Thus far, the tide of prosperity had been flowing without a check; we had visited many scenes, encountered dangers and surmounted difficulties, when a sudden and unexpected ebb set in.

I had quite made up my mind to remain in the country on the principle that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush; besides which I was a little incredulous as to the oft-repeated and over-estimated advantages of India, and by no means eager to partake of its imaginary delights. Calcutta was odious, and Rangoon, in comparison, a paradise; while, besides enjoying excellent health, I was saving a goodly number of rupees, and making many friends. Hitherto the gates of Burmah had been closed to ladies, for whom “No Thoroughfare” had been the stern decree; but all this must ere long be cancelled, and then what an influx there would be of grass widows and perhaps too unmarried belles, tempted to try their fortunes in fresh woods and pastures new!

For some time to come, the comforts and pleasures might be inferior to those of Indian stations, but then there would be the reunion of loving hearts, that could find bliss in a cottage, even where the roses and honeysuckle were not.

The other day I came across a little book, “The Queen of Flowers,” which the author dedicated to his wife, and my thoughts were carried back to the date at which it was written, the days ere chivalry had fled and men had contracted the bad habit of talking disparagingly of the gentler sex. Now, in the height of their selfishness, they shut themselves up in their clubs, where they pore over the papers, criticize passers-by, and enjoy the fat of the land!

With us at that period, civilization was only at its budding stage, but nowhere perhaps did the plant make more brilliant progress than here, under the fostering hand of its Chief Commissioner, who paved the way for the prosperity which was to follow.

Some there were who vilified the land in no measured terms, but only such as missed certain comforts to which they had been accustomed. The leaven is working among the rising generation, who, unless pampered with all manner of luxuries that we were unacquainted with in my young days, profess to find life scarcely worth the living.

Not choice, but dire necessity compelled me to quit a country so pregnant with future advantages. I was standing one morning by the bedside of a patient, when a shiver passing through me warned me that the fever of the place had at length taken hold of my system.

I was in for a very stiff attack of the quotidian or daily variety, so intense indeed that it defied such supposed antidotes as arsenic or quinine.

The “bacilli” must have originated from a strong and determined race of microbes, for the “cold, hot, and sweating” stages were unusually protracted, and unaffected by quinine in 30-gram doses, which nearly blew the roof of my skull off, and certainly paralyzed my organs of digestion.

After a fair fight, medicine succumbed to microbes, and I had to beat a retreat.

A river trip failing to have the desired effect, I determined to try the sea. I was accordingly carried on board a steamer early one morning and placed in an easy chair under an awning, where I reclined, totally indifferent to all around, and perfectly willing to be heaved overboard. My appetite had completely vanished, and for several days I had eaten only oranges, solid food having been utterly distasteful and tobacco equally so.

The bell struck for breakfast, and the captain tried to coax me down into the cuddy, but without success. Towards evening, however, I suddenly felt hungry, the first time for many days past, and I actually managed to get through a good round meal, followed by a quiet smoke on deck.

The voyage lasted a week, at the end of which time all traces of the fever had completely vanished. The snake was, however, only scotched; for the next twenty-five years it periodically raised its head feebly, always of course when least wanted or expected; generally when I was going to bed, and once even at the most awkward and critical period of an accouchement.

This intermittent recurrence continued until I left the East for good and all, when it expired in a singular fashion. I had been suffering for some time past from the most painful boils, all of which had vanished, save one on my leg. Some ten days after my arrival in Europe, and while still in Germany, I was seized one morning with a most acute pain in the region of the abdomen, followed by an attack of the old Burmah fever, from which I lay insensible for three days. On coming round, my attention was at once drawn to a spot on my leg which felt icy cold, and I found that the boil had mortified and was black as a coal. It came out with a charcoal poultice, leaving a circular, deep excavation, which only healed after many weeks.

One of the numerous eccentricities of this disease is to lie dormant in the system for many years; in my own case the “bacilli” appear to have concentrated themselves in the boil, and, after having killed it, must either have died themselves, or come bodily away with the tissues, for I have, during the past twelve years, never suffered the least approach to ague.

The specific germ of this disease will, without a doubt, soon be isolated either in this country or on the Continent: there is a current idea that the mantle of medical discovery has descended upon our friends across the water to our own exclusion; an idea against which such names as Harvey and Jenner alone cry trumpet-tongued.

At the same time some nicety will be requisite to distinguish between those producing quotidian, tertian, quartan and more irregular forms; how it comes to pass that these germs can be in abeyance for many years, and then return to life and activity, is so far a hard nut to crack.

Heat, moisture and vegetation are a combination that produce the most virulent germs, hence the dangers attending the period in the East when the rains are drying up.

Two of the three chief causes used also to operate with disastrous effect in the days before the Lincolnshire fens were drained.

Just as in all countries we can estimate the character of any soil from its natural vegetation, so in India, the appearance of its inhabitants is a sure indication of the healthiness of a district. A leaden complexion, for example, betokens an enlarged spleen, due to constantly recurring attacks of ague, and where this is on the increase, the locality is an unhealthy one.

Unpleasant as such an experience unquestionably is, one can scarcely help being struck by the strange symptoms produced by the circulation of this poison through the system; shivering, accompanied by icy coldness and an insatiable craving for everything warm, inside and out, is succeeded by violent perspiration, and a similar and opposite longing for everything cold. The worst of it is, too, that the germs, nowise routed by this outpour, live to fight another day!

The entire phenomenon is due to a specific impression on the nervous centre, or what is popularly called the spinal marrow, the brain remaining as a general rule uninfluenced. The cellular, spongy spleen, acts as a reservoir into which the blood can flow, when driven by certain emotions from the surface; but for this, the stream would probably overwhelm what our distinguished lecturer used to call the tripod of life, viz. the heart, lungs and brain.

From repeated attacks, the spleen will lose its elasticity, becoming enlarged to such an extent as to occupy the principal portion of the cavity in which it resides, and withal so exceedingly brittle, that a push or even a deep sigh will cause it to rupture, resulting in almost instantaneous death.

The germs are also guilty of other eccentricities, of which perhaps the most remarkable is inducing an attack one day in a pregnant woman and the next in her unborn child.

It is therefore impossible to overrate the importance of the discovery of specific germs, for it must lead to a more rational treatment of many diseases, a mode by which they can be acted on direct, instead of through that long-suffering organ, the stomach.

In one disease of Asiatic origin we know that the functions of that organ are so completely in abeyance that any medicine administered through it is either unabsorbed or rejected.

Altogether, it will be a happy period for suffering humanity when some process is brought to light by which hypodermic injection of a germicide produces immediate contact.

Such a discovery will doubtless take time; but then Rome was not built in a day, and the marvellous contributions of Jenner, Harvey, Simpson, and Lister were the result of years of patient study and untiring research. And what a result! Think of the millions that have been saved by vaccination from a loathsome disease, of the floods of pain that have been averted by the use of anÆsthetics; of the manner in which atmospheric germs have been kept at bay, while the surgeon searches for a deep-seated aneurism or performs an amputation! Pasteur’s inoculation for that harrowing disease, rabies, is progressing slowly but surely; and the discovery of Koch—based on the presence of “bacilli” as the fons et origo malorum—will probably lead to results of which we can at present scarcely form an idea.

In India cholera is endemic and devastating; in this country we have scrofula, struma or tubercle. Neither respects persons, attacking rich and poor alike, the latter being particularly subject to tubercle for reasons which need no explanation in these days, when education stalks through the length and breadth of the land, dragging pianos, science, and art in its train.

We may therefore hope that the cure of “intermittents” will be performed on the same model; then will the alkaloid of cinchona descend from the position of anti-periodic and febrifuge to the level of a valuable tonic.

Just as the gardener must thoroughly fumigate his greenhouses with tobacco in order to rid his plants of aphides, so must these “bacilli” be attacked early and thoroughly, and then I feel sure that sea voyages would be attended with better results.

I am aware that one swallow does not make a summer; but, taking into consideration the palpable improvement mentioned above, only one deduction could fairly be made as to the beneficial effects of sea air.

The average time spent by me in any one place during the two years I had been in Burmah was about four months; the next three years this increased to seven; and the year afterwards it fell to a week.

A rolling stone may gather moss, but is almost sure to drop it again; in my second nomadic stage, a clear sweep was made of all that I had accumulated, and, by this time, the surface had probably become too slippery for any to cling to.

But it is not my intention to enter into the particulars of the next three years, for my book has already swollen like a mountain stream, and I have more to relate about the part of our dominions I was now leaving. The curtain falls; and, after the manner of the dramatic author, I must ask the reader to imagine an interval of nearly four years before it rises again upon the land of Gautama the contemplative.

And, as the audience are looking round the house, I may as well finish this chapter by forging a few connecting links.

Those mean “bacilli,” mixing with my pure blood, hurled me from a happy position and forced me to encounter not only cloudy weather, but a hurricane of angry passions dark as Erebus. The first cloud was comparatively no larger than a man’s hand; but it rapidly spread, soon blotting out the azure vault of heaven.

Instead of returning when my leave had expired, I was persuaded in some unaccountable manner—still perhaps under some subtle influence of the fever—to join a regiment, with which I marched for six weeks through a country the monotony of which is not to be described.

Having obtained “Privilege leave” for a month, I should have a fortnight for looking about, leaving a week for the journey either way.

Instead of carrying this programme into force, I found myself—oh, irony of fate!—marching in a diametrically opposite direction. The destination had been depicted in glowing colours, and I found it commonplace, not to be compared with Rangoon or Prome.

Two years afterwards the sky cleared again for a period of six weeks, after which it became darker than ever; for no sooner had I settled down in a comfortable manner with a young wife, than the Mutiny burst upon us in all its fury, scattering everything to the four winds, ourselves included.

It is well known that during a campaign soldiers of every denomination keep in good health; whereas the hospitals fill soon after peace is proclaimed.

In the one case they are kept from flagging by activity and excitement, hope of distinction, and “seeking the bubble reputation even in the cannon’s mouth;” but, when the “dogs of war” have been chained up again, their spirit barometer falls suddenly and low. I have noticed the same with our principal trees during and after a heavy storm.

The Mutiny formed no exception to the rule; climate, weather, and every kind of hardship were forgotten, as Europeans marched with impunity under the most trying conditions to a conflict tinctured on both sides with the worst elements of human nature.

Having witnessed some of the worst episodes of the Mutiny—the sudden shooting down of trusting officers; arson, massacre, and pillage; blowing from guns, beheadings, and such like cheerful proceedings—and, having marched with camp for many months from pillar to post, the reaction necessitated a thorough change; and, as a return home was impossible, I decided upon a trip round the Bay of Bengal, which brought me once again in contact with Burmah.

Before bringing this chapter to a close I wish to allude to a painful subject, which is, however, of too much interest to all connected with the East to be omitted.

Wise people at home are pleased to find fault with the order of matrimony as applicable to officers abroad, and their arguments would carry more weight with them were they directed to the anxiety entailed in supporting children at home.

That ordeal is unquestionably its principal sting, not from a pecuniary standpoint, but from the sad record of the treatment they endure when their parents are far away and helpless to shield them.

Confining myself to personal experiences, I have found relations far ahead of any others for sheer cruelty. One of them, herself a mother, surpassed the rest in her artistic brutality. I have to lay at her door the fate of my eldest son and the early death of two sweet daughters. She was well paid, but turned and stung us as soon as our backs were turned. With such a dearly-bought experience I turned to the stranger. The age of advertising “Happy homes for children, whose parents were going abroad,” was then in its infancy, and not yet raised to a fine art as now-a-days.

We tried one; and a short trial sufficed. However, what we failed to find at home we met with abroad. It is, I know, the fashion to say everything bad about foreigners, but all I can say is, that, whatever be their faults, their sense of duty is at least equal to their greed for gain, which is more than can be said for many at home.

Marriage, therefore, to nine-tenths of the European population in the East is shadowed o’er with this dark and lowering cloud.

Many of our periodicals teem with advertisements anent the “happy home,” in which all the advantages of a thorough moral and intellectual training, combined with much motherly kindness and fatherly discipline, are set forth in glowing terms. Specious as are these insertions, the places themselves prove on inspection still more so—charming people, salubrious locality, and most desirable surroundings.

The scenery has been well got up, and the inimitable acting is worthy of a better cause. The inconsolable widow, so passionately fond of children, so anxious to drown her thoughts in occupation, and resolved never to marry again, is to be shunned like a cobra.

One of these, whom I have reason to remember, produced excellent testimonials, and took a house by the sea, where she entertained the parents sumptuously before their departure, winning their regard and the affections of the little ones; and as soon as father and mother were gone, a complete change came o’er the spirit of her dream. The children were utterly neglected, and, but for the interposition of a friend, heaven knows what would have become of them!

This growing thirst for the care of children hailing from the East has its mainspring doubtless in that universal regulator of thoughts and actions, money: the parents pay well and punctually, generally too in advance; and as some thousands of miles intervene between them and their offspring, the care-takers have the whip-hand all round.

Their strength is that of a giant, and as such I have ever found them use it. The amount of direct and indirect cruelty practised upon their helpless charges is simply appalling. The despised Hindoo despatches a female infant for whom he can anticipate no dowry; the enlightened European sacrifices male and female alike for reasons still less valid. Infanticide is extensively carried on in this country under the euphonious and rural alias of “Baby Farming,” a process by which infants are permitted to die by inches—the result of starvation and neglect, whereas the more merciful Oriental has his suffocated almost before full birth.

Indian legislation has almost stamped out the evil by vigorous and well-timed measures, while the machinery employed to effect the same purpose at home falls very short of the desired end. Ask those genuine philanthropists who pass their time amid the poor quarters of our over-populated towns and villages, what goes on sub rosa, aggravated by the modern facilities for insurance, which more than covers the simple funeral (expenses).

Periodical fits of indignation likewise surge up at home against the line of conduct adopted by the Indian Government with regard to the continuance of the opium-traffic. There is something sublime in the public disregard of far greater evils at our own door; though any well-informed physiologist can demonstrate that excessive smoking of opium is less deleterious in its effects than excessive consumption of alcohol.

The former exalts the imagination to a region of blissful dreams, where it can revel in all that is bright, and even the succeeding depression is not accompanied by any injury to either brain or stomach.

Alcohol, on the other hand, irritates the nervous centres permanently. A very large slice of our home revenue is flavoured with alcohol and tobacco; and our Indian Government also derives much support from opium. But there is a mighty difference: the Chinese are supplied from India with a pure, unadulterated article. What is unadulterated in modern England? Echo answers.

Without further delving into the abysmal and prolific mine of our misdoings and shortcomings, I think I have succeeded in directing the reader’s attention to the subject of the treatment of our young ones that we are compelled to leave to the tender mercies of relations, friends, and strangers.

Children from the East require even greater care than those born at home; and there ought therefore to be some safeguard, some compulsory registration and reliable inspection.

My own experience may perhaps be an exceptional one—I hope and trust that it is so—but if such things can be done in the green tree, what may not occur in the dry! It is time we bestirred ourselves to legislate, for something is rotten in the state of Denmark!