Miss Eden's Letters Part 34

This must go. It has been sent for twice, and if you knew the impossibility of doing anything in a hurry you would appreciate particularly this semblance of a letter.

We are going what is called "in state" to the play to-night "by particular desire"--not of ours, but of the Amateurs who have got up a play for us before our departure. The thermometer is at 90, the new theatre is without punkahs, the small evening breeze that sometimes blows ceases entirely in September and October, and we are in black for our King. Rather a melancholy combination of circ.u.mstances. _Priez pour nous!_ G.o.d bless you, dearest. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

ALLAHABAD, _December 1, 1837_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I have never had but two letters from you since I came to India. No wonder! I daresay the letters contrive to turn off the instant they are out of your hands, and go to some better and nearer climate. The odd thing is that my letters, which ought to know better, do not seem to rush home with that impetus which would be natural under the circ.u.mstances. At least, my sisters, whom I write to morning noon and night, write nothing but complaints of the want of letters. If I felt the least guilty I should feel provoked, but as it is I receive all their murmurs with the gentle resignation of injured innocence.

I am at Allahabad, Theresa--"More fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place": as dear Shakespeare, who knew all about Allahabad, as well as everything else, observed with his accustomed readiness. I do not know more about it, seeing we only arrived this morning. Our tents are pitched on the Glacis of the Fort, an encampment sacred to the Governor-General, and this Glacis, as you in your little pleasing way would observe, is not Glace, seeing that I have just desired an amiable individual clothed in much scarlet and gold to pull the Punkah, which, by the _prevoyance_ of the Deputy Quarter Master General, has been wisely hung in my tent. You see, what is called the cold weather is really cold and remarkably pleasant in the mornings, and our march, which we generally commence in the dusk at half-past five, and conclude before eight, is very bracing and delightful. But then that horrid old wretch the sun comes ranting up; the tents get baked through; and all through the camp there is a general moulting of fur shoes and merino and shawls, then an outcry for muslin, and then for a Punkah to give us breath. We cannot go out till it is nearly dark; and then about dinner-time, when we cross over from our private tents to the great dining-room, we want cloaks and boas and all sorts of comforts again.

Those cold hours of the day are very English and pleasant.

I hate my tent and so does George. We incline to a house with pa.s.sages, doors, windows, walls that may be leaned against, and much furniture.

f.a.n.n.y luckily takes to a tent kindly, but the majority of our camp, consisting of various exemplary mothers and children, are of the house faction.

Our chaplain and his Scotch wife, who speaks the broadest Scotch I have ever heard, have been _eating_ with us all to-day, for, as Mrs.

Wimberley observed, "It's just reemarkable: the cawmels kicked all our crockery off their bocks yeesterday, and to-day our cooking-tent is left on the other side of the Jumna, so we've just nothing to eat."

We crossed the river at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna this morning.

Last night we went down on our elephants to see the advanced guard of the camp pa.s.s over. It was a red Eastern sky, the beach of the river was deep sand, and the river was covered with low flat boats. Along the bank were tents, camel-trunks, fires by which the natives were cooking, and in the boats and waiting for them were 850 Camels, 140 Elephants, several hundred horses, the Body Guard, the regiment that escorts us, and the camp-followers. They are about 12,000 in all.

I wish it was possible to make more sketches, but the glaring light is very much against it, and the twilight is very short. There are robbers in camp every night. That is part of the fun. We met an officer yesterday riding for his life in the cold hours of the morning with only a white jacket and trousers on. He looked shivery, and it appeared that the Dacoits had entered his tent in the night, taken all they could turn to account, and as European cloaks are of no value to a native, they had cut the b.u.t.tons and lace off his uniform and minced up into small pieces all his linen. There is no end to the stories of the cleverness of Dacoits, and that is one of the things I hate in camp. The instant it grows dusk, the servants come in and carry off every little atom of comfort in the way of furniture that one may have sc.r.a.ped together, and put it outside the tent under the charge of a sentry. It is the only chance, but it makes a gloomy-looking abode at night.

We are cut off from a great part of our tour by the dreadful scarcity in the Upper Provinces. There is no fodder whatever to be had, and a great camp like this makes in the best of times a great run on the price of provisions.

We shall lose the sight of Agra, which I regret; otherwise I am not sorry to miss the great stations. We are so plied with b.a.l.l.s and festivities, and have to give so many great dinners, that the dull road is perhaps the most amusing after all.

I wish you would write. I always excuse you because I presume you are hatching both a child and a novel; but if I do not soon hear of one or the other, I cannot tell what excuse to make. I wrote to your brother George. George and I were agreeing the other day that he is the only friend who has utterly and entirely failed us; and yet somehow we cannot believe it of him. But he was the only person we knew well who took no notice of us even when we were coming away.

Now it is lawful to forget us, but it was rather shocking of him, was not it? Pray give my love to your mother and Mr. Lister. Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate

E. E.

_Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister._

SIMLA, _April 28, 1838_.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I had meant to have answered your letter by the last overland post, but I was poorly just as it started, and it is rather a doubt whether it will be a safe conveyance this time. Something wrong about the steamer, or the Arabs, or the dromedaries, or some of those little items that go to make up an overland post. However, I can but try.

Your account of poor Lady Henry interested me very much. Indeed, everybody must be interested in her, but the melancholy fact is that it is totally _impossible_ to help them. We saw a great deal of Lord Henry[452] at Meerut, and took pains to show him great attention as he was in a shy state after the results of that investigation. There was not the slightest shadow of distrust as to his intentions, poor man! but his utter incapacity made it rather surprising that Lord Amherst ever should have given him an office of such trust, and not the least surprising that he should have been robbed and cheated in every way, by the number of crafty natives under him. I was thinking of any pendant to him in London for your information, but I hardly know anybody with such a _silly_ manner--something like Petre, but more vacant and unconnected.

He seemed thoroughly good-hearted, and very anxious about his children, who, he told me, were to go either to Boulogne or Bordeaux, he did not know which, but a great way from London! He was living with Captain Champneys, his successor in the paymastership, and seems quite contented to sit in a large arm-chair and look at Champneys in a fuss, which he has been in ever since he got the appointment. Indeed, he wrote me word yesterday that he found it so difficult to guard against the knavery of the Baboos attached to the office, that he never could enough regret having left his Aide-de-Camp with us.

George told me to say both to you and to Lady Morley that there is nothing he wishes so much as to help Lord Henry, but that in the present state of India there are no situations that are not responsible and hard-working, and even if it were possible (which it is not) to give one of these to a man who is a great debtor to the Government, Lord Henry is really not capable of one.

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 Sabathu 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 advertis.e.m.e.nts. 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 _un_sensible 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 pet.i.tioners, the Hindus and Mussulmans live most peaceably; so that they have separate cooking-places, and that the Hindu's livery Tunic is made to b.u.t.ton 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 Glenelg[454] (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's[455] 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 Lah.o.r.e, 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 gla.s.ses of wine when one gla.s.s of whiskey would do the same quant.i.ty 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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 Punjab." 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 a.s.sortment 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 Shuja all ready to _lacher_ at Dost Muhammed if he does not behave himself, and Runjeet is ready to join us in any enterprise of that sort.