Forty-one years in India | Page 9

was even more dreary than before the cyclone, and I
felt as if I could not possibly continue to live there much longer.
Accordingly I wrote to my father, begging him to try and get me sent to
Burma; but he replied that he hoped soon to get command of the
Peshawar division, and that he would then like me to join him. Thus,
though my desire to quit Dum-Dum was not to be immediately
gratified, I was buoyed up by the hope that a definite limit had now
been placed to my service in that, to me, uninteresting part of India, and
my restlessness and discontent disappeared as if by magic.
In time of peace, as in war, or during a cholera epidemic, a soldier's
moral condition is infinitely more important than his physical
surroundings, and it is in this respect, I think, that the subaltern of the
present day has an advantage over the youngster of forty years ago. The
life of a young officer during his first few months of exile, before he
has fallen into the ways of his new life and made friends for himself,
can never be very happy; but in these days he is encouraged by the
feeling that, however distasteful, it need not necessarily last very long;
and he can look forward to a rapid and easy return to England and
friends at no very distant period. At the time I am writing of he could
not but feel completely cut off from all that had hitherto formed his
chief interests in life--his family and his friends--for ten years is an
eternity to the young, and the feeling of loneliness and home-sickness
was apt to become almost insupportable.
The climate added its depressing influence; there was no going to the
hills then, and as the weary months dragged on, the young stranger

became more and more dispirited and hopeless. Such was my case. I
had only been four months in India, but it seemed like four years. My
joy, therefore, was unbounded when at last my marching orders arrived.
Indeed, the idea that I was about to proceed to that grand field of
soldierly activity, the North-West Frontier, and there join my father,
almost reconciled me to the disappointment of losing my chance of
field service in Burma. My arrangements were soon made, and early in
August I bade a glad good-bye to Dum-Dum.
[Footnote 1: In the fifty-seven years preceding the Mutiny the annual
rate of mortality amongst the European troops in India was sixty-nine
per thousand, and in some stations it was even more appalling. The
Royal Commission appointed in 1864 to inquire into the sanitary
condition of the army in India expressed the hope that, by taking proper
precautions, the mortality might be reduced to the rate of twenty per
thousand per annum. I am glad to say that this hope has been more than
realized, the annual death-rate since 1882 having never risen to
seventeen per thousand.]
* * * * *
CHAPTER II.
1852
Bengal Horse Artillery--Incidents of the journey--New Friends
When I went to India the mode of travelling was almost as primitive as
it had been a hundred, and probably five hundred, years before. Private
individuals for the most part used palankins, while officers, regiments,
and drafts were usually sent up country by the river route as far as
Cawnpore. It was necessarily a slow mode of progression--how slow
may be imagined from the fact that it took me nearly three months to
get from Dum-Dum to Peshawar, a distance now traversed with the
greatest ease and comfort in as many days. As far as Benares I travelled
in a barge towed by a steamer--a performance which took the best part
of a month to accomplish. From Benares to Allahabad it was a pleasant
change to get upon wheels, a horse-dâk having been recently

established between these two places. At Allahabad I was most kindly
received by Mr. Lowther, the Commissioner, an old friend of my
father's, in whose house I experienced for the first time that profuse
hospitality for which Anglo-Indians are proverbial. I was much
surprised and amused by the circumstance of my host smoking a
hookah even at meals, for he was one of the few Englishmen who still
indulged in that luxury, as it was then considered. The sole duty of one
servant, called the _hookah-bardar_, was to prepare the pipe for his
master, and to have it ready at all times.
My next resting-place was Cawnpore, my birthplace, where I remained
a few days. The Cawnpore division was at that time commanded by an
officer of the name of Palmer, who had only recently attained the rank
of Brigadier-General, though he could not have been less than
sixty-eight years of age, being