It is said that these missions do far more good than the S.P.G. or C.M.S. Societies of the Church of England, on account of the divisions of High and Low Church of the latter, for the natives come and ask if they are of different religions.
C. went to see Lord Randolph Churchill, who arrived in Lucknow early this morning, and who is having a splendid reception from Europeans and natives wherever he goes. Every spot in and about Lucknow is marked by reminiscences of the Mutiny, some position of the enemy snatched from them by our troops, some palace or garden more hotly disputed; but you need to be an enthusiastic tactician to thoroughly appreciate the interest which attaches to Lucknow, the city and centre of the scenes of the Mutiny.
Saturday, January 24th.—Getting up this morning at 6 a.m., and dressing by the modest light of one candle, was a miserable struggle. The extreme changes of temperature which one is subjected to during one day's travelling in India is very trying. From the intense cold of the early start we warm into life at 10 a.m., and by noon are suffering from the heat. At sundown the chill creeps on again, and by night the bitter cold returns, Through the day we are alternating from ulster to dust-cloak, and returning at last to the warmth of our morning friend.
We had reached the second state of temperature by the time we arrived at Cawnpore, where we were to spend the day. The Railway Hotel, kept by Mr. Lee, is atrociously bad, and certainly ought not to be taken as a fair specimen of a Dâk Bungalow, as usually, and especially when under Government management, they are excellent. The Dâk Bungalow is an important feature in Indian travelling. Maintained by the Government, a fixed charge is made, and the traveller enters in a book the sum paid, with date of departure and arrival. He is only entitled to shelter for forty-eight hours, in accordance with the postal rules. A miserable breakfast determined us to take refuge at the station for dinner. We had a pleasant rest of some hours sitting reading in the verandah, before starting.
Cawnpore may be described as a dreary plain, across which in dotted lines run the cantonment barracks, whilst clouds of dust trace the numerous roads which intersect it in all directions. A single bullock-cart raises for the moment an impenetrable wall of sand.
The Memorial Church of All Souls stands out conspicuously amongst a cluster of trees on the plain. It is of red brick, faced with white stone, and looks like a handsome village church. The inside is disappointing. The mural tablets to those who fell during the Mutiny cover the walls, the only fine one in marble being that erected to the Engineers. One cannot help wishing that instead of the usual ugly white tablet in the form of a tomb or urn bordered with black, some great, some beautiful monument had been designed with a grand inscription, like the one we were to see presently in the garden. The black dome of the chancel is somewhat curious, being intended to represent the heavens, with the constellations in gold. Fourteen memorial tablets form the semicircle of the chancel, giving the name of each and every one who died during the siege. The inscription opens as follows:—
"To the glory of God: and in memory of more than 1000 Christian people who met their deaths hard by between the 6th June and the 15th July, 1857."
By the side of the church there is a flat slab, paved round with blue and white marble, with the inscription in raised letters, arranged so as to form a cross. Here Major Vibart with seventy officers and soldiers are buried, who, after escaping from the massacre, were recaptured and murdered. We were now within Wheeler's Entrenchment, the small enclosure, protected only by a mud wall of four feet high, hastily thrown up, and where the besieged maintained themselves for twenty-one days. We could trace the entrenchment exactly by means of the small posts set up, with "W. E." on them. Then we came to another monument, built on the site where St. John's Church stood at the time of the siege. Here seventy-five Eurasians and natives, with their families, had taken refuge after the evacuation of the entrenchment, and were murdered to a man by order of Nana Sahib. Our interest is still further deepened when we see the stone well, riddled with shot, yet used, where the oxen still toil up and down the inclined causeway. It lies just outside the entrenchment, and was the only water the besieged could obtain. Every drop was fetched at the risk of life, with shots dropping at random over the open space that had to be traversed.
Next we go some distance away to the well, where an awful memory still clings of the midnight parties bringing each night the bodies of victims who had died of cholera, heat, apoplexy, small-pox, or wounds during the day. They were thrown into the well as the only means of safe disposal for the survivors; and Captain Jenkins, who still held the bungalow commanding the position, kept up a covering fire for these parties. The spot is now made into a garden, and marked by a Byzantine cross, with this inscription:—"Under this cross were laid, by the hands of their fellows in suffering, the bodies of those men, women, and children, who died near by during the heroic defence of Wheeler's Entrenchment, when beleaguered by the rebel Nana, June 6th to 27th, A.D. 1857." And on the pedestal of the cross,—"'Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth, as when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth; but our eyes are unto thee, O God the Lord.'—Psalm cxli." Four smaller crosses at the corners give the names of the officers and the men of their regiments whose bodies were thrown into the well. Captain Jenkins is one of them, and it is told how Private Murphy was the only individual of the C company of the 84th Regiment who escaped.