ve officers or
sepoys. In Europe there are separate classes of people who subsist by
catering for the amusements of the higher classes of society, in
theatres, operas, concerts, balls, &c., &c.; but in India this duty
devolves entirely upon the young civil and military officers of the
Government, and at large stations it really is a very laborious one,
which often takes up the whole of a young man's time. The ladies must
have amusement; and the officers must find it for them, because there
are no other persons to undertake the arduous duty. The consequence
is that they often become entirely alienated from their men, and
betray signs of the greatest impatience while they listen to the
necessary reports of their native officers, as they come on or go off
duty.[38]

It is different when regiments are concentrated for active service.
Nothing tends so much to improve the tone of feeling between the
European officers and their men, and between European soldiers and
sepoys, as the concentration of forces on actual service, where the
same hopes animate, and the same dangers unite them in common bonds
of sympathy and confidence. '_Utrique alteris freti, finitimos armis
aut metu sub imperium cogere, nomen gloriamque sibi addidere_.' After
the campaigns under Lord Lake, a native regiment passing Dinapore,
where the gallant King's 76th, with whom they had fought side by
side, was cantoned, invited the soldiers to a grand entertainment
provided for them by the sepoys. They consented to go on one
condition--that the sepoys should see them all back safe before
morning. Confiding in their sable friends, they all got gloriously
drunk, but found themselves lying every man upon his proper cot in
his own barracks in the morning. The sepoys had carried them all home
upon their shoulders. Another native regiment, passing within a few
miles of a hill on which they had buried one of their European
officers after that war, solicited permission to go and make their
'salam' to the tomb, and all went who were off duty.[39] The system
which now keeps the greater part of our native infantry at small
stations of single regiments in times of peace tends to preserve this
good tone of feeling between officers and men, at the same time that
it promotes the general welfare of the country by giving confidence
everywhere to the peaceful and industrious classes.

I will not close this chapter without mentioning one thing which I
have no doubt every Compan