Emily Eden

“ He attributes a great deal of this to one particular missionary, but also to education. It was quite clear that, when once the Hindus allowed their boys to be so thoroughly well instructed as they are at the Hindu College, they must see through the horrible absurdities of their own religion, and then, though a single Hindu who loses his caste can hardly withstand the persecution of his countrymen—in short, can hardly live—yet if any number change their religion, they become a refuge to each other, and make the conversion of more much easier. ”

“ We had our dinner at the Bishop’s yesterday; he is such a good-natured old man; it is impossible not to like him. He had asked all his other guests at half-past seven, and we were to come at eight, and he had been sitting, they said, half-an-hour downstairs, for fear of not meeting George on the steps. He asked fifty-four people into a room that was meant to hold forty, but luckily it was a cool, rainy evening, and his dinner and establishment were much better than any I have seen.
We are all in a horrid way about the ice, which oozed out yesterday ”

“ There have been shocking fires at Calcutta, partly because the huts are so dry; they catch fire on the slightest provocation, and the wind is so high it is impossible to stop the flames. There were about 80,000 homeless people last week, allowing four for each burnt hut, which is very few. They huddle together for a few days and then build their huts again, but it looks very melancholy in the meantime. ”

“ Fanny and I and Major Byrne went out on the elephants. We are trying some new howdahs for the march, and I think I am satisfied with the alterations that have been made in mine, though I could invent something better; but the very best howdah on the very best elephant will, I think, reduce anybody to a shapeless and boneless lump in about six miles of travelling. I expect to walk my march. A palanquin looks like a coffin, the elephant shakes, and I am grown afraid of my horse. ”

“ When I came home Jimmund brought him to me, bandaged up in all directions, and told his story by means of an interpreter, who ended by saying, ‘And Jimmund say he very sorry —— Sahib call him off, because he would have deaded the man who have those dogs.’ I told him nothing could be more amiable or correct, but in general I should prefer his driving away the dogs to deading the man. ”

“ Little Frank H—— is a very nice child; talks English to begin with, which is unusual, and he is manly and amusing. He always made point in camp of taking off his hat to nobody but the Governor-General. Fanny and I used to try to make him bow to us, but he always sat bold upright on his elephant and gave us a nod; and if Mrs. H—— told him to take off his hat, he said he had a rule about it, and therefore he could not. George gave him a silver cup yesterday, which delighted him, and he came over to luncheon and drank George’s health of his own accord in such a funny, sedate way. ”

“ I cannot think what possesses me to write to you at this hour—precisely half-past twelve—when the miserable attempt at breakfast, made at nine, has ceased to give the slightest support, and when, from exhaustion and heat, and the conviction that luncheon will never come, I feel utterly desperate. Too weak to read, and very weak indeed to think of writing to you. Breakfast is a remarkably bad meal in this country. ”

“ Then, that as we must live in the house and in the dark, it was good economy of Providence to make Bengal so hideous. If it were beautiful nobody could see it, and, as it is a frightful plain, it is perhaps advantageous to see so little of it. ”

“ We had only a small dinner yesterday, for a wonder; but we are very forward in our lessons, and then, in this absence of ice, great dinners are so bad. Everything flops about in the dishes, and the wine and water is so hot, and a shocking thing is that a great ship was seen bottom upwards at the mouth of the river, supposed to be ° an American, and consequently the ice-ship. ”

“ It is an awful job to undertake, I should think, for those that have the trouble of it. Jones and Wright are just to go in our palanquins when we are on the elephants, and to change when we want to change. Major Byrne thinks it much the best plan. Giles and Mars will have ponies, and, as we only travel ten miles a day, it cannot hurt them. St. Cloud is so important to our happiness, that we shall all join to carry him on a queen’s cushion if he insists on it, and he has a palanquin.
We have had two such storms to-day and yesterday, which have flooded the whole park ”

“ But two bull-dogs, whom a man was leading in a chain, flew at him and pinned him down; when —— heard the hubbub and rode on, and, by dint of sentries and syces, rescued the poor little prince, who was bit in two places, and had fainted from sheer fright. Jimmund, his servant, had flown at the owner of the dogs, ‘and —— says he is the first native he ever saw who gave a regular English knock-down blow; but he knocked the man right down, and then began thumping him with the end of his dog’s chain, till —— advised him to beat the dogs rather than their owner. ”

“ It is a great triumph to the Liberal party, who have supported and worked at these schools, always declaring that education was the first step, and wherever there has been an attempt to begin with conversion the Hindus have invariably withdrawn their boys. The Mussulmans are so aware of this that they never send a child to an English school, and their conversion would be at all events much more difficult. There is nothing absurd or revolting in their religion ”

“ A ‘tomtom’ is a drum, a ‘dooria’ is a man who looks after dogs and animals. Fanny is always called the choota lady, and I am the burra lady, when they talk of us, and the ‘ladyship’ which they address to us is only a corruption of Lady Sahib, not an English ladyship. ”

“ I always skip two or three days after sending off a letter and drop a stitch or so, which rather varies and improves the pattern. The ——s dined with us on Wednesday; Mr. —— went to join Sir H. Fane on his visit to Runjeet Singh, and is just returned. As he is not a ‘Company’s servant,’ he of course was allowed to take any present Runjeet gave him; and the agonies of the other ladies in Calcutta have been intense on hearing that he was bringing his wife a pair of massive bangles and two splendid shawls, besides other ornaments, from the King of Delhi. ”

“ The fireworks are always very inferior to what we see at home. Vauxhall would die of laughing at the best Indian fireworks; the climate produces so much more smoke than fire from gunpowder. However, there was one volcano of 10,000 rockets that was magnificent, and the natives, who covered the whole plain, were delighted with it all. ”

“ She has married off thirty of them at the usual early age of this country to native Christians, who have built little huts round her and act as gardeners or labourers; and she is now building a church for her little colony, trusting entirely to Providence for funds for herself, her school, and church, &c., and she. always finds that she has just enough at the end of the year for all the good she does. ”

“ At present, from the glimpse I caught coming up from luncheon of all these undressed artificers, the effect was rather savage than imposing. I am going to introduce singing at supper, which will be a novelty; the healths always are such flat businesses. ”

“ I drove yesterday to Mrs. Wilson’s school, about six miles off, and went quite by myself, that I might have a good talk with her, which seemed to strike her as an odd, independent measure. Don’t you drive about alone quite safely? My two little girls looked so nice and happy, and ran out from the school instantly, and never left their hold of my gown all the time I was there, and did so want to come away with me, which is a proof native children are not so indifferent as people say. They have begun their Christian education so far as kneeling down with all the rest of the school, when Mrs. ”

“ I made several sage original reflections besides all these quotations—one, that in this relaxing climate, where nobody has any nerves or spirits, it is lucky we can go out so little. ‘The common sun, the air, the skies,’ are too much for us, they are very affecting. ”

“ They are really not at all better, but they say we have been unlucky in them; but they bring several advantages besides coolness. The grey cloudy sky is such a blessing. We came up in the ‘Soonamookie’ at three in the afternoon—the first time we have been out at that hour for many months—and we had all the advantage of the black clouds without the rain which they had at Calcutta. ”

“ The Queen’s health was received with great enthusiasm, and, though it was by far the hottest night we have had this year, they set to work after supper dancing harder than ever. In short, the whole thing gave great satisfaction, which is lucky; and, if we can but have a fine night next week for the fireworks for the wedding, the population, high and low, will have been pleased. I hear them knocking away all round the house, putting up platforms. ”

“ George and —— and Sir Willoughby Cotton, with some of the aides-de-camp, arrived yesterday, and the rain is gone off, and they are all hotter and more miserable than ever here. Not Sir Willoughby nor George. I think the men of that age certainly think and care less, much less, about their personal comforts than the cabriolet young men of the present day. ”

“ L. Tell that man not to hunt Sulema, and tell the other man not to hunt the choota lady’s deer.
[The Jemadar talks the gibberish which the natives are pleased to call Hindustani and says,] By your favour, Ladyship, the doorias say the goat afraid of the deer and the deer afraid of the goat, and they both run away and the doorias can’t catch them. ”