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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III THE voyage soon re-established Burton's health. When he sailed, his fellow-passengers believed he would never reach home alive, and it was with considerable difficulty that he contrived to write a few words of farewell to his mother and sister. But within less than a fortnight a marked improvement took place. For some constitutions sea air is the best of remedies; in Burton's case it almost always produced such a magical effect, that, when indisposed, he frequently arranged to travel by water, even though the sea route were twice as long as the overland. Nor was it an unpleasant mode of treatment. He was never sick, never even uncomfortable during the roughest weather; and he often dined tete-a-tete with the captain in the height of a gale which had prostrated every other landsman on board. As he grew stronger and the Eliza, favoured by fair winds, scudded on her homeward way, his thoughts became entirely centred on the fast approaching meeting with his relatives. Seven years had gone by since he sailed for Bombay in the John Knox. A chapter of accidents had prevented his seeing Edward Burton, stationed at Ceylon with the 37th, although the two brothers had been most anxious to spend some time together, and, with this end in view, had made plan after plan; while, as for other members of his family, those were days before cheap winter trips to the Presidencies enable us to visit our friends in India, whenever affection or restlessness prompts us thus to expend our money and our energies. Happily, as yet death had made no gaps in the home circle. His mother, though ailing, lived some years longer, his father's health was no worse, while his sister, married in 1845, had two children. By the time he landed, his longing for the sight of a familiar face had grow...