Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/154

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142
LETTERS FROM INDIA.

do not shut it up when we are away; and when Fanny and I arrived late last night it was like coming into an oven, and sleeping was quite out of the question. It is altogether in a ramshackly state, and it will be rather an advantage for the next Governor-General not to try any repairs; the floors have given way, so that the tables against the walls look like writing-desks, with perhaps a thought too much of a slope; and if it tumbles down, he can build himself a house with good doors and windows. This house has no doors—nothing but jalousies—and ‘I jalouse,’ as the Scotch novels say, that nothing but hot air comes through them.

Calcutta, 10th.

Yes, it remained a furnace to the end, and the European servants, who have no glass windows to their rooms, were all done up by it. I must say India in the hot season is not the place to play at having a country house full of people.

Lord Jocelyn arrived here two days ago. It is wonderful how he has borne sixteen days of dâk travelling; he says sometimes his palanquin was so hot he could not bear the touch of it,