118 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



About the middle of September Hodson parted 

 company with Sir Henry Lawrence in Kashmir, 

 and made his way across the Punjab to Simla, 

 where he purposed spending a few^ days with his 

 old friend Mr James Thomason. Sir Henry and 

 he had parted the best of friends ; and Sir Henry 

 urged him to use all the influence he could com- 

 mand at Simla, in order to obtain the promise of 

 a brevet majority, whenever he might gain the 

 rank of regimental captain, as well as the imme- 

 diate reward of a local majority for his services 

 in the late war. 



What Sir Henry himself thought of his young 

 companion appears in his letter of August 29 to 

 his brother George : " I have had a nice tour with 

 Hodson, who makes a good travelling companion — 

 energetic, clever, and well-informed. I don't know 

 why you did not take to him at Peshawar. He has 

 his faults, — positiveness and self-will among them, 

 — but it is useful to us to have companions who 

 contradict and keep us mindful that we are not 

 Solomons. I believe that if Sir Charles Napier stood 

 on his head and cut capers with his heels, a la 

 Boileau, he would consider it quite right that all 

 commanders-in-chief should do so. . . . Toryism 

 and Absolutism are right. Liberty only another 

 name for Red Republicanism, So you see we have 

 enough to differ upon." ^ 



Among other motives for Sir Henry's visit to 



^ Merivale's 'Life of Sir Henry Lawrence.' The story goes that 

 Boileau of the Bengal Engineers, while awaiting an audience of the 

 Governor-General, amused himself by standing upon his head. In 

 this posture he was still to be seen, dangling his legs in the air, when 

 the great man suddenly entered the room. 



I 



