Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/166

 a rising ground there; and they mention it all so confidentially that I never made out till to-day that they were talking to him.

If I die in India, I should rather like my body burnt; it is much the best way of disposing of it, and insects are so troublesome here in life, that I should like to trick them out of a feast afterwards.

Monday, May 9. We set off half-an-hour earlier than usual, and, from the strength of the tide, were three hours going down to Calcutta, and did not arrive there till nine. It was very fatiguing, and we shall hardly try it again.

No letters! and not a single ship to be seen in the river. This is very shocking! The ‘Larkins’ was the last arrival from England, and she has now been gone six weeks on her return home. They say it is the first time such a thing has happened; but they say also it is the first hot season they have had. Poor deluded creatures! Eight-and-twenty of them dined with us; but it is our last very large dinner for the season, and as the ‘Rejected Addresses’ says, ‘in a cup of broth—mind, I do