Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/29

 were nearly choked with pitch, and very much cut with a razor, jagged like a sharp saw. It is a savage-looking process, and I wonder the captain did not stop it.

Monday, November 9, Lat. 9° South.

Till we get to Calcutta (a physical impossibility, for we shall be dead of old age long before the Cape), I must go on making my journal into single letters; and even then, you will probably think them extravagant amusements; but I don’t think you will either, judging by myself. I would give 5l. at this moment for the smallest three-cornered note from you; and though in England you cannot guess the mad desperate yearning after friends, and home, and letters, that eats one’s heart out in this floating prison, yet I know you will be so glad to see some long letters from me! I know it—

It is one of the worst parts of this business, that when we could understand each other so well there are no means of our getting at each other but by these vain longings and regrets.