Page:James Thomason (Temple).djvu/210

202 that time, the journey occupied three days, or rather three nights, for he rested during the heat of the day in a staging house, and travelled in a palanquin borne by men as bearers during the cool of the night. His weakness immediately appeared in the distress caused by the jolting of the palanquin, and the second of the three nights was passed by him in discomfort. Reaching Bareilly on the 16th of September he alighted at his daughter's house, receiving the best possible care from his son-in-law. After his arrival, he was more than ordinarily fatigued, and instead of receiving, as was his wont, officers and visitors who came to pay their respects (according to custom when a Governor visits a station), he remained in his rooms for several days with books and papers, despatching current business, in correspondence as usual with his Secretaries.

There is extant a description of his own health given at this time by himself in a letter to Mr. Henry Carre Tucker, of the 20th of September.

'I came over here in hopes of benefit, but have not as yet been successful. The journey completely prostrated me, and I have been obliged hitherto to deny myself to all visitors, and to give up all business that I can possibly avoid. I have no specific illness but loss of appetite, lose of strength, loss of power for any exertion whatever, symptoms of the frailty of the tabernacle in which we dwell. We know that it must be dissolved, how, or how soon we do not know. Let us be sure that we have another building, not made with hands, ready to receive us.'