Now just put man in the place of a vegetable, and the case is precisely the same. A native boy has generally good-sized mustachios by the time he is fourteen, and a girl becomes a woman at eleven or twelve; then, again, at thirty the woman is old and shrivelled, and at forty the man is white-haired and decrepit. Who can wonder, then, that a climate like this should have such serious effects on Europeans, or that our constitutions should be soon worn out by the burning sun?
However, this month I have no right to complain; I am far better than I have been for some time. The weather is delightful; we are glad of a thick blanket and counterpane at night; at six, when I get up, the thermometer is rarely above 72°. I have no objection to a cloak when I am sowing seeds in the morning. The thermometer now, two o'clock P.M., is in my room exactly 80°, but there is a delightful cool breeze.
I have before observed that I did not feel satisfied with my medical man. As the East India Company do not allow above one doctor to every fifty miles, I wrote to a friend of mine in whom I have much confidence, detailing all my symptoms and requesting his advice. I could not think it of any use to put blisters and leeches on my throat for a cough and sickness which I felt to proceed from my stomach, and as I was very unwell I thought it best to consult another person. In the wisdom of his advice I perfectly agree, although it is more difficult to act up to it in India: "Employ your mind and stint your body." Any amusement, anything that could interest or excite or rouse, he recommended, but to avoid all unnatural stimulants as much as possible (I mean wine and spirits), and take plenty of exercise. If I do this, he says, he thinks I may leave all physic in the bottles and the leeches in the ponds. In accordance with this advice I am occupying myself in various ways. Books it is impossible to procure, so I have been training a horse for my wife—a beautiful little thing. I have made arrangements too for going to Calcutta in the course of the cold weather; and I have enclosed about an acre of my ground, and am making a vegetable or rather a kitchen garden of it.
I get up about six, dress in my old clothes, go out, and find one of the horses, or rather ponies, at the door waiting for me. I must ride him through the long grass, which by the bye is very nearly fit to cut, to look at a number of my trees scattered here and there in the compound, which I have been planting; then, when I am down at the farther end I take a glance at the large pond, or tank as we call it, where, sheltered by the most beautiful flowering trees, two men are catching fish for our breakfast. Then I ride along inside the hedge, watching the soldiers at parade, until I come to the goat-house; then see the pigs fed, and ride back to the house.
FLOWER AND KITCHEN GARDENS.
By this time my wife is up, and she goes into the flower-garden, and I into the kitchen-garden, to sow seeds and superintend the gardeners. And here is the most curious scene; seven black men at work, their only dress a cloth round the loins, their long black hair wound up in a knot at the back of the head, their only tools a sort of broad pickaxe with a very short handle and a small sickle, these are their only gardening implements; and two men are watering with gurrahs, a sort of narrow-necked jar made of black clay, which they let down into a well by a rope. In the flower-garden are the beautiful balsams, of many colours, and as large as gooseberry-bushes; the splendid coxcombs, eight or ten feet high, whose great thick flowers measure twelve or fourteen inches by six or eight; the varieties of the hybiscas, with many others; and a few of the more precious European rarities—at least to us—such as the heliotrope, verbenum, larkspur, and many others. Our borders are mostly of the sweet-scented grass from the Neilghur hills, which is always covered with a beautiful small white flower.
In the vegetable-garden, besides the precious peas, beans, celery, cress, &c., which will only grow at this time of the year, are the pine-apple, the plantain, the guava, the lime, the orange, the custard-apple, with many other native plants and trees; and in the hedges are some of the beautiful palms, from the sap of which the Indians make an intoxicating drink called toddy. In the compound are some very fine mango-trees and beeches.
The other evening I was sitting alone writing at about eleven o'clock, when I heard the sentry call out loudly to my servants who were sleeping in the verandah. I jumped up to see what was the matter. "A leopard-tiger!" was the answer; and the man said he had seen a leopard creeping stealthily along the compound. He leapt over the wall into the garden of the Colonel who lives in the next house, and the following day footsteps were found in various parts of the cantonment, which the natives said were too large for a leopard, and must have been the marks of a regular tiger. I did not see the animal myself; but if the men were correct, it must have been an extraordinary occurrence, as our little island is entirely free from wild beasts; and although it is at this time of the year joined to the main by a narrow neck of sand, yet no large beast will cross unless pressed either by hunger or by hunters.
A few days ago a man brought me an animal which he had caught in the jungle on the hills. At first sight I said it was an armadillo, but now I feel some doubt whether it was not some unknown animal. I wanted to buy it, in order to send the skin, or rather the shell, home, but the man asked ten rupees for it, which I could not afford. It was nearly three feet long, covered with thick hard scales of a dirty yellow colour, the tail the same length as the body, and equally broad, which I do not think is the case with the armadillo. The shape of its whole back was a long oval. When frightened it rolled itself up into a ball, but it appeared very lethargic and stupid. The feet were armed with long, powerful claws, but it walked with the lower joints turned down under the feet, as if I were to walk on my ankles with the feet and toes turned under and behind. It burrowed a hole in a wall, pulling out the bricks and mortar very easily. I tried it with various kinds of food, but the only thing I could get it to eat was white ants. The man who brought it said he had never seen one like it before.
Not long ago the doctor at Pooree saw a number of natives running to the beach. He inquired what was the matter: "A great fish, sir." So down he went to join the crowd, and there he found a large fish indeed: a whale, measuring forty-eight feet in length, had been washed on shore; the body was rolling about in the surf, with great numbers of the natives clinging to it.