Our last day at Kirki was fully occupied. My head servant informed me at daylight I should want five more servants for the march, and at noon they appeared. They demanded 50 per cent. higher wages than the current rates, to which I assented; they then asked for three months’ pay in advance, which I paid, though somewhat unwillingly; and having got the money, they asked leave till an hour before I had to prepare for Parade. I thought my chances of seeing them again were small, but having no other resource, assented, and at 10 p.m. they were present; most of them remained with me until I left Central India for Calcutta, thirty months later, on my way home on sick furlough. At the Mess table that evening my companions told me they had refused the three months’ advance of pay, and ridiculed my over-confidence in the Natives; but many of their servants deserted within the first week of our march. We started at 1 a.m. on the 25th May, “the oldest inhabitants” predicting our return, as they said no troops could move over the black soil between Kirki and Indore in the wet weather, which was ordinarily due on the 12th June. When I got to the parade at midnight, I saw Lieutenant Nolan, a brother-Subaltern, standing before his horse, for which he had given £150 a month earlier, in an unhappy frame of mind; the horse had fallen close to the lines, and had cut both knees severely, and the Colonel, who was on parade to see us off, told him that he could not go, as he would not spare him a troop horse. I had bought a Persian horse two days previously, and feeling for Nolan’s disappointment, told him he could have my second horse, which was perhaps more generous than wise. The horse suited Nolan, and at Ahmednagar Gordon bought me another, Nolan taking over the one I had lent him.