British Encounters with the Indian Summer through Women’s Travel Narratives and Memoirs (1750-1900)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.66871/ihj.v1i1.009Keywords:
Colonial India, Environmental History, Women's Travel Writing, Climate and Empire, Colonial Domesticity, Cooling Technologies, Punkah Wallahs.Abstract
Arriving from a temperate climatic zone, many British perceived the Indian summer as physically oppressive and medically dangerous. Their writings reveal recurring descriptions of heat, exhaustion, illness, and discomfort, alongside detailed observations of the strategies employed to survive tropical conditions. This paper examines British encounters with the Indian summer through travel narratives, memoirs, diaries, and personal correspondence, with particular emphasis on accounts written by British women. First, the paper inquires how British travelers represented the Indian summer and how climatic experiences informed colonial perceptions of India as both exotic and hostile. Second, it analyzes the material and labor infrastructures that sustained colonial comfort, including punkahs, punkah-wallahs, indigenous techniques of ice production, and domestic service networks. Third, it examines contemporary medical concerns regarding heat-related illnesses, cholera, malaria, dysentery, and other diseases associated with tropical environments. The paper argues that British adaptation to the Indian summer depended upon complex networks of Indian labor, indigenous knowledge, and cooling technologies, revealing climate as a crucial factor in the making of colonial society.
References
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Endnotes
1. Emily Eden, Up the Country: Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, ed. E. Thompson (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 253-55
2. Michael H. Fisher, "From India to England and Back: Early Indian Travel Narratives for Indian Readers," Huntington Library Quarterly 70, no. 1 (2007): 153-72, https://doi.org/10.1525/hlq.2007.70.1.153.
3. Michael H. Fisher, "From India to England and Back: Early Indian Travel Narratives for Indian Readers," Huntington Library Quarterly 70, no. 1 (2007): 153-54, https://doi.org/10.1525/hlq.2007.70.1.153.
4. Michael H. Fisher, "From India to England and Back: Early Indian Travel Narratives for Indian Readers," Huntington Library Quarterly 70, no. 1 (2007): 155, https://doi.org/10.1525/hlq.2007.70.1.153.
5. Jemima Kindersley, "Letter XXV. Patna, Nov. 1766" and "Letter XXVII. Allahabad, June 1767," in Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 50
6. Jemima Kindersley, "Letter XXV. Patna, Nov. 1766" and "Letter XXVII. Allahabad, June 1767," in Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 56-58
7. Jemima Kindersley, "Letter XXV. Patna, Nov. 1766" and "Letter XXVII. Allahabad, June 1767," in Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 104
8. Jemima Kindersley, "Letter XXV. Patna, Nov. 1766" and "Letter XXVII. Allahabad, June 1767," in Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 103-04
9. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 58
10. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 27, 56
11. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 24
12. Emily Eden, Up the Country: Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, ed. E. Thompson (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 125-29.
13. Jemima Kindersley, "Letter XXV. Patna, Nov. 1766" and "Letter XXVII. Allahabad, June 1767," in Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 56, 58
14. Jemima Kindersley, Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 103-04
15. Carl Thompson, ed., Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), 144-47.
16. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 119
17. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 119-20
18. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 56.
19. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 27, 56.
20. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 120, 124-125
21. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 24.
22. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 63.
23. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 63.
24. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 38.
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26. Jemima Kindersley, Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 50
27. Emily Eden, Up the Country: Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, ed. E. Thompson (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 254.
28. Emily Eden, Up the Country: Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, ed. E. Thompson (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 254.
29. Emily Eden, Up the Country: Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, ed. E. Thompson (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 3, 37.
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31. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 23-24
32. Indira Ghose, ed., Memsahibs Abroad: Writings by Women Travellers in Nineteenth-Century India (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1998), 9-11.
33. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 62-63.
34. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 119-120
35. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 119-120
36. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 124-125
37. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 125
38. Jemima Kindersley, Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 107
39. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 124, 125
40. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 60-63
41. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 62-63.
42. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 62.
43. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 37-38
44. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 27, 56
45. Carl Thompson, ed., Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2020), 144-47.
46. Fanny Parkes, Begums, Thugs and White Mughals: Wanderings of a Pilgrim in Search of the Picturesque, During Four-and-Twenty Years in the East; with Revelations of Life in the Zenana (1850; New Delhi: Sickle Moon Books, 2003), 119-125
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59. Emily Eden, Up the Country: Letters Written to Her Sister from the Upper Provinces of India, ed. E. Thompson (London: Oxford University Press, 1930), 280
60. Jemima Kindersley, Letters from the Island of Teneriffe, Brazil, the Cape of Good Hope, and the East Indies (1777), in Women's Travel Writings in India, 1777-1854, vol. 1, ed. Carl Thompson (London: Routledge, 2020), 115
61. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 60.
62. Kathleen K. Dyson, A Various Universe: A Study of the Journals and Memoirs of British Men and Women in the Indian Subcontinent, 1765-1856 (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 60-62.
