Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships whibsp;I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the ba hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was strubsp;down by enteribsp;fever, that bsp;of our Indian posssions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to mylf and became valest, I was so weak and emaciated that a medibsp;board determined that not a day should be lost in nding me babsp;to England. I was dispatched, accly, in the troopship "Orontes," and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal gover to spend the nine months in attempting to improve it.
I had her kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or as free as an ine of eleven shillings and sixpenbsp;a day will permit a man to be. Under subsp;circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into whibsp;all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a fortless, meaningless existenbsp;and spending subsp;money as I had, siderably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finanbsp;bee, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the try, or that I must make a plete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.
Worn with pain, and weak from the prolonged hardships whibsp;I had undergone, I was removed, with a great train of wounded sufferers, to the ba hospital at Peshawar. Here I rallied, and had already improved so far as to be able to walk about the wards, and even to bask a little upon the verandah, when I was strubsp;down by enteribsp;fever, that bsp;of our Indian posssions. For months my life was despaired of, and when at last I came to mylf and became valest, I was so weak and emaciated that a medibsp;board determined that not a day should be lost in nding me babsp;to England. I was dispatched, accly, in the troopship "Orontes," and landed a month later on Portsmouth jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with permission from a paternal gover to spend the nine months in attempting to improve it.
I had her kith nor kin in England, and was therefore as free as air—or as free as an ine of eleven shillings and sixpenbsp;a day will permit a man to be. Under subsp;circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great cesspool into whibsp;all the loungers and idlers of the Empire are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a private hotel in the Strand, leading a fortless, meaningless existenbsp;and spending subsp;money as I had, siderably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the state of my finanbsp;bee, that I soon realized that I must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere in the try, or that I must make a plete alteration in my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive domicile.