Camp, Benares, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 1837.
I have been obliged to give up the five last days to other letters, to
the manifest disadvantage of my Journal, your unspeakable loss, and my
own deep regret; but what can be done? It is just possible to do all we
have to do--just not impossible to write it down _once_, but quite
impossible either to live, or to write it over again; and I have had a
large packet of very old English letters since we came here, which set
me off answering them.
The _résumé_ of our proceedings, since I sent off my Journal to you last
Thursday, Nov. 16, is shortly and longly this:--Friday, we went a large
party to the town in carriages; when the streets grew too narrow for
carriages, we got on elephants; when the elephants stuck fast, we tried
tonjauns; and, when the streets contracted still further, we walked; and
at last, I suppose, they came to a point, for we came back. We saw some
beautiful old temples, and altogether it was a curious sight. Prout
would go mad in a brown outline frenzy on the spot--the buildings are so
very beautiful for his style. I forgot to mention that at half-past six
on Friday morning we went to a review on horseback. Saturday, we again
got up at six, and F. and I went in the open carriage to sketch a
tempting mosque. At eleven we received many more visitors than the tent
would hold--the aides-de-camp could hardly come in with them.
G. held a durbar in the afternoon, at which seventy of the native
nobility appeared. The Rajah of Benares came with a very magnificent
surwarree of elephants and camels. He is immensely rich, and has
succeeded an uncle who adopted him, to the great discomfiture of his
father, who goes about with him in the capacity of a discontented
subject. We had thirty-six people at dinner. Sunday, we went to church,
and underwent the worst reading and preaching I ever heard from Mr. ----,
who in general preaches to his clerk; but this time the church was very
full, and the congregation were all hoping to hear a little something
that might do them good from our dear Y. In the afternoon G. and I went
out on an elephant, and, in an attempt to make a quiet and rural cut
home, nearly drowned one of our outriding camels and his rider; so we
came home, much ashamed of ourselves, by the common dusty road. Monday,
we got up early, and set off at seven, to pay a visit to the old Delhi
Begum. The particulars I narrated with wonderful accuracy, bordering on
tediousness, to M., and I am confident you would not wish me to repeat
them.
G. positively declared against any more dust or any more drives, so we
stuck to the tents in the afternoon. He cannot endure his tent, or the
camp life altogether, and it certainly is very much opposed to all his
habits of business and regularity.
On Monday evening we went to the ball again, given to us by the station.
They have a theatre here, and had boarded over the pit, and by leaving
some forest scenery standing on the stage, with our band playing from
under the pasteboard trees, they made out a very pretty ball-room, much
the best we have seen in 'the Mofussil,' and there were plenty of
ladies, old and young, who seemed to be very glad of a dance. We got
home at one.
There! W. has heard that Mr. G. has proposed. I am so glad; for Miss H.
has left in England everybody that cared for her. I know that she has
long liked Mr. G. I feel, too, that it is a triumph for our camp that at
our very first station we should have married off our only young lady.
Yesterday we had a grand expedition, which I am going to give you and
the children, once for all, at great length, and then you will for the
future take it for granted that all native fêtes are much alike.
The Rajah of Benares asked us to come to his country-house, called
Ramnuggur (how it is spelt, I cannot say; probably with none of those
letters). It is on the other side of the Ganges. We drove down to the
river-side through a dense cloud of dust. I asked one of our servants to
_dust_ me gently with my pocket-handkerchief, and without any
exaggeration a thick cloud came out of my cape.
Mrs. C.'s black bonnet was of a light brown colour.
We found the rajah's boats waiting for us--a silver armchair and
footstool for his lordship in the prow, which was decorated with
silvered peacocks, and a sort of red embroidered tent for '_his women_,'
where we placed ourselves, though there was another boat with two
inferior silver chairs for F. and me. All these things are grandly
imagined, but with the silver chairs there are boatmen in dirty
liveries or no liveries at all!--and it is all _discrepant_, or
generally so.
This rajah is immensely rich; he had a great many handsome things. I
enclose a sketch to illustrate for the children 'their dear devoted
creature,' G., first in the silver tonjaun which took him down to the
boat, then in the other State silver tonjaun that took him up from the
ghaut, and then a back view of him on his elephant. I often wonder
whether it really can be G., the original simple, quiet one. He does it
very well, but detests great part of the ceremonies, particularly
_embracing_ the rajahs!
The rajah met us at the ghaut, and we were all carried off to the
elephants, and got on them to go and see his garden, though it was
nearly dusk. But the first sight was very striking.
Eighteen elephants and crowds of attendants, and then crowds as far as
we could see of natives, going on 'Wah! wah! Hi Lord Sahib.' We rode
about till it was quite dark, and then the rajah proposed we should
return; and when we came to the turn of the road, the whole of the
village and his castle, which is an enormous building, was illuminated.
Wherever there was a straight line, or a window, or an arch, there was a
row of little bright lamps; every cross of the lattices in every window
had its little lamp. It was the _largest_ illumination I ever saw. We
went on the elephants through the great gateway, in a Timour the Tartar
fashion, into the court. Such torches and spearmen and drums and crowds,
like a melodrama magnified by a solar microscope; it was the sort of
scene where Ellen Tree would have snatched up a doll from under
Farley's sword, and said, 'My boy, my boy, my rescued Agib!' or words to
that effect, while the curtain fell slowly. We got off at the door of an
immense hall, a sort of court, and the rajah's servants spread a path of
scarlet and gold kincob from the door to the seat at the farthest end,
for us to walk on. Considering that it is a pound a yard, and that I
have been bargaining for a week for enough for a wadded _douillette_ and
was beat out of it, it was a pity to trample on it, and it led to a
catastrophe, as you will see if you read on. The rajah put us three on a
velvet sofa, with a gold gauze carpet before it. He sat on one side of
us and his father on the other, and Mr. B. and Mr. C. on each side to
interpret, and then the aides-de-camp and the other ladies; and then the
nautch-girls began dancing. He had provided an immense troop of them,
and they were covered with jewels and dressed in gold brocades, some
purple and some red, with long floating scarfs of gold gauze. Most of
them ugly, but one was I think the prettiest creature I ever saw, and
the most graceful. If I have time I will send a little coloured sketch
of her, just to show the effect of her dress. She and another girl
danced slowly round with their full draperies floating round them,
without stopping, for a quarter of an hour, during all which time they
were making flowers out of some coloured scarfs they wore, and when they
had finished a bunch they came and presented it to us with such graceful
Eastern genuflexions. The whole thing was like a dream, it was so
curious and unnatural. Then the Ranee sent for us, and F. and I set off
in tonjauns for the women's apartments, with the ladies who were with
us. They carried us through a great many courts, and then the rajah gave
me his cold, flabby little hand, and handed us up some narrow, dirty
stairs, and came in with us behind the purdah and introduced us to the
Ranee his mother, who was very splendidly dressed, and to some of his
sisters, who were ugly. Then they asked us to go and see an old
grandmother, and the Ranee laid hold of my hand, and one of the sisters
took F., and they led us along an immense court on the roof, to the old
lady, who is blind and very ill; but they had dressed her up for us, and
we had to kiss her, which was not very nice. There was another immense
nautch provided, which we had not time to look at. We gave our rings,
and they brought the trays of presents which are usually given, a
diamond ring and drops for earrings, two necklaces (very trashy), some
beautiful shawls and kincobs, and some muslin; then they put immense
skipping-ropes of silver braid, bigger than a common boa, round our
necks, and small ones on the other ladies, and then poured attar of
roses on our hands, and we left the old lady. When we came back to the
Ranee's room, she showed us her little _chapel_, close to her sofa,
where there were quantities of horrid-looking idols--Vishnu, and so on.
Several native girls were introduced to us, but only one who was pretty,
and who has just been betrothed to the father of the rajah. The young
Ranees, or whatever they are called, are very shy, and stand with their
eyes closed, but the older ones had great fun when we were going away in
pouring the attar over our gowns, and utterly spoiled mine, which was
silk: next time I shall go in muslin. When we came down, the trays for
G. were brought in; they covered what would be called a very large room,
and some of the gold stuffs have turned out to be very beautiful. It is
a stupid etiquette, that we are not to appear to see these presents. It
is a _tribute_, and the superior is to be too grand to see what the
inferior offers. When that was done, we went to the illumination, which
was done on a very large scale, but not so neatly as at home; then to
the boat, where the rajah accompanied us, and there was a second
illumination on the river, much more beautiful than the first--and the
blue lights, and the crowds, and the great pile of buildings made a
grand show. We got back at eleven, very tired and starving hungry, but
it was a curious sight and much to be remembered. There! now you have
borne all that so well, you shall not have any more of it, though
probably we shall have more than enough. The kincob catastrophe was,
that some of our servants were so over-tempted by it, that without the
slightest respect for time or place, the instant we had walked over it
they snatched it up and carried it off. It would have been sent to them
to-morrow from the rajah, but it was a shameful thing to do; and as the
Government House servants fancy they may oppress any and everybody
during their journeys, Captain J. assembled all who went with us, and
the chief culprits were picked out and discharged. There are five
victims, but luckily only one who is a very old servant. It is a great
bore, as we have brought them a great way from their homes, and it is
difficult to replace them here.