I spent the afternoon in packing my baggage, and saying good-bye to my comrades, and by dinner-time was nearly ready. I had arranged with the stationmaster to travel in a luggage train, which was due at Cork early next morning, a Sunday; but when my servant at ten o’clock went down for the car, he returned saying that the driver was so hopelessly drunk that he could not arouse him. I went down to the guard, consisting of twelve men, and leaving one sentry in Barracks, took the sergeant and the corporal and all the privates to the station, carrying my baggage, one box being very heavy, a Midshipman’s chest in which I had packed saddlery. Tremayne and another brother-officer, who had gone down to see me off, went out with me at nine o’clock to the _Great Britain_, an auxiliary screw steamship, in which I had previously sailed; but the sea was running so high that the captain of the tug refused to go alongside. I got on board however, safely in the evening, as the ship was weighing anchor. CHAPTER XI 1858--CENTRAL INDIA Cape Town--Bombay--Sir William Gordon--March to Máu--Hugh Rose and Robert Napier--Tantia Topi--Meer Umjid Ali--A loyal Sowar--The fate of a spy. We made a fair passage of forty-two days to Cape Town, where our spirits fell on hearing Dihlí had fallen, and the confident predictions that the Mutiny would be suppressed before the ships reached Bombay, where we disembarked on the 21st December. I was left on board to hand over the equipment used by the Regiment. The men worked well, and we got the hammocks, blankets, etc., handed in before the last train left for the foot of the Ghaut, under Khandala, which was then the terminus. There I was again detailed to stay behind, to re-sort baggage; but I caught the Regiment up in its next day’s march, and with it arrived at Kirki. The house accommodation of the Station, built for a battery of Horse Artillery and a Cavalry regiment, was insufficient, as there was already two-thirds of a Cavalry regiment in possession. The two Majors, Learmouth and Lieutenant-Colonel Morris, were kind enough to take me into a bungalow which they hired, where I had a bed and bath room for a nominal sum, my brother-Subalterns having for a time to live in tents. I had been studying Hindustani since we had left the Island of St. Vincent, copying the alphabet[53] twenty-four times the first day, and on landing could speak a few words. Now established at Kirki with no horses, I was able to read for twelve hours daily, employing two Moonshees, or instructors, one in the forenoon, and the other in the afternoon.