None of those institutions which render the ordinary life of the
English officer in India somewhat less monotonous and objectless were
wanting at Cawnpore. There was a church, whose fair white tower,
rising among a group of lofty trees, for more than one dull and dusty
mile greets the eyes of the traveller on the road from Lucknow. That
church, which has stood scatheless through such strange vicissitudes,
will soon be superseded by a more imposing temple, built to commemorate
the great disaster of our race. There were meeting-houses of divers
Protestant persuasions, a Roman Catholic chapel, and a mission of the
Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. There was a race-course,
as there is in every spot throughout the East where a handful of
our countrymen have got together; a theatre, where the ladies of
the garrison with good-natured amusement witnessed cornets and
junior magistrates attempting to represent female whims and graces;
a Freemason's lodge, where the work of initiation and instruction
went merrily on in a temperature of 100° in the shade. There was a
racket-court, and a library, and news-rooms, and billiard-rooms.
There were the assembly-rooms, where dinners were given to passing
Governors-General, and balls to high official dames, where questions
of precedence were raised, and matches made and broken. There was
a breakfast club, whither men repaired after their ride to discuss
the powers that be over their morning toast, at that meal so dear to
Britons from the Himalayas to Point de Galle, and from the Sutley
to Hong-Kong, whether, as throughout Bengal, it be termed "little
breakfast," or, as at Madras, it be known by the title of "early tea."
There was the band-stand, the very heart and centre of up-country
fashion, where the wit and beauty and gallantry of the station were
nightly wont to congregate. There was the ice-club for the manufacture
and supply of that luxury which becomes a necessity under the tropic
of Cancer;--which more favoured Calcutta obtains straight from North
American lakes, with Newfoundland codfish and Pennsylvanian apples
embedded in the crystal mass. The markets were well supplied with fish,
flesh, and fowl, at a cost that would gladden the heart of an English
housewife, though Anglo-Indians complain loudly of the rise in prices,
and grumble at being forced to pay sixpence a pound for mutton, and
three shillings for a fat turkey. In the game season, quails, wild
ducks, snipe, and black partridges were cheap and abundant; and a dish
of ortolans, a treat which in Europe is confined to Italian tourists
and Parisian millionaires, was a common adjunct to the second course at
Cawnpore dinner-tables.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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