The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-01-20 00:00:00

AN INDIAN OFFICER ON ENGLAND.

One of the native officers who recently visited
England furnishes the following account of his hu-
pressions to a lopal paper ;
- -

"Being a native of India, and haying never before
left it, I, of course, had no real idea what England
was, although I had heard a great des 1 about it, its
people, the wondrous things, and gret workshops
there. After the campaign in Egypt, it became
known that certain of us were to visit the great
country Of which ours is a dependency; and when I
was selected I became very glad, a feeling of pride
possessed me, and I prayed that God would long con-
tinue the reign of her Most Gracious Majesty the
Queen. The others who were selected were also very
glad, and until the day of our landing we speculated ,
variously as to what was to be seen. We went first
to Liverpool, then by rail to London. Everywhere
we were heartily cheered, and the people seemed to
know of ourcqming,
"We all consider London to be Number;One place in
the world; we do not think there could be another
city in the world to equal it. We never saw such
crowds as were present at the review of the troops
by the Queen. We fully appr2ciate. the kind-
ness of her Majesty in pinning with her own hands
the medals on our breasts, but she soiled her
hands by touching us—we are too insignificant
for her to touch. She inspected is at Buckingham
Palace, touched our sword, and said a few kind
and encouraging words to us. On one occasion
we wont to see the Duke of Buckingham, who
received us very cordially, and gave us an opportunity
of witnessing a little sport. Ten or twelve gentlemen,
attended by about 20 hounds, formed a hunting party,
and caught a fox, while we looked on. Never did we
see such a great bear as the Polar bear in the Zoolo-
gical Gardens. He seemed warm while we were
shivering with cold. The National Gallery, Weet-
minster Abbey, the Houses a Parliament, and every
place of note were seen by us ;- and I think, and my
comrades agree with me, that nothing beats the
Crystal Palace. We all consider it the handsomest
building in Loudon, and Windsor pastle cones
-What most took, our - fancy in the Crystal Palace
was a picture of a battle in the Franco-German war.
Everything in it looked like life. We prefer it to the
pictures in the National Gallery. It is the best
picture in London. We liked the theatres and
circuses, especially the latter, for the wonderful feats
of horsemanship and strength which were displayed.

Many preferred seeing the performances of the
dancing girls,. but we did not care much for the
ballet. One day two men and myself went to
Brighton to see Colonel Campbell, commanding our
regiment. Brighton is very beautiful; I liked it
better than London, and could live there for ever.
We have seen more wonderful things than we
thought of. Almost everything was Number One.
The women are pretty, the men brave and hospitable,
and the country such that we do not think there is
another like it. Unfortunately only two of us could
speak English; but none were inconvenienced in any
way, and we could not have been better attended to.
I have studied at Canning College, Lucknow, I have
passed the entrance examination at Calcutta Univer-
sity, and was in the first Arts class; but preferring a
military life, I gave up further studies."