Letters from India Volume I/From the Hon F H Eden to a Friend 1
I look at your unfortunate picture swinging opposite to me, and feel remorseful that I should have placed your innocent, dumb likeness in such a situation; and then, I don’t know where you, the real living woman, are. Nobody can have been anywhere as long as we have been on board this ship. We are not at the Cape yet: we are to be there, they say, in two or three days; but I am not to be taken in by anything any sailor says—you and I, dear, know them better. I don’t think that the marines are happy, and the troop of engineers we are transporting to Ceylon, with their military sagacity are not to be taken in any more than myself. I saw one of them just now twisting up a piece of oakum with a brokenhearted air.
I have reason to think that the chronometer is all wrong, and Captain G looked half affronted when I offered him my little Swiss watch, which is just the size of a shilling. We have not seen a single soul since we left Rio. We have been in a gale of wind which lasted forty-eight hours, and which, if it had lasted longer, would have exhausted me; for it came at the end of a four days’ calm, when we had been almost rolled and created into a state of idiocy. I get so exasperated—if running a pin through the floor of my cabin would scuttle the ship, I would not give much for its chance. There was I, at the end of four sleepless nights, peering over the sides of my cot upon the green baize carpet; turned into a large pool of water from the rain beating in. Books—chairs—boxes—baskets—all broke from their fastenings and splashing frantically about; the bulkheads roaring in every possible variety of tone—(those bulkheads will be found levelled by my single strength, some day). The waves high above the windows, and my cot and I swinging at every roll within two inches of the ceiling. I thought it might be better up stairs, and contrived to struggle up, to find his Excellency under the breakfast table (his chair, in spite of its lashings, having slipped from under him), empty cup in one hand—his piece of toast crushed in the other. I would not for ever so much that Rumm Hy Jeet Raj Singh should have seen him in such a situation: he would never have given the proper number of ko-toos, and there would have been a war.
Quiet! Quiet! How I do long for a little Quiet! All my life I have hated noise. I banished that angel of a grey parrot, because he made a noise: he has his revenge now. We have seen three dead whales, seven live ones; a porpoise has been harpooned, and an albatros, which was so gorged with oil from one of the dead whales that it could not fly off the water: it measured from nine to ten feet from wing to wing. Think what the ‘ancient mariner’ must have suffered when his was hanging round his neck! We passed within a few yards of one dead whale; the sharks were gnawing it, and the albatroses pecking at it. Such an enormous mass, and neither fish nor bird took the trouble to get out of our way: they evidently thought that man had no right to meddle with the sea or its inhabitants; and I think so too. He cannot manage the sea; it heaves and tosses him about just as it pleases.
I have two great sources of comfort: in and my great worsted man and horse: they are both so great, I hardly know which is the greater. When it is calm, I turn to my man and horse. Such a horsecloth as I have just executed! And in the worst of times always can make us all laugh: he lives in a state of farcical despair, and goes about insulting all the sailors with his horror of the ship; and I heard him, just now, gravely consulting the doctor, who is rather pompous and solemn, about his health:—‘But, sir, I do not exactly see what is the matter with you!’—‘Matter enough! I’ve got the “Jupiters”—I’m a creak, Doctor, nothing but a creak: listen to my neck when I turn it!’ And there are times when one feels actually creaking oneself.
Dec. 14.—And now there’s Africa in sight. I took my first view of it at five this morning. Then, it looked very much like the Cape of Good Hope in a map. Now we are very near, and there is the great Table Mountain, with others ranging beside it, rugged, handsome and dead. Upon one of the hills, where there is a pretty drive from Cape Town, a learned man, who has been at the Cape before, declares you may see the baboons playing about. Only think of seeing a real live baboon.
When I wrote to you before, from Rio, I forgot to communicate the melancholy fact, that our maids saw hundreds of humming-birds flying about, and we never saw one; however, a baboon will do as well: they are so alike. So now we are perfectly acquainted with Europe, America, and Africa: when we have done Asia, we may come home again.
Dec. 16.—I like this place—it is quite what I meant Africa to be—so unlike anything else: when we went twelve miles up the country, yesterday, I felt like Montval in the Travels of Rolando. I have not caught a camelopard yet, but I’m going; in fact we have all been in Africa, and know the sort of thing. There are the stunted trees dyed red by the fine red sand that flies everyhere; and the great flats, covered with most of our finest hot-house plants, turned into large shrubs; also immense arid, rugged hills rising up suddenly, and the negroes wearing a kind of sugar-loaf hat, driving sometimes eighteen or twenty oxen, in long, low waggons. Then, we went to Constantia to pick out our wine; and found such a flourishing, rich Dutch Boor, with a large whip in his hand, with which he evidently beats to death many of E M’s vagrants. Poor things! The governor here is upon the frontier arguing with the Caffres.
We sail again in a few days, and I find there is an opportunity to send letters by the ‘Liverpool’ in three days, so I must finish this and write others. There must be an interval of four or five months before you hear more of us, after you get this; but remember, for two whole months we shall be on the sea, and then in Christian charity you will write.
Tell me how much my letters bore you. I know they must be very tiresome, but how tiresome are they? Write to me about every little thing: nothing can be too little. I have no time to read this over, and could not if I had. I think by the time this gets to England, you will be returning there. I cannot get used to not knowing where you all are, and what you are all doing. I feel quite benevolent to Calcutta and really fond of it when I think I may find a letter there, or, at least, expect one. Mind you keep a sheet of paper always about you, and write down anything that strikes you, and when it is full, make it over to Grindley. God bless you, dearest!