For, despite the politician and the civil servant, we hold the land, as we won it, by the sword. No concessions to the clamour of the _babus_ of Bengal will retain the loyalty of this country. It rests on the weapons and in the hearts of the gallant warrior races that aided us to conquer India and help us to retain it. Would that the Englishman in England could realise the fact! Shortly after the departure of our guests who had come for the Christmas shoot, I received a long-expected visit from an American officer, Captain Brees, 1st United States Cavalry. Years before, in China, Japan, and California I had foregathered with a cheery Irish subaltern of his regiment, Lieutenant Coghlan, who had won his commission in the fierce fighting in Luzon. And when Captain Brees, their corps being then in the Philippine Islands, arranged to visit India on his way home on leave to his native country, Lieutenant Coghlan guaranteed him a warm welcome from me. For I felt that I owed a debt of gratitude to every officer of the American Army for the kindly hospitality I had received from them in the United States--from the Pacific to the Atlantic. Before I landed in San Francisco, Coghlan, then stationed in Los Angeles and unable to come to meet me, had written to friends of his in regiments quartered in the Army Post in the Presidio, the Golden City's splendid park, and asked them to welcome me in his stead. As soon as I arrived not only they, but a score of other officers of the garrison, had made their way through the ruins of the city not long before devastated by earthquake and fire to give me that welcome to their country. They offered me all the hospitality of their camp and clubs. A Cavalry regiment on the point of departing for their summer training in the famous Yosemite Valley extended a cordial invitation to accompany them and promised me a horse, a tent, and rations. The Field Battery offered to mount me whenever I liked to march out with them. I was asked to every military entertainment; and at every regimental dance my hosts saw that I had my programme full. One night at a magnificent entertainment at the Fairmont Hotel in celebration of the first anniversary of the earthquake and San Francisco's phoenix-like rising again from the flames, a civilian asked me if I belonged to the Indian Army. On my replying in the affirmative he begged to be allowed to introduce me to two friends of his present that night, American officers on leave from another Station, as they were anxious to meet an officer of my Service. As I shook hands with them, one said: "We've been looking for a fellow in the Indian Army." "Which one?" I asked. "Anyone. It doesn't matter who. We want to kill him," was the alarming reply. "Good Heaven! why?" I queried apprehensively, backing away from him.