IX - MAY 10TH—SEPTEMBER 21ST, 1828

Summary

10th May.—Chinsurah.—I sit again in my old position, anchored below the Commandant's House. I must try not to think of once before arriving at this well-known spot—

‘For truth itself has come to be

More strange than fiction unto me.’

We went to breakfast with Colonel Kelly, an extremely kind, gentlemanlike Irishman, considerably taller than Fenton and more robust. He has had some remains of illness brought on during the Burman war, which cramps his spirits a little; but he is on the whole what I should term a fine gallant-looking fellow. He showed me some chains he had got wrought for his daughters, and spoke of them and his little wife as if we were old friends. I thought him quite delightful. At breakfast we met Captain Enderby of the — Lancers, who was his guest during the day. He was, like ourselves, waiting for the rains to enable him to proceed to Meerut with his family, which family consisted of a little pale, gentle-looking infant girl, of whom he seemed extremely fond, and brought in his arms to be petted and admired. This baby and her nurse lived in a bungalow in the good Colonel's compound, and as she was but nine months old, and no appearance of mourning to denote its mother's death, I could not help wondering where she could be apart from so young an infant.