‘I am in excellent health, thank God, and Florrie seems to be getting all right again. She and I “pull well together, when yoked twain and twain.” I have not seen a single white face but hers—not even in travelling here—since I left the dear Amritsar bungalow. I think that I shall improve more rapidly in the language here than if I had remained at my first station.
‘What an extraordinary and somewhat romantic position I am in, for an elderly lady, who in her youth hardly ever stirred from a London home! How amazed we should have been when we were girls, if we could have known that I was to find my home in an Oriental palace—afar from all Europeans—and itinerate a little in heathen villages! How good God has been to your loving sister!’
TO MRS. J. BOSWELL.
‘Dec. 11, 1876.
‘I have not been many days in this my new home, but I could fill pages and pages with Batala. My time, however, is precious, and I must not waste too much even in writing to dear ones.... I was much struck by an incident which occurred to-day. Four workmen are still engaged in making a fireplace for us. This morning, as I sat reading, waiting for my Munshi, one of the men stood near, as if silently watching me. I thought this strange; but, as he was not rude, I made no remark but read on. Presently the man said to me, “Is that the Gospel?” I said, “Would you like to hear the Gospel?” He assented. I read part of Matthew v.; and the three other men came and listened. Afterwards at morning prayer I sat very near the open door leading to the room where two of these men were working at the fireplace. Two of our Muhammadan servants come now regularly to family prayers. The men at the fireplace were so perfectly still that I am sure they were listening to God’s Word.... Of course, it is quite optional with the servants to attend or not; and the workmen could easily have drowned my voice, if they had chosen to do so....
‘I find my walking Zouave so very useful in opening a way, that I much wish for five or six clever clockwork toys, such as would take the fancy of natives.... The toys should be rather small, and such as I could easily show off. The floors are so rough, that I am obliged to make my Zouave walk on the top of his own tin box, short as it is. I feel the toys, if really clever, so important....’
TO MRS. E——.
‘Dec. 14, 1876.
‘I dare say that you will be rather curious to know how I like my new home. I like it very much indeed. I cannot tell you what the city is like; for though I have been into it every day but to-day, I cannot say that I know anything of its general appearance, except that the streets are extremely narrow, and that the houses appear to be made of brick. The fact is that I never go into the city, except shut up in a duli, a kind of box with no window. Unless I push the curtain a little back, I see nothing, and nobody can see me. I am rather careful about the proprieties; and to be carried in a box is the correct thing. My duli is red; Florrie’s moderately white.
‘Now fancy yourself at my side, dearest Aunt. I will give you a kind of rough idea of what is said and done, after my duli has stopped at the door of one of the four Zenanas now open to us at Batala. I will suppose C. M. T. alone, as she sometimes is.