This midnight hour of all the hours of the year is reputed
the best for framing good resolutions, but somehow those I have
tried at this season hitherto have not been exceptionally
fortunate in bearing good fruit. However, I have never "resolved"
on a New-Year's night before while suffering from heat and
mosquitoes. I conclude to hazard one, so here goes antipodal
resolution No. I. See what you are good for. I record it that it
may be the more deeply impressed upon my mind, and, if a failure,
that it may in print sternly stare me in the face, and not "down
at my bidding."
To-day we make our first acquaintance with punkas. They extend
throughout the cabin, ominous of hot weather, which I detest;
Vandy, on the other hand, revels in it, and it is his turn now.
Vandy handed me today a string of Cambodia money, sixty pieces,
which cost only two cents, showing to what fractions they reduce
exchanges in Cochin China. I have been careful to collect coins in
every place visited. Sock No. 1 is now full, and I have had to
start bag No. 2. I have some rare specimens; of Japan the set is
complete, from the gold cobang, worth $115, oblong, five inches
long by about three wide, down to the smallest copper piece. I
have some Chinese coins shaped like a St. Andrew's cross, dating
before Christ. The mania for coin collecting is another inherent
tendency the presence of which has probably never been suspected
in my disposition.
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