Letters from India Volume I/From the Hon F H Eden to a Friend 5
I write and write, because I am determined to believe that you are you, that London is London, that England is England, and that the whole Western world is not a clever and finished fancy of my own imagination. The latest written sign of its existence was dated July 28, and now it only wants a week to Christmas. Newspapers to the end of August have found their way here from Bombay, but not a single letter, public or private. I expect when you return to England that you will see after the sailing of the ships yourself, and not let them go on in this careless, irregular way. In the meantime I sha’n’t write about it.
You will have turned over such a number of pages in life before my ‘observes’ upon what you were reading then will have reached you. It is very hard that we should have two such distinct books given us to get through, when we certainly enlivened the original publication by our clever remarks as long as we read out of the same.
My dear, here is such a plan—such a sublime plan, burst upon me! It will eventually conduct me either to the bottom of a tiger’s throat or the top of a rhinoceros’ horn; but the grand, wild, independent halo thrown around it in the meantime will make the path pleasant to such a dénouement. They do say (it is hardly possible to believe them) that there are hills in Bengal, not more than 140 miles from here; and the unsophisticated population of these hills is entirely composed of tigers, rhinoceroses, wild buffaloes, and, now and then, a herd of wild hogs. There, I’m going to live for three weeks in a tent. I shall travel the first fifty miles in a palankeen, and then I shall march: it takes a full week to travel a hundred miles in that manner. Twelve miles a day is the average rate of marching. A little more may be done; but as our beds, sofas, arm-chairs, tables and clothes all travel on the heads of human beings, we cannot progress very fast; besides, we encamp for the day at eight or nine in the morning, to set off again at five the next morning. A Mr. and Mrs. and Mr. and Mrs. have organised a regular tiger-hunting expedition to the hills; only their four selves and five-and-twenty elephants are going. intends to join them there, and I am upon the brink of settling to go with him; they are all ‘heartening’ me up to it, because they say it will be such a good thing to get up some extraneous strength for the hot season, and that strength is to be found on the top of a hill.
won't hear reason as to the horrible dangers he is going to take me into. The other two ladies regularly get upon their elephants, and go tiger-hunting every day—talk of the excitement of the tiger’s spring, and the excellent day it was when they saw eight killed. I happen to be very much afraid of a cat—I may say, a kitten; but if I were to stay at home while the others went out, a stray tiger would just walk in and carry me off: as George encouragingly observed this morning, ‘I see him moving at a round trot with you in his mouth, like a goose thrown over a fox’s back.’
A man dined here lately who had really been in that enviable position, and was very lame in consequence; he actually got at his pistol, and shot the tiger through the heart, after it had carried him some way. I see in the sale papers to-day, ‘a beautiful Chinese ivory cabinet’’ and ‘a Kentuckian rifle gun’ to be sold. There was a time when I should have sent to bid for the first; now I shall send an unlimited commission for the second.
We are not to start for six weeks; so I shall write to you once more. ‘It will be a nice little march,’ just now observed; ‘no fuss or trouble at all. I have written up the country for elephants, and we need only have a guard of twenty men. You had better take your English maid, for fear you should be ill, and your ayah as a companion for her; and then, with your own sixteen bearers, you will want only ten or twelve more to carry your things; your khetmutgars to wait at dinner; your peons to pitch your tent; your jemadhars to look after them all, and your washerman and tailor. Those, with all my servants, will do very well.’ I ventured to suggest that I was not likely to want any clothes made for three weeks. ‘Oh, but tailors are always of use. I remember the time a tiger fastened on my elephant’s trunk, and so nearly clawed me out of the howdah, and my tailor saved the elephant’s life by sewing up the wound.’ I see myself sitting on an elephant while the tailor is stitching at the trunk! Emily positively declares that nothing shall ever make her go to a tiger-hunt, but at the same time that she would think it very strange and cowardly of me to neglect such an opportunity.
Dr. Drummond is the only one who throws up his eyes, and wonders; first, at the rashness of going without a doctor, and next, of going near a tiger. He does not say much, but gets together all the most frightful documents he can find about tigers and jungle fevers, and lays them on the table with a solemn air.
I wrote to you about my small prodigy of a bird; like all prodigies, it is dead, and I am still in despair about it. No bird will live long here. This one is a real loss, it was such a curiosity; everybody was fond of it, and it certainly was more amusing than most of the people here.
The weather is very nice indeed now—what we call, and really think, cold; I suspect much what a commonplace summer’s day is in England, judging from the vegetables. Peas, cauliflowers, French beans, salad, and all our summer vegetables are excellent now.
I throw a great deal of sentiment into my eating, always having watercresses for breakfast, because they are so English. George has just sent word that this will, perhaps, catch the ‘Repulse’ in the river, if I send it now.