64 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



About this time he was surveying a part of the 

 country lying along the left bank of the Kavi 

 and below the hills. On March 14 he writes ao;ain 

 from Dinanao-ar, whither he had returned after en- 

 countering one of those sudden storms of rain which 

 transform a peaceful landscape into a wilderness of 

 mud, stones, and water. The powerful breakwater 

 which Napier's workmen had just built across a 

 branch of the Chakar river was battered by the 

 conquering flood until in two hours it became, said 

 Hodson, " a thing of history." 



In consequence of Hodson's report as to the 

 amount of plundering that went on in his neighbour- 

 hood, a large party of horse was sent out under one 

 of the principal chiefs to act upon the information 

 thus supplied. " We have accordingly had a robber- 

 hunt on a large and tolerably successful scale. Num- 

 bers have been caught. One shot, "pour encourager 

 les centres, and we have traces of others, so that 

 my quiet practice, originally for my own amusement 

 and information, has been very useful to the State." 

 He had discovered the greatest part of it by sending 

 out clever fellows, disguised as faheers, or religious 

 beggars, to the different villages to talk to the 

 people and learn their doings. " Some of the 

 stories of Sikh violence, cruelty, and treachery 

 which I have picked up are almost beyond belief. 

 The indifi'erence of these people to human life is 

 something appalling. I could hardly get them to 

 give a thought or attempt an inquiry as to the 

 identity of a man whom I found dead, evidently by 

 violence, by the roadside yesterday morning ; and 

 they were horrified at the thought of tying up or 

 confining a sacred ox who had gored his thirteenth 



