Friday, March 19th.

My Dear S. C., — You probably expect that now I am back at Vailima I shall resume the practice of the diary letter. A good deal is changed. We are more; solitude¹ does not attend me as before; the night is passed playing Van John for shells; and, what is not less important, I have just recovered from a severe illness, and am easily tired.

I will give you today. I sleep now in one of the lower rooms of the new house, where my wife has recently joined me. We have two beds, an empty case for a table, a chair, a tin basin, a bucket and a jug⁴; next door in the dining-room, the carpenters camp on the floor, which is covered with their mosquito nets. Before the sun rises, at 5.45 or 5.50, Paul brings me tea, bread, and a couple of eggs; and by about six I am at work. I work in bed — my bed is of mats, no mattress⁵, sheets, or filth⁶ — mats, a pillow, and a blanket — and put in some three hours. It was 9.5 this morning when I set off to the stream-side to my weeding; where I toiled⁷, manuring the ground with the best enricher, human sweat, till the conch-shell was blown from our verandah at 10.30. At eleven we dine; about half-past twelve I tried (by exception) to work again, could make nothing on’t, and by one was on my way to the weeding, where I wrought⁹ till three. Half-past five is our next meal, and I read Flaubert’s Letters till the hour came round; dined, and then, Fanny having a cold, and I being tired, came over to my den¹⁰ in the unfinished house, where I now write to you, to the tune¹¹ of the carpenters’ voices, and by the light — I crave¹² your pardon — by the

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