Simla, May 23, 1839.
A letter to you which is to go by the Persian Gulf only departed to-day,
and I believe there will be no regular steamer for nearly six weeks. A
sad interruption to our little communications. A few days after my
letter to you was sealed, G. got the official accounts of the taking of
Candahar, or rather how Candahar took Shah Soojah, and _would have_ him
for its King. There never was anything so satisfactory. I hope M. and
Lord M. will have received and shown you the copies of Sir A. Burnes's
letters; it was such a picturesque description of the business. M. wrote
me a very good account of it. He says:--'Five days ago we poor
politicals were assailed from all quarters, from the commander-in-chief
to the lowest ensign. They were all exclaiming how we had deceived them;
that we had given out that Shah Soojah would be received by the chiefs
and people of his country with open arms; that the resources of the
country would be laid open to the British army--instead of which, he was
opposed by his own countrymen; no chiefs came near him; the army was
starving in a land of milk and honey; in fact, we had deceived
ourselves, and that Shah Soojah's cause was impossible. A little
patience, and the fallacy of these sentiments would be proved. The
sirdars left their late capital with scarcely two hundred followers;
their most confidential servants deserted them, for to the last their
measures were most oppressive, and they were heartily execrated. Every
great chief with numerous followers came out to meet the Shah, and
greeted him on his arrival in his own country with every demonstration
of joy; the poor crowded about him, making offerings of flowers, and
they strewed the road he was to pass over, with roses. Yesterday the
King went to visit the city (we are encamped about two miles from it);
every person, high and low, seemed to strive how they could most show
their devotion to his Majesty, and their delight at the return of a
Suddozie to power. The King visited the tomb of his grandfather, Ahmed
Shah; and the _Prophet's shirt_, which is in keeping of the Mollahs in
charge of the tomb, and which was brought out by the sirdars when they
were trying to raise a religious war against us, was produced, and the
King hugged and kissed it over and over again.
'The populace are the finest race of Asiatics I have seen; the men tall
and muscular, the women particularly fair and pretty, and all well
dressed. It seems as if we had dropped into paradise.
'The country that we have been traversing for two months is the most
barren and desolate eye ever rested on; not a tree nor a blade of grass
to be seen; we were constantly obliged to make marches of twenty miles
to find water; the hills were only huge masses of clay. The contrast now
is great; the good things of this life are abundant; luxurious crops,
which will be ready for the sickle in three or four weeks; extensive
plains of green sward for the cattle; endless gardens and orchards; the
rose-trees grow wild, eight or ten feet high; fruits of all kinds;
rivulets flow through the valley; the birds are all song birds, and the
air rings with their notes; in short, we have reached the oasis at last,
and are thoroughly enjoying ourselves.
'The people are all at their occupations as usual, and seem to have
perfect confidence in us. The natives all agree in saying that Dost
Mahommed, upon hearing of his brothers having fled, will follow their
example, &c. I am very happy in my appointment, and I feel I have a
great deal more to say to you, but this must go.'
Poor M.! In to-day's Calcutta paper there is the death of his pretty
little sister, who came out not two years ago; she very nearly died
during the first hot season, and now has been carried off by a return of
the same fever. Certainly this public news is very satisfactory; the
whole thing done without bloodshed; and the effect on the people here is
wonderful; the happiness of the wives is very great: they see, with
their mind's eye, their husbands eating apricots and drinking acid
sherbet, and they are satisfied. Our ball to-morrow will be very gay,
and I have just written to P. to stick up a large 'Candahar' opposite
the other illuminations.
Saturday, May 25.
The Queen's ball 'came off' yesterday with great success. We had had,
the beginning of the week, three days of rain, which frightened us,
because it is a rain that nothing can stand. It did us one good deed on
Monday--washed away the twenty-four people who were coming to dine with
us, which was lucky, as the greater part of the dinner prepared for them
was also washed away by the rain breaking the skylight in the
dining-room, and _plumping_ down on the table. I went down by myself to
Annandale on Thursday evening, to see how things were going on there,
and found X., who has been encamped there for three days, walking about
very conjugally with Mrs. N, to whom he is engaged. I felt rather _de
trop_ as they stepped about with me, showing off the preparations. It
was a very pretty-looking fête; we built one temporary sort of room
which held fifty people, and the others dined in two large tents on the
opposite side of the road, but we were all close together, and drank the
Queen's health at the same moment with much cheering. Between the two
tents there was a boarded platform for dancing, roped and arched in with
flowers, and then in different parts of the valley, wherever the trees
would allow of it, there was 'Victoria,' 'God save the Queen,' and
'Candahar' in immense letters twelve feet high. There was a very old
Hindu temple also prettily lit up. Vishnu, or Mahadevi, to whom I
believe it really belonged, must have been affronted. The native dealers
in sweetmeats came down to sell their goods to the servants and
jonpaunees, and C. and X. went round and bought up all their supplies
for about twenty rupees for the general good. We dined at six, then had
fireworks, and coffee, and then they all danced till twelve. It was the
most beautiful evening; such a moon, and the mountains looked so soft
and _grave_, after all the fireworks and glare.
Twenty years ago no European had ever been here, and there we were, with
the band playing the 'Puritani' and 'Masaniello,' and eating salmon from
Scotland, and sardines from the Mediterranean, and observing that St.
Cloup's potage à la Julienne was perhaps better than his other soups,
and that some of the ladies' sleeves were too tight according to the
overland fashions for March, &c.; and all this in the face of those high
hills, some of which have remained untrodden since the creation, and we,
105 Europeans, being surrounded by at least 3,000 mountaineers, who,
wrapped up in their hill blankets, looked on at what we call our polite
amusements, and bowed to the ground if a European came near them. I
sometimes wonder they do not cut all our heads off, and say nothing more
about it.
Sunday, May 26.
The aides-de-camp are about as much trouble to me as so many grown-up
sons. That sedate Captain P. followed me to my room after breakfast, and
thought it right to mention that he had proposed to Miss S. on Thursday,
and had been accepted, and that the aunt was agreeable, and that he had
written to the stepfather, Colonel ----, for his consent, which he had no
reason to doubt, &c., and that he hoped I would not mention it to
anybody but Lord A., as they were exceedingly desirous Captain L. E.
should not know it, but Mrs. S. wished I should be told. If the kitchen
poker or church steeple had gone and proposed, it would not have been
more out of character, P. has always seemed so very indifferent and cold
to ladies; though ever since we have been here, we have observed how
altered he was, and what high spirits he was in; and then I met him the
other day carrying a little nosegay to Stirling Castle, which looked
suspicious and unnatural. Still the shock was great, and the only thing
I could think of at first, was to ask with infinite and mistaken
promptitude if she were a nice girl, to which P. naturally answered that
of course she was--a very nice girl indeed; and I said I had had no
opportunity of speaking to her when she dined here, but that now I
should take pains to make her acquaintance. And then we discussed his
prospects.
He cannot marry for a year at soonest, even if Colonel ---- consents
then; but she is only eighteen, and her father will not let the elder
one marry till she is twenty. P. is going away next week on an official
tour to Cashmere, a sort of scientific survey which G. wants him to
make, and he is to be away four months.
That business was settled, and after luncheon L. E. came, very unhappy
in _his_ mind--_and_ thought I must have observed it. He had been on the
point of proposing to Miss A. S., when he had been intercepted by the
astute aunt, who said she could not but observe his attentions, and
thought it as well to mention that A. was engaged. He said, so he had
heard, but he did not believe it, and thereupon wrote to the aforesaid
A., and brought me his letter and her answer, and his letter to the
stepfather and the aunt's letter to him, and he thought that with my
knowledge of the world, I could tell him whether it did not appear that
she was only sticking to her engagement because she thought it right,
&c.
I could not possibly flatter him. She is a pretty-looking girl, who has
evidently fretted herself into bad health because Colonel ---- would not
consent to her marriage with a Mr. ----, she being eighteen, and her
lover the same age. As she has never heard from the lover since he
joined the army of the Indus, it is very possible _he_ is inconstant,
and that is what L. E. goes upon; he does not care how long he waits,
&c. (and I think he will have to wait some time), but in the meantime
perhaps I would speak to Mrs. S., and above all things Captain P. was
not to know. That is always the end of all confidences; and in the
meantime, as P. lives in a broad grin, and L. E. in a deep sigh, I
should think their secrets will be guessed in a week. Thank goodness,
now they are all engaged, except Z., who is not likely to fall in love
with anybody but himself.
Wednesday, May 29.
We had a theatrical dinner yesterday, and a rehearsal of our new
tableaux, which promise to be very successful. Six from the 'Corsair,'
and five from 'Kenilworth.' We had them at night to try how Gulnare
would look with her lamp going to visit Conrade; and I had another grand
idea, of a trap-door, down which Amy Robsart is supposed to have fallen,
at least four inches, so that she must have had every bone in her body
smashed; and Varney with a torch looking into it, and Leicester and
Trevilian in despair, made it a most awful business. The rehearsal was
rather amusing; all the gentlemen in their common red coats, and a
pretty Mrs. V., supposed to be Medora, was sitting with the shovel in
her hand, and said in such a quiet way, 'This is, in fact, a guitar;'
which, as she is dreadfully shy, and not given to speak at all, was one
of the best jokes she ever made.