Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 December 1893 — A Cantonment. [ARTICLE]

A Cantonment.

The cantonment at an Indian town means the place where the English live. The native town is usually inclosed by high walls and is accessible only by a few gates. It is brimful of people, who crowd its bazaars or shop streets. Quite outside the town and a mile or two away is the cantonment, an unwalled district, where each house stands in its own inclosure or compound, and where the regiments —British or native—are quartered in “lines” or rows of huts. The cantonment usually has wide, wellkept roads, with a grassy margin and avenues of fine trees, giving it the appearance of a great park. The English visitor, if ne stays with friends, might be a week without seeing the native town at all, unless his curiosity prompted an excursion in search of it. There is always in the cantoment a club, with a ladies’ wing (unless the ladies have a gymkhana or olub of their own), and, besides the various parade grounds, a polo ground or tennis court, so that a visitor bent only on amusement has plenty of resources.—[The Nineteenth Century