Wednesday, Feb. 6, 1839.
Another rainy night, and we have come on to another sloppy encampment,
and I am sorry to say those bearers, and two more, have died of cholera
to-day--all owing to the wet, Dr. D. says. The magistrate here has
politely offered us his house to-morrow, and as Captain P. sends back
word he cannot find dry ground for half the dripping tents, U. Hall will
be a God-send.
Thursday, Feb. 7.
Dear U.! such a nice, dry, solid house. I suppose it would strike us as
small on common occasions, but it looks to me now like the dryest, best
built, most solid little palace I ever inhabited, what people call
'quite Palladian.' I rather like hitting myself a good hard knock
against the thick solid walls, and then the pleasure of walking along
the hard floor without fur slippers and without hearing the ground
_squelch_! The quiet, too, is worth its weight in gold (though how it is
to be weighed I don't quite know).
F. and W. went out coursing this evening. G. was detained by letters
just as he and I were going out, so I thought it would be polite and
sent to ask U. to go out with X. and me; and he brought me a little
wooden cup of his own turning, with which I was obliged to be quite
delighted, in fact I was; it was a very good little cup, and then he
said, 'I did it from recollection of the famous vase in the Vatican.
Does it remind you of Rome?' I could luckily say I had never been there,
but I am not very sure that that little box-wood cup and the mud walls
of U.'s house would naturally have brought Rome into my mind.
Sunday Evening, Feb. 10.
We went into our tents again on Friday, with a long march of fifteen
miles. The tents were still damp. By twelve o'clock I began to shiver,
tried to go out in the afternoon and came back in a regular shake, had a
horrid night, and after yesterday morning's march was obliged to go to
bed again with violent head-ache and fever. It has gone off this
afternoon, and the day's halt has been a great mercy; but Dr. D. says he
does not think I shall get well in a camp, it disagrees so utterly with
me. G. has ascertained there are four good rooms in the Residency at
Delhi, which is never occupied now, so X. has gone on with my furniture
and servants, and to-morrow I am going to drive straight on there; the
camp will come to Delhi on Tuesday. I shall only be half a mile from
them, but out of the noise and in a dry house. I have grown just like
that _shaking_ wife of 'Jonathan Jefferson Whitlaws.'
Monday, Feb. 11.
I made out my double march most successfully with three relays of
horses. X. rode out to the other camp to show me the way in; he had had
all the broken windows glazed, and Mrs. B. had sent curtains; the rooms
look very clean and nice. The house stands in a small shady park, with a
nice garden, and the quiet is delightful. I went to sleep directly
after breakfast, and am better, thank you. W. came on to Delhi to set
all his shooting expedition going, and he dines here with X. and Dr. D.,
who are encamped in the court-yard, and they will drink tea with me. I
often think of former days and of being ill at Bower Hall and at
Langley, with you and L. taking all the trouble of it, and that it is
done in a different _method_ now--X. coming in when I am in my
dressing-gown on the sofa, to ask about the numberless articles that a
crowded camp necessitates, and saying, 'I have had relays of bearers for
Rosina, because I should like her to be there with me, that she may show
me how to arrange your rooms; and is there any particular diet the
khansamah should provide? I shall send on the young khansamah, he says
he knows what you like; and when I am gone, Captain L. E. begs you will
send to him, if you think of anything that will make you more
comfortable.'
It is very good of them, poor dears! and I think I give them a great
deal of trouble; but then I never meant when I came into the world to be
nursed by all these young gentlemen. It cannot be helped; everything in
India must be done by men. Giles is very useful on these occasions, and
what people do without an English man-servant, I can't guess.
Tuesday, Feb. 12.
This must go. Such a volume! it may as well go to the Admiralty. G. and
F. arrived at the camp this morning, and F. is sitting here. They are
only half a mile off, but Dr. D. has made up his mind that I shall not
go near the camp till all parties and dinners are over. G. is going to
drive me out this afternoon.
Residency, Delhi, Monday, Feb. 18.
I have been staying here a week to-day, with some degree of success,
though I had a great deal of fever yesterday. F. went over yesterday
with three or four of the sketching gentlemen to the Kootûb, and comes
back to-morrow. Dr. D. would not let me go when it came to the time, and
indeed it was impossible, as it turned into a fever day, but I should
have liked to see it again. I heard from F. to-day, and she says it is
more beautiful than ever, and that they shall stay till to-morrow
afternoon, for they have found such quantities of sketching to do. It is
certainly _the_ place in the plains I should like to live at. It has a
feeling about it of 'Is not this great Babylon?' all ruins and
desolation, except a grand bit or two of magnificence kept up by the
king. Then, in the modern way there are nice drives, and a considerable
congregation of shawl merchants and jewellers. Our agate mania still
continues, and there is no end to the curiosities that have been brought
to light, or the price to which they have risen. They have been a great
amusement, as I have not been able to sketch, and altogether this is
rather a comfortable life for India. F. comes here for two hours in the
morning. Captain X. and Dr. D. superintend breakfast and luncheon. At
four, G. always comes, and we take a drive, and then, after six, I grow
feverish and am glad to be quiet till bed-time; and there is a little
undercurrent all the morning of W. O. and Captain L. E., and agates and
presents of flowers, &c. Major J. and Captain T. have come over to see
us; indeed the whole plain is dotted with the tents of people who have
come to see G.; he says he never had so many applicants before.
Tuesday, Feb. 19.
W. set off this morning on his tiger-shooting expedition. It has failed
in some respects. General E. is ordered off to join Sir S. R. at Bombay,
and G. cannot give leave to a Mr. H. here, who is a great tiger-hunter;
but he has a chance of another friend, and our native ally, Hindû Rao,
is going with him, or rather after him, for he says he cannot possibly
leave Delhi till the Lord Sahib goes, and every afternoon Hindû Rao
comes to the door with the carriage, and trots by its side all the way,
in his purple satin dress, and with his spear and shield. He says he
knows G. likes him, and he also knows the reason--that he has nothing to
ask for. He is very rich, and manages his money very well; and he likes
G., because he says 'he is real gentleman, as well as a
Governor-General, and treats other people as if they were gentlemen
too.'
Such a tea-pot to-day!--green serpentine, with a running pattern of
small rubies set in it. Much too lovely!
F. came back this afternoon, rather tired, but says the ruins are all
beautiful.
Wednesday.
I have had two Delhi miniature painters here, translating two of my
sketches into ivory, and I never saw anything so perfect as their copy
of Runjeet Singh. Azim, the best painter, is almost a genius; except
that he knows no perspective, so he can only copy. He is quite mad about
some of my sketches, and as all miniatures of well-known characters sell
well, he has determined to get hold of my book.
There is a fore-shortened elephant with the Putteealah Rajah in the
howdah, that particularly takes his fancy. However, I do not want them
to be common, so I cut out of the book those that I wish to have copied,
and I never saw a native so nearly in a passion as he was, because he
was not allowed the whole book. Their miniatures are so soft and
beautiful. F. has had your likeness of my father copied.
Camp, Thursday, Feb. 21.
I was quite sorry to leave the Residency yesterday, all the more so,
from my ague having been particularly severe last night; it is very odd
that nothing will cure it. However, we shall be at Simla in three weeks,
and there was a good deal of rain again last night, which is against
ague.
Friday.
We had such a frightful thunder-storm last night for three hours, with
rain that might have drowned us all; I never heard such a clatter. _Our_
tents stood it very well, but a great many tents were beat down, and all
the servants' tents were full of water. Luckily, this advanced camp
escaped great part of the storm, and the tents are much drier than those
we left. This is not good weather for ague; it goes lingering on, and
they say will do so, till I get to the hills. I keep very quiet, but I
shall be glad to be settled at Simla. You know I never could quite
understand the Psalms, but I see what David means when he says, 'Woe is
me that I am constrained to dwell with Mesech, and to have my habitation
in the tents of Kedar.' Mesech I think he was wrong about. I should have
no objection to dwell with him in a good house of his own, but the tents
of Kedar are decidedly very objectionable and 'woe-is-me-ish;'
double-poled tents, I have no doubt, and lined with buff and green.
Sunday, Feb. 24.
The idea of the December mail arriving this morning! letters of the
26th, less than two months old.
'Oliver Twist' we have read, doled out in monthly parts nearly to the
end, and I like it very much--but 'Nicholas Nickleby' still better. We
have left off there, at Miss Petowker's marriage, and Mrs. Crummles'
walking tragically up the aisle 'with a step and a stop,' and the infant
covered with flowers. There never was such a man as Dickens! I often
think of proposing a public subscription for him--'A tribute from
India'--and everybody would subscribe. He is the agent for _Europe_ fun,
and they do not grow much in this country.
Paniput, Tuesday.
We are progressing every day, but this is the same road we passed over
last year, so if there had been anything to say about it, you would not
wish me to say it twice over. Mr. ---- is with us, remarkably dull; but
since I have got him to tell me anecdotes of the Delhi royal family shut
up in their high walls, and of all the murders he has known, or
suspected, I think the time passes pleasantly, and he goes away early.
I am much better, and began dining down again yesterday, and the weather
has changed, which they say is to blow away all fevers; but Dr. D. says
the hospital is quite full, and the deaths amongst the servants this
year have been quite lamentable.
Gornadar, Wednesday, Feb. 27.
L. E. and Z. nearly had a tiff to-day. L. E. has taken charge of the
stables since Captain M. went away, and as there are sometimes from
sixty to a hundred horses there, while presents are going on from native
princes on the march, besides all our own horses, it is like a little
regiment occasionally, and L. E. is very gentle and quiet in his manner
to the syces and with Webb.
Captain Z. came into my tent this morning and flung himself into my
arm-chair--Mr. D.'s chair, that sacred piece of furniture. I thought it
an odd measure, but could not help it, and he began: 'I was just going
to say--what a delicious chair this is! such a spring!--I was just going
to say that I have been talking to Webb about your open carriage. I
understand you want it up here. I think of sending it to Dehra, for, as
I told Webb, the oxen can bring it back from Barr,' &c. I looked rather
frosty, and said I would think about it and let him know, and put it
off; and then he launched out about Paul de Cocq's novels, still seated
on that much-loved chair--'my goods, my property, my household stuff.'
As soon as he was gone, I got hold of X., who said he too had been
surprised, but thought that perhaps Captain L. E., who is acting for W.
in his absence, might have found he had too much to do, and so had made
over the stables to Z.
Then L. E. arrived, saying he really had been quite annoyed, happened to
be particularly fond of horses, had not a bit too much to do, had found
Captain Z. the other day giving orders about the relays for the march,
and had therefore taken the liberty of calling the four native coachmen
together and desiring them never to take orders from anybody but
himself. If Lord A. had chosen to ride that morning there would not have
been a riding horse on the line of march; but of course if I had told
Captain Z. to take charge of the stables, he would give it up, &c. I
said I never told anybody anything, and so I suppose they will settle it
between them.