Cawnpore, New Year's Day, 1838.
Another year! You will be nearly half through it by the time you read
this.
I was so obliged to you for those extracts from Charles Lamb. I had seen
that about the two hemispheres in some newspaper, and have been longing
for the book ever since.
'Boz's Magazine' is disappointing. I wish he would not mix up his great
Pickwick name with meaner works. It is odd how long you were writing
about Pickwick, and yet I felt all the time, though we are no judges of
fun in this place, that it must be everywhere the cleverest thing that
has appeared in our time. I had laughed twenty times at that book. Then
there is always a quotation to be had from Pickwick for everything that
occurs anywhere.
That Mr. Q., of ----, who has been living with us for a month, and who
admires Chance, as a clever demon, but is afraid of him, always says, if
Chance goes near him at dessert:--'Bring some cake directly! good old
Chance! good little dog! the cake is coming,' so like Pickwick and his
'good old horse.'
We returned from Lucknow on Saturday, with no accident but that of
breaking the dicky; which, considering the state of the roads, was
marvellous. I never felt such jolting, and it was very hot in the middle
of the day; and G., who does not believe in fatigue, had asked
five-and-twenty people to dinner.
We parted with the Prince of Orange at Lucknow, which is something saved
in point of trouble. He has liked his visit, I fancy, though it did not
excite him much.
The dust at Cawnpore has been quite dreadful the last two days. People
lose their way on the plains, and everything is full of dust--books,
dinner, clothes, everything. We all detest Cawnpore. It is here, too,
that we first came into the starving districts. They have had no rain
for a year and a half; the cattle all died, and the people are all dying
or gone away.
They are employed here by Government; every man, woman, or child, who
likes to do the semblance of a day's work is paid for it, and there is a
subscription for feeding those who are unable to work at all. But many
who come from a great distance die of the first food they touch. There
are as many as twenty found dead on the plain in the morning.
Powrah, Thursday, Jan. 4.
We left Cawnpore on Tuesday, and now that we are out of reach of the
District Societies, &c., the distress is perfectly dreadful.
You cannot conceive the horrible sights we see, particularly children;
perfect skeletons in many cases, their bones through their skin, without
a rag of clothing, and utterly unlike human creatures. Our camp luckily
does more good than harm. We get all our supplies from Oude, and we can
give away more than any other travellers.
We began yesterday giving food away in the evening; there were about 200
people, and Giles and the old khansamah distributed it, and I went with
Major J. to see them, but I could not stay. We can do no more than give
what we do, and the sight is much too shocking. The women look as if
they had been buried, their _skulls_ look so dreadful.
I am sure there is no sort of violent atrocity I should not commit for
food, with a starving baby. I should not stop to think about the rights
or wrongs of the case.
As usual, dear Shakspeare knew all about it. He must have been at
Cawnpore at the time of a famine--
Famine is in thy cheeks,
Need and oppression startle in thine eyes,
The world is not thy friend, nor the world's law.
Then be not poor, but break it.
G. and I walked down to the stables this morning before breakfast, and
found such a miserable little baby, something like an old monkey, but
with glazed, stupid eyes, under the care of another little wretch of six
years old. I am sure you would have sobbed to see the way in which the
little atom flew at a cup of milk, and the way in which the little
brother fed it. Rosina has discovered the mother since, but she is a
skeleton too, and she says for a month she has had no food to give it.
Dr. D. says it cannot live, it is so diseased with starvation, but I
mean to try what can be done for it.
Kynonze, Sunday, Jan. 7.
We go on from bad to worse; this is a large village, and the distress
greater. Seven hundred were fed yesterday, and the struggle was so
violent that I have just seen the magistrate, Mr. ----, who is travelling
with us, and asked him for his police. We have plenty of soldiers and
servants, but they hardly know what to do; they cannot strike the poor
creatures, and yet they absolutely fight among themselves for the food.
Captain M. saw three people drop down dead in the village yesterday, and
there were several on our line of march. My baby is alive, the mother
follows the camp, and I have it four times a day at the back of my tent,
and feed it. It is rather touching to see the interest the servants take
in it, though there are worse objects about, or else I have got used to
this little creature.
This is a great place for ruins, and was supposed to be the largest town
in India in the olden time, and the most magnificent. There are some
good ruins for sketching remaining, and that is all. An odd world
certainly! Perhaps two thousand years hence, when the art of steam has
been forgotten, and nobody can exactly make out the meaning of the old
English word 'mail-coach,' some black Governor-General of England will
be marching through its southern provinces, and will go and look at some
ruins, and doubt whether London ever was a large town, and will feed
some white-looking skeletons, and say what distress the poor creatures
must be in; they will really eat rice and curry; and his sister will
write to her Mary D. at New Delhi, and complain of the cold, and explain
to her with great care what snow is, and how the natives wear bonnets,
and then, of course, mention that she wants to go home. Do you like
writing to me? I hate writing in general, but these long letters to you
are the comfort of my existence. I always have my portfolio carried on
in my palanquin, which comes on early, because then, if I have anything
to say to you before breakfast, I can say it, and I dare say it would be
unwholesome to suppress a thought before breakfast.
Camp, Umreetpoor, Saturday, Jan. 13.
We have had three days' rest at Futtehghur; rest at least for the horses
and bullocks, who were all worn out with the bad roads, and we started
again this morning; crossed the Ganges on a bridge of boats, and after
five miles of very remarkably heavy sand, with hackeries and dying
ponies, and obstinate mules sticking in it, in all directions, we came
to a road available again for the dear open carriage and for horses. The
others all rode, and I brought on Mrs. A., who has no carriage, and who
gets tired to death of her palanquin and elephant.
G. and I went with Y., Dr. D., and A. and M. one morning before
breakfast to see a Dr. ----, who is supposed to be very scientific, but
his science seems rather insane. He insists upon it that the North Pole
is at Gwalior, about thirty miles from here, and that some magnetic
stones he brought from there prove it by the direction in which the
needle stands on them. One needle would not stand straight on one stone,
and he said that stone must have been picked up a little on one side of
the exact North Pole. Then he took us to a table covered with black and
white little bricks, something like those we used to have in the
nursery, and he said that by a course of magnetic angles, the marks of
which he discovers on his magnetic stones, any piece of wood that was
cut by his directions became immediately an exact representation of
Solomon's Temple.
'Don't say it is ingenious! I can't help it; it is the work of magnetic
power, not mine; Solomon's Temple _will fall out_ of whatever I
undertake.'
I looked at G. and the others, but they all seemed quite convinced, and
I began to think we must all be in a Futtehghur Bedlam, only they were
all too silent. To fill up the pause, I asked him how long he was
discovering Solomon's Temple. 'Only seven years,' he said, 'but it is
not my discovery; it _must_ be so according to my magnetic angles. When
this discovery reaches Europe (which it will through you, ma'am, for I
am going to present you with Solomon's Temple), there will be an end of
all their science; they must begin again.'
Then Mrs. ---- put in: 'Yes, the Doctor said, as soon as he heard you
were coming up the country, "I'll give Solomon's Temple to Miss Eden;"
and I said, "I shall send her some flowers and water-cresses;" pray,
are you fond of water-cresses?'
'Now, my dear, don't talk about water-cresses; you distract Miss Eden
and you distract me, and so hold your tongue. I was just going to
explain this cube; you see the temple was finished all but one cube, and
the masons did not like the look of the stone, they did not understand
the magnetic angles, so they gave it a knock and smashed it. Upon which
Solomon said, "There! what a precious mess you have made of it; now I
shall have to send all the way to Egypt for another."'
Upon which Mr. Y. said, 'But where do you find that fact, Dr. ----?'
'My dear sir, just take it for granted; I never advance a fact I cannot
prove. I am like the old woman in Westminster Abbey; if you interrupt
me, I shall have to go back from George III. all the way to Edward the
Confessor.'
That silenced us all. You never saw such a thing as Solomon's Temple;
not nearly so pretty as the bridges we used to build of those bricks.
Mrs. ---- went fidgetting about with some bottles all the time, and
began, 'Now, Doctor, show your method of instantaneous communication
between London and Edinburgh.'
'Don't bore me, my dear, I have not time to prepare it.'
'There now, Doctor! I knew you would say that, so I have prepared it;
there it all is, bottles, wire, galvanic wheels and all. Now, Miss Eden,
is not he _much_ the cleverest man you ever saw?' So then he showed us
that experiment, and a great many of his galvanic tricks were very
amusing, but still he is so eccentric that I think it is a great shame
he should be the only doctor of a large station. A lady sent for him to
see her child in a fit, and he told her he would not give it any
medicine on any account; 'it was possessed by the devil--a very curious
case indeed.'
He sent me a bit of the Gwalior North Pole in the evening, which was
such a weight I thought I should have to hire a coolie to carry it, and
I wanted the servants to bury it, but luckily C. was longing for one of
these magnetic stones, and took it. To-day I have had a letter from him,
with fruit and flowers which Mrs. ---- sent fifteen miles, and a jonquil
in a blue glass, English and good, and a postscript to say that, though
Solomon's Temple would build itself almost without any help, still, if I
found any difficulty I was to write to him. I am quite sure I shall
never find the slightest difficulty in it--it is all carefully deposited
at the bottom of a camel trunk.