scipline of men without stocks and overalls. Men of the Irregular
Cavalry, almost as much trussed and padded as their Regular comrades
(who were often so tightly clad as to be unable to mount without
assistance), looked with good-natured tolerance on a foredoomed failure.
But Sir Henry Lawrence had the courage of his opinions, and determined
to put his theories to practice, though at first on a small scale.

Not only were the Guides to be sensibly clothed, but professionally also
they were to mark a new departure. In 1846 the Punjab was still a Sikh
province, and the administration was only thinly strengthened by a
sprinkling of British officers. Men, half soldiers, half civilians, and
known in India under the curious misnomer of Political Officers,--a
class to whom the British Empire owes an overwhelming debt--were
scattered here and there, hundreds of miles apart, and in the name of
the Sikh Durbar practically ruled and administered provinces as large as
Ireland or Scotland. The only British troops in the country were a few
of the Company's regiments, quartered at Lahore to support the authority
of the Resident,--a mere coral island in the wide expanse. What Sir
Henry Lawrence felt was the want of a thoroughly mobile body of troops,
both horse and foot, untrammelled by tradition, ready to move at a
moment's notice, and composed of men of undoubted loyalty and devotion,
troops who would not only be of value in the rough and tumble of a
soldier's trade, but would grow used to the finer arts of providing
skilled intelligence.

The title selected for the corps was in itself a new departure in the
British Army, and history is not clear as to whether its pre-ordained
duties suggested the designation to Sir Henry Lawrence, or whether, in
some back memory, its distinguished predecessor in the French army stood
sponsor for the idea. Readers of the Napoleonic wars will remember that,
after the battle of Borghetto, the Great Captain raised a _Corps des
Guides_, and that this was the first inception of the _Corps d'Elite_,
which later grew into the Consular Guard, and later still expanded into
the world-famed Imperial Guard ten thousand strong.

But whatever the history of the inception of its title, the duties of
the Corps of Guides were clearly and concisely defined in accordance
with Sir Henry's precepts. It was to contain trustworthy men, who
could, at a moment's notice, act as guides to troops in the field; men
capable, to