The windows are never opened, and they say that, at midnight, if you were to go out, it feels like going into a furnace. However, those who are all for the provinces say, the wind is dry and not unwholesome, and that as long as you do not attempt to go out of the house, you do not suffer from the heat. It is a regular strict imprisonment. Calcutta is bad, but there we had a regular evening drive, and Government House was really cool at night; then in case of illness there was the sea at hand, but here, if any of us are ill, of course there is no escape. Even natives cannot travel in the hot winds. The discomfiture is general. Most of our goods are half-way to Calcutta. The native servants, who thought they were within reach of their wives and families after two years' absence, are utterly desperate. Mr. A. has thrown up his place, and goes down to Calcutta. Mrs. S. plods back to Simla with her children, and leaves her husband here. Mrs. H. ditto, and I think those two ladies are rather pleased, it forces them to keep their boys another year in the country. Z. has been ill since we came here, but the day this shock was communicated to him, he got up electrified, dressed himself, and came to my room to bemoan his _particular_ hard fate, so like Narcissus Fripps. 'I really am quite overset--I have not an idea what to do--I am so afraid of the hot winds, and this is such a place! no society whatever! Now at Calcutta I really should have enjoyed myself.' This was said with an air of great interest. I saw my opportunity and put it to him, that the hot winds were very bad for the attacks he is subject to, that Dr. D. had always wished him to go home, and that he might now have a medical certificate, which would save his paying his own passage, &c. And so he took the right turn, went straight to the doctor's tent, and came back to say that he had decided to go home. It really is the best thing he can do, and Dr. D. says it is the only chance of his getting well. We still go to Gwalior, and go back into camp on Thursday; we shall be nearly a month away, and we leave X. behind, with Giles and all the carpenters and tailors of the establishment to make up beds, furniture, &c., for we have nothing but small camp beds, which are not endurable in heat. Monday, December 30. You cannot conceive what a pretty fête they gave us at the Taj, or how beautiful it looked by broad daylight. The whole society, with our camp, was just one hundred people, and we dined in what had once been a mosque, but it was _desecrated_ many years ago. Still I thought it was rather shocking our eating ham and drinking wine in it, but its old red arches looked very handsome.