Few of the troops in British service had had harder work with little brilliant result than those in General Roberts’s Rajpootana Field-force. The country is wild and rugged, the weather was rainy and hot at the same time, and the duty intrusted to the troops was to chase an enemy who would not fight, and who were celebrated for their fleetness in escaping. Hence it was with more than usual pleasure that the hard-worked men regarded their victory at Kattara; they felt they had a fair claim to the compliment which their commander paid them, in a general order issued the day after the battle.[[190]]

After the victory at Kattara, Roberts left the further pursuit of the rebels for a time to Brigadier Parkes. This officer had started from Neemuch on the 11th with a miscellaneous force of about 1300 men, comprising 72d Highlanders, native infantry, Bombay cavalry, royal engineers, royal artillery, Bheels, and Mewar troopers. By a series of forced marches, Parkes headed the rebels in such a way as greatly to aid General Roberts at Kattara. A few days’ sojourn having refreshed them, the troops were again brought into action. Tanteea Topee, by amazing quickness of movement, traversed a wide belt of country eastward to the river Chumbul, which he crossed near Sagoodar on the 20th. Continuing his route, he arrived at Julra Patteen, a town on the main road from Agra to Indore; it was on the confines of the Rajpoot and Mahratta territories, and was held by a petty chieftainess or Rana. After a brief conflict, in which he was assisted by a few of the troops of the Rana, who broke their allegiance, he captured the place, levied contributions on the inhabitants, and took possession of all the guns, treasure, and ammunition he could find. Here, then, this extraordinary conflict took a new turn; a new region had to be attended to, although against the same offender as before; and new columns had to be despatched in pursuit. The flooding of the river Chumbul cut off Roberts and Parkes for a time from a further pursuit of Tanteea Topee; and therefore two new columns were sent, one from Indore under Colonel Hope, and one from Mhow under Colonel Lockhart. The great point now was to prevent Tanteea from getting into Malwah, and thence crossing the Nerbudda into the Deccan.

Before treating of the operations against this leader in September, it may be well to see what progress was made in checking the rebel leader who had appeared in Scindia’s territory—Man Singh. General Napier made up a new force, comprising certain regiments from his own and Brigadier Smith’s brigades, and placed it under the command of Colonel Robertson, with baggage and vehicles so arranged as to facilitate rapid movement. Setting out from Paoree on the 27th of August, the colonel marched eighteen miles to Bhanore; on the 28th, nineteen miles to Gunneish; and so on for several days, until he reached Burrumpore, near the river Parbuttee. Here, on the 2d of September, he learned that a body of rebels, under Man Singh, were a few miles ahead, endeavouring to reach a fort which they might seize as a stronghold. Pushing on rapidly, Robertson came up with them on the 5th, near the village of Bujeepore. They had not kept a good look-out; they had no suspicion that an active British officer was at their heels; consequently, when Robertson came suddenly upon them with horse and foot, while they were preparing their morning meal, their panic was extreme. They fled through the village, over a hill, across a river, and into a jungle; but the pursuers were so close behind them that the slaughter was very considerable. These rebels were nearly all good troops, from Scindia’s body-guard and from the Gwalior Contingent; they were supposed to have been among the fugitives from Gwalior with Tanteea Topee, but at what time or in what locality they had separated from that leader, and joined Man Singh, was not clearly known. About the middle of the month, Colonel Robertson was at Goonah; Brigadier Smith was searching for Man Singh; while General Napier was watching for any symptoms of the approach of the last-named leader towards Gwalior or its vicinity.

While affairs were thus progressing in the Mahratta country during September, new efforts were made to meet the existing state of things a little further to the west. When Tanteea Topee crossed the Chumbul towards Julra Patteen, and when that river began to swell, General Roberts’s Rajpootana Field-force was unable conveniently to continue the pursuit of the rebel; and, therefore, arrangements were made from the south. As a means of hemming in the rebels as much as possible, and preventing them from carrying their mischief into other regions, a ‘Malwah Field-force’ was sent up from Mhow, under General Michel. Tanteea Topee does not appear to have regarded Julra Patteen as a stronghold in which it was worth his while to remain; he plundered the place of some treasure and many guns, and then took his departure. He must, however, have wavered considerably in his plans; for he took a fortnight in reaching Rajghurh—a place only sixty miles distant. He was probably seeking for any rajah or chieftain who would join his standard. At Rajghurh, Tanteea Topee was joined by some of the beaten followers of Man Singh, probably by Man Singh himself, and seemed to be meditating an attack upon Bhopal. Tanteea and Michel were now both contending which should reach a particular station first, on the Bhopal and Seronj road, as the possession of that station (Beora) would give the holder a powerful command over the district—especially as it was one of the telegraph stations, by which Calcutta and Bombay held communication with each other. Michel came up with Tanteea Topee on the 15th of September, before he reached Beora. The rebels would not meet him openly in the field, but kept up a running-fight. When they saw defeat awaited them, they thought more of their elephant-loads of treasure than of their guns; they escaped with the former, and abandoned the latter, which they had brought from Julra Patteen. At the expense, of one killed and three wounded, General Michel gained a victory which cost the enemy three hundred men, twenty-seven guns, a train of draught bullocks, and much ammunition.

Towards the close of September, Tanteea Topee was in this remarkable position. He was near Seronj, on the high road from Gwalior to Bhopal, looking for any outlet that might offer, or for any chieftain who would join his standard. Roberts was on the west of him; Napier, Smith, and Robertson were on his north; Michel, Hope, and Lockhart, on the south; and Whitlock on the east. Active he assuredly had been; for since the fall of Gwalior he and his mutineers and budmashes had traversed a vast area of the Rajpoot and Mahratta territories; but he was now within the limits of a cordon, from which there was little chance of his ultimate escape.

Of the other parts of India, it is scarcely necessary here to say anything. The course of peaceful industry had been little disturbed, and the civil government had been steadily in the ascendant. All round the west and south of Rajpootana did this state of things continue, and so downward into the long-established districts of Surat, Poonah, Bombay, &c. It is well to observe, however, that even in the Bombay presidency, slight occurrences shewed from time to time that the leaven of Hindustani ‘pandyism’ was working mischief. The safety of that army depended on an admixture of different creeds and castes in its ranks; there were in it Rajpoots and Brahmins, as in the (late) Bengal native army, and these elements were sometimes worked upon by fermenters of mischief. Generally speaking, however, these, as well as the other components of the Bombay army, behaved well. Their faithfulness was shewn in the month of August, in connection with a circumstance which might else have been productive of disaster. Among the troops quartered at Gwalior after its reconquest by Sir Hugh Rose was the 25th Bombay N. I., containing, like other regiments of the same army, a small proportion of Hindustani Oudians. A non-commissioned officer of this regiment, a havildar-major, went to the adjutant, and told him that a Brahmin pundit, one Wamun Bhut, was endeavouring to tamper with the Hindustanis of the regiment, and, through them, with the regiment generally; he also expressed an opinion that there were persons in the city of Gwalior concerned in this conspiracy. Captain Little, when informed by the adjutant of this communication, laid a plan for detecting the plotters. He found Havildar-major Koonjul Singh, Naik Doorga Tewarree, and private Sunnoo Ladh ready to aid him. These three native soldiers, pretending to bend to the Brahmin’s solicitations, gradually learned many particulars of the conspiracy, which they faithfully revealed to the captain. A purwannah or written order was produced, from no less a personage than Nena Sahib, making magnificent promises if the regiment, or any portion of it, would join his standard; they were to kill all their officers, and as many Europeans as possible, and then depart to a place appointed. At length, on the 29th, the naik made an appointment to meet the two chief conspirators, a Brahmin and a Mahratta chief, under a large tree near the camp; where the havildar-major would expect to have an opportunity of reading the purwannah. Captain Little, with the adjutant and the quartermaster, arranged to move suddenly to the spot at the appointed time: they did so; the conspirators were seized, and the document taken from them. Two other leaders in the plot were afterwards seized: all four were blown from guns on the 7th of September; and many others were placed in confinement on evidence furnished by the purwannah itself. It became evident that Nena Sahib, a Mahratta, had many emissaries at work in this Mahratta territory, although he himself was hiding in inglorious security far away.

Poonah.

Lord Elphinstone, governor of Bombay, with his commander-in-chief, Sir Henry Somerset, established several new corps, as means of gradually increasing the strength of the Bombay army. Two Belooch regiments, a 2d regiment of South Mahratta Horse, and a Bombay Naval Artillery Brigade, were among the new components of the army.

The South Mahratta country, lower down the peninsula than Bombay, had quite recovered from the disturbances which marked it in earlier months. Satara, Kolapore, Sawuntwaree, Belgaum—all were peaceful. On the eastern or Madras side of the peninsula, too, troubles were few. It is true, there was a repetition in September of a dispute which had occurred three months before, between natives who wished to bring up their children in their own faith, and missionaries who wished to convert those children to Christianity; but this was a source of discord which the governor, if firm, could readily allay. Lord Harris had not an Indian reputation like that of Lawrence or Elphinstone; but he had tact and decision enough for the duties of his office—the maintenance of peace in a presidency where there were few or no Hindustani sepoys.