Twelve Years Of A Soldier's Life In India Part 13

I hope that you got my letter about sending me books. There is a remarkable dearth of them here just now. You know it was a flying column which came on here after Goojerat, composed of regiments hurried up to the field from Bombay, Scinde, and Hindostan. They came in light marching order.

Books are not a part of that style of equipment. Suddenly a Government order consigned them to Peshawur, for seven months at least,--10,000 men, with an unusually large number of Europeans and officers, _and no books_! Pleasant during the confinement caused by 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 _reunions_, (as they are called when people _live_ together,) and people are pitched headlong on to their own resources, and find them very _hard falling indeed_! I have nothing personal to tell you, except that when the last mail went out I was in bed with a sharp attack of fever, which left me without strength, flesh, or appet.i.te,--a regular blazing eastern fever, the sort of thing which burns so fast, that if it don't stop quickly, it burns you well down into the socket, and leaves you there without strength to splutter or flicker, and you go out without the satisfaction of a last flare-up at expiring. I am thankful to say I am well again now, and picking up strength fast.

They are increasing our corps of Guides to 1,000 men, so that I shall have enough on my hands, especially as our Commandant leaves almost everything to me. Sir H. Lawrence writes from Simla that I am to be appointed an a.s.sistant Commissioner under the new Board of Administration. I was the only one of the late a.s.sistants to the Resident who was not included at first in the new _regime_.

LAh.o.r.e, _Sept. 3d, 1849_.

On my arrival here I found your note of 18th June. You may imagine how wild I was with pleasure at seeing your handwriting again, as I had been deeply anxious since the arrival of my father's and George's letters of the 4th June.

These brought me the first tidings of our darling's death.

Happily I saw no newspaper by that mail, and the black edges first startled me from the belief that you were all well and happy. The blow was a bitter one 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 separate that which it is possible to see again from that which is impossible. Thus it seems to me incredible that any greater barrier can sever me from this darling child than that ever-present one which divides me from all of you. Can you understand this? I know it to be a delusion, and yet I cannot shake it off. Yet 'tis a good delusion in one way. It deadens the sense of grief which the full realization of her death would overwhelm me with.

I have been unfortunate again, and had a second sharp attack of fever since my arrival. I am about again, but not able to work. Sir H. Lawrence is very unwell; I fear that his const.i.tution is utterly broken down, and that he will 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, which, though preferable to Hindostan, is destructive to the weak and sickly. It is quite sad to feel how, little by little, one's strength and muscle and energy fade, and how one can perceive age creeping in upon one so early.

LAh.o.r.e, _Sept. 24th, 1849_.

You know that I have left the Guides (alas!) and have been transformed into a complete civilian, doomed to pa.s.s the rest of my career in the administrative and executive duties of the Government of this last acquisition of the English in India. To tell the truth, I had much rather have remained with the Guides; a more independent, and very far pleasanter life, and I think one that will in the end be more distinguished. However, I was guided by Mr. Thomason's and Sir H. Lawrence's advice, and must take the consequences. It would be difficult to define or explain the exact nature of my new calling, but in brief, you will comprehend that in their respective districts the Deputy a.s.sistant Commissioners perform the whole of the judicial, fiscal, and magisterial duties 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 of vast civil and military establishments, have rendered it necessary to employ any available head and pair of hands for some months at head-quarters. The army has fallen to my share, and I have to examine into the claims of innumerable fine old hangers-on of the Lah.o.r.e State to grants or pensions, to record their rights, and report on them for the decision of Government. Then there are upwards of 2,000 old women, wives and mothers of soldiers killed in war, whom I have to see and pay the pittance decreed by their masters. Lord Dalhousie, and his secretaries and officials, are stern and hard taskmasters, and are not unworthily represented by the new Board, the only merciful member of which (Sir H.

Lawrence) is left in a minority, and is, moreover, too ill to do much.

CAMP, PATANKOTE, _Jan. 21st, 1850_.

I at length got away from Lah.o.r.e on the 7th. I had been ordered merely to seek change of air, but Sir H. Lawrence was starting on a long tour of inspection, and offered me the option of 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 adventures in Butala, Deenanuggur, and Shahpoor, all between the Ravee and Beas; and are now on our way to the mountain stations of Kangra, &c. We then go to the westward again, and I hope to see

Our coursers graze at ease, Beyond the blue Borysthenes,

as I have dubbed the Indus, ere we again return to civil life, which does not suit my temperament or taste half as well as this more 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, that ere we do see the "Borysthenes," I shall be as "game" for a gallop of one hundred miles on end, as I was last year at this season.

UMRITSUR, _March 4th, 1850_.

I am at last in a fair way of being stationary for a time at Umritsur, the sacred city of the Sikhs, and a creation entirely of their genius. Lah.o.r.e, as of course you know, was the old Mussulman capital, and was not built by the Sikhs, though used by them as the seat of government and head-quarters of the army. Umritsur is larger than Lah.o.r.e by a third or more of people, and half as much again of s.p.a.ce.

It is five miles in circ.u.mference, very strongly fortified, and covered by the fortress of Govindghur on the west, and by a large fortified garden on the north. I am a.s.sistant Commissioner under the Deputy Commissioner in charge of the district, Mr. Saunders, a civilian, a very nice sort of fellow, with an exceedingly pretty and nice wife. Mr.

Montgomery is our Commissioner. I like all I have seen of him very much indeed. He is a very able man, and at the head of his service in many respects. Lah.o.r.e is only about thirty-five miles hence,--quite within visiting distance in India.

You must not talk of getting "acclimatized." There is no way of becoming so but by avoiding the climate as much as possible. I have had a bad time of it since I left Peshawur, three and a half months almost entirely on my back, which reduced me terribly. Then just as I was getting well, the other day I had a fit of jaundice, which has only just left me; altogether, in health and in prospects I have come "down in my luck" to a considerable extent; not that, _per se_, I ought, as a subaltern of not quite five years' service, to grumble at my present position, if I was now starting in the line for the first time; but I can't forget that I came into the Punjaub two years and a half ago, and have had no little of the "burden and heat of the day" to bear, when to do so required utter disregard of comfort and personal safety and of rest. It is now two years since I was made an a.s.sistant to the Resident, and within a few months 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 15,000_l._ 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 have done nothing without me. So much were the Sikhs enraged[13] at my proceedings, that party after party were sent to "_polish_" me off, and at one time I couldn't stir about the country without having bullets sent at my head from every bush and wall. However, I need not go on with the catalogue, I have been egotistical enough as it is. The "reward" for these services was losing my civil appointment, and being reduced to half pay or little more for three months, and the distinction of being the only subaltern mentioned in despatches for whom nothing has been done either "in praesenti" or "in prospectu." "Had your name been Hay or Ramsay," said General Wheeler to me the other day, "no honors, no appointments, no distinctions would have been considered too great to mark the services you have rendered to Government." Well, we shall live to see more wars, or I am sadly mistaken, and _then_--I leave you to finish the sentence.

Speaking of the system of the Indian army:--

_March 18th, 1850._

At the age at which officers become colonels and majors, not one in fifty is able to stand the wear and tear of Indian service. They become still more worn in mind than in body.

All elasticity is gone; all energy and enterprise worn out; they become, after a fortnight's campaign, a burden to themselves, an annoyance to those under them, 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 a.s.sistance 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 his horse by the bridle until its nose touched the bayonets; and even then he said faintly, "Pray which way are the men facing, Mr.

Hodson?" This is no exaggeration, I a.s.sure you. Can you wonder that our troops have to recover by desperate fighting, and with heavy loss, the advantages thrown away by the want of heads and eyes to lead them?

A seniority service, like that of the Company, is all very well for poor men; better still for fools, for they must rise equally with wise men; but for maintaining the discipline and efficiency of the army in time of peace, and hurling it on the enemy in war, there never was a system which carried so many evils on its front and face.

I speak strongly, you will say, for I feel acutely; though I am so young a soldier, yet the whole of my brief career has been spent in camps, and a year such as the last, spent in almost constant strife, and a great part of it on detached and independent command, teaches one lessons which thirty years of peaceful life, of parades and cantonments, would never impart.

There are men of iron, like Napier and Radetzky, aged men, whom nothing affects; but they are just in sufficient numbers to prove the rule by establis.h.i.+ng exceptions. Depend upon it, that for the rough work of war, especially in India, your leaders must be young to be effective.

If you _could_ but see my beautiful rough and ready boys, with their dirt colored clothes and swarthy faces, lying in wait for a Sikh, I think it would amuse 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 disputes, imprisoning thieves, and a.s.sisting to hang highwaymen, like any other poor old, fat, respectable, humdrum justice of the peace in Old England.

UMRITSUR, _April 5th, 1850_.

I quite agree with all you say about Arnold. His loss was a national misfortune. Had he lived, he would have produced an impression on men's minds whose effects would have been felt for ages. As it is, the influence which he did produce has been most lasting and striking in its effects. It is felt even in India; I cannot say more than _that_.

You should come and live in India for five years if you wished to feel (supposing you ever doubted it) the benefit of our "established" forms of Christianity. Even the outward signs and tokens of its profession--cathedrals, churches, colleges, tombs, hospitals, almshouses--have, I am now more than ever convinced, an influence on men's minds and principles and actions which none but those who have been removed from their influence for years can feel or appreciate thoroughly. The more I think of this, the more strongly I feel the effect of mere external sights and sounds on the inner and better man. Our Gothic buildings, our religious-looking churches, have, I am sure, a more restraining and pacifying influence than is generally believed by those who are habituated to them, and have never felt the want of them. A few cathedrals and venerable-looking edifices would do wonders in 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 n.o.ble 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 amus.e.m.e.nts, 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 Church read, save at intervals, in a room in which, perhaps, the night before, I had been crushed by a great dinner party, or worn out by the bustle and turmoil of suitors. The building in which one toils becomes intimately a.s.sociated with the toil itself. That in which one prays should at least have some attribute to remind one of prayer.

Human nature shrinks for long from the thought of being buried in any but consecrated ground; the certainty of lying dead some day or other on a field of battle, or by a roadside, has, I have remarked, the most strange effect on the soldier's mind. Depend upon it the same feeling holds good with regard to consecrated places of wors.h.i.+p. You may think this fanciful, but I am sure you would feel it more strongly than I do, were you to live for a time in a country where everything _but religion_ has its living and existent memorials and evidences.

But to return to reality: I have just spent three days in Sir Charles Napier's camp, it being my duty to accompany him through such parts of the civil district as he may have occasion to visit. He was most kind and cordial, vastly amusing and interesting, and gave me even a higher opinion of him than before. To be sure his language and mode of expressing himself savor more of 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 the army from the state of slack discipline into which it has fallen. On my parting with him he said, "Now, remember, Hodson, if there is any way in which I can be of use to you, pray don't scruple to write to me." I didn't show him his brother's[14] letter,--that he might judge for himself first, and know me "per se," or rather "per me;" I will, however, if ever I see him again.

FOOTNOTES:

[13] Such an impression had my brother's daring and activity produced upon the minds of the Sikhs, that several years afterwards it was found that the Sikh mothers still used his name as a threat of terror to their children, reminding one of the border ballad,--

Hark ye, hark ye, do not fret ye, The black Douglas shall not get ye.

[14] Sir W. Napier.

CHAPTER VI.

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 cla.s.s, 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.