Lord Jocelyn is staying with us, but will sail in about ten days in the Conway. He goes merely as a volunteer with representatives of the Dragoons, and George has arranged that he is to be passed into any ship that is likely to see most service. He has great merit in the ardour with which he looks about for information and for service, and I hope the Chinese will not take him prisoner.
So the dear little Queen is now Mrs. A. C. I hope she will be happy; and they may say what they like of her, but she certainly contrives to conduct herself wonderfully, through a great many trying ceremonies,—never awkward, and yet just shy enough, and I like her so for being so affectionate to Aunt Adelaide.
Pray tell Mrs. Drummond I have had her letter and Theresa’s journal, much to my heart’s content, and I would have written her another line, but I am horrified at the price of letters. Not but what I guessed my journal would cost a great deal too much—but £2. 8. 0! I am horrified in the English sense. Here that would be dog cheap—24 rupees. I never speak to anybody for less.
The long hand of my watch caught in the other, and the watchmaker charged 20 rupees for bending it up a hair’s breadth. But still, £2. 8. 0 for a letter! I flatter myself your office pays for this. Good-bye. Ever yours,
E. EDEN.
Miss E. Eden to Mr. C. Greville.
CALCUTTA,
July 6, 1840.
My dear Mr. Greville, At last a copy of The Court and Camp has reached Calcutta, and was picked up by an alert Aide-de-Camp, who was in the shop when it arrived. It is immensely well got up, and altogether, I think, a pretty little book, and more of a book than I expected. It is a pity more copies did not come by one ship, for there are quantities bespoken. But in the meanwhile everybody is borrowing this, and they all delight in the introductory chapter, because, of course, not one of them has the least idea of the history of the Sikhs as connected with India, nor of India as connected with anything else, so they are all delighted at learning it so cheaply, and they look upon you as a prodigy of Eastern learning. There are one or two misprints in the book, which do very well for England, but is the sort of thing they will take up here, where their intellects are below mistake par, but just up to a misprint; and I should imagine that the Agra Akbar will wonder at the ignorance of the aristocracy who can call a thermantidote a phermantidote, and that the Delhi Gazette, which is courtly, will say it ought to be phermantidote, and that they could give the Greek derivation, only they have no Greek type.
I think you ought to feel a sort of paternal interest in the Sikh dynasty, and would like to know that Kharak Singh[484] still retains the name of King, and Mr. Clerk (the Governor-General’s agent) says that Noormahal’s attentions to his father in public increase in proportion as he deprives him of all power. He says Noormahal all through the Durbar is occupied in wiping the dust from Kharak’s band, when not a particle has settled, or with a Chowry in driving away flies from his father’s hand, which they never approach, and that Kharak, though a fool, is wise enough not to like these demonstrations of tenderness.
The fleet left Singapore for Macao on the 30th May; the fear of bad weather prevented their waiting any longer for Admiral Elliot. William Osborne and Lord Jocelyn seemed very well satisfied with their accommodation in the Conway, and were gone on in her. William asked some of the Chinese at Singapore whether their way of making war was like ours, and they said, “Much the same, only more guns and less drum.” He asked what they thought of the steamers, which were, in fact, quite new to them, and they said, “Oh, plenty at Pekin; only little smaller.” I am in a horrid mood of mind at all these requisitions from home that are to keep us here another year; and have turned rank Tory on the spot, and can think of nothing but the quickest means of turning the Ministry out, and then of rushing down to the river-side and beckoning to the first ship. But surely we never shall be kept here. I don’t think the people at home have an idea what a place it is, but they will know hereafter, if they go on behaving so in this life. And as for the idea that any Governor-General is to stay till everything is quite quiet and peaceable in this great continent, you might as well ask the fish to stay in the frying-pan till they have put out the fire.