The bandsmen, who are chiefly Europeans, came to say they had no shelter. ‘Sleep in the khenauts,’ was the only answer; and we gave them what remained of our dinner, for the kitchen was under water. Mr. —— arrived, and I asked him to dinner too. It is fine to-day, and the tents came up in the middle of the night. We have got a paper of the 24th November, so the overland has arrived, and G. will bring us some letters to-morrow.
Saturday, Feb. 2.
And he has brought plenty—your’s and E.’s Journals amongst others.
Mahem, Tuesday, Feb. 5.
I was taken with a worse attack of ague than ever as I was writing to you on Saturday, and was obliged to go to bed for two days. Luckily, it went off just before marching time yesterday morning, and I am taking narcotine at all convenient hours. I believe it is a remedy that has been invented in this country—at all events introduced—by Dr. O’Shaughnessy. Dr. D. has tried it in many cases, and it has never failed where the patients can bear it, but it makes many people quite giddy and delirious. I do not mind it at all, and am much better to-day. Two of our bearers, old servants, are dying of cholera from that last wetting.
CHAPTER XXXIV.
Wednesday, Feb. 6, 1839.
ANOTHER rainy night, and we have come on to another sloppy encampment, and I am sorry to say those bearers, and two more, have died of cholera to-day—all owing to the wet, Dr. D. says. The magistrate here has politely offered us his house to-morrow, and as Captain P. sends back word he cannot find dry ground for half the dripping tents, U. Hall will be a God-send.
Thursday, Feb. 7.
Dear U.! such a nice, dry, solid house. I suppose it would strike us as small on common occasions, but it looks to me now like the dryest, best built, most solid little palace I ever inhabited, what people call ‘quite Palladian.’ I rather like hitting myself a good hard knock against the thick solid walls, and then the pleasure of walking along the hard floor without fur slippers and without hearing the ground squelch! The quiet, too, is worth its weight in gold (though how it is to be weighed I don’t quite know).