style="font-size:15px;"> "'Oh, what a heavy bag! No, it is an elephant;He is an awful weight.
Let us throw his palki down, Let us set him in the mud-- Let us leave him to his fate. Ay, but he will beat us then With a thick stick.
Then let's make haste and get along, Jump along quickly!'
[Pg 23]"And off they started in a jog-trot, which must have shaken every bone in his reverence's body, keeping chorus all the time of
'Jump along quickly,' until they were obliged to stop for laughing.
"They invariably (continues Lola) suit these extempore chants to the weight and character of their burden. I remember to have been exceedingly amused one day at the merry chant of my human horses as they started off on the run.
"'She's not heavy, Cabbada [take care]! Little baba [missie], Cabbada!
Carry her swiftly,
Cabbada! Pretty baba, Cabbada!'
"And so they went on, singing and extemporising for the whole hour and a half 's journey. It is quite a common custom to give them four annas (or English sixpence) apiece at the end of every stage, when fresh horses [sic] are put under the burden; but a gentleman of my acquaintance, who had been carried too slowly, as he thought, only gave them two annas apiece. The consequence was that during the next stage the men not only went faster, but they made him laugh with their characteristic song, the whole burden of which was: 'He has only given them two annas, because they went slowly; let us make haste, and get along quickly, and then we shall get eight annas, and have a good supper.'"
The burden of the European's life in India at this period is voiced in "Marois'" poem, The Long, Long,[Pg 24] Indian Day. It was the empire of ennui. A strongly puritanical tone, too, was observable in certain influential circles, and the clergy frequently discountenanced and condemned the poor efforts at relaxation made by officers and their wives. Dances and amateur theatricals were often the subject of censure from the pulpit. So the men fell back on brandy pawnee, loo, and tiger-shooting. The women were worse
off. To the Honourable Emily Eden we are indebted for some vivid pictures of Anglo-Indian society during the viceroyalty of her brother, Lord Auckland (1836-1842). They enable us to realise Lola's emotions and manner of life during her second visit to India. Miss Eden's compassionate interest was excited by
"a number of young ladies just come out by the last ships, looking so fresh and English, and longing to amuse themselves--and it must be such a bore at that age to be shut up for twenty-three hours out of the twenty-four; and the one hour that they are out is only an airing just where the roads are watered. They have no gardens, no villages, no poor people, no schools, no poultry to look after--none of the occupations of young people. Very few of them are at ease with their parents; and, in short, it is a melancholy sight to see a new young arrival."
Another passage runs:--
"It is a melancholy country for wives at the best, and I strongly advise you never to let young girls marry an East Indian. There was a pretty Mrs. ---- dining here yesterday, quite a child in looks, who married just before the Repulse sailed, and landed here about ten
10
days ago. She goes on next week to Neemuch, a place at the farthest extremity of India, where there[Pg 25] is not another European woman, and great part of the road to it is through jungle, which is only passable occasionally from its unwholesomeness. She detests what she has seen of India, and evidently begins to think 'papa and mamma' were right in withholding for a year their consent to her marriage. I think she wishes they had held out another month. There is another, Mrs. ----, who is only fifteen, who married when we were at the Cape, ... and went straight on to her husband's station, where for five months she had never seen a European. He was out surveying all day, and they lived in a tent. She has utterly lost her health and spirits, and though they have come down here for three weeks' furlough, she has never been able even to call here [at Government House]. He came to make her excuse, and said, with
a deep sigh: 'Poor girl! she must go back to her solitude. She hoped she could have gone out a little in Calcutta, to give her something to think of.' And then, if these poor women have children, they must send them away just as they become amusing. It is an abomina-ble place."
This was not realised at once by Mrs. James, whose first season (she tells us) was passed "in the gay and fashionable city of Calcutta." There she became an acknowledged beauty. Not long after the outbreak of the first Afghan War she was torn away from the com-parative brilliance of the capital, and accompanied her husband most reluctantly, to Karnal, a town between Delhi and Simla, on the Jumna Canal. The place is no longer a military station. At this juncture, happily for us, a flood of light is poured upon Lola's character and history by the letters of Miss Eden, dated from Simla and Karnal in the latter part of the year 1839. I include some extracts not directly relating to Lola, as they describe scenes in which she must have taken[Pg 26] part, and which formed the background against which she moved.
"Sunday, 8th September [1839].
"Simla is much moved just now by the arrival of a Mrs. J[ames], who has been talked of as a great beauty of the year, and that drives every other woman, with any pretensions in that line, quite distracted, with the exception of Mrs. N., who, I must say, makes no fuss about her own beauty, nor objects to it in other people. Mrs. J[ames] is the daughter of a Mrs. C[raigie], who is still very handsome herself, and whose husband is Deputy-Adjutant-General, or some military authority of that kind. She sent this only child to be educated at home, and went home herself two years ago to see her. On the same ship was Mr. J., a poor ensign, going home on sick leave. Mrs. C. nursed him and took care of him, and took him to see her daughter, who was a girl of fifteen [sic] at school. He told her he was engaged to be married, consulted her about his prospects, and in the meantime privately married this girl at school. It
was enough to provoke any mother, but as it now cannot be helped, we have all been trying to persuade her for the last year to make it up, as she frets dreadfully about her only child. She has withstood it till now, but at last consented to ask them for a month, and they arrived three days ago. The rush on the road was remarkable, and one or two of the ladies were looking absolutely nervous. But nothing could be more unsatisfactory than the result, for Mrs. James looked lovely, and Mrs. Craigie had set up for her a very grand jonpaun [kind of sedan-chair], with bearers in fine orange and brown liveries, and the same for herself; and James is a sort of smart-looking man, with bright waistcoats and bright teeth, with a showy horse, and he rode along in an attitude of respectful attention to ma belle mere. Altogether it was an imposing sight, and I cannot see any way out of it[Pg 27] but magnanimous admiration. They all called yesterday when I was at the waterfalls, and F[anny] thought her very pretty."
"Tuesday, 10th September.
"We had a dinner yesterday. Mrs. James is undoubtedly very pretty, and such a merry, unaffected girl. She is only seventeen now [twenty-one, in fact], and does not look so old, and when one thinks that she is married to a junior lieutenant in the Indian army fifteen years older than herself, and that they have 160 rupees a month, and are to pass their whole lives in India, I do not wonder at Mrs. Craigie's resentment at her having run away from school.
"There are seventeen more officers come up to Simla on leave for a month, partly in the hope of a little gaiety at the end of the rains; and then the fancy fair has had a great reputation since last year, and as they will all spend money, they are particularly welcome....
"Wednesday, 11th September.
"We had a large party last night, the largest we have had in Simla, and it would have been a pretty ball anywhere, there were so many pretty people. The retired
