Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/160

 would starve if they were not allowed to work the days that they thought it lawful; and that shocked the reverend gentleman. So how it is to end I do not know, nor can I make out what is right, but I think the motties might be starved.

Monday, May 2. Went down to Calcutta by water, and excused myself going to breakfast; laid down for two hours, and was not so tired as usual, but the heat is insufferable. In my sitting-room with the doors and windows closed, except one where there is a tattie (a rush mat which covers the whole window, and which is kept constantly wet, so that the hot wind may blow cool through it) with a large punkah constantly going—in short, with all the wretched palliatives that they call luxuries. The thermometer stood at 94° the whole day. I never can read, nor breathe, nor do anything but lie and think what a detestable place it is. In the lower floors of the house the thermometer was 4° lower; but the ground-floor is supposed to be unwholesome, and besides there are no rooms for us there.