Twelve Years of a Soldier's Life in India

17th

irate; and how the Koh-i-noor was appropriated as a present to the Queen,-and all the rest of it; you may imagine the turmoil and unrest of this eventf

id not, however, expect that it would be carried o

I am off with the new Commissioner to instruct him in the details of his province, which I had governed and won from the rebels during the last six months, but in which I am not now accounted worthy to be a humble assistant.

est at Lahore for a month, and his noble cha

sor. I long for Sir C. Napier, but the Cour

shawur, where I shal

e government of the East India Company, the regulations of the service with regard to seniority of course took effect, and it was not to be expected that a subaltern of less than five years' standi

d not prevent his throwing himself with his usual

s Bro

, May 14

to hold than a long line of river, which is ever "a silent highway for nations," yet at the same time we have once more established a footing in Affghanistan from which there is no receding, as we did when we went as allies to the puppet Shah Soojah. Our next stride must be to Herat, I fancy; when the day will come no man can say, but "the uncontrollable principle," which, accord

ome progress in the knowledge of men, I have made but little in that of books. We are sadly off for military works in English, and few sciences require more study than the art of war. You might g

, June 8

ew months. Are we to advance on Cabul and Candahar, and plant the Union Jack once more on the towers of Ghuznee? or are we

Garamanta

et imp

th the places I have mentioned, and Herat, oc

s and train the Guides. And now daily, morning and evening, I may be seen standing on one leg to convince their Affghan mind of the plausibility and elegance of the goose step. I am quite a sergeant-major just now, and you will well believe that your wandering brother is sufficiently cosmopolized to drop with a certain "aplom

, July 1

the hot season. I was better off, because, being a nomad by profession, I carry a few books as a part even of the lightest equipment, but I have read them all till I am tired, except Shakspeare. My time is pretty fully occupied, but there are dozens of regimental officers who have not an hour's work in two days, and I do pity them from my heart. Then of course there are no ladies here, and consequently no society, or réunions, (as they are called when people live together,) and people are pitched headlong on to their own resources, and find t

s almost everything to me. Sir H. Lawrence writes from Simla that I am to be appointed an Assistant Commissioner under the new Bo

Sept.

e indeed, and its utter suddenness was appalling. Indeed, the prevailing impression on my mind for days was simple unbelief of the reality of that sweet child's actual death. I have been so long alone,-home has been for so long a time more a pleasant dream than a reality,-I have been for so many a weary day, as it were, dead to you all, and the sense of separation has grown so completely into one's being, that I find it difficult to separ

ill either have to go away from India for two years or more, or that another hot season will kill him. He is ten years older in every respect than he was during our Cashmere trip in 1846. This is a hard, wearing, dry climate,

Sept. 24

which devolve upon the Government of a country in Europe, with the addition of collecting from the cultivators and landholders the rent of all lands under cultivation and pasture, and the duties which in Europe devolve on an owner of landed property. Police, jails, quarter-sessions, committals to prison, jury, judge, excise, stamps, taxes, roads, bridges, ferries, woods and forests, and finally rent! think what these imply, and you will form some idea of the employment of an official in the Punjaub under the "Board of Administration." I have not yet dipped very deep into this turbid stream of ever-recurring work, since the great amount of arrears consequent on the break-up of one Government, and the establishment of another, including the paying-up and discharge o

kote, Jan.

accompanying him, and doing a little work by the way, which I very much preferred; so here we are, after visiting the sacred city of Umritsur, and the scenes of my last year's adventur

ers graze

e blue Bo

nomad life. I am able to ride again, though not quite with the same firmness, in the saddle as of yore. I have no doubt, however, t

, March

r than Lahore by a third or more of people, and half as much again of space. It is five miles in circumference, very strongly fortified, and covered by the fortress of Govindghur on the west, and by a large fortified garden on the north. I am Assistant Commissioner under the Deputy Commissioner in charge of the district, Mr. Sau

hs of that time I took absolute charge of a tract of country (in a state of war, too) comprising three modern districts, in one of which I am now playing third fiddle. Surely annexation was a "heavy blow and a great discouragement" to me, at least. In the military line, too, I have been equally unlucky, from the fact of my services having been with detachments instead of with the main army. I held my ground (and cleared it of the enemy, too) for weeks, with only 120 men at my back, and when every officer, from General Wheeler downwards, entreated me to withdraw and give it up; I fed 5,000 men and horses for six months by personal and unremitting exertion; collected the revenues of the disturbed districts, and paid 15,000l. over and above, into the treasury, from the proceeds of property taken from the rebels. Besides this, I worked for General Wheeler so satisfactorily, that he has declared publicly that he could ha

e system of th

18th

and a terror to every one but the enemy! The officer who commanded the cavalry brigade which so disgraced the service at Chillianwalla, was not able to mount a horse without the assistance of two men. A brigadier of infantry, under whom I served during the three most critical days of the late war, could not see his regiment when I led hi

must rise equally with wise men; but for maintaining the discipline and efficiency of the army in time of peace

een spent in camps, and a year such as the last, spent in almost constant strife, and a great part of it on detached and i

just in sufficient numbers to prove the rule by establishing exceptions. Depend upon it, tha

muse you not a little. I must try and send you a picture of them. Alas! I am no longer a "Guide," but only a big-wig, administering justice, deciding d

, April

ced an impression on men's minds whose effects would have been felt for ages. As it is, the influence which he did

our colonies. Here we have nothing physical to remind us of any creed but Islamism and Hindooism. The comparative purity of the Moslem's creed is shown admirably in the superiority in taste and form of their places of prayer. Christianity alone is thrust out of sight! A barrack-room, a ball-room, a dining-room, perhaps a court of justice, serve the purpose for which the "wisdom and piety of our ancestors" constructed such noble and stately temples; feeling, justly, that the human mind in its weakness required to be called to the exercise of devotion by the senses as well as by reason and will; that separation from the ordinary scenes of every-day life, its cares, its toils, its amusements, is necessary to train the feelings and thoughts to that state in which religious impressions are conveyed. I have not seen a church for three years and more, nor heard the service of the C

the last than of this century,-of the camp than of the court; but barring these eccentricities, he is a wonderful man; his heart is as thoroughly in his work, and he takes as high a tone in all that concerns it, as Arnold did in his; that is to say, the highest the subject is capable of. I only trust he will remain with us as long as his health lasts, and endeavor to rouse t