# Letters from India Volume I/To a Friend 9

Barrackpore, Sunday, March 27.
A very full church; not a good sermon. A beautiful cool day; and this place is really enjoyable in such weather, it smells so sweet, and looks so cheerful. George took Lady Ryan a drive, so Fanny and I rode with most of the gentlemen.
We took such a pretty ride through an Indian ​village, which was full of fun. Somehow it was one of their festivals, and there were crowds of them buying and selling, and thumping their drums, the only music they have. I see it will be easy to make the house pleasant to young ladies if we can find them. We have such a foundation of beaux to begin with, who naturally have to take care of the company. I am glad they like it. All the ‘Jupiter’s’ people sail next week.
Monday, March 28.
All our party went up by water at 6 a.m. Fanny and I agreed to have a few hours more of it, and we are going to drive up in time for one of those tiresome large dinners. However, we shall be here again on Thursday, and our life is now laid out in that shape. Mondays and Wednesdays large dinners; on Tuesday evening Fanny and I shall receive anybody who likes to come, and it will be less fatiguing for all parties than morning visits, and will leave all our mornings clear, except Thursday morning, when we shall also be at home to everybody, and then from Thursday to Monday we shall always be here.
​I wonder whether you will be able to read all this trash. I think you will; but unless I tell you more about myself than I should do at home you will know less. Now you see the routine of our life, I can make my next letter much shorter. This wants annotation and affection, as it is only facts, and not feelings; and you must not mind my inconsistency if some Monday morning I write you word I like India. I generally get used to any kind of life, but at present this is most detestable to me. I do assure you it makes me quite ‘sick at my stomach’ sometimes when the morning comes (and I wake very early from those tiresome guns), and I think I have another day to do. The rooms are so dark I cannot draw, and besides it is impossible to sit up on end long together, and then there are a thousand interruptions. We are always dressing, too, and though we thought we brought out so many gowns, I have not half enough.
I find it not at all unwholesome to think of home. I never think of anything else; and as for those little pictures I brought out, I should like to know what I should have been without them. I am having them framed now; but ​have kept them in my portfolio, that I might light upon them accidentally every time I write. Has Mr. —— ever thought of sending me his?
I mean to send you a small souvenir by the ‘Jupiter,’ but will write before, to say what it is; there is nothing so difficult to find. We are all on the search, all day long, and can find nothing but English and French goods. Some of the native ornaments are pretty, but nobody will wear them here, and I have written up to Dacca for some, but they will not be here in time, I am afraid. However, there are five long years before us. Do you feel as if we should ever meet again? Sometimes I think it will glide away somehow, and then it seems as if no human patience could last through it; and then, above all, we have had no letters since the first day, and may be a month more without a ship coming in. It is shocking, though at the same time I regularly cry for half a day after they come in. There was one stray one from Mary Eden ten days ago, but of the same date as yours that we found here.
We drove up in time for an immense dinner which we gave to the Commander-in-Chief. Miss Fane is again laid up with mosquito bites. ​Mrs. Fane and Mrs. Beresford were part of Sir Henry’s party, and the most conversable of the ladies we have seen—a slight tinge of London topics about them, or at least of London readiness to talk. After dinner all the ladies sit in a complete circle round the room, and the gentlemen stand at the farther end of it. I do not suppose they would have anything to say if they met, but it would look better. Luckily it does not last long.
Tuesday, March 29.
Our day for morning visits. It is doubtful whether they are not more fatiguing than the dinners, but it is difficult to judge; they last longer. We gave a dinner to part of the ‘Jupiter’s’ crew—the sailors who had acted, or who had sung in the evening to us, or who had assisted the servants, or who belonged to our barge. They came at five to a magnificent dinner—Giles presiding and Mars superintending. We all went down to see them, and the coxswain proposed ‘Lord Auckland’s health,’ upon which another sailor said, ‘and his two sisters’, of course,’ and then some of the others added, ‘ with three times three, at least,’ and then George made them a little speech, and ​begged that they would not get more drunk than was quite necessary, at which they laughed very much and acted upon it. Mars said they went away, he thought, in excellent condition—not quite sober—which Captain Grey said they would think very stupid—and not quite drunk, which they agreed would be disrespectful. We had offered them money before, but they said they preferred dining at Government House to any other treat. After dinner they got together and wrote an excellent letter of thanks to George. I should have been puzzled to write so good a one before, or after dinner. The servants said they disputed very much as to whether it would be right to say, ‘his kindness would never be eradicated from their hearts,’ and that one man—their great singer—said that if they did not put in ‘eradicated’ he never would sing them another song.
George and I rode, and were joined by Captain Grey and Mr. D’Eyncourt.
Wednesday, March 30.
Quiet morning. Fanny rode and George and I took a drive. It was a shade cooler than usual. We had all the officers of the ‘Jupiter’ for their ​farewell dinner. Captain Grey left only three to take care of the ship. The sailors were heard to say they were glad the officers were to have a treat; they had left plenty for them—to be sure, they would only have scrapings—but then their dinner was just such a one as the king would have, so the remains would do very well for the officers.
Thursday, March 31.
I sent for Dr. Nicholson—the Doyen of the medical tribe here—to consult with him as to our private doctor; it is so impossible to find anyone here who would suit us exactly, and old Dr. Nicholson immediately suggested, as his own idea, Dr. Drummond of the ‘Jupiter,’ whom he heard we had liked very much. I told him all the difficulties that had been made about it, which he laughed at as quite needless, and went off to consult the proper authorities, and came back armed with precedents and proofs, so then I sent for George, and it seems likely it will do. It will be a great comfort, we all like him so much, and he is older than any other we could have found here. Dr. Nicholson knew him very well during the three years Dr. Drum​mond was stationed here before, and has the highest opinion of him, and he is very much liked in Calcutta by several people whom he attended the last time he was here.
The tide served to go up to Barrackpore, unluckily, in the middle of the day, and, like idiots, we went by water, instead of going up in the carriages in the evening. Even in the cabin, with every ray of sun and light shut out, and men to fan us, it was just like being packed up in a pinery. We shall never try that hour of the day again. Captain Grey and two of the midshipmen were the only people with us, as we left some of the aides-de-camp behind, and we expect a large party to-morrow. We found Mr. Pelham at Barrackpore. He set off a month before—two days after the ‘Jupiter’ arrived—to see Benares and Lucknow, 600 miles off. Travelling here goes on night and day, and is very fatiguing. Everybody who knew anything about India said it was madness, and that he would die of the heat and the fatigue, and see nothing curious, and so on. However, he took his own way, and is come back in better health than I have ever seen him, delighted with everything he has seen, and quite charmed at having ​disregarded everybody’s advice. We all strolled out on the lawn at ten o'clock, greatly to the horror of the inhabitants of the land, and rather in a fright of the snakes ourselves. I kept a strict watch on Chance. Last week, when the Miss Ryans were here, their little dog was recovered from the mouth of a jackal, who had picked it up as a nice little morsel. Such a shocking idea! It would hurt Chance’s pride as well as his little fat person. You have no idea what a horrible noise those jackals make at night.
Friday, April 1.
Captain ——, another aide-de-camp, arrived. They are all accoutred with the greatest precision, and like ‘burnished sheets of living gold.’ Sir H. Fane, and all his staff, came to dinner, and stay till Monday. Miss Fane has been again laid up for a fortnight by mosquito bites, and could not come.
Saturday, April 2.
All called at 5 a.m., and dressed as finely as we could for a review, which Sir Henry has graciously ordered for us, of seven native regiments. Our procession to the plain was a ​wonderful sight, between Sir Henry’s followers and George’s, and our carriages and the elephants. It would have made a beautiful drawing, only I can’t draw in this country. A great many people drove up from Calcutta to see it. An infantry review is rather a dull sight, but this was striking, for the Sepoys seem to me to be much finer soldiers than our people, partly from being so tall and upright, and then that I am convinced that brown is the natural colour for man—black and white are unnatural deviations, and look shocking. I am quite ashamed of our white skins.
As for the Sepoys’ soldiering I cannot speak, not knowing what they ought to do; but Sir H. Fane thinks them quite as good in all their exercises as English troops. We got home at half-past seven, when it was becoming very hot, and rested for an hour, then we had a large breakfast, and then Captain Grey and Mr. Pelham went back to Calcutta with some of the Calcuttians. Fanny and —— went out in the carriage, and I went in a tonjaun with George, who walked to the garden, and we sat down there till it was dusk. I tried to cheapen a beautiful common tame ​bird, which a man had in the park to sell, but he would not be the least reasonable about it. We had a dinner of forty people, officers and their wives, to meet Sir Henry, but it was all over in two hours.