112 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



party or worn out by the bustle and turmoil of 

 suitors. The building in which one toils becomes 

 intimately associated with the toil itself. That in 

 which one prays should at least have some attribute 

 to remind one of prayer. Human nature shrinks 

 for long from the thought of being buried in any 

 but consecrated ground ; the certainty of lying dead 

 some day or other on a field of battle, or by a road- 

 side, has, I have remarked, the most strange effect 

 on the soldier's mind. Depend upon it, the same 

 feeling holds good with regard to consecrated places 

 of worship. You may think this fanciful, but I am 

 sure you would feel it more strongly than I do were 

 you to live for a time in a country where every- 

 thing hut 'religion has its living and existent 

 memorials and evidences." 



Hodson had just made himself comfortable in 

 Amritsar, in a pretty garden-house fitted up with 

 doors and windows, when he found himself driven 

 by the state of his health to go on four months' 

 leave to the hills. Going away was, he felt, " a 

 great bore in some respects, as it may be a hin- 

 drance in the way of promotion, and, moreover, I 

 am reduced to the state of half-pay for the time I 

 am on leave. On the other hand, neither promotion 

 nor pay are any good so long as life is a burden to 

 one by reason of weakness and sickness." 



