Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/172

 as black as ink, and everybody scurries home as fast as the horses can go. Then there comes one blast of cold air—something perfectly delicious—and then the rain and thunder set to work in a manner that would astonish anybody in England. Some of the claps of thunder to-night were just as if they were firing cannon very sharply into the drawing-room.

Sunday, 17th. I trust this China business will now be soon settled, and that everything will be in train for a peace before December, and just before we step into our ship in February we shall kiss and make friends with them. For my own individual part I shall merely kiss old Aumon, the Chinese shoemaker, who glides about Government House with his eyes half-a-mile apart, his long pigtail touching the ground, and fanning himself with a great Japan fan. And in the worst of times he has stuck to us. When opium was seized, Aumon still made shoes that fitted. The troops embarked; his white satin slippers remained at two rupees the pair. The ‘Queen’ steamer went with the last directions to Admiral yesterday; and