From Leonard Darwin to Emma Darwin 7 December [1875]

Dear mother

The Italian mail should have left by this time, but I am thankful to say that it has been delayed for a day by bad weather and that has given me a chance of writing, for I have had such a horribly dissipated week that I could not find a minute before. To begin at the end of my tasks, the Euphrates troop ship came in yesterday With Jenny on board. They had had very bad weather and she had suffered from seasickness a great deal, so they determined to leave the troop ship here and go on by Italy. All this morning I have been doing shew-man to Malta, and a very bad one I make as I have not been to half the shew places myself before. Major Carr seems a pleasant man, and in some respects knew a lot more about Malta than I did. I expect they are glad enough for a days rest here after their knocking about in the trooper

To go backwards last night the Theatricals came off, and were a great success. I believe I did my little part fairly well; at all events well enough to keep the play going. All the week before we had constant rehearsals and that took up a lot of time; but there was a good deal of amusement to be got out of them. But our great festivity was a little dance that we four bachelors gave on Saturday night. It has generally been the custom for the house to give some sort of entertainment in the year, generally a garden party, or something of that sort, but this time we thought we would try a dance, especially as one of us is going away and we shall not have another chance for some time of doing the thing so cheaply. We first had to go round to all our married officers and borrow carpets and rugs and chairs and furniture of all sorts; and then we induced about 5 ladies to come and work all morning at decorating our rooms with flowers, the result being that our rooms looked as nice as they could, and we got a lot of praise for our entertainment. The only fault was that it was a most abominable night and a great many people did not turn up—we only had 50 and we asked 100. I am thankful to say there are no more festivities coming on just yet as I have. The Carrs have just been here for 5 o'clock tea and were gloating over a coal fire.— The weather has been most abominably cold. Goodbye

Your affec son. | Leonard Darwin