He once asked Richard how many bricks there were in a newly built bridge (an impossible question, such as are put to lads whom the examiner intends to pluck). Richard, knowing his foible, answered, "229,010, Sir Charles." He turned away and smiled. Another time he ordered a review on a grand scale to impress certain Chiefs—
"Lieutenant Burton, be pleased to inform these gentlemen that I propose to form these men in line, then to break into échelon by the right, and to form square on the centre battalion," and so on, for about five minutes in military technical terms, for which there were no equivalents in these men's dialects.
"Yes, Sir," said Richard, saluting.
Turning to the Chiefs, Richard said, "Oh, Chiefs! our Great Man is going to show you the way we fight, and you must be attentive to the rules." He then touched his cap to Sir Charles.
"Have you explained all?" he asked.
"Everything, Sir," answered Richard.
"A most concentrated language that must be," said Sir Charles, riding off with his nose in the air.
His Indian Career practically ends.
After seven years of this kind of life, overwork, overstudy, combined with the hot season, and the march up the Indus Valley, told on Richard's health, and at the end of the campaign he was attacked by severe ophthalmia, the result of mental and physical fatigue, and he was ordered to take a short rest. He utilized that leave in going to Goa, and especially to Old Goa, where, as he said himself, he made a pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Francis Xavier, and explored the scenes of the Inquisition. At last news reached him that another campaign was imminent in Mooltan, that Sir Charles Napier would take command; Colonel Scott and a host of friends were ordered up. He writes as follows:—