when our land forces and our navy have been alike neglected, -we have listened to lamentable jeremiads at home, and been imitated by the interested assumptions of foreign publicists that mercantile England was becoming a negligible quantity. When friends or enemies have prognosticated the decay of the race, our answer has always been, "Look at the English in India and remember the Mutiny." Never perhaps in the history of mankind has there been a more resolute or valiant stand against apparently overwhelming odds and a combination of adverse circumstances. The most sanguine might have despaired, the most stout-hearted might have quailed, yet there was seldom even a civilian who flinched in the hour of peril. What is more striking, and even more encouraging, is that it was subalterns who came to the front, when for for once they had a rare and most unlookedfor chance. Lumsden of the Guides had the exceptional ill-luck of being out of that memorable struggle. That was his misfortune and a mere incident. But about that time, or somewhat before it, Henry Lawrence, a simple captain of artillery, had superseded the old lion Ranjit Sing, as virtual Regent of the troubled Punjab: Lieutenant Edwardes had marched his levies of fierce tribesmen to lay siege to Mooltan, and he held his own till succour reached him, between the fighting garrison and his faithless allies and Lumsden, another lieutenant of but a few years' standing, was leading an army

of Sikhs into the Highlands of Hazara, and figuring, as he wrote to his father, as a majorgeneral. In fact, that northwestern frontier has been the British Algeria, and we may fairly say that it has been more prolific of brilliant soldiers and administrators than the French training-field. In former days there had been fighting enough elsewhere, when the warlike Mahrattas and Rohillas and the robber Pindarees had been put down by the strong hand. The names of Clive and Coote, of Lord Lake of Liswari and Colonel Wellesley, will always be associated with the grand achievements, when the Mogul Emperors became the pensioners of a trading company, when the French were expelled, and the Deccan was subjugated. But these days of stirring action had been succeeded by times of peace. In dull cantonments all over the three presidencies, regiments had stagnated in idleness under the dreary system of promotion by seniority. There were grizzled lieutenants and grey-headed captains, sickened of the service through no fault of their own. The placid old colonels believed fondly in the sepoys whom they had treated like over-indulged children, but who had never followed them in war. The Mutiny came to clear the air like a thunderclap, and India might have been lost before reinforcements could be hurried up, had it not been for the breath of vigour from the north-west, when the Warders of the wild marches came down to the rescue with the men who had been fighting them gallantly the day before.

We know no better description of the school in which they had served, of the ground on which Lumsden did such distinguished service, than is to be found in a spirited article on his Guides, contributed to 'Maga' in May 1897. The writer was The writer was an Indian soldier who knew well what he was writing about. Speaking of the state of the Punjab fifty years ago, he says:

"Scattered through all the villages were the remnants of the armies of the Khalsa, which had measured their strength with ours so valiantly at Firozshah, Aliwal, and Sobraon. And more difficult perhaps to deal with were the tribes of the wild hill country north of the Indus, who acknowledged allegiance neither to the rulers of Kabul nor to those of Lahore, and whose only fixed purpose was to plunder and ravage the fertile country in their vicinity whenever opportunity offered. Beyond them again were the mountains of Afghanistan, whose ruler, the redoubtable Dost Muhammad, did not fail to remember the fateful struggle of but seven years before. Thus it was that no mandate from Kabul could be looked for, even supposing it would have availed, to hinder the Pathans of the border from periodical depredadations into the plains."

And though it may be anticipating, we may add his comment on Lumsden's death, "For years his name was a household word on the Peshawar border, and his death brought grief to many a gallant old Pathan soldier.”

Yes; those are the men who have given us India and held it.

The literature of the Life is becoming a craze, and with a self-respecting man of any notoriety the the autobiography offers the only assurance of safety. But in the multiplica

VOL. CLXV.-NO. MIV.

tion of books of the kind, there is a class which commands an immediate success, and deserves to survive as contributing to history. Conspicuous among

these works of romantic interest and lasting value are the memoirs of the fighting and organising Anglo-Indians. We have had lately the lives of the Lawrences, of Sir Bartle Frere, of Edwardes, of Nicholson, Hodson, and many others. Necessarily, they are chiefly based on the letters and diaries of their distinguished subjects. Necessarily, also, they constantly interlace, so as to give opportunities for testing facts by comparison. What strikes us first is their entire credibility. If they tend to misunderstanding in any respect, it is in the writer's depreciation of his own merits and services. The dashing soldiers, greedy of glory, seem never to have grudged the honours of a comrade. In striking contrast to the conduct of the French marshals in the Peninsula, the first idea of each responsible man was to do his utmost for the common cause and lend help to a menaced friend. Between treacherous Pathan and turbulent Sikh, we should never have held our own through the dark days of the Mutiny had it not been for that strong bond of brotherhood, and the common loyalty which was never misplaced or betrayed. It was the grief of Lumsden's life that he did not command his Guides before Delhi. But no one appreciated with more cordial sympathy the gallant leading of Daly, who replaced him and won the laurels that 3 T

might have been his own. Holding the honourable command of the Hyderabad Contingent, he still looks longingly to the coveted post on the Punjab frontier which is filled by Neville Chamberlain. Nothing can be more cordially genial than the affected grumble at Chamberlain's iron health. These men serve their time and come home, and, paradoxical as it think may appear, we it eminently gratifying, from the public point of view, that they are received among us with ingratitude or indifference. One

or two of the most fortunate find places on the Indian Council. The majority are mixed up with the undistinguished mob of judges and generals, bishops, admirals, and ex-cabinet ministers who frequent the confronting clubs looking out on the Duke of York's Column. The satraps of provinces, the men who have merited the Victoria Cross again and again, by heroic deeds which would have lived in old ballad and legend, sit down to their modest luncheons unregarded, or settle like Lumsden in their ancestral homes to shoot their coverts and be outvoted in Parish Councils. For the empire with the world is ever on the move, and new men are never found wanting.

The Lumsdens, like the Lawrences, the Pollocks, and the Battyes, are of the fighting families, inseparably associated with the North-Western wars. The chief charm of this biography is in the frank letters to the old father, who, having led a similarly adventurous life in the same stirring and picturesque scenes, could under

stand and sympathise with his chivalrous son. There is a striking portrait of Sir Harry in his latter years, with the broad muscular chest and massive limbs that must have sorely taxed the wiry little Pathan horses, with the genial but determined face, stamped with the sign mark of the born leader. The figure and the face alike strongly remind us of his father. Colonel Lumsden of the Bengal Artillery showed he was no common man by crossing Asia homewards by what was literally the Overland Route, which had seldom been traversed except by professional travellers. Of course his boys were bred to the Indian service. Harry, the eldest, was born at sea, and in a storm, in 1821. It was in 1838 the youth got his commission and had the good fortune to be gazetted to the 59th Bengal Native Infantry. The regiment was then commanded by Colonel G. A. Moore, who prided himself with reason on the number of distinguished officers the regiment had given to the service; and the adjutant was Lieutenant Blackwood-the "Major" of so many of Mrs Oliphant's kindly reminiscences. Colonel Moore, though a strict disciplinarian, was amazingly popular. And no wonder, for it was his honourable boast, when all Anglo-Indians were hospitable, almost beyond their means, that he kept the best table and the best cook in India. In Harry Lumsden's time a man in health had to serve ten years before being entitled to lough. Moore was perhaps an exceptional type of the staunch

old military school. He served for over fifty years without coming home at all. Lumsden passed four years with the 59th, so he had opportunity to profit by his colonel's and adjutant's teaching. But his father, who knew his passion for field-sports, had pressed on him the importance of studying languages. His self-restraint and perseverance remind us of the griffin Richard Burton in identical circumstances, and he seems to have had a somewhat similar gift of tongues. He studied and he shot, and was known in the regiment by the sobriquet of "Joe," which says all that need be said in his favour.

His assiduity brought speedy and unexpected reward, when he was appointed interpreter to the 33rd Native Infantry, then under orders for Peshawar to join Pollock on his march into Afghanistan. Doubtless interest may have given him that gratifying start, for his father was an old friend of Henry Lawrence, who always afterwards kept an eye on the promising young officer. But from the first he attracted the attention of his chiefs. He was under fire on the advance with Pollock, but his first report of fighting comes from the camp at Gandamuk, whither the army had returned from Cabul. It is written in high spirits, and is very characteristic: "We gave the Affghans a great mauling, not giving them time to carry off their dead and wounded." Young Lumsden had taken the lead and the direction in storming some sangurs, and had been highly commended on the field by his colonel. "Was not that

something to make your firstborn hold up his head?" Soon

afterwards there was an incident which shows at once the unsettled state of the frontier districts and the magical influence exercised on Orientals in their most excited moods by the men they have learned to fear and respect. Lumsden with a comrade had gone on a shooting expedition. They were mobbed, and would have been murdered by a crowd of villagers had it not been for the presence of mind of a faithful groom. When the rioters heard that he had ridden off to Ferozepore to fetch Lawrence, not only was the tumult calmed at once, but they were lavish of apologies and presents. The name of the great Marchman had acted like a spell, and soon afterwards he appeared himself at the head of a handful of his troopers, to parade the tribesmen, who were all servility, and single out subjects for punishment.

Next we see the lieutenant figuring "in the political line " at Lahore. He had been summoned to exchange the camp for the Court, and to meet the Chief Commissioner, Sir John Lawrence. Attending the Durbars, he shows a clever knack of portrait-painting in sketching Lal Sing, prime minister and paramour of the Maharani, who, in fact, had been playing for years at Lahore the part of Godoy, Prince of the Peace in the Peninsula. "I have seldom seen a better-looking man. is, I should say, about thirty years of age, strongly built, tall, and very soldier-like, though as cunning as a fox; talks in a bland, kind tone which would

He