Cawnpore. 107 



member well the cold morning we arrived in Cawnpore 

 cantonments, which looked, in the grey light, like a 

 city of the dead rather than a place to live and be 

 merry in ; and yet I have spent many a pleasant hour 

 on the racecourse ; many a brave day at Sumbulpore 

 and across the river with the Tent Club under the 

 skilful leadership of Mr. Maxwell, of the Elgin Mills ; 

 many an afternoon larking on Brown Duchess, Rebecca, 

 and others, over fences natural and artificial, on the 

 light sandy soil on the Oude side ; and many jolly 

 evenings at the club by the church, and at our Mess 

 House by the river. 



Having seen that my fellow-passengers Caliph, 

 Ranelagh, Brown Duchess, and Hawkestone were 

 watered, fed, and bedded down, I went to the race- 

 course and found its track almost obliterated and the 

 ground as hard as any metalled road ; while the stand, 

 which has since been pulled down, stood as a melan- 

 choly memorial of the days when old Jem Collins 

 used to camp hard by in the Sevada Kothee at the 

 brickfields, with his large string of horses, led by 

 Vanderdecken, and trained by the trusty Jaffir. The 

 course was soon put into galloping order, for Cawnpore 

 then possessed a number of ladies who were fond of 



