From Pvt. John Worlock H.M. Light Dragoons.
Officer commanding – John W. Yoebury.

  Umballah April 22nd 1848
 My dear Father.  
I have the pleasure of taking pen to paper to inform you of my arrival at Umballah, after a long and frightful march, but thank God for his protecting me through. It is about 1300 miles from Bombay and 700 of it is nothing but frightful jungle and the other half is the finest country I ever saw. I think for 500 miles it was as level as your kitchen and Barley and Wheat the same as in England. The officers that I was with behaved remarkably well to me. We had fine shooting, such as I never had before. Wild ‘fua’ fowl in hundreds, Tigers, Cheetahs & Hyenas. We only shot one Tiger but wounded a good many Cheetahs  ‘---‘ hyenas & Jackals out of number. I have sent you the ‘----‘ of two ‘fuafowl’, that I shot by moonlight on the 21st March, when we got lost in the jungle & could not find the tent until 2 in the morning. But still I did not care much, as I put confidence in my rifle. The officer was rather timid but we had only one sally from the Jackals that night and that was a tremendous one which caused us to light fires. We had 4 black fellows with us, on the morning of the 7th of March we had several shots at us from the bush ‘-----‘ but fortunately we escaped. There were two Officers killed there a short time before and their baggage captured. They are a set of men that will not show ‘mercy’ until they have killed or wounded you, but once there has been a gang of about 50 and their chief has been taken prisoners and not doubt they will pay them off. There is a great talk of us coming home next season and I think it is very likely I can say, I have seen more than men that are 20 years in the Country. Unless anything should be starting up the Country to cause them to march from Bombay, even the old Campaigners that are in the Regiment have never had the march that I had. You must know it is not to jump on the train and off to Scotland but you have mountains to climb up & sand knee deep.

Well dear Father I can tell you no more about the march but I hope I will be able to explain it to you by word of mouth. In the course of 2 years, we have got a great many of horses in the Regiment with the wounds of Sabre cuts and musket Balls. The horse that I have has a tremendous sabre cut in the neck and a musket ball through the neck. The Sikhs were great people for trying to cut the men’s reins. A great number of them are wounded in the neck. It would almost make you shed tears, to hear the men speak of that Campaign, of the horses & how faithful they were. If their Rider was killed they would actually, if they saw a man without a horse, run after you & almost lick them all over. There is two Regiments of Sikhs at Umballah that fought against the British, now joined the Company Service and fine bold looking men they are as ever I saw. Thank God I am enjoying good health and I hope you are all enjoying the same. Please to write as quick as possible, as I am very anxious to hear from you. I have sent two or three feathers from a very friendly Parrot that I had, that died on the march from Bombay. So nothing more at present.
              I remain
Direct.            Your Dutiful Son
Pt. J.Worlock           John Phillips Worlock
-F- Troop  
3rd Kings own light Dragoons
Umballah
Bengal Station
East Indies

P.S. I expect I shall hear of marriages, births and all sorts in the next letter. Give my love to Dear Grandmother, Mr. Hopkins, Tresham folks and all my old neighbours and accept of the same yourself.