Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/216

 six beautiful pigeons, all manner of colours, and I have had part of my balcony netted over, and keep them there; and as they all fight it is a constant diversion to keep the peace and to feed them all. It seems odd to require these diversions, but the sun now sets so late that we can barely be out an hour. We cannot go till 6.15, and till that time we are from 9, when we breakfast, obliged to fill up the time for ourselves. Fanny and I sit together in the morning, but absolute solitude is quite necessary, great part of the day, for everybody; and one’s eyes grow tired of reading and drawing, and then Fanny takes to her parrots and paroquets, and I am able to offer a pea to a pigeon.

This letter is now a week old (August 8), and we have had seven days of dreadful weather, hot and vapoury, and not a breath of air nor a drop of rain, and everybody says it is very odd and very shocking, but just what they told us to expect the end of September; but that, I take the liberty to remark, is no reason why we are to suffer from it the begining of August. Poor little Chance feels it dreadfully, and I am afraid is not long for this