______________________________________________________________________________________________

1 Aug 58 Julius Azimgurh Mother ______________________________________________________________________________________________

Azimgurh, 1st August /58

My dear Mother

I hope by this time all your ailings at home are finished & that your residence in the country will have set everyone up in health again. No more whooping-coughs I hope, & all the old ones well, but I suppose you will have forgotten all about these by this.

We have been looking out for a mail here for the last 5 days but it will not arrive. One of the Calcutta mails was plundered on the Trunk Road* about 3 days ago but no Home letters in it.

The last I got was dated the 9th of June – you will think I am very changeable but when I tell you that out of 4 letters directed to me at Azimgurh, two have gone to Lucknow & one to Arrah, you will see that I have been driven to it.

The last & of course supposed to be the best system is to direct to my name H.M. 34th Regt. ‘Benares’, as that is the place where our branch line joins onto the main or, as it is called, Trunk Road.

I will arrange with the Postmaster at Benares to send on my letters, so if I have to move off suddenly, it is only one day’s post to Benares to tell him to alter the direction.

I have changed my quarters again. My Company was ordered to a Detached Bungalow & I have of course accompanied it.

3rd August

The mail came in yesterday & by it I received a letter from my Father, telling me all the news, also one from Miss Prater (very affectionate) & another from Riley* – so that I ought not to complain.

I was telling you how I had changed my residence. I am now in a very good room: it would just please my Father – so lofty. I think this is by far the best position in Azimgurh. We are on a Hill just by the River. Plenty of trees, therefore there is some shade about.

I had to leave all my nice arrangements for my Servants & Horses behind me & now they put up quite in the rough.

The only bad part of the bargain is that this is the way the Ns would come if they meditated any such madness as attempting to take the town & it would be a great sell to have to turn up sharp in the middle of the night to drive them off for a few miles & come back to find everything burnt.

However, we do not mind those contingencies out here now.

So Byron is a Capt. I am creeping up, about eleventh now. I suspect it will still be some years before you see me a Capt.* unless my Father could manage it in a second battalion.

I am very glad to hear that you are all so much better. I have had a little touch of fever but am all right again.

with love to you all from yr. affect. son

J D Laurie

* Trunk Road – The Grand Trunk Road, originally built by Sher Shah Suri in the 16th century, but extended under British rule, ultimately stretching over 1,500 miles from Calcutta to Kabul

* Riley – John Riley, his half-sister’s husband who was to die four years later, aged 42 years

* you see me a Capt. – This is the first of numerous mentions he makes of the possibilities of promotion to Captain. At this time, promotion was by seniority, accelerated by purchase, and his father duly obliged in June 1861

On 2nd August 1858 the India Act became law. The East India Company was surrendered to the Crown