FROM SOLDIER TO CIVILIAN. 101 



frontier ; but lie had read the few books he always 

 carried about with him until he was tired of them 

 all excepting Shakespeare. " Then, of course, there 

 are no ladies here, and consequently no society, 

 or reunions (as they are called when people live 

 together), and people are pitched headlong on to 

 their own resources, and find them very hard 

 falling indeed ! " 



He was just then recovering from a sharp attack 

 of fever — " a regular blazing Eastern fever, the sort 

 of thing which burns so fast that if it don't stop 

 quickly, it burns you well down into the socket, 

 and leaves you there without strength to splutter 

 or flicker, and you go out without the satisfaction 

 of a last flare-up at expiring." By this time the 

 order had come for increasing the Guide corps to 

 1000 men, so that Hodson would have plenty of 

 work before him, especially as Lumsden left " almost 

 everything " in his lieutenant's hands. By this time 

 also his good friend, Sir Henry Lawrence, had ob- 

 tained for him the post of Assistant Commissioner 

 under the new Board of Administration, at the head 

 of which was Sir Henry himself. 



On this occasion one of his heartiest well-wishers 

 was his late comrade and commander, Harry Lums- 

 den. "I congratulate you," he wrote in July, "on 

 being made an Assistant Commissioner in the Pun- 

 jab, though I am myself truly sorry to lose you 

 as a Guide : however, it is for your advantage, no 

 doubt." 



Some months earlier the new President of the 

 Punjab Board had not been in the best of humours 

 either with Hodson or Hodson's commandant. To 

 the former he had written on February 28 : "I 



