Sept. 18th, 1848.
You will have seen that our troops have been hard at it in Mooltan, and now I have to tell you that it has all been in vain; Rajah Shere Singh, and the whole of our worthy Sikh allies, have joined the rebel Moolraj, and General Whish has been compelled to raise the siege and retire.
I have just dispatched every available Guide to try and get quietly into the far-famed fort of Govindghur, and hope in a few hours to hear of their success. They have forty friends inside, and only a few score wavering enemies. I have not a moment which I can call my own, and have put off this (which is merely an assurance that I am alive and very well) to the last moment, so as to give you the latest tidings. I am all agog at the prospect of stirring times, and the only single drawback is the fear that you all will be very anxious. I shall not, however, run my head unnecessarily into a scrape, and see no cause for your frightening yourselves.
One comfort is, that the farce of native government has been played out. It was an experiment honestly tried, and as honestly a failure.
A few days later he says:—
My Guides have covered themselves with glory (and dust) by the way in which they got into, and got possession of, the famed fort of Govindghur. A hundred of my men, under a native officer—a fine lad of about twenty, whom I have petted a good deal—went up quietly to the gates, on pretence of escorting four State prisoners, (whom I had put in irons for the occasion,) were allowed to get in, and then threw up their caps, and took possession of the gateway, despite the scowls, and threats, and all but open resistance of the Sikh garrison. A day afterwards a regiment marched from Lahore, and went into garrison there, and so Runjeet Singh's treasure-fort is fairly in our hands.
Nov. 1st, 1848.
I left Lahore—but stay, I must get there first. Well, I wrote from Ramnuggur, on the Chenab, last; whence, after a fruitless séjour of six days, in the vain hope of meeting Mrs. George Lawrence, I returned suddenly to Lahore by an order which reached me the evening of the 5th. I started at sunset, and pushing my way on various borrowed steeds across that dreary region during the night, accompanied by a single camel-rider, I reached Lahore, a distance of seventy miles, by nine the following morning.
On the 8th I was off again at daybreak on a longer journey still, having to cross the country to Brigadier Wheeler's camp in the Jullundur Doâb, to convey orders to him relative to the reduction of two rebellious forts in the Doâb, between the Ravee and Beas. A "grind" of some twenty-six hours on camel-back, with the necessary stoppages, took me to the camp, whence (because I had not had enough) I recrossed the Beas the same night, after examining and reporting on the state of the ferries by which the troops were to follow me. This time I was escorted by a troop of Irregular Horse, and being thereby, according to my estimation of Sikh prowess, rendered tolerably independent, I marched the next morning for the fort of Rungur Nuggul, some fourteen miles from the right bank of the Beas.