94 JUNE 



comfort, according to one's temperament, for it 

 took that length of time to mend us up ; and every 

 other house in the place being as much or even 

 more injured than our own, on the builder declaring 

 it safe enough, here we had to live. First they 

 built over us, and then they built under us, and I 

 don't know which was worse. To sit below, 

 necessarily with a window or door open somewhere, 

 and see clouds of dust and bricks descending from 

 the verandah above ; to hear the thud of falling 

 walls overhead, and listen to the fierce yells all the 

 livelong day of the coolie women, who were only 

 conversing with one another while carrying hods 

 of bricks up ladders ; and to have the odour in 

 everything of their abominable tobacco, which they 

 smoked in place of eating ; or to live above, crowded 

 with all the furniture, while they removed portions 

 of loose wall beneath you ; till the place gaped like 

 a ruin, and you were warned not to tread over 

 certain parts, for fear of it letting you through ! 

 There was a Mahomet's-cofnn-like feeling about it, 

 though we knew they had shored us up with thick 

 tree trunks below. But when they began to attack 

 the tower in order to raze it to the ground, and 



