thousand one hundred and twenty-five feet long
—perhaps the longest room in the world—is
occupied by six hundred sleepers; but each man's
allowance of sleeping room is only a space six
feet long by six feet wide. There is
provision in these rooms for the necessary ventilation,
though no possible system of currents
could in such rooms really secure wholesome
air. Generally, too, these Indian dormitories
are placed on the ground. Even in England,
where malaria has far less power than in India,
nobody sleeps on a floor touching the ground, if
he can help it. The floor of the Indian
dormitory usually consists of brick, or stone, or
plaster, laid over the open ground. In one such
room, a flagstone being lifted for some purpose,
the stench rising from the ground beneath was
so great that the surgeon fled.

The feeding of the Indian soldier is not
regulated very much more wisely than his lodging.
The old notion has been maintained in practice
that dram-drinking is a safeguard against perils
of the climate. The daily allowance of drink to
each man is three quarts of porter; but he may
take, instead of one of the quarts, a dram of
spirits: or, as at Mhow, he may take only one
quart of porter and two drams of spirits. Two
drams of spirit are the twentieth part of a gallon.
A soldier who takes his government allowance,
as far as he may, in spirit, consumes
eighteen gallons and a quarter of raw spirit
yearly, besides what he may buy in the bazaar.
"Drinking," said Sir Charles Napier, "does not
give the fever, but it so inflames the liver and
brain, that the fever takes too firm a grasp to be
got rid of. Why, their ration is two drams a
day, and eight of these drams make a quart
bottle! So the sober soldier swallows one-
fourth of a bottle of raw spirits every day! You
and I know them too well to doubt that the
other three-fourths go down after the first." In
fact, however, though there is much bad spirit
bought in the bazaars, the Indian soldier usually
draws from the canteen two quarts of porter and
a single dram of spirit. It is creditable, under
such circumstances, though bad enough in itself,
that generally only one man in a hundred is a
drunkard: yet in some European regiments the
average rises to fifteen in a hundred. In Burmah,
when only malt liquor could be had, health
always improved.

In the adjustment of the dietary there is, of
course, no recognition of the different requirements
of the body at different seasons. Every
day brings its pound of beef—varied twice a
week, if possible, with mutton—its pound of
bread, and its pound of vegetable, with its
modicum of salt, and of rice, and of tea or coffee,
and sugar. There is no encouragement of
vegetable diet in hot weather. The men eat their
beef as cooked by the natives in aboriginal
kitchens, destitute of ovens or boilers, often
without a chimney. They buy bits of the filthy
bazaar pig, to eat with their breakfast, and they
feed their bodies, forced into dreary inactivity,
on more meat than would maintain health in a
labourer. The waste time which they might
partly spend in the healthful work of cultivating
gardens and producing wholesome herbs, and
fruit, and vegetables, is at almost every station
thrown heavily upon the soldier's hands. They are
themselves cultivated into laziness, until they
desire to have their kits carried for them by natives.
Except morning and evening parade, and his turn
on duty, which takes him out of bed about once
a fortnight, the English private soldier in India
lies about on bed in barracks all day long, or
reads a little, if he can; but only a few stations
are supplied with any books; and where there
is a government library, it is not lighted of
evenings. Often the soldier is so well taken
care of that he is forbidden to go out in the sun
while it is shining, and, unless he disobey orders,
he is cooped up with one, two, or three hundred
others, to loll on the beds, smoke, read a bit, doze,
gossip, or play cards. For one man employed
in an Indian barrack, six are idle; yet it is
found that when men are actively engaged on
field work, however hot the weather, health
improves. Mortality falls in time of war, because
the men get something to do. Very much
depends on the good sense of the commanding
officer. One will endeavour to coop up his men
in hot weather, from eight in the morning until
five in the evening, lest they should get
sunstroke; another will send them out shooting,
and find sickness thereby lessened. But as a
general rule, "everybody," observes Miss Nightingale,
"seems to believe that the way of making
diseased livers in geese, for Strasburg pies, is
the best way of keeping men's lives sound, and
of making efficient healthy soldiers for India."

The majority of the recruits from Ireland and
Scotland, condemned to inactivity under a
tropical summer, are said to eat many times the
bulk of animal food they would use in their own
country, when working their hardest in the
coldest season. And they drink their raw
spirit and porter over and above that. The
men, said Sir John Lawrence, eat meat two or
three times a day all the year round, they like it,
and "if they have any money you generally find
that they buy bacon and pork, which is very
filthy in India, being badly fed, and they thus
add to the quantity of their animal food." He
thought that government might try to lead the
men into a liking for fruit and vegetables.
"You must try," he said, truly enough, "to
carry the men with you." As for the soldiers'
gardens, his experience was, that the men would
expect to be paid for working in them. "I do
not think," he said, "that any Englishman likes
working in India." But he believed that trades
might be introduced;—work upon clothes,
shoes, iron-work, and other wants of the
regiment, so as to make the regiment more
self-supporting. "The men would," he thought,
"take more pride in that, and the officers would
interest themselves. It would repay you, if you
could get the men to do it, and they would be
more healthy and more happy, for the men are
not happy; they are restless, and they want to be
at something else, or to get away. . . . The more
superior a man is, the more distaste he has for