Page:Sir Thomas Munro and the British Settlement of the Madras Presidency.djvu/44

 35 S/J^ THOMAS MUNRO

magnificence — that I never go abroad unless upon an elephant, surrounded with a crowd of slaves — that I am arrayed in silken robes, and that most of my time is spent in reclining on a sofa, listening to soft music, while I am fanned by my officious pages ; or in dreaming, like Richard, under a canopy of state.

' But while you rejoice in my imaginary greatness, I am most likely stretched on a mat, instead of my real couch ; and walking in an old coat, and a ragged shirt, in the noonday sun, instead of looking down from my elephant, invested in my royal garments. You may not believe me when I tell you, that I never experienced hunger or thirst, fatigue or poverty, till I came to India — that since then, I have frequently met with the first three, and that the last has been my constant companion. If you wish for proofs, here they are. I was three years in India before I was master of any other pillow than a book or a cartridge- pouch ; my bed was a piece of canvas, stretched on four cross-sticks, whose only ornament was the great- coat that I brought from England, which, by a lucky invention, I turned into a blanket in the cold weather, by thrusting my legs into the sleeves, and drawing the skirts over my head. In this situation I lay, like Falstaff in the basket — hilt to point — and very comfortable, I assure you, all but my feet. For the tailor, not having foreseen the various uses to which this piece of dress might be applied, had cut the cloth so short, that I never could, with all my ingenuity, bring both ends under cover. Whatever I gained by