Page:McCosh, John - Advice to Officers in India (1856).djvu/297

 to be got at all the presidencies, who negociate such affairs for their constituents.

2. PRECAUTIONS.—Though no change contributes so certainly and rapidly to convalescence as going to sea, yet proper precautions are necessary before embarking, and if the invalid hurries on board-ship without these, he will soon have occasion to repent of it, and get worse instead of better.

The P. and O. Steamers, crowded with one or two hundred passengers, are not the conveyances for one seriously indisposed; where privacy, peace and quiet are unknown, and the whole frame from stem to stern is inconstant vibration; where he must share a space of six feet square, with one or two, perhaps, as great invalids as himself, and where even if he had a cabin to himself, especially on the lower deck, the heat would render it intolerable. Even the magnificent sailing ships in port are not to be fixed upon at hazard, for they differ as widely as their captains in their comfort and accommodation. No two things differ so widely as a passenger-ship lying at anchor in the Hoogly for the inspection of passengers, and the same ship fully laden and under sail at sea; in the river all light, and air, and peace, and quietness; at sea,perhaps all dark, damp and unventilated; intolerably hot and unwholesome; the ports instead of