WE halt here till Monday. There is a great gathering of petty chiefs, and our arrival was very pretty. Each man came on his elephant, with a few wild followers on horseback, some with a second elephant, and they all scramble up to G., every individual giving him a bow and arrows, or a matchlock. His hand was soon full, then his howdah was hung with them; the hirkaru behind was buried in bows; then they boiled over into our howdahs, and at every break in the road a fresh chief and more bows appeared.
At last we came to Mr. E., bringing the Nahun rajah. Don’t you in your ignorance go and confound him with the old Nabun rajah. This is the Nahun chief whom we visited last year in the hills, and who is very gentlemanlike and civilised. I have found out why I was so glad to see him again. He has light blue eyes, and after three years of those enormous black beads the natives habitually see with, these were mild and refreshing. They all brought us to the camp in a drizzling rain, which came on to a pour in the course of the day, and a wretched business it always is. All the servants and camp followers look so miserable and catch such bad colds. I thought when we were at Nabun that an old man, a sort of prime minister of the rajah’s, would make a good drawing, and I told him so; and to-day he arrived, having made two marches to have the picture drawn. He gave me his matchlock, which I asked Captain D. to return with the usual speech, that it was much better in his hands than in mine; but the old man said no; it was a particularly good matchlock; he had shot with it very often, and I should not easily find so good a one, so C. gave me a watch to present to him in exchange, which quite delighted him. While Captain L. E. was gone to fetch the watch, the old man took the opportunity to question my jemadar about our habits, and I understood enough of the language to make out that he was asking how many times we eat in the day. The natives generally only eat once, but I believe they think our way of eating at several different times rather grand; at all events, the jemadar did not omit a spoonful, and it was rather shocking to hear how many times in the day we were fed, beginning with the cup of coffee before marching; and the afternoon cup of tea sounded wrong and waste-not-want-not-ish. However, the old sirdar said it was all ‘wah wah’—excellent, to be able to eat so much.
Saturday, Jan. 19.
There was rather a pretty durbar this morning—two hundred of those Sikh chiefs who gave our great Apollo his bows yesterday; and as they were only shown in by fives and sixes, it made a very long durbar, and we went over to make a sketch of it. I never can make a likeness of G. to my mind, and yet there is always a look of your M. in my drawings of him, so there must be a likeness somehow, either in the sketches or in G. and M. That gentlemanlike Nahun rajah made Mr. A. bring him all across the tent to shake hands with F. and me, all owing to his blue eyes. Nobody with black eyes would have dreamed of so European an idea. G. went out shooting this afternoon. There are heaps of partridges and quails in this part of the country.
I thought of going out too, with my matchlock, only C. has claimed it for the Company. We had a large dinner to-day, forty-five; all the officers of the cavalry and artillery who leave us on Monday. One or two of them got particularly drunk. They say some of them are always so, more or less, but it happened to be more this evening.
Sunday, Jan. 20.
Mr. Y. set off after church to go back to Simla for his wife’s accouchement. He will go scrambling up to Simla in a shorter time than the post goes. He borrows a horse here, and rides a camel there, and the Putteealah rajah is to lend him a palanquin; and he set off with some cold dinner in one hand and ‘Culpepper’s Midwifery’ in the other, which he borrowed of Dr. D. at the last minute. He is very pleasant and amusing; more like R. than ever.
Such a pleasure! a letter from the agent at Calcutta to say a box of millinery has arrived at the Custom House per ‘Robert Small.’ Mine, to a certainty! It has been rather more than seven months making its voyage, and will be three more coming to the hills. I think it is about the last great invoice for which I shall trouble you. Calcutta may provide itself for the last few months; and my next order will be for a pelisse and bonnet, &c., at Portsmouth. Good!
Monday, Jan. 21.
Rather a long march; and that generally brings a large riding party together at the end; and once more W. and I had one of our hysterical fits of laughter at the extraordinary folly of a march. We feel so certain that people who live in houses, and get up by a fire at a reasonable hour and then go quietly to breakfast, would think us raving mad, if they saw nine Europeans of steady age and respectable habits, going galloping every morning at sunrise over a sandy plain, followed by quantities of black horsemen, and then by ten miles of beasts of burden carrying things which, after all, will not make the nine madmen even decently comfortable. We have discovered that a mad doctor is coming out here, and we think it must be a delicate attention of yours; but when he sees us ride into Rag Fair every morning, for no other reason than that we have left another Rag Fair ten miles behind, I am sure he will say he can do us no good. It is very kind of you to have sent him, but we are incurable, thank you, and as long as we are left at large we shall go about in this odd way. There is your missing September letter, with T.’s and E.’s dear Journals. It went to Calcutta, and came with the October packet. Newsalls sounds very delightful, and I mean to live there constantly, and to see a great many cricket matches. How very disagreeable that Sister should look so young. I look much older now than she did when we came away, so we shall never know which of us ought to respect the other.