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This well presented paperback is interesting from two angles, its
historical notes which form an introduction, and the actual verbatim
Journal which covers Waldie's journey from Southampton on 19th
March to Calcutta on 17th May 1853. The fifty or so pages of
historical introduction are excellent. They explain the position then and
the problems of getting to India for both the East India Company
officials and any civilians. Waldie was a Scot, as were so many of the
British in India at the time of course, but he was unusual in that he
worked as a chemist. He left a post in Liverpool for Calcutta to work
for Malcolm & Co. a Scottish firm of chemists. They were an early
manufacturing company, but were slowly failing as a business. By 1858
Waldie had recognised the situation and set up his own more modern
business as D. Waldie & Co. He remained in Bengal for the remainder
of his life, and is buried in the famous Scottish Cemetery in Calcutta. Besides his journal
he has two other claims to fame. He worked for many years in the
Asiatic Society of Bengal, and was indeed its Vice-President in 1884 and 1885, publishing several papers on the age-old problem of the
water supply of Calcutta, and the filtration of the Hooghly water for the
city. He is internationally famous for his earlier work with Dr James
Simpson on the use of chloroform in surgery. Neither of these
fascinating details appear in his Journal, but it is interesting to have the
importance of his whole life outlined in the introduction by Alan
Young. The journal is an almost daily record of Waldie's overland
journey. It details the two ships he used, Waghorn's bone-breaking
wagons to cross seventy - odd miles of desert, the Sunday services and
two burials at sea, and the conditions (food, cabins, recreation, fire
alarms, etc) on board. It is fascinating to compare Waldie's journey
with a slightly earlier passage from Calcutta to Liverpool by the
journalist James Sutherland in 1831. Sutherland's Journal is alas lost
but it is partially quoted in some existing letters he sent back to friends.
Sutherland had to sail round the Cape - and his journey took nearly five
months, whereas Waldie took two steam ships and under two months
for his journey two decades later.
The book is unusually well illustrated, with contemporary prints of all
the major ports en route, and no less than six pictures to cover the
tricky land crossing of Egypt. Waldie sailed on PS Bentinck and PS
Ripon, prints of both were found in the National Maritime Museum.
Waldie was clearly an interested traveller who went on land at every
opportunity to see the ports and their hinterland. He thus gives a
contemporary account of each coaling or military station; their bazaars,
customs, boats and population - women and slave markets included!
The Journal was only intended to record the journey and places of
interest on the way for his immediate friends. He concluded his account
with his arrival in Calcutta. This is a great pity since so sharp an
observer and thoughtful a commentator would have had much to offer
on his impressions of his new abode. Warmly recommended .
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