[Sidenote:  Fever.]

Steamer ’Ava’—­September 10th.—­I have had a very bad time of it since I finished my last letter on my way down the Hooghly.  Probably it may have been something of the Calcutta fever brought with me....  But on the second night after our departure, it came on to blow hard towards morning.  I was in my cot on the windward side.  First, I got rather a chill, and then the ports were shut, leaving me very hot.  I remained all day in a state of feverish lethargy, unable to rise, and constantly falling off into dreamy dozes; kaleidoscopes, with the ugliest sides of everything perpetually twirling before my eyes.  I panted so for air that they opened my ports towards evening as an experiment.  It turned out better than might have been expected.  A sea washed in, and filled my cot half full of water, which decided me on rising.  No gentler hint would have mastered my lethargy.  After I got on deck, as you may imagine, it was about as difficult, or rather more so, to overcome the vis inertiae which fixed me there.  So a bed was made for me under the awning.  I remained on deck for four nights; the fourth, in a cot slung up to the boom, and though I slept little, it was cool.  Last night I came down to the cabin again.  I have taken the turn, and am on the mend, though I do not yet feel the least inclination for food, and my nerves are so shaky that I can hardly write.  That little pretty book[7] of Guizot’s which you sent me, I have been trying to read, but I find that it is too touching for me, and I have been obliged to lay it aside.

September 11th.—­I am now at Singapore again, which is my kind of oasis in this desert of the East; the only place where I have felt well or comfortable, and where there has been a sort of cordiality in the people, which makes one feel somewhat at home.  I shall stay here two days, to gain a little strength before plunging again into the sea.

[Sidenote:  Perplexities.]

Hong-Kong.—­September 20th.—­I did not attempt to write on my way from Singapore to this place, because, though we were much favoured by the weather (as this is the worst month in the China seas and the most subject to typhoons), the motion of the screw in the ‘Ava’ is so bad, that it is almost impossible to write when she is going at full speed.  However, I may now tell you that we made out our voyage in six days of beautiful weather, and that I have gone on gradually recovering my health, which I lost between Calcutta and Singapore.  I believe I do not look quite as blooming as usual; but it is of no use my claiming sympathy on this score, for, as the Bishop of Labuan appears to have said, I always have a more florid appearance than most people, and never therefore get credit for being ill, however ill I may feel.  I found two mails from home....  The Government approves of my having sent my troops to India, and Clarendon’s