Letters from India Volume II/From the Hon F H Eden to a Friend 1
Didn't I get your No. 7 last week? Have I not got your No. 8 this week? And don’t I mean to have your No. 9 next? There is some sense when letters come in that way; it looks almost as if the sea were beginning to listen to reason. We have had heaps of letters during the last fortnight—none of a later date than the middle of January—but there is a quantity of wind just now, and evidently blowing straight from England. You all write in the same odd, dreamy way about some white, cold substance which falls from the sky and cuts up your communication with each other—the tops of Twelfth cakes probably, and very tiresome and sticky it must be.
I always write to you when I am here, because, though all the windows and blinds are shut, and the house, in fact, full of people, there is a false air of liberty and solitude about it, which is exhilarating. The only civility we can show our female guests is to beg them to have tiffin sent to their bungalows, because it must be so unpleasant to cross in the sun; and generally they most heartily accept it; so from breakfast to dinner we see nothing of them. Then we do contrive to get out half an hour earlier here than at Calcutta; and there never was anything like the green of the park and the beauty of the river just now. The school is finished—really a beautiful building. And we have a most clever native schoolmaster. In two months he has taught his two first, classes to read English, and answer English questions, quite wonderfully; and, indeed, all the little black boys in the village show their vocation for study by running after the carriage by moonlight and calling out ‘Good morning, sir!’ The menagerie is flourishing too, though the young tiger showed a young fancy for a young child, and is shut, up in consequence; and the little bear gave a little claw at a little officer, and is shut up too; and the large white monkey, which was shut up, got out, walked into the coachman’s bungalow, and bit a little boy’s ear; and the three sloths have been taking a lively turn, which is horrid and supernatural; and his ‘Excellency’ has got an odd twist upon the subject of the rhinoceroses, and connives at their fence not being mended, so that they may roam about the park, whereby a respectable elderly gentleman, given to dining out at the cantonments, has been twice nearly frightened into fits. The story, now twice repeated, of the two beasts roaring as they pursue his buggy is very moving to hear; and his ‘Excellency’ smiles complacently and says, ‘Yes, they are fine beasts and not the least vicious.’
Chance lives and flourishes, and passes much time in the water, and has quite a travelled mind. Gazelle is lying on his shawl, with three small baskets before him, filled respectively with rice, leaves, and grass, and is growing rather tall.