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 unsensible 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 Glenelg454 (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’s455 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 Fane458), 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’s460 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,461November 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 hackeries462 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 pitarrah463 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.
Everybody writes what you say of Sir G. Villiers467– that he is not the least altered, which I own surprises me, because as far as I am concerned he has been decidedly “changed at nurse,” and just simply because he would not answer the two long letters I wrote him, I settled that he was not the original G. Villiers, with whom one could talk and laugh any number of hours, and whose visits were a bright spot in the day, but that he was a mixture of a Spanish Grandee in a reserved black cloak, with a mysterious hat and plume, etc., or a Diplomat in a French comedy who speaks blank verse. But “it is the greatest of comforts,” as Mrs. Bennett said about long sleeves, to know that he is unaltered. I should be sorry if those horrid Spaniards had gone and spoilt one of our pleasantest men, and I still think that a system of sending out bores to foreign courts would be an improvement.
Foreigners would never know how it was. A bore would be softened by being translated into another language, or he might simply pass as an original —un Anglais enfin; and then we might keep all the amusing people to ourselves. I should like to have seen your brother; and how I should like to see your children! I have no doubt they are as pretty as you say; the little boy468 always had a turn that way. I cannot make out whether there are any more coming, but I suppose you would have mentioned it if there were, and I think you are apt to increase your family in a dawdling way, not in that rapid manner with which my sister used to produce ten or twelve children all of a sudden, and before one was prepared for the shock.
We came back to these dear good hills about a fortnight ago, and I love them more dearly than ever. The thermometer was at 91 in our tents, and after two days’ toiling up the hills, we found snow in our garden here. That is all gone, and the flowers are beginning to spring up. The snowy range is so clean and bright, it looks as if one might walk to it, and the red rhododendrons are looking like gigantic scarlet geraniums in the foreground. I cannot sketch hills at all: they are too large here, and there is no beginning nor end to them – no waterfalls, or convents, or old buildings to finish them off.
We were about four months and a half in camp this year, so the blessing of being in a house again is not to be described. I never am well in the plains, and this year it would have been perverse not to have had constant fever. We had rain every week, which kept the tents constantly dripping, and we were very often apparently pitched in a lake, and had to be carried through the water to dress. I was hardly a month the whole time free from ague, and how George and Fanny are so constantly well is a matter of astonishment to our doctor and every one else.
The Punjab was an interesting bit of our tour, and I am very glad we have seen Runjeet Singh469 and all his Indians in their savage grandeur. He very nearly died just before we came away, which would have been a dreadful blow in the political way, but he has happily rallied again.
I should like to show you some of my Sikh sketches, though I have horrible misgivings that, except to those who have run up Sikh intimacies, and who prefer Shere Singh470 to Kurruck Singh, or vice versa, they may be tiresome performances. I have, in the meanwhile, had several of my sketches copied by the miniature painters at Delhi, and they have made some very soft likenesses from them. Do you ever draw now? Or have you no time?
There are 96 ladies here whose husbands are gone to the wars, and about 26 gentlemen – at least there will, with good luck, be about that number. We have a very dancing set of Aides-de-Camp just now, and they are utterly desperate at the notion of our having no balls. I suppose we must begin on one in a fortnight, but it will be difficult, and there are several young ladies here with whom some of our gentlemen are much smitten. As they will have no rivals here, I am horribly afraid the flirtations may become serious, and then we shall lose some active Aides-de-Camp, and they will find themselves on Ensign’s pay with a wife to keep. However, they will have these balls, so it is not my fault. Your ever affectionate
E. EDEN.
Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister
SIMLA,June 17, 1839.
MY DEAREST THERESA, I have had a letter of yours to answer more than a month, but this is a bad time of year for writing home. We try all sorts of plans; but, first, the monsoon cripples one steamer, and the next comes back with all the letters still on board that we fondly thought were in England. Then we try an Arab sailing vessel; but I always feel convinced that an Arab ship sails wildly about drinking coffee and robbing other ships. This is to go to the Persian Gulf, and if you are living at your nice little villa, Hafiz Lodge, on the banks of the Gulf, I think it just possible this letter may find you. Otherwise, I do not see why it should.
And now for your letter. First: I see you are now Lady Theresa.471 Ought I to make any difference in my little familiarities? Secondly: as touching Lord Clarendon’s marriage,472 which had been mentioned so often as decidedly settled that I began to fear there could be no foundation for it – I never have faith in a report that lasts three months without becoming a fact. However, I am very glad it is all right now. I remember he always liked her, and she has had rather a trying life of it, which will fit her all the more for the enjoyment of happiness.
You talk of your uncle’s will as if it had been unsatisfactory. I was in hopes Lord Clarendon was rolling in riches – I do not know why. You should never write as if I knew anything. If you mention a will, you should state it, beginning with “sound health of mind and body,” and ending with the witnesses’ names; otherwise we never know anything in India, and what little we do know we forget, for want of people to talk it over with.
We cannot remember if that poor Lady H. Villiers473 died; but I think she did, and if so, I do not see who the late Lord C. could leave his money to, except to the present one. However, he will be well off now, at all events. Lady Verulam,474 I own, I think a sad and very large objection, but only at first; and as I rather hope to hear by the next mail that your brother is in office, politics and business will prevent any very wearisome intercourse.
Thirdly: as to those unfortunate H. Gordons. His memorial for leave to retire is gone home to the Court of Directors, and George has no more to say to it than you or I have. It rests entirely with the Court, but George thinks they will give him leave to go home, as the idea of his paying that large debt out of his wretched income is absurd, and he is, in fact, a mere expense to them. But about the pension – there again no authority, not even the Court, can help him. I see constantly in the Calcutta papers that when anything the least unusual, or even doubtful, with regard to the Pension Fund is contemplated, then it is put to the vote of the whole Army, and always carried economically. Still, if the Court give him leave to go home, I am sure it would not be worth his while to live here in misery for the sake of the small addition to his pension. I suppose it cannot be more than £100 a year altogether, and I should really think it could not hurt Lady C. Cavendish475 to make that up out of her own allowance. You will have had my letter explaining the absolute impossibility of George’s doing anything here for him. There is no such thing, Heaven knows, as a sinecure in India. For military men there are Staff appointments, which are, of course, in the gift of the Commander-in-Chief.
We have been uncommonly gay at Simla this year, and have had some beautiful tableaux with music, and one or two very well acted farces, which are a happy change from the everlasting quadrilles, and everybody has been pleased and amused, except the two clergymen who are here, and who have begun a course of sermons against what they call a destructive torrent of worldly gaiety. They had much better preach against the destructive torrent of rain which has now set in for the next three months, and not only washes away all gaiety, but all the paths, in the literal sense, which lead to it. At least I know the last storm has washed away the paths to Government House.
The whole amount of gaiety has been nine evening parties in three months – six here, and three at other houses. Our parties begin at half-past eight, and at twelve o’clock we always get up and make our courtesies and everybody goes at once. Instead of dancing every time, we have had alternations of tableaux and charades, and the result has been three Aides-de-Camp engaged to three very nice English girls, and the dismissal of various native Mrs. Aides-de-Camp. Moreover, instead of the low spirits and constant tracasseries, which are the foundation of an Indian station, everybody this year has been in good humour, and they all delight in Simla, and none of them look ill.
Our public affairs are prospering much, but I will not bore you with details. We really are within sight of going home, dearest Theresa, but it makes me shiver to think of it. I am so afraid something will happen to prevent it.
I do not count Simla as any grievance – nice climate, beautiful place, constant fresh air, active clergymen, plenty of fleas, not much society, everything that is desirable; and when we leave it, we shall only have a year and a half of India. The march is a bad bit; I am always ill marching, and our hot season in Calcutta makes me simmer to think of it. Then, the last five months will be cool, and we shall be packing. And then, the 4th of March 1841, we embark, and in July of the same you will be “my neighbour Lister,” and we shall be calling and talking and making much of each other. I should like to see your children. No, I do not approve of Alice for your girl.476 There is an unconscious prejudice in favour of the name “Alice” which has risen to an alarming height, and I think it my duty to oppose it. It gives me an idea of a slammerkin milk-and-water girl. However, do as you like, only don’t blame me if Alice never looks tidy. Love to Mrs. Villiers. Ever your affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister
SIMLA,June 29, 1839.
MY DEAREST THERESA, To-day an old sea letter of yours (January 23) has come to hand, containing all that I wanted to know, so as there is an odd opportunity of writing (a Chinese clipper going from Calcutta to Aden, and the letters to find their own way from thence – such a post office arrangement!) I take advantage of it…
This letter is six months old, but still very acceptable, and it shows that I still have some right original English feelings, – that I have been brought up in good Knightsbridge principles.
That old Lord Clarendon477 was a brute; I always thought so. But what can be the use of carrying on a farce of that sort to the end? He cannot pop his head up even for a minute to say, “How I have tricked you!” – supposing he was proud of it. My only hope is that Lady Clarendon, who will find it difficult amongst her own nieces to hit upon a worthy heir, will do what Lord Clarendon ought to have done. This must go forthwith. Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate
E. E.
Miss Eden to her Brother, Robert Eden [Vicar of Battersea]
PINJORE,November 2, 1839.
MY DEAREST ROBERT, Here we are again fairly in the plains, and to be sure the plains are not the hills – an axiom the profound wisdom of which you cannot appreciate, unless you had been yesterday luncheoning with us at the Fir Tree Bungalow, with the snow in sight, the cool air rushing about, and everything as it ought to be in October, the cones tumbling off the fir trees, and the fern red and autumnal, and then you should have been snapped up by your Jhanpannies and run away with down-hill, till in two hours you found yourself at Barr, the thermometer at 90 in the tents, a man pulling the punkah for a little artificial air, and nothing but dust and camels to be seen for miles round.