'Up the Country': Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of IndiaEden, Emily
History
'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
When we came into camp this morning we found Mr. ----, whose turn it had
been to come on with the guard of honour, perfectly desperate. His tent
had been entirely stripped in the night, he and his bearers remaining in
a profound sleep while the thieves cut entirely away one side of the
tent, and carried off over his head a large camel-trunk and all his
other boxes, with his sword, gun, and pistols. It was a sad loss for a
poor lieutenant in the army, but luckily the police recovered most of
his things in the course of the day, except, as he says with a most
sentimental sigh, 'a few rings of no value in themselves, but of value
to _me_, and a few _chits_.' The magistrate, Mr. ----, treats with the
greatest contempt the idea of recovering any sentimental goods. 'I
assure you,' he says, 'the dacoits at _Pannyput_ have no idea of
sentiment.' Probably not--but that does not console Lieut. ---- for the
loss of his _chits_.
Kurnaul, March 2.
We arrived here yesterday; a great ugly scattered cantonment, all
barracks, and dust, and guns, and soldiers; and G. had a levée in the
morning, and we were 'at home' in the evening; and the officers of four
regiments, with their wives and daughters, all came and danced. The
fashions are even again behind those of Delhi. Mrs. V. appeared in a
turban made I think of stamped tin moulded into two fans, from which
descended a long _pleureuse_ feather floating over some very full
sleeves. Mrs. Z. did not aspire to anything fanciful, but was simply
attired in a plain coloured gown made of a very few yards of sarcenet.
We are going to dine with the General to-day--a dinner of sixty people.
Yesterday as we were stepping over the street to luncheon, there
appeared an interesting procession of tired coolies carrying boxes--our
English boxes that had come plodding after us from Allahabad. I was in
hopes Mr. D.'s bonnets would have come out of one of them, but we heard
in the evening that they are at least a month off, and in the meantime
the unpacking of these was immense fun. There were two boxes of books,
and I had just come to an end of the last set, and now there is Mrs.
Gore's 'Stokeshill Park,' and 'My Aunt Dorothy,' and some French novels,
and, above all, dear Charles Lamb's Letters, which I have been sighing
for and have begun upon instantly. I cannot imagine what number of
hill-bearers will take our goods up to Simla. Major J. has written for
1,500, and they are already at work taking the first division of goods
up. Our camp will break up almost entirely in a few days. We three, with
two aides-de-camp, the doctor, and one secretary, are going through the
Dhoon, a sort of route that will not admit of a large party. It is a
very pretty road, and likely to be cooler than the actual plains.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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