Miss Eden to Mr. C. Greville.
SIMLA,
November 1, 1838.
There is a small parcel going to you per Miss Fane (not a ship, but the General’s daughter, Miss Fane[458]), which you are to take care of, and eventually it will be a pleasing little occupation for you. It is a journal of William Osborne’s,[459] kept while he was at Runjeet Singh’s Court, and illustrated with some drawings Fanny has made from nature designs, and from some sketches made by one of our Aides-de-Camp, and altogether it may eventually make rather a nice little publication, and we think you will be just the man to edit it, and to cram it down the throat of an unwilling bookseller, extracting from him the last penny of its value—and a great deal more. It is not to be published till George gives his consent, and as it gives an account of the Mission which formed the alliance, which is to end in the war—which may end we don’t know how—and as William will indulge in levities respecting the Company highly unbecoming the Governor-General’s Military Secretary, who is in the receipt of £1500 a year from the said Company, and as for many other “as’s,” it is not to be printed till further advice. It is trusted to you with implicit confidence. Lord Stanley, Fanny says, is to be allowed to read it, but I have not heard of any other confidant, so you are not to go rushing about with treble raps, and then saying: “Here are a few pages about Runjeet, a man in the East, King of the Punjab, or Shah of Barrackpore, or something of that sort, which I think would amuse you. You may run them over, and lend them to anybody else who will take the trouble of reading them.” That is not the line you are to take—not by any means. On the contrary, after a long silence, and with an air of expressive thought, you are to observe: “I have been reading this Memorandum—in fact, I wish I could send it to you; but there are reasons. However, never mind; there is no harm in my saying that I have been reading a journal. I almost wish it might be published; but yet, I do not know. However, if it is, I am sure you for one (a great emphasis on ‘for one’) would be amused to the last degree. A friend of mine in India, a young man, odd but clever, passed some time with Runjeet Singh, and kept a sort of diary. Curious and odd. You may have heard of Runjeet Singh,—Victor Jacquemont’s[460] friend, you know; only one eye and quantities of paint. I wish I could show you the little work, etc.” And so, eventually, you know, it might come out with great éclat. I think William may write a second part of the Interview at Ferozepore, which might be very gorgeous, taking our army into account, as well as the meeting of the two great people.
ROOPUR,[461]
November 13, 1838.
I wrote the above before we left Simla, when we had a good house over our heads and lived in a good climate, and conducted ourselves like respectable people, and people who knew what was what. Now we have returned to the tramping line of life, and have been six days in one wretched camp, the first few so hot and dusty, I thought with added regret of the Simla frost. And now to-day it is pouring as it pours only in India, and I am thinking of the Simla fires. It is impossible to describe the squalid misery of a real wet day in camp—the servants looking soaked and wretched, their cooking-pots not come from the last camp, and their tents leaking in all directions; and a native without a fire and without the means of cooking his own meal is a deplorable sight. The camels are slipping down and dying in all directions, the hackeries[462] sticking in the rivers. And one’s personal comfort! Little ditches running round each tent, with a slosh of mud that one invariably steps into; the pitarrah[463] with the thin muslin gown that was carefully selected because the thermometer was at 90 yesterday, being the only one come to hand; and the fur pelisse, that in a wet rag-house slipping from a mud foundation would be pleasant and seasonable wear, is gone on to the advanced camp. I go under an umbrella from my tent to George’s, because wherever there is a seam there is a stream; and we are carried in palanquins to the dining-tent on one side, while the dinner arrives in a palanquin on the other. How people who might by economy and taking in washing and plain work have a comfortable back attic in the neighbourhood of Manchester Square, with a fire-place and a boarded floor, can come and march about India, I cannot guess.
There were some slight palliations to the first day in camp: some English boxes, with new books and little English souvenirs from sisters, nieces, etc. And then I have a new horse, which met us at the foot of the hills, and which has turned out a treasure, and is such a beauty, a grey Arab. He is as quiet as a lamb, and as far as I can see, perfect—and a horse must be very perfect indeed that I get upon before daylight, when I am half-asleep and wholly uncomfortable, and which is to canter over no particular road, and to go round elephants, and under camels, and over palanquins, and through a regiment, without making itself disagreeable.
The army will be at Ferozepore two days before we shall. The news from Persia is so satisfactory, that probably only half the force will have to cross the Indus, and it is very likely that Sir H. Fane will go home, and Sir W. Cotton later.[464]
Miss Eden to Mrs. Lister.
Simla, 1839.
MY DEAREST THERESA, Your letter, which I received three weeks ago, was most welcome, though it was “the mingled yarn, of which we spin our lives.” Your happy bit of life with your brother, and your prospering children, and your journey, which always (so as you stop short of India) gives a fresh fit of spirits, and then your return, and that melancholy catastrophe.[465]