Page:Narrative of a journey through the upper provinces of India etc. (Volume III.).djvu/386

344 admit of; they all fall short of what are usually taken by the collectors of districts, and in comparison with what the Commander in Chief had the year before last, I have found people disposed to cry out at them as quite insufficient. Nor have I asked for a single soldier or trooper beyond what the commanding officers of districts have themselves offered as necessary and suitable; yet for myself and Dr. Smith, the united numbers amount to three elephants, above twenty camels, five horses, besides poneys for our principal servants, twenty-six servants, twenty-six bearers of burthens, fifteen clashees to pitch and remove tents, elephant and camel drivers, I believe, thirteen, and since we have left the Company’s territories and entered Rajpootana, a guard of eighteen irregular horse and forty-five Sepoys on foot. Nor is this all; for there is a number of petty tradesmen and other poor people whose road is the same as ours, and who have asked permission to encamp near us, and travel under our protection; so that yesterday, when I found it expedient, on account of the scarcity which prevails in these provinces, to order an allowance of flour, by way of Sunday dinner, to every person in the camp, the number of heads returned was 165. With all these formidable numbers, you must not, however, suppose that any exorbitant luxury reigns in my tent; our fare is, in fact, as homely as any two farmers in England sit down to; and if it be sometimes exuberant, the fault must be laid on a country where we must take a whole sheep or kid, if we would have animal food