Page:Letters from India Vol 1.djvu/58

 drawing-room, put some books and writing-cases on the table, and it feels as like a Tunbridge or Broadstairs house as possible, except that there is a great deal of negro jabber going on under the windows—a few large cockroaches on the walls—and that the windows are all open in December. I am looking like a victim to the captain’s severity just set on shore; for quite forgetting how hot it would be—as we were very cold on board ship—I walked from the shore to the inn without my shawl, and the sun has marked out in deep crimson the pattern of my habit-shirt, and made a large blister on one shoulder. It looks shocking, and comes from having been brought up in the belief that December was a cold month.

We have been just twenty-three days from Rio—much the usual length of passage. We had three days of heavy swell, ending in a gale of wind, which is a nautical term for expressing the extreme of human discomfort and bodily misery, to say nothing of fright; for, though I know there is no danger, I am always in a regular state of fear when the ship goes fast through the water. I should like to have