46 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



Their ways were not his ways, nor would he deign 

 to lay aside one of his English habits for the sake 

 of winning the goodwill of younger or less fastidious 

 comrades. 



Things at this time were not going smoothly 

 beyond the frontier. Gulab Singh's entrance into 

 Kashmir had been followed by his speedy retire- 

 ment before a body of the insurgents, who drove 

 his troops out of the valley in the name of their 

 late governor, Shaikh Imam-ud-din. Hodson ex- 

 pects that " October will see an army assembled 

 to frighten them into submission. . . . We seem 

 bound to see him established on the throne we 

 carved out for him, and it is our only chance of 

 keeping peace and order ; though at the best he 

 is such a villain, and so detested, that I imagine it 

 will be but a sorry state of quietness — 



' The torrent's smoothness ere it dash below.' " 



On October 1, 1846, Hodson left Sabathu to join 

 Colonel Lawrence at the foot of the hills. At Kupar 

 on the Satlaj they took boat for Ferozepore, "and 

 came across to Lahore during the night in a capital 

 barouche belonging to the Rani, with relays of 

 horses and an escort of cavalry." While two British 

 columns advanced northwards from Lahore and 

 Jalandhar, Lawrence himself marched towards 

 Kashmir at the head of some 10,000 of those very 

 Sikhs who had fought against us at Firozshah and 

 Sobraon. Hodson was delighted at the thought of 

 seeing Kashmir, and was " gaining great advantage 

 from being with these ' politicals,' in the way of 

 learning the languages and the method of governing 

 the natives. I have been hard at work day and 



