Attractions of empire

I remember young Fred Roberts (who’s a Field-Marshall now, which shows you what pull these Addiscombe wallahs have got) once saying that everyone hated India for a month and then loved it forever. I wouldn’t altogether agree, but I’ll allow it had its attractions in the old days; you lived like a lord without having to work, waited on hand and foot, made money if you set your mind to it, and hardly exerted yourself at all except to hunt the beasts, thrash the men, and bull the women.

Flashman in the Great Game, p.58, Pan edition, 4th printing, 1979.

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Flashman, Flashman quotes,Frederick Roberts, India.