the trophies and spoils of the sixty days’ war, and displaying them proudly in every city and military station _en route_, as symbols of British prowess and prestige. Sir H. Hardinge and Sir H. Gough were thanked in Parliament for their services, and raised to the peerage with munificent pensions. There were some who thought that the State was too lavish in its rewards on this occasion, and the country was reminded that it had done no more for Rodney than it was doing for Gough. Nor was this view altogether indefensible. Good luck rather than good guidance rescued us from a perilous situation in the Punjab, for it is certain that the Indian Government sent our troops to the field in a condition that would have rendered failure certain, had we been contending with European armies. The Sikhs, it is true, were a small nation, but they were a nation of warriors, and therefore formidable. They put into the field a splendidly [Illustration: THE RIVAL PAGES. (_Reduced Fac-simile after Punch._) “I’m afraid you’re not strong enough for the place, John.”] equipped and disciplined army of 100,000 men, who, as soldiers, were “bravest of the brave.” This was surely a powerful instrument of warfare, strong enough, in able hands, to change the destinies of an empire, and yet we were quite unprepared to meet such a dangerous enemy. Nothing, in fact, but the personal pluck of our troops at this great crisis saved our Indian dominion on our frontier. The Sikhs, however, it must be also stated, failed where they should have succeeded, because they had no general who was a master of strategy. They divided their army into two large corps. Each moved against our chief forts, Ferozepore and Loodiana, without intending to attack them, and it happened that the distance between these two forts was greater round by the Sikh side of the Sutlej than by ours. The Sikhs, therefore, had to manœuvre in the circumference of a circle, whilst we at the centre could move along its arc. The two Sikh armies were not mutually supporting. Had they both crossed the Sutlej in such fashion that they could have supported each other, we could hardly have attacked them at Ferozeshah, or fought for twenty-four hours against an army 70,000 strong, in an entrenched position, when another Sikh force, 40,000 strong, was within sound of our guns.