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came more and more distant, echoing among the rocks and hills, till all was once more silent.

After this spell of leave, I had to buckle to our work in the regiment. In the middle of the preceding year I had been appointed adjutant, and very proud I was of my steel scabbard and spurs. After the close of the hot season, we had some grand field days, which we much liked. They were well worth seeing. About twelve corps and batteries, British and Native, used to come to these parades, and now and then, on great occasions, the troops of the Hyderabad Contingent marched in seven miles, from Bolaram, to join us. Then the division consisted of one battery (at that time called a "troop ") of horse artillery, four batteries of foot artillery, three regiments of Native cavalry, three companies of sappers, one regiment of British, and five of Native infantry. Native regiments were very strong in those days, and the whole array, on parade, would be something over six thousand men. Then, the Native element vastly preponderated in number; now, ever since the mutinies of 1857, the British force is incomparably the stronger, if not absolutely in numbers, still in every other point. There are now no Native artillery, and the British troops have better rifles than are given to the Native soldiery, and being about two to three in numbers, it will be easily understood that no military mutiny will ever again have a chance of success. the old times of which I am now writing, the Indian foot artillery, both British and Native, had bullocks in place of horses, and right well did the " caparisoned beef," as they were jocosely called, do their work. Very little tail-twisting was required. bullocks were of a fine breed, and trotted, and even

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galloped, in capital style, and carried their guns over the roughest and steepest places. Except in the matter of heart, they were, for foot artillery purposes, as good as horses; but a bullock has no heart, and gives in at once in sandy and heavy ground, when a horse would put forth all his strength, and die in the traces rather than fail. The bullock batteries used to pass round in review to a peculiar doggrel (if I may so call it) point of war on the bugles, and it was a common joke against the " gunners to ask them whether it was not "the tune the old cow died of." Sometimes they did not take the well-worn joke over kindly.

In the autumn of this year we made up a ten days' expedition to a range of hills about twenty miles east of Secunderabad. We pitched our tents at Kowadeepillay, a small village close under the same hills, and went out early each morning for bears, which were known to be there. One morning, as I was climbing

a pass between the hills, two bears made their appearance on a sheet of rock close to me, and I shot one of them; but before it died it had a grand fight with the other, evidently considering it to be the cause of the injury, as often happens with wounded bears. One night, also, a great row took place near our camp, dogs barking, men shouting, and women and children screaming. We found next morning that a hyæna had broken into a sheep-fold and had carried off a sheep.

While at this place the weather became very threatening, and we broke up our camp and rode fifteen miles on our way to cantonments, and put up for the night in the Mowlally race-stand. That evening an unually heavy rain commenced, and the downpour

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continued all night. We afterwards heard that upwards of eight inches of rain had fallen at Secunderabad in twelve hours. The whole country was under water, and in the middle of the night, when we looked out, the race-course plain, as seen by the vivid flashes of lightning, was like a large lake. Nearly all the small tanks near Secunderabad burst their embankments; one chain of seven, which stood one behind the other, on the watershed between Bowenpillay (the cavalry cantonment) and Secunderabad, burst in succession, and the whole mass of water swept into the Hoossain Saugor, which, the next morning, was seen full to the brim.

While we were at Kowadeepillay, we distinctly heard the musketry firing at a field-day going on at Secunderabad, twenty miles distant. This reminds me that, at Chicacole, while sitting for bears on the skirts of the Mongolwalsah hill, we used to hear the cantonment drums beating the reveille, a good nine miles from where we were sitting.

In December I got a very heavy fall from my horse, and was in consequence under the doctor's hands for nearly a month. The doctor was a very nice little fellow, but particularly precise and quiet, and rather nervous. At this time I was the possessor of a large black bull-terrier, of uncertain disposition, and it was great fun to see this dog meet the doctor just inside my gate and escort him up to the house, with her nose buttoned on to the calf of the little man's leg, he looking back the while in the greatest trepidation, with his umbrella prepared for combat if necessary. The dog was, however, safe enough, except to drummers and beggars. These she could not abide. Any beggar entering my premises was immediately

attacked and routed, and the drummers who had to come to my office on duty, &c., did so in fear and trembling, for "Pooggy," such was her name, always rushed out at them, and had to be called off for fear of consequences.

In 1848 a shocking accident happened at Ramaram. One of two brothers, officers in a Native regiment, was out for sport, and mounted his elephant, taking his loaded guns in the howdah with him. It appeared from the evidence of Kistnapoo, the village skikarry, and of other natives, that the unfortunate officer was standing up in the howdah, holding one of the loaded guns in his hand, the others being on the gun-rail as is usual. The sudden lurch of the elephant, in rising from its knees, threw the poor fellow forward, and the gun, striking against the frame-work of the howdah, exploded. He was killed on the spot, the bullet having gone through his chest; he uttered one short exclamation, and was dead. The corpse was brought into Secunderabad for burial.

There were several other military funerals this year. One in particular I remember; it was that of the Superintending Surgeon, an enormously fat man, and tall also. Shortly before his death he weighed twenty-four stone. When he went out on tour of inspection he always had a double set of bearers for his palanquin. The coffin itself was, in size, like a palanquin, and by some mischance, when it was lowered into the grave, one corner of it was deposited on the toe of a gunner, who, according to custom in India, had jumped in to adjust it; despite the solemn occasion, his anguished and wrathful exclamation made us all smile.

One day I saw a strange procession on the high

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road of the cantonment. In the midst of an admiring but respectful crowd of natives, came three British soldiers; their white clothes were smeared with mud and dust, and they carried guns in their hands. There was a raised, stupid look in their glazed eyes, which, had even other signs been wanting, plainly told that if not now drunk, they had been very completely so at no very distant time. In front and behind marched half a dozen native policemen, enjoining the crowd (though there was little need to do so) to keep at a proper distance from the men. In this way the Tommies, who had been on a drunken picnic, and had driven a whole village into the jungle, were now proceeding to deliver themselves up at their Barrack Guard. It was a point of honour with them that no native policeman should touch them. The arrest itself was all right, just and legal, and was obeyed; but, "hands off "-no British soldier would allow himself to be handled by a native constable. The police perfectly well understood this etiquette of their dealings with Tommy, and no policeman approached them nearer than three yards, or for a moment suggested that the guns could be in any better keeping than Tommy's own.

There were several small shooting excursions this year. Three of us went out about twenty miles to Ramdospillay, a village south-east of Secunderabad. We had a pleasant three days there, so far as small game was concerned. On our way out, we passed near to a large flock of sheep, which were feeding on the skirts of some jungle. Suddenly a great disturbance took place; the sheep first scattered and then closed together in a mass. Shepherds leaped into the air and shouted, and dogs barked furiously and

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