cid, nitrogen and hydrogen gases, which render the air
above unfit for men to breathe. This noxious air accumulates in the
space below the wooden floor, and, passing through the crevices, is
breathed by the officers and soldiers as they sleep.

Between the two campaigns against Nepal in 1814 and 1815, the brigade
in which my regiment served formed such a cantonment at Nathpoor, on
the right bank of the river Coosee. The land which these cantonments
occupied had been covered with a fine sward on which cattle grazed
for ages, and was exceedingly rich in decayed vegetable and animal
matter. The place had been long remarked for its salubrity by the
indigo-planters and merchants of all kinds who resided there; and on
the ground which my regiment occupied there was a fine pucka-house,
which the officer commanding the brigade and some of his staff
occupied. In the rains the whole plain, being very flat, was often
covered with water, and thousands of cattle grazed upon it during the
cold and hot seasons. The officers all built small bungalows for
themselves on the plan above described; and the medical officers all
thought that they had, in doing so, taken all possible precautions.
The men were provided with huts, as much as possible on the same
plan. These dwellings were all ready before the rains set in, and
officers and soldiers were in the finest state of health and spirits.

In the middle and latter part of the rains, officers and men began to
suffer from a violent fever, which soon rendered the European
officers and soldiers delirious, and prostrated the native officers
and sipahees; so that three hundred of my own regiment, consisting of
about seven hundred, were obliged to be sent to their homes on sick
leave. The greater number of those who remained continued to suffer,
and a great many died. Of about ten European officers present with my
regiment, seven had the fever, and five died of it, almost all in a
state of delirium. I was myself one of the two who survived, and I
was for many days delirious.

Of the medical officers of the brigade, the only one, I believe, who
escaped the fever was Adam Napier, who, with his wife and children,
occupied apartments in the brigadier's large pucka-house. Not a
person who resided in that house was attacked by the fever. There was
another pucka-house a little way from the cantonments, close to the
bank of the river, occupied by an indigo-planter, a Mr. Ross. No one
in that house su