Soon after landing, I joined the battery of artillery on the other side of the hills. They assigned to me a large bungalow perched on a hillock, composed of three rooms communicating with each other and surrounded by a verandah. It was simply palatial in contrast with some of my recent abodes, making me feel a person of some consequence.
My stock of furniture was certainly somewhat limited, but I had all that was necessary, and in such a country the absence of anything superfluous was a decided advantage, tending as it did to limit the powers of concealment of various nuisances, such as rats, snakes and insects.
I could watch the rats with the utmost nonchalance as they chased each other along my bamboos; and many a snake forfeited his life through his inability to conceal himself. One afternoon I observed a very large one coiled up in the very centre of my bed, and, justly incensed at such unwarrantable intrusion, I grasped a long-bladed Burmese sword and advanced to do battle. But in spite of my extreme caution, the bamboo flooring creaked, and the reptile decamped, not, however, before I had cut him in two. Snakes enter houses as a rule in pursuit of the rats and frogs which harbour there; in this instance, however, the intrusion seemed to have for its sole object the luxury of occupying my bed—a temptation to which he yielded with unlooked-for results.
Others I frequently killed when capturing a frog, which in such a case utters a series of sounds resembling the cries of a flogged child.
The solitary position of my abode was a matter of complete indifference to me, as I was generally out till late, and dined every evening at the mess, besides which, I always had writing to do when at home, and consequently preferred being undisturbed.
The mess fare was simple; but even had it been much more so, compensation would have been afforded by the society one met there. From the commanding officer downward, one and all were a refined, intellectual set of men, among whom I spent a most agreeable time, the pleasurable recollection of which is marred only by the afterthought of how many perished soon after in the Mutiny.
“Heroic Willoughby,” of Delhi fame, was there,—all, all were good men and true!
As my sphere of duties widened to embrace the civil department also, the place grew upon me, and I hoped to remain there for a long time. Looking back, I often wish it had been so decreed! Men who had resided for some time in India thought differently, they longed for the time when their regiments should be ordered back.
And their wish was soon to be gratified: they returned just in time to get entangled in the outbreak, in which the majority of my old comrades were shot down by the men they trusted.
I was caught in the same trap, but escaped by the skin of my teeth. Circumstances unfortunately compelled me to remain on for many years; but I place it on record that from that time forward I loathed the country and the altered mode of Government, and I maintain, without much fear of contradiction, that under John Company’s Raj, Europeans and natives were far happier than they have ever been since, or ever will be.