Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

elaborate tactics, you collect your scattered thoughts, and cast your eyes around the room. Nothing can be simpler, and in better taste. A China vase, which you remember to have noticed on the chiffonier when you last called, decorates the centre of the table, and is graced with roses and mignonette. Candlesticks all down the middle, with intervening tumblers filled with flowers, impart quite a regal splendour to the feast. Four electro-plate side dishes, though of different patterns-having been borrowed with some difficulty from rival Parsees for the occasion-dazzle the eye, and impress the mind with awe. A freckled youth, with his arm carried in a sling, is discovered immediately opposite an imposing bright cover, which he eyes piteously, and then gazes dismally at society, as who should say "Wherewithal shall I, who am maimed, carve that which is before me!” The host, as he slowly ladles out the soup, attempts with distracted coughs and despairing signs to attract the attention of the officiating butler to a dish upon the sideboard. Now, this dish, which is only awaiting the removal of the soup, and will be on the table immediately, has been vilely decorated with an every-day tin cover, instead of the electro-plated one purchased expressly for the occasion at the sale of the late Superintending Surgeon's effects! The hostess, ignorant of the blight which has fallen on her husband's soul, and conscious only of the fact that, by not concentrating his intellects on the task before him, he is spilling soup about his lap in an utterly absurd manner, frowns indignant reproof at him across the table, thereby goading him into temporary abhorrence of the marriage tie. Eventually, that accursed black servant, blind alike to the nods and winks of his employer, positively places the awful dish (with its tin cover staring reproach at him) in a conspicuous position on the table; but being loudly reprimanded by the second servant (who has just detected the error, and made a personal business of it), he retires abashed, returning shortly afterwards with the genuine article, which he triumphantly exchanges for the tin affair, to the uncontrollable amusement of Major Watkins of Her Majesty's 199th! So the first Act closes, and the cover being removed with a flourish, the viands are immediately appropriated by innumerable flying insects. But why dwell longer on a theme so unprofitable? Mr. Acland's description will take the reader through the remainder of the feast, only he must substitute champagne for bitter beer. We will only add, in defence of Bombay custom, that we never saw hookahs or cheroots introduced, except at a bachelor's house or a married man's bachelor dinner-party. We have attempted to show, at

[blocks in formation]

the risk of being charged with levity, that these dismal attempts at imitating English refinement out in India are pregnant with misery and humiliation, alike to host and guests, and we agree fully with Mr. Acland, that less pretending and more cheerful amusements might be introduced among us in the Mofussil, with mental, moral, and physical benefit to all concerned.

And now Mr. Acland again goads us, sorely against our will, to sully the pages of this Review with levity. Our defence is, that it is impossible to discuss the majority of our author's statements in anything like a serious spirit. For instance, let the reader peruse with astonishment the following assertion regarding

"BENGAL MARRIAGES.

"When a man in India-I mean a European gentleman-wants a wife, he says to his friend, I should like to get married.' 'Well,' says he, 'why don't you?' And forthwith he applies for leave of absence for a month. A month consists of thirty days, of which, say five are occupied in his journey to Calcutta, and another five on his journey back; leaving him just twenty days in which to make his selection, get introduced, make himself agreeable, propose, court, and be married. A nice prospect he has for future happiness! But there is one curious result in this sort of marriage, and a result, too, which spreads among other people also. After a few years the wife loses ber health, and is ordered to England. The husband cannot afford to go with her, but he allows her about half his salary. At the end of two or three years, or whatever time may have been fixed, he writes to his wife to make arrangements for her return to India; and I have known two instances in which the husband was obliged to stop the allowances in order to compel the wife to return."

Now, what shall we say of all this? Is it strictly true, or an unintentional exaggeration? If true, we would recommend to our Bengalee friends a simpler and more economical method of transacting business. The journey from Cuttack to Calcutta is doubtless not unattended with expense, and, moreover, it may not be crowned with complete success. We presume, however, that the Bengalee papers would always be open to advertisements on the subject, and beg to suggest something in the following style: A gentleman holding a commission in the army is desirous of forming a matrimonial alliance. He is of gentle birth, and unexceptionable manners. Possessing Possessing in the fullest degree all those qualities that at once charm the eye and fascinate the mind, he would explain that he enjoys an income of rupees four hundred per mensem, is not in embarrassed circumstances, owns a silver tea-pot, and has the honour of being nearly related to a wealthy Scotch lady (labouring at present under an infirmity of the spine), from whom he has expectations. He is still

in the prime of life, has testimonials of good temper from his friends, and belongs to the Established Church. Answers are solicited, addressed to the care of A. B., Post Office, Cuttack. N. B.-No Eurasians need apply." We conceive that in nine cases out of ten such an appeal to the feelings would be irresistible. But, seriously, these and similar exaggerations have been so frequently repeated, that they are beginning to be solemnly credited in England. It is not for us to say that Mr. Acland had no ground for what he wrote, but we believe that he accepted hearsay evidence, and published as a fact what is in reality a fiction. What with going to bed on system daily after luncheon, having complexions of deadly white, and being wooed and won in twenty days, the Bengal ladies, according to our author, must be most peculiar specimens of feminine eccentricity, and become affected, in a most extraordinary degree, by the trying climate of the East. We have a better opinion, however, of the Bengalees, who will vindicate their characters, no doubt, so soon as a real light literature is established in this country.

We have now done with Mr. Acland's little work. Our last extract was taken from a letter dated 10th August 1844. On the 2nd April 1845 he writes apparently in good health and spirits, recording some of his adventures in the jungle with all the manly enthusiasm of a sportsman. As we close the book, we forget all the amusing eccentricities of the author's style, in the solemn chain of reflection which the concluding brief letter gives birth to.

"May 8th, 1845.-I am too weak to write much, and shall therefore continue at another time." Alas! he never wrote again; for on the 17th of the same month he was no more. How much is contained in these few farewell words! Let us be content with the grand moral they convey, for in no country is the fearful uncertainty of human life so solemnly exemplified as in India, and perhaps in no country do men so obstinately blind themselves to the dangers that beset them. Yet the Destroying Angel is always reminding us of his presence, and with silent finger pointing out to us the inevitable doom! How long, reader, has that stroke in mercy been suspended, which shall reveal to us the unfathomed mysteries of existence ! On every side we behold the grave close upon the young and vigorous. The friend whose warm heart beat in unison with your own, and whose hand but a few weeks back you clasped so thoughtlessly, has been swept in a day, an hour, a second, into the common resting-place that awaits us all. We can realise no more than this. We see

[blocks in formation]

within the shroud the cold clay, unconscious image of the bright intelligence we loved, and we obscurely speak of him we knew, as DEAD. In our closets we perchance moralise on the fate of man, and round soft sentences of contrition, which bring with them no self-denial or control, for the curse of our fallen nature follows us into the world. Like the moth, we are tempted by a deceptive glare to court destruction, and in our turn will be hurried contemptuously from the scene. Our friends will also buzz for an instant around our memory, or speculate in print on the awful secrets of the tomb; but there are moments in existence when the imprisoned spirit seems to ery in anguish, “What is there real in this world but misery-what knowledge is there but sense-debasing ignorance?"

ART. II. RIFLE MUSKETRY.

1. Aide Mémoire to the Military Sciences. 3 vols. 8vo. London; 1850-52.

2. A Treatise on Naval Gunnery. By General Sir HOWARD DOUGLAS, Bart., G.C.B., G.C.M.G., D.C.L., F.R.S. 4th Edition, revised. London: Murray; 1855.

3. Rifle Practice. By Major JOHN JACOB, C.B., of the Bombay Artillery. 8vo. London: Smith, Elder, & Co.; 1855.

SOME apology seems necessary for any attempt to discuss, in a periodical which addresses itself to the general public, a subject apparently so technical as that at the head of our article. But should we succeed in making intelligible to those who have no practical acquaintance with guns and gunnery, the vast change which is now taking place in the weapons with which our Infantry are armed, we trust that even the fairer portion of our readers will not think it loss of time to follow us. Such of them, at all events, as have hung with interest over the details of our Crimean battles, (and who of England's daughters is indifferent to them ?) will not be

grudge half an hour while we try to explain improvements in the arming of our defenders, greater than any which have taken place since the rude prototype of "Brown Bess" first appeared as the rival of the cloth-yard shafts of Cressy and Agincourt.

But what is a Rifle ? None of our fair Indian readers need be at a loss for an answer, if they have brother or cousin, husband or lover, who has lived at a station "up-country"; for what the cricket-bat or fishing-rod is to the sportsman in England, that and something more is the rifle in India. But should the weapon itself not be at hand to illustrate a description, the inquirer may perhaps turn to some work of reference. None is more likely to be consulted than that which stands at the head of our article, and it will doubtless, ten years hence, be hardly credited that in a work which professes to be a complete Dictionary of military science, published no further back than the year 1852, there is not only no separate article on the Rifle, but, as far as we have been able to discover, nothing whatever on the subject of rifled muskets, beyond a single sentence dismissing the arm as undeserving of detailed notice, since, though useful as a weapon for skirmishers, it could never seriously affect the great operations of war.

The accomplished compilers of the very useful work we refer to would hardly now repeat the same opinions, when we have seen the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian army attributing the failure of his manoeuvres at Inkermann mainly to the destructive effect of the Minie Rifles with which our troops were very partially armed, and when every military nation on the continent vies with its neighbours in attempts to perfect the rifle musket. In our own country, especially, the present war has drawn the serious attention of all thinking men, civil as well as military, to the subject of mechanical improvements in the weapons with which we arm our soldiers. Yet still there is but too much room for the severe, but we fear just, sentence passed by Major Jacob on the ordinary armament of our soldiery.

"Man," he says, "has been called a tool-making animal, and it is certain that the perfection of tools and machinery is a clear and certain mark of advancing civilisation, of the progress of the rule of mind over matter, of the development and operation of those laws by which the working of the human brain makes the forces of one civilised man equal that of the stalwart limbs of thousands, or even millions, of untaught and ignorant barbarians. In no country on earth has this been more apparent than in England; to no people on earth have the tools and machinery of

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »