Gordon Casserly

Reasons for showing the flag—Soldierless Bengal—Planning the march—Difficulties of transport—The first day's march—Sepoys in the jungle—The water-creeper—The commander loses his men—The bivouac at Rajabhatkawa—Alipur Duar—A small Indian Station—Long-delayed pay—The Sub-divisional Officer—A dÂk bungalow—The sub-judge—Brahmin pharisees—The nautch—A dusty march—Santals—A mission settlement—Crossing a river—Rafts—A bivouac in a tea garden—A dinner-party in an 80-lb. tent—Bears at night—A daring tiger—Chasing a tiger on elephants—In the forest again—A fickle river—A strange animal—The Maharajah of Cooch Behar's experiment—A scare and a disappointment—Across the Raidak—A woman killed by a bear—A planters' club—Hospitality in the jungle—The zareba—Impromptu sports—The Alarm Stakes—The raft race—Hathipota—Jainti.

There is a tale told of the Indian Army in the good old days when soldiering in peace time was an easy life and very different to what it has now become. The story runs that a general order was published to the effect that "Officers are forbidden to drill the men from the verandas of their bungalows." For it was said that, attired in pyjamas, they lounged comfortably in long chairs and shouted out the words of command to their companies drilling on the parade ground in front of the bungalows. But those delightful days have gone for ever. Despite what democratic orators say, the British Army has become a professional one; and soldiering in it is a strenuous existence. In India only the Rains, when outdoor work is almost impossible, give rest to the hard-worked officer and man. Musketry, field firing, company training, both winter and summer, keep them fully employed until battalion training leads up to the culminating point of the year—the brigade or divisional manoeuvres, or both. And then it begins all over again. And this, mark you, in a tropical climate!

Up to the rank of Colonel every officer must pass difficult examinations for promotion to each successive grade. And generals and colonels sit on the benches of class-rooms in the Schools of Musketry, and in their own commands lecture, or listen to other officers lecturing, on military subjects.

In the good old days I could have sat in my bungalow in Buxa Duar and watched my sepoys drilling in the narrow limits of our small parade ground. But nowadays too high a standard of efficiency is required from the troops for this method of commanding to pass muster. So, for the first month after our arrival, we scrambled up and down the steep mountains, scaled precipices and fought our way through thorny jungle practising hill warfare. Then I determined to take the detachment farther afield, where the men could have more varied ground to work over and learn something of jungle life. So I mapped out a ten days' march, under war conditions, through the forest below. We should go out as a self-contained force, like the little columns that are sent against the savage tribes along our North-East Frontier. We should carry our own supplies with us, find our own transport, move by day and bivouac at night exactly as we should do in an enemy's country. As the route selected would emerge into open country for a couple of days, the men would have a change from jungle work.

I was influenced in my decision to march through the surrounding; country and "show the flag" by private representations made to me by civil officers of the district. They pointed out the advisability of letting the natives of the neighbourhood see soldiers, probably for the first time in the lives of many of them. Asiatics have short memories; and the inhabitants of the Bengals, who rarely see troops, are inclined to forget that the British Army still exists. At that time sedition was supposed to be spreading among them. For it is a curious fact that it chiefly makes headway among the unwarlike races of India, probably for the very reason that they have never learned in the field the respect that the brave man feels for the still braver antagonist who has conquered him. And British rule is more popular among the races that we have only vanquished after a hard struggle than it is among those whose ancestors never dared to meet us in battle. In all history the Bengali never was, never could be, a fighting-man. He was the easy prey of every invader; and, like the cowardly Corean, only the extreme suppleness of his back saved him from extermination. If the British left India the cities and rich lands of Bengal would be scrambled for by every warrior race in India; and her sons would not venture to lift a hand to defend themselves. But cowards are ingrates. Forgetful of all this the so-called educated Bengali whispers of the day to come when the English tyrants will be driven into the sea. He does not suggest that he and his kind will do it themselves. The young Calcutta student, crammed with undigested, ill-understood European knowledge, will talk treason glibly. Insulting women, hurling bombs, assassinating in secret or, gun in hand, plundering unarmed villagers even more timorous than himself, he is a hero in his own eyes. But even in the wildest frenzy of his ill-balanced brain he never pictures himself facing British troops in battle. The cowardly agitator allots that task to the native soldiers when we shall have succeeded in seducing them from their allegiance. But the sepoys, recruited from races that hold only the warrior in honour, look on him and his race as something more despicable than dogs. My Rajputs—descendants of the gallant fighters who conquered half India, who struggled through bloody centuries against the Mohammedan invaders, whose women killed themselves when their lords had been slain and preferred death to dishonour—my sepoys regarded the effeminate Bengalis as unsexed beings.

The Duars abound in tea states; and each manager rules six or seven hundred coolies by moral force. Several planters hinted to me that it would be a good thing to let these coolies see the gleam of bayonets for once, and realise that the white man has something more than the baton of an occasional native policeman to rely on if need arise.

Thrown on our own resources as we were in Buxa, the question of transporting the supplies and baggage of nearly two hundred men required some thinking out. We had no funds at our disposal to hire coolies; and all we could depend on was our three elephants. Ten days' food supply for so many men weighs a good deal; and we had to carry with us as well their bedding, cooking-pots, blank ammunition, pickaxes and shovels for entrenching. It needed some careful arrangement to enable three elephants to do the work of ten. I was obliged to send them out to form depots of sacks of flour, grain, and other food-stuffs at places along the route, and bring them back again to accompany us carrying the other things we required with us. Each sepoy was limited to two blankets and a change of clothing and boots rolled up in his dhurri or strip of carpet. Contrary to the usual custom on peace manoeuvres each man carried a packet of ten rounds of ball cartridge in his pocket; for, had any sudden call for our services come before we could communicate with the magazine in our fort, we would have been of little use with only blank ammunition for our rifles. And in the forest at night we might require ball to protect ourselves against wild animals.

At last, our arrangements complete, we left forty men behind at Buxa to guard the Station; and one morning in February saw us, a hundred and sixty strong, marching through the jungle in the direction of Rajabhatkawa. We moved with fixed bayonets and all the proper precautions of a column passing through an enemy's country. Advanced, rear and flank guards protected us on all sides. These detachments, instead of being thrown out a mile or more from the main body, as they would have been in open country, were not a hundred yards from it. And even that was often too much in the dense jungle. Every man carried at his belt a kukri, the Gurkha's heavy, curved knife, and used it to hack his way through the tangle of creepers and undergrowth. The progress was necessarily very slow, and we hardly advanced a mile an hour. We marched by compass, no easy task in thick forest.

At the first fire line, as there was an open space, I halted and closed the detachment to give them their first object-lesson in the jungle. To my men, inhabitants of the sandy deserts of Rajputana or the cultivated plains of the North-West Provinces, forest lore was unknown. And as all the warfare the Assam Brigade, to which we belonged, would be called upon to wage would be fought against savages in thick jungle, I lost no chance of teaching our men all conditions of the bush. I now asked them where, when the rivers were dry, would they look for water in the forest. They mostly replied:

"We would dig for it, Sahib."

I told them that Nature had been too generous to call for such exertion and had kindly provided water in the trees. They looked at me in surprise and evidently thought that I meant to be facetious. I pointed to a thick creeper swinging between the trees in front of me and introduced them to the mysterious pani bel. A piece was cut off; and the water flowed from it. That astonished them.

"Wah! wah! but that is jadu (magic)," they said to each other. "Marvellous is the Sahib's knowledge. Like us he is new to the forest. Then how could he know of such a wonderful thing?"

The water creeper grew freely all round. Permission given, they broke ranks and rushed into the jungle, each resolved to handle the marvel for himself. In a few minutes I was surrounded by scores of sepoys leaning on their rifles with heads well thrown back to catch in their mouths the water dropping from the cut pieces of creeper. The pani bel was a great success. They filled their haversacks with it, and all that day, at every halt, pulled it out to taste and marvel at the magic plant.

We moved on again in our original formation. Carrying my sporting rifle I walked a few yards behind the advanced line of scouts. So dense was the jungle that, out of all the hundred and sixty men around me, I could only occasionally catch glimpses of three or four. Suddenly from a hundred yards ahead I heard a large animal forcing its way through the undergrowth. Fearing that it might be a wild elephant I pushed on in front of the scouts, as my rifle would be more effective than theirs. The animal retreated before me without my being able to see it; and I followed, glancing over my shoulder now and then to sight the sepoys behind and ensure that I was keeping the proper direction. But neglecting this precaution for five minutes, I completely lost the whole detachment. The beast I was pursuing had gone beyond hearing; so I turned back to rejoin my men. But search as I might I could not find one of them. It seemed absurd to lose in a few minutes a hundred and sixty men spread out in a loose formation. But I had succeeded in doing it.

It was a ridiculous position for the commander who was supposed to be instructing his soldiers in jungle training. But, fortunately, I already knew the forest in the neighbourhood fairly well; and guiding myself by the sun, I succeeded in getting ahead of my warriors and rejoining them at the place on which they were marching by compass without any of them realising that they had lost me. We halted for the night and bivouacked close to Rajabhatkawa Station.

The next day's march brought us out clear of the forest. As we emerged on the cultivated plains to the north of Alipur Duar, it seemed quite strange to be on open ground again and able to swing along at four miles an hour. The sepoy is a faster marcher than his British comrade and will do his five miles in the hour on a road if wanted. In his own home he thinks nothing of covering forty miles a day, shuffling along at the native jog-trot that eats up the ground.

After Buxa Alipur Duar seemed almost a city, though it is not an imposing town. The houses, when not made of mud or bamboo and thatched with straw, are built of brick and roofed with corrugated iron. But it boasts a jail, a hospital, a dÂk bungalow and a sub-treasury. And the last was the cause of my including it in our itinerary; for the detachment was in the throes of a financial crisis. None of the officers or men had received their pay for December and January; and we had not five rupees between us. But the long-delayed pay-cheque on this sub-treasury had just reached me; and I was anxious to cash it at the earliest opportunity. Unfortunately we arrived at Alipur Duar after office hours and were forced to wait another day for our money, instead of marching on next morning as I had intended.

The town had no amusement to offer us Britishers. The only Europeans who resided in it were the Ainslies; and they were then absent; for throughout the winter the district officials are out in camp, moving from village to village in their districts, and administering the law and carrying on the ground work of the Government of the land.

However, Alipur Duar boasted among its public buildings that useful institution, a dÂk bungalow. In little Stations and dotted every ten or fifteen miles along the highways of India, the dÂk bungalow is there to shelter the European traveller whom Fate or his work leads far from cities and railways. It is a humble, one-storied building, erected by Government, and containing one two or three scantily furnished rooms. It is in charge of a native attendant, who sometimes provides food for the hungry traveller, though as a rule the latter has to bring his own with him. Luckily India is the land of tinned food.

The Alipur bungalow boasted a khansamah, or butler, who was able to furnish us with meals. We found already installed in it a native sub-judge who had come from the headquarters of the district to try some cases in Ainslie's absence. I got into conversation with him and found him a cheery, pleasant little Bengali, a follower of the new reformed Brahmo Samaj faith and consequently free from the caste prejudices of the orthodox Hindu, which do so much to keep him and the Englishman apart. Finding that our new acquaintance had no scruples about eating with Europeans, I invited him to share our dinner. He held very decided opinions on what he termed the hypocrisy of the educated Brahmins who, in public, profess to adhere strictly to the severest caste restrictions in the matter of eating with others, particularly with Europeans.

"Sir, I am not possessed of patience to endure them," he said in his quaint English. "In the town where I have the habit to reside, the Brahmin lawyers and under-official strappers invite to the farewell entertainment of a garden-party our much-to-be-regretted late Deputy-Commissioner, when being about to depart from us. They request me to pose as a host with them. I say to them: 'No; I am not willing. You ask to Mr and Mrs——, an English gentleman and lady, to come partake of your hospitality. But you put on a table in corner of tent cakes, tea and other cheering refreshments and tell them to eat alone while you turn your faces, lest to see them eat would break your caste. It is all a bosh! I have seen many of you in strange places to eat of forbidden food at the restaurants of railway stations where you sit cheek-by-jowl with unknown Englishmen. And yet you cannot indulge in cake, refreshment, etcetera, with the esteemed departing Deputy-Commissioner. It is all a bosh!'"

He more than repaid our hospitality that night by his amusing remarks and shrewd comments on Indian and European manners. He said that, never having come in contact with military officers before, he had watched us all that day and was astonished to see that we were on friendly terms with our native subordinates, knew the names of all our men, and did not treat them with disdainful hauteur, as alleged by the Bengali journals. And I thought of an untravelled Englishman who had told me in a London drawing-room that we British officers were in the habit of beating our sepoys!

Next day we visited the court-house to watch our little friend dispensing justice from the bench. We were amused to see how quickly he disposed of long-winded native lawyers who, in a case involving a matter of a few shillings, were prepared to deliver a speech in high-flown English lasting five hours. He cut them very short with his favourite phrase: "It is all a bosh!"

The pay having been disbursed that afternoon, our men asked me for leave to engage a troop of dancers and enjoy a nautch, that entertainment dear to the heart of the Indian but wearisome beyond measure to the European spectator. It was held at night on the open ground behind the dÂk bungalow. As is customary in native regiments we were invited to witness it and, much against our will, went to it after dinner. The sepoys squatting in a wide circle round the performers rose to their feet; and the Indian officers welcomed us with the usual formalities. After we had shaken hands with them they hung garlands of flowers round our necks, thrust small bouquets on us and liberally besprinkled us with scent. When we sat down small plates were offered us on which, wrapped up in leaves, were various pungent and aromatic spices to chew. Then we were given cigars, cigarettes, and whiskies-and-sodas—these a concession to European tastes. The performance, interrupted by our arrival, continued. Two fat women with well-oiled hair, jewelled ornaments in their noses, gold bangles on their wrists and ankles, their toes adorned with rings, swayed their fleshy bodies and shuffled a few inches forward and back on their heels, singing the while in high falsetto voices. Wrapped from throat to ankle in voluminous coloured draperies as they were, the propriety of their costume was a reproach to the scantily clad dancers of so-called Indian dances in the English music-halls. The musicians squatted on the grass behind them, two men producing weird and monotonous sounds from strangely shaped instruments, while a third beat with his hands on a tom-tom, the native drum. And this is the famous nautch at which the Indian will gaze with rapture all night. The flaring oil-lamps shone on the ring of eager dark faces and eyes glistening with enjoyment, as the sepoys watched intently every movement of the ungainly dancers. Fortunately we were not obliged to remain long and soon took our leave of the native officers. Although we were to march at seven o'clock in the morning I heard the monotonous drumming and the shrill voices throughout the night; for the entertainment did not end before five o'clock. And it was a hollow-eyed detachment that tramped behind us on the dusty road that day. Our route lay at an angle to our former course which had been due south; for now we headed north-east towards the jungle and the hills again.

On the left hand lay the ragged fringe of the forest stretching east and west beyond the limit of vision; and high above it towered the long rampart of the mountains. Far away as we were we could see the white specks of the Picquet Towers at Buxa. And back among the jagged peaks rose up the snow-clad summit of a mountain in Bhutan, its gleaming crest seeming to float like a cloud in air above the darker hills. Over the level plain we spread out in fighting formation, one company forming an advanced guard and driving back the skirmishing line of the other which acted as the rear guard of a retreating enemy. And here and there the peasants working in the fields, knowing nothing of the harmlessness of blank cartridges, fled in terror at the sound of the firing.

We halted for our bivouac near a village in a mission settlement of Santals, a wild tribe recently civilised by hard-working missionaries and taught the dignity of labour and the joys of agriculture. We met the clergyman and his wife who were in charge of the settlement and invited them to dinner with us. They showed us a large iron church in the village, the materials of which had been purchased by money willingly subscribed by the Santals, who had erected the building with their own hands. Our guests told us that their half-tamed flock, when they saw us marching in, had deserted the village and fled into the jungle. They explained to their wondering pastor that we were soldiers, and soldiers were folk whose one object in life was to kill people—and who easier to slay than the poor Santals? It took him hours to induce them to return to their homes. But before night they had lost all fear and flocked inquisitively round our bivouac.

Next day we marched through outlying patches of jungle, the advanced guards of the great forest; and we hailed the trees as old friends. After an attack by one company on the other in position on a low hill, we found our way barred by an unfordable river. Along the banks lay logs and trunks of trees swept down from the forest; so we turned to to make rafts, binding the timber together with the men's putties and puggris—for their head-gear is made of strips of cloth nine yards long. On these rafts the few non-swimmers, the rifles, clothing and accoutrements were placed; and the swimmers towed and pushed them across the stream. With the same rude materials we made an excellent flying bridge which, moved by the swift current, floated backwards and forwards across the river on ropes made from the puggris and putties. The men revelled in the work. Stripped to their loin-cloths they sported like dolphins in the clear, cold water flowing down from the melting snows of the Himalayas.

Then we marched on again until I halted the column on the outskirts of a tea garden and sent Creagh galloping to ask the manager's permission to encamp on it and draw water for my men from the wells. While awaiting his return, I stretched myself along a squared log of timber and, despite my hard couch, fell asleep, awaking with a start to find Khartoum standing over me staring at me with curiosity out of her little eyes, as she flapped her big ears and brushed away the flies from her sides with a branch. For a second I fancied I was in the forest under the feet of a wild elephant; and I sprang up hastily. Then Creagh returned with a cheery, hospitable Englishman, who invited me to consider the tea garden my own. In a few minutes the fires were going, the bhistis fetching water from the wells, and the cooks rolling up the balls of dough, deftly patting them out into thin cakes and spreading them on the convex iron griddle over the flames. Sentries posted and guards mounted, the rest of the men piled arms, took off their accoutrements; and, while some hungrily watched the cooks, others lay down on the ground and slept contentedly until food was ready. The coolies gathered to see the novel sight of soldiers; and the inevitable pariah dogs hung about the cooking places and quarrelled over the scraps thrown to them. At every bivouac some of these four-footed recruits joined us; and when we reached Buxa again I found that at least a dozen nondescript curs had adopted the detachment and marched into the fort with the air of veterans.

That night we invited the planter to dine with us. Our meal was laid in my small 80-lb. tent; and, as this measured seven feet by seven feet with a sloping roof, there was not much room for four of us and the servants. Our guest told us of a daring daylight attack by a tiger that morning. While some villagers were driving their cattle on a road which passed along the edge of the tea garden, the animal had sprung out from the jungle skirting it and tried to carry off a cow. The men, being fairly numerous, rushed shouting at him and scared him away. When I heard this I determined to beat up that tiger's quarters in the morning and told the other officers of the detachment, who were delighted with the idea. While discussing it after dinner we were startled by fiendish growls and howls from the darkness outside; for a minute we were puzzled by the awful noises and then recognised them as the sounds of two bears fighting close by. Creagh, Smith and I seized our rifles; and, followed by servants carrying lanterns as the night was very dark, we sallied forth to find the disturbers of the peace. The noise came from a spot about two hundred yards away. We reached a high bank below which was thick scrub and long tiger grass. We climbed down it and formed line with the servants close up behind us holding the lanterns over our heads to throw the light in front. As we pushed our way with difficulty through the scrub a bear gave a sudden growl five yards to our left. We swung round and made for the spot; but the animal did not await our approach. After searching for half an hour without result we gave up the chase and returned to the camp. Next morning daylight showed us that we had been down in a nullah, the ground on either side of it being quite open. Had we known this at the time we could have divided our forces, gone along both banks and probably got the bears as they scrambled up out of the nullah.

At daybreak we started out with the elephants to look for the tiger. As we possessed only one howdah, it was strapped on Khartoum's back and we all three crowded into it; for the tall grass rose higher than the head of a man sitting on an elephant's pad. Having thoroughly beaten the wide strip of long grass we pushed on and came out on a very broad, empty river-bed. This was the River Raidak, which formerly brought down an immense volume of water from the hills only a few miles away. But a few years before it had grown tired of its old road and suddenly changed its course, flowing into the bed of a smaller stream parallel to it, which became greatly enlarged and was now itself generally known as the Raidak. This was the river we had crossed on rafts.

As our elephants passed over the wide strip of sand, a curious animal broke out of the jungle a couple of hundred yards from us and bounded away up the nullah. It was apparently a hornless deer with black back and white belly and looked like a "black buck"; but as these inhabit open plains and do not shed their horns we were puzzled as to its identity. It halted and looked back at us, and then went off again in a series of high leaps and bounds strangely like a black buck's motion. Some months afterwards the Maharajah of Cooch Behar told me that several years before he had turned loose a number of black buck and does into the forest near the Raidak as an experiment, being curious to know what effect life in dense jungle would have on these dwellers of the open plains. Apparently the animal we had seen was descended from these and for some reason of acclimatisation Nature had deprived their progeny of horns. This should interest naturalists.

Our search for the tiger ended in a scare and a disappointment. First, when passing through another patch of tall grass on our way back to camp, one of the two pad elephants, Dundora, trumpeted shrilly and charged some animal in the cover. Her alarm communicated itself to the others, who squealed and tried to bolt. We thought that it was the tiger and, with rifles at the ready, attempted to stand up in the swaying howdah, which was no easy task as Khartoum was plunging violently. When at last we got her near Dundora, the latter's mahout, viciously belabouring her thick skull with the ankus, told us that the cause of her fright was only a small pariah dog. We passed on into more open jungle and to our joy saw a herd of wild buffaloes. As we were not in Government forest these were fair game for the hunter; and we urged the mahout forward. The animals were grazing and did not see us. Cautiously approaching up wind we got within range and were raising our rifles, when an old cow lifted her head and we saw a bell hung round her neck. We swore loudly. They were tame animals; but, as these are like the wild species and we were deep in the jungle, our error was pardonable. Half a mile further on we came on the huts of their owners.

Our course next day lay north-west; and I intended to recross the new Raidak at a point near the hills at a ferry, close to which was a club-house where the planters of the neighbourhood gathered once a week. This was the day of their meeting; so I resolved to make our bivouac there. The march lay through very dense jungle; but at last our advanced guard came out on the bank of a wide river, a swift-racing torrent of clear water that eddied and swirled over the pebbly bottom. On the opposite side was the ferryman's hut, his boat drawn up near it. Behind, in a clearing, stood a long wooden building which was evidently the club-house. Our shouts brought Charon out of his abode; and he ferried us over in driblets. As elephants are excellent swimmers ours made their own way across.

In the jungle, not far from the club, I marked out the spot for our bivouac around which I ordered a zareba to be constructed. As everything was to be done under war conditions, scouts were thrown out on every side. The rest of the detachment piled arms, drew their kukris and proceeded to clear the jungle. The small trees and undergrowth cut down were dragged to form a belt, ten yards deep, of entanglement breast-high around the camp. The stems of the trees and bushes were fastened to pickets by creepers to prevent their being pulled away. Thorny branches and a shrub which causes an intense irritation when touched were thrown in among them; and the zareba thus constructed formed a formidable obstacle. Then parties were told off to erect shelters of leafy boughs; others made the cooking-places or dug latrines; and the bhistis were taken down under escort to the river to fill the goat-skin bags, or mussacks, in which they carry water. Then guards and inlying pickets were mounted and the scouts withdrawn. Bathing-parties went down with their rifles, only half of the men in them being allowed into the river at a time, while the others kept guard against sudden attack.

By this time the planters were beginning to assemble at the rough wooden building which they proudly called their club. And certainly I believe it saw more jollity and good-fellowship within its timber walls than one would find in any of the palatial club-houses of Pall Mall. From gardens lost in the forest for miles round they gathered. Some dashed up to the opposite river-bank on their smart little ponies and kept the ferryman busy. The host that day was our friend Tyson of Hathipota, which now lay between us and Buxa Duar. He cordially invited us to eat our share of the sumptuous cold lunch he had provided, and introduced us to the other planters of the district, who welcomed us warmly.

During lunch one of our new friends told me that the ferryman, whom we could see busy at his boat on the beach, had lost his wife under tragic circumstances. The woman had gone across the river to a village a couple of miles away to buy provisions. On her return she hailed him from the opposite bank. As he was shoving his boat into the water he saw to his horror a huge bear emerge from the jungle and steal silently up behind the woman. At her husband's warning cry she turned; but before she could move the animal rose on its hind legs and felled her with a blow from its great paw. When the terrified man reached the bank, the bear had disappeared and the woman lay dead with a fractured skull.

After lunch, the planters, most of whom were keen Volunteers, asked me to let them inspect our fortified camp. They were much impressed by the rapidity with which it had been placed in a state of defence and with the ingenuity of our sepoys, who had already made comfortable little huts. Then the senior among the planters told me that he was commissioned by the others to express the gratitude of them all for marching the detachment through their district. He emphasised the fact that the sight of our armed men sweeping through the countryside would have a good effect, not only on the thousands of unruly coolies on the tea gardens around, but also on the lawless dwellers over the border on the hills above us. He said that he and his friends had subscribed on the spot a sum of six or seven pounds and asked my permission to offer the money as prizes for sports to be held by our men that day. I thanked them all heartily and drew up a programme.

The sepoys were delighted and flocked down to the open beach where the sports took place. Of the two events which interested the planters most, the first was called "The Alarm Race." Teams from each section lay undressed and apparently sleeping on the ground beside their uniforms and accoutrements. On a bugle sounding they sprang up, dressed, put on their belts and bandoliers, rolled and strapped up their bedding, and fell in ready to march off. We inspected them; and the team first ready and properly dressed won the prize. The other event was very popular among the spectators. Teams of men in full marching order were ferried across the river and landed on the opposite bank. At a signal they started to collect driftwood and build it into rafts, tying the logs together with their puggris and putties. Then some with long bamboo poles took their places on each raft, while others of the team undressed, placed their rifles, belts and clothing on the raft and, springing into the water, swam alongside and helped to bring it across to our bank. The current ran swiftly and the excited men made their rafts swing round like teetotums. The first party to reach the spot where I stood on the beach and form up properly dressed were the winners.

After the sports some of us played tennis on the courts made in the clearing. As the sun set, after a parting drink and hearty invitations to visit their estates, our friends bade us good-bye and rode off.

On our next day's march our faces were set homewards. We passed several tea gardens until we reached Hathipota, where the hospitable Tyson welcomed us, and placed the resources of his estate at our men's disposal and entertained the British officers in his bungalow. Parties of our non-commissioned officers and men were taken over the factories and withering sheds, and were as deeply interested as we were in the ponderous machinery and clever contrivances. We left Hathipota next day. Later on, we were to see it again under more tragic auspices, when we were conveying a murderer to his doom.

Thence to the end of the ten days' march we worked through the forest back towards home. We passed almost dryshod over a wide river at Jainti, which during the Rains can only be crossed by a cradle running on an iron cable from bank to bank. At Jainti ends the little railway by which we had arrived. The next station to it was Buxa Road.

From Santrabari we climbed our hills again, sorry to have finished our pleasant and instructive march. The men had learned much of jungle conditions; and I had acquired a knowledge of the district which was to stand me in good stead in days to come.