Recruitment for the Madras Army was so regulated that at one time the European officers of our regiment consisted of three colonels and a subaltern. These senior officers were severally distinguished for piety of a type rare in the tolerant atmosphere of an İndian station, for the ownership of a harem and for the possession of a taste, unique among Europeans, for the jack-fruit, the smell whereof is as that which drave Asmodeus into the utmost parts of Egypt. Naturally I was most intimate with the first, Colonel Macey to wit, and one or two little anecdotes occur to me as emanating from him. I never heard elsewhere of a venomous snake causing injury to man except by means of its fangs, but evidently that is possible,' for Colonel Macey told me that on one occasion he was helping to dig a cobra out of a hole in a wall when the reptile suddenly popped its head out and spat over a space of a foot or two into the eye of one P. The regimental surgeon, Whiteley, gave me, however, the more probable version that the snake struck at P.'s face and, missing it, accidentally jerked some venom into his eye. Anyhow, P. was very seriously ill afterwards, his eye being so violently inflamed that his life was endangered, but in the end life and sight were saved.
Macey once upon a time, when marching with his regiment, went at the close of a stage to spend the day at a Travellers’ Bungalow to which was attached a garden, perhaps one of those native gardens which I myself take a pleasure in, wildernesses of crowded trees and bushes pervaded with the steamy smell of water and the menace of lurking reptiles. At the house he was told that there was a tiger in the compound, and strolled out to see what had given rise to the fancy. As he was following a path among the shrubs, he saw a tiger turn into it. He dropped
