It is difficult to understand how so puerile a sentiment could have been so long indulged in by officers who no doubt considered themselves sensible Englishmen.[8] On the 31st May we arrived at Lahore, where we found everyone in a state of considerable excitement.

Lahore was and is the great centre of the Punjab, and to it non-combatants and English ladies with their children were hurrying from all the outlying districts.

In the city itself there was a mixed population of nearly 100,000, chiefly Sikhs and Mahomedans, many of the former old soldiers who had served in the Khalsa Army.

The fort, which was within the walls of the city, was garrisoned by half a regiment of sepoys, one company of European Infantry, and a few European Artillerymen.

Mian Mir, five miles off, was the Head-Quarters of the Lahore division; it was a long, straggling cantonment, laid out for a much larger force than it has ever been found necessary to place there, with the European Infantry at one end and the European Artillery at the other, separated by Native troops.