WILLIAM R.
[The end of September 1835 Lord Auckland, his two sisters, his nephew William Godolphin Osborne, their six servants, and Chance the dog, started on a five-months’ voyage in a sailing-ship to India. Miss Eden described in her book, Letters from India, their many adventures on board ship, and her impressions of life in Calcutta. Her water-colour sketches of Funchal, Rio in Brazil, Cape Town, and her “Portraits of Princes and Natives,” make excellent illustrations to all the long letters written during her six years’ absence from England.
In 1916 an Exhibition of Miss Eden’s paintings, chosen and arranged by Mr. F. Harrington, was held at Belvidere, Calcutta, the first sketch mentioned in the catalogue being that of Chance.
“I had such a pretty present this morning, at least rather pretty. It is a baby-elephant, nine months old, caught at Saharanpur by the jemadar of the mahouts, and he has been educating it for me, and offered it by way of Captain D., his master. William and I have been looking about for some time for a gigantic goat for Chance to ride on great occasions, but a youthful elephant is much more correct, and is the sort of thing Runjeet’s dogs will expect. It just comes up to my elbow, seems to have Chance’s own little bad temper and his love of eating, and is altogether rather like him.”]
Miss Eden to Lady Campbell.
N. Lat. 17, Long. 21,
February 18, 1836.
MY DEAREST PAM, I got William to write to you from the Cape, as we were in a flurry of writing, visiting, and surveying Africa, and he had more time, having been there before. We have had a very smooth sea, and I can read and draw and write, and as we all are perfectly well, there is not much to complain of, except of the actual disease—a long voyage, which is a very bad illness in itself, but we have had it in the mildest form and with every possible mitigation. At the same time I cannot spare you the detail of all our hardships, and I know you will shudder to hear that last Saturday, the fifth day of a dead calm, not a cloud visible, and the Master threatening three weeks more of the same weather, the thermometer at 86 in the cabin,—tempers on the go and meals more than ever the important points of life,—at this awful crisis the Steward announced that the coffee and orange-marmalade were both come to an end.
No wonder the ship is so light, we have actually ate it a foot out of the water since we left the Cape. “Nasty Beasts,” as Liston says. Your lively imagination will immediately guess how bad the butter is, and I mention the gratifying fact that two small pots of Guava Jelly and the N.E. Monsoon sprung up on Monday, and we hope their united forces may carry us to the Sandheads.
I never could like a sea life, nor do I believe that anybody does, but with all our grumbling about ours, we could not have been 19 weeks at sea, with so few inconveniences. Captain Grey is an excellent seaman, and does more of the work of his ship than is usual. The officers and midshipmen have acted several times for our diversion, and remarkably well.
The serious drama, Ella Rosenberg, was enough to kill one. Ella’s petticoats were so short, and her cap with her plaits of oakum always would fall off when she fainted away, and a tall Quartermaster, who acted the confidant, would call her Hella, and never caught her in time!