PROMOTION TO COMMAND OF THE GUIDES. 133 



him ; but " though I should gain, and he would lose 

 £200 a -year, by the ' swop,' I would not listen 

 to him. I prefer the saddle to the desk, the 

 frontier to a respectable, wheel - going, dinner- 

 giving, dressy life at the capital ; and ambition 

 to money ! " 



On the eve of his departure for Peshawar he 

 received a farewell note from Mr Edmonstone, who 

 would not have him go away without thanking him 

 heartily for the support and assistance he had 

 always given him "in all matters, whether big or 

 little, since you joined me, now twenty months and 

 more ago. I have in my civil and criminal reports 

 for the past year recorded my sense of your services 

 and your official merits ; but our connection has 

 been j^eculiar, and your position has been one 

 which few would have filled either so efficiently or 

 so agreeably to all parties. You have afforded me 

 the greatest aid in the most irksome part of my 

 duty, and have always with the utmost readiness 

 undertaken anything, no matter what, that I asked 

 you to dispose of, and I owe you more on this 

 account than a mere official acknowledgment can 

 repay adequately." 



Writing from Peshawar on October 31 to the 

 wife whom he had left at Simla, he describes the 

 station there as " a beautiful place, and when more 

 houses are built it will be the best station in 

 India." 



" My good friend Lumsden," he writes a week 

 later, "has exceeded all I expected in the way he 

 has left affairs, and I have no slight work in 

 organising and arranging the economical details 

 of the regiment : fortunately Turner is a good 



