Here Ramee Sawmee unconsciously spoke the truth, as I had afterwards full occasion to discover. I was soon besieged with more of these gentry offering their services; but Ramee Sawmee, having the best right to pluck me, by reason of prior possession, ordered them off indignantly; and not to incur risks by unnecessary delays, he called a palankeen, and requested me to get into it. In I tumbled, wrong side foremost, and off we started for the Navy Tavern. He ran alongside, not wishing to lose sight of me for a moment, pouring his disinterested advice into my ear in one voluble and continuous stream. “Master, you please take care; dis place,” said he, “too much dam rogue, this Madras; plenty bad beebee, and some rascal dabash ver much cheatee gentlemen. I give master best advice. I ver honest man.” I thought myself singularly fortunate, in the simplicity of my griffinish heart, in having fallen in with so valuable a character; but, in the sequel, as has been before hinted, I discovered what, I dare say, many a griff had discovered before, that Ramee Sawmee had a little overestimated himself in the above particular article of honesty. Sweltering through a broiling sun, and abundance of dust, we reached the Navy Tavern, a building somewhat resembling, if I recollect rightly, one of our own green verandah’d suburban taverns, in which comfortable cits dine and drink heavy wet in sultry summer evenings. Here I found a vast congregation of naval and military officers, red coats and blue; mates, midshipmen, pursers, captains, and cadets; some playing billiards, some smoking, and others drowning care in bowls of sangaree, in which fascinating beverage, by the way, with guavas, pine-apples, &c., I also indulged, till brought up, some time after, by a pleasant little touch of dysentery, which had nearly produced a catastrophe; amongst the dire consequences of which would have been the non-appearance of these valuable Memoirs. From the Navy Tavern, Grundy and I went the next day to the quarters appointed for young Bengal officers detained at Madras. These consisted of some tents pitched in an open sandy spot, within the fort, and presented few attractions; besides some small ones for dormitories, there was a larger one dignified with the appellation of the mess-tent. Here, at certain stated hours, a purveyor, denominated a butler, but as unlike “one of those gentlemanly personages so called at home as can well be imagined, placed breakfast, tiffin, and dinner, on table at so much ahead. For two or three days I revelled in the delights of sour Madeira, tough mutton, and skinny kid, with yams, and other miserable succedanea for European vegetables. An Egyptian plague of flies, and a burning sun beating through the single cloth of the tent, made up the sum of the agreeables to which we were subjected. My faith in the “luxuries of the East” had received a severe shock, and I was fast tending to downright infidelity on that head, when a big-whiskered