The rajah told us that he fully intended to pass the evening of his days in England, where his beautiful daughter, with her ample dowry, will probably become the victim of some expert adventurer.
Having halted two days at Benares, we proceeded through as uninteresting a country as before, passing, occasionally, a mud town or village, with the usual appendages of a small grove of trees and a few square patches of cultivation round the wells, whilst two or three hundred natives, huddled together, and squatted like so many vultures on the walls and by the road-side, watched our onward progress, and chattered their rapid jargon.
Ten marches from Benares we again crossed the Ganges where it unites its polluting waters with those of the rocky and clear Jumna, and entered the cantonments of Allahabad. The fort commands a view of the two rivers as they flow onwards to their junction, immediately under its walls; but excepting these waters, the eye wanders over a continued parched and arid plain, save where a small grove of trees presents occasionally a relieving object.
The festival of the Mohurrem was about to take place as we quitted Allahabad. The scenes of riot and debauchery annually consequent on this as well as other festivals, have entailed a lasting disgrace on the government of India, which not only tolerates, but actually encourages them. Nor has it scrupled to convert the superstition of the deluded natives into a substantial accession to the revenues of the country. Those who may be affected with any scruples on this subject, possibly reconcile the matter to their conscience by the disbursement of a few rupees annually for the maintenance of a handful of missionaries to convert the people of India to Christianity; but it will require something more than the present feeble efforts to accomplish that object, and possibly a little more sincerity in the authors of such an endeavour. In these modern days of toleration, it will hardly answer to follow the policy of the Emperor Julian towards the early Christians, and apply it to the Mussulman or Hindoo—as, when the emperor says, "I show myself the true friend of the Galileans. Their admirable law has promised the kingdom of heaven to the poor, and they will advance with more diligence and virtue in the paths of salvation when they are relieved, by my assistance, from the load of temporal possessions."[3]
The dust on the road between Allahabad and Cawnpore passeth all understanding. The head of our column got along tolerably well, not sinking much above their knees in the impalpable soil; but the centre and rear staggered blindly onward, and not unfrequently downward, through the clouds raised by their predecessors, till they reached more substantial ground; others jostled against mud walls and trees, trod on their neighbour's toes, or, wandering from their comrades, groped their way out of the dense atmosphere, and only discovered the locality of the column by the glimpse of a few miller-like objects preceding the cloud.
Ten marches from Allahabad, over roads of the above description, and through a country which, being hid by a dusty screen, I seldom saw, and cannot therefore describe, brought us into the cantonments of Cawnpore, which appear to rise like a city in the desert. Not a tree was to be seen, and scarce a vestige of animal or vegetable life was presented to our view, as the morning broke upon us crossing the arid and almost trackless plain near Cawnpore. At length, when the sun arose, a dim line of conical objects was descried through the lurid atmosphere, and, at the same time, the roar of some half-dozen pieces of cannon, at practice on the plain, announced the vicinity of cantonments.
Here the men of the detachments were placed in barracks, and the officers' tents pitched in a compound, where the sun blazed fiercely enough to roast a live lobster in his shell, though, from our species of that animal, nothing was elicited beyond moisture and murmuring.
Three days having been passed in this eligible situation, I was despatched up the country with my own detachment and sundry others for regiments in the north-western provinces, an escort of a havildar[4] and twelve Sepoys having been provided to take charge of us, which trust they faithfully performed.
At this time, a dreadful famine was prevalent in the districts through which we passed, which was fearfully evidenced by the appalling sights we daily witnessed on the march. Living skeletons crowded round us in thousands, stretching forth their meagre hands and supplicating relief with countenances which beggared description. Scarcely a mile of ground was passed without seeing some wretched creature breathing his last by the road-side, or some, whose sufferings ended, were affording a scanty meal to the famished Pariah dogs. All caste and heathenish scruples were overcome by the craving for food, and the poor creatures tore each other in the avidity with which they scrambled for bones or offal thrown to them by the soldiers. The myriads which thronged our camp became a crying nuisance; and the dictates of humanity were so far repressed by the calls of duty and necessity, that I was compelled to encircle our small encampment with a chain of sentries to exclude them, and prevent their diseases from spreading amongst our own camp.
No permanent relief could be afforded by our people, and the bestowal of a morsel here and there was merely a protraction of suffering.