CHAPTER XIV
Camp, Kurnaul, March 5, 1838.
IT goes much against the grain with me to begin a fresh Journal on half a sheet, but it is an odd time for writing, so I must take what I can get and be thankful. The things are all put away for the night under the sentries. G. is sitting down to a dinner of forty men in red coats, ‘fathers and mothers unknown.’ F., W., and I have devoured such small cheer as St. Cloup would allow the kitmutgar to pick up from the outside of the kitchen at an early hour. W. O. is this moment gone off for his three weeks’ tiger-shooting; and now there is just one hour before I need dress for the station ball, so that I devote to writing to you. We could not help laughing at our private dinner, considering what people say of the luxuries of the East, and of the state in which the Governor-General lives. The dinner was very good, thanks to its being stolen from St. Cloup’s best company preparations; but we were in a small empty tent, lighted up by two candles and one night-lamp. The whole number of leaves of the dining-table were apparently wanted in the large tent, for they had given us a borrowed camp-table, two very dirty deal boards, covered with the marks of old slops, and of the rounds of glasses. I am sure at any of the London gin-palaces the scavengers would have grumbled at the look of it; and our three coffee-cups, with a plate of biscuits for Chance in the centre, did not look handsome. The purdahs were all up, as the evening is hot, so outside we had a good view of the kettle boiling for tea on some sticks of charcoal, and the bearers washing up the dirty plates and keeping the pariah dogs from helping themselves. W.’s dhoolie, a sort of bed on poles, was waiting for him in the distance, with two irregular horsemen for an escort. Altogether, I think a Blackheath gipsy would have sneered at us; but otherwise, nothing was absolutely wanting. I came back to my tent meaning to write to you, but found, as I told you, everything whisked off, except one table and my sofa; and that has now been carried away to serve as a bed for a Mr. – , who has come dâk sixty miles on some business with G.
I can hardly write because I am in the middle of ‘Lamb’s Life and Letters’ – such a nice book! I quite dread going on with it for fear of finishing it. It sometimes does almost as well as you to talk with for five minutes. I like the way in which he goes on revelling in a bad joke, making nonsense by the piece; and there are such good little bits of real feeling. ‘All about you is a threadbare topic. I have worn it out with thinking; it has come to me when I have been dull with anything, till my sadness has seemed more to have come from it, than to have introduced it. I want you, you don’t know how much.’ Such a jewel of a man to have put that into words, and it is so true! I often find myself saucing up my distaste for the present with regret for the past, and so disguising a little discontent with a great deal of sentiment; but yet that is rather unfair too, for I really should not mind India if you and three or four others were here. The discontent with it arises a great deal from want of the old familiar friends. However, we have at last done two years of it. I believe it has taken us forty English years to do these two Indian ones; but still it shows what time and longevity will effect. Mr. Y. brought rather an interesting individual to my tent this morning, a Christianised Indian; he has been a strict Christian for nearly twenty-three years, and last year the Bishop ordained him. He was a Brahmin of the highest class, and is a very learned man. I asked him how his conversion began, whether from discontent with his own belief, or from the persuasions of others; and he said he was dissatisfied with his own superstitions, and got a copy of Henry Martyn’s translation of St. John, and then of the Acts, and then went back to the rest of the Bible. Mrs. Sherwood, who lived at Meerut, was afterwards his chief instructress, and he speaks of her with the greatest gratitude. He keeps a school now, which is attended by about forty children, but he does not think he has made any real converts. I wish he could have spoken English: I wanted to know more about it all. He was here a long time, and I did rather a highly-finished picture of him, thinking the old Bishop would like it. He is rather like Sidney Smith blackened, and laughed about as heartily as Sidney would have done at his own picture.
Tuesday, March 6.
We went to our ball last night – it was pretty; the room was hung round with such profusion of garlands and a sort of stage, on which there were green arches decked out with flowers; but what particularly took my fancy was a set of European soldiers dressed up for the night as footmen, real red plush trousers, with blue coats and red collars, and white cotton stockings, and powdered heads, and they carried about trays of tea and ices. After the turbaned heads and ‘the trash and tiffany,’ as Hook says, with which we are surrounded, you cannot conceive what a pleasant English look this gave to the room. Such fat, rosy English footmen! It is very odd how sometimes the sudden recurrence of some common English custom shows the unnatural state of things in which we live – that red plush! it was just like Rousseau’s ‘Voilà de la pervenche,’ only not quite so romantic. To-day, before I was dressed, Rosina said that G.’s nazir wanted to speak to me, and I found him in my tent at the head of at least a hundred yards of ‘trash and tiffany,’ come to hope I would ask my lord to stay another day, as to-morrow is the great Mussulman holiday – they call it their Buckra Eed, or sounds to that effect; and it is, in fact, a commemoration of Abraham offering up Isaac, only they do it in honour of Ishmael. Nothing can be more inconvenient, but I never can refuse the nazir anything, he looks so timid and gentlemanlike; so I went to G. with the deputation, and we have altered all our plans, and may have to march on Sunday to make up for it. A shocking sacrifice of Christianity to Mahomedanism! only, as I said before, I cannot refuse the nazir; and also, the servants have in general borne the march very well, and deserve some consideration. We have written now to revive a play the privates of the Artillery had wanted to act, and which we had declined for want of time to go and see it.
Camp, one march from Kurnaul, Thursday, March 8.
I took Mrs. A. out in the carriage on Tuesday evening, and after I had taken her home, I was caught in a regular storm of dust, what they call a dry storm here, much worse than a thick London fog. The syces walked before the horses feeling their way, and hallooing because the postilions could not see them; and as it was, I came in at the wrong end of the camp with the syces missing. W. tried to go out to dinner, but could not find his way.
We went to the play last night, ‘Tekeli,’ and it really was wonderfully well acted. They did much better than the gentlemen amateurs at Meerut, and, except that the heroines were six feet high and their pink petticoats had not more than three breadths in them, the whole thing was well done: the scenery and decorations were excellent, and all got up by the privates. There was one man who sang comic songs in a quiet, dawdling way that Matthews could not have surpassed. It was all over by nine o’clock. We marched very early this morning, as it was a sixteen miles’ march, which is always a trial to the servants and to the regiment, the sun is so hot now after eight. The sergeant who sends back reports of the road the evening before, always writes them in rather a grand style, and he put down to-day: ‘First and second mile good; at the third mile, bridge over the canal which requires the greatest precaution – the roaring sluices may alarm the horses.’ I wish you had seen the ‘roaring sluices,’ something like the cascades we used to build when we were children in the ditch at Elmer’s End, but hardly so imposing. Sergeant – is so unused to the slightest inequality either of land or water, that it astounds him. The servants enjoyed their holiday thoroughly. They all put off their liveries and went round the camp to make their little compliments, which they do in very good taste, and the old khansamah made a sort of chapel of the hangings of tents, and there was one of their priests in the centre reading the Koran, and between four and five hundred of them kneeling round, all looking so white and clean in their muslin dresses. I really think they are very good people, they are so very particular about their prayers.
Friday, March 9.
We had our overland packet of December 27 yesterday. There never was anything so praiseworthy as the regularity of that Overland Mail lately, but where are your letters? You must send them to China with directions to climb over the wall and post on to Simla, or to ‘try New South Wales, or Tartary.’ I heard from R. and M. and L. all up to Christmas, and you are still at August 5th. It is very odd, because I am confident you write, but I should like to know what you write. We have heard from Mr. D. much later than from you.
CHAPTER XV
Saharunpore, Sunday, March 11, 1838.
THIS is a small station, only two ladies, one of whom is Miss T.; she came out last year to join a brother here, who is quite delighted to have her, and she seems very contented with her quiet life; but everybody is contented with their stations at the foot of the hills. They stay the cold season here, and go in twelve hours up to Mussoorie, where most of them have their regular established homes, so they escape all hot weather. Miss T. and her brother and the other Saharunpore gentlemen came out to meet us, and G. and I stopped at Captain C.’s to see an immense collection of fossils, all proving that our elephants of the present day were ‘little Chances’ of the olden time. G. had a durbar, and in the afternoon we went to the Botanical Gardens, which are very shady and nice; and we sent the band there, as the Saharunporites do not often hear music. It is a pretty little station.
Kerni, March 15.
G. has been out tiger-hunting from the two last stations. They never had a glimpse of a tiger, though here and there they saw the footprints of one. One of the days the thermometer was at 90° in our tents, but G. stayed out the whole day, and said he did not feel the heat.
Mussoorie, Sunday, March 18.
On Thursday evening we went on to Deyrah, too late to see anything, but Friday morning the beauty of the Himalayas burst upon us. We were encamped just under the mountains – too much under them to see the snowy range, but still nothing could be more beautiful than the first view of the range, and no wonder one hates plains. Colonel Y. had us out early in the morning to see his little Ghoorka regiment manœuvre. Most of the men are about five feet six, with little hands and feet in proportion. All the mountaineers are very small creatures, but they make excellent little soldiers; and the Ghoorkas beat our troops at this spot twenty-five years ago, and killed almost all the officers sent against them. Now they are our subjects they fight equally well for us, and were heard to say at Bhurtpore that they really thought some of our soldiers were nearly equal to themselves. They look like little black dolls. They are quite unlike natives. There is a regular fool attached to the regiment, who had stuck a quantity of wild flowers in his helmet, and came up and saluted G. with a large drawn sword in a most ridiculous manner. After that we went to see a Sikh temple, where there was a great festival, and about a hundred fakeers, the most horrid-looking monsters it is possible to see. They never wear any clothes, but powder themselves all over with white or yellow powder, and put red streaks over their faces. They look like the raw material of so many Grimaldis. At eleven, the two ladies and five gentlemen of the station came to visit us; and at four, G. and I set off, under Colonel Y.’s auspices, to see a cavern that has just been discovered about four miles from this, and which was found out in a very odd way. One of the soldiers had murdered his havildar out of jealousy, and escaped, and was taken, after a fortnight’s search, in this cave, nearly starved to death. It is just the place where Balfour of Burley would have hid himself. I have not enjoyed a drive so much for ages, and it was through such a beautiful country – such hills and valleys! I wish we might settle at Deyrah for the rest of the term of our transportation. One of the worst parts of this journey is that we never can go even two yards from the camp without an officer with G. on account of the petitioners. When we got near the cave we found Colonel Y., Dr. G., and Captain M. at the entrance of a dark grotto, through which a stream was running. ‘Nothing to walk through,’ Colonel Y. said, ‘not more than two feet deep, or two feet and a half at most,’ and so in they all went; but my bearers luckily declared they could carry the tonjaun through, and they contrived it, though sometimes one tumbled down, and then another, and I had once to sit at the bottom of it to prevent my head being knocked off by the rocks. It was a beautiful cavern about 500 yards long, and at the other end there was a tent, where G. and Colonel Y. had wisely established dry clothes, but the others who had not taken this precaution were glad to gallop home as fast as they could.
Yesterday we started at half-past five in the carriage, came five miles to the foot of the hills; then the gentlemen got on the ponies, and F. and I into our jonpauns, which might just as well be called tonjauns – they are the same sort of conveyances, only they swing about more, and look like coffins. The mountaineers run up the hills with them in a wonderful manner. We were two hours going up precipices which, as Vivian Grey says, ‘were completely perpendicular, but with perhaps a slight incline inwards at the bottom,’ and then we reached Colonel G.’s bungalow at Mussoorie. Such a view on all sides of it! Nothing could be grander – good fires burning – and a nice sharp wind blowing. Pleasant!
We found our Bengalee servants, who had come on the day before, very miserable. They had slept in the open air and were starved with the cold, and were so afraid of the precipices that they could not even go to the bazaar to buy food. I dare say to people who have never even seen the smallest rise in the ground, not even a molehill, these mountains must be very terrific.
While she was dressing me, Rosina was mimicking F.’s jemadar, who is in a particular state of fear. ‘There was poor Ariff, he buy great stick, and he put stick out so, and then he put his foot by it, and then he say, “Oh! what me do next, me tumble if me move me stick or me foot."’ I thought we should have been alarmed by what Miss T. said of her fears, but we went out on our ponies in the evening and cantered along the paths quite easily, though it is ugly looking down. One stumble, and horse and all must roll down out of sight. But, to be sure, how beautiful the hills are! I am certain I shall grow strong again in a week at Simla, and as for ever being well in the plains, that is an evident impossibility, so far as I am concerned.
Mussoorie, Monday, March 19.
We went to the little Mussoorie church yesterday morning. The bearers are steady men, I have no doubt, but still I wish they would not race with each other; for at the sharp corners where they try to pass, the outer jonpaun hangs over the edge, and I don’t altogether like it. In the afternoon we took a beautiful ride up to Landour, but the paths are much narrower on that side, and our courage somehow oozed out; and first we came to a place where they said, ‘This was where poor Major Blundell and his pony fell over, and they were both dashed to atoms,’ – and then there was a board stuck in a tree, ‘From this spot a private in the Cameronians fell and was killed.’ Just as if there were any use in adding that he was killed, if he fell – anybody might have guessed that. Then – , who lived up here for three years, said he would take us home by a better path, and unluckily it was a worse one, and we had to get off our ponies and lead them, and altogether I felt giddy and thought much of poor Major Blundell! But it is impossible to imagine more beautiful scenery. This morning we went to breakfast with Colonel M. and saw the whole extent of the snowy range, and very fine it is. It is a clever old range to have kept itself so clean and white for 5,000 years. As we came back we met Mars, who is quite happy here, with Ariff after him. I asked him what he was doing. ‘Je veux absolument faire monter ce pauvre Ariff là haut.’ – ‘Do you like going, Ariff?’ I said. – ‘No, ladyship.’ – ‘Don’t you think the hills very beautiful?’ – ‘No, ladyship, very shocking;’ and he made a face of such utter nausea it was impossible to help laughing. Mars said afterwards that Ariff flung himself on the ground and declared nothing should induce him to take another step. My jemadar in consequence was particularly puffed up about it, though I believe he disliked his walk quite as much. ‘I been to the Hospital, been to Macdonald Sahib, been everywhere where ladyship has been. Poor Ariff, he fear much!’ and he walked out with a smile of self-complacency at his superior courage.
Rajpore, Wednesday, March 21.
We came down from Mussoorie Monday afternoon with great success, but the change in an hour from cold to heat made us all deaf to begin with, and half the servants were sick, and in the middle of the night I took one of my attacks of spasms. I always think Dr. D. in his heart must wish that they would begin twelve hours sooner. He always has to get up at one in the morning, and the spasm lasted till past three – such an inconvenient time when we have to march at half-past five. I really thought this time I should not have been able to go on, but somehow it always can be done when it cannot be helped; and as all the tents were ready at the next station, I went for the first time in a palanquin – it saves the trouble of dressing, and I just moved from the bed into it. G. went out shooting again this morning on positive information of a tigress and three cubs, but as usual they could not be found. However, they have had some very good shooting.
Thursday, March 22.
We had a great deal of rain last night; and so when we came to cross the Jumna this morning it was not fordable, and there never was such a mess – only three boats for all our camp. Two poor men were drowned in the night trying to swim over, and one or two camels were carried away, but found again. Then the road was so bad the carriage was not available, and I came part of the way on the elephant, which, as I was not strong, shook me to atoms. We crossed at last, and then it appeared that everything had been drenched in the night, and there was not a bed nor a sofa to lie down on. Luckily, Rosina lent me her charpoy, a sort of native couch, and Dr. D. got a medicine chest, and gave me some laudanum, and now I am better again; but of all the troubles in life for ‘an ailing body,’ I think a march the most complete. It is a pouring day, but luckily very cool. Chance has been very ill for the last week, and I have made him over to-day to the surgeon of the body-guard, who has bled him, and says he can cure him.
Friday, March 23.
We must luckily halt here three days, for half the people and things are still on the other bank. I am better to-day, and Chance is in a more hopeful state. As you will hear from us several times by the overland packet before this comes to hand, I may as well send this off without coming to the interesting crisis of Chance’s fate; but as the inflammation in his dear little chest is supposed to be subdued, you may feel tolerably easy. I, as usual, wind up with the observation that your last letter was dated August 5 – seven months and three weeks old.