Page 8 of 11. An Electronic Supplement to Bilham, R.,Tom LaTouche and the Great Assam Earthquake of 12 June 1897: letters from the epicenter. Seism. Res. Lett. 79(3), 426-437, 2008. doi: 10.1785/gssrl.79.3.426.
1899 April to June in Calcutta- office gossip. Mrs Noetling with Australian accent and frizzy hair.
Balotra 23 March 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
It is about 2 oclock and we are trying to pass the time till 5 when we shall make a start for Baitu. Mr G. divides his time between lying in his bed and reading and whooshing the sparrows out of his room with a towel. He cannot stand their twittering.
Camp Osia 4 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Jodhpur 6 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
U. S. Club (Calcutta) 13th April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I got over to the office about midday and found nearly every man in the department there. There is quite a crush up in my room. I think everyone except Mr. Vredenberg is there. He is getting reconciled to his expedition now and wants to stay up in Seistan. I had a good bit of a talk with Mr Holland. He seems much improved,
US club (Calcutta) 16th April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Yesterday evening just I was beginning to dress for dinner I got a note from Miss Griesbach asking me to dine with them. I thought it would be only be an informal affair but when I got there I found it was a departmental dinner. Everyone except Mr Oldham and Datta were there. The only other lady was Mrs. Noetling (Mrs Smith is ill) very much gotten up with a tremendous frizz of hair, it reminded me of the pictures one sees of south sea niggers. [A small ink sketch is placed on the line with balls of hair going largely sideways]. She is not bad looking but I should say very second rate. She smoked cigarettes all the time after dinner. We all talked a most awful amount of shop and argued among each other like blacks. Mr G., Holland and I had an argument about staying out in this country. Mr H. thinks that a man who stays here till 55 must be a fool, but I shouldn't wonder if he has to alter that opinion before he reaches that age.
Calcutta 18 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr. H. is going to Spiti tomorrow lucky man, and Herr Kraft is to go with him. I have a new pen with a broader point for my Swan and its much pleasenter to write with. The old one seemed to get harder the more I wrote with it. Mr Walker turned up yesterday from Madras looking very well. He has had no fever this year he says.
Calcutta 22 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I am just off to join Mr Griesbach's tennis party.
My room measures 36x23 ft almost the size of those big rooms we had in Sukkur.
US club Calcutta 22 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr G. brought me a letter today he had received from Mr Creighton asking for the post of registrar which is vacant as Mr. Webb has had to be dismissed. It seems he had been going in for all sorts of queer dealings, and it is not at all certain that he will not have to be prosecuted. Mr G. had advertized for another man and Mr. Creighton has applied among a lot of others. he will certainly not get the appointment. He said he had left the NWR with a good character, but sent no testimonial from them, but there was one from some native spinning mills in Lahore, where it appears he has been working as an accountant from Nov. to the end of March. He is in Lahore now apparently doing nothing. He refers to me and says that I am able to give a good account of his attainments!
Mr G. is very civil these times and so is Mr. O. I heard. It was Julia who told me that the former had been saying some nice things about me, but that may be only her manner of speaking! Anyway we have not had a row yet and I shall have none of it if I can help it. I must get on with my memoir though.
Calcutta 23 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
hot and dry, bicycle ride reading in the library all day.
Calcutta 24 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
This afternoon I am going to play golf with Miss Griesbach and Sydney.
Calcutta 25 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I have been unpacking and labelling some of my rocks and the rest ought to come tomorrow, It is very difficult to sit down and write in this hot weather and I have done very little to my report yet, but I am getting it arranged in my head, and when I do begion I don't think it will take very long. The heat seems to drive away all ones ideas, though it is not so very bad. ---Mr. Hayden is off to Spiti next Tuesday. I shall be rather sorry when he goes though we shall be less crowded up here. Mr Krafft goes with him, but he will make no difference as he works in another room and I have seen very little of him.
Calcutta 26 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
The dinner last night was very pleasant. we had it out on the lawn of the house with a couple of electric lights over head and lights and flowers on each table and Chinese lanterns among the trees. Each party had a separate table and the dinner was very good. Afterwards we walked up and down the lawn while the band played.
Calcutta 27 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mrs. S[mith] thinks Mr. G. very unsympathetic with married men and that he sends them to out of the way places on purpose.
Calcutta 28 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr G. came up just about the time I usually write and, as is his want, stopped, talking for a long time.
Calcutta 29 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Messrs Oldham, Green and Holland dined with me here last night and we played billiards afterwards till after 11 & I got to play racket with Mr Green [chief of police]. ---It is pleasant to ask a man now & then to dinner, and be sure he will get a good one, but I must not do it too often it costs about 3/- per head including drinks.
Calcutta 30 April 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Miss G. had a headache and did not come but Mr. G. was there.
I am beginning to get prickly heat worse luck, but one must expect that at this time of the year.
Calcutta 1 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr G smiled when I asked him if he had heard from the children but did not say anything about the letter (Griesbach had sent a parcel of toys to them a few weeks earlier)
Calcutta 2 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
The latest idea Mr G has taken into his head is to send me as soon as I have written my memoir up to the Himalayas to collect fossils somewhere to the east of where Mr. Hayden is going.
Calcutta 3 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I have asked Messrs Holland, Middlemiss and Smith to come to tennis at the Sat. Club at 5 and it is 20 past 4 now & I must go home and change
Calcutta 5 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
a list of books he has read.
Calcutta 6 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I have not seen anything of Mr. G. these last few days…….
Calcutta 7 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
has a plan view of his room
Dined with the Smith's last night and had a pleasant evening. After dinner we played that almost forgotten game, whist.
Calcutta 8 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I think, from what Mr. G. says (I saw him again this morning), there is not much chance of the Govt. sanctioning his scheme. Mr Holderness has gone on leave and his locum tenens Mr ?[Finicane], is not likely to do much in the way of sanctioning schemes of that kind. So it may all come to nothing. The funny thing about it is that Mr. G. asserts that it is on our account entirely he wants us to go to the hills, to get us away from the heat of Calcutta, quite forgetting that we must work like blacks through the hottest part of the year here to get away at all, and that if we do go our work, mine at least, the results of the last 3 seasons work, must be scamped [saboutaged] to a certain extent. I could not possibly do all I want ot make my memoir complete before July, but he thinks that it could be done. I have been trying to work today, but have not done very much. The heat seems to get worse and worse.
Mr. G. told me that he is going to send Miss G. home in June as his sister cannot come out to look after her next cold weather. I shall be sorry when she goes for I think she distinctly "emollit" his "mores".
Calcutta 9 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
We are going to have another lady's dinner on the lawn at the club. I have asked the Griesbachs and Godfreys & it will be a great party.
Calcutta 11 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr. Middlemiss went off to Ooty yesterday morning to arrange for taking his family home. He is going on two years leave in August I believe. Mr. O. goes for 18 months in July so I shall be senior Supt. which won't be of any value. I have not seen Mr. G. since the dinner.
Calcutta 19 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr G. came up today and announced that Govt. has sanctioned our going to the hills to collect fossils , so as soon as can get this memoir finished I shall be off. He has not made up his mind what part of the hills each of us is to go to, but I should not wonder if I was to be sent to the snows north of Mussourrie.
Calcutta 23 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
There seems to be a great deal of doubt as to whether this Himalayan expedition will come off at all or not. Mr. G. told Dr Walker yesterday to get ready to go as soon as possible as he had finished his report and today he tells him there is so much work to do that he cannot spare him, I hope he will know his mind better when it comes to my turn.
Calcutta 26 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Miss G is off to Europe next week and I suppose Mr G will go as far as Bombay wiith her. I have seen nothing of him these last two days but he told Dr. Walker today that he must be ready to start for the hills on 1st July.
Calcutta 27 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
While we were there (at tennis) we saw a balloon go up and a man drop from it with a parachute. I don't know where he started from. There was great excitement and we all rushed up to the top of the museum to get a better view but by the time we got there he had come down somewhere in the town. The balloon drifted away right across calcutta.
Calcutta 30 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr. G. came up today but did not say anything particular - only wanted some of my time talking rubbish about Burma. He is going across to Bombay to see Miss G. off. Poor man I am sure he feels her going very much. He is so proud and fond of her.
Calcutta 31 May 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr. G. has juist sent for Messrs. Smith, Walker and myself to give us our instructions. I am to go up the Lissar Valley which is away to the north east of Naini Tal.
Calcutta 1 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I have just been getting the maps of the country beyond Naini Tal. It looks very rugged! We shall all three- Smith, Walker and myself, be able to travel several days march from Naini together, and then we go in different directions, but I am to try to join Mr Walker later on. He does not sem to like the idea of going at all. Mr. G. has been telling him awful tales of the kind of country it is in.
Calcutta 2 June 1899
Mr G. is to go to Madras when he has seen Miss G. off, and will probably not be back till we leave. I am not very sorry - but I hope he will give us definite instructions before he goes.---You need not be afraid my dear about my sleeping without a punkah. I really do not feel the want of it as I go to sleep as soon almost as I get into bed. I really think it best to be without it as one is very apt to get a chill after the punkah walla stops pulling and then goes on again when one has got heated up. Dr Walker and Mr. O have just had fever from getting a chill in this way. So there is method in my madness.
Calcutta 6 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr G sent me up a paper sauing tha on reconsideration he had decided to keep me here in charge ogf the office while he was away on tour. He goes tomorrow I believe and after he has been to Madras is going up to Kashmir, so that I would have to stay here till October
Calcutta 7 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr G goes off this evening and has made over charge of the office to me for the present.
Calcutta 8 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr. & Miss G. went off to the Bombay mail yesterday evening. Mr. Holland and I went down to see them off. I wish you had met her, she is a very nice little girl. There was a meeting of the Asiatic society after dinner at which there was a lively discusiion about some proposed alterations of the rules. Nobody seemed to know if we had the power to alter them , and instead of discussing the alterations some of them began quarelling about that, so finally I got up and proposed that we should accept them provisionally and put off the discussion to the next meeting, and this was passed. I got the Secy out of a pretty fix, for we found afterwards that the meeting had no power to alter the rules without consulting all the members. It is not often that anything lively happens at that assemblage of fossils.
Calcutta 9 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
The King and Low case is discussed. Both imprisoned and fined. A case of cholera
Calcutta 13 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Many thanks for the photo of Avice. Mr Holland paid you a great compliment, unwittingly I think, when I showed it to him. The first thing he said was , "She's the very image of your wife" and so she is dear, and then "she is a very pretty child" I like Mr H.
Calcutta 15 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
I bought a second camera today second-hand a very nice one. I wish I had it in Rajputana. Mr Holland is very anxious for me to go there again for some of the rocks I got last year are unique in India and he says they are most interseting, but I doubt very much Mr. G will see it.
Calcutta 16 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
one of his back teeth falls out by itself
Calcutta 17 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
finished the index, and ready to start by next Thursday
Calcutta 20 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Mr G wires yesterday afterenoon saying "await letter before heading for the hills ' from Ootacamund if you please.What riles me most is that I shall be more pressed for time at NT that if I had started on Thursday. Messrs Smith and Walker are also much annoyed. Mr Smith is going to take his wife, and I am afraid she will have a bad time.
Calcutta 21 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
Not a word from Mr G, bother him.
Calcutta 22 June 1899 Mss Eur C258/64
the letter from Griesbach has not come and La Touche indicates he must await its arrival. Smith and Walker will go on Saturday.