THE NUT LOG.
19th.—Yesterday, some wandering gypsies (Nut Log) came to the door; they were a family of tumblers. Nut is the name of a tribe who are generally jugglers, rope-dancers, &c. There was one girl amongst them whose figure was most beautiful, and her attitudes more classic and elegant than any I have ever beheld; Madame Sacci would hide her diminished head before the supple and graceful attitudes of this Indian girl.
A man placed a solid piece of wood, of the shape of an hour-glass, and about eighteen inches in height, on his head; the girl ran up his back, and, standing on one foot on the top of the wood, maintained her balance in the most beautiful attitude, whilst the man ran round and round in a small circle; she then sprang off his head to the ground. After this she again ran up his back, and kneeling on the hour-glass-like wood on his head, allowed him to run in the circle; then she balanced herself on the small of her back, her hands and feet in the air! After that, she stood on her head, her feet straight in the air, the man performing the circle all the time! The drapery worn by the natives falls in the most beautiful folds, and the girl was a fit subject for a statuary: I was delighted.
They placed a brass vessel, with dust in it, behind her back on the ground, whilst she stood erect; she bent backwards, until her forehead touched the dust in the vessel, and took up between her eyelids two bits of iron, that looked like bodkins; the brass pan in which they were laid was only about two inches high from the ground! She threw herself into wonderful attitudes with a sword in her hand. A set of drawings, illustrating all the graceful positions which she assumed would be very interesting; I had never seen any thing of the kind before, and thought of Wilhelm Meister. The Nut Log consisted of five women, one little child, and one man, who performed all these extraordinary feats; another man beat a tōm-tōm to keep time for them, and accompanied it with his voice; the poor little child performed wonderfully well. She could not have been more than six years old; the other girl was, I should suppose, about eighteen years of age.
Another exhibition worth seeing is an Hindostanī juggler, with his goat, two monkeys, and three bits of wood, like the wood used in England to play the devil and two sticks. The first bit of wood is placed on the ground, the goat ascends it, and balances herself on the top; the man by degrees places another bit of wood on the upper edge of the former; the goat ascends, and retains her balance; the third piece, in like manner, is placed on the top of the former two pieces; the goat ascends from the two former, a monkey is placed on her back, and she still preserves the balance. I have seen this curious performance many times. The man keeps time with a sort of musical instrument, which he holds in his right hand, and sings a wild song to aid the goat; without the song and the measured time, they say the goat could not perform the balance.
When I first came up the country, nothing excited my admiration more than the sirrākee[104] grass in full flower, bending to the wind, and recovering its position so elegantly. This magnificent grass is often sixteen feet high, on which the bloom gracefully waves, like bending feathers.
May 1st.—“Notice was given in the supreme Court, that Messrs. Gould and Campbell would pay a dividend, at the rate of nine gundahs, one cowrie, one cawg, and eighteen teel, in every sicca rupee, on and after the first of June.”
A curious dividend,—not quite a farthing in the rupee[105]!
10th.—O! Western shore! on which I have passed so many happy days; what would I not give for your breezes, to carry away this vile Indian languor, and rebrace my nerves? In front of the thermantidote, and under a pankhā, still there appears to be no air to breathe! This easterly wind is killing; I have in general liked the hot winds, and have found my health good during the time; but this heavy, unnatural atmosphere overpowers me. I see a man crossing the parched and dusty compound, with a lota (brass bowl) and a phleme in his hand, to bleed eleven gynees (dwarf cows), and two horses,—all ill of infectious fever! I must return to my book and my sofa, and dream away the hours.
Shall I ever see again those beautiful scenes which I now see? Shall I ascend again that Mont Anvert, and look down upon the Mer-de-glace? Twenty mosquitoes, of which I have just caught one, say, No; but I say, Yes; and I hope once more to behold the lovely vistas in the New Forest, and once again to muse by the sad sea waves on the Western shore.
17th.—My ayha was decorated last night with ear-rings, made of freshly gathered jasmine flowers, strung double on a wire, and hanging down to her shoulders; the scent was so powerful, I could not endure it in the room. Under her chādar they had a good effect; she wore the bela, the double Arabian jasmine (jasminum sambac pleno; jasminum, from the Arabian ysmyn).
The flowers are most overpoweringly sweet, pure white, and double. Native women are extremely fond of decorating themselves with necklaces, ear-rings, and bracelets, formed of freshly gathered flowers.
The champa is a flowering tree (michelia champaca), sweet-scented michelia. From the bud of the champa flower is taken the pattern of the champa-kullee necklaces the Indian women wear; kullee, a bud.
21st.—We have had heavy storms, with hailstones of most surprising magnitude; I wish the wind would change; the new moon has “the old moon in her arms,” and if the wind change not now, we shall still have to endure this dreadful weather. The garden is a cake of parched white earth, all split and cracked.
What plagues these servants are! This morning, one of the cows being very ill, I ordered a mixture for her; at sunset it had not been given to her, because, to use the man’s own words, “he wished to send a man into the district, to dig up a certain sort of rat, which rat, having been mixed up with hot spices, he would give to the cow, and she would be well!”
Very provoking! the animal will die on account of not having had a proper remedy administered in time. One has to fight against the climate and the servants until one is weary of life.
23rd.—Such a disaster in the quail-house! Through the negligence, or rather stupidity, of the khānsāmān, 160 fat quail have been killed.
June 1st.—The Muharram is over; I am glad of it, it unsettles all the servants so much, and nothing is ever well done whilst they are thinking of the Taziya.
4th.—Last night we drove to the churchyard, to visit the tomb of one of the most charming girls I ever met with, who had departed in her youth and beauty’s prime: it was a melancholy visit.
One of the Fitzclarences died at Allahabad, and was buried here, without any name or inscription on the tomb; within the last six months an inscription has been put upon it, by order of Lord William Bentinck.
In the churchyard was a great number of plants of the mādār or ark, (asclepias gigantea,) gigantic swallow-wort. Upon them we found the most beautifully spotted creatures, like enamelled grasshoppers; they appear partial to this plant, the ark; when alive, their spots are most beautiful, in dying, all their brilliancy vanishes. I gathered a quantity of the fine down from the pods of the mādār, and gave it to a gentleman fond of experiments, who says he will weave it as a shawl is woven, and see if it will answer.
19th.—The air is so oppressive, it appears full of dust, so white, so hot! the atmosphere is thick and dull,—no rain! This day last year a fine storm refreshed the earth. The leaves are all falling off the trees, dried up by the sun; numerous trees are dead, burnt up; not a blade of grass! every thing so dusty! I wish the rains would come; this easterly wind, with a thermometer at 91° at noon, is terrible! The pummelo-tree presents a curious appearance; the whole of the leaves are parched, and have fallen from the tree, leaving sixty fine green pummeloes hanging on the naked branches!
The pummelo, called by the natives batavi-nemoo, is the citrus decumana, orange pampelmouse, or shaddock; it was brought from the West Indies by Capt. Shaddock, from whom it derives its name; the fruit grows to the size of a child’s head, and is very delicious; it is a native of China and Japan.
25th.—Any thing like the severity of these hot winds we have never experienced; the thermometer to-day 93°! Our khānsāmān, Suddu Khān, has had a stroke of the sun; he went out about two miles and a half, to buy grapes, which at this season are very fine and excellent; returning, he fell down by the churchyard, and was conveyed home: it shows how the natives feel the severity of the weather. Grapes, mangoes, mango-fool, and iced-water are our luxuries. The fields of sugar-cane are all burnt up, the cotton-plants dying for want of rain, and in the mango topes (plantations) half the trees are destroyed.
A swarm of locusts have passed over the cantonments; the natives say they foretel rain; would it were come! The people are dying daily, and the Europeans also at Dinapore are carried off three and four a day.