'Up the Country': Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of IndiaEden, Emily
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'Up the Country': Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India
Eden, Emily
Eden, Emily, 1797-1869 -- Correspondence; India -- Description and travel
The followers of the sirdars were reduced to one hundred, and the
sirdars so unpopular that two of our regiments were gone to fetch them
in, almost more as guards than anything else. G. and I have been riding
about the last three days with Mr. A., looking at the Dispensary and the
Asylum and a Serai, the three charities of Simla. The Dispensary has
been built from the proceeds of our fancy fair last year, and opened by
Dr. D., who attends there every morning, and it does so much good that I
am quite heartened up into trying another fancy fair this year, and am
going to send out the circulars this blessed day. It is an odd list of
patients at the Dispensary. There is a Thibet _Tartar_ woman with a
Chinese face, and a rheumatic daughter, and there are people from
Ladakh, and Sikhs and mountaineers, and quantities of little black
babies to be vaccinated. I have not an idea what to do for the sale. The
trick of the drawings to produce such an immense sum cannot be tried
again.
Wednesday, June 5.
This must go, dearest, G. says--where to, I have not an idea, but I know
it will never reach you: it is like going to call upon you, when you are
out, which under present circumstances would be uncommonly disagreeable.
But no steamer can go for two months, so we must hazard something by
that stupid, old-fashioned sailing apparatus.
We are all quite well, and the climate quite beautiful--a _leetle_ too
hot, but not worse than an English August day. Mr. L. gave another fancy
ball last night, and yesterday morning we had a deputation from the
Station to ask us for a day on which they are to give us a ball. We
named June 18 (Waterloo and all that), and that is to close the season,
and then we are to take to the rains for three months.
Saturday, June 8.
Our play last night went off beautifully. I do not know when I have seen
better acting, and Mrs. C. really acts as if she had done nothing else
all her life. I suppose it is easier in a room with carpets and chairs,
and doors and windows, and then she has been brought up in France, and
has the quiet self-possession of a French actress, and her arms are
always in the right place, and she does not seem to think about acting;
then she sings very well and looked very handsome, so that altogether,
to Anglo-Indians, who never see female parts acted except by
artillerymen or clerks, it was a great pleasure.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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