Letters from India Volume I/To Blank 8
Government House, Tuesday, March 28, 1837.
We heard in the morning from Fanny that they were to leave Moorshedabad to-day by water, and have been making arrangements that the steamer which takes our servants to Barrackpore on Thursday should go on to meet them. I really think they will be baked to a native colour if they remain long on the river this weather.
George and I took a very hot ride, and he came home for his great dinner to the Bishop. Out of eighty-five asked eighty-three came, which is the largest number we have dined. St. Cloud’s bill of fare was four sides of foolscap paper, and it turned out such a good dinner. George wanted me to send the bill of fare home to you, but I had unluckily torn it up. He is a great treasure of a cook, though eccentric (not to say mad) as a man. His only communication with the world is his interview with me on the subject of dinner, and he comes over, dressed in the very pink of the mode, and with a new pair of primrose kid gloves on. With a primrose mask over his black face he would look as well as any of us.
Thursday, March 30.
George and I went on the river yesterday evening, and it was very pleasant. I finished off my model of Fairy and her puppies and had it put in ’s room. We had rather a large assemblage of visitors in the morning, and went up to Barrackpore in the evening. It was cruelly hot, as we had to set off an hour earlier than usual. We gave our usual Barrackpore military dinner to-day instead of Saturday, that it might be out of Fanny’s way; so we went up earlier, and even George owned that it was much like sitting too near the kitchen fire the first half of the way.
Saturday, April 1.
Fanny and arrived yesterday at twelve o’clock—twenty-four hours sooner than we expected them—but the steamer had met them farther on than we expected. Fanny is looking uncommonly well, in prodigious spirits, and quite brushed up by her expedition, and has not suffered half so much as I should have expected from the heat of the last week. looks thin. Fanny has done a great many sketches, and they have picked up a great many new stories to talk about, and altogether it has been a happy device. brought me as lovely a money-box from Moorshedabad as I ever saw.
Wednesday, April 5.
We came down to Calcutta Sunday night.
Yesterday evening we had a very full ball—one of the best we have had—but there is no other house open in the hot season, so they are glad to meet here.
Wednesday, April 12.
I went out in the carriage with George on Monday evening, but even the evenings now are too hot to be the least refreshing, and it is better to sit on the balcony in a draught after the sun goes down than to attempt a drive, only it seems so stupid not to go out for two or three months. I think it so clever of the natives that when I went out on Monday, I found the chair in which we are carried upstairs in the hot season ready at my bedroom door to carry me downstairs to the carriage—a remarkably unpleasant operation, but I did not like to refuse it as it was their own thought.
It is the Mohurram festival, and we are going up to Barrackpore with hardly any servants, as they all ask for holidays this week. My jemadar brought his boy to show off in his festival dress—a black and white turban, with an aigrette of spiky black feathers tipped with silver, silver necklaces, a black and white kummerbund tied round his waist, and a row of silver bells over that, and his face whitened with flour, to look like a faquecr. The boy is naturally frightful, and this made him look like a negro Grimaldi, and I could hardly help laughing when the jemadar walked him jingling his bells up and down the room with an air of paternal triumph, and then proposed I should draw his picture. ‘His mother made a vow before she born him that he should have this beautiful dress when he was twelve years old, and she very pleased he so fine boy.’ Poor woman! it is lucky she is kept so strictly shut up, for if she saw many other boys she would not be so secure of the beauty of this.
Saturday, April 15.
As we came up to Barrackpore on Thursday we met the Nawab of Chitpore with all his followers, dressed in green and carrying beautiful flags, and leading horses gorgeously trapped and all beating their breasts and lamenting for ‘Honpiu.’ I am very low about him myself, but cannot make out his story.
One of our young horses came down like a shot on the road, threw the postilion, who weighs nothing, a mile off, the wheelers went on over him (the horse, not the man), and the wheel went up against him. has not set up any horses since his return, so he was luckily with us and jumped out, and we all followed as fast as we could, and by dint of cutting traces and girths, &c., the horses were disentangled, and the fallen one was not hurt except by the kicks of the others. The heat of an accident in the present state of the atmosphere is the worst part of it. People and things should make a point of going smoothly at this season. I excused myself going in to dinner, and we have no company of course, this week.
The servants, English and native, all hate Barrackpore, and Mars walked in yesterday morning to say that he thought it right to tell me that he could not and would not bear the heat of his room any longer, and that Wright was just the same about hers. I told him I quite agreed with him, and that I also could not and would not bear it, but that I did not exactly see how we were to help ourselves. He said he did not see either and walked off again. However, I went downstairs with Captain and suggested putting thatched mat all along the side of their rooms, which met with their approbation, and they do not mind the darkness. It certainly was a shame to stop Lord Wellesley when he was running up another good Government House at Barrackpore and to stop the finish of this provisional house. As it is, there are no glass windows in the lower storey, and I only wonder the servants can bear the heat so well as they do; and then, as there are no doors whatever to the interior of our part of the house—nothing but open jalousies—the hot wind comes bustling upstairs and through all the jalousies and spoils our comfort. George and I sat in the garden in the evening, and Fanny and went out in the boat, but there was not a breath of air anywhere. Late at night, when the others went to bed, Fanny, , and I tried his sailing boat, and there was just enough air to move it, and the moon is so entirely lovely just now it is worth going on the water to look at it.
Monday, April 17.
Saturday night we drove out late to see the cantonments lit up for the Mohurram, but did not see much. Sunday we had a very good sermon from Mr. ; but I do not imagine that the bread which is being baked in the oven can attend entirely to what the baker observes, and I always feel that at church. I am always feeling overdone and burnt, and want to be turned the other side.
There is an active Mrs. , the new colonel’s wife, who is getting up subscriptions to glaze the Barrackpore church, and then we shall do better.
George and I came down to Calcutta at night very comfortably in the carriage. All the others settled it would be quite delicious to come up by moonlight in the boats, so they set off before us at eight o’clock. The steamer, which is a new one, refused to paddle before they were out of sight of the house, the tide was against them, and the result was that they did not arrive at Calcutta till three in the morning. However, they said it was very pleasant, except , who likes twenty hours’ sleep out of the twenty-four, and came to breakfast with a touching air of suffering heroism, as if he had watched several cold frosty nights. says all this proves that he is right in his hatred of Barrackpore, that nature opposes itself to his going. He tried the carriage, and the horse fell down; he tried the water, and the steamer failed; and now he has only two resources, either to go on an elephant and pay the fine which is levied on all private individuals riding an elephant through the streets, or else to look about Calcutta for a gigantic ayah, who will carry him backwards and forwards on her hip in the manner in which ayahs carry children.
Wednesday, April 19.
I have such an interesting picture to copy just now—a picture by Zoffany of Madame Talleyrand when she was in this country as Mrs. Grand. It is so pretty. Captain borrowed it of the owner to have a copy of it made for himself, and, as there are hardly any artists, and none good at Calcutta, and he would have had to give 100 rupees for a bad sketch from it, I am copying it for him.
Our boatmen sent word to-day that they had not thrown their Mohurram image into the river on Sunday, which is the proper Mohurram etiquette, in hopes we would go and see them; so we drove that way to-day, and we were quite glad we went; they managed the sight so courteously and well. They were not sure we meant to go, so they posted relays of boatmen on the road to Government House to watch the carriage, and then, when they found we were coming, they sent out torch-bearers to run before the carriage in broad daylight. All the Government House servants live in streets according to their classes, and we found about 200 boatmen, all in their cleanest liveries, drawn up before their row of thatched huts, and in the middle of the street a temple, or taj as they call it, made of silver and red foil, with talc ornaments and flags waving round it, and in front they had put four arm-chairs with foot-stools covered with flags, that we might sit at our ease in an European fashion and admire it. However, we did not do that for fear the Bishop should hear of it and think we were Mahommetans, but we admired it prodigiously as they walked round it. with torches to show off the foil; and then they took us back to the carriage; and it cost us a 1l. apiece, as everything does that we do, or don’t do.
Saturday, April 22.
There is a ship going to-morrow, so I will put this up, and I have nothing particular to say of the last few days, as we have been very quiet. We had some people to dinner yesterday, but it was a smaller and pleasanter dinner than usual. This morning our dear Major arrived. We were all so glad to see him again; he is looking much better for his journey. He is a dear old treasure, and now he has done one march he must begin preparing another. In about six months we shall be setting off, I hope, for a cooler climate, and it takes nearly six months to organise that sort of march. He has brought us some shawls, he says, and four curious pigeons for my pigeon-house. Captain left us on Tuesday, but we could send nothing by him, as he has to go to various places in the bay and will be at least seven months on his voyage. I think he will give a good account of us in England. I always fancy that these sort of people may come in your way, though I know it is next to impossible, but still I think they may. I wish when you are asked to recommend anybody to us you would contrive to see the individual before he comes away. I am hopeless of seeing you again, and it would be a great refreshment to see anybody who had seen you since I have.
I enclose two petitions that will amuse the children, at least the old people who were children when I left England. Good-bye again. I don’t believe you get half my letters.
Yours most affectionately,
E. E.
END OF THE FIRST VOLUME
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