I
went in the band boat along the shore to sketch some of the old
buildings, which are very picturesque here.
All the party out of both steamers dined at Mr. T.'s, and moreover a
third steamer came up from Calcutta this morning, containing, amongst
other passengers, a Mrs. P. and her pretty little daughter, who are
great favourites with all our gentlemen, and they dined and went with us
to a ball given by the regiment.
There were great doubts whether a ball could be made out, as the want of
ladies in the Mofussil makes dancing rather difficult. However, we took
a large party, and the ladies we had seen in the morning all assembled
and had raised two or three extras. The mess-room was very prettily
illuminated, with G.'s arms painted on the floor, and they gave us a
grand supper, so it all did very well. I wish you could have seen the
dancers. A Mrs. ----, something like Mrs. Glover the actress, only much
fatter, with a gown two inches shorter then her petticoat, _bounding_
through every quadrille, with her three grown-up sons dancing round her.
She is an exemplary mother, and has been a widow many years, and a
grandmother many more; but she never misses a dance!
Tuesday, Nov. 14.
We did not get home last night till half-past one, and were up at seven
to go on board, and we had to go smirking and smiling through all that
regiment again, with all the other gentlemen to go to the boat with us;
but we may have a rest to-day. It certainly is a hard-working life, is
not it? I never get 'my natural rest,' as Dandie Dinmont says, in the
steamer for noise, and on the shore for work.
I wonder how you would be in this state of life. I often try to fancy
you. Sometimes I think you would be amused for about five minutes, but
generally I opine you would go raving mad! I constantly long to be in an
open carriage with four post-horses, along with G., and that we might
drive through a pretty country, and arrive at an inn where nobody could
dine with us or ask us to a ball. However, to-morrow we are to get into
double state, when we reach our tents, as it is of more importance with
the up-country natives; so it is of no use to think of bettering
ourselves.
Camp, Benares, Wednesday, Nov. 15.
We arrived at Benares at ten, _lay to_ all through the heat of the day,
whilst the servants unloaded the flat, and then steamed up within view
of the city, as far as the rajah's country-house, Ramnuggur, and then
dropped down again, thereby seeing the whole of the city. The glare was
horrible, but the buildings were worth all the blindness that ensued.
Such minarets and mosques, rising one above the other to an immense
height; and the stone is such a beautiful colour. The ghauts covered
with natives, and great white colossal figures of Vishnu lying on the
steps of each ghaut. Benares is one of their most sacred places, and
they seem to spare no expense in their temples. We mean to keep our
steamer here, and to go out sketching in it. But it would take a whole
week to draw one temple perfectly; the ghaut where we landed was as
pretty a sight as any. All our elephants, two or three hundred baggage
camels (they are much larger beasts to _live with_ than I thought),
bullock carts without end, and everybody loading every conveyance with
everything. There are twenty _shooter suwars_ (I have not an idea how I
ought to spell those words), but they are native soldiers mounted on
swift camels, very much _trapped_, and two of them always ride before
our carriage. This looks more like the 'land of the east,' in all its
ways, than anything we have seen.
We landed at five, and drove four miles through immense crowds and much
dust to our camp. The first evening of tents, I must say, was more
uncomfortable than I had ever fancied. Everybody kept saying, 'What a
magnificent camp!' and I thought I never had seen such squalid,
melancholy discomfort. G., F., and I have three private tents, and a
fourth, to make up the square, for our sitting-room, and great covered
passages, leading from one tent to the other.
Each tent is divided into bed-room, dressing-room, and sitting-room.
They have covered us up in every direction, just as if we were native
women; and, besides that, there is a wall of red cloth, eight feet high,
drawn all round our enclosure, so that, even on going out of the tent,
we see nothing but a crimson wall.
Inside each tent were our beds--one leaf of a dining-table and three
cane chairs. Our pittarrahs and the camel-trunks were brought in; and in
about half an hour the nazir came to say they must all, with our books,
dressing-cases, &c., be carried off to be put under the care of a
sentry, as nothing is safe in a tent from the decoits; so, if there were
anything to arrange, there would be no use in arranging it, as it must
all be moved at dusk. The canvas flops about, and it was very chilly in
the night, though that is the only part I do not object to, as when we
get our curtains that will be merely bracing; but it feels _open-airish_
and unsafe. They say everybody begins by hating their tents and ends by
loving them, but at present I am much prepossessed in favour of a house.
Opposite to our private tents is the great dining-tent, and the durbar
tent, which is less shut up, and will be less melancholy to live in. God
bless you, dearest! When I am tired, or _tented_, or hot, or cold, and
generally when I am in India, I have at least the comfort of always
sitting down to tell you all about it, and 'There is no harm in _that_,'
as the man says in 'Zohrab.'
CHAPTER IV.
Camp, Benares, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 1837.
I have been obliged to give up the five last days to other letters, to
the manifest disadvantage of my Journal, your unspeakable loss, and my
own deep regret; but what can be done? It is just possible to do all we
have to do--just not impossible to write it down _once_, but quite
impossible either to live, or to write it over again; and I have had a
large packet of very old English letters since we came here, which set
me off answering them.
The _résumé_ of our proceedings, since I sent off my Journal to you last
Thursday, Nov. 16, is shortly and longly this:--Friday, we went a large
party to the town in carriages; when the streets grew too narrow for
carriages, we got on elephants; when the elephants stuck fast, we tried
tonjauns; and, when the streets contracted still further, we walked; and
at last, I suppose, they came to a point, for we came back. We saw some
beautiful old temples, and altogether it was a curious sight. Prout
would go mad in a brown outline frenzy on the spot--the buildings are so
very beautiful for his style. I forgot to mention that at half-past six
on Friday morning we went to a review on horseback. Saturday, we again
got up at six, and F. and I went in the open carriage to sketch a
tempting mosque. At eleven we received many more visitors than the tent
would hold--the aides-de-camp could hardly come in with them.
G. held a durbar in the afternoon, at which seventy of the native
nobility appeared. The Rajah of Benares came with a very magnificent
surwarree of elephants and camels. He is immensely rich, and has
succeeded an uncle who adopted him, to the great discomfiture of his
father, who goes about with him in the capacity of a discontented
subject. We had thirty-six people at dinner. Sunday, we went to church,
and underwent the worst reading and preaching I ever heard from Mr. ----,
who in general preaches to his clerk; but this time the church was very
full, and the congregation were all hoping to hear a little something
that might do them good from our dear Y. In the afternoon G. and I went
out on an elephant, and, in an attempt to make a quiet and rural cut
home, nearly drowned one of our outriding camels and his rider; so we
came home, much ashamed of ourselves, by the common dusty road. Monday,
we got up early, and set off at seven, to pay a visit to the old Delhi
Begum. The particulars I narrated with wonderful accuracy, bordering on
tediousness, to M., and I am confident you would not wish me to repeat
them.
G. positively declared against any more dust or any more drives, so we
stuck to the tents in the afternoon. He cannot endure his tent, or the
camp life altogether, and it certainly is very much opposed to all his
habits of business and regularity.
On Monday evening we went to the ball again, given to us by the station.
They have a theatre here, and had boarded over the pit, and by leaving
some forest scenery standing on the stage, with our band playing from
under the pasteboard trees, they made out a very pretty ball-room, much
the best we have seen in 'the Mofussil,' and there were plenty of
ladies, old and young, who seemed to be very glad of a dance. We got
home at one.
There! W. has heard that Mr. G. has proposed. I am so glad; for Miss H.
has left in England everybody that cared for her. I know that she has
long liked Mr. G. I feel, too, that it is a triumph for our camp that at
our very first station we should have married off our only young lady.
Yesterday we had a grand expedition, which I am going to give you and
the children, once for all, at great length, and then you will for the
future take it for granted that all native fêtes are much alike.
The Rajah of Benares asked us to come to his country-house, called
Ramnuggur (how it is spelt, I cannot say; probably with none of those
letters). It is on the other side of the Ganges. We drove down to the
river-side through a dense cloud of dust. I asked one of our servants to
_dust_ me gently with my pocket-handkerchief, and without any
exaggeration a thick cloud came out of my cape.
Mrs. C.'s black bonnet was of a light brown colour.
We found the rajah's boats waiting for us--a silver armchair and
footstool for his lordship in the prow, which was decorated with
silvered peacocks, and a sort of red embroidered tent for '_his women_,'
where we placed ourselves, though there was another boat with two
inferior silver chairs for F. and me. All these things are grandly
imagined, but with the silver chairs there are boatmen in dirty
liveries or no liveries at all!--and it is all _discrepant_, or
generally so.
This rajah is immensely rich; he had a great many handsome things. I
enclose a sketch to illustrate for the children 'their dear devoted
creature,' G., first in the silver tonjaun which took him down to the
boat, then in the other State silver tonjaun that took him up from the
ghaut, and then a back view of him on his elephant. I often wonder
whether it really can be G., the original simple, quiet one. He does it
very well, but detests great part of the ceremonies, particularly
_embracing_ the rajahs!
The rajah met us at the ghaut, and we were all carried off to the
elephants, and got on them to go and see his garden, though it was
nearly dusk. But the first sight was very striking.
Eighteen elephants and crowds of attendants, and then crowds as far as
we could see of natives, going on 'Wah! wah! Hi Lord Sahib.' We rode
about till it was quite dark, and then the rajah proposed we should
return; and when we came to the turn of the road, the whole of the
village and his castle, which is an enormous building, was illuminated.
Wherever there was a straight line, or a window, or an arch, there was a
row of little bright lamps; every cross of the lattices in every window
had its little lamp. It was the _largest_ illumination I ever saw. We
went on the elephants through the great gateway, in a Timour the Tartar
fashion, into the court. Such torches and spearmen and drums and crowds,
like a melodrama magnified by a solar microscope; it was the sort of
scene where Ellen Tree would have snatched up a doll from under
Farley's sword, and said, 'My boy, my boy, my rescued Agib!' or words to
that effect, while the curtain fell slowly. We got off at the door of an
immense hall, a sort of court, and the rajah's servants spread a path of
scarlet and gold kincob from the door to the seat at the farthest end,
for us to walk on. Considering that it is a pound a yard, and that I
have been bargaining for a week for enough for a wadded _douillette_ and
was beat out of it, it was a pity to trample on it, and it led to a
catastrophe, as you will see if you read on. The rajah put us three on a
velvet sofa, with a gold gauze carpet before it. He sat on one side of
us and his father on the other, and Mr. B. and Mr. C. on each side to
interpret, and then the aides-de-camp and the other ladies; and then the
nautch-girls began dancing. He had provided an immense troop of them,
and they were covered with jewels and dressed in gold brocades, some
purple and some red, with long floating scarfs of gold gauze. Most of
them ugly, but one was I think the prettiest creature I ever saw, and
the most graceful. If I have time I will send a little coloured sketch
of her, just to show the effect of her dress. She and another girl
danced slowly round with their full draperies floating round them,
without stopping, for a quarter of an hour, during all which time they
were making flowers out of some coloured scarfs they wore, and when they
had finished a bunch they came and presented it to us with such graceful
Eastern genuflexions. The whole thing was like a dream, it was so
curious and unnatural. Then the Ranee sent for us, and F. and I set off
in tonjauns for the women's apartments, with the ladies who were with
us. They carried us through a great many courts, and then the rajah gave
me his cold, flabby little hand, and handed us up some narrow, dirty
stairs, and came in with us behind the purdah and introduced us to the
Ranee his mother, who was very splendidly dressed, and to some of his
sisters, who were ugly. Then they asked us to go and see an old
grandmother, and the Ranee laid hold of my hand, and one of the sisters
took F., and they led us along an immense court on the roof, to the old
lady, who is blind and very ill; but they had dressed her up for us, and
we had to kiss her, which was not very nice. There was another immense
nautch provided, which we had not time to look at. We gave our rings,
and they brought the trays of presents which are usually given, a
diamond ring and drops for earrings, two necklaces (very trashy), some
beautiful shawls and kincobs, and some muslin; then they put immense
skipping-ropes of silver braid, bigger than a common boa, round our
necks, and small ones on the other ladies, and then poured attar of
roses on our hands, and we left the old lady. When we came back to the
Ranee's room, she showed us her little _chapel_, close to her sofa,
where there were quantities of horrid-looking idols--Vishnu, and so on.
Several native girls were introduced to us, but only one who was pretty,
and who has just been betrothed to the father of the rajah. The young
Ranees, or whatever they are called, are very shy, and stand with their
eyes closed, but the older ones had great fun when we were going away in
pouring the attar over our gowns, and utterly spoiled mine, which was
silk: next time I shall go in muslin. When we came down, the trays for
G. were brought in; they covered what would be called a very large room,
and some of the gold stuffs have turned out to be very beautiful. It is
a stupid etiquette, that we are not to appear to see these presents. It
is a _tribute_, and the superior is to be too grand to see what the
inferior offers. When that was done, we went to the illumination, which
was done on a very large scale, but not so neatly as at home; then to
the boat, where the rajah accompanied us, and there was a second
illumination on the river, much more beautiful than the first--and the
blue lights, and the crowds, and the great pile of buildings made a
grand show. We got back at eleven, very tired and starving hungry, but
it was a curious sight and much to be remembered. There! now you have
borne all that so well, you shall not have any more of it, though
probably we shall have more than enough. The kincob catastrophe was,
that some of our servants were so over-tempted by it, that without the
slightest respect for time or place, the instant we had walked over it
they snatched it up and carried it off. It would have been sent to them
to-morrow from the rajah, but it was a shameful thing to do; and as the
Government House servants fancy they may oppress any and everybody
during their journeys, Captain J. assembled all who went with us, and
the chief culprits were picked out and discharged. There are five
victims, but luckily only one who is a very old servant. It is a great
bore, as we have brought them a great way from their homes, and it is
difficult to replace them here.
CHAPTER V.
Mohun ke Serai.
We made our first march. The bugle sounds at half-past five to wake us,
though the camels perform that ceremony rather earlier, and we set off
at six as the clock strikes, for as nobody is allowed to precede the
Governor-General, it would be hard upon the camp if we were inexact. The
comfort of that rule is inexpressible, as we escape all dust that way.
G. and F., with Captain N. and Captain M., went in the carriage towards
Chumar, and I went with Captain J., Captain D., and W. the regular
route, each on our elephant half-way, and the other half on horseback.
It is very pleasant and cool at that time, really nice weather, and we
had a short march--only seven miles and a half. It seems somehow wicked
to move 12,000 people with their tents, elephants, camels, horses,
trunks, &c., for so little, but there is no help for it. There were a
great many robberies in the camp last night. Mrs. A. saw a man on his
hands and knees creeping through her tent, but she called out, and he
ran away without taking anything. Mr. B. says, when he and his wife were
encamped last year on this spot, which is famous for thieves, they lost
everything, even the shawl that was on the bed, and the clothes Mrs. B.
had left out for the morning wear, and he had to sew her up in a blanket
and drive her to Benares for fresh things. W. and I went out on the
elephant in search of a sketch in the afternoon, and G. and F. came
back to dinner very much pleased with their expedition. Those
unfortunate men who were parted with yesterday have plagued my heart out
all day. Of course, Captain J.'s soft heart was melted early in the
morning, and he came to beg to have them back again, but he owns it was
a shocking atrocity according to the customs of the country, and if we
were too easy about it, of course it would be said that G. despised and
affronted the native princes, and even that our servants would think so;
but still it was difficult to be firm. There is something so very
imploring in these people. Three times they contrived to get into my
tent with their relations, and some of the old servants to help them,
and they cry, and lay hold of one's feet, and somehow it seems so odd
not to forgive anybody who wishes it even less humbly than they do.
My jemadar was interpreting for them, with tears rolling down all the
time, and it shocked me when he said: 'They say that they have followed
lordship and ladyship great way from their own homes; they made one
fault, one very bad one, but God Almighty even forgive everybody once,
else what become of us all?' I could not help thinking of the 'seventy
times seven;' and if we were forgiven only once, what, as he says, would
become of us? However, I pacified them to a certain degree by giving
them money enough to take them back to Calcutta, and explained that if
it had been any offence against our customs we should have overlooked it
directly, but as it was a great disrespect to one of their own princes
we could not, out of regard to their own country, forgive it; and any
compliment to India goes a great way. My men told me afterwards, that it
was very true one native would tell the other that the rajah had been
ill-treated, and that they would say _this_ Governor lets even his
servants hurt the people. W. said the Sepoys were all talking it over,
and were glad the men were punished.
Tamarhabad, Friday, Nov. 24.
We marched ten miles to-day. These moves are the most amusing part of
the journey; besides the odd native groups, our friends catch us up in
their _déshabille_--Mrs. A. carrying the baby in an open carriage; Mrs.
C. with hers fast asleep in a tonjaun; Miss H. on the top of an
elephant, pacifying the big boy of the A.s; Captain D. riding on in a
suit of dust-coloured canvas, with a coal-heaver's hat, going as hard as
he can, to see that the tent is ready for his wife; Mrs. B. carrying Mr.
B.'s pet cat in her palanquin carriage, with her ayah opposite guarding
the parroquet from the cat. Then Giles comes bounding by, in fact, run
away with, but apologises for passing us when we arrive, by saying he
was going on to take care that tea was ready for us. Then we overtake
Captain D.'s dogs, all walking with red great coats on--our dogs all
wear coats in the morning; then Chance's servant stalking along, with a
great stick in one hand, a shawl draped over his livery, and Chance's
nose peeping from under the shawl. F.'s pets travel in her cart. We each
have a cart, but I can never find anything to put in mine. There are
fakeers who always belong to a camp, and beat their drums just by the
first tent, and the instant this drum is heard everybody thinks of their
breakfast and hurries on; and the Sepoys and servants are so glad to get
to the end of the march, that they throw the fakeer a cowrie, or some
infinitely small coin, by which he lives.
Mr. A. came over yesterday evening. They brought Mr. G. as far as
Chroppra, his station, and he is to follow us to Allahabad, when the
wedding will take place.
Goofrein, Sunday, Nov. 26.
We came another ten miles yesterday, and always halt on Sunday. All
these places are so exactly like each other--a mere sandy plain with a
tank and a little mosque near at hand--that I never can make out why
they have any names; there is nothing to give a name to. The Rajah of
Benares marches with us till we come to his frontier, and he always
encamps within half a mile of us. He expressed a wish yesterday to see
our horses, so Captain M., who takes charge of the stables, went himself
this morning with all the whole concern. There are sixty horses
altogether in our stables--as the aides-de-camp keep theirs with ours,
and the syces are all dressed alike--so it made a very good show; and
there were 140 elephants. Captain M. and the rajah sat on two ivory
chairs, in front of the rajah's tent, and the horses and carriages and
elephants were all led round, and he asked the name of every animal, and
which each of us rode, and any that he admired he had brought round a
second time. It is one of the few civilities that amuse a native, so we
were glad it answered so well. Soon after the horses returned, the nazir
and three or four of the native servants came into my tent in great
perturbation: the rajah had sent the nazir a pair of shawls, one shawl
to the elephant jemadar, and another to G.'s mahout, and 300 rupees in
little bags for the syces and elephant coolies. And after the fuss that
was made a few days ago, about the servants taking no presents, the
nazir clearly thought he was in danger of losing his place for having
one offered to him. 'My shawls are a present, therefore, I fear,' he
said in his most timid tone. I sent for Mr. B., who said there was no
doubt that, as it was a private civility from the Governor-General to
the rajah, sending his own horses, &c. &c., that the servants might keep
their presents. I never saw people so happy as they were. Mr. Y. read
and preached so well to-day: it was the first Sunday in tents, and the
largest one was very well arranged, like a chapel. We had a larger
congregation than I expected, nearly sixty; amongst them some old
European soldiers, who looked very respectable. It was odd and rather
awful to think that sixty Christians should be worshipping God in this
desert, which is not their home, and that 12,000 false worshippers
should be standing round under the orders of these few Christians on
every point, except the only one that is of any importance; the
idolaters, too, being in their own land, and with millions within reach,
who all despise and detest our faith.
Tuesday, Nov. 28.
Yesterday we made an expedition to Mirzapore, the great carpet
manufactory. We left the camp at a quarter before six, by torchlight,
and went nine miles across the country to Mirzapore, leaving the camp to
pursue its own straight road. We found the usual assortment of
magistrates, judges, collectors, &c. &c., with boats, carriages, and
tonjauns: crossed the river; landed G., who went off to see the jail
and manufactories. We stuck to the boat to draw a most beautiful ghaut,
a mass of temples and carving. When that was done, we went to see the
house of a rich native, every inch of which is painted in arabesques,
all done by native artists, and very curious. Then we saw the town, and
then went to the house of Mr. K., the magistrate, where there was all
the society of the place--thirty gentlemen and one lady--and we got some
breakfast at ten, when we were on the point of perishing. The excellent
Mr. K., like an upright judge as he is, had made out a dressing-room
with two sofas and books, and every comfort, for F. and me. Major L. was
at luncheon: he is the man who has taken most of the Thugs, and he told
me such horrid stories of them. The temple at which they dedicate
themselves to the goddess of destruction is in this town. The Thugs
offer human sacrifices there whenever they can procure them. We left
Mirzapore at four, and overtook our camp at six. It looked pretty by
torchlight. We moved on another ten miles this morning, but, where we
are, I cannot precisely tell you. I think it sounds like Gugga Gange; at
all events, that is as good as the real word.
CHAPTER VI.
Camp near Allahabad, Nov. 30, 1837.
I sent off one journal to you two days ago from a place that, it since
appears, was called Bheekee. Yesterday we started at half-past five, as
it was a twelve miles' march, and the troops complain if they do not
get in before the sun grows hot, so we had half an hour's drive in the
dark, and F. rode the last half of the way. I came on in the carriage,
as I did not feel well, and one is sick and chilly naturally before
breakfast. Not but that I like these morning marches; the weather is so
English, and feels so wholesome when one is well. The worst part of a
march is the necessity of everybody, sick or well, dead or dying,
pushing on with the others. Luckily there is every possible arrangement
made for it. There are beds on poles for sick servants and palanquins
for us, which are nothing but beds in boxes. I have lent mine to Mrs. C.
G. and I went on an elephant through rather a pretty little village in
the evening, and he was less bored than usual, but I never saw him hate
anything so much as he does this camp life. I have long named my tent
'Misery Hall.' F. said it was very odd, as everybody observed her tent
was like a fairy palace.
'Mine is not exactly that,' G. said; 'indeed I call it Foully Palace, it
is so very squalid-looking.' He was sitting in my tent in the evening,
and when the purdahs are all down, all the outlets to the tents are so
alike that he could not find which _crevice_ led to his abode; and he
said at last, 'Well! it is a hard case; they talk of the luxury in which
the Governor-General travels, but I cannot even find a covered passage
from Misery Hall to Foully Palace.'
This morning we are on the opposite bank of the river to Allahabad,
almost a mile from it. It will take three days to pass the whole camp.
Most of the horses and the body-guard are gone to-day, and have got
safely over. The elephants swim for themselves, but all the camels,
which amount now to about 850, have to be passed in boats: there are
hundreds of horses and bullocks, and 12,000 people.
I am sure it would have done Mrs. Trimmer's heart good to see them all
on the beach this evening. I thought of her print of the Israelites
crossing the Red Sea--a skimpy representation, but it was the first idea
we had of that event. The picture at Stafford House enlarged my notions,
and now I think I have come to the real thing, and indeed am a Red Sea
Israelite myself.
Allahabad, Dec. 2.
We crossed the river at seven yesterday morning. The Ganges and Jumna
join each other here, and this junction makes the water so uncommonly
precious and sacred, that Hindus come here from all parts of the country
on pilgrimage. The rich Hindus at a great distance buy the water, and we
met strings of pilgrims yesterday carrying jars of it, with which they
will travel farther south than Calcutta.
We were met at the ghaut by a large collection of residents. I hate a
great station, and Allahabad has a very modern, uninteresting, sandy
look about it.
Foully Palace looked particularly unhappy this morning. G.'s furniture,
somehow, was deluged, and his whole stock of comfort amounted to one
cane chair and a table, and he called us all in to see his eastern
luxury. I handsomely offered to lend him the armchair Mr. D. gave me,
and which is so continually my companion, 'my goods, my chattels, my
household stuff,' that I had no doubt it was in 'Misery Hall.' I told
my little ameer to give it to the Lord Sahib, but he told me afterwards,
'Ladyship's chair in river too, but me find arm-chair in other tent, and
me put Lord Sahib in it.' I think I see him fixing G. in his chair. Mine
is quite safe, I am happy to say.
In the afternoon G. and I, and a Mr. B., rather a clever man, went to
see some tombs about three miles off. You know the sort of people who
have tombs worth seeing--'Shah Houssein,' or 'Nour Jehan,' or words to
that effect.
However, the tombs were there, and F. and I stayed there sketching till
it was quite dusk, and kept the carriage, and G. and Mr. B. and Captain
M. rode home such a roundabout way that dinner was cold before they got
back.
Monday, Dec. 4.
We had church in camp again yesterday. We received visitors on Saturday
evening instead of the morning, by way of an experiment, and it answered
much better. It all comes more in the natural way of work than in the
heat of the day, and we had the band, and tea, and negus, and
sandwiches. It was a regular party, much larger than I expected; the
great durbar tent was quite full, and they are a more _fashioned_-looking
set here. By coming in the evening G. sees them, which they prefer, and
which, strange to say, he likes too. We have thirty-five of them at
dinner to-day, and thirty-seven to-morrow. On Thursday they give us a
ball, and on Saturday we depart.
Lucknow and Agra were to have been the two incidents of the journey that
were to make up for the bore of all the rest. Lucknow has been cut off,
because the King cannot meet the Governor-General, and B. cannot
reconcile himself to such a breach of etiquette, the poor old man being
bedridden. Agra, they say, is in a state of famine and scarcity. If so,
of course it would be very wrong to take our great camp there. So we
shall not see the Taj--the only thing that, all Indians say, is worth
looking at.
Here there is a sort of Dowager Queen of the Gwalior country; her style
and title being 'the Baiza Baee.' She is very clever, has been handsome,
and, some say, is beautiful still. She cannot endure being only a
Dowager Baiza Baee; and being immensely rich, she has been suspected of
carrying on intrigues amongst her former subjects. She has always been
visited by all great potentates, but B. chose to say that neither G. nor
we should go to see her. She took this dreadfully to heart, and has been
sending ambassadors and letters and presents without end, and asserted
that she would be disgraced for ever if she were so slighted. Then B.
went to see her himself, and was either talked over, or was ashamed of
always putting spokes in everybody's wheel; he is a spoke himself and
nothing else. Now he wants G. to go: however, he cannot get out of his
lordship's head what he has put into it, and G. will not go, but is
going to send us--just the very thing _Spoke_ wanted to prevent.
I am so glad, though it is a great deal of trouble to us; but I am glad
out of spite.
Tuesday, Dec. 5.
Our great dinner yesterday went off very well. For the first time since
we left Calcutta, indeed almost since we left England, I made yesterday
a nice little solitary expedition. G. was gone to the native schools
and jails, and F. and W. were out riding. I always have more or less of
a headache the day that English letters arrive; they put me in a fuss,
even if they are all right; so I thought it would be very nice to escape
all companions except Chance, and I told my jemadar to have the tonjaun
at the wrong side of the tent, stepped into it, and made them carry me
three miles off in search of a very eligible flame-coloured idol, which
I had marked down as a good sketch the day we landed. The bearers carry
one very fast for that sort of distance, and Chance runs along by the
chair in a very satisfactory manner. I am afraid the jemadar thought it
an improper and undignified proceeding, for he fetched out every servant
I have of the walking character, seventeen scarlet men in all; and the
poor hirkarus, who have sat cross-legged for the last two years, ran on
first as hard as they could, screaming to everybody to get out of the
way. Chance thought it excellent fun, and barked all the time. We passed
by the camp of the Nawâb of Banda, who is come to visit G., and has a
camp as large as ours, with such strange-looking painted horses pawing
about it. I found my idol, made a lovely coloured sketch with quantities
of Venetian red, and got back just as it grew dark.
The country about here is hideous, and I cannot imagine why the
residents like it. It is very like Calcutta, without the bright green
grass, or the advantages of a town, ships, shops, &c.
I went in the morning, with Captain M., to see a native female school,
which some of the ladies wanted me to see. I have not the least esteem
for them (the schools, not the ladies). The natives take the little
girls away from them as soon as they are betrothed--at seven or eight
years old--and, even till that age, the children will not come unless
they are paid for it. After that time nothing more is seen or known of
them, and there has never been an instance of conversion; so there is
something in their reading the Bible just as they would any story book
that is rather wrong than right, I think. These children seemed to read
it more fluently than any I have heard, and the schoolmistress spoke
Hindustani exactly like a native, and probably asked very good
questions.
The children looked very poor; and luckily half the ceiling of the
school fell down while I was there, owing to the successful labours of
the white ants, which gave the ladies an opportunity of observing that
their funds were in a very bad state. All these sights are very
expensive, and I never know exactly what is expected from us. I gave
15_l._ for all three of us, but it is a very odd system of the _good_
people here, that they never acknowledge any donation. It is supposed to
be a gift from Providence; so, whether it is satisfactory to them, or
not, remains a mystery.
CHAPTER VII.
Thursday, Dec. 7, 1837.
We had our wedding yesterday morning; the tent made up into a very good
chapel. Miss H. was very nicely dressed, and looked very well. Mr. G.
was uncommonly happy.
Mr. Y. always puts me in mind of R. He could not build up an altar to
his mind, and was prancing up and down the tent, just in one of R.'s
ways.
He treated with immense scorn an idea of mine, to try the state housings
of the elephant, which are scarlet, embroidered all over in gold; but I
sent for them, and you can't imagine what a fine altar we made, with
four arm-chairs for railings, and some carpets and velvet cushions in
front. It was quite picturesque, only we were obliged to forewarn Mr. G.
that neither he nor H. were to faint away _towards_ the altar, because
it would then all come down with a crash. She cried less than I
expected; but indeed her spirits were very much kept up by a beautiful
shawl G. gave her.
We had a quiet dinner yesterday. Most of the camp dine at a great
wedding dinner given by a relation of the A.s.
The young Prince Henry of Orange is at Calcutta, and we heard this
morning that he has settled to come up dâk (or travelling day and night
in a palanquin) and join us. He will overtake us about Tuesday or
Wednesday, between this and Cawnpore.
G. cannot stop here for him, but we leave Captain M. behind to bring him
on, and he brings up an extra aide-de-camp from Calcutta.
We are going to put Giles at the head of his establishment, and are
organising tiger hunts, &c., on the road for him. I am very glad he is
coming. His father wrote such a pretty letter to G. about him, and it
will be easy to amuse a boy in a camp.
St. Cloup[B] is in ecstasies at the prince's arrival.
[B] The Governor-General's cook.
He was cook to the Prince of Orange at the Hague, and knew this boy as a
child--'un jeune homme charmant!--toujours le chapeau à la main--si
poli, si gentil!--Allons, madame, je vais parler au khansamah; nous
allons faire bonne chère. Il ne se plaindra pas de son diner, Dieu
merci!'
B. is defeated with great loss, and we are going to see the Baiza Baee
to-morrow. A Mrs. ----, her great friend, has been here this morning, in
the first place to bring Chance a pair of gold bangles and a pair of
silver bangles that were made for him by a young officer who saw him at
Barrackpore, and who left them to be offered to Chance on his progress.
You never saw such a good figure as he is, and he walks just as the
native women do, when their ankles are covered with bangles.
Then Mrs. ---- came to say that the Baiza Baee had asked her to come and
interpret for us, which will be a great comfort. She says the Baiza Baee
had said to her, 'I want to give the Miss Edens a native ball and
supper. I think I had better buy a house large enough.' She stopped
that; and now, to save us five miles of dusty road, the Baee is to come
down to her private tents, which are pitched only a mile off.
Saturday, Dec. 9.
We had our ball on Thursday--a particularly sleepy one--perhaps my
fault, for I could not keep my eyes open; but the dancing seemed sleepy,
considering the degree of practice the dancers must have had.
There was an old Mrs. ----, with hair perfectly white, and a nice mob cap
over it, who bounded through every quadrille with some spirit, but most
of the young people were very languid. We had a great deal of
health-drinking and _speechifying_; but as they understood we liked
early hours, they ordered supper at eleven, and after supper,
fortunately, my nose began to bleed, which was an excellent excuse for
coming away.
Everybody else is much the better for marching. F. is in a state of
health and activity perfectly unequalled, and with a really good colour.
G. detests his tent and his march, and the whole business so actively,
that he will not perceive how well he is. I never shall think a tent
comfortable, but I do not hate it so much as G. does, from the
dawdlingness of the life; and I would go through much more discomfort
for the sake of the coolness of the mornings.
We paid our visit to the Baiza Baee yesterday. The young princess came
to fetch us, but as we could not ensure our tents being so completely
private as they ought to be, B. asked her, through the curtains of her
palanquin, not to get out, and said that we would follow her
immediately. So we set off in one carriage, and W. and three other
aides-de-camp in the other, and quantities of servants and guards, and
her palanquin was carried by the side of our carriage, with six of her
ayahs running by it, and a Mahratta _horsewoman_, all over jewels,
riding behind, and hundreds of wild-looking horsemen in such picturesque
dresses, galloping backwards and forwards, and the princess's uncle on
an elephant, whom they had painted bright green and blue, and who went
at a full trot, much, I should think, to the detriment of 'my uncle's'
bones. It was an odd, wild-looking procession, quite unlike anything we
have seen yet. The visit to the Baee was very like any other native
visit.
She is a clever-looking little old woman, with remains of beauty. She
covered us with jewels, chiefly pearls and emeralds, and there were
fifteen trays a-piece, for F. and me, filled with beautiful shawls,
gauzes, &c.--you never saw such treasures. However, the astutious old
lady was fully aware that they all went to the Company, and after we
came away was persuaded by Mr. B. to retain them; but she told us
confidentially and iniquitously that the jewels had been specially
prepared for us, and inferior articles of the same kind would be sent
with the list that is always given to Mr. B., so that he could make no
claim on these. We laughed, and assured her that was not the usual
English custom, and she took them all back again very willingly, except
two little rings, which we kept in exchange for ours. Mine was made of
pearls in the shape of a mitre, and it looked so handsome on Chance's
tail that W. wanted to apply to B. to know if he would not waive the
rights of the Company just in favour of that ring and that tail!
Mooftee-ka-Poorwah, Sunday, Dec. 10.
Yesterday they made a mistake in the time, and called us at half-past
four, which gave us an hour's drive in the dark, over a very bad road,
and an hour to wait for breakfast. I never did see so hideous a country,
and this is a very ugly station. 'Foully Palace' looks particularly
striking, as the dust has actually dyed the tents brown, and G.'s
disgust is turning him yellow.
He is longing to go back to Calcutta. The weather has grown so much
cooler and pleasanter, I cannot agree with him.
Koosseah, Monday, Dec. 11.
We had a sixteen miles' march, quite as much as the servants and troops
could manage, and we were above three hours coming in the carriage.
G. and F. rode the last five miles. We are encamped under trees, and it
looks prettier. The King of Oude has sent his cook to accompany us for
the next month, and yesterday, when our dinner was set out, his
khansamah and kitmutgars arrived with a second dinner, which they put
down by the side of the other, and the same at breakfast this morning.
Some of the dishes are very good, though too strongly spiced and
perfumed for English tastes. They make up some dishes with
assafoetida! but we stick to the rice and pilaus and curries. St.
Cloup is so cross about them.
The king has also sent greyhounds and huntsmen, and a great many
beautiful hawks, and we are going out hunting this afternoon if the
elephants are rested after their long march. To-morrow, F. and I mean to
strike off from the camp to a place called Kurrah, where there are some
beautiful tombs, and we shall have a tent there, with breakfast and
luncheon. It is three miles from the camp, and all our cool light time
would be lost if we went there and back from the camp.
Kistoghur, Wednesday, Dec. 13.
Our hunting expedition was on a grand scale, huntsmen and spearmen and
falconers in profusion, and twelve elephants, and five miles of open
country, and the result was, that we killed one innocent and
unsuspecting black crow, and two tame paddy birds, which one of the
falconers quietly turned out. But it was a grand sight, and I have made
a rare sketch of some of the people.
F. and I went off to Kurrah yesterday morning, and found three tents
pitched opposite to a beautiful tomb. G. and Captain N. left us after
they had seen two or three ruins, and we stayed out sketching with P.
and M. till breakfast time. The sketching mania is spreading luckily,
for as these young gentlemen must go with us, it will be a great
blessing both for themselves and us if they can draw too. P. has set up
a book, and seems to draw well. These little quiet encampments are very
pleasant, after the great dusty camp.
W. had meant to shoot at Kurrah; he always goes on the day before, as he
hates getting up early and likes living alone; but there was some
mistake about his tent last night, and when he arrived with a tired
horse over a cross-road, there was nothing but his bed, and no tent, and
all the servants sleeping round a large fire. The servants said, 'O,
Sahib went away very impassionate.'
We went on our elephants at four, to see the fort, an old ruin, on a
real, steep rock, with a great bird's-eye view of the Oude country.
Certainly a hill is a valuable article. We then joined the camp, through
four miles of old temples and tombs, and the ground about as uneven as
that at Eastcombe. Altogether, Kurrah answered to us.
We had rather a large dinner afterwards.
Futtehpore, Dec. 15.
Yesterday we were at a very dull place, Thurriah by name, and were not
even tempted to ride out of the camp. The band plays in the afternoon,
between five and six, which I established, because at dinner it is
impossible to listen comfortably; and it really plays so beautifully, it
is a pity not to hear it.
All the party walk up and down what we call High Street in front of our
tents. The Y.s with their two children, he taking a race with his boy,
and then helping to pack a camel. The 'vicarage' is always the tent that
is first struck. The A.s slink off down A-alley, at the back of their
tent, because in her present state of figure she is ashamed to be seen;
the C.s take an elephant. Colonel P. walks up and down waiting to help
Mrs. R. off her horse, and wishing she would not ride with her husband.
Mrs. L. toddles about with her small child, and L. always makes some
excuse for not walking with 'Carry dear.' The officers of the escort and
their wives all pursue their domestic walks; the aides-de-camp and
doctor get their newspapers and hookahs in a cluster on their side of
the street. W. has his hookah in front of his tent, and F. sits with
him, and they feed his dogs and elephants. G. and I and Chance sit in
front of my tent. Altogether it is a public sort of meeting, in which
everybody understands that they are doing their domestic felicity, and
nobody takes the slightest notice of anybody else.
Futtehpore, Dec. 16.
The Prince of Orange arrived at two yesterday. He is a fair,
quiet-looking boy, and is very shy and very silent. He did not seem the
least tired with ten days and nights of palanquin. We sent the carriage
to meet him some miles off, with some luncheon. G. pressed him to try a
warm bath, and five minutes after saw his own cherished green tub
carried over.
'I really can't stand that,' he said; 'if he keeps my tub, there must be
war with Holland immediately. I shall take Batavia, and tell the guns at
Fort William to fire on the Bellona at once.'
We all went out on elephants in the afternoon; Captain A. (the Dutch
captain and tutor), and Captain C., and all. The prince came on my
elephant; and we saw some beautiful mosques and ruins. Also, there are
twenty native chiefs encamped about, who had come from a great distance
to meet G.; so there were quantities of strange sights for our guest.
We march again on Monday, and I believe that F. and I shall go to
Lucknow the week after next, from Cawnpore.
This must go.
CHAPTER VIII.
Maharajpore, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 1837.
I have let three or four days slip by since my last immense Journal
started from Futtehpore.
I had such a number of letters to answer in other directions, and then
our young prince takes up much of my time, as everything here is new to
him, and he seems surprised at the horses, camels, and elephants, &c.
He is continually asking if the carriage will not be overturned, which
is not an unnatural question, for the roads are so bad, the wonder is
that it does not overturn constantly; but a sailor would be able to jump
out, and I dare say at his age he would rather like the carriage to be
upset.
The gentlemen all went off on a shooting expedition yesterday to
Serajapore. F. and I stuck to the camp with great difficulty, for our
horses, though we change every five miles, knocked up entirely. The
sands are half-way up the wheels occasionally.
G. shot for the first time from an elephant, which is considered very
difficult, till people are accustomed to stand on its back, and he
killed three hares and three quails. Mr. T. killed the only niel ghâu
that was seen, but altogether they were much pleased at having found
anything.
Cawnpore, Dec. 21.
The prince was quite bent upon taking a sketch yesterday afternoon, as
he saw us all sketching. All our elephants were tired with the long
marches we have had the last two days. However, that attentive creature,
'neighbour Oude,' sent us down six new ones this morning, so G. and I
got on one, and put B. with the prince on another, P. on another by his
side. We discovered a very pretty Hindu temple, and all set to work
sketching.
The prince got off his elephant because he said it shook him so, and he
would have made a good picture, sitting in my tonjaun, with crowds of
spearmen and bearers all round him; B., who does not draw, in an
attitude of resigned bore standing by him, and he, looking like a young
George III. on a seven-shilling piece, peering up at the temple, and
wondering how he was to begin. However, it amused him, and he has passed
several hours since, touching it up.
This morning we made one of our grand entries into Cawnpore, or rather
_on_ to it; for there is no particular Cawnpore visible. But we drove
over a miniature plain to our tents.
F., G., and all the gentlemen, even to Y., on his fat pony, rode in, and
Prince Henry, his captain, P., and I came in the open carriage. We were
met by tribes of officers, and there were two regiments of cavalry and
two of infantry, and guns and bands, and altogether it was just the
sight for a foreigner to see, and they seemed to like it accordingly.
But we began by the four young horses in the carriage running restive.
They either could not, or would not, draw the carriage over a bad pass,
so at last I proposed that to save time we should take to our elephants,
of which there were luckily several following us.
Cawnpore, Saturday, Dec. 23.
G. had his levée an hour after we arrived, and we had our party the same
evening, for this is one of those dreadful large stations where there is
not a chance of getting through all our duties if we lose an hour's
time.
It was lucky we had the large tent pitched, for there were between 200
and 300 people at our party. Luckily I thought a dance might be made
out, which the Prince of Orange likes, and they had battened the floor
of the tent till it was smooth; so the dancing went on very well.
It was the more essential, because, with every chair and sofa assembled
from all the other tents, we could not make up a hundred seats, so it
was necessary to keep part of the company constantly dancing.
There were two or three old Calcutta faces, difficult to name, amongst
the company, but it was easy to seem glad to see them and to say, 'What!
are _you_ here?' though I scorned myself for knowing that I had not an
idea who '_you_' was. I see it is one of those crowded stations where it
is better not to fatigue a failing memory by any attempt at names.
Thirty-five of them dined with us yesterday, but I am no wiser and no
worse. Yesterday morning we went to a fancy sale, which had been put off
for our advantage. We found it extremely difficult to get rid of the
necessary sum of money, but by dint of buying frocks and pelisses and
caps for all the little A.s and C.s and Y.s of the camp, it was finally
accomplished.
Monday (Christmas Day), Dec. 25.
I must go back to my Journal, dearest; but having just come from church,
I must begin by wishing you and yours a great many happy Christmases.
This is our third Christmas-day, so, however appearances are against it,
time does really roll on. I don't know why, but I am particularly
_Indianly_ low to-day. There is such a horrid mixture of sights and
sounds for Christmas. The servants have hung garlands at the doors of
our tents, and (which is very wrong) my soul recoiled when they all
assembled, and in their patois wished us, I suppose, a happy Christmas.
Somehow a detestation of the Hindustani language sounding all round us,
came over me in a very inexplicable manner.
Then, though nothing could be better than the way in which Mr. Y.
performed the service, still it was in a tent, and unnatural, and we
were kneeling just where the Prince of Lucknow and his son, and their
turbaned attendants, were sitting on Saturday at the durbar, and there
was nobody except G. with whom I felt any real communion of heart and
feelings. So, you see, I just cried for you and some others, and I
daresay I shall be better after luncheon.
To return to my journal. G. had a hard day's work on Saturday, and so
had everybody. We gave a breakfast to the heir-apparent of Lucknow and
to sixty people; the utmost number we can accommodate.
Four aides-de-camp went, at seven in the morning, all the way to his
camp (five miles) to fetch him. W. and Mr. P. met him half-way; B.
again, a mile off; and then G., the Prince of Orange, and all the chief
officers of station, at the end of our street.
Each individual is on an elephant, and the _shock_ at the meeting was
very amusing. A great many howdahs were broken, and it is a mercy that
some of the people were not killed, for the Nawâb scatters money as he
goes along, and the natives get under the elephants to find it. G. and
the Nawâb embrace on meeting, and the visitor gets into the howdah of
the visited, in which friendly fashion they arrived.
F. and I had taken our places in the durbar tent on the left hand of his
lordship, and Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. and Mrs. J. and Mrs. Y. behind us. We
could not ask any of the ladies of the station, for want of room.
The durbar and the speeches and compliments were all the same as usual,
except that this is a real king's son, so that the presents that G. gave
were really handsome, and also he is the first native who has eaten with
us.
St. Cloup gave us a magnificent breakfast. G. sugared and creamed the
Nawâb's tea, and the Nawâb gave him some pilau. Then he put a slice of
buttered toast (rather cold and greasy) on one plate for me, and another
for F., and B. said in an imposing tone, 'His Royal Highness sends the
Burra Lady this, and the Choota Lady that,' and we looked immeasurable
gratitude. At the end of breakfast, two hookahs were brought in, that
the chiefs might smoke together, and a third for Colonel L., the British
resident, that his consequence might be kept up in the eyes of the
Lucknowites, by showing that he is allowed to smoke at the
Governor-General's table. The old khansamah wisely took care to put no
tobacco in G.'s hookah, though it looked very grand and imposing with
its snake and rose-water. G. says he was quite distressed; he could not
persuade it to make the right kind of bubbling noise.
After breakfast we went back to the durbar, and the presents were given
and dresses of honour to two of his suite, and altogether it was a two
hours' business. However, it was really a fine sight, though tedious. I
got Mr. D. to change places with me, and made an excellent sketch of
this immensely fat prince with his pearls and emeralds and gold, and G.
by his side. Prince Henry was charmed with the show, and said to Giles,
who evidently possesses his confidence, 'I hope the King of Lucknow
shall give me presents, because I may keep them; may you keep them, if
you get any?' Giles said, 'No; he was the Governor-General's servant,
and could not be allowed to keep presents.' 'Oh! say you are my servant,
and then B. cannot touch your presents,' Prince Henry said. Giles told
me the story with a grin of delight, and I could only say with Falstaff,
'He is indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince.
Indeed, able to corrupt a saint.'
CHAPTER IX.
Cawnpore, Dec. 28, 1837.
My Journal is in a bad way, actually extinguished by the quantity that I
should have to put into it, if there were any writing time left.
Tuesday morning the Prince of Oude returned our breakfast by one at his
tents, which were pitched about five miles off. F. and I went in the
carriage till the last minute, when we had to get on our elephants, but
the other poor wretches had to come jolting along the whole way. The
Prince of Oude's tents are very large, and he had asked the whole
station, and with his quantity of troops and odd-looking attendants, it
was a very curious sight, and he did it in a very gentlemanlike way.
The presents were very magnificent. He had had two diamond combs made on
purpose for F. and me, mounted in an European fashion. They are worth
at least 1,500_l._ a-piece, and what distresses B. is, that they are of
no use to give again, as natives can make no use whatever of them; there
were also two lovely pairs of earrings, a single uncut emerald drop,
with one large diamond at the top, really beautiful stones, not those
that are so common here, full of flaws. The trays of shawls were just as
usual, but the jewels had been made up on purpose, and the Prince of
Oude asked leave to show them to us himself, though it is the general
and foolish custom to take no notice of what is given.
This is the first time the presents have excited my cupidity. Not the
combs--I am grown too old for a comb; but those emerald earrings! I
should like them, should not you? They will be sold probably at Delhi.
Tuesday night the station gave us a ball and supper, and on Wednesday
morning at eight, W., P., F., and I set off in two buggies, which took
us down to a bridge of boats; beyond that we found our elephants, who
carried us over three miles of sand utterly impassable for a carriage,
and then we came to the palanquin carriage.
Our own twelve horses took us by stages of five miles to a tent of the
King of Oude's, which he had had pitched for us, and where his cook had
made a grand luncheon for us. Then three relays of his horses took us on
to Lucknow. His postilions were dressed much like our own, and drove
very tolerably; but the road was so awfully bad, we were shaken about
the carriage most uncomfortably and covered with dust. I felt so like
Madame Duval in Evelina, after the captain had shaken her and rolled
her in the ditch. The king sent guards for us all the way, such
beautiful figures! All scarlet and green, with brass basons on their
heads, and shields and spears. Just as we came to the town, we passed
the Prince of Orange, Captain A., Captain K., M., and Giles still in
their palanquins, though they had gone off from the ball the night
before.
The residence is a fine house, not much furnished, but there is a
beautiful view from the window, which is uncommon in this country.
We found Rosina and Myra perfectly miserable. They had arrived with all
our goods and all our men-servants two days before, and somehow had been
particularly helpless, and had not found out where to get their food.
Myra, F.'s ayah, is a Portuguese, and can eat anything, and dines after
our servants; but Rosina, being a Mussulmaunee, can only eat certain
things, and they must be cooked in a brass pot called a 'lotah;' and
Major J. had told her not to bring her 'lotah,' for at the residence
they would find everything cooked by Mussulmauns. So she and Myra had
wisely sat and cried, instead of going to the bazaar and buying what
they wanted. However, the instant we came, they were satisfied they
would not be murdered or starved, and they proved themselves excellent
ladies' maids.
We set off early on Wednesday morning in two of the king's carriages,
and saw the tombs of Saadut Ali and his wife. A very fine building, but
the wife is not allowed any little tops to the cupola of her tomb, which
is mean. Then to 'Constantia,' a sort of castle in a fine jungly park,
built by an old General La Martine, who came out to India a private
soldier, and died worth more than a million. I wish we had come out in
those days.
He left his house at Constantia to the public. Any European in want of
change of air might go with his family and live there for a month, and
beyond the month, unless another family wanted it. This would be a great
convenience to the few English in Oude, particularly to poor officers;
so of course, for thirty years, the Supreme Court has been doubting
whether the will meant what it said it meant, and the house has been
going to decay; but it is now decided that people may live there, and it
is all to be repaired.
Then we went to Dilkushar, a country palace of the king's, very pretty,
and then to a tomb of a former king, where there are silver tigers as
large as life, a silver fish, a silver mosque, and all sorts of
curiosities, and priests who read the Koran night and day. Then we came
home to breakfast and to rest, and the gentlemen went to the prison to
see some Thugs.
You have heard about them before, a respectable body of many thousand
individuals, who consider it a point of religion to inveigle and murder
travellers, which they do so neatly that 'Thuggee' had prospered for
2,000 years before it was discovered.
A Captain G. here is one of its great persecutors officially, but by
dint of living with Thugs he has evidently grown rather fond of them,
and has acquired a latent taste for strangling. One of the Thugs in the
prison told the gentlemen: 'I have killed three hundred people since I
began;' and another said, 'I have killed only eighty myself, but my
father has done much more.'
Then they acted over amongst themselves a scene of Thuggee. Some of them
pretended to be travellers, and the others joined them and flattered
them, and asked them to sit down and smoke, and then pointed up to the
sun, or a bird; and when the traveller looked up, the noose was round
his neck in an instant, and of course, as a _real_ traveller, he would
have been buried in five minutes.
Then they threw the noose over one of Colonel L.'s surwars who was
cantering by, just to show him how they could have strangled him. I
think it is a great shame allowing them to repeat their parts, but they
really believe they have only done their duty. They say they would not
steal from a house, or a tent, but they have a profession of their own,
and all these men regret very much that they cannot teach their sons to
walk in the right way.
In the afternoon we went to see the Emaunberra and Rooma Durwanee, two
of the most magnificent native buildings I have seen yet. About a week
of hard sketching would have been really pleasant amongst them, and we
had only half-an-hour. However, we saw a great deal for the time, and we
are uncommonly lucky in our weather. It is just right, a sort of spring
afternoon; very pleasant.
Friday morning we set off in great state to see Mr. B. (who has come in
G.'s place); meet the Prince of Lucknow. It was much the same meeting as
that at Cawnpore; but the prince gave us afterwards a breakfast in the
palace, which we wanted to see very much, and which was quite as
_Arabian-Nightish_ as I meant it to be.
The throne is gold, with its canopy and umbrella and pillars covered
with cloth of gold, embroidered in pearls and small rubies. Our fat
friend the prince was dressed to match his throne. All his brothers,
twenty at least, appeared too--rather ill-conditioned young gentlemen;
and there were jugglers and nautch-girls and musicians, all working at
their vocations during breakfast.
The late king drank himself to death about six months ago; and then
there was a sort of revolution conducted by Colonel L. (who was nearly
killed in this palace), by which the present king was placed on the
throne; so these are early days for acting royalty. Mr. B. went in to
the old king, who is nearly bedridden, and he said he was quite affected
by the old man. He translated to him G.'s letter, in which G. said how
much he had been pleased with his heir-apparent's manner, and the old
king looked up, and held out his hand to his son, who rose and salaamed
down to the ground three times. Mr. B., who is almost a native in
language, and knows them thoroughly, said he was quite touched; it is so
seldom natives show any emotion of that kind.
There was a fight of wild beasts after breakfast, elephants,
rhinoceroses, rams, &c., but we excused ourselves, as there often are
accidents at these fights. The gentlemen all went, and so did Giles, and
they were quite delighted, and said we ought to have seen it.
In the afternoon we went to see the king's yacht, which he had decked
out for us, and then his garden. Such a place! the only residence I have
coveted in India. Don't you remember where in the 'Arabian Nights,'
Zobeide bets her 'garden of delights' against the Caliph's 'palace of
pictures?' I am sure this was 'the garden of delights!'
There are four small palaces in it, fitted up in the eastern way, with
velvet and gold and marble, with arabesque ceilings, orange trees and
roses in all directions, with quantities of wild parroquets of bright
colours glancing about. And in one palace there was an immense bath-room
of white marble, the arches intersecting each other in all directions,
and the marble inlaid with cornelian and bloodstone; and in every corner
of the palace there were little fountains; even during the hot winds,
they say, it is cool from the quantity of water playing; and in the
verandah there were fifty trays of fruits and flowers laid out for
us,--by which the servants profited. It was really a very pretty sight.
Then we went to the stud where the horses were displayed; the most
curious was a Cutch horse (Cutch is, I opine, the name of a particular
district, but I never ask questions, I hate information). He looked as
if he had had a saddle of mutton cut out of his back. They said he was
very easy to ride, but apt to stumble.
There was to have been a return breakfast to the heir-apparent at
Colonel L.'s on Saturday morning, but that would have made our journey
back very late; so it was commuted for some fireworks in the evening. We
went back to the palace after dinner, or rather to another palace on
the river. On the opposite bank there was an illumination in immense
letters, 'God save George Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India,'
'God save the King of Oude,' and then there was a full stop, and
'Colonel L., Resident of Lucknow,' stood alone. Whether he was to be
_saved_ or not was not mentioned; it was not very correctly spelt, but
well-meant. My jemadar asked me afterwards, 'Did Ladyship see "God save
my Lord?" I thought it very excellent, very neat.' The river was covered
with rafts full of fireworks, and the boats in front were loaded with
nautch-girls, who dance on, whether they are looked at or not. The
Prince of Orange was charmed with his evening.
CHAPTER X.
Cawnpore, New Year's Day, 1838.
Another year! You will be nearly half through it by the time you read
this.
I was so obliged to you for those extracts from Charles Lamb. I had seen
that about the two hemispheres in some newspaper, and have been longing
for the book ever since.
'Boz's Magazine' is disappointing. I wish he would not mix up his great
Pickwick name with meaner works. It is odd how long you were writing
about Pickwick, and yet I felt all the time, though we are no judges of
fun in this place, that it must be everywhere the cleverest thing that
has appeared in our time. I had laughed twenty times at that book. Then
there is always a quotation to be had from Pickwick for everything that
occurs anywhere.
That Mr. Q., of ----, who has been living with us for a month, and who
admires Chance, as a clever demon, but is afraid of him, always says, if
Chance goes near him at dessert:--'Bring some cake directly! good old
Chance! good little dog! the cake is coming,' so like Pickwick and his
'good old horse.'
We returned from Lucknow on Saturday, with no accident but that of
breaking the dicky; which, considering the state of the roads, was
marvellous. I never felt such jolting, and it was very hot in the middle
of the day; and G., who does not believe in fatigue, had asked
five-and-twenty people to dinner.
We parted with the Prince of Orange at Lucknow, which is something saved
in point of trouble. He has liked his visit, I fancy, though it did not
excite him much.
The dust at Cawnpore has been quite dreadful the last two days. People
lose their way on the plains, and everything is full of dust--books,
dinner, clothes, everything. We all detest Cawnpore. It is here, too,
that we first came into the starving districts. They have had no rain
for a year and a half; the cattle all died, and the people are all dying
or gone away.
They are employed here by Government; every man, woman, or child, who
likes to do the semblance of a day's work is paid for it, and there is a
subscription for feeding those who are unable to work at all. But many
who come from a great distance die of the first food they touch. There
are as many as twenty found dead on the plain in the morning.
Powrah, Thursday, Jan. 4.
We left Cawnpore on Tuesday, and now that we are out of reach of the
District Societies, &c., the distress is perfectly dreadful.
You cannot conceive the horrible sights we see, particularly children;
perfect skeletons in many cases, their bones through their skin, without
a rag of clothing, and utterly unlike human creatures. Our camp luckily
does more good than harm. We get all our supplies from Oude, and we can
give away more than any other travellers.
We began yesterday giving food away in the evening; there were about 200
people, and Giles and the old khansamah distributed it, and I went with
Major J. to see them, but I could not stay. We can do no more than give
what we do, and the sight is much too shocking. The women look as if
they had been buried, their _skulls_ look so dreadful.
I am sure there is no sort of violent atrocity I should not commit for
food, with a starving baby. I should not stop to think about the rights
or wrongs of the case.
As usual, dear Shakspeare knew all about it. He must have been at
Cawnpore at the time of a famine--
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 morning before 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, when the 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. one morning 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 Temple _will fall out_ of 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; it _must_ be 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 I said, "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 he _much_ the cleverest man you ever saw?' So then he showed us
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.
CHAPTER XI.
Futtygunge, Jan. 17, 1838.
We have 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, and drowns 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 through
their 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 certainly _were_ the 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 trial _by rice_ of 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 take _that_: 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 a _nice_ experiment. 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 a man 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 poor _dry_ victim 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 say _that_ is quite wrong, and that we _will_ be 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.
CHAPTER XII.
Bareilly, Monday, Jan. 22, 1838.
We were '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, white boots, 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 swords and 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 these _men_ dinners; 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
at Benares 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 the mountain 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 we _were_ at Simla. The
roads are so _infernally_ bad--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't play.
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 harness _an elephant_ to
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 more
Returned 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 any letters--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, _I_ think, 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-faced
_fat-ish_ man, 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 there is 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 my _menus 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 hot winds 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 audiences all 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 together had 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 time _as 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 was obliged 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 shall
_you_ and _I_ have 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 a pair 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 finest mosque 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 simple plunder 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 slight _écart_ from 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 dirtier guards 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.
CHAPTER XIII.
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 those little 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 cannot guess 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.'
There _is_ nothing 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 round and 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 names written 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 the day, except, as he says with a most
sentimental sigh, 'a few rings of no value in themselves, but of value
to _me_, and a few _chits_.' The magistrate, Mr. ----, treats with the
greatest contempt the idea of recovering any sentimental goods. 'I
assure you,' he says, 'the dacoits at _Pannyput_ have no idea of
sentiment.' Probably not--but that does not console Lieut. ---- for the
loss of his _chits_.
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 long _pleureuse_ feather 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.
CHAPTER XIV.
Camp, Kurnaul, March 5, 1838.
It goes 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 the _rounds_ of
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 the evening 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
myself _saucing_ up 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. The discontent
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 took my
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--the _roaring sluices_ may 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's End, 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 of _chapel_ of 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.
CHAPTER XV.
Saharunpore, Sunday, March 11, 1838.
This is a small station, only two ladies, one of whom is Miss T.; she
came out last year to join a brother here, who is quite delighted to
have her, and she seems very contented with her quiet life; but
everybody is contented with their stations at the foot of the hills.
They stay the cold season here, and go in twelve hours up to Mussoorie,
where most of them have their regular established homes, so they escape
all hot weather. Miss T. and her brother and the other Saharunpore
gentlemen came out to meet us, and G. and I stopped at Captain C.'s to
see an immense collection of fossils, all proving that our elephants of
the present day were 'little Chances' of the olden time. G. had a
durbar, and in the afternoon we went to the Botanical Gardens, which are
very shady and nice; and we sent the band there, as the Saharunporites
do not often hear music. It is a pretty little station.
Kerni, March 15.
G. has been out tiger-hunting from the two last stations. They never had
a glimpse of a tiger, though here and there they saw the footprints of
one. One of the days the thermometer was at 90° in our tents, but G.
stayed out the whole day, and said he did not feel the heat.
Mussoorie, Sunday, March 18.
On Thursday evening we went on to Deyrah, too late to see anything, but
Friday morning the beauty of the Himalayas burst upon us. We were
encamped just under the mountains--too much under them to see the snowy
range, but still nothing could be more beautiful than the first view of
the range, and no wonder one hates plains. Colonel Y. had us out early
in the morning to see his little Ghoorka regiment manoeuvre. Most of
the men are about five feet six, with little hands and feet in
proportion. All the mountaineers are very small creatures, but they make
excellent little soldiers; and the Ghoorkas beat our troops at this spot
twenty-five years ago, and killed almost all the officers sent against
them. Now they are our subjects they fight equally well for us, and were
heard to say at Bhurtpore that they really thought some of our soldiers
were nearly equal to themselves. They look like little black dolls. They
are quite unlike natives. There is a regular fool attached to the
regiment, who had stuck a quantity of wild flowers in his helmet, and
came up and saluted G. with a large drawn sword in a most ridiculous
manner. After that we went to see a Sikh temple, where there was a great
festival, and about a hundred fakeers, the most horrid-looking monsters
it is possible to see. They never wear any clothes, but powder
themselves all over with white or yellow powder, and put red streaks
over their faces. They look like the raw material of so many Grimaldis.
At eleven, the two ladies and five gentlemen of the station came to
visit us; and at four, G. and I set off, under Colonel Y.'s auspices, to
see a cavern that has just been discovered about four miles from this,
and which was found out in a very odd way. One of the soldiers had
murdered his havildar out of jealousy, and escaped, and was taken, after
a fortnight's search, in this cave, nearly starved to death. It is just
the place where Balfour of Burley would have hid himself. I have not
enjoyed a drive so much for ages, and it was through such a beautiful
country--such hills and valleys! I wish we might settle at Deyrah for
the rest of the term of our transportation. One of the worst parts of
this journey is that we never can go even two yards from the camp
without an officer with G. on account of the petitioners. When we got
near the cave we found Colonel Y., Dr. G., and Captain M. at the
entrance of a dark grotto, through which a stream was running. 'Nothing
to walk through,' Colonel Y. said, 'not more than two feet deep, or two
feet and a half at most,' and so in they all went; but my bearers
luckily declared they could carry the tonjaun through, and they
contrived it, though sometimes one tumbled down, and then another, and I
had once to sit at the bottom of it to prevent my head being knocked off
by the rocks. It was a beautiful cavern about 500 yards long, and at the
other end there was a tent, where G. and Colonel Y. had wisely
established dry clothes, but the others who had not taken this
precaution were glad to gallop home as fast as they could.
Yesterday we started at half-past five in the carriage, came five miles
to the foot of the hills; then the gentlemen got on the ponies, and F.
and I into our jonpauns, which might just as well be called
tonjauns--they are the same sort of conveyances, only they swing about
more, and look like coffins. The mountaineers run up the hills with them
in a wonderful manner. We were two hours going up precipices which, as
Vivian Grey says, 'were completely perpendicular, but with perhaps a
slight incline inwards at the bottom,' and then we reached Colonel G.'s
bungalow at Mussoorie. Such a view on all sides of it! Nothing could be
grander--good fires burning--and a nice sharp wind blowing. Pleasant!
We found our Bengalee servants, who had come on the day before, very
miserable. They had slept in the open air and were starved with the
cold, and were so afraid of the precipices that they could not even go
to the bazaar to buy food. I dare say to people who have never even seen
the smallest rise in the ground, not even a molehill, these mountains
must be very terrific.
While she was dressing me, Rosina was mimicking F.'s jemadar, who is in
a particular state of fear. 'There was poor Ariff, he buy great stick,
and he put stick out so, and then he put his foot by it, and then he
say, "Oh! what me do next, me tumble if me move me stick or me foot."' I
thought we should have been alarmed by what Miss T. said of her fears,
but we went out on our ponies in the evening and cantered along the
paths quite easily, though it is ugly looking down. One stumble, and
horse and all must roll down out of sight. But, to be sure, how
beautiful the hills are! I am certain I shall grow strong again in a
week at Simla, and as for ever being well in the plains, that is an
evident impossibility, so far as I am concerned.
Mussoorie, Monday, March 19.
We went to the little Mussoorie church yesterday morning. The bearers
are steady men, I have no doubt, but still I wish they would not race
with each other; for at the sharp corners where they try to pass, the
outer jonpaun hangs over the edge, and I don't altogether like it. In
the afternoon we took a beautiful ride up to Landour, but the paths are
much narrower on that side, and our courage somehow oozed out; and first
we came to a place where they said, 'This was where poor Major Blundell
and his pony fell over, and they were both dashed to atoms,'--and then
there was a board stuck in a tree, 'From this spot a private in the
Cameronians fell and was killed.' Just as if there were any use in
adding that he was killed, if he fell--anybody might have guessed that.
Then ----, who lived up here for three years, said he would take us home
by a better path, and unluckily it was a worse one, and we had to get
off our ponies and lead them, and altogether I felt giddy and thought
much of poor Major Blundell! But it is impossible to imagine more
beautiful scenery. This morning we went to breakfast with Colonel M. and
saw the whole extent of the snowy range, and very fine it is. It is a
clever old range to have kept itself so clean and white for 5,000 years.
As we came back we met Mars, who is quite happy here, with Ariff after
him. I asked him what he was doing. 'Je veux absolument faire monter ce
pauvre Ariff là haut.'--'Do you like going, Ariff?' I said.--'No,
ladyship.'--'Don't you think the hills very beautiful?'--'No, ladyship,
very shocking;' and he made a face of such utter nausea it was
impossible to help laughing. Mars said afterwards that Ariff flung
himself on the ground and declared nothing should induce him to take
another step. My jemadar in consequence was particularly puffed up about
it, though I believe he disliked his walk quite as much. 'I been to the
Hospital, been to Macdonald Sahib, been everywhere where ladyship has
been. Poor Ariff, he fear much!' and he walked out with a smile of
self-complacency at his superior courage.
Rajpore, Wednesday, March 21.
We came down from Mussoorie Monday afternoon with great success, but the
change in an hour from cold to heat made us all deaf to begin with, and
half the servants were sick, and in the middle of the night I took one
of my attacks of spasms. I always think Dr. D. in his heart must wish
that they would begin twelve hours sooner. He always has to get up at
one in the morning, and the spasm lasted till past three--such an
inconvenient time when we have to march at half-past five. I really
thought this time I should not have been able to go on, but somehow it
always can be done when it cannot be helped; and as all the tents were
ready at the next station, I went for the first time in a palanquin--it
saves the trouble of dressing, and I just moved from the bed into it. G.
went out shooting again this morning on positive information of a
tigress and three cubs, but as usual they could not be found. However,
they have had some very good shooting.
Thursday, March 22.
We had a great deal of rain last night; and so when we came to cross the
Jumna this morning it was not fordable, and there never was such a
mess--only three boats for all our camp. Two poor men were drowned in
the night trying to swim over, and one or two camels were carried away,
but found again. Then the road was so bad the carriage was not
available, and I came part of the way on the elephant, which, as I was
not strong, shook me to atoms. We crossed at last, and then it appeared
that everything had been drenched in the night, and there was not a bed
nor a sofa to lie down on. Luckily, Rosina lent me her charpoy, a sort
of native couch, and Dr. D. got a medicine chest, and gave me some
laudanum, and now I am better again; but of all the troubles in life for
'an ailing body,' I think a march the most complete. It is a pouring
day, but luckily very cool. Chance has been very ill for the last week,
and I have made him over to-day to the surgeon of the body-guard, who
has bled him, and says he can cure him.
Friday, March 23.
We must luckily halt here three days, for half the people and things are
still on the other bank. I am better to-day, and Chance is in a more
hopeful state. As you will hear from us several times by the overland
packet before this comes to hand, I may as well send this off without
coming to the interesting crisis of Chance's fate; but as the
inflammation in his dear little chest is supposed to be subdued, you may
feel tolerably easy. I, as usual, wind up with the observation that your
last letter was dated August 5--seven months and three weeks old.
CHAPTER XVI.
Camp, Nahun, March 26, 1838.
I sent off my last Journal from Rajghaut, March 23. We got all our goods
over the river on Friday evening, and marched Saturday, 24th. The
regiment and the cavalry went the straight road, and we made an awfully
long march of seventeen miles towards the hills. It was the last day of
the dear open carriage, which has been the only comfort of my life in
this march. Nothing is so tiresome as all the miserable substitutes for
it--three miles of elephant and four of tonjaun, and then a pony. Both
men and cattle get so tired in a long march, or when they are employed
every day. The road is very pretty all through the Dhoon, and much
cooler than the plains. Chance is better, thank you. I knew you would
feel anxious about him. His constitution is dreadfully Indianised; but
perhaps the hills, and a judicious change of diet, may be of use.
However, he is done for as an English dog; he is just the sort of dog
you see at Cheltenham.
We came up to Nahun yesterday morning by means of elephants and
jonpauns. The road was very steep, but nothing like that to Mussoorie.
The Rajah of Nahun met us at the last stage, and came up the hill with
us to-day. He has his palace at the top, a sort of hill fort, and about
100 soldiers--imitations of our soldiers--and a band of mountaineers,
who played 'God save the Queen' with great success. He is one of the
best-looking people I have seen, and is a Rajpoot chief, and rides, and
hunts, and shoots, and is active. Nothing can be prettier than the
scenery, and altogether Nahun is the nicest residence I have seen in
India; and if the rajah fancied an English ranee, I know somebody who
would be very happy to listen to his proposals. At the same time, they
do say that the hot winds sometimes blow here, and that his mountains
are not quite high enough; and those points must be considered before I
settle here.
This morning we have been to see the palace, which is an odd collection
of small rooms, painted and gilded in curious patterns--of course, no
tables and chairs; and indeed the _only_ piece of furniture in the house
was an English barrel-organ, and in one of the rooms downstairs there
was a full-grown tiger, tolerably tame, and a large iron pot full of
milk for his dinner.
Naramghur, March 28.
We rejoined the other camp this morning. We came down the mountains from
Nahun on Monday afternoon with great success as far as we were
concerned, but a great many of the camels suffered from it, and we
passed several utterly unable to move. G. and I rode the last five
miles. By remaining at Nahun till the afternoon, we reduced ourselves to
one tent--all the others were obliged to go on for to-day's use, and
there is something particularly uncomfortable in a general tent.
One chair and table for G. at one end, with a supply of office boxes,
two sofas for F. and me, with a book a-piece, and two cane chairs for A.
and B., each pretending to read, but looking uncomfortable and stiff. I
missed my old parasol about three days ago, and discovered to-day that
Jimmund had applied to my jemadar for it, because he thought Chance's
ailments were brought on by the sun; and Wright says she passed him
to-day marching down the hill with Chance in one hand and the parasol
held over him with the other--a pretty idea. This morning I came on in
the palanquin, a wretched substitute for the carriage, but anything is
better than sitting bolt upright before breakfast--in fact, it is quite
impossible.
W. has had great sport at last--at least, everybody says it is great
sport. I cannot imagine anything more unpleasant. They found six tigers
at once in a ravine. Two charged W.'s elephant, and three General E.'s;
one of them disturbed a hornet's nest, and W. says he has since taken
fifty stings out of his face. The bank of the ravine gave way, and he
and his elephant came down within a yard of one tiger, which was however
too much wounded to do any harm. Altogether the party have killed eight,
and are coming back very much delighted with having been very nearly
eaten up, and then stung to death.
Raepore, Thursday, March 29.
Only five more days. I get such fits of bore with being doddled about
for three hours before breakfast in a sedan-chair, that I have a sort of
mad wish to tell the bearers to turn back and go home, quite home, all
the way to England. I wonder if I were to call 'coach' as loud as I
could, if it would do any good. It would be a relief to my feelings. An
unfortunate Brahmin came to Dr. D. at Nahun in the most horrible state
of agony, from that disease of which poor Mr. ---- died. Dr. D. had him
carried down, and yesterday he attempted the cure. Anything so horrible
as the man's screams I never heard; indeed, I thought it was some
animal, and sent out to ask what was the matter. It was the longest and
worst operation Dr. D. said he ever witnessed, but the man insisted on
it. His family have cut him off, but if he lives, it will be very easy
to give him all he wants. He is very ill, and had to be carried on
thirteen miles in a dhoolie.
Friday, March 30.
That Brahmin is better, and Dr. D. thinks he will live. We had a
melancholy letter to-day, with an account of poor Mr. S.'s death. He
died of abscess on the liver--of India, in fact. I think his health had
begun to fail before we left Calcutta, but we had not heard of his being
ill till a week ago. I am very sorry on all accounts. He was an
excellent man, and very much to be loved; and then she is left with
eleven children, of whom three only are provided for. It is melancholy
to think how almost all the people we have known at all intimately have
in two years died off, and that out of a small society. None of them
turned fifty; indeed, all but Mr. S. between thirty and forty. Mr. C.,
who is with us, was saying yesterday that he had been stationed a few
years ago at Delhi. 'I liked it; we were a very large party of young
men, but I am the only survivor.' And he is quite a young man.
* * * * *
That Brahmin is very much better, and Dr. D. has no doubt he will
recover. The Brahmins' diet leaves them so little susceptible of fever,
that if they do not sink under an operation they recover rapidly. G.
held a sort of durbar to-day, in which he gave the soubadars (or native
officers) of the regiment which has escorted us, shawls and matchlocks,
the same to the cavalry, and to the native officers of our bodyguard.
They have all conducted themselves most irreproachably during this long
march, and they are a class of men who ought to be encouraged. There
were about thirty of them in all; and at the end, after praising them
and their respective colonels, he poured attar on their hands and gave
them paun, which they look upon as the greatest distinction.
They were extremely pleased, and all our servants were quite delighted,
and said that 'our lordship was the first that had ever been so good to
natives.' I am glad it went off so well, for the idea, between
ourselves, was mine; and as there is a great jealousy and great fear
about liberality, it was disapproved of at first by the authorities, but
G. took to it after a day or two, and I mentioned it surreptitiously
to ----, who manages that part of the department. G. is quite of opinion
that there is too much neglect of meritorious natives, and that it is
only marvellous our dominion over them has resisted the system of
maltreatment, which was even much more the fashion than it is now. Even
now it is very painful to hear the way in which even some of the best
Europeans speak to those Rajpoot princes, who, though we have conquered
them, still are considered as kings by their subjects, and who look like
high-caste people.
Sabathoo, Monday, April 2.
On Saturday evening, at Pinjore, we gave a farewell dinner to all the
camp, and went after dinner to some beautiful gardens belonging to the
Puttealah rajah. He is not here himself, but he had had these gardens
lit up for us, and the fountains were playing, and all the best
nautch-girls had been sent from Puttealah, and altogether it was a very
magnificent fête.
People may abuse nautching, but it always amuses me extremely. The girls
hardly move about at all, but their dresses and attitudes are so
graceful I like to see them. Their singing is dreadful, and very noisy.
We went on to Barr the next afternoon; it is such a hot place that we
wished to have as few hours of it as possible. We found ---- nearly
exhausted by the labour of passing on our goods; every camel trunk takes
on an average eight men, and we have several hundred camel trunks of
stores alone. Colonel T., the political agent, had, however, arrived
with a reinforcement of coolies, and everything was progressing. That
Brahmin is so much better that Dr. D. sent him home from here, and we
gave him all that he required for his expenses. We were called at
half-past three this morning--is not that almost too shocking? human
nature revolts from such atrocities--and at four we were all stowed away
in our jonpauns and jogging by torchlight up some perpendicular paths,
which might be alarming, but I could not keep awake to see.
We were four hours coming to Sabathoo. Colonel T. provided us with a
house. We have had sundry alarms that our beds were gone straight to
Simla. Some of the servants knocked up, but upon the whole it has been a
less alarming expedition than Sir G. K. said we should find it. Colonel
T. has asked all Sabathoo, consisting of nine individuals, to meet us,
which we could have spared, considering we are to be up at half-past
three again to-morrow.
Simla, April 3.
Well, it really is worth all the trouble--such a beautiful place--and
our house, that everybody has been abusing, only wanting all the good
furniture and carpets we have brought, to be quite perfection. Views
only too lovely; deep valleys on the drawing-room side to the west, and
the snowy range on the dining-room side, where my room also is. Our
sitting-rooms are small, but that is all the better in this climate, and
the two principal rooms are very fine. The climate! No wonder I could
not live down below! We never were allowed a scrap of air to
breathe--now I come back to the air again I remember all about it. It is
a cool sort of stuff, refreshing, sweet, and apparently pleasant to the
lungs. We have fires in every room, and the windows open; red
rhododendron trees in bloom in every direction, and beautiful walks like
English shrubberies cut on all sides of the hills. Good! I see this is
to be the best part of India.
April 7.
This must go to-morrow. Simla is still like Major Waddell, 'all that is
brave, generous, and true.' G. and I took such a nice ride yesterday
round the highest mountain, to which is given the sublime name of Jacko;
but Jacko is a grand animal. You may be quite comfortable about our
healths here, as far as climate goes; it is quite perfection, and
altogether the Himalayas are sweet pretty little hills. I have just
unpacked your picture, which has been four months in a camel trunk, and
is more like you than ever.
CHAPTER XVII.
Simla, Good Friday, April 13, 1838.
I had better make a beginning at last. A heap of sea letters came this
morning, and, amongst others, one of your dear _books_ which I have been
pining for, and a Journal from E. to me, and from T. to F., of the 20th
of January, and Mr. D.'s to me the same date; so now I begin to know all
about you again--your young days of 1837, and your old age of 1838. I
begin to catch an idea of your character--but the state of confusion I
have been in for four days between these two packets! There was Miss
Ryder the Second reigning in the schoolroom, and I without an idea
whether the usurper Capplische had been dethroned and beheaded, or
whether it had been a regular succession, a natural death of Capplische,
and a young Ryder mounting the throne in right of her descent.
Then Charley was going back to Eton. I never knew you thought of sending
him there at all. I went all about the house, asking about him and his
school. The old khansamah could not recollect; the jemadar thought it
must be just what the Lady Sahib thought; the aides-de-camp would 'write
and ask at once' (their favourite phrase), but still it was not
clear--and now I have your letter of reasons and intentions. Then
Newsalls had become 'home,' your shell, your manor-house, and you had
never explained it
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/46260