All the decanters were covered with cotton bags, kept wet with saltpetre
and water, so that the evaporation carried on powerfully by the stream
of air that flowed across the room, through the open doors and windows,
made the fluids quite as cool as was desirable to worthies sitting
luxuriating with the thermometer at 80 or thereby; yet, from the free
current, I was in no way made aware of this degree of heat by any
oppressive sensation; and I found in the West Indies as well as in the
East, although the wind in the latter is more dry and parching, that a
current of heated air, if it be moderately dry, even with the
thermometer at 95 in the shade, is really not so enervating or
oppressive as I have found it in the stagnating atmosphere on the sunny
side of Pall Mall, with the mercury barely at 75. A cargo of ice had a
little before this arrived at Kingston, and at first all the inhabitants
who could afford it iced every thing, wine, water, cold meats, fruits,
and the Lord knows what all, tea, I believe, amongst other things; (by
the way, I have tried this, and it is a luxury of its kind;) but the
regular old stagers, who knew what was what, and had a regard for their
interiors, soon began to eschew the ice in every way, saving and
expecting to cool the water they washed their thin faces and hands in;
so we had no ice, nor did we miss it, but the judge had a plateful of
chips on the table before him, one of which he every now and then popped
into his long thin bell--glass of claret, diluting it, I should have
thought, in rather a heathenish manner; but n'importe, he worked away,
sawing off pieces now and then from the large lump in the blanket, (to
save the tear and wear attending a fracture,) which was handed to him by
his servant, so that by eleven o'clock at night, allowing for the water,
he must have concealed his three bottles of pure claret, besides
garnishing with a lot of white wines.
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