To one of her correspondents she wrote from Batala on the 6th of July: ‘You know that I am the only Englishwoman within twenty miles. Now and then friends pass a night here; but in the hot weather not often.... The 29th will, if I stay till then, complete sixteen weeks of steady residence, during which I have only twice seen English ladies,--for less than twenty-four hours. I doubt whether any European has ever stopped in Batala so long before without a single night’s absence.... Once from Friday evening to Monday morning I saw no white face. There is a nice brown lady in the house.’[84]