intestine-withering

Updated: May 13, 2025

It is getting on for ten at night; but we sit with windows all wide open, the punkah going, the thinnest conceivable garments, and yet we sweat, my brother, very profusely.... To-morrow I shall be up at gun-fire, about half-past four A.M. and drive down to the civil station, about three miles off, to see a friend, an officer of our own corps ... who is sick, return, take my Bearer's daily account, write a letter or so, and lie down with Don Quixote under a punkah, go to sleep the first chapter that Sancho lets me, and sleep till ten, get up, bathe, re-dress and breakfast; do my daily business, such as it is hard work, believe me, in a hot sleep- inducing, intestine-withering climate, till sunset, when doors and windows are thrown open ... and mortals go out to "eat the air," as the natives say.

Mrs. Humphry Ward - A Writer's Recollections — Volume 1