Your account of poor Lady Henry interested me very much. Indeed, everybody must be interested in her, but the melancholy fact is that it is totally _impossible_ to help them. We saw a great deal of Lord Henry[452] at Meerut, and took pains to show him great attention as he was in a shy state after the results of that investigation. There was not the slightest shadow of distrust as to his intentions, poor man! but his utter incapacity made it rather surprising that Lord Amherst ever should have given him an office of such trust, and not the least surprising that he should have been robbed and cheated in every way, by the number of crafty natives under him. I was thinking of any pendant to him in London for your information, but I hardly know anybody with such a _silly_ manner--something like Petre, but more vacant and unconnected. He seemed thoroughly good-hearted, and very anxious about his children, who, he told me, were to go either to Boulogne or Bordeaux, he did not know which, but a great way from London! He was living with Captain Champneys, his successor in the paymastership, and seems quite contented to sit in a large arm-chair and look at Champneys in a fuss, which he has been in ever since he got the appointment. Indeed, he wrote me word yesterday that he found it so difficult to guard against the knavery of the Baboos attached to the office, that he never could enough regret having left his Aide-de-Camp with us.
George told me to say both to you and to Lady Morley that there is nothing he wishes so much as to help Lord Henry, but that in the present state of India there are no situations that are not responsible and hard-working, and even if it were possible (which it is not) to give one of these to a man who is a great debtor to the Government, Lord Henry is really not capable of one.
I did not know till I came up the country how really hard-worked Europeans are. It is lucky for them, for it is only the necessity of being in these _Cutcherries_ or offices all day, that prevents their sinking altogether under the solitude of their lives and the climate. In most stations there are not above two or three Europeans, and in many only one.
There were two young men here yesterday who talked quite unceasingly; it was impossible to put in a word, and at last one of them said that he had been eight years, and his brother four, in stations where they never saw a European. They were both in horrid health, of course (everybody is in India), and so they had got six months' leave to see what the hills could do for them, and they said they were so delighted to find themselves again with people who understood English, that they were afraid they had talked too much. It was impossible to dispute the fact, but still I was glad to hear their prattle; it evidently did them good. Our band was their great delight; they had not heard any European music for so long.