Letters from India Volume II/From the Hon E Eden to the Countess of Buckinghamshire 1
My dearest Sister,—It is an immense time, I suspect, since I have written to you, but Fanny was sending you off, first, her journal and then a letter; and we generally divide our correspondents on the liberal principle, that, as we have only nothing apiece to give away in matter of news, it would be better to give it in large handfuls than in small quantities.
We are doing our hot month of May with considerable suffering, but certainly with less than last year. We manage the shutting up of the house better and keep ourselves quieter, and we allege all these kind of reasons, but the real truth is, I suppose, that we are becoming acclimatised more or less—rather less than more, but still we are becoming blind to our wretched position.
I never eat any fruit but mangoes, though I see all the others working away at the peaches (which used to make us die of laughing last year) and declaring that it is wonderful how the Indian peaches are come on. It is only the English peaches that have gone back; these are about the size of the first small ones that the frost nips off, rather more shrivelled and with not so much taste. We have also discovered that the white, tasteless asparagus is ‘really not amiss,’ much more like English asparagus than it was last year.
We have been revelling in that heap of books that has at last wrung from the hard hands of Rodwell. They are an excellent collection, and we are pretending to say that we will keep some of the best unread, for our camp life; but, in fact, I am going rapidly through them all, and with such a well-grounded confidence in the deteriorated state of my memory that I am sure they will be all new books again in five months. I thought I would keep back Mrs. Hemans, but it is such a pretty-looking book that I am going to succumb to it to-day.
I heard a shocking story at dinner yesterday. The Archdeacon was sent for two days ago, to see a boy, the son of a friend, who was dying; and yesterday they sent to tell him that the boy had died at three in the morning, and asked him to perform the funeral, which is always here within twenty-four hours of the death. He went yesterday evening for that purpose. The boy was in his coffin, but, just as they were setting off, it was discovered that he was still alive. I have not heard how he is to-day, but I suspect those mistakes must sometimes occur in this country, from the hurry in which funerals are necessarily performed. I do not mean to allow myself to faint away on any account, for fear of accidents.
How is your garden? You have not mentioned any particular change in your East Combe grounds, and you rather neglect Dandy in your letters. Chance is particularly well, and has found a new pursuit in some yellow flying frogs in a tank at Barrackpore, quite as good flying fish as any I saw at sea, though they say they skim along the water only by the assistance of their very long legs. However, the ‘Prince Royal’ puts them up on the bank, and points as if they were partridges, and then goes in after them; and a flying-frog pursuit is evidently extremely fascinating, as his man had to go into the water to fetch him out of it, all entreaties having failed.
I always meant to tell you of an ixora at Barrackpore, which grows so like a twisted thorn, and the stem is eight feet in circumference. It is covered with those beautiful scarlet flowers. Don’t you remember when you and I went over to Bromley Hill House we raved about the ixoras? We have such accounts of trees and shrubs in the Himalayas; I think you had better come and join us there. It is no trouble, and a lovely climate—fires and blankets quite pleasant, they say. We can build you a house if you let us know a month or two in advance, and then we can have such a good talk. What fun it would be!
Your picture is still very like you, dearest sister, and looks like a good old dear. I cannot tell what to do with my pictures when we march; Major must invent something. God bless you!