70 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



our polite request to come along with us. Instead 

 of being taken to Lahore, as she expected, we 

 carried her off to Kana Kutch, on the Ferozepore 

 road, where a party of Wheeler's Irregulars had 

 been sent to receive her. It was very hard work 

 — a long night march to the fort (Shaikhopura), 

 and a fourteen hours' ride across to Kana Kutch, 

 whence I had two hours' gallop into Lahore to 

 report progress, making sixteen hours in the 

 saddle, in May, when the nights are hot." 



A few days later he was off again, at the head 

 of some cavalry, to try and seize or disperse a 

 body of horse and foot collected by a Sikh guru, 

 or holy man, named Maharaj Singh. "I made," 

 he writes on June 5, "a tremendous round by 

 Amritsar, Bhairowal Ghat on the Biyas, and up 

 that river's bank to Mukerian, in the Jalandhar 

 Doab, whence I was prepared to cross during the 

 night with a party of cavalry and attack the 

 rascals unawares." Everything promised well until 

 Hodson found that the insurg-ent leader had been 

 warned off by "a rogue of a native magistrate." 

 Thereupon he " fairly bolted across the Ravi, and 

 is now infesting the Doab between that river and 

 the Cliinab. I have scoured this part of the 

 country, which my late surveys enabled me to 

 traverse with perfect ease, got possession of every 

 boat on the Ravi from Lahore to the hills, placed 

 horsemen at every ferry, and have been bullying 

 the people who supplied the saint with provisions 

 and arms. I have a regiment of Irregular Horse 

 (Skinner's) with me, and full powers to summon 

 more, if necessary, from the Jalandhar Doab. 

 Meantime a party from Lahore are sweeping 



