I have met with a great amount of calm, quiet, unprejudiced good sense, much reasonableness and rationality, amongst the natives of India of a certain rank, and, when such are disposed to give you their confidence, nothing is more frequently the subject of remark with them than the amount of power we confide to inexperienced hands—to mere _chokras_ (“boys”), as they term them, and at nothing do they express more surprise. The natives of India are deeply susceptible of kindness, and possessed, on the whole, of fine and amiable temperaments. If Europeans on all occasions would regard their feelings and prejudices, which they certainly ought to do, considering how strong are their own, I verily believe that they might bind them firmly to us, that is, as far as aliens ever can be bound, and erect our power on the noblest of foundations—their hearts. Still they must never be allowed to think that our kindness springs from fear or weakness. I am aware that the conduct of the English towards the inhabitants of India is much more conciliating than it was; still, John Bull is ever a rough subject, and too prone to employ the _fortiter in re_, rather than the _suaviter in modo_. His pride prevents him from being amiable and conciliating, and however much he may be feared and respected, he has not the good luck to be loved, from the Straits of Calais to the Great Wall of China. I doubt if, in the present day, such freaks would be tolerated in a commandant as those in which our old buffer was continually wont to indulge, in order to gratify his odd and despotic feelings. Besides abusing the men in the most violent manner (he had a regular ascending scale—a sort of gamut of _Galle_, _i.e._ Hindoostanee Billingsgate—on which few could go higher than himself) till they trembled with rage and indignation, he would, when out of humour, carry them straight across the country, formed, in line, in a steeple-chase sort of style, over banks and ditches, through standing corn and ploughed fields, for three or four miles, as the crow flies, in a broiling sun, and then, galloping home, would leave the next in command, or adjutant, to bring them back, covered with dust and drenched with perspiration. Once or twice he marched the corps in close column into the river Jumna; when they reached the banks—there shelving—they commenced marking time, which consists in moving the feet without advancing; but the old colonel, to their astonishment, roared “Forward!” and on we all went, till near waist-deep, when the column fell into a state of disorder; the adjutant, on one occasion, tumbled off his horse in the _mêlée_, and got a thorough soaking. The commander thought, I suppose, that, as good soldiers, we ought to be able to stand “water” as well as “fire.”