Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/218

 Though people have very violent illnesses here, and those that are well, look about as fresh as an English corpse, yet I do not think the mortality is greater than in any other country, and the old-fashioned days of imprudence about health are quite as much gone by as the times of great extravagance. People save their money, and don’t go out in the sun.

Wright has been laid up with erysipelas in her foot. Rosina is an excellent old creature, yet she is sometimes ten minutes trying to put the eye into the hook instead of the hook into the eye; and in the morning, when I say I will wear my blue muslin, she brings out my pink satin with short sleeves, and says, ‘Dees blue gown the Lady Sahib mean?’ She gave a cunning wink yesterday when I asked how Wright was: ‘She cry because me dress her lady; but never mind, she can’t dress lady without her foot, poor ting. When foot get well, she dress lady again, and me hold pins.’ I asked her how Chance was after his physic: ‘Oh! so crass, so crass! when Jimhoe (that is Chance’s servant) pour castor oil down, me tell Jimhoe, “You no go home while Chance ill;” and he say, “Oh, no, on no account!” he set by Chance all