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Cuttack, August 10, 1844

BRINDABUND MONKEYS

The weather is now most fearfully oppressive; not so much from the actual heat, for the thermometer is seldom above 86° or 87°, but from a dense mass of cloud, which at the height of a few hundred feet encloses us, as it were, day and night in one vast steamy vapour-bath. The last two or three months are actually the most trying that I have felt in India.

I forget whether I have described the Brindabund monkeys. I have now a pair of them. I do not remember ever to have seen them in England. They are covered all over with long, thick, black hair; but round the face, extending from temple to temple, is a very broad, thick frill of white or rather light grey: the tail is of a middling length, the snout very short, and the animal himself remarkably docile and intelligent. Those that I have are not yet a year old, and I should say the body is about a foot in length. When on their hind legs they stand nearly two feet.

I have mine in the verandah just outside my study door, and they are so full of fun that I often sit for a long time watching them. One runs a little way up the lattice, then the other makes a spring after him, and up they both go as fast as they can. Presently the lower one catches hold of the upper one's tail, and brings him down to the bottom; then he makes a jump and gets away into his kennel and sits at the door, whilst the other wanders round and round, trying to find some place where he can get in without being observed; in doing this he carelessly turns his back, when out jumps the other and catches hold of his tail or his hind leg, and drags him round and round their cage. I should tell you that the cage is the end of the verandah at the back of my house; two sides of it are wall, and the other two are lattice. It is about ten feet square, twelve feet high at one end, and eighteen or twenty at the other.

When they are frightened they sit upright on the floor, with their arms clasped round each other; and if I take one of them out tied by a string, they both scream the whole time until they are brought together again, and then they rush into each other's arms. These two monkeys are very much admired by the Europeans at Cuttack, who have given them the name of "the gentlemen monkeys," because, from the great length of their hair, they look as if they were dressed, besides being quiet and docile. They are almost as rare here as in England. They are of the most sacred race of monkeys in the eyes of the Hindus; and indeed the only objection I have to them is, that I am afraid some of my servants make poojah to them, that is, worship them, and prostrate themselves before them, and make offerings of rice to them.

We have a great improvement in the use of our finger-glasses over those in England. One man waits behind every person at each meal, even at tea, and as soon as the meal is over he brings his master or mistress a finger-glass filled with water, with two or three leaves of verbenum, or bay, or sweet-smelling lime, for the persons to squeeze between their fingers. In a hot climate like India this is very pleasant and refreshing.

INDIAN MARRIAGES

When a man in India, I mean a European gentleman, wants a wife, he says to his friend, "I should like to get married." "Well," says he, "why don't you?" and forthwith he applies for leave of absence for a month. A month consists of thirty days, of which, say five are occupied in his journey to Calcutta, and another five on his journey back, leaving him just twenty days in which to make his selection, get introduced, make himself agreeable, propose, court, and be married. A nice prospect he has for future happiness. But there is one curious result in this sort of marriage, and a result, too, which spreads among other people also. After a few years the wife loses her health and is ordered to England. The husband cannot afford to go with her, but he allows her about half his salary. At the end of two or three years, or whatever time may have been fixed, he writes to his wife to make arrangements for her return to India; and I have known two instances in which the husband was obliged to stop the allowance in order to compel the wife to return.

I have often wished to have some peacocks in my compound, but every one told me that they would fly away; however, I found that those who had tried to keep them had obtained the young birds from the jungle. I thought I would try another plan, and therefore I got some eggs and set them under a hen. I have three young ones coming on nicely, perfectly tame, and which, I think, will look very well among the trees in front of my house. Two are peacocks, the other a peahen.

Cuttack, September 14, 1844

A NIGHT'S REST

My wife and I were sitting, after tea, playing at backgammon and enjoying the cool breeze that came through the open Venetians, when suddenly it began to rain. In an instant the room swarmed with insects of all sorts. There was the beautiful large green mantis; and, as we were watching his almost human motions, a grasshopper and a large brown cricket flew against my face, while a great cockroach, full three inches long, came on my wife's neck, and began running about her head and face and dress; the flying-ant, which emits a most nauseous effluvia; and the flying-bug, black, and about the size of an English one, which, if you crush him, will make your fingers smell most dreadfully for many hours; – and with these our clothes were covered, and we were obliged to keep brushing them away from our faces, but with very gentle handling; and then came two or three hornets, which sent Mrs. Acland to bed to get under the mosquito-curtains, where none of these horrid creatures can get at her. I sat up trying to read, but buzz came a mosquito on the side of my face, up went my hand a tremendous slap on the cheek to kill the tormentor, and buzz he went on again. Then I felt something big burying itself in my hair, and then came buzz on the other side, and then all around.

Presently, with a loud hum, a great rhinoceros-beetle dashed into my face. I now began to take some of the animals out of my hair; and the first that I touched was a flying-bug: the stench was dreadful. I rushed out of the room, brushing the horrible creatures from my hair with both hands. I nearly fell over a toad on which I trod, and reached my bed-room to find eighteen or twenty great toads croaking in different parts of the room, and five large bats were whirling round and round the bed. Having washed my hands in eau-de-cologne, I quickly undressed and fell asleep.

In the course of the night a troop of jackals surrounded the house, and by their frightful yells soon drove away all idea of rest; and then, about four o'clock, as we were just dozing off again, comes the roll of the drum and the loud voice of the trumpet, the tramp of the soldiers, the firing, and all the bustle of the parade; and, as soon as that is over, comes the changing guard, and the "shoulder harrm," and the "quick marrch," near our house; and so we got up.

THE BATH

Then comes the bath, the greatest luxury of the day (the water just cooler than the air), into which I get with a book, lie there an hour reading, get out and partly dress, and then admit my man to wash my feet in cold water, and to shampoo me and brush my hair, whilst another brings me a cup of delicious coffee or a glass of sherbet; and then breakfast, with an enormous fan swinging to and fro over our heads; and the heat, and the discomfort, and languor till five o'clock, agreeably diversified only by a bottle of beer cooled with saltpetre and water; and then a drive, and tea, and mosquitoes again, and so on.

Cuttack, October 13, 1844

THE DOCTOR

I had to make a five days' journey at the worst season of the year to marry a couple, and I returned with a bad cough, which became more violent after the cold had left me. I am very weak, so that I walk like an old man. The doctors here are paid by the Government for attending all persons in the service. The Company also find medicines, but not the bottles, which sometimes leads to curious circumstances. The other day I wanted some medicine, and sent to the doctor for it; presently my man brought me back a black-draught in an old eau-de-cologne bottle, with a roll of paper by way of cork, and a request that I would return the bottle, as it was the only one he had.

I am about to apply for leave of absence. I shall go up to Calcutta, spend a fortnight with my friends there, Mr. and Mrs. S.; they will then come down here, when Mrs. Acland will join us, and we shall go to the Chelka Lake and the black pagodas.

I have another monkey now, which is kept at the stable; it is a horrible animal, about a foot and a half high, of a light greenish brown colour, no hair on its head, and very much inclined to be savage. I keep it to please my stable-people, who have a superstition that this kind of monkey prevents the horses getting unwell. Not long ago a young officer turned a very savage one loose; it took up its abode in my compound. In one night it killed three of my fan-tailed pigeons, and it chased my goats backward and forward so incessantly, that one of them died of fatigue. I told my stable-people to catch the animal, and get rid of him. This they did not do; so I then gave them notice, that, if the monkey was not in the jungle on the other side of the river by seven o'clock the next morning, I would cut them all a month's pay. This is the best method of punishing the natives, and in the present instance it was most effectual, for I have not seen the fiendish-looking face of the exile since that day.

In India the cow's milk is very bad, poor, and thin; that of the buffalo is of a bad colour and rank; but what is furnished by the goat is delicious, and many people, ourselves among the number, keep flocks of goats. I flatter myself that mine (twelve goats and seven kids) are very handsome. The male kids we eat when they are old enough to leave their mother; they are very nice indeed. Our goats are much larger than those in England, but all other animals are very small. I have heard it said at table, "Will you take a shoulder or leg of lamb?" Beef and veal in this bigoted part of the country are quite forbidden things. Yet how curious this is! No animals are worse treated than the bullocks, which are here the only beasts of burden. They are starved and ill-used in every way. I have seen a man dislocate several joints successively of his bullock's tail; yet, if I were to fire my gun at the poor animal to put it out of its misery, I should probably have my house burnt over my head.

I saw a most extraordinary sight last night. It was in the evening very hot, and a great deal of electricity in the air. There were two very heavy clouds, one at a considerable distance above the other. Suddenly some vapour separated itself with a whirling motion from the upper, assuming the shape of a waterspout until the point touched the lower; then a commotion began, the lower cloud rushing in large white masses up the sides of the spout and uniting with the upper. This continued for nearly forty minutes, until the lower was absorbed.

Cuttack, November 14, 1844

I sowed some melon-seed one Friday morning; on the Monday when I went into the garden most of the melon-plants were two inches in height. In three days, in the open ground, from being mere dry seeds they had germinated and sprung up into strong healthy plants. The same rapidity of growth is remarkable in almost all vegetation in this country. I sowed some English peas the day before yesterday; this morning they are all above the ground. Thus we see that the effect of the climate is to hurry all these things forward, so that they naturally decay and die much earlier than they would in Europe.

EARLY MATURITY AND DECAY OF NATIVES

Now just put man in the place of a vegetable, and the case is precisely the same. A native boy has generally good-sized mustachios by the time he is fourteen, and a girl becomes a woman at eleven or twelve; then, again, at thirty the woman is old and shrivelled, and at forty the man is white-haired and decrepit. Who can wonder, then, that a climate like this should have such serious effects on Europeans, or that our constitutions should be soon worn out by the burning sun?

However, this month I have no right to complain; I am far better than I have been for some time. The weather is delightful; we are glad of a thick blanket and counterpane at night; at six, when I get up, the thermometer is rarely above 72°. I have no objection to a cloak when I am sowing seeds in the morning. The thermometer now, two o'clock P.M., is in my room exactly 80°, but there is a delightful cool breeze.

I have before observed that I did not feel satisfied with my medical man. As the East India Company do not allow above one doctor to every fifty miles, I wrote to a friend of mine in whom I have much confidence, detailing all my symptoms and requesting his advice. I could not think it of any use to put blisters and leeches on my throat for a cough and sickness which I felt to proceed from my stomach, and as I was very unwell I thought it best to consult another person. In the wisdom of his advice I perfectly agree, although it is more difficult to act up to it in India: "Employ your mind and stint your body." Any amusement, anything that could interest or excite or rouse, he recommended, but to avoid all unnatural stimulants as much as possible (I mean wine and spirits), and take plenty of exercise. If I do this, he says, he thinks I may leave all physic in the bottles and the leeches in the ponds. In accordance with this advice I am occupying myself in various ways. Books it is impossible to procure, so I have been training a horse for my wife – a beautiful little thing. I have made arrangements too for going to Calcutta in the course of the cold weather; and I have enclosed about an acre of my ground, and am making a vegetable or rather a kitchen garden of it.

I get up about six, dress in my old clothes, go out, and find one of the horses, or rather ponies, at the door waiting for me. I must ride him through the long grass, which by the bye is very nearly fit to cut, to look at a number of my trees scattered here and there in the compound, which I have been planting; then, when I am down at the farther end I take a glance at the large pond, or tank as we call it, where, sheltered by the most beautiful flowering trees, two men are catching fish for our breakfast. Then I ride along inside the hedge, watching the soldiers at parade, until I come to the goat-house; then see the pigs fed, and ride back to the house.

FLOWER AND KITCHEN GARDENS

By this time my wife is up, and she goes into the flower-garden, and I into the kitchen-garden, to sow seeds and superintend the gardeners. And here is the most curious scene; seven black men at work, their only dress a cloth round the loins, their long black hair wound up in a knot at the back of the head, their only tools a sort of broad pickaxe with a very short handle and a small sickle, these are their only gardening implements; and two men are watering with gurrahs, a sort of narrow-necked jar made of black clay, which they let down into a well by a rope. In the flower-garden are the beautiful balsams, of many colours, and as large as gooseberry-bushes; the splendid coxcombs, eight or ten feet high, whose great thick flowers measure twelve or fourteen inches by six or eight; the varieties of the hybiscas, with many others; and a few of the more precious European rarities – at least to us – such as the heliotrope, verbenum, larkspur, and many others. Our borders are mostly of the sweet-scented grass from the Neilghur hills, which is always covered with a beautiful small white flower.

In the vegetable-garden, besides the precious peas, beans, celery, cress, &c., which will only grow at this time of the year, are the pine-apple, the plantain, the guava, the lime, the orange, the custard-apple, with many other native plants and trees; and in the hedges are some of the beautiful palms, from the sap of which the Indians make an intoxicating drink called toddy. In the compound are some very fine mango-trees and beeches.

The other evening I was sitting alone writing at about eleven o'clock, when I heard the sentry call out loudly to my servants who were sleeping in the verandah. I jumped up to see what was the matter. "A leopard-tiger!" was the answer; and the man said he had seen a leopard creeping stealthily along the compound. He leapt over the wall into the garden of the Colonel who lives in the next house, and the following day footsteps were found in various parts of the cantonment, which the natives said were too large for a leopard, and must have been the marks of a regular tiger. I did not see the animal myself; but if the men were correct, it must have been an extraordinary occurrence, as our little island is entirely free from wild beasts; and although it is at this time of the year joined to the main by a narrow neck of sand, yet no large beast will cross unless pressed either by hunger or by hunters.

A few days ago a man brought me an animal which he had caught in the jungle on the hills. At first sight I said it was an armadillo, but now I feel some doubt whether it was not some unknown animal. I wanted to buy it, in order to send the skin, or rather the shell, home, but the man asked ten rupees for it, which I could not afford. It was nearly three feet long, covered with thick hard scales of a dirty yellow colour, the tail the same length as the body, and equally broad, which I do not think is the case with the armadillo. The shape of its whole back was a long oval. When frightened it rolled itself up into a ball, but it appeared very lethargic and stupid. The feet were armed with long, powerful claws, but it walked with the lower joints turned down under the feet, as if I were to walk on my ankles with the feet and toes turned under and behind. It burrowed a hole in a wall, pulling out the bricks and mortar very easily. I tried it with various kinds of food, but the only thing I could get it to eat was white ants. The man who brought it said he had never seen one like it before.

Not long ago the doctor at Pooree saw a number of natives running to the beach. He inquired what was the matter: "A great fish, sir." So down he went to join the crowd, and there he found a large fish indeed: a whale, measuring forty-eight feet in length, had been washed on shore; the body was rolling about in the surf, with great numbers of the natives clinging to it.

Then the doctor and the only other European present took off their shoes and stockings, turned up their trowsers, and climbed on the enormous animal's back; they got well wetted for their pains. The other gentleman that I mentioned is not a very learned man, and he said that their climbing up the sides of the whale reminded him of the "Lally prussians" climbing on to Gulliver. This same person once said that his wife had had a "historical" fit, in consequence of eating "aromatically" sealed salmon.

Khoutah, 30 miles from Cuttack, December 16, 1844

ANTIQUITY OF INDIAN RELIGIONS

I am now writing in a tent in which, with the exception of Christmas week, I expect to spend the next month or two, travelling in search of health. The cool weather has refreshed me much, and I feel far better than I did. A question has been asked me respecting the antiquity of the religions of this country. I believe the Buddhist religion to be more ancient than the Brahminical in India; though I think that the latter is the older in reality, as I imagine it to have existed almost in its present form in ancient Egypt. The Hindus burn their dead, the Mohammedans bury them: but there are very many of the former who are too poor to purchase wood; in this case the bodies are simply thrown out for the jackals and vultures.

Jenkia, about 44 miles south of Cuttack, January 4, 1845

From Khoulah I returned to Cuttack for Christmas. Early on Christmas morning Mr. G., the collector and magistrate of Pooree, came in to spend the day with us. Poor man! he and a cousin of his were almost brought up together, and they became much attached even in childhood. When he obtained an appointment in India, it was agreed that he should return to England and marry her as soon as he should have attained sufficient rank in the service to give him an adequate income. After about five years' residence in this country he went home and was married. This was ten years ago, and from that time his life seems to have been as happy as a human life can be. Latterly they became anxious to go home on furlough, in order that they might see their children settled in England, but they had not saved money enough; so, in April, Mr. G. applied for a better appointment, and was consequently nominated to Pooree. On their way down, as they passed through Calcutta, both were seized with cholera; he recovered, but she died; he sent his children home, but arrived at Pooree a solitary man. He is still in a very desponding state, but I do all I can to arouse him, both by bodily amusement and religious converse.

At about one o'clock of the night of Christmas-day, or rather of the following morning, my wife, Mr. G., and myself got into our palanquins, and started for Khoordagurree, which we visited last year. We arrived at our tent by about ten o'clock on Thursday morning, bathed, dressed, breakfasted, and prepared to start for the caves; but, alas! it began to rain, and the water continued to fall in torrents for upwards of eighteen hours. We might have expected this, for in India it is almost invariably the case in Christmas week. The seasons are very regular; it generally rains every day from the 15th of June to the 15th of October, that is, in this part of India; the next showers are in Christmas-week, and then rarely any more till June. Now, this thorough drenching was both unpleasant and dangerous: for, although the tents kept out the water very effectually, yet everything was so thoroughly damp that we began to be afraid of the deadly jungle-fevers.

Just outside one of the doors of each tent we lighted a large wood fire, and allowed as much of the smoke to come in as we could possibly bear; this warmed us, and dried up the damp and purified the air; and we retired to bed and put out the fires: we closed the doors of the tents, and found ourselves in a comparatively dry healthy atmosphere.