10 SPORT IN BENGAL. 



one of a party, not exceeding sixteen in number, who met to 

 dine with a friend in the south barracks of Berhampoor, in 

 1796, when, happening to meet with some friends whom we 

 had not seen since occupying the same quarters with them in 

 1782, we casually mentioned our old comrades at the same 

 place, but were generally found to wind up our retrospective 

 details with, ' Oh, poor fellow, but he's dead.' The frequent 

 repetition of the apostrophe induced two of us to take pen and 

 paper, when one reckoning up those among our lost friends 

 who had occupied the North, and the other recording the obi- 

 tuary of the South Rangers, we found in the space of little 

 more than twenty years we had lost one hundred and sixty- 

 three in one list and one hundred and fifty-seven in the other | 

 It is worthy of remark, that our record was confined to such 

 officers and staff as had occupied the cantonments during three 

 years only, and that more than three hundred officers had never 

 been quartered at any time at the station. What adds to the 

 wonder of such an occurrence is, that for the greater part of 

 the time very little change took place, the same corps being 

 fixed for several years. With the exception of a few prudent 

 men, whose moderation rendered them contemptible in the 

 opinion of the major part of us, who were greatly attached, 

 not only to sport, but to every species of debauchery, I believe 

 few quitted Berhampoor in those days untainted by disease, 

 or without some serious injury done to their constitutions." 



It is difficult at the present day to realise that the little 

 civil station of Berhampoor was a great cantonment a century 

 ago, in which three hundred hard-riding, hard-fighting, and 

 hard-drinking gentlemen one may hardly say lived, but died. 

 In those times men in truth came out to Bengal to die at an 

 appalling rate. Where are their graves, shooting, hunting, 

 fighting, and thirsting no more ? The cemeteries of Bengal 

 give no adequate clue to the numbers, the names, and qualities 

 of those who lived and died in the country during the past 

 one hundred and fifty years ; men whose valour founded the 

 British Indian Empire, but whose resting-places are unmarked 

 by stone or inscription. Where do they rest ? The ashes of 



