Records of Sport and Military Life in Western India ... With an introduction by ... G. B. Malleson

Introduction

BY COLONEL G. B. MALLESON, C.S.I. " He is one of the few on whose slightest word you may rely more than on the oath of those who profess more strongly."— Sir Waiter Scott. LONDON: W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13, WATERLOO PLACE. S.W. PUBLISHERS TO THE INDIA OFFICE. 1881. (All rights reserved.) ON DON : 1 Itl IKI) UT W. H. ALLEN AND CO., 13 WATKRI.00 FLACK.

INTRODUCTION.

. The writer of this autobiography, the late Lieu tenant-Colonel Thomas Gamble Fraser, was born on the 8th of September 1807. He came from a good stock, being descended from Thomas Fraser of Beaufort, Inverness-shire. This Thomas Fraser, born in 1636, was cousin german to Hugh Fraser, Lord Lo vat, and inherited the estates of that noble man on his death without issue. Thomas Fraser, Lord Lovat, had fourteen children, eight of whom survived him; one of these was the notorious Simon, Lord Lovat, executed for high treason in 1747. The third surviving son, David, the pro genitor of Thomas Gamble Fraser, emigrated to Ireland in 1697, settled in King's County, and became possessor of considerable estates on the VI

INTRODUCTION.

. banks of the Shannon. The ruins of his man sion called Parke, near Banagher, are still standing, as are those of Cuba House, another family seat near Parke. On this property, a son, George, was born to him in 1810. George Fraser was a man of con siderable attainments and character. He was High Sheriff of the county, and raised a regiment of Black Horse, now one of the regiments of Dragoon Guards, and became Colonel of it. He possessed great determination, and could brook no opposition to his will. By his marriage with the daughter of Colonel Anguinis, a French emigrant, George Fraser had two sons, David and Robert. Of Robert I have been unable to find a trace, but David incurred his father's displeasure, and was expelled his house with a small allowance, in consequence of his marriage with a lady of great beauty, respectable family, and irreproachable character, but with no fortune.

David did not survive the expulsion more than a few years ; he left two sons, George and Arthur. George Fraser, born in 1777, was only six years old when his grandfather died, and he succeeded to the family property. The estates,

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. VII however, had been so deeply encumbered by his grandfather's extravagance that not even a minority of fifteen years was able to clear them. Under advice, then, he disposed of the property, receiving in exchange a deed which secured to him a life income of £2,800 a year. He then entered the British Army. Tired soon of inac tion at home, he exchanged into a regiment, the 65th, serving in India. When there, he, for some unexplained reason, passed into the service of the Nizam, who appointed him to the command of a brigade of his troops at Aurangabad. After holding this office for a few years he resigned it, returning to Europe with the rank of Major, and died in France in 1835. Before proceeding to India he had married a daughter of the Reverend T. Gamble, of Dublin. Of this marriage Thomas Gamble Fraser was the fourth issue.

Born in 1807, he was educated at Harrow. At the age of sixteen he was launched to combat alone with the world as a cadet in the service of the East India Company. Although this was an ordeal which in those days every aspirant for honours in the Indian military service had to undergo, it is scarcely possible to exaggerate its trying character. At the age of

INTRODUCTION.

. sixteen a boy, in point of fact, should begin his real education. Up to that age he has had opportunities of laying the foundation of a coming superstructure, but of laying the foundation only. To send, then, a boy of that tender age, his education unfinished, his mind unformed, his real qualities undeveloped, to a strange land, six thousand miles from his country, to consort there with men who are absolutely strangers to him, but whose characters have been developed in the same hap-hazard style, is to expose him to the chances of a lottery. Unless the boy possess naturally an extraordinarily strong character, everything must depend upon the ways and habits of the regiment to which he may be posted. A hard drinking regiment would, almost always, make him a sot ; a pious regiment, a Puritan; a hunting and shooting regiment, a sportsman ; a gaming regiment, a gambler ; a society regiment, a Lothario.

Some times two or three of these characteristics were found in one and the same regiment. In that case the neophyte would cast in his lot with the section with which he might have, naturally, the greatest affinity. At the time when Colonel Fraser entered the Indian Army, the temptations, especially to

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. IX drinking, were infinitely greater than they are in the present day. I recollect well, when I entered the army thirty-nine years ago, how enormous were the instances of young officers, in other respects of the highest promise, who succumbed to the degrading vice of over-compliance with a taste which, amongst young men, was then the taste of the day. The vice took the form of what is termed perpetual soaking. By a young man of nineteen, fresh from school, and thrown amongst companions hardened in that iniquity, there is no vice so easy as this to acquire. Cer tainly there is not one so difficult to get rid of when once acquired. Colonel Fraser's autobiography will show that he did not succumb to the tempter. He started in life with this one enormous advantage, that he had been educated at a public school.

I have observed during my career that boys who have passed through the training of our great public schools — I allude especially to the public schools of my younger days, Winchester, Eton, and Harrow, — were far better able to encounter, on their start in life, the various vicissitudes of fortune, than those who had not enjoyed that pre-eminent advantage. I have observed, moreover, that the after career X

INTRODUCTION.

. of boys so educated has been of a nature to do justice to their early training. Almost all of them — I say " almost all," but, in fact, I do not recollect a single exception — -have risen to a high position. The little world of a public school, with its early recognition of discipline enforced by the more prominent boys, its examples! of the consequence of the practice of good and the practice of evil, has prepared them for that life in the army which is, in so many ways, the logical continuance of college training, and has endowed them with a strength to resist evil far greater than the strength possessed by boys reared in a private seminary or amid the Lares and Penates of their home. Another, and a scarcely smaller advantage was possessed by the author of this autobiography. He was posted to one of the finest regiments in the service of the East India Company, the 1st Bombay Fusiliers.

This regiment ranks now in the British Army as the 103rd Royal Bombay Fusiliers, and possesses a reputation second to that of no regiment in the service. It is only fair to add that this reputation is mainly due to the achieve ments it accomplished, and to the character it bore when it carried the Company's colours. It had

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. XI fought at Plassy, it had aided in conquering Bengal; it had subdued Guzrat; had struck down Tippii Sultan at Seringapatam; had driven the Peshwah from his throne ; and had assisted in subduing the Panjab. Few regiments can boast of nobler antecedents, and it is with regiments as it is with men : — the great deeds of ancestors form the highest incentive to their descendants to emulate their virtues. Colonel Fraser joined his regiment as a sub lieutenant, and soon became, in the highest sense of the term, a Bombay Fusilier — a good officer, and an honourable, straightforward soldier. What he was in other respects, how he developed into a thorough sportsman, keen, active, daring, and self-reliant ; how he early discerned the great merits of his friend, and for years his con stant companion, the illustrous Outram; how his naturally good intellect quickened by experience, until it ripened into a judgment of character difficult to surpass, these pages will show.

They abound, those especially which record the later ex perience of the author, with a calm and, generally, a singularly accurate judgment of men and things. The honest character of the mm is shown in the scorn which he hurls at unrighteous dealing,

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. whether perpetrated by a brother officer, by a high official, or by the Government which he served so zealously. Unable to descend to cast a gloss over a fault, he applies the right name to every transaction. With him, truth is truth, and a lie is a lie. The virtues and the faults, the good deeds and the backslidings, of all with whom he comes in contact pass through the same severe crucible. Perhaps the pages of this volume which will be the most eagerly welcomed by the public are those which relate the sporting achievements and the early military deeds of Sir James Outram. The detailed description of the manner in which that eminent man conducted his campaign against the fierce denizens of the jungle, showing how carefully he studied the ground, how accurately he divined the exact spot in which his enemy would take refuge, and the par ticular line of retreat he would pursue ; with what precision he indicated the points to be guarded, how he resented breaches of discipline on the part of his companions, set before us the Bayard of the Indian Army, the man sans peur et sans reproche, as he really was to the contemporaries to whom his own actions made him a hero. Outram,

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. XIII in the jungle fighting against tigers, was the type and forerunner of the Outram of Lakhnau. In fact, the same qualities which were necessary to gain supremacy in the one field were equally required to win success in the other. Calm ness in danger, a presence of mind never to be disconcerted, a good eye for the features of a country, readiness to take prompt advantage of any mistake of the enemy, judgment to seize an advantageous position — these are the qualities required alike in the successful hunter of tigers and the successful leader of armies. That Outram possessed and applied them with an equally happy result in both cases the records of his life fully show. Even in this volume occurs a remarkable instance of the manner in which, when sent to the southern Maratha country, fresh from the pursuit of tigers, to command a force one-sixth smaller than another force which, owing to the stupidity of its leaders, had been baffled by the enemy, Outram applied to that enemy the sound rules of jungle warfare, and completely and easily defeated him.

This story, related with great force and spirit by Colonel Fraser, himself an eye-witness, and rather more than an eye-witness, of the blunders of the one leader and the light and skilful touch of the

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. XIV other, is told in the thirteenth chapter. As a feat of arms, in which common sense and experience were applied to solve a military problem which had baffled trained soldiers, this achievement rivals in its principle the actions which gained his early fame for Clive and shed lustre on the far famed Italian campaign of 1 796. Second only in importance to the record of the deeds of Outram, are the author's own com ments upon the manner in which, in the old days of the Company, annexations were planned and carried out. He describes every such annexation as having been preceded by the expression of an earnest desire on the part, sometimes of the political agent only, sometimes of the Govern ment the agent served, to cultivate " amicable relations " with the rulers of the coveted districts.

The " amicable relations " once established, it was always easy to pick a quarrel, and in some way or other, a quarrel did always ensue. Of the mode in which " amicable relations " led, on an occasion within his own experience, to the annexation of the country with which they had been established, the author gives a striking instance in the thirteenth chapter. He exposes there, in a scathing but perfectly fair manner, the causes

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. XV which led to the permanent occupation of Aden by the British. At a moment when France is being largely blamed for picking a quarrel with another African power, on pretexts at least as weighty as those which led to the annexation of Aden, perhaps the purusal of Colonel Fraser's story may tend to repress the virtuous desire to pluck the mote from the eye of our neighbours. Colonel Fraser is responsible for all the opinions expressed in this book. It is published as he wrote it. He was indeed one of the " straightest " men with whom it was ever my good fortune to come in contact. Although everyone may not agree with his conclusions, although it may even be true that the course of events would have led him to modify some of those conclusions, no one who knew him will question that they truly and fully express his exact convictions at the time.

I may here mention that I have reason to know, from my conversations with him during the last year of his life, that Colonel Fraser modified very considerably the opinions he had recorded in the last chapter of his book, regarding the progress of Russia in the East. Those opinions had been formed whilst the Crimean war was progressing, before Russia had broken

INTRODUCTION.

. down the barrier of the Caucasus, and had begun to force her way across those barren and sandy steppes which lay between her and India. In 1877 Colonel Fraser distinctly recognized the necessity of protecting India against even the possibility of an invasion from the North, and he repeatedly expressed to me a hope that the Government of the day would not delay to occupy such a position as would cover the passes leading from western Afghanistan into the valley of the Indus. He did not, however, add to or alter his journal. He left it intact to record the opinions at which he had arrived when cir cumstances were very different. As a conversationist Colonel Fraser was the most charming of companions. There was no subject connected with his long and varied ex perience in the East on which he could not talk well.

He was not, indeed, one of those men who desire to monopolize talk, to hear only the sound of their own voice. He was always glad to listen when he felt that his companion was able to speak with authority, and on such occasions he used to show that interest in the conversation which, when displayed by an old man to one much younger, never fails to charm, and often even to

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. XVII inspire. When his turn to speak came he always showed how capable was his mind not only to receive but to discuss the matters presented to him. What Colonel Fraser was in his profession may be gleaned from this volume. He never lost an opportunity of showing the good stuff that was in him. All the actions of his later life proved that he had taken thoroughly to heart the lessons which his training under Outram had taught him. The last important service entrusted to him was the transport of English cavalry regi ments from Suez to Alexandria during the Crimean war. Of this service an account will be found in these pages. The manner in which it was performed stamps Colonel Fraser as a man possessing an administrative power which could have been employed for the great benefit of his country in higher offices.

As a record of sport this little book may not be without its value. It is, perhaps, to be re gretted that in some instances the initial letter alone indicates the names of places in which the author obtained excellent tiger-shooting. But it would not be difficult for those who might desire to follow his footsteps in those places to trace the exact locality. b

INTRODUCTION.

. Colonel Fraser retired from the service on the 1st January, 1856. The last page of his journal was written in September, 1866. " It professes," he wrote, " to be nothing but a strictly veracious detail of occurrences in the life of a soldier by profession in a non-purchase service prior to the Rebellion, at a time when electric wires and rail roads had not been adopted, and our Empire in the East still retained its oriental character, and its rulers felt an interest in the country and its people." He died in April 1878, at the ripe age of threescore and ten. He had been blessed with a large family, but his widow, two sons and two daughters alone survived him. It is in accord ance with own wish that his journal is now given to the world. G. B. MALLESON. 27, West Cromwell Road, 1st May, 1881. CONTENTS.

Chapter I

Release from Harrow School, and Deportation to India. — First Impressions of the Sunny Land of Bombay. — Kind Reception and Treatment by Friends. — Posted and directed to join the European Regiment at Fort George, Bombay. — Startling Reports that my future Comrades are a fast set. Join and find them so. — Duelling. — My introduction to Barrack Comforts. — Mrs. General W— . — A Faqir's Prediction verified . . p. 1

Chapter II

Proceed on leave to N . — Marching Experiences, and Impression of the Interior Forty Tears ago. — Syce killed bv Tiger. — Mofussilite Station and Manners in an independent Rajah's Territory. — Return to Regiment, and ordered on Service to the Doiib. — Capture of Kitur, and what led to it. — Deaths of Thackeray, Black Sewell, and Highton. — Release of the prisoners E and M . — Detachment in the Palace . . . p. XX CONTENTS.

Chapter III

Return to Belgaum. — Take the field against Sivajf s Capital Kolapiir. — Experiences of Camp life and Amusements. — Mr. B , the Commissioner, and his Escort. — Pleasures and Penalties of the same. — Falls of Gokak, a Dog survives the descent. — Eock Snake and Mangus. The Investment of Sivaji" s Capital. — Ravages of Cholera. — My introduction in the Commissioner's Train to His Highness at Midnight Darbar. — Arrangement of Political Difficulties, and return to Head-quarters. — Flogging and its results. — Proceed to Bombay and return with Female responsibilities. — Their little Peculiarities on the March . . . . . . . p. 27

Chapter IV

Visit Goa ; description of Old and New. — Paucity of Officers. — Representation of a Grievance, and its reply. — Second Expedition to Kolapoor. — Mahader's Declaration that every tenth Man of our Force would die. — Shooting Anecdotes. — Bustard. — Hail Storm. — Stampede of Cavalry Horses. — Return to Barracks. — Cobra di Capella Snakes. — Maharram Festival. — Detached to the Fort of Belgian. — Poor Jocko's Death. — Arrival of young Officers p. 43

Chapter V

Our Colonel leaves us. — His Successor. — March to Bombav. — Brigade movements en route. — Hog-hunting. — Arrival at Presidency. — Lamentable disappointment. — Our Colonel's Idea of Truth. — First acquaintance with Captain J. 0 . — Appointed his Adjutant, and proceed to Khandesh. — Life in that Province. — Mode of CONTENTS. XXI Travelling.— Entered at Tigers.— J. G , his Cook, and the Commissioners. — Labour of Tiger-killing. — Cha racter and Habits of my Commandant . . p. 57

Chapter VI

Ambah Pergannah.— Tiger killing Cattle.— Wild Dogs and Sambur. — Visit to Assirgarh— Buffalo-hunting.— Bearshooting. — One too many in a Kitchen. — Buraupur Corps de Ballet. — Return to Head-quarters.— Sandy and the Bustard. — Pig-hunting ; a vicious Sow . . p. 72

Chapter VII

Back to Burhanpur and Mhall Gorasi. — Tiger Adventure : " Don't be afraid ; I am with you ! " — Ursa Major's Mode of deciding a Shot. — Cheetas hunting Sambur. — Wounded Deer. — A True Story. — Alligators. — Snake Charmer and Cobra di Capellos . . . . p. 89

Chapter VIII

Ride to N r and C h. — Tiger-shooting extraordinary. — Bear disturbed by an unwelcome Visitor. — A heavy Bag. — Return. — Gorasi and Manjerod. — Wild Buffaloes. — Death of a swimming Tiger . . . p. 99

Chapter IX

Sultanpur District : Its former Flourishing Condition. — Unexpected Visitor at Well. — Life Tenacity of Deer. — Targeteide don't qualify for Feræcide. — A gallant Tiger and his Contrast. — Outram's obstinacy. — Noble Points of his Character . . . . . . p. CONTENTS. XXII

Chapter X

Moli'r District. — Humanity rewarded ; or T and the Bear. — Kandu Naik's Death by a Tiger. — Falcon and Wild Duck. — Numerous Flocks of Bustards. — Folly of young Sportsmen. — Narrow Escape of M . — Snipeshooting and its Results. — Leave on Sick Furlough for England p. 127

CHAPTER XL

Return to India, and join my Regiment at Piinah. — Panthershooting. — Our bachelor Colonel and his Adjutant. — Their Opinion of the Married State. — Fatal Duel. — Killing a Tigress in a Cave. — A narrow Escape . p. 142

Chapter XII

March for the Presidency Kolabah Quarters. — Poison Snakes. French Hospitality, and British Return. — Expedition to Aden. — Its Capture, and what led to it. — Stream of Rats. — Close Shave from Arabs. — How Queen's and Company's Officers' Service Claims are treated. — Arab Night Attack. — Presidency Appointment . . p. 154

Chapter XIII

Appointed Second in Command of Piinah Horse. — Recruiting and organization. — Unjust Treatment of the Regiment by Government. — Detachment for Aden. — Dangerous Excitement. — The Doctor and His Royal Highness. — My first and last reprimand. — Pursuit of Ragoji. — With Force to Mahrata Country. — Capture of Major Ovaus. — Fall of Pauella. — Siege of a Maratha fort. — An idiot General. — Arrival of Outram. — Contrast between Outram and the idiot General . . p. 1 CONTENTS. XXIII

Chapter XIV

Midnight Expedition, and Abduction of the Rani of Kolhapiir. — Proceedings in a newly-subsidized State. — Military execution of a Suspected. — The Members of Council. — A Story of Khutput. — Vigil for a Tiger. — Painful Results. — Return to Head-quarters. — Transferred to Khandesh. — Another Change . . p. 200

Chapter XV

Proceed to Sindh. — Napierian Paradise. — Expensive Revenue. — Irretrievable Drawbacks of Sindh. — Young Woman with Beard. — Muggur Peer, or Alligator Swamp. — Primitive Method of Fishing for Pullah. — Shikargarhs. — Tragic Incident. — Wild-fowl Shooting. — Mountain Sheep p. 219

Chapter XVI

Field of Miani. — Remarks on the Action. — Critical Position of Sir C. Napier. — Our first Introduction of Criminal Jurisdiction. — Pleasant Disposal ot Witnesses. — Diseases of Sindh. — Cholera Pestilence at Karachi. — The Beauty of Jarrak. — Fish Shooting. — Native Lithotomist. — Public School Instruction in former Days . . . p. 231

Chapter XVII

A mad Jackal in Bed-chamber. — Melancholy Case of Hydrophobia in an Officer. — Reprehensible Practice of Dogspearing. — British Assumption and Rudeness. — Burying alive.— Extraordinary and attested Fact. — Successful Theatricals. — Danger of Moustachios. — Long-hoped-for Rain. — Loss of Engineer Offices. — Sir C. Napier's Suggestions. — Mode of providing Barracks . . p. CONTENTS.

Chapter XVIII

Six Months' Leave. — Run through the Northern States and Canada West. — The cool Cabman. — Rapid Washing. — Our mistaken Standard for other Nations. — Mammoth Tree Chunk. — Hotel Manslaughter. — The Banker Colonel dismissed by his Regiment. — Lake Steamer. — The dull Chamber. — Advice to Gentleman Emigrants. — Niagara and its Pollution. — Young Kentucky. — Fearful Railroad Travelling. — Atlantic Storm. — Return to India. — Ordered to Egypt p. 257

Chapter XIX

Leave for Egypt. — Arrangements for the Passage of Cavalry across the Desert to the Crimea. — The Transit : A Long March and late Commander. — Staff Officer from Malta. — His Ideas of Troop Transit. — Alexandria. — Inimical Feeling to us regarding the War of European Residents. — Miserable Oppression in Egypt. — Proposal for Supplies to the Crimea : Its fate. — -Waterloo a Misfortune. Our Well-wishers at Zech's Hotel. — Successful Completion of Transit. — M. Lessep's Canal. — Archæological Wonders at Alexandria. — Return to England, and Termination ........ p. MILITARY LIFE AND HUNTING ADVENTURES IN INDIA.

Chapter I

Release from Harrow School, and Deportation to India. — First Impressions of the Sunny Land of Bombay. — Kind Reception and Treatment by Friends. — Posted and directed to join the European Regiment at Fort George, Bombay. — Startling Reports that my future Comrades are a fast set. — Join and find them so. — Duelling. — My introduction to Barrack Comforts. — Mrs. General W . — A Faqi'r's Prediction verified. At the mature age of sixteen, whilst pondering at Harrow School what possible advantage might accrue in after life from the farrago of Greek and Latin that was daily dinned into me, without one useful auxiliary, I received the joyful notice to proceed to London, there to learn my future ; and HARROW SCHOOL. boy though I was, I began to reflect upon what I had acquired during my three years sojourn at the far-famed seminary.

The result was certainly not satisfactory. Struggling to give vent to classic lore in wretched verses, or still worse themes, was not exactly a good preparation for a military career. For in those dark days little else was taught in the great public schools, and instruction in all useful English literature and acquirements was ignored, or their study granted as an indulgence for extra hours ; and grown lads of the fifth and sixth form with whom the defunct languages were as a mother-tongue, exhibited un blushingly their deplorable ignorance in the mere rudiments of their vernacular. I had, fortunately for me in after life, preserved some remains of modern history, geography, and arithmetic, to fall back upon ; and with these, a strong frame, well developed by Angelo, and a letter of credit, I found myself in 182- landed at Bombay with all the privileges of a cadet of Infantry.

The world does not contain a finer harbour than Bombay; and at the period I arrived (June) the commencement of the south-west monsoon, or periodical rains, when its numerous and picturesque islands were tinted with green — the distant ghats the parsi's. 3 capped with lowering clouds, and the long ser pentine islands of Bombay and Colabah, that form the bay to the westward, clothed in verdure with the countless vessels and boats on its vast expanse of water, left nothing wanting to complete the picture. The hospitable house of F s received me, and being soon comfortably installed in it, leisure was afforded to examine the localities, and regard the mosaic of Asiatics that composed the popula tion at the period I speak of, but which has since been greatly modified by the increase of Euro peans and Parsis.

This latter, an intelligent and enterprising race, who run hand in hand with ourselves in introducing and enjoying in their houses and equipages all the luxuries of London and Paris, are descendants of refugees who fled to and settled in the western coast of the Indian peninsula, from a sort of Edict of Nantes denounced against them by their Mahommedan conquerors in Persia. They formed, and indeed form, if not the most numerous, the most intelligent and the wealthiest portion of the island of Bombay, and much of the progress made by the island in later years is due to their zeal and enterprise. Very soon after my arrival the intimation that 1 * POSTED TO THE EUROPEANS. I was " posted," was received, and I found myself an officer of the Regiment of Bombay European Infantry, now Her Majesty's 103rd Royal Fu siliers, then as now one of the most distinguished regiments in the service.

At the time I speak of, however, the regiment was only marked by the shameful treatment of the officers and men by the authorities of the day — they being defrauded of their pay, slighted by the Government, and doomed, except when required in the field to assert our supremacy, to almost perpetual incar ceration in the dismal and unhealthy barracks of Fort George, with a mephitic ditch of unmention able filth close under the window. I was informed that the officers were " a fast set," and it was pressed upon me to exchange. It is true that some few were fast and bad, driven to despair by their gloomy prospects ; but from this ill-re"quited regiment, and its brother corps in the other Pre sidencies, have stood forth the most distinguished names the army of India can boast of. Checking all prudential motives, I determined to take my chance, and bidding adieu to my kind host at F 's comfortable residence, I proceeded at once to, and reported myself at the barracks.

Hardly had I alighted when I witnessed FIRST IMPRESSIONS. an angry altercation between two officers. I remembered then the suggestion of an Irish friend that pistols were an indispensable regimental equipment. By good luck an officer present with drew me from the scene of fracas to show me the quarters in the lower range in which I was about to be installed. Advancing to a room, the light of which was supplied from the door, which was cautiously opened, we were assailed at the same time by the most diabolical noises and pesti ferous stenches. Paroquets, dogs, a litter of pups, two monkeys, and a baboon, occupied different vantage points on the floor, and their exhalations poisoned the air. I asked feebly, if " this was the place I was to sleep in ? " " Yes," said he cheer fully ; " but of course they will move out these pets first, and sweep the floor."