Along the cross-roads through the fort were built the storerooms, hospital, and native followers' quarters. And on them were also the Mess and huts for the British officers. These were quite comfortable little cottages, the walls of split bamboo with the latticed windows and the doors screened by blinds of cane strips. The floors and walls were covered with two-inch mats of jungle grass. The sepoys proved themselves wonderfully ingenious craftsmen and made excellent furniture for our quarters. Out of the ever-useful bamboo they constructed beds, chairs, tables, and writing-desks with drawers and pigeon-holes. And like the fort and everything else in it, the jungle provided the materials for all this furniture, in which not a nail was used; for it was held together by lashings of bamboo bark or _udal_ fibre. All this was not quickly done. The building of the defences and the huts and the construction of a military bridge across the river took every day of the three weeks before the General's arrival. Our working hours were from 5 a.m. to 5 p.m. with an hour's interval at noon for food. But the sepoys revelled in their novel labours and looked on them as a welcome change from the monotony of drill. So interested were they that I often found them at work long after the bugle had sounded the "dismiss" in the evening; and when I told them to knock off, they would reply: "Oh, Sahib, we would like to finish this to-day." [Illustration: THE GATE CLOSED, WITH WICKET OPEN AND DRAWBRIDGE LOWERED.] [Illustration: CAPTAIN BALDERSTON INSIDE THE STOCKADE.] Our comfortable and airy little hospital was rarely tenanted. Almost the only patient our medical officer had was a pet monkey which required a surgical operation. The native sub-assistant surgeon, who took the proceedings very seriously, was called on to administer the anæsthetic. Chloroform was poured on a wad of wool in a paper cone which, much to the patient's annoyance, was pressed firmly against its muzzle. It scratched and bit for quite a long time before sinking into unconsciousness. And when, after the surgeon's knife had been swiftly and dexterously plied, it came back to life again it looked a very sick monkey indeed. Wrapped up in a towel with only its tiny puckered face showing, it presented such a woebegone and comical appearance that the onlookers were moved to unseemly mirth. But the little beast was too ill to care, though usually it fiercely resented being laughed at.