Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/217

 world. He has had two fits this week, which is the sure sign, in this country, of a dog not being able to bear the climate. has taught him such quantities of odd tricks, and he is so unlike anything else here, that he will be a dreadful loss to the whole family. There is no such thing as a small dog to be seen here. I took him last night to sleep in my mosquito-house, that he might have the advantage of the punkah. Could you make such a sacrifice for Dandy? But neither he nor anything else can breathe at night, just now, without a punkah, so I am obliged to help him.

We are, happily, all well, though there has been a great deal of illness in Calcutta; the doctors say their list has trebled the last fortnight. Sir H. Fane has been one of the worst cases, but he is out of danger, and goes off to the Sandheads in one of our boats to-morrow. That is always the final cure, and I take it to be a thorough punishment for the folly of being ill. People generally go in the pilot vessels, which are swarming with cockroaches; and they cruise about, for ten days, in the roughest of seas, but come back pretty well. VOL. I.