UNDER A CLOUD. 153 



are as razi (contented) as they might be. I have 

 heard it from half-a-dozen different quarters. At 

 Lahore I have heard it talked of by several parties. 

 I have heard it direct from Peshawar, and direct 

 from Calcutta. There may have been faults on 

 their part, and the discipline may not have been 

 altoQ-ether what it ouoht to have been. But sudden 

 changes are best avoided. ... If right men go 

 wrong, jDcople will blame you. I don't think that 

 Pathans can bear a very strict system of drill and 

 setting up at any time. For all these reasons, 

 therefore, I would introduce my reforms very 

 slowly and carefully, carrying them out in a way 

 as little vexatious as possible." ^ 



In seeking to enforce his own views of military 

 discipline, and to make his regiment as fit as 

 possible for the work required of it, Hodson may 

 have moved too fast in a manner too ruthless to 

 please some of his official superiors. In the letter 

 from which I have just quoted John Lawrence takes 

 him to task for his rouffh treatment of one of his 

 native officers : " I heard that you addressed Fathi 

 Khan as Fathi Khan Mazill (turned out) ; this was 

 sufficient to set such a chap all of a blaze." This 

 Fathi Khan may have been a daring soldier ; 

 Hodson looked upon him as one of those black 

 sheep with whose services he would do well to 

 dispense. Lawrence himself had described him to 

 Lord Dalhousie as " a perfect devil when his blood 

 is up, and this is very often. At such a moment he 

 would murder his nearest and dearest relative or 

 friend." Even Lumsden, for all his kindly tact and 

 easy-going ways, had sometimes found that retired 



^ Quoted by Bos worth Smith. 



