CHAPTER XX.

The little church of Bandel is a pleasing, modest structure—its white tower, cross, cloisters, and adjoining priest’s house and garden, creating a pleasing illusion; transporting the spectator in imagination (forgetting he is in India) to the orange groves of Portugal or Madeira.

The vesper bell had ceased to sound as we slowly entered the building. The interior was invested with a deepening gloom, but partially broken by the waning light of evening, which, streaming in at the windows,chequered the worn pavement, pencilling, as it were, with its sad and sober ray, the touching but evanescent record of another departing day.

Within, all was silence and repose, save when slightly broken by the closing of a door, or the echo of a distant footfall.

The altars, with their splendid adornments of the Romish ritual, tapers, crucifixes, &c., sparkled through the “dim, religious light” of the place, whilst here and there a few solitary native Portuguese women, on their knees, met our eyes, absorbed in silent prayer.

The scene was solemn and impressive; my light thoughts fled, and a deep sense of the holiness and loveliness of devotion fell upon me. We moved through the body of the church and the adjoining courts and cloisters, pleased with the tranquillity of the spot, before we bent our steps towards the budgerow, whose whereabouts was now plainly indicated by the numerous fires of our servants and boatmen, cooking their evening meal on the banks.

“Well, Ann!” said the captain to his sister, as we sauntered along, “what do you think of the old chapel of Bandel?”

“I have been greatly pleased with it,” answered Miss Belfield; “with me, you know,

‘Even the faintest relics of a shrineOf any worship wake some thought divine.’

‘Even the faintest relics of a shrine

Of any worship wake some thought divine.’

But truly there is somethingpar excellencein these old Catholic ecclesiastical buildings, which always, good Protestant as I am, takes a powerful hold on my feelings and imagination; hallowed by their association with the events of the misty past, they awaken the most solemn reflections. To have trodden, too, as we have just done, those very aisles where the adventurous Portuguese of the olden time of India (now some centuries past) have put up their orisons, is well worth our evenings ramble. Yes,” she added, with some enthusiasm, “whatever bethe defects of its tenets and doctrines, Romanism unquestionably contains the very poetry of religion.”

“Ann! my dear Ann!” exclaimed the captain, “what would your old friend Parson Martext, of Long Somerton, say, were he to hear you talking thus? Fie! fie! The ‘misty past,’ as you poetically term it,” continued Captain Belfield (who, I began to discover, was a matter-of-fact-man, who had curbed and double-bitted his fancy, and was not perhaps quite so orthodox as he should have been), “is too often a region of delusion, in which flying the dull realities of the present, the feelings and imagination love to revel—a sort of moralmiragerests upon it. With too many, as they approach it, judgment abandons the reins of the understanding, whilst enthusiasm seizes them, and drives away Heaven knows whither. In the distant mountain fading—in aerial tints of gold and purple, infancy paints a heaven, whilst experience tells of rocks and caverns, cataracts and precipices. I am myself, I confess, disposed to entertain many of your feelings in such situations, but reading and reflection have taught me to moderate them—to distinguish, I hope, between feelings and rational convictions—romance and reality—in more senses than one; be assured the ‘heart of man is deceitful above all things.’ But, my dear Ann,” he added, “we are becoming a vast deal too solemn and didactic. I’m sure our young friend here will think so. These subjects are caviare to those just entering on the spring of life, to which we, you know, are beginning to turn our backs. Here we are at the budgerow, love! Tea, too, on table! Now, then, take care how you walk over the plank; a dip in the Hoogly would be a chillingfinaleto your evening’s ramble. Mr. Gernon, give my sister your hand, if you please. Here we are, once more, on board our first-rate.”

I was not long in discerning that Captain Belfield was a learned Theban—a great Oriental scholar; a prodigious number of books he had, too, lying about thecabin, in worm-eaten Indian covers, and in all sorts of crambo characters—Persian, Nagree, Pali, and I know not what besides; with dictionaries, many of formidable bulk.

He maintained—for Captain Belfield, like most men, had his hobby, and was, moreover, at that time writing a book to prove it—that we have received almost all ourrawnotions of things in general from the East, to which we are, in fact, more indebted than it suits the policy of the world to acknowledge; and that now, after a score or two of centuries, we are merely rendering them back their own in amanufacturedor modified form.

Our feudal system, our juries, our best jokes, our cleverest tales, our wisest aphorisms, and much more besides, were, according to him, all filched from the Hindoos. The captain was not a man to be led away by strained analogies and forced etymologies; so I put great faith in hisdicta—a faith which has not been shaken by my post-griffinish researches.

He had better grounds to go upon than the old Irish colonel, who took up the converse of the proposition, and proved, or endeavoured to prove, that the Hindoos sprung from the Irish, that Sanscrit was a corruption of their vernacular, their veneration for the cow nothing more than a natural transition from their well-known partiality forbulls; and that the mildness, temperance, and placability of the race all smacked strongly of Tipperary.

On the evening to which I am referring, Captain Belfield soon became absorbed in his books, whilst Miss Belfield and I sat down to chess. We had two well-contested games; I won them both, and though I bore my victory meekly enough, I perceived, or thought I perceived, that it would not do to repeat my triumphs too often.

Chess is a fine, intellectual game, no doubt, but, somehow or other, a sad tryer of the temper; and, whether beaten or victorious, unless possessed of more than ordinarytact and self-command, you may chance to quarrel with, and possibly alienate, your friend.

Thus, then, with some little variety, reading, or conversation, passed we the evenings of our sojourn together—the pleasantest by far of my griffinage.

The voyage to Burhampore, the first large military station on the river, occupied ten or twelve days. I shall briefly touch on a few more of its incidents.

In spite of General Capsicum’s friendly advice to indulge moderately in field sports, like ninety nine out of every hundred griffins, I commenced my popping operations almost from the day of starting, keeping up a sort of running fire, with little intermission, till I reached my destination.

My knowledge of Indian ornithology being extremely limited, I declared war against all of the feathered race that presented themselves—particularly the paddy-birds and snippets. The first, a sort of small crane, abounding in the rice-fields, and which it is considered by sportsmen theacméof Johnny-rawism to shoot, under the impression that they are game; the second, a sort of sand-lark, which runs ducking along the banks of the river, and are so tame, being accustomed to boats, that it is difficult to make them take wing. These, in my simplicity, I took for Bengal snipes, and sometimes, poor little devils, opened a point-blank battery on them from my bolio window, knocking them, of course, to “immortal smash.”

I had, it is true, gained an inkling from Tom and Marpeet touching the nature of such proceedings, with some warnings to avoid them, though it was reserved for Captain Belfield, a few days after we left Hoogly, to renew the admonition, with better effect. This arose out of the following occurrence.

I returned one evening to his budgerow, laden—i.e., Ramdial, bearer, and Nuncoo, matar, were charged with the porterage of the following miscellaneous bag of game, to wit: a cock-vulture, with fine red wattles (which Ishot, thinking he was a wild turkey), four snippets, five paddy-birds, three doves, a gillarie, or striped squirrel, a braminy kite, and a jackal.

The boats were just coming to, the poor dandies, after a hard day’s pull, winding up their tow-lines, and old Phœbus himself just sinking to rest, spreading his glorious hues over the broad bosom of the Bagheriti, as,

Spent with extreme toil,Weary and faint,

Spent with extreme toil,

Weary and faint,

I made my appearance, after a long exploration among mango groves, paddy fields, and sugar-cane kates,[33]in search of game.

The captain was seated on the roof of the budgerow as I hove in sight; his amiable sister, parasol in hand, beside him, talking of Long Somerton, in all probability, and enjoying the beauties of the scene and the coolness and tranquillity of the hour.

“Well, Gernon,” said the former, who had now dropped the “Mr.” in addressing me, “what sport? what have you killed?—too well employed to think of dinner, of course!”

“Oh! capital, sir,” said I; “all in that bag, and more besides.”

“Quantity, certainly; but what are they?” added he, “for that, after all, is the main point.”

“Pray bring them on board,” said Miss Belfield; “I am curious to see some of the Indian game, to ascertain in what respect they differ from ours at home.”

“With the greatest pleasure,” returned I, glad of an opportunity to exhibit the contents of my bag; “you shall see them immediately.”

So saying, I went on board, and joined my friends on the roof, Ramdial following with the bag, and Nuncoo dragging up the jackal by the tail. Ye Gods! how the captain, albeit a grave man on ordinary occasions, did laugh, as Ramdial tumbled out the contents of my cornucopia!

“Ha! ha! ha! why, you have made a day’s sport of it, indeed,” he exclaimed; “but you don’t intend, I hope, that we should eat them all?”

“The snipes and the doves,” said I, modestly, “and those things, something like woodcocks, might not, I thought, be bad eating.”

“Snipes!” echoed the captain, “I see no snipes.”

“No, sir! why, what are these?” I asked, holding up one of my snippets by the bill; “aren’t these Bengal snipes?”

“Bengal snipes! no! nor snipes at all; miserable snippets; but with you, I presume, all long bills are snipes?”

“No, not exactly,” said I; “but allowing for difference of latitude and longitude, I thought these might very well be snipes.”

“Ah! I see,” said the captain, “I must put you in the way of managing matters. I have long relinquished the gun, for I found I was getting too fond of it, and, after a few years, the sun tells; but I must resume it for a day or two, in order to initiate you a little into the proper nature of Indian sporting, and to show you where real snipes and game are to be found. All this is mere waste of powder and shot (which you will find a very expensive article, by the way, in India), and will get you, if you continue it, dubbed an egregious griffin or greenhorn. A jackal, too! what made you shoot him?”

“He bolted from a bush, and I thought he was a wolf and floored him beautifully; as I rolled him over ’twas fine fun to see the courage with which Teazer and the bull attacked him when in his last agonies. However, I should not have spared him, had I at first been aware of what he was, for I owe the whole race a grudge for their infernal yellings. I was kept awake for some hours last night by a troop of the fiends close under my bolio window.”

“Ah!” said Belfield, “you have destroyed a useful scavenger; never kill without an adequate purpose; ifwe have a right to slay, it is not in mere wantonness; ‘shoot only what you can eat’ is a good maxim.”

“Mr. Gernon,” said Miss Belfield, “though my brother undervalues your sport, it may be some consolation to you to know that I do not; I want to sketch all the curious birds and animals I see, for a very dear friend of mine at Long Somerton, who exacted a promise from me, at parting, that I would do so. Will you, therefore, bring them all on board to-morrow, the poor jackal included, and you shall group whilst I sketch them?”

“Capital!” said I; “with the greatest pleasure; and we’ll have Nuncoo as the Indian huntsman in the foreground: we shall,” I added rather wickedly, “in this little dedication to the fine arts, be working out the captain’s utilitarian principle, as applied to sporting.”

Captain Belfield was as good as his word; he put his double-barrelled Manton together, after a long repose apparently, in its case, where, in dust certainly, if not inashes, it had mourned its state of inaction, mustered several of his servants, and out we sallied in the afternoon of the following day.

Captain Belfield, from his perfect knowledge of the language and the people—whom, I observed, he always treated with great kindness—was soon able to ascertain the spot in the neighbourhood of the river where the game was to be found (there is but little, comparatively, in this part of Bengal), and which I should probably have been long in discovering; to them we accordingly went, and found hares, black partridges, and abundance of real snipes, which I perceived did not differ in the smallest degree from English ones; and I had the supreme felicity of bagging something more respectable than paddy-birds and snippets, which I afterwards treated with proper contempt.

The captain, although he had been so long on the retired list as a sportsman, fired a capital good stick nevertheless, and knocked the black partridges about, right and left, in great style; indeed, he once or twice,to borrow a not very delicate sporting phrase, “wiped my nose” in a very off-hand manner, proofs of his powers as a marksman with which I could have readily dispensed; as next probably, to a smack in the face, there are few things more disagreeable than having your “nose wiped.”

The black partridge of India, I must inform the reader, is a beautiful bird; its breast (i.e., the male’s), glossy shining black, spangled with round and clearly defined white spots; its haunts are the long grass on the borders of jheels and marshes, from whence it creeps, in the mornings and evenings, into the neighbouring cultivation.

When flushed, up he goes, as straight as a line, to a certain elevation, and then off with him, at a right angle, like a dart. He is by no means an easy shot, though, from his mode of rising, it would appear otherwise.

It will be long ere I forget the thrill of pleasure I experienced when I dropped my first black partridge on this occasion, and how pompously, after ascertaining his specific gravity, I consigned him to my bag, taking him out about every five minutes, to indulge in another examination. It is difficult to express the contempt with which I then viewed my quondam friends, the snippets and paddy-birds.

The prodigious quantity of water-fowl to be seen on some of the shallow lakes or jheels of India, is well calculated to astonish the European beholder. I have seen clouds of them rise from such sheets of water, particularly in the upper part of the Dooab, with a sound sometimes not unlike the roar of a distant park of artillery; geese of two or three sorts; ducks, teal, coots, saruses, and flamingoes; the latter, however, should perhaps be excepted from the concluding part of the remark, for a string of these beautiful scarlet and flame-coloured creatures, floating silently in the air, or skimming, on lazy pinions, over an expanse of water, seem like a chain of fairies, or bright spirits of some Eastern tale, descendinggently to earth; nor do I think this is an exaggerated description, as all will allow who have seen the flame-coloured cordon on the wing.

Having now been put in the way of doing things according to rule, I no longer, as I have before hinted, molested such ignoble birds and beasts as, in my state of innocence, I was wont to destroy. No more did I nail the unhappy snippets to the bank from my bolio window nor disturb the ’lorn cooings of the turtle-dove in her bower of mango shade, by a rattling irruption of No. 6; but in a steady, sportsmanlike form, accompanied by Ramdial (who, by the way, had no sinecure of it), laden withchattah(umbrella), game-bag, and brandy-pawney bottle in leathern case, and Nuncoo, the dog-keeper, with Teazer and the bull-dog, I was almost daily in the jheels and swamps, mud-larking after the ducks and snipes.

The reader will think, probably, and I am not disposed to question the correctness of his opinion, that bull-dogs are not the best of the species that can be selected for snipe-shooting.

Granted, I say again; but he will be pleased to remember that there are such disagreeable things as tigers and wild boars (and greatboresthey are too) to be met with in India. It therefore struck me that, in case of an unexpected rencontre with one or other of these creatures, the bull-dog might do good service, by making a diversion in my favour, and in concert with Teazer, attacking the enemy in flank and rear, keeping him in check, whilst I fell back on the fleet, as many a valiant and experienced general had done before me.

Hector, however, though reserved for such important purposes, took no pleasure in the sport; his heart was with the flesh pots of Whitechapel, and Nuncoo had sometimes hard work to get him through the swamps; Teazer behaved better, and, indeed, for a dog of such very low extraction, displayed a better nose than I expected.

Griffin Mudlarking in the Jheels.

Happy! happy days of my griffinage! first full swing of the gun! none before or since have been like unto ye! Had I then set up for a second Mahomed, and described a paradise, snipe-shooting in a jheel would have infallibly been included amongst its most prominent enjoyments!

The country in this part of Bengal is a dead flat, composed of a rich alluvial soil, in a high state of cultivation. Rice, sugar-cane, Palma Christi, and fifty other tropical productions, flourish luxuriantly, and charm the sight by their novelty.

The face of the country is covered with groves of mango, tamarind, and plantain trees, &c.; and numerous towns and villages are scattered here and there, but which, however, have little that is striking or interesting in their appearance, mud or matting being the predominant materials with which they are constructed.

Still the vastness of the population, the number and variety of the boats on the river, transporting up and down the rich and varied produce of India, and the diversity of the objects to be seen on the banks as you slowly glide along, are extremely pleasing. Miss Belfield, being a finished sketcher, was daily in raptures with all she saw. Full often would she summon me to the budgerow window, to look at something exceedingly picturesque—some glimpse, effect, or “pretty bit,” as she was wont to term it, and which had awakened all her admiration.

Some old and magnificent banyan-tree, exhibiting a forest of shade, and whose tortuous roots, like sprawling boa-constrictors, overhung the stream; village maidens filling their water-pots beneath it, or fading like phantasmagoric figures in the deepening gloom of the receding woodland-path; or some Brahmin standing mid-leg in the water, with eye abased, and holding his sacred thread; cattle sipping, or the huge elephant, like a mountain of Indian-rubber, half-immersed, and patiently undergoing his diurnal scrubbing and ablution.

I caught all her enthusiasm, and great was the sketching and dabbling in water-colours which followed thereon.

Captain Belfield possessed a far more extensive librarythan my friend Tom Rattleton, comprising many standard works on Indian history, geography, antiquities, &c.; to these, for he was no monopolist in any shape, he kindly gave me free access, and when not occupied by blazing at the snipes, or in aiding Miss Belfield in her graphic operations, I found in his library stores an ample fund of amusement.

I pored over theseer ul Mutakhereen, and formed an extensive acquaintance amongst the twelve million gods of the Hindoo Pantheon.

How genuine, how refreshing, by the way, is thebonhomieof the Mahomedan author of theseer ul Mutakhereen!with what grave simplicity andnaïvetédoes he relate the sayings and doings of our valiant countrymen in the early times of Anglo-Indian history!

His comparison of the red Feringhie[34]soldiers, firing in battle, to a long brick wall, belching forth fire and smoke, is admirable. And how excellent the story of Beebee Law, and the stem reproof administered to the fawning Asiatic parasite, the young noble at Patna, by the sturdy English commander, when the former tried to ingratiate himself by insulting his fallen enemy, the gallant Frenchman!

How striking, too, when recording these acts, the energy and astonishment with which, as if irresistibly impelled thereto, he apostrophizes the virtues of the English—their high-souled contempt of death—their fortitude under reverses, and moderation in success—likening them to the Rustums and Noushervans of old, Asiatic types of valour and justice; showing that there is a moral sense, an eternal standard of nobleness, which no adverse circumstances of habit, climate, and education can wholly obliterate or destroy—that virtue is not wholly conventional!

And oh! admirable Orme! thou minute chronicler of still minuter events, ungrateful, indeed, should I deem myself, did I not here acknowledge my obligations tothee; did I not record the many pleasant hours I have spent in poring over thy pages, whilst tracing the career of thy now antiquated worthies, from Clive to Catabominaigue!

As we approached the classic ground of Plassey, both poetry and patriotism began to stir within me. I studied Orme’s account of the battle attentively, and determined, as doubtless many had done before me, to attempt to identify the existing local features with those incidentally mentioned in the narrative of that important event, the first act of the greatest work of modern days,—the conquest, government, and civilization, by a handful of remote islanders, of one hundred millions of men; a work, be it observed, though still progressing, which if left to liberal and practical minds, can hardly fail to be effected (though yearly increasing in difficulty), if fanaticism on the one hand, and ultra liberalism on the other, be not allowed prematurely to mar it.

Miss Belfield expressed great veneration for the memory of the Indian hero, and begged to be allowed to accompany us to the scene of his crowning exploit.

“The more the merrier, my dear,” said her brother, and out we all sallied to visit—thrilling name—“The field of Plassey.”

A very pleasant stroll we had, too; but all our endeavours to harmonize the then aspect of the country (and doubtless it is much the same now) with Orme’s description of it were utterly nugatory; hunting lodge, mango tope, and every other memorial and mark of the fight mentioned by that accurate historian, having been swept away by the river, which, since 1757, has entirely changed its course.

If any future Clive should fight a battle in Bengal, decisive of the fate of India, and feel at all desirous that the field of his fame should remain intact, I would respectfully advise him not to come to blows within twenty good miles of the Ganges, if he can possibly avoid it, for that headlong flood, in the course of its erratic movements, will sooner or later be sure to sweep it away.

An example of the tortuosity of the course of the Bagheriti, and of the way in which both it and the great Ganges abandon their beds and form new ones, leaving miles of their former channels unoccupied, or formed into stagnant lakes, was afforded at Augurdeep, a few miles from Plassey.

After a long day’s journey (some fifteen or sixteen miles), we observed, to our great surprise, that we had halted within a few hundred yards of the spot from whence we had set out in the morning, the masts of boats moored there being visible across a narrow neck of land, or isthmus, connecting with the main land the peninsula we had been all day circumnavigating.

This isthmus, in after years, was cut through, the river beating in full force against it, leaving, of course, a great extent of channel dry. If Clive’s victory, therefore, had left no more lasting memorial than the field on which it was gained, we should know but little about it.

We were disappointed at our ill success, at least Miss Belfield and I; for the captain had anticipated that matters would be as we found them. I, however, consoled myself with a determination I had formed, to raise a monument of the victory a little more durable than the one which had just disappeared. I made up my mind to compose a poem, an epic, on the conquest of Bengal; Clive, of course, the hero, and Plassey the scene; on which, like the combatants, I proposed to put forth all my strength.

I had for some days felt the stirring of the divineafflatuswithin me, a sort of boiling and rioting of vast ideas; too vast, alas! I afterwards found, for utterance or delivery, for I stuck fast at “Immortal Clive.”

Two or three days more brought us to the station of Burhampore. The day before we arrived, Captain Belfield received a letter from an old acquaintance at the station, one Colonel Heliogabalus Bluff, begging him to breakfast and dine with him on the morrow, and pass a day or twoen route. The letter thus concluded:

“I hear you have your sister with you; shall, of course,be glad to see the Beebee Sahib too; send herewith adolee, which pray present to her, with mybhote bhote salaam.

“Adolly, sir,” said I, in astonishment, on Captain Belfield’s reading this passage; “that’s rather an odd thing to send: he supposes, I presume, that Miss Belfield is a child.”

Captain Belfield was attacked with a most violent fit of laughter on my making this remark, and I saw that I had been once more unwittingly griffinizing.

When he had a little recovered his composure, “Gernon,” said he, “it will, add, perhaps, to your astonishment when I tell you, that we intend to eat the saiddollyfor dinner, and shall expect you to partake of it.”

Saying this, he ordered the article to be brought in, when, instead of a toy, I found the dolee was a basket of fruit, flowers, and vegetables.

“Who is the gentleman?” said Miss Belfield, as we sat at tea in the evening, “from whom you had the letter this morning, and to whom we are indebted for all this fine fruit?”

“Why, Colonel Bluff,” said her brother, “an old fellow-campaigner of mine, a very rough subject; ‘and though he is my friend,’ as Mr. Dangle, in ‘The Critic,’ says, I must acknowledge, a very eccentric and far from agreeable character.”

“Oh! pray describe him fully,” said his sister: “I like much to have an eccentric character delineated, for, in this age of refinement, men have become so very much like one another, that a person marked by any peculiarity is as enlivening as a rock, or other bold feature, to the sight, after having been long wearied by the monotony of a low and level landscape: do, pray, give us a sketch of him.”

“Well, then, the colonel is a stout, sturdy John Bull, underbred and overfed, combining with the knock-me-down bluntness of that character, as it once existed morestrongly than at present, and a double allowance of all his ordinary prejudices, thegourmanderieand frivolity which an idle life in India is too apt to engender in the very best of us.

“He reverses the rule, that we ought to eat to live, for he lives to eat, and much of his time is occupied in devising dishes, or superintending his farm-yard, educating his fat China pigs, and looking after his tealery, and quailery and sheep.

“He has a constant supply always pouring in for him from Calcutta, of exotic and expensive luxuries—beer, champagne, pine cheeses, Yorkshire hams, Perigord pies, pigs’ cheeks, and the like—of which he is certainly liberal enough; for no prince can be prouder than he is when at the head of his table, making his gastronomical displays; in short, he greatly prides himself on the surpassing excellence of his breakfasts and dinners, though those who partake of them must often, as their price, submit quietly to all his coarseness and brutality of manner. Folks in India do not generally trouble themselves much about English politics; at least, not so far as to identify themselves strongly with the sects and parties which are everlastingly worrying each other at home, and who remind me of vultures and jackals here over a carcase.

“Colonel Bluff is, however, an exception to the rule, and has always set himself up for a great church-and-king man, and a violent high Tory, delighting in talking of such subjects. He is a terribly violent fellow, and when excited by a few glasses of wine, pounds the table, and makes the glasses dance again, as he denounces all Whiggery and Radicalism.

“With all his faults, however, and he has more than an ordinary share, he possesses a good deal of Miss Hannah More’s standing dish, ‘good-nature’ (provided he has everything his own way); and, indeed, but for this redeeming trait, he would be utterly unbearable.”

Col. Heliogabalus Bluff and Orderly.

Miss Belfield said she was curious to see this singular compound ofbon vivantand politician, a feeling in which I expressed my hearty participation.

“You must be on your guard how you comport yourself before him, Gernon,” said the captain, “for I assure you he shows no mercy to griffins, cutting them up right and left, when once he commences, with most unmercifully rough raillery.”

“He had better leave me alone,” said I, with rather a formidable shake of the head; “I’m not under his command, you know, sir, and may give him a Rowland for his Oliver.”

“You’d better not attempt it, my dear fellow,” replied the captain; “he has demolished many a stouter griffin than you are.”

The next morning we reached the station of Burhampore, and a little before we brought to, I observed, approaching the banks, a very stout, burly officer, followed by an orderly sepoy, whilst a bearer held a chattah, or umbrella, over his head. It was impossible to be mistaken—this must be Colonel Bluff.

“Kisha budjra hyr?” (whose boat is that?)

“Bilfil Sahib ka” (Captain Belfield’s), replied a servant.

“Ship ahoy! Belfield, get up, you lazy dog,” shouted the “stout gentleman,” with the voice of a Stentor.

The captain ran out in his dressing-gown, and my suspicions were at once confirmed; it was, indeed, the colonel; and a lively greeting now passed between them.

“Well, then, so you’ve deserted Java—cut the Dutchmen, eh?—and come back to the Qui-Hye’s?—they seem to have used you well, though; you aint half such a lantern-jaw’d, herring-gutted looking fellow as you used to be—haw! haw! You were, I recollect, when you joined us first, ‘as thin as a ha’porth o’ soap after a hard day’s washing.’ as my father’s old north country gardener used to say—haw! haw!”

“Complimentary and refined, as usual, I see, colonel;I can’t congratulate you on any material alteration in that respect.”

“Why, man, you don’t expect me to compliment an old friend like you, do you? ‘with compliments crammed,’ you know the rest—haw! haw! But, come, stir your stumps, man! stir your stumps! breakfast’s all ready up yonder, and as capital a ham for you as you ever stuck your teeth in. I wait breakfast for no man, woman, or child living; you know me of old. Talking of women, where’s the Beebee? where’s sister? she’ll come, won’t she? My compts—Colonel Bluff’s compts—glad to see her; always proud to do the honours to the ladies. But who have you got in that boat astern, Belfield?”

“Oh, it’s a young friend of mine, Ensign Gernon, going to join his regiment, under our convoy and protection.”

“O! a griff, eh! a greenhorn: hungry as a hunter, I’ll be sworn; bring him along with you, bring him along, and we’ll fill him out. Rare fellows, your griffs, to play a knife and fork—rare trencher-men. I’d sooner keep some of them a week than a fortnight—haw! haw!”

“But colonel, had you not better take your breakfast with us? it’s ready, and then we’ll walk up and spend the rest of the day with you.”

“Breakfast with you! No, hang me if I do: d’ye mean to insult me, sir? What! a man, after a voyage, with hardly a shot in his locker, ask a gentleman on shore, with a Yorkshire ham on his table, to breakfast with him! never heard such a proposal in all my life! No, come, come along, or I must march you all up under a file of Jacks.”

All this, which I overheard very distinctly, and which was uttered at the top of an iron pair of lungs, was intended for heartiness and jocularity. No doubt there was kindness in it, and with mortals as rough as himself, it might doubtless have answered very well; but the captain, I could see, evidently winced under the infliction,though bent apparently on enduring it for a season, with proper resignation.

After finishing our toilets, and a few other little arrangements, we joined the colonel, who would take no refusal, on the bund or esplanade.

Captain Belfield introduced his sister and me. The colonel, on being presented to the former, raised his hat, and made as much of a bend as the sphericity of his form would allow; at the same time thrusting forth a leg far better adapted (to borrow the corn-law phraseology) for a “fixed duty” than the “sliding scale,” with the air of a finished man of gallantry.

There was something so irresistibly comic in the momentarily assumed suavity of this hugeUrsa Major(orUrsa Colonel, as Paddy would say), this attempt at the easy movement of the lady’s man, that I was constrained to turn aside my head, in order to conceal a laugh.

The colonel gave us a superb breakfast and it was plainly observable that his reputation as agastronomehad not been overrated. Ham, fish, jellies, butter, creams, cakes—all the profusion of an Indian breakfast—were severally the very best of their kinds; moreover, Colonel Bluff gave the history of every article, telling us to lay on, and spare not, as we should not meet with any like them between that and Mr. Havell’s, the provisioner’s, at Dinapore.

The dinner was equally remarkable for its goodness and profusion; Chittagong fowls, as big as turkeys, were there, and a saddle of mutton cased with two inches of fat, on which the colonel gazed with as much pride as some tender parent would look on a favourite child.

He had invited some eight or ten of the ladies and gentlemen of the station to meet us, and it was soon abundantly clear that the captain had drawn a most accurate sketch of his friend’s character.

After the former had retired, he began to let out a little more of it. Seated at the head of his table—hisburly King Hal person filling his capacious arm-chair—figure a little obliqued, a napkin over his knee, and the bottles in array before him, the jolly colonel looked the very personification of absolutism and animalism.

“Gentlemen, fill your glasses! Church and King! and after that what you will. Pass the bottle, Belfield; fill up a bumper; come, a brimmer; no daylight, sir; none of your Whiggery here; I thought you had left all that off?”

“I’ll drink anything you please, colonel; but I fear our politics are wider apart than ever.”

“You’re not becoming a follower of that rascal Tom Paine, are you? I know you used to dabble in all sorts of books, and were but a few degrees off it—a republican, irreligious scoundrel—gone to the d——l, I hope, as he deserves—a fellow that had no respect for royalty, and would have upset, if he could, our holy religion, an infernal villain!”

“Why, you are warm, colonel,” observed a middle-aged officer; “may I ask when you took so keenly to politics?”

“Yes, you may ask,” said Bluff; “but it depends upon me whether I answer you—haw! haw! Come, fill your glass and pass the bottle, and don’t ask questions—haw! haw! haw!”

Never did I see so rough a specimen of humanity. How he talked, laughed, thumped the table, and laid down the law, in the exercise of his unenviable immunity!

An incident occurred after dinner, which displayed in a strong light the violence of Bluff’s character, especially towards the natives, and his perfect disregard of the feelings of his company.

As the bottles were placed before him by the apdar, or butler, a very respectable-looking bearded Mahomedan, something in their arrangement displeased our host, who, pointing with his forefinger to one of them, exclaimed, “Yee kea ky?” (what is this?)

The unfortunate domestic bent forward his head,though evidently in fear, to scrutinize the damage, when he received a back-handed blow in the mouth from the colonel, which rung through the room, and sent him staggering backwards,minushis turban, which had fallen from the shock.

The man—I shall never forget it—stooped and picked up his turban; replaced it on his noble-looking head—his face was livid from a sense of the insult; he put his hand to his mouth, and looked at it, there was blood upon it.

The company appeared and were disgusted; even Bluff, I thought, seemed ashamed of himself. Well it is that these things are becoming rare!

But enough of the colonel, of whom this sketch may give as good an idea as a more elaborate description. Of such characters there were a few, and but a few, in the Indian army, and it is to be hoped their number is fast diminishing.

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