The ice is rather a costly article, as it has to be brought from North America.

In the evening, tea is served up.
During meal-times, a large punkah is employed to diffuse an agreeable degree of coolness through the apartment.

The punkah is a large frame, from eight to ten feet long, and three feet high, covered with white Indian cloth, and fastened to the ceiling.

A rope communicates, through the wall, like a bell-pull, with the next room, or the ground floor, where a servant is stationed to keep it constantly in motion, and thus maintain a pleasing draught.
As may be seen from what I have said, the living here is very dear for Europeans.

The expense of keeping a house may be reckoned at 30,000 francs (6,000 dollars--1,200 pounds) at the lowest; a very considerable sum, when we reflect how little it procures, neither including a carriage nor horses.