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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.