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: 12 THE COROMANDEL COAST. CHAPTER II. THE SPORTSMAN AFLOAT. " Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre of barren ground; long heath, brown furze, anything. The wills above be done ! but I would fain die a dry death." ? Tempest. The sea breeze which, daily setting in about two hours after noon, and invariably continuing till the time of sunset, sweeps along, and softly woos the burning shores of the Coro- niandel coast, whilst it fans and revives with its cooling zephyrs the last embers of exhausted nature in the pale-faced European population of Madras, is there called the " Doctor;" for by many a feverish patient is the visit of this welcome physician anxiously anticipated, and his too speedy departure regretted with as FORT ST. GEORGE. 13 heartfelt sincerity. This sad period of separation had arrived, and the " Doctor" was fast evaporating with the last declining rays of that ball of molten fire, which in our more temperate regions goes by the name of the Sun; to catch the latest flutter of his dying breath we had ascended one of the lofty-terraced roofs crowning the noble edifices of Fort St. George, and, reclining in our camp chairs, were quietly inhaling the soothing aroma of sundry long Tri- chinopoly cheroots, ever and anon moistening the same with a mixture of two liquids, one contained in a black glass vessel usually denominated a bottle, the other in a red porous, classically-shaped earthen bowl, which rejoiced in the euphonious appellation of a " goglet." The long and short of the matter was, that, whilst admiring the beautiful panorama of boundless sea and long sandy shore, here and there dotted with the tall waving cocoa-tree, and that vast extent of sun-burnt plain, on some parts covered with snow-white buildings, venerable old pag...