t joined our lads, with
bottles of rum, and a scene ensued that was beyond description;
drinking, singing, dancing, shouting, fighting, and bottles flying in
all directions. The sight was terrific; so I marched off to the bazaar,
to get out of the bustle; went round the fort, and visited everything
worth seeing. On my return to the barracks, I found the men lying in a
state of the most disgusting drunkenness; some on the floor, others on
cots, trunks, and boxes. In those days, I knew not the taste of
spirituous liquors; and, indeed, for years after: consequently, instead
of joining those scenes of revelry and discord, they were to me
offensive and disgusting in the extreme. The very smell of arrack would
at any time drive me from the barrack, and many a night have I slept in
the open air, to avoid the fumes arising from its use, as well as the
drunken jargon of those who drank it to excess.

I had now attained the age of eighteen years; was healthy and active; a
zealous, though very humble member of the profession I had chosen; and
an ardent aspirant to share in my country's glory. With these feelings
and qualifications, assuring myself that, now I was in India, I was in
the wide field of promise, I began to revolve in my mind if I could not
better my situation. I was then fifer and bugler in the light company,
the kind captain of which, seeing my anxious spirit, generously
undertook to improve me in reading and writing, of which I at that time
knew but little. In the course of one year's close application, I so
much improved as to keep his books of the company and his own private
accounts. I then begged of him that I might be removed from the drummers
to the ranks. I did not like the appellation drum-_boy_. As I have seen
many a man riding post, who was at least sixty years old, still called a
post-boy, so, if a drummer had attained the age of Methusaleh, he would
never acquire any other title than drum-boy. Indeed, there were many
other things I could never bring myself to relish in any eminent degree:
such as flogging--to say nothing of being flogged--and dancing
attendance on a capricious sergeant-major, or his more consequential
spouse, who is queen of the soldiers' wives, and mother of tipplers, and
an invitation-card from whom to tea and cards is considered a ponderous
obligation.

In about a week after having made this request, I was transferred from
the drummers' room, and promoted to the rank of corporal. Thi