Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/135

Rh regulation — a pith helmet, a native leather jacket, breeches and long boots made up his 'kit.' This dress he had never changed since his arrival in camp. Had the war been protracted, the contingent of 12,000 men which he had brought up from Sind would have swelled our strength; and no man was more depressed when he failed to reach the array in time. But he quite concurred with the Governor-General that annexation at that time was impossible. In this he must have been sincere: for a protracted war would undoubtedly have brought him to the front, and his political antecedents certainly pointed to his approval of the principle of extending our frontier. Ever kind-hearted, with a determined spirit and great professional ability, he left us prepossessed with the conviction that he was no ordinary man, however much his opponents may have declaimed against him — perhaps not without some excuse.

To return, however, to the Treaty. Its principal provisions were the abandonment by the Sikh Darbár of the strip of territory between the Beas and the Sutlej; the payment of a million and a half sterling as indemnity for the expenses of the war — should the Darbár be unable to pay the whole of this sum, or to give satisfactory security, the provinces of Kashmír and Házára were to be ceded as an equivalent — fifty lakhs of rupees (£500,000) were to be paid on or before the ratification of the Treaty; the Sikh army was restricted to twenty-five battalions of infantry and 12,000 cavalry; and all the guns pointed against