In the early morning of Midsummer's-day, 1868, I might have been seen
slowly wending my way towards the office of the Deputy Inspector General
of Hospitals, at Peshawur--for the purpose of appearing before the
standing Medical Committee of the station, and having an enquiry made
concerning the state of my health. A Dooley followed me lest my strength
should prove inadequate to the task of walking a quarter of a mile. But
let me make my description as short as the Committee did their enquiry.
My face, as white as the clothes I wore, told more than my words could,
and I was hardly required to recount how that one burning May-day I was
called at noon to visit a sick woman, and that while all other Europeans
were in their closed and darkened bungalows with punkahs swinging, and
thermautidotes blowing cool breezes, I went forth alone on my medical
mission to encounter the fierce gaze of the baneful sun, and was
overpowered by its fiery influence, or how that I laid a weary month on
the sick bed, tormented by day with a never ceasing headache, and by
night with a terrible dread, worse than any pain, or to conclude, how
the deadly climate of that notoriously evil station afforded me no
prospect of improvement. This relation was scarcely needed to procure
me a certificate, stating that three months leave of absence to Murree
was absolutely essential for my recovery, and a recommendation that I
might be allowed to proceed immediately in anticipation of the leave
being granted. So the next evening saw me start from Peshawur for Rawul
Pindee, in a Dâk Gharie, accompanied by my dog "Silly" and my Madrapee
servant or "Boy." Onwards we sped at a gallop, the horses being changed
every six miles, through Nowshera, the furnace; over the rapid and icy
cold Indus by boat; past Fort Attock, the oven in which our soldiers are
done to death; and Hussan Aboul of Lallah Rooke celebrity; arriving at
the French Hotel at Pinder, ten miles from Peshawur the following
morning. That day I called upon the Officers of the 6th Foot, with whom
I had served in Jersey, and was persuaded to dine at mess. A melancholy
dinner it was for me, meeting old friends whom I had not seen for so
long. Yet not possessing energy enough for conversation or feeling the
spirit of "Hail fellows, well met." I felt that my moody silence and
ghostlike appearance (for I was dressed in black) threw a gloom over
them. This was no doubt a morbid fancy as also was perhaps the idea that
they looked at me with pitying eyes. But these feelings seized me, and
increased till they became unbearable, and I was glad to escape to my
Hotel.
"THREE MONTHS OF MY LIFE."