THE STATION. 17
his daughter from a gentleman serving in the ranks of the Company's army, and the sepoy was not slow to make use of his matrimonial advantages. A column of native troops on the march was accompanied from station to station by an endless string of small carts, each containing one or two veiled ladies, presumably young and pretty; one or two without veils, very indubitably old and ugly; together with a swarm of dusky brats with enormous stomachs, stark naked, with the almost nominal exception of a piece of tape fastened round the loins.
In spite of his excellent pay, the native soldier was almost invariably deep in debt. <A strong sense of family ties, an extreme generosity towards poor connexions, is a marked trait im the Hindoo character, amiable indeed, but not encouraging to the student of Social Science. Whenever an Indian official steps into an imcome, relations of every deeree flock from all parts of the continent to prey upon his facile affection, and the prospect of sharing the corner of a sepoy’s hut and the parings of his pay proved sufficiently attractive to bring into cantonments herds of country cousins from Rohileund and Shahabad. Neither would seven rupees a month adequately defray the occasional extrayagances enjoined by “dustoor” or custom: dustoor, the breath of a Hindoo’s nostrils, the motive of his actions, the
