climate was so harmless, and indulging in the prospect of successful literary exertion, and the realization of all her filial desires. This description occurs in a letter to Mrs. S. C. Hall:—
"The native huts I first took for ricks of hay, but those of the better sort are pretty white houses, with green blinds. The English gentlemen resident here have very large houses, quite mansions, with galleries running round. Generally speaking, the vegetation is so thick, that the growth of the shrubs rather resembles a wall. The solitude here is very Robinson Crusoe-ish. The hills are covered to the top with what we should call calf-weed, but here is called bush; on two of these hills are small forts, built by Mr. Maclean. The natives seem obliging and intelligent, and look very picturesque, with their fine dark figures, with pieces of the country cloth flung round them; they seem to have an excellent ear for music."
And to Lady Stepney she writes,—"I do think the band plays from morning to night; the people seem to have a musical genius, they catch a melody at once." And of the native servants—"I find the servants civil, and wanting not in intelligence, but industry. Each has servants to wait on him, whom they call sense-boys; i. e. they wait on them to be taught. Scouring is done by the prisoners. Fancy three men employed to clean a room, which, in England, an old woman would do in an hour, while a soldier stands over them with a drawn bayonet."
To other acquaintances in a similar strain. To Mrs. Thomson, she enters more into personal particulars, which she knew would be expected, and which she felt it a relief to communicate to such a friend.—
