THE SECOND SIKH WAR. 95 



the most trying work I ever experienced, in which 

 cold, hunger, and wet were our enemies, we 

 succeeded in reaching our ground just in time to 

 be too late." On the morninoj of the 16th the 

 remaining- columns succeeded in stormino; the 

 position with no great loss. Kam Singh once more 

 fled across the Ravi, with only two followers ; and 

 Lieutenant Hodson, in the words of Wheeler's 

 despatch, " has entitled himself to the sincere 

 thanks of the brigadier-general for his endeavours 

 to lead a column to turn the enemy's position, 

 which failed only from causes which rendered 

 success impracticable." 



On January 31 Hodson's amazing energy saved 

 him from an untimely end. He had gone into 

 Lahore for a few days to see Sir Henry Lawrence, 

 who had just resumed his post as Resident. He left 

 Lahore on the morning of the 31st, on his way back 

 to Dinanagar. Halting for breakfast at Amritsar, 

 he reached his camp by nightfall, having covered the 

 hundred miles in ten hours and a half. " A party 

 of Sikhs," he writes, "had collected at a village by 

 the roadside to attack me and polish me off." They 

 had not expected him, however, till the next morn- 

 ing. " I am sorry to say," he adds, " that they 

 surrounded my horses, which were coming on quietly 

 in the morning, asked for me, and finding I had 

 escaped, stole my best horse, a valuable Arab, who 

 had carried me in three fights, and bolted, not, how- 

 ever, without resistance, for two horsemen (Guides) 

 of mine who were with the horse tried to save it. 

 One got four wounds and the other escaped unhurt. 

 Had I ridden like any other Christian instead of like 

 a spectre horseman, and been the usual time on the 



