22 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



horse for the march, and seems bent on making me 

 comfortable." On November 2 he left Thomason's 

 hospitable roof, to become ere long an actor in one 

 of the bloodiest wars recorded in Indian history. 



In spite of the delay caused by a sudden attack 

 of fever and dysentery, he gained the headquarters' 

 camp near Delhi on the morning of the 7th. His 

 first experiences of a cold-weather march with troops 

 in Northern India are described so vividly in one 

 of his own letters that no excuse is needed for re- 

 producing the description here : — 



"Soon after 4 a.m. a bugle sounds the reveille, 

 and the whole mass is astir at once. The smoke of 

 the evening fires has by this time blown away, and 

 everything stands out clear and defined in the bright 

 moonlight. The sepoys, too, bring the straw from 

 their tents, and make fires to warm their black faces 

 on all sides ; and the groups of swarthy redcoats 

 stooping over the blaze, with a white background of 

 canvas, and the dark clear sky behind all, produce 

 a most picturesque effect as one turns out into the 

 cold. Then the multitudes of camels, horses, and 

 elephants, in all imaginable groups and positions, 

 the groans and cries of the former as they stoop 

 and kneel for their burdens, the neighing of hun- 

 dreds of horses mingling with the shouts of the 

 innumerable servants and their masters' calls, the 

 bleating of sheep and goats, and, louder than all, 

 the shrill screams of the Hindoo women, almost be- 

 wilder one's senses as one treads one's way through 

 the canvas streets and squares to the place where 

 the regiment assembles outside the camp. 



"A second bugle sounds 'the assembly.' There 

 is a blaze of torches from the Governor's tents ; his 



