by Fanny Parkes
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May 23rd – Such a disaster in the quail-house! Through the negligence, or rather stupidity, of the khānsāmān, one hundred and sixty fat quail have been killed.
June 1st – The Muharram is over; I am glad of it, it unsettles all the servants so much and nothing is ever well done whilst they are thinking of the taziya.
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The Great Gun at Agra
‘The utmost offer that has yet been made for the metal of the great gun is Rs 16 per maund; it is proposed to put it up now for sale by auction, at the Agra-Kotwallee, in the course of next month; the upset price of the lots to be fourteen ānās per seer.
‘The destruction of the Agra gun, our readers are aware, has, for some time past, been entrusted to the executive engineer. As stated in the last Meerut Observer, an attempt was made first to saw and afterwards it was intended to break it to pieces. In the mean time, it is lying, like Robinson Crusoe’s boat, perfectly impracticable under the fort. Though there is a tradition in the city of its weight being 1600 maunds, it has not been found, on actual measurement, to contain more than 845md. 9s., which, at the rate of 2lb. to the seer, would be equal to 30 tons, 3 cwt, 2 qrs, 18 lb. The analysis of the filings made by the deputy Assay Master in Calcutta was, we understand, as follows:
Copper Tin
1 29.7 7.3
2 92.2 7.8
3 88.3 11.7
Mean 91.06 8.94
The gun, from its size, is naturally regarded by the native population as one of the lions of our city. Of the Hindus, too, many are accustomed to address their adorations to it as they do, indeed, to all the arms of war, as the roop of Devee, the Indian Hecate. Beyond this, Hindu tradition has not invested the gun with any character of mythological sanctity. The antiquaries of our city, indeed, say that it was brought here by the Emperor Akbar, perhaps from the fortress of Chittore. We have, however, ourselves been unable to find any mention of it in tawareek of that reign, or of any subsequent period. Among its other just claims to be saved from the hands of the Thatheras, we must not forget the fact of its having once fired a shot from Agra to Futehpur Sikri, a distance of twenty-four miles. A stone ball now marks the spot where it fell to the student in artillery practice, putting him entirely out of conceit of the vaunted power of Queen Elizabeth’s pocket pistol which, we believe, can scarcely carry one-third of that distance. The fellow of the Agra gun is stated to be still embedded in the sands of the Jumna.
‘Its destruction seems as unpopular with the natives as it is with the European community. Its doom, however, being, we believe, sealed, we are grateful to think that the proceeds of its sale are to be devoted to the erection of a permanent bridge of boats over the Jumna at this city, the estimate for which the supposed value of the gun, with an advance of one or two years’ ferry tolls, is expected to meet. The future surplus funds derived from the bridge will probably, we hear, be expended in forming a new branch road from Rāj-ghāt to Mynpoory, to unite with the grand trunk now making between Allahabad and Delhi, under Captain Drummond. We shall, however, postpone till another opportunity our remarks on this and other plans to improve the means of communication in this quarter.’
‘At five o’clock on Wednesday morning, the Great Gun at this place was burst, other means of breaking it up having proved unsuccessful. The gun was buried about twenty feet deep in the ground, and 1000 lb. of gunpowder was employed for the explosion. The report was scarcely heard, but the ground was considerably agitated and a large quantity of the earth was thrown on all sides. As far as we can learn, the chief engineer has at length been completely successful. A large portion of the European community and multitudes of natives were present to witness the novel spectacle. The inhabitants of the city were so alarmed, that a considerable portion abandoned their houses, and that part of the town in the vicinity of the Fort was completely deserted.’ –
Mofussil Akhbar, June 29
July 18th – Last night, as I was writing a long description of the tēz-pāt, the leaf of the cinnamon tree, which humbly pickles beef, leaving the honour of crowning heroes to the laurus nobilis, the servants set up a hue and cry that one of our sā’ises had been bitten by a snake. I gave the man a teaspoonful of eaude-luce, which the khānsāmān calls ‘blue-dee-roo’, mixed with a little water. They had confined the snake in a kedgeree-pot, out of which he jumped into the midst of the servants; how they ran! The sā’is is not the worse for the fright, the snake not being a poisonous one; but he says the memsāhib has burnt up his interior and blistered his mouth with the medicine. I hope you admire the corruption of eau de-luce – blue-dee-roo! Another beautitul corruption of the wine-coolers is soup-tureen for Sauterne! Here is a list of absurdities:
harricot, Harry Cook butcher, voucher
parsley, Peter Selly prisoner, bridgeman
mignionette, Major Mint Champagne, simkin
bubble-and-squeak, Dublin cook trumpeter, Jan Peter
decree, diggery Brigade-major, Bridget
Christmas, kiss miss Knole cole, old kooby
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August 4th – I have just received a present of the first number of Colonel Luard’s most beautiful views in India; how true they are! His snake-catchers are the very people themselves. Apropos, we caught a young cobra yesterday in my dressing-room; the natives said, ‘Do not kill it; it is forbidden to kill the snake with the holy mark on the back of its head,’ – a mark like a horseshoe. However, as it was the most venomous sort of snake, I put it quietly into my ‘Bottle of Horrors’. They say snakes come in pairs; we have searched the room and cannot find its companion. It is not pleasant to have so venomous a snake twisting on the Venetian blinds of one’s dressing-room.
August 8th – Yesterday, at dinner, our friends were praising the fatted quail and remarking how well we had preserved them. This morning all the remainder are dead, about two hundred; why or wherefore I know not – it is provoking.
We had the most beautiful bouquet on the table last night an enormous bowl full of flowers, in such luxuriant beauty, some few of which you may find in hot-houses and greenhouses at home. With what pleasure I looked at them and how much amusement taking off the impressions, or practising the black art, as we call it, will afford me!
CHAPTER XXV
THE CHOLERA
IT WAS HAMMERED UPON MY FOREHEAD i.e. It was my destiny
WHERE IS THE USE OF TAKING PRECAUTIONS, SINCE WHAT HAS BEEN PRE-ORDAINED MUST HAPPEN?
AUGUST 8TH 1833 – The same terrible weather continues, the thermometer 90° and 91° all day; not a drop of rain! They prophesy sickness and famine; the air is unwholesome; the Europeans are all suffering with fever and ague and rheumatism. The natives, in a dreadful state, are dying in numbers daily of cholera; two days ago, seventy-six natives in Allahabad were seized with cholera – of these, forty-eight died that day! The illness is so severe that half an hour after the first attack the man generally dies; if he survive one hour it is reckoned a length of time.
A brickmaker living near our gates, buried four of his family from cholera in one day! Is not this dreadful? The poor people, terror-stricken, are afraid of eating their food, as they say the disease follows a full meal. Since our arrival in India we have never before experienced such severely hot winds, or such unhealthy rains.
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The moonshee tells me the panic amongst the natives is so great that they talk of deserting Allahabad until the cholera has passed away.
My darzee, a fine healthy young Musulmān, went home at five o’clock apparently quite well; he died of cholera at three o’clock, the next day; he had every care and attention. This evening the under-gardener has been seized; I sent him medicine; he returned it saying, ‘I am a Baghut (a Hindu who neither eats meat nor drinks wine), I cannot take your medicine; it were better that I should die.’ The cholera came across the Jumna to the city, thence it took its course up one side of the road to the Circuit Bungalow, is now in cantonments and will, I trust, pass on to Papamhow
, cross the Ganges, and Allahabad will once more be a healthy place.
‘Magic is truth, but the magician is an infidel.’ My ayah said, ‘You have told us several times that rain will fall and your words have been true; perhaps you can tell us when the cholera will quit the city?’ I told her, ‘Rain will fall, in all probability, next Thursday (new moon); and if there be plenty of it, the cholera may quit the city.’ She is off to the bazaar with the joyful tidings.
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August 17th – The new moon has appeared, but Prāg is unblessed with rain; if it would but fall! Every night the Hindus pooja their gods; the Musulmāns weary Heaven with prayers, at the Jamma Masjid (great mosque) on the riverside, near our house – all to no effect. The clouds hang dark and heavily; the thunder rolls at times; you think, ‘Now the rain must come,’ but it clears off with scarcely a sprinkling. Amongst the Europeans there is much illness, but no cholera.
August 22nd – These natives are curious people; they have twice sent the cholera over the river, to get rid of it at Allahabad. They proceed after this fashion: they take a bull, and after having repeated divers prayers and ceremonies, they drive him across the Ganges into Oude laden, as they believe, with the cholera. This year this ceremony has been twice performed. When the people drive the bull into the river, he swims across and lands or attempts to land, on the Lucknow side; the Oude people drive the poor beast back again, when he is generally carried down by the current and drowned, as they will not allow him to land on either side.
During the night, my ayah came to me three times for cholera mixture; happily the rain was falling and I thought it would do much more good than all the medicine; of course I gave her the latter.
Out of sixty deaths there will be forty Hindus to twenty Musulmāns; more men are carried off than women, eight men to two women; the Musulmāns eat more nourishing food than the Hindus, and the women are less exposed to the sun than the men.
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August 26th – I was sitting in my dressing-room, reading, and thinking of retiring to rest, when the khānsāman ran to the door, and cried out, ‘Memsāhib, did you feel the earthquake? The dishes and glasses in the almirahs (wardrobes) are all rattling.’ I heard the rumbling noise, but did not feel the quaking of the earth. About half-past eleven this evening a very severe shock came on, with a loud and rumbling noise; it sounded at first as if a four-wheeled carriage had driven up to the door, and then the noise appeared to be just under my feet; my chair and the table shook visibly, the mirror of the dressing-glass swung forwards, and two of the doors nearest my chair opened from the shock. The house shook so much, I felt sick and giddy; I thought I should fall if I were to try to walk; I called out many times to my husband, but he was asleep on the sofa in the next room, and heard me not. Not liking it at all, I ran into the next room, and awoke him; as I sat with him on the sofa, it shook very much from another shock, or rather shocks, for there appeared to be many of them; and the table trembled also. My ayah came in from the verandah and said, ‘The river is all in motion, in waves, as if a great wind were blowing against the stream.’ The natives say tiles fell from several houses. A shoeing-horn that was hanging by a string to the side of my dressing-glass, swung backwards and forwards like the pendulum of a clock. The giddy and sick sensation one experiences during the time of an earthquake is not agreeable; we had one in September 1831, but it was nothing in comparison to that we have just experienced. Mr D— and Mr C—, who live nearly three miles off, ran out of their bungalows in alarm.
September 5th – The rain fell in torrents all night; it was delightful to listen to it, sounding as it was caught in the great water jars which are placed all round the house; now and then a badly made jar cracked with a loud report, and out rushed the water, a proof that most of the jars would be full by morning.
From the flat clean pukkā roof of the house the water falls pure and fresh; from the thatch of a bungalow it would be impure. Today it is so dark, so damp, so English, not a glimpse of the sun, a heavy atmosphere and rain still falling delightfully. There is but little cholera now left in the city; this rain will carry it all away.
Our friend Mr S— arrived yesterday: he was robbed ere he quitted Jaunpur of almost all he possessed: the thieves carried off all his property from the bungalow, with the exception of his sola topī, a great broad-brimmed white hat, made of the pith of the sola.
The best sola hats are made in Calcutta; they are very light, and an excellent defence from the sun: the root of which the topī is formed is like pith; it is cut into thin layers, which are pasted together to form the hat. At Meerut they cover them with the skin of the pelican with all its feathers on, which renders it impervious to sun or rain; and the feathers sticking out beyond the rim of the hat give a demented air to the wearer. The pelicans are shot in the Tarāī.
‘Sholā (commonly sola – Aeschynomene paludosa), the wood of which, being very light and spongy, is used by fishermen for floating their nets. A variety of toys, such as artificial birds and flowers, are made of it. Garlands of those flowers are used in marriage ceremonies. When charred it answers the purpose of tinder (Shakespear’s Dictionary).’
How dangerous the banks of the river are at this season! Mr M— lugoed his boats under a bank on the Ganges; during the night a great portion of the bank fell in, swamped the dog-boat, and drowned all the dogs. Our friend himself narrowly escaped: his budjerow (barge) broke from her moorings, and went off into the middle of the stream.
September 19th – The weather killingly hot! I can do nothing but read novels and take lessons on the sitar. I wish you could see my instructor, a native, who is sitting on the ground before me, playing difficult variations, contorting his face and twisting his body into the most laughable attitudes, the man in ecstasies at his own performance!
Consumption of ice
One of the most striking instances of the enterprise of the merchants of the present age is the importation of a cargo of ice into India from the distant shores of America; and it is to be hoped that the experiment having so far succeeded, it will receive sufficient encouragement here to ensure the community in future a constant supply of the luxury. The speculators are Messrs Tudor, Rogers and Austin, the first of whom has been engaged for fifteen or twenty years in furnishing supplies of ice to the southern parts of America and the West Indian islands.
The following particulars will furnish an idea of the plan pursued in this traffic, and of the cost incurred in it:
The ice is cut from the surface of some ponds rented for the purpose in the neighbourhood of Boston and being properly stowed, is then conveyed to an ice-house in the city, where it remains until transported on board the vessel which has to convey it to its destined market. It is always kept packed in nonconducting materials, such as tan, hay and pine boards, and the vessel in which it is freighted has an ice-house built within, for the purpose of securing it from the effects of the atmosphere. The expense to the speculators must be very considerable, when they have to meet the charges of rent for the ponds, wages for superintendents and labourers and agents at the place of sale; erection of ice-houses, transportation of the article from the ponds to the city, thence to the vessel, freight, packing and landing, and the delivery of the article at the icehouse which has been built for it in Calcutta.
The present cargo has arrived without greater wastage than was at first calculated on, and the packing was so well managed to prevent its being affected by the atmosphere that the temperature on board during the voyage was not perceptibly altered. This large importation of ice may probably give rise to experiments to ascertain in what way it may be applied to medicinal uses, as it has already elsewhere been resorted to for such purposes; but the chief interest the community generally will take in it will be the addition it will make to domestic comfort.
September 23rd – Yesterday, at five o’clock, whilst we were at dinner, a flight of locusts came across the Jumna from below the fort. The greater part alighted on our compound: those tha
t did not settle on the ground flew round and round in upper air, while thousands of them descending in streams gave the appearance of a very severe storm of snow falling in large dingy flakes. The air was really darkened; they settled on the thatched roofs of the outhouses, covering them entirely. They were so numerous the whole ground was thickly spread with them. A chaprāsī went out with my butterfly net, and running against the stream of descending locusts, at one attempt caught from twenty to thirty in the net; you may therefore imagine how numerous they were. The bearers ran out, beating brass washhand basins (chilamchis), while others, with frying-pans and pokers, increased the din in order to drive them away, which was not accomplished for half an hour. All the servants, Musalmān and Hindu, were eager to catch them; the two washermen (dhobees) showed the greatest cleverness in the business; holding a sheet spread out between them, they ran against the flight of descending locusts, caught great numbers, folded the sheet quickly up to secure their prizes, and having deposited them in a jar, spread the sheet for more.
My little terrier Fury caught twenty or thirty, if not more, and ate them raw; it was amusing to see her run at the locusts and catch them so cleverly.
The gentlemen rose from table and were well repaid for their trouble, never having seen such a marvellous flight of locusts before.
The khānsāmān Suddu Khān said, ‘In curry they are very good, like prawns, but roasted whole the moment they are caught, they are delicious!’ I desired him to bring some to table, but we had not resolution enough to taste them. Little Fury ate them all most greedily, barking and jumping until she had finished them.