aggressive and illegal action of the men whom I consider morally answerable—and I say it advisedly-for the early and miserable death of this young chief. I would not have been in Hassan's shoes when the poor young fellow cried, as they say he did, to those around him for help where no help could come.'

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CHAPTER XII.

UMRITSUR,

1870-1877.

REYNELL TAYLOR took up his duties as Commissioner of the Umritsur Division in July 1870. The events of the past six years had taxed his strength severely, and he was much in need of rest; but rest was at present impossible, and he determined before applying for leave to master the details of his new position. The political work of the Umritsur Division was much lighter than that of the Umballa Division, there being only one small State, that of Chumba; but the judicial work was far heavier, and Taylor found his time fully occupied.

Nothing occurred during the first few months to interrupt his labours, and by the early part of the new year he had so far grappled with his work that he decided to return for a while to England.

It was not, however, solely on his own account that he determined to take furlough: he felt compelled to do so on account of his family. Six of his children were in England, two more were with him, and he was most anxious to arrange matters regarding their education, and also to establish them with their mother in a temporary

'Mabel; and Millicent, who was born at Umballa, December 16, 1869.

home of their own. In March 1871, therefore, he applied for leave, and in the following month reached England.

His steps naturally led him to Devonshire: his associations with the past were centred there, and he had always looked forward to the time when he should be able to settle down within reach of his old home.

Newton Abbot appeared to offer many advantages, and before he returned to India he had the satisfaction of seeing his wife and family comfortably established there in a house called 'St. Bernards.'1

Of Taylor's own doings during the time he remained in England I have been unable to discover anything worthy of notice, and I am, therefore, compelled to pass over this period without remark. While he was in England, two events occurred concerning which he wrote several letters to 'The Times,' viz. the Kooka outbreak and the murder of Lord Mayo. The latter I have already referred to, but the outbreak of the religious sect, known as the Kookas, remains to be noticed.

As far back as 1866 Taylor had 'reported fully and urgently to Government on the mischievous character of the movement, or rather on the possible dangerous tendency of a certain new activity which had been evinced by the sect.' 2

The Kooka sect was founded by one Baluk Ram about the year 1845, and had for its ostensible object the revival of the primitive simplicity of the Sikh religion. On the death of the founder, a carpenter named Ram Sing be

A ninth child, Lucie, was born shortly before Taylor returned to India, viz. January 22, 1872.

2 Taylor's letter to 'The Times,' dated February 14, 1872.

came Guru, or high priest, of the sect, assuming at the same time supernatural powers and requiring absolute obedience from his disciples. The headquarters of the Kookas were at Loodiana, in the Umballa Division, where meetings were held and the organisation of the movement carried out. By degrees the numbers of the Kookas increased to such an extent that the leaders divided the country into districts under soubahs, or lieutenants; and Ram Sing's officers were thus to be found alike at Cabul and at Lucknow. But there was a worse feature than this in the fact that proselytising for the sect was gaining a footing in our native regiments,' and the movement was evidently rapidly developing into a secret political organisation.

More than once since the Cow riot' at Lahore, in 1845 the slaughter of kine had caused disturbance among the Hindoo population, and, in order to respect the strong religious feeling in the matter, the shambles had been erected outside the towns, and the exposure of the flesh of the sacred animal forbidden. The abolition of the practice of kine-killing was a point upon which it had always been easy to fire the religious fanaticism of the Sikhs and Hindoos generally, and Ram Sing and his followers were, therefore, fully alive to the fact, that a crusade against the practice would be sure to gain the sympathy of the whole Sikh sect and further the interests of Kookaism.

Such being the case, Taylor made careful inquiries, and, as he says in the letter I have just referred to, 'I examined Ram Sing and his lieutenants carefully, and collected all the available information regarding their

Y

proceedings. the possible harmless character of Ram Sing's original intentions, his soubahs, who were men of a very dangerous stamp, were, for their own ends, doubtless, turning the movement into something very different; in fact, that they were up to quite another game than mere religious revival. . . .

My conviction was that, whatever had been

'The burden of the song was that Ram Sing was all guilelessness and simplicity, and that they (his lieutenants) were bound by their faith in his infallibility to be implicitly guided by his injunctions, which were all for peace and order. This style of assurance was reiterated ad nauseam, and sounded well, but the idea suggested itself that possibly a change might come over the character of the Prophet's teaching. There was, in fact, an awkward precedent for this in the change made by the famous warlike Guru, or religious leader of the Sikhs, who changed the peaceful and beneficent teaching of his predecessors into a warlike code; and I felt that it would not be very difficult for the stirring men before me, to be the means of greatly modifying the new Guru's teaching when it became convenient to them; that, in fact, while he ruled the sect, or was supposed to do so, his soubahs might very probably pull his wires to suit their own views, and then their simple answer, if charged with belying their professions of peaceful intentions, would have been that they had always warned us that they must obey implicitly what the Guru enjoined; and as he now preached active hostility they were helpless to resist.' The result was that Taylor reported very unfavourably of the sect, and, acting on his suggestions, troops were at once put into