1 62 PATNA DURING THE MUTINY. 



really pleasant hours together, and as he never laughed at my awful 

 blunders, he had never excited my anger or resentment ; so when 

 I paid him off, he bowed and said, " Dear Sir ! your friendship 

 reminds me of the ivy and the oak." 



After leaving Patna, I corresponded with this amusing man, for 

 whom somehow I had conceived a real regard, until his death, 

 which occurred some years after. He always declared that we 

 should meet again ; I hope we may, and I am sure I should not feel 

 ashamed to dress up, as the soldiers say, by the side of my old 

 Munshi, at the great assize. 



I have often heard it said that there can be no real friendship 

 between the natives of India and Europeans. But I never took in 

 this doctrine. I am sure I felt very great regard for many of the 

 native gentlemen with whom I was brought in contact. Indeed I 

 can't imagine more genuine friendship than exists between me and 

 my old head clerk. Baboo Troilokonath Lahari, a Kulin, or high- 

 caste Brahmin, with whom I have corresponded ever since I left 

 India, nearly fifteen years ago.* 



I was asleep in Rosy Bower alone one night, when an Engineer 

 galloping up to the door, suddenly awoke me by shouting out, " Get 

 up for the town is up, and come to the Commissioner's house, where 

 all the Europeans are rallying, and expecting an attack from three 

 regiments of Sepoys who have mutinied at Dinapoor some eight miles 

 distant." I needed no second bidding, particularly as there was a 

 beam above my head, which would have made a most convenient 

 place for the enemy to string me on, and as my friend galloped off 

 to rouse some others, I made my way to the Commissioner's house, 

 where I found all the Europeans had assembled, fully armed and 

 mustering fairly strong. It was arranged that we should go on the 

 flat roof of the house, in case the Mutineers attacked us, as we could 

 conveniently fire down upon them from there. 



* Nor must I forget my esteemed friend, Baboo Ughore Chunder Mokerjee, late head-master of the Monghyr 

 School, from whom, as I write, a long letter has arrived. Speaking of his son, who is now a Magistrate, he 

 says : " Do you remember when this fellow, in a fit of pique ran away from home, and I emplored your assis- 

 tance to find him. You, by way of consolation, replied in words which will always dwell on my memory, 

 ' No fear, but he will come back fast enough when he is hungry.' " 



