So Henry departed for Rajputana in 1853, with honour acknowledged of all men, and amidst the sorrowing farewells of friends, European and Native. He left a fragrant memory behind him as he crossed the Sutlej for the last time on his way to Rajputana, whither countless good wishes followed his course. But no man then anticipated the grave events which, within four years, would open out for him in Oude a sphere as grand as that which he was now quitting. Thus after a term of four years’ service in the Board of Administration, that is from 1849 to 1853, John Lawrence was left in sole command of the Punjab. But though his nerve was unimpaired, his capacity developed, his experience enlarged, he was not physically the same man at the end of this term that he was at the beginning. In October, 1850, at Lahore, he had been stricken down by a severe fever, as bad as that from which he had suffered just ten years previously at Etawah, and his health never was fully restored after that shock. He, however, recovered sufficiently to accompany Lord Dalhousie on a march in the Punjab during the winter months, and afterwards in the following spring 1851 to examine the condition of the Peshawur valley. The ensuing months he spent at Simla in company with his wife and children. Then, for the first time in his toil-worn life, he enjoyed the blessings of a Himalayan retreat, after the torrid heat and the depressing damp of twenty previous summers. He resorted thither, not on leave but on duty, by the special direction of Lord Dalhousie who was there also. He was indeed obliged to quit Lahore for that summer, and had not a retreat to Simla been open to him, he must for a time have relinquished his office in the Punjab. As he ascended the Simla mountains, seven to nine thousand feet above sea-level, the sight of the Himalayas was not new to him, for he had seen them in the Trans-Sutlej States; twice also he had paid brief visits to Simla itself. How pleasant, then, through the summer of 1851, was it for him to bask in mild sunshine, to drink in the balmy air, to recline in the shadows of oaken glades, to roam amidst forests of pine and cedar, to watch the light gilding peak after peak in the snowy range at sunrise, to perceive through a field-glass at sunset the familiar Sutlej winding like the thinnest of silver threads through the distant plains, to note the rain-clouds rolling up the mountain sides, to hear the thunder-peals echo among the crags! These things would have been delights to him even as a visitor in the easiest circumstances, in hale robustness, in all the pride of life; but no pen can describe what they were to the over-taxed brain, the strained nerves, the fevered constitution, the shaken strength--such as his. He revived apace and remained in official harness, having taken the most important part of his work with him, and receiving by the daily post his papers and despatches from Lahore. Further, he had the advantage of