80 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



but open resistance of the Sikh garrison. A day 

 afterwards a reoiment marched from Lahore and 

 went into garrison there, and so Kanjit Singh's 

 treasure-fort is fairly in our hands." The effect of 

 this timely movement was declared by Lord Dal- 

 housie, who had been, indeed, the first to suggest 

 it, " to have placed us in a commanding position 

 in the most disaffected district in the Punjab." ^ 



Before the close of September Hodson with a party 

 of his Guides was encamped at Eamnagar on the left 

 bank of the Chinab, where he hoped to meet the 

 wife and children of Major George Lawrence and 

 escort them safely to Lahore. On learning the news 

 of Sher Singh's treachery Major George Lawrence 

 had sent off from Peshawar Mrs Lawrence and her 

 two little children under the charge of Sultan 

 Muhammad Khan, an Afghan chief, who had sworn 

 upon the Koran to carry them unharmed to the 

 British Residency. 



This man, however, proved to be a traitor of the 

 darkest Afghan dye. He showed his gratitude to 

 his old benefactor, Henry Lawrence, by detaining 

 the brother's family under strict guard in his own 

 castle at Kohat, whence some weeks later they were 

 transferred as hostages to the camp of his fellow- 

 traitor, the wily old sirdar, Chatar Singh. Hodson 

 therefore, after six days' waiting about Eamnagar, 

 found that he had gone, like John Nicholson and 

 Reynell Taylor, on a bootless errand. He was 

 suddenly recalled to Lahore by an order which 

 reached him on the evenins; of the 5th. " I started," 

 he says, " at sunset, and pushing my way on various 

 borrowed steeds across that dreary region during the 



1 Punjab Blue-Book, 1847-1849. 



