Saturday, Oct. 20, 1838.
I think it looks ill, that I have let a whole week go by without a touch
of Journal; but nothing particular has happened, and it does not mean
any coldness, you know, dearest. I have spent a week more of the time I
am to be away from you, so I could not be better employed.
Monday we gave a dinner, Tuesday we dined at the R.s. Met Mrs. ---- and a
newly-married couple, the husband being an object of much commiseration.
Not but what he is very happy, probably, but he married the very first
young lady that came up to the hills this season; she was 'uncommon
ordinary' then, and nothing can look worse, somehow, than she does now.
I dare say she is full of merit, but I merely wish to observe, for the
benefit of any of your sons who may come out to India, that when they
have been two or three years in a solitary station they should not
propose to the very _first_ girl they see. However, I dare say the ----s
are very happy, as I said before.
We had such an excellent play last night, or rather two farces, acted
chiefly by Captains X. and M., and Mr. C., and by Captain Y., one of Sir
G.'s aides-de-camp. Captain X. is really quite as good as Liston, and I
think he ought to run over a scene or two every evening for our
diversion. It is supposed that R. was never seen to laugh till he cried
before, which he certainly did last night. It is astonishing how
refreshing a real, good laugh is. I have not had so good a one for ages.
Tuesday, Oct. 23.
The work of packing progresses, and there are no bounds to the ardour
with which everybody labours to make us uncomfortable. This day
fortnight we are to be in our wretched tents--that is, if we really do
not find ourselves unequal to the shock at last. There was an idea that
coolies enough could not be raised at last, as everybody goes away at
the same time, so instead of 3,000 at once, we have 1,000 three times
over, and as soon as they have taken one set of camel trunks to the
plains they come back for another, so we spread our discomfort thus over
a wide surface. I have succumbed to such a temptation to-day--I wish I
had not, and yet I am glad I did--a large gold chain, two yards long, of
the purest Indian gold. I could not let it escape me, and yet I know I
should like to have the money to spend at Lahore.
Wednesday, Oct. 24.
To-day was a day of mysteries for Simla. R. came to breakfast with us,
and did half an hour's business with G., and that put his family into a
fever. News had arrived yesterday that the Persians had abandoned the
siege of Herât, and so the ----s fancied that the Cabul business would
be now so easy, that R. would not go in person.
G. and I were walking in the evening and met the ----s, who said they
had never passed such a day of curiosity, evidently thinking, poor
new-married dears, that they were not going to part for ten years.
Mrs. ---- said to G.: 'Now, for once, Lord A., tell us a secret; what did
R. go to you about?' 'Why, he came,' G. said, 'to ask where we bought
our potatoes, they are so remarkably good.' The other mystery was, that
Captain Y. said he had been eight hours trying to prevent two gentlemen
from fighting, and we cannot think of any fightable people at Simla. You
never saw so lovely an ornament as a great Lucknow merchant brought
yesterday. A bunch of grapes made up of twenty-seven emeralds, the
smallest emerald the size of a marble, and all of such a beautiful
colour; there are large pearls between each, and it is mounted on a
plain green enamel stalk. It looks like the fruit in Aladdin's garden.
We want G. to buy it for his parting present to Runjeet Singh. They were
to have exchanged rings, and a ring, one single diamond without a flaw,
valued at 1,600_l._, was to have come up from Calcutta this week, but it
has been stolen from the dâk. It was insured, but still it was a pity
such a good diamond should be lost.
Friday, Oct. 26.
We rode to Mr. B.'s yesterday, knowing that otherwise that bunch of
grapes would be slurred over, and not even mentioned to us. I began by
saying, we thought it beautiful, and just the present for a great
potentate, upon which B. said: 'Yes, it is almost too expensive, but I
was thinking of asking his lordship to let me present it to Shah
Soojah.' Luckily, that was too much even for G., and he said: 'No, if I
allow it to be bought at all, it could only be for a Governor-General to
give away; besides, we are going to give Shah Soojah a kingdom, which is
quite enough without any presents.'
'A defeat,' I thought, and Mr. B. looked as if emerald grapes were
remarkably sour, and on our ride home G. said he meant to take them for
Runjeet Singh.
Tuesday, Oct. 30.
G. took a fancy on Saturday to go, after dinner, to play at whist with
Sir G. R., so we all jonpauned off, and very cold it is at night in
those conveyances. The cold brought a bilious attack I had been brewing,
to a crisis, and I had one of the worst headaches I ever had in my
life, on Sunday, and could not sit up for a moment. It is the first
day's ailment I have had since the week we came to Simla, and very lucky
that it came before we go into camp. This day week we start. 'No ind to
my sufferens!' as some novel says.
Thursday, Nov. 1.
There! now I am quite well again, and in travelling condition; and
perhaps, setting off in such good health, marching may not be so
fatiguing as it was last year. We have had nothing but take-leave visits
the last three days. Mrs. R. sets off to-morrow with her own children
and those two little orphaned G.s, whom she is taking to England. The
wives to be left here are becoming disconsolate and fractious.
Dear J. left us for good this morning. I do not think he cared much for
_us_; but all the old servants, of whom he has had the care for eleven
years, went with all their eastern, devoted-looking ways, and took leave
of him and quite overset his nerves, and he went off in a shocking
state. After taking leave of F. he quite broke down in G.'s room, and
could not come to mine; and my jemadar came in with large tears running
down: 'Major Sahib so unhappy. He say he not able to speak to
ladyship--he cry very much!' I asked if they were all sorry he was
going. 'Yes, very. He very old gentleman at Government House, and know
everything, and very just.' And then, to wind it up with a fine piece of
language, 'he _adapt_ properly well to all lordship's poor servants.'
What that means I have not a guess, but I think it sounds comfortable;
and I see now that the fault of India is that nobody 'adapts properly
well' to my English feelings.
Sunday, Nov. 4.
After service to-day, the dining-room was given up to Giles and the
Philistines, the carpets taken up, and a long country dance formed of
the camel trunks and linen-presses that we leave behind; and now we dine
and live in the drawing-room, which, without its curtains and draperies,
and with its crude folding-doors, looks like half a ball-room at a
Canterbury inn. Poor dear house! I am sorry to see it despoiled. We have
had seven as good months here as it is possible to pass in India--no
trouble, no heat; and if the Himalayas were only a continuation of
Primrose Hill or Penge Common, I should have no objection to pass the
rest of my life on them. Perhaps you would drive up to Simla on Saturday
and stay till Monday.
Monday, Nov. 5.
I had much better not write to-day, only I have nothing else to do; but
the September overland post is come (the August is missing), and I
always have a regular fit of low spirits that lasts twenty-four hours
after that. This is your Newsalls letter, and dear T.'s account of the
archery and country balls, and the neighbours; and it all sounds so
_natural_ and easy, and I feel so _unnatural_ and so far off. Just as
you say, we have been here very little more than half our time, and I am
sure it feels and is almost a life.
It will be nearly six years altogether that we shall have been away, if
we ever go home again; and that is an immense gap, and coming at a
wrong time of life. Ten or fifteen years ago it would have made less
difference; your children would still have been children; but now I miss
all _their_ youth, and _ours_ will be utterly over. We shall meet
again----
When youth and genial years have flown,
And all the life of life is gone.
I feel so very old, not merely in look, for that is not surprising at my
age, and in this country, where everybody looks more than fifty; but
just what Lady C. describes in her letter--the time for _putting up_
with discomforts has gone by. I believe what adds to my English letter
lowness, is the circumstance that carpets, curtains, books, everything
is gone from my room, and I am sitting in the middle of it, on a straw
beehive chair, which the natives always use when they _do_ admit a
chair, with Chance's own little chair for my feet, and the inkstand on
the ledge of the window. I wish I was at Newsalls. There! now they want
my inkstand.
Syree, Tuesday, Nov. 6.
The beginning of a second march, and so I had better put this up and
send it. We left poor Simla at six this morning, and if I am to be in
India I had rather be there than anywhere. We have had seven very quiet
months, with good health and in a good climate, and in beautiful
scenery. That is much as times go. As for this march, I cannot say what
I feel about it. It began just as it left off.
We arrived to breakfast here, and the coolies have been fractious, and
so, when I took off my habit, I had no gown to put on; the right box is
not come, and I have no bonnet to put on for the afternoon's march.
We are in the dâk bungalow, two whitewashed empty rooms, with streaks of
damp and dirt all over them. We have been breakfasting in one, and all
the _deserting_ husbands have joined us. To be sure, St. Cloup is a
jewel of a cook for this sort of thing. He came here in the night and
prepared the breakfast we have had, and the luncheon we are going to
have. He is now gone on to Sabathoo, where we shall find dinner, and he
meant to go on again at night to the tents, half-way between Sabathoo
and the camp, to arrange to-morrow's breakfast and luncheon. God bless
you, dearest M.!
There is a ship lost--'The Protector'--just in the mouth of the river.
It was bringing troops and several passengers, but none whose names we
know. There is only one soldier saved out of the whole crew.