Letters from India Volume I/From the Hon F H Eden
I shall begin a letter to you, dear, though I do not know when it will go; but I may as well give you my first impressions.
I know you will be glad to hear that my Calcutta impressions are more cheerful than I expected. Through all the gorgeousness of it which you write about, I see a great deal of positive comfort scattered about, ready to be piled up into something solid. I write this after having been here only four days, so I may perhaps contradict myself in half I tell you now before I end. I am writing at the quiet hours of the day, from luncheon at two o’clock, till going out to drive at five. The delight of these quiet hours after having had almost the whole of Calcutta to see us this morning, nobody can tell. This is the time that we shall go to sleep,when we get up to ride at five in the morning. I have a week’s respite from that, till the horses are rested from the voyage.
I wrote to you a week ago, before we landed. Just after I wrote, the pilot got us aground, and our arrival was delayed till late at night; so we missed all the formal reception; but at the first moment of seeing this house, I thought I had never fancied anything so magnificent. The moonlight is almost as bright as day.
Sir C. Metcalfe had meant us to dine with eighty people who were still there when we arrived. All the halls were lighted up; the steps of the portico leading to them were covered with all the turbaned attendants in their white muslin dresses, the native guards galloping before us, and this enormous building looking more like a real palace, a palace in the ‘Arabian Nights’, than anything I have been able to dream on the subject. It is something like what I expected, and yet not the least, at present, as far as externals go: it seems to me that we are acting a long opera.
I am now in my boudoir; very much the size of the Picture Gallery at Grosvenor House; three large glass doors on one side look over the city, three more at the end at the great gate and entrance: they are all venetianed up at present. Three sets of folding doors open into the bedroom and two bath-rooms at the other end; and three more on the other side into the dressing-room and passage that lead to this suite of rooms, for everyone here has their suite. Emily and I are in opposite wings, far as the poles asunder, and at night when I set about making my way from her room to mine, I am in imminent peril of stepping upon the bales of living white muslin that are sleeping about the galleries.
Our whole Indian system strikes me now, as a wonderful arrangement for human creatures to have given in to. In a week, I suppose, I shall think it very natural, but the subserviency of the natives to the handful of white men, who have got into this country, shocks me, at this moment. Young officers driving fast through the streets under the burning sun, with their servants running after them, just for show.
In this climate, it is quite necessary to have every door open, but I am making a clever arrangement of screens to screen everybody out; though it seems to me that people push to an extreme the arrangement to prevent having the slightest trouble, even of thought. I can already feel what the languor is that this climate produces. We have arrived upon the verge of the hot season, and at this hour, with the windows and blinds closed, and the punkahs going, the slightest exertion, even of moving across the room, is a real fatigue. Keeping very quiet, there is, as yet, no suffering from heat, but in a month it will be much greater. Till half past nine or ten in the morning, the air is cool that comes in, but next week, when we begin to ride, we must be out at five in the morning, so as to be in before the sun has any power. We go out to drive, now, at half past five, and then, it is very cool and pleasant.
As to society, I can as yet tell you nothing of it. We have had hundreds of people to see us, and very fatiguing it is; but after first arriving we need only receive visits twice a week, and all visiting is over at two o'clock, which is a blessing. I am so confused by the numbers we have seen, I do not in the least, know one from the others: they all looked very much better dressed than ourselves, and not much yellower than we shall be in a week. We have dined at Sir H. Fane’s, the Commander-in-Chief, and need dine out no more. Next week we are to give a ball and a concert. All the representation part of our lives must be very fatiguing in such a climate; but for five days in the week, I think we shall make it much more of a home life than I had dared to hope when we left England.
Taking a drive is as yet a very surprising operation to us. There are numbers of carriages, with their turbaned postilions and coachmen. Now and then, a very handsome European one; and one looks inside to see perhaps four natives sitting: two yards of muslin would handsomely suffice for the clothing that is on them all. Every figure one passes looks strange and picturesque. There are moments when a feeling of desperation comes over me to think that I must dream this dream, so distinct from ail my past life, for five years, with, I opine, very little of real interest in them; but I mean to make the best of it. At this time, it really does seem like the dreams one used to get up, in nights when one could not sleep; the houses, the people, the very trees, all unlike anything real that one has seen before.
We are to go to Barrackpore in two days, and I suspect we shall like to live there much better than at Calcutta. The green of the grass even here, surprises me; much greener than the grass near London in summer.
It was rather shocking as we came up the Hooghly to see all the dead bodies floating past, with the birds pecking at them. I had rather be burned than pecked at, I cannot but think.
I find I can send this to-morrow by the ‘Robarts;’ so I must finish it off first. Yes! this is certainly the place to live at. George must find out that he can Governor-General here, as well as at Calcutta. The house is the perfection of comfort, and, moreover, only holds us three: the aides-de-camp and the waiters live in little bungalows about the park, which is a thorough English one, with plenty of light and shade. The gardens are very pretty. We have our elephants to ride here. Emily has not begun yet; but with the greatest presence of mind and dignity—frightened out of my life, but feeling that the eyes of the body guard were upon me—I, yesterday evening, scrambled like a cat up the ladder, which is necessary, though the creature kneels down: took a ride with George round the Park, being, I guess, at least twenty feet above the level of the sea, a thing that seldom happens in Bengal.
There are little hills in the Park, but they rose in the days when Lord Hastings said, ‘Make a hill’ and one was made. There is a billiard table, pianofortes, chessboards, everything as if we had always lived here. No servants are kept here, but all the establishment that is left at Calcutta is established here before we arrive. There is even the tailor squatting at the door with his spectacles on, just as I left him squatting there.
I hope we shall be here at least four days of every week. We have only Captain Grey and some of the midshipmen here, and what the mosquitoes have left of us is very comfortable. Sir C. Metcalfe, who has been here for thirty years, says they bite him, now, as much as they did the first day ; and many people seem to be confined for months after they first arrive, from the inflammation of their bites. Emily and I are going to take a quiet airing on an elephant this afternoon.
There are myriads of fireflies and paroquets here—beautiful! Jackals noisy and bad.
Believe me, dear, yours most affectionately,