Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV.
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She slept—and never woke again. At the close of an hour or two, her anxious husband, finding she had not stirred, gently and silently approached the bedside, and took into his own the fair hand lying on the coverlid, to ascertain whether fever had ensued. Fever? It was already cold with the damps of death!
Imagine, if you can, the agony and self-reproach of that bereaved man! Again and again did he revile himself as her murderer; accusing himself—her father—her sister—the whole world. At one moment, he fancied that her condition had not been properly treated by her attendants; at another, that the medical man ought not to have left the house. Nay, hours and hours after she was gone for ever—after the undertakers had commenced their hideous preparations—even while she lay stretched before him, white and cold as marble, he persisted that life might be still recalled; and, but for the better discrimination of those around him, would have insisted on attempts at resuscitation, calculated only to disturb, almost sacrilegiously, the sound peace of the dead!
I was one of the first to learn the heart-rending news of this beloved being's untimely end; for my old woman having asked permission to remain with her through the night, (explaining the exigency of the case,) I could not forbear hurrying to the house as soon as it was day, in the hope of hearing she was a happy mother. Somehow or other, I had never contemplated an unfavourable result. The idea of death never presented itself to me in common with any thing so young and fair; and as I walked through the park, and crossed the bridge, with the white cheerful mansion before me, and the morning sun shining full upon its windows, I thought how gladsome it looked, but could not forbear feeling that, even with the prospect of losing it—even with the certainty of beggary, Everard, as a husband and father, was the fellow most to be envied upon earth!
I reached the house, and the old man who answered my ring at the office entrance, was speechless from tears. Though usually hard as iron, he sobbed as if his heart would break. I asked to speak with Barbara—with my housekeeper. He told me I could not—that she was "busy laying out the body." I was answered. That dreadful word told me all—I had no more questions to ask. I cared not who survived, or what became of the survivors. And as I turned sickening away, to bend my steps homewards, I remember wondering how that fair spring morning could shine so bright and auspiciously, when she was gone from us. It seemed to triumph in our loss! Alas! it shone to welcome a new angel to the kingdom of our Father who is in heaven!
Suddenly it struck me, that I, too, had a duty to perform. In that scanty household there was no one to take thought of the common forms of life; so I hastened to the rectory, to suggest to our good pastor a visit of consolation to the house of mourning, and acquaint his sisters with its forlorn condition. Like myself, they began exclaiming, "Alas! alas! It was but the other day that"–reverting to all the acts of charity and girlish graces of that dear departed Mary Stanley, who had been among us as the shadow of a dream.
Before I left the rectory, Dr Whittingham had issued his orders; and lo! as I proceeded homewards, with a heavy step and a heavier heart, the sound of the passing bell from Lexley church pursued me with its measured toll, till I could scarcely refrain from sitting me down by the wayside, and weeping my very soul away.
On reaching the lane I have so often described as skirting the gardens of the old Hall, I noticed, through the palisades, a person, probably one of the gardeners, sauntering along Lady Robert's favourite yew-walk. No! on a nearer approach, I saw, and almost shuddered to see, that it was General Stanley himself (who, I fancied, had accompanied his son-in-law to town) taking an early walk, to enjoy the sweetness of that delicious morning.
As I drew nearer, I averted my head. At that moment I had not courage to look him in the face. I could scarcely suppose him ignorant of what had occurred; and, if aware of the sad event, his obduracy was unmanly to a degree that filled me with disgust. But just as I came opposite the iron gates, he hailed me by name—more familiarly and courteously than he was wont—to ask whether I came from the village, and for whose death they were tolling?
If worlds had depended on my answer, I could not have uttered a word! But I conclude that, catching sight of my troubled face and swollen eyelids, the General supposed I had lost some near and dear friend; for, instead of renewing his question, he merely touched his hat, and passed on, leaving me to proceed in my turn. But the spectacle of my profound affliction probably excited his curiosity; for I found afterwards, that, instead of pursuing his walk, he returned straight to the house, and addressed the enquiry which had so distressed me, to others having more courage to reveal the fatal truth. I believe it was the old family butler, who abruptly answered—"For my poor young lady, General—for the sweetest angel that ever trod the earth!"
For my part, I wonder the announcement did not strike him to the earth! But he heard it without apparent emotion; like a man who, having already sustained the worst affliction this world can afford, has no sensibility for further trials. Still the intelligence was not ineffective. Without pausing an instant for reflection, or the indulgence of his feelings, he set forth on foot to Lexley Park. With his hat pulled over his eyes, and a determined air, rather as if about to execute an act of vengeance than offer a tardy tribute of tenderness to his victim, he hurried to the house—commanded the startled old servant to show him the way to her room—entered it—and knelt down beside the bed on which she lay, with her dead infant on her arm, asking her forgiveness, and the forgiveness of God, as humbly as though he were not the General Stanley proverbial for implacability and pride.
Old Barbara, who had not quitted the room, assured me it was a heart-breaking sight to behold that white head bowed down in agony upon the cold feet of his child. For he felt himself unworthy to press her helpless hand to his lips, or remove the cambric from her face, but called, in broken accents, upon the name of Mary! his child! his darling! addressing her rather with the fondling terms bestowed upon girlhood than as a woman—a wife—a mother!
"But a more affecting story still," said the old woman, "was to see that Mr Everard took no more heed of the General's sudden entrance than though it were a thing to be looked for. He seemed neither to hear his exclamations nor perceive his distress." Poor gentleman! His haggard eyes were fixed, his mind bewildered, his hopes blasted for ever, his life a blank. He neither answered when spoken to, nor even spoke, when the good rector, according to his promise, came to announce that he had dispatched the fatal intelligence by express to his family, beseeching his instructions concerning the steps to be taken for the burial of the dead.
But why afflict you and myself by recurring to these melancholy details! Suffice it, that this dreadful blow effected what nothing else on earth could have effected in the mind of General Stanley. Humbled to the dust, even the arrival of the once despised owner of Lexley Park did not drive him from the house. He asked his pity—he asked his pardon. Beside the coffin of his daughter he expressed all the compunction a generous-hearted and broken-hearted man could express; and all he asked in return, was leave to lay her poor head in the grave of her ancestors.
No one opposed his desire. The young widower had not as much consciousness left as would have enabled him to utter the negative General Stanley seemed prepared to expect; and as to his father, about to abandon Lexley for ever, to what purpose erect a family vault in a church which neither he nor his were ever likely to see again?
To the chapel at Stanley Manor, accordingly, were the mother and child removed. The General wrote expressly to forbid his son-in-law and Selina returning to the Hall, on pretence of sustaining him in his affliction. He chose to give way to it; he chose to be alone with his despair.
Never shall I forget the day that mournful funeral procession passed through the village! Young and old came forth weeping to their doors to bid her a last farewell; even as they used to come and exchange smiles with her, in those happy days when life lay before her, bright—hopeful—without a care—without a responsibility. I had intended to pay him the same respect. I meant, indeed, to have followed the hearse, at an humble distance, to its final destination. But when I rose that morning a sudden weakness came upon me, and I was unable to quit my room. I, so strong, so hardy, who have passed through life without sickness or doctor, was as powerless that day as an infant.
It was from the good rector, therefore, I heard how the General (on whom, in consequence of the precarious condition of the afflicted husband, devolved the task of chief mourner) sustained his carriage to perform with dignity and propriety his duty to the dead. As he followed the coffin through the churchyard, crowded by his old pensioners—many of them praying on their knees as it passed—his step was as firm and his brow as erect as though at the head of his regiment. It was not till all was over—the mournful ceremony done, the crowd dispersed, the funeral array departed—that having descended into the vault, ere the stone was rolled to the door of the sepulchre, in order to point out the exact spot where he wished her remains to be deposited, so that hereafter his own might rest by her side, he renounced all self-restraint, and throwing himself upon the ground, gave himself up to his anguish, and refused to be comforted!
That summer was as dreary a season at Lexley as the dreariest winter! Both the Park and the Hall were shut up; nor did General Stanley ever again resume his tenancy of the old manor. When the result of the Chancery suit left Mr Altham in possession of the former estate, the General literally preferred forfeiting the moiety of the purchase-money he had paid, and giving up the place to be re-united with the property, which the rigour of the law thus singularly restored to the last heirs of the Althams; and such was the cause of my neighbour, the present Sir Julius Altham, regaining possession of the Hall.
It was not for many years, however, that the cause was ultimately decided. There was an appeal against the Chancellor's decree; and even after the decree was confirmed, came an endless number of legal forms, which so procrastinated the settlement, that not only the original unfortunate purchaser, but poor Everard himself, was in his grave when the mansion, in which they had so prided themselves, was pulled down, and all trace of their occupancy effaced.
I sometimes ask myself, indeed, whether the whole of this "strange eventful history," with which the earliest feelings of my heart were painfully interwoven, really occurred? whether the manor ever passed for a time out of the possession of the ancient house of Altham? whether the domain, now one and indivisible, were literally partitioned off—a park paling interposing only between the patrician and plebeian. Often, after spending hour after hour by the river side, when the fly is on the water and the old thorns in bloom, I recur to the first day I came back into Lexley Park after the funeral had passed through, and recollect the soreness of heart with which I lifted my eyes towards the house, of which every trace has since disappeared. At that moment there seemed to rise before me, sporting among the gnarled branches of the old thorn-trees, the graceful form of Mary Stanley, followed by old Sergeant, bounding and barking through the fern; and the General looking on from a distance, pretending to be angry, and desiring her to come out of the covert and not disturb the game. Exactly thus, and there, I beheld them for the first time. What would I not give to realize once more, if only for a day, that happy, happy vision!
Stanley Manor is let to strangers during the minority of Lord Robert's sickly son; the father being an absentee, the mother in an early grave. She lived long enough, however, to be a repining wife; and my neighbour, Sir Julius Altham, has more than once hinted to me, that, of the whole family, the portion of Selina most deserved compassion.
To me, however, her callous conduct towards that gentle sister, always rendered her the least interesting of my Country Neighbours.
TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN. 3
Among the various signs of the times which mark the changes of manners in these latter days of the world, not the least remarkable is the increasing frequency of the visits paid by the natives of the East to the regions of Europe. Time was, within the memory of most of the present generation, when the sight of a genuine Oriental in a London drawing-room, except in the angel visits, "few and far between," of a Persian or Moorish ambassador, was a rarity beyond the reach of even the most determined lion-hunters; and if by any fortunate chance a stray Persian khan, or a "very magnificent three-tailed bashaw," was brought within the circle of the quidnuncs of the day, the sayings and doings of the illustrious stranger were chronicled with as much minuteness as if he had been the denizen of another planet. Every hair of his beard, every jewel in the hilt of his khanjar, was enumerated and criticised; while all oriental etiquette was violated by the constant enquiries addressed to him relative to the number of his wives, and the economy of his domestic arrangements. "Mais à present on a changé tout cela." The reforms of Sultan Mahmood, the invention of steam, and the re-opening of the overland route to India, have combined to effect a mighty revolution in all these points. Osmanlis, with shaven chins and tight trousers,4 have long been as plenty as blackberries in the saloons of the West, eating the flesh of the unclean beast, quaffing champagne, and even (if we have been rightly informed) figuring in quadrilles with the moon-faced daughters of the Franks; and though the natives of the more distant regions of the East have not yet appeared among us in such number, yet the lamb-skin cap of the Persian, the pugree, or small Indian turban, and even the queer head-dress of the Parsee, is far from being a stranger in our assemblies. We doubt whether the name of Akhbar Khan himself, proclaimed at the foot of a staircase, would excite the same sensation in the present day, as the announcement of the most undistinguished wearer of the turban some ten or twenty years ago; but of the "Tours" and "Narratives" which are usually the inevitable result of such an influx of pilgrims, our Oriental visitors have as yet produced hardly their due proportion. For many years, the travels of Mirza Abu-Talib Khan, a Hindustani5 Moslem of rank and education, who visited Europe in the concluding years of the last century, stood alone as an example of the effect produced on an Asiatic by his observation of the manners and customs of the West; and even of late our stock has not been much increased. The journal of the Persian princes (a translation of which, by their Syrian mehmandar, Assaad Yakoob Khayat, has been printed in England for private circulation) is curious, as giving a picture of European ways and manners when viewed through a purely Asiatic medium; while the remarkably sensible and well-written narrative of the two Parsees who lately visited this country for the purpose of instruction in naval architecture,6 differs little from the description of the same objects which would be given by an intelligent and well-educated European, if they could be presented to him in the aspect of utter novelty. The latest of these Oriental wanderers in the ungenial climes of Franguestan, is the one whose name appears at the head of this article, and who, with a rare and commendable modesty, has preferred introducing himself to the public under the protecting guidance of Maga, to venturing, alone and without a pilot, among the perilous rocks and shoals of the critics of the Row; him therefore we shall now introduce, without further comment, to the favourable notice of our readers.
Of Kerim Khan himself, the writer of his narrative, and of his motives for daring the perils of the kala-pani, (or black water, the Hindi name for the ocean,) on a visit to Franguestan, we have little information beyond what can be gathered from the MS. itself. There can be no doubt, however, that he was a Mussulman gentleman of rank and consideration, and of information far superior to that of his countrymen in general; nor does it appear that he was driven, like Mirza Abu-Talib, by political misfortune, to seek in strange climes the security which his native land denied him. His narrative commences abruptly:—"On the 21st of Ramazan, in the year of the Hejra 1255," (Dec. 1, A.D. 1839,) "between four and five in the afternoon, I took leave of the imperial city of Delhi, and proceeded to our boat, which was at anchor near the Derya Ganj." The voyage down the Jumna, to its junction with the Ganges at Allahabad, a distance of not more than 550 miles by land, but which the endless windings of the stream increase to 2010 by water, presents few incidents worthy of notice: but our traveller observes par parenthèse, that "though it is said that the sources of this river have not been discovered, I have heard from those who have crossed the Himalaya from China, that it rises in that country on the other side of the mountains, and, forcing its way through them, arrives at Bighamber. They say that gold is found there in large quantities, and the reason they assign is this—the philosopher's stone is found in that country, and whatever touches it becomes gold, but the stone itself can never be found!" Near Muttra he encountered the splendid cortège of Lord Auckland, then returning to Calcutta after his famous interview with Runjeet Singh at Lahore, with such a suwarree as must have recalled the pomp and sultanut for which the memory of Warren Hastings is even yet celebrated among the natives of India: "his staff and escort, with the civil and military officers of government in attendance on him, amounted to about 4000 persons, besides 300 elephants and 800 camels." The noble buildings of Akbarabad or Agra, the capital and residence of Akbar and Shalijehan, the mightiest and most magnificent of the Mogul emperors, detained the traveller for a day; and he notices with deserved eulogium the splendid mausoleum of Shalijehan and his queen, known as the Taj-Mahal. There is nothing that can be compared with it, and those who have visited the farthest parts of the globe, have seen nothing like it.7 At Allahabad he launched on the broad stream of the Ganges; and after passing through part of the territory of Awadh or Oude, the insecurity of life and property in which is strongly contrasted with the rigid police in the Company's dominions, arrived in due time at the holy city of Benares, the centre of Hindoo and Brahminical sanctity.
The shrines of Benares, with their swarms of sacred monkeys and Brahminy bulls, were objects of little interest to our Moslem wayfarer, who on the contrary recounts with visible satisfaction the destruction of several of these But Khanas, or idol-temples, by the intolerable bigotry of Aurungzib, and the erection of mosques on their sites. Among the objects of attraction in the environs of the city, he particularly notices a famous footprint8 upon stone, called the Kadmsherif, or holy mark, deposited in a mosque near the serai of Aurungabad, and said to have been brought from Mekka by Sheik Mohammed Ali Hazin, whom the translator of his interesting autobiography (published in 1830 by the Oriental Society) has made known to the British public, up to the period when the tyranny of Nadir Shah drove him from Persia. "Here, during his lifetime, he used to go sometimes on a Thursday, and give alms to the poor in the name of God. He was a very learned and accomplished man; and his writings, both in prose and verse, were equal to those of Zahiri and Naziri. When he first came to India, he resided for some years at Delhi; but having had some dispute with the poet-laureate of the Emperor Mohammed Shah, he found himself under the necessity of retiring to Benares, where he lived in great privacy. As he was a stranger in the country, was engaged in no calling or profession, and received no allowance from the Emperor, it was never known whence, or how, he was supplied with the means of keeping up the establishment he did, which consisted of some hundred servants, palanquins, horses, &c. It is said that when the Nawab Shujah-ed-dowlah projected his attack on the English in Bengal, he consulted the Sheik on the subject, who strongly dissuaded him from the undertaking. He died shortly after the battle of Buxar in 1180," (A.D. 1766.) The battle of Buxar was fought Oct. 23, 1764; but that Sheik Ali Hazin died somewhere about this time, seems more probable than that his life was extended (as stated by Sir Gore Ouseley) till 1779; since he describes himself at the conclusion of his memoirs in 1742, when only in his 53d year, as "leading the dullest course of existence in the dullest of all dull countries, and disabled by his increasing infirmities from any active exertion of either body or mind"—a state of things scarcely promising a prolongation of life to the age of ninety.
Resuming his voyage from Benares, the Khan notices with wonder the apparition of the steamers plying between Calcutta and Allahabad, several of which he met on his course, and regarded with the astonishment natural in one who had never before seen a ship impelled, apparently by smoke, against wind and tide:—"I need hardly say how intensely I watched every movement of this extraordinary, and to me incomprehensible machine, which in its passage created such a vast commotion in the waters, that my poor little budjrow (pinnace) felt its effects for the space of full two hos," (nearly four miles.) The picturesque situation of the city of Azimabad or Patna,9 extending for several miles along the right bank of the Ganges, with the villas and beautiful gardens of the resident English interspersed among the houses, is described in terms of high admiration; and the mosques, some of which were as old as the time of the Patan emperors, are not forgotten by our Moslem traveller in his enumeration of the marvels of the city. A few days' more boating brought him to Rajmahal; "on one side of which," says he, "the country is called Bengal, and on the other Poorb, or the East"—a name from which the independent dynasty of Moslem kings, who once ruled in Bengal, assumed the appellation of Poorby-Shaby. He was now among the rice-fields, the extent and luxuriance of which surprised him: "There are a great variety of sorts, and if a man were to take a grain of each sort he might soon fill a lota (water-pot) with them—so innumerable are the different kinds. The cultivators who have measured the largest species, have declared them to exceed the length of fifty cubits; but I have never seen any of this length, though others may have." He now entered the Bhagirutti, or branch of the Ganges leading to Calcutta, and which bears in the lower part of its course the better known name of the Hoogly—while the main stream to the left is again subdivided into innumerable ramifications, the greater part of which lose themselves among the vast marshes of the Sunderbunds; but he complains, that "though by this branch large vessels and steamers pass up and down to and from the Presidency, the route is very bad, from the extensive jungles on both banks, which are haunted by Thugs and Decoits, (river pirates:)—indeed I have heard and read, that the shores of the Ganges have been infested by freebooters, pirates, and thieves of all sorts, from time immemorial." He escaped unharmed, however, through these manifold perils; and passing Murshidabad, the ancient capital of Bengal, and other places of less note, his remarks upon which we shall not stay to quote, reached the ghauts of Calcutta in safety.
A place so often described as the "City of Palaces," presents little that is novel in the narrative of the khan; but he does full justice to the splendour of the architecture, which he says "exceeds that of China or Ispahan—a superiority which arises from the immense sums which every governor-general has laid out upon public works, and in improving and adorning the city: the Marquis Wellesley, in particular, expended lakhs of rupees in this way." The account which he gives, however, from a Mahommedan writer, of the disputes with the Mogul government which led to the transference of the British factory and commerce from its original seat at Hoogly to Kali-kata,10 or Calcutta, differs considerably from that given by the British historians, if we are to suppose the events here alluded to (the date of which the khan does not mention) to be those which occurred in 1686 and 1687, when Charnock defended the factory at Hoogly against the Imperial deputy, Shaista Khan. Our traveller's version of these occurrences is, that the factories of the English, which were then established on the Ghol Ghaut at Hoogly, having been overthrown by an earthquake, "Mr Charnock, the head officer of the factory, purchasing a garden called Banarasi, had the trees cut down, and commenced a new building. But while it was in progress, the principal Mogul merchants and inhabitants laid a complaint before Meer Nasir, the foujdar, (chief of police,) that their houses and harems would be overlooked, and great scandal occasioned, if the strangers should be allowed to erect such lofty buildings in the midst of the city.11 The complaint was referred by the foujdar to the nawab, who forthwith issued orders for the discontinuance of the works, which were accordingly abandoned. The Company's agent, though highly offended at this arbitrary proceeding, was unable to resist it, having only one ship and a few sepoys; and, in spite of the efforts of the foujdar to dissuade him, he embarked with all his goods, and set sail for the peninsula," (qu. Indjeli?) "having first set fire to such houses as were near the river. At this time, however, the Emperor Aurungzib was in the Carnatic, beleaguered by the Mahrattas, who had cut off all supplies from his camp; and the Company's agent in that country, hearing of this, sent a large quantity of grain, which had been recently imported for their own use, for the relief of the army. Having thus gained the favour and protection of the Asylum of the World, the English were not only permitted to build factories in various parts of the country, but were exempted from the duties formerly laid on their goods. Charnock returned to Bengal with the emperor's firman; and the nawab, seeing how matters stood, withdrew his opposition to the erection of the factory at Hoogly. The English, however, preferred another situation, and chose Calcutta, where a building was soon erected, the same which is now called the old fort." This account, which is in fact more favourable to the English than that given by their own writers, is the only notice of these transactions we have ever found from a Mahommedan author; for so small was the importance attached by the Moguls to these obscure squabbles with a few Frank merchants, that even the historian Khafi-Khan, who acted as the emperor's representative for settling the differences which broke out about the same time in Bombay, makes no allusion to the simultaneous rupture in Bengal.