PLASSEY.
The high walls of the Nawāb’s hunting-house at Plassey are now before you, and we cannot but regard the spot with feelings of the deepest interest, as it is the house in which Colonel, afterwards Lord Clive rested for a short time during the engagement. The famous battle of Plassey, which may be said to have decided the fate of India, was fought on the 23rd June, 1757, on the plains of Plassey, about thirty miles south of Moorshedabad; near the spot selected for the Nawāb Sooraj-oo-Dowlah’s entrenched camp, the river at that period made a remarkable bend, in shape like a horse-shoe. In a mango top, or grove, a little more than a mile from the enemy, Colonel Clive had taken up his position: the trees were planted in regular rows, as is usual in the country, and all around the top was a bank of earth, which afforded a good breast-work for the troops, and also a ditch beyond. One detachment was stationed at Plassey House, which was made use of by Colonel Clive during the conflict. About eight o’clock A.M. the battle commenced; and at eleven, Colonel Clive held a conference with his officers at the drum-head, when it was decided to maintain the cannonade during the day, and at midnight to make an attack on the Nawāb’s camp. The fate of Sooraj-oo-Dowlah was sealed by his flight towards the capital, mounted on a fleet sawārī camel, accompanied by about 2000 horsemen. By five o’clock the English had taken possession of the whole intrenchment and camp, with no other obstacle than was presented by the enormous mass of baggage, stores, camp-equipage, and cattle, scattered around them.
The lofty stage of bamboos in the field is erected sufficiently high to be a refuge from wild beasts; it is thatched, and the native farmer places a servant there to keep watch, especially during the night, at the time the corn is nearly ripe. When a buffalo, or wild hog, comes into the field, the keeper takes a wisp of lighted straw in one hand, and in the other a dried skin containing broken bricks, pots, &c., bound up on all sides; and in this manner he approaches the animal, shaking his lighted straw and making a loud noise, on which it immediately runs away. “The boar out of the wood doth waste it, and the wild beast of the field doth devour it.” (Psalm lxxx. 13.) The wild hogs and buffaloes make great havoc in the fields of the Hindūs.
Below the stage is a domestic buffalo and a group of Bengalī cows. The buffalo is a very useful beast of burthen, yields a rich but strong milk, which is generally made into ghī (clarified butter). This animal has no hump—a fact not universally known by those who have not visited India; on the contrary, the buffalo is generally supposed to have the hump. Those sold under the denomination of buffalo humps are from the common bull or cow of Hindostan.
