CHAPTER XX

Summary

I ought to have begun again sooner, as my last journal was sent off this day week, but it appears it will have to wait at Bombay till the eighth of next month, so, as you may receive two at once, it will be rather in your favour if one week is omitted.

It has rained almost literally without ceasing, with constant fog; but if it is clear for ten minutes the beauty of the hills is surpassing; such masses of clouds about them and below them, and they are so purple and so green at this time of year.

We had to go to another play last night. Luckily they only acted two farces, so we were home at ten, but anything much worse I never saw. There were three women's parts in the last farce, and the clerks had made their bonnets out of their broad straw hats tied on; they had gowns with no plaits in them, and no petticoats nor bustles. One of them, a very black half-caste, stood presenting his enormous flat back to the audience, and the lover observed, with great pathos, ‘Upon my soul! that is a most interesting looking little gurl.’

It seems very uncertain when our next overland-packet will come. The steamers could not get there, and there is nothing but an Arab sailing-vessel to bring the letters here. I have no faith in the Arabs as postmen. I had two here yesterday to draw.