many Jemadars who still wear medals on
their breasts for their service in the taking of Java and the Isle of
France more than thirty years ago. Indeed, I suspect that some will
be found who accompanied Sir David Baird to Egypt. [W. H. S.] Such
old men must have been perfectly useless as officers. Sir David
Baird' s operations took place in 1801.

41. The rate of pay of Jemadars in the Bengal Native Infantry now is
either forty or fifty rupees monthly. Half of the officers of this
rank in each regiment receive the higher rate. The grievance
complained of by the author has, therefore, been remedied. The pay of
a Havildar is still, or was recently, fourteen rupees a month.

CHAPTER 77

Invalid Establishment.

I have said nothing in the foregoing chapter of the invalid
establishment, which is probably the greatest of all bonds between
the Government and its native army, and consequently the greatest
element in the 'spirit of discipline'. Bonaparte, who was, perhaps,
with all his faults, 'the greatest man that ever floated on the tide
of time', said at Elba, 'There is not even a village that has not
brought forth a general, a colonel, a captain, or a prefect, who has
raised himself by his especial merit, and illustrated at once his
family and his country.' Now we know that the families and the
village communities in which our invalid pensioners reside never read
newspapers,[1] and feel but little interest in the victories in which
these pensioners may have shared. They feel that they have no share
in the _eclat_ or glory which attend them; but they everywhere admire
and respect the government which cherishes its faithful old servants,
and enables them to spend the 'winter of their days' in the bosoms of
their families; and they spurn the man who has failed in his duty
towards that government in the hour of need.

No sepoy taken from the Rajput communities of Oudh or any other part
of the country can hope to conceal from his family circle or village
community any act of cowardice, or anything else which is considered
disgraceful to a soldier, or to escape the odium which it merits in
that circle and community.

In the year 1819 I was encamped near a village in marching through
Oudh, when the landlord, a very cheerful old man, came up to me with
his youngest son, a lad of eighteen years of age, and requested me to
allow him (the son) to show me the best shooting grounds in the
neighbourhood. I took my 'Joe Man