"General John Jacob's devotion to his own idea has left a fatal legacy, not only to Sind, but to the whole of India. Sir Charles Napier, a soldier worth a hundred of him, had steadily advocated increasing, with regiments on service, the number of 'Sepoy officers,' then six captains, twelve lieutenants, and four ensigns. The Conqueror of Sind protested that the 'regulars' were not regular enough, the best men being picked out for staff and detached appointments. The 'butcher's bill' of every battle, I may tell you, gives nearly double the number of casualties among the 'black officers,' as we were called, and at Miyáni (Meanee) we were six deaths to one 'white officer.' The reason is obvious; the 'pale faces' must lead their companies, wings, and corps, otherwise the natives, commissioned, non-commissioned, and privates, will not advance in the teeth of too hot a fire. We are already made sufficiently conspicuous by the colour of our skins and by the cut of our uniforms, while the enemy is always sharp enough to aim at 'picking' us 'off.' "General John Jacob proposed, in opposition to the Conqueror of Sind, to supplant the Regular system by the Irregulars, which means diminishing the number of Englishmen. Having the pick and choice of the Indian army at his disposal, he succeeded in fairly drilling and disciplining his Sind Horse; _argal_, as the grave-digger said, he resolved that the Sind Horse should become a model and a pattern to the whole world. He honestly puffed his progeny on all occasions, even when it least deserved praise. During our four months' raid on Southern Persia, the Sind Horse was pronounced by all the cavalrymen present to be the last in point of merit; the same was the case in Abyssinia; and during the Mutiny many of his men were found among the 'Pándís.' Yet he puffed and preached and wrote with such vigour that the military authorities, worn out by his persistency, and finding that the fatal measure would save money, gave ear to the loud, harsh voice. In an inauspicious hour the whole regular Sepoy force of India was not only irregularized: it was, moreover, made a bastard mixture of the Regular and the Irregular. [Sidenote: _The Indian Army_.] "The result is the ruin of the Indian army. The system itself is simply a marvel. The corps have either too many officers or too few. For drilling purposes you want only a commandant, an adjutant (who should also be musketry instructor), and a surgeon; or at most the three combatants who led the old Irregular corps. For fighting, you require, besides the field officers, at least two Englishmen, or better still, three per company. It is, I own, possible to increase the normal complement by free borrowing from the staff corps, and from the rest of the army, but every soldier will tell you that this is a mere shift; the officers must know their men, and the men their officers.