But though she enjoyed her time in the mountains, she was eager to return to work; and even from Dalhousie her letters contain chiefly details of what was being done, there or at Amritsar, in her absence. On the 18th of July she was on the road; and again she wrote from an inn:—
‘I have bidden farewell to Dalhousie. The skies were weeping violently when I started; so was not I!... Dalhousie is grandly beautiful; but I have been asking myself why I have not been in raptures with its beauties. I think that two things are wanting to its perfection;—first, the soft blue haze which one connects with distant mountains. High and hard, some snow-crowned peak cuts the sky. You are told that it is a hundred miles off. You don’t believe it! It is as clear and sharp as if only two. Then water is a very great want, at least to me. Certainly, there is the Ravi, one of the five famous rivers of the Panjab; but at Dalhousie it looks, at least in June, first cousin to a swamp. One wants waterfalls. One-hundredth part—one-thousandth part—of Niagara, glorious Niagara, would be a boon at Dalhousie....
‘It is a curious thing, dear Laura, that kind of instinct which one acquires in India! I have often and often thought on the subject. One feels as if one belonged to such a lordly race. It is that odd kind of impression upon one that, though one may personally be weak as water, one forms a part of a mysterious power. There is a kind of instinctive persuasion that neither man nor beast would dare to attack one,—except perhaps a vicious horse. One travels by night, without the slightest protection, surrounded by half-clad, ignorant semi-savages; one never dreams of fearing them. One takes one’s early walk in a lonely place, where the cheetah or snake may lurk, without the smallest alarm. They would not surely attack one of the English!...’
CHAPTER III
A.D. 1876
CURIOUS WAYS
More than half of Charlotte Tucker’s first year in India was now over; and still no thought of work for herself in Batala had arisen. She knew about Batala, and was interested in the place, no doubt, as in all other outlying parts where Missionary work had been even fitfully attempted. But Amritsar was thus far her home; and there she expected to remain. She continued to study hard and perseveringly, in preparation for fuller work, often lamenting her own slowness in learning to speak; and already she was making herself known and beloved by a few Indians,—either Christian, or disposed towards Christianity.
After her return from Dalhousie she wrote in joyous strains: ‘Here I am at dear Amritsar again, which I much prefer to the abode amongst the clouds.’ There was some idea that she might have to go all the way back to Dalhousie, to nurse a sick Missionary there; and she was perfectly willing to do so, without hesitation on the score of fatigue, without a thought of the long, troublesome journey. No one else could be so well spared at that period from Amritsar as herself; and this she fully realised. ‘If however dear Florrie rallies nicely,’ she wrote, ‘I have not the slightest intention of going to cloudland again. Pankah-land suits my taste better.’ Happily, it was not necessary for her to go.
It was in the spring or summer of this year that she began to name her various new friends after certain jewels, according to her estimate of their respective gifts and characters. She possessed, in imagination, a jewelled bracelet, representing the different Missionary gentlemen of her acquaintance,—Diamond, Opal, Amethyst, etc. A companion bracelet was supposed to represent the Missionary ladies,—consisting of Diamond, Sardonix, Onyx, etc. Also she had in mind ‘an extraordinary necklace, Oriental pattern, formed of Native friends,’—those Indian Christians, whom she had begun to know and to love, many of whom repaid her love, and did not disappoint her trust in the coming years.