Transcription

[[addition]] The flow of talk [[/addition]] was not lively for who could be communicative after a long drive in India, and in May. Our topics were dusty roads, cool houses, the reviving climate of the Decan (Which seemed from all accounts to be a kind of paradise), healthy and unhealthy [[note]] [[unclear]] [[/note]] stations, and the common Monsoon: I heard Mrs. S. could not come to the reception as she was suffering from a [[underline]] coup de vent [[/underline]]. occasioned by sleeping with her window open when the wind [[deletion]] e [[/deletion]] was in the east; of one gentleman just recovering from the Scinde fever, and of another individual who was still weak from the effects of a jungle fever. How could I help thinking of the person who, on my arrival in India had said to me when speaking of the climate, "Ah, alive-to-day, dead to-morrow." But Lady Falkland was not to be discouraged by these first impressions, and [[deletion]] inspired [[/deletion]] [[addition]] intent [[/addition]] like her brother, [[deletion]] by a desire to [[/deletion]] [[addition]] upon [[/addition]] learn[[addition]] ing [[/addition]] all [[addition]] that [[/addition]] she could about the country, she used to set out on long tours in the Presidency, accompanied by an aide-de-camp, and her maid. She writes, Sight-seeing in India is very fatiguing. The early sun I found very overpowering; it is impossible to go out in the middle of the day, unless one is protected in a carriage or a palanquin; the afternoons are so short, and it is so hot until late in the day-the sun keeping up its strength to the last- that it requires some resolution, and a good deal of health and strength to overcome all these drawbacks. Fortunately I had all three, and fancied I could set the sun at defiance; and though I had one [[underline]] coup de soleil [[/underline]] during my residence in India, I never learnt prudence. Had I been as prudent as I ought to have been, I should have seen nothing.