After breakfast I rode home. Conceive
such an outing, remember the pallid brute that lived in
Skerryvore like a weevil in a biscuit, and receive the
intelligence that I was rather the better for my journey.
Twenty miles ride, sixteen fences taken, ten of the miles in
a drenching rain, seven of them fasting and in the morning
chill, and six stricken hours' political discussions by an
interpreter; to say nothing of sleeping in a native house, at
which many of our excellent literati would look askance of
itself.
You are to understand: if I take all this bother, it is not
only from a sense of duty, or a love of meddling - damn the
phrase, take your choice - but from a great affection for
Mataafa. He is a beautiful, sweet old fellow, and he and I
grew quite fulsome on Saturday night about our sentiments. I
had a messenger from him to-day with a flannel undershirt
which I had left behind like a gibbering idiot; and
perpetrated in reply another baboo letter. It rains again
to-day without mercy; blessed, welcome rains, making up for
the paucity of the late wet season; and when the showers
slacken, I can hear my stream roaring in the hollow, and tell
myself that the cacaos are drinking deep.
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