THE S.S. CHUSAN Vera Johnston July 4 1890, Near Aden On The Red Sea. My two large Chinese vases were smashed to smithereens. A piece of white tulle, embroidered with gold, and the wings of those bronze-green Madras beetles were completely soaked, and stained the color of the red silk pillowcase in which I placed it. How many clay idols were crushed and crumbled! And my gorodnichya! My God, what troubles did the merciless monsoon cause to my gorodnichya!... Read more
BOATILA-MANJI Vera Johnston June 27-July 4, 1890. “Native Boats Off Bombay.”[1] We hired local boatsmen to take us to the steamer in their native-vessel which they called manjis.[2] It began to rain as soon as we sailed out of the port, but the sun shined so bright that it hurt one’s eyes. The little manji dived and climbed the crests of the wave. The helmsman began to sing his endless song, which was picked up by the rowers.... Read more
GOING HOME Vera Johnston June 27 1890. We were detained in Bombay for a whole week. Our things, due to the mistake of the station master in Calcutta, turned out to not only not arrive, but to be sent to the northwestern provinces. We had to let the large steamer of the Italian company Florio Rubbattino pass, although the tickets had already been purchased, and Charley and I were bored with the familiar Bombay. We already knew everything that... Read more
THE TREE IN HELL Charles Johnston June 1890. You enter Allahabad across the splendid bridge over the bright blue Jumna, whose sapphire streams stretches away as far as the eye can reach. A little to the south of the bridge the Jumna is joined by the sacred Ganges, and the two flow on southwards to the holy bathing places of Benares, the thrice holy bathing places in Benares the old Hindu gods still rule; but here at Allahabad we... Read more
CHOLERA Charles Johnston February 1890 The pariah dogs were forgotten in the sterner, depressing duties of the cholera epidemic, which came down upon Kandi Subdivision two months before its time.[1] The deeper cause, I suppose, was bacterial infection. The predisposing condition was colic, due to the eating of new rice, which has some such effect as green crab-apples have in the department of the interior. So my people began to die like flies.[2] Certain Bengali ways made it terribly... Read more
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
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