'UP THE COUNTRY'

Letters written to her Sister

FROM

THE UPPER PROVINCES OF INDIA

BY THE

HON. EMILY EDEN

AUTHORESS OF

THE SEMI-DETACHED HOUSE' AND 'THE SEMI-ATTACHED COUPLE'

TO THE

LORD WILLIAM GODOLPHIN OSBORNF.

MY DEAR WILLIAM,

I know no one but yourself who can now take any lively interest in these Letters.

She to whom they were addressed, they of whom they were written, have all passed away, and you and I are now almost the only survivors of the large party that in 1838 left Government House for the Upper Provinces.

Many passages of this Diary, written solely for the amusement of my own family, have of course been omitted; but not a word has been added to descriptions which have little merit, but that they are true and that they were written on the spot.

Now that India has fallen under the curse of railroads, and that life and property will soon become as insecure there as they are here, the splendour of a Governor-General's progress is at an end.

The Kootûb will probably become a Railway Station; the Taj will, of course, under the sway of an Agra Company (Limited, except for destruction), be bought up for a monster