Miss Eden's Letters Part 31

[The end of September 1835 Lord Auckland, his two sisters, his nephew William G.o.dolphin Osborne, their six servants, and Chance the dog, started on a five-months' voyage in a sailing-ship to India. Miss Eden described in her book, _Letters from India_, their many adventures on board ship, and her impressions of life in Calcutta. Her water-colour sketches of Funchal, Rio in Brazil, Cape Town, and her "Portraits of Princes and Natives," make excellent ill.u.s.trations to all the long letters written during her six years'

absence from England.

In 1916 an Exhibition of Miss Eden's paintings, chosen and arranged by Mr. F. Harrington, was held at Belvidere, Calcutta, the first sketch mentioned in the catalogue being that of Chance.

"I had such a pretty present this morning, at least rather pretty.

It is a baby-elephant, nine months old, caught at Saharanpur by the jemadar of the mahouts, and he has been educating it for me, and offered it by way of Captain D., his master. William 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."]

_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._

N. LAT. 17, LONG. 21, _February 18, 1836_.

MY DEAREST PAM, I got William to write to you from the Cape, as we were in a flurry of writing, visiting, and surveying Africa, and he had more time, having been there before. We have had a very smooth sea, and I can read and draw and write, and as we all are perfectly well, there is not much to complain of, except of the actual disease--a long voyage, which is a very bad illness in itself, but we have had it in the mildest form and with every possible mitigation. At the same time I cannot spare you the detail of all our hardships, and I know you will shudder to hear that last Sat.u.r.day, the fifth day of a dead calm, not a cloud visible, and the Master threatening three weeks more of the same weather, the thermometer at 86 in the cabin,--tempers on the go and meals more than ever the important points of life,--at this awful crisis the Steward announced that the coffee and orange-marmalade were both come to an end.

No wonder the ship is so light, we have actually ate it a foot out of the water since we left the Cape. "Nasty Beasts," as Liston says. Your lively imagination will immediately guess how bad the b.u.t.ter is, and I mention the gratifying fact that two small pots of Guava Jelly and the N.E. Monsoon sprung up on Monday, and we hope their united forces may carry us to the Sandheads.

I never could like a sea life, nor do I believe that anybody does, but with all our grumbling about ours, we could not have been 19 weeks at sea, with so few inconveniences. Captain Grey is an excellent seaman, and does more of the work of his ship than is usual. The officers and midshipmen have acted several times for our diversion, and remarkably well.

The serious drama, _Ella Rosenberg_, was enough to kill one. Ella's petticoats were so short, and her cap with her plaits of oak.u.m always would fall off when she fainted away, and a tall Quartermaster, who acted the confidant, would call her h.e.l.la, and never caught her in time!

Some of the sailors were heard talking over the officers' acting, and saying, "They do low comedy pretty well, but they do not understand how to act the gentleman at all."

How little we thought in old Grosvenor Street days, when we sat at the little window listening to the organ-man playing "Portrait charmant"

while the carriage was adjusting itself at the door, that we should be parted in such an out-_sea_-ish sort of way. That in the middle of February, when we ought to be shivering in a thick yellow fog, George and I should be established on a pile of cushions in the stern window of his cabin, he without his coat, waistcoat, and shoes, learning Hindoostanee by the sweat of his brow. I, with only one petticoat and a thin dressing-gown on, a large fan in one hand and a pen in the other, and neither of us able to attend to our occupations because my little black spaniel will yap at us, to make us look at the shark which is playing "Portrait charmant" to two little pilot-fish close under the window.

I should like to go back to those Grosvenor St. days again. I have had so much time for thinking over old times lately, that I never knew my own life thoroughly before. I can quite fancy sometimes that if we could think in our graves (and who knows), my thoughts would be just what they are now--the same vivid recollections of former friends and scenes, and the same yearning to be with them again. There is hardly anything you and I have talked over, that has not come to life in my mind again, and I could wring my hands, and tear my hair out, to go back and do it all over again.

The cottage at Boyle Farm, W. de Roos's troubles, Henry Montagu, the Sarpent,[430] even that old Danford[431] with the wen, Mrs. Shepherd and the Hossy Jossies. Dear me! Did I ever have jollier days with anybody or love anybody better?

Do write and tell me all about yourself now, and your children--I don't half know them. There is a ta.s.sel of small ones, like the ta.s.sel at the end of a kite's tail, that I know nothing about--not even their names.

Tell me all their histories. There is an Emily,[432] I know. What shall I send her from Calcutta if we ever arrive there? It is now five months since we have been travelling away from letters, and I feel such hot tears come into my eyes when I think of....

_Monday, February 29, 1836._--I thought we should have been coming home with our fortunes made by this time, but we are still within a hundred miles of the Sandheads. At this precise moment we are at anchor in _green_ water, so different to the deep blue sea, near some shoals, which is advantageous, because we can pick up our petticoats and pick our way to land.

_Thursday. In the Hooghly._--At last, by dint of very great patience and very little wind, we have arrived, got the pilot on board early yesterday morning, saw Saugur, which looks as if it had been gnawed to the bone by the tigers that live on it. We are surrounded by boats manned by black people, who, by some strange inadvertance, have utterly forgotten to put on any cloaks whatever. We have a steamer towing us, a civil welcome from Sir C. Metcalfe;[433] a Prince of Oudh, who has been deposed by an undutiful nephew, and deprived of several lacs of rupees, asking for his Excellency, well knowing that the first word even in Hindoostanee is valuable, which is so much his Excellency's opinion, that he wisely refuses to hear it, and, above all, we have received a profusion of letters from home, ten fat ones for my own share. Nothing unpleasant in them, which, considering some are dated five weeks after we left England, is something to be thankful for.

Cecilia de Roos's[434] marriage; and poor old Lady Salisbury,[435] it somehow seems as if nothing but fire could destroy her. I am going down to look over the box that contains the dresses in which we are to appear at our first Drawing-room to-morrow, and my blonde gown may, and in all probability will, come out quite yellow and fresh-patterned by the c.o.c.kroaches. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

BARRACKPORE, _March 24, 1836_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, In the utter bewilderment in which I live, from having more to do in the oven than I could get through comfortably in a nice bracing frost, I quite forget whether I wrote to you on my first arrival. I sent off so many letters, necessarily precisely like one another, that I have forgotten all about them, except that they announced our arrival after a five months' voyage, and that we were in all the nervousness of a first arrival in a hot land of strangers.

We have been here three weeks to-day, and are so accustomed to our way of life that I cannot help thinking we have been here much longer, and that it is nearly time to go home again. It is an odd dreamy existence in many respects, but horribly fatiguing realities breaking into it. It is more like a constant theatrical representation going on; everything is so picturesque and so utterly un-English. Wherever there is any state at all it is on the grandest scale. Every servant at Government House is a picture by himself, in his loose muslin robes, with scarlet and gold ropes round his waist, and his scarlet and gold turban over ma.s.ses of black hair; and on the esplanade I hardly ever pa.s.s a native that I do not long to stop and sketch--some in satin and gold, and then perhaps the next thing you meet is a nice English Britschka with good horses driven by a turbaned coachman, and a tribe of running footmen by its side, and in it is one of the native Princes, dressed just as he was when he first came into the world, sitting cross-legged on the front seat very composedly smoking his hookah.

Then, after pa.s.sing a house that is much more like a palace than anything we see in England, we come to a row of mud-thatched huts with wild, black-looking savages squatting in front of them, little black native children running up and down the cocoa-trees above the huts, and no one appearance of civilization that would lead one to guess any European had ever set foot on the land before. The next minute we may come to a palace again, or to a regiment of Sepoys in the highest state of discipline, or to a body burning on the river-sh.o.r.e, or another body floating down the river with vultures working away at it. Then, if George is with us, we may meet a crowd of white-muslined men who begin by knocking their heads against the ground, and then give their long pet.i.tions (asking for some impossibility) in the Hindustani language, or else an English pet.i.tion, which is apparently a set of words copied from some dictionary. No sense whatever--otherwise an excellent pet.i.tion.

I have described our Calcutta house and household so often that I cannot do it again. It is all very magnificent, but I cannot endure our life there. We go there on Monday morning before breakfast. We have great dinners of 50 people, "fathers and mothers unknown," to say nothing of themselves. Every Monday and Wednesday evening f.a.n.n.y and I are at home to anybody who is on what is called the Government House List. What that is I cannot say; the Aides-de-Camp settle it between them, and if they are the clever young men I hope they are, they naturally place on it the ladies most agreeable to themselves.

On Thursday morning we also receive any people who chance to notify themselves the day before. The visiting-time is from ten to one in the mornings, and we found it so fatiguing to have 100 or 120 people at that time of day that we have now chosen Tuesday evenings and Thursday mornings, and do not mean to be at home the rest of the week. There are schools to visit, and ceremonies half the week. Yesterday we had an examination at Government House of the Hindu College, and the great banqueting-hall was completely filled with natives of the higher cla.s.s.

Some of the boys in their gorgeous dresses looked very well, reciting and acting scenes from Shakespeare. It is one of the prettiest sights I have seen in Calcutta. On Thursday afternoon we always come here, and a prodigious pleasure it is. It feels something like home. It is sixteen miles from Calcutta, on the river-side. A beautiful fresh green park, a lovely flower-garden, a menagerie that has been neglected; but there is a foundation of a tiger and a leopard and two rhinoceros', and we can without trouble throw in a few light monkeys and birds to these heavy articles. It is much cooler here, and we can step out in the evening and walk a few hundred yards undisturbed.

Then, though we ask a few of the magnates of the land, and a wife or a daughter or so each time, they are lodged in separate bungalows in the park, and never appear but at luncheon and dinner, and are no trouble.

We are so many in the family naturally, that seven or eight more or less make no difference at those times, and I take a drive or a ride on the elephant alone with George very regularly.

I never see him at Calcutta except in a crowd. In short, Barrackpore is, I see, to save me from India. I believe the Aides-de-Camp and secretaries all detest it, but there is no necessity to know that.

George has made William Osborne Military Secretary, which gives him a very good income, and plenty to do. He has talent enough for anything, luckily likes occupation, and is very happy. Captain Grey is living with us, but the _Jupiter_ sails the end of next week. I am afraid he will have a tiresome journey home; he takes back many more soldiers than the ship can conveniently hold, and not only that, but such quant.i.ties of wives and children.

I hope you have written to me; you would if you knew the ravenous craving for letters that possesses the wretches who are sent here. They are the only things to care for; you cannot mention a name that will not interest me, whereas I can never find one that you have ever heard before. f.a.n.n.y desires me to say she wears your brooch constantly. I need not mention that of my dear bracelet. I hope in a few weeks we shall find something to send home, but hitherto we have found nothing but very dear French goods. Please write.

Give my love to your brother George when you see him or write to him.

Now that I am dead and buried I sit in my hot grave and think over all the people I liked in the other world, and I find n.o.body that I knew had more community of interests and amus.e.m.e.nts with their kind. I often long for a laugh and talk with him, but it would be too pleasant for the climate.

Tell me an immense deal about yourself, and do write, there's a duck.

Your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Lady Campbell._

GOVERNMENT HOUSE, CALCUTTA, _August 16, 1836_.

MY DEAREST PAM, Your long, dear letter has actually found its way here--came in last week quite by itself, having travelled 15,000 miles with n.o.body to take care of it, and it arrived feeling quite well and not a bit altered since it left you. I cannot sufficiently explain the value of a letter here; rupees in any number could not express the sum which a letter is worth, and I do not know how to make you understand it. But, you see, the scene in India is so well got up to show off a letter.

I was suddenly picked up out of a large collection of brothers, sisters, and intimate friends, with heaps of daily interests and habits of long standing, devoted to the last night's debate and this morning's paper, detesting the heat of even an English summer, worshipping autumn, and rather rejoicing in a sharp East wind, with a pa.s.sion for sketching in the country, and enjoying an easy life in town--with all this we are sent off out of the reach of even _letters_ from home, to an entirely new society of a most second-rate description,--to a life of forms and Aides-de-Camp half the day, and darkness and solitude the other half--and to a climate!!

Topics of interest we have none indigenous to the soil. There is a great deal of gossip, I believe, but in the first place, I do not know the people sufficiently by name or by sight to attach the right history to the right face, even if I wanted to hear it, and we could not get into any intimacies even if we wished it, for in our _despotic_ Government, where the whole patronage of this immense country is in the hands of the Governor-General, the intimacy of any one person here would put the rest of the society into a fume, and it is too hot for any super-induced fuming....

The real _calamity_ of the life is the separation from home and friends.

It feels like death, and all the poor mothers here who have to part from their children from five years old to seventeen are more to be pitied than it is possible to say. And the _annoyance_ of the life is the climate. It is so very HOT, I do not know how to spell it large enough.

Now I have stated our grievances, I must put all the per _contras_ lest you should think me discontented. First, George is as happy as a King; then our healths, as I said before, are very good, though we look like people playing at Snap-dragon--everybody does. And though it is not a life that admits of one doing much active good, some is always possible in this position, and then it is a life of great solitude, which is wholesome.

Then, as a set-off to discomforts peculiar to the climate, we have every luxury that the wit of man can devise, and are gradually acquiring the Indian habit of denying ourselves nothing, which will be awkward. I get up at eight, and with the a.s.sistance of Wright and my two black maids--picturesque creatures as far as white muslin and scriptural-looking dresses can make ugly women--contrive to have a bath and to be dressed, and to order dinner by nine, when we meet in the great hall for breakfast.

When I describe my life, you must take for granted the others are all much the same, except that His Excellency's tail is four times longer than ours at least. Well, I have all my rooms shut up and made dark before I leave them, and go out into my pa.s.sage, where I find my two tailors sitting cross-legged, making my gowns; the two Dacca embroiderers whom I have taken into my private pay working at a frame of flowers that look like paintings; Chance, my little dog, under his own servant's arm; a _meter_ with his broom to sweep the rooms, two bearers who pull the punkahs; a sentry to mind that none of these steal anything; and a Jemadar[436] and four Hurkarus,[437] who are my particular attendants and follow me about wherever I go--my tail. These people are all dressed in white muslin, with red and gold turbans and sashes, and are so picturesque that when I can find no other employment for them I make them sit for their pictures.

They all make their salaam and we proceed to breakfast which is in an immense marble hall, and is generally attended by the two Aides-de-Camp in waiting, the doctor, the private Secretary, and anybody who may be transacting business at the time.... At six the whole house is opened, windows, shutters, etc., and carriages, horses, gigs, phaetons, guards, all come to the door, and we ride or drive just as we like, come home in time to dress for an eight o'clock dinner, during which the band plays.

We sit out in the verandah and play at chess or _ecarte_ for an hour, and at ten everybody goes to bed.

The week is diversified by a great dinner of fifty people on Monday; on Tuesday we are _at home_, which was originally meant for a sort of evening visiting, but it is turned into a regular dance, as the hotter it is the more they like dancing. Thursday mornings, f.a.n.n.y and I are also at home from ten to twelve for introductions, people landing or coming from up the country, and for any others of society who wish to see us.

It is very formal and very tiresome. They look very smart, come in immense numbers, sit down for five minutes, and, if there are forty in the room at once, never speak to each other. But it is a cheap way of getting through all the visiting duties of life at one fell swoop. On Thursday evenings we used to go to Barrackpore to stay till the following Monday, but now we only go once a fortnight. We are an immense body to move if it happens to be a pouring day--about four hundred altogether.