TALBOT1603

Cotehele House ¹
Calstock
Tavistock.
6^th March 1877

My dear Henry

Very many thanks for remembering me in the matter of the Eclipse. I came here from M^t E. ² on the 27^th & arrived a little before the time at which you told me it would begin. It had been a beautiful morning, & I hoped & expected to see it in perfection. Not at all - It was so cloudy, though fine, that I only had a glimpse of it when it was passing off.

It was not a dull cloudy evening - but rather a picturesque one - thick, black masses of clouds kept flying across the moon, shewing flashes of light in a tantalizing way. It was very dark at the time of the total obscuration; naturally.

Ernestine ³ was at Pamflete (the Bulteels' ⁴ place, near Ivybridge,) & saw it better than we did here.

I expect her home today. Val ⁵ is in London, where he stays for the Levée on the 12^th - There is a most charming little garden growing up in the zigzags - with olivetrees, a carouba, orangetrees, & numbers of Charlie's ⁶ Australian plants - most thriving - & the view is quite lovely & Italian - with a Montezuma Pine, among other things. I wish you would come into these parts when the Spring is more advanced. You have not been in the West for ages. Love to Constance & my nieces. ⁷

Y^r aff^te
Caroline