With all this wasting of time, I kept my eye steadily fixed upon the main chance. I gave up boxing at Owen Swift's, and fencing at Angelo's, and spent all my spare time in learning Hindostani with old Duncan Forbes. A very curious old Scotchman it was. He had spent a year or so in Bombay, and upon the strength of it, he was perfect master of Oriental languages. He had two passions: one was for smoking a huge meerschaum, stuffed with the strongest possible tobacco, and the other was for chess, concerning which he published some, at that time, very interesting and novel studies.
Perhaps his third passion was not quite so harmless; it was simply for not washing. He spoke all his Eastern languages with the broadest possible Scotch accent; and he cared much more for telling anecdotes, than for teaching. However, he laid a fair foundation, and my then slight studies of Arabic, secured me the old man's regard. He published a number of books, and he certainly had not the suaviter in modo. He attacked Eastwick, the Orientalist, in the most ferocious style.
He goes to be sworn in at the India Office.
Presently the day came when I was to be sworn in at the India House. In those days the old building stood in Leadenhall Street, and gave Thackeray a good opportunity of attacking it as the "Hall of Lead;" a wonderful dull and smoky old place, it was, with its large and gorgeous porter outside, and its gloomy, stuffy old rooms inside, an atmosphere which had actually produced "The Essays of Elia." In those days it kept up a certain amount of respect for itself. If an officer received a gift of a sword, he was conducted by the tall porter to the general meeting of the Directors, and duly spoken to and complimented in form; but as times waxed harder, the poor twenty-four Kings of Leadenhall Street declined from Princes into mere Shayhks. They actually sent a Sword of Honour to one of their officers by a street messenger, and the donee returned it, saying, he could, not understand the manner of the gift; and so it went on gradually declining and falling, till at last the old house was abandoned and let for offices. The shadowy Directors flitted to the West End, into a brand-new India House, which soon brought on their Euthanasia.
My bringing-up caused me to be much scandalized by the sight of my future comrades and brother officers, which I will presently explain. The Afghan disaster was still fresh in public memory. The aunts had been patriotic enough to burst into tears when they heard of it; and certainly it was an affecting picture, the idea of a single Englishman, Dr. Brydone, riding into Jellalabad, the only one of thirteen thousand, he and his horse so broken as almost to die at the gates.
Poor General Elphinstone, by-the-by, had been my father's best man at his marriage, and was as little fitted for such field service, as Job was at his worst. Alexander Burns was the only headpiece in the lot. He had had the moral courage to report how critical the position was; but he had not the moral courage to insist upon his advice being taken, and, that failing, to return to his regiment as a Captain.
MacNaghten was a mere Indian civilian. Like too many of them, he had fallen into the dodging ways of the natives, and he distinctly deserved his death. The words used by Akbar Khan, by-the-by, when he shot him, were, "Shumá mulk-e-má mí gírid" ("So you're the fellow who've come to take our country").
But the result of the massacre was a demand for soldiers and officers, especially Anglo-Indians. Some forty medical students were sent out, and they naturally got the name of the "Forty Thieves." The excess of demand explained the curious appearance of the embryo cadets when they met to be sworn in at the India House. They looked like raw country lads, mostly dressed in home-made clothes, and hair cut by the village barber, country boots, and no gloves. So, my friend, Colonel White's son, who was entering the service on the same day, and I looked at one another in blank dismay. We had fallen amongst young Yahoos, and we looked forward with terror to such society. I was originally intended for Bengal, but, as has been seen, I had relations there. I was not going to subject myself to surveillance by my uncle by marriage, an old general of invalids. Moreover, one of my D'Aguilar cousins was married to a judge in Calcutta. I was determined to have as much liberty as possible, and therefore I chose Bombay. I was always of opinion that a man proves his valour by doing what he likes; there is no merit in so doing when you have a fair fortune and independent position, but for a man bound by professional ties, and too often lacking means to carry out his wishes, it is a great success to choose his own line and stick to it.
The next thing to do was to obtain an outfit. This was another great abuse in those days. As the friends of the Directors made money by the cadets' commissions to the friends, the friends made money by sending them to particular houses. The unfortunate cadets, or rather their parents, were in fact plundered by everything that touched them. The outfit, which was considered de rigueur, was absurdly profuse. Dozens upon dozens of white jackets and trousers, only fit to give rheumatism—even tobacco, niggerhead, and pigtail, as presents for the sailors. Even the publishers so arranged that their dictionaries and grammars of Hindostani should be forced upon the unhappy youths.[1] The result was absolutely ridiculous. As a rule, the bullock trunks were opened during the voyage, the kit was displayed, and on fast ships it was put down as a stake at cards. Stories are told of sharp hands landing in India after winning half a dozen outfits, which literally glutted the market. Guns, pistols, and swords, and saddles were of the most expensive and useless description, and were all to be bought much better, at a quarter the price, in any Indian port.
The average of the voyage lasted four months. Two or three changes of suits only, were necessary, and the £100 outfit was simply plunder to the outfitter.