Monday, May 14.
We had such a dreadful sermon at church yesterday from a strange clergyman. Mr. Y. always preaches here in the morning, and F. and I go in the afternoon to the church, when he has generally preached again; but yesterday this sick gentleman took it into his head he was well enough to preach. He is rather cracked, I should think, though Y. declares not; but I never will go again when he is to preach. He quoted quantities of poetry, and when he thought any of it particularly pretty, he said it twice over with the most ludicrous actions possible. Then he imitated the voice with which he supposed Lazarus was called to come forth, and which he said must have been very loud, or Lazarus would not have heard it, and so he hallooed till half Simla must have heard. Then he described an angel appearing—‘a fine trumpeter;’ and he held out his black gown at its full extent, to show how the angel’s wings fluttered. All round the church people’s shoulders were shaking and their faces hid, and there was one moment when I was nearly going out, for fear of giving a scream. It was a most indecent exit at last. Even Sir G. R. came out, wiping his eyes, and I came home in one of those fits of laughing and crying which we used to have about ‘Pleasant but not correct,’ or such like childish jokes, which always ended by giving you a palpitation. W. and Captain M. went yesterday with the Sikhs on their way to Runjeet.
Thursday, May 17.
I have had a great deal to write and to copy for G. this week, and am amazingly backward in my letters, and I opine it must be the knowledge of that fact which has induced the Bombay Government not to advertise any steamers. Monday we had a great dinner. There is a very pretty Mrs. —— up here—a sort of Malibran in look, but more regularly pretty, who also dined with us. Her husband cannot get leave from his office, and she is come up with two children, who look thoroughly Indianised. I always think those wives who are driven by health to be so many months away from their husbands, are rather in a dangerous situation in this country, where women are seldom left to take care of themselves; but she seems to be a very nice person, and there is something in extreme beauty that is very attractive. On Tuesday we dined with the Commander-in-Chief, in order to attend Capt. Q.’s wedding; it was got up with great care by the R.s. It went off remarkably well—Miss S. looked very pretty. Miss R., one bridesmaid, is rather handsome, and Miss T., the other, is a very handsome girl, but would have looked better if she had not ridden up from Barr (forty-two miles of the steepest hills) without stopping, whereby the sun had literally burnt all the skin off her shoulders through her habit. I lent her a blonde shawl, but it could not conceal the state of things. Most men talk of riding twenty miles in these mountains as a great feat, and I never can understand the extraordinary exertions that women sometimes make—and without dying of it, too.
There was no crying at the wedding, and the young couple went off in two jonpauns, carried one after the other. There was no spare house in Simla, and they had meant to go into tents, but Captains N. and M. handsomely offered their house, which is the most retired and one of the best here.
Saturday, May 19.
F. has heard from W., who had been assisting at the evening firing at a mark, which is a constant practice with the Sikhs. Ajeet Singh put in one of his spears at forty yards’ distance, and another at sixty, and put a mangoe on the head of one. He fired twenty times without hitting either. W. hit the mangoe at the second shot, and then hit the other spear three times running, and then thought it better to say he was tired, and could not shoot any more; so the Sikhs all said ‘Wah! wah!’ and were pleased. Dr. D. says the thermometer is at 96° in their tents with tatties, and outside there is a perfect simoom. Poor things! it is so pleasant here. All Dr. D.’s medicines and instruments have been stolen from his assistant’s tent. The stomach-pump was cut to pieces by the thieves—such a blessing for Runjeet’s courtiers! He tries all medical experiments on the people about him. How they would have been pumped!
Simla, Wednesday.
It appears the Journal I sent off to you last Saturday will probably pass a month at Bombay, where this may still find it. G., in the plentitude of his power, ordered off a steamer to the Persian Gulf, for the Persians are behaving very ill to us, and the second steamer, which was to have supplied its place and to have taken the overland mail, is disabled. The weather, for Simla, is wonderfully hot—I should say painfully so, if I did not recollect the plains. Dr. D. writes word that in their houses at Adeenanuggur (Runjeet’s abode), with tatties and every possible precaution, the thermometer ranges from 102° to 105°. Calcutta never gets up to that, and then it is comparatively cool there at night; whereas, these hot winds are just the same all through the twenty-four hours. W. does not mind them—at least, he says anything is better than Simla.
Thursday.