Friday, Oct. 12.
They say this must go to-day, which I believe is a mistake. However, it is better to run no risks. I have been writing to R. to send out ‘Nicholas Nickleby’ overland. Does not that book drive you demented? and I am sure it is all true. I remember years ago a trial about one of those Yorkshire schools, where all the boys had the ophthalmia, and one boy had his bones through his skin, and none of the boys were allowed a towel; and these atrocities put us all into one of those frenzies in which we used to indulge in youth. I dare say Dickens was at that school. I wish he would not take to writing horrors, he realises them so painfully.
I am so busy to-day, I have hardly time to write. G. wants to give Runjeet a picture of our Queen in her coronation robes. The Sikhs are not likely to know if it is an exact likeness as far as face goes, and the dress I have made out quite correctly, from descriptions in the papers and from prints, and it really is a very pretty picture. It is to be sent to Delhi to-morrow, and it is to have a frame of gold set with turquoises, with the orders of the Garter and the Bath enamelled. In short, it will be ‘puffect, entirely puffect;’ but I think they ought to give me Runjeet’s return present, as it has cost me much trouble to invent a whole Queen, robes and all. We are all quite well. God bless you! My next letter will be from camp. ‘Mercy on us,’ as S. would say, but it is a comfort to think we shall end here again.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Saturday, Oct. 20, 1838.
I THINK it looks ill, that I have let a whole week go by without a touch of Journal; but nothing particular has happened, and it does not mean any coldness, you know, dearest. I have spent a week more of the time I am to be away from you, so I could not be better employed.
Monday we gave a dinner, Tuesday we dined at the R.s. Met Mrs. —— and a newly-married couple, the husband being an object of much commiseration. Not but what he is very happy, probably, but he married the very first young lady that came up to the hills this season; she was ‘uncommon ordinary’ then, and nothing can look worse, somehow, than she does now. I dare say she is full of merit, but I merely wish to observe, for the benefit of any of your sons who may come out to India, that when they have been two or three years in a solitary station they should not propose to the very first girl they see. However, I dare say the ——s are very happy, as I said before.
We had such an excellent play last night, or rather two farces, acted chiefly by Captains X. and M., and Mr. C., and by Captain Y., one of Sir G.’s aides-de-camp. Captain X. is really quite as good as Liston, and I think he ought to run over a scene or two every evening for our diversion. It is supposed that R. was never seen to laugh till he cried before, which he certainly did last night. It is astonishing how refreshing a real, good laugh is. I have not had so good a one for ages.
Tuesday, Oct. 23.
The work of packing progresses, and there are no bounds to the ardour with which everybody labours to make us uncomfortable. This day fortnight we are to be in our wretched tents—that is, if we really do not find ourselves unequal to the shock at last. There was an idea that coolies enough could not be raised at last, as everybody goes away at the same time, so instead of 3,000 at once, we have 1,000 three times over, and as soon as they have taken one set of camel trunks to the plains they come back for another, so we spread our discomfort thus over a wide surface. I have succumbed to such a temptation to-day—I wish I had not, and yet I am glad I did—a large gold chain, two yards long, of the purest Indian gold. I could not let it escape me, and yet I know I should like to have the money to spend at Lahore.