Page:Letters from India Vol 2.pdf/85

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LETTERS FROM INDIA.
73

the captain has obligingly sawed away the partition between that and mine, which gives me a little draft. We went down to Saugur—actually into blue sea-water—in the morning, whereby I and all the native servants were remarkably sea-sick; so then we turned back again and anchored at Kedgeree. Kedgeree is a pretty place—about two inches of bank, then a little jungle and an old ruin of a house that a former postmaster lived in, a little thatched bungalow which the present less well-paid man inhabits, a flag-staff which acts as a semaphore, and then a few native huts. Mrs. Rousseau, the postmistress, sent me a basket of fruit and vegetables. I wish she would come herself, as she must want to see another European woman. I suspect her husband must be the original Rousseau. It is just the place he would have chosen to live in—utterly out of the reach of human kind. If he, and his wife happen to dislike each other, it must be a delightful position to be in.

We breakfast at eight, lunch at twelve, and dine at four (a new set of hours); but I only appear at dinner. The captain is very hospitable and good-humoured.