‘Many, many thanks to my own sweet Laura for the pretty sketch of what was once to me a very happy home. I am so pleased that your hand has not lost its skill. I am in great hopes that, like myself, you may have renewed vigour as you walk down the incline of life’s hill. My companions here wonder at me. In another month I shall have been two years in India,--only two months, journeys included, spent in the Hills; all the remaining twenty-two in the Plains, with one peculiarly unhealthy season, and another of unusually prolonged heat;--and yet I am just as strong and well as if I had been just sauntering about an English garden all the time....