The provisions here were much better than in any place where we had yet been stationed; but there was sad work with liquor,--there being a village not far distant where was to be had abundance of paria arrack[5], which the soldiers mixed with the juice of the toddy tree. This composition had most terrible effects on our men; it made them almost, if not altogether, mad. The village being at some distance from the barracks, the liquor had time to operate, and they came home like men out of the tombs. The consequence was, that we were flogging daily. Our drum-major dying here, the duty of counting the lashes devolved on me--and a disagreeable duty truly it was. This may appear a severe method of discipline, but it is absolutely necessary for keeping good order in the army. [5] Paria takes its name from a despised class of persons in India, who, it is said, have sold or lost caste, and signifies any thing base or contemptible. While we lay at Secundrabad, one of my fifers died, of the name of Wilkins. This young lad came out with Colonel Conran in Wallajahbad, and was given me by the Colonel, to teach him the fife, with the worst of characters. The Colonel, moreover, told me that at any time when he misbehaved, I was not to vex myself with him, but just to order one of the drummers to flog him well with a cat. However, the young lad's behaviour was not at all what I might have expected from this very unfavourable character; for after my wife had put to rights his shirts, trowsers, and other clothes that had been served out to him on board ship, and which were much too large for him, and gave him a slovenly and dirty appearance upon parade--I say, after this was done for him, and he got some instructions how to keep himself trig and clean--I had not a finer boy in my corps; and this piece of voluntary attention on the part of my wife the poor fellow never could forget. Whatever he could give her, or do for her, he seemed to think all too little for her kindness; and to me he was every thing that was tractable and attentive. But the reason of my mentioning this boy more than any other of my acquaintance who died at this time, is, upon the account of the singular regard he shewed for his Bible, and the extraordinary circumstances by which it seems to have been excited; which I hope my reader will not find fault with me for particularly noticing.