Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/165

 could have lived in England. Curious world! I cannot help thinking the next will not be the very least like this.

Saturday, May 7. Played at chess all morning with Mr. Shakespear, and beat him. Went out on the elephant with George, to see the new baboon and some monkeys of great merit.

Sunday, May 8. Fanny and went out in his gig, and George and I rode up and down by the waterside, on the elephant, till near dinner-time. It was rather cooler than last night, and there is something dreamy and odd in these rides when the evening grows dark. There is a mosque and a ghaut at the end of our park, where they were burning a body to-night; and there were bats, as big as crows, flying over our heads. The river was covered with odd-looking boats, and a red copper-coloured sky bent over all; and then the man who walks by the elephant’s side talks to him all the time in a low argumentative tone, telling him to take care he does not hurt his feet, and that there is a hole here and