that recently organized in the
United States army, which looks after the equipment, the feeding,
the clothing and the transportation of the army with an enormous
corps of clerks and subordinate officers.

The officers of the staff corps number 2,700, and are appointed
from the line of the native army upon the merit system. Many of
them were educated at the military colleges in England; many
others have seen service in the regular army of great Britain,
and have sought transfer because the pay is better and promotion
is more rapid in the Indian than in the British army. However,
before an officer is eligible for staff employment in India he
must serve at least one year with a British regiment and one year
with a native regiment, and must pass examinations in the native
languages and on professional subjects. This is an incentive to
study, of which many young officers take advantage, and in the
Indian army list are several pages of names of officers who have
submitted to examinations and have demonstrated their ability
to talk, read and write one or more of the native tongues. The
gossips say that during his voyage from London to Bombay two
years ago Lord Kitchener shut himself up in his stateroom and
spent his entire time refreshing his knowledge of Hindustani.

No officer is allowed a responsible command unless he can speak
the native language of the district in which he is serving, and,
as there are 118 different dialects spoken in india, some of
the older officers have to be familiar with several of them.
Such linguistic accomplishments are to the advantage of military
officers in various ways. They are not only necessary for their
transfer to staff duty, but insure more rapid promotion, greater
responsibilities and render them liable at any time to be called
upon for important service under the civil departments. Several
thousand officers are now occupying civil and diplomatic posts, and
are even performing judicial functions in the frontier provinces.

The armies of the native states look formidable on paper, but
most of them are simply for show, and are intended to gratify
the vanity of the Hindu princes who love to be surrounded by
guards and escorted by soldiers with banners. Some of the uniforms
of the native armies are as picturesque and artistic as those of
the papal guards at the Vatican, and on occasions of ceremony
they make a brave show, but with the exception of two or three of
the provinces, the na