From Leonard Darwin to Emma Darwin 19 December [1875]

Dear mother

Malta has been going on in a humdrum fashion this week, but the weather has been very pleasant, and a good deal warmer. Although it is in the morning now I am sitting with a door wide open on one side, and a window on the other; we have a fire going it is true, but it is more to give a cheerful appearance to the room than any thing else. This is the most noisy place I have ever been in; the people in the streets begin a series of the most hideous cries at about 6 in the morning, just under my windows. Now the noise is very pleasant, there is a band playing on the man of war in the harbour and hundreds of distant bells beyond. To come down a peg would you ask Parslow to send my riding trousers to Mes^rs. Sandilands and Co. 12 Conduit S^t. who is sending some things out for me. All this week I have been at work at plans for getting some shields weighing 20 tons onto the works; it is rather a difficult job as they wont go through any of the gates into the town, and we shall have to lift them out of a barge up a cliff about 50 ft high  Luckily the Artillery have to do the work, and if the whole thing goes squash I shall only laugh

Your affec son | Leonard Darwin