136 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



the most trying conditions. In speaking afterwards 

 of this campaign, Lord Napier declared to the Rev. 

 G. H. Hodson, " Your brother's unfailing fun and 

 spirits, which seemed only raised by what we had 

 to go through, kept us all alive and merry, so that 

 we looked back upon it afterwards as a party of 

 pleasure, and thought we had never enjoyed any- 

 thing more." 



" It was a good thing," writes Hodson on March 

 13 from Peshawar, "that I had the opportunity of 

 leading the regiment into action so soon after 

 getting the command, and that the brunt of the 

 whole should have fallen upon us, as it placed the 

 older men and myself once more on our old footing 

 of confidence in one another, and introduced me to 

 the younger hands as their leader when they needed 

 one. ... I need therefore only add that it was the 

 hardest piece of service, while it lasted, I have seen 

 with the Guides, both as regards the actual fighting, 

 the difiiculties of the ground (a rugged mountain 

 7000 feet high and densely wooded), and the 

 exposure." 



In the previous November Hodson and Lumsden 

 had exchanged warm farewell greetings at Peshawar, 

 Late in the following January Lumsden began his 

 voyage homeward from that city of palaces, which 

 he loved as little as did his former subaltern. On 

 January 23 Lumsden writes to Hodson from aboard 

 the ship Monarch : " Yesterday I had two whole 

 hours with the Governor-General, who is delighted 

 with the work you have been doing in Hazara, 

 and I congratulate you most sincerely in your 

 commencement as a commandant of Guides. There 

 is no doubt in my mind, from what the Lord said, 



