tion to further and future separation; can you act the trooper sweetest, will you ride by my side along the wild Affghan border?" and I tapped my wife's smooth sweet face.

"Can I not ? and what would I not do that we may be together? and what should I fear while you are my guide and guard ?”

"I am but half in earnest my own wife, and dream not of parting, but I was thinking that if I am to be keeper of the border, I should save myself much after trouble, if I could first, quietly and unknown to all, ride along the whole line; in one month I should thus hear and see more than would reach me in years of more open investigation."

my

66

"Oh yes, let us go," was her reply, my ambling ghunt and little Arab will carry me without fatigue from one end of the country to the other; let us go; I'm sure you wish it, and you will not find me in the way."

"Not willingly I am sure; but you little know the difficulties, nay, dangers of the route and plan I propose; the berth will be a stirring one."

"If there is to be danger to you, then indeed, I should be there; for who will care for you, who watch and tend you in the absence of your Mâhtab? and as to a stirring berth, would not any you could get, be so ?"

“We will talk all this over in the evening, but now I must answer these letters, for I hear the Bhaya beginning to grum ble ;" and so I took out my portfolio, while my wife seated herself on a small rug close to me, to pursue her English studies, and wrote my despatch.

NOTES.

(a) Lachman Kowr might well prefer the banks of Jamnâ to those of the Sutluj. Her father's Estate of Booria and Jagadrî on the Jamna is one of the finest in the protected Sikh states. The bamboo fence, better than an embattled wall, around Jagâdri is alone well worthy of the travellers' visit.

As proof that the Sikhs were not all and always barbarians, I may say that Lachman Kowr's father, fifty years ago, found Jagâdrî a mean village, and left it at his death a commercial city of considerable consequence.

His bamboo fence protected the inhabitants from sudden inroads, and his character gave confidence to settlers against oppression. He made some few

rude laws and enforced them; one was for the preservation of the bamboo fence; the penalty against cutting a single branch being the splicing of the offender's finger. The plantation accordingly soon became a thick jungle, so thick that it was impervious to all, but beasts of prey who shared its haunts with the wild peacock a tiger has been known to take refuge within it; but in those days the country around was a grass jungle: it is now for miles in every direction one broad sheet of cultivation, and of splendid mangoe groves.

(b) Let me not by this be thought that I advocate the system that has been aptly called that of the strumpetocracy. The Sikh states suffer too much by female rule, for any one who has witnessed its consequences to do other than reprobate the system.

For one Lachman Kowr that may be found, we will meet a hundred Empress Catharines.

CHAPTER NINETEENTH,

CONTENTS.

Bellasis takes the public into his confidence, and condescends to reuson with that mysterious personage.-Hints on pathognomy, or the language of signs.

"Oh Love! in such a wilderness as this,
Where transport and security intwine!

Here is the empire of thy perfect bliss,

And here thou art a God, indeed divine !"

Campbell.

Looking back on what I have written, it strikes me as just possible that, because my adventures are not precisely those which they think an Adventurer in the Panjāb” ought to have met with, some people may actually doubt the reality of my acts and writings. * But, gentle reader, surely, you must by this time see that I have a way of my own, be it right or wrong, of working out my purposes; and that, although I have neither been as authorative nor as servile as others in my situation have been and would be, it is just possible that an Adventurer in the Panjab may be only a moderate monster, avoiding extremes, and acting up to what he deems right.

:

But I must answer the Royal mandate; accordingly, putting on the robe of prudence and the etceteras of plain-dealing and straightforwardness, I wrote that I had been acting according to my instructions, and that I was prepared with a full report of proceedings, which should be presented at court without delay and in reference to the Mâharâjah's intentions regarding the Western border, I stated that I am the servant of the Mâharajah; he exalted me, and it was his pleasure to degrade me; but as I have eaten of the Sarkâr's salt, so am I ready to devote myself to his will, on the terms that the details for carrying out his orders be left entirely to myself. To petition further would be disrespectful."

To Aziz-u-dîn I wrote, "To the hakim of the age, the wise in darbār, the trusty in need, the kind and considerate father. Thy

pleasure-giving epistle warmed the heart of thy well-wisher, and caused a ray of gladness to rise on his clouded soul: my friend, as I represented to you, I have no particular wish to remain in the Panjâb ; I am still young; I have health and character, with good connexions in my own land; I was therefore in earnest in stating that but one tie held me to this country: the Maharajah, however, has been kind, and has again exalted me above my expectations; and in you I feel that I have a real friend; my life is therefore again at the disposal of the Sarkar, and wherever it is his Highness's pleasure to send me, there will I cheerfully go. My friend, arrange for me that I shall have good regiments, and efficient Commandants; if I have not, it is needless my going; let as many Hindustanis as possible be sent; and above all, urge on the Maharajah the necessity of keeping my appointment secret, until such time as, when on the border, I may find it convenient to assume command. Let brigades, as if to strengthen the frontier, be sent under Sheikh Alibaksh, Mehman Singh, and Dildar Khan, and by the Maharajah's permission, I will communicate to them my orders. If his Highness has no objection to the scheme, I propose to proceed by water to Multan as if on leave of absence to Bombay for six months; from Multan, after having made my enquiries, and then disclosed myself or otherwise arranged with Sawan Mal as most expedient, I would wish to ride. along the Derajat border to Peshawar, arriving there as soon as, if not before, any definite tidings could reach; and thus picking up. many honest opinions, and much real information as to the frontier. My friend is aware how difficult it is for a man in authority to hear the truth; how every view comes to him through a distorted medium; and on the contrary how freely every thing is communicated to the poor traveller; how he has nothing to do, but be civil and liberal of his hukah, say little and keep his ears open.

"One other point I have to mention. The Maharajah ordered in the parwannah written by your friendly hand, that I should be assured of a khillat for the head of every chief I bring in. His Highness intended, I presume, to be jocose with his servant; but, to prevent mistake, tell our common master that while no exertion shall be spared to put down his enemies, he must expect no such service as he alludes to from me; for in my country, while we are taught to meet the foe manfully, we are equally enjoined to res

pect his corpse, and to bind up his wounds; all mutilations therefore are in our eyes barbarous; my friend will explain this point."

All that remained was, to read the letters to my wife, and send them off by the Bhya. She listened, holding my hand with far more love and devotion as my wedded wife, than she had ever done during the exciting and romantic days when she was my betrothed, and with the same sweet, artless countenance that she shewed in childhood, when it was happiness enough to gaze on me, and anticipate my every wish.

It was my desire, as I told the faqir, to reach Multân in the guise of a private traveller; I therefore resolved to retain the two boats I had on the river, and merely to run across to Lahaur, receive my credentials, return to the river, and embarking there, drop down to Mithankot, whence I could easily ascend the Chenab to Multan. Mahtab begged to accompany me to the capital; "“that terrible time you left me at Rupar," she said, “ ing I never had before. Since being your wife, I had never been a whole day without you till then; and when day after day passed in solitude, I felt the sad possibility that we might live asunder. Till then, I never thought of existence apart from my husband."

gave me a feel

I would fain have " bid the heart be still, that beat too warmly for its peace," yet I would not have had her feel less acutely, so I promised that she should accompany me, and I managed to lay a doli dak to Lahaur, for us both.

My route lay through the old city of Kasur, where as usual, I claimed admittance, on the ground of the Royal parwannah I bore; but Sham Singh was too tenacious of his own position to thus recognize my authority, and simply sent me a message to say that there was no entrance for uninvited strangers within his walls. It was not my wish to delay, nor the Maharajah's that I should come in hostile contact with those I visited. I therefore sent a polite reply, that the question should be referred to the darbar, and proceeded on my way.

I arrived at the capital a few days after the Maharajah himself, who had, on leaving Rupar, made a rapid sweep along the Eastern hills, where he was least expected. Avoiding beaten roads, he had studiously sought out the castles and villages of those who least looked for such a visit. To some few, the royal movement proved a blessing, but to the majority, and especially to those