1854-1856 A trip to Khagan--The Vale of Kashmir--With the Horse Artillery -- My first visit to Simla--Life at Peshawar--A staff appointment -- The bump of locality I had had a great deal of fever during my eighteen months' residence at Peshawar, and in April, 1854, I obtained six months' leave to Kashmir.

I travelled _via_ Murree to Abbottabad, along the route now well known as the 'Gullies.' Here I was joined by Lieutenant George Rodney Brown,[1] a subaltern of Horse Artillery, with whom I chummed at Peshawar.
Abbottabad was a very small place in those days.

It was named after its first Deputy-Commissioner, James Abbott,[2] famous for his journey _via_ Bokhara and Khiva to Russia in 1839, undertaken for the release of Russian prisoners who were kept as slaves by the Turkomans.

He had just left, and had been succeeded as Deputy-Commissioner by a Captain Becher, who, fortunately for us, was away in the district.

I say fortunately, because we were bent on visiting Khagan, and had obtained permission from the Commissioner of Peshawar to do so.