116 JULY 



scarlet Ixora and white grass ; forming an excellent 

 foreground for tall pink Oleander and the purple 

 Bougainvillia, that showers its masses of colour all 

 over the old recumbent mango tree. Everything 

 with colour has a place in my estimation. 



Last rains the pond overflowed, and converted 

 the whole garden into a lake ; the ducks and fish 

 all swam about on the tennis lawns. That was 

 after six days' hard rain, night and day, during 

 which 37 inches fell. Fifteen fell on one day only. 

 Oh ! how tired we became of the incessant rattle 

 and leaking roofs. In every room upstairs were 

 streams of water, and damp and fungus below. A 

 fever patient, and the kitchen flooded ! I, who was 

 the invalid, could hear my broths and beef-tea 

 plunging through the flood and torrential rain, at 

 all hours of the day. How sorry I was for the 

 poor people who had to be constantly wading half 

 up to their knees in water (fortunately it was 

 warm !) to bring in whatever was needed from the 

 kitchen. I feared an outbreak of fever or cholera 

 among them, but oddly enough, they were none the 

 worse till the ground began to dry, and give off 

 exudations of miasma. Even then only one or 



