When the great little man did arrive,
there was, we thought, a good deal of irregularity among the troops,
such as laughing in the ranks and treading on toes, &c. However,
the only point the inspecting officer dwelt upon was the absence of
uniformity in dress, caused by the deficiency of two pairs of yellow
tights among the lightning flashers, otherwise he appeared perfectly
satisfied, and all went off well. After his review he invited himself
to our dinner-party, and honoured our repast with the further addition
of a kid stew. He turned out to be one of the ex-Company's officers,
a subaltern of eighteen years' service, FIFTEEN of which had been
spent away from his regiment on the staff. He was with his corps,
however, when it mutinied, and escaped without much difficulty. The
unfortunate colonel of the regiment, finding that none of his men
would shoot him, had done so with his own hand. He gave it as his
opinion that the cartridges WERE the cause of the mutiny; but allowed
that his regiment was in a bad state of discipline some time before,
and that all the native corps were known to be disaffected years
before the event occurred, both by the officers present and those
absent upon staff employ.
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