1 LAHORE AND CASHMERE. 309
2 wet, as becomes the reservoir, the cistern of all the
3 animal pores below the waist. It is, nevertheless, most
4 incredible that I feel myself as fresh in mind and as
5 light (I was again going to say fresh) in body as if,
6 instead of having 43 centigrades, we had. only 14 or 15.
7 It is fortunate for me that the equilibrium of my
8 fluids is perfect, for if I were obliged to take a lave-
9 ment at this hour of the day in my tent, the water, by
10 the grace of God—(I am the only one in India who in
11 this case says by the grace; every one else would say
12 by the malediction of God)—the water, I say, is
13 almost at the boiling point. Now you know that ani-
14 mal heat is considerably less; the lavement therefore
15 would be too hot. Quod erat demonstrandum.
16 I breakfast upon milk and plantains, that fruit of all
17 hot countries, of which you have heard talk, and which
18 resembles stale jasmine pomatum, very sweet. I dine
19 upon onions fried in ghee, which is the representative
20 of butter in India; melted butter as rancid as a Turk.
21 I drink lukewarm water with that, and in the course of
22 the day lemonade warm or hot, because everything is
23 warm or hot. I have become sufficiently Indian to like
24 rancid butter, and on the first day of my arrival at
25 . Haity, the 18th February, 1827, I found the plantain
26 a delicious fruit, contrary to the opinion of many
27 Europeans, who get quite angry with any person offer-
28 ing them the first taste; and after having .tasted it,
29 say that a plantain is a very unseemly jest against an
30 honest man. ,