boy senseless and covered with blood, but a month's good nursing has made him all right again.

Having no sound gun, and only one steady horse i the field, we gave up the pursuit and went home, leaving a promise of a reward of five rupees for the head and horns of our enemy.'

It may seem curious to us in these days that a young officer arriving in India for the purpose of joining his regiment should have been able to devote so much time to sport and other amusements by the way; but in the days of which I am writing there were no railways in India, and few carriages, and consequently the time allowed an officer to find his way up country was often very considerable. Three months were allowed between Calcutta and Allahabad, and as Reynell Taylor had been appointed to the 2nd Light Cavalry, which, after employment in Afghanistan, was now returning to Ferozepore, it is not improbable that he was granted as much as five or six months.

After leaving his friend Sleeman, Reynell Taylor made his way to Loodiana on the Sutlej. Here he determined to travel the remainder of the distance by water, and having hired a boat, he embarked with all his worldly goods and possessions. One evening, soon after starting, the boat ran on to a rock, filled, and went down; and almost before Reynell Taylor and the crew realised what had happened they found themselves striking out as best they could for the shore. On reaching terra firma the crew sat down in a circle and wept, but Reynell Taylor, who from a boy had been an excellent swimmer, went to work with a will, and continued until dark swimming out

to the sunken boat and diving for his things at the bottom of the river. When he had saved as much as he could, he started off across the country in search of shelter for the night, and after a while arrived at a bungalow. Having told his tale to the owner, he was surprised to find he had met with an old friend of his father's. Dry clothes were obtained for him, and the next morning the remainder of his things, with the exception of his books, were recovered from the bottom of the river, and he was able to resume his journey on board another boat. Reynell Taylor was fond of telling the story of his march up the country to join his regiment, and the fun of the whole thing was,' he would add, 'that, after all said and done, I only arrived just in time to see my regiment ignominiously disbanded.'

The 2nd Light Cavalry had refused to follow their officers at the action of Purwan Durrah, and for their cowardice on this occasion the name of the regiment was removed from the Army List. Thus Reynell Taylor found himself one of a number of officers without any men to command.

In June 1841 Reynell Taylor was temporarily attached to the 7th Irregular Cavalry at Bareilly, and he remained with this regiment until the early part of the following year, when the 2nd Light Cavalry was re-formed at Cawnpore under the title of the 11th Light Cavalry. Of his doings at Cawnpore during the year 1842 he has left no record, and I have been unable to discover a single letter dealing with this period.

Throughout his life in India Reynell Taylor corresponded regularly with his family in England. His letters, written sometimes week by week, were almost always

addressed to his father and intended for circulation among his relations and friends. I have heard it said that his father arranged these letters in order in a book, and that in his declining years the old soldier's greatest pleasure was to read over and over again the doings of his soldier son. That volume, down to the time of General Taylor's death, must have contained a complete record of Reynell Taylor's life, but, in spite of diligent search, no trace of it can now be found, and thus these pages lack much that might have added to their interest. Fortunately, however, among Reynell Taylor's papers is a roll of sheets of tissue paper, labelled, 'My old manifold Copy Books,' and here are copies of some of the numerous letters he wrote to his father during the years 1843 and 1845. Many of them sparkle with the joyousness of youth, all are brimful of affection, and his love for those at home, instead of diminishing, seems to grow brighter and brighter as year follows year and the time of separation grows longer. There is a great secret bound up in this constant letter-writing. For nigh upon twelve years scarcely a single month passed without some tidings arriving at Sandhurst. He was in the habit of referring all questions for his father's opinion, and thus these two hearts were fast bound together with a love which grew in strength till their hands were clasped once more, though none too soon, in England.

The first of Reynell Taylor's letters from Cawnpore is dated March 18, 1843. In it he laments the loss of all his books, and begs his father to send him 'an Ainsworth, a Lexicon, a Greek Testament, and a Lemprière,' as he is anxious to keep up his reading. There is always an undercurrent of fun in his letters, and many of them are

illustrated with ludicrous caricatures. 'I have not got my room to myself,' he writes,' for a fellow-sportsman, in a lizard, has the run of my skylight; a mouse without a tail lives behind the wainscot, and a vocal company of crickets inhabit the back of the coloured print of the Cathedral of Rheims.'

In June Reynell Taylor began to study native languages, or the black classics,' as he calls them, and he illustrates the effect of black classics, when the heat was enough to cook a beefsteak on the gate-post,' by a pen-and-ink sketch in which an individual in a turban is sitting very erect at one end of a table, and he himself lying fast asleep at the other with his head on his book.

But study did not occupy all his time by any means. There are constant references to sporting expeditions in these letters of his, as well as parts played in garrison theatricals. His thoughts evidently often reverted to Ogwell and Devonshire, and he continued to carry vivid recollections of former happy days. Everyone who has engaged to any extent in cricket in Devonshire, knows the drive from Newton along a dusty road, at first, and afterwards over an old stone bridge, where the brown waters of the Teign babble over the stones, and the trees cast grateful shade. Everyone knows the awkward turn in at the gate, the thatched pavilion, and the broad expanse of mossy turf where the first club in Devon has for many and many a decade carried on its contests and dispensed its hospitality. It must have been refreshing in the vicious, parching sunheat of Cawnpore to go back in mind to the cool waters of the Teign and the green turf; and thus Reynell Taylor

writes: 'So the Teignbridge Club has lasted to its second jubilee. I do hope it will not be allowed to subside before I find my way to the pretty valley again; that is, if I am ever destined to do so. I know no country meeting that would recall so many pleasant associations to my mind as that would; besides, I retain my love for the beautiful game of cricket, and I never played on a better ground than that.'

Forty years later Reynell Taylor's figure was well known on the old ground; and grown too stiff for cricket, he might often still be seen playing bowls or keeping score there.

So the letters run on from month to month, till in one, dated August 9, he writes :

'I do not know how long we may be here now, as we hear rumours of wars. A large force is to be assembled at Agra very quickly, the object being Gwalior, where they have kicked out our Resident and misbehaved themselves in sundry manners, and still remain refractory.'

The dissensions in Gwalior had been the cause of anxiety ever since the early part of this year. In February 1843 the reigning Scindia-the Maharajah Jankaji—died without heirs, and without making any arrangement for a successor to the guddee. His widow, by the advice of some of the most powerful persons in the state, adopted as her son a boy named Bhageerut Rao, who was said to be the nearest relation of the late Maharajah. When nominated to the throne Bhageerut Rao was but eight years of age, while the Maharanee had not yet completed her thirteenth year, and as it was absolutely necessary that a Regent should be appointed to carry on the government, Mama