Deenanuggur, March 14th, 1848.
The night your letter reached me, Napier (our chief engineer) and I were encamped on a spur of grass land separating two streams of the river "Chukkir," and had been so for some days. That evening it began to rain, (if a sluice of water, apparently struck down from the heavens by a flood of the fiercest lightning, can be called so,) and for thirty-six hours the torrent descended without intermission, as only Asiatic storms can descend. At length a pause ensued, and the sky was visible, and we emerged from our sodden tents only to be threatened with water in a worse form. The hills, valleys, and mountains began to send down to us what they had so plentifully received from above, and the hitherto quiet stream, whose wide stony channel surrounded us, was in a single hour a powerful torrent, tearing over the country as if to prove what it could do. By one of the singular freaks common to all tropical rivers, it dammed up one of its own widest outlets by the quantity of stones which it brought along with it, and came tearing down the one nearest to us. Across this, not a hundred yards from our tents, we had just built a powerful breakwater some sixteen feet wide, but the water quietly walked over, under, and round it; roared, groaned, stormed, and swelled angrily for two hours, and our breakwater was a "thing of history;" meantime, we were gradually getting more and more surrounded with water, it rose and rose until only four inches were wanting to set us well afloat. The pegs of my tent-ropes were undermined, and a notice to quit was as plainly written on the face of the water as ever on a legal process. There was but one way of escape, so mustering the whole of a neighboring village, we loaded all our valuables and movables on their backs, and made a dash at the hamlet. Once having succeeded in turning us out, the valiant Chukkir was content, and we slept in our tents as usual, but not without, as it turned out, considerable risk of finding ourselves landed in some unknown field on waking.
When this flood subsided, it appeared that the scene of our unfortunate dam had become the deepest part of the channel, and the old course choked with stones and boulders which you and I couldn't lift in a week of Sundays. Is not this an incident?
Since I wrote last, in consequence of representations I sent to head-quarters as to the amount of plundering going on, a large party of horse, with one of the principal chiefs, was sent out here, with directions to act on the information I gave them. We have, accordingly, had a robber-hunt on a large and tolerably successful scale. Numbers have been caught. One shot pour encourager les autres, and we have traces of others, so that my quiet practice (originally for my own amusement and information) has been very useful to the State. I found out the greatest part of it by sending clever fellows disguised as "faqueers" (you know what they are, I think;—religious beggars) to the different villages to talk to the people and learn their doings. Some of the stories of Sikh violence, cruelty, and treachery which I have picked up are almost beyond belief. The indifference of these people to human life is something appalling. I could hardly get them to give a thought or attempt an inquiry as to the identity of a man whom I found dead, evidently by violence, by the roadside yesterday morning; and they were horrified at the thought of tying up or confining a sacred ox, who had gored his thirteenth man the evening before last! They told me plainly that no one had a right to complain of being hurt by so venerable a beast.
In such pursuits, combined with surveying, my time passes away tolerably well. I am alone again, Napier having gone to Lahore; but this is a sweet place, and I am staying in a pleasant summer-house of Runjeet Singh's, in the midst of a fine garden, or grove of mango and orange trees.
Camp on Ravee, March 29th, 1848.
Just as I had completed my somewhat lengthy reply to your question, I was interrupted by a camel-rider, who had come in hot haste with a letter from Sir F. Currie, at Lahore, with the most agreeable intelligence in the world,—voilà.
"My dear Mr. Hodson,—Pray knock off your present work, and come into Lahore as quickly as you can.
"I want to send you with Mr. Agnew to Mooltan. Mr. Agnew starts immediately with your acquaintance, Sirdah Sumshere Singh, to assume the government of that province, Moolraj having sent in his resignation of the Nizámut. Lieutenant Becher is to be Agnew's permanent assistant, but he cannot join just now, and I wish you to go with Agnew. It is an important mission, and one that, I think, you will like to be employed in. When relieved by Becher, you will join the Guides at Lahore, and be employed also as assistant to the Resident. The sooner you come the better.