Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official

by Sir W. H. Sleeman

The old butter had heard of the Tartars eating their horses when in robust health, but the idea of a sick man, not able to move in his bed without assistance, taking a fancy to a roasted mare, quite staggered him.

'But, sir, I may not be able to get such a thing as a mare at a moment's notice; and if I get her she will be very dear.'

'Never mind, Khānsāmā, get you the mare, cost what she will; if she costs a thousand rupees my friend shall have her. He has taken a fancy to the mare, and the mare he shall have, if she costs a thousand rupees.'

The butter made his salaam, said he would do his best, and took his leave, requesting that the boats might be kept at the bank of the river till he came back.

W. went into his sick friend, who, with great difficulty, managed to keep his countenance while he complained of the liberties old servants were in the habit of taking with their masters. 'They think themselves privileged', said W., 'to conjure up difficulties in the way of everything that one wants to have done.'

'Yes', said P———st, 'we like to have old and faithful servants about us, particularly when we are sick; but they are apt to take liberties, which new ones will not.'

In about two hours the butler's approach was announced from the deck, and W. walked out to scold him for his delay. The old gentleman was coming down over the bank, followed by about eight men bearing the four quarters of an old mare. The butler was very fat; and the proud consciousness of having done his duty, and met his master's wishes in a very difficult and important point, had made him a perfect Falstaff. He marshalled his men in front of the cooking-boat, and then came towards his master, who for some time stood amazed, and unable to speak. At last he roared out, 'And what the devil have you here?'

'Why, the mare that the sick gentleman took a fancy for; and dear enough she has cost me; not a farthing less than two hundred rupees would the fellow take for his mare.'

P———st could contain himself no longer; he burst into an immoderate fit of laughter, during which the abscess in his liver burst into the intestines, and he felt himself relieved, as if by enchantment. The mistake was rectified—he got his kid; and in ten days he was taken back to Calcutta a sound man, to the great astonishment of all the doctors.

During the first campaign against Nepāl, in 1815, Colonel, now Major-General, O.H., who commanded the———Regiment, N. I.,[16] had to march with his regiment through the town of Darbhanga, the capital of the Rājā, who came to pay his respects to him. He brought a number of presents, but the colonel, a high-minded, amiable man, never took anything himself, nor suffered any person in his camp to do so, in the districts they passed through without paying for it. He politely declined to take any of the presents; but said that he 'had heard that Darbhanga produced crows ("kauwā"), and should be glad to get some of them if the Rājā could spare them,'—meaning coffee, or 'kahwā'.