Begums, Thugs and White Mughals

by Fanny Parkes

  The natives make ice for themselves, and sell it at two annas a seer; they do not preserve it for the hot winds, but give a good price for the ice stolen from the sāhib loge (European gentleman).

  [ … ]

  As the ābdārs generally dislike rising early to weigh the ice, the cooly may generally steal it with impunity. The ice baskets are made of strips of bamboo covered inside and out with namdā, a thick coarse woollen wadding. The interior is lined with dosootee (white cotton cloth), and the exterior covered with ghuwā kopra, a coarse red cloth that rots less than any other from moisture. The basket should be placed on a wooden stool, with a pan below to catch the dripping water.

  Calcutta was supplied, in 1833, with fine clear ice from America, sent in enormous blocks, which sold at two annas a seer, about twopence per pound: this ice is greatly superior to that made in India, which is beaten up when collected into a mass, and dissolves more rapidly than the block ice. It is not as an article of luxury only that ice is delightful in this climate, medicinally it is of great use: there is much virtue in an iced nightcap to a feverish head. The American ice has not yet penetrated to the up-country; we shall have ice from Calcutta when the railroads are established. No climate under the sun can be more delightful than this during the cold weather, at which time we enjoy fires very much, and burn excellent coal, which is brought by water from Calcutta. The coal mines are at Burdwan, a hundred miles from the presidency. In Calcutta it costs eight annas a mann; here, if procurable, it is one rupee: this year we had fires until the 29th of February.

  After a good gallop round the Mahratta Bund on Master George, a remarkably fine Arab, with what zest we and our friends partook of Hunter’s beef and brawn! – as good as that of Oxford; the table drawn close to the fire, and the bright blaze not exceeding in cheerfulness the gaiety of the party!

  March 31st – How fearful are fevers in India! On this day my husband was attacked; a medical man was instantly called in, medicine was of no avail, the illness increased hourly. On the 9th of April, the aid of the superintending surgeon was requested; a long consultation took place, and a debate as to which was to be employed, the lancet, or a bottle of claret; it terminated in favour of the latter, and claret to the extent of a bottle a day was given him: his head was enveloped in three bladders of ice, and iced towels were around his neck. On the 17th day for the first time since the commencement of the attack, he tasted food; that is, he ate half a small bun; before that, he had been supported solely on claret and fresh strawberries, being unable to take broth or arrowroot.

  Not daring to leave him a moment night or day, I got two European artillerymen from the fort to assist me in nursing him. On the 23rd, the anxiety I had suffered, and over exertion, brought on fever, which confined me to my chārpāīs for seven days; all this time my husband was too ill to quit his bed; so we lay on two chārpāīs, under the same pankhā, two artillerymen for our nurses, applying iced towels to our heads while my two women, with true native apathy, lay on the ground by the side of my bed, seldom attending to me, and only thinking how soon they could get away to eat and smoke. The attention and kindness of the medical men, and of our friends at the station, were beyond praise. Thanks to good doctoring, good nursing, and good claret, at the end of the month we began to recover health and strength.

  May 18th – The ice-pits were opened, and every subscriber received twenty-four pounds weight of ice every other day – perfectly invaluable with a thermometer at 93°. Our friends had kindly allowed them to be opened before, during our fevers. It is impossible to describe the comfort of ice to the head, or of iced-soda water to a parched and tasteless palate, and an exhausted frame.

  April – Lord Amherst was requested by the directors to remain here until the arrival of Lord William Bentinck; and such was his intention, I believe, had he not been prevented by the dangerous illness of Lady Sarah; and by this time, it is possible the family are on their way home. Mr Bayley is Viceroy, and will reign longer than he expected as Lord William Bentinck does not sail before January.

  Our politicians are all on the qui vive at the mélée between the Russians and Persians, and the old story of an invasion of India is again agitated – we are not alarmed.

  June 7th – The weather is more oppressive than we have ever found it; the heat intolerable; the thermometer in my room 93° in spite of tattis and pankhās. Allahabad may boast of being the oven of India; and the flat stone roof of our house renders it much hotter than if it were thatched.

  We were most fortunate in quitting Calcutta; this past year the cholera has raged there most severely, the Europeans have suffered much; many from perfect health have been carried to their graves in a few hours.

  A novel and a sofa is all one is equal to during such intense heat, which renders life scarcely endurable.

  Ice is our greatest luxury; and our ice, made from the cream of our own cows and Gunter’s jam, is as good as any in England. My thoughts flow heavily and stupidly under such intolerable heat: when the thermometer is only 82°, we rejoice in the coolness of the season; today it is 92°, and will be hotter as the day advances; the wind will not blow. If a breeze would but spring up, we could be comfortable, as the air is cooled passing through the wet khas-khas: what would I not give for a fresh sea-breeze! Let me not think of it.

  Horses at this season of the year are almost useless; it is too hot to ride, and even a man feels that he has scarcely nerve enough to mount his horse with pleasure: in the buggy it is very oppressive, the fiery wind is so overpowering; and a carriage is too hot to be borne. I speak not of the middle of the day, but of the hours between seven o’clock at night to six o’clock in the morning – the cool hours as we call them!

  From Madras they write the thermometer is at 96°! How can they breathe! Here at 93° it is fearfully hot – if they have a sea-breeze to render the nights cool, it is a blessing; here the heat at night is scarcely endurable, and to sleep almost impossible.

  I had a very large farmyard. The heat has killed all the guinea-fowls, turkeys, and pigeons, half the fowls, and half the rabbits.

  June 12th – We have had a most miserable time of it for the last two months; this has been one of the hottest seasons in recollection, and Allahabad has well sustained its sobriquet of Chōtā Jahannum! which, being interpreted, is Hell the Little. Within these two days the state of affairs has been changed; we are now enjoying the freshness of the rains, whose very fall is music to our ears: another such season would tempt us to quit this station, in spite of its other recommendations.

  Lord William Bentinck arrived July 3rd. The new Bishop of Calcutta is gone home, obliged to fly the country for his life; indeed, he was so ill, that a report of his death having come up here, some of his friends are in mourning for him; but I trust, poor man, he is going on well at sea at this minute.

  September 8th – My verandah presents an interesting scene: at present, at one end, two carpenters are making a wardrobe; near them is a man polishing steel. Two silversmiths are busy making me some ornaments after the Hindustani patterns; the tailors are finishing a gown, and the ayah is polishing silk stockings with a large cowrie shell. The horses are standing near, in a row, eating lucerne grass, and the jamadār is making a report on their health, which is the custom at twelve noon, when they come round for their tiffin.

  Yesterday a mad pariah dog ran into the drawing-room; I closed the doors instantly, and the servants shot the animal: dogs are numerous and dangerous at some seasons.

  Exchanged a little mare – who could sing ‘I’m sweet fifteen, and one year more’ – for a stud-bred Arab, named Trelawny; the latter being too impetuous to please his master.

  Our friend Major D— is anxious to tempt us to Nagpur, if we could get a good appointment there. ‘He rides a steed of air;’ and we have indulged in building chateaux d’Espagne, or castles in Ayrshire.

  August 21st – It is thought the gentleman for whom my husband now officiates will not rejoin this appointment; should he be disapp
ointed of his hope of reigning in his stead, he will apply for something else rather than return to Calcutta, which we do not wish to see till the year of furlough, 1833–4. Meantime we must make it out as well as we can and live upon hope, with the assurance that if we live, we shall not die fasting.

  I wish the intermediate years would pass by as quickly as the river Jumna before our house, which is in such a furious hurry, that it is quite awful to see the velocity with which the boats fly along. Both the Ganges and the Jumna have this year been unusually high, and much mischief to the villages on the banks has been the consequence. There was a report the day before yesterday that the Ganges, about a mile from this, had burst its banks. Luckily it was false; but it was a very near thing. Since then the river has sunk nearly twenty feet, so that we have no fear at present. The Jumna was within six feet of our garden bank.

  Of the climate we cannot form a fair opinion, but it is certainly very superior to any they have in Bengal. This year has been most unnatural; no regular hot winds, unexpected storms, and the rains delayed beyond their proper season. Allahabad is called the oven of India, therefore I expect to become a jolie brune, and the sāhib well baked.

  We have just received telegraphic intelligence of the bishop’s death at the Sandheads where he was sent on account of severe illness, which terminated fatally on the 13th instant. It is said that three bishops are to be imported, the late consumption having been so great. They ought to make bishops of the clergy who have passed their lives in India, and not send out old men who cannot stand the climate.

  We have the use of a native steam-bath, which is most refreshing when the skin feels dry and uncomfortable. There are three rooms – the temperature of the first is moderate; that of the second, warmer; and the third, which contains the steam, is heated to about 100°. There you sit, until the perspiration starts in great drops from every pore; the women are then admitted, who rub you with besun (the flour or meal of pulse, particularly of chana (Cicer arietinum)) and native hand-rubbers (khīsas) and pour hot water over you until the surface peels off; and you come out a new creature, like the snake that has cast its skin. One feels fresh and elastic, and the joints supple: the steam-bath is a fine invention.

  October 1st – The first steamer arrived at Allahabad in twenty-six days from Calcutta; the natives came down in crowds to view it from the banks of the Jumna; it was to them a cause of great astonishment.

  CHAPTER X

  LIFE IN THE ZENĀNA

  HE WHO IS BELOVED, IS THE WIFE

  OCTOBER 1823 – A letter just received from a lady, a friend of mine, at Lucknow is so amusing and so novel, I must make an extract: ‘The other day, (October 18th) was the anniversary of the King of Oude’s coronation; and I went to see the ceremony, one I had never witnessed before, and with which I was much gratified. But the greatest treat was a visit to the begum’s afterwards, when the whole of the wives, aunts, cousins, etc., were assembled in state to receive us.

  ‘The old begum (the king’s mother) was the great lady, of course, and in her palace were we received; the others being considered her guests, as well as ourselves. It was a most amusing sight, as I had never witnessed the interior of a zenāna before, and so many women assembled at once I had never beheld. I suppose from first to last we saw some thousands. Women bearers carried our tanjans; a regiment of female gold and silver-sticks, dressed in male costume, were drawn up before the entrance; and those men, chiefly Africans, who were employed inside the zenāna (and there were abundance of these frightful creatures), were all of the same class as the celebrated Velluti. The old begum was without jewels or ornaments, likewise a very pretty and favourite wife of the late king, their state of widowhood precluding their wearing them. But the present king’s wives were most superbly dressed, and looked like creatures of the Arabian tales. Indeed, one was so beautiful that I could think of nothing but Lalla Rookh in her bridal attire.

  ‘I never saw anyone so lovely, either black or white. Her features were perfect; and such eyes and eyelashes I never beheld before. She is the favourite queen at present, and has only been married a month or two: her age about fourteen; and such a little creature, with the smallest hands and feet, and the most timid, modest look imaginable. You would have been charmed with her, she was so graceful and fawnlike. Her dress was of gold and scarlet brocade, and her hair was literally strewed with pearls, which hung down upon her neck in long single strings, terminating in large pearls, which mixed with and hung as low as her hair, which was curled on each side her head in long ringlets, like Charles II’s beauties.

  ‘On her forehead she wore a small gold circlet, from which depended (and hung halfway down her forehead) large pear-shaped pearls, interspersed with emeralds. Above this was a paradise plume, from which strings of pearls were carried over to the head, as we turn our hair.

  ‘I fear you will not understand me. Her earrings were immense gold-rings, with pearls and emeralds suspended all round in long strings, the pearls increasing in size. She had a nose-ring also, with large round pearls and emeralds; and her necklaces, etc., were too numerous to be described. She wore long sleeves, open at the elbow; and her dress was a full petticoat, some dozen yards wide, with a tight body attached, and only open at the throat. She had several persons to bear her train when she walked; and her women stood behind her couch to arrange her headdress, when in moving her pearls got entangled in the immense dupatta of scarlet and gold she had thrown around her. How I wished for you when we were seated! You would have been delighted with the whole scene. This beautiful creature is the envy of all the other wives, and the favourite, at present, of the king and his mother, both of whom have given her titles – the king’s is after the favourite wife of one of the celebrated kings of Delhi, “Tājmahul”, and Nourmahul herself could not have been more lovely.

  ‘The other newly-made queen is nearly European, but not a whit fairer than Tājmahul. She is, in my opinion, plain, but is considered by the native ladies very handsome; and she was the king’s favourite until he saw Tājmahul.

  ‘She was more splendidly dressed than even Tājmahul; her headdress was a coronet of diamonds, with a fine crescent and plume of the same. She is the daughter of an European merchant, and is accomplished for an inhabitant of a zenāna, as she writes and speaks Persian fluently, as well as Hindustani, and it is said she is teaching the king English; though when we spoke to her in English she said she had forgotten it, and could not reply. She was, I fancy, afraid of the old begum, as she evidently understood us; and when asked if she liked being in the zenāna, she shook her head and looked quite melancholy. Jealousy of the new favourite, however, appeared the cause of her discontent as, though they sat on the same couch, they never addressed each other. And now you must be as tired of the begums, as I am of writing about them.

  ‘The mother of the king’s children, Mulka Zumanee, did not visit us at the old queen’s, but we went to see her at her own palace: she is, after all, the person of the most political consequence, being the mother of the heir-apparent; and she has great power over her royal husband, whose ears she boxes occasionally.

  ‘The Delhi princess, to whom the king was betrothed and married by his father, we did not see; she is in disgrace, and confined to her own palace. The old begum talked away to us, but appeared surprised I should admire Tājmahul more than the English begum, as she is called – my country-woman as they styled her!

  ‘Poor thing, I felt ashamed of the circumstance, when I saw her chewing pān with all the gusto of a regular Hindustani.’

  The above letter contains so charming an account of Lucknow, that I cannot refrain from adding an extract from another of the same lady.

  ‘At the residency, on such a day as this, the thermometer is seldom short of 100°!

  ‘Did you ever hear of Colonel Gardner? He is married to a native princess. The other day he paid Lucknow a visit. His son’s wife is sister to the legal queen of our present worthy sovereign of Oude. Colonel Gardner came on a visit to t
he begum’s father, Mirza Suliman Sheko, a prince of the house of Delhi, blessed with fifty-two children, twelve sons and forty daughters! Did you ever hear of such enormity? The poor papa is without a rupee, his pension from government of Rs 5,000 a month is mortgaged to his numerous creditors. He has quarrelled with his illustrious son-in-law, the King of Oude; and Colonel Gardner has come over with the laudable purpose of removing his family from Oude to Delhi, where they will have a better chance of being provided for.

  ‘Indeed, the other day, seventeen of the daughters were betrothed to seventeen princes of Delhi: this is disposing of one’s daughters by wholesale! is it not? Colonel Gardner, who is a very gentlemanlike person, I hear, of the old school, was educated in France some fifty years ago. He gave a description of his sojourn amongst this small family in the city, in these words – “I slept every night with the thermometer at 100° and surrounded by five hundred females!”

  ‘What a situation! I do not know which would be the most overpowering, the extreme heat or the incessant clack of the forty princesses and their attendants. It reminds me of the old fairy tale of the “Ogre’s forty daughters with golden crowns on their heads”.’

  On dit the English begum was the daughter of a half-caste and an English officer; her mother afterwards married a native baniyā (shopkeeper). She had a sister; both the girls lived with the mother, and employed themselves in embroidering saddle-cloths for the horses of the rich natives. They were both very plain; nevertheless, one of them sent her picture to his majesty who, charmed with the portrait, married the lady. She had money in profusion at her command: she made her father-in law her treasurer, and pensioned her mother and sister.