All the ends of the earth sent horses. God knows what the army did with them, unless they ate them raw. They used horses as a courtesan uses oil: with both hands. These needed many men. Kurban Sahib appointed me to the command (what a command for me!) of certain woolly ones—_Hubshis_—whose touch and shadow are pollution. They were enormous eaters; sleeping on their bellies; laughing without cause; wholly like animals. Some were called Fingoes, and some, I think, Red Kaffirs, but they were all Kaffirs—filth unspeakable. I taught them to water and feed, and sweep and rub down. Yes, I oversaw the work of sweepers—a _jemadar_ of _mehtars_ (headman of a refuse-gang) was I, and Kurban Sahib little better, for five months. Evil months! The war went as Kurban Sahib had said. Our new men were slain and no vengeance was taken. It was a war of fools armed with the weapons of magicians. Guns that slew at half a day’s march, and men who, being new, walked blind into high grass and were driven off like cattle by the Boer-log! As to the city of Eshtellenbosch, I am not a Sahib—only a Sikh. I would have quartered one troop only of the Gurgaon Rissala in that city—one little troop—and I would have schooled that city till its men learned to kiss the shadow of a Government horse upon the ground. There are many _mullahs_ (priests) in Eshtellenbosch. They preached the Jehad against us. This is true—all the camp knew it. And most of the houses were thatched! A war of fools indeed! At the end of five months my Kurban Sahib, who had grown lean, said, “The reward has come. We go up towards the front with horses to-morrow, and, once away, I shall be too sick to return. Make ready the baggage.” Thus we got away, with some Kaffirs in charge of new horses for a certain new regiment that had come in a ship. The second day by _terain_, when we were watering at a desolate place without any sort of a bazaar to it, slipped out from the horse-boxes one Sikander Khan, that had been a _jemadar_ of _saises_ (head-groom) at Eshtellenbosch, and was by service a trooper in a Border regiment. Kurban Sahib gave him big abuse for his desertion; but the Pathan put up his hands as excusing himself, and Kurban Sahib relented and added him to our service. So there were three of us—Kurban Sahib, I, and Sikander Khan—Sahib, Sikh, and _Sag_ (dog). But the man said truly, “We be far from our homes and both servants of the Raj. Make truce till we see the Indus again.” I have eaten from the same dish as Sikander Khan—beef, too, for aught I know! He said, on the night he stole some swine’s flesh in a tin from a mess-tent, that in his Book, the Koran, it is written that whoso engages in a holy war is freed from ceremonial obligations. Wah! He had no more religion than the sword-point picks up of sugar and water at baptism. He stole himself a horse at a place where there lay a new and very raw regiment. I also procured myself a grey gelding there. They let their horses stray too much, those new