TOUR IN CASHMERE AND THIBET WITH SIR HENRY
LAWRENCE.--PROMOTION AND TRANSFER TO CIS-SUTLEJ PROVINCES.
CAMP, EN ROUTE TO CASHMERE, _June 10th, 1850_.
Your letter from Paris reached me just as I was preparing to
start from Umritsur to join Sir Henry Lawrence, and
accompany him to Cashmere. I fought against the necessity of
leave as long as possible, but I was getting worse and worse
daily, and so much weakened from the effects of heat and
hard work acting on a frame already reduced by sickness,
that I was compelled to be off ere worse came. We yesterday
arrived at the summit of the first high ridge southward of
the snowy range, and have now only some sixty miles to
traverse before entering the valley. To me, travelling is
life, and in a country where one has no home, no local
attractions, and no special sympathies, it is the greatest
comfort in the world. I get terribly _ennuye_ if I am in one
place for three months at a time; yet I think I should be
just as tame as ever in England, quite domestic again.
* * * * *
CASHMERE, _July 8th, 1850_.
You would enjoy this lovely valley extremely. I did not know
it was so beautiful, having only seen it before in its
winter dress. Nothing can exceed the luxuriant beauty of the
vegetation, the plane-trees and walnuts especially, except
the squalor, dirt, and poverty of the wretched Cashmerians.
The King is avaricious, and is old. The disease grows on
him, and he wont look beyond his money-bags. There is a
capitation tax on every individual practising any labor,
trade, profession, or employment, collected _daily_. Fancy
the Londoners having to go and pay a fourpenny and a
sixpenny bit each, per diem, for the pleasure of living in
the town. Then the tax on all shawls, goods, and fabrics, is
about seventy-five per cent., including custom duty; and
this the one solitary staple of the valley. The chief crops
are rice, and of this, what with one half taken at a slap as
"revenue," or rent, and sundry other pulls for dues, taxes,
and offerings, so little remains to the farmer, that in
practice he pays _all_, or within a few bushels of all, his
produce to the King, and secures in return _his food_, and
that not of the best. Thus the farmer class, or "Zemindars,"
are reduced pretty well to the state of day-laborers; yet
the people are all well clothed, and fuel is to be had for
the asking. What a garden it might be made. Not an acre to
which the finest water might not be conveyed without expense
worth naming, and a climate where all produce comes to
perfection, from wheat and barley to grapes and silk. We go
northwards on the 20th, first to Ladakh and Thibet, thence
to Iskardo, and then across the Indus to Gilghit, a _terra
incognita_ to which, I believe, only one European now living
has penetrated. Sir Henry Lawrence is not well, and
certainly not up to this trip, but he has made up his mind
to go. I do not gain strength as fast as I could wish, but I
fancy when once thoroughly unstrung, it takes a long time to
recover the wonted tone.
We shall have another frontier war in the cold weather
evidently, and I fancy a more prolonged and complete affair
than the last. The cause of the only loss sustained in the
last scrimmage was the panic of the Sepoys. They are as
children in the hands of these Affghans and hill tribes. Our
new Punjaub levies fought "like bricks," but the Hindostanee
is not a hardy enough animal, physically or morally, to
contend with the sturdier races west of the Sutlej, or the
active and fighting "Pathans." The very _name_ sticks in
John Sepoy's throat. I must try and see the next contest,
but I do not quite see my way to it at present.
* * * * *
_To his Sister._
CAMP, NEAR LADAKH, _August 4th, 1850_.
Who would have thought of my writing to you from Thibet. I
am sitting in a little tent about eight feet long, which
just takes a narrow cot, a table, and chair of camp
dimensions, and my _sac-de-nuit_, gun, &c., and a tin box
containing books, papers, and the materials for this present
epistle. Under the same tree (a veritable chestnut) is Sir
Henry Lawrence's tent, a ditto of mine, in which he is
comfortably sleeping, as I ought to be; outside are my
pets,--that is, a string of mules who accompany me in all my
travels, and have also in the mountains the honor of
carrying me as well as my baggage. The kitchen is under a
neighboring tree; and round a fire are squatting our gallant
guards, a party of Maharaja Gholab Singh's household
brigade. Some of his people accompany us, and what with
followers, a Moonshee or two for business, and their
followers, I dare say we are a party of two or three hundred
souls, of all colors and creeds,--Christians, Mussulmans,
Hindoos, Buddhists, Sikhs, and varieties of each. The creeds
of the party are as varied as their colors; and that's
saying a good deal, when you contrast my white face and
yellow hair with Sir Henry's nut-brown, the pale white
parchmenty-color of the Kashmeree, the honest brunette tinge
of the tall Sikh, the clear olive-brown of the Rajpoot, down
through all shades of dinginess to the deep black of the
low-caste Hindoo. I am one of the whitest men in India, I
fancy, as, instead of burning in the sun, I get blanched
like endive or celery. How you would stare at my long beard,
moustache, and whiskers. However, to return from such
personalities to facts. The Indus is brawling along five
hundred feet below us, as if in a hurry to get "out of
that;" and above, one's neck aches with trying to see to the
top of the vast craggy mountains which confine the stream in
its rocky channel. So wild, so heaven-forsaken a scene I
never beheld; living nature there is none. In a week's
journey, I have seen three marmots, two wag-tails, and three
jackdaws; and we have averaged twenty miles a day.
We met a lady the other day, in the most romantic way
possible, in the midst of the very wildest of glens, and
almost as wild weather. She is a young and very pretty
creature, gifted with the most indomitable energy and
endurance (except as regards her husband, whom she _can't_
endure, and therefore travels alone). But conceive, that for
the last three months she has been making her way on
pony-back across a country which few _men_ would like to
traverse, over the most formidable passes, the deepest and
rapidest rivers, and wildest deserts in Asia. For twenty
days she was in the extreme wilds of Thibet, without ever
seeing a human habitation; making such long day's journeys
as often to be without food or bedding, traversing passes
from sixteen to eighteen thousand feet above the sea, where
you can hardly breathe without pain; enduring pain,
sickness, and every other mortal ill, yet persevering still!
Poor creature, she is dying, I fear. It is evident that she
is in a deep consumption, created by a terrible fall she had
down a precipice, at the commencement of her journey. Well,
one day we met her between this place and Cashmere. She was
sixteen or twenty miles from her tents, and the rain and
darkness were coming on apace; the thermometer down below
fifty degrees. So we persuaded her to stop at our
encampment. I gave her my tent and cot, acted lady's maid,
supplied her with warm stockings and shoes, water, towels,
brushes, &c., and made her comfortable, and then we sat down
to dinner; and a pleasanter evening I never spent. She was
as gay as a lark, and poured out stores of information and
anecdotes, and recounted her adventures in the "spiritedest"
manner. After an early breakfast the next morning, I put her
on her pony, and she went on her way, and we saw her no
more. I hope she will live to reach the end of her journey,
and not die in some wild mountain-side unattended and alone.
Another letter of same date:--
CAMP, KULSEE IN LADAKH, _August 4th, 1850_.
... Until you cross the mountain chain which separates
Cashmere from Tibet (or Thibet), all is green and beautiful.
It is impossible to imagine a finer combination of vast
peaks and masses of mountain, with green sloping lawns,
luxuriant foliage, and fine clustering woods, than is
displayed on the sides of the great chain which we usually
call the Himalaya, but which is better described as the
ridge which separates the waters of the Jhelum, Chenab,
Ravee, and Beas from those of the Indus. When once, however,
you have crossed this vast barrier, the scene changes as if
by magic, and you have nothing but huge convulsive-looking
masses of rock, tremendous mountains, glaciers, snow, and
valleys which are more vast watercourses than anything else.
On the more open and less elevated spots along these various
feeders of the Indus, one comes to little patches of
cultivation, rising from the banks of the rivers in tiers of
carefully prepared terraces, and irrigated by channels
carried along the sides of the hill from a point higher up
the stream. Here, in scattered villages ten and twenty miles
apart, live the ugliest race on earth, I should imagine,
whom we call Thibetians, but who style themselves "Bhots" or
"Bhods," and unite the characteristic features, or rather
want of them, of both Goorkhas and Chinese. I went yesterday
to see a monastery of their Llamas, the most curious sight,
as well as _site_, I ever beheld. Perched on the summit of a
mass of sandstone-grit, conglomerate pudding-stone, worn by
the melting snows (for there is no rain in Tibet) into
miraculous cones, steeples, and pinnacles rising abruptly
from the valley to the height of 600 feet, are a collection
of queer little huts, connected together by bridges,
passages, and staircases. In these dwell the worthies who
have betaken themselves to the life of religious mendicants
and priests. They seem to correspond exactly with the
travelling friars of olden times. Half stay at home to
perform chants and services in their convent chapel, and
half go a-begging about the country. They are not a distinct
race like the Brahmins of India, but each Bhot peasant
devotes one of two or three sons to the church, and he is
thenceforward devoted to a life of celibacy, of shaven
crown, of crimson apparel, of mendicancy, of idleness, and
of comfort. They all acknowledge spiritual allegiance to the
great Llama at Llassa (some two months' journey from
Ladakh), by whom the abbot of each convent is appointed on a
vacancy occurring, and to whom all their proceedings are
reported. Nunneries also exist on precisely the same
footing. I saw a few of the nuns, and their hideous
appearance fully justified their adoption of celibacy and
seclusion. From their connection with almost every family,
as I have said, they are universally looked up to and
supported as a class by the people. Even Hindoos reverence
them; and their power is not only feared, but I fancy
tolerably freely exercised. Their chapel (a flat-roofed
square building supported on pillars) is furnished with
parallel rows of low benches to receive the squatting
fathers. Their services consist of chants and recitative,
accompanied by the _dis_cord of musical(?) instruments and
drums, while perpetual lamps burn on the altars before their
idols, and a sickly perfume fills the air. Round the room
are rude shelves containing numberless volumes of religious
books; not bound, but in separate leaves secured between two
painted boards. I will try and send you one, if I can
corrupt the mind of some worthy Llama with profane silver.
They are genuine _block books_, strange to say, apparently
carved on wood, and then stamped on a Chinese paper. The
figures of their images, and their costume and head-dress
(_i. e._, of the images), are Chinese entirely, not at all
resembling the Bhot dress, or scarcely so, and though
fashioned by Thibetian hands, you might fancy yourself
gazing on the figures in the Chinese Exhibition at
Hyde-Park Corner. Their language is a sealed book to me, of
course, and though they all read and write well, yet they
were unable to explain the meaning of the words they were
repeating. The exterior appearance and sites of their
conventual buildings reminded me very strongly of the
drawings I saw in a copy of Curzon's "Monasteries of the
Levant," which fell in my way for five minutes one day. I
need hardly say that, in a country composed of mountains
ranging from 14,000 feet upwards, the scenery is magnificent
in the extreme, though very barren and savage. Apricots and
wheat are ripening in the valley whence I now write (on the
right bank of the Indus, some fifty miles below the town of
Ladakh), and snow is glistening on the summits above me; the
roads have been very easy indeed, and enabled us to make
long day's marches, from sixteen to twenty-five miles. This
is more than you could do in two days in the ranges south of
the Himalaya, with due regard for your own bones, and the
cattle or porters which carry your traps and tents. I am
very seedy, and twenty miles is more than I can ride with
comfort (that I should live to say it). I have not as yet
derived much, if any, benefit from change of climate.
From Ladakh we go to Iskardo, some twelve marches lower down
the Indus, where it has been joined by the water of Yarkund;
and thence to Gilghit, a valley running up from that of the
Indus, still lower down, and bordering on Budakhstan. We
(Sir Henry Lawrence and I) then return to Cashmere; I expect
it will be two more months' journey. We have already been
out a fortnight, and it is very fatiguing. I am not sure
that I was wise in undertaking it, but he (Lawrence) is a
greater invalid than I am, and two or three men fought shy
of the task of accompanying him.
* * * * *
CAMP, ISKARDO (IN LITTLE THIBET,) _August, 25th, 1850_.
Only think of my sitting down peaceably to write to you from
this outside world. Had I lived a hundred years ago, I
should have been deemed a great traveller, and considered to
have explored unknown countries, and unknown they are, only
the principal danger of visiting them is past, seeing that
they have been subdued by a power (Gholab Singh) with whom
we have "relations." Yet if I were to cross the mountains
which stare me in the face a few miles off, I should be
carried off and sold for a slave. It were vain to try to
compress the scenes of a two months' journey into a sheet of
note-paper. We have travelled very rapidly. Few men go the
pace Sir Henry Lawrence does. So we have covered a great
extent of country in the past month; and seeing that the
valleys are the only inhabited parts of the country, the
rest being huge masses of mountains, one really sees in
these rapid flights all that is to be seen of the abodes of
man. We have collected a good deal of information too,
which, if I had time to arrange it, might be of value. We
were eleven long days' journey from Cashmere to Ladakh,
besides halts on the way at Ladakh itself, or, as the people
call it, Leh. We remained a week, and saw all the
"foreigners" who came there to sell furs and silk. It is
called the "Great Emporium" of trade between Yarkund and
Kashgar and Llassa, and Hindostan. Fine words look well on
paper, but to my unsophisticated mind the "leading
merchants" seemed _peddlers_, and the "Emporium" to be a
brace of hucksters' shops. However, 'tis curious, that's a
fact, to see (and talk to) a set of men who have got their
goods from the yellow-haired Russians at the
Nishni-Novogorod fair, and brought them across Asia to sell
at Ladakh. It is forty days' journey, of almost a continuous
desert, for these caravans from Yarkund to Leh; and there is
no small danger to life and limb by the way. The current
coin is lumps of Chinese sycee silver of two pounds' weight
each. I bought a Persian horse for the journey, and paid for
it in solid silver four pounds weight: 166 rupees, or about
16_l._ I shall sell it for double the money when the journey
is over. Leh is a small town, of not more than 400 houses,
on a projecting promontory of rock stretching out into the
valley formed by one of the small feeders of the Indus. For
the people, they are Bodhs, and wear tails, and have flat
features like the Chinese, and black garments. The women,
unlike other Asiatics whom I have seen, go about the streets
openly, as in civilized countries; but they are an ugly
race, and withal dirty to an absolutely unparalleled extent.
They wear no head-dress, but plait their masses of black
hair into sundry tails half way down their backs. Covering
the division of the hair from the forehead back and down the
shoulders, is a narrow leathern strap, universally adorned
with rough turquoises and bits of gold or silver. The old
Ranee whom we called upon had on this strap (in her case a
broader one, about three fingers wide) 156 large turquoises,
worth some hundreds of pounds. Over their ears they wear
flaps of fur which project forward with precisely the effect
of blinkers on a horse.
The climate is delightful; it never rains; the sky is blue
to a fault, and snow only falls sparingly in winter, though
the climate is cold, being 10,000 feet (they say) above the
sea. In boiling water the thermometer was only 188 deg.. I never
felt a more exhilarating air. That one week quite set me up,
and I have been better ever since. The Llamas or monks, with
their red cardinal's hats and crimson robes, look very
imposing and monastic, quite a travesty of the regular
clergy, and they blow just such trumpets as Fame does on
monuments in country churches. Jolly friars they are, and
fat to a man. From Leh we crossed the mountain ridge which
separates the two streams of the Indus, and descended the
northern (or right) stream to this place, the capital of
Bultistan or Little Thibet. It is a genuine humbug. In the
middle of a fine valley, some 6,000 feet above the sea,
surrounded by sudden rising perpendicular mountains 6,000
feet higher, stands an isolated rock washed by the Indus,
some two miles by three quarters: a little Gibraltar. The
valley may be ten miles by three, partially cultivated, and
inhabited by some 200 scattered houses. There's Iskardo.
There _was_ a fort on the rock, but that is gone, and all,
as usual in the East, bespeaks havoc; only nature is grand
here. The people are Mussulmans, and not Bodhs, and are more
human-looking, but not so well clad. It is warmer by far,
much more so than it ought to be. The thermometer was at 92 deg.
in our tents to-day, a thing for which I cannot possibly
account, since there is snow now on all sides of us. We go
hence across the Steppe of Deo Sole towards Cashmere for
four days' journey, and then strike westward to cross the
Indus into Gilghit, whence we return to Cashmere by the end
of September. We have been making very fast marches, varying
from sixteen to thirty-two miles a day,--hard work in a
country with such roads, and where you must take things with
you. I enjoy it very much, however, and after a year's
sickness, the feeling of returning health is refreshing. I
shall return to work again by the 1st of December; but I
propose paying a flying visit to Mr. Thomason in October, if
possible; but the distances are so vast, and the means of
locomotion so absent, that these things are difficult to
achieve. I suppose I have seen more of the hill country now
than ninety-nine men out of a hundred in India. Indeed, not
above four Europeans have been here before. But travelling
suits my restless spirit. Sir Henry and I get on famously
together.
On October 7th, 1850, he writes from Simla to his father:--
I have had a long and fatiguing march from Cashmere across
the mountains and the valleys of the "five rivers," nearly
four hundred miles, which I accomplished in fifteen days. I
left Sir Henry Lawrence in Cashmere. I have since heard from
him, urging me to use all the influence I can muster up here
to procure a brevet majority in _posse_ (_i. e._ on
attaining my regimental captaincy), and a _local_ majority
in _esse_ for "my services in the late war;" and adding,
that if I did not find civil employment to suit me, he
would, when I had given it a fair trial, try and get me the
command of one of the regiments in the Punjaub. I am going
to consult Mr. Thomason on the subject, and will let you
know the result. I hate the least suspicion of toadyism, and
dislike asking favors, or I should have been better off ere
now; but on Sir Henry Lawrence's suggestion, I will
certainly use any opportunity which may offer. I thought,
however, you would be gratified with the opinion which must
have dictated so perfectly spontaneous an offer. I confess
that I very much prefer the military line myself, although I
like civil work much, and it is the road to competence.
Nevertheless, military rank and distinctions have more charm
for me than rupees; and I would rather _cut_ my way to a
name and poverty with the sword, than _write_ it to wealth
with the pen.
There is something to me peculiarly interesting in the
_forming_ and _training_ soldiers, and in acquiring that
extraordinary influence over their minds, both by personal
volition and the aid of discipline, which leads them on
through danger, even to death, at your bidding. I felt the
enthusiasm of this power successfully exerted with the
Guides during the late war; and having felt it, am naturally
inclined to take advantage of it on future occasions.
* * * * *
_To his Sister._
SIMLA, _Oct 21st, 1850_.
It is rather too late to tell you "all about Cashmere," as
you desire; but I _can_ say that I saw some beauties this
time who were really so to no common extent; and that I was
much more pleased with the valley than on my first visit,
which was a winter one. If you see what wonderfully
out-of-the-way places we got into, I think you will marvel
that I managed to write at all. We traversed upwards of
fifteen hundred miles of wild mountainous countries,
innocent of roads, and often, for days together, of
inhabitants, and carrying our houses on our backs. The
change to the utter comfort and civilization of this house
was something "stunning;" and I have not yet become quite
reconciled to dressing three times a day, black hat, and
patent leather boots. I need hardly say, however, that I
have very much enjoyed my visit and my "big talks" with Mr.
Thomason. He is very gray, and looks older than when I saw
him in 1847, but otherwise he is just the same, working
magnificently, and doing wonders for his province. Already
the Northwest Provinces are a century in advance of the
Bengal Proper ones. As a Governor he has not his equal; and
in honesty, high-mindedness, and indefatigable devotion to
the public good, he is _facile princeps_ of the whole Indian
service. Nor is there a household in India to match his,
indeed, it is about the only "big-wig" house to which people
go with pleasure rather than as a duty. I saw Sir Charles
Napier, too, and dined with him last week. He is very kind
and pleasant, and I am very sorry on public grounds that he
is going away.
* * * * *
KUSSOWLEE, _Nov. 4th, 1850_.
I had a most pleasant home-like visit to Mr. Thomason, and
was most affectionately entertained. He will have told you
of the power of civility I met with at Simla from the
"big-wigs," and that even Lord Dalhousie waxed
complimentary, and said that "Lumsden and Hodson were about
the best men he had," (that I write it that shouldn't!) and
that he promised to do his best to get me a brevet majority
as soon as I became, in the course of time, a regimental
captain. And Sir Charles Napier (the best abused man of his
day) was anxious to get for me the Staff appointment of
Brigade-Major to the Punjaub Irregular Force,--_i. e._, of
the six newly raised cavalry and infantry regiments for
frontier service. He did not succeed, for the berth had been
previously filled up unknown to him; but he _tried to do_
so, and that's a compliment from such a man. I hope I need
not say that this good deed of his was as spontaneous as a
mushroom's birth.
* * * * *
_To his Father._
KUSSOWLEE, _Nov. 6th_.
I am to be here next year, I find, by tidings just received,
which will be a splendid thing for my constitution. My
connection with Umritsur is dissolved by my having been
appointed to act as personal assistant to the Commissioner
of the Cis-Sutlej States, which is, I believe, a piece of
promotion. The great advantages are, first, the capital
opportunity it affords of experience in every kind of civil
work, and of being under a very able man,--Mr. Edmonstone;
and secondly, that the Commissioner's head-quarters are
"peripatetic" in the cold weather, and in the hills during
the remainder of the year. But I confess that I hanker after
the "Guides" as much as ever, and would catch at a good
opportunity of returning to them with honor. I fear I have
been remiss in explanations on this subject. The matter lies
in this wise,--I left the Corps and took to civil employment
at the advice of Sir Henry Lawrence, Mr. Thomason, and
others, though against my own feelings on the subject. The
man or men who succeeded me are senior to me in army rank.
When one of them resigned six months ago, I was strongly
disposed and urged to try and succeed to the vacancy. There
was a hitch, however, from the cause I have mentioned, and
Lumsden was anxious that his lieutenants should not be
disgusted by supersession. I might have had the appointment,
but withdrew to avoid annoying Lumsden. _Now_, both Sir
Henry Lawrence and Mr. Thomason are very sorry that I ever
left the Corps, and that they advised the step. Things have
taken a different turn since then, and it is confessedly the
best thing a young soldier can aspire to. I know that my
present line is one which leads to more pecuniary
advantages; but the other is the finer field, and is far
more independent. I shall work away, however, cheerfully in
the civil line until I see a good opening in the other; and
_then_, I fear you will hardly persuade me that sitting at a
desk with the thermometer at 98 deg. is better than
soldiering,--_i. e._, than _commanding_ soldiers made and
taught by yourself! I will give you the earliest warning of
the change.
* * * * *
UMRITSUR, _Nov. 24th, 1850_.
I returned here on the 16th, and have been up to the neck in
work ever since, having the whole work, civil, criminal,
police, &c. &c., on my shoulders, Saunders, the Deputy
Commissioner, my superior, being engaged dancing attendance
on the Governor-General, who is here on his annual tour of
inspection; and Macleod, my co-assistant, dead. Directly the
Governor-General has gone onwards I shall be relieved here,
and join my new appointment with Mr. Edmonstone.
* * * * *
LAHORE, _Jan. 2d, 1851_.
I broke up from Umritsur early in December, and came into
Lahore to join my new chief. He did not arrive till the
18th, so I had a comparative holiday. I have got into
harness, however, again now, and am up to the elbows in work
and papers. The work is much more pleasant than that I had
at Umritsur, and more free from mere routine.
* * * * *
LAHORE, _Feb. 21st_.
This is an interesting anniversary to many of us, and an
overwhelming one to this country,--that of the day on which
"the bright star of the Punjaub" set forever. It has been
curiously marked by the announcement, that the net balance
of receipts over expenditure for the past year, for the
newly acquired provinces, has reached upwards of a million
sterling. Lord Dalhousie's star is in the ascendant. His
financial measures are apparently all good, when tried by
the only standard admissible in the nineteenth
century,--their success.
* * * * *
KUSSOWLEE, _March 22d, 1851_.
I broke down again most completely as soon as the hot
weather began, but my flight to this beautiful climate has
wonderfully refreshed me. Talk of Indian luxuries! There are
but two, cold water and cool air! I get on very comfortably
with my new "Chief." He is a first-rate man, and has a most
uncommon appetite for work, of which there is plenty for
both of us. We cover a good stretch of country--comprising
five British districts and nine sovereign states; and as the
whole has been in grievous disorder for many years, and a
peculiarly difficult population to deal with, you may
imagine that the work is not slight. My principal duty is
hearing appeals from orders and decisions by the district
officers in these five districts. It is of course not "per
se," but as the Commissioner's personal assistant, that I do
this. I prepare a short abstract, with my opinion on each
case, and he issues his orders accordingly. I was at work a
whole day lately over one case, which, after all, involved
only a claim to about a quarter of an acre of land! You will
give me credit for ingenuity in discovering that the result
of some half dozen quires of written evidence was to prove
that _neither_ of the contending parties had any right at
all! If that's not "justice to Ireland," I don't know what
is! I have been staying with Captain Douglas, and I hope I
shall see a great deal of him. There is not a better man or
more genuine soldier going. This may appear faint praise,
but rightly understood, and conscientiously and boldly
worked out, I doubt whether any other profession calls forth
the higher qualities of our nature more strongly than does
that of a soldier in times of war and tumults. Certain it is
that it requires the highest order of man to be a good
general, and in the lower ranks, (in this country
especially,) even with all the frightful drawbacks and
evils, I doubt whether the Saxon race is ever so preeminent,
or its good points so strongly developed, as in the
"European" soldier serving in India, or on service anywhere.
* * * * *
KUSSOWLEE, _April 7th, 1851_.
I have the nicest house here on a level spot on the very
summit of the mountain ridge, from which a most splendid
view is obtainable for six months in the year. In the
immediate foreground rises a round-backed ridge, on which
stands the former work of my hands, the "Lawrence Asylum;"
while to the westward, and down, down far off in the
interminable south, the wide glistening plains of the
Punjaub, streaked with the faint ribbon-like lines of the
Sutlej and its tributaries, and the wider sea-like expanse
of Hindostan, stretch away in unbroken evenness beyond the
limits of vision, and almost beyond those of faith and
imagination. On the other side you look over a mass of
mountains up to the topmost peaks of Himalaya. So narrow is
the ridge, that it seems as though you could toss a pebble
from one window into the Sutlej, and from the other into the
valley below Simla. I like the place very much. I have seven
or eight hours' work every day, and the rest is spent (as
this one) in the society of the 60th Rifles, the very nicest
and most gentlemanly regiment I ever met with.
* * * * *
KUSSOWLEE, _May 4th, 1851_.
Your budget of letters reached me on the 2d. It is very
pleasant to receive these warm greetings, and it refreshes
me when bothered, or overworked, or feverish, or disgusted.
I look forward to a visit to England and _home_ with a
pleasure which nothing but six years of exile can give.
The Governor-General has at last advanced me to the higher
grade of "Assistants" to Commissioners. The immediate
advantage is an increase of pay,--the real benefit, that it
brings me nearer the main step of a Deputy Commissioner in
charge of a district. It is satisfactory, not the less so
that it was extorted from him by the unanimity of my
official superiors in pressing the point upon him, Mr.
Edmonstone having commenced attacking him in my favor before
I had been under him four months. I am not in love with the
kind of employment,--I long with no common earnestness for
the more military duties of my old friends the "Guides;" but
I am not therefore insensible to the advantages of doing
well in this line of work. Ambition alone would dictate
this, for my success in this civil business (which is
considered the highest and most arduous branch of the public
service) almost insures my getting on in any other
hereafter.
* * * * *
_To Rev. E. Harland._
KUSSOWLEE, _June 11th, 1851_.
I fancy the change is as great in myself as in either. The
old visions of boyhood have given place to the vehement
aspirations of a military career and the interests of a
larger ambition. I thirst now not for the calm pleasures of
a country life, the charms of society, or a career of ease
and comfort, but for the maddening excitement of war, the
keen contest of wits involved in dealing with wilder men,
and the exercise of power over the many by force of the will
of the individual. Nor am I, I hope, insensible to the vast
field for good and for usefulness which these vast provinces
offer to our energies, and to the high importance of the
trust committed to our charge.
* * * * *
_To his Father._
KUSSOWLEE, _Oct 20th, 1851_.
I am much stronger now, and improving rapidly. By the end of
next summer I hope to be as strong as I ever hope to be
again. That I shall ever again be able to row from Cambridge
to Ely in two hours and ten minutes, to run a mile in five
minutes, or to walk from Skye (or Kyle Hatren Ferry) to
Inverness in thirty hours, is not to be expected, or perhaps
desired. But I have every hope that in the event of another
war I may be able to endure fatigue and exposure as freely
as in 1848. One is oftener called upon to ride than to walk
long distances in India. In 1848, I could ride one hundred
miles in ten hours, fully accoutred, and I don't care how
soon (saving your presence!) the necessity arises again! I
have no doubt that matrimony will do me a power of good, and
that I shall be not only better, but happier and more
care-less than hitherto.
I have been deeply grieved and affected by the death, two
days ago, of Colonel Bradshaw, of the 60th Rifles. He will
be a sad loss, not only to his regiment, but to the army and
the country. He was the _beau ideal_ of an English soldier
and gentleman, and would have earned himself a name as a
General had he been spared. A finer and nobler spirit there
was not in the army. I feel it as a deep personal loss, for
he won my esteem and regard in no common degree.