Yesterday they made a mistake in the time, and called us at half-past four, which gave us an hour’s drive in the dark, over a very bad road, and an hour to wait for breakfast. I never did see so hideous a country, and this is a very ugly station. ‘Foully Palace’ looks particularly striking, as the dust has actually dyed the tents brown, and G.’s disgust is turning him yellow.
He is longing to go back to Calcutta. The weather has grown so much cooler and pleasanter, I cannot agree with him.
We had a sixteen miles’ march, quite as much as the servants and troops could manage, and we were above three hours coming in the carriage.
G. and F. rode the last five miles. We are encamped under trees, and it looks prettier. The King of Oude has sent his cook to accompany us for the next month, and yesterday, when our dinner was set out, his khansamah and kitmutgars arrived with a second dinner, which they put down by the side of the other, and the same at breakfast this morning. Some of the dishes are very good, though too strongly spiced and perfumed for English tastes. They make up some dishes with assafœtida! but we stick to the rice and pilaus and curries. St. Cloup is so cross about them.
The king has also sent greyhounds and huntsmen, and a great many beautiful hawks, and we are going out hunting this afternoon if the elephants are rested after their long march. To-morrow, F. and I mean to strike off from the camp to a place called Kurrah, where there are some beautiful tombs, and we shall have a tent there, with breakfast and luncheon. It is three miles from the camp, and all our cool light time would be lost if we went there and back from the camp.
Our hunting expedition was on a grand scale, huntsmen and spearmen and falconers in profusion, and twelve elephants, and five miles of open country, and the result was, that we killed one innocent and unsuspecting black crow, and two tame paddy birds, which one of the falconers quietly turned out. But it was a grand sight, and I have made a rare sketch of some of the people.
F. and I went off to Kurrah yesterday morning, and found three tents pitched opposite to a beautiful tomb. G. and Captain N. left us after they had seen two or three ruins, and we stayed out sketching with P. and M. till breakfast time. The sketching mania is spreading luckily, for as these young gentlemen must go with us, it will be a great blessing both for themselves and us if they can draw too. P. has set up a book, and seems to draw well. These little quiet encampments are very pleasant, after the great dusty camp.
W. had meant to shoot at Kurrah; he always goes on the day before, as he hates getting up early and likes living alone; but there was some mistake about his tent last night, and when he arrived with a tired horse over a cross-road, there was nothing but his bed, and no tent, and all the servants sleeping round a large fire. The servants said, ‘O, Sahib went away very impassionate.’
We went on our elephants at four, to see the fort, an old ruin, on a real, steep rock, with a great bird’s-eye view of the Oude country. Certainly a hill is a valuable article. We then joined the camp, through four miles of old temples and tombs, and the ground about as uneven as that at Eastcombe. Altogether, Kurrah answered to us.
We had rather a large dinner afterwards.
Yesterday we were at a very dull place, Thurriah by name, and were not even tempted to ride out of the camp. The band plays in the afternoon, between five and six, which I established, because at dinner it is impossible to listen comfortably; and it really plays so beautifully, it is a pity not to hear it.
All the party walk up and down what we call High Street in front of our tents. The Y.s with their two children, he taking a race with his boy, and then helping to pack a camel. The ‘vicarage’ is always the tent that is first struck. The A.s slink off down A-alley, at the back of their tent, because in her present state of figure she is ashamed to be seen; the C.s take an elephant. Colonel P. walks up and down waiting to help Mrs. R. off her horse, and wishing she would not ride with her husband.
Mrs. L. toddles about with her small child, and L. always makes some excuse for not walking with ‘Carry dear.’ The officers of the escort and their wives all pursue their domestic walks; the aides-de-camp and doctor get their newspapers and hookahs in a cluster on their side of the street. W. has his hookah in front of his tent, and F. sits with him, and they feed his dogs and elephants. G. and I and Chance sit in front of my tent. Altogether it is a public sort of meeting, in which everybody understands that they are doing their domestic felicity, and nobody takes the slightest notice of anybody else.
The Prince of Orange arrived at two yesterday. He is a fair, quiet-looking boy, and is very shy and very silent. He did not seem the least tired with ten days and nights of palanquin. We sent the carriage to meet him some miles off, with some luncheon. G. pressed him to try a warm bath, and five minutes after saw his own cherished green tub carried over.
‘I really can’t stand that,’ he said; ‘if he keeps my tub, there must be war with Holland immediately. I shall take Batavia, and tell the guns at Fort William to fire on the Bellona at once.’
We all went out on elephants in the afternoon; Captain A. (the Dutch captain and tutor), and Captain C., and all. The prince came on my elephant; and we saw some beautiful mosques and ruins. Also, there are twenty native chiefs encamped about, who had come from a great distance to meet G.; so there were quantities of strange sights for our guest.
We march again on Monday, and I believe that F. and I shall go to Lucknow the week after next, from Cawnpore.
This must go.
CHAPTER VIII
I HAVE let three or four days slip by since my last immense Journal started from Futtehpore.
I had such a number of letters to answer in other directions, and then our young prince takes up much of my time, as everything here is new to him, and he seems surprised at the horses, camels, and elephants, &c. He is continually asking if the carriage will not be overturned, which is not an unnatural question, for the roads are so bad, the wonder is that it does not overturn constantly; but a sailor would be able to jump out, and I dare say at his age he would rather like the carriage to be upset.
The gentlemen all went off on a shooting expedition yesterday to Serajapore. F. and I stuck to the camp with great difficulty, for our horses, though we change every five miles, knocked up entirely. The sands are half-way up the wheels occasionally.
G. shot for the first time from an elephant, which is considered very difficult, till people are accustomed to stand on its back, and he killed three hares and three quails. Mr. T. killed the only niel ghâu that was seen, but altogether they were much pleased at having found anything.
The prince was quite bent upon taking a sketch yesterday afternoon, as he saw us all sketching. All our elephants were tired with the long marches we have had the last two days. However, that attentive creature, ‘neighbour Oude,’ sent us down six new ones this morning, so G. and I got on one, and put B. with the prince on another, P. on another by his side. We discovered a very pretty Hindu temple, and all set to work sketching.
The prince got off his elephant because he said it shook him so, and he would have made a good picture, sitting in my tonjaun, with crowds of spearmen and bearers all round him; B., who does not draw, in an attitude of resigned bore standing by him, and he, looking like a young George III. on a seven-shilling piece, peering up at the temple, and wondering how he was to begin. However, it amused him, and he has passed several hours since, touching it up.
This morning we made one of our grand entries into Cawnpore, or rather on to it; for there is no particular Cawnpore visible. But we drove over a miniature plain to our tents.
F., G., and all the gentlemen, even to Y., on his fat pony, rode