In addition to the very onerous command of 876 wild men and 300 wild horses, and the charge of the civil administration of a district almost as lawless as Tipperary, I have had to build, and superintend the building of, a fort to give cover to the said men and horses, including also within its walls three houses for English officers, a police station, and a native collector's office. He who builds in India builds not in the comfortable acceptation of the term which obtains at home. He sends not for his Barry or his Basevi; calls not for a design and specifications, and then beholds his house, and pays his bill; but he builds as Noah may have built the Ark.
Down to the minutest detail of carpentry, smithery, and masonry, and of "muddery," too, for that matter, he must know what he is about, and show others what to do, or good-bye to his hopes for a house.
Altogether, I am often fourteen hours a day at hard work, and obliged to listen for a still longer period.
Our poor little darling had a very severe attack of fever the other day, but is now well again, and getting strong. I never see her without wishing that she was in her grandfather's arms. You would so delight in her little baby tricks and ways. She is the very delight of our lives, and we look forward with intense interest to her beginning to talk and crawl about. Both she and her dear mother will have to leave for the hills very soon, I am sorry to say. We try to put off the evil day, but I dare not expose either of my treasures to the heat of Euzofzai or Peshawur for the next three months.... The young lady already begins to show a singularity of taste,—refusing to go to the arms of any native women, and decidedly preferring the male population, some of whom are distinguished by her special favor. Her own orderly, save the mark, never tires of looking at her "beautiful white fingers," nor she of twisting them into his black beard,—an insult to an Oriental, which he bears with an equanimity equal to his fondness for her. The cunning fellows have begun to make use of her too, and when they want anything, ask the favor in the name of Lilli Bâbâ (they cannot manage "Olivia" at all). They know the spell is potent.
The following letters from his wife's pen give a lively picture of "domestic" life in the wilderness, and of the wilderness itself:—
"January, 1854.
"Picture to yourself an immense plain, flat as a billiard table, but not as green, with here and there a dotting of camel thorn about eighteen inches high, by way of vegetation. This far as the eye can reach on the east, west, and south of us, but on the north the lasting snows of the mighty Himalaya glitter and sparkle like a rosy diadem above the lower range, which is close to our camp. What would you say to life in such a wilderness? or how would you stare to see the officers sit down to table with sword and pistol? The baby never goes for an airing without a guard of armed horsemen; what a sensation such a cortege would create in Hyde Park!"
"April 15th.
"You ask for some detail of our life out here, and the history of one day will be a picture of every one, with little variation.