Sunday, April 8th.—­A delightful fresh morning after a cool night.  Everybody looks quite different, and we begin to hope we shall carry the north-east monsoon right across, which would be an exceptional piece of good fortune.  We had service in the saloon at eleven o’clock and at four, and though there was an unusually full attendance it was cool and pleasant even without the punkah.  The thermometer registers nearly the same as it did on Friday, when we were all dead with the heat.  The apparently nice cool breeze that refreshes our heated bodies does not produce any corresponding effect on the glassy surface of the ocean; for we find to-day, as on previous occasions, that the temperature, both of the water and of the air, registered by the thermometer, does not by any means correspond with the effect on the human frame.

The two Chinese servants we shipped at Hongkong are a great success, as every one on board agrees.  Even the old sailing master is obliged to confess that the two ‘heathen Chinee’ keep the mess rooms, ships’ officers’ and servants’ berths much cleaner and more comfortable than his own sailors ever succeeded in doing.  At Galle we shipped three black firemen, two from Bombay and one from Mozambique, a regular nigger, with his black woolly hair clipped into the shape of Prince of Wales feathers.  Their names are Mahomet, Abraham, and Tom Dollar.  They live in a little tent we have had pitched for them on deck, cook their own food, and do their work in the engine-room exceedingly well.  In the intervals they are highly amused with the children’s picture books.  The picture of the durbar at Delhi delighted them, especially as they recognised the figures, and learned a little English through them.  They can say a few words already, and have told me all about their wives and children at Mozambique and Bombay, and have shown me the presents they are taking home to them.  They have been nearly a year on board the P. and O. steamship ‘Poonah,’ and appear to have saved nearly all their earnings.  I do not suppose our own men could have stood the fearful heat below in the engine-room for many days together, so it was fortunate we met with these amiable salamanders.

Monday, April, 9th.—­No wind.  We passed through a large shoal of porpoises, and at dusk we saw the light of a distant ship.  At all the places we have recently visited we have found excellent ice-making machines, and have been able to get a sufficient supply to last us from port to port, which has been a great comfort.  The machine at Colombo unfortunately broke down the day before we left, so that in the very hottest part of our voyage we have had to do without our accustomed luxury; and very much we miss it, not only for cooling our drinks, but for keeping provisions, &c.  As it is, a sheep killed overnight is not good for dinner next day; butter is just like oil, and to-day in opening a drawer my fingers touched a sticky mess; I looked and discovered six sticks of sealing wax running slowly about in a state resembling treacle.