Agra, Sunday, December 29, 1839.
I have let a week pass by this time, partly because, since we have been
here, we have given a ball and four large dinners, seen a great many
sights, had a ball given to us and a déjeûner at the Taj, and also that
an awful change has taken place in our plans, one that it makes me sick
to think of. We are going to stay here for the next ten months: ----, to
whom G. offered the Lieutenant-Governorship, and who knew all his plans,
and who had acuteness enough to carry them on, began by accepting, and
ended by declining in consequence of 'domestic calamities which he was
unable to explain.' They say that Mrs. ---- is gone out of her mind. I
really think it must have been at the notion of coming here. It is too
late in the year to make any new arrangements, and there is so much of
importance likely to occur in the Punjâb where old Runjeet is a sad
loss, and so much to watch over in Affghanistan, that G. decided on
staying himself. Such a shock and such trouble! We have at least three
houses to build here for the European servants, the baboos, &c., and a
house to repair for the aides-de-camp. Agra is avowedly the hottest
place in India, and everybody says this is the hottest house in Agra, so
there is a whole army of engineers now beginning to see what can be done
to build up verandahs, and to make ventilators, and to pretend to make
the hot winds bearable. There are in India two regular parties, one
preferring Bengal with the hot days and the damp and the sea-breeze
blowing at night, and the other standing up for their hot winds, twenty
degrees hotter, but dry. I have never varied in thinking the account of
them terrific. From the end of March to the middle of June, they blow
unceasingly, night and day. Nobody stirs out, and all night the tatties
are kept wet, and thermantidotes (great _winnowing_ machines) are kept
turning to make a little cool air. The windows are never opened, and
they say that, at midnight, if you were to go out, it feels like going
into a furnace. However, those who are all for the provinces say, the
wind is dry and not unwholesome, and that as long as you do not attempt
to go out of the house, you do not suffer from the heat. It is a regular
strict imprisonment. Calcutta is bad, but there we had a regular evening
drive, and Government House was really cool at night; then in case of
illness there was the sea at hand, but here, if any of us are ill, of
course there is no escape. Even natives cannot travel in the hot winds.
The discomfiture is general. Most of our goods are half-way to Calcutta.
The native servants, who thought they were within reach of their wives
and families after two years' absence, are utterly desperate.
Mr. A. has thrown up his place, and goes down to Calcutta. Mrs. S. plods
back to Simla with her children, and leaves her husband here. Mrs. H.
ditto, and I think those two ladies are rather pleased, it forces them
to keep their boys another year in the country. Z. has been ill since we
came here, but the day this shock was communicated to him, he got up
electrified, dressed himself, and came to my room to bemoan his
_particular_ hard fate, so like Narcissus Fripps. 'I really am quite
overset--I have not an idea what to do--I am so afraid of the hot winds,
and this is such a place! no society whatever! Now at Calcutta I really
should have enjoyed myself.' This was said with an air of great
interest.
I saw my opportunity and put it to him, that the hot winds were very bad
for the attacks he is subject to, that Dr. D. had always wished him to
go home, and that he might now have a medical certificate, which would
save his paying his own passage, &c. And so he took the right turn, went
straight to the doctor's tent, and came back to say that he had decided
to go home. It really is the best thing he can do, and Dr. D. says it is
the only chance of his getting well.
We still go to Gwalior, and go back into camp on Thursday; we shall be
nearly a month away, and we leave X. behind, with Giles and all the
carpenters and tailors of the establishment to make up beds, furniture,
&c., for we have nothing but small camp beds, which are not endurable in
heat.
Monday, December 30.
You cannot conceive what a pretty fête they gave us at the Taj, or how
beautiful it looked by broad daylight.
The whole society, with our camp, was just one hundred people, and we
dined in what had once been a mosque, but it was _desecrated_ many years
ago. Still I thought it was rather shocking our eating ham and drinking
wine in it, but its old red arches looked very handsome.
Some of the Agra people are too strict to dance, and as much walking is
difficult in the plains, it is lucky the afternoon did not hang very
heavily; but the garden is very prettily laid out, and W. O. challenged
a fat Mr. N., an old acquaintance, to play at hop-scotch with all their
old Westminster rules. W. is wonderfully active still at all those
games, and plays at them with very good grace, and it was great fun to
see Mr. N., who is the image of Pickwick and dresses like him, hopping
and jumping and panting after him. It kept everybody in a roar of
laughter for an hour, and filled up the afternoon very well. No; the
more our plan of staying here is canvassed the worse it is--the mere
precautions that are to be taken, show what those horrible hot winds are
to be. However, I believe, as they all say, the best way is not to think
of them more than can be helped. The weather is fine now. But what I
_do_ think of, morning, noon, and night, is the utter impossibility of
our going home now in 1841. It is too sore a subject to write about, and
it had much better be left untouched, for fear it should establish
itself into a fact, but I always foresaw those horrid secretaries would
work it out if they could.
I am in that mood that I should almost be glad if the Sikhs, or the
Russians, or anybody, would come and take us all. It would be one way
out of the country. Captain C. has got an excellent appointment at
Lucknow, but he will not leave us till after Gwalior, as he thinks he
may be of use, as X. must stay here to build and superintend. Captain C.
has thoroughly earned his appointment by four years' constant service,
but he is the last of the original set, and we are all very unhappy at
his going, he is the most thorough gentleman in mind, and very clever
and original. He has always been a great favourite with G., and as I
think Mr. D. might accidentally fall in with Allan C. or find an
opportunity of seeing him, perhaps he would mention how well his son is
thought of, and how well he is now settled. Captain X. bore his
disappointment wonderfully well, and has been very amiable in many
respects. G. offered him a smaller place, which might just have enabled
him to marry, but when he found Z. was going as well as Captain C., he
thought we should be having so many strangers at once, just as we were
settling in a new place and to a new sort of life, that he would not
leave us. I really do not know what we could have done without him at
this moment. He is ordering all the new buildings, buying furniture in
all directions, and ordering up everything from Calcutta, where he had
just provided for our return. Agra produces nothing, there is no shop,
and so few Europeans that I suppose the box wallahs find no trade, so we
have been obliged to send to Calcutta for mats for the floors, musquito
curtains, even common pins.
Tuesday, Dec. 31.
I went early this morning with Mr. H. and ---- to see the Female Orphan
School. We saw the boys last week--there are 150 boys and 130 girls who
were picked up at the time of the famine two years ago, starving and
with no relations. The boys are learning all sorts of trades; and as we
are detained here another year, I thought it would be better to send my
two little girls to the other school for the time, if they will let me
have them again, to take to Mrs. Wilson. There is a German missionary
and his wife at the head of this school. He speaks Hindoostanee
tolerably, but she speaks no English and very little Hindoostanee;
however, there is another woman to assist, and they seem to make it out
very tolerably, and they are an interesting looking young couple, with
such soft German voices. Rosina took Ameeum and Jehurun there after
breakfast, and stayed great part of the day with them, but they all
three did nothing but cry, though the old body is very sensible about
them, and thinks it better they should go. Poor little things! I am
sorry to lose them; they were such funny little animals, and used to
imitate Wright and Rosina in trying to dress me, and really made
themselves useful on the march. Z. is taking home a parcel to you--two
of my sketch-books, which I want you to keep for me; the others are
unluckily on the river on their way to Calcutta. Then, a parcel directed
to you, in which there are two half shawls, embroidered all over, really
about the prettiest things I have seen, which it appeared Wright had
procured from Delhi for T. and E. She thought they would be very
suitable for two young ladies going out. I thought they were too
expensive presents for her to send, and F. and I tried to persuade her
out of it, but she said she had got them on purpose, so there they are;
and for fear you should be jealous, I have sent you a green worked Delhi
scarf. Also, in a little box directed to R., there are two press
papiers, a marble tortoise, and a marble book--Agra works, which I send
T. and E. F. has sent the girls some rings; so what you are to wring
from Z. when he arrives, are two sketch-books, a parcel of shawls, and
a little box of rings, all directed to you; and these two marble things
in the parcel to R.