CHAPTER XLIX
Agra, Sunday, December 29, 1839.
I HAVE let a week pass by this time, partly because, since we have been here, we have given a ball and four large dinners, seen a great many sights, had a ball given to us and a déjeûner at the Taj, and also that an awful change has taken place in our plans, one that it makes me sick to think of. We are going to stay here for the next ten months: – , to whom G. offered the Lieutenant-Governorship, and who knew all his plans, and who had acuteness enough to carry them on, began by accepting, and ended by declining in consequence of ‘domestic calamities which he was unable to explain.’ They say that Mrs. – is gone out of her mind. I really think it must have been at the notion of coming here. It is too late in the year to make any new arrangements, and there is so much of importance likely to occur in the Punjâb where old Runjeet is a sad loss, and so much to watch over in Affghanistan, that G. decided on staying himself. Such a shock and such trouble! We have at least three houses to build here for the European servants, the baboos, &c., and a house to repair for the aides-de-camp. Agra is avowedly the hottest place in India, and everybody says this is the hottest house in Agra, so there is a whole army of engineers now beginning to see what can be done to build up verandahs, and to make ventilators, and to pretend to make the hot winds bearable. There are in India two regular parties, one preferring Bengal with the hot days and the damp and the sea-breeze blowing at night, and the other standing up for their hot winds, twenty degrees hotter, but dry. I have never varied in thinking the account of them terrific. From the end of March to the middle of June, they blow unceasingly, night and day. Nobody stirs out, and all night the tatties are kept wet, and thermantidotes (great winnowing machines) are kept turning to make a little cool air. The windows are never opened, and they say that, at midnight, if you were to go out, it feels like going into a furnace. However, those who are all for the provinces say, the wind is dry and not unwholesome, and that as long as you do not attempt to go out of the house, you do not suffer from the heat. It is a regular strict imprisonment. Calcutta is bad, but there we had a regular evening drive, and Government House was really cool at night; then in case of illness there was the sea at hand, but here, if any of us are ill, of course there is no escape. Even natives cannot travel in the hot winds. The discomfiture is general. Most of our goods are half-way to Calcutta. The native servants, who thought they were within reach of their wives and families after two years’ absence, are utterly desperate.
Mr. A. has thrown up his place, and goes down to Calcutta. Mrs. S. plods back to Simla with her children, and leaves her husband here. Mrs. H. ditto, and I think those two ladies are rather pleased, it forces them to keep their boys another year in the country. Z. has been ill since we came here, but the day this shock was communicated to him, he got up electrified, dressed himself, and came to my room to bemoan his particular hard fate, so like Narcissus Fripps. ‘I really am quite overset – I have not an idea what to do – I am so afraid of the hot winds, and this is such a place! no society whatever! Now at Calcutta I really should have enjoyed myself.’ This was said with an air of great interest.
I saw my opportunity and put it to him, that the hot winds were very bad for the attacks he is subject to, that Dr. D. had always wished him to go home, and that he might now have a medical certificate, which would save his paying his own passage, &c. And so he took the right turn, went straight to the doctor’s tent, and came back to say that he had decided to go home. It really is the best thing he can do, and Dr. D. says it is the only chance of his getting well.
We still go to Gwalior, and go back into camp on Thursday; we shall be nearly a month away, and we leave X. behind, with Giles and all the carpenters and tailors of the establishment to make up beds, furniture, &c., for we have nothing but small camp beds, which are not endurable in heat.
Monday, December 30.
You cannot conceive what a pretty fête they gave us at the Taj, or how beautiful it looked by broad daylight.
The whole society, with our camp, was just one hundred people, and we dined in what had once been a mosque, but it was desecrated many years ago. Still I thought it was rather shocking our eating ham and drinking wine in it, but its old red arches looked very handsome.
Some of the Agra people are too strict to dance, and as much walking is difficult in the plains, it is lucky the afternoon did not hang very heavily; but the garden is very prettily laid out, and W. O. challenged a fat Mr. N., an old acquaintance, to play at hop-scotch with all their old Westminster rules. W. is wonderfully active still at all those games, and plays at them with very good grace, and it was great fun to see Mr. N., who is the image of Pickwick and dresses like him, hopping and jumping and panting after him. It kept everybody in a roar of laughter for an hour, and filled up the afternoon very well. No; the more our plan of staying here is canvassed the worse it is – the mere precautions that are to be taken, show what those horrible hot winds are to be. However, I believe, as they all say, the best way is not to think of them more than can be helped. The weather is fine now. But what I do think of, morning, noon, and night, is the utter impossibility of our going home now in 1841. It is too sore a subject to write about, and it had much better be left untouched, for fear it should establish itself into a fact, but I always foresaw those horrid secretaries would work it out if they could.
I am in that mood that I should almost be glad if the Sikhs, or the Russians, or anybody, would come and take us all. It would be one way out of the country. Captain C. has got an excellent appointment at Lucknow, but he will not leave us till after Gwalior, as he thinks he may be of use, as X. must stay here to build and superintend. Captain C. has thoroughly earned his appointment by four years’ constant service, but he is the last of the original set, and we are all very unhappy at his going, he is the most thorough gentleman in mind, and very clever and original. He has always been a great favourite with G., and as I think Mr. D. might accidentally fall in with Allan C. or find an opportunity of seeing him, perhaps he would mention how well his son is thought of, and how well he is now settled. Captain X. bore his disappointment wonderfully well, and has been very amiable in many respects. G. offered him a smaller place, which might just have enabled him to marry, but when he found Z. was going as well as Captain C., he thought we should be having so many strangers at once, just as we were settling in a new place and to a new sort of life, that he would not leave us. I really do not know what we could have done without him at this moment. He is ordering all the new buildings, buying furniture in all directions, and ordering up everything from Calcutta, where he had just provided for our return. Agra produces nothing, there is no shop, and so few Europeans that I suppose the box wallahs find no trade, so we have been obliged to send to Calcutta for mats for the floors, musquito curtains, even common pins.
Tuesday, Dec. 31.
I went early this morning with Mr. H. and – to see the Female Orphan School. We saw the boys last week – there are 150 boys and 130 girls who were picked up at the time of the famine two years ago, starving and with no relations. The boys are learning all sorts of trades; and as we are detained here another year, I thought it would be better to send my two little girls to the other school for the time, if they will let me have them again, to take to Mrs. Wilson. There is a German missionary and his wife at the head of this school. He speaks Hindoostanee tolerably, but she speaks no English and very little Hindoostanee; however, there is another woman to assist, and they seem to make it out very tolerably, and they are an interesting looking young couple, with such soft German voices. Rosina took Ameeum and Jehurun there after breakfast, and stayed great part of the day with them, but they all three did nothing but cry, though the old body is very sensible about them, and thinks it better they should go. Poor little things! I am sorry to lose them; they were such funny little animals, and used to imitate Wright and Rosina in trying to dress me, and really made themselves useful on the march. Z. is taking home a parcel to you – two of my sketch-books, which I want you to keep for me; the others are unluckily on the river on their way to Calcutta. Then, a parcel directed to you, in which there are two half shawls, embroidered all over, really about the prettiest things I have seen, which it appeared Wright had procured from Delhi for T. and E. She thought they would be very suitable for two young ladies going out. I thought they were too expensive presents for her to send, and F. and I tried to persuade her out of it, but she said she had got them on purpose, so there they are; and for fear you should be jealous, I have sent you a green worked Delhi scarf. Also, in a little box directed to R., there are two press papiers, a marble tortoise, and a marble book – Agra works, which I send T. and E. F. has sent the girls some rings; so what you are to wring from Z. when he arrives, are two sketch-books, a parcel of shawls, and a little box of rings, all directed to you; and these two marble things in the parcel to R.
CHAPTER L
Thursday, Jan. 2, 1840.
I WENT yesterday evening to see my children, who seemed quite reconciled to their fates, and were stuffing rice and curry in large handfuls. Mrs. L., the matron, said they did not take to the other children, but pottered after her wherever she went. Rosina went to bid them good-bye, and was quite satisfied with their treatment.
We marched fifteen miles this morning over a very heavy road. The mornings are very cold now before the sun rises, but the rest of the day is very fine. They are luckily making a great deal of ice this year. Large fields are covered with very shallow porous saucers, which hold a very little water, and when the thermometer comes down to 36° this turns into very thin ice, and the people collect it and pound it; they reckon that about one-third is available in the hot weather, and it is a great comfort.
Dholepore, Saturday, Jan. 4.
The Dholepore Rajah came to fetch G. in this morning. He seems to run to size, in everything; wears eight of the largest pearls ever seen; rides the tallest elephant; his carriage has two stories and is drawn by six elephants, and he lives in a two-storied tent – ricketty, but still nobody else has one so large. He is one of the potentates who undertake to feed all our camp gratis, which is a popular measure with the sepoys and servants. Scindia, the Gwalior Rajah, is encamped on the other side of the river, about five miles off, and G. reckons that he will have about two durbars a day for the next fortnight. He had two to-day – one for Dholepore himself, and another for Scindia’s Vakeel. The Mahrattas are a very ragamuffin-looking race. E. is the Gwalior resident, and is on the same fat scale with everything else, except little Violet Snook, who is trotting about the street very busily. It is rather curious that the camp should contain three officers rejoicing in the names of Violet Snook, Gandy Gaitskell, and Orlando Stubbs. Are they common names in England? Gandy Gaitskell we are uncommonly intimate with; he is always on guard, and always dining here. Orlando Stubbs is a novelty.
Sunday, Jan. 5.
The officers of the Gwalior contingent sent to ask when they could call, and I thought it would be good for their morals to say that church began at eleven, and we could see them afterwards. They live five miles off, so Colonel E. gave them a breakfast before church, and when I went out this morning early, they were all arriving, and Violet Snook was rushing in and out in a violent state of excitement, receiving his brother officers, shaking hands, and bowing and ordering, and in short it was quite pleasant to see a Violet with such spirits, and a Snook with such manners. They all came after church, and seemed a gentleman-like set. I think if I were a soldier, I should like to belong to a local corps, or a contingent; they all wear such pretty fancy dresses.
Monday, Jan. 6.
This has been a day of durbars for G., which is a sad waste of time. Scindia, the Gwalior Rajah, came in the morning to pay his visit. G. sent a deputation yesterday to compliment him, and they had, as usual with these great native princes, to take off their shoes on going in. The rajah himself takes off his own shoes, and Europeans keep on their hats if they take off their shoes. In fact, they do not really take them off; they put stockings over them.
Scindia was four hours coming five miles to G.’s durbar this morning. Natives think it a mark of dignity to move as slowly as possible. How going down to Windsor by railroad would disgust them! And C., L. E., and P., who had been sent to fetch him, were nearly baked alive on their elephants. On the return he was polite enough to dismiss them after they had gone two hundred yards, or they would have had four hours more. He is young, very black, and not good-looking, but it is impossible to look at him, on account of his pearls. He wears three large ropes, or rather cables, of pearls, and those round his throat are as big as pigeons’ eggs, larger than Runjeet’s famous pearls. His courtiers are not ill off in matter of jewels, particularly emeralds. In the afternoon G. went to return the Dholepore Rajah’s visit, and see some fireworks, &c., &c. F. and I agreed not to go, as it was four miles off, and the Mahrattas are not pleasant natives. We went up a little hill near the camp, from which the procession looked very pretty, and then we had the advantage of righting a bit of wrong. Two of our band and an artilleryman had got into a quarrel with the priests of a little mosque on this hill, and were beating them, and the natives came rushing to us for protection. The Europeans were evidently in the wrong, and they ran off instantly, but I sent the jemadar to say I wanted them particularly, and it was so funny to hear their broad Irish. ‘That native, me lady, abused me shockingly – words I could not be shocking you with repeating; and as I cannot speak a word of their language, I bet him well!’ ‘But how do you know he was abusing you, if you do not know a word of his language?’ ‘Oh, me lady, there could be no mistake; his abuse was so shocking, worse luck for me that I could not answer.’ ‘Besides, I translated,’ one of our little band-boys said; and then the natives produced a stick they had broken on him, and the Europeans picked up a great stone they declared had been thrown at them, but they could not help laughing themselves at that, it was so obviously untrue. And so it ended in my telling the priests to come to camp with their complaint to-morrow, and telling the band to go home, and be ready to play at dinner; but there was something rather pleasant in this Irish quarrel.
Tuesday, Jan. 7.
Well! there never were such times! ‘I am too old entirely for these quick changes,’ as the old nurse says, in Miss Edgeworth’s ‘Ormond,’ but I am glad of this one. G. woke me this morning by poking his head into the tent and saying, ‘Here is the overland mail come, and all my plans are changed, and we are going down to Calcutta.’ I am so glad; it is all in the way home. I really think (don’t you?) that we shall stick now to our original time of March 1841, and it was quite hopeless a week ago. I think this is a great piece of luck, and feel as if I could do like the native servants. They are all quite mad, flinging themselves on the ground, and throwing off their turbans; and at least twenty of the head servants have been to my tent to ask if it is true, and to say, that they are praying to Allah for ‘Lordship’s health,’ and to thank him for taking them back to their families. If Allah had anything to do with it, I am much obliged to him too, and to Lordship for taking us back to our families. I could not bear Agra, and now everybody owns that the hot winds would have been fearful, but they are all in their separate difficulties. Mr. Y. has left his children at Agra; C. his wife; we have left all our goods, except a small allowance of clothes; the aides-de-camp have all bought buggies and horses, and everybody had taken a house. W. O. spent nearly 1,000l. in preparations and furniture, but a good deal of that may be retrieved. Captain X. luckily came into camp this morning, and is going back to undo all he has done; send off Giles and all the servants we left, and my two little girls, and all our dear boxes. Not that I have ever seen again any box that I ever left behind, in any place in India, and we are so marched and counter-marched, that our property is horribly scattered, but I think there is a chance of bringing it all together at Calcutta. Everything in India always comes down by water, and as a good large river comes down to Calcutta, it is a possible rendezvous for our things.
Thursday, Jan. 9.
We left Dholepore this morning, and had great difficulty in coming along; the road for four miles was through a narrow sandy ravine. Scindia’s camp moved yesterday, and his goods had only got through the pass at eight last night, and that owing to P.’s working all day. Our hackeries that left camp at one yesterday are not come in at one to-day; they had stuck in all the narrow places, and there was a dead camel here, and a dead bullock there, and an elephant had killed a man somewhere else, and in short it was a bad pass. Now, to answer your letter. I hope dear E. is better, as you do not say he is not. How you do rush about on those railways! You put me quite out of breath.
Gwalior, Saturday, Jan. 10.
We have had more letters by the second express, many of them written since the news of Ghuznee had been known. The Gwalior rajah met us this morning, rather to our discomfiture, as F. and I had meant to come on quietly in the carriage, but the roads were so narrow and his train so wide, that we were obliged to get on our elephants. He rides the largest elephant in India; it is nearly twelve feet high, and G.’s, which is generally thought a large one, looked like a little pony, and, what was worse, was so afraid of the rajah’s, that it was ten minutes before they could be driven close enough to allow of G.’s getting safely into the rajah’s howdah. I always think that a very unpleasant part of the ceremony, to say nothing of the little French embrace that follows. The Mahratta horsemen are striking-looking people in their gold dresses, with their very long spears; and altogether it was a very pretty sight, but the rajah stuck to his dignified rule of going as slow as possible, and we were just an hour and a quarter going the last two miles, though he should consider that after eight o’clock, every hour of his horrid sun is of the highest importance. Gwalior is a picturesque-looking place, a fort on a rock, which, after all the flat plains, looks distinguished.
Sunday, Jan. 11.
We received all the ladies belonging to the Gwalior contingent yesterday, and the officers, only sixteen altogether, and four ladies, two of them uncommonly black, and the third, Captain – remembers as a little girl running about barracks, a soldier’s daughter, but she was pretty, and, by dint of killing off a husband, or two, she is now at nineteen the wife of a captain here. I should think she must look back with regret to her childish plebeian days. The husband interrupts her every time she opens her lips, and she had not been here two minutes, before he said in a gruff tone, ‘Come, Ellen,’ and carried the poor little body off.
We have had no service to-day for want of Mr. Y. We went this evening to see the fort and palace, and very beautiful it was, so like Bluebeard’s abode. As the elephants plodded up one steep flight of steps after another, with the castle still frowning over our heads, D., who is not imaginative nor jocose, said, ‘I cannot help thinking sister Anne must be looking out for us,’ and we all agreed that she must. There is a beautiful old temple in the fort – one mass of carving; and I should like to pick out a few chimney-pieces for Kensington Gore from the carved stones that are tumbling about these old places.