We had made a pretty arrangement yesterday to go to a small private camp at Toglichabad; a very old town with some splendid ruins about it, and there had been a road made for us, and supplies sent; but then F.'s cold was still bad, and my Delhi illness was worse than ever, so we gave it up, though it looked inconsistent and foolish after all the fuss that had been made, and X. says there was a quantity to see and sketch. I have only been able to make four sketches since we left Simla, for dearth of subjects; but I am glad we did not go, I had such a headache. Half the camp was poisoned at Delhi. Sunday, Dec. 1. We are all well again; and just think of the pleasure of the October mail arriving this morning, only a fortnight after the last. G. has a letter of the 16th, only just six weeks old, but there is some mistake about yours and the letters of the family in general. They are sent off a fortnight too soon: at least we always have public letters and papers dated a fortnight later, and those newspapers, besides taking off the edge of the news for half the next month, put me in a fright. I am so afraid, after hearing that you were well and prosperous the 8th of September, of finding in the 'Morning Chronicle' of October 12th, that C. D., Esq., who lives not 100 miles from Newsalls, was taken before the magistrates for beating M. his wife, and tearing her hair and her best shawl; or else that your new house in Stratton Street had been burnt down before you could insure it, and that you had lost your little all, and perhaps were found begging in the streets, surrounded by your nine children, and causing an obstruction at Hyde Park Corner. Do you know, that whenever I read a heap of English papers at once, 'indeed, indeed I'm very very sick,' there is such a quantity of crime. This time the cruelty to children and apprentices has put me in a frenzy, and there are at least eight exemplary wives murdered by their husbands, and one murderer gets off with six months' imprisonment, because his lawyer chooses to make a pert attack on Lord ----, which pleases the Recorder--so like English justice. I am also very low about politics. I hate all those last changes, and I wish the Whigs would go quietly and respectably out in a body, and leave the Tories and Radicals to fight it out. Wednesday, Dec. 4. Last night, when we were playing at whist, I saw X. fidgeting about behind G.'s chair with a note in his hand, and began to think you were ill, and had sent for me to your tent, or something of that sort; but it turned out to be an express with another little battle, and a most successful one. The Khan of Khelât was by way of being our ally and assistant, and professing friendship; did himself the pleasure of cutting off the supplies of the army when it was on its way to Cabul; set his followers on to rob the camp; corresponded with Dost Mahomed, &c.