68 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



one can say liow far the infection may extend. 

 The Sikhs were right in saying, ' We shall have 

 one more fight for it yet.'" 



The two EnQ-lishmen had been murdered on the 



o 



20th of April 1848, and a few days later the brave 

 Herbert Edwardes, from his frontier post beyond 

 the Indus, began to collect the levies whom he 

 was presently leading towards the scene of an 

 outbreak which erelong became the centre of a 

 widespread revolt against British tutelage over 

 the Punjab. On May 7 Hodson was writing thus 

 from Lahore : " I expect to be busy in catching a 

 party of rascals who have been trying to pervert 

 our sepoys by bribes and promises. We have a 

 clue to them, and hope to take them in the act. 

 We are surrounded here with treachery. No man 

 can say who is implicated, or how far the treason 

 has spread. The life of no British officer away 

 from Lahore is worth a week's purchase. It is a 

 pleasant sort of government to prop up, when 

 their headmen conspire against you, and their 

 troops desert you on the slightest temptation." 



In the same letter he asks his brother to procure 

 for Lumsden and himself " a brace of o-ood helmets " 

 that would serve to protect them equally against 

 " sun and blows " ; something like the leathern 

 helmet, "light, serviceable, and neat," then worn 

 by the Prussian army. " We don't want ornament ; 

 in fact the plainer the better, as we should always 

 wear a turban over them, but strong, and light as 

 a hat." 



This was the first of many commissions intrusted 

 to the Rev. Georo;e H. Hodson in connection with 

 the clothing and arming of the new Guide Corps. 



