. Forty-one years in India : from subaltern to commander-in-chief . een won. It required time and patience toinspire officers with a belief in the wonderful shootingpower of the Martini-Henry rifle, and it was even moredifficult to make them realize that the better the weapon,the greater the necessity for its being intelligently used. I had great faith in the value of Camps of Exercise, andnotwithstanding the difficulty of obtaining an annual grantto defray their cost, I managed each year, by takingadvantage of the movement of troops in course of relief,to form small camps at the more importan
. Forty-one years in India : from subaltern to commander-in-chief . een won. It required time and patience toinspire officers with a belief in the wonderful shootingpower of the Martini-Henry rifle, and it was even moredifficult to make them realize that the better the weapon,the greater the necessity for its being intelligently used. I had great faith in the value of Camps of Exercise, andnotwithstanding the difficulty of obtaining an annual grantto defray their cost, I managed each year, by takingadvantage of the movement of troops in course of relief,to form small camps at the more important stations, andon one occasion was able to collect 9,000 men together inthe neighbourhood of Bangalore, where the Commanders-in-Chief in India and of Bombay (Sir Donald Stewart and * Lieutenant-Colonel G. T. Pretyman, , was Assistant MilitarySecretary until 1884, when he was succeeded by Lieutenant-ColonelR. Pole-Carew, Coldstream Guards. Lieutenant Neville Chamberlain,Central India Horse, and Captain Ian Hamilton, the Gordon High-landers, were 1883] MEASURES FOR IMPROVING MADRAS ARMY 385 the Hon. Arthur Hardinge) were present—the first andlast time that the three Chiefs in India met together ata Camp of Exercise. The Sappers and Miners were abrilliant exception to the rest of the Madras Army, beingindeed a most useful, efficient body of men, but as noincrease to that branch was considered necessary, Iobtained permission to convert two Infantry regimentsinto Pioneers on the model of the Pioneer Corps of theBengal Army, which had always proved themselves souseful on service. Promotion amongst the British officerswas accelerated, recruits were not allowed to marry, or, ifmarried, to have their wives with them, and many otherminor changes were made whicji did much towards im-proving the en ciency of the Native portion of the MadrasArmy; and I hope I was able to increase the comfort andwell-being of the British portion also by relaxing irksomeand useless restr
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