Letters from India Volume I/The Hon E Eden to a Sister
Having sent off my last letter on Tuesday, I begin again. ‘The mutton of to-day will succeed to the beef of yesterday, as the beef,’ &c. &c. That is not to be taken literally, for it does so happen that for the last few days I have not been eating beef and mutton, having had a series of headaches and pains in my bones, &c., whereby it has arisen that I have not gone in to dinner; and altogether I have done what here as well as elsewhere, they call ‘the influenza.’ That is meant as a compliment to the cold weather, which, after a few days, has trotted itself up again to a hothouse temperature, and everybody ‘hopes we won’t think this a fair specimen of their cold weather,’ ‘quite an unusual season,’ &c. Nonsense! just as if we did not know better; we heard of India before we came out.
By not being well on Thursday I missed two interesting events—one a great durbar held by his lordship, in which he returned the presents made by that Vakeel I told you of some time ago; and the other was a deputation of eight gentlemen to ask Fanny and me to a great ball the whole society of Calcutta are to give us, and we were to fix the day. There seems to be some dispute as to the style of entertainment, because one ball is necessarily so exactly like another in a small society, and all out-of-door amusements, breakfasts, &c., are out of the question; and we objected to another fancy ball, because of the expense to which all the very young gentlemen put themselves on those occasions: so I believe it is to be a full-dress ball, with feathers and trains, which is quite a novelty in Calcutta. However troublesome these gaieties may be, they are pleasant, as proofs of our ‘giving satisfaction;’ for as long as it was considered a bore to come to Government House, eternal fagging at society was doubly fatiguing. It seemed so much hard trouble thrown away if it did not please others more than it pleased us; but we have somehow risen rapidly in public estimation, and there is no end to the attentions they pay us. Calcutta is become so gay. In short, ‘the wretched tools by which George means to make his arbitrary government popular,’ as calls us, are turning to account; and that being the case, I no longer object to the trouble of the business. It is the only active duty we can perform here.
Dr. Drummond will not let me take the slightest exercise this week, as I have had constant headaches, and am weakly altogether.
I am determined to write one line, dearest, on Christmas-day, to wish you and yours many, many happy returns of the day, and that some of them may find us together again; and in the meanwhile I was thinking at church to-day what an unspeakable comfort the communion of Christians is; how the feeling that we were all commemorating the birth of the same Saviour, with the same rites, and on the same day, brought us all together, even at the distance of half the globe. One part of the service was entirely thrown away on me. I beg to observe the Psalms, as usual, did not agree with my complaint. ‘Hearken! oh daughter, and consider; incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father’s house.’ I never think David quite understood what he was writing about. The more I hearken and consider, the more I feel that my own people and my father’s house are the very points I never can forget. I never thought so much of them before. Last Christmas we were at sea; this Christmas in Bengal; the next I suppose at Allahabad; and so on till we have a Christmas in Egypt, and the next to that at B Hall.
I want to go home, please.
My health has come to again. I have stayed at home quietly, and escaped two nights at the theatre; and we have had no time for dinners; and I have taken a quantity of iron powders, which have quite cured my headache; and then, yesterday and the day before, two ships arrived and brought us quantities of letters up to August 20, and that always does me good. There were none from you, but then it was not quite your turn. I counted that you should not send off another packet till September 1, and there is a September ship reported this morning.
Fanny’s expedition to Raj Mahl is come quite into shape, except that, after having talked for six months of the charms she should find in marching, and the pleasure of going to see tiger-shooting, now that she has the opportunity she has been in such a fright about it that she nearly gave it up. I rather encourage her fears of the actual tiger-shooting, because it seems to me a dangerous pastime, not from the animal, but from the danger of being out too long; and there is no necessity for her going out with the sportsmen. There is very pretty sketching in the Raj Mahl hills, and they change their abode every other day; and they are to see the ruins of Goa and Malda, and several curious places; and I believe, in real truth, she likes it very much. It is a pity they cannot go a fortnight sooner; but then the older Indians of the party think it as much too cold earlier as we think it too hot. At present their idea is to start February 20.
We had an old Mrs. here this morning, a friend of , when he was in India before. She has been fifty years in India, barring one year, four years ago, which she spent in England; and she thought it a horrid country, and came out again. She is eighty-four, and is now going home, ‘to give England another chance;’ if she does not like it, then she says she shall come back and settle here for life. She is a fine-looking old body. I fetched George to see her, and when he went away, she said, ‘Well, I have seen a great many Governors-General, but that is the handsomest I recollect—I declare he is very good-looking. Why, , you never told me he looked so young; I like his look.’ and she walked off arm in arm full of their old jokes. He fetched her here in one of our carriages, and took her home again, and she was quite pleased with the attention. A very fine-looking, very old lady is rather a pleasant sight, particularly here, where there are hardly any very young, or very old people. I mean to write to next—that I solemnly vow; but as the ‘Duke of Bedford’ sails to-morrow, and I had this letter on the stocks, I thought I might as well send it off, instead of a fresh one to her.