27th. — I paid a visit to Madame Zenteno the governor's lady, a
pleasing, lively little woman, who received me very politely, and sent
for her husband, who came immediately, and seemed delighted to
display the English comforts of the apartment I was received in. An
English carpet, an English grate, and even English coals, were all
very agreeable on this cold raw day. Zenteno assured me that he
found a fire thus burned in an open stove was the best promoter of
conversation, and regretted the many years he had passed without
even guessing at its comforts. He is properly anxious to promote a
taste for the elegancies of civilised life ; but under any other circumstances, I should say that there was even a little affectation in his
great admiration for everything English. However, the people of
Valparaiso are indebted to him for considerable improvements in the
roads and streets ; and a plan for a new market-place, as soon as
the funds will permit, is to be carried into execution. These things
seem little to Europeans. But they forget that this Valparaiso, one
of the greatest ports on this side of the vast continent of South America, is little more in appearance than an English fishing town.
Sidmouth is a capital city in comparison. From the governor's house
I went to the jail, a strong uncomfortable building now empty. The
prisoners are transferred to the hospital of San Juan de Dios ; and
I am ashamed to say the Spanish prisoners from Lima, sent by San
Martin, are there also, along with the common felons. The Spaniards
were in so wretched a condition on their arrival, that the English
inhabitants, in order to save them from starving, have raised a subscription; and one of the merchants daily sees their food distributed. 
June 26. Talk with Swami last night. He told me that he feels the presence of the Lord almost continuously; he no longer has to make much of an effort. When he wakes up in the night – which he has to do two or three times, to go to the toilet because of his prostate – he feels the presence. Sometimes it is Ramakrishna, sometimes Holy Mother, Maharaj or Swamiji. I asked if it made any difference that he had known Maharaj and seen Holy Mother in life, but not the others. No, he said: they were all equally real.
Swami says he never prays directly for problems to be solved. He only asks for more devotion to the Lord. 
Vrouw van gevangene, 38 jaar - Omgeving Amsterdam 
Rom, den 20. Juni. 
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 1900 - Showery and cool during the day. Warmer and clearing at night. 
Nadat de poëzieprijs van Knokke-Heist vijftien maal aan een ander was uitgereikt, kreeg ik hem. Dat gebeurde op een pre-zomerse zondag, 17 juni 1973, met check, receptie, diner, borrelvaart vanuit Zeebrugge (de visserssloep met Duitse bemanning heette Hurricane) en alles incluis. In het Hotel Royal werd gemiddagmaald en iemand aan de overzijde van de zaal drukte aldus een verwondering uit die hem blijkbaar al enige tijd kwelde: “Het is mij erg opgevallen, mijnheer, hoe biezonder aandachtig en blijvend gekoncentreerd u naar de voorlezing van dat toch vrij lange, bekroonde gedicht geluisterd hebt. Eerlijk gezegd, van een schepen van financiën verrast mij dit.” Waarop de aangesproken notabele, goedlachs maar ernstig, met een hem sierende nederigheid: “Ja maar, ik ben ook schepen van landbouw.” 
SALEM, June 15, 1835.--A walk down to the Juniper. The shore of the coves strewn with bunches of sea-weed, driven in by recent winds. Eel-grass, rolled and bundled up, and entangled with it,--large marine vegetables, of an olive-color, with round, slender, snake-like stalks, four or five feet long, and nearly two feet broad: these are the herbage of the deep sea. Shoals of fishes, at a little distance from the shore, discernible by their fins out of water. Among the heaps of sea-weed there were sometimes small pieces of painted wood, bark, and other driftage. On the shore, with pebbles of granite, there were round or oval pieces of brick, which the waves had rolled about till they resembled a natural mineral. Huge stones tossed about, in every variety of confusion, some shagged all over with sea-weed, others only partly covered, others bare. The old ten-gun battery, at the outer angle of the Juniper, very verdant, and besprinkled with white-weed, clover, and buttercups. The juniper-trees are very aged and decayed and moss-grown. The grass about the hospital is rank, being trodden, probably, by nobody but myself. There is a representation of a vessel under sail, cut with a penknife, on the corner of the house. 
13 juni 1919: Reeds vroeg, om ± 6 uur, aankomst te Colombo, een herademing van zooveel dagen zeereis. Na passencontrole aan boord per prauw naar land met Maclaine Pont, Langener en Köhler en vrouw. Schitterende autotocht gemaakt naar Hotel Lavinia en binnen door terug, over Boeddha tempel en oude Holl. kerk met grafsteenen: “Hier rust..., opper-koopman enz.” Wat een denkbeeld dat wij hier zelf baas waren. Maar men zegt, dat het op Indië lijkt. Wat een indruk zal ik dan van het grooter-Nederland krijgen. Want indruk maakt dit land; welvarend, wel bestuurd en door de natuur bevoorrecht. Zoo ziet het er tenminste uit met zijn druk gewoel langs mooie wegen te midden van schitterend natuurschoon. Wat een kleuren! wat een schikking van de meest decoratieve planten; rood, geel, paars bloeiende boomen; crotons en palmen. In de oude stad ergens gedrang van menschen. Ook hier distributie! De rijst schijnt schaarsch te zijn. 
June 12, 1880, mamma says I must try to puncherate my writing better than I do, I put commas where perriods belong. perriods always belong at the end and once in awhile before you get to the end. we had strawberries for supper tonight, Maggie and I picked them. 
June 10. -- Sunday. -- I and Williams are stablemen, and the rest
have gone to church parade. We have just had an icy wash with
far-fetched water in an old ammunition box. The weather has turned
very cold again at nights, with considerable frost. I have been
sleeping out again though since the first week of our coming here,
finding snug lairs under the quartermaster's stores. We have marching
order parades most days now, and are pretty hard-worked. Yesterday we
were reviewed by General Pretyman, together with another field-battery
and a pom-pom battery. We trotted about in various formations, and the
guns went into action once; and that was all. Our guns got into action
quicker than either of the regular batteries. A message was
communicated to us by the General from Lord Roberts, saying we must
not be disappointed at not having gone to the front; that there was
plenty more work to be done, and that meanwhile we were doing very
useful work in helping to guard this place. I am afraid we are not
very sanguine, but we never entirely lose hope, and a wild idea that
this review and the other day's inspection might be preliminary to an
order to go up, cheered us up a lot for the time. Camp rumours, too,
are just as prolific and as easily swallowed as before. Latterly there
have been all sorts of mysterious reports about the Boers having got
behind Roberts, re-taken Kroonstadt and cut the railway, massacring
various regiments, whose names change hourly. A camp rumour is a
wonderful thing. Generally speaking, there are two varieties,
cook-shop rumours and officers' servants' rumours. Both are always
false, but there is a slightly more respectable mendacity about the
latter than the former. The cooks are always supposed to know if we
are changing camp by getting orders about rations in advance. Having
this slight advantage, they go out of their way to make rumours on
every sort of subject. How many scores of times the cooks have sent us
to the front I shouldn't like to say. Officers' servants of course
pick up scraps of information from their masters' tents; in the
process of transmission to the battery at large the original gets wide
variations. We are often just like kitchenmaids and footmen discussing
their betters. You will hear heated arguments going on as to the
meaning of some overheard remarks, and the odd thing is that it no
longer seems strange. 
9 juni 
Woensdag 8 juni 
Thursday, June 6th.--We were on horseback at half-past four in the morning. The day was cool and pleasant. Our road lay between the mountains, in a narrow pass, formed by the dry bed of a torrent, with gardens on each side. The mountains were cultivated in terraces, and planted to the summit with vines and olives--"a lovely scene," Sir Moses observed. Indeed it would have been impossible to travel through a richer or more beautiful country. We stopped to rest and take some refreshments, and started again, ascending an extremely barren mountain, and at two o'clock reached Shabia, or Gibeah, the commencement of the scene of destruction. We dismounted, and read some of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, then continued our journey till three o'clock, when we had the first view of Jerusalem. Dismounting once again, we recited the usual prayers. Hearing that the plague was yet in the city, Sir Moses deemed it prudent not to enter. We therefore passed the walls and went up the Mount of Olives, where we pitched our tents on a spot commanding a magnificent view of the Holy City and Mosque of Omar, near the tomb of "Huldah" the prophetess. For two hours before reaching Jerusalem, the road by which we travelled was stoney and deserted. Not a blade of grass or a tree was visible. "Most fervently do I pray," Sir Moses remarked, "that the wilderness of Zion may again be like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord." 
Saturday, June 5.-- It being many years since I had been in Epworth
before, I went to an inn in the middle of the town, not knowing whether
there were any left in it now who would not be ashamed of my
acquaintance. But an old servant of my father's, with two or three poor
women, presently found me out. I asked her, "Do you know any in Epworth
who are in earnest to be saved?" She answered, "I am, by the grace of
God; and I know I am saved through faith." I asked, "Have you then the
peace of God? Do you know that He has forgiven your sins?" She replied,
" I thank God I know it well. And many here can say the same thing." 
1.6.59 : Vandaag komt koning Boudewijn van zijn triomfantelijke rondreis in de Verenigde Staten terug te Brussel. Hij heeft zich ginds getoond als een opgewekte, lachende jonge mens -- wat hij in België nooit deed, of niet kon -- en nu hopen zijn landgenoten, dat hij ook hier voortaan wat meer contact zou nemen met zijn volk. Intussen heeft zijn vader Leopold III met zijn gezin het Paleis van Laken verlaten, onder de druk van de pers en openbare mening, die hem "beschuldigen" zijn zoon te zeer te beïnvloeden. 
