Letters from India Volume II/To a Friend 1

by Emily Eden

TO A FRIEND.

Barrackpore, May 8, 1837.

Scene: Verandah at Barrackpore. Time, sunset, or rather later. Atmosphere, close. Garden, below the verandah. River and, Serampore, beyond.

[Enter four bearers, and place sofa in verandah, and retire. Enter from a side-door an interesting and languid European female with opened and unopened letters in her hand, followed by various domestics carrying footstool, shawl, book, &c. Lady speaks fretfully,]

Jemadar, do put the sofa in the draft.

[Jemadar snaps his fingers, and the, bearers move the sofa. Lady reads, apparently with intense interest, long sheets of paper, evidently a journal from a friend, and probably dated October, smiles occasionally, and then speaks (mentally),]

I declare that is a very pleasant journal, and I never thought the letters from the ‘Catherine’ could have come up so soon. These journals are very pleasant indeed; I think I could answer them on the spot, only it is’ too dark and too much trouble, and too hot, and too everything. [Music heard.] Well there’s a bagpipe; that’s odd. I will mention that to ——: national, romantic, and better than a tomtom. Qui hi?

Jemadar. Ladyship?

Lady. Fetch the telescope out of my room.

J. Huninelkawn, Dulhoo, Ameer, fetch glass.

[They all three go and come back, one with the glass, one with the stand, and one with a little table. Lady looks; as usual can't see through it, but, to save appearances, says, without observing that the top is still on the glass,]

Ah! I see. The music is in a boat at Serampore; what does it mean?

J. Rich native, Ladyship, been to fetch wife; hire music to do himself honour. Very fine wedding.

L. That will be something for my letter to ——; give the ignorant European child an idea of Indian customs, also mention to her that to make the music of the bagpipe pleasant it is as well to station the piper in the Danish territories and to remain yourself in the British dominions, with water between the two. In England this might be done with even better effect than at Barrackpore; the distance of Copenhagen would perhaps render the effect still more pleasing! it would be more softened, harmonised, subdued; you would hardly know it was a bagpipe.

[A white goat rushes by, followed by a man and then a deer and then another man, all running as hard as they can.]

L. Qui hi?

J. Ladyship.

L. Tell that man not to hunt Sulema, and tell the other man not to hunt the choota lady’s deer.

[The Jemadar talks the gibberish which the natives are pleased to call Hindustani and says,]

By your favour, Ladyship, the doorias say the goat afraid of the deer and the deer afraid of the goat, and they both run away and the doorias can’t catch them.

L. Very well. Ask all those gardeners what they are doing to my garden.

J. They say the storm yesterday blow Ladyship’s garden away, and they putting it all back again very neat.

 

There! That is word for word what passed this evening as I was reading your journal, and I thought I would write it straight down for fun, that you might know exactly that bit of my life. I had not gone out, as it was very close and I had not been well.

A ‘tomtom’ is a drum, a ‘dooria’ is a man who looks after dogs and animals. Fanny is always called the choota lady, and I am the burra lady, when they talk of us, and the ‘ladyship’ which they address to us is only a corruption of Lady Sahib, not an English ladyship.

We have had two such storms since we have been here. Three of our boats were sunk, but fished up again, the thatch over the verandah blown into the trees, the trees blown into the river, the garden into the house, and the chairs into the park; and the thunder sometimes roars for an hour without stopping, not grumbling thunder, but it is in a regular roaring passion. These storms make the air very cool for a day, and altogether this is not near such a bad hot season as the last, or we do not feel it so much.

There have been shocking fires at Calcutta, partly because the huts are so dry; they catch fire on the slightest provocation, and the wind is so high it is impossible to stop the flames. There were about 80,000 homeless people last week, allowing four for each burnt hut, which is very few. They huddle together for a few days and then build their huts again, but it looks very melancholy in the meantime.

Rosina has just got the gown Willy Eden sent her and is quite mad about it, carrying it to all the servants and kissing his note, which she asked me to let her have, that she might get somebody to Hindustani it for her.

Ever, dearest, yours most affectionately,

E. E.