Letters from India Volume II/From the Hon F H Eden to Blank 3
I am writing to you entirely for my own amusement, not the least for yours. I’ve not the least notion when this will go; I have a great idea that there is something wrong in what we are pleased to call the dâk department. Probably all the letter-carriers have turned out to be Thugs. A sudden fit of bore came over me just now, when I considered how long my mind had been running on nothing but Indian trash, and so I am going to speak to you as a refreshment. It is a rainy day—not a common English sort of rainy day, but a rainy day in the rainy season. Something sublime and water-spouty about it; such eccentric white clouds about; one very thick one just walking bodily through the verandah into my room. In the valley the sun is shining through the rain, and in the extreme distance it is so clear I can see the Sutlej.
I have nothing of yours to answer since I wrote three weeks ago; but next week we expect the June letters, and I hope by that time you will have ironed England out straight again, for it was in rather a crumpled condition when the May letters arrived. I expect to hear that the Whigs are still in and Parliament dissolved. I told you that a native chief had brought your pearls, and that if I had been born an oyster, and half the pearls had been my hereditary property, I should not dare buy them back from a native chief if he were to offer to put them in my shell. That is to show the admirable uprightness of our ways. Since I got your letter I have seen other eligible strings of pearls, but none so eligible. I don’t mean to hurry myself, because there are no means of sending anything to Calcutta just now. And then in two months I think I shall get an answer from you about the Bombay pearls, and next month I ought to hear what you think of the turquoise set.
And the June letters are actually come. There never was such a real writing treasure as you are, dearest. We have letters to June 15—just seven weeks coming here—though it is the rainy season, and the plains are flooded, and all the other little Indian impediments in the way that we are so ingenious in raising. They got to Bombay in a month. It must make you quite uneasy to know what near neighbours we are—so unpleasant to be overlooked.
I don’t think anybody seems politically happy in England. Indeed, I don’t very well see how anybody can be, because, as neither Whigs nor Tories can govern, it would show want of feeling in either to laugh. If you think that Dost Mahomed would be of any use at home as Prime Minister, in about a week we expect to have him and to be puzzled what to do with him, and we’ll send him to you. You don’t tell me half enough about your two out girls. They are doing just the bit of life which interests me beyond everything, the only violently happy bit in fact.
And now we’ve been fighting—taking a fort—just the thing you would have done with your yeomanry, only they never offered you a fort to take. The fort of Ghuznee is only five marches from Candahar, and is considered one. of the strongest forts in India. It was defended by Dost Mahomed’s son and was taken after three hours’ hand to hand fighting. Dost Mahomed’s son was taken prisoner. The gates were blown up with gunpowder, and they found twelve months’ provision there, because the natives supposed it to be quite impregnable ; and in the bazaar here at this moment they refuse to believe it is taken; they say it is our policy to say so. We had only eighteen men killed and 200 wounded. The attack was made in the night; but the besieged fought well, and seven or eight hundred were killed. Ghuznee is only seventy miles from Cabul, and there seems no doubt that Dost Mahomed has fled from there; so that war is warred and done, and we expect you to send us word that you are exceedingly satisfied with our manner of doing things.
I am going to put this up. Those creatures at Bombay are sending off the steamer four days earlier than they notified; the consequence is that I am in a perfect frenzy of writing, because there are two months’ letters to answer and there is a fancy fair coming on. Though I am not doing any work myself—for I have taken to the carpentering and joining line and am having children’s toys made—it is just as troublesome drawing out plans as if I hammered and turned myself.