APPENDIX. Ixxxi 



ry stations, at wliich European soldiers are located, a very large num- 

 ber of volunteers would be found in every regiment, who would feel it 

 a privilege to be allowed to sboulder a pickaxe or spade, and assist in 

 throwing up the embankments of a great national undertaking, that 

 may, in after years, be a far more glorious military monument of what 

 had been achieved by the British soldier in India, than all that has 

 been engraved on marble urn, or mural tablet. A horde of Goths and 

 barbarians may invade and conquer a country, but it is only a civilized 

 nation that can improve it ; and the first great step is the opening out 

 of its resources, and making communication perfect, by means of roads, 

 canals, and navigable rivers. 



But, until these truths can be impressed upon the minds of those, 

 who have the power and authority to act in remodeUing our present 

 defective system of maintaining a gigantic peace-army in idleness and 

 sloth, we must be content to be looked upon as visionaries, and to hear 

 our plan ridiculed as Utopian and impossible. Without the co-opera- 

 tion of the officers of a regiment, we well know that we are under- 

 taking the labour of Sisyphus : and that any scheme — whether for the 

 improvement of the men, or the education of their children — whether 

 it be to procure health or recreation— to estabUsh a " soldier's garden" 

 or regimental work-shops — will necessarily fall to the ground, if the 

 commandant and his officers take no interest in the matter. It cannot 

 be expected that the men will take the initiative, if ridicide and satire 

 from their superiors are to be brought to bear against them. The 

 French have long set us an example in this matter well worthy of imi- 

 tation : and Napoleon's opinion of the value of his corps of Pioneers 

 and Sappers was never lessened, or detracted from, by any of the most 

 brilliant deeds of " the old guard." 



We are fuUy aware that there would be an outcry raised, at first, on 

 the bare mention of European soldiers working in a tropical climate. 

 There would be a cry of " coolies,^^ " slaves" " convicts ;" but the outcry 

 would come from those, who have either paid the subject of the " mor- 

 tality of OMX troops in India," no attention, or who, from ignorance and 

 prejudice, look upon the very idea of change or improvement, as em- 

 bodying something revolutionary and destructive. To such we would 

 beg to quote the words of one, whose writings will probably outhve 

 those of most of his co-temporaries, and whose energy and perseverance 

 enabled him to overcome aU opposition, because his heart was in the 

 work. Dr. Arnold says : — 



" There is nothing so revolutionary, because there is nothing, so un- 

 I 



