CHAPTER II.
1852 Bengal Horse Artillery--Incidents of the journey--New Friends When I went to India the mode of travelling was almost as primitive as it had been a hundred, and probably five hundred, years before.
Private individuals for the most part used palankins, while officers, regiments, and drafts were usually sent up country by the river route as far as Cawnpore.

It was necessarily a slow mode of progression--how slow may be imagined from the fact that it took me nearly three months to get from Dum-Dum to Peshawar, a distance now traversed with the greatest ease and comfort in as many days.

As far as Benares I travelled in a barge towed by a steamer--a performance which took the best part of a month to accomplish.

From Benares to Allahabad it was a pleasant change to get upon wheels, a horse-dak having been recently established between these two places.

At Allahabad I was most kindly received by Mr.Lowther, the Commissioner, an old friend of my father's, in whose house I experienced for the first time that profuse hospitality for which Anglo-Indians are proverbial.