96 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



road, I should liave been a 'body.'" "As soon as 



the tidings reached us," he says in a letter to Mr 



Lewin Bo wring, " the troop was off like a flash of 



lightning, old Fathi Khan going at the gallop the 



whole distance and sending a man to us — we were at 



breakfast at the time in camp — to say that he was 



off ! We followed like a steeplechase, got up to the 



scene of the scrimmage, some five kos hence, and did 



our best to trace the rascals. We got on their 



track and followed it to Kanowan, but there lost all 



trace of them, and as a matter of course not a soul 



would own to having seen them. ... I have had 



enough of riding — 100 miles on the 31st, and eleven 



hours steady in the saddle on the 1st ! I only feel 



it in the waist, which is somewhat sore from the 



constant pressure of a sword-belt for so many 



hours." 



" ' But my horse it is another's, 

 And it never can be mine,' " 



were the words in which Hodsou, writing to his 

 father, gave a humorous turn to the feeling of 

 "intense disgust" expressed in his letter to Mr 

 Bowring at the abduction of his favourite Arab, 

 who had done him " yeoman service " during the 

 campaign. 



On January 22 the citadel of Multan surrendered 

 to General Whish, and to Herbert Edwardes was 

 intrusted the duty of escorting Mulraj as prisoner to 

 Lahore. Three of Whish's brigades were at once sent 

 northwards to reinforce Gough, who had meanwhile 

 halted at Chilianwala, watching Sher Singh's army 

 intrenched about Easid. By the middle of February 

 the combined forces of Sher and Chatar Singh 

 marched quietly round Gough's flank towards the 



