We have just received news of the death of Lord Hastings, and learn from the same papers, that Lord Amherst has been created an earl, and Lord Combermere a Viscount.
We have been occupied in planting a small avenue of neem-trees in front of the house; unlike the air around the tamarind, that near a neem-tree is reckoned wholesome:—according to the Guzrattee Proverb, we had made no advance on our heavenward road until the avenue was planted, which carried us on one-third of the journey. No sooner were the trees in the ground, than the servants requested to be allowed to marry a neem to a young peepul-tree (ficus religiosa), which marriage was accordingly celebrated by planting a peepul and neem together, and entwining their branches. Some pooja was performed at the same time, which, with the ceremony of the marriage, was sure to bring good fortune to the newly-planted avenue.
The neem is a large and beautiful tree, common in most parts of India (melia azadirachta), or margosa-tree; its flowers are fragrant—a strong decoction of the leaves is used as a cure for strains.
Oil is prepared from the berry of the neem, (neem cowrie, as they call it,) which is esteemed excellent, and used as a liniment in violent headaches brought on by exposure to the sun, and in rheumatic and spasmodic affections. The flowers are fragrant: any thing remarkably bitter is compared to the neem-tree; “yeh duwa kŭrwee hy jyse neem:” this medicine is bitter as neem.
The bacäin, or māhā nimba, (melia sempervirens,) a variety of the neem-tree, is remarkably beautiful. “The neem-tree will not become sweet though watered with syrup and clarified butter[29].”
My pearl of the desert, my milk-white Arab, Mootee, is useless; laid up with an inflammation and swelling in his fore-legs; he looks like a creature afflicted with elephantiasis—they tell us to keep him cool—we cannot reduce the heat of the stable below 120°!
I feel the want of daily exercise: here it is very difficult to procure a good Arab; the native horses are vicious, and utterly unfit for a lady; and I am too much the spoiled child of my mother to mount an indifferent horse.
August 28th.—Last week we made our sālām to the Earl of Arracan and his lady, who stopped at Allahabad, en route, and were graciously received.
The society is good and the station pretty and well-ordered; the roads the best in India, no small source of gratification to those whose enjoyment consists in a morning and evening drive: a course is also in progress, round which we are to gallop next cold weather, when we have, indeed, the finest of climates, of which you, living in your dusty, damp, dull, foggy, fuliginous England, have no idea.
About the middle of April the hot winds set in, when we are confined to the house, rendered cool by artificial means; after this come four months of the rains, generally a very pleasant time; then a pause of a month, and then the cold weather.