'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
I sent off my last letter from Allahabad, and it is almost hard upon you
to begin again; it must be such dull reading just now. Our Allahabad
ball was what they considered brilliant, seeing that it brought out
their whole female society except two, who were very ill, and there were
four dancing ladies and four sitters-by.
They were kind enough to give us supper early, where I can always
console myself with mulligatawny soup (I think it so good--don't you?),
and then F. and I came off to our separate budgerows. G. is in a great
state of popularity in the Upper Provinces; all these people talked of
him with such regard and admiration, and he had evidently exerted
himself to talk very much during the four days he passed here, without
the least idea, poor innocent man! how everything he said, was to be
repeated. I heard from him near Burdwan; they are out of carriage roads,
but he still likes the palanquin, and slept very well. He and A. took a
long walk in the morning while Mars cleared up the palanquins for the
day, and then another in the evening while he made them up for the
night. They have lived on their cold provisions and seltzer-water and
tea, and slept as much as they could. They passed through a jungle where
a man had been killed by a tiger some time ago, so the bearers thought
it necessary to make a great noise, and fire matchlocks constantly, and
make a boy walk before, playing on a fife. G. says, they may have saved
his life, but they spoiled his night.
Our budgerows were very comfortable, but somehow I was just as sea-sick
as if mine were the Jupiter. We got down to the flat by three o'clock on
Saturday afternoon, and found O. Giles had arranged everything very
comfortably. We have sent for letters.
Ghazeepore, Feb. 18.
We got no letters, but Captain F., who had been waiting a day and a half
to see us, came on board with some newspapers and two very pretty
sandal-wood boxes he has had made for us. He looks very happy, and G.,
who stayed at his house on the way down, was quite delighted with his
look of comfort, and the way in which his house was fitted up. A retired
aide-de-camp always carries off very _genteel_ notions of setting up
house. We have seen it in several instances.
G. has had a _levée_, and begun his little dinners, and was received
very brilliantly at Calcutta.
We stuck on a sand-bank to-day for seven hours, or rather our steamer
did, and we left her, and floated independently down in the flat to a
safe place, till she could pick us up. We suppose the other steamer is
sticking in the same place, as she has not come up to-night.
Wednesday, Feb. 19.
A jewel of a man in a small boat came floating up with a yellow dâk
packet in his hand, which he put on board--two letters from G. and W. O.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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