brought in. If a bewildered khansamah, or
khitmutghur, in his haste to bring a bottle,
leaves the basket uncovered, the inevitable
consequence is that the ice melts, and there is
an end of it for the day. I have scarcely
known a family in which corporal punishment
was not inflicted on the servant guilty of such
a piece of neglect. But, great as was the
privation, it was always cheerfully endured
by the society, when the doctors of the various
departments indented on them for their
shares of ice, respectively. And this
occasionally happened, when the hospitals were
crowded with cases of fever. Scores and
scores of lives were often saved by the
application of ice to the head, and the
administration of cold drinks.

Ice is not manufactured below Benares.
Calcutta and its immediate neighbourhood,
revels in the luxury of American ice, which
may be purchased for three half-pence per
seci (two pounds). The American ships,
trading to India, take it as ballast, in huge
blocks, which by the time it arrives in the
River Hooghley become a solid mass.

The sun has gone down, and it is now time
to bathe, and dress for our evening drive.
The band is playing. We descend from the
buggy, languidly; and languidly we walk first
to one carriage and then to another, to talk
with the ladies who are sitting in them.
They, the ladies, wear a very languid air, as
though life, in such a climate, were a great
burden—and it is, no doubt, a great burden
from the middle of April to the first week in
October. There is a languid air even about
the liveliest tunes that the band plays. Then,
we languidly drive to the mess-house, for
dinner. The dinner is more a matter of form
than anything else. But the wines, which are
well iced, are partaken of freely enough—
especially the champagne. There is, of course,
no intoxication; but as the evening advances
the company becomes more jovial, and by the
time the dessert is placed on the table, that
dreadful feeling of languor has, in a great
measure, taken its departure. It is now that
the evening commences, and many very pleasant
evenings have been spent in that
Umballah mess-room, despite the heat. The
colonel of the regiment to which my friend
belonged was a man of very good sense; and
during the hot season he sanctioned his
officers wearing, except when on parade, a
white twill jacket, of a military cut, with the
regimental button; and he had not the slightest
objection to a loose neck-tie instead of a
tightly-fitting black stock. This matter ought
to have been sanctioned by the highest military
authority, the commander-in-chief, or
rather it ought to have been stated in a
general order that such rational attire was
approved of, instead of being left to the
caprice of a colonel, or brigadier, or general of
division. The regiment of royal cavalry, too,
were equally fortunate in their colonel. He
was also of opinion that the comfort of the
officers under his command was worthy of
some consideration, and he could not see the
necessity of requiring a gentleman to sit
down to dinner in a thick red cloth jacket
(padded), and buttoned up to the very chin.
But before I left Umballah, the old General
altered this, and insisted on "this loose and
unsoldierlike attire being instantly
abandoned." He had overlooked it for several
months, or, at all events, had expressed no
objection; but suddenly the major-general
commanding was aroused to observe with
great regret that the dress in some
regiments was fast becoming subversive, &c.,
&c., &c. The reason of the major-general's
sudden acuteness of observation was
this: he was about to give a ball at his own
house, and for some inexplicable cause had not
invited any of the officers of her Majesty's
Regiment of Foot. But on the morning of
the night on which the ball was to take place
he requested his aide-de-camp to write the
following note:

"The Major-General commanding the Division
desires that the band of H.M's—Foot may be in
attendance at the Major-General's house at half-past
nine precisely."

And the band went at half-past nine, for the
General had a perfect right to order the men
to attend at his house whenever he pleased;
but the band went without their musical
instruments, for they (as I believe is the case
in all regiments) were the private property
of the officers for the time being, and, like the
regimental plate, the loan thereof for any
particular occasion must be regarded as a
matter of favour, and not as a matter of
right. So the General had no music out of
the band: and the officers in the station
had no comfort in their dress, until the
General left the station for his command at
Bombay.

It may possibly be imagined that the
General had, in his earlier days, done the
State great service as a military commander,
and for that, his appointment was the reward.
Nothing of the kind. When he left the
army, and became unattached, he was only a
regimental colonel, and had only been once
mentioned by the Duke of Wellington in his
despatches, as having gallantly led his regiment
into action; for this single mention he
was made a brevet major-general and a C.B.,
while other colonels who had performed
precisely the same service, remained unpromoted
and undecorated. Sometimes, during his
Indian career—not that he was intoxicated
by wine, for the General in his dotage was
rather abstemious—he would be utterly
oblivious to the fact that he was in India,
and would hold a conversation with some
young ensign, who had been one of his dinner
party, and who, in haste to get away early
to billiards, came up to say good night, after
the following fashion:

"Look here, my pretty boy, as you will be