Emily Eden
Up the Country

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.

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 Nazir¹ 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.

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 1,500,000l. 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 8,000l. for it, but will probably sell it to some native for 6,000l. 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 15l. 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. Cloup² is in ecstasies at the prince’s arrival.

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 assafœtida! 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 1,500l. 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.

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1

The head of the Governor-General’s native servants.

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2

The Governor-General’s cook.

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