THE CITIES OF REFUGE
Minor disturbances on the outskirts left out of sight, the stress of the storm may now be considered as confined to the region between Delhi and Allahabad, where in Agra, Cawnpore, and Lucknow were still havens of refuge, that, it was to be feared, could not long hold out against the turbulent elements surging around and against them.
Taj of Agra, from the Fountain.
Page 92.
At Agra, one of the most magnificent cities in India, and the seat of the Government of the North-Western Provinces, there reigned the liveliest alarm among the large Christian community, though Lieutenant-Governor Colvin at first tried to make too light of the danger. When the neighbouring stations burst into mutiny, a panic set in, the Sepoys were disarmed, and by the end of June the Europeans took refuge within the high red walls of the fort, some mile and a half in circuit, that enclose a strangely-mingled maze of buildings, galleries, pavilions, domes, towers, vaults, offices, barracks, arcades, gardens and lordly halls recalling the Arabian Nights, among them such architectural wonders as the glittering palace of Akbar and the exquisite Pearl Mosque, now turned into a hospital for the nonce. In sight of these monuments of Mogul grandeur, a mile or so up the Jumna, rise the snowy splendours of the Taj, that Sultana's tomb praised by some as the most beautiful work of human hands; and on this side, without the city, were the English homes that must be deserted as insecure. The citadel of Agra now gave quarters to several thousand persons, the number increasing as destitute fugitives came slinking in from the wrecked stations around. There was an English regiment here, and a small force of volunteers, who, in July, sallied out to meet a Sepoy army, but had to retire with some loss; then the unfortunate refugees found themselves forced helplessly to look on at the burning of their houses without the walls, while thousands of prisoners, released from the jail, spread over the country in their clanking chains, and for a few days the budmashes and the rabble had their way in the city. No vigorous attempt, however, was made to besiege the Fort, and its inmates got off with the half-serious, half-ludicrous hardships of an anxious summer spent in marble halls and crowded palace-chambers, where decorations of mosaic, enamel and coloured glass ill made up for the lack of substantial comfort.
Poor Colvin, broken down, like so many another leader of that time, by the burden of a charge too heavy for him, and pained by the quarrels and murmurs of the pent-up multitude under his too feeble authority, died in September, yet not till he had seen the motley garrison venturing forth again, and beginning to restore order in the districts about. On the whole, the story of Agra was rather a happily prosaic one for a scene of such picturesque historic grandeur.
At Meerut also, where the Mutiny first broke out, our people got through its further alarms by standing on anxious guard behind their entrenchments, while Dunlop the magistrate, at the news of trouble hurrying back from his holiday in the Himalayas, raised a force of volunteers that by their bold sallies kept the disaffected in awe for some way round.