Up the Country

Well! it is lucky that anybody can do anything they ought to do, but I had only four hours’ sleep last night.

Friday, Nov. 10.

The dinner went off well, and so did the review. The 31st is J.’s regiment, so he was extremely anxious that they should do a great deal to our honour and glory. We sat down seventy-four to dinner, Colonel B. between G. and me, and the chief lady and the senior captain of the regiment on our other sides; the old bishop, whom we met here, took F. to the opposite side of the table. It was a less formal dinner than I expected. G. had to make another speech, and longer than last night’s, and it was very original and neatly turned, and gave great satisfaction. We stayed through part of the ball, and came away before supper, on pretence of fatigue. Both Patna and Dinapore have distinguished themselves, and it has really been all done so cordially and handsomely that we can bear a little fatigue for the sake of the goodnature of the people who entertain us. And, at all events, it makes a gay week for the station. Some ladies came sixty miles to these balls. At the ball there were some rajahs in splendid dresses; such magnificent jewels, and some of them had never seen an English ball before. They think the ladies who dance are utterly good for nothing, but seemed rather pleased to see so much vice.

Such jewelry as we saw yesterday morning! A native was sent by one of the gentlemen to show us some really good native jewelry. There is an ornament called a surpéche, which the rajahs wear in their turbans, but there is seldom such a handsome one as this man had for sale. It was a diamond peacock holding in his beak a rope of enormous pearls, which passed through an emerald about the size of a dove’s egg; then there came the tassel – the top was of immense diamonds, with a hole bored at one end of them, and they were simply drawn together into a sort of rosette, without any setting. Then there came strings of pearls each ending in three large diamonds. These ornaments are often made with discoloured pearls and diamonds with flaws, but this was quite perfect. The man asked 8,000l. for it, but will probably sell it to some native for 6,000l. They stick it into their turbans by a gold hook, and the tassel hangs over one ear. We have steamed quietly along to-day, and I have been asleep half the afternoon.

CHAPTER III

Buxar, Saturday, Nov. 11, 1837.

AS we were passing a place called Bullhga this morning, we saw an enormous concourse of natives, and it turned out to be a great fair for horses. So we stopped the steamer, and persuaded G. to go on shore, just ‘to go to the fair,’ as we should have done at home, only we sent all the servants with silver sticks, and took our own tonjauns and two of the body-guard, and went in the State barge and with all the aides-de-camp. In short, we did our little best to be imposing, considering that we have only the steamboat apparatus to work with; but we had hardly landed when A. came breathless from the other steamer to say that Mr. B. and Mr. C. were both half mad at the idea of a Governor-General going on shore in this way, and that C. was actually dancing about the deck with rage; and A. wanted us to turn back and give it up. Luckily, G. would not be advised to do this. They said we should be murdered amongst other things; but in my life I never saw such a civil, submissive set of people. Our people and the police of the place walked on first, desiring the crowd to sit down, which they all did instantly, crouching together and making a lane all through the fair. They are civil creatures, and I am very fond of the natives. There were a great many thousands of them, and some beautiful costumes; the bazaars were full of trinkets, and pretty shawls and coloured cottons. We went in our tonjauns, and G. walked till he was tired, which is soon done; and A. left us quite satisfied as to our safety, and almost persuaded it was a dignified measure. We wanted him to tell C. that he had left G. in one of the ‘merry-go-rounds,’ of which there were several, but it was not a subject that admitted of levity. – said the Governor-General should never appear publicly without a regiment, and that there was no precedent for his going to Bullhga fair. I told him we had made a precedent, and that it would be his duty to take the next Governor-General, be he ever so lame or infirm, to this identical fair.

We went this evening to see the Government stud. It was rather fine to see five hundred young horses rush at once out of their stalls, and all kick each other and then run away; but, barring that little incident, both studs on each side of the river are rather tiresome sights – such ugly places!

Ghazeepore, Sunday, Nov. 12.

We arrived at three. Mr. T., the brother of our late dear T., is the Resident here, and lodges us. He had made a ghaut with a flight of steps to his house for our landing, and the 44th Regiment, with their band, were drawn up all round his lawn.

There were two women on the landing-place with a petition. They were Hindu ladies, and were carried down in covered palanquins, and very much enveloped in veils. They flung themselves on the ground, and laid hold of G., and screamed and sobbed in a horrid way, but without showing their faces, and absolutely howled at last, before they could be carried off. They wanted a pardon for the husband of one of them, who, with his followers, is said to have murdered about half a village full of Mussulmans, and these women say he did not do it, but that the Nazir of that village was his enemy, and did the murders, and then laid it on their party. These little traits are to give you an insight into the manners and customs of the East, and to open and improve your mind, &c. After we had made our way through all these impediments, we rested for a time, and then went to see the cantonments, and to evening service, which was read by two of the gentlemen remarkably well. Then we came back to a great dinner, and one of the longest I ever assisted at. I quite lost my head at last, and when second course was put down, asked Mr. T. to give me some wine, thinking it was dessert, and that we might get up and go.

The dinners certainly are endless, and I do not wonder they think us very rapid at Government House. There is sometimes half an hour between the courses. A Mr. S., the judge, sat on one side of me, and after some discourse the man seemed to know his Kent! and I discovered he was one of the George S.’s of E. Visions of country balls and cricket matches came back. He knew Eden Farm and Penge Common; in short, I liked him very much, and I think he too was refreshed with the reminiscences of his youth.

Monday, Nov. 13.

G. went in the morning to see the stud. At eleven we received all the station.

In the afternoon we went to see the opium godown, and then F., B., and I went in the band boat along the shore to sketch some of the old buildings, which are very picturesque here.

All the party out of both steamers dined at Mr. T.’s, and moreover a third steamer came up from Calcutta this morning, containing, amongst other passengers, a Mrs. P. and her pretty little daughter, who are great favourites with all our gentlemen, and they dined and went with us to a ball given by the regiment.

There were great doubts whether a ball could be made out, as the want of ladies in the Mofussil makes dancing rather difficult. However, we took a large party, and the ladies we had seen in the morning all assembled and had raised two or three extras. The mess-room was very prettily illuminated, with G.’s arms painted on the floor, and they gave us a grand supper, so it all did very well. I wish you could have seen the dancers. A Mrs. – , something like Mrs. Glover the actress, only much fatter, with a gown two inches shorter then her petticoat, bounding through every quadrille, with her three grown-up sons dancing round her. She is an exemplary mother, and has been a widow many years, and a grandmother many more; but she never misses a dance!

Tuesday, Nov. 14.

We did not get home last night till half-past one, and were up at seven to go on board, and we had to go smirking and smiling through all that regiment again, with all the other gentlemen to go to the boat with us; but we may have a rest to-day. It certainly is a hard-working life, is not it? I never get ‘my natural rest,’ as Dandie Dinmont says, in the steamer for noise, and on the shore for work.

I wonder how you would be in this state of life. I often try to fancy you. Sometimes I think you would be amused for about five minutes, but generally I opine you would go raving mad! I constantly long to be in an open carriage with four post-horses, along with G., and that we might drive through a pretty country, and arrive at an inn where nobody could dine with us or ask us to a ball. However, to-morrow we are to get into double state, when we reach our tents, as it is of more importance with the up-country natives; so it is of no use to think of bettering ourselves.

Camp, Benares, Wednesday, Nov. 15.

We arrived at Benares at ten, lay to all through the heat of the day, whilst the servants unloaded the flat, and then steamed up within view of the city, as far as the rajah’s country-house, Ramnuggur, and then dropped down again, thereby seeing the whole of the city. The glare was horrible, but the buildings were worth all the blindness that ensued. Such minarets and mosques, rising one above the other to an immense height; and the stone is such a beautiful colour. The ghauts covered with natives, and great white colossal figures of Vishnu lying on the steps of each ghaut. Benares is one of their most sacred places, and they seem to spare no expense in their temples. We mean to keep our steamer here, and to go out sketching in it. But it would take a whole week to draw one temple perfectly; the ghaut where we landed was as pretty a sight as any. All our elephants, two or three hundred baggage camels (they are much larger beasts to live with than I thought), bullock carts without end, and everybody loading every conveyance with everything. There are twenty shooter suwars (I have not an idea how I ought to spell those words), but they are native soldiers mounted on swift camels, very much trapped, and two of them always ride before our carriage. This looks more like the ‘land of the east,’ in all its ways, than anything we have seen.

We landed at five, and drove four miles through immense crowds and much dust to our camp. The first evening of tents, I must say, was more uncomfortable than I had ever fancied. Everybody kept saying, ‘What a magnificent camp!’ and I thought I never had seen such squalid, melancholy discomfort. G., F., and I have three private tents, and a fourth, to make up the square, for our sitting-room, and great covered passages, leading from one tent to the other.

Each tent is divided into bed-room, dressing-room, and sitting-room. They have covered us up in every direction, just as if we were native women; and, besides that, there is a wall of red cloth, eight feet high, drawn all round our enclosure, so that, even on going out of the tent, we see nothing but a crimson wall.

Inside each tent were our beds – one leaf of a dining-table and three cane chairs. Our pittarrahs and the camel-trunks were brought in; and in about half an hour the nazir came to say they must all, with our books, dressing-cases, &c., be carried off to be put under the care of a sentry, as nothing is safe in a tent from the decoits; so, if there were anything to arrange, there would be no use in arranging it, as it must all be moved at dusk. The canvas flops about, and it was very chilly in the night, though that is the only part I do not object to, as when we get our curtains that will be merely bracing; but it feels open-airish and unsafe. They say everybody begins by hating their tents and ends by loving them, but at present I am much prepossessed in favour of a house. Opposite to our private tents is the great dining-tent, and the durbar tent, which is less shut up, and will be less melancholy to live in. God bless you, dearest! When I am tired, or tented, or hot, or cold, and generally when I am in India, I have at least the comfort of always sitting down to tell you all about it, and ‘There is no harm in that,’ as the man says in ‘Zohrab.’

CHAPTER IV

Camp, Benares, Wednesday, Nov. 22, 1837.

I HAVE been obliged to give up the five last days to other letters, to the manifest disadvantage of my Journal, your unspeakable loss, and my own deep regret; but what can be done? It is just possible to do all we have to do – just not impossible to write it down once, but quite impossible either to live, or to write it over again; and I have had a large packet of very old English letters since we came here, which set me off answering them.

The résumé of our proceedings, since I sent off my Journal to you last Thursday, Nov. 16, is shortly and longly this: – Friday, we went a large party to the town in carriages; when the streets grew too narrow for carriages, we got on elephants; when the elephants stuck fast, we tried tonjauns; and, when the streets contracted still further, we walked; and at last, I suppose, they came to a point, for we came back. We saw some beautiful old temples, and altogether it was a curious sight. Prout would go mad in a brown outline frenzy on the spot – the buildings are so very beautiful for his style. I forgot to mention that at half-past six on Friday morning we went to a review on horseback. Saturday, we again got up at six, and F. and I went in the open carriage to sketch a tempting mosque. At eleven we received many more visitors than the tent would hold – the aides-de-camp could hardly come in with them.

G. held a durbar in the afternoon, at which seventy of the native nobility appeared. The Rajah of Benares came with a very magnificent surwarree of elephants and camels. He is immensely rich, and has succeeded an uncle who adopted him, to the great discomfiture of his father, who goes about with him in the capacity of a discontented subject. We had thirty-six people at dinner. Sunday, we went to church, and underwent the worst reading and preaching I ever heard from Mr. – , who in general preaches to his clerk; but this time the church was very full, and the congregation were all hoping to hear a little something that might do them good from our dear Y. In the afternoon G. and I went out on an elephant, and, in an attempt to make a quiet and rural cut home, nearly drowned one of our outriding camels and his rider; so we came home, much ashamed of ourselves, by the common dusty road. Monday, we got up early, and set off at seven, to pay a visit to the old Delhi Begum. The particulars I narrated with wonderful accuracy, bordering on tediousness, to M., and I am confident you would not wish me to repeat them.

G. positively declared against any more dust or any more drives, so we stuck to the tents in the afternoon. He cannot endure his tent, or the camp life altogether, and it certainly is very much opposed to all his habits of business and regularity.

On Monday evening we went to the ball again, given to us by the station. They have a theatre here, and had boarded over the pit, and by leaving some forest scenery standing on the stage, with our band playing from under the pasteboard trees, they made out a very pretty ball-room, much the best we have seen in ‘the Mofussil,’ and there were plenty of ladies, old and young, who seemed to be very glad of a dance. We got home at one.

There! W. has heard that Mr. G. has proposed. I am so glad; for Miss H. has left in England everybody that cared for her. I know that she has long liked Mr. G. I feel, too, that it is a triumph for our camp that at our very first station we should have married off our only young lady.

Yesterday we had a grand expedition, which I am going to give you and the children, once for all, at great length, and then you will for the future take it for granted that all native fêtes are much alike.

The Rajah of Benares asked us to come to his country-house, called Ramnuggur (how it is spelt, I cannot say; probably with none of those letters). It is on the other side of the Ganges. We drove down to the river-side through a dense cloud of dust. I asked one of our servants to dust me gently with my pocket-handkerchief, and without any exaggeration a thick cloud came out of my cape.

Mrs. C.’s black bonnet was of a light brown colour.

We found the rajah’s boats waiting for us – a silver armchair and footstool for his lordship in the prow, which was decorated with silvered peacocks, and a sort of red embroidered tent for ‘his women,’ where we placed ourselves, though there was another boat with two inferior silver chairs for F. and me. All these things are grandly imagined, but with the silver chairs there are boatmen in dirty liveries or no liveries at all! – and it is all discrepant, or generally so.

This rajah is immensely rich; he had a great many handsome things. I enclose a sketch to illustrate for the children ‘their dear devoted creature,’ G., first in the silver tonjaun which took him down to the boat, then in the other State silver tonjaun that took him up from the ghaut, and then a back view of him on his elephant. I often wonder whether it really can be G., the original simple, quiet one. He does it very well, but detests great part of the ceremonies, particularly embracing the rajahs!

The rajah met us at the ghaut, and we were all carried off to the elephants, and got on them to go and see his garden, though it was nearly dusk. But the first sight was very striking.

Eighteen elephants and crowds of attendants, and then crowds as far as we could see of natives, going on ‘Wah! wah! Hi Lord Sahib.’ We rode about till it was quite dark, and then the rajah proposed we should return; and when we came to the turn of the road, the whole of the village and his castle, which is an enormous building, was illuminated. Wherever there was a straight line, or a window, or an arch, there was a row of little bright lamps; every cross of the lattices in every window had its little lamp. It was the largest illumination I ever saw. We went on the elephants through the great gateway, in a Timour the Tartar fashion, into the court. Such torches and spearmen and drums and crowds, like a melodrama magnified by a solar microscope; it was the sort of scene where Ellen Tree would have snatched up a doll from under Farley’s sword, and said, ‘My boy, my boy, my rescued Agib!’ or words to that effect, while the curtain fell slowly. We got off at the door of an immense hall, a sort of court, and the rajah’s servants spread a path of scarlet and gold kincob from the door to the seat at the farthest end, for us to walk on. Considering that it is a pound a yard, and that I have been bargaining for a week for enough for a wadded douillette and was beat out of it, it was a pity to trample on it, and it led to a catastrophe, as you will see if you read on. The rajah put us three on a velvet sofa, with a gold gauze carpet before it. He sat on one side of us and his father on the other, and Mr. B. and Mr. C. on each side to interpret, and then the aides-de-camp and the other ladies; and then the nautch-girls began dancing. He had provided an immense troop of them, and they were covered with jewels and dressed in gold brocades, some purple and some red, with long floating scarfs of gold gauze. Most of them ugly, but one was I think the prettiest creature I ever saw, and the most graceful. If I have time I will send a little coloured sketch of her, just to show the effect of her dress. She and another girl danced slowly round with their full draperies floating round them, without stopping, for a quarter of an hour, during all which time they were making flowers out of some coloured scarfs they wore, and when they had finished a bunch they came and presented it to us with such graceful Eastern genuflexions. The whole thing was like a dream, it was so curious and unnatural. Then the Ranee sent for us, and F. and I set off in tonjauns for the women’s apartments, with the ladies who were with us. They carried us through a great many courts, and then the rajah gave me his cold, flabby little hand, and handed us up some narrow, dirty stairs, and came in with us behind the purdah and introduced us to the Ranee his mother, who was very splendidly dressed, and to some of his sisters, who were ugly. Then they asked us to go and see an old grandmother, and the Ranee laid hold of my hand, and one of the sisters took F., and they led us along an immense court on the roof, to the old lady, who is blind and very ill; but they had dressed her up for us, and we had to kiss her, which was not very nice. There was another immense nautch provided, which we had not time to look at. We gave our rings, and they brought the trays of presents which are usually given, a diamond ring and drops for earrings, two necklaces (very trashy), some beautiful shawls and kincobs, and some muslin; then they put immense skipping-ropes of silver braid, bigger than a common boa, round our necks, and small ones on the other ladies, and then poured attar of roses on our hands, and we left the old lady. When we came back to the Ranee’s room, she showed us her little chapel, close to her sofa, where there were quantities of horrid-looking idols – Vishnu, and so on. Several native girls were introduced to us, but only one who was pretty, and who has just been betrothed to the father of the rajah. The young Ranees, or whatever they are called, are very shy, and stand with their eyes closed, but the older ones had great fun when we were going away in pouring the attar over our gowns, and utterly spoiled mine, which was silk: next time I shall go in muslin. When we came down, the trays for G. were brought in; they covered what would be called a very large room, and some of the gold stuffs have turned out to be very beautiful. It is a stupid etiquette, that we are not to appear to see these presents. It is a tribute, and the superior is to be too grand to see what the inferior offers. When that was done, we went to the illumination, which was done on a very large scale, but not so neatly as at home; then to the boat, where the rajah accompanied us, and there was a second illumination on the river, much more beautiful than the first – and the blue lights, and the crowds, and the great pile of buildings made a grand show. We got back at eleven, very tired and starving hungry, but it was a curious sight and much to be remembered. There! now you have borne all that so well, you shall not have any more of it, though probably we shall have more than enough. The kincob catastrophe was, that some of our servants were so over-tempted by it, that without the slightest respect for time or place, the instant we had walked over it they snatched it up and carried it off. It would have been sent to them to-morrow from the rajah, but it was a shameful thing to do; and as the Government House servants fancy they may oppress any and everybody during their journeys, Captain J. assembled all who went with us, and the chief culprits were picked out and discharged. There are five victims, but luckily only one who is a very old servant. It is a great bore, as we have brought them a great way from their homes, and it is difficult to replace them here.

CHAPTER V

Mohun ke Serai.

WE made our first march. The bugle sounds at half-past five to wake us, though the camels perform that ceremony rather earlier, and we set off at six as the clock strikes, for as nobody is allowed to precede the Governor-General, it would be hard upon the camp if we were inexact. The comfort of that rule is inexpressible, as we escape all dust that way. G. and F., with Captain N. and Captain M., went in the carriage towards Chumar, and I went with Captain J., Captain D., and W. the regular route, each on our elephant half-way, and the other half on horseback.

It is very pleasant and cool at that time, really nice weather, and we had a short march – only seven miles and a half. It seems somehow wicked to move 12,000 people with their tents, elephants, camels, horses, trunks, &c., for so little, but there is no help for it. There were a great many robberies in the camp last night. Mrs. A. saw a man on his hands and knees creeping through her tent, but she called out, and he ran away without taking anything. Mr. B. says, when he and his wife were encamped last year on this spot, which is famous for thieves, they lost everything, even the shawl that was on the bed, and the clothes Mrs. B. had left out for the morning wear, and he had to sew her up in a blanket and drive her to Benares for fresh things. W. and I went out on the elephant in search of a sketch in the afternoon, and G. and F. came back to dinner very much pleased with their expedition. Those unfortunate men who were parted with yesterday have plagued my heart out all day. Of course, Captain J.’s soft heart was melted early in the morning, and he came to beg to have them back again, but he owns it was a shocking atrocity according to the customs of the country, and if we were too easy about it, of course it would be said that G. despised and affronted the native princes, and even that our servants would think so; but still it was difficult to be firm. There is something so very imploring in these people. Three times they contrived to get into my tent with their relations, and some of the old servants to help them, and they cry, and lay hold of one’s feet, and somehow it seems so odd not to forgive anybody who wishes it even less humbly than they do.