Notes.

The Oude Royal Family.—When the news reached England that the deposed King of Oude had been arrested at Calcutta, in the way described in the present chapter, on suspicion of complicity with the mutineers, his relations, who had proceeded to London to appeal against the annexation of Oude by the Company, prepared a petition filled with protestations of innocence, on his part and on their own. The petition was presented to the House of Lords by Lord Campbell, though not formally received owing to some defect in phraseology. A memorial to Queen Victoria was couched in similar form. The petition and memorial ran as follows:

‘The petition of the undersigned Jenabi Auliah Tajara Begum, the Queen-mother of Oude; Mirza Mohummud Hamid Allie, eldest son and heir-apparent of his Majesty the King of Oude; and Mirra Mohummud Jowaad Allie Sekunder Hushmut Bahadoor, next brother of his Majesty the King of Oude, sheweth:

‘That your petitioners have heard with sincere regret the tidings which have reached the British kingdom of disaffection prevailing among the native troops in India; and that they desire, at the earliest opportunity, to give public expression to that solemn assurance which they some time since conveyed to her Majesty’s government, that the fidelity and attachment to Great Britain which has ever characterised the royal family of Oude continues unchanged and unaffected by these deplorable events, and that they remain, as Lord Dalhousie, the late governor-general of India, emphatically declared them, “a royal race, ever faithful and true to their friendship with the British nation.”

‘That in the midst of this great public calamity, your petitioners have sustained their own peculiar cause of pain and sorrow in the intelligence which has reached them, through the public papers, that his Majesty the King of Oude has been subjected to restraint at Calcutta, and deprived of the means of communicating even with your petitioners, his mother, son, and brother.

‘That your petitioners desire unequivocally and solemnly to assure her Majesty and your lordships, that if his Majesty the King of Oude has been suspected of any complicity in the recent disastrous occurrences, such suspicion is not only wholly and absolutely unfounded, but is directed against one, the whole tenor of whose life, character, and conduct directly negatives all such imputations. Your petitioners recall to the recollection of your lordships the facts relating to the dethronement of the King of Oude, as set forth in the petition presented to the House of Commons by Sir Fitzroy Kelly on the 25th of May last, that when resistance might have been made, and was even anticipated by the British general, the King of Oude directed his guards and troops to lay aside their arms, and that when it was announced to him that the territories of Oude were to be vested for ever in the Honourable East India Company, the king, instead of offering resistance to the British government, after giving vent to his feelings in a burst of grief, descended from his throne, declaring his determination to seek for justice at her Majesty’s throne, and from the parliament of England.

‘That since their resort to this country, in obedience to his Majesty’s commands, your petitioners have received communications from his Majesty which set forth the hopes and aspirations of his heart; that those communications not only negative all supposition of his Majesty’s personal complicity in any intrigues, but fill the minds of your petitioners with the profound conviction that his Majesty would feel, with your petitioners, the greatest grief and pain at the events which have occurred. And your petitioners desire to declare to your lordships, and to assure the British nation, that although suffering, in common with his heart-broken family, from the wrongs inflicted on them, from the humiliations of a state of exile, and their loss of home, authority, and country, the King of Oude relies only on the justice of his cause, appeals only to her Majesty’s throne and to the parliament of Great Britain, and disdains to use the arm of the rebel and the traitor to maintain the right he seeks to vindicate.

‘Your petitioners therefore pray of your lordships that, in the exercise of your authority, you will cause justice to be done to his Majesty the King of Oude, and that it may be forthwith explicitly made known to his Majesty and to your petitioners wherewith he is charged, and by whom, and on what authority, so that the King of Oude may have full opportunity of refuting and disproving the unjust suspicions and calumnies of which he is now the helpless victim. And your petitioners further pray that the King of Oude may be permitted freely to correspond with your petitioners in this country, so that they may also have opportunity of vindicating here the character and conduct of their sovereign and relative, of establishing his innocence of any offence against the crown of England, or the British government or people, and of shewing that, under every varying phase of circumstance, the royal family of Oude have continued steadfast and true to their friendship with the British nation.

‘And your petitioners will ever pray, &c.’

Some time after the presentation of this petition and memorial, a curious proof was afforded of the complexity and intrigue connected with the family affairs of the princes of India. A statement having gone abroad to the effect that a son of the King of Oude had escaped from Lucknow during the troubles of the Revolt, a native representative of the family in London sought to set the public mind right on the matter. He stated that the king had had only three legitimate sons; that one of these, being an idiot, was confined to the zenana or harem at Lucknow; that the second died of small-pox when twelve years of age; that the third was the prince who had come to London with the queen-mother; and that if any son of the king had really escaped from Lucknow, he must have been illegitimate, a boy about ten years old. This communication was signed by Mahmoud Museehooddeen, residing at Paddington, and designating himself ‘Accredited Agent to his Majesty the King of Oude.’ Two days afterwards the same journal contained a letter from Colonel R. Ouseley, also residing in the metropolis, asserting that he was ‘Agent in Chief to the King of Oude,’ and that Museehooddeen had assumed a title to which he had no right.

Castes and Creeds in the Indian Army.—The Indian officers being much divided in opinion concerning the relative insubordination of Mohammedans and Hindoos in the native regiments, it may be useful to record here the actual components of one Bengal infantry regiment, so far as concerns creed and caste. The information is obtained from an official document relating to the cartridge grievance, before the actual Revolt began.

The 34th regiment Bengal native infantry, just before its disbandment at Barrackpore in April, comprised 1089 men, distributed as follows:

Subadar-major.Subadars.Jemadars.Havildars.Naiks.Drummers.Sepoys.Total.
Brahmin Caste,1242410—294335
Lower Castes,—5525261406468
Christians,—————10212
Mussulmans,—2112248153200
Sikhs,——————7474
19106160199291089

The portion of this regiment present at Barrackpore—the rest being at Chittagong—when the mutinous proceedings took place, numbered 584, thus classified under four headings:

Subadar-major.Subadars.Jemadars.Havildars.Naiks.Drummers.Sepoys.Total.
Brahmin Caste,121125—175196
Lower Castes,—1413141193226
Mussulmans,—1—714485111
Sikhs,——————5151
14532335504584

When 414 of these men were dismissed from the Company’s service, their religions appeared as follows:

Commissioned Officers.Non-commissioned Officers.Sepoys.Total.
Brahmin Caste,212135149
Lower Castes,419150173
Mussulmans,—144963
Sikhs,——2929
645363414

It is not clearly stated how many Rajpoots, or men of the military caste, were included in the Hindoos who were not Brahmins.

If the regiment thus tabulated had been cavalry, instead of infantry, the preponderance, as implied in Chapter I., would have been wholly on the side of the Mussulmans.

Sikh Cavalry.

[19]. The following is an extract of a letter written by Major Macdonald, after the attack upon him and his brother-officers: ‘Two days after, my native officer said he had found out the murderers, and that they were three men of my own regiment. I had them in irons in a crack, held a drumhead court-martial, convicted, and sentenced them to be hanged the next morning. I took on my own shoulders the responsibility of hanging them first, and asking leave to do so afterwards. That day was an awful one of suspense and anxiety. One of the prisoners was of very high caste and influence, and this man I determined to treat with the greatest ignominy, by getting the lowest caste man to hang him. To tell you the truth, I never for a moment expected to leave the hanging scene alive; but I was determined to do my duty, and well knew the effect that pluck and decision had on the natives. The regiment was drawn out; wounded cruelly as I was, I had to see everything done myself, even to the adjusting of the ropes, and saw them looped to run easy. Two of the culprits were paralysed with fear and astonishment, never dreaming that I should dare to hang them without an order from government. The third said he would not be hanged, and called on the Prophet and on his comrades to rescue him. This was an awful moment; an instant’s hesitation on my part, and probably I should have had a dozen of balls through me; so I seized a pistol, clapped it to the man’s ear, and said, with a look there was no mistake about: “Another word out of your mouth, and your brains shall be scattered on the ground.” He trembled, and held his tongue. The elephant came up, he was put on his back, the rope adjusted, the elephant moved, and he was left dangling. I then had the others up, and off in the same way. And after some time, when I had dismissed the men of the regiment to their lines, and still found my head on my shoulders, I really could scarcely believe it.’

[20]. Dinapoor is remarkable for the fine barracks built by the Company for the accommodation of troops—for the officers, the European troops, and the native troops; most of the officers have commodious bungalows in the vicinity; and the markets or bazaars, for the supply of Europeans as well as natives, are unusually large and well supplied.

[21]. ‘At present the men of bad character in some regiments, and other people in the direction of Meerut and Delhi, have turned from their allegiance to the bountiful government, and created a seditious disturbance, and have made choice of the ways of ingratitude, and thrown away the character of sepoys true to their salt.

‘At present it is well known that some European regiments have started to punish and coerce these rebels; we trust that by the favour of the bountiful government, we also may be sent to punish the enemies of government, wherever they are; for if we cannot be of use to government at this time, how will it be manifest and known to the state that we are true to our salt? Have we not been entertained in the army for days like the present? In addition to this, government shall see what their faithful sepoys are like, and we will work with heart and soul to do our duty to the state that gives us our salt.

‘Let the enemies of government be who they may, we are ready to fight them, and to sacrifice our lives in the cause.

‘We have said as much as is proper; may the sun of your wealth and prosperity ever shine.

‘The petition of your servants:

Heera Sing, Subadar,

Ellahee Khan, Subadar,

Bhowany Sing, Jemadar,

Munroop Sing, Jemadar,

Heera Sing, Jemadar,

Isseree Pandy, Jemadar,

Murdan Sing, Jemadar,

of the Burra Crawford’s, or 7th regiment, native infantry, and of every non-commissioned officer and sepoy in the lines. Presented on the 3d June 1857.’

[22]. The exact components of this gallant little band appear to have been as follow:

Guns.Officers.Men.
Artillery,3130
Queen’s troops,03150
Madras Fusiliers,0360
—————
37240

Irrespective of the officers belonging to the mutinous regiments.

CHAPTER X.
OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB: JUNE.

The course of events now brings us again to that turbulent country, Oude, which proved itself to be hostile to the British in a degree not expected by the authorities at Calcutta. They were aware, it is true, that Oude had long furnished the chief materials for the Bengal native army; but they could not have anticipated, or at least did not, how close would be the sympathy between those troops and the Oude irregulars in the hour of tumult. Only seven months before the beginning of the Revolt, and about the same space of time after the formal annexation, a remarkable article on Indian Army Reform appeared in the Calcutta Review, attributed to Sir Henry Lawrence; in which he commented freely on the government proceedings connected with the army of Oude. He pointed out how great was the number of daring reckless men in that country; how large had been the army of the king before his deposition; how numerous were the small forts held by zemindars and petty chieftains, and guarded by nearly sixty thousand men; how perilous it was to raise a new British-Oudian army, even though a small one, solely from the men of the king’s disbanded regiments; how serious was the fact that nearly a hundred thousand disbanded warlike natives were left without employment; how prudent it would have been to send Oudians into the Punjaub, and Punjaubees into Oude; and how necessary was an increase in the number of British troops. The truth of these comments was not appreciated until Sir Henry himself was ranked among those who felt the full consequence of the state of things to which the comments referred. Oude was full of zemindars, possessing considerable resources of various kinds, having their retainers, their mud-forts, their arsenals, their treasures. These zemindars, aggrieved not so much by the annexation of their country, as by the manner in which territorial law-proceedings were made to affect the tenure of their estates, shewed sympathy with the mutineers almost from the first. The remarks of Mr Edwards, collector at Boodayoun, on this point, have already been adverted to (p. [115]). The zemindars did not, as a class, display the sanguinary and vindictive passions so terribly evident in the reckless soldiery; still they held to a belief that a successful revolt might restore to them their former position and influence as landowners; and hence the formidable difficulties opposed by them to the military movements of the British.

Sir Henry Lawrence, as chief authority both military and civil in Oude, found himself very awkwardly imperiled at Lucknow in the early days of June. Just as the previous month closed, nearly all the native troops raised the standard of rebellion (see p. [96]); the 13th, 48th, and 71st infantry, and the 7th cavalry, all betrayed the infection, though in different degrees; and of the seven hundred men of those four regiments who still remained faithful, he did not know how many he could trust even for a single day. The treasury received his anxious attention, and misgivings arose in his mind concerning the various districts around the capital, with their five millions of inhabitants. Soon he had the bitterness of learning that his rebellious troops, who had fled towards Seetapoor, had excited their brethren at that place to revolt. The Calcutta authorities were from that day very ill informed of the proceedings at Lucknow; for the telegraph wires were cut, and the insurgents stopped all dâks and messengers on the road. About the middle of the month, Colonel Neill, at Allahabad, received a private letter from Lawrence, sent by some secret agency, announcing that Seetapoor and Shahjehanpoor were in the hands of the rebels; that Secrora, Beraytch, and Fyzabad, were in like condition; and that mutinous regiments from all those places, as well as from Benares and Jounpoor, appeared to be approaching Lucknow on some combined plan of operations. He was strengthening his position at the Residency, but looked most anxiously for aid, which Neill was quite unable to afford him. Again, it became known to the authorities at Benares that Lawrence, on the 19th, still held his position at Lucknow; that he had had eight deaths by cholera; and that he was considering whether, aid from Cawnpore or Allahabad being unattainable, he could obtain a few reinforcements by steamer up the Gogra from Dinapoor. Another letter, but without date, reached the chief-magistrate of Benares, to the effect that Lawrence had got rid of most of the remaining native troops, by paying them their due, and giving them leave of absence for three months; he evidently felt disquietude at the presence even of the apparently faithful sepoys in his place of refuge, so bitterly had he experienced the hollowness of all protestations on their part. He had been very ill, and a provisional council had been appointed in case his health should further give way. Although the Residency was the stronghold, the city and cantonment also were still under British control: a fort called the Muchee Bhowan, about three-quarters of a mile from the Residency, and consisting of a strong, turreted, castellated building, was held by two hundred and twenty-five Europeans with three guns. The cantonment was northeast of the Residency, on the opposite side of the river, over which were two bridges of approach. Sir Henry had already lessened from eight to four the number of buildings or posts where the troops were stationed—namely, the Residency, the Muchee Bhowan, a strong post between these two, and the dâk-bungalow between the Residency and the cantonment; but after the mutiny, he depended chiefly on the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan. News, somewhat more definite in character, was conveyed in a letter written by Sir Henry on the 20th of June. So completely were the roads watched, that he had not received a word of information from Cawnpore, Allahabad, Benares, or any other important place throughout the whole month down to that date; he knew not what progress was being made by the rebels, beyond the region of which Lucknow was more immediately the centre; he still held the fort, city, Residency, and cantonment, but was terribly threatened on all sides by large bodies of mutineers. On the 27th he wrote another letter to the authorities at Allahabad, one of the very few (out of a large number despatched) that succeeded in reaching their destination. This letter was still full of heart, for he told of the Residency and the Muchee Bhowan being still held by him in force; of cholera being on the decrease; of his supplies being adequate for two months and a half; and of his power to ‘hold his own.’ On the other hand, he felt assured that at that moment Lucknow was the only place throughout the whole of Oude where British influence was paramount; and that he dared not leave the city for twenty-four hours without danger of losing all his advantages. His sanguine, hopeful spirit shone out in the midst of all his trials; he declared that with one additional European regiment, and a hundred artillerymen, he could re-establish British supremacy in Oude; and he added, in a sportive tone, which shewed what estimate he formed of some, at least, of the contingent corps, ‘a thousand Europeans, a thousand Goorkhas, and a thousand Sikhs, with eight or ten guns, will thrash anything.’ The Sikhs were irregulars raised in the Punjaub; and throughout the contests arising out of the Revolt, their fidelity towards the government was seldom placed in doubt.

The last day of June was a day of sad omen to the English in Lucknow. On the evening of the 29th, information arrived that a rebel force of six or seven thousand men was encamped eight miles distant on the Fyzabad road, near the Kookra Canal. Lawrence thereupon determined to attack them on the following day. He started at six o’clock on the morning of the 30th, with about seven hundred men and eleven guns.[[23]] Misled, either by accident or design, by informants on the road, he suddenly fell into an ambush of the enemy, assembled in considerable force near Chinhut. Manfully struggling against superior numbers, Lawrence looked forward confidently to victory; but just at the most critical moment, the Oude artillerymen proved traitors—overturning their six guns into ditches, cutting the traces of the horses, and then going over to the enemy. Completely outflanked, exposed to a terrible fire on all sides, weakened by the defection, having now few guns to use, and being almost without ammunition, Sir Henry saw that retreat was imperative. A disastrous retreat it was, or rather a complete rout; the heat was fearful, the confusion was dire; and the officers and men fell rapidly, to rise no more. Colonel Case, of H.M. 32d, receiving a mortal wound, was immediately succeeded by Captain Steevens; he in like manner soon fell, and was succeeded by Captain Mansfield, who escaped the day’s perils, but afterwards died of cholera.

Sir Henry Lawrence now found himself in a grave difficulty. The English position at Lucknow needed all the strengthening he could impart to it. He had held, as already explained, not only the Residency, but the fort of Muchee Bhowan and other posts. The calamity of the 30th, however, having weakened him too much to garrison all, or even more than one, he removed the troops, and then blew up the Muchee Bhowan, at midnight on the 1st of July, sending 240 barrels of gunpowder and 3,000,000 ball-cartridges into the air. From that hour the whole of the English made the Residency their stronghold. Later facts rendered it almost certain that, if this abandonment and explosion had not taken place, scarcely a European would have lived to tell the tale of the subsequent miseries at Lucknow. By incessant exertions, he collected in the Residency six months’ food for a thousand persons. The last hour of the gallant man was, however, approaching. A shell, sent by the insurgents, penetrated into his room on this day; his officers advised him to remove to another spot, but he declined the advice; and on the next day, the 2d of July, another shell, entering and bursting within the same room, gave him a mortal wound. Knowing his last hour was approaching, Sir Henry appointed Brigadier Inglis his successor in military matters, and Major Banks his successor as chief-commissioner of Oude.

Grief, deep and earnest, took possession of every breast in the Residency, when, on the 4th of July, it was announced that the good and great Sir Henry Lawrence had breathed his last. He was a man of whom no one doubted; like his gifted brother, Sir John, he had the rare power of drawing to himself the respect and love of those by whom he was surrounded, almost without exception. ‘Few men,’ said Brigadier Inglis, at a later date, ‘have ever possessed to the same extent the power which he enjoyed of winning the hearts of all those with whom he came in contact, and thus insuring the warmest and most zealous devotion for himself and the government which he served. All ranks possessed such confidence in his judgment and his fertility of resource, that the news of his fall was received throughout the garrison with feelings of consternation only second to the grief which was inspired in the hearts of all by the loss of a public benefactor and a warm personal friend.... I trust the government of India will pardon me for having attempted, however imperfectly, to portray this great and good man. In him every good and deserving soldier lost a friend and a chief capable of discriminating, and ever on the alert to reward merit, no matter how humble the sphere in which it was exhibited.’ Such was the soldier whom all men delighted to honour,[[24]] and to whom the graceful compliment was once paid, that ‘Sir Henry Lawrence enjoyed the rare felicity of transcending all rivalry except that of his illustrious brother.’

How the overcrowded Residency at Lucknow bore all the attacks directed against it; how the inmates, under the brave and energetic Inglis, held on against heat, disease, cannon-balls, thirst, hunger, and fatigue; how and by whom they were liberated—will come for notice in proper course.

The other districts of Oude fell one by one into the hands of the insurgents. The narratives subsequently given by such English officers as were fortunate enough to escape the perils of those evil days, bore a general resemblance one to another; inasmuch as they told of faith in native troops being rudely broken, irresolute loyalty dissolving into confirmed hostility, treasuries of Company’s rupees tempting those who might otherwise possibly have been true to their salt, military officers and their wives obliged to flee for succour to Nynee Tal or some other peaceful station, the families of civilians suddenly thrown homeless upon the world, and blood and plunder marking the footsteps of the marauders who followed the example set by the rebellious sepoys and troopers. A few examples will suffice to illustrate the general character of these outbreaks.

The mutiny at Fyzabad, besides being attended with a sad loss of life, was note-worthy for certain peculiarities in the tactics of the insurgents—a kind of cool audacity not always exhibited in other instances. A brief description will shew the position and character of this city. In a former chapter (p. [83]) it was explained that Oude or Ayodha, the city that gave name to the province, is very ancient as a Hindoo capital, but has become poor and ruinous in recent times; and that the fragments of many of its old structures were employed in building Fyzabad, the Mohammedan Ayodha, nearly adjoining it on the southwest. It was scarcely more than a hundred and thirty years ago that the foundation of Fyzabad was established, by Saadut Ali Khan, the first nawab-vizier of Oude; its advance in prosperity was rapid; but since the selection of Lucknow as the capital in 1775, Fyzabad has fallen in dignity; the chief merchants and bankers have migrated to Lucknow, and the remaining inhabitants are mostly poor.

On the 3d of June, rumours circulated in Fyzabad that the mutinous 17th regiment B. N. I. was approaching from Azimghur. Colonel Lennox, the military commandant, at once conferred with the other officers, and formed a plan for defending the place. The immediate alarm died away. On the 7th, however, renewed information led the colonel to propose an advance to Surooj-khoond, a place about five miles away, to repel the mutineers before they could reach Fyzabad. The native troops objected to go out, on the plea of disinclination to leave their families and property behind; but they promised to fight valiantly in the cantonment if necessary, and many of them shook hands with him in token of fidelity. The evening of the 8th revealed the hypocrisy of this display. The native troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, joined in a demonstration which rendered all the officers powerless; every officer was, in effect, made a prisoner, and placed under armed guard for the night; two tried to escape, but were fired at and brought back. The leader of the mutiny, Dhuleep Singh, subadar-major of the 22d regiment, came to Colonel Lennox in the morning, and told him plainly that he and the other officers must yield to the course of circumstances; that boats would be provided to take them down the river Gogra towards Dinapoor, but that he would not guarantee their safety after once they had embarked. There was a cool impudence about the proceeding, unlike the wild confusion exhibited at many of the scenes of outbreak. A moulvie, who had been imprisoned in the quarter-guard for a disturbance created in the city, and who had just been liberated by the mutineers, sent the sub-assistant surgeon to Colonel Lennox with a message; thanking him for kindnesses received during the imprisonment, and requesting that the colonel’s full-dress regimentals might be sent to the moulvie. The native surgeon begged pardon for his change of allegiance; urging that times were altered, and that he must now obey the mutineers. There was something more than mere effrontery, however, in the proceedings of these insurgents;[[25]] there was a subordination amid insubordination. ‘The men,’ said one of the narrators, ‘guarded their officers and their bungalows after mutinying, placed sentries over the magazines and all public property, and sent out pickets to prevent the towns-people and servants from looting. They held a council of war, in which the cavalry proposed to kill the officers; but the 22d, objecting to this, informed their officers that they would be allowed to leave, and might take with them their private arms and property, but no public property—as that all belonged to the King of Oude.’

Let us briefly trace the course of some of the European fugitives. Colonel Lennox, powerless to resist, gave up his regimentals, and prepared for a melancholy boat-departure with his wife and daughter. They were escorted to the banks of the Gogra, and pushed off on their voyage. From two in the afternoon on the 8th of June, until nearly midnight, their boat descended the stream—often in peril from sentries and scouts on shore, but befriended by two sepoys who had been sent to protect them for a short distance. Much care and manœuvring were required to effect a safe passage near the spot where the mutinous 17th regiment was encamped; for it now became manifest that the 22d had in effect sold the fugitives to the other corps. Early on the following morning, information received on shore rendering evident the danger of a further boat-voyage, the houseless wanderers, leaving in the boat the few fragments of property they had brought away from Fyzabad, set out on foot towards Goruckpore. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the family began their weary flight. After stopping under trees and by the side of wells to rest occasionally, they walked until the heat of day rendered necessary a longer pause. By a narrow chance they avoided being dragged to the camp of the 17th regiment, by a trooper who professed to have been offered two hundred rupees for the head of each member of the family. A friendly chieftain, one Meer Mohammed Hossein Khan, came to their rescue just at the moment of greatest peril. One of the retainers of this man, however, more disposed for enmity than amity, spoke to the colonel with great bitterness and fierceness of manner, shewing that the prevalent rumours had made a deep impression in Oude; he expressed a longing to shoot the English, ‘who had come to take away their caste, and make them Christians.’ Meer Mohammed rebuked this man for saying that a stable would do to shelter the refugees, for that he was prepared ‘to kill them like dogs.’ The fugitives were taken to a small fort, one of the numerous class lately adverted to, where the zemindars and petty chieftains maintained a kind of feudal or clannish independence. On the second day, the danger to sheltered Europeans becoming apparent, Colonel Lennox, his wife, and daughter, put on native dresses, and remained nine days concealed in a reed-hut behind the zenana, treated very kindly and considerately by their protector. Meer Mohammed went once or twice to Fyzabad, to learn if possible the plans of the mutineers; he was told that they meant to attack Lucknow, and then depart for Delhi. On the 10th day of the hiding, when news arrived that the fort was likely to be attacked, the ladies went for shelter into the zenana, while the colonel was hid in a dark woodshed. Happily, however, it turned out that the suspected strangers were a party sent by the collector of Goruckpore for the rescue of the family. Danger was now nearly over. The fugitives reached Amorah, Bustee, Goruckpore, Azimghur, and Ghazeepore, at which place they took steamer down to Calcutta. This fortunate escape from great peril was almost wholly due to ‘the noble and considerate’ Meer Mohammed, as Colonel Lennox very properly characterises him.

Far more calamitous were the boat-adventures of the main body of Fyzabad officers, of which an account was afterwards written, for the information of government, by Farrier-sergeant Busher, of the light field-battery. On the morning of the 8th, the wives and families of many civilians, and of five non-commissioned European officers, had been sent by Captain Orr to a place called Sheergunge, under the protection of a friendly native, Rajah Maun Singh, to be free from peril if tumult should arise. Early on the 9th, while Colonel Lennox was still at the station, all or nearly all the other English were sent off by the mutineers in four boats. One of these boats (mere dinghees, in which little more than a bundle for each person could be put) contained eight persons, one six, one five, and the remaining boat three. Only one female was of the party, Mrs Hollum, wife of Sergeant-major Hollum of the 22d native regiment. The first and second boats got ahead of the other two, and proceeded about twenty miles down the river without molestation; but then were seen troopers and sepoys approaching the banks, with an evidently hostile intent. The firing soon became so severe that the occupants of the first boat struck in for the off-shore, and seven of them took to their heels—the eighth being unequal to that physical exertion. They ran on till checked by a broad stream; and while deliberating how to cross, persons approached who were thought to be sepoys; the alarm proved false, but not before Lieutenants Currie and Parsons had been drowned in an attempt to escape by swimming. The other five, running on till quite exhausted, were fortunate enough to meet with a friendly native, who sheltered them for several hours, and supplied them with food. At midnight they started again, taking the road to Amorah, which they were enabled to reach safely through the influence of their kind protector—although once in great peril from a gang of freebooters. They were glad to meet at Amorah the three occupants of the fourth boat, who, like themselves, had escaped the dangers of the voyage by running across fields and fording streams. At seven in the morning of the 10th, the fugitives, now eight in company, recommenced their anxious flight—aided occasionally by friendly natives, but at length betrayed by one whose friendship was only a mask. They had to cross a nullah or stream knee-deep, under pursuit by a body of armed men; here Lieutenant Lindesay fell, literally cut to pieces; and when the other seven had passed to the opposite bank, five were speedily hewn to the ground and butchered—Lieutenants Ritchie, Thomas, and English, and two English sergeants. The two survivors ran at their topmost speed, pursued by a gang of ruffians; Lieutenant Cautley was speedily overtaken, and killed; and then only Sergeant Busher remained alive. He, outrunning his pursuers, reached a Brahmin village, where a bowl of sherbet was given to him. After a little rest, he ran on again, until one Baboo Bully Singh was found to be on the scent after him; he endeavoured to hide under some straw in a hut; but was discovered and dragged out by the hair of the head. From village to village he was then carried as an exhibition to be jeered and scoffed at by the rabble; the Baboo evidently intended the cruel sport to be followed by murder; but this intention underwent a change, probably from dread of some future retribution. He kept his prisoner near him for ten days, but did not further ill treat him. On the eleventh day, Busher was liberated; he overtook Colonel Lennox and his family; and safely reached Ghazeepore seventeen days after his departure from Fyzabad. The boat containing Colonel O’Brien, Lieutenants Percival and Gordon, Ensign Anderson, and Assistant-surgeon Collinson, pursued its voyage the whole way down to Dinapoor; but it was a voyage full of vicissitudes to the fugitives. At many places they were obliged to lie flat in the boat to prevent recognition from the shore; at others they had to compel the native boatmen, on peril of sabring, to continue their tugging at the oars; on one occasion they narrowly escaped shooting by a herd of villagers who followed the boat. For three days they had nothing to eat but a little flour and water; but happening to meet with a friendly rajah at Gola, they obtained aid which enabled them to reach Dinapoor on the 17th.

The occupants of the remaining boat, the civilians, and the ladies and children who had not been able to effect a safe retreat to Nynee Tal, suffered terribly; many lives were lost; and those who escaped to Goruckpore or Dinapoor arrived in distressing plight—especially a party of women and children who had been robbed of everything while on the way, and who had been almost starved to death during a week’s imprisonment in a fort by the river-side. When it is stated that, among a group of women and children who reached a place of safety after infinite hardships, an infant was born on the road, the reader will easily comprehend how far the sufferings must have exceeded anything likely to appear in print. Many persons were shot, many drowned, while the fate of others remained doubtful for weeks or even months. Colonel Goldney and Major Mill were among the slain. The wanderings of Mrs Mill and her three children were perhaps among the most affecting incidents of this mutiny. Amid the dire haste of departure, she became separated from her husband, and was the last Englishwoman left in Fyzabad. How she escaped and how she fared, was more than she herself could clearly narrate; for the whole appeared afterwards as a dreadful dream, in which every kind of misery was confusedly mixed. During two or three weeks, she was wandering up and down the country, living in the jungle when man refused her shelter, and searching the fields for food when none was obtainable elsewhere. Her poor infant, eight months old, died for want of its proper nourishment; but the other two children, seven and three years old, survived all the privations to which they were exposed. On one occasion, seeing some troopers approaching, and being utterly hopeless, she passionately besought them, if their intentions were hostile, to kill her children without torturing them, and then to kill her. The appeal touched the hearts of the rude men; they took her to a village and gave her a little succour; and this facilitated their conveyance by a friendly native to Goruckpore, where danger was over.

Sultanpore was another station at which mutiny and murder occurred. On the 8th of June, a wing of the 15th irregular cavalry entered that place from Seetapoor, in a state of evident excitement. Lieutenant Tucker, who was a favourite with them, endeavoured to allay their mutinous spirit, and succeeded for a few hours; but on the following morning they rose in tumult, murdered Colonel Fisher, Captain Gubbings, and two other Europeans, and urged the lieutenant to escape, which he did. After much jungle-wanderings, and concealment in a friendly native’s house, he safely arrived at Benares, as did likewise four or five other officers, and all the European women and children at the station. In this as in other instances, the revolt of the troops was followed by marauding and incendiarism on the part of the rabble of Sultanpore; in this, too, as in other instances, the mutineers had a little affection for some one or more among their officers, whom they endeavoured to save.

The station of Pershadeepore experienced its day of trouble on the 10th of June. The 1st regiment Oude irregular infantry was there stationed, under Captain Thompson. He prided himself on the fidelity of his men; inasmuch as they seemed to turn a deaf ear to the rumours and suspicions circulating elsewhere; and he had detected the falsity of a mischief-maker, who had secretly caused ground bones to be mixed with the attah (coarse flour with which chupatties are made) sold in the bazaar, as the foundation for a report that the government intended to take away the caste of the people. This pleasant delusion lasted until the 9th; when a troop of the 3d Oude irregular cavalry arrived from Pertabghur, followed soon afterwards by news of the rising at Sultanpore. The fidelity of the infantry now gave way, under the temptations and representations made to them by other troops. When Captain Thompson rose on the morning of the 10th, he found his regiment all dressed, and in orderly mutiny (if such an expression may be used). He tried with an aching heart to separate the good men from the bad, and to induce the former to retire with him to Allahabad; but the temptation of the treasure was more than they could resist; they all joined in the spoliation, and then felt that allegiance was at an end. At four in the afternoon all the Europeans left the station, without a shot or an angry word from the men; they were escorted to the fort of Dharoopoor, belonging to a chieftain named Rajah Hunnewaut Singh, who treated them courteously, and after some days forwarded them safely to Allahabad. There was not throughout India a mutiny conducted with more quietness on both sides than this at Pershadeepore; the sepoys had evidently no angry feeling towards their officers. Captain Thompson remained of opinion that his men had been led away by rumours and insinuations brought by stragglers from other stations, to the effect that any Oude regiment which did not mutiny would be in peril from those that had; and that, even under this fear, they would have remained faithful had there been no treasure to tempt their cupidity. It is curious to note Colonel Neill’s comment on this incident, in his official dispatch; his reliance on the native troops was of the smallest possible amount; and in reference to the captain’s honest faith, he said: ‘This is absurd; they were as deeply in the plot as the rest of the army; the only credit due to them is that they did not murder their officers.’

Seetapoor, about fifty miles north of Lucknow, was the place towards which the insurgent troops from that city bent their steps at the close of May. Whether those regiments kept together, and how far they proceeded on the next few days, are points not clearly made out; but it is certain that the native troops stationed at Seetapoor—comprising the 41st Bengal infantry, the 9th and 10th Oude irregular infantry, and the 2d Oude military police, in all about three thousand men—rose in mutiny on the 3d of June. The 41st began the movement. A sepoy came to one of the officers in the morning, announced that the rising was about to take place, declared that neither he nor his companions wished to draw blood, and suggested that all the officers should retreat from the station. The regiment was in two wings, one in the town and one in the cantonment; the plundering of the treasury was begun by the first-named party; the other wing, obedient at first, broke forth when they suspected they might be deprived of a share in the plunder. After the 41st had thus set the example, the 9th revolted; then the military police; and then the 10th. Lieutenant Burnes, of the last-named regiment, entreated his men earnestly to remain faithful, but to no effect. Seeing that many officers had been struck down, the remainder hastily retired to the house of Mr Christian the commissioner; and when all were assembled, with the civilians, the ladies, and the children, it was at once resolved to quit the burning bungalows and ruthless soldiers and seek refuge at Lucknow. Some made their exit without any preparation; among whom was Lieutenant Burnes—roaming through jungles for days, and aiding women and children as best they could, suffering all those miseries which have so often been depicted. The great body of Europeans, however, left the station in buggies and other vehicles; and as the high roads were perilous, the fugitives drove over hills, hollows, and ploughed fields, where perhaps vehicles had never been driven before. Fortunately, twenty troopers remained faithful to them, and escorted them all the way to Lucknow, which place they reached on the night of the third day—reft of everything they possessed, like many other fugitives in those days. Many of the Europeans did not succeed in quitting Seetapoor in time; and among these the work of death was ruthlessly carried on—the sepoys being either unwilling or unable to check these scenes of barbarity.

As at Lucknow, Fyzabad, Sultanpore, Pershadeepore, Seetapoor; so at Secrora, Durriabad, Beraytch, Gouda, and other places in Oude—wherever there was a native regiment stationed, or a treasury of the Company established, there, in almost every instance, were exhibited scenes of violence attended by murder and plunder. The lamented Lawrence, in the five weeks preceding his death, was, as has been lately pointed out, placed in an extraordinary position. Responsible to the supreme government both for the political and the military management of Oude, and knowing that almost every station in the province was a focus of treachery and mutiny, he was notwithstanding powerless to restore tranquillity. So far from Cawnpore assisting him, he yearned to assist Cawnpore; Rohilcund was in a blaze, and could send him only mutineers who had thrown off all allegiance; Meerut, after sending troops to Delhi, was doing little but defending itself; Agra, with a mere handful of European troops, was too doubtful of its Gwalior neighbours to do anything for Lucknow and Oude; Allahabad and Benares were too recently rescued, by the gallant Neill, from imminent peril, to be in a position to send present assistance to Sir Henry; and the Nepaul sovereign, Jung Bahadoor, had not yet been made an ally of the English in such a way as might possibly have saved Oude, and as was advocated by many well-wishers of India.

The position of the sovereignty just named may usefully be adverted to here. Nepaul, about equal in area to England, is one of the few independent states of Northern India; it reaches to the Himalaya on the north; and is bounded on the other sides by the British territories of Behar, Oude, and Kumaon. The region is distinguished by the magnificent giant mountain-chain which separates it from Tibet; by the dense forest-jungle of the Terai on the Oude frontier; by the beautiful valley in which the capital, Khatmandoo, lies, and which is dotted with flourishing villages, luxuriant fields, and picturesque streams; and by its healthy and temperate climate. It is with the people, however, that this narrative is more particularly concerned. The Nepaulese, about two millions in number, comprise Goorkhas, Newars, Bhotias, Dhauwars, and Mhaujees. The Goorkhas are the dominant race; they are Hindoos in religion, but very unlike Hindoos in appearance, manners, and customs. The Newars are the aborigines of Nepaul, decidedly Mongolian both in faith and in features; they are the clever artisans of the kingdom, while the Goorkhas are the hardy soldiers. The other three tribes are chiefly cultivators of the soil. In the latter half of the last century, Nepaul was for a short time a dependency of the Chinese Empire; but a treaty of commerce with the British in 1782 initiated a state of affairs which soon enabled Nepaul to throw off Chinese supremacy. Conventions, subsidies, border encroachments, and family intrigues, checkered Nepaulese affairs until 1812; when the Company made formal war on the ground of a long catalogue of injuries and insults—such a catalogue as can easily be concocted by a stronger state against a weaker. The war was so badly conducted, that nothing but the military tact of Sir David Ochterlony, who held one-fourth of a command which seems to have had no head or general commander, saved the British from ignominious defeat. Broken engagements led to another war in 1816, which terminated in a treaty never since ruptured; the Nepaulese court has been a focus of intrigue, but the intrigues have not been of such a character as to disturb the relations of amity with the British. Jung Bahadoor—a name well known in England a few years ago, as that of a Nepaulese ambassador who made a sensation by his jewelled splendor—was the nephew of a man who became by successive steps prime minister to the king. Instigated by the queen, and by his own unscrupulous ambition, Jung Bahadoor caused his uncle to be put to death, and became commander-in-chief under a new ministry. Many scenes of truly oriental slaughter followed—that is, slaughter to clear the pathway to power. Jung Bahadoor treated kings and queens somewhat as the Company was accustomed to do in the last century; setting up a son against a father, and treating all alike as puppets. At a period subsequent to his return from England, he caused a marriage to be concluded between his daughter, six years old, and the heir-apparent to the Nepaulese throne, then in his ninth year. Whether king or not, he was virtually chief of Nepaul at the time when the Revolt broke out; and had managed, by astuteness in his diplomacy, to remain on friendly terms with the authorities at Calcutta: indeed he took every opportunity, after his English visit, to display his leaning towards his neighbours. Like Nena Sahib, he had English pianos and English carpets in his house, and prided himself in understanding English manners and the English language; and it is unquestionable that both those men were favourites among such of the English as visited the one at Bithoor or the other at Khatmandoo.

It has been mentioned in a former chapter (p. [115]) that Goorkha troops assisted to defend Nynee Tal when that place became filled with refugees; and Goorkha regiments have been adverted to in many other parts of the narrative. Jung Bahadoor permitted the Nepaulese of this tribe to enlist thus in the Company’s service; and he also offered the aid of a contingent, the non-employment of which brought many strictures upon the policy of the Calcutta government. At a later date, as we shall see, this contingent was accepted; and it rendered us good service at Juanpore and Azimghur by protecting Benares from the advance of Oude mutineers. About the middle of June, fifteen Europeans (seven gentlemen, three ladies, and five children) escaped from the Oude mutineers into the jungle region of Nepaul, and sought refuge in a post-station or serai about ten days’ journey from Goruckpore and eighteen from Khatmandoo. The officer at that place wrote to Jung Bahadoor for instruction in the matter; to which he received a speedy reply—‘Treat them with every kindness, give them elephants, &c., and escort them to Goruckpore.’ Major Ramsey, the Company’s representative at Khatmandoo, sent them numerous supplies in tin cases; and all the English were naturally disposed to bless the Nepaulese chieftain as a friend in the hour of greatest need, without inquiring very closely by what means he had gained his power.

The course of the narrative now takes us from Oude northwestward into the province of Rohilcund; the districts of which, named after the towns of Bareilly, Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Boodayoun, and Bijnour, felt the full force of the mutinous proceedings among the native troops. The Rohillas were originally Mussulman Afghans, who conquered this part of India, gradually settled down among the Hindoo natives, and imparted to them a daring reckless character, which rendered Rohilcund a nursery for irregular cavalry—and afterwards for mutineers.

Brigadier Sibbald was commandant of Bareilly, one of the towns of Rohilcund in which troops were stationed. These troops were entirely native, comprising the 18th and 68th Bengal native infantry, the 8th irregular cavalry, and a battery of native artillery—not an English soldier among them except the officers. The brigadier, although these troops appeared towards the close of the month of May to be in an agitated state, nevertheless heard that all was well at Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Almora, and other stations in Rohilcund, and looked forward with some confidence to the continuance of tranquility—aided by his second in command, Colonel Troup, and the commissioner, Mr Alexander. As a precaution, however, the ladies and children were sent for safety to Nynee Tal; and the gentlemen kept their horses saddled, ready for any emergency. Bareilly being a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, the temper of the natives was very anxiously watched. Scarcely had the month closed, before the hopes of Brigadier Sibbald received a dismal check, and his life a violent end. We have already briefly mentioned (p. [114]) that on Sunday the 31st, Bareilly became a scene of violence and rapine; the brigadier himself being shot by a trooper, the treasure seized, the bungalows plundered and burned, and the Europeans either murdered or impelled to escape for their lives. When Colonel Troup, who commanded the 68th native infantry, and who became chief military authority after the death of Sibbald, found himself safe at Nynee Tal, he wrote an official account of the whole proceeding, corroborating the chief facts noted by the brigadier, and adding others known more especially to himself. From this dispatch it appears that the colonel commanded at Bareilly from the 6th to the 19th of May, while the brigadier was making a tour of inspection through his district; that from the 19th to the 29th, Sibbald himself resumed the command; and that during those twenty-three days nothing occurred to shew disaffection among the troops, further than a certain troubled and agitated state. On that day, however, the Europeans received information, from two native officers, that the men of the 18th and 68th native regiments had, while bathing in the river, concerted a plan of mutiny for that same afternoon. Most of the officers were quickly on the alert; and, whether or not through this evidence of preparedness, no émeute took place on that day. On the 30th, Colonel Troup, who had relied on the fidelity of the 8th irregular cavalry, received information that those sowars had sworn not to act against the native infantry and artillery if the latter should rise, although they would refrain from molesting their own officers. After a day and night of violent excitement throughout the whole station, the morning of Sunday the 31st (again Sunday!) ushered in a day of bloodshed and rapine. Messages were despatched to all the officers, warning them of some intended outbreak; but the bearers, sent by Troup, failed in their duty, insomuch that many of the officers remained ignorant of the danger until too late to avert it. Major Pearson, of the 18th, believed his men to be stanch; Captain Kirby, of the artillery (6th company, 6th battalion), in like manner trusted his corps; and Captain Brownlow, the brigade major, disbelieved the approach of mutiny—at the very time that Colonel Troup was impressing on all his conviction that the sinister rumours were well founded. At eleven o’clock, the truth appeared in fatal colours; the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the yells of men, told plainly that the revolt had begun, and that the artillery had joined in it. The 8th irregular cavalry, under Captain Mackenzie, were ordered or invited by him to proceed against the lines of the insurgent infantry and artillery; but the result was so disastrous, that all the Europeans, military as well as civilians, found their only safety would be in flight. Ruktawar Khan, subadar of artillery, assumed the rank of general, and paraded about in the carriage of the brigadier, attended by a numerous string of followers as a ‘staff.’ Colonel Troup, writing on the 10th of June, had to report the deaths of Brigadier Sibbald and three or four other officers, together with that of many of the civil servants. About twenty-five military officers escaped; but the list of ‘missing’ was large, and many of those included in it were afterwards known to have been brutally murdered. Captain Mackenzie, who clung to his troopers in the earnest hope that they would remain faithful, found only nineteen men who did so, and who escorted their officers all the way to Nynee Tal.

A despicable hoary traitor, Khan Bahadoor Khan, appears to have headed this movement. He had for many years been in receipt of a double pension from the Indian government—as the living representative of one of the early Rohilla chieftains, and as a retired judge of one of the native courts. He was an old, venerable-looking, insinuating man; he was thoroughly relied on by the civil authorities at Bareilly; he had loudly proclaimed his indignation against the Delhi mutineers; and yet he became ringleader of those at Bareilly—deepening his damning atrocities by the massacre of such of the unfortunate Europeans as did not succeed in making their escape. It was by his orders, as self-elected chief of Rohilcund, that a rigorous search was made for all Europeans who remained in Bareilly; and that Judge Robertson, and four or five other European gentlemen, were hung in the Kotwal square, after a mock-trial. During the month of June, Bareilly remained entirely in the hands of the rebels; not an Englishman, probably, was alive in the place; and the Mussulmans and Hindoos were left to contend for supremacy over the spoil.

Of Boodayoun it will be unnecessary to say more here; Mr Edwards’s narrative of an eventful escape (pp. [115], [116]), pointed to the 1st of June as the day when the Europeans deemed it necessary to flee from that station—not because there were any native troops at Boodayoun, but because the mutineers from Bareilly were approaching, and joyfully expected by all the scoundrels in the place, who looked forward to a harvest of plunder as a natural result.

Mooradabad, which began its season of anarchy and violence on the 3d of June, stands on the right bank of the Ramgunga, an affluent of the Ganges, at a point about midway between Meerut and Bareilly. It is a town of nearly 60,000 inhabitants—having a civil station, with its cutcherry and bungalows; a cantonment west of the town; a spacious serai for the accommodation of travellers; and an enormous jail sufficiently large to contain nearly two thousand prisoners. In this, as in many other towns of India, the Company’s troops were wont to be regarded rather as guardians of the jail and its inmates, than for any active military duties. So early as the 19th of May, nine days after the mutineers of Meerut had set the example, the 29th regiment native infantry proceeded to the jail at Mooradabad, and released all the prisoners. Although Mr Saunders, collector and magistrate, wrote full accounts to Agra of the proceedings of that and the following days, the dâks were so completely stopped on the road that Mr Colvin remained almost in ignorance of the state of affairs; and on that account Saunders could obtain no assistance from any quarter. The released prisoners, joined by predatory bands of Goojurs, Meewatties, and Jâts, commenced a system of plunder and rapine, which the European authorities were ill able to check. The 29th, however, had not openly mutinied; and it still remained possible to hold control within the town and the surrounding district; several native sappers and miners were stopped and captured on their way from Meerut, and several of the mutinous 20th regiment on the way from Mozuffernugger. When, however, news of the Bareilly outbreak on the 31st reached Mooradabad, the effect on the men of the 29th regiment, and of a native artillery detachment, became very evident. On the 3d of June, the sepoys in guard of the treasury displayed so evident an intention of appropriating the money, that Mr Saunders felt compelled to leave it (about seventy thousand rupees) together with much plate and opium in their hands—being powerless to prevent the spoliation. The troops manifested much irritation at the smallness of the treasure, and were only prevented from wreaking their vengeance on the officials by an oath they had previously taken. To remain longer in the town was deemed a useless risk, as bad passions were rising on every side. The civil officers of the Company, with their wives and families, succeeded in making a safe retreat to Meerut; while Captain Whish, Captain Faddy, and other officers of the 29th, with the few remaining Europeans, laid their plans for a journey to Nynee Tal. All shared an opinion that if the Bareilly regiments had not mutinied, the 29th would have remained faithful—a poor solace, such as had been sought for by many other officials similarly placed. Mr Colvin afterwards accepted Mr Saunders’s motives and conduct in leaving the station, as justifiable under the trying circumstances.

Rohilcund contained three military stations, Bareilly, Mooradabad, and Shahjehanpoor—Boodayoun and the other places named being merely civil stations. As at Bareilly and Mooradabad, so at Shahjehanpoor; the native troops at the station rose in mutiny. On Sunday the 31st of May—a day marked by so many atrocities in India—the 28th native infantry rose, surrounded the Christian residents as they were engaged in divine worship in church, and murdered nearly the whole of them, including the Rev. Mr M’Callum in the sacred edifice itself. The few who escaped were exposed to an accumulation of miseries; first they sought shelter at Mohammerah in Oude; then they met the 41st regiment, after the mutiny at Seetapoor, who shot and cut them down without mercy; and scarcely any lived to tell the dismal tale to English ears.

Thus then it appears that, in Rohilcund, the 18th, 68th, 28th, and 29th regiments native infantry, together with the 8th irregular cavalry and a battery of native artillery, rose in revolt at the three military stations, and murdered or drove out nearly the whole of the Europeans from the entire province—European troops there were none; only officers and civilians. They plundered all the treasuries, containing more than a quarter of a million sterling, and marched off towards Delhi, five thousand strong—unmolested by the general who commanded at Meerut.

Nynee Tal became more crowded than ever with refugees from Oude and Rohilcund. Under the energetic command of Captain Ramsey, this hill-station remained in quiet during the month of May (p. [115]); but it was not so easily defended in June. Some of the native artillery at Almora, not far distant, gave rise to uneasiness towards the close of the month; yet as the ill-doers were promptly put into prison, and as the Goorkhas remained stanch, confidence was partially restored. The sepoys from the rebel regiments dreaded a march in this direction, on account of the deadly character of the Terai, a strip of swampy forest, thirty miles broad, which interposes between the plains and the hills; but that jungle-land itself contained many marauders, who were only prevented by fear of the Goorkhas from going up to Nynee Tal. At the end of June, there were five times as many women and children as men among the Europeans at that place; hence the anxious eye with which the proceedings in surrounding districts were regarded.

The third region to which this chapter is appropriated—the Doab—now calls for attention. Like Oude and Rohilcund, it was the scene of terrible anarchy and bloodshed in the month of June. In its two parts—the Lower Doab, from Allahabad to a little above Furruckabad; and the Upper Doab, from the last-named city up to the hill-country—it was nearly surrounded by mutineers, who apparently acted in concert with those in the Doab itself.

Of Allahabad and Cawnpore, the two chief places in the Lower Doab, sufficient has been said in Chapters VIII. and IX. to trace the course of events during the month of June. About midway between the two is Futtehpoor, a small civil station in the centre of a group of Mohammedan villages; it contained, at the beginning of June, about a dozen civil servants of the Company, and a small detachment of the 6th native regiment from Allahabad. The residents, as a precautionary measure, had sent their wives and children to that stronghold, and had also arranged a plan for assembling at the house of the magistrate, if danger should appear. On the 5th of the month, disastrous news arriving from Lucknow and Cawnpore, the residents took up their abode for the night on the flat roof of the magistrate’s house, with their weapons by their sides; and on the following day they hauled up a supply of tents, provisions, water, and ammunition—a singular citadel being thus extemporised in the absence of better. On the 7th, their small detachment aided in repelling a body of troopers who had just arrived from Cawnpore on a plundering expedition; and the residents congratulated themselves on the fidelity of this small band. Their reliance was, however, of short duration; for, on the receipt of news of the Allahabad outbreak, the native officials in the collector’s office gave way, like the natives all around them, and Futtehpoor soon became a perilous spot for Europeans. On the 9th, the residents held a council on their roof, and resolved to quit the station. A few troopers befriended them; and they succeeded, after many perils and sufferings, in reaching Banda, a town southward of the Jumna. Not all of them, however. Mr Robert Tucker, the judge, resisting entreaty, determined to remain at his post to the last. He rode all over the town, promising rewards to those natives who would be faithful; he endeavoured to shame others by his heroic bearing; he appealed to the gratitude and good feeling of many of the poorer natives, who had been benefited by him in more peaceful times. But all in vain. The jail was broken open, the prisoners liberated, and the treasury plundered; and Mr Tucker, flying to the roof of the cutcherry, there bravely defended himself until a storm of bullets laid him low. Robert Tucker was one of those civilians of whom the Company had reason to be proud.

Advancing to the northwest, we come to a string of towns and stations—Etawah, Minpooree, Allygurh, Futteghur, Muttra, Bolundshuhur, Mozuffernugger, &c.—which shared with Oude and Rohilcund the wild disorders of the month of June. The mutiny at Futteghur has already engaged our notice (p. [133]), in connection with the miserable fugitives who swelled the numbers put to death by Nena Sahib at Bithoor and Cawnpore. It needs little further mention here. The 10th native infantry, and a small body of artillery, long resisted the temptation held out by mutineers elsewhere; but, on the appearance of the insurgent regiments from Seetapoor, their fidelity gave way. Four companies went off with the treasure; the remainder joined the other mutinous regiments in besieging the fort to which so many Europeans had fled for refuge, and from which so disastrous a boat-voyage was made down the Ganges. Mr Colvin, at Agra, knew of the perilous state of things at Futteghur; he knew that a native nawab had been chosen by the mutineers as a sort of sovereign; but, as we shall presently see, he was too weak in reliable troops to afford any assistance whatever. Thus it happened that the two boat-expeditions, of June and July, ended so deplorably to the Europeans, and left Futteghur so wholly in the hands of the rebels. It was a great loss to the British in many ways; for most of the Company’s gun-carriages were made, or at least stored, at Futteghur; and the agency-yard was surrounded by warehouses containing a large supply of material belonging to the artillery service. Indeed it was this court-yard of the gun-carriage agency that constituted the fort, as soon as a few defensive arrangements had been made. Many circumstances had drawn rather a large English population to Futteghur; and hence the terrible severity of the tragedy. There were officers of the 10th regiment; other military officers on leave; gun-carriage agents; civil servants; merchants and dealers; a few tent-makers and other artisans; indigo-planters from the neighbouring estates; and many native Christians under the care of the American Presbyterian mission.

We have already seen (pp. [112], [113]) by how small a number of native troops several stations were set in commotion in May. The 9th regiment Bengal native infantry was separated into four portions, which were stationed at Allygurh, Bolundshuhur, Etawah, and Minpooree, respectively; and all mutinied nearly at the same time. The fortune of war, if war it can be called, at these stations during the month of June, may be traced in a very few words. It was on the 20th of May that the four companies at Allygurh mutinied; and on the 24th that one-half of Lieutenant Cockburn’s Gwalior troopers, instead of assisting him to retain or regain the station, rose in mutiny and galloped off to join the insurgents elsewhere. There were, however, about a hundred who remained faithful to him; and these, with fifty volunteers, made an advance to Allygurh, retook it, drove out the detachment of the 9th native regiment, released a few Europeans who had been in hiding there, captured one Rao Bhopal Singh, and hanged him as a petty chieftain who had continued the rapine begun by the sepoys. Throughout the month of June this station was maintained in British hands—not so much for its value in a military sense, as for its utility in keeping open the roads to Agra and Meerut; but, in the direction of Delhi, the volunteers could obtain very little news, the dâks being all cut off by the Goojurs and other predatory bands. At Minpooree the three companies of the 9th checked, it will be remembered, by the undaunted courage and tact of Lieutenant de Kantzow, departed to join the insurgents elsewhere; but Minpooree remained in British hands. The remaining companies mutinied at Etawah and Bolundshuhur without much violence.

Simla, the summer residence of the Governor-general of India.

Agra, when the narrative last left it (p. [111]), had passed through the month of May without any serious disturbances. The troops consisted of the 44th and 67th regiments Bengal native infantry, the 3d Europeans, and a few artillery. After two companies of these native troops had mutinied while engaged in bringing treasure from Muttra to Agra, Mr Colvin deemed it necessary to disarm all the other companies; and this was quietly and successfully effected on the 1st of June, by the 3d Europeans and Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery. Many facts afterward came to light, tending to shew that if this disarming had not taken place, the 44th and 67th would have stained their hands with the same bloody deeds as the sepoys were doing elsewhere. The native lines had been more than once set on fire during the later days of May—in the hope, as afterwards appears, that the handful of Europeans, by rushing out unarmed to extinguish the flames, would afford the native troops a favourable opportunity to master the defences of the city, and the six guns of the field-battery. A curious proof was supplied of the little knowledge possessed by the Europeans of the native character, and the secret springs that worked unseen as moving powers for their actions. There had long seemed to be an angry feeling between the 44th and the 67th; and Mr Colvin, or the brigadier acting with him, selected one company from each regiment for the mission to Muttra, in the belief that each would act as a jealous check upon the other; instead of which, the two companies joined in revolt, murdered many of their officers, and carried off their treasure towards Delhi. After the very necessary disarming of the two regiments, the defence of this important city was left to the 3d European Fusiliers, Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery of six guns, and a corps of volunteer European cavalry under Lieutenant Greathed. Most of the disarmed men deserted, and swelled the ranks of the desperadoes that wrought so much ruin in the surrounding districts—a result that led many military officers to doubt whether disarming without imprisonment was a judicious course under such circumstances; for the men naturally felt exasperated at their humbled position, whether deserved or not; and their loyalty, as soldiers out of work, was not likely to be in any way increased. Whether or not this opinion be correct, the Europeans in Agra felt their only reliance to be in each other. During the early days of June, most of the ladies resorted at night to certain places of refuge allotted by the governor, such as the fort, the post-office, the office of the Mofussilite newspaper, and behind the artillery lines; while the gentlemen patrolled the streets, or maintained a defensive attitude at appointed places. Trade was continued, British supremacy was asserted, bloodshed was kept away from the city, and the Europeans maintained a steady if not cheerful demeanour. Nevertheless Mr Colvin was full of anxieties; he was responsible to the Calcutta government, not only for Agra, but for the whole of the Northwest Provinces; yet he found himself equally unable to send aid to other stations, and receive aid from them. Agra was troubled on the night of the 23d of June by the desertion of the jail-guard, to whom had been intrusted the custody of the large central prison. A guard from the 3d Europeans was thereupon placed on the outside; while the inside was guarded by another force under Dr Walker the superintendent. So far as concerned military disturbances within the city, Mr Colvin was not at that time under much apprehension; but he knew that certain regiments from Neemuch—the mutiny of which will be described in the next chapter—had approached by the end of the month to a point on the high road between Agra and Jeypoor, very near the first-named city; and he heard that they contemplated an attack. He estimated their strength at two regiments of infantry, four or five hundred cavalry, and eight guns; but as the whole of the civil and military authorities at Agra were on the alert, he did not regard this approaching force with much alarm. To strengthen his position, and maintain public confidence, he organised a European militia of horse and foot, among the clerks, railway men, &c., to which it was expected and desired that nearly all civilians should belong. This militia, placed under the management of Captains Prendergast and Lamb, Lieutenants Rawlins and Oldfield, and Ensign Noble, who had belonged to the disarmed native regiments, was divided into two corps, to which the defence of the different parts of the station was intrusted. How the Europeans, both military and civilians, became cooped up in the fort during July, we shall see in a future chapter.

Meerut, during June, remained in the hands of the British; but there was much inactivity on the part of the general commanding there, in relation to the districts around that town. On the 10th of May, when the mutiny began (p. [50]), there were a thousand men of the 60th Rifles, six hundred of the Carabiniers, a troop of horse-artillery, and five hundred artillery recruits—constituting a force unusually large, in relation to the general distribution of English troops in India. Yet these fine soldiers were not so handled as to draw from them the greatest amount of service. They were not sent after the three mutinous regiments who escaped to Delhi; and during the urgent and critical need of Lawrence, Colvin, and Wheeler, Major-general Hewett kept his Europeans almost constantly in or near Meerut. It is true that he, and others who have defended him, asserted that the maintenance of the position at Meerut, a very important consideration, could not have been insured if he had marched out to intercept rebels going from various quarters towards Delhi; but this argument was not deemed satisfactory at Calcutta; Major-general Hewett was superseded, and another commander appointed in his place. It was not until June that dâks were re-established between Meerut and Agra on the one hand, and Meerut and Kurnaul on the other. Some of the Europeans were sent off to join the besieging army before Delhi; while a portion of the remainder were occasionally occupied in putting down bands of Goojurs and other predatory robbers around Meerut. The town of Sirdhana, where the Catholic nuns and children had been placed in such peril (p. [57]), was too near Meerut to be held by the rebels. Early in June, one Wallee Dad Khan set himself up as subadar or captain-general of Meerut, under the King of Delhi; raised a rabble force of Goojurs; held the fort of Malagurh with six guns; and seized the district of Bolundshuhur. News arriving that he was advancing with his force towards Meerut, about a hundred European troops, Rifles and Carabiniers, with a few civilians and two guns, started off to intercept him. They had little work to do, however, except to burn villages held by the insurgents; for the robber Goojurs having quarrelled with the robber Jâts about plunder, the latter compelled Wallee Dud Khan and his general, Ismail Khan, to effect a retreat before the English came up. In the last week of the month the force at Meerut, chiefly in consequence of the number sent off to Delhi, was reduced to about eight hundred; these were kept so well on the alert, and the whole town and cantonment so well guarded, that the Europeans felt little alarm; although vexed that they could afford no further assistance to the besiegers of Delhi, nor even chastise a portion of the 4th irregular cavalry, who mutinied at Mozuffernugger. All the English, civilians and their families as well as military officers, lived at Meerut either in barracks or tents—none venturing to sleep beyond the immediate spot where the military were placed.

Simla, during these varied operations, continued to be a place where, as at Nynee Tal, ladies and children, as well as some of the officers and civilians, took refuge after being despoiled by mutineers. A militia was formed after the hasty departure of General Anson; Simla was divided into four districts under separate officers; and the gentlemen aided by a few English troops, defended those districts, throughout June. The people at the bazaar, and all the native servants of the place, were disarmed, and the arms taken for safe custody to Kussowlie.

Delhi—a place repeatedly mentioned in every chapter of this narrative—continued to be the centre towards which the attention of all India was anxiously directed. Fast as the native regiments mutinied in Bengal, Oude, Rohilcund, the Doab, Bundelcund, and elsewhere, so did they either flee to Delhi, or shape their course in dependence on the military operations going on there; and fast as the British troops could be despatched to that spot, so did they take rank among the besiegers. But in truth this latter augmentation came almost wholly from the Punjaub and other western districts. Lloyd, Neill, Wheeler, Lawrence, Hewett, Sibbald, were so closely engaged in attending to the districts around Dinapoor, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Meerut, and Bareilly, that they could not send aid to the besiegers of Delhi, during several weeks of siege operations. These operations will be noticed in systematic order, when the other threads of the narrative have been traced to the proper points. Meanwhile the reader will bear in mind that the siege of Delhi was in progress from the middle of June to an advanced period in the summer.

Tomb at Futtehpore Sikri.

[23]. Artillery: 4 guns, horse light field-battery; 6 guns, Oude field-battery; and 1 8-inch howitzer. Cavalry: 120 troopers of 1st, 2d, and 3d Oude irregular cavalry; and 40 volunteer cavalry, under Captain Radcliffe. Infantry: 300 of H.M. 32d foot; 150 of 13th native infantry; 60 of the 48th native infantry; and 20 of the 71st.

[24]. ‘Every boy has read, and many living men still remember, how the death of Nelson was felt by all as a deep personal affliction. Sir Henry Lawrence was less widely known, and his deeds were in truth of less magnitude than those of the great sea-captain; but never probably was a public man within the sphere of his reputation more ardently beloved. Sir Henry Lawrence had that rare and happy faculty (which a man in almost every other respect unlike him, Sir Charles Napier, is said also to have possessed) of attaching to himself every one with whom he came in contact. He had that gift which is never acquired, a gracious, winning, noble manner; rough and ready as he was in the field, his manner in private life had an indescribable charm of frankness, grace, and even courtly dignity. He had that virtue which Englishmen instinctively and characteristically love—a lion-like courage. He had that fault which Englishmen so readily forgive, and when mixed with what are felt to be its naturally concomitant good qualities, they almost admire—a hot and impetuous temper; he had in overflowing measure that Godlike grace which even the base revere and the good acknowledge as the crown of virtue—the grace of charity. No young officer ever sat at Sir Henry’s table without learning to think more kindly of the natives; no one, young or old, man or woman, ever heard Sir Henry speak of the European soldier, or ever visited the Lawrence Asylum, without being excited to a nobler and truer appreciation of the real extent of his duty towards his neighbour. He was one of the few distinguished Anglo-Indians who had attained to something like an English reputation in his lifetime. In a few years, his name will be familiar to every reader of Indian history; but for the present it is in India that his memory will be most deeply cherished; it is by Anglo-Indians that any eulogy on him will be best appreciated, it is by them that the institutions which he founded and maintained will be fostered as a monument to his memory.’—Fraser’s Magazine, No. 336.

[25]. The troops stationed at that time at Fyzabad comprised the 22d regiment native infantry; the 6th regiment irregular Oude infantry; the 5th troop of the 15th regiment irregular cavalry; No. 5 company of the 7th battalion of artillery; and No. 13 horse-battery. The chief officers were Colonels Lennox and O’Brien; Major Mill; Captain Morgan; Lieutenants Fowle, English, Bright, Lindesay, Thomas, Ouseley, Cautley, Gordon, Parsons, Percival, and Currie; and Ensigns Anderson and Ritchie. Colonel Goldney held a civil appointment as commissioner.

CHAPTER XI.
CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA: JUNE.

In the political and territorial arrangements of the East India Company, the name of Central India is somewhat vaguely employed to designate a portion of the region lying between the Jumna and Bundelcund on the northeast, and the Nizam’s territory and Gujerat on the southwest; a designation convenient for general reading, without possessing any very precise acceptation. In the present chapter, we shall change the expression and enlarge the meaning so as to designate a belt of country that really forms Central India in a geographical sense, extending from Lower Bengal to Rajpootana, and separating Northern India from the southern or peninsular portion of the empire. This will carry the narrative into regions very little mentioned in former chapters—such as Nagpoor, the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, Bundelcund and Rewah, the Mahratta states and the Rajpoot states—regions that will be briefly described, so far as to render the proceedings of the native troops intelligible.

We begin with Nagpoor, a country now belonging to the British government, and considerably larger than England and Wales.

This province was acquired, not so much by conquest, as by one of those intricate arrangements concerning dynasty which have brought so many native states under British rule. It is in general an elevated country, containing many offshoots from the Vindhya range of mountains. Some parts of it, towards the southeast, have never been explored by Europeans, but are believed to be hilly, wooded, and full of jungles, inhabited by the semi-barbarous tribe of Ghonds. The remainder is better known and better cultivated; and being on the high road from Calcutta to Bombay, possesses much political importance. The population exceeds four millions and a half. Early in the last century, one of the Mahratta chieftains conquered Nagpoor from the rajahs who had before governed it; and he and his descendants, or other ambitious members of the Mahratta family, continued to hold it as Rajahs of Nagpoor or Berar. Although constantly fighting one with another, these Mahrattas were on fair terms with the East India Company until 1803, when, unluckily for the continuance of his rule, the native rajah joined Scindia in the war against the British. As a consequence, when peace was restored in 1804, he was forced to yield Cuttack and other provinces to the conquerors. In 1817, another Rajah of Nagpoor joined the Peishwa of the Mahrattas in hostilities against the British—a course which led to his expulsion from the raj, and to a further increase of British influence. Then followed a period during which one rajah was imbecile, another under age, and many unscrupulous chieftains sought to gain an ascendency one over another. This was precisely the state of things which rendered the British resident more and more powerful, setting up and putting down rajahs, and allowing the competitors to weaken the whole native rule by weakening each other. The history of British India may be almost told in such words as these. At length, in 1853, the last rajah, Ragojee, died—not only without heirs, but without any male relations who could support a legitimate claim to the raj. Thereupon, the governor-general quietly annexed this large country to the Company’s dominions. It will be remembered (p. [4]) that the Marquis of Dalhousie, in his minute, despatched this subject in a very few lines; not asserting that the British had actually any right to the country; but ‘wisely incorporated it,’ as no one else could put in a legitimate claim for it, and as it would have been imprudent ‘to bestow the territory in free gift upon a stranger.’ The Nagpoor territory was placed under the management of a commissioner, who was immediately subordinate to the governor-general in council; seeing that the Bengal Presidency was already too large to have this considerable country attached to it for governmental purposes.

At and soon after the time of the outbreak, there were the 1st regiment irregular infantry, the Kamptee irregulars, an irregular horse-battery, and a body of European gunners, stationed in the city of Nagpoor, or in Kamptee, eleven miles distant; the 2d infantry and a detachment of the 1st were at Chandah; a detachment of the 1st at Bhandara; the chief portion of the 3d at Rajpoor; and the remainder of the same regiment at Bilaspoor. The arsenal, containing guns, arms, ammunition, and military stores of every description; and the treasury of the province, with a large amount of Company’s funds—were close to the city. Mr Plowden filled the office of commissioner at that period. With a mere handful of Europeans in the midst of a very extensive territory, he often trembled in thought for the safety of his position, and of British interests generally, in the region placed under his keeping. He had numerous native troops with him, and a large city under his control; if anything sinister should arise, he was far away from any extraneous aid—being nearly six hundred miles distant from Madras, and still further from Calcutta. But, whatever were his anxieties (and they were many), he put on a calm bearing towards the natives of Nagpoor. This city, the capital of the territory bearing the same name, is a dirty, irregular, straggling place, nearly seven miles in circumference. Most of the houses are mud-built; and even the palace of the late rajah is little more than a clumsy pile of unfinished masonry. The city has become rather famous for its banking business, and for its manufactures of cottons, chintzes, turbans, silks, brocades, woollens, blankets, tent-cloths, and other textile goods. The population exceeds a hundred thousand. There is nothing of a military appearance about the city; but whoever commands the Seetabuldee, commands Nagpoor itself. This Seetabuldee is a hilly ridge close to the city on the west, having two summits, the northern the higher, the southern the larger, but every part overlooking the city, and fortified. Such being the topographical position of his seat of government, Mr Plowden proceeded to disarm such of his troops as excited disquietude in his mind, and to strengthen the Seetabuldee. A corps of irregular cavalry shewed symptoms of disloyalty; and indeed rumours were afloat that on a particular day the ascent of a balloon was to be a signal for the revolt of the troops. Under these circumstances, Mr Plowden arranged with Colonel Cumberlege, the commandant, to disarm them on the morning of the 23d of June—the colonel having the 4th regiment of Madras cavalry, on whom he fully relied, to enforce the order for disbanding. The irregulars were paraded, mounted and fully armed, to shew that the authorities were not afraid of them. Mr Plowden having addressed them, they quietly gave up their arms and their saddles, which were taken in carts to the arsenal; and thus six hundred and fifty troopers were left with nothing but their bare horses, and ropes to picket them. Some of the men and of the native officers were arrested, and put on their trial for an attempt to excite mutiny. The roll was called over every four hours, and every native soldier absent, or found outside the lines without a pass, was treated as a deserter. The 1st regiment irregular infantry assisted in the disarming of the troopers. Following up the measures thus promptly taken, the commissioner strengthened the defences on the Seetabuldee hill, as a last refuge for the Europeans at Nagpoor in the event of any actual mutiny at that place. The Residency became a barrack at night for all the civil and military officers; and a watchful eye was kept on the natives generally. At present, all was safe in Nagpoor.

Another province, and another commissioner in charge of it, now come for notice. This province, bearing the rather lengthened name of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, is about half the size of England, and is bounded by the various provinces or regions of Nagpoor, Mirzapore, Allahabad, Banda, Bundelcund, Gwalior, Bhopal, and the Nizam’s state of Hyderabad. It corresponds more nearly with the exact centre of India than any other portion of territory. One half of its name is derived from the town of Saugor, the other half from the river Nerbudda. To describe the scraps and patches of which it consists, and the means by which they were acquired, would be neither easy nor necessary. Within its limits is the small independent state of Rewah, the rajah of which was bound to the British government by a treaty of alliance. Four other petty states—Kotee, Myhir, Oocheyra, and Sohawul—were in the hands of native chieftains, mere feudatories of the Company, under whose grants they held their possessions; allowed to govern their small sovereignties, but subject at any moment to the supervision and interference of the paramount power. The larger portion, now entirely British, is marked by the towns and districts of Saugor, Jubbulpoor, Hosungabad, Seuni, Nursingpore, Baitool, Sohagpoor, and others of less importance. There are still many aboriginal Ghonds in the province, as in Nagpoor, lurking in the gloomiest recesses of dense forests, and subsisting for the most part on wild roots and fruits. There are other half-savage tribes of Koles, Palis, and Panwars; while the more civilised population comprises a singular mixture of Brahmins, Bundelas, Rajpoots, Mahrattas, and Patans. The Mahrattas at one time claimed this region, on the same plea as those east and west of it—the right of conquest; and the British obtained it from the Mahrattas, about forty years ago, by cession after a course of hostilities.

Major Erskine was commissioner of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories during the early weeks of the mutiny; responsible, not immediately to the governor-general at Calcutta, but to the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces at Agra. Like Mr Plowden at Nagpoor, he felt how imperiled he and his fellow-Europeans would be if the native troops were to rebel. At Jhansi and at Nuseerabad, as we shall presently see, revolt and massacre marked the first week in June; and Major Erskine sought earnestly for means to prevent his own Saugor troops from being tempted to a similar course. He was with the 52d native infantry at Jubbulpoor. He wrote on the 9th of June to Brigadier Prior at Kamptee, praying him—while keeping that station and Seuni intact—to prevent, if possible, all news of the mutineers from passing to Jubbulpoor by that route; he feared lest his 52d should yield to the influence of pernicious example. Seuni was a small civil station, nearly midway between Jubbulpoor and Nagpoor, and about eighty miles distant from each; while Kamptee was a cantonment of Madras regulars, eleven miles north of Nagpoor. The four places named, in fact, stand nearly in a line north and south, and interpose between the Mahratta states and Lower Bengal. Mr Plowden at Nagpoor, Major Erskine at Jubbulpoor, and Brigadier Prior at Kamptee, thereupon concerted measures for preserving, so far as they could, that region of India from disturbance; they all three agreed that ‘tranquillity will be most effectually secured by crushing disaffection before it approaches too near to agitate men’s minds dangerously.’ One consequence of this arrangement was, that a force was sent on the 13th to Seuni, under Major Baker; consisting of the 32d native infantry, a squadron of the 4th light cavalry, a squadron of irregular cavalry, and three field-guns.

The Europeans at Jubbulpoor were not allowed to pass through the month of June without many doubts and anxieties. The native troops, though not actually in mutiny, were seized with a mingled feeling of fear and exasperation when European troops were mentioned; they were in perpetual apprehension, from the countless rumours at that time circulating throughout India, that Europeans were about to approach and disarm them, as degraded and distrusted men. Jubbulpoor is a large thriving town, which at the time of the mutiny contained a small cantonment for native troops, and a political agency subsidiary to that at Saugor. On one occasion, this report of the approach of European troops seized so forcibly on the minds of the sepoys, that the subadar-major, a trusted and influential man, lost all control over them; and they were not satisfied until their English colonel allowed two or three from each company to go out and scour the country, to satisfy themselves and the rest whether the rumour were true or false. On another occasion, one of the sepoys rose with a shout of ‘Death to the Feringhees,’ and endeavoured to bayonet the adjutant; but his companions did not aid him; and the authorities deemed it prudent to treat him as a madman, to be confined and not shot. When troops were marched from Kamptee to Seuni, in accordance with the arrangements mentioned in the last paragraph, the sepoys at Jubbulpoor were at once told of it, lest their excited minds should be again aroused on the subject of Europeans. Some of the English officers felt the humiliation involved in this kind of petting and pampering; but danger was around them, and they were obliged to temporise. A few ladies had been sent to Kamptee; all else remained with their husbands, seldom taking off their clothes at night, and holding themselves ready to flee at an hour’s warning. Such a state of affairs, though less perilous, was almost as mentally distressing as actual mutiny. As the month drew to a close, and the perpetual anxiety and expectation were becoming wearisome to all, the Europeans resolved to fortify the Residency. This they did, and moreover stored it with six months’ provision for about sixty persons, including thirty ladies and children; and for several civilians, who had also to be provided for.

Saugor was placed in some such predicament as Jubbulpoor; its European officers had much to plan, much to execute, to enable them to pass safely through the perils of the month of June. This town, the capital of the province in political matters, possessed a military cantonment on the borders of a lake on which the town stands; a large fort, which had been converted into an ordnance depôt; and a population of fifty thousand souls, chiefly Mahrattas. At the time of the outbreak, Brigadier Sage commanded the Saugor district force, and had under him the 31st and 42d native infantry regiments, a regiment of native cavalry, and about seventy European gunners. The fort, the magazine, and the battering-train were at one end of the cantonment; an eminence, called the Artillery Hill, was at the other end, three miles off; and the brigadier felt that if mutiny should occur, he would hardly be able to hold both positions. During many minor transactions in the district, requiring the presence of small detachments from Saugor, the temper of the troops was made sufficiently manifest; sometimes the 31st shewed bad symptoms, sometimes the 42d; two or three men were detected in plans for murdering their officers; and petty rajahs in the district offered the sepoys higher pay if they would change their allegiance. The European inhabitants of Saugor becoming very uneasy, the brigadier cleared out the fort, converted it into a place of refuge for women and children, supplied it with useful furniture and other articles, and succeeded in supplanting sepoys by Europeans in guard of the fort, the magazine, and the treasury. The fort being provisioned for six months, and the guns secured, Brigadier Sage felt himself in a position to adopt a resolute tone towards the native troops, without compromising the safety of the numerous persons congregated within it—comprising a hundred and thirty officers and civilians, and a hundred and sixty women and children, all the Europeans of the place. Thus ended June. It may simply be added here, that during the early part of the following month, the 31st and 42d regiments had a desperate fight, the former willing to be faithful, and the latter to mutiny. The brigadier, not feeling quite sure even of the 31st, would not place either his officers or his guns at their mercy, but he sent out of the fort a few men to aid them. The irregular cavalry joined the 42d; but both corps were ultimately beaten off by the 31st—to carry wild disorder into other towns and districts.[[26]]

Without dwelling on minor mutinies at Dumoh and other places in the Saugor province, we will transfer our attention northward to Bundelcund; where Jhansi was the scene of a terrible catastrophe, and where riot and plunder were in the ascendant throughout the month of June. Bundelcund, the country of the Bundelas, affords a curious example of the mode in which a region became in past times cut up into a number of petty states, and then fell in great part into British hands. It is a strip of country, about half the size of Scotland, lying south or southwest of the Jumna, and separated by that river from the Doab. The country was in the hands of the Rajpoots until the close of the fourteenth century; when another tribe, the Bundelas, began a system of predatory incursions which led to their ultimate possession of the whole tract. Early in the last century there was a chief of Western Bundelcund tributary to the Great Mogul, and another in Eastern Bundelcund supported by the Mahrattas against that sovereign. How one chief rose against another, and how each obtained a patch of territory for himself, need not be told; it was only an exemplification of a process to which Asiatics have been accustomed from the earliest ages. About the close of the century, the East India Company began to obtain possession here, by conquest or by treaty; and in 1817, after a war with the Mahrattas, a large increase was made in this ownership. These are matters needful to be borne in mind here; for, though the country is but small, it now contains five or six districts belonging to the British, and nine native princedoms or rajahships; besides numerous petty jaghires or domains that may in some sense be compared to the smallest states of the Germanic confederation. At the time of the mutiny, the British districts were managed under the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces; while the ‘political superintendence,’ as it was called, of the native states was in the hands of an agent appointed by, and directly responsible to, the governor-general. With the principal native states, of which Jhansi was one, the British government had engagements, varying on minor points according to circumstances, but all recognising its supremacy, and binding the dependent state to the relinquishment of all political relations except with the superior power. Some were tributary; some exempt from that obligation. The chief towns in the portion of Bundelcund belonging to the British are Jhansi, Banda, and Jaloun.

Bundelcund, we have said, was the scene of much outrage, especially at Jhansi. This town, lying on the main route from Agra to Saugor, was much frequented in the last century by caravans of merchants who traded between the Doab and the Deccan; and it is still a prosperous commercial place, rendered conspicuous by the castellated residence of the former rajahs. The Jhansi mutiny was not followed by so many adventures and wanderings as that at other places—for a very mournful reason; nearly all the Europeans were at once put to death. A fort in the town had been previously supplied with food and ammunition, and had been agreed on as a place of refuge in time of danger. Major Skene and Captain Gordon, civil officers of the Company, received information which tended to shew that a petty chieftain near Jhansi was tampering with the troops; and Captain Dunlop, in command there, made what defensive preparations he could. Besides the fort in the town, there was one called the Star Fort in the cantonment, containing the guns and the treasure. The native troops—portions of the 12th infantry and of the 14th irregular cavalry, and a few artillery—rose on the afternoon of the 4th of June, seized the Star Fort, and shot at all the officers in the cantonment; many were killed, and the rest ran to the Town Fort, which they barricaded as well as they were able. The little garrison of Europeans then prepared for a siege; but it could be only of short duration, as the place was too weak to contend against the rebel besiegers. Musketry and sword-cuts (for the garrison often met their assailants hand to hand at the gates) brought down many; and some of the civilians, who tried to escape disguised as natives, were caught by the insurgents and killed. At last, when Captains Dunlop and Gordon, and many other officers had fallen, and when the remaining Europeans had become disheartened, by the scarcity of ammunition and of food, Major Skene accepted terms offered to him, on oath—that the whole of the garrison should be spared if he opened the gate and surrendered. The blood-thirsty villains soon shewed the value of the oath they had taken. They seized all—men, women, and children—and bound them in two rows to ropes, the men in one row and the women and children in the other. The whole were then deliberately put to death; the poor ladies stood with their infants in their arms, and their elder children clinging to their gowns; and when the husbands and fathers had been slaughtered, then came the other half of the tragedy. It is even said that the innocent children were cut in halves before their mothers’ eyes. One relief, and one only, marked the scene; there was not, so far as is known, torture and violation of women as precursors of death. The death-list was a sad one. Skene, Dunlop, Gordon, Ryves, Taylor, Campbell, Burgess, Turnbull—all were military officers in the Company’s service, employed either on military or civil duties; and all were killed. Twenty-four civil servants and non-commissioned officers likewise met with their death; and most painful of all, nineteen ladies and twenty-three children were butchered by the treacherous miscreants. Mr Thornton, the collector for a district between Jhansi and Cawnpore, was afterwards in a position to inform the government that the mutinous troops intended to have left Jhansi after they had captured the treasure; that a Bundelcund chieftainess, the Ranee of Jhansi, wishing to regain power in the district, bribed them with large presents to take the fort and put all the Europeans to death before they finally departed for Delhi; and that it was thus to a woman that was due the inhuman slaughtering of more than forty European ladies and children. One account, that reached the ears of officers at other stations, was to the effect that when Major Skene became aware of the miscreant treachery, he kissed his wife, shot her, and then shot himself, to avert apprehended atrocities worse than death; while another narrative or rumour represented the murderers as having chopped off the heads of the victims, instead of merely shooting them; but, in truth, the destruction was so complete that scarcely one was left to tell the tale except natives, who contradicted each other in some of the particulars.

Jhansi of course soon became a prey to lawless marauders; while the mutineers marched off to Delhi or elsewhere. Lieutenant Osborne, at Rewah, was placed in a difficult position at that time. Rewah is a small Rajpoot state, ruled by a native rajah, who is bound by treaties with the British government, and who has a British agent as resident at his court. Rewah was nearly surrounded by mutinous districts, such as Benares, Allahabad, Futtehpoor, Jhansi, Saugor, and Jubbulpoor; and it became a difficult problem for Lieutenant Osborne, the British agent, how to keep wild disorder away from that place. On the 8th of June, by an energetic use of his influence, he was able to announce that the Maharajah of Rewah had placed his troops at the disposal of the government; that the offer had been accepted; and that eight hundred of those troops, with two guns, had been sent off to Ummapatan, a place which commanded the roads to Jubbulpoor, Nagode, and Saugor—ready to oppose insurgents from any of those towns, and to intercept communication with other mutinous towns on the Jumna. He also sent eleven hundred of the Maharajah’s troops, with five guns, to Kuttra Pass: a spot whence a rapid advance could be made to Benares, Chunar, or Mirzapore, according as military exigencies might render desirable. A week later, he obtained permission from the Maharajah to send seven hundred troops to Banda; and at the same time to issue a proclamation, promising rewards to any of his soldiers who should distinguish themselves by their gallantry and fidelity. With no higher military rank than that of lieutenant did this active officer thus lay plans, not only for the peace of the Rewah territory itself, but also in aid of the Company’s officers all around him. His position at a later date was very perilous.

If the destruction of life was less at Nowgong than at Jhansi, the proceedings of mutinous troops were followed by much more adventure and varied interest. Nowgong or Nowgaon is situated about a hundred miles southeast of the last-named town, but, like it, in the Bundelcund territory. At the beginning of June there were stationed at that place about four hundred men of the 12th native infantry, and rather over two hundred of the 14th irregular cavalry—wings of the same two regiments as at Jhansi; together with a company of the 9th battalion of artillery, and a light field bullock-battery. Major Kirke, commanding the station, had in earlier weeks often discussed the cartridge question with his men, and believed he had removed from their minds all misgivings on that unfortunate subject. Nevertheless, as June approached, the major deemed the appearance of affairs so suspicious, that he made such precautionary arrangements as were practicable to resist an outbreak. Bungalows were now and then discovered to be in flames, without any means of detecting the incendiaries. When the atrocities at Meerut and elsewhere became known, the troops stationed at Nowgong made ardent demonstrations of loyalty—so ardent, that Kirke almost upbraided himself for his momentary distrust of them; the infantry embraced their colours, the artillery embraced their guns, and all asserted their burning desire to chastise the rebels who had proved faithless to the Company Bahadoor. So late as the 6th of June, even while whisperings and ominous signs were passing between them, these unreliable men sent in a grandiloquent petition, in which they said: ‘As it is necessary to avenge the government on those cowardly rascals who now, in Delhi and other places, are exciting rebellion, and for which purpose many European regiments are being despatched; we, hearing of this, are exceedingly desirous that we be sent as volunteers to chastise these scoundrels. And that we may shew from our hearts our faithfulness, we are ready to go wherever sent’—and more to the same purpose. This petition or address was presented to Major Kirke by the wing of the 12th regiment. On that same day news arrived that the other wing of the same regiment had mutinied at Jhansi; and the Neemuch men, either with childish indecision or with profound duplicity, sent off a letter to them, reproving them for their insubordination! On the 10th, a petition was presented by the commandant of the artillery (4th company, 9th battalion), couched in similar language; demanding that the artillery might be sent against the rebels; ‘in order,’ as the petition averred, ‘that we may fulfil the wish of our hearts by shewing our bravery and loyalty.’

Never were words uttered more hollow and treacherous. By nightfall on that same 10th of June, the native troops at Nowgong were nearly all rebels, and the Europeans nearly all fugitives. A few hours sufficed to shew the English officers that they were powerless to contend against their opponents. Flight commenced. The officers and civilians, with their families, and Europeans of humbler station, all took their departure from Nowgong—some in buggies, some on horseback, and some on foot; but all equally reft of their worldly property. Were it not that this Chronicle has already contained examples, mournfully numerous, of similar wanderings over the scorching roads and through the thick jungle of India, the fate of the Nowgong party might afford materials for a very exciting narrative; but with the reader’s experience on this matter, a few lines of description will suffice. The party was a large one. It comprised Major Kirke, Captain Scot, Lieutenants Townshend, Jackson, Remington, Ewart, Franks, and Barber, about forty other Europeans of both sexes and all ages, and about ninety sepoys of the mutinous infantry, who had not joined their brethren. The fugitives lessened in number every day; some or other of them sank under the heat and fatigue; while the sepoys deserted when they approached towns where insurgents were in the ascendant. Either collectively or separately the wanderers found themselves on different days at Chutterpore, at Logassee, at Churkaree, at Mahoba, at Callingurh, at Kabrai, at Banda—places mostly belonging to petty rajahs of Bundelcund. The principal survivors of the party were about ten or twelve days on the roads and fields, before they reached friendly quarters at Banda. On one occasion they were attacked by a band of marauders, and had to buy security with rupees; on another, their sepoys were seized with a panic, and ran off in large numbers; on a third, a body of matchlockmen suddenly confronted them, and shot down Lieutenant Townshend. On one part of the journey, Captain Scot found himself in the midst of a distressing group of women and children: having poor Townshend’s horse with him, he loaded both horses with as many as he could carry; but it made him heart-sick to see the others fall away one by one, utterly broken down by fatigue, and with insufficient men to help them along—for the flight appears to have been wanting in every semblance of organisation. A bandsman’s wife dropped dead through a sun-stroke; then an artillery sergeant, worn out, went into a hut to die. Captain Scot came up with a lady and her child, reeling along the road as if delirious; he readjusted his horse-load, took up the fugitives, and the lady very speedily died in his arms. Shortly after this a fine hale sergeant-major sank, to rise no more; Major Kirke died through a sun-stroke; and others dropped off in a similar way. Dr Mawe died from illness and fatigue; and then his wife, while laving her blistered feet in a pool, was set upon by ruffians and robbed of the little she had about her. Captain Scot, after many changes in his horse-load, took up Dr Mawe’s child; and ‘little Lotty,’ of two years’ old, seemed to him a blessing rather than a burden; for on the few occasions when he met friendly natives, their friendship was generally gained for him by the sight of the little girl, whose head he endeavoured to shield from the burning sun by a portion of his shirt—the only resource for one who had lost both hat and coat, and whose own head was nearly driven wild by the intense solar heat. It is pleasant to know that the captain and ‘little Lotty’ were among the few who reached a place of safety.

Banda was another of the stations affected; but the details of its troubles need not be traced here. Suffice it to say that, on the 14th of June, there was a mutiny of a detachment of native infantry, and a few troops belonging to the Nawab of Banda—a titular prince, possessing no political power, but enjoying a pension from the Company, and having a sort of honorary body-guard of native troops. The officers and their families were at first in great peril; but the nawab aided them in making a safe retreat to Nagode. On the 16th of June, Major Ellis had to announce to the government that his station at Nagode was beginning to be filled with anxious fugitives from Banda, Futtehpoor, Humeerpoor, and Ameerpoor; comprising military officers, magistrates, salt-agents, revenue servants, railway officials, and private persons. Twenty-eight of these fugitives arrived on one day. He sent to many petty chieftains of Bundelcund, who were pensioners under the Company or had treaties with it, to exert themselves to the utmost in recovering all property seized during the events of the preceding two or three days in the Banda district. Major Ellis at Nagode, and Mr Mayne at Banda, applied earnestly to Calcutta for military assistance; but they were told plainly that none could be sent to them, every European soldier being needed in the Ganges and Jumna regions.

It now becomes necessary, on removing the scene further to the west, to know something concerning the Mahrattas, their relations to the two great families of Scindia and Holkar, the conventions existing between those two families and the British government, and the military arrangements of the Mahratta territories at the time of the outbreak. These matters can be rendered intelligible without any very lengthened historical narrative.

After the death of the Emperor Aurungzebe, a century and a half ago, India was distracted and impoverished by the contentions of his sons and descendants; each of whom, in claiming the throne, secured the partisanship of powerful nobles, and the military aid of fighting-men in the pay of those nobles. A civil war of terrible kind was the natural result; and equally natural was it that other chieftains, in nowise related to the imperial family, should take advantage of the anarchy to found dynasties for themselves. One such chieftain was Sevajee, a Mahratta in the service of the King of Bejapore, in the southern part of India. The Mahrattas were (and are) a peculiar tribe of Hindoos, more fierce and predatory than most of their fellow-countrymen. Long before Europeans settled in India, the Mahrattas were the chief tribe in the region north, south, and east of the present city of Bombay. After many struggles against the competitors for the throne of Delhi, the Mahrattas were left in possession of a sovereign state, of which Satara and Poonah were the chief cities. From 1707 till 1818, the nominal sovereign or rajah of the Mahrattas had no real power; he was a sort of state or honorary prisoner, confined in the hill-fortress of Satara; while the government was administered by the Peishwa or prime minister, whose office became hereditary in a particular family, and whose seat of government was at Poonah. After many Peishwas had held this singular kind of sovereignty at the one city—the nominal rajah being all the time powerless at the other—circumstances occurred which led to an intermeddling of the East India Company with Mahratta politics, followed by the usual results. Narrain Rao Peishwa was murdered in 1773; many relations of the murdered man competed for the succession; and as the Company greatly desired to possess the island of Salsette and the town of Bassein, at that time belonging to the Mahrattas, it was soon seen that this wish might be gratified by aiding one competitor against another. Battles and intrigues followed, ending in the possession of the two coveted places by the British, and in the appointment of a British resident at the Peishwa’s court at Poonah. Thus matters remained until 1817, when the Peishwa engaged in intrigues with other Mahratta chiefs against the British; a course that led to his total overthrow after a few fierce contests in the field. The Mahratta sovereignty at Poonah was entirely put an end to, except a small principality assigned to the Rajah of Satara, the almost forgotten representative of the founder of the Mahratta rule. The British took all the remaining territory, pensioning off the Peishwa; and as to Satara, after several rajahs had reigned, under the close control of the British resident at that city, the principality ‘lapsed’ in 1848, in default of legitimate male heirs—a lapse that led to the preparation of many ponderous blue books concerning the grievances and complaints of a certain adopted son of the last rajah.

Thus much for the south Mahratta country, having Poonah and Satara for its chief cities; but the British have had fully as much to do with the northern portion of the Mahratta region, represented by the two cities of Gwalior and Indore, and held by the two great Mahratta families of Scindia and Holkar. As the Peishwas in past years cared little for the nominal head of the Mahrattas at Satara, so did the Scindias and Holkars care little for the Peishwas. Each chieftain endeavoured to become an independent sovereign. The Scindia family is traceable up to the year 1720, when Ranojee Scindia was one of the dependents of the Peishwa. From that year, by predatory expeditions and by intrigues, the successive heads of the Scindia family became more and more powerful—contending in turn against the Mogul, the Rajpoots, the Peishwa, and the British; until at length, in 1784, Madhajee Scindia was recognised as an independent sovereign prince, with the hill-fortress of Gwalior as his stronghold and seat of government. In 1794, when Madhajee died, the Scindia dominions extended from beyond Delhi on the north to near Bombay on the south, and from the Ganges to Gujerat—a vast region, held and acquired by means as atrocious as any recorded in the history of India. Early in the present century, the power of the Scindia family received a severe check. Hostilities having broken out with the British, Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) defeated Dowlut Rao Scindia at Assaye in 1803, while Lord Lake drove the Mahrattas from the whole of the Doab. Many desperate wars occurred in later years, ending, in 1844, by a treaty which left Bajerut Rao Scindia king or rajah of a state barely equalling England in area, with Gwalior as his capital. A contingent or body of troops was to be supplied by him for the service of the British, beyond which he was permitted to have an independent army of nine thousand men; and there were numerous minor details which gave much influence to the British resident at Gwalior.

Of the family of Holkar, almost the same account may be given as of that of Scindia; inasmuch as it has sprung from a Mahratta leader who acquired power a century and a half ago. The city of Indore has always been the centre of dominion belonging to this family—a dominion extending over a very wide region at some periods, but greatly contracted in recent times. The ruler of the Indore territory at the time of the mutiny was one Mulkerjee Holkar, who had been appointed by the Calcutta government at a time of disputed succession, in such a way as to imply that the territory might pass into British hands whenever the Company chose. Holkar’s territory is now much smaller than Scindia’s, scarcely exceeding Wales in area.

It will suffice, then, to bear in mind that the southern Mahratta power, that of the courts of Poonah and Satara, had wholly fallen into British hands before the time of the mutiny; and that the northern power, held by the courts of Gwalior and Indore, extended over a country no larger than England and Wales united. Nevertheless, considering that that portion of central India is bounded by Bundelcund, the Doab, Rajpootana, Gujerat, the Nizam’s dominions, and the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, it was of much importance to the British that Scindia and Holkar should remain faithful to their alliances at a critical period.

Although Nuseerabad is properly in Rajpootana, of which a few words of description will be given shortly, the mutiny at that place may conveniently be treated here; because it was a link in a chain which successively affected Neemuch, Indore, Mhow, and Gwalior.

Nuseerabad is near Ajmeer, the chief town of a British district surrounded by the dominions of independent or semi-independent rajahs. Ajmeer, though far smaller than most of the principal cities in India, is an ancient and important place, about two hundred and sixty miles southwest of Delhi; at the time of the mutiny, it was the seat of a British political agency; and in a ruined palace of the Emperor Akbar, converted into an arsenal, was a powder-magazine. Nuseerabad, fifteen miles from Ajmeer, may be regarded as the military station for that city, and for the neighbouring British districts; it had an extensive and well-laid-out cantonment, and was the head-quarters of the corps known as the Rajpootana Field-force. Nuseerabad had been nearly drained of troops early in the year, on account of the Persian expedition; but this gap was afterwards partially filled up. In the month of May there were at the station the 1st regiment Bombay lancers, the 15th and 30th Bengal native infantry, and the 2d company of the 7th battalion of Bengal native artillery. An instructive fact was made manifest; the Bombay troops remained faithful, while those of the Bengal army became first restless, then mutinous, then murderous. Unfortunately, the good were not strong enough to coerce the bad; the Bombay lancers numbered only two hundred and fifty sabres. The month of May had not closed when the disturbances at Nuseerabad began. The officers had been nightly in the habit of sleeping with revolvers and swords near at hand; while the Bombay lancers patrolled the cantonment—so suspicious were the symptoms observed. On the evening of the 28th a servant rushed into the bungalow of one of the lieutenants of the 15th infantry, announcing that the regiment had risen. The officers hastened to the lines, and there found the regiment drawn up in companies—the martial array being maintained in mutiny as it had been in regular drill. The men looked sternly at their officers; and soon worse news arrived. The native artillerymen who worked the six guns joined the revolters—not actually firing on the officers, but ready to do so. The Englishmen connected with the two regiments were a mere handful; they were powerless, for none of the sepoys would aid them against the rest. Colonel Penny, in command of the Bombay lancers, instantly hastened down, armed and mounted his troopers, and drew them up into position. Galloping to the artillery lines, and finding the guns pointed against him, he immediately ordered a charge for capturing them, each troop charging in succession. Captain Spottiswoode began, and soon fell mortally wounded; other officers led subsequent charges, but the guns could not be taken. Penny then felt obliged to relinquish this attempt, and to hold himself in readiness to check the mutineers in other ways; but as the two regiments of native infantry refused to listen to their officers, nothing was left but flight. Cornet Newberry, as well as Captain Spottiswoode, fell while charging; Colonel Penny became suddenly ill and died in a few hours; while two or three other officers were wounded. How perilous were those cavalry-charges against the six guns may be judged from a letter written by one of the officers: ‘I galloped towards the guns, and must have been eighty or a hundred yards from them when I began to experience the unpleasant sensation of bullets whizzing past my head, and saw a lot of sepoys taking shots at me as I came along. I immediately turned my pony’s head, and endeavoured to retreat under cover of a wall which ran in front of the artillery lines. Here I saw more men running up with the kind intention of having a crack at me; so I had to keep along the parade-ground right in the line of fire, and had one or two men popping at me from over the wall on my right. My tât (pony) went as fast as ever he could go, and, thanks be to God, carried me back in perfect safety.... Off we started towards the cavalry lines amid showers of bullets. I dodged round the first bell of arms; and as I passed the bells, saw three or four men behind each, who deliberately shot at us as we passed.’ The ladies had been sent off from the station just in time. The surviving officers joined them beyond the cantonment about nightfall, and then all hastened away. They rode forty miles during the night, on roads and fields and rocky hills, and reached a place of safety, Beaur or Beawur, towards noon—hungry, tired, and reft of everything but the clothes on their backs.

As this small body of Bombay native cavalry remained stanch when the Bengal troops were faithless all around them, it was deemed right to make some public acknowledgment of the fact. Lord Elphinstone, as president or governor of Bombay, issued a general order on the subject, thanking the troopers, and passing lightly over the fact that a few of them afterwards disgraced themselves.[[27]] The commander-in-chief afterwards ordered the report of the transaction by Captain Hardy, who took the control of the lancers when Colonel Penny died, to be translated into the Hindustani and Mahratta languages, and read to all the regiments of the Bombay native army, as an encouragement to them in the path of duty. After the English officers and their families had escaped to Beaur, the mutinous troops made off towards Delhi. Nuseerabad being considered an important station in regard to the control of the surrounding districts, a force was sent to reoccupy it towards the end of June; comprising a detachment of H.M. 83d foot, another of the 20th Bombay native infantry, another of the Jhodpore legion, and a squadron of the 2d Bombay cavalry—Nuseerabad being sufficiently near Bombay to derive advantages not possessed by stations further east.

The usual consequences of the revolt of native regiments followed. Nuseerabad furnished a bad example to Neemuch. As a village, Neemuch is of small consequence; as a military station, its importance is considerable. During some of the negotiations with Scindia in past years, it was agreed that the British should have a cantonment at this spot, which is on the confines of Malwah and Mewar, about three hundred miles southwest of Agra; a force in British pay was to be stationed there, by virtue of certain terms in a treaty, and a small district, with the village in the centre, was made over to the Company for this purpose. The cantonment thereupon built was two or three miles long by a mile in width, and comprised the usual native infantry lines, cavalry lines, artillery lines, head-quarters, offices, bungalows, bazaar, parade-ground, &c. There was also a small fort or fortified square built, as a place of refuge for the families of the military when called to a distance on duty.

In the early part of June, the troops stationed at Neemuch comprised the 72d Bengal N. I., the 7th regiment of Gwalior infantry, two troops of the 1st Bengal light cavalry, and a troop of horse-artillery. Every effort had been made in the early weeks of the mutiny to insure the confidence of these troops, and prevent them from joining the standard of rebellion. Colonel Abbott, and most of the officers of the 72d, as well even as some of their families, slept within the sepoy lines, to win the good-will of the men by a generous confidence. One wing (three companies) of the Gwalior troops held the fortified square and treasury; while the other wing (five companies), now quartered in a vacant hospital, about a quarter of a mile distant, was encamped just outside the walls; Captain Macdonald, the chief officer, residing with the first-named wing. Colonel Abbott, who commanded the station generally, as well as the 72d regiment in particular, became convinced, on the morning of the 2d of June, that all the hopeful expectations of himself and brother-officers were likely to be dashed; for the troops at Neemuch had heard of the mutiny at Nuseerabad, and could be restrained no longer. While the superintendent, Captain Lloyd, hastened to secure some of the Company’s records and accounts, and to open a line of retreat for fugitives along the Odeypore road, Colonel Abbott made such military arrangements as were practicable on the spur of the moment. The colonel brought his native officers together, and talked to them so earnestly, that he induced them to swear, ‘on the Koran and on Ganges water,’ that they would be true to their salt; while he, at their request, swore to his confidence in their faithful intentions. This singular compact, in which Mohammedans, Hindoos, and a Christian swore according to the things most solemn to them respectively, remained unbroken for twenty-four hours; who broke it, after that interval, will at once be guessed. During many preceding days, a panic had prevailed in the Sudder Bazaar; incendiary fires occurred at night; great numbers of persons had removed with their property; the wildest reports were set afloat by designing knaves to increase the distrust; and the commonest occurrences were distorted into phantoms of evil intended against the troops. At last, on the night of the 3d, the troops threw off their oath and their allegiance at once. The artillery, disregarding Lieutenant Walker’s entreaties and expostulations, fired off two guns; the cavalry, on hearing this signal, rushed out to join them; and the 72d broke from their lines immediately afterwards. Captain Macdonald instantly ordered into the fort the one wing of the Gwalior regiment which had been encamped outside, under Lieutenants Rose and Gurdon; and then prepared for defence. A bold and singular expedient had just before been adopted by the civil superintendent; he authorised Macdonald to promise to the Gwalior troops, if they faithfully defended the fort during any mutiny outside, a reward of a hundred rupees to each sepoy or private, three hundred to each naik or corporal, five hundred to each havildar or sergeant, higher sums to the jemadars and subadars, and five thousand rupees to the senior native officer, or to the one who should most distinguish himself in preserving the loyalty of the regiment. These are large sums to the natives of India; and the superintendent must have considered long and fully before he promised the Company’s money in such a manner. All was, however, in vain. The Gwalior troops remained faithful under the temptation of this promise for a short time; but at length, headed by a subadar named Heera Singh, they demanded that the gates of the fort should be opened, and requested that the officers would make arrangements for their own safety. Macdonald, Rose, Gurdon, and other officers of the Gwalior regiment, expostulated with their men; but entreaty was now of no avail; the troops forcibly opened the gates, and the officers took their departure when the last vestige of hope had been destroyed.

Of the flight, little need be said; it was such a flight as almost every province in Northern India exhibited in those sad days. Some of the ladies and children had been sent off a few hours earlier, hurried away with no preparations for their comfort or even their sustenance; while others waited to accompany their husbands or fathers. Very few had either horses or vehicles; they laboured on footsore to Baree, to Chota Sadree, to Burra Sadree, to Doogla—straggling parties meeting and separating according as their strength remained or failed, and all dependent on the villagers for food. At Doogla, where they arrived on the third night, the officers strengthened a sort of mud-fort about forty yards square, within which forty persons were huddled. After being much straitened, they were relieved by Brigadier Showers on the 9th. The fugitive party now broke up; some returned to Neemuch, which the mutineers had abandoned; but the greater number went to Odeypore, the rana of which place gave them a hospitable reception; some of them afterwards went further west to Mount Aboo or Aboo Gurh—a celebrated place of Hindoo pilgrimage to a sacred temple, and a sanatarium for the Europeans stationed at the cantonment of Deesa, about forty miles distant. Those of the party who returned to Neemuch, found everything devastated, the bungalows and offices burnt, and the villagers stripped of their stores by the mutineers, who had afterwards started off for Agra. The officers and their families were literally beggars; they had lost their all. No Europeans were killed save the wife and three children of a sergeant, who could not leave Neemuch in time.

Fort of Mhow.

Thus were lost to the British about fourteen hundred men and six guns at Nuseerabad, and sixteen hundred men and six guns at Neemuch, all of which went to swell the insurgent forces inside Delhi or outside Agra.

The stations of Indore and Mhow must now engage a little of our attention—situated nearly south of Neemuch, and about four hundred miles from Agra. Indore, as has already been stated, is the capital of Holkar’s Mahratta dominions. It is an ill-built place, standing on the small river Kutki, and is less than a century old: the original Indore, or Jemnah, being on the opposite side of the river. Holkar’s palace is a building possessing few attractions; and the like may be said of the other native structures. The relation existing at that time between Indore and Mhow was this—that Indore was the residence of the British political agent at the court of Holkar; whereas Mhow, thirteen miles distant, was the military station or cantonment. The house of the British agent, and those of the other Europeans, were on the eastern side of the town. The agent, at the time of the mutiny, had an escort of cavalry and infantry at his disposal; but it was simply an escort, not a regular military force. The agent, in addition to his duties connected with Holkar’s court, was the immediate representative of the British government in relation to various petty states under its protection, but in other points differing greatly in their circumstances.

The Indore agent in May and June was Colonel Durand. All was peaceful at that place, although much agitation was visible, until the 1st of July; on which day mutiny occurred. Holkar’s troops rose against the English, without, as it afterwards appeared, the privity or the wish of the Maharajah himself. Two companies, set apart for the protection of the Residency in the bazaar square, brought two guns to bear upon the building; and the Europeans were horror-stricken at finding themselves suddenly exposed to cannon and musketry. Fortunately a few men of the Bhopal Contingent under Colonel Travers, were on duty at the Residency; and a few of these remained faithful long enough to allow the colonel and the other European officers, with their families, to escape. Not so the civilians, however; many of the civil servants, and of the clerks in the telegraph department, with their wives and children, were butchered in cold blood. As soon as Holkar heard of the outbreak, he ordered some of his own Mahratta troops to hasten to the Residency and aid Colonel Durand; but they told him it was a matter of deen (religion), and that they could not act against their brethren. During the next three days Holkar was almost a prisoner in his own palace; his troops rose in revolt, and were speedily joined by those from Mhow, presently to be mentioned; they plundered the treasury, the Residency, and many parts of the town; but as he would not countenance their proceedings, they at length marched off towards Gwalior. This affair at Indore led to the flight of many European families, amid great misery. They collected hastily a few ammunition-wagons, two or three bullock-carts, an elephant, and some horses, and started off towards Sehore and Hosungabad; escorted by a portion of the Bhopal Contingent from several small stations in that part of India.

An important question arose—how was Mhow affected by the mutinous proceedings? As the news of the Nuseerabad mutiny had thrown the troops at Neemuch into agitation, so did the subsequent events at Neemuch immediately affect the sowars and sepoys at Mhow.[[28]] Mhow contained a squadron of the same cavalry regiment, the 1st B. N. C., two troops of which had mutinied at Neemuch; and in addition to these was the 23d regiment native infantry, and a company of European artillery. Mhow presented much the appearance of an English town; having a steepled church on an eminence, a spacious lecture-room, a well-furnished library, and a theatre; the cantonment was large and well appointed; and a force was maintained there in virtue of one of the treaties made with Holkar. This relates to the station or British part of the town; the small native town of Mhow is a mile and a half distant. The excitement caused at this station by the news from Neemuch was visible in the conduct of the troops throughout the whole of the month of June. Colonel Platt and the other officers, however, kept a vigilant watch on them, and by combined firmness and kindness hoped to surmount the difficulty. Captain Hungerford afterwards stated that such had been the excessive confidence of some of the officers in their respective regiments, that he could not induce them to strengthen the fort or fortified square, by occupying it with their artillery, until almost the last hour before the Revolt. The fortified square had for some time, however, been a rendezvous for all the ladies and children, who slept within it; the officers remaining in the lines. Thus matters passed until the 1st of July, when Colonel Platt received a pencil-note from Colonel Durand, announcing that the Residency at Indore had been attacked by Holkar’s soldiers, and that aid was urgently needed. A troop of cavalry and a few guns were immediately despatched from Mhow; but when they had reached within four miles of Indore, news arrived that the Europeans yet living at that station were about to effect a retreat; upon which the small force returned to Mhow. This duty the troops performed, but it was the last they rendered. The colonel, fearing the arrival of mutinous sepoys from Indore, but not suspecting his own men, made such arrangements as seemed to him befitting, bringing a European battery of artillery into the fort. Soon did the crisis arrive. At eleven o’clock on that same night the plans and hopes were cruelly disappointed; that terrible yell was heard which so often struck dismay into the hearts of the Europeans at the various military stations: the yell of native troops rising in mutiny. Lieutenant Martin, adjutant of the cavalry, while quietly conversing with one of the troopers, became the victim of that dastardly fellow; the war-cry arose, and the trooper turned round and shot the unfortunate officer without a moment’s warning. The other officers, hearing the report, but not suspecting the real truth, thought that Holkar’s Mahrattas had arrived; they rushed forward to head their respective companies and troops, but sepoys and sowars alike opened fire on them. The officers, now rendered painfully aware of their critical position, ran swiftly across the parade towards the fort, having no time to mount their horses; and it is a marvel that only one of the number, Major Harris, commandant of the cavalry, was shot by the heavy fire poured on them during this run. Colonel Platt, who was in the fort, was almost incredulous when the breathless officers rushed in; he could with difficulty believe the truth now presented to his notice—so fully had he relied on the fidelity of the men. Colonel Platt and Captain Fagan rode down to the lines of the 23d, to which regiment they both belonged, to ascertain the real facts and to exhort the men; but they were never seen alive again by their brethren in arms; they fell, riddled with bullets and gashed with sword-cuts. Captain Hungerford, of the artillery, brought two guns to bear on the mutineers, which gradually drove them from the lines, but not before they had fired the regimental mess-house and several bungalows; and during the darkness of night, plunderers carried off everything that was valuable. Hungerford would have followed the mutineers with his guns; but the roads were too dark for the pursuit, and the Europeans too unprotected to be left. The remaining English officers, having now no troops to command, acted as a cavalry guard in support of the European battery in the fortified square, under Captain Hungerford. As all the civilians, women, and children were in this place; as the square itself was quite unfitted for a long defence; and as only five native soldiers out of the whole number remained with the officers—the prospect was precarious enough: nevertheless all did their best; Hungerford collected in a few days a large store of provisions, and routed many of the insurgents in neighbouring villages. The impulses that guided the actions of the sepoys were strangely inconsistent; for two of the men saved the life of Lieutenant Simpson, who had been on outpost-duty on the fatal night, and brought him safely into the fort; and yet, though offered promotion for their fidelity, they absconded on the following morning to join their mutinous companions. The Europeans, about eighty in number, maintained their position at Mhow, until a force from Bombay arrived to reoccupy all that region. The ladies, there as everywhere, strove to lessen rather than increase the anxieties of their male companions. One of the officers thus shut up in the extemporised stronghold said in a letter: ‘Throughout all this I cannot express the admiration I feel at the way the ladies have behaved—cheerful, and assisting in every way in their power. Poor things, without servants or quarters, huddled together; they have had to do everything for themselves, and employ all their time in sewing bags for powder for the guns, well knowing the awful fate that awaits them if the place is taken. There has not been a sign of fear; they bring us tea or any little thing they can, and would even like to keep watch on the bastions if we would let them.... You should see the state we are in—men making up canister, ladies sewing powder-bags, people bringing plunder recovered, artillery mounting guns; all of us dirty and tired with night-watching; we mount sentry-duty to take the weight of it off the artillerymen, and snatch sleep and food as we can.’

Many other stations in that part of India were disturbed in June and July by the mutinies of wings and detachments of regiments too small in amount to need notice here. At one place, Asseerghur, Colonel Le Mesurier warded off mutiny by a prompt and dexterous manœuvre, for which he received the marked thanks of the government.

Gwalior now comes under notice, in relation to a mutiny of troops at that place, and to the conduct of Scindia, the most important of the Mahratta chieftains. Considered as a city or town (about sixty-five miles south of Agra), Gwalior is not very important or interesting, being irregularly built and deplorably dirty, and possessing few public buildings of any note. It is for its hill-fortress that Gwalior is so famed. The rock on which the fortress stands is an elongated mass, a mile and a half long by a quarter of a mile in width, and reaching in some places to a height of about three hundred and fifty feet. It is entirely isolated from other hills; and—partly from the natural stratification of the sandstone, partly from artificial construction—is in many parts quite perpendicular. A rampart runs round the upper edge, conforming to the outline of the summit. The entrance to the enclosure within the rampart is near the north end of the east side; in the lower part by a steep road, and in the upper part by steps cut in the rock, wide enough to permit elephants to make the ascent. A high and massive stone-wall protects the outer side of this huge staircase; seven gateways are placed at intervals along its ascent; and guns at the top command the whole of it. Within the enclosure of the rampart is a citadel of striking appearance, an antique palace surmounted by kiosks, six lofty round towers or bastions, curtains or walls of great thickness to connect those towers, and several spacious tanks. It is considered that fifteen thousand men would be required to garrison this fortress completely. So striking is this rock, so tempting to a chieftain who desires a stronghold, that Gwalior is believed to have been a fortress during more than a thousand years. It has been captured and recaptured nearly a dozen times, by contending Hindoos and Mohammedans, in the course of centuries. The last celebrated contest there was in 1779, when the Company’s forces captured it through a clever and unexpected use of ladders and ropes during a dark night. In the next sixty-five years it was possessed successively by the British, the Jâts, the Mahrattas, the British again, the Mahrattas again, and finally by the British, according to the intricacies of treaties and exchanges. Since 1844, Gwalior has been the head-quarters of a corps called the Gwalior Contingent, commanded by British officers; and thus the hill-fortress has virtually been placed within the power of the British government. Besides this famous stronghold, there is at Gwalior a place called the Lashkar. This, in former times, was the stationary camp of the Maharajah Scindia—a dirty collection of rude buildings, extending to a great distance from the southwest foot of the rock; but the great reduction in the number of troops allowed to be held independently by Scindia has materially lessened the importance of the Lashkar.

The loyalty of Scindia became a question of very anxious importance at the time of the mutinies. Holkar was possessor of a much smaller territory than Scindia; and yet, when a rumour spread that the rising at Indore on the 1st of July had the sanction of the first-named sovereign, numerous petty chieftains in that part of India rose against the British, and prepared to cut off all retreat for Europeans. It was not until Holkar had given undoubted evidence of his hostility to the mutineers, that these movements were checked. Much more was this rendered manifest in Scindia’s dominions. If Scindia had failed us, the mutineers from Neemuch, Nuseerabad, and Jhansi, by concentrating at Gwalior, might have rendered that hill-fortress a second Delhi to the British. Scindia and Holkar both remained steady; it was the Contingents that failed. These contingents were bodies of native troops, paid by the native princes of the states or countries whose name they bore, but organised and officered by the British, in the same way as the ordinary battalions of the sepoy army. If the native princes, for whose defence ostensibly, and at whose expense really, these contingents were maintained, wished and were permitted to have any independent military force of their own, that could only be done additionally to the contingent which they were bound to furnish. As a consequence of this curious system, a distinction must be drawn between the contingent troops and the prince’s troops. At Indore, Holkar’s little army as well as Holkar’s contingent proved hostile to the British. Scindia was in like manner paymaster for a double force; and the British often anxiously pondered whether one or both of these might prove faithless at Gwalior, with or without the consent of Scindia himself. The Gwalior Contingent, though connected with a Mahratta state, consisted chiefly of Hindustanis, like the sepoys of the Bengal army; the Mahrattas formed quite a minority of the number. The contingent consisted of all three arms of the service—infantry, cavalry, and artillery—and formed a compact army.

The disasters at Gwalior began on Sunday the 14th of June—as usual, on Sunday. It will be remembered (p. [112]) that Scindia, three or four weeks earlier, had offered the aid of his own body-guard, which had been accepted by Mr Colvin at Agra; that a portion of the Gwalior Contingent (cavalry) was also sent; that this contingent, under Lieutenant Cockburn, was actively engaged against the insurgents in the region between Agra and Allygurh; and that about one-half of the troopers composing it revolted on the 28th of May, placing that gallant officer in a very embarrassing position. They were portions of the same contingent that mutinied at Neemuch and one or two other places; and on this account the European inhabitants at Gwalior were subject to much anxiety—knowing that that station was the head-quarters; and that, although the contingent was paid for by the Maharajah, the troops had been raised mostly in Oude, and, being disciplined and officered by the British, were likely to share the same sentiments as the Oudians and other Hindustanis of the Bengal army elsewhere. The Maharajah had little or no influence over them; for neither were they his countrymen, nor had he any control over their discipline or movements. During fourteen years, as boy, youth, and man, he had been in great measure a pupil under the British resident at Gwalior; and if he remained an obedient pupil, this was nearly all that could be expected from him—shorn, as the Mahratta court was, of so much of its former influence. Dr Winlow Kirk, superintending surgeon of the contingent, placed upon record, ten days before the bloody deed which deprived him of life, a few facts relating to the position of the Europeans at Gwalior in the latter part of May and the beginning of June. The resident received information which led him to believe that the contingent—seven regiments of infantry, two of cavalry, and four batteries of artillery—was thoroughly disaffected, both the main body at Gwalior and the detachments elsewhere. The brigadier commandant shared this opinion with the resident; and, as a precautionary measure, all the ladies were sent from the station to the Residency, a distance of six miles, on the 28th of May. Dr Kirk, and most of the military officers, dissented from this opinion; they thought the troops were behaving in a respectful manner, and they offered to sleep among the men’s lines to shew their confidence in them. On the 29th and 30th, the ladies returned to cantonment, much to the apparent delight of the sepoys at the generous reliance thus placed in them. Bitter was the disappointment and grief in store for those who had trusted these miscreants.

It was on the 14th of June, we have said, that the uprising at Gwalior began. The Europeans had long wished for the presence of a few English troops; but as none were to be had, they watched each day’s proceedings rather anxiously. At nine o’clock in the evening of the disastrous Sunday, the alarm was given at the cantonment; all rushed out of their respective bungalows, and each family found others in a similar state of alarm. Shots were heard; officers were galloping or running past; horses were wildly rushing with empty saddles; and no one could give a precise account of the details of the outbreak. Then occurred the sudden and mournful disruption of family ties; husbands became separated from their wives; ladies and children sought to hide in gardens and grass, on house-tops and in huts. Then arose flames from the burning bungalows; and then came bands of reckless sepoys, hunting out the poor homeless English who were in hiding. On the morning of that day, Dr Kirk, although he had not shared the resident’s alarm seventeen days before, nevertheless thought with some anxiety of the ladies and children, and asked what arrangements had been made for their safety in the event of an outbreak; but the officers of the regiments, most of whom relied fully on their men, would not admit that there was any serious need for precautionary measures. Two of these unfortunate officers, Major Blake and Major Hawkins, were especially trustful; and these were two among the number who fell by the hands of their own men that very night. Captain Stewart, with his wife and child, were killed, as also Major Sheriff. Brigadier Ramsey, and several others, whose bungalows were on the banks of a small river, escaped by fording. Dr Kirk was one of those who, less fortunate, were furthest from the river. With Mrs Kirk and his child, he hid in the garden all night; in the morning they were discovered; Mrs Kirk was robbed without being otherwise ill treated; but her husband was shot dead before her eyes. Thus fell an amiable and skilful man, who for nearly twenty years had been a medical officer of the Company—first with the Bundelcund legion in Sinde; then as a medical adviser to Sir Charles Napier on matters connected with the health of troops in that sandy region; then with the Bengal troops at Bareilly; then with the European artillery at Ferozpore; and lastly, as superintending surgeon to the troops of the Gwalior Contingent, who shewed their gratitude for his medical aid by putting him to death. After this miserable sight, Mrs Kirk begged the murderers to put an end to her also; but they replied: ‘No, we have killed you already’—pointing to the dead body of her husband.

The rest of this story need not be told in detail. Agra was the place of refuge sought by those who had now to flee; and it is some small alleviation of the crimes of the mutineers that they allowed the ladies and children to depart—with their lives, but with little else. How the poor things suffered during five days of weary journeying, they could themselves hardly have told; hunger, thirst, heat, illness, fatigue, and anxiety of mind accumulated on them. Many arrived at Agra without shoes or stockings; and all were beggared of their worldly possessions when they reached that city. When, shortly afterwards, Lieutenant Cockburn wrote to private friends of this event, he had to tell, not only of his own mortification as the officer of a disloyal corps, but of the wreck suffered by the British station at Gwalior. ‘I fear there is no chance of my ever recovering any of your portraits; for the ruffians invariably destroy all they cannot convert into silver or gold. All our beautiful garden at Gwalior, on which I spent a good deal of money and care, has been dug up; our houses have been turned into cattle-sheds; there is not a pane of glass in the station; our beautiful church has been gutted, the monuments destroyed, the organ broken up, the stained-glass windows smashed, and the lovely floor of encaustic tiles torn up. The desecration of the tombs is still more horrible; in many places the remains of our countrymen have been torn from the earth, and consigned to the flames!’

The position of Scindia was sufficiently embarrassing at that time. As soon as the troops of the contingent had murdered or driven away their officers, they went to him, placed their services at his disposal, and demanded that he would lead them against the British at Agra. There were eight or ten thousand men in the contingent altogether, and his own Mahratta army was little less numerous; it was therefore a matter of critical importance to the English that he remained steady and faithful. He not only refused to sanction the proceedings of the mutineers, but endeavoured to prevent them from marching towards Agra. In this he succeeded until an advanced period of the autumn; for the troops that troubled Agra at the end of June and the beginning of July were those from Mhow and Neemuch, not the larger body from Gwalior. These mutineers proceeded towards Agra by way of Futtehpore or Futhepore Sikri—a town famed for the vast expanse of ruined buildings, erected by Akbar and destroyed by the Mahrattas; for the great mosque, with its noble gateway and flight of steps; and for the sumptuous white marble tomb, constructed by Akbar in memory of a renowned Mussulman ascetic, Sheik Selim Cheestee.[[29]] The battle that ensued, and the considerations that induced Mr Colvin to shut up himself and all the British in the fort at Agra, will be better treated in a later page.

Many of the events treated in this chapter occurred in, or on the frontiers of, the region known as Rajpootana or Rajasthan—concerning which a few words may be desirable. The name denotes the land of the Rajpoots. These Hindoos are a widely spread sept of the Kshetrigas or military caste; but when or where they obtained a separate name and character is not now known. Some of the legends point to Mount Aboo as the original home of the Rajpoots. They were in their greatest power seven hundred years ago, when Rajpoot princes ruled in Delhi, in Ajmeer, in Gujerat, and in other provinces; but the Mohammedan conquerors drove them out of those places; and during many centuries the region mainly belonging to the Rajpoots has been nearly identical with that exhibited at the present time. This region, situated between Central India and Sinde, is about twice as large as England and Wales. Warlike as the Rajpoots have ever been, and possessing many strongholds and numerous forces, they were no match for the Mahrattas in the last century; indeed it was this inequality that led to the interference of the British, who began to be the ‘protector’ of the Rajpoot princes early in the present century. This protection, insured by various treaties, seems to have been beneficial to the Rajpoots, whose country has advanced in industry and prosperity during a long continuance of peace. The chief Rajpoot states at present are Odeypore or Mewar, Jeypoor, Jhodpore or Joudpore, Jhallawar, Kotah, Boondee, Alwur, Bikaneer, Jeysulmeer, Kishengurh, Banswarra, Pertabghur, Dongurpore, Kerowlee, and Sirohi. The treaties with these several states, at the time of the mutiny, were curiously complicated and diverse: Odeypore paid tribute, and shared with the Company the expense of maintaining a Bheel corps; Jeypoor, though under a rajah, was virtually governed by a British resident; Jhodpore, under a sort of feudal rule, paid tribute, and maintained a Jhodpore legion besides a force belonging to the feudatories; Kotah bore the expense of a corps called the Kotah Contingent, organised and officered by the British; Jeysulmeer gave allegiance in return for protection, and so did Kishengurh and many other of the states included in the above list. Most of the Rajpoot states had a feudal organisation for internal affairs; and most of them maintained small native corps, in addition to the contingents furnished by three or four under arrangements with the British. For the whole of the Rajpoot states collectively an agent was appointed by the governor-general to represent British interests, under whom were the civil officers at various towns and stations; while the military formed a Rajpootana Field-force, with head-quarters at Nuseerabad.

At the extreme north of Rajpootana is a small British district named Hurrianah, of which the chief towns are Hansi and Hissar. A military corps, called the Hurrianah Light Infantry Battalion, mutinied a few weeks after the Meerut outbreak, killing Lieutenant Barwell and other Europeans; the men acted in conjunction with a part of the 4th regiment irregular cavalry, and, after a scene of murder and pillage, marched off towards Delhi. At Bhurtpore, on the northeast frontier of Rajpootana, a similar scene was exhibited on a smaller scale; a corps called the Bhurtpore Levies revolted against Captain Nixon and other officers, compelling them to flee for their lives: the mutineers, as in so many other instances, marching off at once towards Delhi. There were other mutinies of small detachments of native troops, at minor stations in the Mahratta and Rajpoot countries, which need not be traced in detail.

The vast region in the centre of India has thus passed rapidly under review. We have seen Hindustanis, Bundelas, Jâts, Mahrattas, Bheels, Rajpoots, and other tribes of India revolting against English authority; we have seen native princes and chiefs perplexed how to act between the suzerain power on the one hand, and the turbulent soldiery on the other; we have seen that soldiery, and the attendant rabble of marauders, influenced quite as much by love of plunder as by hate of the Company’s raj; we have seen British officers sorely wounded at heart by finding those men to be traitors whom they had trusted almost to the last hour; we have seen ladies and children driven from their bungalows, and hunted like wild beasts from road to river, from jungle to forest; and lastly, in this vast region, we have tracked over considerably more than a thousand miles of country in length without meeting with a single regiment of British troops. The centre of India was defended from natives by natives; and the result shewed itself in deplorable colours.

Girls at the Ganges.

[26]. A curious example was afforded, in relation to the affairs of Saugor, of the circuitous manner in which public affairs were conducted in India, when different officials were residing in different parts of that vast empire. The brigadier commanding the Saugor district adopted a certain course, in a time of peril, concerning the management of the troops under his command. He sent information of these proceedings to Neill at Allahabad (300 miles). Neill forwarded the information to Calcutta (500 miles). The military secretary to the government at Calcutta sent a dispatch to the adjutant-general of the army outside Delhi (900 miles), requesting him to ‘move’ the commander-in-chief to send a military message to Saugor (400 miles), calling upon the officer of that station to explain the motives for his conduct in the matter at issue. The explanation, so given, was to be sent 400 miles to Delhi, and then 900 miles to Calcutta; and lastly, if the conduct were not approved, a message to that effect would be sent, by any route that happened to be open for dâk, from Calcutta to Saugor.

[27]. ‘To mark the approbation with which he has received this report, the Right Honourable the Governor in Council will direct the immediate promotion to higher grades of such of the native officers and men as his Excellency the Commander-in-chief may be pleased to name as having most distinguished themselves on this occasion, and thereby earned this special reward; and the Governor will take care that liberal compensation is awarded for the loss of property abandoned in the cantonment and subsequently destroyed, when the Lancers, in obedience to orders, marched out to protect the families of the European officers, leaving their own unguarded in cantonment.

‘By a later report the Governor in Council has learned with regret that eleven men of the Lancers basely deserted their comrades and their standards, and joined the mutineers; but the Governor in Council will not suffer the disgrace of these unworthy members of the corps to sully the display of loyalty, discipline, and gallantry which the conduct of this fine regiment has eminently exhibited.’

[28]. It is well to observe, for the aid of those consulting maps, that there are five or six towns and villages of this name in India. The Mhow here indicated is nearly in lat. 22½°, long. 76°.

[29]. See page [175].

Akali of the Sikhs.

CHAPTER XII.
EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE.

A very important and interesting region in Northern India has scarcely yet been mentioned in this narrative; that, namely, which comprises the Punjaub and Sinde—the Punjaub with its offshoot Cashmere, and Sinde with the delta of the Indus. It will now be necessary, however, to obtain a few general notions on the following points—the geographical position of the Punjaub; the national character of the Sikhs as the chief inhabitants; the transactions which rendered the British masters of that country; and the circumstances that enabled Sir John Lawrence at once to hold the Punjaub intact and to aid the besiegers of Delhi. Of Sinde, a still shorter account will suffice.

The name Punjaub is Persian; it signifies ‘five waters;’ and was given in early days to the region between the five rivers Indus, Jelum, Chenab, Ravee, and Sutlej. Tho Punjaub is somewhat triangular in shape, extending from the Himalaya and Cashmere as a northern base to an apex where the five rivers have all coalesced into one. It is about equal in area to England and Scotland without Wales. The northern part is rugged and mountainous; the southern almost without a hill, comprising the several ‘Doabs’ between the rivers. The natural facilities for inland navigation and for irrigation are great; and these, aided by artificial channels, render the Punjaub one of the most promising regions in India. If the Beas, an affluent of the Sutlej, be added to the five rivers above named, then there are five Doabs or tongues of land between the six rivers, named severally the Doabs of Jullundur, Baree, Rechna, Jetch, and Sinde Sagur, in their order from east to west. The Baree Doab, between the rivers Beas and Ravee, is the most populous and important, containing as it does the three cities of Lahore, Umritsir, and Moultan.

The population of this country is a very mixed one; the Punjaub having been a battle-ground whereon Hindoos from the east and Mohammedans from the west have often met; and as the conquerors all partially settled on their conquests, many races are found in juxtaposition, though each prevailing in one or other of the Doabs. For instance, the Afghans are mostly west of the Indus; the Sikhs, in the Baree Doab; and so on. The inhabitants exceed ten millions in number; nearly two-thirds of them are Mohammedans—a very unusual ratio in India. The Sikhs, however, are the most interesting constituent in this population. They are a kind of Hindoo dissenters, differing from other Hindoos chiefly in these three points—the renunciation of caste, the admission of proselytes, and the practice of the military art by nearly all the males. They trace their origin to one Nanac, who was born in 1469 in a village about sixty miles from Lahore; he founded a new religion, or a new modification of Brahminism; and his followers gave him the designation of Guru or ‘spiritual pastor,’ while they took to themselves that of Sikhs or ‘disciples.’ After many contests with the Mohammedans of the Punjaub, the Sikhs ceased to have a spiritual leader, but acquired temporal power—some assuming the general surname or tribe-name of Singh or ‘lion,’ to denote their military prowess; while the rest became Khalasas, adherents to the more peaceful and religious doctrines of Nanac. Some of the Singhs are Akalis, a sort of warlike priests. The Sikhs are more robust than the generality of Hindoos, and more enterprising; but they are more illiterate, and speak a jargon composed of scraps from a multitude of languages.

Such being the country, and such the inhabitants, we have next to see how the British gained influence in that quarter. From the eleventh century until the year 1768 the Mohammedans—Afghans, Gorians, Moguls, and other tribes—ruled in the Punjaub; but in that year the Sikhs, who had gradually been growing in power, gained the ascendency in the region eastward of the Jelum. At the close of the last century an adventurer, named Runjeet Singh, a Sikh of the Jât tribe, became ruler of the district around the city of Lahore; and from that time the Sikh power was in the ascendant. The Sikhs constituted a turbulent and irregular republic; holding, in cases of emergency, a parliament called the Guru-mata at Umritsir; but at other times engaged in petty warfare against each other. Runjeet Singh was ambitious of putting down these competitors for power. He built at Umritsir the great fort of Govindgurh, ostensibly to protect, but actually to overawe and control some of the chieftains. In 1809 he crossed the Sutlej, and waged war against some of the Sikh chieftains of Sirhind who had obtained British protection. This led, not to a war, but to a treaty; by which Runjeet agreed to keep to the west of the Sutlej, and the British not to molest him there. This treaty, with a constancy rare in Asia, the chief of Lahore respected throughout the whole of his long career: maintaining a friendly intercourse with the British. In other directions, however, he waged ruthless war. He conquered Moultan, then Peshawur, then the Derajat, then Cashmere, then Middle Tibet, then Little Tibet, and finally became Maharajah of the Sikhs. In 1831 an interview, conducted with gorgeous splendour, took place between Runjeet Singh and Lord Auckland, in which the governor-general strengthened the ties of amity with the great Sikh. Runjeet died in 1839, and his son and grandson in 1840. From that year a total change of affairs ensued; competitors for the throne appeared; then followed warlike contests; and then a period of such excessive anarchy and lawlessness that British as well as Sikh territory became spoliated by various chieftains. War was declared in 1845, during which it required all the daring and skill of the victors at Moodkee, Ferozshah, Aliwal, and Sobraon, to subdue the fierce and warlike Sikhs. This was ended by a treaty, signed in March 1846; but the treaty was so frequently broken by the chieftains, that another war broke out in 1848, marked by the battles of Moultan, Chillianwalla, and Gujerat. Then ended the Sikh power. The British took the Punjaub in full sovereignty, dated from the 29th of March 1849. Commissioners were appointed, to organise a thoroughly new system of government; and it was herein that Sir Henry Lawrence so greatly distinguished himself. In less than three years from that date, the progress made towards peaceful government was so great, that the court of directors enumerated them in a eulogistic dispatch to the governor in council. The progress was one of uninterrupted improvement from 1849 to 1857; and it will ever remain a bright page in the East India Company’s records that, finding the Punjaub a prey to wild licence and devastating intrigues, the Company converted it into a peaceful and prosperous country. The reward for this was received when the rest of Northern India was in a mutinous state. It may here be stated that, when the Punjaub was annexed, a distinct arrangement was made with Cashmere. This interesting country, almost buried among the Himalaya and its offshoots, is one of the few regions in India which have suffered more from natural calamities than from the ravages of man; its population has been diminished from eight hundred thousand to two hundred thousand in the course of thirty years, by a distressing succession of pestilences, earthquakes, and famines. It was governed by Mohammedans during about five centuries; and was then held by the Sikhs from 1819 till the end of their power. Circumstances connected with the annexation of the Punjaub led to the assignment of Cashmere as a rajahship to Gholab Singh, one of the Sikh chieftains; he was to be an independent prince, subsidiary to the British so far as concerned a contingent of troops. The two Tibets were abandoned by the Sikhs before the date when British sovereignty crossed the Sutlej.

For administrative purposes, the Punjaub has been separated into eight divisions—Lahore, Jelum, Moultan, Leia, Peshawur, Jullundur, Hoshyapoor, and Kangra; of which the Lahore division alone contains three millions and a half of souls. Each division comprises several revenue and judicial districts. For military purposes, the divisions are only two, those of Lahore and Peshawur, each under a general commandant.

Sir John Lawrence.

In the middle of May 1857, when the mutinies began, Sir John Lawrence, who had been knighted for his eminent services while with his brother Sir Henry, and had succeeded him as chief-commissioner in the Punjaub, was absent from the capital of that country. He was at Rawul Pindee, a station between Lahore and Peshawur; but happily he had left behind him men who had learned and worked with his brother and himself, and who acted with a promptness and vigour worthy of all praise. To understand what was done, we must attend to the city and cantonment of Lahore. This famous capital of the Punjaub is situated about a mile east of the river Ravee. It contains many large and handsome buildings—such as the Padshah Mosque, said to have been built by Aurungzebe, but converted into a barrack by Runjeet Singh, who cared little about mosques; the Vizier Khan Mosque, once celebrated for its lofty minarets, but afterwards desecrated by the Sikhs in being used as stables for horses and shambles for swine; the Sonara Mosque; and many other Mohammedan mosques and Hindoo temples. Beyond the limits of the city are the large and once-magnificent tomb of the Emperor Jehanghire; the tomb of Anarkalli; and the exquisite garden of Shahjehan, the Shalimar or ‘House of Joy’—at one time the pride of the Mussulmans of Lahore, with its three marble terraces and its four hundred marble fountains, but afterwards ruthlessly despoiled of its marble by Runjeet Singh, to adorn Umritsir. Lahore presents every trace of having been a much larger city before the time of the Sikh domination; for the ruins of palaces, serais, and mosques spread over a great area. The city now contains about a hundred thousand inhabitants, a great declension from its population in former days. Considered in a military sense, Lahore is surrounded by a brick wall, formerly twenty-five feet high, but recently lowered. Runjeet Singh ran a trench round the wall, constructed a line of works, mounted the works with many cannon, and cleared away many ruins. This line of fortification exceeds seven miles in circuit; and within the northwest angle is a fort or citadel, containing extensive magazines and manufactories of warlike stores.

From evidence educed at different times, it appears certain that many of the native troops in the Punjaub were cognizant of a conspiracy among the ‘Poorbeahs,’ by which name the sepoys of the eastern regions are known to the inhabitants of the Punjaub; and that they held themselves ready to join in any mutiny arising out of such conspiracy. How the authorities checked this conspiracy, was strikingly shewn by the proceedings at different stations immediately after news arrived of disaster in the eastern provinces. We will rapidly glance in succession at Lahore, Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, and Phillour; and will then proceed to the Peshawur region. The British military cantonment for the city of Lahore was six miles distant, at a place called Meean Meer; where were stationed three native infantry regiments, and one of cavalry, the Queen’s 81st foot, two troops of horse-artillery, and four reserve companies of foot-artillery. In the fort, within the city-walls, were half a native infantry regiment, a company of Europeans, and a company of foot-artillery. The plot, so far as concerned the Punjaub, is believed to have been this.[[30]] On a particular day, when one wing of a native regiment at the fort was to be exchanged for another, there would, at a particular moment, be about eleven hundred sepoys present; they were to rise suddenly, murder their officers, and seize the gates; take possession of the citadel, the magazine, and the treasury; overpower the Europeans and artillery, only a hundred and fifty men in all; and kindle a huge bonfire as a signal to Meean Meer. All the native troops in cantonment were then to rise, seize the guns, force the central jail, liberate two thousand prisoners, and then commence an indiscriminate massacre of European military and civilians. The other great stations in that part of the Punjaub—Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, Phillour—were all in the plot, and the native troops at these places were to rise in mutiny about the 15th of May. There were many proofs, in the Punjaub and elsewhere, that the plotters at Meerut began a little too early for their own object; the scheme was not quite ripe at other places, else the English might have been almost entirely annihilated throughout the northern half of India.

The authorities at Lahore knew nothing of this plot as a whole, though they possibly observed symptoms of restlessness among the native troops. When the crisis arrived, however, they proved themselves equal to the difficulties of their position. On the 10th of May, the outbreak at Meerut occurred; on the 11th an obscure telegram reached Lahore, telling of some disaster; on the 12th the real nature of the affair became known. Sir John Lawrence being at Rawul Pindee, the other authorities—Mr Montgomery, Mr M’Leod, Mr Roberts, Colonel Macpherson, Colonel Lawrence (another member of this distinguished family), Major Ommaney, and Captain Hutchinson—instantly formed a sort of council of war; at which they agreed on a plan, which was assented to by Brigadier Corbett, commandant of the station at Meean Meer. This plan was to consist in depriving the native troops of their ammunition and percussion-caps, and placing more Europeans within the fort. A native officer in the Sikh police corps, however, revealed to the authorities the outlines of a conspiracy which had come to his knowledge; and the brigadier then resolved on the complete disarming of the native regiments—a bold step where he had so few Europeans to assist him, but carried out with admirable promptitude and success. It so happened that a ball was to be given that night (the 12th) by the military officers at Meean Meer; the ball was given, but preparations of a kind very different from festive were at the same time quietly made, wholly unknown to the sepoys. Early on the morning of the 13th, the whole of the troops, native and European, were ordered on parade, avowedly to hear the governor-general’s order relating to the affairs at Barrackpore, but really that the Europeans might disarm the natives. After this reading, a little manœuvring was ordered, whereby the whole of the native regiments—the 16th, 26th, and 49th Bengal infantry, and the 8th Bengal cavalry—were confronted by the guns and by five companies of the Queen’s 81st. At a given signal, the sepoys were ordered to pile arms, and the sowars to unbuckle sabres; they hesitated; but grape-shot and port-fires were ready—they knew it, and they yielded. Thus were disarmed two thousand five hundred native troops, by only six hundred British soldiers. Meanwhile the fort was not forgotten. Major Spencer, who commanded the wing of the 26th stationed there, had the men drawn up on parade on the morning of that same day; three companies of the 81st entered the fort under Captain Smith; and these three hundred British, or thereabouts, found it no difficult task to disarm the five or six hundred sepoys. This done, the 81st and the artillery were quickly placed at such posts as they might most usefully strengthen—in the lines of the 81st, on the artillery parade-ground, and in an open space in the centre of the cantonment, where the brigadier and his staff slept every night. The ladies and children were accommodated in the barracks; while the regimental officers were ordered to sleep in certain selected houses in the lines of their own regiments—regiments disarmed but not disbanded; and professedly disarmed only as a matter of temporary expediency. Thus was Lahore saved.

Umritsir is the next station to which attention must be directed relatively to the Punjaub. It was an important place to hold in due subordination, not only on account of its size and population, but for a certain religious character that it possesses in the eyes of the Sikhs. Umritsir or Amritsir has had a career of less than three centuries. In 1581, Ram Das, the fourth Guru or spiritual pastor of the Sikhs, ordered a reservoir or fountain to be formed at a particular spot, and named it Amrita Saras, or ‘Fount of Immortality.’ This Amrita Saras or Umritsir at once became a place of pilgrimage, and around it gradually grew up a considerable city. One of the Mohammedan sovereigns, Ahmed Shah, uneasy at the increasing power of the Sikhs, sought to terrify and suppress them by an act of sacrilege at Umritsir; he blew up a sacred shrine, filled up the sacred pool, and caused the site to be desecrated by slaughtering kine upon it. But he miscalculated. It was this very act which led to the supremacy of the Sikhs over the Mohammedans in the Punjaub; they purified and refilled the pool, rebuilt the shrine, and vowed unceasing hostility to the Mussulmans. At present, the holy place at Umritsir is a very large square basin, in which Sikhs bathe as other Hindoos would do in the Ganges; and in the centre, on a small island, is a richly adorned temple, attended by five hundred Akalis or armed priests. Considered as a city, Umritsir is large, populous, industrial, and commercial. The most striking object in it is the Govindgurh, the fortress which Runjeet Singh constructed in 1809, professedly to protect the pilgrims at the sacred pool, but really to increase his power over the Sikhs generally. Its great height and heavy batteries, rising one above another, give it a very imposing appearance; and it has been still further strengthened since British occupation began.

Directly the unfavourable news from Meerut was received at Lahore, or rather immediately after the disarming at the last-named place had been effected—a company of H.M. 81st foot, under Lieutenant Chichester, was sent off in eckas to Umritsir, to strengthen the garrison at Govindgurh. It was known that this fort was regarded almost in a religious light in the Punjaub; and that if the Poorbeahs or rebellious sepoys should seize it, the British would be lowered in the eyes of the Sikhs generally. In the fort, and in the cantonment near the town, were two companies of artillery, one European and one native; together with the 59th B. N. I., and a light field-battery. The wing of the Queen’s 81st, despatched from Lahore on the evening of the 13th of May, reached Umritsir on the following morning; and a company of foot-artillery, under Lieutenant Hildebrand, intended for Phillour, was detained at Umritsir until the authorities should feel sure of their position. The officers of the 59th had, some time previously, discussed frankly with their men the subject of the greased cartridges, and had encouraged them to hold a committee of inquiry among themselves; the result of which was a distinct avowal of their disbelief in the rumours on that unfortunate subject. It is only just towards the regimental officers to say that the highest authorities were as unable as themselves to account for the pertinacious belief of the sepoys in the greased-cartridge theory; Sir John Lawrence spoke of it as a ‘mania,’ which was to him inexplicable. With the miscellaneous forces now at hand, the authorities made no attempt to disarm the native regiment, but kept a watchful eye on the course of events. On the night of the 14th, an alarm spread that the native troops at Lahore had mutinied, and were advancing on Umritsir; the ladies and children were at once sent into the fort, and a small force was sent out on the Lahore road, to check the expected insurgents; but the alarm proved to be false, and the troops returned to their quarters. Peace was secured at Umritsir by the exercise of great sagacity. The Mohammedans were strong in the city, but the Sikhs were stronger; and Mr Cooper, the deputy-commissioner, succeeded in preventing either religious body from joining the other against the British—a task requiring much knowledge of the springs of action among the natives in general. It was not the first time in the history of India that the British authorities had deemed it expedient to play off the two religions against each other.

Ferozpore was not so happily managed as Lahore and Umritsir in this exciting and perilous week; either because the materials were less suitable to work upon, or because the mode of treatment was not so well adapted to the circumstances. Ferozpore is not actually in the Punjaub; it is one of the towns in Sirhind, or the Cis-Sutlej states—small in size and somewhat mean in appearance, but important through its position near the west bank of the Sutlej, and the large fort it comprises. In the middle of May, this station contained H.M. 61st foot, the 45th and 57th Bengal native infantry, the 10th Bengal native cavalry, about 150 European artillery, and one light-horse field-battery, with six field-guns—a large force, not required for Ferozpore itself, but to control the district of which it was the centre. Ferozpore had been the frontier British station before the annexation of the Punjaub, and had continued to be supplied with an extensive magazine of military stores. When Brigadier Innes heard on the 12th of May of the mutiny at Meerut, he ordered all the native troops on parade, that he and his officers might, if possible, judge of their loyalty by their demeanour. The examination was in great part, though not wholly, satisfactory. At noon on the 13th the disastrous news from Delhi arrived. The intrenched magazine within the fort was at that time guarded by a company of the 57th; and the brigadier, rendered somewhat uneasy on this matter, planned a new disposition of the troops. There had been many ‘cartridge’ meetings held among the men, and symptoms appeared that a revolt was intended. The relative positions of all the military were as follows: In the middle of the fort was the intrenched magazine, guarded as just stated; outside the fort, on the west, were the officers’ bungalows and the official buildings; still further to the west were the sepoy lines of the 45th and 57th; northward of these lines were the artillery barracks; still further north were the lines of the cavalry; south of the fort were the barracks of the European regiment; on the north of the fort was the Sudder Bazaar; while eastward of it was an open place or maîdan. The brigadier sought to avert danger by separating the two native regiments; but the Queen’s 61st, by the general arrangements of the cantonment, were too far distant to render the proper service at the proper moment. The 45th were to be removed to an open spot northeast of the cantonment, and the 57th to another open space on the south, two miles distant; the native cavalry were to take up a position near their own lines; the 61st were to encamp near the south wall of the fort; while one company, with artillery and guns, was to be placed within the fort. After a parade of the whole force, on the afternoon of the 13th, each corps was ordered to the camping-ground allotted for it. The 57th obeyed at once, but some companies of the 45th, while marching through the bazaar, refused to go any further, stopped, loaded their muskets, and prepared for resistance; they ran towards the fort, clambered over a dilapidated part of the ramparts, and advanced towards the magazine, where scaling-ladders were thrown over to them by a company of the 57th who had been on guard inside. This clearly shewed complicity to exist. A short but severe conflict ensued. Captain Lewis and Major Redmond had only a few Europeans with them, but they promptly attacked the mutineers, drove out the 45th, and made prisoners the treacherous guard of the 57th. All was now right in the fort and magazine, but not in the cantonment. About two hundred men of the 45th commenced a system of burning and looting; officers’ bungalows, mess-houses, hospitals, the church—all were fired. Many isolated acts of heroism were performed by individual Europeans, but no corps was sent against the ruffians. Fortunately, a powder-magazine beyond the cavalry lines, containing the enormous quantity of three hundred thousand pounds of gunpowder, did not fall into the hands of the rebels; it might have done so, for no preparations had been made to defend it. All this time the Queen’s troops chafed at their enforced inaction; their camping-ground had been so badly chosen that they dared not in a body attack the 45th lest the 57th should in the meantime surprise them in the rear; and there is no evidence that they were ordered to do what any English regiment would cheerfully have undertaken—divide into two wings, each to confront a whole regiment of sepoys. During the night and the following morning nearly all the sepoys decamped, some with arms and some without. Ferozpore was saved for the present; but mutinous proceedings were encouraged at Jullundur, Jelum, and Sealkote, by the escape of the 45th and 57th; and the brigadier fell into disgrace for his mismanagement of this affair. He had only just arrived to take command of that station, and it may be that he was on this account less able to judge correctly the merits or demerits of the forces placed at his disposal.

Jullundur, which gives name to the Jullundur Doab between the Sutlej and the Beas, is another of this group of stations. It is situated on the high road from Umballa and Umritsir to Lahore; and was formerly the capital of an Afghan dynasty in the Punjaub. Although shorn of much of its former greatness, it is still an important and flourishing town, with forty thousand inhabitants. Jullundur received the news from Meerut on the 11th of May, and immediately precautionary measures were taken. Brigadier-general Johnstone, the commandant, being absent at the time, a plan was at once formed by Colonel Hartley of H.M. 8th foot, and Captain Farrington, the deputy-commissioner, and agreed to by all the other officers. The station at that time contained H.M. 8th foot, the 6th light cavalry, the 36th and 61st native infantry, and one troop of horse-artillery. The chief officers in command were Colonels Longfield and Hartley, Majors Barton, Innes, and Olpherts, and Captain Faddy. When the telegraph of the 12th of May confirmed the Meerut news of the 11th, it was resolved at once to control the native troops at Jullundur, and to disarm them if mutinous symptoms should appear. Part of the Queen’s troops were marched into the artillery lines; the guns were pointed at the lines of the native regiments in such a way as to render the sepoys and sowars somewhat uneasy; two field-guns were kept with horses ready harnessed for movement; careful patrolling was maintained during the night; and the ladies and children were safely if not comfortably placed in barracks and rooms guarded by their own countrymen. Captain Farrington was placed in charge of the civil lines, the public buildings, and the town generally; and most fortunate was it for him, and the English generally, that the native Rajah of Jullundur, Rundheer Singh Alloowalla, remained friendly. This prince had been deprived of part of his territory at the period of the annexation of the Punjaub, but the deprivation had not rendered him hostile to his powerful superiors; he promptly aided Farrington with guns and men, instead of throwing in his lot with the mutineers. Jullundur, like Lahore, Umritsir, and Ferozpore, was saved for the present.

Phillour, the fifth station in this remarkable group, was in one sense more perilously placed than any of the others, owing to its nearer proximity to the mutineers of Meerut and Delhi. It stands on the right bank of the Sutlej, on the great high road from Umballa and Loodianah to Umritsir and Lahore. Phillour is of no account as a town, but of great importance as a military station on the frontier of the Punjaub, and as commanding the passage of the grand trunk-road across the Sutlej. At the time of the mutiny it had a magazine containing a vast supply of warlike material, without any European troops whatever. The adjoining cantonment contained one native regiment, of which one company guarded the fort and magazine. The military authorities all over the Punjaub and Sirhind well knew that Phillour contained munitions of war that would be most perilous in the hands of mutineers. Lieutenant Hildebrand, as was lately stated, was sent from Lahore with a company of artillery to Phillour; but he stopped on the way to aid the operations at Umritsir. When the news from Meerut arrived, Colonel Butler made such precautionary arrangements as he could at the lines, while Lieutenant Griffith looked watchfully after the fort and arsenal. Securing the telegraph, in order that the sepoys of the 3d native infantry might not tamper with it, they communicated with Jullundur, and were rejoiced to find that a small force was about to be despatched from that place for their relief. As soon as the authorities at the last named station became aware of the insurgent proceedings, they determined, besides attending to the safety of their own station, to aid Phillour; they sent a telegraphic officer to make such arrangements as would keep the wire in working order; they sent a message to Loodianah, to warn the deputy-commissioner to guard the bridge of boats across the Sutlej; and they sent a small but compact force to Phillour. This force consisted of a detachment of the Queen’s 8th foot, two horse-artillery guns, spare men and horses for the artillery, and a small detachment of the 2d Punjaub cavalry. Knowing that this welcome force was on the road, Colonel Butler and Lieutenant Griffith sought to maintain tranquillity in Phillour during the night; they closed the fort-gate at sunset; they placed a loaded light field-piece just within the gate, with port-fires kept burning; and the little band of Europeans remained on watch all night. At daybreak their succour arrived; the force from Jullundur, commanded by Major Baines and Lieutenants Sankey, Dobbin, and Probyn, marched the twenty-four miles of distance without a single halt. The guns and cavalry, being intended only as an escort on the road, and to aid in recovering the fort in the event of its having been captured by the sepoys during the night, returned to Jullundur, together with fifty of the infantry. The actual reinforcement, therefore, was about a hundred of H.M. 8th foot, and a few gunners to work the fort-guns if necessary. The little garrison opened the fort-gates to admit this reinforcement—much to the dismay of the sepoys in the cantonment; for, as was afterwards ascertained, a plot had been formed whereby the fort was to be quietly taken possession of on the 15th of the month, and used as a rendezvous for the sepoy regiments in the Punjaub, when they had risen in mutiny, and formed a system of tactics in reference to the great focus of rebellion at Delhi.

Thus were the days from the 11th to the 14th of May days of critical importance in the eastern part of the Punjaub. Evidence almost conclusive was obtained that the 15th was intended to have been a day of grand mutiny among the Bengal sepoys stationed in that region: the regimental officers knew nothing of this; some of them would not believe it, even at the time of the disarming; but the current of belief tended in that direction afterwards. There is very little doubt, as already implied, that the Meerut outbreak occurred before the plans were ready elsewhere; that event seemed to the British, and rightly so, a dreadful one; but, if delayed five days, it would probably have been followed by the shedding of an amount of European blood frightful to contemplate.

Having noticed the prompt measures taken at Lahore, Umritsir, Ferozpore, Jullundur, and Phillour, shortly before the middle of May; it will be useful, before tracing the course of subsequent revolt in some of the eastern Punjaub stations, to attend to the state of affairs in the western division, of which Peshawur was the chief city.

Peshawur was beyond the limits of British India until the annexation of the Punjaub. Situated as it is on the main road from the Indus at Attock to the Indian Caucasus range at the Khyber Pass, it has for ages been regarded as an important military position, commanding one of the gates of India. The Afghans and other Mohammedan tribes generally made their irruptions into India by this route. During the complexities of Indian politics and warfare, Peshawur passed from the hands of the Afghans to those of the Sikhs, and then to the British, who proceeded to make it the head-quarters of a military division. Peshawur had been so ruthlessly treated by Runjeet Singh, after his capture of that place in 1818, that its fine Moslem buildings were mostly destroyed, its commerce damaged, and its population diminished. At present, its inhabitants are believed to be about sixty thousand in number. The fort is very strong; it consists of lofty walls, round towers at the angles, semicircular ravelins in front, faussebraies of substantial towers and walls, a wet ditch, and one only gateway guarded by towers; within the enclosure are capacious magazines and storehouses.

When the mutiny began, the Peshawur division contained about fourteen thousand troops of all arms. A peculiar military system was found necessary in this division, owing to the large proportion of semi-civilised marauders among the inhabitants. The western frontier is hilly throughout, being formed of the Indian Caucasus and the Suliman Range, and being pierced by only a few roads, of which the Khyber Pass and the Bolan Pass are the most famous. These passes and roads are for the most part under the control of hardy mountaineers, who care very little for any regular governments, whether Afghan, Sikh, or British, and who require constant watching. Many of these men had been induced to accept British pay as irregular horsemen; and Colonel (formerly Major) Edwardes acquired great distinction for his admirable management of these rough materials. The fourteen thousand troops in the Peshawur division of the Punjaub comprised about three thousand European infantry and artillery, eight thousand Bengal native infantry, three thousand Bengal native cavalry and artillery, and a few Punjaubees and hill-men. These were stationed at Peshawur, Nowsherah, Hoti Murdan, and the frontier forts at the foot of the hills. Major-general Reid was chief military authority at Peshawur. On the 13th of May he received telegraphic news of the mutiny at Meerut and of the disarming at Lahore, and immediately held a council of war, attended by himself, Brigadiers Cotton and Neville Chamberlain, Colonels Edwardes and Nicholson. Edwardes was chief-commissioner and superintendent of the Peshawur division, besides being a military officer. It was resolved that, as senior military officer in the Punjaub, General Reid should assume chief command, and that his head-quarters should be with those of the Punjaub civil government, at Lahore or elsewhere; while Cotton should command in the Peshawur division. The council also agreed that, besides providing as far as was possible for the safety of each station individually, a ‘movable column’ should be formed at Jelum, a station on the great road about midway between Lahore and Peshawur—ready to move on any point in the Punjaub where mutinous symptoms might appear. This force, it will be seen,[[31]] was made up of a singular variety of troops, comprising all arms of the service, irregulars as well as regulars, Europeans as well as natives; but the Oudian or ‘Poorbeah’ element was almost wholly absent, and by this absence was the efficiency of the column really estimated. Various arrangements were at the same time made for so distributing the European troops as to afford them the best control over the sepoy regiments. At Peshawur itself, the Company’s treasure was sent into the fort for safety, and the Residency was made the head-quarters of the military authorities.

On the 21st of May, news reached Peshawur that the 55th Bengal native infantry—encouraged probably by the withdrawal of the 27th foot from Nowsherah to aid in forming the movable column—had mutinied at Murdan on the preceding day, keeping their officers under strict surveillance, but not molesting them; and that Colonel Spottiswoode, their commander, had put an end to his existence through grief and mortification at this act. The crisis being perilous, it was at once resolved to disarm the native troops at Peshawur, or so much of them as excited most suspicion. This was successfully accomplished on the morning of the 22d—much to the chagrin of the officers of the disbanded regiments, who, here as elsewhere, were among the last to admit the probability of insubordination among their own troops. The 24th, 27th, and 51st regiments of Bengal native infantry, and the 5th of light cavalry, were on this occasion deprived of their arms; and a subadar-major of the 51st was hanged in presence of all his companions in arms. The disarming was effected by a clever distribution of the reliable forces; small parties of European artillery and cavalry being confronted with each regiment, in such way as to prevent aid being furnished by one to another. The men were disarmed, but not allowed to desert, on pain of instant death if caught making the attempt; and they were kept constantly watched by a small force of Europeans, and by a body of irregular troopers who had no sympathy whatever with Hindustanis. This done, a relieving force was at once sent off to Murdan; a step which would have been dangerous while sepoy troops still remained so strong at Peshawur. The small force of Europeans and irregulars was found to be sufficient for this duty; it arrived at Murdan, attacked the mutinous 55th, killed or captured two hundred, and drove the rest away. These misguided insurgents ill calculated the fate in store for them. Knowing that Mohammedan hill-tribes were near at hand, and that those tribes had often been hostile to the English, they counted on sympathy and support, but met with defeat and death. The chivalrous Edwardes, who had so distinguished himself in the Punjaub war, had gained a powerful influence among the half-trained mountaineers on the Afghan border. While the detachment from Peshawur was pursuing and cutting down many of the mutineers, the hill-men were at that very time coming to Edwardes to ask for military employment. These hill-men hated the Brahmins, and had something like contempt for traitors; when, therefore, Edwardes sent them against the mutineers, the latter soon found out their fatal error. ‘The petted sepoy,’ says one who was in the Punjaub at the time, ‘whose every whim had been too much consulted for forty years—who had been ready to murder his officer, to dishonour his officer’s wife, and rip in pieces his officer’s child, sooner than bite the end of a cartridge which he well knew had not been defiled—was now made to eat the bread and drink the water of affliction: to submit at the hazard of his wretched life, which he still tenaciously clung to, to ceremonies the least of which was more damning to his caste than the mastication of a million of fat cartridges.’ Even this was not the end; for the sepoys were brought back to the British cantonment, in fives and tens, and there instantly put to death; no quarter was given to men who shewed neither justice nor mercy to others. There were other forts in the Peshawur Valley similar to that at Murdan, places held by native regiments, in which little or no reliance could be placed. There were four native regiments altogether in these minor forts; and it became necessary to disarm these before the safety of the British could be insured. Peshawur contained its full Asiatic proportion of desperate scoundrels, who would have begun to loot at any symptom of discomfiture of the paramount power.

When this disarming of the native troops at the surrounding forts had been effected, the authorities at Peshawur continued to look sharply after the native troops at this important station. The disarmed 5th irregular cavalry, having refused to go against the 55th at Murdan, were at once and successfully disbanded. By a dexterous manœuvre, the troopers were deprived of horses, weapons, coats, and boots, while the mouths of cannon were gaping at them; they were then sent off in boats down the Indus, with a hint to depart as far as possible from any military stations. The authorities in the Punjaub, like Neill at Benares and Allahabad, believed that mercy to the sepoys would be cruelty to all besides at such a time; they shot, hanged, or blew away from guns with terrible promptness, all who were found to be concerned in mutinous proceedings. On one occasion a letter was intercepted, revealing the fact that three natives of high rank (giving names) were to sit in council on the morrow to decide what to do against the British; a telegraphic message was sent off to Sir John Lawrence, for advice how to act; a message was returned: ‘Let a spy attend and report;’ this was done, and a plot discovered; another question brought back another telegram: ‘Hang them all three;’ and in a quarter of an hour the hanging was completed. The importance of retaining artillery in European hands was strongly felt at Peshawur; to effect this, after many guns had been sent away to strengthen the moving column, a hundred and sixty European volunteers from the infantry were quickly trained to the work, and placed in charge of a horse-battery of six guns, half the number on horseback, and the other half sitting on the guns and wagons—all actively put in training day after day to learn their new duties. Fearful work the European gunners had sometimes to perform. Forty men of the 55th regiment were ‘blown from guns’ in three days. An officer present on the occasion says: ‘Three sides of a square were formed, ten guns pointed outwards, the sentence of the court read, a prisoner bound to each gun, the signal given, and the salvo fired. Such a scene I hope never again to witness—human trunks, heads, arms, legs flying about in all directions. All met their fate with firmness but two; so to save time they were dropped to the ground, and their brains blown out by musketry.’ It sounds strangely to English ears that such a terrible death should occasionally be mentioned as a concession or matter of favour; yet such was the case. Mr Montgomery, judicial commissioner of the Punjaub, issued an address to one of the native regiments, two sepoys of which had been blown away from guns for mutinous conduct. He exhorted them to fidelity, threatened them with the consequences of insubordination, and added: ‘You have just seen two men of your regiment blown from guns. This is the punishment I will inflict on all traitors and mutineers; and your consciences will tell you what punishment they may expect hereafter. These men have been blown from guns, and not hanged, because they were Brahmins, and because I wished to save them from the pollution of the hangman’s touch; and thus prove to you that the British government does not wish to injure your caste and religion.’ The treachery and cruelty of the mutinous sepoys soon dried up all this tenderness as to the mode in which they would prefer to be put to death. We have seen Neill at Cawnpore, after the revelation of the horrors in the slaughter-room, compelling the Brahmin rebels to pollute themselves by wiping up the gore they had assisted to shed, as a means of striking horror into the hearts of miscreant Brahmins elsewhere.

In addition to the severe measures for preserving obedience, other precautions were taken involving no shedding of blood. A new levy of Punjaubee troopers was obtained by Edwardes from the Moultan region; the disarmed sepoys were removed from their lines, and made to encamp in a spot where they could be constantly watched; a land-transport train was organised, for the conveyance of European troops from place to place; the fort was strengthened, provisioned, and guarded against all surprises; the artillery park was defended by an earthwork; and trusty officers were sent out in various directions to obtain recruits for local irregular corps—enlisting men rough in bearing and unscrupulous in morals, but who knew when they were well commanded, and who had no kind of affection for Hindustanis. Thus did Cotton, Edwardes, Nicholson, and the other officers, energetically carry out plans that kept Peshawur at peace, and enabled Sir John Lawrence to send off troops in aid of the force besieging Delhi. Colonel Edwardes, it may here be stated, had been in Calcutta in the month of March; and had there heard that Sikhs in some of the Bengal regiments were taking their discharge, as if foreseeing some plot then in preparation; this confirmed his predilection for Punjaub troops over ‘Poorbeahs.’ The activity in raising troops in the remotest northwest corner of India appears to have been a double benefit to the British; for it provided a serviceable body of hardy troops, and it gratified the natives of the Peshawur Valley. This matter was adverted to in a letter written by Edwardes. ‘This post (Peshawur), so far from being more arduous in future, will be more secure. Events here have taken a wonderful turn. During peace, Peshawur was an incessant anxiety; now it is the strongest point in India. We have struck two great blows—we have disarmed our own troops, and have raised levies of all the people of the country. The troops (sepoys) are confounded; they calculated on being backed by the people. The people are delighted, and a better feeling has sprung up between them and us in this enlistment than has ever been obtained before. I have also called on my old country, the Derajat, and it is quite delightful to see how the call is answered. Two thousand horsemen, formerly in my army at Moultan, are now moving on different points, according to order, to help us in this difficulty; and every post brings me remonstrances from chiefs as to why they have been forgotten. This is really gratifying.’ It may be here stated that Sir John Lawrence, about the end of May, suggested to Viscount Canning by telegraph the expediency of allowing Bengal sepoys to retire from the army and receive their pay, if they preferred so doing, and if they had not been engaged in mutinous proceedings—as a means of sifting the good from the bad; but Canning thought this would be dangerous east of the Sutlej; and it does not appear to have been acted on anywhere.

These exertions were materially aided by the existence of a remarkable police system in the Punjaub—one of the benefits which the Lawrences and their associates introduced. The Punjaub police was of three kinds. First was the military police, consisting of two corps of irregular infantry, seven battalions of foot, one regiment cavalry, and twenty-seven troops of horse—amounting altogether to about thirteen thousand men. These men were thoroughly disciplined, and were ready at all times to encounter the marauding tribes from the mountains. Then came the civil police, comprising about nine thousand men, and distributed over nearly three hundred thannahs or subordinate jurisdictions, to protect thirty thousand villages and small places: the men were armed with swords and carbines. Lastly were the constabulary, thirteen hundred men in the cities, and thirty thousand in the rural districts; these were a sort of watchmen, dressed in a plain drab uniform, and carrying only a staff and a spear. This large police army of more than fifty thousand men was not only efficient, when well officered, in maintaining tranquillity, but furnished excellent recruits for regiments of Sikh and Punjaubee soldiers.

Sir John Lawrence issued a vigorous proclamation, encouraging the native troops to remain faithful, and threatening them with dire consequences if they revolted; but from the first he relied very little on such appeals to the Bengal troops. Leaving this subject, however, and directing attention to those events only which bore with any weight on the progress of the mutiny, we shall now rapidly glance at Punjaub affairs in the summer months. Many struggles took place, too slight to require much notice. One was the disarming of a native regiment at Noorpore. Another, on June 13th, was the execution of twelve men at Ferozpore, belonging to the 45th N. I., for mutiny after being disarmed.

It was early in June that the station at Jullundur became a prey to insurgent violence. On the 3d of the month, a fire broke out in the lines of the 61st native infantry—a bad symptom wherever it occurred in those days. On the following night a hospital was burned. On the 6th, the 4th regiment Sikh infantry marched into the station, as well as a native troop of horse-artillery; but, owing to some uneasiness displayed by the Bengal troops, the Sikh regiment was removed to another station—as if the brigadier in command were desirous not to offend or irritate the petted regiments from the east. At eleven o’clock at night on the 7th, the close of a quiet Sunday—again Sunday!—a sudden alarm of fire was given, and a lurid glare was seen over the lines of the 36th native infantry. The officers rushed to their respective places; and then it was found that the 6th native cavalry, wavering for a time, had at last given way to the mutinous impulse that guided the 36th and 61st infantry, and that all three regiments were threatening the officers. The old sad story might again be told; the story of some of the officers being shot as they spoke and appealed to the fidelity of their men; of others being shot at or sabred as they ran or rode across the parade-ground; of ladies and children being affrighted at the artillery barracks, where they had been wont to sleep for greater security. The mutineers had evidently expected the native artillery to join them; but fortunately these latter were so dove-tailed with the European artillery, and were so well looked after by a company of the 8th foot, that they could not mutiny if they would. All the Europeans who fled to the artillery barracks and lines were safe; the guns protected them. The mutineers, after an hour or two of the usual mischief, made off. About one half the cavalry regiment mutinied, but as all confidence was lost in them, the rest were deprived of horses and arms, and the regiment virtually ceased to exist. The officers were overwhelmed with astonishment and mortification; some of them had gone to rest on that evening in perfect reliance on their men. One of the cavalry officers afterwards said: ‘Some of our best men have proved the most active in this miserable business. A rough rider in my troop, who had been riding my charger in the morning, and had played with my little child, was one of the men who charged the guns.’ This officer, like many others, had no other theory to offer than that his troopers mutinied in a ‘panic,’ arising from the sinister rumours that ran like wildfire through the lines and bazaars of the native troops, shaking the fidelity of those who had not previously taken part in any conspiracy. It was the only theory which their bitterness of heart allowed them to contemplate with any calmness; for few military men could admit without deep mortification that they had been ignorant of, and deceived by, their own soldiers down to the very last moment.

While a portion of the 6th cavalry remained, disarmed and unhorsed but not actually disbanded, at Jullundur, the two regiments and a half of mutineers marched off towards Phillour, as if bound for Delhi. At the instant the mutiny began, a telegraphic message had been sent from Jullundur to Phillour, to break the bridge of boats over the Sutlej, and thereby prevent the rebels from crossing from the Punjaub into Sirhind.

Unfortunately, the telegraphic message failed to reach the officer to whom it was sent. The 3d regiment Bengal native cavalry, at Phillour, might, as the commanding officer at that time thought, have been maintained in discipline if the Jullundur mutineers had not disturbed them; but when the 36th and 61st native infantry, and the 6th cavalry were approaching, all control was found to be lost. The telegraphic wires being cut, no news could reach Phillour, and thus the insurgents from Jullundur made their appearance wholly unexpected—by the Europeans, if not by the troopers. The ladies and families were at once hastened off from the cantonment to the fort, which had just before been garrisoned by a hundred men of H.M. 8th foot. The officers then went on parade, where they found themselves unable to bring the 3d regiment to a sense of their duty; the men promised to keep their hands clear of murder, but they would not fight against the approaching rebels from Jullundur. The officers then returned to the fort powerless; for the handful of Europeans there, though sufficient to defend the fort, were unable to encounter four mutinous regiments in the cantonment. In a day or two, all the ladies and children were sent off safely to the hills; and the cavalry officers were left without immediate duties. The tactics of the brigadier at Jullundur were at that crisis somewhat severely criticised. It was considered that he ought to have made such arrangements as would have prevented the mutineers from crossing the Sutlej. He followed them, with such a force as he could spare or collect; but while he was planning to cut off the bridge of boats that spanned the Sutlej between Phillour and Loodianah, they avoided that spot altogether; they crossed the river six miles further up, and proceeded on their march towards Delhi—attacked at certain places by Europeans and by Sikhs, but not in sufficient force to frustrate their purpose.

Although belonging to a region east of the Punjaub, it may be well here to notice another of the June mutinies nearer the focus of disaffection. One of the regiments that took its officers by surprise in mutinying was the 60th B. N. I.; of which the head-quarters had been at Umballa, but which was at Bhotuck, only three marches from Delhi, when the fidelity of the men gave way. One of the English officers, expressing his utter astonishment at this result, said: ‘All gone! The men that we so trusted; my own men, with whom I have shot, played cricket, jumped, entered into all their sports, and treated so kindly!’ He thought it almost cruel to subject that regiment to such temptation as would be afforded by close neighbourhood with the mutineers at Delhi. But, right or wrong, the temptation was afforded, and proved too strong to be resisted. It afterwards became known that the 60th received numerous letters and messages from within Delhi, entreating them to join the national cause against the Kaffir Feringhees. On the 11th of June, the sepoys suddenly rose, and fired a volley at a tent within which many of the officers were at mess, but fortunately without fatal results. Many of the officers at once galloped off to the camp outside Delhi, feeling they might be more useful there than with a mutinous regiment; while others stayed a while, in the vain hope of bringing the men back to a sense of their duty. After plundering the mess of the silver-plate and the wine, and securing the treasure-chest, the mutineers made off for Delhi. Here, however, a warm reception was in store for them; their officers had given the alarm; and H.M. 9th Lancers cut the mutineers up terribly on the road leading to the Lahore Gate. Of those who entered the city, most fell in a sortie shortly afterwards. At the place where this regiment had been stationed, Umballa, another death-fiend—cholera—was at work. ‘We have had that terrible scourge the cholera. It has been raging here with frightful violence for two months (May to July); but, thank God, has now left us without harming the Sahibs. It seemed a judgment on the natives. They were reeling about and falling dead in the streets, and no one to remove them. It is the only time we have looked on it as an ally; though it has carried off many soldiers, two native officers, and six policemen, who were guarding prisoners; all fell dead at the same place; as one dropped, another stepped forward and took his place; and so on the whole lot.’ It was one of the grievous results of the Indian mutiny that English officers, in very bitterness of heart, often expressed satisfaction at the calamities which fell on the natives, even townsmen unconnected with the soldiery.

Jelum, which was the scene of a brief but very fierce contest in July, is a considerable town on the right bank of the river of the same name; it is situated on the great line of road from Lahore to Peshawur; and plans have for some time been under consideration for the establishment of river-steamers thence down through Moultan to Kurachee. Like many other places on the great high road, it was a station for troops; and like many other stations, it was thrown into uneasiness by doubts of the fidelity of the sepoys. The 14th regiment Bengal native infantry, about three-fourths of which were stationed at Jelum, having excited suspicions towards the end of June, it was resolved to disarm them; but as no force was at hand to effect this, three companies of H.M. 24th foot, under Colonel Ellice, with a few horse-artillery, were ordered down from Rawul Pindee. On the 7th of July the English troops arrived, and found the native regiment drawn up on parade. Whether exasperated at the frustration of a proposed plan of mutiny, or encouraged by their strength being thrice that of the English, is not well known; but the 14th attacked the English with musketry directly they approached. This of course brought on an immediate battle. The sepoys had fortified their huts, loopholed their walls, and secured a defensive position in a neighbouring village. The English officers of the native regiment, deserted and fired at by their men, hastened to join the 24th; and a very severe exchange of musketry soon took place. The sepoys fought so boldly, and disputed every inch so resolutely, that it was found necessary to bring the three guns into requisition to drive them out of their covered positions. At last they were expelled, and escaped into the country; where the British, having no cavalry, were unable to follow them. It was an affair altogether out of the usual order in India at that time: instead of being a massacre or a chasing of treacherously betrayed individuals, it was a fight in which the native troops met the British with more than their usual resolution. The loss in this brief conflict was severe. Colonel Ellice was terribly wounded in the chest and the thigh; Captain Spring was killed; Lieutenants Streathfield and Chichester were wounded, one in both legs, and the other in the arm; two sergeants and twenty-three men were killed; four corporals and forty-three men wounded. Thus, out of this small force, seventy-six were either killed or wounded. The government authorities at Jelum immediately offered a reward of thirty rupees a head for every fugitive sepoy captured. This led to the capture of about seventy in the next two days, and to a fearful scene of shooting and blowing away from guns.

On the same day, July 7th, when three companies of H.M. 24th were thus engaged at Jelum, the other companies of the same regiment were engaged at Rawul Pindee in disarming the 58th native infantry and two companies of the 14th. The sepoys hesitated for a time, but seeing a small force of horse-artillery confronted to them, yielded; some fled, but the rest gave up their arms. Two hundred of their muskets were found to be loaded, a significant indication of some murderous intent.

The mutiny at Sealkote, less fatal than that at Jelum in reference to the conflict of troops in fair fight, was more adventurous, more marked by ‘hair-breadth ‘scapes’ among the officers and their families. Sealkote is a town of about twenty thousand inhabitants, in the Doab between the Chenab and the Ravee, on the left bank of the first-named river, and about sixty miles distant from Lahore. At the time of the mutiny there was a rifle-practice depôt at this place. The sepoys stationed at Sealkote had often been in conversation with their European officers concerning the cartridge-question, and had expressed themselves satisfied with the explanations offered. During the active operations for forming movable columns in the Punjaub, either to protect the various stations or to form a Delhi siege-army, all the European troops at Sealkote were taken away, as well as some of the native regiments; leaving at that place only the 46th Bengal native infantry, and a wing of the 9th native cavalry, in cantonment, while within the fort were about a hundred and fifty men of the new Sikh levies. The brigadier commandant was rendered very uneasy by this removal of his best troops; some of his officers had already recommended the disarming of the sepoys before the last of the Queen’s troops were gone; but he was scrupulous of shewing any distrust of the native army; he felt and acted in this matter more like a Bengal officer than a Punjaub officer—relying on the honour and fidelity of the ‘Poorbeah’ troops. His anxieties greatly increased when he heard that the 14th native infantry, after revolting at Jelum, were approaching Sealkote. Many of them, it is true, had been cut up by a few companies of the Queen’s 24th; but still the remainder might very easily tempt his own sepoys and troopers. Nevertheless, to the last day, almost to the last hour, many of the regimental officers fully trusted the men; and even their ladies slept near the lines, for safety.

The troops appear to have laid a plan on the evening of the 8th of July, for a mutiny on the following morning. At four o’clock on the 9th, sounds of musketry and cries of distress were heard, rousing all the Europeans from their slumbers. An officer on night-picket duty near the cavalry lines observed a few troopers going towards the infantry lines. It was afterwards discovered that these troopers went to the sepoys, told them ‘the letters’ had come, and urged them to revolt at once—implying complicity with mutineers elsewhere; but the officer could not know this at the time: he simply thought the movement suspicious, and endeavoured to keep his own sepoy guards from contact with the troopers. In this, however, he failed; the sepoys soon left him, and went over to the troopers. He hurried to his bungalow, told his wife to hasten in a buggy to the fort, and then went himself towards the lines of his regiment. This was a type of what occurred generally. The officers sought to send their wives and families from their various bungalows into the fort, and then hastened to their duties. These duties brought them into the presence of murderous troops at the regimental lines; troops who fired on the very officers that to the last had trusted them. Especially was the mortification great among the Europeans connected with the 46th; for when they begged their sepoys to fire upon the mutinous troopers, the sepoys fired at them instead. A captain, two surgeons, a clergyman, and his wife and child, were killed almost at the very beginning of the outbreak; while Brigadier Brind and other officers were wounded.

There were no wanderings over burning roads and through thick jungles to record in this case; but a few isolated adventures may be briefly noticed. Two or three roads from the lines and bungalows to the fort became speedily marked by fleeing Europeans—officers, ladies, and children—in vehicles, on horseback, and on foot—all trying to reach the fort, and all attacked or pursued by the treacherous villains. Dr Graham, the superintending surgeon, on the alarm being raised, drove quickly with his daughter towards the fort; a trooper rode up and shot him dead; his bereaved daughter seized the reins, and, with the corpse of her parent on her lap, drove into the nearest compound, screaming for help. A young lieutenant of the 9th cavalry, when it came to his turn to flee, had to dash past several troopers, who fired many shots, one only of which hit him. He galloped thirty miles to Wuzeerabad, wounded as he was; and, all his property being left behind him only to be ruthlessly destroyed, he had, to use his own words, to look forward to begin the world again, ‘with a sword, and a jacket cut up the back.’ Three officers galloped forty miles to Gujeranwalla, swimming or wading the rivers that crossed their path. One of the captains of the 46th, who was personally much liked by the sepoys of his own company, was startled by receiving from them an offer of a thousand rupees per month if he would become a rebel like them, and still remain their captain! What answer he gave to this strange offer may easily be conceived; but his company remained kind to him, for they saw him safely escorted to the fort. In one of the bungalows fourteen persons, of whom only three were men, sought refuge from the murderous sepoys and troopers. The women and children all congregated in a small lumber-room; the three gentlemen remained in the drawing-room, pistols in hand. Then ensued a brisk scene of firing and counter-firing; during which, however, only one life appears to have been lost: the love of plunder in this case overpowered the love of murder; for the insurgents, compelling the gentlemen to retreat to their poor companions in the lumber-room, and there besieging them for a time, turned their attention to loot or plunder. After ten hours sojourn of fourteen persons in a small room in a sultry July day, the Europeans, finding that the mutineers were wandering in other directions, contrived to make a safe and hasty run to the fort, a distance of upwards of a mile. Some of the Europeans at the station, as we have said, were killed; some escaped by a brisk gallop; while the rest were shut up for a fortnight in the fort, in great discomfort, until the mutineers went away. There being no European soldiers at Sealkote, the sepoys and sowars acted as they pleased; they pillaged the bungalows, exploded the magazine, let loose the prisoners in the jail, and then started off, like other mutineers, in the direction of Delhi.

One of the most touching incidents at Sealkote bore relation to a nunnery, a convent of nuns belonging to the order of Jesus Marie of Lyon, a Roman Catholic establishment analogous to that at Sirdhana near Meerut, already brought under notice (p. [57]). The superior at Lyon, many weeks afterwards, received a letter from one of the sisters,[[32]] giving an affecting account of the way in which the quiet religieuses were hunted about by the mutineers.

When the Sealkote mutineers had taken their departure towards Delhi, a force was organised at Jelum as quickly as possible to pursue them. This force, under Colonel Brown, comprised three companies of H.M. 24th foot, two hundred Sikhs, a hundred irregular horse, and three horse-artillery guns. The energetic Brigadier Nicholson, in command of a flying column destined for Delhi, comprising the 52d light infantry, the 6th Punjaub cavalry, and other troops, made arrangements at the same time for intercepting the mutineers. It thus happened that on the 12th of July, the insurgent 46th and 9th regiments when they reached the Ravee from Sealkote, found themselves hemmed in; and after an exciting contest on an island in the river, they were almost entirely cut up.

About the close of July, the disarmed 26th native infantry mutinied at Lahore, killed Major Spencer and two native officers, and fled up the left bank of the Ravee; but the police, the new levies, and the villagers pursued them so closely and harassed them so continuously, that hardly a man remained alive. In August, something of the same kind occurred at other places in the Punjaub; native Bengal regiments still were there, disarmed but not disbanded; and it could not be otherwise than that the men felt chafed and discontented with such a state of things. If faithful, they felt the degradation of being disarmed; if hollow in their professed fidelity, they felt the irksomeness of being closely watched in cantonment. At Ferozpore, on the 19th of August, a portion of the 10th native cavalry, that had before been disarmed, mutinied, and endeavoured to capture the guns of Captain Woodcock’s battery; they rushed at the guns while the artillerymen were at dinner, and killed the veterinary surgeon and one or two other persons; but a corps of Bombay Fusiliers, in the station at that time, repulsed and dispersed them. At Peshawur, where it was found frequently necessary to search the huts and tents of the disarmed sepoys, for concealed weapons, the 51st native infantry resisted this search on the 28th of the month; they beat their officers with cudgels, and endeavoured to seize the arms of a Sikh corps while those men were at dinner. They were foiled, and fled towards the hills; but a disastrous flight was it for them; more than a hundred were shot before they could get out of the lines, a hundred and fifty more were cut down during an immediate pursuit, nearly four hundred were brought in prisoners, to be quickly tried and shot, and some of the rest were made slaves by the mountaineers of the Khyber Pass, who would by no means ‘fraternise’ with them. Thus the regiment was in effect annihilated. There were then three disarmed native regiments left in Peshawur, which were kept so encamped that loaded guns in trusty hands might always point towards them.

The course of events in the Punjaub need not be traced further in any connected form. From first to last the plan adopted was pretty uniform in character. When the troubles began, there were about twenty regiments of the Bengal native army in the Punjaub; and these regiments were at once and everywhere distrusted by Sir John Lawrence and his chief officers. If hope and confidence were felt, it was rather by the regimental officers, to whom disloyalty in their respective corps was naturally mortifying and humiliating. All the sepoys were disarmed and the sowars dismounted, as soon as suspicious symptoms appeared; some regiments remained at the stations, disarmed, throughout the whole of the summer and autumn; some mutinied, before or after disarming; but very few indeed lived to reach the scene of rebel supremacy at Delhi; for they were cut up by the Europeans, Sikhs, Punjaubees, or hill-men which the Punjaub afforded. Gladly as every one, whether civilian or military, acknowledged the eminent services of Sir John Lawrence; there were, it must be admitted, certain advantages available to him which were utterly denied to Mr Colvin, the responsible chief of the Northwest Provinces, in which the mutiny raged more fiercely than anywhere else. When the troubles began, the Punjaub was better furnished with regiments of the Queen’s army than any other part of India; while the native Sikhs, Punjaubee Mohammedans, and hill-men, were either indifferent or hostile to the sepoys of Hindostan proper. The consequences of this state of things were two: the native troops were more easily disarmed; and those who mutinied were more in danger of annihilation before they could get east of the Sutlej. In the Northwest Provinces the circumstances were far more disastrous; the British troops were relatively fewer; and the people were more nearly in accord with the sepoys, in so far as concerned national and religious sympathies. In the Meerut military division, when the mutiny had fairly commenced, besides those at Meerut station, there was only one European regiment (at Agra), against ten native regiments, irrespective of those which mutinied at Meerut and Delhi. In the Cawnpore military division, comprising the great stations of Lucknow, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and the whole of Oude, there was scarcely more than one complete European regiment, against thirty native Bengal and Oude regiments, regular and irregular. In the Dinapoor military division, comprising Benares, Patna, Ghazeepore, and other large cities, together with much government wealth in the form of treasure and opium, there was in like manner only one British regiment, against sixteen native corps. There was at the same time this additional difficulty; that no such materials were at hand as in the Punjaub, for raising regiments of horse and foot among tribes who would sympathise but little with the mutineers.

Camel and Rider.

Sir John Lawrence was at first in some doubt what course to follow in relation to the liberty of the press. The Calcutta authorities, as we shall see in the next chapter, thought it proper to curtail that liberty in Bengal and the Northwest Provinces. Sir John, unwilling on the one hand to place the Europeans in the Punjaub in the tormenting condition of seclusion from all sources of news, and unwilling on the other to leave the news-readers at the mercy of inaccurate or unscrupulous news-writers at such a critical time, adopted a medium course. He caused the Lahore Chronicle to be made the medium of conveying official news of all that was occurring in India, so far as rapid outlines were concerned. The government secretary at that place sent every day to the editor of the newspaper an epitome of the most important public news. This epitome was printed on small quarter-sheets of paper, and despatched by each day’s post to all the stations in the Punjaub. The effect was—that false rumours and sinister reports were much less prevalent in the Punjaub than in Bengal; men were not thrown into mystery by a suppression of journalism; but were candidly told how events proceeded, so far as information had reached that remote part of India. The high character of the chief-commissioner was universally held as a guarantee that the news given in the epitome, whether little or much in quantity, would be honestly rendered; the scheme would have been a failure under a chief who did not command respect and win confidence. As the summer advanced, and dâks and wires were interrupted, the news obtainable became very scanty. The English in the Punjaub were placed in a most tantalising position. Aware that matters were going wrong at Delhi and Agra, at Lucknow and Cawnpore, they did not know how wrong; for communication was well-nigh cut off. As the cities just named lie between the Punjaub and Calcutta, all direct communication with the seat of government was still more completely cut off. The results of this were singularly trying. ‘Gradually,’ says an officer writing from the Punjaub, ‘papers and letters reached us from Calcutta viâ Bombay. It is not the least striking illustration of the complete revolution that has occurred in India, that the news from the Gangetic valley—say from Allahabad and Cawnpore—was known in London sooner than at Lahore. We had been accustomed to receive our daily letters and newspapers from every part of the empire with the same unfailing regularity as in England. Suddenly we found ourselves separated from Calcutta for two months of time. Painfully must a letter travel from the eastern capital to the western port—from Calcutta to Bombay; painfully must it toil up the unsettled provinces of the western coast; slowly must it jog along on mule-back across the sands of Sinde; many queer twists and unwonted turns must that letter take, many enemies must it baffle and elude, before, much bestamped, much stained with travel—for Indian letter-bags are not water-proof—it is delivered to its owner at Lahore.... Slowly, very slowly, the real truth dragged its way up the country. It is only this very 29th of September that this writer in the Punjaub has read anything like a connected account of the fearful tragedy at Cawnpore, which, once read or heard, no Englishman can ever forget.’

Attention must now for a brief space be directed to the country of Sinde or Scinde; not so much for the purpose of narrating the progress of mutiny there, as to shew how it happened that there were few materials out of which mutiny could arise.

Sinde is the region which bounds the lower course of the river Indus, also called Sinde. The name is supposed to have had the same origin as Sindhi or Hindi, connected with the great Hindoo race. When the Indus has passed out of the Punjaub at its lower apex, it enters Sinde, through which it flows to the ocean, which bounds Sinde on the south; east is Rajpootana, and west Beloochistan. The area of Sinde is about equal to that of England without Wales. The coast is washed by the Indian Ocean for a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles; being, with very few exceptions, little other than a series of mud-banks deposited by the Indus, or low sand-hills blown in from the sea-beach. So low is most of the shore, that a wide expanse of country is overflowed at each high tide; it is a dreary swamp, scarcely observable from shipboard three or four miles out at sea. The mouths of the Indus are numerous, but so shallow that only one of them admits ships of any considerable burden; and even that one is subject to so many fluctuations in depth and in weather, that sea-going vessels scarcely enter it at all. Kurachee, the only port in Sinde, is a considerable distance west of all these mouths; and the mercantile world looks forward with much solicitude to the time when a railway will be formed from this port to Hydrabad, a city placed at the head of the delta of the Indus. This delta, in natural features, resembles that of the Nile rather than that of the Ganges, being nearly destitute of timber. On each side of the Indus, for a breadth varying from two to twelve miles, is a flat alluvial tract, in most places extremely fertile. Many parts of Sinde are little better than desert; such as the Pât, between Shikarpore and the Bolan Pass, and the Thur, nearer to the river. In general, it may be said that no part of Sinde is fertile except where the Indus irrigates it; for there is little either of rain or dew, and the climate is intensely hot. Camels are largely reared in Sinde; and the Sindians have abundant reason to value this animal. It is to him a beast of burden; its milk is a favourite article of diet; its hair is woven into coarse cloth; and it renders him service in many other ways.

The Sindians are an interesting race, both in themselves and in their political relations. They are a mixture of Jâts and Beloochees, among whom the distinction between Hindoo and Mussulman has a good deal broken down. The Beloochees are daring, warlike Mohammedans; the Jâts are Hindoos less rigorous in matters of faith and caste than those of Hindostan; while the Jâts who have become Mohammedans are a peaceful agricultural race, somewhat despised by both the others. The Sindians collectively are a dark, handsome, well-limbed race; and it was a favourite opinion of Sir William Jones, that they were the original of the gipsies. The languages spoken are a mixture of Hindi, Beloochee, and Persian.

The chain of events which brought Sinde under British rule may be traced in a few sentences. About thirteen centuries ago the country was invaded by the Persians, who ravaged it without making a permanent settlement. The califs at a later date conquered Sinde; from them it was taken by the Afghans of Ghiznee; and in the time of Baber it fell into the hands of the chief of Candahar. It was then, for a century and a half, a dependency of the Mogul Empire. For a few years Nadir Shah held it; next the Moguls retook it; and in 1756 Sinde fell under the rule of the Cabool khans, which was maintained nearly to the time when the British seized the sovereign power. Although subject to Cabool, Sinde was really governed by eight or ten native princes, called Ameers, who had among them three distinct territories marked by the cities of Hydrabad, Khyrpore, and Meerpoor. Under these ameers the government was a sort of military despotism, each ameer having a power of life and death; but in warlike affairs they were dependent on feudal chieftains, each of whom held an estate on condition of supplying a certain number of soldiers. The British had various trading treaties with the ameers; one of which, in 1832, opened the roads and rivers of Sinde to the commerce of the Company. When, in 1838, the eyes of the governor-general were directed anxiously towards Afghanistan, Sinde became involved in diplomatic conferences, in which the British, the Afghans, the Sindians, and Runjeet Singh were all concerned. These conferences led to quarrels, to treaties, to accusations of breach of faith, which we need not trace: suffice it to say that Sir Charles James Napier, with powers of the pen and of the sword intrusted to him, settled the Sinde difficulty once for all, in 1848, by fighting battles which led to the annexation of that country to the Company’s dominions. The former government was entirely put an end to; and the ameers were pensioned off with sums amounting in the aggregate to about fifty thousand pounds per annum. Some of these Ameers, like other princes of India, afterwards came to England in the hope of obtaining better terms from Queen Victoria than had been obtainable from the Company Bahadoor.

When Sinde became a British province, it was separated into three collectorates or districts—Shikarpore, Hydrabad, and Kurachee; a new system of revenue administration was introduced; annual fairs were established at Kurachee and Sukur; and peaceful commerce was everywhere so successfully established, that the country improved rapidly, greatly to the content of the mass of the people, who had formerly been ground down by the ameers’ government. For military purposes, Sinde was made a division, under the Bombay presidency.

Sinde, at the commencement of the mutiny, contained about seven thousand troops of all arms, native and European. The military arrangements had brought much distinction to Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-general) John Jacob, whose ‘Sinde Irregular Horse’ formed a corps much talked of in India. It consisted of about sixteen hundred men, in two regiments of eight hundred each, carefully drilled, and armed and equipped in the European manner, yet having only five European officers; the squadron and troop commanders were native officers. The brigadier uniformly contended that it was the best cavalry corps in India; and that the efficiency of such a regiment did not depend so much on the number of European officers, as on the manner in which they fulfilled their duties, and the kind of discipline which they maintained among the men. On these points he was frequently at issue with the Bengal officers; for he never failed to point out the superiority of the system in the Bombay army, where men were enlisted irrespective of caste, and where there were better means of rewarding individual merit.[[33]] Nationally speaking, they were not Sindians at all; being drawn from other parts of India, in the ratio of three-fourths Mohammedans to one-fourth Hindoos.

When the mutiny began in the regions further east, ten or twelve permanent outposts on the Sinde frontier were held by detachments of the Sinde Irregular Horse, of forty to a hundred and twenty men each, wholly commanded by native officers. These men, and the head-quarters at Jacobabad (a camp named after the gallant brigadier), remained faithful, though sometimes tempted by sepoys and troopers of the Bengal army. A curious correspondence took place later in the year, through the medium of the newspapers, between Brigadier Jacob and Major Pelly on the one side, and Colonel Sykes on the other. The colonel had heard that Jacob ridiculed the greased cartridge affair, as a matter that would never be allowed to trouble his corps; and he sought to shew that it was no subject for laughter: ‘Brigadier John Jacob knows full well that if he were to order his Mohammedan soldiers (though they may venerate him) to bite a cartridge greased with pigs’ fat, or his high-caste troopers to bite a cartridge greased with cows’ fat, both the one and the other would promptly refuse obedience, and in case he endeavoured to enforce it, they would shoot him down.’ Jacob and Pelly at once disputed this; they both asserted that the Mohammedans and Hindoos in the Sinde Horse would never be mutinous on such a point, unless other sources of dissatisfaction existed, and unless they believed it was purposely done to insult their faith. ‘If it were really necessary,’ said the brigadier, ‘in the performance of our ordinary military duty, to use swine’s fat or cows’ fat, or anything else whatever, not a word or a thought would pass about the matter among any members of the Horse, and the nature of the substances made use of would not be thought of or discussed at all, except with reference to the fitness for the purpose to which they were to be applied.’ The controversialists did not succeed in convincing each other; they continued to hold diametrically opposite opinions on a question intimately connected with the early stages of the mutiny—thereby adding to the perplexities of those wishing to solve the important problem: ‘What was the cause of the mutiny?’

Owing partly to the great distance from the disturbed provinces of Hindostan, partly to the vicinity of the well-disposed Bombay army, and partly to the activity and good organisation of Jacob’s Irregular Horse, Sinde was affected with few insurgent proceedings during the year. At one time a body of fanatical Mohammedans would unfurl the green flag, and call upon each other to fight for the Prophet. At another time, gangs of robbers and hill-men, of which India has in all ages had an abundant supply, would take advantage of the troubled state of public feeling to rush forth on marauding expeditions, caring much for plunder and little for faith of any kind. At another, alarms would be given which induced European ladies and families to take refuge in the forts or other defensive positions at Kurachee, Hydrabad, Shikarpore, Jacobabad, &c., where English officers were stationed. At another, regiments of the Bengal army would try to tamper with the fidelity of other troops in Sinde. But of these varied incidents, few were so serious in results as to need record here. One, interesting in many particulars, arose out of the following circumstance: When some of the Sinde forces were sent to Persia, the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry arrived to supply their place. These troopers, when the mutiny was at least four months old, endeavoured to form a plan with some Beloochee Mohammedans for the murder of the British officers at the camp of Jacobabad. A particular hour on the 21st of August was named for this outrage, in which various bands of Beloochees were invited to assist. The plot was revealed to Captain Merewether, who immediately confided in the two senior native officers of the Sinde Irregular Horse. Orders were issued that the day’s proceedings should be as usual, but that the men should hold themselves in readiness. Many of the border chiefs afterwards sent notice to Merewether of what had been planned, announcing their own disapproval of the conspiracy. At a given hour, the leading conspirator was seized, and correspondence found upon him tending to shew that the Bengal regiment having failed in other attempts to seduce the Sinde troops from their allegiance, had determined to murder the European officers as the chief obstacles to their scheme. The authorities at Jacobabad wished Sir John Lawrence to take this Bengal regiment off their hands; but the experienced chief in the Punjaub would not have the dangerous present; he thought it less likely to mutiny where it was than in a region nearer to Delhi.

The troops in the province of Sinde about the middle of August were nearly as follows: At Kurachee—the 14th and 21st Bombay native infantry; the 2d European infantry; the depôt of the 1st Bombay Fusiliers; and the 3d troop of horse artillery. At Hydrabad—the 13th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. At Jacobabad—the 2d Sinde irregular horse; and the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry. At Shikarpore and Sukur, the 16th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. The whole comprised about five thousand native troops, and twelve hundred Europeans.

At a later period, when thanks were awarded by parliament to those who had rendered good service in India, the name of Mr Frere, commissioner for Sinde, was mentioned, as one who ‘has reconciled the people of that province to British rule, and by his prudence and wisdom confirmed the conquest which had been achieved by the gallant Napier. He was thereby enabled to furnish aid wherever it was needed, at the same time constantly maintaining the peace and order of the province.’