Chapter XI (1)

1837-1840

_Miss Eden to her Sister, Mrs. Drummond._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _January 16, 1837_.

THERE is a Lady Henry Gordon[443] here, on her way home with two of the loveliest children I ever beheld. One of them puts me in mind of her aunt, poor Lady M. Seymour,[444] but it is still more beautiful. They are older than most children here, and have come from a cold part of the country with fresh rosy cheeks. George and I had met them twice on the plain when we were out riding, and had bored everybody to death to find out who they were. William [Osborne] knew Lady Henry when she was a sort of companion to Lady Sarah Amherst, and a victim to old Lord Amherst’s[445] crossness, so he went to call on her and discovered our beautiful children. They have dined here since, and I want her to let us have them at Barrackpore, as she is too busy preparing for her voyage to come herself, but I am afraid she will not. Her husband is a very particular goose, and a pay-master in some particular department, and she does all his work for him. Nobody knows at all how he is to go on while she is away. [Letter unfinished.]

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _January 25, 1837_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I will take your plan of sitting down forthwith and answering your letter (of August 18th, received January 23rd) on the spot, before the pleasure of reading it wears off. It means I am going to answer your letter directly, and I am so obliged to you for asking me questions--just what I like. Intellect and memory both are impaired, and imagination utterly baked hard, but I can answer questions when they are not very difficult, and if they are put to me slowly and distinctly; and besides, I am shy of writing and boring people with Indian topics. I used to hate them so myself. But if they ask about an Indian life, as you do, and about the things I see every day, why, then, I can write quite fluently, and may heaven have mercy upon your precious soul! So here goes:

“Do you find amongst your European acquaintances any pleasing or accomplished women?” Not one--not the sixth part of one; there is not anybody I can prefer to any other body, if I think of sending to ask one to come and pay me a visit, or to go out in the carriage; and when we have had any of them for two or three days at Barrackpore, there is a _morne_ feeling at the end of their visit that it will be tiresome when it comes round to their turn of coming again. I really believe the climate is to blame.

“They read no new books, they take not the slightest interest in home politics, and everything is melted down into being purely local.” There is your second question turned into an answer, which shows what a clever question it was.

Thirdly. It _is_ a gossiping society, of the smallest macadamised gossips I believe, for we are treated with too much respect to know much about it; but they sneer at each other’s dress and looks, and pick out small stories against each other by means of the Ayahs, and it is clearly a downright offence to tell one woman that another looks well. It is not often easy to commit the crime with any regard to truth, but still there are degrees of yellow, and the deep orange woman who has had many fevers does not like the pale primrose creature with the constitution of a horse who has not had more than a couple of agues.

The new arrivals we all agree are coarse and vulgar--not fresh and cheerful, as in my secret soul I think them. But that, you see, is the style of gossipry.

Fourthly. It _is_ a very moral society, I mean that people are very domestic in their habits, and there are no idle men. Every man without exception is employed in his office all day, and in the evening drives. Husbands and wives are always in the same carriage. It is too hot for him to ride or walk, and at evening parties it is not considered possible for one to come without the other; it is quite out of the question. If Mr. Jones is ill everybody knows that Mrs. Jones cannot go out, so she is not expected.

Fifthly. I believe in former days it was a profligate society, as far as young men were concerned, the consequence of which is that the old men of this day are still kept here by the debts they contracted in their youth. But the present class of young men are very prudent and quiet, run into debt very little, and generally marry as soon as they are out of college.

Then as to the Hindu College. The boys are educated, as you say, by the Government, at least under its active patronage, and they are “British subjects,” inasmuch as Britain has taken India, and in many respects they may be called well-educated young men; but still I cannot tell you what the wide difference is between a European and a Native. An elephant and Chance, St. Paul’s and a Baby-Home, the Jerseys and Pembrokes, a diamond and a bad flint, Queen Adelaide and O’Connell, London and Calcutta, are not further apart, and more antipathetic than those two classes. I do not see how the prejudices ever can wear out, nor do I see that it is very desirable. I do not see that any degree of education, or any length of time, could bring natives to the pitch of allowing any liberty to their wives. Their Mussulman creed makes it impossible, and as girls are married at 7 or 8 years old, and after that are never seen by any human being but their husbands, there is no possibility of educating them, and in fact education could only make them miserable. Even our lowest servants of any respectability would not let their wives be seen on any account. They live in mud huts, something like Irish cabins, and in half of that hut these women pass their lives.

Wright[446] has tried hard to persuade my Jemadar (a sort of groom of the chambers), who is a superior man of his class, speaks and reads English, and is intelligent, to let her see his wife, but he will not hear of it. The Ayahs who wait on us are not at all considered, though I have never made out to my satisfaction how bad they are.

There is an excellent Mrs. Wilson here, who for 20 years has been trying to educate the lower orders of native females, but she told me the other day, that she has never been able to keep a day-scholar after she was 6 or 7 years old, and she has now removed her whole establishment 7 miles from Calcutta. She has collected 160 orphans, who were left utterly destitute after a great inundation in 1833. They were picked up on the banks of rivers, some even taken from the Pariah dogs! Mrs. Wilson took any that were sent to her, a great many died out of whole cargoes that were sent down. It is the prettiest thing possible to see her amongst her black children, she looks so pleased and happy; she is in her widow’s dress without another European near her, and as she told me the other day, with no more _certainty_ of funds than would supply her for her next six weeks. In short, in a position which would justify a weaker person in sitting down and taking a good cry, but she was as cheerful and as happy as if she had not a care on her mind.

Sixthly. I do not speak a word of Hindustani, and never shall, because I have three servants who all _understand_, though only one speaks it, and the aides-de-camp are at hand for interpretation. I wish I had learnt it. But there is nothing to read in it, it is difficult to learn accurately, and as I said before, I am not driven to it by the servants. In all this immense establishment there are not more than six who speak English, and if my Jemadar dies, I must. The only time I miss the language is out riding. When more than one of us ride, there is an aide-de-camp with us, but as Fanny constantly goes out with William, I found a _tête-à-tête_ with George was much to be preferred to that bit of state, so he and I ride out alone, and of course he is met by a petition at every odd turning, and sometimes we both long to enquire into the case or to tell the man what to do, and it seems so stupid not to be able to do so.

The guards do not understand a word of English, and the Syces who run by the side of the horses are remarkably cute at understanding our signs if they have reference to the horses, but have no idea on any other subject.

Seventhly. The Ménagerie is almost full. An old tiger, and a young one who is just beginning to turn his playful pats into good hard scratches and is now shut up in a cage grown up and come out, as we should say on arriving at that dignity; a leopard, two cheetahs, two porcupines, two small black bears, sloths, monkeys of sorts that are caught about 100 miles off and shut up, and parrots, and heaps of beautiful Chinese pheasants. _Zoological Garden beasts_ do not walk about wild, but there are a great many parroquets wild in Barrackpore, and alligators in the rivers; and we have met, much to my discomfiture, some huge snakes. There are vultures without end, and the great adjutant birds who live on the top of Government House and walk about the compound all day, would have surprised one in England; but I take it that when we commence our march up the country we shall see many more strange animals. As it is, I am quite satisfied still with the natives. I never see one that would not make the fortune of an artist, particularly at this time of the year. There are so many Arabs come down for the races, and the Burmese or Mugg men, are come with fruit and fish, and yesterday when we went out there were a crowd of Nepaulese, with such beautiful swords and daggers, at the gate. We sent to ask what they wanted, and they said, “Nothing, but to see the Lord Sahib go by.” I am going to send for one to add to my drawings of costumes.

There! Now I have done it thoroughly. I think you are cured of asking questions, but it has amused me writing all this.

I wrote to you December 29th, and sent you a silk scarf in a parcel that poor Doctor Bramley was sending home to his wife. He was with us at Barrackpore three weeks ago, was taken with fever last Monday fortnight, and died in seven days. There never was such a loss both publicly and privately, but the former especially. There is nobody here who _can_ take his place at the Hindu College. He was a very delightful person in his way and the man we saw most of, as George had a great deal of business always to do with him, and he was very sociable with us. It is a horrid part of India, those sudden deaths. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville._

BARRACKPORE, _April 17, 1837_.

MY DEAR MR. GREVILLE, they say that a letter written to-day will still be in time for the overland packet, and for all the adventures to which the _Hugh Lindsay_, the _Dromedary Dawdle_, the _Desert_, etc., may entitle it. Waghorn[447] I see is not at Cairo--another calamity! I am in opposition to George’s government on the great Waghorn question. I cannot see why they do not pay him anything he asks, and give him an East Indian peerage, or anything else. All the letters that come quickly to us are invariably stamped “to the care of Mr. Waghorn, Cairo,” and if I thought he were there now, I should, in defiance of the authorities here, address this “to the care of dear Mr. Waghorn”! I suspect you would then have it in less than two months; now, if you receive it in 1838 my fondest expectations will be gratified.

I cannot go back in our life more than 36 hours. It is all the same thing, so I will suppose you called on Thursday morning, and after your visit we came up to Barrackpore in the evening. You know what a horrid bad road it is this side of the half-way home, and therefore will not be surprised to hear that one of the leaders, the horse that you always say is the handsomest of the new set, stepped on a loose stone and came down like a shot. The postillion, who weighs about 1-1/2 lbs., as a small native should, was pitched out of sight into a neighbouring presidency; I believe the leaders ran over the fallen horse, who kicked at them, and they of course kicked him. The spring of the carriage was broken, and the four Syces and the postillion and the guards, being all good Mohammedans, of course looked on contentedly, knowing that what must be--must be. Luckily W. Osborne for once had no other conveyance but our carriage, so he jumped out at the side, and we all tumbled out at opposite doors, and he _Hindustani’d_ the Syces and cut the traces, and we were all put to rights (barring that one horse), and not the worse, thank you. Only it is so much too hot in this country to have adventures.

We were all assiduously fanning ourselves when the accident happened, but no fan would have helped us after that. Think of jumping out of a carriage in a hurry with the thermometer at 95. I will give you a journal of yesterday, to show the vividness and endless variety of our amusements.

Breakfast at nine--an operation which lasts seven minutes, because nobody has any appetite, and George has no time. Then we discussed the papers.... In the afternoon, a neighbour sent a note requesting admission to a new native school George has built in a park, for a Brahmin boy of good caste. I gave the father Brahmin a note to the schoolmaster, and with the proper craft of a native, he went and fetched two more of his children and said the note was intended to admit them all three. But the schoolmaster, as all schoolmasters should, knew how to read, and refused them, so when George and I drove to the school in the evening, we found them and about twenty others all clasping their hands and knocking their heads against the ground, because they were prevented learning English, and all saying “Good morning, Sir,” to show how much they had acquired. They say that at all times and to everybody, since the school has been opened.

Then we drove to the Garden, when Chance and his suite met us, and he swam about the tank for half an hour, and the tame otter came for its fish, and the young lynxes came to be looked at, and we fed the gold pheasants and ascertained that that rare exotic the heartsease was in flower, but the daisy, the real English white daisy, has turned out a more common Oenothera, and it proves that neither daisies nor cowslips can be nationalized here. I myself think the buttercup might be brought to perfection, but I know I see those matters in too sanguine a point of view.

We came home hotter than we went out. William [Osborne] and Fanny had been on the river, which was still worse. Dinner was not refreshing.

Then we all went out in the verandah, where there are great pans of water used for wetting the mats put over the windows, and the Aides-de-Camp found a new diversion in putting Chance in one pan, while three of them lifted the other and poured the water over him. He growled, as he used to do at you, to show he did not think those liberties allowable, but immediately jumped into the empty pan to have the bath repeated, whereat we all laughed, for that amounts to a good joke in India. But we never laugh more than two minutes at a time; it is too fatiguing. So then we went, like Lydia Bennet, to a good game at Lottery tickets. Our intellects fell last year from whist pitch, and now they have fallen below _écarté_, but the whole household can understand Lottery, and except that it is too much trouble to hand a rupee from one card to another, we all like it very much.

At ten o’clock, Fanny and William and I went to a little sailing-boat he has here, and we should have sailed, and it would have been cooler if there had been any air. But there was a lovely moon, and the Hoogly is a handsome bit of river, and we floated about for an hour, and then went to bed. And so ends that eventful day.

We are all very well, though I have been rather ailing for ten days, but in a general way you are quite right; I _have_ very much better health here than I had at home. So all my abuse of the climate is gratuitous; I do not owe it any spite, except for being so very disagreeable. I trust there is a letter from you somewhere on the sea. George has sent for this, so God bless you. I have not time to read it over. Yours ever,

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _Sept. 11, 1837_.

MY DEAR MR. GREVILLE, George says he thinks I ought to write to you, which is rather an impertinent thought of his, because he does not know that I have not been writing to you every day, and he does not know that I have nothing to say, and that out of that nothing I have already furnished him with eight letters for this overland post. But he says there is 3/4 of an hour yet before the last Bombay dawdle goes. Three-quarters of an hour for the preparation of a letter that is to travel 15,000 miles!

I am not going to comment on the dear young Queen; that I have done in the other letters. But I never think of anything else, and we are all dying of fevers brought on by court mourning, and curiosity coming on the rainy season. Our own approaching journey[448] is one other great interest, and we all declare we are packing up. It is almost as fatiguing lying on the sofa and wondering what is to become of all one’s property as actually packing up, and may perhaps by perseverance produce some result. But hitherto I have not done more than that personally. The faithful Byrne, and the rest of his staff, have gradually removed many of the comforts, and in two days the band and the horses and most of the servants depart, and, as William Osborne observes with real consternation, we shall not have above eight servants apiece left to wait on us.

Certainly some of the arrangements are amusing. I asked Byrne just now what our Ayahs (or black Lady’s Maids) were allowed to put their travelling-gear in. “Half a camel!” he said, with an air of reproach at such desperate ignorance. “Oh, half a camel _apiece_,” I said, looking intelligent, and laying an emphasis on _apiece_ as if that had been my doubt, and you know one hears such strange stories of camels carrying a supply of water for their own private drinking, quite honestly, though they have drunk it already, that I was ready to believe the Ayah, veils and bangles, travelled the same way. But Byrne obligingly added that each camel carried two trunks, one of which each Abigail might claim.

The steamer to Benares will be the most tiresome part of our journey, there is so little to see on the banks; but once in camp I mean to commence an interminable course of sketching. I hope my sister Mary will show you some of the sketches I sent home about two months ago. I think they would amuse you.

Our great anxiety now is for the arrival of the _Seringapatam_, a new ship, quite untried, _AI_--a mark the papers put here to a ship that is making its first voyage, but what it means I can’t guess. Still, to this untried article is confided the trousseau of myself, of Fanny, and two other interesting females belonging to the camp who will, if the _Seringapatam_ does not come very soon, be starved to death in camp, reduced as we are to white muslins and chilly constitutions. The _Coromandel_ I am also anxious for, as I have a nephew on board; but still you know I have 48 nephews, and only one box of gowns, so if there is to be a little adverse weather, etc.

We are going to give a dinner on Monday to the party that will go with us in the steamer, and to rehearse our hardships. The punkahs are to be stopped, as the heat on the river is always stifling; cockroaches to be turned out in profusion on the floor; extra mosquitoes hired for the night; the lamps to be set swinging; the Colvins[449] and Torrens’[450] children to be set crying; Mrs. MacNaghten,[451] on whom we depend for our _tracasseries_, to repeat all that any of the company have ever said of the others; Mrs. Hawkins, who is very pretty, to show Hawkins how well she can flirt with all the aides-de-camp. Altogether I think it will be amusing.

There! I have no time for more. This ought to bring me two answers at least. I am more ravenous than ever for letters. We are all well, more or less. Yours very truly and heartily,

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, _October 2, 1837_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, A sort of a nominal, no--cousin of yours, Mr. Talbot, is going home in the _Reliance_, and it gives me a good opportunity of sending you a Bird of Paradise feather, as he can put it into his portmanteau, and it will be no trouble to you, nor to him, nor to anybody. Of course I shot it myself, and found the nest, and am bringing up the young Paradises by hand, and they promise to have handsome tails which I will send you in due course--that is the sort of thing I mean to assert at home.

In little more than a fortnight we shall be off on our great journey to the Himalayas. Everything we have in the shape of comfort is gone--servants, horses, band, guards, and everything embarked a month before us, as we shall go by steamer to Benares, and though that is slow work, it is necessary to give the country boats a considerable advance. The Ganges, you see, is not an easy river to navigate.

Sixty-five elephants and 150 camels will carry our little daily personal comforts, assisted by 400 coolies, and bullock-carts innumerable. They say that everybody contrives in the _mêlée_ to receive their own camel-trunks and pittarhs safe every night; but I own I bid a long farewell to every treasured gown and bonnet that I see Wright bury in the depths of a camel-trunk.

We are all enjoying the thoughts of this journey--not that I shall ever believe till I have tried that it is really true a tent can be as comfortable as Government House, with its thick walls and deep verandah and closed shutters. Still, we shall be travelling to a better climate, and that is everything. Then there will be eligible sketching, both buildings and figures, and we shall have occasional days of quiet and solitude. And once up in the mountains I expect to be quite strong again, and there is actual happiness in mountain air, independent of all other comfort.

What became of that book you said we should have to read some time ago? I have been vainly watching for it.

This must go. It has been sent for twice, and if you knew the impossibility of doing anything in a hurry you would appreciate particularly this semblance of a letter.

We are going what is called “in state” to the play to-night “by particular desire”--not of ours, but of the Amateurs who have got up a play for us before our departure. The thermometer is at 90, the new theatre is without punkahs, the small evening breeze that sometimes blows ceases entirely in September and October, and we are in black for our King. Rather a melancholy combination of circumstances. _Priez pour nous!_ God bless you, dearest. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

ALLAHABAD, _December 1, 1837_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I have never had but two letters from you since I came to India. No wonder! I daresay the letters contrive to turn off the instant they are out of your hands, and go to some better and nearer climate. The odd thing is that my letters, which ought to know better, do not seem to rush home with that impetus which would be natural under the circumstances. At least, my sisters, whom I write to morning noon and night, write nothing but complaints of the want of letters. If I felt the least guilty I should feel provoked, but as it is I receive all their murmurs with the gentle resignation of injured innocence.

I am at Allahabad, Theresa--“More fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place”: as dear Shakespeare, who knew all about Allahabad, as well as everything else, observed with his accustomed readiness. I do not know more about it, seeing we only arrived this morning. Our tents are pitched on the Glacis of the Fort, an encampment sacred to the Governor-General, and this Glacis, as you in your little pleasing way would observe, is not Glacé, seeing that I have just desired an amiable individual clothed in much scarlet and gold to pull the Punkah, which, by the _prévoyance_ of the Deputy Quarter Master General, has been wisely hung in my tent. You see, what is called the cold weather is really cold and remarkably pleasant in the mornings, and our march, which we generally commence in the dusk at half-past five, and conclude before eight, is very bracing and delightful. But then that horrid old wretch the sun comes ranting up; the tents get baked through; and all through the camp there is a general moulting of fur shoes and merino and shawls, then an outcry for muslin, and then for a Punkah to give us breath. We cannot go out till it is nearly dark; and then about dinner-time, when we cross over from our private tents to the great dining-room, we want cloaks and boas and all sorts of comforts again. Those cold hours of the day are very English and pleasant.

I hate my tent and so does George. We incline to a house with passages, doors, windows, walls that may be leaned against, and much furniture. Fanny luckily takes to a tent kindly, but the majority of our camp, consisting of various exemplary mothers and children, are of the house faction.

Our chaplain and his Scotch wife, who speaks the broadest Scotch I have ever heard, have been _eating_ with us all to-day, for, as Mrs. Wimberley observed, “It’s just reemarkable: the cawmels kicked all our crockery off their bocks yeesterday, and to-day our cooking-tent is left on the other side of the Jumna, so we’ve just nothing to eat.”

We crossed the river at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna this morning.

Last night we went down on our elephants to see the advanced guard of the camp pass over. It was a red Eastern sky, the beach of the river was deep sand, and the river was covered with low flat boats. Along the bank were tents, camel-trunks, fires by which the natives were cooking, and in the boats and waiting for them were 850 Camels, 140 Elephants, several hundred horses, the Body Guard, the regiment that escorts us, and the camp-followers. They are about 12,000 in all.

I wish it was possible to make more sketches, but the glaring light is very much against it, and the twilight is very short. There are robbers in camp every night. That is part of the fun. We met an officer yesterday riding for his life in the cold hours of the morning with only a white jacket and trousers on. He looked shivery, and it appeared that the Dacoits had entered his tent in the night, taken all they could turn to account, and as European cloaks are of no value to a native, they had cut the buttons and lace off his uniform and minced up into small pieces all his linen. There is no end to the stories of the cleverness of Dacoits, and that is one of the things I hate in camp. The instant it grows dusk, the servants come in and carry off every little atom of comfort in the way of furniture that one may have scraped together, and put it outside the tent under the charge of a sentry. It is the only chance, but it makes a gloomy-looking abode at night.

We are cut off from a great part of our tour by the dreadful scarcity in the Upper Provinces. There is no fodder whatever to be had, and a great camp like this makes in the best of times a great run on the price of provisions.

We shall lose the sight of Agra, which I regret; otherwise I am not sorry to miss the great stations. We are so plied with balls and festivities, and have to give so many great dinners, that the dull road is perhaps the most amusing after all.

I wish you would write. I always excuse you because I presume you are hatching both a child and a novel; but if I do not soon hear of one or the other, I cannot tell what excuse to make. I wrote to your brother George. George and I were agreeing the other day that he is the only friend who has utterly and entirely failed us; and yet somehow we cannot believe it of him. But he was the only person we knew well who took no notice of us even when we were coming away.

Now it is lawful to forget us, but it was rather shocking of him, was not it? Pray give my love to your mother and Mr. Lister. Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

SIMLA, _April 28, 1838_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I had meant to have answered your letter by the last overland post, but I was poorly just as it started, and it is rather a doubt whether it will be a safe conveyance this time. Something wrong about the steamer, or the Arabs, or the dromedaries, or some of those little items that go to make up an overland post. However, I can but try.

Your account of poor Lady Henry interested me very much. Indeed, everybody must be interested in her, but the melancholy fact is that it is totally _impossible_ to help them. We saw a great deal of Lord Henry[452] at Meerut, and took pains to show him great attention as he was in a shy state after the results of that investigation. There was not the slightest shadow of distrust as to his intentions, poor man! but his utter incapacity made it rather surprising that Lord Amherst ever should have given him an office of such trust, and not the least surprising that he should have been robbed and cheated in every way, by the number of crafty natives under him. I was thinking of any pendant to him in London for your information, but I hardly know anybody with such a _silly_ manner--something like Petre, but more vacant and unconnected. He seemed thoroughly good-hearted, and very anxious about his children, who, he told me, were to go either to Boulogne or Bordeaux, he did not know which, but a great way from London! He was living with Captain Champneys, his successor in the paymastership, and seems quite contented to sit in a large arm-chair and look at Champneys in a fuss, which he has been in ever since he got the appointment. Indeed, he wrote me word yesterday that he found it so difficult to guard against the knavery of the Baboos attached to the office, that he never could enough regret having left his Aide-de-Camp with us.

George told me to say both to you and to Lady Morley that there is nothing he wishes so much as to help Lord Henry, but that in the present state of India there are no situations that are not responsible and hard-working, and even if it were possible (which it is not) to give one of these to a man who is a great debtor to the Government, Lord Henry is really not capable of one.

I did not know till I came up the country how really hard-worked Europeans are. It is lucky for them, for it is only the necessity of being in these _Cutcherries_ or offices all day, that prevents their sinking altogether under the solitude of their lives and the climate. In most stations there are not above two or three Europeans, and in many only one.

There were two young men here yesterday who talked quite unceasingly; it was impossible to put in a word, and at last one of them said that he had been eight years, and his brother four, in stations where they never saw a European. They were both in horrid health, of course (everybody is in India), and so they had got six months’ leave to see what the hills could do for them, and they said they were so delighted to find themselves again with people who understood English, that they were afraid they had talked too much. It was impossible to dispute the fact, but still I was glad to hear their prattle; it evidently did them good. Our band was their great delight; they had not heard any European music for so long.

We tried to get up a dance two nights ago--a total failure I thought. Most of the people here are invalids, and as there are no carriages, and no carriage-roads, they can only come out in Jhanpamas (a sort of open Sedan), and the nights are cold. The whole company only amounted to forty, and I thought I never saw a heavier dance, but some of them thought it quite delightful, and I am afraid will wish for another.

It is even more delightful than I expected to be in these hills; the climate is perfection, and the pleasure of sitting out of doors looking at those lovely snowy mountains, and breathing real cool air, is more than I can say.

The change from those broiling plains was so sudden. At Bareilly the thermometer was at 90 in our tents at night, and the next day at Sabāthu it was at 55 in the middle of the day. Such a long breath as I drew!

These mountains are very beautiful, but not so picturesque, I think, as the Pyrenees--in fact they are too gigantic to be sketchable, and there are no waterfalls, no bridges, no old corners, that make the Pyrenees so picturesque, independent of their ragged shapes. But I love these Himalayas, good old things, all the same, and mean to enjoy these seven months as much as possible to make up for the horrors of the two last years, and as for looking forward, it is no use just now.

I think George will find Calcutta so extravagantly hot that perhaps he will consent to go home sooner. That would be very satisfactory. The deaths there have been very numerous this year. Almost all the few people we knew intimately in the two years we were there, are dead--and almost all of them young people.

Do you remember my writing to you about poor Mrs. Beresford’s death? He is here now with a second wife, twenty years younger than himself, to whom he engaged himself three months after the first wife’s death; never told anybody, so we all took the trouble of going on pitying him with the very best pity we had to spare! Such a waste!

What became of your second book? I cannot even see it amongst the advertisements. I am disconsolate that we have had the last number of _Pickwick_, the only bit of fun in India. It is one of the few books of which there has been a Calcutta reprint, lithographs and all. I have not read it through in numbers more than ten times, but now it is complete I think of studying it more correctly.

Mention much about your children when you write. I find the letters in which my friends tell me about themselves and their children are much pleasanter than mere gossip. They really interest me--there is the difference between biography and history. My best love to your mother, and remember me to Mr. L. It is very odd how easily I can bring your face to mind when I think of you. Some faces I cannot put together at all cleverly, but I see you quite correctly and easily. Don’t alter, there’s a dear. Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville._

SIMLA, _June 10, 1838_.

A letter from you of November (this being the 10th of June) has just come dropping in quite _promiscuous_. Though I have had one of a later date, yet this has made me laugh and has put me in the mood to write to you forthwith.

Your remarkably immoral views as to the mischief that religion does in a country were wrong in the abstract, but they unfortunately just chimed in with some views his Lordship had been worried into taking, and he is quite delighted to have a quotation from your letter to act as motto to one of his chapters. Here we have such a medley of faiths. The Hindus convey a pig carefully cut up into a Muhammedan Mosque, whereupon the Mussulmanns cut up the Hindus. Then again the Mussulmanns kill a cow during a Hindu festival, and the Hindus go raving mad. Then an _un_sensible man like Sir P. Maitland refuses to give the national festivals the usual honours of guns, drums, etc., which they have had ever since the English set foot in India. In short, there is an irritation kept up on the plea of conscience, where the soothing system would be much more commendable and much easier.

I must say that, except in the Upper Provinces, where once or twice we have met with some violent petitioners, the Hindus and Mussulmans live most peaceably; so that they have separate cooking-places, and that the Hindu’s livery Tunic is made to button on the right shoulder and the Mussulman’s on the left, they ask no other differences. We have about an equal number of each in our household, and in Bengal they are all very friendly together.

We are very much interested in our foreign politics just now. It is all very well your bothering on about Canada,[453] and giving us majorities of 29 in favour of Lord Glenelg[454] (your last letter of February had mentioned that the Tories never would vote with the Radicals on such a party question: Peel was above it!! How he always takes you in!). Those little, trivial, obscure questions are all very well in their way, but my whole heart is fixed on intelligence from Herat, and I live in a state of painful wonder as to what Dost Mahomed’s[455] real relations with Persia and Russia may be.

One serious grievance is that the steamer which was to have taken our letters home this month was ordered off to Persia to bring away Mr. MacNiel,[456] if he wished to come, and our letters are “left lamenting,” like Lord Ullin, on the beach at Bombay. That is the sort of thing George does in the plenitude of his power, and which you know shocks us free-born Britons; and then we think of Trial by Jury, and annual Parliaments, and no Poor Laws, and Ballot, and “Britannia rules the waves,” and all the old story.

We have had a picturesque and pleasant deputation of Sikhs from Runjeet Singh, which we have returned by a Mission composed of Mr. MacNaghten, _our_ Lord Palmerston, a dry sensible man, who wears an enormous pair of blue spectacles, and speaks Persian, Arabic, and Hindustani rather more fluently than English; of William Osborne, who goes in exchange for a nephew of Runjeet’s who came here; of Captain MacGregor, another Aide-de-Camp; and of Doctor Drummond, who has left our little sparks of life to go out by themselves, because Runjeet was particularly anxious to be attended by the Governor-General’s own physician. They are all under the conduct of Captain Wade,[457] the Political Agent at Lahore, who has lived so much with natives that he has acquired their dawdling, soft manners and their way of letting things take care of themselves.

They are all at Adeenanuggur, a summer palace of Runjeet’s, where, by way of being cool, their houses are furnished with Tatties and Thermantidotes, a sort of winnowing-machine that keeps up a constant draft, and with that the thermometer ranges from 102 to 105. Poor things! In the meanwhile they are perfectly delighted with Runjeet, as everybody is who comes within his influence. He contrives every sort of diversion for them. I hardly know how to state to you delicately that the Mission was met at the frontier by troops of Cashmerian young ladies, great dancers and singers, and that this is an extract from W. Osborne’s letter to-day, which I ought not to copy, only it will amuse you: “Runjeet’s curiosity is insatiable--the young Queen, Louis Philippe, how much wine we drink, what George drinks, etc. His questions never end. He saw me out riding to-day, and sent for me and asked all sorts of impertinent questions. Did we like the Cashmerian girls he had sent? Did all of us like them? I said I could not answer for the others; I could only speak for myself.” But Runjeet’s curiosity is really unbounded, as William states it. He requested George to send him samples of all the wines he had, which he did, but took the precaution of adding some whiskey and cherry brandy, knowing what Runjeet Singh’s habits are. The whiskey he highly approved of, and he told MacNaghten that he could not understand why the Governor-General gives himself the trouble of drinking seven or eight glasses of wine when one glass of whiskey would do the same quantity of work. He had asked one gentleman to a regular drinking-party, which they were dreading (as the stuff he drinks is a sort of liquid fire), and his great amusement is to watch that it is fairly drunk.

George says that your letter costs you nothing, so I enclose an account of Runjeet’s Court, which young MacGregor wrote me. If you have had enough of him you can burn the letter unread, but I have a faint recollection that the only Indian subject that was interesting at home was “The Lion of the Punjâb.” It is a matter of great importance just now that he should be our faithful ally, so we make much of him, and I rather look to our interview with him next November. “If this meets encouragement,” as Swift says, I will give you an account of it.

Whenever we want to frighten any of our neighbours into good conduct, we have one sure resource. We have always a large assortment of Pretenders, black Chevaliers de St. George, in store. They have had their eyes put out, or their children are in hostage, or the Usurper is their own brother, or they labour under sundry disadvantages of that sort. But still there they are, to the good. We have a Shah Shujá all ready to _lâcher_ at Dost Muhammed if he does not behave himself, and Runjeet is ready to join us in any enterprise of that sort.

Still, all these _tendencies_ towards war are always rather nervous work. You should employ yourself more assiduously in plucking Russia by the skirts and not allow him to come poking his face towards our little possessions. Whenever there is any important public measure to be taken, I always think George must feel his responsibility--no Ministers, no Parliament, and his Council, such as it is, down at Calcutta. To be sure, as you were going to observe, _if_ he ever felt himself in any doubt, he _might_ feel that he has my superior sense and remarkable abilities to refer to, but as it is, he has a great deal to answer for by himself.

I daresay he does it very well, for my notion is that in a multitude of counsellors there is folly--“wisdom” was a misprint. And then again, if the Directors happen to take anything amiss, they could hardly do less than recall us. I certainly do long to be at home, not but what I am thankful for Simla, and am as happy there as it is possible to be in India, but still there is nothing I would not give to be with friends and in good society again, with people who know my people, and can talk my talk. Here, society is not much trouble, nor much anything else. We give sundry dinners and occasional balls, and have hit upon one popular device. Our band plays twice a week on one of the hills here, and we send ices and refreshments to the listeners, and it makes a nice little réunion, with very little trouble. I am so glad to see Boz is off on another book. I do not take to _Oliver Twist_; it is too full of disasters.

I must nearly have bored you to death, so good-bye. Please write again. Yours most truly,

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville._

SIMLA, _November 1, 1838_.

There is a small parcel going to you per Miss Fane (not a ship, but the General’s daughter, Miss Fane[458]), which you are to take care of, and eventually it will be a pleasing little occupation for you. It is a journal of William Osborne’s,[459] kept while he was at Runjeet Singh’s Court, and illustrated with some drawings Fanny has made from nature designs, and from some sketches made by one of our Aides-de-Camp, and altogether it may eventually make rather a nice little publication, and we think you will be just the man to edit it, and to cram it down the throat of an unwilling bookseller, extracting from him the last penny of its value--and a great deal more. It is not to be published till George gives his consent, and as it gives an account of the Mission which formed the alliance, which is to end in the war--which may end we don’t know how--and as William will indulge in levities respecting the Company highly unbecoming the Governor-General’s Military Secretary, who is in the receipt of £1500 a year from the said Company, and as for many other “as’s,” it is not to be printed till further advice. It is trusted to you with implicit confidence. Lord Stanley, Fanny says, is to be allowed to read it, but I have not heard of any other confidant, so you are not to go rushing about with treble raps, and then saying: “Here are a few pages about Runjeet, a man in the East, King of the Punjab, or Shah of Barrackpore, or something of that sort, which I think would amuse you. You may run them over, and lend them to anybody else who will take the trouble of reading them.” That is not the line you are to take--not by any means. On the contrary, after a long silence, and with an air of expressive thought, you are to observe: “I have been reading this Memorandum--in fact, I wish I could send it to you; but there are reasons. However, never mind; there is no harm in my saying that I have been reading a journal. I almost wish it might be published; but yet, I do not know. However, if it is, I am sure you _for one_ (a great emphasis on ‘for one’) would be amused to the last degree. A friend of mine in India, a young man, odd but clever, passed some time with Runjeet Singh, and kept a sort of diary. Curious and odd. You may have heard of Runjeet Singh,--Victor Jacquemont’s[460] friend, you know; only one eye and quantities of paint. I wish I could show you the little work, etc.” And so, eventually, you know, it might come out with great _éclat_. I think William may write a second part of the Interview at Ferozepore, which might be very gorgeous, taking our army into account, as well as the meeting of the two great people.

ROOPUR,[461] _November 13, 1838_.

I wrote the above before we left Simla, when we had a good house over our heads and lived in a good climate, and conducted ourselves like respectable people, and people who knew what was what. Now we have returned to the tramping line of life, and have been six days in one wretched camp, the first few so hot and dusty, I thought with added regret of the Simla frost. And now to-day it is pouring as it pours only in India, and I am thinking of the Simla fires. It is impossible to describe the squalid misery of a real wet day in camp--the servants looking soaked and wretched, their cooking-pots not come from the last camp, and their tents leaking in all directions; and a native without a fire and without the means of cooking his own meal is a deplorable sight. The camels are slipping down and dying in all directions, the hackeries[462] sticking in the rivers. And one’s personal comfort! Little ditches running round each tent, with a _slosh_ of mud that one invariably steps into; the pitarrah[463] with the thin muslin gown that was carefully selected because the thermometer was at 90 yesterday, being the only one come to hand; and the fur pelisse, that in a wet rag-house slipping from a mud foundation would be pleasant and seasonable wear, is gone on to the advanced camp. I go under an umbrella from my tent to George’s, because wherever there is a seam there is a stream; and we are carried in palanquins to the dining-tent on one side, while the dinner arrives in a palanquin on the other. How people who might by economy and taking in washing and plain work have a comfortable back attic in the neighbourhood of Manchester Square, with a fire-place and a boarded floor, can come and march about India, I cannot guess.

There were some slight palliations to the first day in camp: some English boxes, with new books and little English souvenirs from sisters, nieces, etc. And then I have a new horse, which met us at the foot of the hills, and which has turned out a treasure, and is such a beauty, a grey Arab. He is as quiet as a lamb, and as far as I can see, perfect--and a horse must be very perfect indeed that I get upon before daylight, when I am half-asleep and wholly uncomfortable, and which is to canter over no particular road, and to go round elephants, and under camels, and over palanquins, and through a regiment, without making itself disagreeable.

The army will be at Ferozepore two days before we shall. The news from Persia is so satisfactory, that probably only half the force will have to cross the Indus, and it is very likely that Sir H. Fane will go home, and Sir W. Cotton later.[464]

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

SIMLA, 1839.

MY DEAREST THERESA, Your letter, which I received three weeks ago, was most welcome, though it was “the mingled yarn, of which we spin our lives.” Your happy bit of life with your brother, and your prospering children, and your journey, which always (so as you stop short of India) gives a fresh fit of spirits, and then your return, and that melancholy catastrophe.[465]

I cannot say how grieved I was for that. Such a happy young life, and one that was of importance to so many others! I hope Lord John will be allowed to keep those children,[466] and I suppose she will have left them under his guardianship. I suppose he would hardly object to all the children being together. I see by the papers that you have been at Cassiobury with poor Lord John.