My Service in the Indian Army, and After. By General
Sir J. Luther Vaughan, K.C.B. (A. Constable and Co. 16s.)—Sir J. Luther Vaughan's recollections date from the Crimea and the Mutiny,—it was his regiment, the 5th Punjab Infantry, now Vaughan's Rifles, that settled doubts as to which side the Punjab Force would take in the Sepoy Rebellion. He took part in the Umbeyla and Black Mountain Campaigns, and, after brigade and temporary divisional command, returned to be apparently shelved. Then came his appointment as superintendent of the "southern division" of the London and North-Western Railway, a task not uncongenial to an unwillingly idle soldier; and after that the second new departure, as he calls it, as correspondent of the Times in the Afghan Campaign of 1879. Here we have General Vaughan's accounts sent to the Times of the march to Kandahar and the battle, interesting and instructive as embodying in the language of a soldier and an historian the chief features of the march. General Vaughan is an example of those good soldiers who find that sooner or later the time comes when there is nothing for them to do, and who make the best of an enforced military idleness by turning their hands to something else. It is easy to read his intense disappointment at the early close of his military career— he recapitulates the unfortunate promotion which deprived him of active service—but he was lucky in passing many active years, luckier than many a brother-officer. He has not made his story as interesting as he might have done; it is dry, there are no anecdotes, no cheerful reminiscences of the old days, and the division into paragraphs separated by asterisks gives a most piecemeal aspect to the book. There are three objects, he tells us, that he has striven for in this book ; and one, to prove the assertion that the training of the Indian officer fits him for service anywhere, has certainly been gained.
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