Culpee, Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1840.
This is our great place of dispersion. G., A., and Mars start to-morrow
for Calcutta, Lord Jocelyn for Agra, C. for Lucknow, and we on our march
to Allahabad. M., H., and Colonel E. take up G.'s dâk the next
day--that is, they inherit his bearers and follow him as fast as they
can, and the rest of the camp go with us. We found Mrs. C., Mrs. N., and
the Y.s, all in their separate boats at the ghaut here, which was a
curious coincidence, as everybody started on a different day, and a
great delight to X.
Thursday, Jan. 30.
Lord Jocelyn passed two hours in my tent, talking over old days. He is
very amusing and pleasant, and rubs up a number of London recollections.
We all had an early dinner at three, and then he started in a dhoolie.
There were no spare palanquins in camp, and a dhoolie is a sort of bed
with red curtains, that sick soldiers are carried in, very light, but
squalid-looking.
The street was full of officers, and soldiers, and servants; everybody
in camp assembled to wish G. good-bye, and Lord Jocelyn came out in a
flowered dressing-gown and slippers, with a cigar and a volume of a
French novel, and took possession of this wretched bed, and seemed quite
delighted with it. His servant followed on a camel. G. and A. then set
off in the shut carriage, which is to take them two stages, Mars with
palanquins having gone on in the morning. G.'s going is a great grief.
It is somehow impossible to live without him here, and then India is
such a horrid place. People who care about each other never ought to
part for a day; it is all so uncertain, and communication is so
difficult. F. and H. made a short march of five miles, just across the
Jumna, and C. came on with all the rest and passed the evening with us,
and then set off for his appointment at Lucknow. He is a great loss in
every way, and has been with us for four years nearly. M., Colonel E.,
and H. we left on the other bank; they are to follow G. to-morrow.
Friday, Jan. 31.
Captain D. is in a considerable fuss. Colonel ---- seems never to have
recollected that though so many individuals have left the camp, their
property and servants remain there, just the same, and that the public
officers, with all the clerks, must march on; so there is the same want
of sentries. He ordered off half of the regiment that had come to escort
us to Allahabad, and Colonel B., who only joined last night, sent word
that he had only 300 men to do the work of 1,000. The sentries are
withdrawn from all the private tents, and all the silver howdahs and
waggon loads of shawls, jewellery, arms, &c., of the Tosha Khanna, are
brought into the middle of the street. I should have liked to have
robbed it for fun; in the first place, for the value of the goods, and
then it would have put D., L., and the baboo into such a state of
horror.
Nobody _was_ robbed but Mr. ----, who always is, and looks as if he
always must be; he seems so helpless, and dangles his hands about in a
pair of bright yellow gloves, quite new, and too large for him, and
says, 'It is very odd how the devils of dacoits persecute me.'
The other day they stole his horse: he had put five police to guard it,
and the thief just cut the ropes, jumped on its back, and rode off, and
has never been heard of since. It is very convenient stealing a white
horse in this country, because the natives always paint them, sometimes
in stripes like zebras, and sometimes in zigzags, and always give them
scarlet, or orange tails, and orange legs; so they disguise a stolen one
instantly.
Mr. T. is such a prim boy; he is very gentlemanlike-looking, and seems
very amiable, but he is certainly prim. His uniform is so stiff he
cannot turn his head round, and he talks poetically whenever he does
speak.
F. declares he quoted to-day something from _Mr._ Thomson's 'Seasons.' I
wish when he gives us his arm that he would _shut it up_ again. He
sticks it out almost akimbo, so that it is impossible to _hook on_ with
any certainty.
Ghautumpore, Sunday, Feb. 2.
We have halted here to-day to allow more troops to come and protect the
general property.
I heard from G. from Futtehpore. He says he can sleep very well in his
palanquin; he might call it rather a slow conveyance, but thinks of us
marching, and blesses his own fate. Mr. Beechey, the painter at Lucknow,
sent me to-day a miniature of G., done by a native from his picture. It
is a shocking caricature, but a very little would make it like. I can
make the alteration myself; and if I can get it smoothed up at Calcutta,
I will send it home, and the girls can hang up 'the devoted creature' in
their room. Mr. Beechey says he has sent me the original sketch in oils
to Calcutta. It was an excellent picture, and I hope he has not touched
it since.
Jehannabad, Monday, Feb. 3.
I heard again from G. from Allahabad; in fact, he is very little in his
palanquin. All the magistrates and collectors of the different districts
had placed their carriages and buggies at his disposal along the road
that they knew he must go; so he gets on very fast, and then rests all
the hot part of the day in a bungalow, which gives time for his
palanquin to come up. He had gone thirty miles at one spell in a
carriage drawn by four camels.
Futtehpore, Thursday, Feb. 6.
I have missed three days. They are all so exactly alike and so more than
ever tiresome now G. is gone; I cannot get on at all without him. There
is nobody else in this country who understands me, and you keep standing
there such miles off, that you are not of the least use when I want you
most. Then your letters did not come last month. You cannot imagine what
companions your letters are, and I want one so very much just now.
We have come back to-day, to one of our early halting places two years
ago, so that looks as if we really were coming to an end of our
wanderings in the wilderness, and I am sure it is high time we did. All
the chairs and tables are tumbling to pieces, the china is all cracked,
the right shoe of my only remaining pair has sprung a large hole, the
brambles that infest the jungles where we encamp have torn my gown into
fringes, so that I look like a shabby Pharisee, and my last bonnet is
brown with dust. I am obliged to get Wright to darn a thing or two
surreptitiously; the tailors think it wrong and undignified to mend.
Altogether I can conceive nothing pleasanter than coming to a completely
fresh set out at Calcutta.
General E. passed through camp to-day in his palanquin, and stopped for
two hours and came to see us. I recollect him so well with the F.s and
G.s as 'Elphy Bey,' and never had made out it was the same man till a
sudden recollection came over me a week ago. He is in a shocking state
of gout, poor man!--one arm in a sling and very lame, but otherwise is a
young-looking general for India. He hates being here, and is in all the
first struggles of 'a real ancient Briton.' (Don't you remember how you
and I were 'ancient Britons' always, when we fell into foreign society?)
He is wretched because nobody understands his London topics, or knows
his London people, and he revels in a long letter from Lord W. He
thought G. very much altered since he had seen him, and G. thought the
same of him. I suppose it will be very dreadful when we all meet. 'Oh!
my coevals, remnants of yourselves,' I often think of that. What sort of
a remnant are you? I am a remnant of faded yellow gingham.
General E. said, 'It seems odd that I have never seen A. since we were
shooting grouse together, and now I had to ask for an audience and for
employment. I got a hint, and rather a strong one, from the
Governor-General to take Delhi in my way to Meerut, and to look at the
troops there and be active in my command.' He went off with a heavy
heart to his palanquin, which must be a shaky conveyance for gout. One
sees how new arrivals must amuse old Indians. He cannot, of course,
speak a word of Hindoostanee, neither can his aide-de-camp. 'My groom is
the best of us, but somehow we never can make the bearers understand us.
I have _a negro_ who speaks English, but I could not bring him dâk.' I
suppose he means a native; but that is being what the 'artful dodger' in
'Oliver Twist' would have called 'jolly green.' He can hardly have
picked up a woolly black negro who speaks Hindoostanee. I wish I knew.
Kutoghun, Sunday, Feb. 9.
We have halted here for Sunday under a few trees, which they call
Kutoghun. I don't see any houses within ten miles.
Syme, Feb. 10.
We were met this morning by two Shuter sirwars, bringing invitations
from the serious party at Allahabad to a fancy fair and a supper, and
from the wicked set, to a ball and a supper, and begging us to name our
own days. We have but Thursday and Friday, and it is rather hard, after
a long march and before an early boat, to put in these gaieties.
However, we cannot help it, but have declined both the suppers.
Allahabad, Friday, Feb. 14.
There! we arrived yesterday; the last time in my natural life in which I
will make a long dusty journey before breakfast--at least, that is my
hope, my intention, and my plot; of course I may be defeated in after
years.
The camp is breaking up fast; camp followers asking for rupees in every
direction; a fleet of boats loaded, and more wanted; all useless horses
and furniture are being sold off by Webb at the stables; and to-morrow,
of all this crowd which still covers five acres, there will be nothing
left but Captain C. alone in his tent.
The fancy fair looked pretty in the evening--very 'Vicar of
Wrexhillish,' such a mixture of tracts and champagne, &c., but the
cheapest shop I have been in in India. We brought home nearly a
carriage-full of goods, which will do to give to the servants. To-night
there is the ball. We have written to beg it may be early, and we go on
board the budgerows to sleep, and they take us down to the steamer
to-morrow. X. and fourteen boats'-load of trunks went this morning, and
there are about thirty-five more to make their way to Calcutta without
steam--carriages, horses, &c.--which will arrive about a fortnight after
us.
I heard from G. about 250 miles from Calcutta: quite well, and delighted
with his _rapid_ travelling--four miles an hour!