“Recollect, my dear boy, I shall have a room at your service, and that you put up with me on your arrival; you are not fit to take care of yourself yet, and require a little more of my drilling and paternal care. Give me a few lines from Futtyghur, and mention when I may expect you. A friend of mine, Judge Sympkin, is now out in the district through which you will pass, on some Mofussil business. I enclose you a few lines of introduction, and have written to tell him he may expect you. He is a princely fellow, a first-rate sportsman, and lives like a fighting-cock, as a Bengal civilian should do. Hoping soon to shake you by the hand, “I am, worthy Griff, “Yours, &c., “J. MARPEET.” A few days brought me to Futtyghur, of which I have nothing particular to record, excepting that the adjoining town of Furruckabad is celebrated for the manufacture of tent cloth and camp equipage, and as the scene of the defeat of Holkar’s cavalry by our dragoons in Lord Lake’s war. By the way, an officer who was in that action told the relator, that the Brummagem swords of the troopers would make little or no impression on the quilted jackets and vests of the Mahrattas, and that he saw many of them dismount and take the well-tempered blades of the natives they had pistoled, and use them instead of their own. The keen razor-like swords of the East give those who wield them a fearful advantage over men armed with our mealy affairs. The former will split a man down from the “nave to the chine,” or slice off his head with infinite ease (_sauf karna_, “to shave him clean,” is the Indian phrase), whilst ours require immense physical force to produce such a result. The author once met some troopers of the 4th Regiment of Native Cavalry, some squadrons of which were dismissed for turning tail when ordered to charge the ex-rajah of Kotah’s body-guard, and asked them how they came to disgrace themselves. The answer of one of them was,— “Why, what chance, sir, have we with men in chain armour, and wielding swords of such a temper that they will cut down horse and man at a single blow?” I mention this as hearing on recent acts and discussions, not in justification of the men, but as affording a probable clue to the backwardness of our cavalry on some occasions. I think we are prone to rely too much on the power of disciplined troops acting _en masse_, to the neglect of those matters calculated to increase individual prowess. Good arms are a first-rate consideration, not only for the superior execution they do, but on account of the confidence with which they inspire the soldier.