108 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



He looked back regretfully to the stirring life he 

 had led on service with the Guides ; and he brooded, 

 not without cause, over the fact of his exclusion from 

 the honours bestowed on deserving officers after the 

 late campaign. "It is now two years," he writes 

 on March 4, " since I was made an assistant to the 

 Eesident, and within a few months of that time I 

 took absolute charge of a tract of country (in a state 

 of war, too) comprising three modern districts, in 

 one of which I am now playing third fiddle. Surely 

 annexation was a ' heavv blow and a orreat dis- 

 couragement ' to me at least. In the military line, 

 too, I have been equally unlucky, from the fact of 

 my services having been with detachments instead 

 of with the main army. I held my ground (and 

 cleared it of the enemy, too) for weeks with only 

 120 men at my back, and when ever}^ officer, from 

 General Wheeler downwards, entreated me to with- 

 draw and give it up ; I fed 5000 men and horses for 

 six months by personal and unremitting exertion ; 

 collected the revenues of the disturbed districts, 

 and paid £15,000 over and above into the treasury, 

 from the proceeds of property taken from the rebels. 

 Besides this, I worked for General Wheeler so satis- 

 factorily that he has declared publicly that he could 

 have done nothing without me. So much were 

 the Sikhs enraged at my proceedings that party 

 after party were sent to polish me off, and at one 

 time I couldn't stir about the country without 

 having bullets sent at my head from every bush 

 and wall. However, I need not go on with the cata- 

 looue ; I have been eo-otistical enough as it is." 



A fortnight later he inveighs with equal force and 

 justice against the seniority system which then pre- 



