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JOURNAL, R.A.S. (CEYLON). [VOL. XI. 



On the 1st of June following a council of war was held, 

 and it was settled that our General should leave with a fleet 

 and anchor below Columbo near a fortress belonging to it, 

 and about seven miles distant. A few miles from this 

 fortress is a place where landing is easy, called Berberi. The 

 Portuguese held this fortress, from which an open road leads 

 to Columbo. I myself walked over it three times, but it is 

 not easy to walk when it is high water, because one can only 

 march along the sea, and with bare feet : you have now sand, 

 now water, now stone ; and shoes are very dear in India : 

 you have to pay two rixdollars for a pair, and they do not 

 last for a week. 



Now, as I did not care to spend my pay in shoes and 

 stockings, necessity taught me to walk barefoot, and I 

 thought " Different countries, different customs," and "When 

 you are amongst the wolves you must howl with them." 

 Many of my comrades who had been born in wealth felt this 

 so much that they fell ill or even died of chagrin and vexa- 

 tion. But in my case I had perforce to be patient, and I could 

 sooner endure this than the drinking of the water we had, and 

 that, too, not always in sufficient quantity. Many a whole 

 day, burning hot as they are in India, we had not more than 

 a pint ; and that too so full of worms, that we had to strain it 

 through a cloth held before the mouth, and then the water 

 was such that it had to be sweetened three times before 

 taken. Many a time I thought of my father's wine-cellar, 

 and would have gladly done without wine if I could only 

 have had a glass of home-brewed beer, or a slice of good beef 

 out of our kitchen. Hundreds of times I had to be satisfied 

 with a small slice of salt meat, and this we only got three 

 times a week, and it was so salt because it had been in salt 

 for five or six years. This does not leave much flesh on one's 

 bones. However, when I saw that it could not be helped, 

 I at last learnt to bear these hardships easily. At the begin- 

 ning the Hollanders had given me the nickname " Young- 

 depraved," because I went into war so early in life ; but 

 after I had been a year in the country, and knew how to 



