Buxar, Saturday, Nov. 11, 1837.
As we were passing a place called Bullhga this morning, we saw an
enormous concourse of natives, and it turned out to be a great fair for
horses. So we stopped the steamer, and persuaded G. to go on shore, just
'to go to the fair,' as we should have done at home, only we sent all
the servants with silver sticks, and took our own tonjauns and two of
the body-guard, and went in the State barge and with all the
aides-de-camp. In short, we did our little best to be imposing,
considering that we have only the steamboat apparatus to work with; but
we had hardly landed when A. came breathless from the other steamer to
say that Mr. B. and Mr. C. were both half mad at the idea of a
Governor-General going on shore in this way, and that C. was actually
dancing about the deck with rage; and A. wanted us to turn back and give
it up. Luckily, G. would not be advised to do this. They said we should
be murdered amongst other things; but in my life I never saw such a
civil, submissive set of people. Our people and the police of the place
walked on first, desiring the crowd to sit down, which they all did
instantly, crouching together and making a lane all through the fair.
They are civil creatures, and I am very fond of the natives. There were
a great many thousands of them, and some beautiful costumes; the bazaars
were full of trinkets, and pretty shawls and coloured cottons. We went
in our tonjauns, and G. walked till he was tired, which is soon done;
and A. left us quite satisfied as to our safety, and almost persuaded it
was a dignified measure. We wanted him to tell C. that he had left G. in
one of the 'merry-go-rounds,' of which there were several, but it was
not a subject that admitted of levity. ---- said the Governor-General
should never appear publicly without a regiment, and that there was no
precedent for his going to Bullhga fair. I told him we had made a
precedent, and that it would be his duty to take the next
Governor-General, be he ever so lame or infirm, to this identical fair.
We went this evening to see the Government stud. It was rather fine to
see five hundred young horses rush at once out of their stalls, and all
kick each other and then run away; but, barring that little incident,
both studs on each side of the river are rather tiresome sights--such
ugly places!
Ghazeepore, Sunday, Nov. 12.
We arrived at three. Mr. T., the brother of our late dear T., is the
Resident here, and lodges us. He had made a ghaut with a flight of steps
to his house for our landing, and the 44th Regiment, with their band,
were drawn up all round his lawn.
There were two women on the landing-place with a petition. They were
Hindu _ladies_, and were carried down in covered palanquins, and very
much enveloped in veils. They flung themselves on the ground, and laid
hold of G., and screamed and sobbed in a horrid way, but without showing
their faces, and absolutely howled at last, before they could be carried
off. They wanted a pardon for the husband of one of them, who, with his
followers, is said to have murdered about half a village full of
Mussulmans, and these women say he did not do it, but that the Nazir of
that village was his enemy, and did the murders, and then laid it on
their party. These little traits are to give you an insight into the
manners and customs of the East, and to open and improve your mind, &c.
After we had made our way through all these impediments, we rested for a
time, and then went to see the cantonments, and to evening service,
which was read by two of the gentlemen remarkably well. Then we came
back to a great dinner, and one of the longest I ever assisted at. I
quite lost my head at last, and when second course was put down, asked
Mr. T. to give me some wine, thinking it was dessert, and that we might
get up and go.
The dinners certainly are endless, and I do not wonder they think us
very rapid at Government House. There is sometimes half an hour between
the courses. A Mr. S., the judge, sat on one side of me, and after some
discourse the man seemed to know his Kent! and I discovered he was one
of the George S.'s of E. Visions of country balls and cricket matches
came back. He knew Eden Farm and Penge Common; in short, I liked him
very much, and I think he too was refreshed with the reminiscences of
his youth.
Monday, Nov. 13.
G. went in the morning to see the stud. At eleven we received all the
station.
In the afternoon we went to see the opium godown, and then F., B., and I
went in the band boat along the shore to sketch some of the old
buildings, which are very picturesque here.
All the party out of both steamers dined at Mr. T.'s, and moreover a
third steamer came up from Calcutta this morning, containing, amongst
other passengers, a Mrs. P. and her pretty little daughter, who are
great favourites with all our gentlemen, and they dined and went with us
to a ball given by the regiment.
There were great doubts whether a ball could be made out, as the want of
ladies in the Mofussil makes dancing rather difficult. However, we took
a large party, and the ladies we had seen in the morning all assembled
and had raised two or three extras. The mess-room was very prettily
illuminated, with G.'s arms painted on the floor, and they gave us a
grand supper, so it all did very well. I wish you could have seen the
dancers. A Mrs. ----, something like Mrs. Glover the actress, only much
fatter, with a gown two inches shorter then her petticoat, _bounding_
through every quadrille, with her three grown-up sons dancing round her.
She is an exemplary mother, and has been a widow many years, and a
grandmother many more; but she never misses a dance!
Tuesday, Nov. 14.
We did not get home last night till half-past one, and were up at seven
to go on board, and we had to go smirking and smiling through all that
regiment again, with all the other gentlemen to go to the boat with us;
but we may have a rest to-day. It certainly is a hard-working life, is
not it? I never get 'my natural rest,' as Dandie Dinmont says, in the
steamer for noise, and on the shore for work.
I wonder how you would be in this state of life. I often try to fancy
you. Sometimes I think you would be amused for about five minutes, but
generally I opine you would go raving mad! I constantly long to be in an
open carriage with four post-horses, along with G., and that we might
drive through a pretty country, and arrive at an inn where nobody could
dine with us or ask us to a ball. However, to-morrow we are to get into
double state, when we reach our tents, as it is of more importance with
the up-country natives; so it is of no use to think of bettering
ourselves.
Camp, Benares, Wednesday, Nov. 15.
We arrived at Benares at ten, _lay to_ all through the heat of the day,
whilst the servants unloaded the flat, and then steamed up within view
of the city, as far as the rajah's country-house, Ramnuggur, and then
dropped down again, thereby seeing the whole of the city. The glare was
horrible, but the buildings were worth all the blindness that ensued.
Such minarets and mosques, rising one above the other to an immense
height; and the stone is such a beautiful colour. The ghauts covered
with natives, and great white colossal figures of Vishnu lying on the
steps of each ghaut. Benares is one of their most sacred places, and
they seem to spare no expense in their temples. We mean to keep our
steamer here, and to go out sketching in it. But it would take a whole
week to draw one temple perfectly; the ghaut where we landed was as
pretty a sight as any. All our elephants, two or three hundred baggage
camels (they are much larger beasts to _live with_ than I thought),
bullock carts without end, and everybody loading every conveyance with
everything. There are twenty _shooter suwars_ (I have not an idea how I
ought to spell those words), but they are native soldiers mounted on
swift camels, very much _trapped_, and two of them always ride before
our carriage. This looks more like the 'land of the east,' in all its
ways, than anything we have seen.
We landed at five, and drove four miles through immense crowds and much
dust to our camp. The first evening of tents, I must say, was more
uncomfortable than I had ever fancied. Everybody kept saying, 'What a
magnificent camp!' and I thought I never had seen such squalid,
melancholy discomfort. G., F., and I have three private tents, and a
fourth, to make up the square, for our sitting-room, and great covered
passages, leading from one tent to the other.
Each tent is divided into bed-room, dressing-room, and sitting-room.
They have covered us up in every direction, just as if we were native
women; and, besides that, there is a wall of red cloth, eight feet high,
drawn all round our enclosure, so that, even on going out of the tent,
we see nothing but a crimson wall.
Inside each tent were our beds--one leaf of a dining-table and three
cane chairs. Our pittarrahs and the camel-trunks were brought in; and in
about half an hour the nazir came to say they must all, with our books,
dressing-cases, &c., be carried off to be put under the care of a
sentry, as nothing is safe in a tent from the decoits; so, if there were
anything to arrange, there would be no use in arranging it, as it must
all be moved at dusk. The canvas flops about, and it was very chilly in
the night, though that is the only part I do not object to, as when we
get our curtains that will be merely bracing; but it feels _open-airish_
and unsafe. They say everybody begins by hating their tents and ends by
loving them, but at present I am much prepossessed in favour of a house.
Opposite to our private tents is the great dining-tent, and the durbar
tent, which is less shut up, and will be less melancholy to live in. God
bless you, dearest! When I am tired, or _tented_, or hot, or cold, and
generally when I am in India, I have at least the comfort of always
sitting down to tell you all about it, and 'There is no harm in _that_,'
as the man says in 'Zohrab.'