Page:Sir Henry Lawrence, the Pacificator.djvu/180

All the European officers are very young men, and therefore look to mere smartness.

Two hours ago Captain Carnegie came to tell me that there had been a strong demonstration against cartridges in the 7th Oudh Infantry this morning. I hope and expect the report he heard is exaggerated, but I tell it for his commentary. ...

'I have had Rukum-ud-Dowlah at my house, and rather like his appearance, but his sons are not pleasant-looking fellows. These people however can only by possibility be dangerous in connexion with our own troops. I have struck up a friendship with two of the best and wealthiest of the chiefs, and am on good terms with all. We ought therefore to have information of what occurs.

'I hope that the 34th Native Infantry will be disbanded, and that your lordship will raise a mixed Gúrkha and Hill Rájput corps, and a Sikh one in lieu of the 34th and 19th. Gúrkhas are not easily obtained, but seven years ago I got a thousand volunteers at Khátmándu in a week, to supply one company of the Guides. I did it through the Resident, or rather by his permission through the medical officers, whom I asked to speak to Jang Bahádur, and remind him of our old acquaintance.

'As far as I have ascertained, the bad feeling as yet is chiefly among the Hindu Sepoys. Doubtless it is their fears for caste that have been worked on.

'We measure too much by English rules, and expect, contrary to all experience, that the energetic and aspiring among immense military masses should like our dead level and our arrogation to ourselves, even where we are notorious imbeciles, of all authority and all emolument. These sentiments of mine freely expressed during the last fifteen years have done me injury, but I am not less convinced of their soundness, and that until we treat natives, and especially