Volume 2 / Part 2 — Bhishti
Reading edition
The uniform ’e wore Was nothin’ much before, An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind, For a piece o’ twisty rag An’ a goatskin water-bag Was all the field-equipment ’e could find.
With ’is mussick on ’is back,
’E would skip with our attack,
An’ watch us till the bugles made ‘Retire,’
An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide
’E was white, clear white, inside
Notes in this chapter
Note 1 · Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, art. Bhishti.Note 2 · Elliott’s Memoirs of the North-Western Provinces, i. p. 191.Note 3 · Crooke’s Tribes and Castes, ii. p. 100.Note 4 · Rudyard Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads, ‘Gunga Din.’Note 5 · Thacker and Co., London.Note 6 · When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire.4Note 7 · An excellent description of the Bhishti as a household servant is contained in Eha’s Behind the Bungalow,5 from which the following extract