Cawnpore, Dec. 28, 1837.
MY Journal is in a bad way, actually extinguished by the quantity that I should have to put into it, if there were any writing time left.
Tuesday morning the Prince of Oude returned our breakfast by one at his tents, which were pitched about five miles off. F. and I went in the carriage till the last minute, when we had to get on our elephants, but the other poor wretches had to come jolting along the whole way. The Prince of Oude’s tents are very large, and he had asked the whole station, and with his quantity of troops and odd-looking attendants, it was a very curious sight, and he did it in a very gentlemanlike way.
The presents were very magnificent. He had had two diamond combs made on purpose for F. and me, mounted in an European fashion. They are worth at least 1,500l. a-piece, and what distresses B. is, that they are of no use to give again, as natives can make no use whatever of them; there were also two lovely pairs of earrings, a single uncut emerald drop, with one large diamond at the top, really beautiful stones, not those that are so common here, full of flaws. The trays of shawls were just as usual, but the jewels had been made up on purpose, and the Prince of Oude asked leave to show them to us himself, though it is the general and foolish custom to take no notice of what is given.
This is the first time the presents have excited my cupidity. Not the combs—I am grown too old for a comb; but those emerald earrings! I should like them, should not you? They will be sold probably at Delhi.
Tuesday night the station gave us a ball and supper, and on Wednesday morning at eight, W., P., F., and I set off in two buggies, which took us down to a bridge of boats; beyond that we found our elephants, who carried us over three miles of sand utterly impassable for a carriage, and then we came to the palanquin carriage.
Our own twelve horses took us by stages of five miles to a tent of the King of Oude’s, which he had had pitched for us, and where his cook had made a grand luncheon for us. Then three relays of his horses took us on to Lucknow. His postilions were dressed much like our own, and drove very tolerably; but the road was so awfully bad, we were shaken about the carriage most uncomfortably and covered with dust. I felt so like Madame Duval in Evelina, after the captain had shaken her and rolled her in the ditch. The king sent guards for us all the way, such beautiful figures! All scarlet and green, with brass basons on their heads, and shields and spears. Just as we came to the town, we passed the Prince of Orange, Captain A., Captain K., M., and Giles still in their palanquins, though they had gone off from the ball the night before.
The residence is a fine house, not much furnished, but there is a beautiful view from the window, which is uncommon in this country.
We found Rosina and Myra perfectly miserable. They had arrived with all our goods and all our men-servants two days before, and somehow had been particularly helpless, and had not found out where to get their food. Myra, F.’s ayah, is a Portuguese, and can eat anything, and dines after our servants; but Rosina, being a Mussulmaunee, can only eat certain things, and they must be cooked in a brass pot called a ‘lotah;’ and Major J. had told her not to bring her ‘lotah,’ for at the residence they would find everything cooked by Mussulmauns. So she and Myra had wisely sat and cried, instead of going to the bazaar and buying what they wanted. However, the instant we came, they were satisfied they would not be murdered or starved, and they proved themselves excellent ladies’ maids.
We set off early on Wednesday morning in two of the king’s carriages, and saw the tombs of Saadut Ali and his wife. A very fine building, but the wife is not allowed any little tops to the cupola of her tomb, which is mean. Then to ‘Constantia,’ a sort of castle in a fine jungly park, built by an old General La Martine, who came out to India a private soldier, and died worth more than a million. I wish we had come out in those days.