‘The Little Nothings of Our Life’: Furlough, Recovery and Imperial Interlude at the Cape Colony, 1796–1850

ABSTRACT In 1849, John Colpoys Haughton embarked for a period of rest and recuperation at the Cape of Good Hope. This article uses correspondence between Haughton, an Indian army officer in South Africa, and his family in Britain to explore personal experiences of furlough and to foreground the role of the Cape Colony as a site of recovery and recuperation. Haughton’s example emphasises the importance of health and well-being in facilitating, or curtailing, the mid-nineteenth-century British Empire and those in its service. His experiences illuminate broader issues in Britain’s nineteenth-century world: the logistics and practicalities of embarking on an extended leave of absence; the representation of the Cape as a place of healthfulness; the complex relationship between ideas of home and belonging for those on furlough there; and the enduring significance of familial connections. The correspondence generated during Haughton’s sojourn at the Cape illustrates the wider mechanics of imperial careering and communication in the period, highlighting the familial and personal networks that existed in parallel with professional, economic and military connections, and demonstrating the continued importance of these social ties. Although Haughton arrived at the Cape in search of health, and his letters were ostensibly about ‘the little nothings of our life’, they tell us just as much about the mid-nineteenth-century empire. Ultimately, Haughton’s example takes us across oceans, connecting people and places on three continents, and underlining the dynamic and complex lines of communication that criss-crossed the British Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century.

In January 1849, a few months before he left India on furlough for a prolonged period of rest and recuperation in South Africa, John Colpoys Haughton wrote to his mother in West Wickham, Kent. Commiserating with her on a recent bout of illness, this dutiful son was convinced that 'the state of the atmosphere' was to blame. Haughton considered himself 'an authority in such matters', and he supported his diagnosis with a rather unusual claim: 'I am a living barometer feeling every change before it is apparent.' 1 His letter underscores the pervasiveness of the Victorian belief that health and well-being were inextricably linked to environmental and climatic conditions. But in view of the fact that it was written by an Indian army officer preparing to embark for a British colony in Southern Africa for the benefit of his health, the letter also highlights the importance of overseas furlough. For officers and officials like Haughton, external factors were perceived to be as important as psychological ones in the body's struggle to remain healthy. Empire, and its effects on European constitutions, elicited much medical and social comment in the period. As the nineteenth century progressed, Britain's expanding imperial interests coincided with an increased sensitivity towards the deleterious effects of some colonial spaces on European health, as well as a heightened awareness of the apparent ability of places like Western Australia and the Cape Colony, with their salubrious climates, to mitigate these effects. 2 This article uses Haughton's sojourn in South Africa as a prism through which to explore personal experiences of overseas furlough and to foreground the role of the Cape as a site of recovery and recuperation to which European officials in India resorted.
Haughton's personal history emphasises the importance of health and physical well-being in facilitating, or curtailing, the mid-nineteenth-century British Empire and those in its service. Haughton's story is both extraordinary and unusual, and mundane and ordinary at one and the same time. His injuries and disabilities suggest the unique circumstances in which he travelled to South Africa, but his correspondence also provides the diurnal details that inform the context of imperial furlough in the middle of the nineteenth century. His letters are full of the delight of reading about his family in Britain, the sadness of separation from them, the joys of new parenthood, and what he describes as the 'little nothings' of their life in the Cape Colony. 3 But he also remarked on all sorts of contemporary concerns: the convict problems at the Cape, the theology of John Wesley, and the transportation of the Koh-i-noor diamond from India to Britain. 4 Haughton's example takes us beyond medical statistics and scientific data, revealing the human aspect of this history through what Jeffrey Auerbach has called 'the prism of lived experience'. 5 Biography, as Peter Hulme and Russell McDougall remind us, 'provides a way of getting at the sense of trajectory among the personnel of Empire, and of the transference of colonial experience and practice from one setting to another'. 6 The letters that help us to recreate these trajectories are performative acts, as Onni Gust argues, through which people constituted themselves as subjects and attempted to make sense of the world around them. 7 Haughton's letterscrucial media for long-distance, transoceanic communication in the periodexplain his reasons for going on furlough. They tell of illness and weakness, and the toll taken by imperial service on one body. But they also speak of recovery and rejuvenation, and they illustrate some of the perceived benefits of health tourism in the period. And beyond the impact on an individual's health, Haughton's experiences on furlough illuminate broader issues in Britain's nineteenth-century world: the mechanics, logistics and practicalities of embarking on such an extended leave of absence; the representation of the Cape as a place of healthfulness; the complex relationship between ideas of home and belonging for those on furlough there; and the enduring significance of familial connections. Ultimately, the subjectivities and personal experiences of empire evident in Haughton's story makes it a conduit for understanding wider imperial processes.
The success of empire depended on keeping colonists, settlers and officials like John Haughton healthy. In relation to colonial India, there have been a number of impressive studies of medicine and health. 8 Scholars like David Arnold, Mark Harrison and Dane Kennedy have shed considerable light on the issues of disease and illness, as well as their mitigation and treatment, in the subcontinent. In general, these studies have focused on the impact of climate on perceptions of health and well-being, the preventative and remedial steps taken by colonial authorities in the subcontinent or, more recently, the practices of knowledge exchange. The link between medicine and medical knowledge on the one hand, and the extension and expansion of empire on the other, is increasingly recognised as playing a fundamental role in a range of imperial processes. With the notable exception of the hill station and the sanitorium, however, there has generally been less scrutiny of the ways in which health was restored and recovery effected. 9 And there has been little consideration of those medical remedies that involved leaving India altogether. The Cape Colony, and other places in the wider Indian Ocean region, have been largely overlooked as scholars concentrated on the deleterious effects of the Indian climate, recuperation stations in the subcontinent, and periods of furlough spent in Europe. In contrast, this article focuses on the effect of overseas furlough on the physical and psychological state of officials and army officers. More specifically, it assesses the Cape Colony as a site of convalescence, particularly in the context of its location half-way between Europe and India, positing it as an important locus of recovery and recuperation.
This lacuna in the scholarship is mirrored in accounts of John Haughton's career. Notwithstanding an entry in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, a collection of papers in the British Library, and his own publications, there is little mention of the period from the beginning of 1849 until autumn 1850 when Haughton, his young wife and their infant son spent eighteen months at the Cape of Good Hope recuperating from injuries received and maladies suffered in the service of Britain's Indian empire. 10 Although somewhat circumspect in his letters, there is little doubt about the extent of Haughton's injuries. This was a career and a body defined by the violence and warfare that accompanied the developing empire in Asia. This episode offers insights to historians of the British Empire in at least three specific areas. First, it informs our understanding of furlough, a system which gave British officers serving in India an opportunity to take an extended leave of absence from their duties in the subcontinent. Granted periodically, or upon extraordinary occasions like illness, to military (and later civilian) personnel, the system was first formalised for those serving in the East India Company's armies in 1796. 11 The complicated rules, which regulated the amounts of pay and lengths of absence permitted, changed throughout the following century. 12 Those serving in the civil branch of the Company's organisation were also permitted to take a period of furlough. 13 The situation is made more complex by the fact that, by the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'furlough' had entered colloquial colonial discourse, where it applied more widely (and loosely). 14 As well as being a specifically regulated element of the conditions of their military service, therefore, furlough needs to be regarded as a cultural phenomenon for Indian army personnel like Haughton and one closely associated with the recuperation of mind and body. The connection between hot and tropical climates on the one hand, and the desuetude of European health and constitutions on the other, was firmly entrenched by the mid-nineteenth century. Much has been written about the interconnections between health, hygiene and climate that inspired such health tourism in the period but relatively little has been said about the practical, day-to-day experiences of being on furlough overseas. Where did colonial officers and officials go, and why? What did they do, and how did they feel when they were there? Haughton's correspondence offers a rare glimpse of the personal hopes and fears of a servant of empire, a nervous new father, and a chaperone responsible for an obstreperous young charge.
The second major theme highlighted by Haughton's example is the importance of the Cape Colony for British India's officials and army officers seeking health and recovery. Situated at the southern tip of Africa, the Cape was an appealing destination and Haughton was one of the many selfdefined 'Indians' or 'Hindoos' who availed themselves of its attractive climate and social circuit. Haughton's correspondence contributes texturein the form of personal, familial and affective detailto those nineteenth-century published accounts and guides that posited the Cape as a key locus in promoting European health and aiding recovery. In characterising the Indian Ocean as a 'disease zone', David Arnold has considered the spread of illness around the region as a result of its integration through early modern processes of globalisation and imperialism. 15 This article explores how the movement and mobility that facilitated the circulation of disease might also contribute to the recuperation and convalescence of some of those affected. Just as Southern Africa acted as 'an epidemiological as well as a commercial staging post', then, it also acted as a recovery station for those afflicted by illness in the subcontinent. 16 The health benefits of the region, understood in the most general terms, were long known and much admired. Haughton's experiences offer personal perspectives on these long-established tropes, as well as insights into the ways in which the benefits of the Cape's climate were re-imagined in the light of nineteenthcentury medical knowledge and research. Ultimately, Haughton benefited (or felt that he benefited) from the climate of the Cape, combined with the sea breezes and seaside air.
Third, the correspondence generated over the course of Haughton's sojourn at the Capein the form of letters written to his family in Britainillustrates the wider mechanics of imperial careering and communication in the period, as well as highlighting themes of home, family and belonging. On one level, Haughton's time in South Africa was merely an interlude in a busy professional life. But it underlines another aspect of the mobility of imperial servants, a point made persuasively by David Lambert and Alan Lester. 17 Haughton was one of those servants of empire. Furthermore, although communication was still difficult, Haughton's presence at the Cape highlights the interconnected nature of the British world in the period, and the British presence in the Indian Ocean in particular. As Ruth Morgan and James Beattie have shown in relation to Australia, the relative proximity of these southern-hemisphere colonies to India gave them a crucial advantage in attracting what were, in effect, medical tourists from the subcontinent. 18 Haughton's furlough also shows the familial and personal networks that existed in parallel with professional, economic and military connections, demonstrating the continued importance of these social ties. It reminds us that we need to pay close attention to the family relations that helped to sustain and strengthen imperial links. The interplay between the personal and private histories of families, and the broader context of global developments is an area of burgeoning interest among historians of empire. 19 Haughton found it 'quite a comfort to get such later accounts of the family'. 20 His remarks on the passing visits of family members on their way to India -'living letters' as Haughton called themare an important reminder that individuals played critical roles in building up and sustaining the empire. 21 The examples explored in the discussion that follows also relate to the impact of 'exile' in the colonies, the importance of perceptions of 'home' to those living there, and the effect of empire on metropolitan Britain. 22 Haughton's sojourn in South Africa introduces another dimension: separation both from family in Europe and professional ties in India. In this respect, Haughton's time at the Cape complicates straightforward binary divisions between 'exile' on the one hand, and 'home' on the other. Indeed, his example highlights a bifurcated, ambivalent and complex approach to identity and feelings of belonging. Residence at the Cape represented being neither 'at home' in Britain nor 'in exile' in Asia. The first point is brought home most explicitly in the bureaucratic fact that when Haughton was there time spent on furlough at the Cape due to ill health did not count as home furlough. 23 In relation to the second, Haughton pined for his favourite region of India, and his letters convey an impatience to return to a fulfilling professional life there. Although many officials must have shared Sir James Mackintosh's concerncharted in Onni Gust's workabout the potentially deleterious effects of spending too much time in India, the evidence of Haughton's correspondence suggests that the subcontinent was as much a 'home' to him as Britain. As such, periods of furlough at the Capesuch as those undertaken by Haughton and otherscomplicate notions of home/exile, as well as giving us insights into the role of the Cape as a site of recuperation and health.
The discussion begins by setting Haughton's time at the Cape in the wider context of his life and career, before exploring the episode in relation to furlough from India. It considers furlough to places around the Indian Ocean in general, before focusing more specifically on the Cape Colony as a popular destination for those looking for respite from service in the subcontinent. It catalogues the benefits that residents like Haughton expected to derive from their time in South Africa before concluding with reflections on the value of considering such experiences in illuminating broader themes in the history of the Victorian British Empire. Ultimately, the example of John Haughton takes us across oceans, connecting people and places on three continents, and underlining the dynamic and complex lines of communication that criss-crossed the British Empire in the middle of the nineteenth century.

John Colpoys Haughton: Servant of Empire
John Colpoys Haughton was born in Dublin on 25 November 1817. 24 His first experience of active service, to which he alludes briefly in his letters, was in the Royal Navy. He was entered on the books of HMS Magnificent in Jamaica in 1830, where his relative, Admiral Edward Griffiths Colpoys, was commanderin-chief. Haughton's time in the navy appears to have been rather unhappy. 25 In 1835, he was invalided from the service and went in search of another career. He found it in India. This was unsurprising as Haughton came from a family with longstanding interests in Asia. His father, Richard Haughton, was Professor of Oriental Languages at East India College, and his paternal uncle, Sir Graves Champney Haughton, was another well-known oriental scholar. In keeping with his earlier inclinations, however, John Haughton distinguished himself for his military service. He was commissioned into the Bengal Native Infantry in 1837 and subsequently served in a number of campaigns. He saw action during the Afghan War (1839-1842), the Bhutan expedition (1864-1865), and numerous other smaller engagements. After his stay in the Cape Colony, Haughton served as Magistrate of Moulmein, Superintendent at Fort Blair in the Andaman Islands, and Commissioner successively of Assam and of Cooch Bihar in Bengal. He was made Companion of the Star of India, and retired in 1873 at the rank of lieutenant-general.
This brief summary of Haughton's career glosses over the fact that his early combat experiences, during the Afghan War, were life changing. He was appointed Adjutant of the 4th Light, or Ghoorka, Regiment, in the service of the Shah Sooja. Haughton was a member of the detachment sent to defend Charikar, a town forty miles north of Kabul. In the course of this deployment, a mutiny broke out among the Shah's troops and Haughton was grievously wounded in the neck, shoulder and arm. In 'the work of an instant', in Haughton's own words, he had 'the whole of the muscles on one side of the back of my neck severed, a severe cut into the right shoulder joint, another in the right wrist, nearly severing my hand, and a fourth in the left fore arm, splintering the bone'. 26 The damage to his right hand was so severe that later that evening, under the light given by 'a piece of oiled rag', the doctor amputated Haughton's hand at the wrist, 'rapidly sewing the skin together with three stitches of a needle and thread'. 27 He escaped to Kabul, where he and his party were received 'as men risen from the dead'. 28 Haughton arrived in a severely injured state, and a second amputation had to be performed in Kabul. 29 Convalescence was necessary, and he visited the Cape before returning to India where he married Jessie Eleanor Presgrove in Calcutta on 16 June 1845. 30 The incident at Charikar was a relatively minor episode in the forging of the nineteenth-century British Raj. But it played a major role in Haughton's life: to the end of his days, his obituary concluded, 'he continued to suffer from the many injuries formerly received by him in the service of his country'. 31 Since at least 1843, Haughton was in receipt of 'an allowance of £40 per annum' on account of 'a wound received in Afghanistan in 1841'. The payment was confirmed again in 1849, just as he was about to set off with his wife and infant son for South Africa. 32 By the time he left for South Africa, Haughton had served in India for over a decade. But while in charge of Chaibassa in the Chota Nagpur region of central India, he fell ill again and was granted sick leave. 33 We know that shortly before his departure for the Cape he had been suffering from an 'unpleasant attack' of some sort. 34 Even though he assured his sister Susan ('Sukey') that during the course of the voyage he 'made some progress to health', he signed off quickly, blaming the effects of a 'splitting headache'. 35 A few weeks later, he informed his father that he was 'suffering under a dyspeptic attackwhich I find extremely difficult to get rid of'. 36 And at the end of July, he detailed 'a liability to singing in the ear or head morning and evening, with frequently little ulcers inside the lips and lowness of spirit'. 37 In the absence of detailed medical records, it is impossible to ascertain precisely the nature of Haughton's condition, or whether he was likely to benefit from a trip to the Cape. His surviving letters inform us, however, that as well as some specific and serious injuries, Haughton also believed himself to be subject to a general malaise precipitated by external factors. In his correspondence, he exhibited the same concern with the climate and its effects that Dane Kennedy has identified as being at the centre of British discourses about health and hygiene in India. 38 Haughton's views on health, hygiene and recoveryof both himself and his wifewere deeply intertwined with prevailing opinions about the unhealthiness of the Indian climate and, conversely, the potential benefits to be derived from a sojourn at a place like the Cape Colony. His brief residence at Garden Reach, some miles downstream from Calcutta, and a recent return from a sea voyage suggest that, even before his departure for South Africa, Haughton was searching for ways to recover his health. But the ultimate antidote for the ills of the colonial climate were to be found, Haughton and his family hoped, at the Cape. And it was to the southern tip of Africa that they embarked on the Alfred, under the command of Captain Alexander Hemmings, a ship of some 1400 tons, on 23 January 1849. 39 The example of Haughton demonstrates the lengthsquite literallythat some were required (or prepared) to go to in order to recover and recuperate.
Haughton's impressions of his temporary home in Africa bore the stamp of someone with extensive experience of Britain's Asian empire, even down to his descriptions of the landscape that he encountered: The country is in appearance very much like Arabia and Afghanistanthe hills looking brown and bare and the vegetation confined to heaths etc. (in immense and beautiful variety, however)trees only existing, as far as I know, in the neighbourhoods of the Great Rivers, and when they have been artificially planted. The fruits of India and Europe are to be found in the same garden; the pear, the grape, pomegranate, by the side of the plantain and other representatives of hot climates. 40 Haughton and his family spent nine disagreeable days at the Imperial Hotel when they first landed. 41 But soon they were 'comfortably settled in a nice cottage at Wynberg, eight miles from Cape Town'. 42 Here, Haughton joined a number of Company men, 'the less active of the East Indians'. 43 The monthly rent of £10 seemed expensive to Haughton but others 'taught [him] to consider [it] moderate'. 44 One of these sources might have been Nicolas Polson's pamphlet, A Subaltern's Sick Leave, which pronounced on 'the cheapness of the necessaries of life' in South Africa. 45 The inclusion of an appendix detailing 'household hints for Indian invalids at the Cape' in another publication aimed at Anglo-Indian travellers suggests that the issue of money was never far from their minds. 46 According to 'a Bengali', 'a good furnished house' in a place like Wynberg 'can be got for the season at per mensem from £12 to £20'. 47 These protestations were not without interest for visitors. The cost of living at the Cape had long been a source of bemusement and frustration to Anglo-Indian visitors. Indeed, the aforementioned 'Bengali' remarked that it was common knowledge among the residents 'that there are three prices for most of the things sold in Cape Town, the lowest for the Dutch, the next for the English residents, and the highest for the Indian visitors'. 48 Haughton merely remarked, before his departure from India, on being 'a good deal staggered by what I have heard of the expense of living at the Cape'. 49 And he was 'charged most enormously for everything' at the Imperial Hotel in Cape Town. 50 Ultimately, however, and as his acquaintances had predicted, it proved not to be as expensive as he had feared. Although cost was of concern, this evidence highlights a broader point about the centrality of the Cape in Anglo-Indian imaginaries. The existence of a community of European invalids from India underscores the fact that voyages, residence and furlough overseasat the Cape in particularheld out the prospect of recovery and recuperation for these visitors.
Haughton's experiences at the Cape were self-evidently unique. Nevertheless, as the example of living costs proves, they were also part of a wider picture of short-term imperial movement and migration between British territories around the Indian Ocean. More specifically, Haughton's example needs to be set in the context of an enduring desire among East India Company officials and Indian army officers to seek the preservation or restoration of their health through furlough overseas.

Seeking Health in the Indian Ocean World
Prolonged service in India had long been regarded as detrimental to European health and well-being. 51 Perhaps the most famous (and infamous) Company man of the eighteenth century, Robert Clive, described Calcutta as the 'Golgotha of India' because of its frighteningly high mortality rate. 52 The 'injurious effects of the sun in Bengal', and the fevers it induced, were recurring themes in the memoirs of William Hickey. 53 Further south, in Mysore, Mark Wilks, an army officer in the Company's service, complained of 'the bleak damp and very irregular temperature' that characterised the climate there. Its effects 'had fallen on my intestines' and rendered his 'frame like a piece of machinery that required to be kept winded up to its full stretch' to remain healthy: 'so long as there was hard labor and hard service I was as well as possible but on the least relaxation from constant fatigue' sickness soon followed. 54 Problems created by climate were compounded by poor diet, inadequate medical care, and overindulgence with the bottle. (So notorious were the drinking habits of Company servants that one author described his fellow invalids at the Cape as 'liverless objects'. 55 ) The options for recuperation for those who managed to survive were limited. There were no hill stations or purpose-built sanatoria to aid recovery until the later decades of the nineteenth century. William Hickey identified probably the most widely practised remedy to which invalids in earlier periods resorted: 'a change of air'. 56 Simply taking a sea voyage, something that John Haughton did before embarking for the Cape, was also considered helpful. In The Use of Sea Voyages in Medicine, first published in 1756, Ebenezer Gilchrist had lauded the humid and salty air of the sea, as well as the 'voluntary and tossing motion of the ship', which provided excellent muscular exercise and helped 'to preserve the equilibrium'. 57 Susan Cust, the daughter of a captain in the Bengal Native Infantry, was advised by her physician that 'an immediate voyage to sea' had become 'absolutely necessary and the only prospect there is of saving her life' from the consumption that afflicted her. 58 This course of action was recommended to Hickey himself when he fell victim to the baleful influence of the subcontinent's climate: 'My health being in no way mended, notwithstanding I was constantly swallowing medicine of some kind or other, several of my friends recommend me to try a change of air by taking a voyage to sea.' 59 There was never any shortage of Company or Crown officials requiring respite from the subcontinent. Several decades later, Lieutenant Francis St Clare, serving in the 9th Regiment of the Native Infantry, arrived in Calcutta from up-country in such 'a bad state of health' that the Presidency's surgeons declared, 'solemnly and sincerely', that 'a voyage to sea is absolutely necessary to his recovery'. 60 It was in this context that John Haughton's travels were undertaken.
The medical imperatives and opportunities for taking an extended leave of absence from one's duties in India gathered pace in the nineteenth century. Physicians advised long furloughs in temperate climates, as it was widely assumed that Europeans would inevitably degenerate after extended periods of residence in the 'torrid zone'. Influential scientific opinion, such as that expressed in publications like James Johnson's The Influence of Tropical Climates on European Constitutions (1813), reinforced the idea that European bodies progressively deteriorated in tropical regions. 61 In 1808, Thomas Green, an officer in the Madras Army, pleaded that 'excessive debility obliged me at last to quit the shores of India by the earnest recommendation of the medical gentleman who attended me'. Finding his 'constitution broken and decayed' by service in the 'Northern Circars and the exhausting climate of the Carnatic', Green begged leave to retire to Europe 'upon the full pay of my rank'. 62 By the middle of the century, when Haughton was on furlough at the Cape, the tropics had undergone a near-total 'negative environmental stereotyping'. They were increasingly represented as a constant menace to the European body and lengthy stays were to be avoided at all costs. 63 In his book, On the Preservation of Health in India (1894), Joseph Fayrer, president of the medical board at the India Office, issued what had become a relatively standard piece of advice by the end of the century. He warned that in hot climates, the European becomes 'debilitated, and needs to change to a cooler climate which he should take, if he can, after five or six years'. 64 The coalescence of medical opinion on the importance of furlough was complemented by bureaucratic developments in the Indian military and civil service. For most of the eighteenth century, there was no provision for regular furlough. It was only granted to army officers in 1796. 65 Even then, subaltern officers had to serve ten years before they were eligible for a full three years of leave. 66 But its objective was understood: after a decade of continuous service, it was expected that men would be in need of recuperation. Andrew Hudleston in Mangalore characterised the three years of furlough granted to Indian officers for every ten years of service as an opportunity 'to Cool their Livers and re-establish their Connections in their native Country'. 67 By the middle of the nineteenth century, the furlough system was built into the British governmental apparatus in India, and detailed records survive relating to its administration. The Company regularly received correspondence from its representatives in India which included lists of 'officers permitted to proceed to Europe on furlo [sic]'. 68 Men who were granted such leave received a certificate or 'voucher', in order 'to satisfy the commanding officer of any place or party that they have the sanction of their superiors to pass and repass within a given period'. 69 Naturally, the East India Company and its successor, the India Office in Whitehall, put complex rules in place to govern the granting of furlough leave. 70 For example, in 1802, the Company decreed that officers who had been permitted to proceed to Europe on furlough but who had not left India within three months stood to forfeit all pay and allowances granted to them, surplus to subsistence and except in cases of sickness. 71 Detailed remarks about how to improve the system, as well as advice for those about to embark on furlough as to the best places and the best remedies for the restoration of their health, were also forthcoming. 72 The aim of Robert Temple Wright's pamphlet, Health Resorts during Sick Leave (1877), for instance, was 'to suggest to invalids the way to make the most of their leave'. 73 The most attractive option for sickly Company men was to return to Europe. But home leave was prohibitively expensivea family cabin for a single journey could cost upwards of £500 or more. Politics also interfered. Britain's seemingly interminable struggle with France during the eighteenth century was another factor that deterred would-be returnees, at least until 1815. 74 Besides, it was sometimes felt that returning to Britain was counter-productive, a view expressed by Robert Wright: 'After a long exile one is naturally anxious to see home and home friends once more, but by going direct to England, recovery is so much retarded that a great deal of one's leave is utterly wasted'. 75 Other destinations were sought, therefore. (And if those destinations were east of the Cape of Good Hope, ill officers would receive their full pay and allowances. 76 ) For those based in Bengal, a trip to Chittagong or Madras, or a journey by river, were more realistic options. Prince of Wales Island, at the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, came to be considered 'the Montpelier of India, and invalids from every quarter were sent there for recovery of health'. 77 In July 1769, 'a remarkably fine looking young man about eighteen years of age' named McClintock was reduced 'to so low a state' through a serious illness that he was advised to try the effect of a change of air and to pass 'some months at Canton [in China], where the winter was sharp and cold'. 78 Nicolas Polson, the nom-de-plume of Peter Nicolson, wrote about his search for health at Singapore, Macao and the Cape Colony in the nineteenth century. 79 In 1840, Thomas Maddock, Secretary to the Government of India in the Secret and Political Department, was granted six months' leave to allow him to proceed on a sea voyage to Singapore for the benefit of his health. 80 The focus on furlough primarily as a return to Europesomething that became more feasible later in the nineteenth century, due to developments such as the opening of the Suez Canal and the greater prevalence of steam-powered vesselsunderestimates the social and geographical variety of locations available to Indian officials and army officers.
As the Indian Ocean came further under British naval and political control in the nineteenth century, so the connections across it were strengthened, making travel between British-controlled territories and colonies more feasible and attractive. Given the distance, time and expense involved in returning to Europe in this period (and the potential loss of standing in the army), destinations in the southern hemispheresuch as Mauritius, the Australian colonies and the Capepresented themselves as alternatives. 81 The option of travelling to New South Wales, or another of the Australian colonies, was raised in the early 1820s, when Lieutenant Vickers Jacob was 'permitted to proceed on furlough for three years to New South Wales instead of to Europe'. 82 Advocating the advantages of Western Australia in 1826, James Stirling trumpeted the region's 'healthy and bracing climate' which made it ideal as a convalescent station for British troops and civilians serving in India, and which would obviate the need for a long voyage for recuperation in Europe. 83 The Royal Commission on the Sanitary State of the Army in India, established in the wake of the events of 1857-1858, agreed that the colony boasted an excellent climate. Western Australia was often regarded as being in direct competition with the Cape, another southern-hemisphere destination, for Indian invalids. Admiral Stirling was still promoting the cause of the west coast of Australia which was, he claimed, superior to the Cape on account of the latter's greater distance from India and 'besides it is alleged that the climate of the Cape is not very suitable for Indian diseases'. Nevertheless, other evidence received by the Royal Commission, such as that of Dr Maclean, directly contradicted Stirling and expressed 'a high opinion of the Cape'. 84 John Haughton himself applied for leave to go either to the Cape or Australia, with the 'bent of my own inclinations' causing him to lean towards Van Diemen's Land. 85 And there was no need to stay within the British sphere. Réunion was aggressively marketed by the French authorities on the island. In 1839, a document pointed out the benefits to 'patients coming from India' who would 'certainly prefer Salazie [a local spa] to the Cape, where there are no mineral springs [sic], and to Europe, whose distance is so great as to constitute an obstacle to travel'. 86 Ultimately, however, John Haughton embarked for the Cape Colony, a British colony in South Africa long regarded as a healthy alternative to the subcontinent.

Furlough at the Cape
The Cape had been viewed as a healthy location, and represented in correspondingly glowing terms, from the earliest days of European maritime activity in Asia, which necessitated 'doubling' the Cape of Good Hope. 87 Woodes Rogers discovered specific health-tourism attractions when he called at the beginning of the eighteenth century: 'The Dutch have found out a noble hot spring of water above 100 miles up in the country, which is of excellent virtue against all distempers contracted in India; so that few have been carried thither, tho' in a desperate condition, but they have recovered to admiration by drinking and bathing in that water.' 88 By the mid-eighteenth century, travellers remarked on the extensive health benefits of these 'springs of hot mineral water': Mr Smith had been there for some complaints in his stomach and bowels contracted in India, and in a few weeks time got perfectly well. They are exceedingly famous at the Cape as many have received vast benefit from them for such complaints. They both drink them and bathe in them, and use them in every respect like the bath water in England. 89 In 1797, William Somerville, surgeon of the British garrison in the recently captured colony, certified that Major Thomas Edwards of the Bengal Establishment had arrived at the Cape 'in a bad state of health'. Although he recommended that Edwards should 'proceed to Europe for the perfect re-establishment of his health', Somerville declared that the officer 'benefitted much by the aid of this climate and the use of the warm baths'. 90 By 1800, Richard Wellesley, Governor General in India, recognised that it was 'now a place of constant resort from India, not only as a half way house but as a temporary refuge from the dangers of these climates'. 91 It is in these contexts that we need to situate the experiences of John Haughton.
Although there has been some impressive work on the connection between the representation of environment and European health with regard to sub-Saharan Africa, much of this tends to relate to later phases in the region's history. 92 But the Cape Colonyby virtue of its long-standing maritime connections with Indianeeds to be seen in the context of a wider Indian Ocean network of recuperative spaces and restorative opportunities. The health benefits of the Cape were often juxtaposed directly with the malign effects of the Indian climate. Mary Campbell commended the inhabitants of the Cape for their 'mostly fine complexions', and drew a telling comparison with her recent experience: 'The living lustre of youth and health is a refreshment to eyes that have for years been accustomed to look upon the languor of India, where colour fades and youth passes away quicker than even their own transitory nature calls for'. 93 In the first half of nineteenth century, then, the Cape became increasingly popular as a health resort for Anglo-Indian officials and British migrants en route to Australasia or the East. 94 According to one visitor, it was 'a place of such general resort that keeping lodging houses affords subsistence to many'. 95 Another complained that Anglo-Indian invalids 'may be said to comprise nearly all there is of gentility' at the Cape. 96 Margaret Herschel expected 'the place [to be] full of Indians' when she arrived in South Africa with her husband and family in 1834. She was less than complimentary in describing these temporary residents to her mother: They are a yellow set, and most that I have seen are abundantly ignorant or conceited. They run off with all the Boarding House Dutch young ladies, who have physicked them when they were ill, & who make very good wives for them, as they seldom bring ideas to contradict the one or two possessed by their lord and master, and they prove quiet, obedient, fat, good humoured housewives. 97 In 1837, Nicolas Polson, who described himself as 'a Bengalee and an invalid', informed readers of his travel account that at every boarding house in Cape Town visitors were sure 'to find a large party of Indians … all of whom are distinguished by the "Kapenaars" or townspeople by the generic name of "Hindoos"'. 98 Both locals and the visitors alike clearly regarded these Indian military and civilian officials as a group set apart, distinguished by appearance and demeanour, as well as wealth. 'Indian visitors' were seemingly 'undeterred by the universal war made against their pockets by the Cape tradesmen, [and] were very numerous'. 99 Notwithstanding the cost, in 1847, it was estimated that 'there are always from 50 to 70 Indian visitors even now from the three Presidencies'. 100 John Haughton was just one of many 'Indians' or 'Hindoos' who travelled to Southern Africa in the first half of the nineteenth century. 101 When the young cadet Robert Ramsay called at the Cape on his way to Calcutta, he remarked on 'the great many Indian officers' he encountered there. 102 One bedridden young officer, William Henry Ridding, who described himself as a 'perfect Cripple' in addition to suffering from 'Seringapatam Fever twice', resolved 'to try the Cape of Good Hope for the restoration of my Health'. 103 In 1815, Andrew Hudleston, a servant of the East India Company in Madras, wrote to his parents telling them of his cousin William Hudleston's liver complaint: 'He was attacked shortly after my arrival by a fit of the liver which at first appeared very slight, but took an unfavorable turn so as to confine him to the house for two months.' In order to aid his recovery, William 'was advised to take a short trip to the Cape of Good Hope in order that his cure might be complete'. 104 In 1826, 'Ramasawmy' in Mysore wrote to Mark Wilks with the news that Wilks's nephew, Mark Cubbon, having previously 'obtained leave to proceed to sea for the benefit of his health', had now 'safely returned from the Cape some time ago with his health completely renovated'. 105 Thomas Maclear wrote to his correspondent in Buckinghamshire, Dr Lee, requesting astronomical instruments for Mr Bailey of the East India Company who was 'an amateur astronomer and a frequent visitor to the Observatory'. This gentleman was 'residing at the Cape on sick leave'. 106 And despite her poor opinion of Anglo-Indian visitors in general, Margaret Herschel was happy to report that Sir Edward Ryan, the Chief Justice of Bengal, had arrived with his family 'to spend a few months for the recovery of his healththe Cape seems a great place for the meeting of old friends'. 107 The African climate had the desired effect: the following month Sir Edward had recovered enough to take an excursion 'up the country'. 108 Members of the Company's military service were thought to benefit in particular. In 1821, Captain O'Reilly, of the Madras Establishment, had his furlough pay directed to him at the Cape. 109 111 After thirteen years in India, William Cornwallis Harris, of the Bombay Engineers, was invalided to the Cape Colony for two years by a medical board in 1836, where he went on to make a name for himself as a big-game hunter. 112 Some commentators even saw the Cape as a place for permanent settlement for invalided Company servants. In addition to providing 'the broken down Bengalee' with 'an asylum where he may pass the remainder of his days', it offered an opportunity for someone on limited income to live well. 113 The problems of living 'on the pittance which he has acquired by twenty-two years hard service, and which in his native land would scarcely suffice to keep him out of jail' was a common one. The opportunity to settle in South Africa was, according to Nicolas Polson's way of thinking, much better than 'moping about London in a half batta suit, or filling the half grudged chair placed at the corner of the table of a wealthy relation'. 114 The Cape was still popular in 1847, judging from the publication of the anonymously authored Notes on the Cape of Good Hope, by a Bengali. 115 Captain George Pott of the Bengal Establishment was granted leave to travel to the Cape 'for the recovery of his health' in 1854. His two-year-long furlough was based on a medical certificate 'agreeable to the old regulations'. 116 Changes to pay and leave allowances from the 1840s started to affect the numbers able to come to the Cape, and the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 made it quicker and more convenient to travel to Europe than heretofore. 117 The development of faster, more reliable and less expensive transport links between the subcontinent and Europe later in the century signalled a further downturn in the numbers travelling to the Cape. Nevertheless, there were so many of what Haughton rather uncharitably called 'Indian hangers-on at Govt House' that they proposed hosting a ball in 1849 in honour of Lady Smith, wife of the governor, Sir Harry. 118 The records of the Company's civilian and military arms in India are replete with names of those who travelled there and, as late as 1867, it was still a reasonably popular location. 119 By the mid-nineteenth century, therefore, the idea of 'resorting to the Cape' was a tried-and-trusted 'old plan'. 120 It also had the advantage of avoiding 'the loss of appointment consequent on a visit to Europe'. 121 Haughton's letters provide a sense of the other visitors from India in South Africa at the same time, such as Mrs Goldsmid, 'a musical lady, wife of a Bombay civilian of Jewish origin', who lived in Cape Town. 122 This example also points to the fact that there was an active social scene among exiled Anglo-Indians. Haughton was only too well aware of this. His wife's sister, Fanny Presgrove, added to his climatically induced headaches by enjoying the social aspect of their time at the Cape rather too much. The hectic round of social engagements, balls and other entertainments were far removed from the isolated existence she might have expected in the rural Indian posting destined for John Haughton and his retinue. This is not to say that furlough at the Cape was wholly positive: there were drawbacks and disadvantages, many of which were also chronicled in Haughton's correspondence. He wrote of his feelings of 'home sickness' for the Chota Nagpur region in India, for instance, where he had been posted before his illness. 123 His wife 'sighs for it, on account of the quiet regular life she led there'. And more generally, Haughton remarked candidly that their 'greatest drawback is the separation from all we hold dear without our own little circle'. 124 The Haughtons' declared attachment to India highlights the fact that time spent in South Africa represented separation both from family in Europe and professional ties in India. In this respect, then, furlough overseas illustrates bifurcated, ambivalent and complex approaches to identity and belonging. Residence at the Cape represented being neither 'at home' in Britain nor 'in exile' in Asia. It is perhaps little wonder, then, that sojourners focused on the health and other benefits they enjoyed there.

Health and Other Benefits of Furlough at the Cape
Haughton's presence at the Cape was directly related to the pleasant climate of this region at the southern tip of Africa, and consequently the curative effect of spending time there. The region had long been lauded by travellers. The very first European travellers to round the Cape of Good Hope greeted the sight of that promontory with relief and joy. It was the 'fairest Cape' for Drake and his men. 125 For surgeons passing on their way to Australia, it became a focus for remarks (and perhaps regrets) about scurvy and its prevention. 126 The climate was 'on the whole exceedingly equable', and 'altogether the best, and for the temperature, the most bracing and elastic I know'. 127 This author marvelled at 'how quickly invalids rally after their arrival from India, and how soon the crutch and chair are abandoned'. 128 In one account, a passenger travelling from India to Europea Lieutenant Fagan, 'in the last stage of dysentery and reduced to a mere skeleton'recuperated almost miraculously by virtue of merely landing on the shores of South Africa: 'the thing appeared impossible, but it was just him quite restored to health and vigour'. 129 Presumably Haughton hoped for a similar reaction.
Beyond landfall, and the immediate chance to replenish supplies of fresh food and water and recuperate sick men, the sea breezes and change of air offered by a residence at the Cape meant that it qualified as one of those salubrious places beloved of Victorians. In this, it was at odds with the sickly climates and environments with which most Europeans who served in India were confronted. 130 As Alain Corbin has shown, the mid-eighteenth century witnessed a change in attitude as ideas about the importance of fresh air, exercise and exposure to changes of temperature gained ground in Western medicine. 131 Coastal locations around the world were credited with recovery and recuperation. 132 Regions like the Cape peninsula could operate like an 'openair sanatorium'. 133 So, although there were 'shoals of medical practitioners at the Cape', residence here also offered 'exercise in the open air continually, social amusements, and moderate diet', which, in many people's eyes, were 'the best means of recovery by far to Indians enervated and relaxed from having passed a number of years in an ungenial if not noxious climate, with sedentary occupations, and a too liberal diet causing general derangement of the constitution'. 134 Rather than taking the waters at a spa or undergoing a particular course of rehabilitation, the combination of general psychological, biological and environmental benefits would aid Haughton in his recuperation. 135 The kind of 'nature-therapy' found by Victorian British invalids in the Mediterraneanfresh air, exercise, and removal from the sources of stress and fatiguecould be found equally in the Cape Colony for people like John Haughton and his family. 136 And, as John MacKenzie has shown, the health-giving properties of South Africa were still being promoted to tourists in early-twentieth-century guidebooks, as furlough gave way to middle-class travel and tourism. 137 In 1910, one publication proclaimed the 'healthful influences to body and mind to be met with in this country can, without exaggeration, be regarded as the finest on the globe'. 138 Perhaps because they were in search of such healthy locations, Haughton and his family did not remain long in Cape Town. Instead, they soon made for one of the many small villages huddled around Table Mountain. Far from being isolated in a sandy desert, as earlier travellers were wont to characterise them, these settlements were increasingly recognised as offering significantly greater health benefits than hot and crowded Cape Town. 139 Haughton was following a well-trodden path. In 1822, Mary Campbell remarked on 'Winebergh, Stellingboch [sic] and other villages mostly inhabited by those from India who come here in search of health', which she found 'delightfully situated, bosomed in trees and within convenient distances of each other'. Many of the 'comfortable nice new houses' had been built by 'Bengalees'. 140 In a similar vein, a 'Bengali' described these, '"The Environs" of Cape Town', as being 'exceedingly pretty, and are much preferred for residences by the wealthier English officials and merchants and … by visitors from India'. 141 As soon as he 'rounded' Table Mountain, the anonymous 'Bengali', who wrote a guide for visiting invalids, encountered 'a climate at all seasons of the year almost equally fine and buoyant'. 142 It was 'good for dyspeptic complaints, fevers and hepatitis'. 143 For Nicolas Polson, the salubrious climate of Cape Town was 'certainly highly beneficial to worn-out Indian constitutions'. 144 Although many visitors resided in the city in the winter months, 'in the summer, every one who can, flies to the country, to avoid the almost intolerable heat of the town, and the dreadful south-easters which blow down the face of Table Mountain with terrific violence'. 145 The villages outside Cape Town were not 'subject to these south-easters to the same extent or with equal violence as Cape Town is; neither does the same necessity for their blowing exist. The air is far more pure and salubrious on the side of Table Mountain on which they are situated, than on the Cape Town side.' 146 Sarah Eaton was also of the opinion that 'behind the mountain, the air is much cooler' than in Cape Town in the summer and that in Simonstown, 'the air is considered cooler, purer and more healthy than that of Cape Town'. 147 This was borne out in Haughton's correspondence when he compared the 'cool air of this place', Kalk Bay, with Cape Town which was 'oppressively hot'. 148 It was 'quite intolerable', and 'nearly as bad as India'. 149 The Haughtons' removal to the coast at Kalk Bay accords with a trend in health visiting at the Cape in the middle of the nineteenth century. Here, the advantages of climate were married to those of economy, with Haughton expressing the hope to his mother that the move would 'prove as healthful for our pockets as constitutions'. 150 The cottage at Kalk Bay was rented from Oloff Johannes Truter. 151 It not only removed the family from the heat, but also from the hustle and bustle, of the principal settlement in the colony. Although they had a 'fine view of Simon's Bay and the ships and an unlimited view of the sea', they managed to preserve some distance from the ships and their crew. It is evidently with some relief that Haughton reported that 'seven miles keeps us clear of drunken sailors and tar [sic] etc.'. 152 Still, the family had 'enough society to prevent dullness without being burdensome to us'. 153 The proximity to the health-giving effects of the sea breezes -'We are on the beach within ½ musket shot off [sic] the rolling waves of the Indian Ocean, and will enjoy during the heats of summer the bracing influence of the SE gales'made the location particularly attractive at a time when the seaside was increasingly recommended for invalids in Europe. 154 The benefits of the place were apparent just a month later, with John Haughton adamant that 'the climate has done us more good than all our previous residence at the Cape': 'I have hardly detected myself complaining once since we came, and Jessie though delicate is I think much benefited.' 155 By the end of the year, Haughton was happy to report to his mother that he had 'long ceased to take any medicine' and his wife was only taking 'tonic'. 156 Haughton arrived at the Cape with high hopes. He believed that 'the climate, freedom from care, and horse exercise' would restore him to 'a state of health long unfelt': 'I am now quite reconciled to the Cape: its climate is excellent, living less expensive than I had been taught to expect and the people pleasant.' 157 It appears that physical activity played just as key a role as the climate or sea breezes. Mary Campbell reported that Anglo-Indian residents took 'a great deal of horse exercise' for the benefit of their health: 'The climate permits their riding for a great part of the year at any hour of the day.' 158 Six weeks after his arrival, John Haughton reported that 'horse exercise does me a great deal of gooda twenty mile ride between breakfast and dinner does not fatigue me'. 159 When not riding, 'a walk among the heather is sufficient cure for ennui'. 160 By the end of September, Haughton had returned from an expedition of some 300 miles on horseback, 'much improved in health and spirits'. He assured his father: 'You will see from the length of our rideperformed in 7 days travelling with only one day's haltthat I have gained much strength and am not yet completely worn out.' 161 The opportunity to engage in physical exercise, as part of a programme of recuperation, was something particularly recommended by Nicolas Polson. He advised Indian visitors to engage in hunting, for instance. The active life of 'a month's roughing and shooting' would soon restore an invalid to health. And Polson felt that his pamphlet would have succeeded if it encouraged 'even one Indian to prefer the shooter's life, and seek a restoration to health in the pure air, the invigorating breezes and wholesome exercises of South African wilds, instead of vegetating amid the streets of Cape Town or constitutionalising between the Devil's Mount and Lion's Head'. 162 Movement and action were paramount. Notwithstanding his general view of the place, even time spent in Cape Town could help. According to Polson, those who had been long resident in a tropical climate and got imbued with oriental indolence, and that feeling of ennui which forms the chief remaining feature of disease in most 'Hindoos' on their arrival here, will find a short residence amid the bustle and incessant movement of a boarding house, highly beneficial.
Indeed, staying 'on the move', tended 'far more to restore their health than all the medicines in the Materia Medica'. 163 Quite apart from its practical advice, Polson's pamphlet seems to argue for the uniqueness of Indian visitors. Not only did they frequently define themselves in terms that set them apart (as 'Bengalis' or 'Hindoos'), they were also subject to peculiarly Asian maladies, like 'oriental indolence', that did not affect their European peers. 164 Even before the family's removal to Kalk Bay, Haughton reported that his wife was starting to benefit 'from the delightful climate': 'She is already looking better than I remember to have seen her for years. I trust she will obtain a complete re-establishment here.' 165 Quite apart from long-term residents, even those who only called briefly at the Cape apparently improved under its health-giving effects. The arrival of Haughton's sister, Patience, on her way to India facilitated a family reunion. Although she looked 'thinner and older in the face at first sight', Haughton reassured one of his other sisters, Jane, that Patience had subsequently improved as a result of 'the better air and comfort of this place'. 166 Patience's husband, John Rohde, found the climate equally conducive to health. His wife considered him to be 'quite restored' from the illness from which he had been suffering when they left Britain. Now, as they embarked for India, he left 'manifestly stronger than when he arrived'. 167 This brief passing visit also underlines the nature of empire in the period, where familiar and personal networks of affection existed in parallel with professional, economic and military connections. Families facilitated the circulation of, in this case, information that linked continents and overcame obstacles of distance. 168 The key purpose for going to the Cape, in Haughton's case at least, was to recover his physical health. But furlough had psychological, as well as physical, benefits. Haughton certainly felt that he had 'derived certain mentalthat is, spiritual advantages here, which I should hardly have met with at home amidst the busy hum and incessant attractions of the world'. 169 And the leisure time which accompanied his leave, Haughton assured his sister, would 'not be unprofitably employed': 'I shall give as much of it to study and reading as is consistent with the object of my visit to the Cape.' 170 Haughton's letters to his family highlight his scientific and scholarly interests. He was keen to learn about 'phonography', for example, and he sent an old microscope back to Britain to see if it was worth repairing. 171 Some time later, he asked his father to send 'a collection of geological specimens (inorganic) consisting of the rocks and the most common oresas gold in quartz, silver, copper, lead, iron, zinc, tin, mercury, and manganese', together with 'a set of apparatus, fluxes and chemicals for assay of ores'. He requested these 'for purely practical purposes', presumably to assist him to prepare for his next posting in India. 172 Haughton collected 'the bulbs of the wild flowers to take back to India with me'. 173 And the removal of the family to the coast at Kalk Bay gave him 'the advantage of having a fine field for the study of conchology at our doors'. 174 Haughton partook in the exchange of plants, seeds and specimens that characterised British imperial and commercial expansion in the Indian Ocean world. 175 In October 1849, he 'made over a box of Cape flower bulbs of my own collections' to be sent to his parents. 176 And the following year, Haughton sent 'a box of roots and seeds' to his sister: 'These are all my own collection and all (except a few put in at top to make stowage) taken up at the proper season.' 177 One of the great advantages for Indian officials living at the Cape was the opportunity for social activities that were simply not possible with the limited and sparsely distributed European population in the subcontinent. According to one visitor, there was 'a great deal of sociability' among the Dutch-speaking colonists, consisting of 'evening parties with music, conversation, or dancing', to which 'strangers' were regularly invited. 178 Richard Blakeney, a young lieutenant in the Royal Marines, called at the Cape on his return from Asia. His stay mirrored that of many other visitors from India and was 'attended with much amusement, which we were unable to partake of with any degree of pleasure in India. Hunting, shooting, and fishing, we enjoyed much, the climate at this season being congenial to manual exercise.' 179 The social aspect of furlough was something that was of particular interest to Fanny, Haughton's sister-in-law. At first, Haughton was enthusiastic about the social interaction that a period of residence in South Africa offered. He noted optimistically, for example, that Fanny had 'a much better chance of getting well married at the Cape where there are hundreds of civil and military officers of our service, than at our (probable) station Purcalia, where she would not see a soul but ourselves'. 180 But there was a fine line to tread here, and Haughton's letters were replete with the dangers of furlough. The social circle at the Cape offered Fanny an 'abundance of opportunities of displaying her attractions, and in fact I suppose all she could desire of obtaining a husband'. 181 But Fanny was too 'fond of gaiety' for Haughton's liking. 182 He struck a stark warning note: 'if men are of my mind they will choose a wife who loves pleasure a little less'. 183 Haughton's communications continued in the same vein, painfully recounting how 'pleasure has gained a most dangerous ascendancy in her mind'. It became like 'poison to her'. 184 Furlough overseas brought many health and social benefits. But Fanny's example suggests that John Haughton's time at the Cape was not without its worries. Victorian mores of propriety and behaviour could not be left behind, this suggests, even when one embarked on furlough.

Conclusion
John Haughton travelled to the Cape in the hope and expectation that it would have a positive effect on his health. He returned to India, recuperated and reinvigorated, and ready to assume new responsibilities: his position as an officiating political assistant at Hazareebaugh was confirmed in February 1852. 185 Although his letters were not published, Haughton's experiences mirror those of contemporary British invalids who travelled extensively, becoming a representative type, immediately recognised and implicitly believed by the public in Britain. 186 One of the more obvious conclusions to be drawn from Haughton's furlough was the central role played by letter-writing and family correspondence in facilitating the exchange of news and information. Our knowledge of his hopes, expectations and experiences in South Africa are derived from the survival of these documents. The importance of letters in the communication of information is underscored by the phrase that Haughton employed in describing the joy he experienced when his sister, Patience, visited on her way to India: 'It was a treat indeed to have thus a living letter from you in the person of my dear sister.' 187 He kept his family updated about the high-jinks of his infant son. As he tells his father, he 'might fill volumes with his [Richard's] tricks'. 188 Visual images also played a role in transmitting information. Haughton was keen to have his son photographed 'when he is old enough to remain steady for 14 seconds!' 189 He also promised 'a photographick likeness of Jessie', his wife. In the absence of such technologies, however, he succeeded in sending 'a view of the Cape' with Mrs Armstrong, with the addition of a 'pin hole' which marked the site of their residence in Cape Town at the time. 190 As well as being connected, however, there was also a feeling of being separated, and Haughton's experience on furlough also highlights the sheer difficulties associated with nineteenth-century communications. Haughton's letters contain numerous references to his frustration at being isolated. He felt the inconvenience of living in the countryside 'where posted communication is so bad'. 191 News from India 'has ever been scant and slack'. 192 And links to the wider world were difficult to sustain: 'I hear that stirring news has been received from India, but not one word has reached me yet beyond the report that war is over and the Punjab annexed.' 193 But the episode tells us a great deal about Britain's nineteenth-century empire more generally. The fact that Haughton moved from India to Africa, ostensibly in search of the recuperative benefits of the Cape's climate and for the restoration of his and his wife's health, highlights the complex professional and political connections that criss-crossed the British Empire in the mid-nineteenth century.
With the introduction of faster and more convenient transport links to Europe, Southern Africa became relatively less important as a health resort to British officials and officers serving in India from the middle of the nineteenth century. 194 Nevertheless, the Anglo-Indian encounter with the health-giving benefits of the Cape's climate and its recuperative possibilitiesall apparent in the correspondence of John Haughtonillustrates the role played by climate, medical rhetoric and recuperative places in the representation of imperial and colonial spaces. As Alan Bewell has observed, instances of invalidism, and the medical literature that discussed them, were a reflection on the feasibility of empire itself. 195 John Colpoys Haughton arrived at the Cape in search of health, and his letters were meant to be about 'the little nothings of our life'. 196 But they tell us just as much about the mid-nineteenth-century empire, and the personal connections and familial links that bound diverse regions and contexts together.

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).