Page:On the Coromandel Coast.djvu/244

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232
ON THE COROMANDEL COAST

were driven away by cholera. One of the victims of this scourge of the East was General Horne. A new site was chosen, but it was decided to ascertain if the spot suited the health of the men before erecting barracks. They remained in camp for ten years before the permanent buildings were ready for their reception.

The remains of the old cantonment at Worriore are still visible. There is the open parade-ground with its bungalows clustering round; these were once inhabited by the officers of the 19th. The huts that housed the men have long since disappeared, and on the site has sprung up an irregular village, thickly packed with native houses of mud and thatch. The bungalows, which the officers of the 19th so hastily forsook for their camp on the ground occupied by the present cantonment, are inhabited by native merchants engaged in the cigar industry. In one of the largest, a two-storied house suggestive of better days, lived a Eurasian family upon whom I called. As I sat in the reception-room-its fine dimensions broken up with canvas partitions I thought of a possible past, when the imperious tones of the daughter of 'My Lady Darke' might have echoed through the house, as she sent her slaves flying to do her bidding; or as she greeted her guests and bade them welcome.

Mrs. Floyd was a handsome woman and an excellent rider. The saddle was more to her taste than the slow palanquin with its labouring, chanting bearers. Colonel Bayly, her contemporary, tells the following story in his diary.

One morning all the troops of the garrison were on parade waiting for the general who was to inspect them. Rebecca Floyd was among the spectators; so also were her children. The general, who was no favourite with the lady, was a little late in arriving on the ground. As he was seen approaching a spirit of mischief seized her.