href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@37782@[email protected]#Ill_7" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">My bachelor establishment

"            28 A kneeling elephant "            36 "The ladies of the hamlet came forward" "            54 Bhuttia drummers "            54 Chunabatti "            56 "From my doorstep I watched them coming down the hill" "            66 The Deb Zimpun's prisoners "            66 The Durbar in Buxa "            74 A sambhur stag and my elephant "            90 Bringing home the bag "            90 Forest Lodge the First "          100 Forest Lodge the Second "          100 "The mahout was holding up the head" "          110 Subhedar Sohanpal Singh "          128 "We saw another elephant" "          130 The tiger's Lying in state "          172 The tiger's last home "          172 "My sepoys drilling" "          178 Buglers and non-commissioned officers of my detachment "          178 The walled face of Fort Bower over the river "          282 The stockade and ditch of Fort Bower "          282 The gate with wicket open and drawbridge lowered "          286 Captain Balderston inside the stockade "          286 Bringing home the General's dinner "          290 "I was mounted on a country bred pony" "          296 "An elephant loaded with my stores and baggage" "          296

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LIFE IN AN INDIAN OUTPOST

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CHAPTER I

A FRONTIER POST

Our first view of the Himalayas—Across India in a troop train—A scattered regiment—An elephant-haunted railway—Kinchinjunga—The great Terai Jungle—Rajabhatkawa—In the days of Warren Hastings—Hillmen—Roving Chinese—We arrive at Buxa Road—Relieved officers—An undesirable outpost—March through the forest—The hills—A mountain road—Lovely scenery—Buxa Duar—A lonely Station—The labours of an Indian Army officer—Varied work—The frontier of Bhutan—A gate of India—A Himalayan paradise—The fort—Intrusive monkeys—The cantonment—The Picquet Towers—The bazaar—The cemetery—Forgotten graves—Tragedies of loneliness—From Bhutan to the sea.

Against the blue sky to the north lay a dark blur that, as our troop train ran on through the level plains of Eastern Bengal, rose ever higher and took shape—the distant line of the Himalayas. Around us the restful though tame scenery of the little Cooch Behar State. The chess-board pattern of mud-banked rice fields, long groves of the graceful feathery bamboo, here and there a tiny hamlet