of insects of all sizes swarm, jumping and flying about the lamps, of all colours, green, yellow, blue; and many of them sting, whilst others smell most abominably.
Every morning the mollie, or gardener, brings in a basket of vegetables for us to look at, and select what we shall require for the day's consumption. The cold weather here begins about the middle of October, generally on the 15th, and we are all looking very anxiously for it; but by cold I mean only such a lower degree of heat as will enable us to go out in the middle of the day (provided we carry a great parasol), which we cannot do now.
At a dinner-party every one brings his or her own table servant. This assemblage has a very pretty appearance: the ladies are all in white dresses and short sleeves, and the gentlemen in white jackets and trowsers, except the Major and myself; he wears a red jacket, and I a black cassock. Behind each chair stands a dark-brown man with long black beard and mustachios, dressed in a sort of white tunic and a white turban, with a coloured sash wound several times round the waist. As it would be the greatest mark of disrespect for a servant to appear in the presence of his master with covered feet, they all leave their shoes outside the door. After the meat is cleared away, before the puddings are brought in, the servants go out and smoke for five minutes. There is not a man, either Mussulman or Hindoo, except of the very lowest caste, who would eat anything that came from the table of a European. They would consider it a degradation, and would not even drink out of anything we had ever used, or touch what we had cooked. The Hindoos eat only once a-day, unless on their grand feasts. Their food then is boiled rice, with perhaps an onion and a little spice in it, which they eat with their hands.
The language of this country, though confessedly a compound of two or three Eastern tongues, appears to me to have many remains of what must have been the original language of man, that is to say, those which must have existed from the very earliest time bear a close propinquity to the words of other and later languages. Several instances which came under my notice bear out this opinion.
It is curious to observe how the different castes or ranks here keep distinct, and it is this which renders so many servants necessary. The man who lays the cloth would feel degraded by dusting a chair, and he who dusts the chair would rather leave his place than dust the room. Again, two men of different castes will neither eat, drink, nor sleep together. Their bed is a mere mat, which explains well that saying of our Saviour, "Take up thy bed and walk."
The other day my basin had not been emptied. I told the carah of it, whose business it is to attend to my apartment, and he went a hundred or more yards to call the matee, because it would have been beneath his dignity to throw the water out into the adjoining bath-room. The men here are a sadly idle set; they make almost slaves of their wives. Early in the morning we may see troops of women going out into the jungle, from which they return in the evening with great fagots of wood; these fagots are about twelve feet in length, and in the middle quite two in thickness, and are carried on the head. The poor creatures are obliged continually to stop and rest.
The higher classes of the natives wear a kind of loose white gown, down to the knees, and very loose trowsers, also white embroidered slippers, no stockings, and a white turban. The lower classes wear nothing but a long white cloth tied round their hips.
Every one here, both native and European, takes a cold bath at least once a-day. When a native dies his body is burnt, and to make the funeral pile every native keeps four or five large trees growing in his garden. As soon as he dies, one, or two, or three trees, according to the man's rank, are cut down and surrounded with a great quantity of dry stubble, on which the body is placed. Formerly, his wife was burnt alive at the same time. This was called a sati. There are a great many tombs of holy men about the country, and on these the people throw little wooden images. There is one tomb here on which are placed two large dumb-bells, and the people imagine that every Sunday night the man who is buried there rises up and plays with them. There is one very disagreeable custom here, which exists more or less all over India; it is called dustoorie. Whenever anything is bought, for every rupee that is paid the seller is obliged to give the servant of the purchaser two pice; so that the more he has to buy, the better it is for the servant; and if a master were to say he would not allow dustoorie, no native would enter his service.
I have just been to look at the man who is making me some white jackets. The women here never do any needlework. The men sit down on the floor, and hold the work between the great toe and the next.
I was the other day in want of a sheet of pith, on which to fasten some butterflies, and, going into my dressing-room, where I knew I had left four pieces on a shelf only the day before, I found them apparently in good condition; but, on taking them up, discovered them to be only so much dust. I then examined the other things upon the shelf, and found them to be in the same state. This was the work of the white ant, which was swarming about. I called the carah and sent him to the bazaar, or the place where all the little shops are, and told him to procure me sixteen pice worth of turpentine, and when it was brought I spread it over the shelf, and, soaking into the wood, it destroyed the ants. If let alone they would, in about two days, have eaten the chest of drawers, all my clothes, and everything in the room. I have just been engaged in catching with a green net on the end of the bamboo a most beautiful swallow-tailed butterfly, and in doing so frightened away a jackal, who was so impertinent as to intrude into the compound in the middle of the day.
Midnapore, November 11, 1842
A friend has just made me a present of a very small kind of monkey, about nine inches high, of a light-brown colour. His antics are often very amusing. I fasten him by a chain to a thick pole in the compound, at the top of which is his house. He will sometimes turn his waterpot upside down and sit on it in the gravest possible manner. He will then perhaps stoop down and gather a blade of grass, and examine it as attentively as though he were inquiring to what species and genus it belonged. Perhaps by this time several large knowing-looking crows, something like English magpies, will have collected round him, holding their heads on one side and looking as if they were listening very attentively to his lecture on botany. Presently you would see the sly little monkey turn his eye to see how near they are, and then with one bound he will catch hold of the nearest crow by the neck; but the crow is the stronger of the two and always gets away safe. These crows are as common as sparrows and quite as tame, for they will hop into the verandah and pick up anything the parrots drop. We have two parrots; they are of a kind very common here; so I told a man to go out and catch me a couple, as I wanted to teach them to talk. He did so, and they are now getting very tame. I gave him a few pice for his trouble. They are of a kind that I do not remember ever to have seen in England. The upper mandible is red, the lower black. From the lower mandible extends on each side a broad black stripe, to where we suppose the ears to be; and there is another black stripe from one eye to the other. These stripes give the bird a very peculiar appearance. The upper circle resembles a pair of tortoiseshell spectacles.
I had a young hyæna given to me, which I made every endeavour to tame, giving him milk and food, but nevertheless as soon as I approached he flew at me. As he has scarcely any teeth I did not fear him, but took him in my arms, being careful to keep a tight hold on his neck. He slept during the day, but showed an inclination to go out at night, but, not being permitted to do so, continued making the most extraordinary noises resembling the sobbing of a child in pain. The servants were all afraid of him. Having kept us awake that night, I resolved the next to try him outside the house, and accordingly, fastening him up, I gave him a box to sleep in. The next morning I found he was dead. The servants declared he had been killed by a pack of jackals, but I shrewdly suspected they themselves to have been guilty.
The other day I caught one of those beautiful little squirrels which I have before described. It is grey, with a broad yellow stripe down each side. The body is about as big as my thumb, and the tail the size of my middle finger. I borrowed a common squirrel's cage, but the little thing was so small that it immediately struggled through the wires, and the mungoose, perceiving it, killed and devoured
