Up the Country

W. had meant to shoot at Kurrah; he always goes on the day before, as he hates getting up early and likes living alone; but there was some mistake about his tent last night, and when he arrived with a tired horse over a cross-road, there was nothing but his bed, and no tent, and all the servants sleeping round a large fire. The servants said, ‘O, Sahib went away very impassionate.’

We went on our elephants at four, to see the fort, an old ruin, on a real, steep rock, with a great bird’s-eye view of the Oude country. Certainly a hill is a valuable article. We then joined the camp, through four miles of old temples and tombs, and the ground about as uneven as that at Eastcombe. Altogether, Kurrah answered to us.

We had rather a large dinner afterwards.

Futtehpore, Dec. 15.

Yesterday we were at a very dull place, Thurriah by name, and were not even tempted to ride out of the camp. The band plays in the afternoon, between five and six, which I established, because at dinner it is impossible to listen comfortably; and it really plays so beautifully, it is a pity not to hear it.

All the party walk up and down what we call High Street in front of our tents. The Y.s with their two children, he taking a race with his boy, and then helping to pack a camel. The ‘vicarage’ is always the tent that is first struck. The A.s slink off down A-alley, at the back of their tent, because in her present state of figure she is ashamed to be seen; the C.s take an elephant. Colonel P. walks up and down waiting to help Mrs. R. off her horse, and wishing she would not ride with her husband.

Mrs. L. toddles about with her small child, and L. always makes some excuse for not walking with ‘Carry dear.’ The officers of the escort and their wives all pursue their domestic walks; the aides-de-camp and doctor get their newspapers and hookahs in a cluster on their side of the street. W. has his hookah in front of his tent, and F. sits with him, and they feed his dogs and elephants. G. and I and Chance sit in front of my tent. Altogether it is a public sort of meeting, in which everybody understands that they are doing their domestic felicity, and nobody takes the slightest notice of anybody else.

Futtehpore, Dec. 16.

The Prince of Orange arrived at two yesterday. He is a fair, quiet-looking boy, and is very shy and very silent. He did not seem the least tired with ten days and nights of palanquin. We sent the carriage to meet him some miles off, with some luncheon. G. pressed him to try a warm bath, and five minutes after saw his own cherished green tub carried over.

‘I really can’t stand that,’ he said; ‘if he keeps my tub, there must be war with Holland immediately. I shall take Batavia, and tell the guns at Fort William to fire on the Bellona at once.’

We all went out on elephants in the afternoon; Captain A. (the Dutch captain and tutor), and Captain C., and all. The prince came on my elephant; and we saw some beautiful mosques and ruins. Also, there are twenty native chiefs encamped about, who had come from a great distance to meet G.; so there were quantities of strange sights for our guest.

We march again on Monday, and I believe that F. and I shall go to Lucknow the week after next, from Cawnpore.

This must go.

CHAPTER VIII

Maharajpore, Wednesday, Dec. 20, 1837.

I HAVE let three or four days slip by since my last immense Journal started from Futtehpore.

I had such a number of letters to answer in other directions, and then our young prince takes up much of my time, as everything here is new to him, and he seems surprised at the horses, camels, and elephants, &c. He is continually asking if the carriage will not be overturned, which is not an unnatural question, for the roads are so bad, the wonder is that it does not overturn constantly; but a sailor would be able to jump out, and I dare say at his age he would rather like the carriage to be upset.

The gentlemen all went off on a shooting expedition yesterday to Serajapore. F. and I stuck to the camp with great difficulty, for our horses, though we change every five miles, knocked up entirely. The sands are half-way up the wheels occasionally.

G. shot for the first time from an elephant, which is considered very difficult, till people are accustomed to stand on its back, and he killed three hares and three quails. Mr. T. killed the only niel ghâu that was seen, but altogether they were much pleased at having found anything.

Cawnpore, Dec. 21.

The prince was quite bent upon taking a sketch yesterday afternoon, as he saw us all sketching. All our elephants were tired with the long marches we have had the last two days. However, that attentive creature, ‘neighbour Oude,’ sent us down six new ones this morning, so G. and I got on one, and put B. with the prince on another, P. on another by his side. We discovered a very pretty Hindu temple, and all set to work sketching.

The prince got off his elephant because he said it shook him so, and he would have made a good picture, sitting in my tonjaun, with crowds of spearmen and bearers all round him; B., who does not draw, in an attitude of resigned bore standing by him, and he, looking like a young George III. on a seven-shilling piece, peering up at the temple, and wondering how he was to begin. However, it amused him, and he has passed several hours since, touching it up.

This morning we made one of our grand entries into Cawnpore, or rather on to it; for there is no particular Cawnpore visible. But we drove over a miniature plain to our tents.

F., G., and all the gentlemen, even to Y., on his fat pony, rode in, and Prince Henry, his captain, P., and I came in the open carriage. We were met by tribes of officers, and there were two regiments of cavalry and two of infantry, and guns and bands, and altogether it was just the sight for a foreigner to see, and they seemed to like it accordingly. But we began by the four young horses in the carriage running restive. They either could not, or would not, draw the carriage over a bad pass, so at last I proposed that to save time we should take to our elephants, of which there were luckily several following us.

Cawnpore, Saturday, Dec. 23.

G. had his levée an hour after we arrived, and we had our party the same evening, for this is one of those dreadful large stations where there is not a chance of getting through all our duties if we lose an hour’s time.

It was lucky we had the large tent pitched, for there were between 200 and 300 people at our party. Luckily I thought a dance might be made out, which the Prince of Orange likes, and they had battened the floor of the tent till it was smooth; so the dancing went on very well.

It was the more essential, because, with every chair and sofa assembled from all the other tents, we could not make up a hundred seats, so it was necessary to keep part of the company constantly dancing.

There were two or three old Calcutta faces, difficult to name, amongst the company, but it was easy to seem glad to see them and to say, ‘What! are you here?’ though I scorned myself for knowing that I had not an idea who ‘you’ was. I see it is one of those crowded stations where it is better not to fatigue a failing memory by any attempt at names. Thirty-five of them dined with us yesterday, but I am no wiser and no worse. Yesterday morning we went to a fancy sale, which had been put off for our advantage. We found it extremely difficult to get rid of the necessary sum of money, but by dint of buying frocks and pelisses and caps for all the little A.s and C.s and Y.s of the camp, it was finally accomplished.

Monday (Christmas Day), Dec. 25.

I must go back to my Journal, dearest; but having just come from church, I must begin by wishing you and yours a great many happy Christmases. This is our third Christmas-day, so, however appearances are against it, time does really roll on. I don’t know why, but I am particularly Indianly low to-day. There is such a horrid mixture of sights and sounds for Christmas. The servants have hung garlands at the doors of our tents, and (which is very wrong) my soul recoiled when they all assembled, and in their patois wished us, I suppose, a happy Christmas.

Somehow a detestation of the Hindustani language sounding all round us, came over me in a very inexplicable manner.

Then, though nothing could be better than the way in which Mr. Y. performed the service, still it was in a tent, and unnatural, and we were kneeling just where the Prince of Lucknow and his son, and their turbaned attendants, were sitting on Saturday at the durbar, and there was nobody except G. with whom I felt any real communion of heart and feelings. So, you see, I just cried for you and some others, and I daresay I shall be better after luncheon.

To return to my journal. G. had a hard day’s work on Saturday, and so had everybody. We gave a breakfast to the heir-apparent of Lucknow and to sixty people; the utmost number we can accommodate.

Four aides-de-camp went, at seven in the morning, all the way to his camp (five miles) to fetch him. W. and Mr. P. met him half-way; B. again, a mile off; and then G., the Prince of Orange, and all the chief officers of station, at the end of our street.

Each individual is on an elephant, and the shock at the meeting was very amusing. A great many howdahs were broken, and it is a mercy that some of the people were not killed, for the Nawâb scatters money as he goes along, and the natives get under the elephants to find it. G. and the Nawâb embrace on meeting, and the visitor gets into the howdah of the visited, in which friendly fashion they arrived.

F. and I had taken our places in the durbar tent on the left hand of his lordship, and Mrs. A. and Mrs. B. and Mrs. J. and Mrs. Y. behind us. We could not ask any of the ladies of the station, for want of room.

The durbar and the speeches and compliments were all the same as usual, except that this is a real king’s son, so that the presents that G. gave were really handsome, and also he is the first native who has eaten with us.

St. Cloup gave us a magnificent breakfast. G. sugared and creamed the Nawâb’s tea, and the Nawâb gave him some pilau. Then he put a slice of buttered toast (rather cold and greasy) on one plate for me, and another for F., and B. said in an imposing tone, ‘His Royal Highness sends the Burra Lady this, and the Choota Lady that,’ and we looked immeasurable gratitude. At the end of breakfast, two hookahs were brought in, that the chiefs might smoke together, and a third for Colonel L., the British resident, that his consequence might be kept up in the eyes of the Lucknowites, by showing that he is allowed to smoke at the Governor-General’s table. The old khansamah wisely took care to put no tobacco in G.’s hookah, though it looked very grand and imposing with its snake and rose-water. G. says he was quite distressed; he could not persuade it to make the right kind of bubbling noise.

After breakfast we went back to the durbar, and the presents were given and dresses of honour to two of his suite, and altogether it was a two hours’ business. However, it was really a fine sight, though tedious. I got Mr. D. to change places with me, and made an excellent sketch of this immensely fat prince with his pearls and emeralds and gold, and G. by his side. Prince Henry was charmed with the show, and said to Giles, who evidently possesses his confidence, ‘I hope the King of Lucknow shall give me presents, because I may keep them; may you keep them, if you get any?’ Giles said, ‘No; he was the Governor-General’s servant, and could not be allowed to keep presents.’ ‘Oh! say you are my servant, and then B. cannot touch your presents,’ Prince Henry said. Giles told me the story with a grin of delight, and I could only say with Falstaff, ‘He is indeed the most comparative, rascalliest, sweet young prince. Indeed, able to corrupt a saint.’

CHAPTER IX

Cawnpore, Dec. 28, 1837.

MY Journal is in a bad way, actually extinguished by the quantity that I should have to put into it, if there were any writing time left.

Tuesday morning the Prince of Oude returned our breakfast by one at his tents, which were pitched about five miles off. F. and I went in the carriage till the last minute, when we had to get on our elephants, but the other poor wretches had to come jolting along the whole way. The Prince of Oude’s tents are very large, and he had asked the whole station, and with his quantity of troops and odd-looking attendants, it was a very curious sight, and he did it in a very gentlemanlike way.

The presents were very magnificent. He had had two diamond combs made on purpose for F. and me, mounted in an European fashion. They are worth at least 1,500l. a-piece, and what distresses B. is, that they are of no use to give again, as natives can make no use whatever of them; there were also two lovely pairs of earrings, a single uncut emerald drop, with one large diamond at the top, really beautiful stones, not those that are so common here, full of flaws. The trays of shawls were just as usual, but the jewels had been made up on purpose, and the Prince of Oude asked leave to show them to us himself, though it is the general and foolish custom to take no notice of what is given.

This is the first time the presents have excited my cupidity. Not the combs – I am grown too old for a comb; but those emerald earrings! I should like them, should not you? They will be sold probably at Delhi.

Tuesday night the station gave us a ball and supper, and on Wednesday morning at eight, W., P., F., and I set off in two buggies, which took us down to a bridge of boats; beyond that we found our elephants, who carried us over three miles of sand utterly impassable for a carriage, and then we came to the palanquin carriage.

Our own twelve horses took us by stages of five miles to a tent of the King of Oude’s, which he had had pitched for us, and where his cook had made a grand luncheon for us. Then three relays of his horses took us on to Lucknow. His postilions were dressed much like our own, and drove very tolerably; but the road was so awfully bad, we were shaken about the carriage most uncomfortably and covered with dust. I felt so like Madame Duval in Evelina, after the captain had shaken her and rolled her in the ditch. The king sent guards for us all the way, such beautiful figures! All scarlet and green, with brass basons on their heads, and shields and spears. Just as we came to the town, we passed the Prince of Orange, Captain A., Captain K., M., and Giles still in their palanquins, though they had gone off from the ball the night before.

The residence is a fine house, not much furnished, but there is a beautiful view from the window, which is uncommon in this country.

We found Rosina and Myra perfectly miserable. They had arrived with all our goods and all our men-servants two days before, and somehow had been particularly helpless, and had not found out where to get their food. Myra, F.’s ayah, is a Portuguese, and can eat anything, and dines after our servants; but Rosina, being a Mussulmaunee, can only eat certain things, and they must be cooked in a brass pot called a ‘lotah;’ and Major J. had told her not to bring her ‘lotah,’ for at the residence they would find everything cooked by Mussulmauns. So she and Myra had wisely sat and cried, instead of going to the bazaar and buying what they wanted. However, the instant we came, they were satisfied they would not be murdered or starved, and they proved themselves excellent ladies’ maids.

We set off early on Wednesday morning in two of the king’s carriages, and saw the tombs of Saadut Ali and his wife. A very fine building, but the wife is not allowed any little tops to the cupola of her tomb, which is mean. Then to ‘Constantia,’ a sort of castle in a fine jungly park, built by an old General La Martine, who came out to India a private soldier, and died worth more than a million. I wish we had come out in those days.

He left his house at Constantia to the public. Any European in want of change of air might go with his family and live there for a month, and beyond the month, unless another family wanted it. This would be a great convenience to the few English in Oude, particularly to poor officers; so of course, for thirty years, the Supreme Court has been doubting whether the will meant what it said it meant, and the house has been going to decay; but it is now decided that people may live there, and it is all to be repaired.

Then we went to Dilkushar, a country palace of the king’s, very pretty, and then to a tomb of a former king, where there are silver tigers as large as life, a silver fish, a silver mosque, and all sorts of curiosities, and priests who read the Koran night and day. Then we came home to breakfast and to rest, and the gentlemen went to the prison to see some Thugs.

You have heard about them before, a respectable body of many thousand individuals, who consider it a point of religion to inveigle and murder travellers, which they do so neatly that ‘Thuggee’ had prospered for 2,000 years before it was discovered.

A Captain G. here is one of its great persecutors officially, but by dint of living with Thugs he has evidently grown rather fond of them, and has acquired a latent taste for strangling. One of the Thugs in the prison told the gentlemen: ‘I have killed three hundred people since I began;’ and another said, ‘I have killed only eighty myself, but my father has done much more.’

Then they acted over amongst themselves a scene of Thuggee. Some of them pretended to be travellers, and the others joined them and flattered them, and asked them to sit down and smoke, and then pointed up to the sun, or a bird; and when the traveller looked up, the noose was round his neck in an instant, and of course, as a real traveller, he would have been buried in five minutes.

Then they threw the noose over one of Colonel L.’s surwars who was cantering by, just to show him how they could have strangled him. I think it is a great shame allowing them to repeat their parts, but they really believe they have only done their duty. They say they would not steal from a house, or a tent, but they have a profession of their own, and all these men regret very much that they cannot teach their sons to walk in the right way.

In the afternoon we went to see the Emaunberra and Rooma Durwanee, two of the most magnificent native buildings I have seen yet. About a week of hard sketching would have been really pleasant amongst them, and we had only half-an-hour. However, we saw a great deal for the time, and we are uncommonly lucky in our weather. It is just right, a sort of spring afternoon; very pleasant.

Friday morning we set off in great state to see Mr. B. (who has come in G.’s place); meet the Prince of Lucknow. It was much the same meeting as that at Cawnpore; but the prince gave us afterwards a breakfast in the palace, which we wanted to see very much, and which was quite as Arabian-Nightish as I meant it to be.

The throne is gold, with its canopy and umbrella and pillars covered with cloth of gold, embroidered in pearls and small rubies. Our fat friend the prince was dressed to match his throne. All his brothers, twenty at least, appeared too – rather ill-conditioned young gentlemen; and there were jugglers and nautch-girls and musicians, all working at their vocations during breakfast.

The late king drank himself to death about six months ago; and then there was a sort of revolution conducted by Colonel L. (who was nearly killed in this palace), by which the present king was placed on the throne; so these are early days for acting royalty. Mr. B. went in to the old king, who is nearly bedridden, and he said he was quite affected by the old man. He translated to him G.’s letter, in which G. said how much he had been pleased with his heir-apparent’s manner, and the old king looked up, and held out his hand to his son, who rose and salaamed down to the ground three times. Mr. B., who is almost a native in language, and knows them thoroughly, said he was quite touched; it is so seldom natives show any emotion of that kind.

There was a fight of wild beasts after breakfast, elephants, rhinoceroses, rams, &c., but we excused ourselves, as there often are accidents at these fights. The gentlemen all went, and so did Giles, and they were quite delighted, and said we ought to have seen it.

In the afternoon we went to see the king’s yacht, which he had decked out for us, and then his garden. Such a place! the only residence I have coveted in India. Don’t you remember where in the ‘Arabian Nights,’ Zobeide bets her ‘garden of delights’ against the Caliph’s ‘palace of pictures?’ I am sure this was ‘the garden of delights!’

There are four small palaces in it, fitted up in the eastern way, with velvet and gold and marble, with arabesque ceilings, orange trees and roses in all directions, with quantities of wild parroquets of bright colours glancing about. And in one palace there was an immense bath-room of white marble, the arches intersecting each other in all directions, and the marble inlaid with cornelian and bloodstone; and in every corner of the palace there were little fountains; even during the hot winds, they say, it is cool from the quantity of water playing; and in the verandah there were fifty trays of fruits and flowers laid out for us, – by which the servants profited. It was really a very pretty sight. Then we went to the stud where the horses were displayed; the most curious was a Cutch horse (Cutch is, I opine, the name of a particular district, but I never ask questions, I hate information). He looked as if he had had a saddle of mutton cut out of his back. They said he was very easy to ride, but apt to stumble.

There was to have been a return breakfast to the heir-apparent at Colonel L.’s on Saturday morning, but that would have made our journey back very late; so it was commuted for some fireworks in the evening. We went back to the palace after dinner, or rather to another palace on the river. On the opposite bank there was an illumination in immense letters, ‘God save George Lord Auckland, Governor-General of India,’ ‘God save the King of Oude,’ and then there was a full stop, and ‘Colonel L., Resident of Lucknow,’ stood alone. Whether he was to be saved or not was not mentioned; it was not very correctly spelt, but well-meant. My jemadar asked me afterwards, ‘Did Ladyship see “God save my Lord?" I thought it very excellent, very neat.’ The river was covered with rafts full of fireworks, and the boats in front were loaded with nautch-girls, who dance on, whether they are looked at or not. The Prince of Orange was charmed with his evening.

CHAPTER X

Cawnpore, New Year’s Day, 1838.

ANOTHER year! You will be nearly half through it by the time you read this.

I was so obliged to you for those extracts from Charles Lamb. I had seen that about the two hemispheres in some newspaper, and have been longing for the book ever since.

‘Boz’s Magazine’ is disappointing. I wish he would not mix up his great Pickwick name with meaner works. It is odd how long you were writing about Pickwick, and yet I felt all the time, though we are no judges of fun in this place, that it must be everywhere the cleverest thing that has appeared in our time. I had laughed twenty times at that book. Then there is always a quotation to be had from Pickwick for everything that occurs anywhere.

That Mr. Q., of – , who has been living with us for a month, and who admires Chance, as a clever demon, but is afraid of him, always says, if Chance goes near him at dessert: – ‘Bring some cake directly! good old Chance! good little dog! the cake is coming,’ so like Pickwick and his ‘good old horse.’

We returned from Lucknow on Saturday, with no accident but that of breaking the dicky; which, considering the state of the roads, was marvellous. I never felt such jolting, and it was very hot in the middle of the day; and G., who does not believe in fatigue, had asked five-and-twenty people to dinner.

We parted with the Prince of Orange at Lucknow, which is something saved in point of trouble. He has liked his visit, I fancy, though it did not excite him much.

The dust at Cawnpore has been quite dreadful the last two days. People lose their way on the plains, and everything is full of dust – books, dinner, clothes, everything. We all detest Cawnpore. It is here, too, that we first came into the starving districts. They have had no rain for a year and a half; the cattle all died, and the people are all dying or gone away.