que and soldier-like appearance of the Native troops.
The Native officers were very proud at being presented to the grandson
of their Empress, and at His Royal Highness being appointed Honorary
Colonel of the 1st Punjab Cavalry.

Towards the end of April I returned to Simla for what I thought was to
be our last season in that place; and shortly after I got up there, a
telegram from Mr. Stanhope informed me that my appointment had been
accepted by the Cabinet, and that my presence in England was strongly
desired in the autumn. It was therefore with very great surprise that
I received a second telegram three weeks later from the Secretary
of State, telling me that, as it was then found to be impossible to
choose my successor, and as the exigencies of the public service
urgently required my presence in India, the Cabinet, with the approval
of Her Majesty and the concurrence of the Duke of Cambridge, had
decided to ask me to retain my command for two more years.

I felt it my duty to obey the wishes of the Queen, Her Majesty's
Government, and the Commander-in-Chief; but I fully realized that in
doing so I was forfeiting my chance of employment in England, and that
a long and irksome term of enforced idleness would in all probability
follow on my return home, and I did not attempt to conceal from Mr.
Stanhope that I was disappointed.

At the latter end of this year, and in the early part of 1891, it was
found necessary to undertake three small expeditions: one to Zhob,
under the leadership of Sir George White, for the protection of our
newly-acquired subjects in that valley; one on the Kohat border,
commanded by Sir William Lockhart, to punish the people of the
Miranzai valley for repeated acts of hostility; and the third, under
Major-General Elles,[1] against the Black Mountain tribes, who, quite
unsubdued by the fruitless expedition of 1888, had given trouble
almost immediately afterwards. All these were as completely successful
in their political results as in their military conduct. The columns
were not withdrawn until the tribesmen had become convinced that they
were powerless to sustain a hostile attitude towards us, and that it
was their interest, as it was our wish, that they should henceforth be
on amicable terms with us.

[Illustration: FIELD-MARSHAL LORD ROBERTS ON HIS ARAB CHARGER
'VONOLEL.'
_From an oil-painting by Charles Furse._]

While a considerable number of troops were thus employed, a fourth
expedi