The commander-in-chief, after his participation in the reconquest and pacification of Rohilcund, returned to his former quarters at Futteghur, where he remained until the second week in June. Throughout the month he was personally engaged in no hostilities; he was occupied either in studying how to give his heat-worn soldiers repose, or how best to employ those whose services in the field were still indispensable. The governor-general much desired his presence at Allahabad, to confer with him personally on the military arrangements necessary during the summer and autumn. It afforded a significant proof of the scattered position of the British forces, that during the first week in June there were no soldiers that could be spared to escort Sir Colin from Futteghur to Allahabad. Quiet as the Doab was, compared with its condition earlier in the year, there were still rebel bands occasionally crossing and recrossing it, and these bands would have hazarded much to capture a prize so important as the commander-in-chief of the Anglo-Indian army. He could not safely move without an escort, and he had to delay his journey until a few troops came in from Shahjehanpoor and other stations. While at Futteghur he caused a search to be made in the bazaars of that place and Furruckabad for sulphur, in order that any stores of that substance might be seized by and for the government. The rebels of the various provinces still possessed many guns; the chieftains and landowners still owned more weapons of various kinds than they chose to acknowledge to the government; there was iron for the making of cannon-balls; there were charcoal and saltpetre towards the making of gunpowder; but there was one ingredient, sulphur, without which all the firearms of the insurgents would be useless; and as sulphur was an imported article in India, the government made attempts to obtain possession of any stores of that substance that might be in doubtful hands. Percussion-caps, too, were becoming scarce among the rebels; and, the materials and machinery for making more being wanting, they were perforce superseded by the less effective matchlock.
The state of the Doab at that time is well told in connection with a journey made by Mr Russell. After the Rohilcund campaign was over, this active journalist looked about him to determine what was best worth seeing and describing, in reference to his special duties. If he went with or after Sir Colin to Allahabad, he would get to the head-quarters of politics, where very few stirring military operations were to be witnessed; if he went northeast into Oude, or southwest into Central India, he might, after much danger and difficulty, become involved in the movements of some flying column, ill assorting with the necessities of a lame man—for he still suffered from an injury by a kick from a horse. Mr Russell therefore resolved upon a journey through the Upper Doab from Futteghur to Delhi, and thence by Umballa to the healthy hill-station of Simla. He travelled by Bhowgong, Eytah, Gosaigunje, and Allygurh, meeting with ample evidence on the way of the ruin resulting from thirteen months of anarchy. Of the dâk bungalows or stations he says: ‘Let no one understand by this a pleasant roadside hostelry with large out-offices, spacious court-yard, teams of horses, and hissing ostlers; rather let him see a mud-hovel by the way, standing out, the only elevation in the dead level of baked earth, a few trees under which are tethered some wretched horses, and a group of men’—whose dress consisted of little beyond a turban. From Bhowgong to Eytah the country looked like a desert; and by the roadside, at intervals of ten miles or less, were thannahs or police-stations—small one-storied houses, bearing traces of the destructiveness of the rebel leader which had so often swept the district. He crossed the Kallee Nuddee at a point where the Company had never yet introduced the civilised agency of a regular bridge. The gharry was pushed and dragged down a shelving bank of loose sand, and then over a rickety creaky bridge of boats—the native attendants making much use of the primitive distended bladders and earthen jars as floating supporters. Arrived at Eytah, he found the place little other than a heap of blackened ruins, with enclosures broken down and trees lopped off at the stem. Yet here were three Englishmen, civil servants of the Company, engaged in re-establishing the machinery of regular government. Mr Russell, like every one else, tried all the varieties of language to express adequately the tremendous heat of an Indian June. He left Eytah at two in the afternoon. ‘The gharry was like an oven; the metal-work burning so that it could not be borne in contact with the hand for an instant. The wind reminded me of the deadly blast which swept over us on the march to Futteghur that dreadful morning when we left Rohilcund. Not a tree to shade the road; on each side a parched, dull, dun-coloured plain, with the waving heat-lines dancing up and down over its blighted surface; and whirling dust-storms or “devils,” as they are called, careering to and fro as if in demoniac glee in their own infernal region. On such a day as this Lake’s men (half a century earlier) fell file after file on their dreadful journey. Could I have found shelter, I would gladly have stopped, for even the natives suffered, and the horses were quite done up; but in India, in peace and war, one’s motto must be “No backward step!”—so on we went.’ After passing through many small towns and poor villages, in which half the houses were either ruined or shut up, he reached Allygurh, where, ‘being late, there was nothing ready at the bungalow but mosquitoes.’ Pursuing his journey, he at length reached Delhi.
The imperial city was now wholly and safely under British control. Sentries guarded the bridge of boats over the Jumna, allowing no native to pass without scrutiny; the fort of the Selimgurh was garrisoned by a small but trusty detachment. The plan, once contemplated, of destroying the defences, had not been adopted; the majestic wall, though shattered and ball-pierced in parts, remained in other respects entire. The defences were, altogether, calculated to strike a stranger with surprise, at the height and solidity of the wall, the formidable nature of the bastions, the depth and width of the dry ditch, the completeness of the glacis, and the security of such of the gates as had not been battered down or blown in. Some of the streets of the city had escaped the havoc of war; but others exhibited the effects of bombardment and assault in a terrible degree, although nine months of peaceful occupation had intervened; houses pitted with marks of shot and bullet, public buildings shattered and half in ruins, trees by the wayside split and rent, doors and windows splintered, gables torn out of houses, jagged holes completely through the walls. Half the houses in the city were shut; and the other half had not yet regained their regular steady inhabitants. The mighty palace of the Moguls was nearly as grand as ever on the outside; but all within displayed a wreck of oriental splendour. The exquisite Dewani Khas, when Mr Russell was there, instead of being filled with turbaned and bejewelled rajahs, Mogul guards, and oriental magnificence, as in the olden days, was occupied by British infantry—infantry, too, engaged in the humblest of barrack domestic duties. ‘From pillar to pillar and column to column extended the graceful arches of the clothes-line, with shirts and socks and drawers flaunting in the air in lieu of silken banners. Long lines of charpoys or bedsteads stretched from one end of the hall to the other—arms were piled against the columns—pouches, belts, and bayonets depended from the walls; and in the place where once blazed the fabulous glories of the peacock’s throne, reclined a private of her Majesty’s 61st, of a very Milesian type of countenance.’
Surat.—From a View in the Library of the East India Company.
The old king still remained a prisoner at Delhi. The drivelling, sensual descendant of Tamerlane, shorn of everything that could impart dignity, occupied some of the smaller apartments of the palace, with a few of his wives, children, and grandchildren, near him. All were fretful and discontented, as they well might be: for they had nothing to see, nowhere to go, no honours to receive, no magnificence to luxuriate in. When interrogated by visitors concerning the early days of the Revolt, he was peevish, and wished to change the subject; and when his youngest begum, and his son Jumma Bukht, were induced to converse, the absence of family unity—if such a thing is possible in an oriental palace—was apparent enough.
Considered politically, Delhi had the great advantage, during the spring months, of being placed under Sir John Lawrence. The province which contained the once imperial city was detached from the ‘northwestern’ group, and made—with Sirhind, the Punjaub, and the Peshawur Valley—one compact and extensive government, under the control of one who, morally speaking, was perhaps the greatest man in India. It was necessary to reconstruct a government; but much careful consideration was needed before the principle of construction could be settled. If the peaceful industrious population would return to their homes and occupations, their presence would doubtless be welcome; but the neighbouring villages still swarmed with desperate characters, whose residence in Delhi would be productive of evil. Many of the better class of natives feared that the imperial city would never recover; that the injury which its buildings had received during the siege, the disturbance of trade by the hurried exit of the regular inhabitants, the enormous losses by plunder and forfeiture, and the break-up of the imperial establishment in the palace, had combined to inflict a blow which would be fatal to the once great Mogul capital. Delhi, nevertheless, had outlived many terrible storms; and these prognostications might be destined to fail.
Lahore.
One consequence of the steady occupation of Delhi during the winter and spring was the gradual departure of troops to other districts where they were more needed. Among these was one of the native regiments. The ‘gallant little Goorkhas,’ as the British troops were accustomed to designate the soldiers of the Sirmoor and Kumaon battalions, held their high reputation to the very last. The Sirmoor battalion had marched down to Delhi at the very beginning of the disturbances, and during more than twelve months had been on continuous duty in and near that region. The time had now come when a respite could be given to their labours. They took their departure to the healthy hill-station of Deyrah Dhoon. As they marched out of Delhi, headed by their commandant, Colonel Reid, they were escorted over the bridge by the 2d Bengal Europeans, who cheered them lustily, and inspirited them with a melody, the meaning of which they had perchance by this time learned—‘Should auld acquaintance be forgot.’ An officer, well familiar with these ‘jolly little Goorkhas,’ remarked on this occasion: ‘There is not in military history a brighter or purer page than the record of the services and faithful conduct of the Sirmoor Goorkha battalion during the past year. First in the field, always in front, prominent, and incessantly fighting throughout the entire campaign and siege-operations before Delhi, the regiment has covered itself with honour and glory. In our darkest days, there was never a whisper, a suspicion, the shadow of a doubt of the honest loyalty and fidelity of these brave, simple-minded, and devoted soldiers. When others turned traitors, robbers, assassins, these rushed without a moment’s hesitation to our side, fought the good fight, bled, and died, faithful to their salt, honourable and true to the last.’