’The loss of Colonel Mackeson’s life would have dimmed a victory; to lose him thus, by the hand of a foul assassin, is a misfortune of the heaviest gloom for the Government, which counted him amongst its bravest and best.

’General orders of the Marquis Dalhousie, Governor-General of India, 3rd October, 1853.

‘This monument was erected by his friends.’]

[Footnote 7:  Head men.]

* * * * *

CHAPTER IV. 1854-1856

A trip to Khagan—­The Vale of Kashmir—­With the Horse Artillery —­My first visit to Simla—­Life at Peshawar—­A staff appointment —­The bump of locality

I had had a great deal of fever during my eighteen months’ residence at Peshawar, and in April, 1854, I obtained six months’ leave to Kashmir.  I travelled via Murree to Abbottabad, along the route now well known as the ‘Gullies.’  Here I was joined by Lieutenant George Rodney Brown,[1] a subaltern of Horse Artillery, with whom I chummed at Peshawar.

Abbottabad was a very small place in those days.  It was named after its first Deputy-Commissioner, James Abbott,[2] famous for his journey via Bokhara and Khiva to Russia in 1839, undertaken for the release of Russian prisoners who were kept as slaves by the Turkomans.  He had just left, and had been succeeded as Deputy-Commissioner by a Captain Becher, who, fortunately for us, was away in the district.  I say fortunately, because we were bent on visiting Khagan, and had obtained permission from the Commissioner of Peshawar to do so.  He had told us to apply to Becher for assistance, but from what we heard of that officer, it did not seem likely he would help us.  Khagan was beyond our border, and the inhabitants were said to be even more fanatical than the rest of the frontier tribes.  The Commissioner, however, had given us leave, and as his Deputy appeared to be the kind of man to create obstacles, we made up our minds to slip away before he returned.

We started on the 21st May, and marched to Habibula-Ki-Ghari.  Here the road bifurcates, one branch leading to Kashmir, the other to Khagan.  We took the latter, and proceeded to Balakot, twelve miles further on, which was then our frontier post.  There we found a small guard of Frontier Police, two of whom we induced to accompany us on our onward journey for the purpose of assisting to look after the baggage and collecting coolies.  Three days’ more marching brought us to Khagan.  The road almost the whole way from Balakot ran along a precipice overhanging the Nainsukh river, at that time of year a rushing torrent, owing to the melting of the snows on the higher ranges.  The track was rough, steep, and in some places very narrow.  We crossed and recrossed the river several times by means of snow-bridges, which, spanning the limpid, jade-coloured water, had a very pretty effect.  At one point our shikarris[3] stopped, and proudly told us that on that very spot their tribe had destroyed a Sikh army sent against them in the time of Runjit Sing.  It certainly was a place well chosen for a stand, not more than fifty yards wide, with a perpendicular cliff on one side and a roaring torrent on the other.