Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India. W. S. R. Hodson
act on the information I gave them. We have, accordingly, had a robber-hunt on a large and tolerably successful scale. Numbers have been caught. One shot pour encourager les autres, and we have traces of others, so that my quiet practice (originally for my own amusement and information) has been very useful to the State. I found out the greatest part of it by sending clever fellows disguised as "faqueers" (you know what they are, I think;—religious beggars) to the different villages to talk to the people and learn their doings. Some of the stories of Sikh violence, cruelty, and treachery which I have picked up are almost beyond belief. The indifference of these people to human life is something appalling. I could hardly get them to give a thought or attempt an inquiry as to the identity of a man whom I found dead, evidently by violence, by the roadside yesterday morning; and they were horrified at the thought of tying up or confining a sacred ox, who had gored his thirteenth man the evening before last! They told me plainly that no one had a right to complain of being hurt by so venerable a beast.
In such pursuits, combined with surveying, my time passes away tolerably well. I am alone again, Napier having gone to Lahore; but this is a sweet place, and I am staying in a pleasant summer-house of Runjeet Singh's, in the midst of a fine garden, or grove of mango and orange trees.
Camp on Ravee, March 29th, 1848.
Just as I had completed my somewhat lengthy reply to your question, I was interrupted by a camel-rider, who had come in hot haste with a letter from Sir F. Currie, at Lahore, with the most agreeable intelligence in the world—voilà.
"My dear Mr. Hodson—Pray knock off your present work, and come into Lahore as quickly as you can.
"I want to send you with Mr. Agnew to Mooltan. Mr. Agnew starts immediately with your acquaintance, Sirdah Sumshere Singh, to assume the government of that province, Moolraj having sent in his resignation of the Nizámut. Lieutenant Becher is to be Agnew's permanent assistant, but he cannot join just now, and I wish you to go with Agnew. It is an important mission, and one that, I think, you will like to be employed in. When relieved by Becher, you will join the Guides at Lahore, and be employed also as assistant to the Resident. The sooner you come the better.
"Yours, sincerely,
"F. Currie."
The last line of Sir Frederick's letter was not lost on me, and to keep up my character for locomotion, I started at daybreak for Deenanuggur, finishing off my work en route, remained there the rest of the day to wind up matters, and add my surveying sketch to the large plan I had commenced beforehand, and hurried onwards this morning. You will perceive that I have crossed the Doâb, and am now writing on the banks of the Ravee, some sixty miles above Lahore. I marched twenty-four and a half miles with tent and baggage this morning, and hope to continue at that pace, with the difference of marching by night, the weather having suddenly become very hot indeed.
I am much interested in the thought of going to so new a place as Mooltan—new, that is to say, to Europeans, yet so important from position and commerce. The only drawback is the heat, which is notorious throughout Western India. I am not aware, however, that it is otherwise unhealthy.
As you may suppose, I am much gratified by the appointment, both for its own sake and also as evincing so very favorable and kindly a disposition toward myself on the part of the new potentate.
To his Sister.
Camp, March 29th, 1848.
Of incidents to amuse you I have not many to narrate, save the usual "moving" ones by "flood and field." On the 18th I was very nearly becoming a damp unpleasant corpse to celebrate my birthday. In attempting a ford, my horse sank up to the girths in a quicksand. I managed to extricate myself and, dry land being near, he got up without damage. Sending a man ahead, I tried again in another place. Here it was fair to the eye but false to the foot. Down he went again, this time in deeper water, and got me under him by struggling. However, I realized the old proverb, and escaped with a good ducking and a mouthful of my native element, rather gritty. Next I tried a camel, but the brute went down at the first stride. So giving it up in despair, I put on dry clothes, and then waded through the river.
Not content with one attempt on my existence, the horse gave me a violent kick the same evening when I went up to him to ask "How d'ye do." So I completed my year, in spite of myself, as it were.
Lahore, April 2d.
Since the above was written, I have succeeded in reaching the metropolis, as you see, at a greater expenditure of animal heat and fatigue than I have gone through for some time. I was very friendlily and pleasantly greeted by Sir F. and Lady Currie, and tumbled at once again into the tide of civilization—loaf bread, arm-chairs, hats, and ladies—as philosophically as if I had been for months in the calm and unrestrained enjoyment of such luxuries.
On my arrival, I found that the arrangement proposed in Sir F. Currie's note had already become matter of history, not of fact. The new one is still better for me. I am to remain at Lahore, and be an assistant to the Resident, having my Guide duties to discharge also, when Lumsden arrives from Peshawur with the Corps. He is expected in twenty days. Nothing could possibly have been better for me. I shall have the advantage of learning in the best school, head-quarters, and have many more opportunities of making myself "generally useful." I am most rejoiced at the plan, and Sir F. Currie's considerate kindness in devising it. We wont say anything of the regularity or consistency of making a man of two and a half year's service, and who has passed no examination, a political officer, nor will we be ungrateful enough to say that he is unfit for the appointment, but that he should do his utmost to show that the rule is more honored "in the breach than in the observance."
Residency, Lahore, April 16th, 1848.
I shall not have the same variety to chronicle now that I seem to be fixed here, but more interest and a higher style of work. Since I wrote last I have been six hours a day employed in court, hearing petitions and appeals in all manner of cases, civil and criminal, and in matters of revenue, as there are but two officers so employed. You, perhaps, will comprehend that the duty is no sinecure. It is of vast importance, and I sometimes feel a half sensation of modesty coming over me at being set down to administer justice in such matters so early, and without previous training. A little practice, patience, and reflection settle most cases to one's satisfaction, however; and one must be content with substantial justice as distinguished from technical law. In any point of difficulty one has always an older head to refer to, and meantime, one has the satisfaction of knowing that one is independent and untrammelled save by a very simple code. Some things, such as sentencing a man to imprisonment for seven years for killing a cow, are rather startling to one's ideas of right and wrong; but then to kill a cow is to break a law, and to disturb the public peace—perhaps cause bloodshed; so the law is vindicated, and one's conscience saved. I have many other duties, such as finishing my map, for which I was surveying at Deenanuggur; occasionally translating an official document; going to Durbars, &c.; and when the Guides arrive (on the 20th) I shall have to assist in drilling and instructing them; to say nothing of seeing that their quarters are prepared, and everything ready for them. I am not, therefore, idle, and only wish I had time to read.
On the 26th he writes from Lahore:—
I mentioned to you that Sir F. Currie's plan of sending me to assist Agnew at Mooltan had been altered, and that Anderson had gone with him in my stead. At the time I was disposed to be disappointed; but we never know what is for our good. In this case I should doubtless have incurred the horrible fate of poor Anderson and Agnew. Both these poor fellows have been barbarously murdered by the Mooltan troops.
He then gives a detailed account of their tragical fate, and the treachery of the villain Moolraj, and adds:—
The Sikh Durbar profess their inability to coerce their rebel subject, who is rapidly collecting a large army, and strengthening himself in the proverbially strong fort of Mooltan.
One cannot say how it will end. The necessary delay of five months, till after the rains, will give time for all the disaffected to gather together, and no one can say how far the infection may extend. The Sikhs were right in saying, "We shall