Uninviting as may have been the immediate surroundings of the last place, few stations could vie with Prome in all that was picturesque. Situated on the left bank of the river, it consisted of a limited and undulating tract of country, covered with fine trees, from the branches of which hung beautiful creepers in graceful festoons; shrubs and undergrowths also grew thickly among the timber. The Burmese must, in selecting the spot, have had an eye to that which nature had already rendered beautiful; they then improved upon it according to the canons of native art—not by any means for the benefit of “?? p?????,” but as a sylvan retreat, wherein priest and monks could lead a purely isolated and ascetic life, away from the busy haunts of men, with every facility for contemplation and with as few hindrances as possible on the main road to “Nirvana.” Judging from the size and number of the Pon-gyee houses, one would imagine that the religious fraternity must have mustered there in great numbers, ere the spoiler turned them out and appropriated their sacred dwelling to his own sacrilegious uses. All is fair in war; these elegant edifices of teak, built on piles along either side of the main road, and now converted into residences and mess-houses, had, but a few years since, presented a picture that would have evoked ecstasies from an artist. There, shaded by the luxurious foliage of the tamarind, dwelt the original occupants, some reading, others sitting cross-legged in emulation of their master, a few, maybe, imparting to the young the doctrines of their wondrous religion.

Then, everything suggested peace and harmony; now, alas! the bugle is for ever resounding with its periodical “Puddings and pies for officers’ wives;” whereat the officers would assemble alone, for their wives—poor “grass-widows!”—were far away.

Facing the river to the right were blocks of hastily constructed dwellings for all sorts and conditions of men, necessary adjuncts to a large force, which had to be lodged, fed and clothed; and some way behind these came the “Sepoy lines.” To the left, well intrenched and guarded, lay the Commissariat Stores, on which so much depends when once the dogs of war are let loose. All men, irrespective of race or colour, fight, as did Napoleon’s soldiers, “on their stomachs;” but it is the European element which so taxes the hard-worked officials of the Commissariat department; they must have their daily rations of meat, bread, porter, tea, sugar and condiments, besides every kind of comfort, when lying sick or wounded. And when I assert that the Indian Commissariat department was second to none in the world for efficiency, organization and uprightness, I know no one can contradict me. Presiding over this essential adjunct at Prome was a man who, to the regret of all who knew him, died in India some years afterwards, and we shall perhaps never look on his like again.

The Burmese quarter of the town was still further to the left, occupying more level ground and of considerable extent. Many of the native buildings were on a grander scale than those usually met with, bamboo being discarded in lieu of teak.

In the midst of them we naturally constructed a prison, near which soon sprang up that emblem of civilization, the gallows; but I am happy to put it on record that, during my tenure of office in a medical capacity, it was never once used. Neither—to the credit of the Burmese, be it said—were there many candidates for the gaol, though I never shall forget the amazement of the few at such an unintelligible mode of punishment.

Of all the people I ever came across, I should consider the Burmese the least capable of bearing such restraint; they were so independent, so fond of freedom, air and exercise. With our egotistic proclivities and insular pride, we are but too prone to pounce down upon a conquered country and force upon them there and then our own laws and notions of the fitness of things, utterly regardless of the material with which we have to deal, and ignoring the impossibility of moulding it all at once to our own complicated judicial system.

We make no allowance for the influence of centuries of heredity; we overlook the fact that their notions of right and wrong are based upon a totally different code of ethics from our own.

That faithful servant, who made away with his father’s murderer in obedience to the laws and faith of the tribe among whom he was born and bred, should have merely been dismissed from the service, without being in addition deported to the Andamans; and it would have been better for India in general, and an exalted personage in particular, had his sentence been thus simplified.

We lose sight of the fact that we are aliens ourselves, and only in possession of these countries by might, and not by right; our strength is that of a giant, and as such we use it. One of the most pitiable sights I ever saw was the incarceration of these few Burmese.

Our system was to blame and not the Assistant-Commissioner, than whom not a kinder or more humane man existed.

With the welfare of the people at heart, he resided among them in the centre of the town; and the very fact of his being able to do so in safety so soon after our conquest speaks volumes for native principles and his own moderation. Many a time and oft did I wend my way through the streets of an evening to keep him company, and return at night, without a sign of molestation.

The opposite side of the river, which was at this point narrower and deeper, was also hilly and laid out in plantations of custard-apples, the fruit of which did justice to the care and skill lavished upon them. Those in India were very inferior to them, as much so perhaps as is a crab-apple to a Ripston-pippin! After the rainy season, and as soon as it was sufficiently dry to admit of the operation, the undergrowth in and about them was set on fire, and a pretty sight it presented at night, as the zig-zag lines of flame ran up the hills in every direction.

I can quite understand how this annual celebration enriched the soil, directly through the distribution of carbon and potash, and indirectly from its increased exposure to the sun and atmosphere; but what passes my comprehension is how the trees themselves escaped injury.

Either the rapidity with which the flames advanced prevented any real danger accruing to them; or else the cultivators themselves must have devised some expedient whereby the trees were rendered fire-proof. They could be seen superintending the operation, regulating the direction of the flames, and beating out any that ascended too high with long bamboos. The soil on these hills was no doubt peculiarly adapted for this fruit, a fact which the inhabitants probably discovered by having seen some originally there in a wild state.

In spite of their laziness, they were no mean cultivators, and, as I saw on an occasion hereafter to be related, endowed with considerable ingenuity. That the soil of these hills fulfilled the requirements of the fruit in question in a unique degree, I gathered from the fact that I never came across it elsewhere. I should much like to assign a scientific reason, based on an analysis of the soil and the geological formation of the hills; but I regret to say that my knowledge in this branch of science was, in those days at all events, extremely elementary and unpractical. I had soon special reason to lament my ignorance in this respect, for I was to traverse a hitherto unknown tract of country, where nature had been exceedingly lavish of her gifts, animal, vegetable and mineral. Advanced age brings in its train to the majority of mankind varying degrees of regret for neglected opportunities, the inevitable longing after that which “might have been.”

Chosen no doubt from the facilities it afforded, as well as for its strategical position, the military eye may nevertheless have been attracted to Prome by the sense of the picturesque; though, as it turned out, these superficial allurements concealed such deadly enemies as dysentery and an intractable form of intermittent fever, which played especial havoc with the European troops. And, contrary to all calculation, the higher they were quartered, the more severely did they suffer. Some European infantry, for instance, located in barracks half-way up the hill, was reduced at one time to a state of almost inefficiency; while the artillery-men further inland, and in more open ground, were much less affected. The former arrived in its full strength, but in a few months could scarcely muster a quarter of their number of effective bayonets. As I passed their quarters on my morning “constitutional,” it looked as if the men were mustering for parade in their dressing-gowns, and convalescents filled every verandah. But the garrison was not in very great danger, as besides the above, two regiments of native infantry and one of cavalry were quartered there; a force in itself amply sufficient to cope with anything the Burmese could bring against us. Nor was it at all likely that they would beard the lion in his den, for, as experience had already taught us, their fighting was as a rule confined to remote spots in the heart of the jungle, a species of warfare of the most trying and unsatisfactory nature. A heavy responsibility rested at this time on the officers in command, who found it difficult to steer between the Scylla of severity and the Charybdis of leniency; and their difficulties were no wise lessened by the recent publication of the proclamation annexing the country, in spite of the significant fact that in reality we held little more than the actual banks of the river, the interior being virtually a terra incognita, where collisions were still the order of the day. As might be expected, a nice point arose out of this somewhat premature notification, with reference to the treatment of spies taken in our camp. A detachment in a difficult position, away from further assistance and threatened by armed bands, captured one in their midst. He was tried by a drum-head court-martial, sentenced and shot, according to the usages of war. But, said the authorities, we were at peace, and therefore the punishment was illegal! But we were only so on paper! War was still going on, even if it were in a desultory fashion; and for the preservation of the party it was deemed expedient to employ energetic and deterrent measures. Who was the best judge of the situation, the officer on the spot, or one thousands of miles away? To have kept the man a prisoner would have been no easy matter in such a situation, besides entailing a guard and thereby weakening a force that was already numerically small. Time and circumstances considered, it was a mistake to descend to such hair-splitting, as it tended to weaken the authority of the officers, besides causing them much unnecessary dissatisfaction. It was in fact one of those many cases in which theory and practice cannot be reconciled.

Soon after landing, I joined the battery of artillery on the other side of the hills. They assigned to me a large bungalow perched on a hillock, composed of three rooms communicating with each other and surrounded by a verandah. It was simply palatial in contrast with some of my recent abodes, making me feel a person of some consequence.

My stock of furniture was certainly somewhat limited, but I had all that was necessary, and in such a country the absence of anything superfluous was a decided advantage, tending as it did to limit the powers of concealment of various nuisances, such as rats, snakes and insects.

I could watch the rats with the utmost nonchalance as they chased each other along my bamboos; and many a snake forfeited his life through his inability to conceal himself. One afternoon I observed a very large one coiled up in the very centre of my bed, and, justly incensed at such unwarrantable intrusion, I grasped a long-bladed Burmese sword and advanced to do battle. But in spite of my extreme caution, the bamboo flooring creaked, and the reptile decamped, not, however, before I had cut him in two. Snakes enter houses as a rule in pursuit of the rats and frogs which harbour there; in this instance, however, the intrusion seemed to have for its sole object the luxury of occupying my bed—a temptation to which he yielded with unlooked-for results.

Others I frequently killed when capturing a frog, which in such a case utters a series of sounds resembling the cries of a flogged child.

The solitary position of my abode was a matter of complete indifference to me, as I was generally out till late, and dined every evening at the mess, besides which, I always had writing to do when at home, and consequently preferred being undisturbed.

The mess fare was simple; but even had it been much more so, compensation would have been afforded by the society one met there. From the commanding officer downward, one and all were a refined, intellectual set of men, among whom I spent a most agreeable time, the pleasurable recollection of which is marred only by the afterthought of how many perished soon after in the Mutiny.

“Heroic Willoughby,” of Delhi fame, was there,—all, all were good men and true!

As my sphere of duties widened to embrace the civil department also, the place grew upon me, and I hoped to remain there for a long time. Looking back, I often wish it had been so decreed! Men who had resided for some time in India thought differently, they longed for the time when their regiments should be ordered back.

And their wish was soon to be gratified: they returned just in time to get entangled in the outbreak, in which the majority of my old comrades were shot down by the men they trusted.

I was caught in the same trap, but escaped by the skin of my teeth. Circumstances unfortunately compelled me to remain on for many years; but I place it on record that from that time forward I loathed the country and the altered mode of Government, and I maintain, without much fear of contradiction, that under John Company’s Raj, Europeans and natives were far happier than they have ever been since, or ever will be.

At Prome there certainly was a dearth of those amusements to which the majority of officers had been accustomed; but this was the case at most Burmese stations. The band and the mess were all that remained. There was very little sport; and libraries and billiard-tables were inadmissible, as part and parcel of campaigning equipage; the ladies too—where were they?

In its palmy days of yore, before the great convulsion, India was celebrated for its sociability, for the brotherly feelings that knit together Europeans of every denomination, and for the deference shown them by the population at large.

In every walk of life there is the hard lesson of how to take the good and bad together; and there is some justification of the way in which the officers yearned after their accustomed dances, picnics and hunting, in the fact that history has proved, in the most unequivocal manner, that the man who shines in the drawing-room and field makes the best officer under any conditions. He possesses more self-reliance, clearer judgment, and greater fertility of resource, not to speak of better-tuned nerves, in an emergency, than the more modern bookworm, whose mind has too often been developed at the expense of his body.

If the human machinery is to work efficiently, bodily and mental training must go hand in hand, and this is especially necessary in the case of the soldier. The pendulum with us is always swinging to extremes, and the present tendency is to train the one, and leave the other to look after itself.

The old Company may have erred in the opposite direction, by permitting young fellows to enter their service before, indeed, their education was sufficiently advanced; yet, what able men they produced!

The Mutiny arose from no fault of theirs, but rather from the evils of interference from home, by which the door of appeal was opened too wide, weakening that authority so essential to commanders, especially in the East. The leaven rapidly permeated throughout the mass, and the Sepoys, recognizing their advantage, improved upon it, as Asiatics know how.

The “annexation of Oude” and the “greased cartridge” episode occurred opportunely, and served as handles.

In judicial matters we were exacting; but in military matters we were far too lenient, the reason of this being presumably that the supreme command was vested in officers imperfectly acquainted with the Asiatic character, these new acquisitions coming periodically fresh from home, and consequently tinctured with much of the maudlin sentiment that thrives there in certain quarters.

In India generally, Europeans were but little given to pedestrian exercise, partly because the youngest subaltern could afford to indulge in a horse or pony, partly because the country was so very uninteresting, hundreds of miles of dead level road, lined on either side with the useful and ubiquitous mango, and acres of cultivation without a break, by way of relieving the depressing monotony.

Riding put a totally different complexion on the matter; the animals, unaccustomed to inequalities, were well suited to the roads; the exhilarating exercise covered a multitude of shortcomings, while hunting obscured them in toto.

At Prome, however, there was more by way of encouragement to pedestrians; well worth traversing on foot were the many interesting roads, turning here and bending there; now ascending a greasy hill, anon dipping into a valley, and following up a meandering stream, flanked with stately trees and flowering shrubs.

On all sides, the fly-catchers with their burnished plumage flashing in the sun, while various other birds in gaudy livery flitted from tree to tree; woodpeckers ran round them, tapping here and there with their hammer-shaped bills in quest of hidden treasures, while the agile movements of the squirrel lent additional charm to the scene. One walk was in special favour, leading, as it did, along the banks of the river, and then sweeping inland, enclosing with two others a huge space, in which lay our entire force. Its breadth and culverts were evidence of its military design.

The life in Burmah may have been irksome to many, but none could complain of its expense. What with no house rent, a necessarily curtailed mess, and various subscriptions in abeyance, military tailors realized many an outstanding debt.

Extended credit, and proportionately protective prices had placed purveyor and recipient on the horns of a dilemma, from which this campaign released them.

It must certainly have been an anxious time for the man of business; and as he ran his eye down the list of casualties, one must sympathize with him, as much as is possible in the case of traders that make those who meet their liabilities pay for those who do not. I was young at that time, and had only advanced a few paces on the independent road of life; and the yarns unfolded afforded me an insight into the recesses of human nature.

War, whether waged in a just cause or the reverse, is always a lamentable occurrence, but this campaign afforded another illustration of the adage relating to an “ill wind.” To save money in such a situation reflected no credit on any man, simply because there existed no loophole for extravagance of any kind. It was a case of necessity rather than choice.

As soon as the river had contracted once again into its ordinary bed, which it does very soon after the rains are over, I obtained a day’s leave of absence, in order to pay a visit to a famous haunt of wild-fowl. Such at least was its reputation, and for once in the course of her long life, Dame Rumour had spoken correctly. Something like an hour’s journey by boat brought me to a perfect El Dorado of geese and ducks. When we had reached the extensive “jheel,” or swamp, where they most did congregate, one of my men procured me a small native boy, who was delighted at the prospect of paddling me about in his own canoe. I had soon taken up my position in the bow with gun and ammunition—those were the days of powder-flask, shot-belt and wads—and we forthwith raised the alarm, the immense numbers of fowls fairly blotting out the bright sky for several moments.

I discharged both barrels into the flock, and, ere I could look round, my amphibious little guide was in the water, retrieving the dead and wounded, which were all ordinary ducks and geese in excellent condition. As this was a very likely place for an alligator, I felt extremely nervous on the boy’s account—the only drawback to a very pleasant and exciting day; but as he seemed rather to enjoy it than otherwise, I tried to persuade myself that the danger was one of my own creating. He enjoyed both the fun and the “tip” I gave him, for it was not every day he had the chance of earning a rupee.

Ere many weeks had rolled by, the kaleidoscope of military affairs was again shaken, and, to my infinite regret, the battery was ordered elsewhere.

My country house had therefore to be vacated; and I believe that even the colony of rats, lizards, frogs and mosquitoes, with which I had shared it, regretted my departure. The snakes, upon whom I always waged unrelenting war, were doubtless mightily pleased. As for the others, as long as they kept their place, I lived, and let live. Their name certainly was—legion!

Whatever may have been my regret at the sudden and unexpected turn in the tide of affairs, very little leisure was permitted for the purpose of brooding over the stern decrees of fickle fortune.

Military life consists in being here to-day, there to-morrow; and is indeed a nomadic existence, only relieved by its eminent respectability.

“Move on,” is the everlasting dictum of War Office and policeman; and one has, during the active years of one’s life, but few opportunities of settling down in the midst of one’s few household gods. This constant moving under orders is apt to cling to men, even after their retirement from the service; and this accounts for the reputation enjoyed by Anglo-Indians as the most restless of mortals.

On first returning home, they pitch their tents in “Asia Minor” (known to some as Bayswater); thence they move on through Bath, Cheltenham, and Leamington, until their circuit of the island is put a stop to by a last fatal illness. This wandering proclivity is further encouraged by the absence of ties to any particular spot; for the Anglo-Indian, returning after years of service in the Far East, is ever thrown into a train of melancholy associations by the reiterated question: “The friends of my youth, where are they?”