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30 Jun 61 Peter Shanghai Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Shanghai 30 June 1861

My dear Mother

I am taking advantage of Sunday to write a letter or two, but it is so hot that I completely knock under. Their people don’t feel it but unfortunately, although I lay no claims to being a Daniel Lambert * (I have at any rate a tendency the other way) & I think 11½ stone to any body of my height is very fair. Independently of this however I suffer more than any body else I have ever come across from the heat which really completely prostrates me. We do not have it so long here though as in Hong Kong & it is awfully cold in winter – altogether a much healthier place.

I hope too to be able to get a trip over to Japan some day. Only think, if a few years ago, any body had suggested the possibility of my ever being in India, China or more especially Japan, how I should have laughed.

I was very sorry at leaving Hong Kong when the time came, for I had got very comfortable there at last. On the way up we called at several places on the coast; amongst the rest, Amoy, Foochowfoo & Ningpo – the latter place celebrated for its inlaid furniture.

I bought a beautiful inlaid bed there for $50 or about £12. They are very peculiar beds – quite different from any others, having as I may say only one side. That is, the other 3 sides are quite plain & closed, so that you only enter from the one side which is all beautifully inlaid with ivory figures & presents an appearance which with curtains & all in cold weather I may perhaps compare to the front of a private box at the Theatre.

At Ningpo too, I nearly came to grief for my sedan chair coolies ran accidentally right into the Taou-Tai’s chair while in grand procession. This gentleman whose title, though curiously spelled, is really pronounced Towtye is the head mandarin of the city, like the Mayor anglice. He therefore had me stopped, but finding I was a Britisher intimated that, had I not been such, I should have paid the penalty of my chair coolies’ rashness with my head.

Give Helen her usual kiss for me & Believe me ever

Yr. affect. Son

Peter G. Laurie

* Daniel Lambert – (1770-1809) Famous for his obesity, weighing over 52 stones when he died, aged 39 years