Letters from India Volume II/To Blank 2
Barrackpore, Sunday, June 4, 1837.
I sent off my journal yesterday, and, as it is too hot to do anything else, I may as well begin again.
We could, not stir out again all yesterday. Two or three Barrackporeans dined with us and Mr. Trower and one or two others. We played at lottery tickets as usual in the evening. The weather is worse than ever. The thermometer was 105°, Captain said, in his bungalow after he opened the door for one minute to come out to luncheon. Fanny went to church, but neither George nor I did; and I do not mean to try it again till the rains.
Calcutta, Monday, 5th.
We came down late last night, and at all events this house is a little cooler than Barrackpore; the natives were all done up with it too. They have the cholera very much just now, but certainly, however tiresome the heat is, it is not an unwholesome time for Europeans. Talking of Europeans, you cannot imagine how irritating it is that all our servants will call them Europeans, and not Europeans. Our English servants all want to come up by land and to have hired horses, and I generally let the maids in this weather do so, as the steamer is obliged sometimes to come in the middle of the day. I told Captain to desire the steamer would bring up the ‘Soonamookie’—our yacht this time—as the Europeans will not let the native servants go in the cabin of the steamer, and the old kansamah and some of the old men were half baked in the small boats; so when the ‘Soonamookie’ appeared, Wright, and Jones, and Mars, and Giles all announced their gracious intention of going by water, as if they could have ‘my Lord’s boat’ to themselves; they thought it would be quite as cool as the land, so they started at four o’clock, and, what was more, declared when we arrived that it had been very pleasant.
Wednesday, 7th.
We have returned to our cool seat in the Marble Hall here, and are much better. We had a great dinner in the evening. The dinners are much less formal since we have abandoned the drawing-room, which was too small for fifty people. Now the gentlemen can sit down if they will, and though very few of them do, still the ladies cannot get into a circle, though they do their very best.
George’s chessmen of the frogs and mice, which he ordered at least eight months ago, are arrived; and I never saw anything so clever. The pawns are particularly pretty. Mr. Shakespear came this morning, and I beat him two games at chess, We had a very full party last night, and I thought there were several promising flirtations going on.
Saturday, 10th.
On Thursday we received visitors in that unaccountable cool place in the Hall, which I mentioned to you, where there is no punkah. The audacity of seeing them in a new place was almost too much for their Indian nerves and etiquette, but they were charmed with the climate. If the wind were to remit for five minutes, we should all be choked; but, coming through two tattees, half a mile off, it is delightful. I am sorry to say the wind is failing today, and no good prospect of rain.
Sunday, 11th.
A Mr. , a friend of Charles Elliot’s, dined with us yesterday. He and Mr. are both going back to Canton, where they are pent up in a place like Burlington Arcade, without the shops, and never see a woman from one year's end to the other. The consequence is that Mr. thinks Calcutta a perfect Paradise. He said seriously he could not imagine so gay or so happy a place. We played at ‘lottery,’ as we always do when we are by way of being alone, and they thought it delightful and agreed to make a great resource of it at Canton. It is a great triumph to ‘Mrs. Phillips’ that lottery tickets should have spread from her drawing-room, which was not bigger ‘than the summer breakfast parlour at Rosing’s’[1], to Canton by means of , and to Hyderabad by means of Colonel . He called the day before he went to join the Nizam to take leave, and in a quiet, confidential voice, said, ‘And about the prizes at lottery, which half of the pack do I take them from?’
We would not go to morning church; it is so dreadfully hot. Several horses died last Sunday waiting for their owners, and I hardly think one would be left to-day.
Monday, 12th.
While we were sitting at luncheon there arrived two darling packets for me, and a box for George, with Mr. ’s card. I think he must have swum up the river with them; the ship is still at Saugur. And we have got your little box of envelopes, and my salts, and sister’s ribbons, and, above all, your delicious book of a letter, which I am going to answer forthwith, just as if you would receive my answer three days hence.
I think we are all very much altered in looks since you have seen us, particularly the last two months. They have been a great trial to everybody, and the way in which the natives have died of cholera the last fortnight is lamentable. We may freshen up again a little up the country, but we are certainly grown very yellow, or brown lately, and George is very grey. His hair is growing quite white. The climate has agreed with my hair, strange to say, and it has grown thick and dark. Now I think I have answered great part of your comments. I am more reconciled to India than I was, inasmuch as it is no use kicking against the pricks; and then the days are so monotonous that they go by quicker than they did when everything was new; and then, though the heat is in fact greater this year, we all submit to it better; and the pain of being indolent is no longer very irksome, I am ashamed to say. And, last of all, I really feel every day that I would not be away from George—and think of him alone in this country—for any earthly consideration. If it were in the slightest degree possible to repay him any part of the obligation I owe him all through life, this is, I think, the only opportunity. He could not have existed here alone, and, for want of other colleagues, I can see constantly that it is a great comfort to him to have me to talk over his little bothers with. I sent off the instant I got Mr ’s card to: ask him to dine here do-day, but he cannot come till to-morrow, which is lucky, as we shall then be alone, and to-day we have forty-five people.
Tuesday, 18th.
Sir Willoughby Cotton landed just as George and I were going out this evening, so we drove down to the ghaut to greet him, and sent another carriage to bring him to Government House, where Major and Captain were waiting at the door for him; and then pursued our airing. Mr. dined with us, and I got all I could out of him, but he would not say half enough. He and Sir Willoughby are of course well acquainted. Sir Willoughby is exactly like the Duke of York in voice, and look, and everything. He has amused us all very much with all the latest London gossip, and he knows all the people we know, and altogether he is an amusing incident.
Wednesday, 14th.
Lady came this morning to show us some work she has received, done by Spanish nuns at Manilla, on pine-apple cloth; I never saw such a curious sight, much too pretty for use. It is like old point almost worked into a web of exaggerated French cambric. She would not sell any of it, which was disappointing; but Dr. Drummond has a friend at Manilla, and he has written to order some for us.
Thursday, 15th.
A great many of the new arrivals by the ‘Abercrombie’ and the ‘George the Fourth’ called on us. One of the Mysore princes was here when Mr. called, and Mr. had luckily seen his brother at the Oriental Club in England, which delighted Ghola much.
Friday, June 16, 1837.
This may go to-morrow, I hear, so good-bye. Thank you over and over again for your present and your nice long letters and all your good things.
No rain yet. We were to have gone to Barrackpore yesterday, but when I went down to breakfast I found everybody’s courage had failed, and Major said it would kill all the servants to move in the daytime, and the boatmen too; so we had to send for the horses and our cooks, and dinner, which had gone up in the night. It is very shocking. I do not believe in the rains of a tropical climate. It was a grand failure last year.
Ever yours most affectionately,
E. E.
- ↑ See ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ by Miss Austen.