Letters from India Volume II/To Blank 6

by Emily Eden

TO ——.

April 21.

We want to give some fête for the Queen’s marriage, but it is so near the Queen’s birthday that we must amalgamate the two things and get up some illuminations and fireworks and Alberts and Victorias on the great plain the night of the ball. The natives like fireworks, and they have taken a great interest in the Queen’s marriage.

We had a beautiful storm last night before we left Barrackpore—the first of the year—and it wound up four dreadful days. Lord Jocelyn had never seen any Indian lightning before, nor heard one of those cracks of thunder, which are not pleasant when one knows them; but he thought it beautiful.

We cannot get the engineer there (Barrackpore) to put the. house to rights, and we had to send Wright and Giles both back to Calcutta with fever. There are no glass windows yet to their rooms, and it is enough to kill them. However, George has written a note to the engineer, which will evidently bring out all his building talent.

I am making my life wretched with two little striped squirrels. The squirrels here are nearly white, with four black stripes down their backs, and striped tails. I have got two young ones, meaning to tame them, but they are evidently deficient in intellect—perfect ninnies, so unlike my dear flying squirrel at Simla. They are quite tame one minute and then run half over the house with all the servants after them, and it is too hot for those tricks. I wish they were in their nest again.

George went to the Hindu College to give prizes to the best essay writer, &c., and, as the papers said the Miss Edens were to accompany him, he made me go too. Goodness me! how hot it was, notwithstanding the storm. There was every respectable native in Calcutta, besides Sir E. Ryan and all the great school people. It is always an interesting sight, and the boys would beat in history and mathematics any sixth-form boy at Eton, and indeed in history most men; they have such wonderful memories. They asked them to give an account of the first Syracusan war, of the Greek schools and their founders, when the Septennial Bill was passed, when the Limitation Peerage Bill was passed and why; what Pope thought of Dryden, what school of philosophy Trajan belonged to—in short, dodged them about in this way—and they gave the most detailed and correct answers. Ten years ago I suppose no Hindu could or would speak a word of English. Lord Jocelyn enters into all these things with great interest.

Friday 24th.

I escaped the ball at Lady ——'s last night by the happy accident of a swelled face, a sort of thing that happens in this country in two minutes; we are so hot, and then we sit in a draught and get a swelled face or a lip as big as two. It goes off again just as suddenly, and I take it kindly that it came yesterday and went to-day. They say the ball was such a crowd.

We have such a pretty new open carriage to-day, which I asked George for, when first we arrived, and in the meantime the old one has been lined and varnished, and looks as good as the new one. However, it will be a great convenience having two; the coach is so heavy.

Sunday, 26th.

We all dined at Mr. ——’s yesterday; there had been a great thunder-storm, and it was quite cool and pleasant, and the dinner was not so bad as most native cookery is; the company always the same—members of Council and their. wives, judges, &c.

The judges were in a horrid state, and so were we. There was a brute of a man, a superintendent of roads. His house was robbed, and he suspected some of the men who worked on the roads of the robbery; so he had a sort of bamboo gibbet erected, to which he tied up sixteen of these men by their hands, their feet not touching the ground, and then flogged them and lit straw under them and burnt them with irons, and kept them hanging fourteen hours, and some eighteen. One man was taken down dead, some insensible. It was proved that this all happened in Mr. ——’s compound, and that he had his dinner-table brought out and dined within six yards of these wretched creatures. He made no defence, except that he did not touch them with his own hands, but only gave directions to his overseer. Sir Henry Seton said that, in his charge to the jury, he only alluded to the possibility of calling it manslaughter because, from the horror of capital punishment in this country, he thought it better to ensure the man’s being transported for life; but, to his utter surprise, the jury brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty.’ Sir E. Ryan, who has been here many years, says it is invariably the case that the low Europeans who make up a jury here always agree to acquit any man who is tried for the murder of a native.

Monday, 27th.

We certainly have bearable weather. The church was quite cool last night, and this evening we all went on board the ‘Conway’ and sailed about in the captain’s boat in a nice cool breeze. It is very odd, for this is the hottest time of year by rights, and ought to be the driest, but there is a storm every day; bless its heart!

Tuesday, 28th.

I am happy to say Hughes was convicted of a misdemeanour yesterday, and will have two years’ imprisonment. It is better than nothing. Mr. ——, the lawyer, launched out against the jury in a way that astonished them.

Thursday, 30th.

There never was anything like this dear rain. I have had my window open all day, and the air blowing through and the thermometer at 79°. I suppose it would feel like a hothouse to you, but we are all in raptures and rather chilly.

I said those little squirrels would be the bane of my life, and so they are; they will run about the room at the wrong time, and want to be fed when I am busy, and nobody can catch them, and yet they will not run away, though I have had all the windows set open on purpose.

Saturday, May 2.

We have been very quiet all this week, thinking every day that the ‘Conway’ would sail; but the gales of wind are frightful just now, and none of the ships that left Calcutta ten days ago have got out of the river yet, and many are aground. It is a pity these storms are so mischievous, for really they make the climate quite pleasant. In the daytime the house, well darkened, is not at all hot, and in the evening the drive is a real pleasure, instead of that close, airless airing it was a duty to take; and having. two open carriages has made all the difference to all of us.

Wednesday, 6th.

There was another pelting storm last night after dinner; so very few people came, and those only whom we knew well, and they went away very early.

I am happy to say I succeeded to-day in getting a little one-armed boy into an excellent charity school there is here, where boys are boarded, lodged, and taken care of for six years. He is the son of Sergeant Rayment, of our camp, and was run over by a hackery and lost his arm; so I brought him down and boarded him out for the chance of this election. His father came down from Agra to see him, and died of cholera the night he arrived; he has no mother, so there could not be a greater object.

Yours most affectionately,

E. E.