The march down country was conducted in the same way as it had been four years ago, when we came up from north-west provinces; the heavy baggage, married people, and impedimenta going on the day before. As I have already said, we had got rid of everything we could before leaving the Punjaub. So it was with deep dismay I received the tidings that greeted us when we rode into camp at Hattee, two marches from Nowshera, that robbers from the hill tribes had come down during the night and emptied several of my boxes, carrying off my best uniform and almost all my valuables. It was inconceivable how the robbery could have been effected, as my bearer lay between the boxes that were broken into. Of his honesty I never had a suspicion. There is always, however, a silver lining to every dark cloud, and ours in this case was, that it would have been a much heavier loss if my wife’s boxes had been carried off, containing, as they did, diamonds and other jewels. I may here mention that some months after the robbery I got back my blue patrol jacket, which had been found by the police in a suspected house in Peshawur; but nothing else was ever recovered, and for the rest of the march, so far as I was concerned, it did not take many carts to carry my baggage. During all the remainder of my stay in India, I was haunted with this robbery, for it seemed to me that I never asked for anything, but I was told it had been carried off by the hill tribes. The day before we marched into Rawul Pindee we were halted at Janee-ke-Sung, near Brigadier Nicholson’s monument. The brigadier was a _preux chevalier sans peur_. I have often read the inscription on his tomb at Delhi, where he fell at the siege in 1857; but he lived long enough to know that the enemy had been beaten and their stronghold taken. He was only thirty-five years old when he fell, but he had obtained a most wonderful influence among the natives of the north, by whom he was both feared and loved. There is a sect in existence called after his name, who worship his memory. Our next halt was at Rawul Pindee, and at the wonderful _store_ that provided all sorts and kinds of ‘English goods,’ from candlesticks to flannel shirts, I was able to replenish my exhausted wardrobe. These ‘English stores’ are one of the great features of Indian life. I daresay now, with a railway up to Peshawur, home goods are cheaper, but in the days of which I write everything of English manufacture was enormously dear, and there was apt to be a tarnished, spotted appearance in the goods that made their acquisition a doubtful pleasure. The merchants conducted business in a very superior manner. To appear behind their own counter was a thing unheard of. In short, ready money in those days was not the way of the country. Even the collections at church were made with slips of paper and a pencil, the money being called for next day.