CHAPTER V. TAKING A HOLIDAY.—LIFE ON BOARD THE “RED RIDING HOOD.” MAURITIUS.—MADRAS.—CALCUTTA. Having heard of the safe arrival at the Vaal River, of my diamond venture which I mentioned in my second chapter, and being sanguine of its success, I determined to accept an offer to take charge, as government medical superintendent, of a detachment of time-expired coolies returning to India. It had always been a cherished wish of mine to see that historical land, and this presented a most favorable opportunity for me to gratify that desire. After getting leave of absence from the Natal government, and securing the services of a _locum tenens_ for my private practice, I started Feb. 10th, 1871, on a journey which proved so full of incident that I am irresistibly tempted to quote from letters which I wrote to my wife at the time describing the journey. It is true that neither the sacred land of the Ganges nor “Araby the blest” is situated in Natal or the Cape Colony, and therefore the description of my adventures in these countries is not strictly appropriate to a journal of “Twenty Years in South Africa,” but as my experiences were at the time the comment of the Indian and Natalian press, I venture to reproduce them at the risk of any charges of wandering from my subject or of egotism, though I admit they might fairly enough be brought against me. Bidding farewell to all at Verulam I spent the night in D’Urban, as the shipment of the coolies was not to take place until early next morning. These immigrants, now homeward bound, had been the first shipped to the colony, arriving there by the _Truro_, Nov. 17th, 1860, ten years before, and were now returning in the _Red Riding Hood_, formerly one of the smartest tea clippers in the China trade. They were all got safely aboard by noon, though the skipper did not heave anchor until evening. With a favorable wind we left the shores of Natal. What we suffered and endured, the characteristics of our passengers, our disappointing quarantine at Mauritius, our arrival at Madras, the continuation of the voyage to Calcutta and my own subsequent experience in Arabia, _en route_ to Marseilles, the story of which is contained in the following letters, will, I trust, induce my readers to pardon the digression. “ON BOARD THE ‘RED RIDING HOOD, Feb. 22d, 1871. “MY DEAR ——: ‘A life on the ocean wave, a home on the rolling deep,’ sounds very exciting and spirit stirring when sung on shore, but all the excitement and enthusiasm vanish when one gets to sea on board a ship with some 400 coolies, men, women and children, as companions. Yet it was a sight worth seeing to behold the shipment at the outer anchorage when we left of the lame, the blind, the paralytic, the epileptic, the lepers without toes and the lepers without fingers.