CHAPTER X.

_March 19, 1811._--We left Trichinopoly, to proceed to Bangalore. I had upon this march a doolie, for the first time since we came to India; and I had now travelled about 1600 miles with the Royals, since the regiment arrived in the country. We reached Bangalore upon the 12th of April; and, as I continued still very poorly, the doctor told the commanding officer, that it was in vain to keep me in India, in the hopes of regaining my health; for that was a thing not in the least to be expected, so I was ordered to be invalided. I accordingly passed the Board upon the 20th of August, along with thirty-two more; but only eighteen of these were ordered for Europe.

I now, according to promise, resume my story of the little girl that went to Serjeant Brown at Trichinopoly, when we took home the orphan, to whom my wife had been godmother. This serjeant's wife was attacked by the flux, after we came to Bangalore, and being a woman grievously addicted to liquor, she was for some time abandoned by all the women who wished well to their character; but my wife hearing of her deplorable state, could not think of a countrywoman dying amongst black people, without any European woman paying the least attention to her. She determined, therefore, to render her what assistance was in her power; and, accordingly, went one day to her room, where she found her in a very loathsome state, attended only by her black female servant, and the child crying very much. She asked the woman what made the child cry so bitterly? to which she replied, _choar elia_, (that is, she has no meat; or rather, she is crying for hunger.) After putting clean clothes upon Mrs. Brown's bed, and doing all that she could do for her immediate comfort; she brought the poor starved little creature into our hut[14], and said unto me, "O! Robert, if you will not take it amiss, I will keep this poor object, and see if I can do any thing for her." I cheerfully agreed to her humane proposal; and could scarcely help crying, when I saw the child crying; and my wife also bathed in tears. We accordingly kept the child, and Mrs. Brown still getting worse, died in a few days. My wife became much attached to the little girl; and the period drawing near when I had to leave the regiment, we proposed to Serjeant Brown to take her home to Scotland with us, but he formally refused, saying that he would get her brought up himself; but we could not think of leaving her in the country, as Serjeant Brown might soon be taken from her by death[15]; and, likewise, because a man in his situation could not do his duty to a child like this, when he had no one but a black woman to look after his domestic matters; and besides, we could not think of taking her sister home, and leaving her in the country; so I spoke to the adjutant of the regiment, and it was soon settled that she was to accompany us.

[14] Some of the married people had liberty to build small houses for themselves outside the barracks.

[15] I have received word since I left the regiment of this man's death.

This child was twenty months old when we took her home, and she could not set her foot upon the ground, more than if she had not been twenty weeks; she had the appearance of a monkey, more than any of the human species I ever saw; she was indeed nothing, I may say, but skin and bone; and was all covered over with a kind of white hairy down, and her skin, by being so much exposed to the sun with the black woman, was like a duck's foot, so that she was really a loathsome object; but by the time that she had been with us a few weeks, she not only could stand, but, to our great enjoyment, was able to walk about holding by my hand; but after she began to get a little flesh upon her, she broke all out into boils; many of them of such a size, as to require to be lanced by the doctor, and the scars of several of them remain upon her until this day; but I shall have occasion to speak about the children again; and, therefore, will say no more about them at present.

When I was upon the eve of leaving Bangalore, I thought if God spared me to return home, I might expect to see some of the friends and relatives of the men, who would be inquiring after them; I, therefore, wished to make myself acquainted as well as possible with the state of the regiment; and, for this purpose went to the orderly room, and received a statement of the men who had died and gone home invalids; I shall merely mention the number, as the names would be of no use to the reader. Total strength of his Majesty's 1st, or Royal Scots, after the grenadier company joined in Wallajahbad, 1006. Joined at different periods since the regiment came to India, 941; that is, a total of 1947 men, out of which number have died, and been invalided unfit for further service, eight hundred and forty-five.--Number of women that came to the country with the regiment, sixty-two; joined at different periods, twenty, out of which died thirty-two. We had at this time only two children in life that came out with the regiment, and the total number of children that died upon the passage, and since we landed, fifty-seven; that is a total of nine hundred and thirty-four, including invalids, in less than seven years. There were also eight women who left their husbands in the country, and went to officers of different regiments, being "drawn away of their own lust and enticed;" that insatiable desire of "wearing of gold and putting on of apparel," displayed by too many, was their ruin; but before I left the country, three of these poor wretches died in great misery, and four of them became common prostitutes about Madras. The remaining female of this unhappy class, in consequence of some disease, was reduced to such a state of decrepitude, as to be drawn about in a small cart, being unable to walk. What a pity, and a shame it is, that ever such scenes should be exhibited by those who bear the name of Christians; and, particularly, in a country which we are labouring to Christianize. Sure I am, that it operates greatly against the success of these excellent missionaries, whose labours are carried on near any of our regiments; for, when the natives see the shamefully inconsistent conduct of the soldiers and other Europeans, they cannot but think that their own religion is better than that of our countrymen, since, generally speaking, these are much inferior to them in point of sobriety, and some other moral habits.

It is easier for the Christian reader to conceive, than for me to describe, my feelings for a few days previous to leaving the regiment; but just place yourself, as it were, in my circumstances, and let the past and the future be present to your mind: suppose yourself to have been for seven years absent from your native country, and from all those who were near and dear to you at home, and, above all, from the public ordinances of divine grace, and to have been travelling in that wilderness wherein (both literally and figuratively) there was often no way; and also to have been as it were at the gates of death, when there could be little rational hope entertained of ever being brought up again, much less of having the joyful anticipation of soon being restored to your native country, your friends, and even perhaps to a health of which you had long been deprived; and, in a word, to pure air, pure water, and, above all, to a pure Gospel--I say, suppose yourself placed in these circumstances, and see if you will wonder when I tell you my joyful feelings were excited almost to rapture upon this occasion. But you may be ready to say, was there nothing I was leaving behind me calculated to raise in my mind feelings of an opposite kind? No affectionate friends with whom I had enjoyed agreeable fellowship? No doubt there were such friends, and I bless God I can say, that they were friends who had not only travelled part of the weary way with me in that wilderness, but whose society I hope to enjoy again in the promised land; and when I saw and thought on such friends, my mind was no doubt agitated, and a conflict of joy and grief was awakened in my breast. I will just select one solitary individual for my present purpose, as her situation was peculiarly trying, and consequently better calculated to touch the sympathetic feelings, by way of illustrating what I have stated; namely, that I was not without friends from whose social and religious fellowship I was about to be separated.

This person was a young woman, named Mrs. Copwick, who came along with her husband from his Majesty's 33d, when the volunteers from that regiment joined us before they embarked for Europe. Her father and mother had been for a number of years in the regiment, and she was born and brought up in it; and when she attained her 18th year, the old people encouraged her to keep company with the drill serjeant of the corps, who was a man of very depraved habits, and who, in point of years, might have been her father, but he knew how to manage their failings by his own experience, and used to give them many a hearty treat of liquor for her sake, and to gratify his own insatiable desire for drinking at the same time.

The consequence was, notwithstanding the poor girl's disinclination, that her parents got them joined together in a marriage contract. Mrs. C. had been in our regiment for some time before I was acquainted with her, and our acquaintance arose from my wife bringing her into our hut shortly after we came to Bangalore. We were several times in each other's company before we had any conversation of a religious kind; and the first time that I may say any of us had a favourable opportunity was, I think, one Sabbath forenoon, when I was engaged reading Doddridge's Rise and Progress. I happened to make some observations on the subject, which gave her a suitable opportunity of opening her mind to me, which, it struck me, from some previous circumstances, she had been desirous of doing. I was truly delighted with the simple, undisguised manner in which she expressed her sentiments and feelings, and happy that I had it partly in my power to relieve the uneasiness of her mind, and to assist her inquiries after divine truth. From this time we endeavoured to make it convenient frequently to have some discourse together in our hut; the Sabbath, in a particular manner, being devoted by us for our mutual edification; and she found it a very severe trial indeed to be compelled to exchange our company and conversation for the company and unprofitable conversation of the men, when she went to her barrack-room at night, and, above all, to face her brutal husband, who perceived by her artless manner of endeavouring to persuade him to leave off his wicked courses, how she had been employed. Her attempts to reclaim him, alas! were all in vain, for the best answer that she would receive from him for this kindest of all love, was to keep her tongue to herself, and not trouble him with her ---- nonsense; and if she attempted, while he was defaming, to entreat, it was well if he did not enforce his denunciations by the weight of an unmerciful hand. Such was the miserable situation of this poor female, who had, besides this, the care of two young children, and was unwearied in her endeavours to make her husband and them comfortable. Now, my dear reader, if you have been placing yourself all along in my circumstances, you will certainly partake, in part, of my feelings; but, after all, it will only be in part; for although the power of imagination is great, yet I am persuaded you will come far short of the reality; still I am sure you will not wonder at my being sorry to part with this truly amiable young woman, who was earnestly desirous to obtain the knowledge of that way in which she might "escape the wrath to come," and in whom I felt the more deeply interested from a consideration of my former situation in the Prince of Wales's Island, where I so earnestly desired some person to assist me in inquiries of a similar kind. Now, all that I could do for her in this case, (for parted we must be,) was to give her my advice, my best gift[16], and my blessing with it, namely, Doddridge's Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul, (which