fellow, with turban, badge, and silver stick, put a billet into my hand, which was the means of soon restoring me to the pale of orthodoxy. It was from an eccentric baronet, to whom I had brought letters and a parcel from his daughter in England, and ran thus: “Col. Sir Jeremy Skeggs presents his compliments to Mr. Gernon, and thanks him for the care he has taken of the letters, &c., from his daughter. Mrs. Hearty, Sir J. Skeggs sister, will be happy to see Mr. G., and will send a palankeen for him.” I packed up my all (an operation soon effected), got into an elegant palankeen, which made its appearance shortly after the note, and escorted by a body of silver-stick men (for Mr. Hearty was “a man in authority”), I bade adieu to the tents, and leaving Grundy and some other cadets, though with a strong commiserative feeling, to struggle with the discomforts I have mentioned, was conveyed at a slapping pace to my host’s garden residence, on the Mount Road. This was a flat roofed building, in the peculiar style of the country, of two stories—a large portico occupying nearly the whole length of the front. It was approached by a long avenue of parkinsonias, and surrounded, and partly obscured, by rich masses of tropical foliage, in which the bright green of the plantain contrasted pleasingly with the darker hues of the mango and the jack. Beyond the house stretched a pleasant domain, slightly undulating, dotted with clumps, and intersected by rows of cocoa-nut trees. Here it constituted one of my chief pleasures to saunter, to chase the little striped squirrels up the trees, or to watch the almost as agile ascent of the toddyman, as he mounted by a most simple contrivance the tall and branchless stems to procure the exhilarating juice; or to pelt the paroquets, as they clung screaming to the pendent leaves. To possess a parrot of my own, in England, had long constituted one of the unattainable objects of my juvenile ambition. I had longed so much for it, that an inordinate idea of the value of parrots had clung to me ever since. To see them, therefore, by dozens, in their wild state, was like in some measure spreading out before me the treasures of Golconda. Mr. Hearty met me at the entrance, shook me very cordially by the hand, and taking me into the apartment where his wife and several other ladies were sitting, he presented me to the former, by whom I was very graciously received. “Mr. Gernon, my love,” said he, “whom your brother, Sir Jeremy, has been so kind as to introduce to us.” “We are very glad indeed to see you,” said the lady, rising and taking my hand, “and hope you will make this house your home whilst the ship remains.” I profoundly bowed my thanks. “Mr. Hearty, my dear, will you shew Mr. Gernon his room—he may wish to arrange his things—and then bring him back to us?”