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    LIFE IN AN
    INDIAN OUTPOST

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[Illustration: AFTER THE PROCLAMATION PARADE.]




    LIFE IN AN
    INDIAN OUTPOST

    BY

    MAJOR GORDON CASSERLY

    (INDIAN ARMY)

    AUTHOR OF
    "THE LAND OF THE BOXERS; OR CHINA UNDER THE ALLIES"; ETC.

    ILLUSTRATED

    LONDON
    T. WERNER LAURIE LTD.
    CLIFFORD'S INN






    CONTENTS

    CHAPTER I

    A FRONTIER POST
                                                                     PAGE
        Our first view of the Himalayas--Across India in a troop
            train--A scattered regiment--An elephant-haunted
            railway--Kinchinjunga--The great Terai
            Jungle--Rajabhatkawa--In the days of Warren
            Hastings--Hillmen--Roving Chinese--We arrive at Buxa
            Road--Relieved officers--An undesirable outpost--March
            through the forest--The hills--A mountain road--Lovely
            scenery--Buxa Duar--A lonely Station--The labours of an
            Indian Army officer--Varied work--The frontier of
            Bhutan--A gate of India--A Himalayan paradise--The
            fort--Intrusive monkeys--The cantonment--The Picquet
            Towers--The bazaar--The cemetery--Forgotten
            graves--Tragedies of loneliness--From Bhutan to the sea     1


    CHAPTER II

    LIFE ON OUTPOST

        The daily routine--Drill in the Indian Army--Hindustani--A
            lingua franca--The divers tongues of India--The sepoys'
            lodging--Their ablutions--An Indian's fare--An Indian
            regiment--Rajput customs--The hospital--The doctor at
            work--Queer patients--A vicious bear--The Officers'
            Mess--Plain diet--Water--The simple life--A bachelor's
            establishment--A faithful Indian--Fighting the
            trusts--Transport in the hills--My bungalow--Amusements
            in Buxa--Dull days--Asirgarh--A lonely
            outpost--Poisoning a General--A storied
            fortress--Soldier ghosts--A spectral officer--The
            tragedy of isolation--A daring panther--A day on an
            elephant--Sport in the jungle--_Gooral_ stalking in the
            hills--Strange pets--A friendly deer--A terrified
            visitor--A walking menagerie--Elephants tame and
            wild--Their training--Their caution--Their rate of
            speed--Fondness for water--Quickly reconciled to
            captivity--Snakes--A narrow escape--A king-cobra; the
            hamadryad--Hindu worship of the cobra--General Sir
            Hamilton Bower--An adventurous career--E. F.
            Knight--The General's inspection                           19


    CHAPTER III

    THE BORDERLAND OF BHUTAN

        The races along our North-East Border--Tibet--The
            Mahatmas--Nepal---Bhutan--Its geography--Its
            founder--Its Government--Religious rule--Analogy
            between Bhutan and old Japan--_Penlops_ and
            _Daimios_--The Tongsa _Penlop_--Reincarnation of the
            Shaptung Rimpoche--China's claim to Bhutan--Capture of
            the Maharajah of Cooch Behar--Bogle's mission--Raids
            and outrages--The Bhutan War of 1864-5--The Duars--The
            annual subsidy--Bhutan to-day--Religion--An impoverished
            land--Bridges--Soldiers in Bhutan--Thefeudal
            system--Administration of justice--Tyranny of
            officials--The Bhuttias--Ugly women--Our neighbours in
            Buxa--A Bhuttia festival--Archery--A banquet--A
            dance--A Scotch half-caste--Chunabatti--Nature of the
            borderland--Disappearing rivers--The Terai--Tea
            gardens--A planter's life--The club--Wild beasts in the
            path--The Indian planters--Misplaced sympathy--The tea
            industry--Profits and losses--Planters' salaries--Their
            daily life--Bhuttia raids on tea gardens--Fearless
            planters--An unequal fight                                 45


    CHAPTER IV

    A DURBAR IN BUXA

        Notice of the Political Officer's approaching visit--A
            Durbar--The Bhutan Agent and the interpreter--Arrival
            of the Deb Zimpun--An official call--Exchange of
            presents--Bhutanese fruit--A return call--Native
            liquor--A welcome gift--The Bhutanese
            musicians--Entertaining the Envoy--A thirsty Lama--A
            rifle match--An awkward official request--My
            refusal--The Deb Zimpun removes to Chunabatti--Arrival
            of the treasure--The Political Officer comes--His
            retinue--The Durbar--The Guard of Honour--The
            visitors--The Envoy comes in state--Bhutanese
            courtesies--The spectators--The payment of the
            subsidy--Lunch in Mess--Entertaining a difficult
            guest--The official dinner--An archery match--Sikh
            quoits--Field firing--Bhutanese
            impressed--Blackmail--British subjects captured--Their
            release--Tashi's case--Justice in Bhutan--Tyranny of
            officials--Tashi refuses to quit Buxa--The next payment
            of the subsidy--The treaty--Misguided humanitarians        64


    CHAPTER V

    IN THE JUNGLE

        An Indian jungle--The trees--Creepers--Orchids--The
            undergrowth--On an elephant in the jungle--Forcing a
            passage--Wild bees--Red ants--A lost river--A _sambhur_
            hind--Spiders--Jungle fowl--A stag--_Hallal_--Wounded
            beasts--A halt--Skinning the stag--Ticks--Butcher
            apprentices--Natural rope--Water in the air--_Pani
            bel_--Trail of wild elephants--Their habits--An
            impudent monkey--An adventure with a rogue
            elephant--Fire lines--Wild dogs--A giant squirrel--The
            barking deer--A good bag--Spotted deer--Protective
            colouring--Dangerous beasts--Natives' dread of bears--A
            bison calf--The fascination of the forest--The generous
            jungle--Wild vegetables--Natural products--A home in
            the trees--Forest Lodge the First--Destroyed by a wild
            elephant--Its successor--A luncheon-party in the
            air--The salt lick--Discovery of a coal mine--A
            monkey's parliament--The jungle by night                   83


    CHAPTER VI

    ROGUES OF THE FOREST

        The lord of the forest--Wild elephants in India--_Kheddah_
            operations in the Terai--How rogues are made--Rogues
            attack villages--Highway robbers--Assault on a railway
            station--A police convoy--A poacher's death--Chasing an
            officer--My first encounter with a rogue--Stopping a
            charge--Difficulty of killing an elephant--The law on
            rogue shooting--A Government gazette--A tame elephant
            shot by the Maharajah of Cooch Behar--Executing an
            elephant--A chance shot--A planter's escape--Attack on
            a tame elephant--The _mahout's_ peril--Jhansi's
            wounds--Changes among the officers in Buxa--A Gurkha's
            terrible death--The beginner's luck--Indian and Malayan
            _sambhur_--A shot out of season--A fruitless
            search--Jhansi's flight--A scout attacked by a
            bear--Advertising for a truant--The agony
            column--Runaway elephants--A fatal fraud--Jhansi's
            return                                                    104


    CHAPTER VII

    A FIGHT WITH AN ELEPHANT

        We sight a rogue--A sudden onslaught--A wild elephant's
            attack--Shooting under difficulties--Stopping a
            rush--Repeated attacks--An invulnerable foe--Darkness
            stops the pursuit--A council of war--Picking up the
            trail--A _muckna_--A female elephant--Photographing a
            lady--A good sitter--A stampede--A gallant
            Rajput--Attacking on foot--A hazardous feat--A narrow
            escape--Final charge--A bivouac in the forest--Dangers
            of the night--A long chase--Planter
            hospitality--Another stampede--A career of
            crime--Eternal hope--A king-cobra--Abandoning the
            pursuit--An unrepentant villain--In the moment of
            danger                                                    124


    CHAPTER VIII

    IN TIGER LAND

        The tiger in India--His reputation--Wounded
            tigers--Man-eaters--Game killers and cattle thieves--A
            tiger's residence--Chance meetings--Methods of tiger
            hunting--Beating with elephants--Sitting up--A
            sportsman's patience--The charm of a night watch--A
            cautious beast--A night over a kill--An unexpected
            visitor--A tantalising tiger--A tiger at Asirgarh--A
            chance shot--Buffaloes as trackers--Panthers--The wrong
            prey--A beat for tiger--The Colonel wounds a tiger--A
            night march--An elusive quarry--A successful beat--A
            watery grave--Skinning a tiger                            141


    CHAPTER IX

    A FOREST MARCH

        Reasons for showing the flag--Soldierless Bengal--Planning
            the march--Difficulties of transport--The first day's
            march--Sepoys in the jungle--The water-creeper--The
            commander loses his men--The bivouac at
            Rajabhatkawa--Alipur Duar--A small Indian
            Station--Long-delayed pay--The Subdivisional Officer--A
            _dak_ bungalow--The sub-judge--Brahmin pharisees--The
            _nautch_--A dusty march--Santals--A mission
            settlement--Crossing a river--Rafts--A bivouac in a tea
            garden--A dinner-party in an 80-lb. tent--Bears at
            night--A daring tiger--Chasing a tiger on elephants--In
            the forest again--A fickle river--A strange animal--The
            Maharajah of Cooch Behar's experiment--A scare and a
            disappointment--Across the Raidak--A woman killed by a
            bear--A planters' club--Hospitality in the jungle--The
            zareba--Impromptu sports--The Alarm Stakes--The raft
            race--Hathipota--Jainti                                   174


    CHAPTER X

    THROUGH FIRE AND WATER

        India in the hot weather--A land of torment--The
            drought--Forest fires--The cholera huts
            burned--Fighting the flames--Death of a sepoy--The bond
            between British officers and their men--The sepoy's
            funeral--A fortnight's vigil--Saving the Station--The
            hills ablaze--A sublime spectacle--The devastated
            forest--Fallen leaves on fire--Our elephants'
            peril--Saving the zareba--A beat for game in the
            jungle--Trying to catch a wild elephant--A moonlight
            ramble--We meet a bear--The burst of the Monsoons--A
            dull existence--Three hundred inches of rain--The
            monotony of thunderstorms--A changed
            world--Leeches--Monster hailstones--Surveyors caught in
            a storm--A brink in the Rains--The revived
            jungle--Useless lightning-conductors--The Monsoon
            again--The loneliness of Buxa                             196


    CHAPTER XI

    IN THE PALACE OF THE MAHARAJAH

        The Durbar--Outside the palace--The State elephants--The
            soldiery--The Durbar Hall--Officials and gentry of the
            State--The throne--Queen Victoria's banner--The hidden
            ladies--_Purdah nashin_--Arrival of the _Dewan_--The
            Maharajah's entry--The Sons' Salute--A chivalrous
            Indian custom--_Nuzzurs_--The Dewan's task--The
            Maharani--An Indian reformer--_Bramo Samaj_--Pretty
            princesses--An informal banquet--The _nautch_--A
            moonlight ride--The Maharajah--A soldier and a
            sportsman--Cooch Behar--The palace--A dinner-party--The
            heir's birthday celebrations--Schoolboys'
            sports--Indian amateur theatricals--An evening in the
            palace--A panther-drive--Exciting sport--Death of the
            panther--Partridge shooting on elephants--A stray
            rhinoceros--Prince Jit's luck--Friendly intercourse
            between Indians and Englishmen--An unjust complaint       213


    CHAPTER XII

    A MILITARY TRAGEDY

        In the Mess--A gloomy conversation--Murder in the army--A
            gallant officer--Running amuck on a rifle-range--"Was
            that a shot?"--The alarm--The native officer's
            report--The "fall in"--A dying man--A search round the
            fort--A narrow escape--The flight--Search parties--The
            inquiry into the crime--A fifty miles' cordon--An
            unexpected visit--Havildar Ranjit Singh on the trail--A
            night march through the forest--A fearsome ride--The
            lost detachment--An early start--The ferry--The
            prisoner--A well-planned capture--The prisoner's
            story--The march to Hathipota--Return to the fort--A
            well-guarded captive--A weary wait--A journey to
            Calcutta--The escort--Excitement among the passengers
            on the steamer--American globe-trotters--The court
            martial--A callous criminal--Appeal to the
            Viceroy--Sentence of death--The execution                 232


    CHAPTER XIII

    IN AN INDIAN HILL STATION

        To Darjeeling--Railway journeys in India--Protection for
            solitary ladies--Reappearing rivers--Siliguri--At the
            foot of the Himalayas--A mountain railway--Through the
            jungle--Looping the loop--View of the
            Plains--Darjeeling--Civilisation seven thousand feet
            high--Varied types--View from the Chaurasta--White
            workers in India--Life in Hill
            Stations--Lieutenant-Governors--A "dull time" in
            Darjeeling--The bazaar--Types of hill
            races--Turquoises--Tiger-skins for tourists--The
            Amusement Club--The Everlasting
            Snows--Kinchinjunga--The bachelors' ball--A Government
            House ball--The marriage-market value of Indian
            civilians--Less demand for military
            men--Theatricals--Lebong Races--Picturesque
            race-goers--Ladies in India--Husband hunters--The empty
            life of an Englishwoman--The dangers of Hill
            Stations--A wife four months in the year--The hills
            _taboo_ for the subaltern--Back to Buxa                   262


    CHAPTER XIV

    A JUNGLE FORT

        I decide on Fort Bower--Felling trees--A big
            python--Clearing the jungle--Laying out the
            post--Stockades and _Sungars_--The bastions--_Panjis_
            and _abattis_--The huts--Jungle materials--Ingenious
            craftsmen--The furniture--Sentry-posts--Alarm
            signals--The _machicoulis_ gallery--Booby-traps--The
            water-lifter--The hospital--Chloroforming a
            monkey--Jungle dogs--An extraordinary shot--An unlucky
            deer--A meeting with a panther--The alarm--Sohanpal
            Singh and the tiger--Turning out to the rescue--The
            General's arrival--Closed gates--The inspection--The
            "Bower" and the "'Ump"--Flares and bombs--The General's
            praise--Night firing--A Christmas camp                    280


    CHAPTER XV

    FAREWELL TO THE HILLS

        The Proclamation Parade--An unsteady charger--"Three cheers
            for the King-Emperor!"--The Indian Army's loyalty--King
            George and the sepoys--A land held by the sword--An
            American Cavalry officer's visit--Hospitality of
            American officers--Killing by kindness--The brotherhood
            of soldiers--The bond between American and British
            troops sealed by blood--U.S. officers' opinion of us--A
            roaring tiger--Prince Jitendra Narayen--His visit to
            Buxa--An intoxicated monkey--Projected visits--A road
            report--A sketch fourteen feet long--The
            start--Jalpaiguri--A planters' dinner-party--Crossing
            the Tista River--A quicksand--A narrow
            escape--Map-making in the army--In the China War of
            1860--Officers' sketches used for the Canton Railway
            survey--The country south of the hills--A sepoy's
            explanation of Kinchinjunga--A native officer's theory
            of the cause of earthquakes--Types on the road--After
            the day's work--A man-eater--A brave postman--Human
            beings killed by wild animals and snakes in
            India--Crocodiles--Shooting a monster--Crocodiles on
            land--Crossing the Torsa--Value of small
            detachments--The maligned military officer--A life of
            examinations--The man-killing elephant again--Death of
            a Bhuttia woman--Ordered home--A last good-bye to a
            comrade--Captain Balderston's death--A last view of the
            hills                                                     296




LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS


    After the Proclamation Parade                 _Frontispiece_

    Buxa Duar                                _To face page_   16

    "The fort was built on a knoll"                 "         16

    Rajput sepoys cooking                           "         24

    British and Indian officers                     "         24

    My double company                               "         28

    My bachelor establishment                       "         28

    A kneeling elephant                             "         36

    "The ladies of the hamlet came forward"         "         54

    Bhuttia drummers                                "         54

    Chunabatti                                      "         56

    "From my doorstep I watched them coming
    down the hill"                                  "         66

    The Deb Zimpun's prisoners                      "         66

    The Durbar in Buxa                              "         74

    A _sambhur_ stag and my elephant                "         90

    Bringing home the bag                           "         90

    Forest Lodge the First                          "        100

    Forest Lodge the Second                         "        100

    "The _mahout_ was holding up the head"          "        110

    Subhedar Sohanpal Singh                         "        128

    "We saw another elephant"                       "        130

    The tiger's Lying in state                      "        172

    The tiger's last home                           "        172

    "My sepoys drilling"                            "        178

    Buglers and non-commissioned officers of
    my detachment                                   "        178

    The walled face of Fort Bower over the
    river                                           "        282

    The stockade and ditch of Fort Bower            "        282

    The gate with wicket open and drawbridge
    lowered                                         "        286

    Captain Balderston inside the stockade          "        286

    Bringing home the General's dinner              "        290

    "I was mounted on a country bred pony"          "        296

    "An elephant loaded with my stores and
    baggage"                                        "        296




LIFE IN AN INDIAN OUTPOST




CHAPTER I

A FRONTIER POST

    Our first view of the Himalayas--Across India in a troop
        train--A scattered regiment--An elephant-haunted
        railway--Kinchinjunga--The great Terai
        Jungle--Rajabhatkawa--In the days of Warren
        Hastings--Hillmen--Roving Chinese--We arrive at Buxa
        Road--Relieved officers--An undesirable outpost--March
        through the forest--The hills--A mountain road--Lovely
        scenery--Buxa Duar--A lonely Station--The labours of an
        Indian Army officer--Varied work--The frontier of
        Bhutan--A gate of India--A Himalayan paradise--The
        fort--Intrusive monkeys--The cantonment--The Picquet
        Towers--The bazaar--The cemetery--Forgotten
        graves--Tragedies of loneliness--From Bhutan to the
        sea.


Against the blue sky to the north lay a dark blur that, as our troop
train ran on through the level plains of Eastern Bengal, rose ever
higher and took shape--the distant line of the Himalayas. Around us the
restful though tame scenery of the little Cooch Behar State. The
chess-board pattern of mud-banked rice fields, long groves of the
graceful feathery bamboo, here and there a tiny hamlet of palm-thatched
huts--on their low roofs great sprawling green creepers with white
blotches that look like skulls but are only ripe melons. But the dark
outlines of the distant mountains drew my gaze and brought the heads of
my sepoys out of the carriage windows to stare at them.

For somewhere on the face of those hills was Buxa Duar, the little fort
that was to be our home for the next two years.

For four days my detachment of two hundred men of the 120th Rajputana
Infantry had been whirled across India from west to east towards it.
From Baroda we had come--Baroda with its military cantonment set in an
English-like park, its vast native city with the gaily painted houses
and narrow streets where the Gaikwar's Cavalry rode with laced jackets
and slung pelisses like the Hussars of old, and his sentries mounted
guard over gold and silver cannons in a dingy backyard. Where in low
rooms, set out in glass cases, as in a cheap draper's shop, were the
famous pearl-embroidered carpets and gorgeous jewels of the State, worth
a king's ransom.

Four days of travel over the plains of India with their closely
cultivated fields, mud-walled villages, stony hills and stretches of
scrub jungle, where an occasional jackal slunk away from the train or an
antelope paused in its bounding flight to look back at the strange iron
monster. Across the sacred Ganges where Allahabad lies at its junction
with the River Jumna. The regiment was on its way to garrison widely
separated posts in outlying parts of the Indian Empire and neighbouring
countries. Two companies had already gone to be divided between Chumbi
in Tibet and Gantok in the dependent State of Sikkim, and to furnish the
guard to our Agent at Gyantse.

The month was December; and they had started in August to cross the
sixteen-thousand-feet high passes in the Himalayas before the winter
snows blocked them. The regimental headquarters, with four companies,
was on its way to embark on the steamers which would convey them a
fourteen days' journey on the giant rivers Ganges and Brahmaputra to
Dibrugarh and Sadiya in Assam.

At Benares my two companies had parted from the rest and entered another
troop train which carried us into Eastern Bengal.

Every day for three or four hours our trains had halted at some little
wayside station to enable the men to get out, make their cooking-places,
and prepare their food for the day. The previous night my detachment had
detrained at Gitaldaha, where we had to change again on to a narrow
gauge railway, two feet six inches in width, which would take us through
Cooch Behar to our destination. The railway officials informed me that
we must stay in the station all night, as the trains on this line ran
only by daylight. I asked the reason of this.

"They cannot go by night on account of the wild animals," was the reply.

"The wild animals?" I echoed in surprise.

"Yes; the line runs through a forest, the Terai Jungle, full of
elephants and bison. Three months ago one of our engines was derailed by
a wild elephant and the driver badly injured. And not long before that
another rogue elephant held up a station on the line, stopped a train,
blockaded the officials in the buildings, and broke a tusk trying to
root up the platform."

And when daylight dawned and I could see the toy engine and carriages, I
was not surprised at the fear of encountering an elephant on the line.

Now on our fifth day of travel we were nearing the end of the journey.
We had passed the capital of Cooch Behar and were approaching Alipur
Duar, the last station before the Terai Forest is reached. Suddenly,
high in the air above the now distinct line of hills, stood out in the
brilliant sunlight the white crest and snowy peaks of Kinchinjunga,
twenty-eight thousand feet high, and nearly one hundred and twenty miles
away. Past Alipur Duar, and then hills and snow-clad summits were lost
to sight as our little train plunged from the sunny plain into the deep
shadows of the famous Terai Forest--the wonderful jungle that stretches
east and west along the foot of the Himalayas, and clothes their lowest
<DW72>s. In whose recesses roam the wild elephant, the rhinoceros and the
bison, true lords of the woods; where deadlier foes to man than these,
malaria and blackwater fever hold sway and lay low the mightiest hunter
before the Lord. And standing on the back platform of our tiny carriage
my subaltern and I strove to pierce its gloomy depths, half hoping to
see the giant bulk of a wild elephant or a rhinoceros. But nothing met
our gaze save the great orchid-clad trees, the graceful fronds of
monster ferns, and the dense undergrowth that would deny a passage to
anything less powerful than bisons or elephants.

In a sudden clearing in the heart of the forest, the train stopped at a
small station near which stood a few bamboo huts and a gaunt,
two-storied wooden house in which, we afterwards learned, an English
forest officer lived his lonely life. The place was called Rajabhatkawa,
which in the vernacular means, "The Rajah ate his food." It was so named
because, nearly one hundred and thirty years before, in the days of
Warren Hastings, a Rajah of Cooch Behar ate his first meal there after
his release from captivity among the hill tribesmen of Bhutan who had
carried him away into their mountain fastnesses. They had released him
at the urgent instance of a British captain and two hundred sepoys who
had followed them up and captured three of their forts.

Among the crowd of natives on the platform at this station were several
of various hill races, Bhuttias and Gurkhas, with the small eyes and
flat nose of the Mongolian. I was surprised to see two Chinamen in blue
linen suits and straw hats, fanning themselves and smoking cigarettes,
as much at home as if they were on the Bund in Shanghai or in Queen's
Road in Hong Kong. But later on I learned that Rajabhatkawa led to
several tea gardens, where Chinese carpenters are always welcome. These
men are generally from Canton, the inhabitants of which city emigrate
freely. I have met them in Calcutta, Penang, Singapore, Manila, and San
Francisco.

On again through the jungle our train passed for another eight miles,
and then drew up at a small station of one low, stone building with a
nameboard nearly as big as itself, which bore the words "Buxa Road." It
stood in a little clearing in the forest, where the ground was piled
high with felled trees, ready to be dispatched to Calcutta. This was the
end of our railway journey.

The sepoys tumbled eagerly out of the train, threw their rolls of
bedding out of the compartments, fell in on the platform and piled arms,
and then turned to with a will to unload the heavy baggage from the
brake-vans. A number of tall, bearded Mohammedans, men of the detachment
of the Punjabi Regiment we were replacing, were at the station. Their
major came forward to welcome me, and expressed his extreme pleasure in
meeting the man who was to relieve him and enable him to quit a most
undesirable place.

This was a blow to me; for I had pictured life in this little outpost as
an ideal existence in a sportsman's paradise.

"What? Don't you like Buxa Duar?" I asked in surprise.

"Like it?" he exclaimed vehemently. "Most certainly not. In my time I
have been stationed in some poisonous places in Upper Burmah, when I was
in the Military Police; but the worst of them was heaven to Buxa."

I gasped with horror. "Is it as bad as all that? How long have you been
here?"

"Three weeks," replied the major; "and that was three weeks too long.
Before you have been here a fortnight you will be praying to all your
gods to take you anywhere else."

This was pleasant. The subaltern of the Punjabis now came up and was
introduced to me. He had been six months in Buxa; and _his_ opinion of
it was too lurid to print. My subaltern, who had been superintending the
unloading of the baggage, joined us and in his turn was regaled with
these cheering criticisms of our new home. His face fell; for, like me,
he had been looking forward eagerly to being quartered in this little
outpost, where, we had been told, the sport was excellent. Fortunately
men's tastes differ; and after eighteen months' experience of this
much-abused Buxa, I liked it better than any other place I have ever
served in in all my soldiering.

I learned from our new friends that the fort was six miles from the
railway and fifteen hundred feet above it; so I inquired for the
transport to convey our baggage there.

Before leaving Baroda the quartermaster of our regiment had written to
the nearest civil official of the district, requesting him to provide me
with a hundred coolies for the purpose. There were also, I knew, three
Government transport elephants in charge of the detachment