IRLF B 3 513 ttt JfMS *?m H-* Q/ { y J? C t ttmi/ev&wM /0f 'u crl/. ^ / rur*&e' Qs 66nt THE E A S T I N D 1 A SKETCH-BOOK: COMPRISING AN ACCOUNT OF THE PRESENT STATE OF SOCIETY IN CALCUTTA, BOMBAY, &c. The poor exile Feels, in each action of the varied day, His doom of banishment. The very air Cools not his brow as in his native land ; The scene is strange, the food is loathly to him ; The language, nay, the music, jars his ear. WALTER SCOTT. IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. LONDON: RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET. (LATE COLBURN AND BENTLEY.) 1832. .. > LONDON : PRINTED BY SAMUEL BENTI EY, Dorset street, Fleet-street. CONTENTS THE SECOND VOLUME. Page A LETTER HOME. DE REBUS OMNIBUS . 1 SKETCHES AND HINTS SELECTED FROM MY CORRESPONDENCE .... 50 CAPTAIN MAPLE'S MISFORTUNES . . 66 A RECOLLECTION ..... 89 COLONEL SCOVELL .... 98 A RAMBLING ESSAY . . ''4 113 PINDARRIE ANECDOTE . . . .140 LE PETIT NEZ RETROUSSE . . "*". 151 A YOUNG LADY'S LETTER HOME . . 173 THE THREE MOONS . . . .193 THE SICK CERTIFICATE . . . .218 CAPTAIN PHIL1PSON\S CAREER . . 260 GOING HOME . 277 *" i i srW *** *** O 1 * i t 1 A LETTER HOME. MY DEAR Z , " I SIT down with all possible haste to an- swer the queries contained in your letter of the 19th October, which, as you will see by the date of this, has scarcely been three months from England. A capital voyage that ! Ne- vertheless, I do not think our community will be satisfied, until that time be reduced to one- half, by means of steam, ' a consummation devoutly to be wished.' " Firstly with regard to the boys a writer- ship for James, by all means ; but as to the cadetship for Benjamin, I am more dubious; indeed, if you can secure him any decent pro- VOL. II. B /?::. .:;*:'.;: A BETTER HOME. vision in another line, by all means decline your friend's offer. It is worth nothing ab- solutely nothing, in this our day ; it holds out perhaps a flattering prospect to you, ' happy in your ignorance/ but assure yourself it is as fallacious as the mirage to the desert- traveller, if it be even as alluring. Reduction is the order of the times, and the most lumin- ous exhibition of the march of intellect yet manifested to our vision in the East. The army is overstocked, fearfully, so far as re- gards the hopes of young aspirants. Ensigns thrown back to Cadets, starving on a hun- dred rupees a month, hungry lieutenants in a state of absorption, and grey-headed captains not within ten years of the step, are facts from which you may proceed to draw inferences by induction on the most approved Baconian prin- ciples. You say Benjamin acquires languages with extraordinary facility, and you believe certain appointments are the reward of pro- ficiency in the native tongue, and that these render an officer's career both much easier and A LETTER HOME. 6 much more lucrative. Let me set you right on this point. In one word which perhaps would be better placed at the conclusion than at the commence- ment of the detail ; for the peroration should contain an abstract of all the argument, a little interest is worth incalculably more than any definable quantity of knowledge. A few years since a considerable premium rewarded the diligence of every officer whom a committee, assembled for the purpose, pronounced to be competently skilled in Hindostanee. A fur- ther donation of similar amount recompensed the acquirement of Persian. This stimulus, however, was, in the course of time, found to rouse the energies of too great a number of candidates, and consequently to draw too largely on the funds of the Honourable Com- pany. It was therefore reduced to a fraction of the original amount, and called an honorary reward, but at the same time it was notified that Regimental Staff appointments were to be the substantial accompaniment. This might B 2 A LETTER HOME. have been as effectual as the original plan, in obtaining an object so every way desirable as the proficiency of an officer in the language of the great body of the army to which he is attached, of the soldiers under his command. But how has the design been carried into exe- cution ? how has the promise been performed? how has the golden hope of the aspirant been realized ? To quote one or two instances, by way of example. 1 know a young sub- altern of some eight years' standing, who, hav- ing a family at home in no affluent circum- stances, has assiduously devoted himself to the study of Hindostanee, in the hope of acquiring an appointment on the Regimental Staff, and the means of assisting them. The expected vacancy occurs after a long interval; his application is made, and in the next G. O. he has the satisfaction of finding himself passed over in favour of a youth of condition, who is most admirably calculated to be an Interpreter of a language of which he does not know the alphabet, whilst his colloquial acquaintance with it amounts to 6 Jao" 1 and 'Ao" 1 and A LETTER HOME. 5 c Lao ' and such like recondite phrases. An- other youth, of similar accomplishments, has won the prize from many competitors, by hav- ing been the lucky bearer from home of a parcel of female trumpery for a lady in office, who willed that he was to be so recompensed for the trouble of carriage and the safe delivery. Therefore, my dear Z , unless you can find means to pack up sundry letters of strong re- commendation with the rest of Benjamin's out- fit, never for a moment dream, that c if it should rain staff- uniforms, one of them would fit him. 1 u There are, as you well know to be usual in the character of all corporations, various evils radically connected with the Indian army, in- terwoven, indeed, with its very constitution, and to be remedied only at the expense of such innovations as we unspeculative soldiers greatly dread. But all our evils are not of this cha- racter. There are many susceptible of removal, and others again of alleviation. There are some, the absence of which even we " with silvery heads" hope to experience. Our public 6 A LETTER HOME. journals will give you quite as much informa- tion on this head as you can possibly require. The slowness of promotion is the leading griev- ance ; the palpable and coveted remedy, that it should occur not regimentally but in the line. In any service, supercession is indescribably mortifying; in the Indian army, tolerable only because the desperate have no remedy. To allow promotion by purchase would be a state of things infinitely worse, nor do I think that it would be safe to attempt the introduc- tion of such a measure. If promotion were to be obtained by purchase, or by interest, what man would expose himself to the perils of such a climate, where his existence is preserved by one continued struggle ? And unless an indi- vidual enrolls himself in the Indian service with the prospect of passing the greater portion of his life attached to it, one of the greatest secu- rities England has for the preservation of the country, would be overthrown. An officer en- tering the career late, and for a short period, could feel no interest for soldiers such as the Indian sepoys, so foreign in nature and habit ; A LETTER HOME. 7 strangers to him they would always be, and he alienated from their confidence. The fidelity of this extraordinary army is at present matter of fact not of conjecture; but let them have a rapid succession of European officers, ignorant of their customs and unyielding to their pre- judices, and I fear the experiment would tell woefully against those who would hazard it. No an Indian officer must be for many years a fixture, or of no essential advantage to the service to which he belongs. " There are sundry discussions and apprehen- sions here relative to the probability of this army's being transferred from the Company to the King. I speak advisedly when I say, that I believe such a change would exceedingly dis- satisfy the majority. They anticipate super- cession in an almost unlimited degree, as the inevitable result of amalgamation with the King's, whom they have long considered, and are likely long to consider, as jealous rivals, covet- ing with avidity those staff-employments which, by the constitution of the service, are, in the present posture of things, exclusively appropri- 8 A LETTER HOME. ated by the Company's officers. That this appro- priation is strictly just, very few unbiassed per- sons will deny, when they consider that the cadet sets his foot on this soil, to weather, during the greater part of his existence, plagues like those of Egypt, and that the rewards which can animate him to exertion, struggling as he must with the opposing influence of this terrific climate, are already too thinly scattered. Ought he to be spoiled of his hopes, ought despond- ency entirely to deaden his energies, for the sake of bestowing these boons on those who, deserving as they may be, are not tied to this soil, who can always escape from it, by making sacrifices doubtless, yet without the total ruin which must attend a Company's officer who re- signs at an early period the service on which his subsistence depends ? on those who con- sider themselves as foreign soldiers employed on foreign service, and have neither knowledge of the peculiarities of this army, nor care for its interests, all of which are in some sort within the keeping of officers who occupy the higher range of staff-employments ? A LETTER HOME. " The possibility of our present regulations being so modified as to permit promotion by purchase or interest, is never contemplated by us without indignation and alarm. You will say that much personal feeling mingles with this assertion ; well, you may receive it with the qualification, for I avow it. It is now some thirteen years since I made the Indian shore, and I am yet two steps from my com- pany. Of the staff I have no chance, and I have neither cash nor interest. With what feelings then must I contemplate the possibility of an amalgamation, which may place me in im- minent danger of being superseded by one of your fair-faced European-complexioned recruits, who writes f Honourable"* before his name, or comes out in the interest of the Minister, or of the Minister's private Secretary, or, to descend a little lower, of the Minister's Secretary's head clerk ? Would not such a contingency drive an unfortunate devil to mutiny, whose only chance of seeing home again after some thirty or forty years' service, is the retiring pay of his rank ? It would be a temptation to prostrate B 5 10 A LETTER HOME. one's-self at the feet of the Nizam, and to draw one's sword beneath the drapeau of the Musnud. " These, my dear Z , are details which, dry as they are, will doubtless be interesting to you, who are actually debating, whether your son is to become an actor on this arena or not. It is fitting, also, that I should show you the picture in another position. " It is true that the golden days of India are over. Military men do not now acquire for- tunes in this country. Exceptions by no means invalidate my rule, for they exist only because the few have discovered ways and means unknown and inaccessible to the ge- nerality. Still the life of an Indian officer is that of a gentleman, and is sufficiently aristo- cratic to gratify the most fastidious pride. He has servants, horses, a house, a plentiful table, fine wines, constant hope of an aug- mentation of income, and, above all, for I speak to the proud, he has consider 'at ion , a place and a right to mingle with the highest. He is at ease in the society of his superiors, because at no very distant day, if he is toler- A LETTER HOME. 11 ably fortunate, he is to occupy the same po- sition. He has a place at their tables, a seat in their carriages, and is on that easy footing of familiarity which implies essential equality. He may occasionally ' fall on evil days,' by being afflicted with that most absolute of all despots, a tyrannical commandant. But these occurrences are ' like angels 1 visits, few and far between. 1 Field-Officers in this service have very considerably passed the bloom and spring-tide of their youth. They are for the most part elderly, bilious, half worn-out per- sonages, ' melancholy,' if not ' gentleman-like," and very happy generally to allow their faculties a siesta during the whole twenty-four hours, and permit affairs to be administered by deputy. Detachments for marching in the monsoon are troublesome, but not frequent : altogether the military life here is not laborious, neither in truth ought it to be so, for who, after years passed within the Tropics, retains energy enough for constant toil ? I am falling again into railing, when I meant to exhibit the fair side of the picture, but I confess, that 12 A LETTER HOME. to ' my mind's eye' that fairest side is clouded. " However, there is one great consideration which must operate against sending a youth to India, whether in a civil or military capacity. If I say that the country, the society in its general tone and manner, is anything but favourable to the improvement of the heart or the understanding,- 1 may be told that 4 temp- tation abounds everywhere, and it is as vain to look for Plato's republic, as for Utopia.' True, but there is a comparative state of things even when absolute perfection is to be found nowhere; and therefore I tell you, in sober seriousness, that for mine own private opinion, no earthly consideration short of rescuing him from absolute starvation, should induce me to send a son to this country. First, the chances against his living at all are great, as a comparison of the Army Lists of 1800 and 1820 will testify. Next, admitting that he has strength of constitution to grapple with the evils that beset him, where, after a resi- dence of twenty years, where is his mental, A LETTER HOME. 13 where his physical energy? At thirty-six he is an elderly gentleman, with little personal activity, with less inclination for intellectual pursuits. At that age he has e served his time,' as it is called, which means the pre- scribed twenty-two years, admitting that he has had no means of availing himself of the furlough regulation, or has not been home on sick-certificate.* And theii the years abso- lutely lost to him during that immense lapse of time ! for, compared with the duration of life, it is immense. The pursuits of his boyhood are abandoned, as too toilsome for the climate. Emulation affords no stimulus, for he is sur- rounded by the idle, who, if they secretly re- spect, openly ridicule him, and lure him to an * After twenty-two years' service in India, an officer is permitted to retire on the pay of his rank, or, as it is ex- pressed in the Regulations, after twenty-five years, including three years for furlough. The same deduction from the period occurs, if an unfortunate man is compelled by sick- ness to proceed to Europe for the preservation of his existence. It is hardship enough, that he loses all his Indian allowances during that compulsory absence, and in some cases the necessity of serving out the twenty-two years is the sentence of his death. 14 A LETTER HOME. indolence, or possibly a dissipation, to which the listlessness and languor already unnerving his spirit, too fatally incline him. For the preservation of his health, a ride of some hours at ' morning's prime,' when duty does not pre- vent it, is absolutely essential ; he breakfasts and endeavours to settle himself to serious study. Presently his friend or companion ar- rives, and proposes a tour of visits, ' as the sun is becoming too hot for anything like in- dustry.' And thus until two o'clock, which is nearly the hour of tiffin ; another hour or two is lost at table : then evening is approaching, and there is the evening-ride and the party, and ' so 'tis midnight,' when jaded and spirit-worn he seeks his uneasy couch, to slum- ber heavily and unhealthily, or more probably to count the weary moments as they pass so drearily, that he can hear and number their footsteps. "But let me give ' honour where honour is due.' I have known in this ' orient land,' many bright and mighty intellects which pre- dominated over all the physical opposition that A LETTER HOME. 15 might have enthralled them. Their flight was hardly to be retarded, and their course was brilliant and rapid, as it was evanescent. Few indeed are the exceptions which can be brought forward to disprove the assertion, that se- dentary pursuits in this country cannot consist with existence. Few are the constitutions that have vigour to resist the inroads of climatic disease, whilst the intellect is exerting its strength, and making daily encroachments on the physical energies. The most splendidly gifted individual I have known here, placed in a position as advantageous to him as any that could have been selected, careful to pre- serve his health by every regularity of exercise, diet, and society, possessing a cheerful tem- perament, excellent stamina, well regulated temper, and ardent, not to say sanguine mind, is even now fading gradually beneath the in- fluences of this atmosphere. ' Renounce your pursuits' is the obvious prescription in his case, which goes to support my assertion, that this country is manifestly hostile to mental cultiva- tion. And do not charge upon me the folly 16 A LETTER HOME. of attempting to build up a theory on an isolated fact. I adduce this one instance as a prominent illustration of it. I assure you, fancy has had nothing to do in the painting of the picture. I have conjured up no phantasm to amuse you. My talented friend is too really such, and so circumstanced as I have de- scribed him, and I am but one of many who will tell you, that Europe or the grave must shortly be his destination, and that of hun- dreds of equal promise and equally un- fortunate. " You speak, my good friend, of your boys returning after a few years, to break, as you call it, the long line of their Indian residence, to marry, and by domestic companionship to shed a charm over the latter part of their Indian career. Waving the chances against their return- ing, except under circumstances sincerely to be deprecated, and exclusive of course of the pos- sibility of your furnishing the requisite funds, how are you certain that they will await this epoch before they form a matrimonial engage- ment ? It would be too idle to imagine you A LETTER HOME. 17 innocently asking for a pledge from the youths on such a topic, or relying on it if they gave it ; and temptation here, whatever you may think of the matter, is great. Two words will ex- plain the causes of its magnitude, idleness and opportunity. Young men have little occupa- tion, and young women are accessible. Morn- ing-calls lead to evening-parties, and these to flirtations, which for the most part terminate, in the east, in matrimony. I am no harsh satirist of the female sex, nor of that part of it who are impelled by circumstances to incur the chances of Indian speculation. I pity such in- dividuals as unfortunate, as either the victims of adverse circumstances, or the too docile pupils of misjudging friends. But, setting aside every extraneous consideration, I must always deem it a slight diminution of the I would scarcely say the respectability but the delicacy that should characterize the young fe- male, to find her here unmarried. If it be equally true, that Bath and Cheltenham, every public assembly almost every social amusement, is also a scene for the exhibition 18 A LETTER HOME. of unmarried women, that the object is the same, and that, whilst society wears its present aspect, it must continue to be so, I can but betake myself to the assertion, that the veil of decency is there thrown over the motives. It does not stand out so glaringly manifest ; it is not forced upon the mind of the uninterested bystander; he has the power of conjecturing it to be the effect of so many causes, that he is satisfied not to bewilder himself in the labyrinth. But in this case it is palpable, it is avowed. A girl arriving here scarcely affects to cover her real object with any other pretext, nor would the attempt be successful, where the merest novice considers every fresh arrival as affording a wider range to his fancy, if he be inclined to e fetter himself. 1 And, I do not attempt to deny exceptions, females so situated are not generally, either by education of intellect or heart, what an intelligent, reflecting, and culti- vated man would select as his companion, or what a parental friend and counsellor would point out as a mate befitting his son. Many are beautiful, many attractive, showy, well- A LETTER HOME. 19 dressed, of captivating manners. Young men soon lose their earliest impressions of the dignity of the female character, and a protracted resi- dence here tends greatly to lower the standard : consequently tinsel is often mistaken for gold the counterfeit for the diamond. Your boys, my dear Z , are, I dare say, as properly tutored as boys can be, and have views as exalted of the perfection of feminine character as their mo- ther's sons ought to possess. Nevertheless, their nature is human nature, liable to the same wearing out of old impressions and receiv- ing of new as the nature of others, and therefore, I warn you, keep them from temptation here, where, considering how circumscribed is the circle in which they are to revolve, the snares that beset them are incalculable. I do you the justice to believe, that they must sadly have deteriorated from the ancient stock, if they could bestow even a passing thought on a woman wholly educated in this country. On the tremendous evils consequent on such unions, therefore, I shall not enlarge; and lest you should charge on. me a too sweeping censure, I 20 A LETTER HOME. shall have the frankness to acknowledge that, doubtless, exceptions do exist even in this class also, but I still lift up my voice against him who ventures so hazardous an experiment ; and all who know what kind of * education is to be obtained here what are the attendants of the child and what must necessarily be its first impressions will unite with me in declaring, that it is indeed a most hazardous experiment. " My professional feelings lead me chiefly, as you will perceive, to military matters ; but as far as my knowledge extends, I would gladly give the benefit of it to your son, ' the civilian in posse? For him a perfect acquaintance with the native languages and with Persian is abso- lutely necessary. Surely it ought to be his first duty to acquire the means of direct com- munication with those who must appear before him in his capacity of magistrate and judge, as supplicants or criminals. Dreadful is the re- sponsibility incurred by him who, sitting on the judgment-seat in this land, trusts to his vakeels as interpreters. I believe those who are best acquainted with the native character, will sup- A LETTER HOME. 21 port the assertion that every Hindoo is accessi- ble to a bribe. The extent to which an in- terpreter may exercise his power of distorting facts, when he translates a case for his superior, is really terrific. Who is to accuse him ? Who is to give a counter-representation? In vain the wretched victim of injustice prostrates himself, and implores the protection of the European arbiter of his fate, who can neither comprehend his own foul injustice nor the sufferer's appeals. I would almost say, let no man attempt to preside on a judicial tribunal, who is not competent to receive direct the state- ments and complaints of the suitors, as he values his immortal soul. For surely that man perils his everlasting interests who, through idleness or incapacity, is unable to render justice between man and man, and condemns to desolation and ruin, family after family, in the wide-extending sphere of his influence. The rich oppressor knows his security ; for aware of the vakeel's venality, he measures out a gift, and knows that he has triumphed over his poor foe ! And the oppressed man says, 22 A LETTER HOME. I have neither gold, nor jewels, nor grain, nor land, and how can I strive with my ene- my ? And in his despair he raises up his voice and curses ' the unjust judge,' and surely this is not ( the curse causeless that shall not come. 1 " Therefore, my dear Z , whilst things continue in their present state, make James, if you are resolved he shall here fill the magiste- rial chair, give his days and nights to the study of Oriental languages, and, so far as it is ac- cessible, of Oriental law as now administered. You will readily exonerate me from the charge of recommending an assiduous cultivation of Oriental literature on general grounds ; on the contrary, I hold that the languages of the East contain no literature that will repay the student for the labour of their acquisition. But as every accountable being ought surely to direct his first and most assiduous pursuit to those subjects which will enable him to sustain with honour and rectitude the vocation which he has chosen, or to which he has been dedicated, as the attractive is always to be sacrificed to A LETTER HOME. 23 the useful, I maintain that, in the present system of things, it is the high and imperative duty of a young man about to enter on a civil career in India, to accomplish himself in the study of Eastern languages. I know no being more contemptible than an Englishman dozing on the judicial seat, whilst suits of vital im- portance to whole families, and sometimes in their remoter effects to whole districts, are transacted by his native functionary, who ex- ults at once in the wealth acquired by his plenitude of power, and in his imperceptible, but real, and, by him well-understood, supe- riority to the inane representative of the nation who are the masters of British India. " You will observe that I have laid consider- able stress on the reservation ' whilst things continue in their present state."* You will not now for the first time meet with the opinion, that the greatest reform capable of being made in Indian courts of justice, would be the render- ing of the English language the medium by which all legal business is transacted. Such an innovation would be hailed by the native as 24 A LETTER HOME. the dawning of a new era, replete with invalu- able blessings to himself and his race. As we hold this country by the bond of opinion more than by the fetters of power, it is well for the continuance of our rule that, through all his adversities, amidst all the imperfections of our system, a Hindoo still has almost unlimited faith in the integrity of actions emanating im- mediately from Europeans. Unintelligible as our English alphabetical characters are to the majority, with what confidence will they receive any document written in those unknown hiero- glyphics, relying on it as possessing talismanic virtues ! I am persuaded, that the introduction of the English language as the medium of all law official business, would diffuse satisfaction amongst an overwhelming aggregate of this po- pulation. The best incentive would be found to direct the pursuits of the higher classes to the cultivation of English literature, and in time this would descend to the lower grades. The few places of education which the policy of government, or the charity of private socie- ties has established in this enormous continent^ A LETTER HOME. 25 would be more numerously attended and with better effect. The study of our language must convey with it some insight into the principles of our sciences and our arts, our literature, our domestic polity, our ethics, and our religion. The change also would afford employment to numerous individuals of that almost nameless class of human beings, who are called indiscri- minately half-castes, Eurasians, and Hindoo- Britons, a class despised, almost emulously, by Europeans and natives. There are peculiari- ties annexed to the condition of their birth, which at once unite them with their brethren of either nation, and at the same time draw a strong separating line. This anomaly occasions an equal anomaly in the legislature as it affects them, subjecting them to the protections and penalties of the Mussulmaun law, whilst their feelings, and the religion they profess, are gene- rally Christian. Political degradation is the in- variable producer of moral debasement. This ought to be remembered in all our speculations on the condition of this class and their capabili- ties of improvement. Perhaps no sect in India VOL. II. C 26 A LETTER HOME. is more generally tainted with deep immorality, not to say depravity, which is reciprocally the cause and effect of the contempt that, as I have just stated, is bestowed on them by Europeans and Asiatics. The change in the language used in the legal courts, will afford them the means of respectable u'velihood, will remove many of their temptations to dishonesty, and will, con- sequently, surely but gradually destroy the pre- judices against them now existing to so con- siderable a degree. The most influential of the class have attained so much of the spirit of the times, as to bestir themselves by means of meetings, and to manufacture petitions and representations of their grievances, for the con- sideration of the authorities at home. But in my opinion these petitions ask too largely. The requisitionists require the removal of those disabilities which affect their employment in the very highest branches of both services.* Now, as I have remarked, we hold this country * This is an Indian colloquialism, intended to describe the two classes of covenanted servants in this country civil and military. A LETTER HOME. 27 partly by opinion ; and believe me, many years of progressive improvement must elevate the Hindoo-Britons in the estimation of an Indian population, before considerations of public ad- vantage will render it expedient to entrust them with prominent and influential situations. The memorials addressed to Parliament aim chiefly at exhibiting the great hardship this whole class sustains in not being entrusted with eminent posts, or at least with the positions of gentlemen. They never touch on exclusion from manufacturing, trading, or agricultural pursuits ; they desire to be a class of gentle- men, an anomaly in every country where there is no aristocracy. And the petitioners seem entirely to overlook the fact, that, in all civilized nations, civil disabilities are naturally attend- ant on the peculiar circumstances of their birth, indeed are necessarily attendant, unless all property, all right, is to be thrown into one common mass of inextricable confusion c What,' triumphantly asks one of the memo- rialists, in a published correspondence, ( what ought the children of gentlemen to be, but gen- c 2 28 A LETTER HOME. tlemen ?' I will tell him plainly, that no illegi- timate child steps into the exact place of his father in any nation where there exists a civil- ized social compact. Nor can I conceive that the intermixture of Asiatic blood, admitting that it confers no additional shame, can sanctify such a misfortune, or give it privileges beyond those of individuals dissimilarly situated. ' Shall not the son of a king be a king ?' is a question that at once illustrates the absurdity of this argument. Doubtless he shall and the son of the peer shall also wear his father's ermined robe and jewelled coronet. But it shall be a son whose birth is sanctioned by the law not the conventional law of man's conve- nience only, but the grand elementary law, without the observance of which the base of every political federation must crumble into dust and ashes. In this respect the most mer- ciful man must allow it is right and fitting that c the sins of the fathers should be visited on the children.' " To return James, if he enters on the civil career in this country, wiJl find it a certain A LETTER HOME. 29 avenue to wealth, should he be able to resist the temptations which await him at the outset. He must necessarily, at the commencement of his service, occupy a comparatively undignified position, as the underling of some senior officer. This superior may probably be a man whose allowances are more than sufficient to pay a whole regiment. Encompassed by every luxury that wealth can procure, reduced by indolence to be the actual dependent on the crowd of fawning and obsequious natives, who call him lord, and invoke his favour as 6 their father, their mother, their god, 1 craving for the excitement which his palled and languid mind can find in no worthy pursuit, he may probably be found by his eleve very ac- cessible, and a 'fine generous spirit,' 1 enervated a little perhaps by the severity of the tropical suns. What a vast temptation to expense is thus opened to the tyro ! He becomes possibly the inmate of a dwelling where luxury is ac- cumulated on luxury, until each indulgence becomes essential to existence. Emulous of the example before him, he squanders money 30 A LETTER HOME. with a thoughtlessness exceeding that of the prodigal. Gaming awakes the torpid spirit from its languor, and therefore this excitement is sought with an ardour proportionate to the relief it affords. Entertainments, too, are to heighten its zest. Costly viands and rich wines are to tempt the satiated appetite, and the ex- pensive nautch is to lend its attractions to the exhibition. The comparatively small income of the youthful votary of oriental dissipation cannot answer the demands on it; his native assistant, ever on the watch, is adroit to dis- cover the precise moment when the offer of his assistance will be most eagerly received. That offer is made, and the aid which attends it be- comes at length the habitual resource of the unhappy profligate, who early in his career looked with contempt on others who had plunged into such an abyss! 'What? so well warned ? and yet fall into the snare of a villainous native servant ?' And in the words of Hazael he asks, ( Is thy servant a dog that he should do this thing?' And yet Hazael A LETTER HOME. 31 wrought on, to the fulfilment of all those scorned predictions ! " These are the men who can best bear re- trenchment, and on them it would produce the greatest possible quantity of good. The temp- tation to extravagance, ruinous to almost every young officer, whether civil or military, who is drawn within their vortex, would be removed, the commission of an immense quantity of moral evil would be prevented; and demands of economy might be honourably attended to, without curtailing the few comforts left to the 6 soldier-officer" as the elegantes of this ac- complished society are accustomed to designate officers with their regiments, in contradistinc- tion to those employed on the staff, and the experiment might be infinitely less hazardous. A malcontent army has effected greater things than a change in the form of a colonial govern- ment. The voice of its indignation generally speaks in thunder loud enough to shake the firmest thrones to their foundation. Hitherto safety has been found in the differences of 32 A LETTER HOME. feeling and opinion which have tended to se- parate the interests of the armies of the three Presidencies. But this disunion is gradually thawing beneath the sense of injustice and in- jury common to all. It would be idle to deny that there is a spirit of disaffection walking amongst the ranks of the Indian army. Let him who doubts it, enter as one amongst them, and of them, as / have done ; and then let him pronounce, injustice and impartiality, whether this fact be so or not. The military servant compares his penury with the civil servant's superfluity, and he scorns the prejudice or the ignorance of the Government that thus invests his not more useful brother with wealth and privileges to which he must be for years a stranger. Look even at the published opinions of many military men, and then ask, whether there is not danger abroad ? Whether public journals are the usual vehicles of the sentiments of individuals, or of bodies of men ? Discon- tent is more than ' an airy nothing 1 when it assumes a form so tangible : people rarely re- cord opinions which have not previously been A LETTER HOME. 33 disseminated by other means. And I repeat it, that this army is discontented, that their discontent originates in a great measure from their limited pay being thrown into such strong shadow by the splendid remuneration afforded to civilians a body of men who, respectable as they may be, might find their places well supplied at half the expense by officers capable of occupying any judicial or diplomatic position in this country. Compare the career of a Munro or a Malcolm with that of the most distinguished civil servants, and ask, wherein is the military man's inferiority ? And believe that the energies of many a Munro and many a Malcolm, are to be found amongst their fellow-soldiers, were circum- stances such as to call them to action. " You ask, what have we done for India since it came into our hands ? In truth, little com- pared with our power, and the facilities afford- ed us ; but still somewhat, still enough to show that more may be done, that ways and means abound, and that many avenues of im- provement are accessible. Sensibly alive to c 5 34 A LETTER HOME. the superior security to persons and property afforded by British rule, where is the subject of a native prince who does not envy the happier 'vassal of the Company ? Still, against the very cry of the people, from some miserable policy or financial expedient, we suffer the shadow of the Nizam's territory to blacken over the very centre of our dominions, and have now added to the blessings enjoyed under native rule, by giving independence to his respectable Highness of Berar, that the hill of Seetabuldee may again be inundated with British blood ! Such native princes are the very Neroes of modern times, to whom the appetite of blood seems the only one that knows no satiety. Ask of the horrors perpetrated in that nest of Arab incendiaries, that Indian Tophet, Hyderabad ! See there, how murder and rapine stalk hand in hand, in the nine- teenth century, in a territory absolutely de- fended by British troops. Inquire into the enormities perpetrated by the petty Rajahs of the hills. Ask of officers on detachment, what has fallen under their immediate cognizance. A LETTER HOME. 35 Will you inquire of me and hear my solitary anecdote ? " I commanded, in default of a captain, a de- tachment of two companies sent to the hills to defend the district. A nightly guard was fur- nished to the Rajah of the small territory for the protection of his palace. Shortly I began to receive reports from every native officer on this tour of duty, of cries heard during the night, of shrieks and groans as of a person in agony. Inquiries had been made by sepoys, and the attendants at the palace had cautiously whispered of cruelties perpetrated on the law- ful wife of the Rajah, for the amusement and gratification of the nautch-girls and other dissolute women, who formed his nightly band of associates. Lighted cheroots were applied, as a jest of excellent piquancy, to the tenderest parts of the poor victim's person ; and other methods of torture were resorted to, from which an European imagination shrinks with disgust. Having ascertained, as far as I was able, the accuracy of these harrowing details, I awaited in great fhxiety the arrival of the 36 A LETTER HOME. very influential personage whose province it was to administer justice through a wide extent of territory, the mere expression of whose disapprobation would have been a sufficient check on this eastern barbarian. And what was his memorable reply ? I have never for- gotten him as he stood looking down on my comparatively pigmy stature; his eyes half closed, and" his mouth curled in a cruel deri- sion, that, I confess, chafed my soldier's blood until my commission became valueless in my eyes, if it were to be retained only on condition that I brooked this insulting glance. ' Sir,' said he with much deliberation, ' one of the ties by which we hold this country, is the wise policy which refrains from interfering with the prejudices of the natives. Sir, these things which you mention, are usual amongst them. Such is their custom it is part of their manner, with which you and I have nothing to do. Sir, the British Government cannot in- terfere with the domestic conduct of the princes with whom it is in alliance, or to whom it affords protection. And, Sir, the British Go- A LETTER HOME. 37 vernment forbids any interference on the part of its servants; and their business, Sir, let me admonish you, is not to judge or to discuss, but to obey. Sir, the three points of a soldier's duty are first, obedience second, obedience third, obedience. Sir, I wish you a very good morning."* " And he bowed me- out ; and what redress had I ?- Alas, I could but seek consolation in the admonition penned by the wisest of men, c If thou seest the oppression of the poor, and violent perverting of judgment and justice in a province, marvel not at the matter: for He that is higher than the highest regardeth ; and there be higher than they." " Closely indeed is the assertion I have just recorded, as pronounced by Sir , ob- served and brought into action by the servants of Government. ' One of the ties by which we hold this country, is the wise policy which re- frains from interfering with the prejudices of the natives.' 1 Our error, I fancy, has a ten- dency to the other extreme, and that so far from opposing, we actually support and en- 38 A LETTER HOME. courage. Witness the Temple at Jaggher- naut, a portion of the revenues of which actually passes into the hands of the Company, under whose patronage its abominable idolatries continue. Hither are lured, by the reputed sanctity of the place, hundreds of poor half- starved Hindoos, whose scanty means have been carefully laid in store to carry them with- in the sacred recesses of this shrine. In the most unfavourable season of the year the ave- nues of the temple are thronged with pilgrims, some of whom having traversed hundreds of miles, arrive with exhausted resources and al- most at the last gasp of existence. Still the door is closed to their ardent expectation. Of what avail are their previous hardships, their present sickness and privations, in the eyes of the priestly hypocrite, whose outstretched palm feels not the pressure of their gold, which ' has taken unto itself wings, and flown away ?' To them the gate opens not, and in despair and disappointment houseless, without food,- without shelter from the heavy rains that are inundating the earth, far from the face of a A LETTER HOME. 39 friend, a prey to the rapid and fierce diseases of the season, they die with the haven of their hope in view ; and the hypocritical Brahmin turns on them an eye colder than that of the Levite, receives the rich offering of the wealthy, and having transmitted part of the price of the blood of human souls to the Ho- nourable Company, rolls himself in the garb of his sensual indulgences, deriding equally the superstition of his brethren, and the imbe- cility of the Government beneath whose foster- ing influence his unrighteousness prospers. " This system of encouraging the religious prejudices of the natives, seems to pervade all classes of official men in this country, from him who governs a province, to the commandant of a single regiment. As the universe is com- posed of atoms, and the smallest figure swells the amount of the aggregate, I shall not hesi- tate to afford you a minor instance of the operation of this feeling which I myself wit- nessed. The regiment to which I belonged, at the epoch to which I allude, was under orders to march. Its route lay through a dreary de- 40 A LETTER HOME. sert of jungle, but, as its progress would oc- cupy the months of March and April, we ap- prehended nothing but heat, and had little to dread from the prevalence of disease. We had the misfortune then to be under the command of a just-promoted field-officer, on whom his new dignity did not, as yet, sit easily. He was one of those who some thirty years since got into this army, everybody wonders how; whose vocation assuredly lay not for things military. He was one of the most vain- glorious little men I ever happened to meet ; but beneath all the bustle of his vanity, his shrinking consciousness of inferiority was pal- pable to the commonest penetration. There was the perpetual assertion of his claims to consideration, a continual calling of peopled attention to the position of field-officers, an anecdote of himself adapted to every possible conjuncture to which in the course of conver- sation one could refer, tending to elucidate the mysteries of his superiority by the atten- tion other well-known individuals had be- stowed on him. Then his platitudes were A LETTER HOME. 41 methodized in the most extraordinary man- ner; there was the thesis, the major's im- portance; the preamble, the reasons, first, second, third, ad injinitum ; the peroration. Oh ! it was a rich exhibition of the expedients to which a man is driven, who desires to es- cape from the galling oppression of conscious littleness. Imagine his excitement when the order for marching arrived ! He evidently deemed that the movements of the 117th, under the command of Major Patrick Flannaghan, for such was his cognomen, not only would form events in the chronicles of the year, but actually in the annals of the century. At length, after demurs and difficulties which nearly unsettled the brain of the Adjutant, and made the Quar- termaster a skeleton, this fine body of men, as the phrase goes, was put in motion. The journey commenced, by order, precisely at half an hour after sun-rise, when we had paraded much longer than we liked, our most accurate commandant keeping his eye fixed on the mi- nute-hand of his watch, that we might not move a moment before or after the appointed 42 A LETTER HOME. time. Three hours spent beneath a sun gra- dually advancing to scorching power, brought us to the end of our daily journey, when we devoured our breakfast, with what appetite we might, cursed the slowness of Indian march- ing, abused the cook, fined the butler, retired to our separate tents, and fell asleep. But these were the halcyon days of that memorable march. In fact, we had afterwards to pass through a regular campaign against the wea- ther. The jungle, as we advanced, became more dense ; lofty hills environed us, covered with forests the abode of predatory animals, and that mightiest of serpents, the. boa-con- strictor. But how the terror of such foes faded beneath the dread of the pestilential vapours which were exhaling around us ! Yes, unsea- sonable as it was, contrary to all the calcula- tions of ordinary experience, heavy rains de- luged the earth, and threatened us with de- struction. Morning after morning, our fearful eyes saw the heads of the encircling hills veiled in thick black vapour, that was shortly to de- scend, and assail us as a pestilence. We were A LETTER HOME. 43 encompassed with the rankest vegetation. Our encamping ground was frequently a square of cleared plain, barely sufficient to afford space for our tents, and picquets for our cattle. Tall trees, or lofty forest-covered mountains, bound- ed our limited horizon, and seemed to shut in upon us the malaria abounding in the damp vegetation. Our anxious desire was naturally to hasten, by forced marches, out of the reach of danger. Sickness had crept in amongst us, and we had daily to witness the sufferings and danger of those nearest and dearest to us. Oh ! in what close brotherhood the tie of common danger binds man to man ! What an amiable set of beings each deemed the little band of his comrades ! We remembered no man's foibles ; we were even anxious to view with a charit- able eye the follies of Major Patrick Flanna- ghan. But he would not allow it. In the ple- nitude of his military zeal, he insisted on ob- serving ' the regulations of the service, to the very letter; the discretionary power which formed a branch of his prerogative, remained like a title in abeyance nobody benefited by 44 A LETTER HOME. it. We were to march eight or ten miles daily no more lest the men should be harassed ! those very men who, left to the guidance of their own will, would proceed from twenty to thirty miles daily ! Besides all this, we had frequent halts, that ' the men' and their fami- lies might recruit, which we translated into something nearer the truth, by calling it, Major Patrick Flannaghan's tender consideration for Mrs. Flannaghan, and all the little Flanna- ghans. But our patience had yet to be put to a sorer trial. We reached the bank of the river, which in its windings several times inter- cepted our path. A burst of enthusiasm hailed, as we thought, the first view of it ; but we very soon discovered that the rapture arose from our approach to a Pagoda celebrated for the extent of its revenue, and the number of Brah- mins supported there. And here, in obedience to that 'wise policy which refrains from inter- fering with the religious prejudices of the na- tives,' our gallant Major thought it expedi- ent, malgre the danger of the season, the sur- rounding sickness, the hazards of delay, to halt A LETTER HOME. 45 two days, that ' the men" might have an op- portunity of paying their devotions and mak- ing their offerings at this exalted shrine. Priestly craft soon disburthened the pitiable victims of this the most abject superstition that ever enthralled the spirit of man, not of their superfluous rupees only, but of those abso- lutely necessary for the exigencies of the march. Consequently, during the remainder of our wearisome journey, we heard only bitter com- plaints of poverty, and witnessed daily scenes of want and privation which a slight disregard of 6 the prejudices of the natives 1 might, in this instance, have averted. However, the thing was all according to rule ; and I submit to your consideration, whether this is the best possible state of things in a country absolutely under British rule? If we are not to trample on their religious institutions, does it follow, therefore, that we are to testify extraordinary veneration for them ? If we are not to force the consciences of men, are we to foster their superstition, whilst we cautiously abstain from lending any official sanction to efforts tending 46 A LETTER HOME. to awaken them to a knowledge of c a more excellent way?' This excessive caution con- spires exceedingly with the bigotry and the indolence of the Hindoo to prevent any im- provement either in his moral or his physical wants. It appears, under the present system, that the procuring of a certain revenue is the primary object before which every other con- sideration sinks into nothingness. Look at the country so long a part of the British territory. Where are the roads ? Where are the bridges ? Where are the agricultural improvements? Where are the exhibitions of the effects of mechanical power employed in aiding the fer- tility of the soil ? In vain you will look for these things. Over a great portion of the Company's territory, you will find no traces of a road ; everywhere you will witness the pro- cesses of agriculture and manufacture, amongst the natives, carried on by means of the very same implements as those used by their fore- fathers a thousand ages since. It is hardly credible how scanty are the improvements which have been introduced amongst the Hin- A LETTER HOME. 47 doos during our long intercourse with them. And look at the miserable economy with which we dole out to them the means of education. On the advantages of opening their minds to the reception of knowledge it would be idle to argue ; all mankind seem in this age agreed in the expediency of enlightening the darkness of the ignorant. Civilized Europe abounds with the means of knowledge, and its resources are gradually extending, and penetrating re- gions hitherto least accessible to the progress of civilization. Britain, foremost in the great race, is liberal to profusion in her benefactions to mankind. Her subjects her European subjects find instruction attainable on all sides. On them she casts benefits with a generosity that seems boundless. Why has she no heart to sympathize with no hand of assistance to extend to her . brethren her subjects, in the ( populous east P 1 " To bring this interminable letter to a conclusion. You ask me wnen I shall revisit England, and assure me it is time I meditated a return, to familiarise myself with the more 48 A LETTER HOME. civilized relations of your western world. I agree with you ; and, believe me, my inclination lends additional weight to your arguments. Moreover, I am a constant sufferer from affec- tion of the liver, and our medical officer re- commends my trying the effect of my native air. What then withholds me? I will tell you a very substantive reason. True, our noble fund will afford me such an addition to the pay of lieutenant which I should receive from my masters in England, as would enable me to exist with some regard to the bare decencies of life. Those said masters would defray the expense of my passage homewards, and the fund would furnish me an equal sum for the return. Good ! But has it escaped you, as it appears to have escaped them> that a sick man requires medical aid ; that in Eng- land such aid is often beyond the limits of the poor man's means, and that they, in their worshipful consideration for the comfort of their servants, have provided no medical at- tendance for them, when sick, poor, and per- haps disabled in their course of service, they A LETTER HOME. 49 seek again the shores they once unfortunately quitted? Remonstrance and complaint are unavailing, until patience is exhausted and complaint assumes the attitude of demand, which day is not yet arrived. Therefore, my dear Z , I war with the uncongenial climate, as best I may ; for why should I hasten to the country of my love, only to expire with the very elixir at my lips, but beyond my reach ? Rather let me perish far away from all that is dearest ; such a consummation will leave me at least the chance of believing that I quit nothing in this world worth regretting. " Con over this undigested mass of facts at your leisure, and after deliberation, send your boys to this ' orient land' if you choose. " Your's sincerely." VOL II. SKETCHES AND HINTS, SELECTED FROM MY CORRESPONDENCE. I DARE say you have forgotten, in the com- fort of your own house and establishment, all the little mortifications and annoyances of your march to . Travelling in any part of the world is a sore lightener of the purse. Apropos ! I yesterday saw a caricature entitled Phle- botomists; a stage-coachman, guard, bowing waiter, courtesy ing chambermaid, and scraping " Boots" with a porter and one or two others of the same stamp, representing the merciless operators on an unfortunate traveller. But, alas ! what are these musquitoes to the leeches of an Indian march ? with all these unceasing demands, a journey of two hundred and fifty SKETCHES AND HINTS. 51 miles might be easily accomplished for six or seven guineas ; whereas ten times that sum would not cover the expenses of your march, commencing with your butler's demands for ropes, gunnies, packing-cases, &c. ; your cook's for store of provender ; advance to servants, bullock-men, coolies, bearers, lascars, &c. ; impositions of ditto, with which the poor traveller is compelled to comply, at the hazard of being left in the lurch by a general de- sertion. This is indeed enough to produce a haemorrhage. However, I hope, as you seem comfortably settled, some time will elapse be- fore you are again exposed to this species of bleeding. The longer you remain in India, and the more you see of Anglo- Asiatics, the more just will you find one of your early observations to me, that " the people seem to be acting set parts." Men of education must be scarce amongst those whose lives, from fifteen years of age, have been spent in this country. Men of sense are also rare, because, in obeying orders, there is no room left for the exercise of the rea- D 2 52 SKETCHES AND HINTS. son or judgment, and a soldier is a mere passive machine. Men of elegant and refined manners are still more rare, because these can be acquired only by associating with elegant and refined people ; and in the first class of society in India such are not to be found, since the high- est situations are open, by progressive promo- tion, to persons of whatever birth, education, or intellect. And as to men of fashion or ton ! Yet each of these classes of character finds would-be, representatives in abundance, and men of a little tact contrive to pass for what they would seem, among people not very conver- sant with the matter of exhibition. One of the most atrocious bunglers at this would-be sys- tem, is our Colonel Commandant, for of all assumptions that the spirit of imitation could have put into his head, that of dignity, conse- quence, or gentility, by such an underbred, uneducated being, is the most ridiculous. He still talks of going home, but, unless driven by ill health, I am confident he never will, for he must have a most especial dread of the levelling nature and effects of English society, in which a laced coat and peons, and chobe,dars, would SKETCHES AND HINTS. 53 hardly sustain him in what he might consider his proper grade, but where, divested of these, he must sink at once to the very humble place which I would assign him. With all his fail- ings, I should scarcely like to risk a change. In these days so much encouragement is given to the vilest underhand reports of commanding officers, that one's appointment or even com- mission is liable to be put in jeopardy by the mere ipse dixit of one of them. In this respect is a safe man ; for though he will not scruple at obtaining information by the most despicable means, he seems to seek it only for his own private gratification ; I have never known an instance of his making any injurious secret statement to head-quarters, or indeed of his taking any unfair advantage to get people into trouble. The tee mode of procedure in this way is the most disgraceful I ever heard of; but to every honourable feeling and every upright principle, the officer at the head of the Force is so notoriously a stranger, that all comment on his baseness would be but an echo of every body's opinions. Indeed, the whole system of army-discipline is becoming 54 SKETCHES AND HINTS. daily more and more galling to every honest and independent mind. The excitement caused by our preparations for that threatened march to the Capital, has long since subsided, and we have as long re- lapsed into our wonted state of quiet and com- fort, Which had for some days been scared away from bur abode by the aforesaid " note of pre- paration ." Since then, we have had the visit- ings and visitations of the new arrivals, whose debut promises to leave us, on the whole, no occasion to regret the change. The 91st Regi- ment have brought us two sable fair ones one of them of a pleasing and rather sensible cast of countenance, but her mind can have had little culture ; the other has never been in the habit of doing lady, and prefers spending her time in chewing betel s and lounging about her house dtchaussee, to enduring the infliction of visits which would impose a most awkward degree of restraint on her manner, no less than on her feet, accustomed as they are to unhosed freedom. The Commandant is superior to the SKETCHES AND HINTS. 55 class in general ; he is not a Tartar, neither is he supine, nor careless. It is a difficult matter to meet with a good commanding officer now-a- days, as has been my observation for the last twenty-two years ; and it always will be a mat- ter of rare occurrence, because the situation re- quires a greater combination of natural good qualities, than we, from the habit of seeing it filled by very inferior persons, are at first sight disposed to admit. I regret to learn that you have so much annoyance on this score; but, alas ! a military life^ is a life of annoy- ance of submission of the constant sacrifice of our own will, to the orders of those whom chance may constitute our masters for the time being. Thank God, thought remains free amidst this thraldom of words and actions ; but these must be submitted to the bridle, how much soever we may chafe and fume at the tyranny of our riders. My crime, I suspect, in the eyes of my corps, is not matrimony, as you conjecture, but my return to active service after two visits to England for health. This is the " head and 56 SKETCHES AND HINTS. front of my offending"" with the young gentle- men of the 71st ; I beseech you, therefore, mortify all unknown inquiries by assurances of my most substantial health, and most inviolable determination to stick to the Service until I am a Lieutenant-colonel, the point at which I shall cease to have any immediate influence on their promotion. I should indeed be grieved if I conceived any thing likely to occur, that would render such a determination really necessary. My hope is, to be able to retire as soon as my pe- riod of service expires ; but I would on no ac- count allow those step-hunting gentry to know that they have the remotest chance of the at- tainment of their desires. Time, who appears " to gallop withal" with reference to weeks and months, seems not to advance the future with corresponding rapidity. Of the cause of this anomaly, I am well aware, as I cannot but be sensible that I have put myself in the situation of a person whose occupation is to watch the progress of the minute-hand of the clock; A. D. 1835, being the expiration of a day, SKETCHES AND HINTS. 57 every tick of which I count with the most mortifying accuracy. This is very foolish, I know, and I fight against it, but in vain. " My thoughts by day, my dreams by night, 11 are occupied by this one absorbing subject, the means and the period of my return to En- gland. Have you seen the scheme circulated, by authority of Government, in the Bengal army, for forming a RETIRING FUND ? There are many very objectionable points in it, but I should be glad to see something of the kind set on foot amongst us. The principle of the Bengal scheme is, to have two classes of An- nuitants; the one for officers of twenty-two years' service, with an annuity of one hundred and fifty pounds per annum, in addition to the retiring pay of their rank : the other for offi- cers of twenty-six years' service, with an addi- tion of two hundred and fifty pounds per annum ; the number of Annuitants to be eight of one class seven of the other. The evils of this will be evident to you ; however, as it would bring so many pensioners on the Company at home, I put no faith in their assenting to D 5 58 SKETCHES AND HINTS. it. Among the many alterations projected and rumoured, this one of the Retiring Fund is the only one that wears even a possibly promising aspect. Every other aims at reduction, either in numbers or income. I am indeed sorry to hear that the climate is already beginning to affect your energies ; marvel not, therefore, that my poor addle- pate is reduced to a state of Boeotian stupidity. I never passed so unprofitable a month in my life as the last. No regular reading, but flying from book to book, and lounging and saunter- ing about the house, my best employment during the fifteen hours of daylight being a romp with the children, and the heat renders even that almost a painful exertion both to them and me. A steady, strong, and blazing hot land-wind, that would raise the thermome- ter twenty degrees above this year's average in exposed situations, would not be half so op- pressive as the close, coast-like weather of this season. My fear is, that our monsoon may be a little late, as, notwithstanding frequent thun- SKETCHES AND HINTS. 59 der- showers and squalls, I do not perceive any of the usual symptoms of an approaching fall of heavy and continued rains. It requires a little deluge to cool the hissing earth, and clear the steamy atmosphere. On looking to your letter, I perceive the leading article to be the prodigy of a married cadet. Enviable man ! What a prospect lies before him ! the vista terminating in the rank of brigadier-general, at the age of seventy- two, according to the recent arrangements, and the foreground of the perspective holding out the cheering view of ten years 1 enjoyment of the exhilarating life of a married ensign ! If the lady were an atom less flippant, vulgar, and self-satisfied, such a prospect would break her heart ; but the providence that tempers the wind to the shorn lamb, supplies the capacity of endurance according to the infliction of the burden. You see, the threatened reduction in numbers has taken place, so that we swarm with supernumeraries, and yet every fresh ship pours out a flock of cadets, to swell the list of sufferers. I think all ensigns of any respecta- 60 SKETCHES AND HINTS. bility of family, connexion, or education, would be wise in returning home, for there is no pursuit to which they could devote themselves as gentlemen, in which they would not have attained greater advantages at the end of twenty-five or thirty years, than they have any prospect of attaining by continuing in this service. Few will be better off than myself, when as far advanced in their probation, and / hourly regret having wasted my life so un- profitably. Notwithstanding the many and thankfully acknowledged blessings with which I am surrounded, I cannot help feeling a most ardent longing to exchange the luxuries of the East for the simplest fare and most homely establishment of rusticated gentility in happy England, and hiuc ill& lachrym& : for the conviction that I could scarcely have failed to realize so moderate a desire by twenty- two years of apprenticeship to any gentlemanly calling at home, adds a feeling of remorse to the mortification of disappointment. In the late arrangements, much diplomatic cunning is displayed : the upper branches of SKETCHES AND HINTS. 61 the service are furnished with a sop to quiet their bark, if disposed to abet the clamours of the unfledged younkers. As to the brevet rank for gallantry in the field, it is only an additional incentive to abuse of patronage, which, Heaven knows, flourishes abundantly, without such extra-temptation. Fortunately for all but the few elite, who might have a chance of being put over the heads of their contemporaries, there is little prospect of this new regulation's coming into practice at pre- sent, as the peace of India seems likely to be undisturbed for many years : thus we shall, for a time at least, escape supersession by military secretaries, aides-de-camp, et hoc genus omne, the only class to whom the benefits of this specious promise of honorary promotion would ever extend. The late order for the examination in Hindostanee, of officers either holding staff appointments, or candidates for them, is an absurd farce, its only object being the extension of patronage. If the commander- in-chief would make a regulation, and honestly observe it, that every officer who has not satis- 62 SKETCHES AND HINTS. factorily passed through the ordeal of the pre- scribed examination, and may be nominated to the staff, shall after six months 1 interval undergo this examination, and, if he be not adequately acquainted with the language, shall lose his appointment, then the procedure would wear the semblance of benefit to the service. But, prophetic from the past, I foresee that such unfortunates as owe their advancement to an influence that exists only in the preter- pluperfect tense, or have rendered themselves in any way obnoxious to the administration that is, will be the sufferers, and their places will be supplied by the satellites of the actual greatness of the day, whose incompetence will be no bar to their fortune. All over the world there is a cry against the abuse of patronage, and there is no spot in the habitable globe where it exists to so disgraceful an extent as in India. How can it be otherwise ? There is no public opinion, there is a fettered press, and where exists the presumptuous individual who would dare to assert of himself that, placed within similar temptation, unchecked SKETCHES AND HINTS. 63 by these essential restraints, he would not equally offend ? To fill up my sheet, shall I send you a por- trait of a true Indian officer of twenty years 1 standing, a perfect specimen of the class having lately joined our society ? Captain M. is a very stout, or in less courtly terms, a mon- strously fat, good-tempered man. At this season he seems oppressed and depressed by the heat, from which he suffers severely, and his large Atlantic countenance has the relaxed appear- ance of one gasping for life. His manner is cheerful and agreeable ; his conversation rather matter of fact than speculative, the fault of all Indian conversation. He likes books, but I fear his fondness is confined to the ephemera of the day, or, at best, a striking novel of the higher order. He has outlived his penchant for military occupation, if he ever had it ; and I think the most annoying circumstance of his life is the necessity of attending a drill or pa- rade. His wife is natural in thought and man- ner, quite free from all affectation, cheerful, conversable) and clever. Their dispositions, 64 SKETCHES AND HINTS. moreover, are decidedly sociable ; and this, like the hospitality of India, being a much rarer virtue than of yore, is of course valued the more highly. With regard to the reception, and its se- quences, which you experienced from " the upright and learned judge" of your Zillah, I can only say, that even allowing for the di- minution, just alluded to, of the once far-famed Indian hospitality, this breach of it " out- herods Herod." You had arrived after a long and dangerous march, were compelled to take refuge during the hottest season in a house which nothing but the direst necessity could have induced an European to inhabit for a day, were naturally without the usual com- forts belonging to a settled residence, were " sick even unto death," two days' march from your regiment and your friends; and this man this married man stood entirely aloof without vouchsafing so much as one inquiry whether you yet existed ! This is a CIVILIAN of the present day, to whom his military brother is as an alien and a foreigner ! SKETCHES AND HINTS. 65 However, I have done Allow me only one growl at the authorities at home, with whom rests the root of the matter. Why will they not open their eyes to the fact, that this coun- try is in the power of their military servants, and that let the tug of war come, their whole posse of judges, collectors, and magistrates, will be but as dust in the balance ! CAPTAIN MAPLE'S MISFORTUNES. " THE Maples are a very ancient family, as all the county of Kent can testify. They have lived in one spot for many generations, devia- ting in nothing from the quiet maxims of their ancestors, preserving the same essential cha- racteristics amidst all the various changes of the signs of the outward man and woman, from ruffs and brocades, slashed coats and doub- lets, to bare necks and flimsy batistes* Wel- lington trowsers and frock-coats* Still the Maples of Mapleton Hall were the Maples of Mapleton Hall, lords of the manor, esquires of the village, and lay-impropriators of the Rectory thereof, as is abundantly testified by the fact that, since the days of the Reformation, the CAPTAIN MAPLE'S MISFORTUNES. 67 incumbent has always been a c Reverend Mat- thew Maple.' But it was the fortune, good or bad, of my father, to deviate so far from the established practice of his progenitors, as to become the head of a very numerous progeny. Of these I was the cadet, I mean no pun, simply the cadet of the family. Now it was manifest that the positions of ' Thomas Ma- ple, Esquire, of Mapleton Hall,' and ' the Reverend Matthew Maple,' could be occupied by only two out of the seven goodly sons at present flourishing as olive branches about the table of the Hall. The family dignity was to be preserved, but then the family means ! The third son was fixed on as the physician in posse, since with the Maple connexion, my mother said, he must find ample practice; the fourth was destined for the bar, where that said flourishing connexion was still to scatter the roses of suc- cess along his path. Yet there remained three unfortunate superfluities, in whose veins flowed that blood which, it was contested, would be polluted by the vile adulteration of trade, the apothecary's shop, or the lawyer's office. So 68 CAPTAIN MAPLE'S MISFORTUNES. by means of the oft-insisted-on connexion of the Maples, my brother Stephen was sent to India in the civil service, lucky dog ! Hal in the engineer's department, and I I Peter Ma- ple, was told to be very thankful for an infantry cadetship.