They are often ten or twelve months in arrears, and obliged to borrow money for their own subsistence and that of their families, at twenty-four per cent.interest.If they are disabled, they have little chance of ever recovering the arrears of pay due to them; and if they are killed, their families have still less.

Even the arms and accoutrements which they have purchased with their own money are commonly seized by the officers of Government, and sold for the benefit of the State.

Under all these disadvantages, the Nazim tells me that he thinks it very doubtful whether any of the men of the two corps would fight at all on emergency.

The cavalry are still worse off, for they have to subsist their horses, and if any man's horse should be disabled or killed, he would be at once dismissed with just as little chance of recovering the arrears of pay due to him.

Of the fourteen guns, two only are in a state fit for service.