Dyce Sombre always spoke to me of Mrs. Troup and Mrs. Soloroli as his sisters:  he regarded them alike as such, and so did the Begum Sumroo.  I always understood them to be the children of the same mother; but the question was never mooted before me, and I have always heard that Mrs. Troup was very like Dyce Sombre in appearance, and that Mrs. Soloroli was not so.

Mr. Reghilini, who is, I believe, still at Sirdhanah, may know whether a Colonel Sheerman was appointed executor or not.  Dr. Drener must know.  The notes which passed between me and Dyce Sombre, after he left India, were on the ordinary topics of the day, and were destroyed as soon as read.  I have none of them to refer to, nor would they furnish any confirmation on the matter in question if I had.

Believe me, yours, very truly,
(Signed) W. H. SLEEMAN.

Charles Prinsep, Esq.,
Barrister-at-Law,
Calcutta.

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To Messrs. Molloy, Mackintosh, and Poe, Calcutta.

Dear Sirs,

In reply to your letter of the 16th instant, I enclose the copy of a letter addressed by me on the 21st ultimo to Mr. Charles Prinsep, in reply to similar queries.  To what I stated in that letter I can add but little.

Dyce Sombre always spoke to me of Mrs. Soloroli and Mrs. Troup as his sisters, and of the former as the eldest of the two; and Mrs. Troup spoke of Mrs. Soloroli as her eldest sister.  They were always treated by the Begum Sumroo as his sisters; and when Dyce Sombre went to England I think he left the same provision for both in addition to what they had received from the Begum.

I was introduced to Mrs. Troup by her husband as an old friend on my way back from Mussoorie in November, 1837, but I did not see Mrs. Soloroli, though she and her husband were at the same place, Sirdhanah, at that time.  They both lived under the curtain, secluded from the sight of men, after the Hindoostanee fashion, as long as they remained in India, I think; and I was introduced to Mrs. Troup as a friend of the family, whom all might require to consult.  Her husband only was present during the interview.  Dyce Sombre had left the place for Calcutta.  I never heard a doubt expressed of their being sisters by the same mother and father till the new will came under discussion at the end of last year.

I may refer you to pages 378 and 396 of the second volume of a work by me, entitled “Rambles and Recollections,” in which you will find it mentioned that the grandmother of Dyce Sombre died insane at Sirdhanah in 1838.  She must have been insane for more than forty years up to her death.  Her son Zuffer Yab Khan was a man of weak intellect, and he was the father of Dyce Sombre’s mother, of whom I know nothing whatever.

Dyce Sombre, showed no symptoms of derangement of mind while I knew him; but he inherited from his grandmother a predisposition to insanity, which I apprehended might become developed by any very strong feelings of excitement; and I urged him to return and settle at Sirdhanah, when he had seen all he wished to see in Europe.