Here, at any rate, was a chance of disturbing the mental cobwebs which had accumulated during our enforced isolation, and an opportunity of seeing what might prove a brighter side of life. All was at once transformed to bustle and activity; and the boats inspected and portioned out might be seen a few days later floating down stream with their living freights.
A day or two previous to our departure, an officer, who had just arrived, asked if he might have my quarters. He hailed from the Madras Presidency, and proved a very jolly companion. His bed was placed parallel to my own, though some little space intervened, an arrangement that enabled me the better to observe the habit that had acquired irresistible influence over him—he was an inveterate smoker. He invariably affected Trichinopoly cheroots, things of a gigantic size with a hollow reed down the middle, a specimen of which I remembered having indulged in on the Hooghly, when hard up for tobacco, and I also remembered that the consumption of this delicate weed had made me so giddy that I could hardly reach my cabin.
Now, amongst this officer’s baggage stood a large square package, done up in “ganny,” and looking for all the world like a bale of cotton. He informed me that this held 10,000 _Trichys_, “the number I generally carry about with me, you know!”
He smoked all day long, and even at nights there was an eternal globe of fire glowing through his curtains—he evidently was not destined to be prematurely cremated.
“He is a soldier, fit to stand by Cæsar, And give direction.” SHAKESPEARE.
_Facile est descensus!_ It was one thing to be pulled against a strong stream; quite another to have it in our favour. It was one thing to ascend the river, a solitary European in the company of many natives, but very different to be one of a fleet going down with some two hundred Europeans fully armed, men of training and renown, who had won many a hard-contested fight in the face of fearful odds.
I do not suppose that any regiment had seen more active service than the old 1st Bengal Fusiliers, or had been more instrumental in conquering and defending our vast Asiatic possessions.
In physique they could not on the whole compare with their brother regiment on the Madras side. The reason was obvious; the constant gaps occurring in their well-tried ranks had to be filled by an annual supply of young recruits, while the Madras contingent were, from their position, deprived of the opportunities of seeing such service till the Mutiny broke out, when they demonstrated unmistakably that their fighting qualities were only lying dormant, and waiting for an opportunity to come to the fore.