tance, their leave certificates showing that they had left Jullundur the day after the news arrived there of what had occurred at Meerut and Delhi. Had the Sher Dil been encamped outside the fort they never would have got in.

'When Lake returned to Jullundur Taylor took up his abode at the Kangra Cucherry, a short distance from the fort, and from the day I entered it until after the fall of Delhi we were in constant communication, verbal or written, by day and by night. His spirits never flagged; he was always ready to see a gleam of brightness in any news, but was never depressed when none such was to be found, taking with equal mind the "ups and downs," as he called them. Few nights passed that we did not hear the sounds of approaching footsteps, and, in answer to the sentry's challenge, the reply," Chithee zurooee" (an emergent letter), for evil news, or "downs," seemed always to come in the night.

'On July 11 Taylor came with the information that the Sealkot Brigade had mutinied, and it was thought they would march vid Noorpoor and Kangra to avoid Nicholson's column, and also to pick up the 4th N.I. At noon the same day I received a note from Taylor enclosing a letter from Sir R. Montgomery, with a postscript trom Nicholson, which may be worth inserting :

"The Sealkot force has mutinied. It is of the utmost importance that the Kangra fort be secured, and the men of the 4th N.I. in it should be disarmed at all risks. I believe they are not numerous, and under 200.1 The Police Corps in possession of the citadel could do this. The difficulty is about Noorpoor, and I have nothing to suggest. 'Really 400.

You, Younghusband and Wilkie (commanding 4th N.I.) will best be able to decide. But the difficulty of carrying it out (the securing of Noorpoor) should not, I think, prevent at once securing Kangra. Were the mutineers to get into it the disaffected hill people might rise, and it would take a force with guns to get them out, which we do not possess. I send this through Brigadier Nicholson, whose experience may be able to suggest something. Delay not

to act.

""R. MONTGOMERY."

"P.S. from Nicholson.-I can suggest nothing. You and the officers on the spot are the best judges of how you should act. God prosper what you do.

""JOHN NICHOLSON."

'Prompt action was necessary. I sent a rough memo of what I intended doing, and at five P.M. Taylor came down to the fort with his escort, and I disarmed the wing of the 4th N.I.

Shortly afterwards Taylor started for Noorpoor with 100 of the Sher Dil in order to bring off the European officers of the 4th should necessity arise. He reached Noorpoor the following day. The wing there had, however, been apprised of what had taken place at Kangra by two Sepoys who deserted directly after being disarmed, and on reaching Noorpoor Taylor found that the wing of the 4th had surrendered their muskets, so he accordingly returned to Kangra.

'The tidings became gloomier and gloomier, but we had fortunately been able to relieve the congestion with regard to the employment of the Rajpoots.

'Taylor had engaged a considerable number as guards at the different ferries, and I had enlisted nearly 2,500 for different regiments and levies in the plains. Nevertheless there was a growing feeling of insecurity and alarm, which required all Taylor's ripened judgment to keep under. Delhi fell at last, lifting a load of care from our minds, but it was with little gladness we heard of it, for Delhi had been dearly won with the loss of so many of our best, and amongst them the foremost man in IndiaJohn Nicholson.

'As the Mutiny died out the close official intercourse between Taylor and myself ceased, but not our personal regard, developed in such times, which remained undiminished to the end."

During the hot season of 1857 Taylor, in order to be nearer for news, spent most of his time at Kangra, only returning to Dhurmsala once a fortnight, but that winter he went into camp and travelled with his wife about the district. The year 1858, so far as Taylor was concerned, proved as uneventful as its predecessor; fresh levies had been raised for the protection of the Europeans, and the time passed away peacefully. A heavy sorrow, however, fell on Reynell Taylor in the death of his mother on May 29. A woman of a singularly gentle and unselfish disposition, she possessed to the last the love of her children. Her influence with them was always great but especially was this so in the case of her sons, whose interests and well-being she had always nearest her heart.

The few letters which have fallen into my hands written by Reynell Taylor to his mother from time to time are

Q

brimming over with love and much tender interest in her welfare; and her death, it is evident, came as a heavy trial to him. There is no need to quote from the letters written as soon as the news reached him; they are full of the outpourings of his inmost heart, and are intended only for the eyes of those most near and dear to him. As examples of peaceful resignation, and as monuments of steady, manly, unwavering faith, they deserve to live; and especially, moreover, for this reason, that in days of sorrow as in days of joy he thought not of himself. His words in times of bitter trial referred not to his own trouble, but conveyed sentence after sentence of comfort to othersstaunch, outspoken, fearless words, bringing with them balm to the wound and a bright hope of a sure and certain hereafter.

The loss of his mother was followed, in July, by the death of his brother-in-law, Colonel Morris, 'a soldier and Christian to the backbone.' He served for many years in the 17th Lancers, and in 1854 was ordered to the East. At Varna, where he held a Staff appointment, he caught the cholera, but recovered sufficiently to lead his father-in-law's regiment into action on the ever-memorable October 25. At Balaclava he was most desperately wounded, but again he pulled through and took up Staff duty at Scutari. At the end of the war he returned home, and soon after the Mutiny broke out was ordered to India. Here he served only a few months, for after braving all kinds of dangers he died of dysentery at Poonah. Reynell Taylor speaks of him as a type of what a man ought to be,' and he felt his death acutely.

But to return to Dhurmsala. In a letter received from

Colonel Heathcote Plummer there is a reference to the life in the quiet hill station which seems worth inserting.

'In 1858,' he writes, 'I was appointed to command an invalid depôt at Dhurmsala, the hill station of the Kangra Valley, and I proceeded there with a party of invalids from Mean Meer. Dhurmsala was then a refuge from the heat of the plains to many distinguished Punjab officials, and I there had the good fortune to become acquainted with a number of them, Donald McLeod, Edward Lake, and Reynell Taylor amongst others.

'I was devoted to the pursuit of large and small game, and I well remember my first visit to Reynell Taylor and the kindly interest he took in my short career and sporting proclivities. Like all youngsters on arrival in India, I treated the usual precautions against sunstroke with contempt, and as I rose to go Taylor stopped me with the remark, "Did I not see you out shooting with a glengarry on ?" I answered, surprised at the question: "Yes, I have no doubt you did." He then asked me if I had a sun-hat of any kind, and learning that I had not he at once brought me a new helmet of his own, and having ascertained that it fitted me, said: "You will be taking a great anxiety off my mind if you will promise me to wear this on your shooting expeditions in future." I mention this trifling incident as showing the kind thoughtfulness for others which was habitual with him.

'Whenever Taylor occupied his hill retreat I always found a ready welcome and much kind sympathy from both him and his wife, and I look back with grateful feelings to many happy hours spent under his hospitable roof. The common meeting-place was, however, at the table of the