CHAPTER XI
1837-1840
Miss Eden to her Sister, Mrs. Drummond
GOVERNMENT HOUSE,January 16, 1837.
THERE is a Lady Henry Gordon443 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’s445 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.
Wright446 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. Waghorn447 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 1½ 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 ¾ 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 journey448 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 Colvins449 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 85 °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 Henry452 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.