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Barrackpore, Friday, March 18,

The fleet of boats got under weigh at 2.30, when the tide served, and the whole party went, except ——, who stayed with me, and we drove down late in the evening. Mr. and Mrs. Robertson and their two children, Mr. and Mrs. Colvin (George’s secretary) and their children, Captain Grey and three of his officers, and our own household, all went by water. The drive down was curious: we went through the native part of the town where the people are so thronged that it is difficult to drive through them. Such odd groups squatting at the doors of the huts, and sometimes such handsome wild countenances; then every now and then a Chinese, with his twinkling eyes and yellow face and satin dress, stalking alone amongst those black naked creatures. I believe this whole country and our being here, and everything about it, is a dream. When we got out of the town the road was straight and shady, and a few scattered savages at the doors of their little clay huts, with their boys climbing up the cocoa-trees, were the only human creatures we met. Then we came to a camel by the roadside—the first I had seen, then to two jackals