CHAPTER XXXIII AND LAST 



THE last year of my long, and in a way, eventful Indian 

 life had at length arrived. It was in the month of February, 

 1857, that I had first set foot on Indian soil, little thinking 

 then that India was to be my future home. Yet, now in 

 the year of grace 1896, I found myself still there. For 

 close on forty years, with but few periods of leave home, 

 my life had been spent in Bengal. Transferred periodically 

 from one district to another, I had, in the course of my 

 long service, practically exploited the whole of that huge 

 province, officially known as Lower Bengal, and was now 



once more in the District of J , the scene of many a 



past adventure. 



This district was one of the few which, from their 

 isolated situation, had so far escaped the " blessings " said 

 to follow the process called civilization, but which, in Bengal 

 at any rate, seems to end in discontent and a condition 

 perilously bordering on sedition. I had been reappointed 

 here at my own request, for as my time for leaving India 

 was approaching, I wished to take away with me the 

 recollection of what India had been, rather than what it 

 was as I had seen it where I had last served a model of 

 the " up-to-date " district with an Europeanised Babu at 

 its head assisted, with the sole exception of myself, by a 

 staff of his own countrymen, most estimable in themselves 

 but from a companionship point of view, of little use to me. 



The three years I had passed there had consequently 

 been to me a mere existence, and but for my work, which 

 left me little time to feel the loneliness of my life, I could 

 scarcely have endured it, for sport there was none, nor any 

 other recreation to occupy my leisure hours, had there 

 been any to fill up. Fortunately for me, however, the 

 " civilizing influences " of the new regime had not appa- 

 rently extended to the criminal population or if they had, 



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