Lye, xr¥.] VISIT TO * PENNY-WHISTLE.” 61
LETTER THE FOURTEENTH.
December 15th.
We are jnst returned from Gur long-proniised visit to Penny- Whistle, after a very amusing excursion, though, if E had known what an undertaking the journey would be, I should never have attempted it, or rather A-——— fever would have consented to it, however urgent my curiosity might have made me. How-ever, we are safe at home again, and the journey has done us nothing but good. ‘When the time cate for us to start, according to appointment, A——— said he thought it would be scarcely worth the trouble, and that we should be “ more quiet and comfortable at home”—snch a thorough John Bull !—but L made him go, as I wished to “see a little of life.’ The people had told us that the distance was fifteen miles; so we expected that, starting at half-past five in the afternoon, we should arrive about ten o'clock, in time for a good night’s rest. But it turned out to be thirty miles, and no road; we had te grope our way aver cotton-fields, a pouring rain during almost all the night coming down in such torrents that I could not hear the bearers’ song, pitch-dark, and the ground almost all the way knee-deep in water. We were twelve hours splashing and wading through the mud, and “ plenty tired” when we arrived. But a palanquin is much less fatiguing than a carriage, and an hour’s sleep and a good breakfast scon set us to rights.
When we arrived at Dratclarrum, the Rajah’s town, we were taken to a choultry,* which he had prepared and ornamented with bits of old carpet for our first reception. I could not imagine why we did net go to his house at once, according te lis invitation; but I found afterwards that he had arranged our going first to the choultry, in order that he might send for us in state to his mud palace, All his principal people came te pay
- Building for the reception of native travellers. It is generally open to the air, and much less convenient than a ‘ Traveller's Bungalow.’
