who felt it obligatory on the Resident to seek from his more fortunate competitor the aid and information he could himself have so well supplied. Narsu is described by Outram as 'a man of most winning manners, plausible and unobtrusive in his demeanour;' and the description is borne out by the testimony of other officers under whom he served, some of whom have confirmed their verbal opinion by more substantial advocacy of his merits. But the value of this outward glitter would not stand the test to which it was necessarily subjected. I had not been long in office,' wrote the same observer,ere I had good grounds for suspecting that my native agent was a rogue;' and, as the suspicion had reference to probable collusion with certain parties in an intricate case then under investigation, Outram 'sought for, but failed to obtain extraneous aid.' The only person coming up to the standard required was the dismissed Farki, but a ban had apparently been set upon him. Honesty was a scarce article in Baroda, and without honesty, any amount of ability would be useless. It was not, however, clear to the new Resident upon what grounds the decision had been passed to his late employe's detriment; so he resolved to look into the matter and judge for himself. The result of a careful study into the proceedings satisfied him that 'Government had been misled into an act of great injustice. . . . Impressed with this convictión,' he wrote, 'I should have appealed on his behalf for a reconsideration of his case, had I not discovered that the prohibition against his re-employment had been virtually annulled by the permission granted to him, on July 5, 1847, to apply to the local authorities on the recurrence of a vacancy-a permission which appeared to me to be a tacit acknowledgment on the part of Government that its former condemnation had been hasty and unmerited.' Outram accordingly sought his aid in investigating the 25 case then before him. At first,' he added, 'he objected . on the ground that by exposing the rascality of Nursoo Punt, he would assuredly bring on himself a series of persecutions so soon as I left Baroda; and, in justification of his fears, he reminded me of what he had already suffered in consequence of his exposure of the Nagur intrigues. I laughed at his fears. I assured him that no such persecutions as he dreaded would be tolerated at the present day; and I succeeded in securing his services, much to the alarm and indignation of Nursoo Punt, my native agent, whose conduct the investigation placed in a very unfavourable light, and who, aware that I had obtained a general idea of his real character, and that I never forgave rascality in a political servant, thought it well to get his house in order, and to make arrangement for retiring on his pension.' The zeal and ability displayed by his assistant were such that Outram, trusting to the support of the superior authorities in Bombay, felt himself justified in recommending him for the office of native agent about to be vacated by Narsu Pant at his own expressed intention. Before completion of the first year of his residential labours, the condition of the Panjáb again gave Government serious cause of anxiety. When Lord Hardinge left India towards the end of 1847, Northern India was outwardly calm; but the new Governor-General was soon to discover that the vast empire committed to his charge could enjoy no permanent peace until the process of annexation had been applied to the more turbulent of its neighbours. In April 1848, the murder of Mr. Vans Agnew and Lieutenant Anderson by the soldiers of Diwan Mulraj, and the treachery of the native artillerymen and escort, who should have protected them, commenced the all-engrossing series of important events which abruptly recalled the attention of all India to the country of the Five Rivers. The subsequent action of Lieutenant Herbert Edwardes soon caused the movements of that distinguished young officer to become the central point of interest and admiration. About a month before the battle of Kineri, Outram suggested to Sir Frederic Currie, then Resident of Lahor, the propriety of making a requisition for the services of the Sind camel corps and one regiment of Sind horse for the protection of Bhawalpúr from the inroads of the Multán rebels. He himself, if permitted, would undertake, in concert with Major Jacob, to carry out the proposed arrangements in detail. If you entrust my friend Jacob and myself with this duty,' he wrote, 'depend upon it we shall not lay idle, nor allow the Mooltanees to cross to this side of the river with impunity, and shall so puzzle Moolraj by our feints and movements as to deter him, in a great measure, if not altogether, from attempting any distant operations until our regular army can come down upon him.' This proposal was afterwards somewhat modified into a more general suggestion that the two should be entrusted with a roving commission, in conjunction with the chief of Bhawalpúr, to distract the attention of the rebels to the utmost, pending preparation for their thorough subjection.' Later again, Outram submitted copies of his letters to Sir Frederic Currie, in an official form, to Lord Dalhousie, through the private secretary, with an offer of service. The reply was to the effect that the Governor-General would gladly see the applicant's services made available in any operations to be undertaken against Multán; but that as a force would probably be despatched from the Bombay Presidency to co-operate with the Bengal troops, he would do better to apply for active employment to his own Government. The On learning that the siege of Multán had been raised, Outram proposed a measure for strengthening General Whish's force by 800 sabres of the Sind horse and its light field guns, 8 flank companies of native regiments, and 450 bayonets of the Sind camel corps, with 500 camels for carriage purposes, to be thrown into the camp, on his own responsibility, within twenty days after receipt of order, -1850 LIEUTENANT ANDERSON. 27 course indicated was followed, but with no success, although there was a lengthened correspondence on the subject, concluding with an expression of regret on the part of the Governor that advantage could not be taken of his offer. As incidentally expressed in his first letter to Sir F. Currie, the loss of a dear and valued relative, by an act of perfidious treachery, gave additional stimulus to his hopes in volunteering for military duties. Lieutenant Anderson was Mrs. Outram's brother, and the intelligence of his death had shed a gloom over the residency circle at Baroda. In a letter to his mother from that place, dated May 16, 1848, Outram thus alludes to the circumstances of the murder :— 'It is indeed a sad, sad termination to the career of one of the noblest young men I ever knew, when he thought he had attained a sure path to fame and honour. Our last letter from him, written the day he embarked at Lahore to sail down to Mooltan, was full of hope and joy. . . .'1 Once more Outram addressed himself to the private secretary of the Governor-General; but at this juncture the state of his health rendered a change of scene and climate imperative. We gather from one of Mr. Willoughby's many letters to his address that he had suffered from an attack of erysipelas in the autumn of 1847. Again, at the same season in the following year, as we read in the printed Memoir from which we have before quoted, 'the excessive mental fatigue' he had undergone, co-operating with the proverbial unhealthiness' of the locality in which the Gáikawár had established his court, developed symptoms of an alarming nature.' Egypt had been recommended to him by his medical advisers as a suitable climate, and his application for leave to proceed thither had been in the hands of the local Government before receipt of his request 1 See Appendix I. for employment in the field. The circumstance had called for comment; and to this he had replied: "Were the cause of my availing myself of this leave (my first absence from India in thirty years, except once for nine months to England) of such a nature that my health might be endangered by changing Mooltan for Egypt, it need be of little consideration where the risk of death itself is of course disregarded by a soldier; but it happens that active exertion is what my medical advisers consider most beneficial for me, wherever obtained, to avert recurrence of the malady which nearly caused my death about this time last year, on which account they have recommended Egypt as affording the means of active occupation and relaxation for a time from sedentary duties. . . . I trust his Lordship will bear in mind that, in wishing to substitute hard service with the army for pleasant travelling in Egypt, I could only be actuated by the same zeal for the public service which has ever heretofore impelled me to seek service in the field, at whatever sacrifice of personal comfort or pecuniary cost.' He embarked, with Mrs. Outram and his recently-widowed niece, Lady Harris, early in November, and reached Suez during the same month. Those were the days of vans, when parties of six were made up on board ship for selected companionship in the journey, to and fro, across the desert. It was quite natural and easy for the outward-bound to stop the homeward-bound, should one convoy cross the other between Suez and Cairo. Such incidents, notwithstanding the delay occasioned, could not be otherwise than agreeable to travellers uninfluenced by special motives for hurry or seclusion. To some the mere temporary cessation of jolting, obtained by accident to horse, van, or harness, necessitating a halt, was a welcome relief; and many a pleasant half-hour has thus accrued to the weary Anglo-Indian traversing Egypt |