Having, by General Capsicum’s promised interest, obtained a fortnight’s leave of absence, I took an affectionate leave of Grundy and Marpeet, and sent on my two or three servants to Mr. Augustus’s boat, accompanied by Teazer and the one-eyed bull-dog. The next day, in the early grey of morning, I proceeded with him to Tolly’s Nullah, a creek near Calcutta, communicating with the Balliaghāt Passage, where the boat was lying. It was a cool and pleasant morning, the air delightfully fresh. On our way, we met several ladies and gentlemen of Calcutta on horseback. In India, bathing and early rising principally contribute to create the amount of health generally enjoyed there, which would be far greater and less precarious than it is, were it not for an immoderate indulgence in the pleasures of the table, which inflames the blood, disorders the liver, and renders the whole system peculiarly susceptible of disease; then steps in mercury—the remedy—which is a fearful shatterer of the constitution, and in the end proves worse than the disease. I would earnestly advise all my brother-griffins, if they value their happiness, to live moderately and simply though generously, and to guard against the insidious habit of drinking _brandy pawney_, to which a hot climate offers strong and peculiar temptations. These precautions observed, and the mid-day sun avoided, a fair average amount of health may be enjoyed for years. My friend’s boat rowed ten or twelve oars, and was of a kind a good deal in use in Calcutta. The front part was decked, and behind it had a cabin, with Venetian windows, occupying about half the length, and rising several feet above the gunwale; inside there was a small table, and on each side lockers, which served for seats; to the back of these again were some cots or dormitories. It differed from the up-country going craft in being keeled, and having on the whole far more of the European long-boat build. As we shot along the creek for a few miles, each turn gave us peeps of the rich and luxuriant scenery of this part of Bengal. Gardens of plantain, mango, and jack-trees lined the banks, intermixed with clumps of the tapering bamboo; clusters of neat huts, with arched roofs, appeared half-buried beneath their umbrageous foliage, through openings of which, in the dim, chequered light, village girls, with water-pots on their heads, might be seen gliding along, and imparting to the whole scene an air of primeval and truly Eastern simplicity.