[1] See "Yule Logs," 1898 (Longmans & Co.), "The King of Spain's Will."
[2] I need hardly say that this feat is quite authentic.—D. K.
[3] To show that I have not overstated the condition of the East India Company's armies during the rise of England's Eastern empire, it is sufficient to quote the description given by a great historian of the soldiers with whom Clive achieved the capture of Covelong and Chingleput: "The only force available for this purpose was of such a description that no one but Clive would risk his reputation by commanding it. It consisted of five hundred newly levied Sepoys, and two hundred recruits who had just landed from England, and who were the worst and lowest wretches that the Company's crimps could pick up in the 'flash-houses' of London."
[4] There are still men in India who can testify that this exploit, marvellous as it may appear to outsiders, has had more than one parallel.—D. K.
[5] It was not till 1856 (under the rule of Lord Dalhousie) that Oude was annexed to the British dominions; and, up to that time, the misrule of its native princes was the byword of all India. A favourite pastime with one of these model sovereigns was the sudden letting loose of a number of venomous snakes in the midst of a crowd of market-people!
[6] Literally "salt fellow"—a phrase implying that a man has been, as the Hindus say, "true to his salt."
[7] The presence of a tiger so close to a beaten road is (as I can bear witness from my own experience) not at all an unheard-of thing in Northern India even at the present day.—D. K.
[8] Loin cloth.
[9] Rich merchant.
[10] Little breakfast.