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for the exercise of this he had ample scope during the ten years of
his residence at the Nepal Court. The latter, never friendly to the
British alliance, was distracted by the often murderous intrigues of
Raja, princes, queens, ministers, and a dominant military class of
aggressive disposition, and Hodgson's main efforts were directed to
the establishment of trading relations with Nepal, and to warding
off or rendering abortive measures that would have led to hostilities with the Company's forces, especially during the crises of
the Chinese, Affghan, and Punjab Wars. He persistently advocated
the policy of enlisting the fighting class of Nepal in the British
Army as a safe outlet for its activity, and it was greatly due to his
influence with his friend Jung Bahadur, and his representations to
Lord Canning, then Governor-General, that the former placed a
Ghurka force at our disposal during the Mutiny.
In 1843 Mr. Hodgson retired from the service, and after a year's visit to England, and disposing of his later collections, he returned to India with the intention of pursuing chiefly his ethnologieal studies. For this object he took up his residence at Darjiling, a recently created health resort, nearly 7500 ft. above the sea, in the unexplored Himalaya, east of Nepal. Here he resided for sixteen years, in indifferent health, the result of repeated fevers in Nepal, but as indefatigable as ever in collecting and publishing in continuation of his Buddhist, zoological, and ethnological work, and in fur- therance of the adoption of vernacular edncation.
In 1858 he finally returned to England, and resided first at the Rangers, Dursley, in Gloucestershire, whence he removed in 1867 to the Grange, Alderley, in the same county, frequently visiting London during the summer months. Latterly, the winters were passed at the Villa Himalaya, Mentone. He married first, in 1863, Miss Anne Scott, daughter of General H. A. Scott, R.A.; and, in 1868, Susan, daughter of the Rev. Chambre Townshend, of Derry, Cork, who survives him. He was elected a Fellow of the Linnean Society in 1835, and of tho Royal in 1877; Corresponding Member of theRoyal Asiatic Society in 1828, and Vice-President in 1876; Correspondent of the Zoological Society in 1859; D.C.L. (Oxon.) in 1889; and Fellow or Correspondent of many other scientific and literary bodies. The honours so early showered on him by France are given above. In person Mr. Hodgson was very good-looking, and of singularly frank and courteous bearing, communicative, and generous to a fault. His was a remarkable case not only of inherited longevity but of complete recovery in after life from the effects of long-continued and often serious indisposition in India. He was fond of out-of-door exercise, and hunted till disabled by accident at sixty eight. He retained his faculties but little impaired till his death in the summer of 1894, leaving no family. He was buried at Alderley.
J. D. H.
