Camp, Nahun, March 26, 1838.

I SENT off my last Journal from Rajghaut, March 23. We got all our goods over the river on Friday evening, and marched Saturday, 24th. The regiment and the cavalry went the straight road, and we made an awfully long march of seventeen miles towards the hills. It was the last day of the dear open carriage, which has been the only comfort of my life in this march. Nothing is so tiresome as all the miserable substitutes for it—three miles of elephant and four of tonjaun, and then a pony. Both men and cattle get so tired in a long march, or when they are employed every day. The road is very pretty all through the Dhoon, and much cooler than the plains. Chance is better, thank you. I knew you would feel anxious about him. His constitution is dreadfully Indianised; but perhaps the hills, and a judicious change of diet, may be of use. However, he is done for as an English dog; he is just the sort of dog you see at Cheltenham.

We came up to Nahun yesterday morning by means of elephants and jonpauns. The road was very steep, but nothing like that to Mussoorie. The Rajah of Nahun met us at the last stage, and came up the hill with us to-day. He has his palace at the top, a sort of hill fort, and about 100 soldiers—imitations of our soldiers—and a band of mountaineers, who played ‘God save the Queen’ with great success. He is one of the best-looking people I have seen, and is a Rajpoot chief, and rides, and hunts, and shoots, and is active. Nothing can be prettier than the scenery, and altogether Nahun is the nicest residence I have seen in India; and if the rajah fancied an English ranee, I know somebody who would be very happy to listen to his proposals. At the same time, they do say that the hot winds sometimes blow here, and that his mountains are not quite high enough; and those points must be considered before I settle here.

This morning we have been to see the palace, which is an odd collection of small rooms, painted and gilded in curious patterns—of course, no tables and chairs; and indeed the only piece of furniture in the house was an English barrel-organ, and in one of the rooms downstairs there was a full-grown tiger, tolerably tame, and a large iron pot full of milk for his dinner.

Naramghur, March 28.

We rejoined the other camp this morning. We came down the mountains from Nahun on Monday afternoon with great success as far as we were concerned, but a great many of the camels suffered from it, and we passed several utterly unable to move. G. and I rode the last five miles. By remaining at Nahun till the afternoon, we reduced ourselves to one tent—all the others were obliged to go on for to-day’s use, and there is something particularly uncomfortable in a general tent.

One chair and table for G. at one end, with a supply of office boxes, two sofas for F. and me, with a book a-piece, and two cane chairs for A. and B., each pretending to read, but looking uncomfortable and stiff. I missed my old parasol about three days ago, and discovered to-day that Jimmund had applied to my jemadar for it, because he thought Chance’s ailments were brought on by the sun; and Wright says she passed him to-day marching down the hill with Chance in one hand and the parasol held over him with the other—a pretty idea. This morning I came on in the palanquin, a wretched substitute for the carriage, but anything is better than sitting bolt upright before breakfast—in fact, it is quite impossible.

W. has had great sport at last—at least, everybody says it is great sport. I cannot imagine anything more unpleasant. They found six tigers at once in a ravine. Two charged W.’s elephant, and three General E.’s; one of them disturbed a hornet’s nest, and W. says he has since taken fifty stings out of his face. The bank of the ravine gave way, and he and his elephant came down within a yard of one tiger, which was however too much wounded to do any harm. Altogether the party have killed eight, and are coming back very much delighted with having been very nearly eaten up, and then stung to death.

Raepore, Thursday, March 29.

Only five more days. I get such fits of bore with being doddled about for three hours before breakfast in a sedan-chair, that I have a sort of mad wish to tell the bearers to turn back and go home, quite home, all the way to England. I wonder if I were to call ‘coach’ as loud as I could, if it would do any good. It would be a relief to my feelings. An unfortunate Brahmin came to Dr. D. at Nahun in the most horrible state of agony, from that disease of which poor Mr. —— died. Dr. D. had him carried down, and yesterday he attempted the cure. Anything so horrible as the man’s screams I never heard; indeed, I thought it was some animal, and sent out to ask what was the matter. It was the longest and worst operation Dr. D. said he ever witnessed, but the man insisted on it. His family have cut him off, but if he lives, it will be very easy to give him all he wants. He is very ill, and had to be carried on thirteen miles in a dhoolie.

Friday, March 30.

That Brahmin is better, and Dr. D. thinks he will live. We had a melancholy letter to-day, with an account of poor Mr. S.’s death. He died of abscess on the liver—of India, in fact. I think his health had begun to fail before we left Calcutta, but we had not heard of his being ill till a week ago. I am very sorry on all accounts. He was an excellent man, and very much to be loved; and then she is left with eleven children, of whom three only are provided for. It is melancholy to think how almost all the people we have known at all intimately have in two years died off, and that out of a small society. None of them turned fifty; indeed, all but Mr. S. between thirty and forty. Mr. C., who is with us, was saying yesterday that he had been stationed a few years ago at Delhi. ‘I liked it; we were a very large party of young men, but I am the only survivor.’ And he is quite a young man.

That Brahmin is very much better, and Dr. D. has no doubt he will recover. The Brahmins’ diet leaves them so little susceptible of fever, that if they do not sink under an operation they recover rapidly. G. held a sort of durbar to-day, in which he gave the soubadars (or native officers) of the regiment which has escorted us, shawls and matchlocks, the same to the cavalry, and to the native officers of our bodyguard. They have all conducted themselves most irreproachably during this long march, and they are a class of men who ought to be encouraged. There were about thirty of them in all; and at the end, after praising them and their respective colonels, he poured attar on their hands and gave them paun, which they look upon as the greatest distinction.

They were extremely pleased, and all our servants were quite delighted, and said that ‘our lordship was the first that had ever been so good to natives.’ I am glad it went off so well, for the idea, between ourselves, was mine; and as there is a great jealousy and great fear about liberality, it was disapproved of at first by the authorities, but G. took to it after a day or two, and I mentioned it surreptitiously to ——, who manages that part of the department. G. is quite of opinion that there is too much neglect of meritorious natives, and that it is only marvellous our dominion over them has resisted the system of maltreatment, which was even much more the fashion than it is now. Even now it is very painful to hear the way in which even some of the best Europeans speak to those Rajpoot princes, who, though we have conquered them, still are considered as kings by their subjects, and who look like high-caste people.

Sabathoo, Monday, April 2.

On Saturday evening, at Pinjore, we gave a farewell dinner to all the camp, and went after dinner to some beautiful gardens belonging to the Puttealah rajah. He is not here himself, but he had had these gardens lit up for us, and the fountains were playing, and all the best nautch-girls had been sent from Puttealah, and altogether it was a very magnificent fÊte.

People may abuse nautching, but it always amuses me extremely. The girls hardly move about at all, but their dresses and attitudes are so graceful I like to see them. Their singing is dreadful, and very noisy.

We went on to Barr the next afternoon; it is such a hot place that we wished to have as few hours of it as possible. We found —— nearly exhausted by the labour of passing on our goods; every camel trunk takes on an average eight men, and we have several hundred camel trunks of stores alone. Colonel T., the political agent, had, however, arrived with a reinforcement of coolies, and everything was progressing. That Brahmin is so much better that Dr. D. sent him home from here, and we gave him all that he required for his expenses. We were called at half-past three this morning—is not that almost too shocking? human nature revolts from such atrocities—and at four we were all stowed away in our jonpauns and jogging by torchlight up some perpendicular paths, which might be alarming, but I could not keep awake to see.

We were four hours coming to Sabathoo. Colonel T. provided us with a house. We have had sundry alarms that our beds were gone straight to Simla. Some of the servants knocked up, but upon the whole it has been a less alarming expedition than Sir G. K. said we should find it. Colonel T. has asked all Sabathoo, consisting of nine individuals, to meet us, which we could have spared, considering we are to be up at half-past three again to-morrow.

Simla, April 3.

Well, it really is worth all the trouble—such a beautiful place—and our house, that everybody has been abusing, only wanting all the good furniture and carpets we have brought, to be quite perfection. Views only too lovely; deep valleys on the drawing-room side to the west, and the snowy range on the dining-room side, where my room also is. Our sitting-rooms are small, but that is all the better in this climate, and the two principal rooms are very fine. The climate! No wonder I could not live down below! We never were allowed a scrap of air to breathe—now I come back to the air again I remember all about it. It is a cool sort of stuff, refreshing, sweet, and apparently pleasant to the lungs. We have fires in every room, and the windows open; red rhododendron trees in bloom in every direction, and beautiful walks like English shrubberies cut on all sides of the hills. Good! I see this is to be the best part of India.

April 7.

This must go to-morrow. Simla is still like Major Waddell, ‘all that is brave, generous, and true.’ G. and I took such a nice ride yesterday round the highest mountain, to which is given the sublime name of Jacko; but Jacko is a grand animal. You may be quite comfortable about our healths here, as far as climate goes; it is quite perfection, and altogether the Himalayas are sweet pretty little hills. I have just unpacked your picture, which has been four months in a camel trunk, and is more like you than ever.