CHAPTER XXIV
Buddee, Friday, Nov. 9, 1838.
I SENT you my last Journal the day before yesterday, having brought our history down to the beginning of our second year’s march.
The tents look worse than ever, inasmuch as they are a year older, and the new white patches look very discrepant; but one week, I suppose, will make them all a general dirty brown. The camp looks melancholy without any ladies or children; I miss Mrs. A. particularly. Our dear friend Mr. C., of Umballa, who magistrated us last year, joined us again at the foot of the hills, and had the bright idea to station his gig at the first passable bit of the road, which, as I was shaken into small atoms by eight hours of the jonpaun, was a great relief. Moreover, after seven months of the hills, a wheeled carriage was rather a pretty sight, and I began to think of the rapid advance of science, and the curious inventions of modern times.
We are obliged to stay here, to give time for the things to come up. The old khansamah wanted another day for his arrangements, and it is impossible to refuse him anything, for he never makes a difficulty, and very seldom owns to one.
When we stopped half-way between Sabathoo and this place it was a double march, and there was not a thing come up, not even a chair; and then the dear old khansamah, with his long white beard, went fussing about, in and out of the tents and the trees, and there were fires burning amongst the grass, and tea made in a minute; and then he came with half-a-dozen fresh eggs, which he must have laid himself, and a dish of rice, and in ten minutes we had an excellent breakfast. I met my new horse on the plain: such a beautiful animal, like an Arabian in a picture book, with an arched neck and an arched tail, and he throws out his legs as if he were going to pick up a pin at a great distance. W. was riding it in a prancing sort of manner, that made me think it was the high-spirited animal its former owner described, and to which its present owner would particularly object; but I am happy to say that is a mistake. I rode it one day alone with Captain X., and to-day with G., whose horse was enough to drive any other mad, and my beauty did not care a straw.
‘I am glad, Miss Eden,’ Webb said, ‘you did not take fright at first sight, because the horse would have found you out directly; and he is about the best horse in our stable, which is saying a good deal. I rode him all the way from Kurnaul, and I think it was as much like sitting in a good easy-chair as anything ever I felt.’ I think if the horse had a view of Webb in his travelling costume, he would not consent to be an easy-chair under him: a flannel jacket, with leathers, and leather gaiters, and an immense hat made of white feathers and lined with green, supposed to keep out the sun; and now he has set up a long beard, and he rides by the side of the carriage, either common fashion or sideways, if he is exercising one of our horses. G. says he wonders how the Sikhs will describe him in their journals. We have at last arrived at the possession of Mr. D.’s bonnets, which were packed up exactly a year ago, and have come out as fresh as if the milliner’s girl had just stepped over with them, from the shop at the corner, the blonde inside looking quite blue and fresh, and the gauze ribbon just unrolled. It is very odd, and I am of opinion it would be clever, even now, to have ourselves put up in tin and soldered, till it is time to go home. We should alter no more. The bonnets are particularly pretty. I mean to appear in mine at Ferozepore, to give Runjeet some slight idea of what’s what in the matter of bonnets.
Mattae, Monday, Nov. 12.
We made our first march on Saturday to Nallyghur: roads bad, horse an angel. The carriage could not be used. G. drove me the last half in Mr. C.’s gig, and Mr. C. drove F. We went on the elephants to see Nallyghur on Sunday afternoon. It is a pretty place, and the old rajah has a very nice little palace on the top of a hill, looking into his village, and he is a nice gentleman-like old man, very fair, with lightish hair, which is, I believe, a disease almost amounting to leprosy, but it did not look bad – quite the contrary, rather distingué and European. All the Sikh chiefs under Mr. C.’s care look comfortable; he makes them keep their roads and palaces in good order. Mrs. C. had a melancholy accident the other day. She was out riding with her children; one of her bearers touched her mule, which kicked and threw her over its head. She broke one arm in two places, and dislocated the other wrist. Mr. C. was away, and there was no doctor nearer than Sabathoo; she remained four days with these broken arms before Dr. L. could be fetched from Sabathoo, but her arms are set, and she is recovering very well. That want of a doctor must very often be a sore distress in India. A Mrs. R. at Simla, whose husband was sent as Resident to – , where she is to join him, came in tears to see us last week, saying she had two sickly children and there was not a doctor within one hundred miles, and she wished I would mention it to G. I thought what a state you would have been in, and how you would forthwith have removed your Major R. from his residency. The doctors are all wanted for the army, so I did not think she had much chance, but G. happily had one spare one at his disposal, and the poor little woman was very grateful.
We had a great storm of rain last night at Nallyghur, and brought it on here with us; and I suppose there never were such a set of miserable animals seen, sloshing about what may be called our private apartments in overshoes, and with a parasol stuck up in particularly thin places – the servants all shivering and huddled together, palanquins wanted to take us to breakfast and dinner – in short, a mess.
Roopur, Tuesday, Nov. 13.
This is the memorable place where Lord William and Runjeet had their meeting, ‘where those sons of glory, those two lights of men, met in the vale of Roopur. You lost the view of earthly glory. Men might say, till then true pomp was single, but now was married to itself,’ &c. What is that quoted from? You don’t know – you know nothing. But as touching this scene of glory, it is a large plain – in short, a slice of India – with a ruinous fort on one side and a long narrow bazaar of mud huts on another, the Sutlej running peacefully along about a mile from our encampment. We have the same tents Lord W. had, at least facsimiles of them; therefore we are quite up to the splendid meeting. Perhaps our tents are a shade handsomer, being a very deep chocolate colour owing to the rain of yesterday. They were of course let down into the mud, and have acquired that rich brown hue. Moreover, it occurred to me that my feet were very cold to-day, and at last I discovered that the wet oozed out of the setringees (an Indian excuse for a floorcloth) at every step, and I had them taken up, and the tent is littered profusely and handsomely with clean straw, giving the whole the air and odour of a rickety hackney coach. G. observes every day, as he did last year, ‘Well! I wish Sir Charles Metcalfe could see us, and explain why this is a luxurious method of travelling.’ The sufferings of the cattle, as usual, make the morning’s march hateful. We have lost seven camels and two bullocks in seven days, and generally come in for a view of their dying agonies.
Wednesday, Nov. 14.
I cannot put any names to these places, but we are three marches from Loodheeana. I had such a pretty present this morning, at least rather pretty. It is a baby elephant, nine months old, caught at Saharunpore by the jemadar of the mahouts, and he has been educating it for me, and offered it by means of Captain D., his master. W. and I have been looking about for some time for a gigantic goat for Chance to ride on great occasions, but a youthful elephant is much more correct, and is the sort of thing Runjeet’s dogs will expect. It just comes up to my elbow, seems to have Chance’s own little bad temper and his love of eating, and is altogether rather like him. I had no idea such little elephants were valuable, but it appears that they are, as the baboo told me, ‘Quite a fancy article; great rajahs like them for little rajahs to ride on.’ The mahout would not take any money, so I had it valued and it is worth about forty pounds, and I got Mr. C. to present him with a pair of shawls and a pair of bracelets to that amount, accompanied by a neat Persian speech, which C. thought was worth about an equal sum. The blue shawls would have suited my own complaint exactly. The investiture took place in my tent, and the excellent mahout was much affected, Mr. C. says by his speech, I think by the blueness of the shawls, and the man probably regretted his little elephant.
There has been an exchange of thirty elephants with various chiefs, in the course of the last ten days. Chance never means to part with his, and as Captain D. observed in his slowest tones, ‘In about forty years, that will be a very handsome elephant.’ Very interesting, because it would naturally be very vexatious to me if forty years hence it were to turn out a great gawky beast. Jimmund came with Chance under his arm to make a salaam, and when I asked what was the matter, he said he came to say he was very glad that his Chance had got a Hotty. You are of course aware that we habitually call elephants Hotties, a name that might be safely applied to every other animal in India, but I suppose the elephants had the first choice of names and took the most appropriate.
CHAPTER XXV
Thursday, Nov. 15, 1838.
THE August mail came in to-day; a week after the September packet. Your dear, good letter has come both these last times without making its usual Calcutta detour, which is very clever of it. Certainly Newsalls is a very nice place; mind you don’t let it slip through your fingers till I come trotting up to the door on my elephant forty years hence.
Friday, Loodheeana.
The cavalry and the artillery and the second regiment of infantry that is to make up the escort met us this morning, and the salute was fired by the howitzers that G. has had made to present to Runjeet. They are very handsome, ornamented more than our soldiers think becoming, but just what Runjeet would like; there is the bright star of the Punjâb, with Runjeet’s profile on the gun; and Captain E. says that thousands of Sikhs have been to look at these guns, and all of them salaam to Runjeet’s picture as if it were himself.
Sunday, Nov. 18.
They have been building a small church at this station, and though it is not finished, they were very anxious Mr. Y. should try it, as it is uncertain when another clergyman may pass through Loodheeana; so all our chairs and footstools were sent down to be made into pews, and Mr. Y. preached a very good sermon. There are three American missionaries here, but they have not made any conversions.
– is gone to hunt up Runjeet, who always gives himself the airs of being missing when he is to have a meeting with any great potentate, and goes off on a hunting expedition. He is generally caught in time, but it is a matter of etiquette that neither party should appear to wait for the other, so if Runjeet goes out hunting, G. must stop to shoot or fish. It will not detain us long if we stop to eat all he can kill here.
Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 19 and 20.
We have marched ten miles each day without having seen tree or building, I believe. Chance’s elephant comes every afternoon to show himself, and his education is progressing rapidly, under the care of a splendid individual in a yellow satin dress, who has received the very responsible situation of his mahout. He has already learnt to kneel down, and the excellent joke of filling his little leech of a trunk with water and squirting it at anybody who affronts him.
Chance and he are frightfully alike in disposition – greedy and self-willed; and, barring the nose, very like in look.
Wednesday, Nov. 21.
The camp was very noisy the first two nights, and X. went round to the various commanding officers and made fresh arrangements with the sentries, who I fancy must have cut off the heads of any man, camel, or elephant, who presumed to speak or howl, for there has not been a sound since. ‘Gentlemen who cough are only to be slightly wounded,’ as the ‘Rejected Addresses’ say. It really is tempting, for the tent-pitchers with all their wives and all their children have set up their marching coughs, and as they sleep round their pitchees, there is a continual sound of expectoration going on. Rosina was robbed by her hackery driver. X. had the man up before D., and the money is restored.
I had a little domestic complaint to send to him last night.
I always think these domestic stories may amuse you in England, from their contrast to the habits of that excellent country, from which I have been inveigled. There is a servant called the sirdar-bearer, or head of all the palanquin and tonjaun-bearers, whose business it is to walk by the side of the palanquin and see that the bearers carry it rightly.
This has been rather a sinecure with us, but the man has always been a good little servant and has attached himself to me, and is supposed to be always at the door of my tent with an umbrella; he keeps the tonjaun in readiness, and in Calcutta he always slept at my door, and was in the way for everything that was wanted. In short, ‘Loton’ was a general favourite, and supposed to be remarkably active. To my surprise, he came in yesterday to say that he could not possibly go with my palanquin every morning; the roads were so bad, he found it tired him. In short, he evidently wanted a place on an elephant, which the servants who wait at table have; but bearers are a class who can walk thirty miles a day; and it was very much like your coachman asking to travel in the carriage, as it was too much trouble to drive. I said he had better go to Captain X. when he was in difficulties, and that I did not doubt Captain X. would find one of the other bearers who would be happy to take the place of sirdar, and that Loton would then only have to carry the palanquin half-way. (At present he carries nothing.) I told Captain X. this morning, and I thought he would have had a fit. He is not yet accustomed to the notion of the number of people who are merely kept for show and even for work; there is a double set for everything. F. and I have each thirty-two bearers, where other people have eight, that there may never be a difficulty; and the idea that I was to direct my own bearers on the road struck X. as remarkably amusing.
I should think it would have been, as I have not a single Hindustani word to say to them. I left it to him to settle, and poor Loton is degraded to the ranks. He cares very much about the gold-laced livery, and still more about the two rupees a month which he loses. A bearer lives on that, and sends all the rest home. They all come from the neighbourhood of Patna, never bring their wives, but live together like a large family; in fact, sell themselves for so many years, and then, when they have earned enough to buy a bit of land, go home for life. I hope Captain X. means to allow himself to be entreated like Major J., for I shall die of it if Loton is not restored in time. He was a great favourite of Lord W.’s, and I rather think I spoilt him by raising his wages partly on that account. Captain X. has the real Indian feeling that a servant objecting to an order is a sort of depravity that cannot be put up with – in short, that cannot be believed. I said that, as it was a first offence, he should be as lenient as he could, and he said, ‘Certainly, it would be very lenient only to turn the man away. I assure you, Miss Eden, a native would have put the man to death who had refused to run by the side of his palanquin!’ I think I see myself cutting off Loton’s head with a pair of scissors. It is very awful to think of the number of petty rajahs in the country who have the power of life and death over their followers. It must be very often abused.
Saturday, November 24.
We have had three short marches. I am not much better. Except for the march, I keep as quiet as possible, and have not been over to any meal, or out of my own tent, except to sit in an arm-chair in front of it between five and six. I always think the weather very trying in the plains. In the morning the thermometer was at 45°, and we were all shivering with shawls and cloaks on, and at twelve the glass rose to 83°, and we are now sitting under punkahs with a small allowance of clothes. That happens every day, and I cannot think it wholesome. There was an interesting arrival from Delhi this morning, my bracelet with G.’s picture, which I had sent back to have a cover fitted to the picture, and it has come back so beautifully mended – with a turquoise cross on an enamelled lid. Then Mr. B., who superintended my private bracelet, undertook on the public account a frame for my picture of the Queen, which is to be given to Runjeet, and the frame came with the bracelet. They had not time for the beautiful design of all the orders of the Garter and Bath, &c., which I wanted, and so only made the frame as massive as they could. It is solid gold, very well worked, with a sort of shell at each corner, encrusted with precious stones, and one very fine diamond in each shell.
The materials come to about £500. Forty jewellers worked at it night and day, and the head jeweller expects a khelwut, or robe of honour, with a pair of shawls, for his activity. It will be a very handsome item in the list of presents, and is to be given in great form.
One of Runjeet’s chief sirdars came into camp to-day, and there was a very fine durbar, as he was to be received as an ambassador. He is a great astronomer, and there was luckily at the Tosha Khanna an orrery and some astronomical instruments which G. added to his presents, and the man went away, they say, quite delighted. Every evening there is to be an arrival of one hundred jars of sweetmeats, which is a great delight to the native servants.
CHAPTER XXVI
Camp, Ferozepore, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 1838.
I PUT up a large packet to you on Saturday, which will accompany this; but I was shy of making it thicker. Sunday, the whole camp was glad of a halt; the sandy roads tire all the people much.
There was a very large congregation at church, I was told; we have so many troops with us now, and Y.’s preaching is in great reputation. On Monday we marched eleven more miles with the same dusty result. The chief incident was, that G. was to have tried an Arabian of W. O.’s, which is a perfect lamb in a crowd, and was intended to officiate at the great review ‘as is to be;’ but the syce by mistake gave him another horse of W.’s, which pulls worse than G.’s own horse. F., who was riding with him, assured him that the Arabian had such a tender mouth that it was only chafing because he held it too tight: he loosened the bridle – away went the horse like a shot, and away went twenty-five of the body-guard after him, thinking it was his lordship’s pleasure to go at that helter-skelter pace: away went M., who is on duty; in short, nothing could be finer than the idea; but they all pulled up when they saw how it was. G.’s horse galloped on two miles for its own amusement, and then he made it go another for his, and finally changed it for his own horse, whose merits rose by comparison. I was in the carriage behind, and W. came up in the greatest fuss – having heard of the mistake – and just as he was saying the horse would run away, two of the guard came back to say it had done so; so he had the pleasure of a good prophecy.
Yesterday we came twelve miles. My health is neither better nor worse, so I came on in the carriage; all the others rode the last four miles, and were met by M. and all his staff at the town of Ferozepore. G. let me go on half a mile in advance, in order to avoid the dust, which must have shocked General R., who never lets even a little dog precede him in his march.
I passed him and his suite by the side of the road, drawn up according to the strictest rule – a very large body of cocked hats. General R. in front, alone, then a long row of general officers, then a longer row of a lower grade. It was too awful and military a moment for speech. I was not sure whether it was not irregular to kiss my hand; however, I ventured on that little movement, which was received with a benign ‘clignotement de l’œil’ signifying ‘Wrong, but I forgive it for once.’
I got in three-quarters of an hour before the rest, who came a foot’s pace, and General E. told F. they always marched that fashion – General R. first, they behind – a trot never allowed.
General R. was uncommonly affable, and came and paid me a visit in my tent, where I was lying down, all dust and fatigue, and wishing for breakfast. Sir W. C., too, came in for a moment, in the highest glee, not so fat as he was at Calcutta – we expected he would have been twice the size. I told him he was grown thin, and he went back to his favourite story of the courtiers telling George IV., when he was at his fattest, ‘Your Majesty is regaining your figure!’
We had a most interesting envoy from General A., who is employed by Runjeet in Peshawur, and who wrote to each of us his polite French regrets that he could not come here, but he sent ‘un très petit paquet’ of the shawls we had commissioned him to get worked in Cashmere, when we saw him in Calcutta, and also the Cashmere gowns he had promised. He declared that there never were such failures; that he had sent seven or eight ‘surveillants’ to Cashmere, ‘mais on m’a tout gâté.’
An hour after, there arrived, instead of the ‘petit paquet,’ a very large pillow, or rather a small ottoman, brought in by two men, and then we had such cutting and nicking and tearing away of oilcloth and muslin and shawl paper, and at last arrived at the treasures. Four shawl dresses, four magnificent square shawls, and four long scarfs to match the dresses – but the fineness and the brightness of the whole concern it is impossible to describe. One gets to value shawls only by their fineness at last, and we have seen nothing like these. They have been a year and a half in making. We have ascertained the prices of these shawls, which are very cheap considering their beauty. The dresses were at Calcutta promised us as presents; but under the circumstances of our being in Runjeet’s country, and A. one of his generals, we want to pay for them, which Captain E. has undertaken to do. I now say once more, as I have often said before, I really don’t want any more shawls, but yet I do always when they come in my way.
In the afternoon Sir W. C., B., W., M., and two or three more, went on elephants to compliment the Maharajah, and met half-way Kurruck Singh, his son and supposed heir, Ajeet Singh, our Simla friend, and Sujeyt Singh, the great dandy of the Punjâb, with several others coming to compliment G. The Maharajah had the best of the bargain.
Kurruck Singh is apparently an idiot; some people say he only affects it, to keep Runjeet from being jealous of him, but it looks like very unaffected and complete folly.
Runjeet kept our deputation very late. He was in the highest spirits, W. said, and laughed out loud at several jokes. Sir W. C. took the fancy of all the Sikhs. He is very jovial, besides being courteous in his manners, and talks at a great rate. Runjeet produced some of his wine, a sort of liquid fire, that none of our strongest spirits approach, and in general Europeans cannot swallow more than a drop of it.
Sir W. tossed off his glass and then asked for another, which they thought very fine. He came back of course very tipsy, but they said he was very amusing at dinner. There are always nautches at these durbars, and one of W.’s former acquaintances, called ‘the Lotus,’ who is very beautiful, looked so pretty that W. asked E. if he might give her the little bunch of pearl flowers that was given to all the gentlemen. E. said it would amuse the Maharajah, and so it did, but B. is seriously uneasy at the dreadful loss to Government of the pearl bouquet. It was worth about ten shillings, I suppose.
Friday.
Yesterday was the day of the great meeting. All the ladies (only ten with the whole army) came to breakfast at half-past seven, and so did ‘the great Panjandrum himself.’
I have not been to any meal, and hardly have seen anybody, for the last three weeks, so I did not join them till it was nearly time for Runjeet to arrive: when he was at the end of the street, G. and all the gentlemen went on their elephants to meet him.
There were such a number of elephants, that the clash at meeting was very great, and very destructive to the howdahs and hangings. G. handed the Maharajah into the first large tent, where we were all waiting; but the Sikhs are very unmanageable, and they rushed in on all sides, and the European officers were rather worse, so that the tent was full in a moment, and as the light only comes in from the bottom, the crowd made it perfectly dark, and the old man seemed confused and bothered. However, he sat down for a few minutes on the sofa between G. and me, and recovered. He is exactly like an old mouse, with grey whiskers and one eye. When they got into the inner tent, which was to have been quite private, the English officers were just like so many bears; put aside all the sentries, absolutely refused to listen to the aides-de-camp, and filled the room; so then, finding it must be public, G. sent us word we might all come there, and we had a good view of it all.
Runjeet had no jewels on whatever, nothing but the commonest red silk dress. He had two stockings on at first, which was considered an unusual circumstance; but he very soon contrived to slip one off, that he might sit with one foot in his hand, comfortably. B. was much occupied in contriving to edge one-foot of his chair on to the carpet, in which he at last succeeded.
Next to him sat Heera Singh, a very handsome boy, who is Runjeet’s favourite, and was loaded with emeralds and pearls. Dhian Singh his father is the prime minister, and uncommonly good-looking: he was dressed in yellow satin, with a quantity of chain armour and steel cuirass. All their costumes were very picturesque. There were a little boy and girl about four and five years old, children of some of Runjeet’s sirdars who were killed in battle, and he always has these children with him, and has married them to each other. They were crawling about the floor, and running in and out between Runjeet and G., and at one time the little boy had got his arm twisted round G.’s leg. I sent to ask B. for two of the common pearl necklaces that are given as khelwuts, and sent them with a private note round to G., who gave them to the children, which delighted the old mouse.
After half an hour’s talk, Sir W. C., with some of our gentlemen, marched up the room with my picture of the Queen on a green and gold cushion; all the English got up, and a salute of twenty-one guns was fired. Runjeet took it up in his hands, though it was a great weight, and examined it for at least five minutes with his one piercing eye, and asked B. for an explanation of the orb and sceptre, and whether the dress were correct, and if it were really like; and then said it was the most gratifying present he could have received, and that on his return to his camp, the picture would be hung in front of his tent, and a royal salute fired. When all the other presents had been given that could come in trays, 200 shells (not fish, but gunpowder shells) were presented to the Maharajah, and two magnificent howitzers, that had been cast on purpose for him (as I think I told you), which seemed to please him; and outside, there was an elephant with gold trappings, and seven horses equally bedizened. His strongest passion is still for horses: one of these hit his fancy, and he quite forgot all his state, and ran out in the sun to feel its legs and examine it. Webb (the coachman) went down in the afternoon to take the Mizzur horses to Runjeet, and gave us such an amusing account of his interview.
He talks a sort of half-Yorkshire, half-Indian dialect.
‘Why, you see, my lord, I had a long job of it. The old man was a-saying of his prayers, and all the time he was praying, he was a-looking after my horses. At last he gets up, and I was tired of waiting in all that sun. But law! Miss Eden, then comes that picture that you’ve been a-painting of; and then the old man sends for his sirdar, and that sirdar and they all go down on their knees, a matter of sixty of them, and first one has a look and then the other, and Runjeet he asked me such a many questions, I wished the picture further. He talked about it for an hour and a half, and I telled him I never seed the Queen. How should I? I have been here with two Governor-Generals, and twelve years in India above that. So then he says, says he, “which Governor-General do you like best?" And I says, “Why, Maharajah, I haint much fault to find with neither of them.” So then we had out the horses, and there the old man was a-running about looking at ’em, more like a coolie than a king. I never see a man so pleased, and he made me ride ’em. So, when I had been there four hours a’most, all in the sun, he give me this pair of gold bracelets and this pair of shawls; and he says, says he, “Go and show yourself to the Lord Sahib, just as you are: mind you don’t take them off.” But law! I did not like to come such a figure, so here they are!’
B. was standing by, so I had the presence of mind to say, ‘Of course Lord A. should let Webb keep those;’ and he said directly, that for any actual service done, it was only payment, and they would hardly pay Webb for all the trouble he had with the young horses. So Webb went off very happy, and I suppose when we return to Calcutta Mrs. Webb will be equally so.