with it, but at Peshawur, where they think so little of murdering a man, it is a more serious matter.'

It is easy to believe that a character like Taylor's would have been more likely to err on the side of mercy than on that of undue severity, but that he did not hesitate to act decidedly in this case speaks well for his strength of mind, for it must be remembered that he was still little more than a boy in years. In all probability Lawrence's letter, in its private nature, was meant to act as a check upon so young a man in dealing with cases involving life and death, and to impress upon him the necessity of adequate deliberation before passing sentence. Reynell Taylor's answer is so characteristic of him that I give it in full. Henry Lawrence was at this time on his way to England, his health having broken down from overwork in a hot climate, and so Taylor writes: One of your last acts before leaving Lahore was to administer to me one of the severest and most serious reproofs that a man often comes in for. It was also the last notice, public or private, that I received from you, and I feel as if you had left your malison with me, and that bad luck would attend me in consequence.

'I do not, however, wish you to retract one word of it; in fact, your doing so could not make the load, if there be any, at all lighter on my conscience, which, as it acquits me of intentional precipitancy in the matter, is comparatively at rest. I say intentional precipitancy, because I do not wish to deny that your letter startled me, and made me think that so grave an act had been done too quickly to leave me clear of blame before God. Before man, under the peculiar circumstances of the province, the necessity of

prompt punishment decided on by others, and the vital necessity of acting firmly and even severely to save other lives, I think myself justified; and, with regard to forms, I followed those of my principal and predecessor.

'I say I do not wish you to unsay a word that you have said, and only write these few lines to assure you that your censure was deeply felt and will never be forgotten, and you may depend upon its leading to more deliberation on future occasions. At present I feel rather knocked down by it, and out of heart about my ability to meddle with such matters, but that will, I hope, wear off. I did not force myself into these difficult positions, and having been called to them, I may hope for assistance if it be properly sought.'

Among the multifarious duties engaging Reynell Taylor's attention was one of more than usual importance, and in order to make this part of his work intelligible to the reader, I must pause for a moment to explain the cause.

Soon after Henry Lawrence was installed as supreme Governor of the Punjab his attention was drawn to a district on the far-off borders of the Sikh kingdom which was inhabited by wild and warlike Afghan tribes, and which, though it properly formed a portion of the Sikh empire, had never been in any other condition than that of a provoked and determined hostility to it. This was the district of Bunnoo, and as Reynell Taylor was so shortly to begin his connection with it, it is necessary we should see what kind of country it really was at this time. A glance at the map accompanying this volume will show its position, and at once convey to the reader the difficulty of dealing with a country so situated.

Almost surrounded by mountains, and cut off from the Punjab proper, if not by its mountain passes at least by the broad waters of the Indus, it had never been under the control of the Sikhs, and ever since the day when Shah Shoojah-ool-Moolk ceded it to Runjeet Sing no revenue had been regularly collected there except at the sword's point, and no Sikh governor had ever dared to establish. himself in the country.

Blessed in every conceivable way by nature, its soil yielded a bountiful supply in return for the smallest amount of labour. Watered by the Koorrum and the Gombela, it defied the intense heat of the hot season, and thus its harvests were rich in the extreme, and corn, sugar, tobacco, cotton, and grain of all kinds were poured unstintingly into the lap of its indolent and vicious inhabitants. Fruits of endless variety grew wild, and roses and other flowers were to be seen in profusion. The banks of its rivers were shaded by great mulberry trees, and a peculiar variety of the sheeshum tree, resembling the willow in character, was dotted over its landscape. It was, and is indeed, a rich and beautiful land, and yet, though blessed by nature with all her priceless gifts, it was at this period cursed by man. Every man's hand was against his fellow, and every village was a fort where all were armed. The country smiled in the sunshine, the vines entwined themselves among the trees, rivers of purest water irrigated the country, and the earth yielded her increase of grain, of fruit, of flowers, yet man remained all the while as a foul blot. Read, for instance, what Reynell Taylor himself says of the inhabitants. Writing some five years after his first acquaintance with the country, and when he had virtually

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made Bunnoo his own province, he says:- The Bunnoochees, taken as a class, are far inferior to their neighbours the Wuzeerees; small in stature and wizened in appearance, they always remind me of the lives they had led in youth, of which their appearance is, in fact, but a natural result. When we first arrived in Bunnoo it was a common thing to find a man who had never in his life been more than two miles from his own village, the village possibly being at war with its neighbour, rendered wandering in the fields a service of danger, while within the walls it is sad to think of the heat, dirt, squalor and stagnation that must have existed. The villages in those days, walled up to the sky, so that no air could reach the houses below, must indeed have been hot-beds of all that was enervating and demoralising, and the characteristics of the full-grown Bunnoochee weed correspond but too well with the nature of its origin and training. Here and there a fine character may possibly be found, and some, no doubt, possess domestic virtues which in a measure redeem their public and social immorality; but, taken as a class, they certainly are the worst disposed men I have ever had to deal with; they are vicious, false, backbiting, treacherous, cruel, and revengeful, and I have never known or heard of men so utterly regardless of truth, even in cases of the most vital importance.' Edwardes,' too, gives a picture of them. He says:-'Every stature, from that of the weak Indian to that of the tall Dooranee; every complexion, from the ebony of Bengal to the rosy cheek of Cabul; every dress, from the linen garments of the south to the heavy goat-skin of the eternal snows, is to be seen promiscuously among them, reduced only to

A Year on the Punjab Frontier (Herbert B. Edwardes).

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a harmonious whole by the neutral tint of universal dirt.'

Thus vice and bloodshed ran on unchecked in Bunnoo; tribe fought with tribe and village with village, and the Bunnoochees were never happy unless engaged in war.

The forts, or fortified villages, of the country numbered upwards of 400, and out of an estimated population of 60,000, no less than 15,000 were regular fighting-men.

The revenue of Bunnoo was reckoned at 65,000 rupees per annum, but this had never been properly collected. The amount due had been allowed to run on from one year to another, and then at intervals great armies were sent to get what they could; the inhabitants were put to the sword, the crops cut or trodden down, the villages burnt, and the country regularly laid waste. Sometimes the people fled to the mountains on the approach of the Sikh armies; at others, forgetting their private feuds, they banded together and opposed the common foe, and thus it often happened that the Sikhs were forced to retire with but little to show in return for the losses they had themselves sustained.

The result of this freedom from all restraint and allegiance was that the country became split up into innumerable factions, and there was no law or order anywhere. In early times each village was a unit under its own mullick, or master, but by degrees the weaker villages were swallowed up by the stronger, and they thus became incorporated into groups of forts or villages. Later, the richest part of Bunnoo was divided into twenty tuppahs, or districts, and finally these districts were subdivided into two goorees, marching,' as it was called, under