CH. XCVII REST AT SRINAGAR AND LAHORE 489
of demobilizing my camping establishment and preparing final accounts could be pushed on with ease.
But my wounds, in spite of the most expert treatment, healed with tiresome slowness. What cheered me most during the seventeen days spent under that hospitable roof was a message from His Excellency the Viceroy. Kept informed from time to time of my doings by his Private Secretary, my old friend Colonel (now Sir James) Dunlop Smith, Lord Minto had followed my explorations and their results with kind and to me very encouraging interest. He was now pleased to convey to me, through Colonel Dunlop Smith, the anxiously awaited information that, in response to the proposals in the letter I had addressed to the Indian Government just a year before from Tun-huang concerning the elaboration of my scientific results, H.M. Secretary of State for India had agreed by cable to allow me to proceed on special duty to England along with my collections.
At last, towards the close of November, I could begin my first attempts at walking with crutches, and by December ist start down on my way to India. My wounds had not yet completely healed. So the rest and care I could enjoy at Lahore under the hospitable roof of my old Punjab friend, Mr. E. D. Maclagan, was a great boon. There I was busily occupied with the final settlement of accounts for the Comptroller of India Treasuries and many other tasks. On my way to Calcutta, whither the need of various official interviews and a kind invitation to Government House called me, I was able to pay a flying visit to Dehra Dun, where the friendly help of Colonel S. Burrard, F.R.S., Superintendent of Trigonometrical Surveys, and now Surveyor-General of India, enabled me to settle details for the preparation and reproduction of the many map-sheets which were to embody the results of our surveys.
Muhammadju and Musa, the last of my Turki followers, had left me at Lahore to return next spring to their Yarkand home, with ample reward for their honest services. At Dehra Dun I had the great pleasure of being greeted again by my two highly efficient Indian
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