THE SECOND BENGAL LIGHT CAVALRY.

TO THE EDITOR.

SIR:-The conduct of the men of the Second Light Cavalry, in not following their officers into action, has naturally excited much regret in all who feel an interest in the honour of the Indian army. We know that the natives of Upper India, generally speaking, are very far from being deficient in courage, and that instances are on record where they have followed their officers into action, when Europeans have refused.

I have taken some trouble to ascertain the cause of this unusual conduct of the troopers, but cannot say that my inquiries have been successful. I have heard one cause assigned, which I think deserving attention, as I have reason to believe it has some foundation in fact. I am informed that some of the men said, "What could they do against the enemy with their straight swords?" This may or may not be one of the causes assigned for their desertion, but it is deserving of consideration.

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I was many years in the military service in India, and in the constant habit of familiar intercourse with the native officers. A few years since, the straight swords were served out to the men of the regiment to which I was attached, and I inquired of a native officer how they liked them. Why, sir,” said he, they are very good to guard the hand (alluding to the basket handle); but they are not of any use in cutting." In other words, he did not feel the slightest confidence in them. Now, it is surely exceedingly ill-judged to place weapons in the hands of men, in which they do not feel any confidence. We think the straight sword a much more efficient weapon than the old sabre, and consequently feel confidence in the use of it; but the natives of India do not. They are, generally, excellent swordsmen, and can use their own weapon most efficiently, as I have witnessed on service. Even an old cavalry sabre, in point of efficiency, is not to be compared to the common Indian sword, which is made of better metal, and being kept in a leather scabbard, lined with wood, is always sharp and fit for service. This is not the case with the English sabre; for, although the steel scabbard may be lined with wood, it seldom fits the sword, and, consequently the keen edge is soon destroyed. I could relate instances within my own knowledge of the superiority of the native weapon in native hands; but what I have already stated may be sufficient to direct the attention of those in authority to a subject deserving our earnest and most serious consideration. If we wish to command the willing and efficient services of men, we must pay attention to their habits and prejudices, and not conclude that discipline best suited to Europeans must, of necessity, be equally well suited to Asiatics.

I know that much dissatisfaction has been caused in the native cavalry, by harassing the old men with riding-school drill. They cannot understand the use of it; and I have heard the officers make comparisons between the easy and efficient discipline under Lord Lake, and the annoyance of the present system. I once heard a gallant old soldier say, "I am always willing to fight, but I don't like dancing." In consequence of this dislike to " dancing" (a degrading occupation in native estimation), he left our regular cavalry, and entered Colonel Gardner's corps, in which he proved himself a most brave and distinguished officer.

London, August 6, 1841.

I am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

T. E. B.

MEMOIRS OF A GRIFFIN.

BY CAPTAIN BELLEW.

CHAPTER XIII.

HAVING, by General Capsicum's promised interest, obtained a fortnight's leave of absence, I took an affectionate leave of Grundy and Marpeet, and sent on my two or three servants to Mr. Augustus's boat, accompanied by Teazer and the one-eyed bull-dog. The next day, in the early grey of morning, I proceeded with him to Tolly's Nullah, a creek near Calcutta, communicating with the Balliaghat Passage, where the boat was lying. It was a cool and pleasant morning, the air delightfully fresh. On our way, we met several ladies and gentlemen of Calcutta on horseback. In India, bathing and early rising principally contribute to create the amount of health generally enjoyed there, which would be far greater and less precarious than it is, were it not for an immoderate indulgence in the pleasures of the table, which inflames the blood, disorders the liver, and renders the whole system peculiarly susceptible of disease; then steps in mercury-the remedy-which is a fearful shatterer of the constitution, and in the end proves worse than the disease. I would earnestly advise all my brother griffins, if they value their happiness, to live moderately and simply, though generously, and to guard against the insidious habit of drinking brandy pauney, to which a hot climate offers strong and peculiar temptations. These precautions observed, and the mid-day sun avoided, a fair average amount of health may be enjoyed for years.

My friend's boat rowed ten or twelve oars, and was of a kind a good deal in use in Calcutta. The front part was decked, and behind it had a cabin, with Venetian windows, occupying about half the length, and rising several feet above the gunwale; inside there was a small table, and on each side lockers, which served for seats; to the back of these again were some cots or dormitories. It differed from the up-country going craft in being keeled, and having on the whole far more of the European long-boat build. On arriving, we found that the majority of the dandies, or boatmen, had gone to a neighbouring bazaar to purchase provisions. They were some time absent; Mr. Augustus grew impatient, and threatened to flog them all round. At last they made their appearance, laden with plantains, fish, and other stores for the voyage. Having stowed all these carefully in the forepart of the hold, hung a wreath of red and white flowers round the neck of the boat's figure-head, which they duly baptized by showering water over it with their hollowed palms, they sprung on board with a shout, and pushed off into the stream. Each man now seized his oar, and commenced rowing to a not unmusical chaunt, the whole crew giving a vigorous and simultaneous pull at certain parts of the song. As we shot along the creek for a few miles, each turn gave us peeps of the rich and luxuriant scenery of this part of Bengal. Gardens of plantain, mango, and jack trees lined the banks, intermixed with clumps of the tapering bamboo; clusters of neat huts, with arched roofs, appeared half-buried beneath their umbrageous foliage, through openings of which, in the dim, chequered light, village girls, with water-pots on their heads, might be seen gliding along, and imparting to the whole scene an air of primeval and truly Eastern simplicity. Here and there, in front of a hut, mantled with its creeping gourd, would appear the milk-white cow or petted calf, picketed by the nose, and munching his boosa under the cool shade of the

* Boosa, chopped straw.

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tamarind or plantain, whilst kids and goats, in various picturesque attitudes, sunned themselves on the ruined wall or prostrate tree. Sometimes we came on fishermen, in their dingies, or canoes, with out-spread nets catching the much-prized hilsa; or we looked on the dark peasantry in the green rice-fields, engaged beneath a fervid sun in their various rural occupations. Occasionally we came suddenly upon a market, with its congregated fleet of boats, and its busy, squabbling assemblage of villagers, fish, grain, and vegetable venders, &c.; or a thannah, or police-station, would break into view, known by its picturesque burkundazes lounging about in front, armed with spears or tulwars, and the portly, bearded thannahdar, en déshabille, smoking his kulian under the projecting thatch of the entrance or porch, shields, like those of knightserrant, suspended from the wall around him, with here and there, in Persian, some stringent regulation of the Sahiban Alishan, a terror to all evil-doers. The tattoo or pony for the great man's riding, with its padded saddle of many hues and gay but cumbrous trappings, was in waiting, perhaps to take him to the scene of some brawl or commotion. His pigeons* are wheeling aloft, through the clear blue sky, or hanging poised on outstretched wings above their jaffree stand, whilst his little son, with his scull-cap, shakes the towering pole, of which it forms the termination, to prevent their settling. The novelty of the scene, so truly un-English and Oriental, delighted me, and my heart bounded with joy from a feeling of vitality and freedom.

At length we began to approach those vast forests, called the Sunderbunds, stretching for two hundred miles across the delta of the Ganges, and through a considerable part of which our route lay. The vicinity of this wild tract was indicated by the gradual termination of the cultivated country, and the commencement of the half-reclaimed lands on the borders, presenting to the view stumps of trees, patches of jungle, and some paddy fields, occasionally a few scattered huts, with their sickly inhabitants huddled around them. The boatmen being somewhat exhausted, and the tide on the turn, Mr. Capsicum ordered them to drop anchor in the stream not far from the shore, that they might refresh themselves. It was a curve in the river where we brought to, deep and broad, and remote from the habitations of men. The lazy dark tide rolled slowly on, its movement barely indicated by a slight set in the current, with here and there a few tiny curling whirlpools, which seemed to my imagination to tell of the fearful depths and frightful monsters below. An open spot of green sward approached the bank on one side, whilst beyond this, on both banks, the huge trees of the sombre forest hung darkling over the Stygian stream-here emerging into light, as from a realm of dolorous shade which would have daunted Rinaldo himself. How my thoughts now flew back, awakened by the contrast, to the flowery meads and crystal streams of merry England! My companion now ordered chairs and his hookha to be taken to the roof of the boat, and there, with a teapoy and tumblers between us, we seated ourselves at our ease, a bearer with a huge chattah, or umbrella, shielding us from the noontide rays of a powerful sun. A few faint airs, wafting the chirp and pipe of unknown birds, came fanning from the woods, which, with the monotonous bubble of Mr. Augustus's hookha, produced a tranquil and soporific effect upon me.

In the little patch of grass meadow I have mentioned, which lay nearly opposite to us, two or three miserable stunted white cattle were feeding, one of them considerably nearer the margin than the others. Whilst looking towards them, I thought I discerned something dark slowly emerging from the

* Flying pigeons constitutes one of the principal amusements of the East.

water where the muddy shelving shore dipped into it. I kept my eye steadily fixed upon the object, which evidently moved and presented to my view the resemblance of two large foot-balls, at the end of a rough log of wood. I directed my companion's attention to it, at the same time asking him what it was? "There, yonder," said I, "just beyond the tuft of reeds. See! see! it moves." "Oh, I perceive the rascal," said he; "it's a huge alligator, making a point at that poor beast of a cow; but I'll spoil his sport. Bearah Bundook laou juldee! bring up the rifle quickly." Ere gun, however, could be brought, the monster, as if anticipating our intentions, suddenly rushed from his concealment, with a rapid and wriggling motion, and in an instant had the unsuspecting cow by the nose. The poor brute struggled, his tail crooked with agony, his two fore feet stuck out, and bellowing most lustily, whilst the alligator backed rapidly towards the water, dragging the cow along with him. "Quick! quick!" shouted Augustus, as the servant blundered along, capsizing a bucket or two in his hurry, and handed up the gun. "Click," went the lock-the rifle was pointed, but it was too late: the scaly monster sunk with his prey, as the bullet cracked sharply over the eddy; a few bubbles and a slight curl of the deep waters alone marking the spot where the poor cow had disappeared in a doleful tragedy-her last appearance in public. "What a ferocious monster!" I exclaimed; " do they often carry away animals in this way?" “Oh, yes,” replied Augustus, vexed that he had been foiled. "Alligators in the salt and brackish waters of the lower parts of Bengal are dangerous and ferocious; but as you recede from the sea, for some reason or another, they become comparatively harmless, and seldom molest man or beast, confining their depredations to the finny tribe. Near my factory they are continually carrying off the villagers from the ghauts, and I have heard and believe, though I have never witnessed a case, that they sometimes adroitly knock the fishermen from off their dingies by a blow of the tail, and then snap them up in a moment." 66 'Why do not the people hunt and destroy such monsters?" I asked. "They require more salt to be put upon their tails than your sparrows at home," said Augustus with a roguish leer, which made me think that he had been cognizant of an early attempt of mine in that way. "However," he continued, "after a good many poor devils have been carried off, blacky's apathy is a little roused, and he does sometimes catch them in the following manner. They row slowly up the stream, dragging a number of hooked lines; when these are arrested by the horny hide of the alligator, as he lays in the mud at the bottom, they slowly raise the torpid brute, who seldom makes any resistance, till he appears above the surface; they then simultaneously dart a number of small barbed harpoons into him, to the heads of which (from which the shaft is made to detach itself easily) stout cords are fastened, and thus they secure his body; to prevent his doing mischief with his jaws, they present a stick, and when he seizes it with a snap, they belay a cord round these formidable instruments of destruction."

After the crew had refreshed, we pursued our voyage, plunging into the dreary solitude, intersected by a labyrinth of creeks and rivers; on each side arose a wall of forest, with a thick undergrowth of the most luxuriant vegetation, springing up from the fat alluvial soil. The silence of death was around, broken at intervals by the distant crow of the jungle-fowl, the cry of the deer, or the blowing of a porpoise, and the measured dash of our oars, as we swept along, sometimes on the surface of a broad river, with bright green trees on each side, and black-faced monkeys chattering in the branches; at other times, in a lateral creek, where the boughs almost brushed our deck. There is

something solemnly impressive in such a scene, and the sounds which fall on the ear seem truly to speak in majestic tones of the power and greatness of the Creator. Such a scene carries the imagination back to that primeval period when man was not in this earth, and when the mammoth and the mastodon roamed undisturbed amongst its voiceless forests and lonely retreats. Occasionally a Mugh or Arracanese boat, of peculiar construction, with its broad-faced crew and banks of oars, laden with bees' wax, ivory, &c., glided by, or a raft, heavily laden with piles of wood or charcoal for the Calcutta market, swept past us, a momentary relief to the deathlike loneliness of the place: the wood they carry is cut and collected by a particular class of men, who pursue their perilous trade in these jungles. Sometimes, too, the continuity of the forest was broken by a cleared patch, and piles of timber ready for lading; or the hut of one of those religious devotees or fakeers, whose austerity acquires for them the respect of the ignorant and superstitious boatmen, whom, by their charms and incantations, they profess to insure from assaults of the alligator and the tiger. Boatmen, however, and even fakeers, are continually carried off; but as superstition always counts the hits, and never reckons the misses, a few favourable predictions set all to rights again. At one of these fakeer stations, we made a halt, and a more wretched locality for a man to take up his abode in imagination can scarcely picture. small spot of about a quarter of an acre was cleared from the forest, and in the centre of it was a fragile hut of thatch and bamboo, which a puff of wind might have blown away; a tapering bamboo, with a small red pennon, rose above it, and a little clay durgah for prayer, to indicate the sacred calling of the lonely occupant. "Now," said my companion, laughing, "I am going to introduce you to the Bishop of the Sunderbunds, a prelate whose domestic chaplain is an alligator, whose cathedral service is chaunted by a tiger, and whose choir is served with black-faced monkeys." Bishop!" I exclaimed,

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'I should rather have expected a rural dean." As we brought to, the fakeer came down to the boat, and was most respectfully received by the crew. He was an aged man, withered up like a potsherd, and smeared with dust and ashes; his long, grizzled, and matted beard swept his breast, and a tiger-skin was thrown over his shoulders; he held a long stick in one hand, on which he supported his bent and decrepid form, whilst in the other he carried a dried gourd-shell, or calibash, to receive the contributions of the boatmen. Here was a Trappist of the East, submitting to every danger and privation from motives somewhat similar to those which actuate the ascetic order all the world over-motives, the origin of which we cannot but respect, however mistaken we may deem them.

Bidding adieu to this lonely anchorite of the woods, we once more pursued our course to the eastward, and after nearly a day's rowing, changed it to the north, following the line of one of the many rivers which, spreading out as they approach the sea in various lateral directions in the Sunderbunds, form the intricate maze. In a little time, the forest became less dense, and a few miles more brought us again into the cleared and cultivated country. Our eyes once more rested with pleasure upon the green rice-fields, the patch of sugar-cane, the cluster of coco-nuts, and the busy haunts of men. Well, Mr. Gernon," said Augustus, "I suppose you are not sorry to be nearly at the end of your voyage?" "No," I replied; "though I have been greatly interested by the wild scene. But how far are we now from the Junglesoor factory?" "Not far," said my friend; "please God, we'll sup at my house to-night. There, look!" said he; "do you see yonder white building, and