[Sidenote: SOIL--CLIMATE.] Midnapore is situated on a high table-land, or flat-topped hill, about six miles across, and is much cooler than the greater part of India. The soil is about a foot deep, and underneath it is a volcanic rock, so porous that the rain soaks into it as soon as it falls, thus rendering the place dry and healthy. From the middle of June to the middle of October there are tremendous storms of rain almost every day. Then it is cool and pleasant till February. After that time the heat increases, and the weather is quite dry until April; from which time until June it is intensely hot, with occasional hurricanes and thunderstorms, of which we have had several most magnificent ones lately; and from the height of the hills we seem almost to be in the midst of them. [Sidenote: PRODUCTIONS.] Indigo, rice, and grain are plentiful. The first is obtained by soaking the leaves of the plant in water until they are rotten, when they deposit a thick blue sediment, which is formed into cakes, and is used for dyeing cloths. We have some wild silkworms, from which the natives manufacture a coarse sort of silk. The rice grows in fields which are under water, and looks like barley. These fields beautifully illustrate the expression in the Bible about casting your seed upon the waters, and after many days you shall find it again. The greatest expenses here are servants and house-rent. I pay for my house, which is one of the cheapest in Midnapore, forty rupees a-month; a rupee is two shillings. I keep as few domestics as I can; but am obliged to have eleven men and one woman. The men are-- 1 consummar, or headman. 1 kitmajar, or waiter at table. 1 sirdar, who attends to lamps, furniture, &c. 1 bearer, who works the punkah and helps the sirdar. 1 dirgee, or tailor, who mends stockings, and makes gowns, coats, shirts, &c. 2 maistrees, or carpenters. 2 mollees, or gardeners. 1 motee, who sweeps the rooms and keeps them in order. 1 beastee, or water-carrier. We neither feed nor clothe them: indeed their food consists of nothing but rice, except the consummar and kitmajar, who are Mussulmans. Their pay varies from three to ten rupees a-month. Many people keep forty or fifty men. The sirdar, or bearer, sleeps on a mat in the verandah; the others in houses in the compound. They are all forbidden by their religion to do the work of any other; their fathers and grandfathers performed the same duties, and so will their sons and grandsons also. They are a thievish set, and we dare not leave anything in their way that they can steal. There is at this moment a little grey squirrel hopping about in the verandah,--facing the gate of the compound are several tame buffaloes,--and a little beyond is an elephant lying down basking in the sun and lashing his trunk about upon the grass.