Letters from India Volume II/From the Hon E Eden to the Countess of Buckinghamshire 4
My Dearest Sister,—Fanny will have told you our horrid change of plan, and that we are doomed to that dreadful hot Agra for the next year. They say that the heat we have experienced at Calcutta is nothing to it, and, as I thought that past all human endurance, I give it up. About Agra: The house is so very small and confined compared to Government House, that I can imagine, even were the climate the same, that one’s ‘sufferens’ must be much greater; but they say that we are to sit at home behind a tattie for two months at least, without letting any daylight in, and that then we shall enjoy ourselves uncommonly. I believe the best plan is, as I heard an Agra lady say the other day, ‘not to think of the hot winds till they come, nor to mention them, but to keep all your strength to try and live through them.’ But the constant thought of my mind is that this delay will put off our return home, and I am sure that two more hot seasons will be at least one too many; besides, I cannot stay away from you all any longer. I really can’t; I must go home.
I want to talk to you and never to see these brown, arid plains and browner, arider people any more, and, as for staying here a whole year that ought to be passed in England, I can’t. In Bengal there are at least trees, and everything is green, and there is the river, which leads to the sea, which leads home. Here there is nothing but dust and ruins, and no way out of it if one is ever so ill; even natives cannot travel in the hot winds.
We have left Captain and Giles at Agra to hurry on buildings, make up beds, mosquito houses, &c., and we have come out to visit Neighbour Dholepore and Neighbour Gwalior—only six marches—but then we stay four or five days pleasantly with each, so that we shall be away more than three weeks.
The Dholepore rajah come to fetch his Lordship in to-day. I do not know anything remarkable about him, except that he wears eight of the largest pearls that ever were seen. They must have been layed by a sort of turkey amongst the oysters. And he rides in a two storied carriage, drawn by six elephants.
I have just heard from Lady yesterday that she had travelled safely through the Punjâb and the Khyber Pass with her diamonds, her maid, and cat, without any of those dangers with which she was threatened. Talking of her cat puts me in mind of Dandy burying himself alive like a fakeer (what a horrid moment for you!)—just the sort of thing that we who keep pets are exposed to—and nobody knows what we go through. It may be a consolation to you to reflect that much about that time Chance was fished up drowned by his faithful attendant out of a great tank, and I saw the poor little Prince Royal swung round by his hind legs for five minutes—a native cure for a drowned dog—and then Jimmund blew into his nostrils for a long time before he came to life. He has recovered his health since we have been in these hot plains, which shows bad taste.
The display at Gwalior has been very magnificent, and we paid rather an interesting visit to the little Ranee, who is only eight years old—but is treated with great state—and looked like the white cat dressed up in diamonds and cloth of gold.