Autograph Letter Signed, Roseville, Muree, Punjab, Sunday 3rd, September, 1871, to his sister, Nelly

octavo, 12 pages, illustrated with several pen and ink line sketches, in very good, clean and legible condition.

Ryan writes a highly detailed letter describing his work and life in India. Ryan was a Civil Engineer, engaged in building rail lines for the Indian Government, at the time he wrote this letter he was then in charge of the Khanpur division of the Indus Valley Line. Ryan contracted malaria while engaged in this work and died in 1876 after leaving India.

"My dear Nelly,

… I suppose you have seen all Bell's collection of Indian photography and curiosities. I should have added to her stock this year, if I could have got leave to go the capital of Cashmere on a walking tour thro' the Hills – Scrinnugger it is called but they will not hear of it, so I suppose I shall be ordered to rejoin my Division at the end of this month, and have to travel to get to my headquarters at Khanpoor involves going from here to Rawul Pinder 40 miles from thence to Shelum and on to Lahore 170 & all by dawk gharries, or carts on which you can lay down & go to sleep, horses going full galop night and day at a rate of about 8 miles an hour on an average … from Lahore to Moolan 200 miles by rail and then on post cart for 60 miles to Bahawulpoor and then a ride of 90 miles on my poney and with my camp and tents on camels following – it will take about 12 or 15 days… government gives me a shilling a mile for all distances travelled, except by rail when they give only 4 ½ d a mile, but out of this I have to keep my horses, grooms & grass cutters and also my camels, of which I take 7, but they provide me with tents & camels to carry them – my marching camp generally consists of my head servant, and the cook, water carrier and sweeper, grooms and grass cuts, bearer 7 on camels and 10 foot ones and 3 camel men my head tent pitcher or tundal and 11 calasses to help them, also my Asst. Engineer, has about the same servants, but only 5 camels and 8 or 9 tent pitchers, then comes my treasure guard, consisting of a Naick or native officer, & 4 bold privates with fixed bayonets, uniform, red pantaloons, blue coats and turbans, no socks, only shoes & any amount of dirt, then there is my accountant, Head clerk and a Native overseer, carpenter and smith and bricklayers, and a native clerk to write Persian letters, advising headmen of villages of our marching, and ordering them to have supplies in readiness, and also my native doctor in attendance on the camp with the medicine chest, and as all these people have servants & tents, and besides these I have 3 chuperasses or belted messengers & my asst also one, and we keep 3 dromedaries or swift camels with riders to send letters ahead, and also a Draughtsman, you see our camp comes to be of a very large size when pitched and includes a very large number of people – there is my office tent, measures 14 feet square insides besides a 4 foot verandah all round, and a double roof (this is a load for 3 camels) [Ryan includes a small sketch] and is made of 4 thicknesses of canvass, and nicely lined with canary colored cloth and door and sunblinds, and altogether very comfortable then my sleeping (private) tent 12 feet square with verandah on 2 sides and a bathroom attached, also my asst. engineers tent & one for my accountant and clerk, and 6 small tents… for the herd –

I am to have 3 Asst. Engineers to help me with my Division of 70 miles in length, and I suppose they will send me about a dozen soldier sabor dinates, as overseers and supervisors (whom I'd rather not have) we have been engaged up here at Muree in getting out our estimates and preparing designs and have all but finished – my division will cost about £ 400,000 – if we begin work this year. I hope to get my bungalows up in time for next hot weather, as I do not suppose they will send us up here next hot season again on duty, paying our expenses and giving us full pay, but as I have 3 months privilege leave due to me, I shall probably take it and go to the Hills – it is so cold in the tents at night that we have to sleep with 2 blankets and a thick quilt stuffed with cotton, about 2 inches thick – my dog sleeps on the bed and I have my pistols loaded under my pillow … but there are no robberies in Bahawulpoor State – I suppose Bell told you the Nazims came to visit us when we were there, and if the Nawab holds a Durbar when I am going back I shall attend, as he gave other Engineers last year crimson & gold sashes or Kummerbunds worth about 8 £ each, lovely things – as our line runs parallel to the Indus which is about 20 miles off and the country slopes from it like this about 12 feet down in that distance [sketch added] we are subject, when the river gets high from much rain falling and tops its banks, to Inundations – but I am glad to say that these are turned off in a slanting direction by bands & irrigation channels from my line, and inundate the Division next to mine to the extent of 8 or 10 feet deep for about 2 or 3 months, beginning in July – all the villages are therefore built on high ground & protected by bunds or earth embankments – the people then go about on boats, and sleep when at home on the topes of their houses on account of the myriads of flies, fleas & musquitoes – fever of course is very bad when the inundations subside – I have had an asst engineer all this hot weather living in a tent down there watching the floods, and altho' born in this country and with a touch of the tar brush in his complexion, he said the heat was awful, and the insects dreadful, and native houses so hot, he prefers living in a tent, but we had a thatch roof put over it for him -

It seems odd, does it not, a river bed being higher than the surrounding country, but all these big Indian rivers, running from the Himalayas are much the same, it is the silt from the mountains disintegrating which they are constantly bringing down, which gets deposited, the five rivers of the Punjab, the Indus, Sutles, Chenab, Shelum, and Raree, especially so – this country is rich in classic remains, left probably by Alexander the Greats army during his invasion – there are lots of Grecian statues in the museum at Lahore – we have a nice little house up here at Muree, on top of Pundee Point, which is 7266 high & so we are very often in the clouds – Murree is the highest hill station, but one, in the Himalayas, and the usual summer residence of the local government – the rides and drives are very pretty, and some of the roads go thro beautiful forests – there is a Memorial Asylum for 71 boys & 54 girls, soldier's children built by the Lawrences' and a Brewery which makes very good beer – a decent church, 2 clubs and 3 hotels – a family camp for Europeans, a cricket club, a croquet & a glee club, 2 sets of amateur theatricals and Reunions once a fortnight, concerts &s all the English trees, fruit and flowers, and vegetables – monkeys, bears, leopards, foxes & jackals in the forests & occasionally a tiger – snakes also – ducks, turkeys, pheasant and partridge & chickens are plentiful, this is a grand place in the hot weather, and is a great Sanatorium for the British soldiers to be sent to when sick – there are generally various detachments up here, and a couple of mountain batteries, little steel cannon carried about on mule's backs – it is particularly good for women and children – in fact ladies and children with their ayas seem to be the prevailing population, and I suppose visitors all told here mount up to 1600 souls, and there about 200 houses, the native population is about 10,000 – we have a Bank also and about 10 or 12 leading mercantile houses (including Parsees) who will supply you with anything almost, if you pay for it – there are also Wesleyan & Catholic chapels and a young ladies school, assembly rooms, and good fishing not far off, good water… we had some very good "Amateur Theatricals" the other night, and it was very successful – the audience liked it, and so did the performers, as part of the performance of the Burlesque seemed principally to be hugging a very pretty woman - at least so the ladies here make out, probably thro' jealousy at not performing in that way themselves, but as there are plenty of good looking young officers up here, with nothing else to do, they need not be jealous for long, and if scandal is true, there is a lot of that done – a young fellow having just been ordered off to the plains for being too attentive to a married lady, whose husband is away on duty – but you have no idea how much scandal is talked in India; I thought a small English provincial town was the place for that, but India will give any place long odds in that way & win easy - …

Terrible row here the other day – a fellow was making love to a marrd ladies maid, but the lady thought it was to herself the love was being made, and was not at all unwilling and happening to open a note meant for the maid, asking for an appointment, gave it – tableau – anxious lover going in slyly in the dusk thinking to meet the maid, meets the mistress, husband happening to come in rather inopportunely, finds a man with his wife, rushes off to lawyer to immediately institute a suit for damages, divorce &c against the unlucky man – this really happened at Rawul Pindee, and the poor devil is threatened with a suit for £ 10,000 damages, and even if proved innocent, the expenses will probably ruin him …

I am probably going to be made "A member or associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers" shortly … the floods in India have been dreadful -ler this year than ever before known, and lots of big railway bridges have been broken on the line to Calcutta and Bombay – all goods traffic nearly suspended – on the Delhi line a fortnight ago there was a break of 60 miles in length – it is to be hoped they will soon be repaired, but it must take months and even years, in some cases to repair damages – even the Governor General up at Simla and the whole of the big wigs were cut off from all communication with the plains for a week, and could get no official letters nor reply …"

https://www.emerald.com/jmipi/article/48/1877/272/415368/OBITUARY-THOMAS-TENISON-RYAN-1835-1876