LIFE IN CENTRAL ASIA. 267 



Indian eight months of eternal blue, will undoubtedly, 

 when he rises on the first wet, cold, raw, misty morn- 

 ing of December, be inclined to use the language of 

 the ^Madras colonel, who came on deck the first misty 

 morning in the English Channel, rubbing his hands 

 ami exclaiming " Ah ! that's the thing ; none of 

 your d d eternal blue skies here ! " No doubt the 

 dry heat, and the great changes of temperature, are 

 somewhat dangerous to human life, inducing fever and 

 dysentery of the most inexorable kind ; but then, 

 until he becomes seriously ill, he finds himself healthy 

 and active in an unusual degree. There being an 

 average of 70 deaths annually at Kurrachee for every 

 780 Europeans, the ratio of deaths must be between 

 9 and 10 per cent annually, while in England it is 

 only between 1 and 2 per cent. That fact, when he 

 discovers it, may make him look upon the cold morn- 

 ings as treacherous in their pleasantness as pleasing, 

 indeed, like " pegs " glasses of brand y-paunee so 

 called from their supposed effect in closing the coffin- 

 lid upon the son of Adam ; but, like these, certain to 

 be fatal in the long, or rather short run. 



Perhaps this may have the effect of impressing upon 

 him, if he be of a serious reflecting mind, the duty of 

 taking example from the busy bee, and improving 

 each shining hour, in a country where the hours are 

 very shining indeed. What would most of us not 

 give could we place ourselves for a few months in 

 Perth, not in the year 185-, but in the days of the 



