mosphere as if they could pierce one with their glance.

_March 11th._--We have passed the Horsburgh lighthouse, and entered
the Straits. Wooded banks on either side, diversified by hillocks, and
a ship or two, give some animation to the scene. It is very hot, and I
have been on the paddle-box getting what air I can, and watching a
black wall of cloud covered with fleecy masses, which rests on the
bank to our right, and seems half inclined to sweep over us with one
of those refreshing pelts of which we had a succession last night. It
is this habit of showers which renders the vicinity of the Line more
bearable than the summer heat of other parts within the Tropics.
However, the cloud sticks to the shore, so I have come down to write
this line to you.

[Sidenote: Singapore.]

_Singapore.--Sunday, March 13th, Seven A.M._--This place looks
wonderfully green and luxuriant after China. The variety of costumes
and colours too, Malay, Indian, Chinese, &c., and the pretty villas
perched on each hillock among flowering trees, give it a festival air.
Heavy showers of rain also keep the temperature down.... 3.30 P.M.--I
went to church and embarked immediately after; and here we are, about
ten miles from Singapore, going well through a calm sea, with a slight
breeze rather against us. Twenty months ago I left this place at about
the same hour with poor Peel for Calcutta.

_March 21st.--Six A.M._--I have been an hour on deck watching the
great bright stars eclipse themselves, and the sun break through the
clouds right astern of us. It is a lovely day, and we are a little
bent over by a breeze from the shore of Ceylon, along which we are now
running. _Noon._--Just anchored at Galle, after a run of about 270
miles in twenty-four hours.... We are surrounded by curious boats
about two feet wide, prevented from capsizing by _outriggers_--beams
of wood _floating_ on the water on one side of them, and attached to
them by poles of about eight feet in length. I believe these boats are
wonderfully fast and safe.

[Sidenote: Ceylon.]

_Colombo.--Sunday, March 27th._--We came yesterday to this place. A
drive of seventy-two miles through an almost uninterrupted grove of
cocoa-nut trees, interspersed with bread-fruit, jack-fruit, and other
foliage, with occasional gleams of the _Gloriosa superba_. The music