On the drill ground a flagstaff had been erected, from which flew the Union Jack. The two companies of the detachment, officers and men in their full-dress uniform of scarlet and blue, were drawn up in line facing it. Captain Balderston rode a pony recently purchased from a planter, which strongly objected to soldiers and refused to go near the troops. No persuasions of its rider could induce it to approach the line; and when Balderston called the men to attention on my arrival and the rifles were brought smartly to the "slope," his disobedient charger swung round and bolted with him off the parade ground, jumping a ditch and nearly ending both their careers in a deep _nullah_. I was mounted on a country-bred pony which I had brought from Darjeeling and trained to troops. Deprived of the assistance of my second in command I started the parade. After the royal salute had been given, the men fired the _feu de joie_, when the rifles are discharged one by one along the front rank from right to left and back again in the opposite direction down the rear rank. Then taking off my helmet I gave the command "Three cheers for the King Emperor!"; and the hills re-echoed the shouts of the sepoys. A useless ceremony this, to the Little Englander; yet one fraught with deep meaning and stirring the heart to the core; for at that moment throughout the Indian Empire from the Himalayas to Colombo, from Aden to Mandalay, the cheers of His Majesty's soldiers, white and black, were ringing in loyal chorus. Fifty years ago, in the dark days of the Mutiny, the revolted sepoy regiments faced their erstwhile comrades in battle; but the guilt of that black crime has long ago been purged in blood and obliterated by faithful service; and to-day the Kaiser-i-Hind has no more loyal soldiers than the men of his Indian Army. Until a few years ago the Sovereign was only a name to the warrior races that fill its ranks. But King George by his visits to India has made them realise his existence. He has given his Indian subjects what Orientals always desire, the knowledge that they have a living monarch. And by so doing he has changed the vague loyalty of the sepoys into a real and affectionate attachment to the person of their ruler. The native troops whom he reviewed, who lined the streets or formed his Guards of Honour in Bombay, Delhi and Calcutta, rejoice to have actually seen their "_Badshah_" (Emperor) and proudly boast of it to others who have not been so fortunate. Only we officers of the Indian Army can fully realise how much this means, how wise were the councils that dictated his visits to India.