THE FIRST SIKH WAR. 21 



deacon Dealtry, John Peter Grant, Frederick Currie, 

 and Sir Herbert Maddock were among the acquaint- 

 ances whom he then made. Two happy days of 

 September were spent by him at Garden Reach, in 

 the house of his new friend Sir Lawrence Peel, then 

 Chief Justice of Bengal. Hodson justly speaks of 

 him as " a thoroughly nice agreeable man," and feels 

 ' ' quite a different animal after two days spent in 

 comfort and comparative freedom from heat." 



After three weeks spent in the city of palaces 

 Hodson began his voyage by steamer up the country 

 towards Agra, then the capital of the North-West 

 Provinces. Here on October 18 he became the 

 guest of the Lieutenant-Governor, James Thomason, 

 an old family friend and connection, " who from 

 that time to his death," says Mr George H. Hodson, 

 "treated him with as much affection, and took as 

 deep an interest in his career, as if he had been 

 his own son." 



At this time Sir Henry Hardinge was Governor- 

 General of Lidia, and Sir Hugh Gough, the 

 conqueror of the Gwalior Marathas, was his 

 commander-in-chief. The clouds were even then 

 lowering along the Satlaj, and troops were pre- 

 paring to march from various stations towards 

 the point of possible danger. Before leaving 

 Calcutta Ensign Hodson had been appointed to 

 do duty with the 2nd Bengal Grenadiers, a native 

 regiment which was presently to form part of the 

 Governor-General's escort from Agra to Ferozepore. 

 "Nothing," he writes, "was ever so kind as Mr 

 Thomason has been. . . . He is certainly a most 

 delightful man, and his affectionate manner to 

 me is quite touching. He has just given me a 



