Why continue the tale?  I need not now account for Jowler’s gloom on receiving his letters from Benares—­for his exclamation upon the death of the Indian chief—­for his desire to marry his daughter:  the woman I was wooing was no longer Miss Julia Jowler, she was Mrs. Chowder Loll!

CHAPTER II.

Allyghur and Laswaree.

I sat down to write gravely and sadly, for (since the appearance of some of my adventures in a monthly magazine) unprincipled men have endeavored to rob me of the only good I possess, to question the statements that I make, and, themselves without a spark of honor or good feeling, to steal from me that which is my sole wealth—­my character as a teller of the truth.

The reader will understand that it is to the illiberal strictures of a profligate press I now allude; among the London journalists, none (luckily for themselves) have dared to question the veracity of my statements:  they know me, and they know that I am in London.  If I can use the pen, I can also wield a more manly and terrible weapon, and would answer their contradictions with my sword!  No gold or gems adorn the hilt of that war-worn scimitar; but there is blood upon the blade—­the blood of the enemies of my country, and the maligners of my honest fame.  There are others, however—­the disgrace of a disgraceful trade—­who, borrowing from distance a despicable courage, have ventured to assail me.  The infamous editors of the Kelso Champion, the Bungay Beacon, the Tipperary Argus, and the Stoke Pogis Sentinel, and other dastardly organs of the provincial press, have, although differing in politics, agreed upon this one point, and with a scoundrelly unanimity, vented a flood of abuse upon the revelations made by me.

They say that I have assailed private characters, and wilfully perverted history to blacken the reputation of public men.  I ask, was any one of these men in Bengal in the year 1803?  Was any single conductor of any one of these paltry prints ever in Bundelcund or the Rohilla country?  Does this exquisite Tipperary scribe know the difference between Hurrygurrybang and Burrumtollah?  Not he! and because, forsooth, in those strange and distant lands strange circumstances have taken place, it is insinuated that the relater is a liar:  nay, that the very places themselves have no existence but in my imagination.  Fools!—­but I will not waste my anger upon them, and proceed to recount some other portions of my personal history.

It is, I presume, a fact which even these scribbling assassins will not venture to deny, that before the commencement of the campaign against Scindiah, the English General formed a camp at Kanouge on the Jumna, where he exercised that brilliant little army which was speedily to perform such wonders in the Dooab.  It will be as well to give a slight account of the causes of a war which was speedily to rage through some of the fairest portions of the Indian continent.