Thursday, Nov. 15, 1838.

THE August mail came in to-day; a week after the September packet. Your dear, good letter has come both these last times without making its usual Calcutta detour, which is very clever of it. Certainly Newsalls is a very nice place; mind you don’t let it slip through your fingers till I come trotting up to the door on my elephant forty years hence.

Friday, Loodheeana.

The cavalry and the artillery and the second regiment of infantry that is to make up the escort met us this morning, and the salute was fired by the howitzers that G. has had made to present to Runjeet. They are very handsome, ornamented more than our soldiers think becoming, but just what Runjeet would like; there is the bright star of the PunjÂb, with Runjeet’s profile on the gun; and Captain E. says that thousands of Sikhs have been to look at these guns, and all of them salaam to Runjeet’s picture as if it were himself.

Sunday, Nov. 18.

They have been building a small church at this station, and though it is not finished, they were very anxious Mr. Y. should try it, as it is uncertain when another clergyman may pass through Loodheeana; so all our chairs and footstools were sent down to be made into pews, and Mr. Y. preached a very good sermon. There are three American missionaries here, but they have not made any conversions.

—— —— is gone to hunt up Runjeet, who always gives himself the airs of being missing when he is to have a meeting with any great potentate, and goes off on a hunting expedition. He is generally caught in time, but it is a matter of etiquette that neither party should appear to wait for the other, so if Runjeet goes out hunting, G. must stop to shoot or fish. It will not detain us long if we stop to eat all he can kill here.

Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 19 and 20.

We have marched ten miles each day without having seen tree or building, I believe. Chance’s elephant comes every afternoon to show himself, and his education is progressing rapidly, under the care of a splendid individual in a yellow satin dress, who has received the very responsible situation of his mahout. He has already learnt to kneel down, and the excellent joke of filling his little leech of a trunk with water and squirting it at anybody who affronts him.

Chance and he are frightfully alike in disposition—greedy and self-willed; and, barring the nose, very like in look.

Wednesday, Nov. 21.

The camp was very noisy the first two nights, and X. went round to the various commanding officers and made fresh arrangements with the sentries, who I fancy must have cut off the heads of any man, camel, or elephant, who presumed to speak or howl, for there has not been a sound since. ‘Gentlemen who cough are only to be slightly wounded,’ as the ‘Rejected Addresses’ say. It really is tempting, for the tent-pitchers with all their wives and all their children have set up their marching coughs, and as they sleep round their pitchees, there is a continual sound of expectoration going on. Rosina was robbed by her hackery driver. X. had the man up before D., and the money is restored.

I had a little domestic complaint to send to him last night.

I always think these domestic stories may amuse you in England, from their contrast to the habits of that excellent country, from which I have been inveigled. There is a servant called the sirdar-bearer, or head of all the palanquin and tonjaun-bearers, whose business it is to walk by the side of the palanquin and see that the bearers carry it rightly.

This has been rather a sinecure with us, but the man has always been a good little servant and has attached himself to me, and is supposed to be always at the door of my tent with an umbrella; he keeps the tonjaun in readiness, and in Calcutta he always slept at my door, and was in the way for everything that was wanted. In short, ‘Loton’ was a general favourite, and supposed to be remarkably active. To my surprise, he came in yesterday to say that he could not possibly go with my palanquin every morning; the roads were so bad, he found it tired him. In short, he evidently wanted a place on an elephant, which the servants who wait at table have; but bearers are a class who can walk thirty miles a day; and it was very much like your coachman asking to travel in the carriage, as it was too much trouble to drive. I said he had better go to Captain X. when he was in difficulties, and that I did not doubt Captain X. would find one of the other bearers who would be happy to take the place of sirdar, and that Loton would then only have to carry the palanquin half-way. (At present he carries nothing.) I told Captain X. this morning, and I thought he would have had a fit. He is not yet accustomed to the notion of the number of people who are merely kept for show and even for work; there is a double set for everything. F. and I have each thirty-two bearers, where other people have eight, that there may never be a difficulty; and the idea that I was to direct my own bearers on the road struck X. as remarkably amusing.

I should think it would have been, as I have not a single Hindustani word to say to them. I left it to him to settle, and poor Loton is degraded to the ranks. He cares very much about the gold-laced livery, and still more about the two rupees a month which he loses. A bearer lives on that, and sends all the rest home. They all come from the neighbourhood of Patna, never bring their wives, but live together like a large family; in fact, sell themselves for so many years, and then, when they have earned enough to buy a bit of land, go home for life. I hope Captain X. means to allow himself to be entreated like Major J., for I shall die of it if Loton is not restored in time. He was a great favourite of Lord W.’s, and I rather think I spoilt him by raising his wages partly on that account. Captain X. has the real Indian feeling that a servant objecting to an order is a sort of depravity that cannot be put up with—in short, that cannot be believed. I said that, as it was a first offence, he should be as lenient as he could, and he said, ‘Certainly, it would be very lenient only to turn the man away. I assure you, Miss Eden, a native would have put the man to death who had refused to run by the side of his palanquin!’ I think I see myself cutting off Loton’s head with a pair of scissors. It is very awful to think of the number of petty rajahs in the country who have the power of life and death over their followers. It must be very often abused.

Saturday, November 24.

We have had three short marches. I am not much better. Except for the march, I keep as quiet as possible, and have not been over to any meal, or out of my own tent, except to sit in an arm-chair in front of it between five and six. I always think the weather very trying in the plains. In the morning the thermometer was at 45°, and we were all shivering with shawls and cloaks on, and at twelve the glass rose to 83°, and we are now sitting under punkahs with a small allowance of clothes. That happens every day, and I cannot think it wholesome. There was an interesting arrival from Delhi this morning, my bracelet with G.’s picture, which I had sent back to have a cover fitted to the picture, and it has come back so beautifully mended—with a turquoise cross on an enamelled lid. Then Mr. B., who superintended my private bracelet, undertook on the public account a frame for my picture of the Queen, which is to be given to Runjeet, and the frame came with the bracelet. They had not time for the beautiful design of all the orders of the Garter and Bath, &c., which I wanted, and so only made the frame as massive as they could. It is solid gold, very well worked, with a sort of shell at each corner, encrusted with precious stones, and one very fine diamond in each shell.

The materials come to about £500. Forty jewellers worked at it night and day, and the head jeweller expects a khelwut, or robe of honour, with a pair of shawls, for his activity. It will be a very handsome item in the list of presents, and is to be given in great form.

One of Runjeet’s chief sirdars came into camp to-day, and there was a very fine durbar, as he was to be received as an ambassador. He is a great astronomer, and there was luckily at the Tosha Khanna an orrery and some astronomical instruments which G. added to his presents, and the man went away, they say, quite delighted. Every evening there is to be an arrival of one hundred jars of sweetmeats, which is a great delight to the native servants.