managing the Broomhall
affairs, and riding at a sort of single anchor with politics. Would it
have been better for me if I had had more engrossing positive work?
There is something to be said on both sides in answering that
question. However, these books will not be again read by me, for I
shall consign them to the Red Sea.

_February 13th._--The breeze is freshening and dead ahead.... I have
been thinking of the past, and remembering that just twenty years ago,
at this same season, I set out on my first visit to the Tropics. What
a strange career it has been! How grateful I should be to Providence
for the protection I have enjoyed! How wild it seems, to be about, at
the close of twenty years, to begin again.

[Sidenote: A gale.]

_Sunday, February 16th._--A bad time since I last wrote. We have had a
very strong gale.... There is less motion to-day, probably because we
are under the lee of the Arabian coast. I could not wish that you had
been with me while we were undergoing this misery; and we have made
slow progress, but may reach Aden to-morrow. It has been a sad
time.... I could not read, and have been lying down, thinking over so
many things!... But there may, please God, be a good time beyond. I
have been thinking of the little party in your room on this day, and
endeavouring to join with you all.

[Sidenote: A moonlight night.]

_February 19th.--Gulf of Aden.--Seven A.M._--I have just had my first
walk on deck for this day. It is fine, and the head wind keeps up a
cool draught of air for us. The night was pleasant and cool, and I
spent an hour before I went to bed, walking up and down the bridge,
between the paddle-boxes, looking at a great moon, a little past the
full, climbing up the heavens before us, and (as Coleridge says, I
think in the notes to the _Ancient Mariner_, of the stars) entering
unannounced among the groups of stars as a guest certainly expected
--and yet there is a silent joy on her arrival.

_February 27th.--Near Ceylon._--According to the account of our
captain, who hails from Bombay, the Governor there must be very well
off as regards climate. He has the sea air at Bombay itself; 2,000
feet of elevation at Poonah; and 5,000 on a mountain accessible in two
days from Bombay. So that his family may always live in a cool
climate, and he can join them w