Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India. W. S. R. Hodson
General Napier has written to his brother about me. Scindh has been given over to the Bombay army, so that Sir Charles can't do anything for me, but still the kindness is all the same. Unfortunately, the note reached me three days after Sir Charles left the army to return to Scindh, or I might have had the pleasure of seeing him and speaking to him.
Camp, Moradabad, Rohilcund, April 29th, 1846.
It is time indeed to be getting under cover, for we have been in the thick of the "hot winds." This sounds a very mild word, but you should only just try it! Do you remember ever holding your face over a stove when it was full of fire? and the rush of hot air which choked you? Well, something of that sort, of vast volume and momentum, blowing what they call at sea "half a gale of wind," comes quietly up, at first behind a wall of dust, and then with a roar bursts upon you, scorching you, and shrivelling you up as if you were "a rose that was plucked." It feels as if an invisible, colorless flame was playing over your face and limbs, scorching without burning you, and making your skin and hair crackle and stiffen until you are covered with "crackling" like a hot roast pig. This goes on day after day from about eight or nine o'clock in the morning till sunset; and, accompanied with the full power of the blazing sun of India, produces an amount of heat and dryness almost inconceivable. The only resource is to get behind a tatta (or wet grass mat) hung up at one of the doors of the tent, and to lie on the ground with as little motion as possible, and endeavor to sleep or read it out. Nunc veterum libris, nunc somno et inertibus horis—I cannot go on, for the "sweet forgetfulness" of the past is too much to expect! To-day we have a new nuisance in the shape of a plague of wood-lice; our camp is pitched in an old grove of mango-trees, and is literally swarming with huge pale lice, in numbers numberless. You cannot make a step without slaying them, and they have already (noon) covered the whole sides of the tents, chairs, beds, tables, and everything. But one is really getting used to everything, and I hardly expect to be proud again. Our rest has been terribly destroyed by this last month's marching, the usual hour for the reveille being two a. m., and this morning a quarter to one!! and no power of quizzing can move our worthy major to let us take it easily, though I don't scruple to tell him that he has sold his shadow or his soul to the evil powers, and forfeited the power of sleep, he is such a restless animal! We breakfast at seven, or even a quarter past six, constantly, and dine at seven p. m.; so one has a fair opportunity of practising abstinence, as I rigidly abstain from eating in the mean time, or drinking. After all, it is very healthy weather, and I imagine there is less harm done to the health in the hot winds than even in the cold weather. I have never been so well in India.
Nynee Tal, May 14th, 1846.
I am writing from the last new Hill Station, discovered about three years ago by an adventurous traveller, and now containing forty houses and a bazaar. It is a "tal," or lake, of about a mile in length, lying in a basin of the mountains, about 6,200 feet above the sea; the hills rising about 1,800 feet on all sides of it, and beautifully wooded from their very summits down to the water's brink. How I got here remains to be told. You will remember that I had applied, some time ago, to be transferred to the 1st Bengal European Fusileers. Well, after keeping me in suspense some seven weeks, and sending me the whole way from Lahore to Bareilly in April and May, I received notice that my application was granted, and a civil request to go back again. I had had enough of marching in the plains, and travelling dâk would have been madness for me, so I determined on going up into the hills, and making my way across the mountain ranges to Subathoo, where my regiment is stationed. A good-natured civilian at Bareilly offered to take me with him to this place, from whence I could make a good start. We started on the morning of the 11th, and drove to Rampoor, stayed there till midnight, and then set off for the hills. By daylight we got to the edge of the "Terai," the far-famed hotbed of fever and tigers, swamps and timber, along the whole ridge of the Himalayas, stretching along the plains at their feet in a belt of about twenty miles from the Indus to the Burhampooter. Here we found horses awaiting us, and, mounting at once, started for a ride of twenty-seven miles before breakfast. The first part of the "Terai" is merely a genuine Irish bog, and the oily, watery ditches and starved-looking cows shout out "Fever," on all sides of you. The last ten miles, to the foot of the hills, is through a dense mass of ragged trees in all stages of growth and decay, "horrida, inculta, hirsuta,"—moist, unpleasant, and ugly. At length we reached the first low woody ranges of the hills, and following the dry bed of a mountain stream, by noon we doubled the last ridge, and descended upon our lake. None of these hills are to be compared in beauty with Scotland and Wales, though very fine, and inexpressibly refreshing, almost affecting, after the dead flat we have lived in so long. As soon as my servants arrive, I start hence by myself, through an unfrequented sea of vast mountains, by way of Landour, for Mussoorie, to Simla and Subathoo. It is about 340 miles, and will take me thirty-two or thirty-four days to accomplish. I mean to take no pony, but trust that my old powers of walking and endurance will revive in the mountain air.
CHAPTER III.
FIRST BENGAL EUROPEAN FUSILEERS.—LAWRENCE ASYLUM.—APPOINTMENT TO GUIDE CORPS.
Subathoo, June 16th, 1846.
When I wrote to you last from Sireenuggur, I hoped to have been able to reach this place by way of the hills and Simla; but, before I got to Mussoorie, the early setting in of the rains made it so difficult and unpleasant (and likely to be dangerous) to get on, that, after spending two days there, I rode down to Deyra Dhoon, and came dâk through Saharunpoor and Umbâla to Kalka, at the foot of these hills, where I found my beast awaiting my arrival, and mounted the seventeen miles of hill at once. Here I am, at last, with my own regiment, and with the prospect of being quiet for four months. I am eighth Second Lieutenant; a distinguished position (is it not?) at the age of five-and-twenty. The campaign, I am sorry to say, did me no good in the way of promotion, owing to my not having been "posted" permanently before it commenced.
Subathoo, July 3d, 1846.
I hope you will congratulate me on getting into my present splendid corps, the 1st Fusileers, now, alas, a mere shadow of what it was six months ago. We could only muster 256 men under arms when we were inspected by Sir R. Gilbert on the 1st; but, then, there was a most picturesque body of convalescents present with their empty sleeves, pale faces, and crutches, but looking proudly conscious of their good conduct, and ready "to do it again." We are under much stricter discipline in this corps, both officers and men, and obliged to be orderly and submissive. No bad thing for us either. I hold there is more real liberty in being under a decent restraint than in absolute freedom from any check. I have been much more reconciled to India since I joined this regiment. It is pleasant to have white faces about one, and hear one's own tongue spoken; and then, besides, there is a home-loving feeling in this corps which I have never met with in India. I believe we would each and all migrate to England, if we had our own way.
To his Father.
Simla, Sept. 2d, 1846.
I came here on the 31st for a week, to stay with Major Lawrence (now a Colonel and C. B.), who dined and slept with me at Subathoo last week, and pressed me to come here. I am nothing loth, as I like him amazingly, and value his friendship very much, and pick up a great deal of information as to India, and Indians black and white. He has kindly offered to take me with him for a tour through Jullunder Doâb, and up to Jummoo, Rajah Gholab Singh's camp and court. He says he can give or get me leave to accompany him. My colonel says he won't give any one leave after the 14th of this month. Which is right remains to be seen, but I think you may calculate that the "Agent to the Governor-General" will prevail, and I shall see Jummoo.
I am now writing in his room with the incessant entrances and exits of natives—rajahs, princes, vakeels, &c. &c., and officers civil and military; and the buzz of business and confusion of tongues, black and white, learned and unlearned, on all subjects, political, religious (at this minute they are disputing what "the Church" means), and military, so that I am tolerably puzzled. I have been taking a tremendously long walk this morning about the hills and valleys, with Mr. and Mrs. Currie, and enjoying the beauties of Simla.
Simla,