Page:Wanderings of a Pilgrim Vol 1.djvu/76

 nation was never before accused of having had a fanciful idea, and those trees were copied from nature, as I have found from seeing the same in my drives and rides around Calcutta. The country is quite flat, but the foliage very fine and rich. The idleness of the natives is excessive; for instance, my ayha will dress me, after which she will go to her house, eat her dinner, and then returning, will sleep in one corner of my room on the floor for the whole day. The bearers also do nothing but eat and sleep, when they are not pulling the pankhās.

Some of the natives are remarkably handsome, but appear far from being strong men. It is impossible to do with a few servants, you must have many; their customs and prejudices are inviolable; a servant will do such and such things, and nothing more. They are great plagues; much more troublesome than English servants. I knew not before the oppressive power of the hot winds, and find myself as listless as any Indian lady is universally considered to be; I can now excuse, what I before condemned as indolence and want of energy—so much for experience. The greatest annoyance are the musquito bites; it is almost impossible not to scratch them, which causes them to inflame, and they are then often very difficult to cure: they are to me much worse than the heat itself; my irritable constitution cannot endure them.

The elephantiasis is very common amongst the natives, it causes one or both legs to swell to an enormous size, making the leg at the ankle as large as it is above the knee; there are some deplorable objects of this sort, with legs like those of the elephant—whence the name. Leprosy is very common; we see lepers continually. The insects are of monstrous growth, such spiders! and the small-lizards are numerous on the walls of the rooms, darting out from behind pictures, &c. Curtains are not used in Calcutta, they would harbour musquitoes, scorpions, and lizards.

The other day, hearing it was a Burra Din, (day of festival in honour of the goddess Kālee, whose temple is about a mile and a