"JOTTINGS FROM MY JOURNAL."

BY A MEDICAL OFFICER OF THE BENGAL ESTABLISHMENT.

CHAPTER IX. THE KOONCH.

THE bugle has again pealed forth the war-note, and every blast bears it along from Cape Comorin to the Hymala. Orders are out for a mighty armament to assemble on the confines of British India, and whether for aggression or defence no one knows. A formidable list of battalions, brigades, and divisions looks portentous, and many wiseheads prophesy, that as such a force cannot be spared it will never assemble, save on the sheet of the general orders. A few, and only a few, differ from this general opinion, and these latter speculate freely whence the programme of the "Army of Reserve" emanated. It is placed to the credit of the "Iron Duke." No sooner has this idea been caught up, than those who at first had been loud in condemnation of the measure, change like weathercocks, and see through a long vista of deep plans, judicious managements, and brilliant results.

Let the original plan emanate from whom it might, the execution, by far the most difficult part to accomplish, devolved on Lord Ellenborough and the Commander-in-chief, and the result of the measure to British India will (I venture to affirm) be chronicled in the page of history as evincing in his lordship military talent of the highest order. It was deemed an impossibility to assemble a fresh army of 30,000 men, capable of aggression or defence, at a time when two such forces as those under Generals Nott and Pollock had drained India of her troops; a chimera which could only be the production of a head sadly wanting. Yet it was accomplished, and the moral effect upon foreign states and disaffected subjects produced by it was no doubt of the utmost consequence to India.

But the programme is not one entirely on paper; it is all to be, and long ere the matins of the village chanticleer, the low hum of voices, gradually swelling into a general murmur, warns the light sleeper that some one is on the move, the bazaar is off to ensure an early market for the morrow; the smothered striking of the tent-pins of the bunya's booth, albeit contraband, reaches many an ear, yet fails in reaching his whose special care it is. Another hour, and the low stealthy hum of the bazaars has given place to the more legal assembly of camels and their drivers; tap, tap, tap, is the general sound; the crackling noise tells that the half-dressed sepoy has fired his bed of Indian corn-stalks; the harsh, remonstrating groan of the camel tells that the sirwan is a-foot. These are unpleasant sounds at 2 A.M.; the cold wind in gusts making the konnats quiver, with a knowledge of fifteen minutes being allowed to dress in, and every inclination to sleep again. Or mayhap the camel's bray, the mallet of the calashie, or the crackling of kirbee stalks have failed in rousing him who at the mess-table of the previous night had drank "to a bloody war and sickly season," and towards the close of his dream, in which he has fought sundry campaigns, seen

brother officers pass away, mounted the captains' ladder himself, without ever once signing himself "brevet," lived the life of an idle major, at length enjoying the "otium cum dignitate" of a magnate rejoicing in the "off reckonings," the vision (in every way equal to reality save in duration) is dispelled by Clement Jones's bugle, followed by the sharp rattle of the drum.

Sahib, sahib, pyla bugle gya,” whispers the trusty sirdar, poking his head under the purdah of the tent, and admitting a stream of air that extinguishes the lighted candle he is carrying. Despatch, however, being invaluable in the domestic economy of a soldier and a soldier's servant, without reference to this little accident, and whilst his master is in boots and shirt, and recking no more of the said master than if he were a clodpole, the calashie or tent-pitcher, with half-a-dozen tugs at the lashings, lays the konnats, or walls of the tent, level with the ground; the candle, however, has been relit, but not having engaged to burn without a lantern, rehearses its part, and is blown out accordingly. But, accustomed to such minor mishaps, the trousers are slipped, one leg at a time, in a wonderfully short space, and frock coat, sword-belt, and sash soon follow. Peer Bux, the kitmutgar, has managed to make a cup of cruelly hot coffee for his master, and as, cup in hand, he awaits the conclusion of the toilet, the Arabian berry's aroma is wafted at such intervals as the wind lists to the craving senses of the exiled sub.

Now look around! and fifty fires are blazing; the second bugle hath sounded, and, round each blazing heap, the murky figures of the sepoys are flitting, the scarlet coat and brazen accoutrements occasionally disclosed by the gleam. Crackle, crackle, crackle,-tap, tap, tap,-roar, roar, roar,—and tent-pitchers, beasts of burden, and camp-fires do their very best to make a hubbub. The adjutant's voice is heard; one after another the sepoys desert the cheerful blaze; syces, and grasscutters, and followers, huddle over it in succession, lingering, with shivering hands, o'er the embers, which in fifteen minutes more must be left to die alone. The column is organized, the commanding officer's hoarse voice is heard from van to rear; responds thereto the clatter of a thousand bayonets; carry arms, shoulder arms, quick march;" and onward it moves, to "St. Patrick's Day," or "The Girl I left behind me." Bom, bom, bom, Mahadeo passes along the line of murky soldiers; the officers get into their saddles, and the native officers, each after a fight with his tattoo, rejoin their companies at a furious pace; the camp-fires that have been deserted gradually lessen in number and in size, and at length an undulation shuts their flickering struggles from the sight.

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The first pale warnings of day are faintly lighting up the eastern sky, the air assumes a piercing sharpness, such as at no other time is felt in Hindostan; nor does it yield until the sun has attained some altitude. The intermediate stages between the first gleam of dawn and sunrise so rapidly succeed each other, that, although surpassingly beautiful, they are gone ere half their beauties are known. That ancient and gnarled banian tree, a few minutes since, was an indistinct and sombre mass of

neutral tint; already is every scathed limb finely depicted on the skyground, each gigantic tendril made clear, and the ravines, furrowed and coloured by centuries on its venerable bark and trunk, are laid bare and open. It is day-an Indian day-and, with its flood of light, thousands are now in pursuit of their daily tasks.

A mile onward, and from yonder serai's frowning gateway, a motley group is issuing. The bylee, or bullock-waggon, with scarlet purdahs and brazen-studded wheels, chulls along, for the cattle are fresh, and toss up their bell-adorned heads, cheering the fair inmates who, ever and anon, present a foot or portion of a face, just to shew the passer-by as little as possible. This is the zenana of the well-conditioned merchant, who bestrides the proud plump tattoo immediately in their rear. He seeks the mela at Thanesur, there to wash out dishonest gains and defaulting accounts. The wild, untamed figure by his side, with matchlock and tulwar on his saddle-bow, is an Indian moss-trooper, hired to protect the party, himself not the most unlikely man to encroach upon the shroff's exchequer. But he sees the Feringee sahibs approaching, and deems it incumbent on him to make a corresponding appearance. See! how he boastingly plunges his heels into the flanks of his Romannosed, swan-necked charger, and deems himself a type of the chivalry of Hindostan : but his shield hanging carelessly from the right shoulder, and his dirty crimson pugree loosely flowing from his head, have, with all their deficiencies, an appearance of consequence and protection; that is enough, the reality matters little, "Deckna-ke-waste" is all he cares for, and cock-a-hoop the ghee-eating bunya pursues his way, fearful of losing his dignity, and looking down on the humbler traveller with pride such as none but a Hindoo hath, "the pride that apes humility." The bunya passed, the advance-guard of an Arab horse dealer approaches-five, ten, fifteen, twenty, thirty nags of great bone and iron muscle; what a noble line of them! The high-capped fellow, with jet black beard, toddling alongside of them on the strong Toorky pony, come from Baroda; the shores of the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf, the jungles of Guzerat and plains of Katywar, furnish through such as he the Indian horse-market. How elegant is that flea-bitten Arab, with his high crest, compact body, and fairy-like head! Aye, admire the head, how hollow in the forehead, and how enormously expanding in his lower jaw! methinks the wight were a sorry judge of horseflesh who could not recognize in him the true blood of the desert. Shall we accost the grim beard on the Toorky, and ask the price of the fleabitten? no, it is useless, for the sheikh will demand for him three thousand rupees, and in three months a thousand will buy him.

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The ground is sandy, with undulating grassy slopes for miles fringing the road on either side. The sepoy regiments' advance-guard is just discernible; a pattering of hard light feet, rapid and numerous, falls suddenly on the ear, and followed by the hollow clatter of horses' hoofs, o'er sandy turf. A black antelope, the patriarch of his clan, with spiral horns thrown back until almost horizontal with his spine, bounds o'er the road, and straight in his wake the frightened does pursue him.

"Well done, Pat!" "Yoicks, Mars!" "Onward, Juno!" and sweep past cheerily the light-hearted ensigns of a native regiment. Then comes a sirwan, or camel-driver; he heralds a line of beasts of burden, long as the eye can command; each attached to each, they plod their monotonous way from the temperate valleys of the Hindoo Koosh to the arid plains of the Doab; and are loaded with apples and little boxes of grapes, to tempt the palates and rob the pockets of the "Feringee logue ;”, three months have they spent on their journey, and have forded in succession the five rivers of the Punjaub. What rascally-looking fellows these Affghan sirwans are! and see with what confidence they come into our country at the very time our troops are meeting in enmity with their fathers and brothers.

But we are at the gateway of the serai, through which the road leads, and a fine old mass it is. He who has travelled in British India, where the Moslem rule erst was highest, must deeply regret the neglect that allowed the decay of such useful edifices: it was the pride of the chiefs of the "Faithful" to build and keep them in repair. Many yet remain, in various states of preservation; but hundreds of noble quadrangles, immeasurably valuable to the humble traveller and weary pilgrim, have been by "the most civilized nation" delivered over to the "moth and rust." So gigantic and noble in construction have many of these buildings been, that their ruins present the appearance of a decayed city; a mouldering gate, with many a turret, staircase, and abutment, at one place; a few solitary cells at another, and fragments of pillars, arches, and minars throughout, fill the beholder with regret at their decay, and admiration of the feeling that led to their construction.

We are at the gateway of Doura-ke-Serai, large, massive, and studded with huge iron bolts, to resist its being forced by elephants: a portal similar to this gives exit to the high road at the further end. The haltingplace of the weary traveller is arched in the sides of the quadrangle, in single, double, and triple tiers, like the cells of a monastery, and a guard at either gateway protects the inmates from those marauders so common to Asiatic countries. The walls are built as though intended to last for ever, and of a brick remarkably small, and burnt almost to vitrifaction. No such masonry comes from the hands of the modern workman; the art is lost. The serai is partially fortified, and well calculated to resist cavalry, which was the only force likely to attack it. Within the square is a small mosque, and a magnificent well; that source of purity, and comfort, and general resort, to Moslem and Hindoo, lies half-concealed beneath the leafy foliage of a clump of tamarinds. At sunset every evening the gates are closed, and with the earliest dawn may be seen, issuing therefrom, a crew motley as he of Canterbury painted; from the pilgrim in rags, urging his patient limbs from Hurdwar or Benares, to the wealthy bunya, the possessor of granaries and warehouses.

Doura-Ke-Serai looks as if it had stood for many centuries, and seen more modern edifices crumble; and so, perhaps, it has; and the aged Asiat.Journ.N.S. VOL.IV.No.21.

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F'aqueer, who lives on the parapet above, has been the presiding genius of that old archway for more than sixty seasons; he would sooner yield life than change his abode. He has counted, over and over,

every brick upon its wall, and is in himself the only chronicle of the deeds and scenes enacted there; moreover, he has a charge, a family of monkeys, who, mischievous to all others, are kind to him, and he feels that they have become essential to him. Dearly does the hoary and ragged priest, the man of sackcloth, love the serai's old portal, and the shoots of the young peepul tree, that force their growth between the bricks, claim from him especial care; it is his home, and, go where he may, he scarce can see a nobler. Upon the brick platform of the well, some straggling sepoys have drawn water; one is smoking his narial, and another is indulging his native vein of satire at a fat mahajin's expense, who sits shivering in the little doorway opposite, for he is too fat, and sleek, and lazy, and wherewithal has too much coin, to be induced to take the road earlier. A group of females, neither prepossessing in feature nor clean in apparel, pass by, each with an earthen vessel on her head, and carrying one similar under her arm, balanced nicely, and resting on the side. There is a damsel, who, nothing loth to be gazed upon by a Feringhee, whilst turning suddenly her head, and drawing over her face her muslin chudder, forgets that her ankle and silver ornaments are peeping from the folds of coarse drapery that hang from her left shoulder. A strict silence is observed by them whilst passing, but no sooner have they gone a little distance, than a clamour characteristically feminine ensues.

Again is the traveller on the lonely plain; the serai is far behind, and the ground is broken here and there by ravines, upon which the scanty tamarisk shrub gains a stunted existence. The ravine to the right looks as though it might harbour deer. Ay ! there is a light creature with horns like a unicorn's, and tapering to a point; how it dashes along the path that threads the dry bed of yon watercourse! Another, and another, and another bound past, like tennis-balls. Crack! and the leader rolls over; one plunge more, the eye is upturned and glazed by approaching death-the heart's blood of the black buck has reddened the sward around. The whirring noise of the rifle-bullet has already scared from his morning meal the vulture and the carrion kite; the timid hare of the ravine starts from the babool shrub, runs a short distance, and stops, and runs again; the grey partridge pipes forth his usual "whirreet," and gains the open plain; the skulking jackal hies late to his burrow, and looks anon suspiciously around him.

Ere this the sun has gained strength, and the wayfarer is speculating on the comparative distance between himself and camp; the buffalo herds are seeking the tanks and jeels; the argeelah, or adjutant-bird, mounts into a temperate atmosphere, where, diminished to a speck, he passes the day in never-ending gyrations. The road is empty, for already has pilgrim and bylee gained the hospitable serai, and in yon tope of tamarind trees the soldier's canvas home is ready. The tents are pitched no great distance from a town of some importance; and follow