India and the Punjab – Rare Memoirs of Ranjit Singh's Artilleryman 1898. 1st ed of Soldier & Traveller: Memoirs of Alexander Gardner Colonel of Artillery in the Service of Maharajah Ranjit Singh. Original brick-red cloth lettered in gilt on the spine and in black on the upper cover. Frontispiece photogravure portrait of Gardner bedecked in a tartan Sikh uniform with matching turban. One other plate and two maps. Alexander Gardner (1785-1877), was an American adventurer and mercenary of Scottish extraction. He travelled Afghanistan, joining the rebel Habibullah, and then to the Punjab commanding units of Ranjit Sigh's artillery forces. He recorded his adventures in contemporary diaries recounting them, apparently with embellishments, as an elderly man to Major Hugh Pearse. They have since gone down in literary folklore. Gardner is one of the historical characters who plays a part in G.M. Fraser's Flashman books. His memoirs gives biographical details of around 40 European Soldiers in Ranjit Singh's service during the Sikh Kingdom.