Nowshera was the last station we visited.  It was the beginning of April, and getting rather hot for parading troops.  I there met for the first time the present Commander-in-Chief in India, General Sir George White, who was then a subaltern in the 27th (Inniskilling) Regiment.

I recollect the commanding officer of the 55th, the Native Infantry corps at this station, who had served all his life with clean-looking, closely-shaven Hindustanis, pointing with a look of contempt, not to say disgust, to some Sikhs (a certain proportion of whom had been under recent orders enlisted in regiments of Native Infantry), and expressing his regret that he could not get them to shave their beards and cut their hair.  ‘They quite spoil the look of my regiment,’ he said.  In less than two months’ time the Hindustanis, of whom the Colonel was so proud, had broken into open mutiny; the despised Sikhs were the only men of the regiment who remained faithful; and the commanding officer, a devoted soldier who lived for his regiment, and who implored that his men might not have their arms taken away, as he had ‘implicit confidence’ in them, and would ’stake his life on their fidelity,’ had blown his brains out because he found that confidence misplaced.

Towards the end of April I was ordered to report on the capabilities of Cherat (now well known to all who have been stationed at Peshawar) as a sanatorium for European soldiers.  I spent two or three days surveying the hill and searching for water in the neighbourhood.  It was not safe to remain on the top at night, so I used to return each evening to the plain below, where my tent was pitched.  On one occasion I was surprised to find a camp had risen up during my absence quite close to my tent.  I discovered that it belonged to Lieutenant-Colonel John Nicholson, the Deputy-Commissioner, who was on his tour of inspection, and very soon I received an invitation to dine with him, at which I was greatly pleased.  John Nicholson was a name to conjure with in the Punjab.  I had heard it mentioned with an amount of respect—­indeed, awe—­which no other name could excite, and I was all curiosity to see the man whose influence on the frontier was so great that his word was law to the refractory tribes amongst whom he lived.  He had only lately arrived in Peshawar, having been transferred from Bannu, a difficult and troublesome district ruled by him as it had never been ruled before, and where he made such a reputation for himself that, while he was styled ’a pillar of strength on the frontier’ by Lord Dalhousie, he was looked up to as a god by the Natives, who loved as much as they feared him.  By some of them he was actually worshipped as a saint; they formed themselves into a sect, and called themselves ‘Nicholseyns.’  Nicholson impressed me more profoundly than any man I had ever met before, or have ever met since.  I have never seen anyone like him.  He was the beau-ideal of a soldier and a gentleman.  His