No favoritism is shown, and I have met young men
related to the highest officials to whom it has been kindly
intimated that another career than the army had better be sought.
I have met many officers, and the impression made upon me is an
exceedingly favorable one. I do not believe that in case of war
now the blunder of those in command would have to be atoned for by
the superior fighting qualities of the rank and file, as was
notoriously the case during the Crimean War. The promotion of
General Wolseley means business. The Duke of Cambridge, because he
is a royal duke, is allowed to reign, but Wolseley is to govern.
I was struck with the full length portraits of the real man and
the sham in last year's Royal Academy. General Winfield Scott in
all his glory was not more brilliant than the duke, military hat
in hand with its white waving plumes, booted and spurred, his
breast a mass of decorations, "Old Fuss and Feathers" over again.
Beside him was a man in plain attire, about as ornamental as
General Grant; but this was the man of war, one of those very rare
characters who does what there is to do--in Egypt as in
Abyssinia--and never fails.
Bombay and Calcutta are again rivals for supremacy. Bombay Island,
upon which Bombay City stands, another of the keys of the world,
was given to Britain by Portugal as part of the dower of Catherine
of Braganza when she married Charles II.
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