Although the labours of the march were ended, I felt myself far from comfortable in my new quarters, for the greater part of my baggage was on the Ganges--some eight hundred miles off; I was not settled in any habitation; and lastly, I was among strangers: the two latter objections were soon overcome, but the former I found a serious inconvenience. No life of which I can form an estimate, even that on board ship, can present fewer attractions than a residence, during the hot season, in India. In the upper provinces, about the end of April, the hot winds come rushing from the sandy deserts to the westward, bearing on their fiery wings columns of burning dust, which penetrate to every room in the house, and replenish the eyes, ears, and mouth of the sufferer who ventures to face them faster than he can dispose of the nuisance. A framework of bamboos, covered with long roots of grass termed cuscus, is placed against the windows and doors to the westward, which are continually watered outside by a native, at the expense of keeping up his attention by an occasional "halloo." About sunset, the wind usually drops, and the air remains impregnated with particles of fiery red dust; and as that is the time for coming out of the heated dwelling to swallow the hotter air outside, we may as well change the subject, for it is not likely to prove interesting or agreeable. Towards the end of June, these messengers of the desert cease to arrive; a calm interval (but rather a _restless_ calm) succeeds, which is shortly broken, if the season be favourable, by the approach of heavy columns of clouds from the east, which burst over the thirsty plains of India like angels' visits. The sensation of renovated existence conveyed by this first fall of rain both to animal and vegetable may be imagined even by those who have witnessed the rare effect of a short summer's drought in rainy England. From the descriptions I had heard of our present quarters, I imagined Merut to be a most picturesque little elysium; but those accounts were generally spitefully uttered by discontented Indians, during a summer's drizzle or a London fog. The stern reality varied little from the character of other cantonments which I had visited during my march up the country, either in point of climate or scenery. The barracks are oblong, single-storied buildings, dressed with mathematical precision, (and conveying from a distance the idea of so many petrified columns of troops,) flanked with equally precise roads. In rear of the men's barracks are arranged, in similar order, the officers' bungalows, each enclosed in a small square compound, the condition of which depends of course on the pursuits or taste of the owner.