"_Brigadier Commanding the Force at Boree_."
"To Lieutenant W. S. R. Hodson, I beg you will express my particular thanks for the great service he rendered the force under your command, by his ever gallant conduct, which has fully sustained the reputation he has so justly acquired for courage, coolness, and determination.
Before Christmas, to his great delight, he was joined in camp by his wife and child. The following letters bring out still more prominently the tender loving side of his character, both as a father and a son:--
I have been sadly long in answering your last most welcome letter, but I have been so terribly driven from pillar to post, that I have always been unable to sit down at the proper time. My long holiday with dear Susie, and journeyings to and fro to see her at Murree, and our short campaign against the Affreedees in November, threw me into a sea of arrears which was terrible to contemplate, and still worse to escape from. I am now working all day and half the night, and cannot as yet make much impression on them.
I wish you could see your little grand-daughter being nursed by a rough-looking Affghan soldier or bearded Sikh, and beginning life so early as a dweller in tents. She was christened by Mr. Clarke, one of the Church Missionaries who happened to be in Peshawur. The chaplain, who ought to have been there, was amusing himself somewhere, and we could not catch a spare parson for a fortnight.
You evidently do not appreciate the state of things in these provinces. There are but two churches in the Punjaub; and there will be an electric telegraph to Peshawur before a church is commenced there, though the station has been one for four years. In the first season, a large Roman Catholic Chapel was built there, and an Italian priest from the Propaganda busy in his vocation. I offered Mr. C. all the aid in my power, though I told him candidly that I thought he had not much chance of success here. A large sum has been raised at Peshawur for the Mission, but unfortunately they have gone wild with theories about the lost tribes and fulfilment of prophecies respecting the Jews, which has given a somewhat visionary character to their plans. Mr. C. wanted me to think that these Euzofzai Pathàns were Ben-i-Israel, and asked me whether I had heard them call themselves so; and he was aghast when I said they were as likely to talk of Ben d'Israeli. All I can say is, that if they be "lost tribes," I only wish they would find out a home somewhere else among their cousins, and give me less trouble.... My second in command was stabbed in the back by a fanatic the other day while on parade, and has had a wonderful escape for his life.