ant breeze sprang up in the afternoon.

_Sunday, April 8th_.--A delightful fresh morning after a cool night.
Everybody looks quite different, and we begin to hope we shall carry
the north-east monsoon right across, which would be an exceptional
piece of good fortune. We had service in the saloon at eleven o'clock
and at four, and though there was an unusually full attendance it was
cool and pleasant even without the punkah. The thermometer registers
nearly the same as it did on Friday, when we were all dead with the
heat. The apparently nice cool breeze that refreshes our heated bodies
does not produce any corresponding effect on the glassy surface of the
ocean; for we find to-day, as on previous occasions, that the
temperature, both of the water and of the air, registered by the
thermometer, does not by any means correspond with the effect on the
human frame.

The two Chinese servants we shipped at Hongkong are a great success,
as every one on board agrees. Even the old sailing master is obliged
to confess that the two 'heathen Chinee' keep the mess rooms, ships'
officers' and servants' berths much cleaner and more comfortable than
his own sailors ever succeeded in doing. At Galle we shipped three
black firemen, two from Bombay and one from Mozambique, a regular
nigger, with his black woolly hair clipped into the shape of Prince of
Wales feathers. Their names are Mahomet, Abraham, and Tom Dollar. They
live in a little tent we have had pitched for them on deck, cook their
own food, and do their work in the engine-room exceedingly well. In
the intervals they are highly amused with the children's picture
books. The picture of the durbar at Delhi delighted them, especially
as they recognised the figures, and learned a little English through
them. They can say a few words already, and have told me all about
their wives and children at Mozambique and Bombay, and have shown me
the presents they are taking home to them. They have been nearly a
year on board the P. and O. steamship 'Poonah,' and appear to have
saved nearly all their earnings. I do not suppose our own men could
have stood the fearful heat below in the engine-room for many days
together, so it was fortunate we met with these amiable salamanders.

_Monday, April, 9th_.--No wind. We passed through a large shoal of
porpoises, and at dusk we saw the light of a distant ship. At all the
places we have recently visited we have found excellent ice-making
machines, and