Page 4 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.
1891-1892 From Burma to England to marry Nancy and then to Baluchistan. Transcription notes --- three dashes indicates omitted material, phrases in italics are non-verbatim summaries, or explanatory material some words were undecipherable and are shown in square brackets with a query [?Harrarpur]some words are now rarely used: bandobast=arrangements or discipline, forgainst=an opposing position, faute de mieux= for lack of something better, stultify=to cause to appear ridiculous, scamped =sabotaged
29 March 1891, Camp Palamow, Mss Eur C258/10 to mother.
Dr King is off to Tenasserim in Burma to inspect the tin mines there
6 May 1891, Calcutta, Mss Eur C258/10
Dr King back from Burma and looking very well. I met one of my colleagues, Mr Oldham, on my way down from Daltonganj. He has just come in from Baluchistan where he has been looking for oil. He tells me his mother Is living in Shrewsbury, where his sister is one of the nurses at the infirmary. I would be very glad if sister Grace would call on them some day when she goes for her music lesson. Their address is 'Windsor House'. It is somewhere near St Mary's.
Note: LaTouche returned to the UK in 1891 to marry Nancy.
Oct 6 1891 in England Mss Eur C258/10
--- newly married and packing ready to sail to India.
5 Nov 1891, Calcutta, Mss Eur C258/10
Dr & Mrs King have given us a very nice breakfast affair with two egg cups , butter cooler, toast rack combined as a wedding present. {a drawing of it on the page] We are going to dine with them tomorrow evening. Mr Oldham gave us a dinner on Friday at the Bengal Club. Not a big affair as only the Kings and Mr Holland who is also in the survey were there. Nancy wore her white silk wedding dress and looked very well.
28 Nov 1891 Mss Eur C258/10
The La Touche's journey to central provinces encounters trouble in the ladies waiting room with men visiting in the night. He goes in and stays to chaperone her, and the station inspector wants to throw him out. etc Letter to Polly describes the voyage out
"---the first three days were very bad , as soon as we got past the Scilly Islands there was a heavy sea and the ship rolled horribly day and night. Nancy hardly left he berth all the time though she was not very ill, and had a fairly good appetite most of the time, and I was not much better. It was not till we got past Cape St Vincent that the weather became realy fine but since then it has been splendid every day, and the sea quite smooth except yesterday when there was a swell which made the ship pitch a bit , and Nancy felt rather queer at times, but she managed to show up at every meal. We passed Gibralter early on Thursday , and had a very fine view of Malta about 11 o'clock yesterdaay morning - but as it was Sunday and the ship carries plenty of coal to take her on to Port Said the captain did not waster time by going into the haqrbor, so we could not post letters. We have been doing over 300 miles a day since Thursday last - 327 one day - so are getting on very well and hope to be in Port Said on Wednesday.
11 Nov 1891, Calcutta, Mss Eur C258/10
Here we are safe in Calcutta after our long voyage, which was indeed not so long for we were only 27 days at sea and came near to making the quickest run on record. After Suez we had very good weather until we were within 100 miles of the mouth of Hooghly and fell in with a cyclone. We had to turn round then and go back for some distance to keep away from the center of it. It was grand sight to see the waves breaking over the bows of the vessel. Preparations to go to Jabbalpore and the Nerbadda river for a month to examine the coal field there. "Dr King says it is a very pretty place," Details of the geology to his father and mention of a tiger hunt in three letters.
21 Dec 1891, Daltonganj, C258/11
Pen and ink drawing of ridge tent enclosed with letter.
2 Feb 1892, Dehra Ismael Khan, Mss Eur C258/11 to his mother
Describes how he was "ordered to Quetta to fix a site for an oil boring, just getting to the Indus before the bridge of boats was pulled down before the beginning of the rainy season. I had a hot day's journey to Moultan where I met Dr. King, on Friday morning we went together and had two days, one of them very hot and a night on the train before we rached Quetta. There we stayed Sunday week and saw the great man of the District, Sir James Browne who has succeeded Sir R. Sandeman. On Monday we started back staying a day at a place called the Chappar rift, a wonderful narrow gorge through the hills, where we chose the place where the oil boring was to be made,
Kulu 17 Feb 1892, to Lahore 11 May and Dharmsala
20 April 1892, Bakkar, C258/60
a flooded bridge
21 April 1892, Mooltan, C258/60 to Nancy in Dera Ismail Khan
"Subur forgot the tin of army rations."
22 April 1892, Ruk Junction, C258/60
I am writing under difficulties for Dr. King is sitting in a long arm chair forgainst me and talking away about what he intends to do when he goes on leave, We have had a great day's conversation entirely but first I must tell you what we are likely to do. Dr King does not know whether we shall have to go to Quetta or not, but we will probably get a telegram at Sibi which will settle that.
23 April 1892, Quetta, C258/60
Its cooler here. Choosing the site for oil boring on Monday
24 April 1892, Quetta, C258/60
… met William King looking fresh and "full of spirits as a boy". He is certainly a wonderful man to be able to take such a journey after his length of service and be so fresh at the end of it. That day was a very hot one in the train and we consumed a fair quantity of liquor. Each train carries a man with ice and soda water which is a great convenience. At Ruk where we had to wait a couple of hours and change from the Karachi to the Quetta train after crossing the Indus on a wonderful bridge. We met some people, a Mr McMahon and his wife, who had just come from home and were on their way to Quetta. He turned out to be the son of General McMahon who is a well known geologist and did a great deal of work for the geological Survey before he retired, but his son seemed to have very hazy ideas on the subject, and hardly knew the difference between archaelogy and geology, also mixed up chemistry and petrology etc etc. His wife seemed to be very pleasant and nice looking (that is, you understand, comparatively. My wife is the only really nice-looking woman I know). However we had some talk together, and he turned out to be the Comm. of Apozam and to have come down through the Dhana with Sandeman and Oldham. The latter he did not seem to think much of. He says that he hardly took the trouble to look at the oil and he riled Dr. King considerably by calling Oldham an "expert".
He describes artesian wells … The water rushes up from a pipe about 4 ins in diameter and throws itself 3 or 4 feet into the air malking quite a pretty fountain. Then we went to look at some natural artesian springs outside the station, which Mr. Oldham thinks were made a long time ago by some now forgotten race of civilized people. Dr. King and I came to the conclusion that they are springs and have been formed naturally .
NOTE: it is likely that the artesian springs LaTouche refers to are the Qanat systems described by Oldham in articles and subsequently in his book. If so King and LaTouche were wrong.