134 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



hand at business and accounts, and we sliall get 

 all things straight, no doubt, in time." On 

 November 8, the day on which Mrs Hodson was to 

 begin her journey from Simla to Jalandhar, her 

 husband was encamped at Haripur, among the 

 mountains of Hazara, in company with his friend 

 Colonel Mackeson, then Commissioner of Peshawar. 

 From Pakli on November 14 he writes, " We are 

 lying peacefully here, and not a shot will be fired 

 in this direction." 



He had marched off, in fact, at the head of his 

 Guides to establish peace and order among the wild 

 tribes of Hazara, who only three years before had 

 yielded to the kindly rule of Major James Abbott. 

 The country through which he was marching 

 extends north-eastward of Attock along the left 

 bank of the Indus. "We are now (December 16) 

 in an elevated valley, surrounded by snowy moun- 

 tains, and mighty cold it is, too, at night. We 

 have come about 125 miles from Peshawar, and 

 having marched up the hill, are patiently expecting 

 the order to march down again." In his opinion 

 " the storm Colonel Mackeson brewed seems most 

 absurd, and I hope it will soon be over." 



In a previous letter from Pakli he had written : 

 "It is utterly useless for us to be here now. I left 

 camp before daylight yesterday, and did not get 

 back to breakfast till 5 p.m. There had been a 

 fight between the natives, and I was sent to see 

 what had happened." In his account of what had 

 happened he spoke of the natives stringing the ears 

 of their victims to show how many they had killed. 

 On the 14th he had written to Mrs Hodson : " You 

 will be at Lahore to-day, and I shall hear of your 



