More than a year and a half had been spent in the hottest parts of the plains of India, and another dreaded hot season was rapidly making its approach, when, together with a brother officer, I applied for and obtained six months’ leave of [4]absence for the purpose of travelling in Cashmere and the Himalayas, otherwise called by Anglo-Indians “The Hills.”

We had been long enough in the country to have discovered that the gorgeous East of our imagination, as shadowed forth in the delectable pages of the “Arabian Nights,” had little or no connexion with the East of our experience—the dry and dusty East called India, as it appeared, wasted and dilapidated, in its first convalescence from the fever into which it had been thrown by the Mutiny of 1857–58. We were not long, therefore, in making our arrangements for escaping from Allahabad, with the prospect before us of exchanging the discomforts of another hot season in the plains, for the pleasures of a sojourn in the far-famed valley of Cashmere, and a tramp through the mountains of the Himalayas—the mountains, whose very name breathes of comfort and consolation to the parched up dweller in the plains. The mountains of “the abode of snow!”

Our expeditionary force consisted at starting of but one besides the brother officer above alluded to—the F. of the following pages—and myself. This was my Hindoo bearer, Mr. Rajoo, whose duty it was to make all the necessary arrangements for our transport and general welfare, and upon whose shoulders devolved the [5]entire management of our affairs. He acted to the expedition in the capacity of quartermaster-general, adjutant-general, commissary-general, and paymaster to the forces; and, as he will figure largely in the following pages, under the title of the “Q.M.G.,” and comes, moreover, under the head of “a naturally dark subject,” a few words devoted to his especial description and illumination may not be out of place.

With the highest admiration for England, and a respect for the Englishman, which extended to the very lining of their pockets, Mr. Rajoo possessed, together with many of the faults of his race, a certain humour, and an amount of energy most unusual among the family of the mild Hindoo. He had, moreover, travelled much with various masters, in what are, in his own country, deemed “far lands;” and having been wounded before Delhi, he had become among the rest of his people an authority, and to the Englishman in India an invaluable medium for their coercion and general management.

To us he proved a most efficient incumbent of the several offices we selected him to fill. His administration no doubt did display an occasional weakness; and his conduct as paymaster to the forces was decidedly open to animadversion; for, in this capacity, he seemed to be under the impression [6]that payments, like charity, began at home, and he also laboured under a constitutional and hereditary infirmity, which prevented him in small matters from discerning any difference between meum and tuum.

Having been employed collectively, however, it would be unfair to judge of his performances in detail; and from his satisfactory management of the expedition, occasionally under such trying circumstances as a break-down in the land transport, or an utter failure in his tobacco supply, we had every reason to be satisfied with our choice. The latter misfortune was the only one which really interfered at any time with his efficiency, or upset his equanimity, and it unfortunately occurred always at the most inopportune seasons, and at a time when he was undergoing his greatest hardships.

As long as the supply lasted, the mysterious gurglings of his “Hubble Bubble,” or cocoa-nut water-pipe, might be heard at almost any hour of the day or night. “Hubble bubble, toil and trouble,” was the natural order of his existence; and when in some peculiarly uncivilised region of our wanderings, the compound of dirt, sugar, and tobacco, in which his soul delighted, was not forthcoming, he and his pipe seemed at once to lose their vitality, and to become useless together. [7]The temporary separation which ensued, being in its way a mensa et thoro, was a source of trouble and inconvenience to all concerned, and we had, more than once, cause to regret not having given the tobacco question that forethought and consideration to which it would be well entitled by any one undertaking a similar expedition.

Overlooking these weaknesses, Mr. Rajoo’s character was beyond reproach, and for the particular work he had to perform, his combination of efficiency, portability, and rascality, rendered him in every respect “the right man in the right place.”

Such was our “head of affairs,” and such the small force he had at first to provide for. As we passed out of India, and got further from regions of comparative civilization, his cares increased: cellar, kitchen, larder, farm-yard, tents, &c. had then to accompany our wandering steps, and the expedition gradually increased in size, until it attained its maximum of nearly forty. From this it again as gradually decreased, and as one by one our retainers disappeared, it dwindled in dimensions until it finally reached its original limited proportions, and then “we three met again,” once more upon the plains of India.

All our necessary preparations having been completed, and a sacrifice of three precious weeks [8]having been duly offered to the inexorable genius who presides over public correspondence, we reduced our impedimenta to the smallest possible compass, and with about a hundred pounds to commence life with, all in two shilling pieces, that being the only available coin of the realm in this our second century of British administration, we took our departure by railway for Cawnpore. Here we found ourselves located and hospitably entertained in the house in which our unfortunate fellow-countrywomen were confined on their recapture from the river by the Nana Sahib, one of the few mementos of the mutiny still left standing at Cawnpore.

Next day we laid our dâk for Simla, and about six o’clock in the evening, with the Q.M.G. on the roof, and ourselves and our possessions stowed away in the innumerable holes and corners of the rude wooden construction called a “Dâk garee,” or post coach, we took our departure. After a few mishaps with our steed, involving the necessity of getting out to shove behind, we entered upon the Grand Trunk Road, and with a refreshing sense of freedom and relief, soon left Cawnpore in all its native dust and dreariness behind us. [9]