Emily Eden

“ I am making my life wretched with two little striped squirrels. The squirrels here are nearly white, with four black stripes down their backs, and striped tails. I have got two young ones, meaning to tame them, but they are evidently deficient in intellect—perfect ninnies, so unlike my dear flying squirrel at Simla. They are quite tame one minute and then run half over the house with all the servants after them, and it is too hot for those tricks. ”

“ Sir Henry Seton said that, in his charge to the jury, he only alluded to the possibility of calling it manslaughter because, from the horror of capital punishment in this country, he thought it better to ensure the man’s being transported for life; but, to his utter surprise, the jury brought in a verdict of ‘not guilty.’ Sir E. Ryan, who has been here many years, says it is invariably the case that the low Europeans who make up a jury here always agree to acquit any man who is tried for the murder of a native. ”

“ My jemadar stood by, translating it literally, and I thought it very pretty. ‘He say no such bad thought enter the head of Ladyship’s servant; his enemies say it for him. He say Chance is the child of his house, and good luck has come to his house with him. He say it is his duty to take care of any dog of Ladyship’s, but he love Chance with his heart. ”

“ It is a long time since I have had a novel that I could not leave off, and I have been reading this ever since breakfast—quite at the wrong time of day, only there is always the comfort at Calcutta, if one does anything ever so wrong, of saying it is too hot to do anything else. ”

“ I had such an interesting arrival to-day of a piece of furniture, half table, half cabinet, which I ordered at Bareilly nearly a year ago, and just as one has forgotten all those old orders they are executed. However, this is a lovely article, and I am rather sorry to think that, having invented anything so new and original, it will be disseminated all over India. But it always is so. The natives never make a new pattern, and if we, or anybody who will take the trouble, teach them one, all the Europeans order one instantly. ”

“ It sometimes strikes me that we Europeans are mad people, sent out here because we are dangerous at home, and that our black keepers are told never to lose sight of us, and the ingenious creatures never do. ”

“ We made ourselves, with much trouble and infinite expense, very smart at last. The ball was very pretty—everything covered with F’s and E’s and the staircases turned into bowers with real singing birds, who never ceased singing. ”

“ The nazir is the highest servant in the house, and paid accordingly. ‘Yes, I think Miss Eden had better give him to your Lordship,’ Major —— said; ‘you will find him invaluable on the march; there is not such another man in the house, and if I take in a stranger he may be a man who will take bribes from the natives; and the jemadar knows your Lordship’s habits. Your Lordship has no time to waste on a new servant, and Miss Eden has plenty of time and can easily form a new good servant.’ ‘Oh, dear no!’ I said ”

“ However, I will not write any more about it to-day; it perturbates me and makes my hair stand up the wrong way, and I suppose if it is really necessary that George should stay, it will be equally necessary to make the best of it; but I cannot see any best, or any good, or feel anything but utter horror of the whole business.
Friday, July 8. My jemadar has been laying out his savings and all the presents he has had in a little bit of land, which is a great event in a Mussulman’s life. It gives an income to the whole family, which, as they will not take interest, money never can ”

“ It would take more than three years to teach a village boy to read and discuss the Hindu theatre, and these boys have a very good idea of geography and mathematics, and know history much better than many of the people who go to examine them. ”

“ Then the whole story turned out to be a mistake. Jimmund came into my room with Chance under his arm, his hands clasped, and he vociferating a great many of those odd sounds the natives are so good as to call their language. ”

“ The bad are perhaps very bad. George has always envied me this man, and he said when I came in, ‘Here is Miss Eden, but you might just as well propose to her to cut the nose off her face as to give me that man.’ However, I always intended giving him to George if the vacancy occurred, as in going up the country he will save George an immense deal of trouble, and then it would be hard if his extreme merit stood in the way of his promotion. ”

“ If Major —— drives me into taking a stranger I think I shall make it a condition that the new man shall write my journal to you. It is the only real action of my life that I contrive to perform for myself, and in another year I should hardly be up to it in the hot season. ”

“ Chance’s man came up dandling his black charge, and another fetched up, with great care, my beautiful pet goat, not having the sense to calculate that the goat and the garden would not agree; but they are always thinking of these sort of attentions, and, though it gives one a horrible idea of being constantly watched, it shows they watch to some purpose. ”

“ I really can’t what you call “form” a new servant. I will have my chobdar’ (that is the next in command) ‘for the new jemadar.’—‘No, I think not; he is not of the proper class—not authority enough, and he cannot wait at table.—‘ Then I will have one of my own kitmutgars.’—‘ No; they do not speak English. I have one or two men in my eye whom I have always wished to put on the Government House establishment ”

“ The alien corn was bad, but still she had always been used to that; but the alien paddy, the alien maize, is more disheartening, to say nothing of the alien people, when I want so very much to be with you, with whom I could find nothing alien. I know we shall die of old age before we meet again. ”

“ George was saying to-day what an odd country this is. He has had despatches from Nepâl, where they have been marrying the elder son, who is still quite a boy, and there was great difficulty in finding him a wife of the right caste, because the great Rajpoots all say there is something defective in the caste of the Nepâl royal family, and the poorest Rajpoot will not give his daughter to a king of an inferior caste. ”

“ Wallich, of the Botanical Garden (a great man in botanical history) , has given me seven hundred plants, which would be exotics of great value if we were not acting in that capacity ourselves, and he is come here himself this afternoon to see that they are all put in the right places. The mornings between five and and a quarter past six are really delightful, and it is a pity that getting up early is so fatiguing, which it certainly is. Gibson is going up the country in ten days to collect for the Duke of Devonshire, so he was very anxious to finish my garden first. ”

“ We all look, as all Europeans ought to look, utterly colourless, but rather interesting than otherwise. They say it is curious in the cool season to see people returning to their natural colour. Our very hot season is happily over ”

“ The thermometer in the shade and the dark, but in the open air, is 105°; and what it is to those who drive through the sun they say nobody can conceive. Government House is the admiration of our visitors ”

“ At this distance one sees the thing in an historical point of view, and I cannot help thinking they are a wonderful set of men to have brought the country back to that pitch of prosperity in which it is, and by such hard labour too. People are very liberal in their politics here. They do not know much about the individuals that compose our parties, and are very little curious about them ”

“ Chance is now turned into a poodle. He has been groaning and puffing and was really weighed down by his curls, and nothing would stop their growth; his paws were not visible, and everybody said he would die. So Captain Anson carried him off this morning to the best hairdresser in Calcutta, Jimmund following in tears, because it was so unlucky to cut these long curls ”

“ We certainly have bearable weather. The church was quite cool last night, and this evening we all went on board the ‘Conway’ and sailed about in the captain’s boat in a nice cool breeze. It is very odd, for this is the hottest time of year by rights, and ought to be the driest, but there is a storm every day; bless its heart!
Tuesday, 28th.
I am happy to say Hughes was convicted of a misdemeanour yesterday, and will have two years’ imprisonment. It is better than nothing. Mr. ——, the lawyer, launched out against the jury in a way that astonished them. ”

“ They have the cholera very much just now, but certainly, however tiresome the heat is, it is not an unwholesome time for Europeans. Talking of Europeans, you cannot imagine how irritating it is that all our servants will call them Europeans, and not Europeans. Our English servants all want to come up by land and to have hired horses, and I generally let the maids in this weather do so, as the steamer is obliged sometimes to come in the middle of the day. ”

“ We are very quiet always the latter half of our Calcutta weeks, as we get over the dinners on Mondays, the balls on Tuesdays, and the rest of the time is very comfortable, and quiet is particularly acceptable this weather. ”

“ There is a nephew of Joseph Hume’s, a lawyer, who acts very well, and Stocqueler, the editor of one of the papers, is quite as good as Farren. I wish it were possible to have a cool theatre; a good farce is the only real amusement in this country. ”

“ That helped on the evening wonderfully to non-dancers, and we stayed till one very contentedly.
Monday, 29th.
I have given up morning church during the hot season; even five minutes of the sun is enough to knock people up for a week, and then at Calcutta they always read the whole. service with three hymns, instead of the short service with no singing, which everywhere else in India is the custom. It keeps half the ladies away from church, as very few can sit through it. ”

“ I said those little squirrels would be the bane of my life, and so they are; they will run about the room at the wrong time, and want to be fed when I am busy, and nobody can catch them, and yet they will not run away, though I have had all the windows set open on purpose. ”

“ I escaped the ball at Lady ——'s last night by the happy accident of a swelled face, a sort of thing that happens in this country in two minutes; we are so hot, and then we sit in a draught and get a swelled face or a lip as big as two. ”

“ She certainly writes like an angel. I am so glad I have a whole volume more to read, and that ‘it will be too hot to do anything else’ whenever I like to read it. It is not really overpoweringly hot yet, and the evenings are very pleasant, and may last so to the end of the month, they say. ”

“ George gave a farewell dinner to the Cameronians yesterday. They are off for China to-morrow, and we had all the chief authorities to meet them—seventy people. Fanny and I. excused ourselves, and picked up a few of the crumbs that fell from their table, and had a quiet evening. The soldiers all rather like this expedition. ”

“ It is the first time George has found it impossible to get on with his business.
Saturday, 3rd.
I will send this off to-day. The heat is worse than ever and the furniture cracking in all directions. People say it must end in an awful storm. The natives feel the weather even more than we do ”

“ The audacity of seeing them in a new place was almost too much for their Indian nerves and etiquette, but they were charmed with the climate. If the wind were to remit for five minutes, we should all be choked ”

“ He got that again imitated at Loodhiana, which place became a great dépôt for troops when the war began; every officer wanted a chair for his march, and there is actually a great manufactory of these chairs going on at that remote place, all copied from Mr. ——’s. To return to my cabinet, it has been great fun filling it with all the odds and ends of pretty things about the room, and the effect is really beautiful. ”

“ We played at lottery tickets as usual in the evening. The weather is worse than ever. The thermometer was 105°, Captain —— said, in his bungalow after he opened the door for one minute to come out to luncheon. Fanny went to church, but neither George nor I did ”