Luckily we had one of those
large straw Pondicherry reclining-chairs, which I just bought from
the captain of the steamer, and a rug; so Richard and I took the bed
in turns night about, the other in the chair. We did not mind much,
for we had come to see Goa, and were used to roughing it better out of
doors than inside. There was little to be bought in Goa; but all that
the residents had to give they offered with alacrity. It is the worst
climate I ever was in, and I have experienced many bad ones. The
thermometer was not nearly so high as I have known it in other places,
but the depression was fearful. There was not a breath of air in Goa
even at night, and the thirst was agonizing; even the water was hot,
and the more one drank the more one wanted: it was a sort of purgatory.
I cannot think how the people manage to live there: the place was simply
_dead_; there is no other word for it. Of all the places I have ever
been to, in sandy deserts and primeval forests, Goa was the worst.
However, Richard wanted to revisit it, and I wanted to see it also with
a particular object, which was to pay my respects to the shrine of the
Apostle of India, St. Francis Xavier, which is situated in Old Goa.
We hired the only horse in the country, a poor old screw of a pony,
broken down by mange and starvation and sores; and we harnessed him to
the only vehicle we could find, a small open thing of wood made in the
year 1 B.
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