Miss Eden to her Sister, Mrs. Drummond.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
January 16, 1837.

THERE is a Lady Henry Gordon[443] here, on her way home with two of the loveliest children I ever beheld. One of them puts me in mind of her aunt, poor Lady M. Seymour,[444] but it is still more beautiful. They are older than most children here, and have come from a cold part of the country with fresh rosy cheeks. George and I had met them twice on the plain when we were out riding, and had bored everybody to death to find out who they were. William [Osborne] knew Lady Henry when she was a sort of companion to Lady Sarah Amherst, and a victim to old Lord Amherst’s[445] crossness, so he went to call on her and discovered our beautiful children. They have dined here since, and I want her to let us have them at Barrackpore, as she is too busy preparing for her voyage to come herself, but I am afraid she will not. Her husband is a very particular goose, and a pay-master in some particular department, and she does all his work for him. Nobody knows at all how he is to go on while she is away. [Letter unfinished.]

Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
January 25, 1837.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I will take your plan of sitting down forthwith and answering your letter (of August 18th, received January 23rd) on the spot, before the pleasure of reading it wears off. It means I am going to answer your letter directly, and I am so obliged to you for asking me questions—just what I like. Intellect and memory both are impaired, and imagination utterly baked hard, but I can answer questions when they are not very difficult, and if they are put to me slowly and distinctly; and besides, I am shy of writing and boring people with Indian topics. I used to hate them so myself. But if they ask about an Indian life, as you do, and about the things I see every day, why, then, I can write quite fluently, and may heaven have mercy upon your precious soul! So here goes:

“Do you find amongst your European acquaintances any pleasing or accomplished women?” Not one—not the sixth part of one; there is not anybody I can prefer to any other body, if I think of sending to ask one to come and pay me a visit, or to go out in the carriage; and when we have had any of them for two or three days at Barrackpore, there is a morne feeling at the end of their visit that it will be tiresome when it comes round to their turn of coming again. I really believe the climate is to blame.

“They read no new books, they take not the slightest interest in home politics, and everything is melted down into being purely local.” There is your second question turned into an answer, which shows what a clever question it was.

Thirdly. It is a gossiping society, of the smallest macadamised gossips I believe, for we are treated with too much respect to know much about it; but they sneer at each other’s dress and looks, and pick out small stories against each other by means of the Ayahs, and it is clearly a downright offence to tell one woman that another looks well. It is not often easy to commit the crime with any regard to truth, but still there are degrees of yellow, and the deep orange woman who has had many fevers does not like the pale primrose creature with the constitution of a horse who has not had more than a couple of agues.

The new arrivals we all agree are coarse and vulgar—not fresh and cheerful, as in my secret soul I think them. But that, you see, is the style of gossipry.

Fourthly. It is a very moral society, I mean that people are very domestic in their habits, and there are no idle men. Every man without exception is employed in his office all day, and in the evening drives. Husbands and wives are always in the same carriage. It is too hot for him to ride or walk, and at evening parties it is not considered possible for one to come without the other; it is quite out of the question. If Mr. Jones is ill everybody knows that Mrs. Jones cannot go out, so she is not expected.

Fifthly. I believe in former days it was a profligate society, as far as young men were concerned, the consequence of which is that the old men of this day are still kept here by the debts they contracted in their youth. But the present class of young men are very prudent and quiet, run into debt very little, and generally marry as soon as they are out of college.

Then as to the Hindu College. The boys are educated, as you say, by the Government, at least under its active patronage, and they are “British subjects,” inasmuch as Britain has taken India, and in many respects they may be called well-educated young men; but still I cannot tell you what the wide difference is between a European and a Native. An elephant and Chance, St. Paul’s and a Baby-Home, the Jerseys and Pembrokes, a diamond and a bad flint, Queen Adelaide and O’Connell, London and Calcutta, are not further apart, and more antipathetic than those two classes. I do not see how the prejudices ever can wear out, nor do I see that it is very desirable. I do not see that any degree of education, or any length of time, could bring natives to the pitch of allowing any liberty to their wives. Their Mussulman creed makes it impossible, and as girls are married at 7 or 8 years old, and after that are never seen by any human being but their husbands, there is no possibility of educating them, and in fact education could only make them miserable. Even our lowest servants of any respectability would not let their wives be seen on any account. They live in mud huts, something like Irish cabins, and in half of that hut these women pass their lives.

Wright[446] has tried hard to persuade my Jemadar (a sort of groom of the chambers), who is a superior man of his class, speaks and reads English, and is intelligent, to let her see his wife, but he will not hear of it. The Ayahs who wait on us are not at all considered, though I have never made out to my satisfaction how bad they are.

There is an excellent Mrs. Wilson here, who for 20 years has been trying to educate the lower orders of native females, but she told me the other day, that she has never been able to keep a day-scholar after she was 6 or 7 years old, and she has now removed her whole establishment 7 miles from Calcutta. She has collected 160 orphans, who were left utterly destitute after a great inundation in 1833. They were picked up on the banks of rivers, some even taken from the Pariah dogs! Mrs. Wilson took any that were sent to her, a great many died out of whole cargoes that were sent down. It is the prettiest thing possible to see her amongst her black children, she looks so pleased and happy; she is in her widow’s dress without another European near her, and as she told me the other day, with no more certainty of funds than would supply her for her next six weeks. In short, in a position which would justify a weaker person in sitting down and taking a good cry, but she was as cheerful and as happy as if she had not a care on her mind.

Sixthly. I do not speak a word of Hindustani, and never shall, because I have three servants who all understand, though only one speaks it, and the aides-de-camp are at hand for interpretation. I wish I had learnt it. But there is nothing to read in it, it is difficult to learn accurately, and as I said before, I am not driven to it by the servants. In all this immense establishment there are not more than six who speak English, and if my Jemadar dies, I must. The only time I miss the language is out riding. When more than one of us ride, there is an aide-de-camp with us, but as Fanny constantly goes out with William, I found a tÊte-À-tÊte with George was much to be preferred to that bit of state, so he and I ride out alone, and of course he is met by a petition at every odd turning, and sometimes we both long to enquire into the case or to tell the man what to do, and it seems so stupid not to be able to do so.

The guards do not understand a word of English, and the Syces who run by the side of the horses are remarkably cute at understanding our signs if they have reference to the horses, but have no idea on any other subject.

Seventhly. The MÉnagerie is almost full. An old tiger, and a young one who is just beginning to turn his playful pats into good hard scratches and is now shut up in a cage grown up and come out, as we should say on arriving at that dignity; a leopard, two cheetahs, two porcupines, two small black bears, sloths, monkeys of sorts that are caught about 100 miles off and shut up, and parrots, and heaps of beautiful Chinese pheasants. Zoological Garden beasts do not walk about wild, but there are a great many parroquets wild in Barrackpore, and alligators in the rivers; and we have met, much to my discomfiture, some huge snakes. There are vultures without end, and the great adjutant birds who live on the top of Government House and walk about the compound all day, would have surprised one in England; but I take it that when we commence our march up the country we shall see many more strange animals. As it is, I am quite satisfied still with the natives. I never see one that would not make the fortune of an artist, particularly at this time of the year. There are so many Arabs come down for the races, and the Burmese or Mugg men, are come with fruit and fish, and yesterday when we went out there were a crowd of Nepaulese, with such beautiful swords and daggers, at the gate. We sent to ask what they wanted, and they said, “Nothing, but to see the Lord Sahib go by.” I am going to send for one to add to my drawings of costumes.

There! Now I have done it thoroughly. I think you are cured of asking questions, but it has amused me writing all this.

I wrote to you December 29th, and sent you a silk scarf in a parcel that poor Doctor Bramley was sending home to his wife. He was with us at Barrackpore three weeks ago, was taken with fever last Monday fortnight, and died in seven days. There never was such a loss both publicly and privately, but the former especially. There is nobody here who can take his place at the Hindu College. He was a very delightful person in his way and the man we saw most of, as George had a great deal of business always to do with him, and he was very sociable with us. It is a horrid part of India, those sudden deaths. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville.

BARRACKPORE,
April 17, 1837.

MY DEAR MR. GREVILLE, they say that a letter written to-day will still be in time for the overland packet, and for all the adventures to which the Hugh Lindsay, the Dromedary Dawdle, the Desert, etc., may entitle it. Waghorn[447] I see is not at Cairo—another calamity! I am in opposition to George’s government on the great Waghorn question. I cannot see why they do not pay him anything he asks, and give him an East Indian peerage, or anything else. All the letters that come quickly to us are invariably stamped “to the care of Mr. Waghorn, Cairo,” and if I thought he were there now, I should, in defiance of the authorities here, address this “to the care of dear Mr. Waghorn”! I suspect you would then have it in less than two months; now, if you receive it in 1838 my fondest expectations will be gratified.

I cannot go back in our life more than 36 hours. It is all the same thing, so I will suppose you called on Thursday morning, and after your visit we came up to Barrackpore in the evening. You know what a horrid bad road it is this side of the half-way home, and therefore will not be surprised to hear that one of the leaders, the horse that you always say is the handsomest of the new set, stepped on a loose stone and came down like a shot. The postillion, who weighs about 1½ lbs., as a small native should, was pitched out of sight into a neighbouring presidency; I believe the leaders ran over the fallen horse, who kicked at them, and they of course kicked him. The spring of the carriage was broken, and the four Syces and the postillion and the guards, being all good Mohammedans, of course looked on contentedly, knowing that what must be—must be. Luckily W. Osborne for once had no other conveyance but our carriage, so he jumped out at the side, and we all tumbled out at opposite doors, and he Hindustani’d the Syces and cut the traces, and we were all put to rights (barring that one horse), and not the worse, thank you. Only it is so much too hot in this country to have adventures.

We were all assiduously fanning ourselves when the accident happened, but no fan would have helped us after that. Think of jumping out of a carriage in a hurry with the thermometer at 95. I will give you a journal of yesterday, to show the vividness and endless variety of our amusements.

Breakfast at nine—an operation which lasts seven minutes, because nobody has any appetite, and George has no time. Then we discussed the papers.... In the afternoon, a neighbour sent a note requesting admission to a new native school George has built in a park, for a Brahmin boy of good caste. I gave the father Brahmin a note to the schoolmaster, and with the proper craft of a native, he went and fetched two more of his children and said the note was intended to admit them all three. But the schoolmaster, as all schoolmasters should, knew how to read, and refused them, so when George and I drove to the school in the evening, we found them and about twenty others all clasping their hands and knocking their heads against the ground, because they were prevented learning English, and all saying “Good morning, Sir,” to show how much they had acquired. They say that at all times and to everybody, since the school has been opened.

Then we drove to the Garden, when Chance and his suite met us, and he swam about the tank for half an hour, and the tame otter came for its fish, and the young lynxes came to be looked at, and we fed the gold pheasants and ascertained that that rare exotic the heartsease was in flower, but the daisy, the real English white daisy, has turned out a more common Oenothera, and it proves that neither daisies nor cowslips can be nationalized here. I myself think the buttercup might be brought to perfection, but I know I see those matters in too sanguine a point of view.

We came home hotter than we went out. William [Osborne] and Fanny had been on the river, which was still worse. Dinner was not refreshing.

Then we all went out in the verandah, where there are great pans of water used for wetting the mats put over the windows, and the Aides-de-Camp found a new diversion in putting Chance in one pan, while three of them lifted the other and poured the water over him. He growled, as he used to do at you, to show he did not think those liberties allowable, but immediately jumped into the empty pan to have the bath repeated, whereat we all laughed, for that amounts to a good joke in India. But we never laugh more than two minutes at a time; it is too fatiguing. So then we went, like Lydia Bennet, to a good game at Lottery tickets. Our intellects fell last year from whist pitch, and now they have fallen below ÉcartÉ, but the whole household can understand Lottery, and except that it is too much trouble to hand a rupee from one card to another, we all like it very much.

At ten o’clock, Fanny and William and I went to a little sailing-boat he has here, and we should have sailed, and it would have been cooler if there had been any air. But there was a lovely moon, and the Hoogly is a handsome bit of river, and we floated about for an hour, and then went to bed. And so ends that eventful day.

We are all very well, though I have been rather ailing for ten days, but in a general way you are quite right; I have very much better health here than I had at home. So all my abuse of the climate is gratuitous; I do not owe it any spite, except for being so very disagreeable. I trust there is a letter from you somewhere on the sea. George has sent for this, so God bless you. I have not time to read it over. Yours ever,

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
Sept. 11, 1837.

MY DEAR MR. GREVILLE, George says he thinks I ought to write to you, which is rather an impertinent thought of his, because he does not know that I have not been writing to you every day, and he does not know that I have nothing to say, and that out of that nothing I have already furnished him with eight letters for this overland post. But he says there is ¾ of an hour yet before the last Bombay dawdle goes. Three-quarters of an hour for the preparation of a letter that is to travel 15,000 miles!

I am not going to comment on the dear young Queen; that I have done in the other letters. But I never think of anything else, and we are all dying of fevers brought on by court mourning, and curiosity coming on the rainy season. Our own approaching journey[448] is one other great interest, and we all declare we are packing up. It is almost as fatiguing lying on the sofa and wondering what is to become of all one’s property as actually packing up, and may perhaps by perseverance produce some result. But hitherto I have not done more than that personally. The faithful Byrne, and the rest of his staff, have gradually removed many of the comforts, and in two days the band and the horses and most of the servants depart, and, as William Osborne observes with real consternation, we shall not have above eight servants apiece left to wait on us.

Certainly some of the arrangements are amusing. I asked Byrne just now what our Ayahs (or black Lady’s Maids) were allowed to put their travelling-gear in. “Half a camel!” he said, with an air of reproach at such desperate ignorance. “Oh, half a camel apiece,” I said, looking intelligent, and laying an emphasis on apiece as if that had been my doubt, and you know one hears such strange stories of camels carrying a supply of water for their own private drinking, quite honestly, though they have drunk it already, that I was ready to believe the Ayah, veils and bangles, travelled the same way. But Byrne obligingly added that each camel carried two trunks, one of which each Abigail might claim.

The steamer to Benares will be the most tiresome part of our journey, there is so little to see on the banks; but once in camp I mean to commence an interminable course of sketching. I hope my sister Mary will show you some of the sketches I sent home about two months ago. I think they would amuse you.

Our great anxiety now is for the arrival of the Seringapatam, a new ship, quite untried, AI—a mark the papers put here to a ship that is making its first voyage, but what it means I can’t guess. Still, to this untried article is confided the trousseau of myself, of Fanny, and two other interesting females belonging to the camp who will, if the Seringapatam does not come very soon, be starved to death in camp, reduced as we are to white muslins and chilly constitutions. The Coromandel I am also anxious for, as I have a nephew on board; but still you know I have 48 nephews, and only one box of gowns, so if there is to be a little adverse weather, etc.

We are going to give a dinner on Monday to the party that will go with us in the steamer, and to rehearse our hardships. The punkahs are to be stopped, as the heat on the river is always stifling; cockroaches to be turned out in profusion on the floor; extra mosquitoes hired for the night; the lamps to be set swinging; the Colvins[449] and Torrens’[450] children to be set crying; Mrs. MacNaghten,[451] on whom we depend for our tracasseries, to repeat all that any of the company have ever said of the others; Mrs. Hawkins, who is very pretty, to show Hawkins how well she can flirt with all the aides-de-camp. Altogether I think it will be amusing.

There! I have no time for more. This ought to bring me two answers at least. I am more ravenous than ever for letters. We are all well, more or less. Yours very truly and heartily,

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.

GOVERNMENT HOUSE,
October 2, 1837.

MY DEAREST THERESA, A sort of a nominal, no—cousin of yours, Mr. Talbot, is going home in the Reliance, and it gives me a good opportunity of sending you a Bird of Paradise feather, as he can put it into his portmanteau, and it will be no trouble to you, nor to him, nor to anybody. Of course I shot it myself, and found the nest, and am bringing up the young Paradises by hand, and they promise to have handsome tails which I will send you in due course—that is the sort of thing I mean to assert at home.

In little more than a fortnight we shall be off on our great journey to the Himalayas. Everything we have in the shape of comfort is gone—servants, horses, band, guards, and everything embarked a month before us, as we shall go by steamer to Benares, and though that is slow work, it is necessary to give the country boats a considerable advance. The Ganges, you see, is not an easy river to navigate.

Sixty-five elephants and 150 camels will carry our little daily personal comforts, assisted by 400 coolies, and bullock-carts innumerable. They say that everybody contrives in the mÊlÉe to receive their own camel-trunks and pittarhs safe every night; but I own I bid a long farewell to every treasured gown and bonnet that I see Wright bury in the depths of a camel-trunk.

We are all enjoying the thoughts of this journey—not that I shall ever believe till I have tried that it is really true a tent can be as comfortable as Government House, with its thick walls and deep verandah and closed shutters. Still, we shall be travelling to a better climate, and that is everything. Then there will be eligible sketching, both buildings and figures, and we shall have occasional days of quiet and solitude. And once up in the mountains I expect to be quite strong again, and there is actual happiness in mountain air, independent of all other comfort.

What became of that book you said we should have to read some time ago? I have been vainly watching for it.

This must go. It has been sent for twice, and if you knew the impossibility of doing anything in a hurry you would appreciate particularly this semblance of a letter.

We are going what is called “in state” to the play to-night “by particular desire”—not of ours, but of the Amateurs who have got up a play for us before our departure. The thermometer is at 90, the new theatre is without punkahs, the small evening breeze that sometimes blows ceases entirely in September and October, and we are in black for our King. Rather a melancholy combination of circumstances. Priez pour nous! God bless you, dearest. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.

ALLAHABAD,
December 1, 1837.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I have never had but two letters from you since I came to India. No wonder! I daresay the letters contrive to turn off the instant they are out of your hands, and go to some better and nearer climate. The odd thing is that my letters, which ought to know better, do not seem to rush home with that impetus which would be natural under the circumstances. At least, my sisters, whom I write to morning noon and night, write nothing but complaints of the want of letters. If I felt the least guilty I should feel provoked, but as it is I receive all their murmurs with the gentle resignation of injured innocence.

I am at Allahabad, Theresa—“More fool I; when I was at home I was in a better place”: as dear Shakespeare, who knew all about Allahabad, as well as everything else, observed with his accustomed readiness. I do not know more about it, seeing we only arrived this morning. Our tents are pitched on the Glacis of the Fort, an encampment sacred to the Governor-General, and this Glacis, as you in your little pleasing way would observe, is not GlacÉ, seeing that I have just desired an amiable individual clothed in much scarlet and gold to pull the Punkah, which, by the prÉvoyance of the Deputy Quarter Master General, has been wisely hung in my tent. You see, what is called the cold weather is really cold and remarkably pleasant in the mornings, and our march, which we generally commence in the dusk at half-past five, and conclude before eight, is very bracing and delightful. But then that horrid old wretch the sun comes ranting up; the tents get baked through; and all through the camp there is a general moulting of fur shoes and merino and shawls, then an outcry for muslin, and then for a Punkah to give us breath. We cannot go out till it is nearly dark; and then about dinner-time, when we cross over from our private tents to the great dining-room, we want cloaks and boas and all sorts of comforts again. Those cold hours of the day are very English and pleasant.

I hate my tent and so does George. We incline to a house with passages, doors, windows, walls that may be leaned against, and much furniture. Fanny luckily takes to a tent kindly, but the majority of our camp, consisting of various exemplary mothers and children, are of the house faction.

Our chaplain and his Scotch wife, who speaks the broadest Scotch I have ever heard, have been eating with us all to-day, for, as Mrs. Wimberley observed, “It’s just reemarkable: the cawmels kicked all our crockery off their bocks yeesterday, and to-day our cooking-tent is left on the other side of the Jumna, so we’ve just nothing to eat.”

We crossed the river at the confluence of the Ganges and Jumna this morning.

Last night we went down on our elephants to see the advanced guard of the camp pass over. It was a red Eastern sky, the beach of the river was deep sand, and the river was covered with low flat boats. Along the bank were tents, camel-trunks, fires by which the natives were cooking, and in the boats and waiting for them were 850 Camels, 140 Elephants, several hundred horses, the Body Guard, the regiment that escorts us, and the camp-followers. They are about 12,000 in all.

I wish it was possible to make more sketches, but the glaring light is very much against it, and the twilight is very short. There are robbers in camp every night. That is part of the fun. We met an officer yesterday riding for his life in the cold hours of the morning with only a white jacket and trousers on. He looked shivery, and it appeared that the Dacoits had entered his tent in the night, taken all they could turn to account, and as European cloaks are of no value to a native, they had cut the buttons and lace off his uniform and minced up into small pieces all his linen. There is no end to the stories of the cleverness of Dacoits, and that is one of the things I hate in camp. The instant it grows dusk, the servants come in and carry off every little atom of comfort in the way of furniture that one may have scraped together, and put it outside the tent under the charge of a sentry. It is the only chance, but it makes a gloomy-looking abode at night.

We are cut off from a great part of our tour by the dreadful scarcity in the Upper Provinces. There is no fodder whatever to be had, and a great camp like this makes in the best of times a great run on the price of provisions.

We shall lose the sight of Agra, which I regret; otherwise I am not sorry to miss the great stations. We are so plied with balls and festivities, and have to give so many great dinners, that the dull road is perhaps the most amusing after all.

I wish you would write. I always excuse you because I presume you are hatching both a child and a novel; but if I do not soon hear of one or the other, I cannot tell what excuse to make. I wrote to your brother George. George and I were agreeing the other day that he is the only friend who has utterly and entirely failed us; and yet somehow we cannot believe it of him. But he was the only person we knew well who took no notice of us even when we were coming away.

Now it is lawful to forget us, but it was rather shocking of him, was not it? Pray give my love to your mother and Mr. Lister. Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.

SIMLA,
April 28, 1838.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I had meant to have answered your letter by the last overland post, but I was poorly just as it started, and it is rather a doubt whether it will be a safe conveyance this time. Something wrong about the steamer, or the Arabs, or the dromedaries, or some of those little items that go to make up an overland post. However, I can but try.

Your account of poor Lady Henry interested me very much. Indeed, everybody must be interested in her, but the melancholy fact is that it is totally impossible to help them. We saw a great deal of Lord Henry[452] at Meerut, and took pains to show him great attention as he was in a shy state after the results of that investigation. There was not the slightest shadow of distrust as to his intentions, poor man! but his utter incapacity made it rather surprising that Lord Amherst ever should have given him an office of such trust, and not the least surprising that he should have been robbed and cheated in every way, by the number of crafty natives under him. I was thinking of any pendant to him in London for your information, but I hardly know anybody with such a silly manner—something like Petre, but more vacant and unconnected. He seemed thoroughly good-hearted, and very anxious about his children, who, he told me, were to go either to Boulogne or Bordeaux, he did not know which, but a great way from London! He was living with Captain Champneys, his successor in the paymastership, and seems quite contented to sit in a large arm-chair and look at Champneys in a fuss, which he has been in ever since he got the appointment. Indeed, he wrote me word yesterday that he found it so difficult to guard against the knavery of the Baboos attached to the office, that he never could enough regret having left his Aide-de-Camp with us.

George told me to say both to you and to Lady Morley that there is nothing he wishes so much as to help Lord Henry, but that in the present state of India there are no situations that are not responsible and hard-working, and even if it were possible (which it is not) to give one of these to a man who is a great debtor to the Government, Lord Henry is really not capable of one.

I did not know till I came up the country how really hard-worked Europeans are. It is lucky for them, for it is only the necessity of being in these Cutcherries or offices all day, that prevents their sinking altogether under the solitude of their lives and the climate. In most stations there are not above two or three Europeans, and in many only one.

There were two young men here yesterday who talked quite unceasingly; it was impossible to put in a word, and at last one of them said that he had been eight years, and his brother four, in stations where they never saw a European. They were both in horrid health, of course (everybody is in India), and so they had got six months’ leave to see what the hills could do for them, and they said they were so delighted to find themselves again with people who understood English, that they were afraid they had talked too much. It was impossible to dispute the fact, but still I was glad to hear their prattle; it evidently did them good. Our band was their great delight; they had not heard any European music for so long.

We tried to get up a dance two nights ago—a total failure I thought. Most of the people here are invalids, and as there are no carriages, and no carriage-roads, they can only come out in Jhanpamas (a sort of open Sedan), and the nights are cold. The whole company only amounted to forty, and I thought I never saw a heavier dance, but some of them thought it quite delightful, and I am afraid will wish for another.

It is even more delightful than I expected to be in these hills; the climate is perfection, and the pleasure of sitting out of doors looking at those lovely snowy mountains, and breathing real cool air, is more than I can say.

The change from those broiling plains was so sudden. At Bareilly the thermometer was at 90 in our tents at night, and the next day at Sabathu it was at 55 in the middle of the day. Such a long breath as I drew!

These mountains are very beautiful, but not so picturesque, I think, as the Pyrenees—in fact they are too gigantic to be sketchable, and there are no waterfalls, no bridges, no old corners, that make the Pyrenees so picturesque, independent of their ragged shapes. But I love these Himalayas, good old things, all the same, and mean to enjoy these seven months as much as possible to make up for the horrors of the two last years, and as for looking forward, it is no use just now.

I think George will find Calcutta so extravagantly hot that perhaps he will consent to go home sooner. That would be very satisfactory. The deaths there have been very numerous this year. Almost all the few people we knew intimately in the two years we were there, are dead—and almost all of them young people.

Do you remember my writing to you about poor Mrs. Beresford’s death? He is here now with a second wife, twenty years younger than himself, to whom he engaged himself three months after the first wife’s death; never told anybody, so we all took the trouble of going on pitying him with the very best pity we had to spare! Such a waste!

What became of your second book? I cannot even see it amongst the advertisements. I am disconsolate that we have had the last number of Pickwick, the only bit of fun in India. It is one of the few books of which there has been a Calcutta reprint, lithographs and all. I have not read it through in numbers more than ten times, but now it is complete I think of studying it more correctly.

Mention much about your children when you write. I find the letters in which my friends tell me about themselves and their children are much pleasanter than mere gossip. They really interest me—there is the difference between biography and history. My best love to your mother, and remember me to Mr. L. It is very odd how easily I can bring your face to mind when I think of you. Some faces I cannot put together at all cleverly, but I see you quite correctly and easily. Don’t alter, there’s a dear. Your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville.

SIMLA,
June 10, 1838.

A letter from you of November (this being the 10th of June) has just come dropping in quite promiscuous. Though I have had one of a later date, yet this has made me laugh and has put me in the mood to write to you forthwith.

Your remarkably immoral views as to the mischief that religion does in a country were wrong in the abstract, but they unfortunately just chimed in with some views his Lordship had been worried into taking, and he is quite delighted to have a quotation from your letter to act as motto to one of his chapters. Here we have such a medley of faiths. The Hindus convey a pig carefully cut up into a Muhammedan Mosque, whereupon the Mussulmanns cut up the Hindus. Then again the Mussulmanns kill a cow during a Hindu festival, and the Hindus go raving mad. Then an unsensible man like Sir P. Maitland refuses to give the national festivals the usual honours of guns, drums, etc., which they have had ever since the English set foot in India. In short, there is an irritation kept up on the plea of conscience, where the soothing system would be much more commendable and much easier.

I must say that, except in the Upper Provinces, where once or twice we have met with some violent petitioners, the Hindus and Mussulmans live most peaceably; so that they have separate cooking-places, and that the Hindu’s livery Tunic is made to button on the right shoulder and the Mussulman’s on the left, they ask no other differences. We have about an equal number of each in our household, and in Bengal they are all very friendly together.

We are very much interested in our foreign politics just now. It is all very well your bothering on about Canada,[453] and giving us majorities of 29 in favour of Lord Glenelg[454] (your last letter of February had mentioned that the Tories never would vote with the Radicals on such a party question: Peel was above it!! How he always takes you in!). Those little, trivial, obscure questions are all very well in their way, but my whole heart is fixed on intelligence from Herat, and I live in a state of painful wonder as to what Dost Mahomed’s[455] real relations with Persia and Russia may be.

One serious grievance is that the steamer which was to have taken our letters home this month was ordered off to Persia to bring away Mr. MacNiel,[456] if he wished to come, and our letters are “left lamenting,” like Lord Ullin, on the beach at Bombay. That is the sort of thing George does in the plenitude of his power, and which you know shocks us free-born Britons; and then we think of Trial by Jury, and annual Parliaments, and no Poor Laws, and Ballot, and “Britannia rules the waves,” and all the old story.

We have had a picturesque and pleasant deputation of Sikhs from Runjeet Singh, which we have returned by a Mission composed of Mr. MacNaghten, our Lord Palmerston, a dry sensible man, who wears an enormous pair of blue spectacles, and speaks Persian, Arabic, and Hindustani rather more fluently than English; of William Osborne, who goes in exchange for a nephew of Runjeet’s who came here; of Captain MacGregor, another Aide-de-Camp; and of Doctor Drummond, who has left our little sparks of life to go out by themselves, because Runjeet was particularly anxious to be attended by the Governor-General’s own physician. They are all under the conduct of Captain Wade,[457] the Political Agent at Lahore, who has lived so much with natives that he has acquired their dawdling, soft manners and their way of letting things take care of themselves.

They are all at Adeenanuggur, a summer palace of Runjeet’s, where, by way of being cool, their houses are furnished with Tatties and Thermantidotes, a sort of winnowing-machine that keeps up a constant draft, and with that the thermometer ranges from 102 to 105. Poor things! In the meanwhile they are perfectly delighted with Runjeet, as everybody is who comes within his influence. He contrives every sort of diversion for them. I hardly know how to state to you delicately that the Mission was met at the frontier by troops of Cashmerian young ladies, great dancers and singers, and that this is an extract from W. Osborne’s letter to-day, which I ought not to copy, only it will amuse you: “Runjeet’s curiosity is insatiable—the young Queen, Louis Philippe, how much wine we drink, what George drinks, etc. His questions never end. He saw me out riding to-day, and sent for me and asked all sorts of impertinent questions. Did we like the Cashmerian girls he had sent? Did all of us like them? I said I could not answer for the others; I could only speak for myself.” But Runjeet’s curiosity is really unbounded, as William states it. He requested George to send him samples of all the wines he had, which he did, but took the precaution of adding some whiskey and cherry brandy, knowing what Runjeet Singh’s habits are. The whiskey he highly approved of, and he told MacNaghten that he could not understand why the Governor-General gives himself the trouble of drinking seven or eight glasses of wine when one glass of whiskey would do the same quantity of work. He had asked one gentleman to a regular drinking-party, which they were dreading (as the stuff he drinks is a sort of liquid fire), and his great amusement is to watch that it is fairly drunk.

George says that your letter costs you nothing, so I enclose an account of Runjeet’s Court, which young MacGregor wrote me. If you have had enough of him you can burn the letter unread, but I have a faint recollection that the only Indian subject that was interesting at home was “The Lion of the PunjÂb.” It is a matter of great importance just now that he should be our faithful ally, so we make much of him, and I rather look to our interview with him next November. “If this meets encouragement,” as Swift says, I will give you an account of it.

Whenever we want to frighten any of our neighbours into good conduct, we have one sure resource. We have always a large assortment of Pretenders, black Chevaliers de St. George, in store. They have had their eyes put out, or their children are in hostage, or the Usurper is their own brother, or they labour under sundry disadvantages of that sort. But still there they are, to the good. We have a Shah ShujÁ all ready to lÂcher at Dost Muhammed if he does not behave himself, and Runjeet is ready to join us in any enterprise of that sort.

Still, all these tendencies towards war are always rather nervous work. You should employ yourself more assiduously in plucking Russia by the skirts and not allow him to come poking his face towards our little possessions. Whenever there is any important public measure to be taken, I always think George must feel his responsibility—no Ministers, no Parliament, and his Council, such as it is, down at Calcutta. To be sure, as you were going to observe, if he ever felt himself in any doubt, he might feel that he has my superior sense and remarkable abilities to refer to, but as it is, he has a great deal to answer for by himself.

I daresay he does it very well, for my notion is that in a multitude of counsellors there is folly—“wisdom” was a misprint. And then again, if the Directors happen to take anything amiss, they could hardly do less than recall us. I certainly do long to be at home, not but what I am thankful for Simla, and am as happy there as it is possible to be in India, but still there is nothing I would not give to be with friends and in good society again, with people who know my people, and can talk my talk. Here, society is not much trouble, nor much anything else. We give sundry dinners and occasional balls, and have hit upon one popular device. Our band plays twice a week on one of the hills here, and we send ices and refreshments to the listeners, and it makes a nice little rÉunion, with very little trouble. I am so glad to see Boz is off on another book. I do not take to Oliver Twist; it is too full of disasters.

I must nearly have bored you to death, so good-bye. Please write again. Yours most truly,

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville.

SIMLA,
November 1, 1838.

There is a small parcel going to you per Miss Fane (not a ship, but the General’s daughter, Miss Fane[458]), which you are to take care of, and eventually it will be a pleasing little occupation for you. It is a journal of William Osborne’s,[459] kept while he was at Runjeet Singh’s Court, and illustrated with some drawings Fanny has made from nature designs, and from some sketches made by one of our Aides-de-Camp, and altogether it may eventually make rather a nice little publication, and we think you will be just the man to edit it, and to cram it down the throat of an unwilling bookseller, extracting from him the last penny of its value—and a great deal more. It is not to be published till George gives his consent, and as it gives an account of the Mission which formed the alliance, which is to end in the war—which may end we don’t know how—and as William will indulge in levities respecting the Company highly unbecoming the Governor-General’s Military Secretary, who is in the receipt of £1500 a year from the said Company, and as for many other “as’s,” it is not to be printed till further advice. It is trusted to you with implicit confidence. Lord Stanley, Fanny says, is to be allowed to read it, but I have not heard of any other confidant, so you are not to go rushing about with treble raps, and then saying: “Here are a few pages about Runjeet, a man in the East, King of the Punjab, or Shah of Barrackpore, or something of that sort, which I think would amuse you. You may run them over, and lend them to anybody else who will take the trouble of reading them.” That is not the line you are to take—not by any means. On the contrary, after a long silence, and with an air of expressive thought, you are to observe: “I have been reading this Memorandum—in fact, I wish I could send it to you; but there are reasons. However, never mind; there is no harm in my saying that I have been reading a journal. I almost wish it might be published; but yet, I do not know. However, if it is, I am sure you for one (a great emphasis on ‘for one’) would be amused to the last degree. A friend of mine in India, a young man, odd but clever, passed some time with Runjeet Singh, and kept a sort of diary. Curious and odd. You may have heard of Runjeet Singh,—Victor Jacquemont’s[460] friend, you know; only one eye and quantities of paint. I wish I could show you the little work, etc.” And so, eventually, you know, it might come out with great Éclat. I think William may write a second part of the Interview at Ferozepore, which might be very gorgeous, taking our army into account, as well as the meeting of the two great people.

ROOPUR,[461]
November 13, 1838.

I wrote the above before we left Simla, when we had a good house over our heads and lived in a good climate, and conducted ourselves like respectable people, and people who knew what was what. Now we have returned to the tramping line of life, and have been six days in one wretched camp, the first few so hot and dusty, I thought with added regret of the Simla frost. And now to-day it is pouring as it pours only in India, and I am thinking of the Simla fires. It is impossible to describe the squalid misery of a real wet day in camp—the servants looking soaked and wretched, their cooking-pots not come from the last camp, and their tents leaking in all directions; and a native without a fire and without the means of cooking his own meal is a deplorable sight. The camels are slipping down and dying in all directions, the hackeries[462] sticking in the rivers. And one’s personal comfort! Little ditches running round each tent, with a slosh of mud that one invariably steps into; the pitarrah[463] with the thin muslin gown that was carefully selected because the thermometer was at 90 yesterday, being the only one come to hand; and the fur pelisse, that in a wet rag-house slipping from a mud foundation would be pleasant and seasonable wear, is gone on to the advanced camp. I go under an umbrella from my tent to George’s, because wherever there is a seam there is a stream; and we are carried in palanquins to the dining-tent on one side, while the dinner arrives in a palanquin on the other. How people who might by economy and taking in washing and plain work have a comfortable back attic in the neighbourhood of Manchester Square, with a fire-place and a boarded floor, can come and march about India, I cannot guess.

There were some slight palliations to the first day in camp: some English boxes, with new books and little English souvenirs from sisters, nieces, etc. And then I have a new horse, which met us at the foot of the hills, and which has turned out a treasure, and is such a beauty, a grey Arab. He is as quiet as a lamb, and as far as I can see, perfect—and a horse must be very perfect indeed that I get upon before daylight, when I am half-asleep and wholly uncomfortable, and which is to canter over no particular road, and to go round elephants, and under camels, and over palanquins, and through a regiment, without making itself disagreeable.

The army will be at Ferozepore two days before we shall. The news from Persia is so satisfactory, that probably only half the force will have to cross the Indus, and it is very likely that Sir H. Fane will go home, and Sir W. Cotton later.[464]

Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.

Simla, 1839.

MY DEAREST THERESA, Your letter, which I received three weeks ago, was most welcome, though it was “the mingled yarn, of which we spin our lives.” Your happy bit of life with your brother, and your prospering children, and your journey, which always (so as you stop short of India) gives a fresh fit of spirits, and then your return, and that melancholy catastrophe.[465]

I cannot say how grieved I was for that. Such a happy young life, and one that was of importance to so many others! I hope Lord John will be allowed to keep those children,[466] and I suppose she will have left them under his guardianship. I suppose he would hardly object to all the children being together. I see by the papers that you have been at Cassiobury with poor Lord John.

Everybody writes what you say of Sir G. Villiers[467]—that he is not the least altered, which I own surprises me, because as far as I am concerned he has been decidedly “changed at nurse,” and just simply because he would not answer the two long letters I wrote him, I settled that he was not the original G. Villiers, with whom one could talk and laugh any number of hours, and whose visits were a bright spot in the day, but that he was a mixture of a Spanish Grandee in a reserved black cloak, with a mysterious hat and plume, etc., or a Diplomat in a French comedy who speaks blank verse. But “it is the greatest of comforts,” as Mrs. Bennett said about long sleeves, to know that he is unaltered. I should be sorry if those horrid Spaniards had gone and spoilt one of our pleasantest men, and I still think that a system of sending out bores to foreign courts would be an improvement.

Foreigners would never know how it was. A bore would be softened by being translated into another language, or he might simply pass as an original—un Anglais enfin; and then we might keep all the amusing people to ourselves. I should like to have seen your brother; and how I should like to see your children! I have no doubt they are as pretty as you say; the little boy[468] always had a turn that way. I cannot make out whether there are any more coming, but I suppose you would have mentioned it if there were, and I think you are apt to increase your family in a dawdling way, not in that rapid manner with which my sister used to produce ten or twelve children all of a sudden, and before one was prepared for the shock.

We came back to these dear good hills about a fortnight ago, and I love them more dearly than ever. The thermometer was at 91 in our tents, and after two days’ toiling up the hills, we found snow in our garden here. That is all gone, and the flowers are beginning to spring up. The snowy range is so clean and bright, it looks as if one might walk to it, and the red rhododendrons are looking like gigantic scarlet geraniums in the foreground. I cannot sketch hills at all: they are too large here, and there is no beginning nor end to them—no waterfalls, or convents, or old buildings to finish them off.

We were about four months and a half in camp this year, so the blessing of being in a house again is not to be described. I never am well in the plains, and this year it would have been perverse not to have had constant fever. We had rain every week, which kept the tents constantly dripping, and we were very often apparently pitched in a lake, and had to be carried through the water to dress. I was hardly a month the whole time free from ague, and how George and Fanny are so constantly well is a matter of astonishment to our doctor and every one else.

The Punjab was an interesting bit of our tour, and I am very glad we have seen Runjeet Singh[469] and all his Indians in their savage grandeur. He very nearly died just before we came away, which would have been a dreadful blow in the political way, but he has happily rallied again.

I should like to show you some of my Sikh sketches, though I have horrible misgivings that, except to those who have run up Sikh intimacies, and who prefer Shere Singh[470] to Kurruck Singh, or vice versa, they may be tiresome performances. I have, in the meanwhile, had several of my sketches copied by the miniature painters at Delhi, and they have made some very soft likenesses from them. Do you ever draw now? Or have you no time?

There are 96 ladies here whose husbands are gone to the wars, and about 26 gentlemen—at least there will, with good luck, be about that number. We have a very dancing set of Aides-de-Camp just now, and they are utterly desperate at the notion of our having no balls. I suppose we must begin on one in a fortnight, but it will be difficult, and there are several young ladies here with whom some of our gentlemen are much smitten. As they will have no rivals here, I am horribly afraid the flirtations may become serious, and then we shall lose some active Aides-de-Camp, and they will find themselves on Ensign’s pay with a wife to keep. However, they will have these balls, so it is not my fault. Your ever affectionate

E. EDEN.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister.

SIMLA,
June 17, 1839.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I have had a letter of yours to answer more than a month, but this is a bad time of year for writing home. We try all sorts of plans; but, first, the monsoon cripples one steamer, and the next comes back with all the letters still on board that we fondly thought were in England. Then we try an Arab sailing vessel; but I always feel convinced that an Arab ship sails wildly about drinking coffee and robbing other ships. This is to go to the Persian Gulf, and if you are living at your nice little villa, Hafiz Lodge, on the banks of the Gulf, I think it just possible this letter may find you. Otherwise, I do not see why it should.

And now for your letter. First: I see you are now Lady Theresa.[471] Ought I to make any difference in my little familiarities? Secondly: as touching Lord Clarendon’s marriage,[472] which had been mentioned so often as decidedly settled that I began to fear there could be no foundation for it—I never have faith in a report that lasts three months without becoming a fact. However, I am very glad it is all right now. I remember he always liked her, and she has had rather a trying life of it, which will fit her all the more for the enjoyment of happiness.

You talk of your uncle’s will as if it had been unsatisfactory. I was in hopes Lord Clarendon was rolling in riches—I do not know why. You should never write as if I knew anything. If you mention a will, you should state it, beginning with “sound health of mind and body,” and ending with the witnesses’ names; otherwise we never know anything in India, and what little we do know we forget, for want of people to talk it over with.

We cannot remember if that poor Lady H. Villiers[473] died; but I think she did, and if so, I do not see who the late Lord C. could leave his money to, except to the present one. However, he will be well off now, at all events. Lady Verulam,[474] I own, I think a sad and very large objection, but only at first; and as I rather hope to hear by the next mail that your brother is in office, politics and business will prevent any very wearisome intercourse.

Thirdly: as to those unfortunate H. Gordons. His memorial for leave to retire is gone home to the Court of Directors, and George has no more to say to it than you or I have. It rests entirely with the Court, but George thinks they will give him leave to go home, as the idea of his paying that large debt out of his wretched income is absurd, and he is, in fact, a mere expense to them. But about the pension—there again no authority, not even the Court, can help him. I see constantly in the Calcutta papers that when anything the least unusual, or even doubtful, with regard to the Pension Fund is contemplated, then it is put to the vote of the whole Army, and always carried economically. Still, if the Court give him leave to go home, I am sure it would not be worth his while to live here in misery for the sake of the small addition to his pension. I suppose it cannot be more than £100 a year altogether, and I should really think it could not hurt Lady C. Cavendish[475] to make that up out of her own allowance. You will have had my letter explaining the absolute impossibility of George’s doing anything here for him. There is no such thing, Heaven knows, as a sinecure in India. For military men there are Staff appointments, which are, of course, in the gift of the Commander-in-Chief.

We have been uncommonly gay at Simla this year, and have had some beautiful tableaux with music, and one or two very well acted farces, which are a happy change from the everlasting quadrilles, and everybody has been pleased and amused, except the two clergymen who are here, and who have begun a course of sermons against what they call a destructive torrent of worldly gaiety. They had much better preach against the destructive torrent of rain which has now set in for the next three months, and not only washes away all gaiety, but all the paths, in the literal sense, which lead to it. At least I know the last storm has washed away the paths to Government House.

The whole amount of gaiety has been nine evening parties in three months—six here, and three at other houses. Our parties begin at half-past eight, and at twelve o’clock we always get up and make our courtesies and everybody goes at once. Instead of dancing every time, we have had alternations of tableaux and charades, and the result has been three Aides-de-Camp engaged to three very nice English girls, and the dismissal of various native Mrs. Aides-de-Camp. Moreover, instead of the low spirits and constant tracasseries, which are the foundation of an Indian station, everybody this year has been in good humour, and they all delight in Simla, and none of them look ill.

Our public affairs are prospering much, but I will not bore you with details. We really are within sight of going home, dearest Theresa, but it makes me shiver to think of it. I am so afraid something will happen to prevent it.

I do not count Simla as any grievance—nice climate, beautiful place, constant fresh air, active clergymen, plenty of fleas, not much society, everything that is desirable; and when we leave it, we shall only have a year and a half of India. The march is a bad bit; I am always ill marching, and our hot season in Calcutta makes me simmer to think of it. Then, the last five months will be cool, and we shall be packing. And then, the 4th of March 1841, we embark, and in July of the same you will be “my neighbour Lister,” and we shall be calling and talking and making much of each other. I should like to see your children. No, I do not approve of Alice for your girl.[476] There is an unconscious prejudice in favour of the name “Alice” which has risen to an alarming height, and I think it my duty to oppose it. It gives me an idea of a slammerkin milk-and-water girl. However, do as you like, only don’t blame me if Alice never looks tidy. Love to Mrs. Villiers. Ever your affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister.

SIMLA,
June 29, 1839.

MY DEAREST THERESA, To-day an old sea letter of yours (January 23) has come to hand, containing all that I wanted to know, so as there is an odd opportunity of writing (a Chinese clipper going from Calcutta to Aden, and the letters to find their own way from thence—such a post office arrangement!) I take advantage of it....

This letter is six months old, but still very acceptable, and it shows that I still have some right original English feelings,—that I have been brought up in good Knightsbridge principles.

That old Lord Clarendon[477] was a brute; I always thought so. But what can be the use of carrying on a farce of that sort to the end? He cannot pop his head up even for a minute to say, “How I have tricked you!”—supposing he was proud of it. My only hope is that Lady Clarendon, who will find it difficult amongst her own nieces to hit upon a worthy heir, will do what Lord Clarendon ought to have done. This must go forthwith. Ever, dearest Theresa, your most affectionate

E. E.

Miss Eden to her Brother, Robert Eden [Vicar of Battersea].

PINJORE,
November 2, 1839.

MY DEAREST ROBERT, Here we are again fairly in the plains, and to be sure the plains are not the hills—an axiom the profound wisdom of which you cannot appreciate, unless you had been yesterday luncheoning with us at the Fir Tree Bungalow, with the snow in sight, the cool air rushing about, and everything as it ought to be in October, the cones tumbling off the fir trees, and the fern red and autumnal, and then you should have been snapped up by your Jhanpannies and run away with down-hill, till in two hours you found yourself at Barr, the thermometer at 90 in the tents, a man pulling the punkah for a little artificial air, and nothing but dust and camels to be seen for miles round.

We came on eight miles to this place this morning, and stay two days to allow time for our goods to arrive; but it is almost hotter than Barr. Poor dear Simla! I had a great mind to cry when I saw the last glimpse of it yesterday; but still I look upon this march as one step towards home.

The army is on its way back from Cabul, but as Dost Mahomed is supposed to be not far from the frontier, a larger force remains behind than was at first intended. However, nothing can be known till the spring, for the boundary between here and Cabul is impassable from snow, even for a messenger during the winter. However well the expedition has succeeded with reference to Russia and Persia, and to the safety of this country from foreign enemies, I really think it is more important in the effect it has had in India itself. Natives are totally unlike anything we know at home; and they have had for some years an idea that their fate, or what they call the good-luck of England, was to change, and the Nepalese have been fomenting this notion with great care, so that there were many petty states quite ready for an outbreak.

Every post now brings letters from Residents all over India, saying that the success in Afghanistan has not only astounded the natives, but given them faith again in English luck in general, and in their Lord Sahib in particular. The further the news spreads, the more effect it seems to make. There has been one very odd proof at Kurnaul in the Madras Presidency of the thinness of the crust over the volcano on which we all sit in this country. The only wonder is it does not explode oftener. The NawÁb of Kurnaul has been often accused of disaffection, and lately of having concealed stores. He was uncommonly angry, as people are when they are accused of anything true or false, and desired three commissioners should be sent to examine his jaghir. They found nothing and were coming away, but some of the military authorities got information from the NawÁb’s own people, summoned more forces, and asked for another search. He said they were quite welcome to go into his fort, and his prime Minister should go with them. Nothing was visible; but his workmen betrayed him. They pointed out dead walls which were covered up, concealed pits that were opened, etc., and everywhere arms were discovered. More guns than belong to the whole army of [illegible]; rooms full of double-barrelled guns, and bags of shot attached to each; and shells, which the natives were supposed not to know how to make. His ZenÁna was turned into a Foundry, etc. There never was a thing done more handsomely. As he has an income of only £100,000 a year, of course he must be in league with richer and greater potentates, and his own 1500 followers could not have made much use of all this artillery. He made a little fight for it, but he is in prison and his territories are seized by the Company—one of the cases in which Lord Brougham would probably like to talk about native wrong and British encroachments. George says the Directors occasionally write a fine sentence about not attending exclusively to British interests, just as if the British were here for any other purpose, or as if everybody’s interest were not to keep the country at peace.

Lord Elphinstone[478] has done this Kurnaul business very sensibly and well.

Shah-i-Bad,
November 8, 1839.

I have kept this open in hopes of the overland post. It won’t come. We are progressing slowly and painfully. George and I think we have been a year in camp; but other people say only a week. The heat is quite dreadful, and I think I feel my brain simmering up in small bubbles, just as water does before it begins to boil. We are in Mr. Clerk’s[479] district, and he has let Henry Vansittart come with the camp, which delights him, and he learns a little bit of camp business, regulates the price of flour at the bazaar, talks big about the roads, and by way of showing how good they are, overturned his buggy and himself last night. But he is pleasanter on his own ground than at Simla. My best love to Mary. Ever yours most aff.

E. E.

Miss Eden to Lady Theresa Lister.

CAMP UMBALLA,
November 5, 1839.

MY DEAREST THERESA, I have not heard from you for a long time, but one of the last overland letters mentioned that you had been ill, so it is tempting to write and hope that you are well again.

The wife of the Private Secretary[480] came with me from Simla, because in compliment to my weaker health I made shorter marches to the foot of the hills with the last fat baby, Auckland Colvin[481] refusing to sit anywhere but in her lap, and the baby before that refusing to go to sleep unless she slept in the same tent with him, in which there were the three children, two Portuguese Ayahs, and the children’s favourite bearers. No light, because the candles had been sent on by mistake to the next ground; no carpets, because ditto; so that the servants kicked up a dust even in their sleep. Several Pariah dogs were playfully avoiding the Jackals, and about thirty bearers sleeping or smoking on the kynants, or the space between the lining and the outside of the tent. “That I saw,” as Sydney Smith used to say in his charity sermons when he was stating a particular case of distress which he not only never had seen, but never heard of.

This was in our encampment in the hills, when the climate was still delicious. Now the thermometer stands at 90 in the tents, and these unfortunate ladies begin to march at four in the evening. I do not know that the horn signifies, as I defy anybody to sleep in camp more than two hours, and it is being uncommonly acute to snatch at that the first week, till the sentries have learnt to stop the tent-pitchers and camel-drivers from knocking down and packing up all night at unlawful hours. I got Captain Codrington, our Quarter-master, to stay behind last night instead of going on to pitch the advanced camp, that he might see and hear what a quantity of illicit pitching and packing went on, and the result was that he imprisoned 160 tent-pitchers, 56 camels, and removed out of hearing the neighing horses of half the clerks in the public offices, and we all went to sleep for at least half-an-hour, which was very grand. Moreover, it is a rule that nothing should leave the ground till the Governor-General’s carriage goes by, and a gun is fired to announce that highly important event; so to-day this rule was enforced, and in a country of hot dust, which this is, a very good rule it is. But it was funny to see the crowds of old men and beasts the advance guard had stopped, camels and elephants innumerable, our own band, several hundreds of grass-cutters’ ponies laden with grass for sale, palanquins full of small half-caste babies, everybody’s pet dog with their bearers, sofas and arm-chairs. My own tame pheasants in their wooden house I saw in the mÊlÉe.

Marching disagrees so much with me, that by the doctor’s advice, and George’s desire, I leave the camp at Agra, and go straight down to Calcutta, where I hope to be the middle of February. George does not expect to be there before the 1st of April, but I rather hope he will, driven by the heat, cut off some of his tour as the time draws nearer. We have been joined on the march by several officers returning from Cabul, and very flourishing they look, and they cannot make out that their sufferings have been what the papers tried to make out. Captain Dawkins, of Lord Auckland’s Bodyguard, who has been through the campaign with a regiment to which he lawfully belongs, has come back looking fatter than most Falstaffs, and he brought back three of the sheep which he left with us at Ferozepore last year, so that danger of starving was not great.

God bless you, dearest Theresa. This is a very stupid letter, but then it is better than none, which is what I have had from you. And you cannot imagine how hot it is. Your most affectionate

E. EDEN.