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2 Jun 59 Peter Hong Kong Mother 5, Hyde Park Place West ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Hong Kong 2 June

‘59

My dear Mother

We have now arrived at the most miserable part of the year when the heat is so oppressive that we literally find it too much trouble to do anything. As you will doubtless observe I appear to find it too much trouble to make a new pen or to get some ink which isn’t clotted. The heat has brought out all the insects & one is perpetually tormented with mosquitoes which raise great lumps & horrid cockroaches (is that the way to spell it) & white ants which crawl all over one’s body.

You mustn’t mistake a cockroach for a cockchafer – they are very different animals, the cockroach being much larger – more like a huge black beetle of a creamy shiny color. Fancy one of these things crawling over you. They get into your hat & when you put it on, come tumbling on to your head & then run away all over your body. They get into your boots & when you put them on you hear a sort of squash & find a great cockroach smashed all over your stocking. They eat up the kid tops of your boots; they eat up the leather rim to your hat; they make everything in a filthy mess wherever they go.

Every animal is said to have been created for some good reason. The only use of a cockroach is to eat mosquitoes & the only use of mosquitoes is for food for cockroaches. The white ants come under the same category. It is the old story of a tiger being created to eat man & man being created to shoot tigers, for there certainly again is no use in white ants. They come flying down in the evening from the trees & directly they settle on anything, drop their wings so that they can’t fly away again.

They always make a point wherever they can of settling on human beings so that, being unable to get away, they of course have to make a parade ground of one’s body. They are about a quarter of an inch long & I believe their chief object is to find a suitable place to lay their eggs. So they go diving in amongst the intricacies of ones raiment in an exceedingly uncomfortable manner.

I have got some tea & preserves on their way for you, of which more next time as I quite agree with you – this is much the best way of settling any small pecuniary investments. A kiss to little Helen.

Your affect Son

Peter G. Laurie