The encouragement that you have given to the organization of the Imperial Service Troops of the Native States is also gratefully appreciated by us; and only the other day we were gratified to learn the high opinion Your Excellency entertained of the appearance and military equipment of the Imperial Service Troops of Jammu and Kashmir, the most important Hindu State in this part of India.

We should be wanting in duty, we feel, did we not on this occasion give expression to the great regret which the news of your approaching departure from India has caused among the Hindus of the Punjab, who feel that they are parting from a kind friend and a sympathetic Ruler.

At the same time, we feel that the country will not lose the benefit of your mature experience and wise counsel for long; for we are hopeful that you may some day be called upon to guide the helm of the State in India, a work for which you are so specially fitted.

In conclusion, we have only to pray to the Father of All Good that He may shower His choicest blessings upon you and your consort--that noble lady who has, in addition to cheering you in your hard and onerous work in India, herself done a great deal for the comfort of the soldier and the sepoy, and that He may grant you many years of happy life--a life which has done so much for the Queen-Empress's dominions, and which may yet do much more.
* * * * * APPENDIX XIV.
(Referred to in Chapter LXVIII, Note *.) _To HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL THE RIGHT HONOURABLE FREDERICK BARON ROBERTS OF KANDAHAR AND WATERFORD, BART., V.C., G.C.B., G.C.I.E., R.A., Commander-in-Chief of Her Majesty's Forces in India._ MAY IT PLEASE YOUR EXCELLENCY, We, the Mahomedans of the Punjab, have dared to approach Your Excellency with this address with eyes tear-bedimmed, but a face smiling.

The departure of a noble and well-beloved General like yourself from our country is in itself a fact that naturally fills our eyes with tears.