It has rained almost literally without ceasing, with constant fog; but if it is clear for ten minutes the beauty of the hills is surpassing; such masses of clouds about them and below them, and they are so purple and so green at this time of year.
August 18.
We had to go to another play last night. Luckily they only acted two farces, so we were home at ten, but anything much worse I never saw. There were three women’s parts in the last farce, and the clerks had made their bonnets out of their broad straw hats tied on; they had gowns with no plaits in them, and no petticoats nor bustles. One of them, a very black half-caste, stood presenting his enormous flat back to the audience, and the lover observed, with great pathos, ‘Upon my soul! that is a most interesting-looking little gurl.’
It seems very uncertain when our next overland packet will come. The steamers could not get there, and there is nothing but an Arab sailing-vessel to bring the letters here. I have no faith in the Arabs as postmen. I had two here yesterday to draw. They followed Captain B. from Cabul, and are genuine ‘Children of the Desert.’ They are very unlike our quiet natives, and laughed so much all the time, that I could hardly draw them; but they make excellent sketches. I often wish for Landseer here.
Wednesday, Aug. 22.
There! this must go. We had a great dinner on Monday, and another fainting lady. Somebody always faints here. I myself believe that, though they do not like to say so, it is the fleas that make them ill. You cannot imagine the provocation of those animals during the rains. W. was really ill for two days with them—irritation and want of sleep—and was obliged to see Dr. D. The worst of it is, that the more the house is cleaned and tormented, the worse the fleas get. They belong to the soil, and even the flower-garden is full of them. They say that plague is to cease next month, which is a comfort.
A box of new books arrived yesterday, just as we were at the last gasp—and such a good set! Perhaps the Annuals might have been left out, but other people like to see them; and then, by great good luck, we had not seen one of the other books, though they had been nine months coming. ‘Lady Annabella,’ ‘Ethel Churchill,’ ‘Pascal Bruno,’ &c. We are now in that age of literature. I wish you would buy on my account a copy of ‘La Marquise de Pontange’ and ‘Le Père Goriot,’ and send them out, and I wish you would send yourself out with them. That would be the real book to read over again.
[A portion of the Journal being lost, these letters of the same dates are here inserted, to carry on the narrative.]
Letter to the Countess of B.
Simla, August 20, 1838.