PROMOTION TO COMMAND OF THE GUIDES. 141 



" Poor Colonel Mackeson, the Commissioner at 

 Peshawar (the chief civil and political officer for the 

 frontier), was stabbed a few days ago by a fanatic 

 while sittino- iu his verandah readino^. The fellow 

 was from Swat, and said he had heard that we were 

 going to invade his country, and that he would try 

 to stop it, and go to heaven as a martyr for the faith. 

 Poor Mackeson is still alive, but in a very pre- 

 carious state, I fear." 



Mackeson lingered only a few days. The death of 

 such a man, said Lord Dalhousic, "would have 

 dimmed a victory." In the summer of 1850 he had 

 succeeded George Lawrence as Commissioner of 

 Peshawar. The blow which prematurely closed his 

 career opened to his successor, Herbert Edwardes, 

 the road to achievements yet more splendid than 

 any which had marked his brilliant past. 



In the same month of September Hodson was 

 saddened by the death of his friend James Thom- 

 ason, in his fiftieth year, at the moment when one 

 of the highest prizes open to a Company's servant, 

 the governorship of Madras, had come within his 

 grasp. " His death," wrote Hodson on October 1 5, 

 " is an irrej)arable loss to his family and friends, but 

 it will be even more felt in his public capacity. He 

 had not been ill, but died from sheer debility and 

 exhaustion produced by overwork and application in 

 the trying season just over. Had he gone to the 

 hills all would have been right. I cannot but think 

 that he sacrificed himself as an example to others. 

 You may imagine how much I have felt the loss of 

 my earliest and best friend in India, to whom I was 

 accustomed to detail all my proceedings, and whom 

 I was wont to consult in every difficulty and doul)t." 



