He posed as a perfect specimen of a happy and contented man, and had much to say about the excellence of the British Raj and the ignorance and prejudice of his own countrymen, whom he said we could not understand as we persisted in comparing them with Europeans—that is, with reasonable beings, whereas they had not so much sense as animals! All the same I think a good deal of this contempt for the Hindu was assumed for our benefit, particularly as the emancipation of women evidently formed no part of his programme. He gave an entertaining account of a visit paid by Miss Carpenter to his wife and widowed sister. Miss Carpenter was a philanthropic lady of about fifty, with hair beginning to grizzle, who carried on a crusade against infant marriage and the prohibition of the remarriage of widows. “Well,” was the comment of Mrs. Prashad, “I married when I was seven and my husband nine and I have been happy. How is it that this lady has remained unmarried till her hair is growing grey? Has no one asked her? There ought to be a law in England that no one shall remain unmarried after a certain age!” The sister countered an inquiry as to her continued widowhood with the question, “Why does not the Empress marry again?”
CHAPTER IX
NORTHERN INDIA AND JOURNEY HOME
From Benares we went to Lucknow, where we had the good fortune to meet Sir Frederick (afterwards Lord) Roberts, and Lady Roberts, who were exceedingly kind to us during our stay. We had one most interesting expedition under their auspices. We and some others met them by appointment at Dilkusha, a suburban, ruined house of the former King of Oude from which Sir Colin Campbell had started to finally relieve Outram and Havelock in November 1857. Roberts, then a young subaltern, was, as is well known, of the party, and he took us as nearly as possible over the ground which they had traversed. Havelock, who had previously brought relief to the garrison, but not enough to raise the siege of Lucknow, had sent word to Sir Colin not to come the same way that he had, as it entailed too much fighting and loss to break right through the houses held by the rebels, but to keep more to the right. Sir Frederick pointed out the scenes of several encounters with the enemy, and one spot where he, sent on a message, was nearly lost—also Secunderabagh, a place with a strong wall all round it, where the British found and killed two thousand rebels, the British shouting “Remember Cawnpore!” to each man as they killed him.
THE RELIEF OF LUCKNOW
Each party—Campbell’s, and Havelock’s who advanced to join them—put flags on the buildings they captured as signals to their friends. At last they respectively reached the Moti Mahal or Pearl Palace. Here Sir Frederick showed us the wall on which the two parties, one on either side, worked till they effected a breach and met each other. Then Sir Colin Campbell, who was at the Mess House just across the road, came forward and was greeted by Generals Outram and Havelock—and the relief was complete.
Sir Frederick had not seen the wall since the breach had been built up again, but he pointed out its whereabouts, and Jersey found the new masonry which identified the spot. Colonel May, who had come with us from Dilkusha, then took us over the Residency in which he, then a young engineer, had been shut up during the whole of the siege. It was amazing to see the low walls which the besieged had managed to defend for so long, particularly as they were then overlooked by comparatively high houses held by the rebels which had since been levelled to the ground. Colonel May indicated all the posts, and the places of greatest danger, but there was danger everywhere, except perhaps in the underground rooms in which 250 women and children of the 32nd were lodged. Cannon-balls were always flying about—he told us of one lady the back of whose chair was blown away while she was sitting talking to him just outside the house, and of a cannon-ball which passed between the knees of a Mrs. Kavanagh, while she was in the verandah, without injuring her. We also saw the place where the rebels twice assembled in thousands crying “Give us Gubbins Sahib and we will go away.” They particularly hated Mr. Gubbins, as he was Financial Commissioner.
Sir Frederick said the ladies seemed quite dazed as they came out, and told us of one whom he knew who came out with two children, but subsequently lost her baby, while her husband was killed in the Mutiny. She, he said, never fully recovered her senses. No wonder, poor woman! One quaint thing we were told was that the rebels played themselves into quarters every evening with “God save the Queen.”