Emily Eden - Up the Country

We arrived in excellent time for our ball, and to see G.’s landing, which by moonlight and torchlight was a very pretty sight. The whole way from the ghaut to the house where the ball was given was carpeted, and there are plenty of troops here to make a street, and our own people turned out in great force.

There were some very pretty people at the ball, which went off remarkably well. Mr. G. danced three times with Miss H., which is considered here equal to a proposal and a half. Dear stern old Mr. T. is quite interested in that novel, and came two or three times in the course of the evening with a melancholy face of fun, to say – ‘The little affair is going on remarkably well: he is dancing with her again.’ We are now going to a review, and then to a dinner given to us by the Queen’s 31st regiment, which is to end in another ball and supper.

Well! it is lucky that anybody can do anything they ought to do, but I had only four hours’ sleep last night.

The dinner went off well, and so did the review. The 31st is J.’s regiment, so he was extremely anxious that they should do a great deal to our honour and glory. We sat down seventy-four to dinner, Colonel B. between G. and me, and the chief lady and the senior captain of the regiment on our other sides; the old bishop, whom we met here, took F. to the opposite side of the table. It was a less formal dinner than I expected. G. had to make another speech, and longer than last night’s, and it was very original and neatly turned, and gave great satisfaction. We stayed through part of the ball, and came away before supper, on pretence of fatigue. Both Patna and Dinapore have distinguished themselves, and it has really been all done so cordially and handsomely that we can bear a little fatigue for the sake of the goodnature of the people who entertain us. And, at all events, it makes a gay week for the station. Some ladies came sixty miles to these balls. At the ball there were some rajahs in splendid dresses; such magnificent jewels, and some of them had never seen an English ball before. They think the ladies who dance are utterly good for nothing, but seemed rather pleased to see so much vice.

Such jewelry as we saw yesterday morning! A native was sent by one of the gentlemen to show us some really good native jewelry. There is an ornament called a surpéche, which the rajahs wear in their turbans, but there is seldom such a handsome one as this man had for sale. It was a diamond peacock holding in his beak a rope of enormous pearls, which passed through an emerald about the size of a dove’s egg; then there came the tassel – the top was of immense diamonds, with a hole bored at one end of them, and they were simply drawn together into a sort of rosette, without any setting. Then there came strings of pearls each ending in three large diamonds. These ornaments are often made with discoloured pearls and diamonds with flaws, but this was quite perfect. The man asked 8,000 l. for it, but will probably sell it to some native for 6,000 l. They stick it into their turbans by a gold hook, and the tassel hangs over one ear. We have steamed quietly along to-day, and I have been asleep half the afternoon.

AS we were passing a place called Bullhga this morning, we saw an enormous concourse of natives, and it turned out to be a great fair for horses. So we stopped the steamer, and persuaded G. to go on shore, just ‘to go to the fair,’ as we should have done at home, only we sent all the servants with silver sticks, and took our own tonjauns and two of the body-guard, and went in the State barge and with all the aides-de-camp. In short, we did our little best to be imposing, considering that we have only the steamboat apparatus to work with; but we had hardly landed when A. came breathless from the other steamer to say that Mr. B. and Mr. C. were both half mad at the idea of a Governor-General going on shore in this way, and that C. was actually dancing about the deck with rage; and A. wanted us to turn back and give it up. Luckily, G. would not be advised to do this. They said we should be murdered amongst other things; but in my life I never saw such a civil, submissive set of people. Our people and the police of the place walked on first, desiring the crowd to sit down, which they all did instantly, crouching together and making a lane all through the fair. They are civil creatures, and I am very fond of the natives. There were a great many thousands of them, and some beautiful costumes; the bazaars were full of trinkets, and pretty shawls and coloured cottons. We went in our tonjauns, and G. walked till he was tired, which is soon done; and A. left us quite satisfied as to our safety, and almost persuaded it was a dignified measure. We wanted him to tell C. that he had left G. in one of the ‘merry-go-rounds,’ of which there were several, but it was not a subject that admitted of levity. – said the Governor-General should never appear publicly without a regiment, and that there was no precedent for his going to Bullhga fair. I told him we had made a precedent, and that it would be his duty to take the next Governor-General, be he ever so lame or infirm, to this identical fair.

We went this evening to see the Government stud. It was rather fine to see five hundred young horses rush at once out of their stalls, and all kick each other and then run away; but, barring that little incident, both studs on each side of the river are rather tiresome sights – such ugly places!

We arrived at three. Mr. T., the brother of our late dear T., is the Resident here, and lodges us. He had made a ghaut with a flight of steps to his house for our landing, and the 44th Regiment, with their band, were drawn up all round his lawn.

There were two women on the landing-place with a petition. They were Hindu ladies , and were carried down in covered palanquins, and very much enveloped in veils. They flung themselves on the ground, and laid hold of G., and screamed and sobbed in a horrid way, but without showing their faces, and absolutely howled at last, before they could be carried off. They wanted a pardon for the husband of one of them, who, with his followers, is said to have murdered about half a village full of Mussulmans, and these women say he did not do it, but that the Nazir of that village was his enemy, and did the murders, and then laid it on their party. These little traits are to give you an insight into the manners and customs of the East, and to open and improve your mind, &c. After we had made our way through all these impediments, we rested for a time, and then went to see the cantonments, and to evening service, which was read by two of the gentlemen remarkably well. Then we came back to a great dinner, and one of the longest I ever assisted at. I quite lost my head at last, and when second course was put down, asked Mr. T. to give me some wine, thinking it was dessert, and that we might get up and go.

The dinners certainly are endless, and I do not wonder they think us very rapid at Government House. There is sometimes half an hour between the courses. A Mr. S., the judge, sat on one side of me, and after some discourse the man seemed to know his Kent! and I discovered he was one of the George S.’s of E. Visions of country balls and cricket matches came back. He knew Eden Farm and Penge Common; in short, I liked him very much, and I think he too was refreshed with the reminiscences of his youth.

G. went in the morning to see the stud. At eleven we received all the station.

In the afternoon we went to see the opium godown, and then F., B., and I went in the band boat along the shore to sketch some of the old buildings, which are very picturesque here.