CHAPTER XVI.
The space to which I have limited myself in these Memoirs will not admit a minute account of all I saw, heard, said, and did, during my months sojourn at Barrackpore; it will, therefore, suffice if I touch lightly on a few prominent characters and occurrences illustrative of Indian life, during this period of my griffinage.
“Tom,” said I, as we left the colonel’s bungalow, “do tell me who that fine dark damsel was, with the ring in her nose, of whom we had a glimpse from behind the curtain.”
“Why, that’s the native commandant,” said Tom.
“Nonsense,” said I; “what do you mean?”
“Why, I mean that the colonel commands the regiment, and she commands the colonel.”
“Ha! ha! well, that’s made out logically enough, certainly; but in that way I suspect you’d have no difficulty in proving a peticoatocracy all the world over: man, good easy soul, fancies himself a free agent, puffs and struts, and is but a puppet after all, of which woman pulls the strings, and yet these provoking creatures are always complaining of want of power and due influence.”
“Well done, Frank; ably put, my boy. I see you’re as great an inductive philosopher as ever; it’s a true bill though; the strongest fortress, too, has its weak points. There’s the colonel, for example, a deeply-read man, understands everything, from metaphysics to a red herring; will touch you off a page of Xenophon, or a chapter of Sanscrit, with perfect ease; a man who has thought and read, and read and thought, in that Fortunatus’ cap and those curly-toed slippers of his, for the last thirty years, in all the leisure of camp and out-station, fort and jungle; brave as a lion, generous as a prince, and in most matters firm as a rock; and yet that little Delilah can wheedle and wind him round her finger as she pleases. She makes half the promotions in the regiment, I am told; and no one better than blacky understands the value of back-stairs influence, and the mode of working it successfully. But by all accounts these are the men who square best with Jack Sepoy’s notions of a proper commander; these are the men whom they would go to the devil to serve; who know how to treat them in their own way, and not your pipe-clay, rigid disciplinarians, who would utterly extinguish the native in the soldier, who make fine troops for a parade, but bad ones for the tug of war, or when their loyalty is assailed. It’s splendid to hear the colonel talk to the Jacks; he understands them thoroughly; can make them roar with laughter, or shake in their shoes, as he pleases; true it is, if you would govern men effectually, it must be through the medium of their peculiar feelings and prejudices, and not by taking the bull by the horns.”
As he said this, we drove into a pretty extensive compound, and drew up before a large puckha-house, with a bevy of servants and orderlies in the verandah; this was the residence of the general commanding, to whom I was presented in due form.
Tom next took me to the adjutant’s, and the rest of his brother-officers, of whom he promised to give me some account on a future occasion, and then we went home to tiffin.