way to the coast and shot himself. Europeans could not enter Hyderabad in those days without a guard, as it swarmed with thousands of the most reckless adventurers and rascals in India, who kept up its native court. A second attack on the Residency, and possible extension of the movement to Secunderabad, was considered by no means impossible: an intrenchment round the gun-park was therefore constructed, and various preparations in case of our having to stand a siege were made; but nothing came of it. Two of our companies eventually, with a native force, were sent to head off Tantia Topee from taking refuge in the Deccan; but the officer commanding, from the Madras Native Infantry, was one who from his weight had to be helped on to his horse every morning : he was hardly the man to come up with Tantia, and did not.

There was some fair black buck-shooting at no great distance from the cantonment, but we were not able to get far enough away for sport. Salar Jung, the Nizam's Prime Minister, kept a tight hand on the Rohillas and swashbucklers swarming in Hyderabad, but it was not safe to calculate at any time on a quiet twenty-four hours. The Rohillas, armed to the teeth, and with their round shields slung over their shoulders, could be seen at Secunderabad; and fine fellows they were, for whom one could not help having a certain admiration. We ought not to have done it; but occasionally after mess a couple of us would pass the native infantry outposts and go to the outskirts of the city, where some big nautch given by a friendly native was going on, and where we could see the Rohilla chiefs in all their warlike glory.

By living a particularly abstemious life, and being

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out in the open air so much, after black buck or anything, even in the hot season, but with an immense sola topee on, I kept myself in perfect health while so many were down with fever or liver complaint; and when the rains came on dysentery and very fatal fever commenced amongst the men in the barracks. When on guard there I drank some of the water from the barrack well, and also got dysentery, but not very badly. Every rainy season there was an outbreak of dysentery and fever in the Secunderabad European infantry barracks. In 1858 so many men died that a special committee of investigation was appointed. The value of their report may be judged of when I mention that one of the members, a medical officer of high standing, suggested that the sickness was occasioned by the men not having their dinners quite hot in the rains, and recommended a covered way from the cook-houses! The cause of all the sickness was selfevident to any one who would have taken the trouble to find out where the water came from which filtered into the great open well in the barracks. At no great distance outside the barracks, and on a higher level, was an old disused cemetery, where many hundreds of European soldiers, their wives and children, who had died at Secunderabad, were buried. In the wet season there was unquestionable drainage from the cemetery to the barrack well, and consequently with the commencement of the rains every year there was great sickness. These old barracks have long since been abandoned, but it was strange that for many years the cause of the mortality-viz., bad water combined with a low situation-should have remained undiscovered. We lost such a number of men that at last it was decided to send the regiment away on a health march:

this was just after I left the country, which was in October 1858.

The other battalion of the Royals having been sent from Gibraltar to Hongkong, was short of subalterns, and four were ordered to be transferred. The four junior lieutenants had to go, of which I was one. A senior who was hard up offered to exchange, and another at once offered to lend me the money; but the vexation of having missed all the active service then just finishing in Bengal, and the prospect of seeing service in China, where hostilities were still going on, decided me to take what fate offered and go. We were told we should get passages per P. & O. to Hongkong from Madras, but the Indian Pay Office department at the same time informed us that as we were now transferred to a regiment out of India we ceased from that date to draw Indian pay and allowances, and would only be credited with English pay, 6s. 6d. They declined to give us a passage by palki dawk at the public cost to Madras, 400 miles away; there were no railways in those days, and we could not afford to pay this ourselves, but such gave no trouble to the redtape finance department officials of the Madras Presidency, to whom the fate of four subalterns not on their pay-list was a matter of supreme indifference. Their conduct was reported to the home authorities, with the result that officers transferred afterwards to English regiments out of India were kept on Indian pay till embarkation. Fortunately I found that some bullockwaggons were returning to Masulipatam, and that if we got there by a certain date we should get a steamer to Madras. The rains being still on, the roads were in some places almost impassable, and the two rivers, which in the dry season we had crossed in our upward

AN ALARMED MONKEY.

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march almost dry-footed, were now coming down in flood, and there were no bridges.

to us.

Leaving the regiment was a great wrench: fortunately the officers of the other battalion, which had been alongside of us in the Crimea, were no strangers I may mention that the Royals, 60th, and Rifle Brigade were the only regiments in those days which had two battalions. To sell our few things and put mattresses and some provisions into our respective bullock-waggons did not take long. Being only on English pay we could not afford to take our native servants with us, and consequently had rather a rough time of it, more especially when, our provisions being pretty well exhausted, we could only get eggs and milk with an occasional fowl in the villages we passed through. The rivers were our principal difficulty. At one of them we had to stop for the night until an elephant could be got to take our things in turn across dry. The bullock-drivers would not stay with the waggons, as they said a man-eating tiger was in the habit of coming along there at night. The beast did not trouble us, but my waggon was next day upset in the stream, and I had rapidly to strip and go in to assist the natives to recover it. On landing on the opposite bank in a state of nature I met a huge monkey, which fortunately took alarm and bolted. The next river I swam across by the side of the ferryboat till, happening to ask the ferryman if there were any alligators in the river, his answer-viz., "Ho, sahib, bohut burra mugger"—("Yes, sir, very big alligators")-made me scramble on board without delay. The four of us at last arrived at Masulipatam in a state of semi-starvation and with fever commencing. Fortunately we just managed to get the steamer

to Madras, where we got an advance of English pay, and after a few days at a small hotel embarked in a P. & O. steamer, the Alma, for Hongkong via Ceylon. The sea voyage stopped the fever from which we were all suffering, and on arrival at Hongkong I made up an account by charging what we should have been entitled to in England-viz., 10s. per day each, marching-money, and all our expenses for waggons, elephants, &c., which altogether came up to Indian pay. The War Office at home were quite satisfied with the charges.

Madras in those Company days was known as the benighted Presidency, and certainly deserved its name, as far as its military organisation was concerned. The appearance of a native infantry regiment has already been described; and as for service value, the sepoys of Clive's time must certainly have been of a different race. The young officers were just the same as our own, and many of the older ones had plenty of energy, but there was unquestionably a large leaven of drones. One of these used to be rather a startling sight-a very fat man, who came to the band in the evening in a bullock - waggon, accompanied by his dark - complexioned wife and children. Even that crack corps, the Madras Horse Artillery, was behind the age. As a specimen I may mention that flint pistols formed part of their equipment; their discipline also might have been better. Our own army system was not perfection in 1858; for instance, use might have been made of our almost unlimited space for training the men for active service. A regular musketry course, such as it was, had now been instituted, but the daily march past in slow and quick time, with some curiously intricate and