800 Years of Women's Letters (33 page)

The chapter ends with some recent letters, sent by a Buddhist nun to her friends as she travelled around India in 1990.

Celia Fiennes (1662–1741) is one of our liveliest travel-writers. For eighteen years she toured England extensively, initially for her health. She wrote a Journal for her family, an incomplete version of which was published in 1888. Her style is breathless, but direct, the spelling erratic, the enthusiasm genuine, as in this prefatory letter.

As this was never designed, soe not likely to fall into the hands of any but my near relations, there needs not much to be said to excuse or recommend it. Something may be diverting and proffitable tho' not to Gentlemen that they have travelled more about England, staid longer in places, might have more acquaintance and more opportunity to be inform'd.

My Journeys, as they were begun to regain my health by variety and change of aire and exercise, soe whatever promoted that was pursued; and those informations of things as could be obtain'd from inns
en passant
or from some acquaintance, inhabitants of such places, could furnish me with for my diversion, I thought necessary to remark.

Now thus much without vanity may be asserted of the subject, that if all persons, both Ladies, much more Gentlemen, would spend some of their tyme in Journeys to visit their native Land, and be curious to inform themselves and make observations of the pleasant prospects, good buildings, different produces and manufactures of each place, with the variety of sports and recreations they are adapt to, would be a souveraign remedy to cure or preserve from these epidemick diseases of vapours, should I add Laziness?

It would also form such an Ideal of England, add much to its Glory and Esteem in our minds and cure the evil itch of over-valueing foreign parts; at least furnish them with an equivalent to entertain strangers when amongst us, or inform them when abroad of their native Country. . . .

It must be owned that many Gentlemen, in general service of their country are most ignorant of anything but the name of the place for which they serve in parliament; how then can they speake for or promote their Good or redress their Grievances? I shall conclude with the hearty wish and recommendation to all, but especially my own Sex, the studdy of those things which tends to improve the mind and makes our Lives pleasant and comfortable, as well as profitable in all the Stages and Stations of our Lives, and render Suffering and Age supportable and Death less formidable and a future State more happy.

C. FIENNES,
THROUGH ENGLAND ON A SIDE SADDLE IN THE TIME OF WILLIAM AND MARY
(1888)

After her first visit to a Turkish bath, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu wrote enthusiastically to her sister. Unlike most male travellers, she did not take her culture's ideas to an ‘exotic' east, but studied what she saw.

Adrianople 1 April 1717

I must not omit what I saw remarkable at Sophia, one of the most beautiful towns in the Turkish Empire and famous for its hot baths that are resorted to both for diversion and health. I stopped here one day on purpose to see them. Designing to go incognito, I hired a Turkish coach. These
voitures
are not at all like ours, but much more convenient for the country, the heat being so great that glasses would be very troublesome. They are made a good deal in the manner of the Dutch coaches, having wooden lattices painted and gilded, the inside being painted with baskets and nosegays of flowers, intermixed commonly with little poetical mottoes. They are covered all over with cloth, lined with silk and very often richly embroidered and fringed. This covering entirely hides the persons in them, but may be thrown back at pleasure and the ladies peep through the lattices. They hold four people very conveniently, seated on cushions, but not raised.

In one of these covered wagons I went to the bagnio about ten o'clock. It was already full of women. It is built of stone in the shape of a dome with no windows but in the roof, which gives light enough. There was five of these domes joined together, the outmost being less than the rest and serving only as a hall where the porteress stood at the door. Ladies of quality generally give this woman the value of a crown or ten shillings, and I did not forget that ceremony. The next room is a very large one, paved with marble, and all round it raised two sofas of marble, one above another. There were four fountains of cold water in this room, falling first into marble basins and then running on the floor in little channels made for that purpose, which carried the streams into the next room, something less than this, with the same sort of marble sofas, but so hot with steams of sulphur proceeding from the baths joining to it, 'twas impossible to stay there with one's clothes on. The two other domes were the hot baths, one of which had cocks of cold water turning into it to temper it to what degree of warmth the bathers have a mind to.

I was in my travelling habit, which is a riding dress, and certainly appeared very extraordinary to them, yet there was not one of ‘em that showed the least surprise or impertinent curiosity, but received me with all the obliging civility possible. I know no European court where the ladies would have behaved themselves in so polite a manner to a stranger. I believe in the whole there were two hundred women and yet none of those disdainful smiles or satiric whispers that never fail in our assemblies when anybody appears that is not dressed exactly in fashion. They repeated over and over to me, ‘Uzelle, pek uzelle', which is nothing but, ‘Charming, very charming'. The first sofas were covered with cushions and rich carpets, on which sat the ladies, and on the second their slaves behind 'em, but without any distinction of rank by their dress, all being in the state of nature, that is, in plain English, stark naked, without any beauty or defect concealed, yet there was not the least wanton smile or immodest gesture amongst 'em. They walked and moved with the same majestic grace which Milton describes of our General Mother. There were many amongst them as exactly proportioned as ever any goddess was drawn by the pencil of Guido or Titian, and most of their skins shiningly white, only adorned by their beautiful hair divided into many tresses hanging on their shoulders, braided either with pearl or riband, perfectly representing the figures of the Graces.

I was here convinced of the truth of a reflection that I had often made, that if 'twas the fashion to go naked the face would be hardly observed. I perceived that the ladies with the finest skins and most delicate shapes had the greatest share of my admiration, though their faces were sometimes less beautiful than those of their companions. . . .

In short, 'tis the women's coffee-house, where all the news of the town is told, scandal invented, etc. They generally take this diversion once a week, and stay there at least four or five hours without getting cold by immediate coming out of the hot bath into the cool room, which was very surprising to me. The lady that seemed the most considerable amongst them entreated me to sit by her and would fain have undressed me for the bath. I excused myself with some difficulty, they being all so earnest in persuading me. I was at last forced to open my skirt and show them my stays, which satisfied 'em very well, for I saw they believed I was so locked up in that machine that it was not in my own power to open it, whch contrivance they attributed to my husband. I was charmed with their civility and beauty and should have been very glad to pass more time with them.

ED. R. HALSBAND,
THE COMPLETE LETTERS OF LADY MARY WORTLEY MONTAGU
(1965)

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu made the most of her two years in Turkey. This letter to her sister describes both the feelings and tremendous riches of the Sultan's favourite wife.

10 March 1718

I went to see the Sultana Hafise, favourite of the last Emperor Mustafa, who, you know (or perhaps you don't know), was deposed by his brother, the reigning Sultan, and died a few weeks after, being poisoned, as it was generally believed. This lady was immediately after his death saluted with an absolute order to leave the Seraglio and choose herself a husband from the great men at the Porte. I suppose you imagine her overjoyed at this proposal. Quite contrary; these women, who are called and esteem themselves queens, look upon this liberty as the greatest disgrace and affront that can happen to them. She threw herself at the Sultan's feet and begged him to poniard her rather than use his brother's widow with that contempt. She represented to him in agonies of sorrow that she was privileged from this misfortune by having brought five princes into the Ottoman family, but all the boys being dead and only one girl surviving, this excuse was not received and she compelled to make her choice. She chose Ebubekir Effendi, then secretary of state, and above fourscore year old, to convince the world that she firmly intended to keep the vow she had made of never suffering a second husband to approach her bed, and since she must honour some subject so far as to be called his wife she would choose him as a mark of her gratitude, since it was he that had presented her at the age of ten years to her lost lord. But she has never permitted him to pay her one visit, though it is now fifteen year she has been in his house, where she passes her time in uninterrupted mourning with a constancy very little known in Christendom, especially in a widow of twenty-one, for she is now but thirty-six. She has no black eunuchs for her guard, her husband being obliged to respect her as a queen and not enquire at all into what is done in her apartment, where I was led into a large room, with a sofa the whole length of it, adorned with white marble pillars like a
ruelle
, covered with pale
bleu
figured velvet on a silver ground, with cushions of the same, where I was desired to repose till the Sultana appeared, who had contrived this manner of reception to avoid rising up at my entrance, though she made me an inclination of her head when I ris up to her. I was very glad to observe a lady that had been distinguished by the favour of an Emperor to whom beauties were every day presented from all parts of the world. But she did not seem to me to have ever been half so beautiful as the fair Fatima I saw at Adrianople, though she had the remains of a fine face more decayed by sorrow than time.

But her dress was something so surprisingly rich I cannot forbear describing it to you. She wore a vest called
dolaman
, and which differs from a caftan by longer sleeves, and folding over at the bottom. It was of purple cloth strait to her shape and thick set, on each side down to her feet and round the sleeves, with pearls of the best water, of the same size as their buttons commonly are. You must not suppose I mean as large as those of my Lord – but about the bigness of a pea; and to these buttons, large loops of diamonds in the form of those gold loops so common upon birthday coats. This habit was tied at the waist with two large tassels of smaller pearl, and round the arms embroidered with large diamonds; her shift fastened at the bosom with a great diamond shaped like a lozenge; her girdle as broad as the broadest English riband entirely covered with diamonds. Round her neck she wore three chains which reached to her knees, one of large pearl at the bottom of which hung a fine coloured emerald as big as a turkey egg, another consisting of two-hundred emeralds close joined together, of the most lively green, perfectly matched, every one as large as a half-crown piece, and as thick as three crown pieces, and another of small emeralds perfectly round. But her earrings eclipsed all the rest; they were two diamonds shaped exactly like pears, as large as a big hazel nut. Round her
talpack
she had four strings of pearl, the whitest and most perfect in the world, at least enough to make four necklaces every one as large as the Duchess of Marlborough's, and of the same size, fastened with two roses consisting of a large ruby for the middle stone, and round them twenty drops of clean diamonds to each. Besides this, her headdress was covered with bodkins of emeralds and diamonds. She wore large diamond bracelets and had five rings on her fingers, all single diamonds, (except Mr Pitt's) the largest I ever saw in my life. 'Tis for jewellers to compute the value of these things, but according to the common estimation of jewels in our part of the world, her whole dress must be worth above £100,000 sterling. This I am very sure of, that no European queen has half the quantity.

ED. R. HALSBAND (1965)

Emily Eden's experiences of camping with the Army in India made entertaining reading, but it was clearly less enjoyable for the participants. ‘G' is George, her brother, the Governor-General.

Camp near Allahabad, Nov. 30, 1837

I sent off one journal to you two days ago from a place that, it since appears, was called Bheekee. Yesterday we started at half-past five, as it was a twelve miles' march, and the troops complain if they do not get in before the sun grows hot, so we had half an hour's drive in the dark. I came on in the carriage, as I did not feel well, and one is sick and chilly naturally before breakfast. Not but that I like these morning marches; the weather is so English, and feels so wholesome when one is well. The worst part of a march is the necessity of everybody, sick or well, dead or dying, pushing on with the others. Luckily there is every possible arrangement made for it. There are beds on poles for sick servants and palanquins for us, which are nothing but beds in boxes. G. and I went on an elephant through rather a pretty little village in the evening, and he was less bored than usual, but I never saw him hate anything so much as he does this camp life. I have long named my tent ‘Misery Hall.'

‘Mine,' G. said ‘I call Foully Palace, it is so very squalid-looking.' He was sitting in my tent in the evening, and when the purdahs are all down, all the outlets to the tents are so alike that he could not find which
crevice
led to his abode; and he said at last, ‘Well! it is a hard case; they talk of the luxury in which the Governor-General travels, but I cannot even find a covered passage from Misery Hall to Foully Palace.'