"The food Is excellent, and though the ship is thoroughly Asiatic in method and upkeep, you get everything you want. But you have to ask for It, The stewards sit and talk with you in the Saloon and drop in and Have a smoke and a beer with you in your cabin and all is harmony and equality. It all seems perfectly natural though and is certainly far fess offensive than the bearing of some servants can be where you can't complain of itt am very happy and light hearted and have never felt so free in my life, and hope sincerely 1 may get down to some paying writing die reetly I arrive."
The last remark refers to news from Edinburgh by Col. Hayley Bell fon the very morning of his departure that "the. Editor of "Blackwood's Magazine" had accepted for publication the third of his contributions, two of which have already appeared.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.