The Post Office of India and Its Story

by Geoffrey Clarke

12. Communication with the province of Kemaon was uninterruptedly maintained by an establishment of runners posted via Sreenugger, Teeree, Mussoorie and Deyrah Dhoon.

13. Between Meerut and the Camp at Delhi runners were posted via Bagput, but they were frequently cut off, and the communication had to be kept up via Shamlie and Kurnaul or via Seharunpore and Umballa. When the runners between Meerut and the Camp at Delhi were intercepted it was frequently impossible to open direct communication even by kossids, so closely was the country infested with insurgents.

14. The mail cart establishment between the Camp at Delhi and Lahore was steadily kept up. Occasionally it was unsafe to take the carts over the twelve miles leading to and from the Camp, and there the coachman rode the horses across country or proceeded on foot and so managed to elude the insurgents.

15. The mail cart establishment was the only available means by which officers could travel to and from the Camp before Delhi, and it afforded them an easy and speedy mode of travelling.

16. Extra horses were posted at each stage between the Jhellum and Delhi to admit of express cart daks being laid when necessary for mails or passengers.

17. In the month of August it became necessary to provide means for the removal of the sick and wounded officers from the Camp in Delhi to Kurnaul or Umballa, and some of the Inland Transit Company's carriages, in addition to the palanquin carriages and vans attached to the Post Office, were hired for the purpose. All sick and wounded officers were allowed, at the recommendation of the Brigadier-General, now Sir Archdale Wilson, to travel free of expense. Many valuable lives were thus saved.

18. I consider the conduct of the native coachmen beyond all praise during the disturbances. Great temptations to desert us were held out to them by the mutineers, but not one of them proved unfaithful to Government. From the date of arrival of our troops before Delhi on the 8th June till the 20th of September, the date of the fall of Delhi, the coachmen conveyed the mails to and from the Camp with the same safety and the same regularity as before the outbreak.

19. The public mind of the Punjab and Cis-Sutledge States was at the highest pitch of excitement watching the result of the operations of our troops against the mutineers at Delhi, and any interruption of the mail would have had a fatal effect on the peace of those States. The telegraph wire connecting the Camp with the Punjab was frequently cut, and thus it may be easily understood that the regularity of the mail throughout the crisis was of the most vital importance.

20. The Commissioner of Scinde, anticipating the possibility of the communication between the Punjab and Scinde or Bombay being cut off, organized on his own responsibility a mail establishment between Bhawulpore and Jaudhpore, and again with Deesa and Hyderabad. This arrangement was useful in conveying intelligence between Agra, the Punjab and Central India, and also as an auxiliary line of communication between the Punjab and Bombay.

21. In the middle and end of July the mail cart establishment between Googairah and Mooltan became very clamorous and appeared to be inclined to strike. The vital importance of that establishment made me determine on travelling to Mooltan so as to ascertain whether the contractors had any reasonable grievance. There had been many expresses besides passenger daks, and their horses had been perhaps somewhat overworked in consequence, and accordingly I authorized an additional horse at each stage, which for the time quieted the contractors and they gave no more trouble. I was not without some suspicion that there were political influences exciting dissatisfaction amongst them. This impression was in some degree corroborated by an effort on the part of the prisoners of the jail at Googairah attempting to effect their escape. Happily, through the prompt and rigorous measures adopted by the Deputy Commissioner, Mr. Elphinstone, the émeute amongst the prisoners was most successfully crushed and the peace of the district was not disturbed. Otherwise the mails would have there been interrupted.