WD3871

Album with sixty-seven humorous drawings of domestic and social life, mainly in Western India, made soon after the Hancocks’ arrival. Drawings in pen and ink on oiled silk, various sizes laid down on album pages with captions below.

Inscribed on inside cover: ‘With Madeline’s best love. M Handcock [sic] best love’ and on inner page ‘Harriette Paley Ashmore, 11 Green Park’. The latter was one of the witnesses at the wedding of the Hancocks.

Album 27 by 22.5 cm.

Purchased 1982.

f.1 ‘Madeline trying to keep cool in India. Bugwan March ‘65’.

f.2a ‘Going up the country April 29th /65’.

f.2b ‘Making a first call’.

f.3a ‘½ past 8 pm’.

f.3b ‘25 minutes to 9’.

f.4 ‘Ghaut scenery August /65’.

f.5a ‘A lull /65’.

f.5b ‘Lace seller & assistant’.

f.6 ‘Mrs J plus children and Ayahs’.

f.7a ‘96 dusters’.

f.7b ‘A downfall the night before going to Poonah - August /65’.

f.8 ‘Mounting “Pharbuttee Hill” Mrs Waddington Sept 65’.

f.9a ‘Desperate appeal “How can I go like this?”‘.

f.9b ‘Madam Sahib Kiwasti Poona August 11th /65’.

f.10a ‘Dhobie day June /65’.

f.10b ‘Dhobie riding on his bullock’.

f.11 ‘Puttiwallee on duty - July /65’.

f.12a ‘Off thro’ the broken pane!’.

f.12b ‘And shall not come in again! November 14th Matheran’.

f.13 ‘History of a box scene in the Bazaar’.

f.14a ‘A Parsee couple - waiting for the train’.

f.14b ‘A mild Hindoo & charge’.

f.15 ‘Going to church on Easter Sunday /66’.

f.16 ‘History of a box, The purchase of guava jelly’.

f.17 ‘History of a box we send for a little sawdust’.

f.18a ‘What will the Sahib say’!

f.18b ‘Making a stone cream’.

f.19 ‘A gust of wind’.

f.20 ‘Serving dinner under difficulties’.

f.21 ‘Gambols of a herd of buffaloes in the garden’.

f.22 ‘Our Establishment’.

f.22a. ‘Our butler who condescends to wait at breakfast but goes home directly afterwards where he amuses himself by counting his ill gotten gains’.

f.22b ‘Bugwan who is fond of tasting wine’.

f.22c ‘Our mossal, lamp boy, Each dish pays toll’.

f.23a ‘Cross old cook who daily takes his duties easily’.

f.23b ‘‘Elegant assistant’ who flavours our custard etc.’ ‘to his taste’.

f.23c ‘Fatima by day, Fatima at night or supposed occupation of the Ayah whom I never see’.

f.24a ‘How the vase was broken. How it was said to be Hamal loq - Beeke ne Kirj mloom parte (I suppose the cat did it)’.

f.24b ‘Coachman. Garie Wallah & the beauty’.

f.24c ‘The Coolie on his way from the bazaar’.

f.25a ‘The Bhestie’.

f.25b ‘Mollias picking up weeds’.

f.25c ‘A Fakeer’.

f.25d ‘A toddy drawer’.

f.26a ‘At the Band Delhi suddenly discovers his girths are too tight’.

f.26b ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners’.

f.27a ‘Still at the Band - our feelings may be imagined’!

f.27b Extract from a letter with drawing of a palanquin.

f.28 ‘Mrs Prescott bargaining for Eau de Cologne, Miss Pedder’.

f.29 ‘(Henry delighted) The morning practise’.

f.30 ‘The Lady Theodorus taking her breakfast by means of a pipe. Karder an old man - whose only merit is that he is now and then sober’.

f.31 ‘Sending a child to sleep’!

f.32 ‘Why don’t he pull? or the Sleeping Punkah Wallah’.

f.33 ‘A few friends accompany us to the Steamer, Aden, Feb /65. A native bobby poking fun at one of them’.

f.34 ‘Our landlord loquitor. Oh Sir, on yr. bungalow too much money I spend. Road I make - wall I build - white wash I make - one t’ousand rupee I spend - the fact being that we paid for the road, he didn’t finish the wall, & the white wash was imaginary’.

f.35 ‘Despair, myself - How are you going to cut it out? (The jacket on the floor) Dirzee - “Madam Sahib Ke Kushi”, as the Madam likes - of course I haven’t a notion and oh! if I could draw his smell too, you would be astonished’.

f.36 ‘Henry sketching - admiring audience’.

f.37 ‘A scene on Malabar Hill - just the sort of thing we drive thro’ every day - and you may fancy us in the carriage which is just disappearing. The two little men are a coachman & gharawalla. The old woman on the right side is fanning Indian corn which she is roasting on cinders and the other one is pulling the husks off. The woman on the left has a basket of cucumbers on her head. Those are two merchants walking along. And perhaps you observe that in the centre is a cart full of women. I have no remark to make on them excepting that there they are’!

f.38a ‘Parsee merchants - after dinner’.

f.38b ‘Despair’.

f.39a ‘No.1. I do a little marketing on my own account’.

f.39b ‘No.2. And convict the butler on the subject of plantains’.

f.40a Small boy in turban and tunic’ Wakat Singh’.

f.40b Bony horse drinking from tub’ from life’.

f.40c ‘Ayah’s children who scream like jackals - the youngest one year old who runs and climbs - The sun, The Moon and the wind’.

f.40v ‘What we didn’t see’.

f.41 ‘What (we think) we did see’.

f.42 Interior with a woman at her writing desk. Two household servants are ushering in a male and female turkey.

f.43 A mountain view.