the People, no Commons; the Governor and Council are supreme in Sierra Leone; their decisions final, unless referred home; and they can direct, decide, and order, from the deposing of a Bey of three tails -the burning of a capital, to bring the inhabitants to their senses, to the filling an old granny's sneezing mull and the supplying a new pulpit cushion to the Colonial Chaplain.

The following list presents the civil, judicial, ecclesiastical, Liberated African, and Mixed Commission officers, non-commissioned officers, and several functionaries, with their respective and respectable incomes, and may afford some little insight into a portion of the yearly expenditure for Sierra Leone :

I have placed the most responsible of the minor functionaries last, who is obliged to attend on his Excellency the Governor daily; write out and copy all official reports, correspondence, letters to the Home Office and Secretary of State; visit foreign vessels of war; and attend on all public occasions upon the Governor; and for whose services, by a singular, and to this officer unprofitable, anomaly, the colony provide no remuneration, although requiring cool judgment, unremitting attention, and constant exertion to discharge the various duties of the office with justice to the appointment and credit to the Secretary.

By the orders of the Secretary of State a considerable reduction

has been made in the Liberated African department, several of the situations abolished, and the official tail docked, the duties being in part transferred to the custom-house and commissariat officers, which will eventually prove a very great saving in one of the most expensive branches of the colony. The Mixed Commission Court might, with great justice and safety to its functionaries, undergo a similar revisal, not with reference to numbers, but as regards the amount of income.

The lowest expenditure of the Mixed Commission is from £6000 to £7000 a-year. The three first officers receiving the liberal salaries to the tune of £4250, with retiring pensions after six years' service, varying from £800 to £350 a-year, so that if it pleased Providence to spare the lives of the present worthy members, an additional sum of £2000 per annum must be estimated for and paid by the colony, for two invalided judges and an attendant-registrar.

It does seem rather extravagant for the Commissary Judge to class in income with the Governor-General of Western Africa, particularly when the responsibility, anxiety, and demand upon the time and exertions of both parties are placed in juxta position with each other.

Ten or twelve captured slavers are brought in as many months to Sierra Leone. When properly fumigated, cleansed, and reported fit for inspection, the Commissioner proceeds in state on board, in a wellappointed and comfortable barge, reclining on soft cushions, under an awning, over which floats, if there is breeze enough, an olla podrida banner, compounded of the arms of England, Portugal, and Brazil, the stripes and stars of America forming the border, dressed in all the ful. panoply of blue and silver, in a coat garnished with acorns and oak leaves, his trowsers laced with a silver band sufficient for a drum-major of militia, a cocked hat and sword (a singular appendage for a judge), and no wig, which is generally supposed to contain the learning of a man of law. In all the glorious pomp and circumstance of state, the Mixed Commission official ascends the slaver; examines if the fittings up are sufficient to warrant her condemnation; if double decks, ringbolts, slave fetters and irons, extra boilers, and water casks above the regulated number are on board; receives the papers seized by the prize officer, and sends them to the translator, who, rendering them into English, with the aid of a Spanish dictionary and grammar, returns the documents to the Commissioner. Then comes the tug of war, the display of legal knowledge on the part of the English judge and of cunning and chicanery on the part of the foreigner. If the captured slaver is a Portuguese or Spanish, she is soon declared illegal, and rapidly cut in twain; but if Brazilian, in duty bound, the Commissioner of that Court endeavours to prove the case to be one of a coaster-a simple coaster of a harmless merchantman; engaged in no illicit trade, much less the horrible one of conveying slaves. He quotes case upon case; battles every inch of ground; and, as not only being a man of acquirements and shrewdness but intimately conversant with the British and foreign laws, drives our Commissioner to the wall, and forces him to appeal to the arbitrator, who decides, for there are two generally,→ in favour of his countrymen. It is by no means an unheard-of circumstance for the fate of a vessel, her condemnation or release, to be decided by the turning of a dollar; head she is condemned, tail she is scot free.

The last Brazilian Commissioner at Sierra Leone, proving unlucky at this game of chance, and finding his British cotemporary in office resolved, according to Yankee notions, to go the whole hog, and condemn all captured vessels submitted to their tribunal, resigned his appointment in disgust, purchased a slaver, and returned with a party of his countrymen to his own Government.

The second Mixed Commission officer's income is on a par with His Honour the Chief Justice, and the Registrar of this well-paid Court luxuriates in one-third more than Her Majesty's Attorney-General receives, and £150 above the Colonial Secretary. To talk of the duties of either of these two officers in the same breath with those of the Registrar, would be to compare the exertions of a Gibraltar sentinel with the otium cum dignitate of a Chelsea pensioner. Enjoying one of the coolest, most spacious, and best appointed residences in Freetown, free of rent and taxes, a boat and boatmen at command, and sundry satellities always to be found buzzing around Government offices, to say nothing of twice three clerks, the Registrar of the Mixed Commission, like the Pope

Leads a happy life, free from the cares of office strife,

He drinks the best of Rhenish wine, and passes thus a jolly time.

But, jesting apart, considering the vast, unusual, and desirable boon of right-a bona fide right-to retire on a pension after a limited number of years, provided ill health or inclination leads to do so, the officers of the Mixed Commission courts-for I do not confine myself to Sierra Leone-would be amply reimbursed for the duty demanded of them, including loss of rest, health, and mind, at the following rate :

Commissary Judge £1500, equal to the Chief Justice; Commissioner of Arbitration £800, superior to the Colonial Secretary; Registrar £500, on a par with the Queen's Advocate, by which a clear saving of £1500 a-year, would be effected in one court alone, in the incomes of only three officers, and the public service in no way less advantageously conducted; and a reasonable retiring allowance, of one-third of each officer's income, would provide an ample recompense for six years' service even in our most unhealthy colony. It does seem rather inconsistent with justice, fair dealing, and liberality, that an official of a Mixed Court, a peaceful and quiescent character, who has to contend with nothing but climate and an accumulation of bile, should receive double-aye, double-the retiring allowance of a General Officer, who may have been exposed to all the vicissitudes of the tropics; livered in the East, jaundiced in the West, frozen in the North, and rheumatised in the South; fighting the battles of his Queen and country.

I have not given in the return of the Mixed Commission Court the salaries of the six clerks for a reason simple and beyond controversy or condemnation-I do not know their amount. The officer to whom I applied for information on this subject, unwilling to disclose the secrets of the prison-house, or clothed in the dignity of his brief authority, declined to give me any, as it was irregular to do so; forgetting, poor simple man, that they were rendered half-yearly before the Governor and Council, were known to every clerk in the Colonial Office, and as a public document--if the labourers were worthy of their hire-required no concealment.

(To be continued.)

CANTONMENT LIFE IN INDIA.

BY CAPT. F. B. DOVETON.

It becomes a matter of interest to the professional soldier to look at military life in all its phases, whether in camp or garrison; whether he is serving his country in the cloudy north, or glowing east. And what soldier of any army in the known earth experiences so many of its vicissitudes as the British? From inhaling the smoke of Manchester or Leeds, he is suddenly cast upon the world of waters, and after a few months finds himself hunting down bushrangers, or bagging kangaroos and cockatoos in the wilds of Van Diemen's Land. Or again, from luxuriating in the Mediterranean stations, he finds himself transported some few thousands of miles further east, and shooting at crows and brahminy kites with his pellet bow from the verandah of his Indian bungalow. This is a favourite amusement with subalterns, who may not be overstocked with resources. Then again, from a fair and open contest with a European foe, as civilized as himself, the British soldier is summoned perchance to attack stockades on the banks of the Irrawaddy, or to fall ingloriously amidst the tangled jungles of Malacca. His lot is indeed ever changing, and the

varium et mutabile semper

of Virgil, as applied to women, is equally applicable to him.

This sketch will help to show something of the mode of life amongst young hands in India, whether of the Royal, or Honorable John's Service, for the first year or two after their arrival in the country.

Elsewhere I have introduced the well-known quondam cantonment of Wallajahbad to my readers, but as this was the school where I first studied the rudiments of my profession, as well as the interesting scene of many a griffinish exploit, I must be excused for again briefly referring to it. In 1822, this was the head-quarters of a brigade consisting of H.M's. 34th Regt. and two native corps: the station being under the command of Colonel D of the former corps. Of course, as in duty bound on my arrival at the station, I called on the Commandant to report myself, and some little time after he returned my visit, but I gave him a most extraordinary reception quite unintentionally. happened thus: the hot winds were raging, when Europeans take every means of cooling their parched frames. The juveniles of those days, not having the fear of ladies before their eyes, for they were then raræ aves, generally lounged about in the morning very lightly clad, in a shirt and pair of long drawers, alias loose trowsers, à l'Indienne. We' occupied a long line of barracks, called the Officer's Quarters, they were all on a ground floor, and opened into a common verandah or colonnade, I forget which, that served as our play-ground. I was one day stretched upon my camp cot, dressed as described, and taking it easy, very,—when the Commandant knocked at my door. Thinking, as a matter of course, that the visitor was a servant of one of my noisy, .boisterous neighbours, I called out to him to come in, without moving my position, but as he did not hear me, I repeated my invitation somewhat U. S. MAG., No. 200, JULY, 1845.

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roughly, throwing in a strong expletive or two inapplicable enough to a native, but particularly so to a Brigadier, and a C.B.! At length the door opened, and in marched the Commandant! not at all disconcerted, but on the contrary amused at my mistake. I, however, was thoroughly ashamed of myself. There we were, Brigadier and Ensign tête-à-tête: he full fig, and I in shirt, drawers, and bare feet!

The ennui resulting from confinement to quarters and want of occupation is in India excessive, and whilst it drives the private to the regimental canteen in order to get through the day and his spare cash at the same time, his officer is too often induced from the same cause to seek for amusement at the card or billiard table, where in the East gambling is often carried on to a considerable extent. There was a racket court at Wallajahbad, as there is at most cantonments in India, but the exercise is not conducive to health, being a strong provocative to thirst in such a climate. At the time alluded to beer, brandy, and cheroots were the never-failing accompaniments of the game, and it may be added of all games. It is to be hoped, that what may not inappropriately be termed the Brandy Pawnee school of officers is pretty nigh extinct, but drinking was fearfully general in bygone days. Soon after joining I received a visit from some brother officers, and was at first much puzzled at their remarks about the dryness of my quarters. "A very dry house this of yours, D-," said one. "Yes," I replied, “I believe the roof is in very good repair." I soon discovered, however, that it was merely a hint to produce my brandy bottle!

Some forty ensigns were congregated at the station doing duty with the different corps until permanently posted to regiments, in which process there is usually some delay in India. Such an assemblage of juveniles was sure to keep the place alive; amongst other recreations horse-racing and horse-dealing were much in vogue, and cast cavalry horses and tattoos were continually changing hands. Upon my arrival in the country I mounted myself on a spirited Arab poney, but a friend offering me a higher price than I gave, I sold him; not, however, before he had given me an ugly fall, having reared backwards with me, no uncommon manœuvre with the animal in India. I then purchased an ugly, rawboned chesnut, that had been some time before cast from the cavalry for running away: and run away with me he did nearly every time I mounted him! He never hurried himself till I turned to go home, when off he went like an arrow in spite of the severest bit, and never stopped till he reached the stable. He was a furious brute and threw me twice. The second fall was nearly being a serious affair. I had been out for a day's snipe shooting some 8 or 10 miles from cantonment, and was returning home at a slapping pace as usual, to be in time for a parade for ball firing, the road being merely a beaten track over an uninclosed country. A herd of buffaloes (dull sluggish brutes, and uncommonly slow coaches,) were in the act of crossing the road a little distance ahead of me. I had no control over my hard-mouthed charger

11, 1 Quadrupedante putrem sonitû quatit ungula campum,

and in a moment more, bang we came against the buffaloes, in the midst of which I performed a somerset. The concussion was tremendous, for one might as well be ran against a stone wall as an Indian