Camp, Ferozepore, Wednesday, Nov. 28, 1838.
I put up a large packet to you on Saturday, which will accompany this;
but I was shy of making it thicker. Sunday, the whole camp was glad of a
halt; the sandy roads tire all the people much.
There was a very large congregation at church, I was told; we have so
many troops with us now, and Y.'s preaching is in great reputation. On
Monday we marched eleven more miles with the same dusty result. The
chief incident was, that G. was to have tried an Arabian of W. O.'s,
which is a perfect lamb in a crowd, and was intended to officiate at the
great review 'as is to be;' but the syce by mistake gave him another
horse of W.'s, which pulls worse than G.'s own horse. F., who was riding
with him, assured him that the Arabian had such a tender mouth that it
was only chafing because he held it too tight: he loosened the
bridle--away went the horse like a shot, and away went twenty-five of
the body-guard after him, thinking it was his lordship's pleasure to go
at that helter-skelter pace: away went M., who is on duty; in short,
nothing could be finer than the idea; but they all pulled up when they
saw how it was. G.'s horse galloped on two miles for its own amusement,
and then he made it go another for his, and finally changed it for his
own horse, whose merits rose by comparison. I was in the carriage
behind, and W. came up in the greatest fuss--having heard of the
mistake--and just as he was saying the horse would run away, two of the
guard came back to say it had done so; so he had the pleasure of a good
prophecy.
Yesterday we came twelve miles. My health is neither better nor worse,
so I came on in the carriage; all the others rode the last four miles,
and were met by M. and all his staff at the town of Ferozepore. G. let
me go on half a mile in advance, in order to avoid the dust, which must
have shocked General R., who never lets even a little dog precede him in
his march.
I passed him and his suite by the side of the road, drawn up according
to the strictest rule--a very large body of cocked hats. General R. in
front, alone, then a long row of general officers, then a longer row of
a lower grade. It was too awful and military a moment for speech. I was
not sure whether it was not irregular to kiss my hand; however, I
ventured on that little movement, which was received with a benign
'clignotement de l'oeil' signifying 'Wrong, but I forgive it for
once.'
I got in three-quarters of an hour before the rest, who came a foot's
pace, and General E. told F. they always marched that fashion--General
R. first, they behind--a trot never allowed.
General R. was uncommonly affable, and came and paid me a visit in my
tent, where I was lying down, all dust and fatigue, and wishing for
breakfast. Sir W. C., too, came in for a moment, in the highest glee,
not so fat as he was at Calcutta--we expected he would have been twice
the size. I told him he was grown thin, and he went back to his
favourite story of the courtiers telling George IV., when he was at his
fattest, 'Your Majesty is regaining your figure!'
We had a most interesting envoy from General A., who is employed by
Runjeet in Peshawur, and who wrote to each of us his polite French
regrets that he could not come here, but he sent 'un très petit paquet'
of the shawls we had commissioned him to get worked in Cashmere, when we
saw him in Calcutta, and also the Cashmere gowns he had promised. He
declared that there never were such failures; that he had sent seven or
eight 'surveillants' to Cashmere, 'mais on m'a tout gâté.'
An hour after, there arrived, instead of the 'petit paquet,' a very
large pillow, or rather a small ottoman, brought in by two men, and then
we had such cutting and nicking and tearing away of oilcloth and muslin
and shawl paper, and at last arrived at the treasures. Four shawl
dresses, four magnificent square shawls, and four long scarfs to match
the dresses--but the fineness and the brightness of the whole concern it
is impossible to describe. One gets to value shawls only by their
fineness at last, and we have seen nothing like these. They have been a
year and a half in making. We have ascertained the prices of these
shawls, which are very cheap considering their beauty. The dresses were
at Calcutta promised us as presents; but under the circumstances of our
being in Runjeet's country, and A. one of his generals, we want to pay
for them, which Captain E. has undertaken to do. I now say once more, as
I have often said before, I really don't want any more shawls, but yet I
do always when they come in my way.
In the afternoon Sir W. C., B., W., M., and two or three more, went on
elephants to compliment the Maharajah, and met half-way Kurruck Singh,
his son and supposed heir, Ajeet Singh, our Simla friend, and Sujeyt
Singh, the great _dandy_ of the Punjâb, with several others coming to
compliment G. The Maharajah had the best of the bargain.
Kurruck Singh is apparently an idiot; some people say he only affects
it, to keep Runjeet from being jealous of him, but it looks like very
unaffected and complete folly.
Runjeet kept our deputation very late. He was in the highest spirits, W.
said, and laughed out loud at several jokes. Sir W. C. took the fancy of
all the Sikhs. He is very jovial, besides being courteous in his
manners, and talks at a great rate. Runjeet produced some of his wine, a
sort of liquid fire, that none of our strongest spirits approach, and in
general Europeans cannot swallow more than a drop of it.
Sir W. tossed off his glass and then asked for another, which they
thought very fine. He came back of course very tipsy, but they said he
was very amusing at dinner. There are always nautches at these durbars,
and one of W.'s former acquaintances, called 'the Lotus,' who is very
beautiful, looked so pretty that W. asked E. if he might give her the
little bunch of pearl flowers that was given to all the gentlemen. E.
said it would amuse the Maharajah, and so it did, but B. is seriously
uneasy at the dreadful loss to Government of the pearl bouquet. It was
worth about ten shillings, I suppose.
Friday.
Yesterday was the day of the great meeting. All the ladies (only ten
with the whole army) came to breakfast at half-past seven, and so did
'the great Panjandrum himself.'
I have not been to any meal, and hardly have seen anybody, for the last
three weeks, so I did not join them till it was nearly time for Runjeet
to arrive: when he was at the end of the street, G. and all the
gentlemen went on their elephants to meet him.
There were such a number of elephants, that the clash at meeting was
very great, and very destructive to the howdahs and hangings. G. handed
the Maharajah into the first large tent, where we were all waiting; but
the Sikhs are very unmanageable, and they rushed in on all sides, and
the European officers were rather worse, so that the tent was full in a
moment, and as the light only comes in from the bottom, the crowd made
it perfectly dark, and the old man seemed confused and bothered.
However, he sat down for a few minutes on the sofa between G. and me,
and recovered. He is exactly like an old mouse, with grey whiskers and
one eye. When they got into the inner tent, which was to have been
quite private, the English officers were just like so many bears; put
aside all the sentries, absolutely refused to listen to the
aides-de-camp, and filled the room; so then, finding it must be public,
G. sent us word we might all come there, and we had a good view of it
all.
Runjeet had no jewels on whatever, nothing but the commonest red silk
dress. He had two stockings on at first, which was considered an unusual
circumstance; but he very soon contrived to slip one off, that he might
sit with one foot in his hand, comfortably. B. was much occupied in
contriving to edge one-foot of his chair on to the carpet, in which he
at last succeeded.
Next to him sat Heera Singh, a very handsome boy, who is Runjeet's
favourite, and was loaded with emeralds and pearls. Dhian Singh his
father is the prime minister, and uncommonly good-looking: he was
dressed in yellow satin, with a quantity of chain armour and steel
cuirass. All their costumes were very picturesque. There were a little
boy and girl about four and five years old, children of some of
Runjeet's sirdars who were killed in battle, and he always has these
children with him, and has married them to each other. They were
crawling about the floor, and running in and out between Runjeet and G.,
and at one time the little boy had got his arm twisted round G.'s leg. I
sent to ask B. for two of the common pearl necklaces that are given as
khelwuts, and sent them with a private note round to G., who gave them
to the children, which delighted the old mouse.
After half an hour's talk, Sir W. C., with some of our gentlemen,
marched up the room with my picture of the Queen on a green and gold
cushion; all the English got up, and a salute of twenty-one guns was
fired. Runjeet took it up in his hands, though it was a great weight,
and examined it for at least five minutes with his one piercing eye, and
asked B. for an explanation of the orb and sceptre, and whether the
dress were correct, and if it were really like; and then said it was the
most gratifying present he could have received, and that on his return
to his camp, the picture would be hung in front of his tent, and a royal
salute fired. When all the other presents had been given that could come
in trays, 200 shells (not fish, but gunpowder shells) were presented to
the Maharajah, and two magnificent howitzers, that had been cast on
purpose for him (as I think I told you), which seemed to please him; and
outside, there was an elephant with gold trappings, and seven horses
equally bedizened. His strongest passion is still for horses: one of
these hit his fancy, and he quite forgot all his state, and ran out in
the sun to feel its legs and examine it. Webb (the coachman) went down
in the afternoon to take the Mizzur horses to Runjeet, and gave us such
an amusing account of his interview.
He talks a sort of half-Yorkshire, half-Indian dialect.
'Why, you see, my lord, I had a long job of it. The old man was a-saying
of his prayers, and all the time he was praying, he was a-looking after
my horses. At last he gets up, and I was tired of waiting in all that
sun. But law! Miss Eden, then comes that picture that you've been
a-painting of; and then the old man sends for his sirdar, and that
sirdar and they all go down on their knees, a matter of sixty of them,
and first one has a look and then the other, and Runjeet he asked me
such a many questions, I wished the picture further. He talked about it
for an hour and a half, and I telled him I never seed the Queen. How
should I? I have been here with two Governor-Generals, and twelve years
in India above that. So then he says, says he, "which Governor-General
do you like best?" And I says, "Why, Maharajah, I haint much fault to
find with neither of them." So then we had out the horses, and there the
old man was a-running about looking at 'em, more like a coolie than a
king. I never see a man so pleased, and he made me ride 'em. So, when I
had been there four hours a'most, all in the sun, he give me this pair
of gold bracelets and this pair of shawls; and he says, says he, "Go and
show yourself to the Lord Sahib, just as you are: mind you don't take
them off." But law! I did not like to come such a figure, so here they
are!'
B. was standing by, so I had the presence of mind to say, 'Of course
Lord A. should let Webb keep those;' and he said directly, that for any
actual service done, it was only payment, and they would hardly pay Webb
for all the trouble he had with the young horses. So Webb went off very
happy, and I suppose when we return to Calcutta Mrs. Webb will be
equally so.