Dear Mamma,
I wrote to you last on Dec 4th and I hope my letter reached you in
time for Xmas.
Since then I have receibed yours of Dec 1st and one from Charlie Nov
25th. I am sure you will be glad to hear that I have been in A1
health. I certainly was very s???? when I had to go away but I pulled round all
right and the cold weather is setting me up splendidly.
I told you long ago that this district was awfully unhealthy, in fact it got the name of "the white man's grave" when they were opening it out first, but as more Gardens are opened out it will improve. At any rate I am very well now and I hope I shall keep so. I have done very fairly well here and it would be hard to give it up now that I am just beginning to get a fairly good income and begin all over again somewhere else.
Jalpaiguri itself is considered very fairly healthy, there is a large river, the Tusta between there and here and it is only in the cold weather that any of the officials ever come out here and then generally only to get some shooting.
We shall have the Bengal Dooars Railway out to within 15 miles of here next rains I hope, so that the place will be easier to get at. I have been pretty busy lately as since the 1st I took over charge of the D.T.Co. Gardens and two more out-district ones and I had to go all round on a tour of inspection which took me nearly a week. Then there was an epidemic of bad thirate which kept me running about and in addition we had the fellows of the Chulsa district, next this one, over for a cricket and polo match and a dinner after and as secretary of the Nagrakata Club I had all the arranging to do. The match was on Xmas Eve, it was a lovely day and we gave our opponents a good beating at both games and then sat down to a fine dinner of turkey ??? and plum pudding. In the evening we all sang ourselves hoarse, there was about 30 to 35 fellows present and it was a bit of a job arranging for so many however they all said they had enjoyed themselves immensely and I think they did.
On Xmas day there was another dinner, it was at a married man's bungalow and we all had to put on evening dress, it felt quite funny. You should have seen some of the rig outs, they were a perfect treat.
New Years day I had another big dinner so you see I have been doing pretty well
in that line.
On the 21st we all go over to Chulsa for a return match and I expect
that will be great fun, they are very keen to beat us but I think we are too
strong for them.
The weather just now is splendid, in fact I don't think you could have a nicer climate just for these few months, we have had it very cold the last few mornings and evenings and there has been snow on the tops of the hills quite close here so they must have it very cold in Darjeeling and those parts.
What a bother servants are! when I came back from my rounds one day I found my
bearer had run away. He had been misbehaving himself in my absence and I suppose
was afraid of the licking he would have got. I was very much annoyed about it as
he was a first rate servant. I had him just a year and he knew all my ways and I
shall find it very hard to get another like him again. I knew he was a scoundrel
but then they are always the best servants out here, if you can only keep them
properly in hand.
What a lot of running about you have been doing! I was so very sorry to hear such
a bad account of poor Fran I hope you will be able to give a better account of
him in your next. Aunt Clara too must be awfully ill. I told you I had sent her a
box of tea and also one to yourself. I am afraid though the tea will not be much
use to her, I hope she will pull through all right.
You must be having a very cold winter of it from all accounts, the Thames frozen over too! I suppose there has been any amount of skating round Clifton.
With love to all
I remain
Your affec son
A.N.J. Story
Jan 15th
I have just got your letter of Dec 22nd which arrived by the mail and
was very glad to hear that you had arrived at home safe and sound again after all
your journeys. I was so glad to hear that Aunt Clara was doing so well after the
operation. Lou also wrote me a long letter telling me that she had been, and
still was, more or less of an invalid. We seem to be a dreadful family for
getting ill at present.
Poor old Fran, I hope he will get on all right. I should think under the circumstances that you have certainly done the wisest thing in letting him live at Wiesbaden.
I got a card from Arnold and have written to him to tell me the news. You don't know how one looks forward to mail day for any news from home out here! You treat me very well though and I have no cause to complain.
Dear Mamma
This is not the proper day for writing for the home mail as it does not leave
till the 12th or 13th but it is a horrid morning, it came
on to rain last night and is still drizzling so I have put off going my rounds
until it clears up.
There is practically no sickness at all just now and I only go my rounds for forms sake.
I wrote to Charlie last month and also sent Florie a few stamps which I hope arrived all right. Aunt Clara sent me a letter last mail to say that her tea had arrived and that she thought it was good.
We had a local race meet and Gymkana at Dam Dim. Only got over for the last two days as I happened to be rather busy just then. It was great fun and I enjoyed it very much although I lost money over everything I backed though not of course to a large extent.
We all lived in huts on the ground and the ladies had a camp of their own and came to the mess tent for meals. There were only about 8 or 10 ladies at the most and they were all married except one, however it was quite a treat to see so many of them together in these parts. They had a cricket match one day and I arranged a polo match between Nagrakata and Dam Dim for a cup but I am sorry to say we got beaten, however I hope we shall do better next year.
I met a fellow Wordhouse there, an O.C. he use to be in the Junior School with me and we used often to meet at the corner of Cam??? Road and walk to school together. He left when he was quite a small boy and I had not seen or heard of him since.
The fellows over there were all quite astonished when they saw me, they said I was looking so well, better than when I came out. I do not feel very fit and my weight is about 10st - 2 lbs heavier than I have ever been. The hot weather will begin in another month and a half and I hope I shall get through it better than last year. I have so much more to do that I shall have less time to think about myself.
That dreadful "vanishing rupee"! all the steamers have raised their rates about R100 each for the passage home and they are making no reduction for planters which they used to do. It is very bad lines. I don't know what will happen if things go on much longer like this.
I have been waiting until I have been fairly settled to write and ask you to send
me out the rest of me books etc. and now as I suppose I am fixed up here for some
time to come I should lie to have them out.
The following is a list of what I want, if you could get a box from the store like
I had for my saddle and pack them in that it would be best as boxes of that kind
are awfully useful out here. King Hamilton and Co. will send it to me if you send
it to them:-
I mean to agitate for a bungalow of my own next year but it depends a good deal on whether the coming season is a good one for tea or not whether I shall get it. Everyone says it will be a good one and I hope it is.
March 10th
Your letter of Feb 16th has just come by the mail and also one from
Arnold. I am very glad you like the tea and I hope you will in future buy Indian
tea and advise your friends to do likewise as it all tells indirectly on me. From
all I have heard the probability is that Ceylon will be quite out of it shortly,
in reality Indian tea is quite as good if not better only they have made a big
"boom" of Ceylon tea and no one in India has had the energy to do likewise.
Many thanks for all your good advice about my health, I have told you how well I am just now and I hope I shall keep all right in the rains. Of course some places are very bad at that time of year about here but I can't help that and must take my chance. Someone must do the work here and I mean to do it as long as I can - as for fever one can't help getting a touch of it now and again and if I don't get it as badly as last year I don't mind.
I am so glad to hear that Fran is better and likes his life as Wiesbaden. I hope he will go on improving. Arnold seems to lead a very happy life at home doing well in business with plenty of time for tennis and amusements of all kinds, he is a lucky fellow!
With love to all
I remain
Your affec son
A.N.J. Story
Dear Mamma
I got your letters of April 27th and May 12th all right
you must indeed have been having wonderful weather and I only hope you will not
suffer for it later in the season.
I told you what hot weather we had last month. The rains have started in real earnest now and it is cool enough, there was a big cyclone in the Bay of Bengal a short time ago and we got the tail end of it here last week with the usual result to the roads and rivers. Unluckily for me I had to go to the far end of my district and had two days awful travelling. I got stuck in quicksand again and had to jump off my pony. For three days I was never really dry and how I escaped a go of fever I don't know. 13 inches of rain was registered in one night on several of the Gardens and I heard one place in Assam for 23 inches in 24 hours.
I dropped my pocket case of instruments on my rounds a short time ago. I advertised a reward but have not got it, it is a great nuisance as it will cost me a good deal to replace it.
The Gardens have suffered a great deal first from the very cold weather and hot sun on top of it last month and the bushes were all covered with a blight called red spider. This rain had pretty well washed it away and they are beginning to pick up rapidly though whether they will do as well as last year, which was a record one for tea, is a question.
The box ought to be nearly out by now, King and Co. sent it by B.I. Minora, I hope it has not gone to the bottom in the cyclone, that is all!
June 14th
I intended finishing this letter for last mail, but one of my lady patients had
been ill with fever off and on for 6 weeks. She was very much set against going
to the hills as that meant separation from her husband and last year when she
went up she was very ill. However I waited as long as I could with safety and as
there were no signs of improvement I packed her off. I rode in with her and her
husband to Jalpi and saw her safely deposited in the train. I had a very nasty
ride out, it took me an hour and a half to cross one river and my pony and I had
to stand in an open boat in pouring rain all the time. The road was very heavy in
places and I could not travel very fast.
I see in the British Medical that the Army Medical Department are very dissatisfied, one of the chief causes of complaint being that the term of Indian service has been lengthened from 5 to 6 years and that they are given no furlough after it but have to start work at once when they get home. I hope I shall be able to get home at the end of 5 years, the difficulty will be for me to find a man to take my place.
If you want to make money out here there is no doubt the way is to put money into tea, the only thing is to put it into the right Gardens. It is nothing unusual for a good Garden to pay 20% some pay as much as 40% and the crack Garden in Dooars paid 75% last year, many men have made money simply by taking up land from Government, paying the survey fees and a very small rent and then selling it again to the Tea Companies at almost 100 times more than they gave for it. There is very little land left about here that is fit for tea so that little game is pretty well played out.
If you happened to have any spare money to invest and are not above taking a "tip" from me I should advise you to buy a few shares in the Dooars Tea Company Limited. The Company paid 12½% last year and they could have paid over 20% only that the rest of the profits were put into block account. They have never paid less than 5% I believe and as the whole thing is worked from London they save Calcutta agents expenditure and also score by remitting their money from home at the low exchange. I believe the shares are £10 each but I don't think you could get them for less than £15 and in fact I don't know whether you could get them at all. I believe they are quoted on the Stock Exchange, at any rate you might make inquiries about the thing.
18th
I must finish up my letter today as tomorrow is the mail day. I had a rather bad
go of fever yesterday, the first I have had this year, the result of riding home
at night in the rain from a dinner party and last night as I was having dinner I
was called away 5 miles only to find the man was all right. I felt inclined to
use bad language as I was still feeling s????. I have taken 40gns of
Quinine since yesterday to stop the fever and if you were to tell some of the old
doctors at home this it would make their hair stand on end.
Glad to hear you had such a jolly time in London, I should have liked to have been with you and seen the sights.
With love to all
I remain
Your affec son
A.N.J. Story
Dear Mamma
I have received you letter of Aug 9th from Disentis and was very glad
to hear you were all enjoying yourselves so much and had met so many friends in
your travels. As for myself I was awfully s??? with fever all last week nearly
and have made up my mind to clear out for a change. I told you in my last I had a
letter from Robert and that he talked of coming up this way. I thought it would
be very nice to go and meet him at Colombo and come back with him, but I can't
wait now so if he comes he will have to find his own way up.
I have had a fellow staying here with me for some days. I had to do a little operation and he is not in very good health so we propose going to Colombo and back leaving on the 28th and Calcutta on the 4th October per S.S. City of Canterbury. We shall be away for a month and I hope the sea air and change will set us both up. I have been here now just a year without moving and I think I deserve a little holiday. I am not feeling nearly as bad as I did last year so please don't get alarmed about me.
The weather of course just now is very trying as the drying up process is beginning but by the end of the month it will be much better.
All three of my ponies are laid up too, it is very hard on them the amount of work I do and it will do them good to get a rest as well. I have asked the doctor in the next district to attend any bad cases while I am away, just at present I am glad to say there is no-one seriously ill.
I hope to have about a week in Ceylon and get up to Candy and Newalia. When I came out I only had one day and got out to Mount Lavinia which is a very pretty place but I want to see more of the inside of the island and have a look at the tea gardens there and compare them with the Indian ones.
I think I told you in one of my previous letters about a young chap who got married in the district about the beginning of the rains, he had a very nice little Garden near here; his agents would not let him marry, he threw up his billet and got another one, one of my far away Gardens, a large place with better pay, married and settled down. Now he has just got a month's notice to leave and he is saddled with a wife! Everyone told him he was a fool to give up his other Garden when he had done very well and go to a new place. His wife is a very nice girl and I am sorry for both of them. His Agents have treated him awfully badly there is no doubt of that. I only hope he will get another billet soon.
It struck me the other day that I had never told you that the box arrived here
all right and that the contents were all in good order. The mackintosh has been
much admired and it is a splendid one, the best I have had for keeping out the
rain and not too heavy. As for the boots they are awfully nice too and must be
kept for high days and holidays - they are too good for the jungle. The only
thing I was sorry for was that you did not send my favourite bier pot, the silver
one with two handles that I used always to use in Edinburgh.
The case of instruments arrived all right from Edinburgh and are all very good.
I hope to send you some more tea later on when the cold weather comes on and there is more flavour. It has been a very bad year so far for tea, prices are terrible and the men are all very sad after the brilliant season they made last year.
With love to all
I remain
Your affec son
A.N.J. Story
Dear Mamma
My last letter I wrote on Sep 16th just before I left this and I am
afraid you will have been wondering what on earth has become of me. I left here
on 22nd with a planter named Paterson who had been very s???, we went
to Calcutta 1st and had arranged to leave there on the 27th
by the Mira, one of the Harrison Liners for Ceylon. Unfortunately the day before
the boat sailed the Steward took ill and the Captain refused to take us as we
were the only passengers and he was afraid we might grumble about the grub. So we
had to wait till the following Sunday, another 3 days and go by the Clan
Macgregor - it was a great nuisance waiting in Calcutta as the weather was
awfully hot and we were glad when we got away at last. There were no other
passengers and we had a fairly good passage, the bay was a bit tumbly but neither
of us were sea sick. I had fever all the way down and felt very much out of salts
when we got to Colombo.
The bilious fever one gets here upsets ones insides so terribly and I think it would have done me good to be seasick but I could not manage it. We made straight for Mount Lavinia on our arrival and had a fish breakfast and after that I began to pull up. Then we went up to Candy for a day and on to Newria Eliza for two days.
Candy is an awfully pretty place, it lies in a plateau surrounded by hills, at the end a small stream come in and the Dutch who used to own the island blocked it up and made an artificial lake round which the town is built and there are any number of pretty drives and walks in the hills around. It is about 2000 feet up from there to Newria Eliza the line rises 4000 ft a long heavy pull the whole way. They had a refreshment car on the train so that one can get grub on the way up and down.
We found Newria Eliza very cold, it rained the whole two days we were there so we did not see much of the country round. Paterson had a cousin on a Garden near there and we went and had a look over it and compared the Ceylon tea with Indian. Planting in Ceylon is very different from here, most or at any rate a good many of the Gardens are private concerns which were once coffee, then ???? and finally tea and on some of the Gardens you see all three growing together. The climate is very good compared with this place and a large number of the planters are married and live there with their families just as at home. They have good roads and living is very cheap but the pay is very small in comparison with this place. Of course this is due to the climate, men won't come here as Managers unless they can get fairly good terms.
We were two days in Colombo on the way back and came up to Calcutta in the ???? P & 0. We called at Madras but I did not go ashore as we only waited a few hours and it was awfully hot. There were a good many passengers on board and we had a far more lively time of it than going down. We only stayed a day in Calcutta and came up again as soon as we could. I am sorry to say I have not been at all fit since I got back but I hope now that the cold has set in that I shall get strong again.
No one was ill when I was away but I had just got back when a fellow was taken very bad and he has kept me busy since.
Our Cricket and Polo Club opened yesterday and now that I have to look after that as well as my work my hands are pretty full.
I got two letters from you on my arrival, one from Italy and the other from
Wiesbaden and also one from Lou at Bournemouth. I was awfully glad to hear you
had such a jolly time abroad and I hope the change will have done you good.
I met Charlie Napier the Missionary at Candy, he has a rather good billet there
being headmaster of the the Mission School with about 400 boys under him and he
has a fine climate to live in. He is going home very shortly I believe. I have
heard nothing from Robert so I don't suppose we will come this way. I am very
sorry as I should have liked to have seen him and he would have had good
shooting.
With love to all
I remain
Your affec son
A.N.J. Story