expected. Through all the gorgeousness of it which you write about, I see a great deal of positive comfort scattered about, ready to be piled up into something solid. I write this after having been here only four days, so I may perhaps contradict myself in half I tell you now before I end. I am writing at the quiet hours of the day, from luncheon at two o’clock, till going out to drive at five. The delight of these quiet hours after having had almost the whole of Calcutta to see us this morning, nobody can tell. This is the time that we shall go to sleep,when we get up to ride at five in the morning. I have a week’s respite from that, till the horses are rested from the voyage.
I wrote to you a week ago, before we landed. Just after I wrote, the pilot got us aground, and our arrival was delayed till late at night; so we missed all the formal reception; but at the first moment of seeing this house, I thought I had never fancied anything so magnificent. The moonlight is almost as bright as day.
Sir C. Metcalfe had meant us to dine with eighty people who were still there when we arrived. All the halls were lighted up; the steps of the portico leading to them were covered with
