Produced by Melissa McDaniel and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Transcriber's Note: Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have been preserved. Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. Italic text is denoted by _underscores_. TWELVE YEARS OF A SOLDIER'S LIFE IN INDIA. If a soldier, Chase brave employments with a naked sword Throughout the world. Fool not; for all may have, If they dare try, a glorious life or grave. TWELVE YEARS OF A SOLDIER'S LIFE IN INDIA: BEING EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF THE LATE MAJOR W. S. R. HODSON, B. A. TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE; FIRST BENGAL EUROPEAN FUSILEERS, COMMANDANT OF HODSON'S HORSE. INCLUDING A PERSONAL NARRATIVE OF THE SIEGE OF DELHI AND CAPTURE OF THE KING AND PRINCES. EDITED BY HIS BROTHER, THE REV. GEORGE H. HODSON, M. A. SENIOR FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. FROM THE THIRD AND ENLARGED ENGLISH EDITION. BOSTON: TICKNOR AND FIELDS. M DCCC LX. RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. [The following paper, by the author of "Tom Brown's School Days at Rugby," appeared in "Fraser's Magazine:"--] The heart of England has not, within the memory of living men, been so deeply moved as by the Indian rebellion of 1857. It was a time of real agony,--the waiting, week after week, for those scanty despatches, which, when they came, and lay before us in the morning papers, with huge capitals at the top of the column, we scarcely dared take up, we could not read without a strong effort of the will. What it must have been to those of us whose sisters, brothers, sons, were then in the Northwest Provinces, they alone can tell; but of the rest we do believe there was scarce a man who did not every now and then feel a cold sinking of heart, a sense of shame at his inability to help, a longing to make some sacrifice of money, ease, or what not, whereby to lift, if it might be, a portion of the dead weight from off his own soul. By degrees came the light. As the trial had been, so had been the strength. The white squall was past; and though that great and terrible deluge still heaved and tossed, we began to catch sight of one and another brave ship riding it out. Our pulses beat quick and our eyes dimmed as we heard and read how the little band of our kindred had turned to bay, in tale after tale of heroic daring and self-sacrificing and saintly endurance and martyrdom. The traces here and there of weakness and indecision only brought out more clearly the soundness and strength of the race which was on its trial; and from amongst the thousands who were nobly doing their duty, one man after