ROSANCHIK Vera Johnston. January 6 & January 19, 1890. (January 6, 1890) There is a little portrait of mother and the Solovyev album with all of you on the tables. Personally, between us, I often think that Valya had nothing more to do since he began to wither, but his consciousness, his soul, wanted to stay for us all, and did so while vitality remained in his body. When he was very small, his soul was not taxed, and... Read more
KANDI SUBDIVISION Charles Johnston January 1890 The Civil Station celebrated the Nativity by a tiger-shoot and a pig stick, under the auspices of His Highness the Nawab, and half a dozen of his big gray elephants; and I believe there was an exotic Christmas tree at the silk kuti at Babul bona.[1] Thereafter, in the cool days the turn of the year, I set forth rejoicing now in the rank of Deputy Magistrate and Deputy Collector, enhanced salary, and... Read more
POET OF THE EMPIRE Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936,) the Anglo-Indian writer who was born in Bombay, India, features often in Johnston’s writings. As Johnston would state, “Kipling’s Indian stories […] were written in the period we are considering.”[1] Kipling’s famous refrain, in fact, “East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,” was published in The Ballad of East and West in 1889.[2] Kipling’s story 1888 story, “The Sending Of Dana Da,” (re-published in 1889 in... Read more
NEVERMIND THE BABU. Charles Johnston Late November 1889. “Sir! Do you not know me?” I looked closer. “I am Okhoy Kumar Ganguli, pleader of your Honor’s court.” “Ah! Okhoy Babu! He flashed back into my memory, as he had disappeared in a cloud of dust down the village road, on the day of the perjury case. With equal rapidity it flashed in to my mind that if I wanted to get the Babu clear, I must show no... Read more
THE PHANTOM PALKI. Charles Johnston. Late November 1889. I remember a certain camping ground in the cool heart of a mango grove. The lucid air was full of the cooing of turtle doves; golden orioles flashed through the dense green of the branches; gray squirrels chattered like Bengali schoolboys. Our tents, white pyramids mottled with deep shadows, had come to that remote outland in order that I might hold elections for the District Board. After a ride in the... Read more
Johnston tells us that one day during camp the Nawab sent a messenger to extend an invitation to the palace, to visit the treasury.[1] The Nawab, at the time, was preparing to distribute prizes to the successful students at his High School.[2] Private courtly intrigue was becoming public courtly intrigue at the time, for in November 1888, after a long journey from London, Sarah Begum arrived in India with the intention retrieving her daughters (Miriam and Vaheedoonissa) from... Read more
THE BENGAL BAZAAR Charles Johnston. November 1889. India is a ruin, beautiful only by moonlight; and, like a ruined temple, old India’s beauties dwell no longer in perfect design and harmonious unity, but linger in fragments and details—a shattered architrave, a broken capital, “cornice or frieze with bossy sculpture graven.” The dying genius of India soars no more to broad and lofty conceptions; her failing inspiration is dwarfed and stunted to curious and minute beauties, intricate ivories, quaint... Read more
AN INDIAN SCHOOL Charles Johnston. Early November 1889. We came back to our tents after a gallop in the cool of the morning, and found the little world of the mango grove wide awake and stirring. The scarlet-capped woodpeckers were already at work among the leafy boughs; now and then a grey squirrel would dart across the sunlit patch of sand before our tent, and a pair of pert minas, or many-hued Indian starlings, hurried hither and thither in... Read more
ON THE FIELDS OF PLASSEY Charles Johnston. November 1889. In one of the camping expeditions of the cold season we visited Plassey, on the Ganges bank, in a region of tropical woods. It happened that we were at no great distance from the field on which the foundations of India’s military despotism were laid.[1] On the field of Plassey, among the sweet-scented babul-bushes, there is a little village of herdsmen, and in the village are two monuments to the... Read more
BELGAON Charles Johnston. Early November 1889. It was a heartening sight in the approaching twilight, to see the servants and orderlies, aided by impressed village watchmen, clearing a fair space for the camp, under shady mango trees at the village of Belgaon. They scraped the sandy soil clean, laid on it a thick layer of sweet-smelling rice straw, and spread on this blue-and-white cotton carpets. In the center, they laid the butt of the big tent-pole, shook out the... Read more
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