I am alone now, having none of my officers here save the doctor. But the border is quiet, and except a great deal of crime and villany, I have not any great difficulties to contend with. My new fort to hold the regiment and protect the frontier is nearly finished, and my new house therein will be habitable before my wife comes down from Murree. So after two years and a quarter of camp and hutting, I shall enjoy the luxury of a room and the dignity of a house.
Fort, Murdân, Oct. 31st, 1854.
I can give better accounts of our own state than for many a long day. Dear Susie is much better than for a year past, and gaining strength daily, and I am as well as possible. We are now in our new house in this fort, which has caused me so much labor and anxiety; and I assure you, a most comfortable dwelling we find it. Our houses (I mean the European officers') project from the general front of the works at the angles of the bastions, and are quite private, and away from the noisy soldiers; and we have, for India, a very pretty view of the hills and plains around us. Above all, the place seems a very healthy one. To your eye, fresh from England, it would appear desolate from its solitude and oppressive from the vastness of the scale of scene. A wide plain, without a break or a tree, thirty miles long, by fifteen to twenty miles wide, forms our immediate foreground on one side, and an endless mass of mountains on the other.
We have just heard by telegraph of the engagement at Alma, but only a brief electric shock of a message, without details. We are in an age of wonders. Ten months ago, there was not a telegraph in Hindostan, yet the news which reached Bombay on the 27th of this month, was printed at Lahore, 1,200 miles from the coast, that same afternoon.
Murdân, Nov. 16th, 1854.
As yet, we have only felt the surging of the storm which convulses Eastern Europe. The only palpable sign of the effects of Russian intrigue which we have had, has been the commencement of negotiation with the Dost Mahomed Khan, of Cabul, who, under the pressure from without, has been fain to seek for alliance and aid from us. Nothing is yet known of his demands, or the intentions of Government, but one thing is certain, that the commencement of negotiations with us, is the beginning of evil days for Affghanistan.
In India, we must either keep altogether aloof or absorb. All our history shows that sooner or later connection with us is political death. The sunshine is not more fatal to a dew-drop than our friendship or alliance to an Asiatic Kingdom.