284 MAJOR W. HODSON. 



at breakfast ! However, the enemy were thoroughly 

 thrashed eventually, and lost camp and guns. Poor 

 French of the Lancers is the only officer whose name 

 I have heard as killed." 



A report had just reached him from Simla that 

 Mrs Hodson had " got some magnificent diamond 

 rings, &c., taken at Delhi. This is rather good, 

 considering the only rings I sent you were the 

 princes', and not worth twenty rupees altogether, 

 and the only ' diamonds ' were in that little brooch 

 I bought from a sowar more than a month before 

 Delhi was taken. So much for the veracity of your 

 good-natuved friends at Simla ! " 



He likes M'Dowell " increasingly — he is so 

 thoroughly honest and gentlemanly, and brave as 

 a lion. In Wise, too, I am fortunate ; and AVells 

 is a fat, good-tempered, willing-to-work schoolboy. 

 We do very well, indeed, together, and I have 

 profited by past experience (and perhaps the natural 

 result of increased age and knowledge of the world), 

 but things are very different now from then" 



On the morning of the 19th the force of cavalry 

 under Colonel Custance of the Carabineers took pos- 

 session of Kanaud, " one of the strongest forts I 

 have seen, with fourteen guns, some very heavy 

 ones, and five lakhs of rupees, which, alas ! is to be 

 considered Government, not prize, property. I was 

 only out of my saddle for one hour yesterday, from 

 one in the morning till sunset, and then only to get 

 some cold food under a tree ! But I am quite well 

 and strong, much better than I was at Delhi ; and 

 as Colonel Custance and his officers are remarkably 

 agreeable gentlemanlike people, we have had the 

 most really pleasant days since leaving Delhi." 



