Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/21

 I think incline a little forwards; but that may be a traveller’s story. It was dreadfully hot at ﬁrst, but we rode up into the clouds, through such hedges of fuchsia and myrtle, with geraniums covering the ground, and that great pink cactus that we keep in hot-houses making the common fence by the roadside. Each pony has an odd wild-looking driver, who runs by him and lays hold of his tail coming down; but the descent was awful! It is as says, ‘just the case, for “God is good, and Mahomet is His prophet,” so let us each take the tail of each other’s pony and slither into the sea. The “Jupiter” must send out her boats to pick up the great man.’

As for my state of mind, the less I say about that the better; but it is not cheering to pass ten days entirely on my own thoughts just after leaving all of you—a way of life that is perfectly hateful to me. I cannot read to keep myself straight. However, I suppose things will turn out better somehow; if not, ‘the time is short’ as compared with what follows. And so God bless you, my dearest friend, and tell the chicks that their picture hangs at the foot of my bed, and is a great comfort to me.