Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin Part 35

_'Ferooz.'--Gulf of Suez.--February 9th._--When I got on board this morning my heart smote me a little for having discouraged your coming out with me, for nothing can be more comfortable than this s.h.i.+p has been made, with a view to the accommodation of poor Lady Canning and you. _Eight P.M._--It is very lonely to be spending this Sunday evening by myself, after the many happy ones I have enjoyed with you and the children during the past three months; and yet I would not forego the recollection of those happy days though it deepens the gloom of the present. Surely, whatever may happen to us all, it is something gained to have this retrospect in store.

[Sidenote: Old MSS.]

_February 12th._--Going on as smoothly as ever.... I have been reading over some old ma.n.u.script books, written from twenty to twenty-five years ago, and containing a record of my thoughts and doings at that remote time. It is very interesting and useful to look back. I was working very hard during those years, searching after truth and right, with no positive occupation but that of managing the Broomhall affairs, and riding at a sort of single anchor with politics. Would it have been better for me if I had had more engrossing positive work?

There is something to be said on both sides in answering that question. However, these books will not be again read by me, for I shall consign them to the Red Sea.

_February 13th._--The breeze is freshening and dead ahead.... I have been thinking of the past, and remembering that just twenty years ago, at this same season, I set out on my first visit to the Tropics. What a strange career it has been! How grateful I should be to Providence for the protection I have enjoyed! How wild it seems, to be about, at the close of twenty years, to begin again.

[Sidenote: A gale.]

_Sunday, February 16th._--A bad time since I last wrote. We have had a very strong gale.... There is less motion to-day, probably because we are under the lee of the Arabian coast. I could not wish that you had been with me while we were undergoing this misery; and we have made slow progress, but may reach Aden to-morrow. It has been a sad time.... I could not read, and have been lying down, thinking over so many things!... But there may, please G.o.d, be a good time beyond. I have been thinking of the little party in your room on this day, and endeavouring to join with you all.

[Sidenote: A moonlight night.]

_February 19th.--Gulf of Aden.--Seven A.M._--I have just had my first walk on deck for this day. It is fine, and the head wind keeps up a cool draught of air for us. The night was pleasant and cool, and I spent an hour before I went to bed, walking up and down the bridge, between the paddle-boxes, looking at a great moon, a little past the full, climbing up the heavens before us, and (as Coleridge says, I think in the notes to the _Ancient Mariner_, of the stars) entering unannounced among the groups of stars as a guest certainly expected --and yet there is a silent joy on her arrival.

_February 27th.--Near Ceylon._--According to the account of our captain, who hails from Bombay, the Governor there must be very well off as regards climate. He has the sea air at Bombay itself; 2,000 feet of elevation at Poonah; and 5,000 on a mountain accessible in two days from Bombay. So that his family may always live in a cool climate, and he can join them when business permits. Perhaps at some future time the convenience of the situation of Bombay, its greater vicinity to England, &c., may place the Governor-General there; but this will not happen in our time.

[Sidenote: White ants.]

As I went into my cabin yesterday before dinner, I observed a swarm of white flies with long wings, by the side of one of my open ports. I found out that they were white ants which had burst through the wood- work, and which seem to be provided with wings under such circ.u.mstances, in order that they may migrate. The wood-work inside near the place from which they burst out, was completely destroyed by them, and reduced to a pulp. It appears that there are quant.i.ties of these creatures in this s.h.i.+p. It is believed that they are only in the scantling or upper wood-work. It is to be hoped that this may be so; for they devour timber with wonderful rapidity, and s.h.i.+ps have been lost by their eating away portions under water.

[Sidenote: Madras.]

_March 7th.--Madras._--Reached the anchorage at 4.30 P.M. We soon got into one of the country boats made for landing in the surf (without nails, and all the planks sewn together). We were hoisted by the waves upon the beach, and found there a considerable crowd, with the Governor, Sir W. Denison; Sir H. Grant, etc., and a guard of honour, to receive us; Sir W.D. drove me out to this place, Guindy, which is about eight miles from the town, and consists of a charming airy house, in a large park. There was a full-dress dinner party and reception last night.... I have decided to proceed to Calcutta to- morrow.

_'Ferooz.'--March 9th.--Sunday._--It was very hot during the service under the awning. But you and the little ones were remembered on this sweltering Bengal sea.... My visit to Madras was pleasant, and an agreeable change.... And I collected there papers and official doc.u.ments enough to keep me going till I reach Calcutta.

[Sidenote: Calcutta.]

[Sidenote: Installation.]

It was on the evening of March 11th that the 'Ferooz' anch.o.r.ed in 'Diamond Harbour,' the same anchorage at which, in the 'Shannon,' he had spent the night of August 8, 1857. The following day he was formally installed as Viceroy and Governor-General; receiving every kindness from Lord Canning, whom he describes as not looking so ill as he expected to find him, 'but,'

he adds, 'those about him say he is far from right in health.' Six days later Lord Canning took his departure, and Lord Elgin was left to enter upon his new duties.

[Sidenote: Death of Mr. Ritchie.]

He had not been a fortnight in office when the uncertainty of life in Calcutta was brought home to him in a striking and ominous manner by the sudden death of an esteemed member of his Legislative Council, Mr. Ritchie.

Writing on March 23 to Sir Charles Wood, who was then Secretary of State for India, he said:--

We are truly here in the case of the women grinding at the mill. Who would have supposed a few days ago that poor Ritchie would have been the first summoned? About two days before Canning's departure, I asked him to come and see me; he talked with me for an hour. In the evening a note was received from his wife to say that they could not dine at Government House, as he was seriously indisposed. He appears to have felt the first symptom of his malady while he was sitting with me.

This afternoon I attend his funeral. He is a great loss; he seems to have been very much liked and esteemed.

The death of Mr. Ritchie, followed by the appointment of Sir B. Frere to the Government of Bombay, the promotion of Mr. Beadon to the Lieutenant- Governors.h.i.+p of Bengal, and the retirement of Mr. Laing owing to ill health, left only Sir R. Napier remaining of the five members of Council whom Lord Elgin found in office; and, though the vacant places were soon afterwards most ably filled, the change of councillors necessarily added to the labours of a new Governor-General. He did not, however, during the first comparatively cool months, find the work too much for him. 'On the contrary,' he wrote, 'time would be heavy on hand if I had not enough to fill it.'

[Sidenote: Mode of Life.]

The days (he wrote to Lady Elgin) are very uniform in their round of occupations, so I have little to record that is interesting. As long as one has health, it is easy to do a good deal of work here, because for twelve hours in the day (from 6 A.M. to 6 P.M.) there is no inducement to leave the house. I have hitherto had a little exercise before and after those hours. I rush into the garden when I awake, and return when the sun appears, glowing and angry, above the horizon.

In another letter he describes the plan, characteristic of his sociable and genial temperament, which he adopted in order at once to get through his work, and to obtain a competent knowledge of persons whose opinions were worth having.

I have two or three people to dine with me on every day on which I have not a great dinner. By this means I get acquainted with individuals, and if my bees have any honey in them I extract it at the moment of the day when it is most gus.h.i.+ng.[2] It is very convenient, besides, because it enables me to converse by candlelight with persons who want to talk to me about their private affairs, instead of wasting daylight upon them. Unless I get out of sorts, I hope to become personally acquainted in this way with everyone, whose views may be useful to me, before I leave Calcutta, even to go to Barrackpore.

As the season went on, the heat became greater. 'For the last few days,' he wrote on June 1, 'it has been _very_ hot; quite as hot, they say, as it ever is. I am longing for the rains, which are to cool us, I am told.' The rains came, and, so long as they continued to fall, the temperature was lower: but 'the heavy, dull, damp, calm heat between the falls,' he found most trying.

[Sidenote: Death of Lord Canning.]

On July 6 came a fresh shock to his feelings--a fresh omen of evil to himself--in a telegraphic report of the death of the friend whose place he had so recently taken. At first he could hardly bring himself to credit the news.

Is it indeed true (he wrote to Lady Elgin)? The last rumour of the kind was the report of my death, when I was mistaken for Eglinton; but this time I fear it is only too true! It will add to the alarm which India inspires. But poor Canning certainly never gave himself a good chance; at least not during the last year or two of his reign here. He took no exercise, and not even such relaxation of the mind as was procurable, though that is not much in the situation of Governor- General. When I told him that I should ask two or three people to dine with me daily, in order to get acquainted with all the persons I ought to know, and to talk matters over with them by candlelight, so as to save daylight for other work, he said: 'I was always so tired by dinner-time that I could not speak.' Perhaps he was only referring to his later experience; but still it was enough to break down any const.i.tution, to wear oneself out for ever by the same train of thought, and the same routine of business. I think there was more in all this than met the eye, for work alone could not have done it. We shall have no confirmation of this rumour in letters for a fortnight or more.... Poor Canning! He leaves behind him sincere friends, but no one who was much dependent on him.

In another letter he wrote:--

So Canning and his wife, as Dalhousie and his, have fallen victims to India! Both however ruled here in stirring times, and accomplished great things, playing their lives against a not unworthy stake. I do not think that their fate is to be deplored.

A few days later he wrote from Barrackpore, where he had gone to seek the change of air which his health now began imperatively to require:--

This place looks wonderfully green. At the end of the broad walk on which I am gazing from my window, is Lady Canning's grave; it is not yet properly finished. Who will attend to it now? Meanwhile, it gives a melancholy character to the place, for the walk which it closes is literally the only private walk in the grounds. The flower garden, park, &c., are all open to the public.... Although Canning did not die at his post, I thought it right, as his death took place so soon after his departure from India, to recognise it officially, which I did by a public notification, and by directing a salute of minute guns to be fired.

While still oppressed with these sad thoughts, he received a blow which went even deeper home, in the intelligence of the death of his brother Robert, so well-known and so highly valued as Governor of the Prince of Wales.

[Sidenote: Death of General Bruce.]

_Barrackpore.--July 26th._--I went into Calcutta on the morning of the 23rd, in time to write by the afternoon packet; but I did not write, for I was met on my arrival by a telegraphic rumour, which quite overwhelmed me.... I should hardly have allowed myself to believe that the sad report could be true, had it not been for the account of Robert's illness, which your last letters had conveyed to me.... Next day another telegram by the Bombay mail of the July 3rd left no doubt as to the name.... A week, however, must elapse before letters arrive with, the intelligence.... I hurried over my business, and came back here yesterday evening. It is more quiet than Calcutta; and sad, with its _one_ walk terminating (as I have told you) at Lady Canning's grave. Poor Robert, how little did I think when we parted that I was never to see him again! How little at least, that he would be the defaulter! He has left few equals behind him: so true, so upright, so steady in his principles, and so winning in his manners. Of late years we have been much apart, but for very many we were closely together, and perhaps no two brothers were ever more mutually helpful. Strange, that with Frederick and me in these regions, he should have been carried off first, by a malady which belongs to them.[3]... I write at random and confusedly, for I have nothing to guide me but that one word. And yet how much in that one word! It tells me that I have lost a wise counsellor in difficulties; a stanch friend in prosperity and adversity; one on whom, if anything had befallen myself, I could always have relied to care for those left behind me. It tells, too, of the dropping of a link of that family chain which has always been so strong and unbroken.

In writing to his second boy he touched the same chords in a different tone.

You have lost (he said) a kind and good uncle, and a kind and good G.o.dfather, and you are now the only Robert Bruce in the family. It is a good name, and you must try and bear it n.o.bly and bravely, as those who have borne it before you have done. If you look at their lives you will see that they always considered in the first place what they ought to do, and only in the second what it might be most pleasant and agreeable to do. This is the way to steer a straight course through life, and to meet the close of it, as your dear Uncle did, with a smile on his lips.

[Sidenote: The hot season.]

From this time his journal contains more and more frequent notices of the oppressive heat of the weather, and its effects upon his own health and comfort. He remained, however, at his post at Calcutta, with the exception of a brief stay at a bungalow lent to him by Mr. Beadon at Bhagulpore; his pleasantest occupation being the arrangement of plans for smoothing the path of Lady Elgin, who had settled to join him in India.

_August 2nd._--Yesterday, I received your letter, with all the sad details.... It was truly a lovely death, in harmony with the life that preceded it.... It is indeed a heavy blow to all.... This is a sad letter, but my heart is heavy. It is difficult to make plans, with such a break-down of human hopes in possession of all my thoughts.

_Calcutta.--August 8th._--It is now dreadfully hot.... In search of something to stay my gasping, I mounted on to the roof of the house this morning, to take my walk there, instead of in my close garden, where there are low shrubs which give no shade, but exclude the breeze. I made nothing, however, by my motion, for no air was stirring even there. I had a solitary and ghastly stroll on the leads, surrounded by the _adjutants_,--a sort of hideous and filthy vulture.

They do the work of scavengers in Calcutta, and are ready to treat one as a nuisance, if they had a chance.... There is much sickness here now.

_August 9th._--... The 'Ferooz' will not reach Suez till about the middle of November, so you had better not arrive there till after that time. You will have the best season for the voyage, and time to rest here before we go up the country.

_Calcutta.--August 17th._--... I told you that I was feeling the weather.... I am going to-morrow for change of air, to a place about 300 miles from Calcutta, on the railway. It is not cooler, but drier, and the doctor strongly recommends the change. This is our worst season, and I suppose we may expect six weeks more of it. If this change is not enough, I may perhaps try and get a steamer, and go over to Burmah. But there is some difficulty in this at present.

[Sidenote: Bhagulpore.]

_Bhagulpore.--August 19th._--We made out our journey to this place very well yesterday. The morning was cloudy, with drizzling rain, and much cooler than usual, and we had the great advantage of little sun and no dust all day. At the station of Burdwan, the inhabitants of the station, some of them ladies, met us, and in a very polite manner presented flowers. We kept our time pretty well in our special train, and reached our abode at about 7 P.M. The air here is sensibly fresher than at Calcutta.... The house is a regular bungalow,--a cottage, all on the ground-floor. It is situated on a mound overlooking the Ganges.

There is no garden about it, but a gra.s.s field, with a few trees here and there. Between the window at which I am writing and the river is an open shed, in which two elephants are switching their tails, and knocking about the hay which has been given them for their breakfast.

This is a much more quiet and rural place than any which I have visited since I have been in India; for Barrackpore is a great military station, and the park, &c., there are quite public. Here there are not altogether above five or six European families.... We have a train twice a day from Calcutta, so I can get my boxes as regularly as I do there.