On the 3d of June, rumours circulated in Fyzabad that the mutinous 17th regiment B. N. I. was approaching from Azimghur. Colonel Lennox, the military commandant, at once conferred with the other officers, and formed a plan for defending the place. The immediate alarm died away. On the 7th, however, renewed information led the colonel to propose an advance to Surooj-khoond, a place about five miles away, to repel the mutineers before they could reach Fyzabad. The native troops objected to go out, on the plea of disinclination to leave their families and property behind; but they promised to fight valiantly in the cantonment if necessary, and many of them shook hands with him in token of fidelity. The evening of the 8th revealed the hypocrisy of this display. The native troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, joined in a demonstration which rendered all the officers powerless; every officer was, in effect, made a prisoner, and placed under armed guard for the night; two tried to escape, but were fired at and brought back. The leader of the mutiny, Dhuleep Singh, subadar-major of the 22d regiment, came to Colonel Lennox in the morning, and told him plainly that he and the other officers must yield to the course of circumstances; that boats would be provided to take them down the river Gogra towards Dinapoor, but that he would not guarantee their safety after once they had embarked. There was a cool impudence about the proceeding, unlike the wild confusion exhibited at many of the scenes of outbreak. A moulvie, who had been imprisoned in the quarter-guard for a disturbance created in the city, and who had just been liberated by the mutineers, sent the sub-assistant surgeon to Colonel Lennox with a message; thanking him for kindnesses received during the imprisonment, and requesting that the colonel’s full-dress regimentals might be sent to the moulvie. The native surgeon begged pardon for his change of allegiance; urging that times were altered, and that he must now obey the mutineers. There was something more than mere effrontery, however, in the proceedings of these insurgents;[[25]] there was a subordination amid insubordination. ‘The men,’ said one of the narrators, ‘guarded their officers and their bungalows after mutinying, placed sentries over the magazines and all public property, and sent out pickets to prevent the towns-people and servants from looting. They held a council of war, in which the cavalry proposed to kill the officers; but the 22d, objecting to this, informed their officers that they would be allowed to leave, and might take with them their private arms and property, but no public property—as that all belonged to the King of Oude.’

Let us briefly trace the course of some of the European fugitives. Colonel Lennox, powerless to resist, gave up his regimentals, and prepared for a melancholy boat-departure with his wife and daughter. They were escorted to the banks of the Gogra, and pushed off on their voyage. From two in the afternoon on the 8th of June, until nearly midnight, their boat descended the stream—often in peril from sentries and scouts on shore, but befriended by two sepoys who had been sent to protect them for a short distance. Much care and manœuvring were required to effect a safe passage near the spot where the mutinous 17th regiment was encamped; for it now became manifest that the 22d had in effect sold the fugitives to the other corps. Early on the following morning, information received on shore rendering evident the danger of a further boat-voyage, the houseless wanderers, leaving in the boat the few fragments of property they had brought away from Fyzabad, set out on foot towards Goruckpore. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the family began their weary flight. After stopping under trees and by the side of wells to rest occasionally, they walked until the heat of day rendered necessary a longer pause. By a narrow chance they avoided being dragged to the camp of the 17th regiment, by a trooper who professed to have been offered two hundred rupees for the head of each member of the family. A friendly chieftain, one Meer Mohammed Hossein Khan, came to their rescue just at the moment of greatest peril. One of the retainers of this man, however, more disposed for enmity than amity, spoke to the colonel with great bitterness and fierceness of manner, shewing that the prevalent rumours had made a deep impression in Oude; he expressed a longing to shoot the English, ‘who had come to take away their caste, and make them Christians.’ Meer Mohammed rebuked this man for saying that a stable would do to shelter the refugees, for that he was prepared ‘to kill them like dogs.’ The fugitives were taken to a small fort, one of the numerous class lately adverted to, where the zemindars and petty chieftains maintained a kind of feudal or clannish independence. On the second day, the danger to sheltered Europeans becoming apparent, Colonel Lennox, his wife, and daughter, put on native dresses, and remained nine days concealed in a reed-hut behind the zenana, treated very kindly and considerately by their protector. Meer Mohammed went once or twice to Fyzabad, to learn if possible the plans of the mutineers; he was told that they meant to attack Lucknow, and then depart for Delhi. On the 10th day of the hiding, when news arrived that the fort was likely to be attacked, the ladies went for shelter into the zenana, while the colonel was hid in a dark woodshed. Happily, however, it turned out that the suspected strangers were a party sent by the collector of Goruckpore for the rescue of the family. Danger was now nearly over. The fugitives reached Amorah, Bustee, Goruckpore, Azimghur, and Ghazeepore, at which place they took steamer down to Calcutta. This fortunate escape from great peril was almost wholly due to ‘the noble and considerate’ Meer Mohammed, as Colonel Lennox very properly characterises him.

Far more calamitous were the boat-adventures of the main body of Fyzabad officers, of which an account was afterwards written, for the information of government, by Farrier-sergeant Busher, of the light field-battery. On the morning of the 8th, the wives and families of many civilians, and of five non-commissioned European officers, had been sent by Captain Orr to a place called Sheergunge, under the protection of a friendly native, Rajah Maun Singh, to be free from peril if tumult should arise. Early on the 9th, while Colonel Lennox was still at the station, all or nearly all the other English were sent off by the mutineers in four boats. One of these boats (mere dinghees, in which little more than a bundle for each person could be put) contained eight persons, one six, one five, and the remaining boat three. Only one female was of the party, Mrs Hollum, wife of Sergeant-major Hollum of the 22d native regiment. The first and second boats got ahead of the other two, and proceeded about twenty miles down the river without molestation; but then were seen troopers and sepoys approaching the banks, with an evidently hostile intent. The firing soon became so severe that the occupants of the first boat struck in for the off-shore, and seven of them took to their heels—the eighth being unequal to that physical exertion. They ran on till checked by a broad stream; and while deliberating how to cross, persons approached who were thought to be sepoys; the alarm proved false, but not before Lieutenants Currie and Parsons had been drowned in an attempt to escape by swimming. The other five, running on till quite exhausted, were fortunate enough to meet with a friendly native, who sheltered them for several hours, and supplied them with food. At midnight they started again, taking the road to Amorah, which they were enabled to reach safely through the influence of their kind protector—although once in great peril from a gang of freebooters. They were glad to meet at Amorah the three occupants of the fourth boat, who, like themselves, had escaped the dangers of the voyage by running across fields and fording streams. At seven in the morning of the 10th, the fugitives, now eight in company, recommenced their anxious flight—aided occasionally by friendly natives, but at length betrayed by one whose friendship was only a mask. They had to cross a nullah or stream knee-deep, under pursuit by a body of armed men; here Lieutenant Lindesay fell, literally cut to pieces; and when the other seven had passed to the opposite bank, five were speedily hewn to the ground and butchered—Lieutenants Ritchie, Thomas, and English, and two English sergeants. The two survivors ran at their topmost speed, pursued by a gang of ruffians; Lieutenant Cautley was speedily overtaken, and killed; and then only Sergeant Busher remained alive. He, outrunning his pursuers, reached a Brahmin village, where a bowl of sherbet was given to him. After a little rest, he ran on again, until one Baboo Bully Singh was found to be on the scent after him; he endeavoured to hide under some straw in a hut; but was discovered and dragged out by the hair of the head. From village to village he was then carried as an exhibition to be jeered and scoffed at by the rabble; the Baboo evidently intended the cruel sport to be followed by murder; but this intention underwent a change, probably from dread of some future retribution. He kept his prisoner near him for ten days, but did not further ill treat him. On the eleventh day, Busher was liberated; he overtook Colonel Lennox and his family; and safely reached Ghazeepore seventeen days after his departure from Fyzabad. The boat containing Colonel O’Brien, Lieutenants Percival and Gordon, Ensign Anderson, and Assistant-surgeon Collinson, pursued its voyage the whole way down to Dinapoor; but it was a voyage full of vicissitudes to the fugitives. At many places they were obliged to lie flat in the boat to prevent recognition from the shore; at others they had to compel the native boatmen, on peril of sabring, to continue their tugging at the oars; on one occasion they narrowly escaped shooting by a herd of villagers who followed the boat. For three days they had nothing to eat but a little flour and water; but happening to meet with a friendly rajah at Gola, they obtained aid which enabled them to reach Dinapoor on the 17th.

The occupants of the remaining boat, the civilians, and the ladies and children who had not been able to effect a safe retreat to Nynee Tal, suffered terribly; many lives were lost; and those who escaped to Goruckpore or Dinapoor arrived in distressing plight—especially a party of women and children who had been robbed of everything while on the way, and who had been almost starved to death during a week’s imprisonment in a fort by the river-side. When it is stated that, among a group of women and children who reached a place of safety after infinite hardships, an infant was born on the road, the reader will easily comprehend how far the sufferings must have exceeded anything likely to appear in print. Many persons were shot, many drowned, while the fate of others remained doubtful for weeks or even months. Colonel Goldney and Major Mill were among the slain. The wanderings of Mrs Mill and her three children were perhaps among the most affecting incidents of this mutiny. Amid the dire haste of departure, she became separated from her husband, and was the last Englishwoman left in Fyzabad. How she escaped and how she fared, was more than she herself could clearly narrate; for the whole appeared afterwards as a dreadful dream, in which every kind of misery was confusedly mixed. During two or three weeks, she was wandering up and down the country, living in the jungle when man refused her shelter, and searching the fields for food when none was obtainable elsewhere. Her poor infant, eight months old, died for want of its proper nourishment; but the other two children, seven and three years old, survived all the privations to which they were exposed. On one occasion, seeing some troopers approaching, and being utterly hopeless, she passionately besought them, if their intentions were hostile, to kill her children without torturing them, and then to kill her. The appeal touched the hearts of the rude men; they took her to a village and gave her a little succour; and this facilitated their conveyance by a friendly native to Goruckpore, where danger was over.

Sultanpore was another station at which mutiny and murder occurred. On the 8th of June, a wing of the 15th irregular cavalry entered that place from Seetapoor, in a state of evident excitement. Lieutenant Tucker, who was a favourite with them, endeavoured to allay their mutinous spirit, and succeeded for a few hours; but on the following morning they rose in tumult, murdered Colonel Fisher, Captain Gubbings, and two other Europeans, and urged the lieutenant to escape, which he did. After much jungle-wanderings, and concealment in a friendly native’s house, he safely arrived at Benares, as did likewise four or five other officers, and all the European women and children at the station. In this as in other instances, the revolt of the troops was followed by marauding and incendiarism on the part of the rabble of Sultanpore; in this, too, as in other instances, the mutineers had a little affection for some one or more among their officers, whom they endeavoured to save.

The station of Pershadeepore experienced its day of trouble on the 10th of June. The 1st regiment Oude irregular infantry was there stationed, under Captain Thompson. He prided himself on the fidelity of his men; inasmuch as they seemed to turn a deaf ear to the rumours and suspicions circulating elsewhere; and he had detected the falsity of a mischief-maker, who had secretly caused ground bones to be mixed with the attah (coarse flour with which chupatties are made) sold in the bazaar, as the foundation for a report that the government intended to take away the caste of the people. This pleasant delusion lasted until the 9th; when a troop of the 3d Oude irregular cavalry arrived from Pertabghur, followed soon afterwards by news of the rising at Sultanpore. The fidelity of the infantry now gave way, under the temptations and representations made to them by other troops. When Captain Thompson rose on the morning of the 10th, he found his regiment all dressed, and in orderly mutiny (if such an expression may be used). He tried with an aching heart to separate the good men from the bad, and to induce the former to retire with him to Allahabad; but the temptation of the treasure was more than they could resist; they all joined in the spoliation, and then felt that allegiance was at an end. At four in the afternoon all the Europeans left the station, without a shot or an angry word from the men; they were escorted to the fort of Dharoopoor, belonging to a chieftain named Rajah Hunnewaut Singh, who treated them courteously, and after some days forwarded them safely to Allahabad. There was not throughout India a mutiny conducted with more quietness on both sides than this at Pershadeepore; the sepoys had evidently no angry feeling towards their officers. Captain Thompson remained of opinion that his men had been led away by rumours and insinuations brought by stragglers from other stations, to the effect that any Oude regiment which did not mutiny would be in peril from those that had; and that, even under this fear, they would have remained faithful had there been no treasure to tempt their cupidity. It is curious to note Colonel Neill’s comment on this incident, in his official dispatch; his reliance on the native troops was of the smallest possible amount; and in reference to the captain’s honest faith, he said: ‘This is absurd; they were as deeply in the plot as the rest of the army; the only credit due to them is that they did not murder their officers.’

Seetapoor, about fifty miles north of Lucknow, was the place towards which the insurgent troops from that city bent their steps at the close of May. Whether those regiments kept together, and how far they proceeded on the next few days, are points not clearly made out; but it is certain that the native troops stationed at Seetapoor—comprising the 41st Bengal infantry, the 9th and 10th Oude irregular infantry, and the 2d Oude military police, in all about three thousand men—rose in mutiny on the 3d of June. The 41st began the movement. A sepoy came to one of the officers in the morning, announced that the rising was about to take place, declared that neither he nor his companions wished to draw blood, and suggested that all the officers should retreat from the station. The regiment was in two wings, one in the town and one in the cantonment; the plundering of the treasury was begun by the first-named party; the other wing, obedient at first, broke forth when they suspected they might be deprived of a share in the plunder. After the 41st had thus set the example, the 9th revolted; then the military police; and then the 10th. Lieutenant Burnes, of the last-named regiment, entreated his men earnestly to remain faithful, but to no effect. Seeing that many officers had been struck down, the remainder hastily retired to the house of Mr Christian the commissioner; and when all were assembled, with the civilians, the ladies, and the children, it was at once resolved to quit the burning bungalows and ruthless soldiers and seek refuge at Lucknow. Some made their exit without any preparation; among whom was Lieutenant Burnes—roaming through jungles for days, and aiding women and children as best they could, suffering all those miseries which have so often been depicted. The great body of Europeans, however, left the station in buggies and other vehicles; and as the high roads were perilous, the fugitives drove over hills, hollows, and ploughed fields, where perhaps vehicles had never been driven before. Fortunately, twenty troopers remained faithful to them, and escorted them all the way to Lucknow, which place they reached on the night of the third day—reft of everything they possessed, like many other fugitives in those days. Many of the Europeans did not succeed in quitting Seetapoor in time; and among these the work of death was ruthlessly carried on—the sepoys being either unwilling or unable to check these scenes of barbarity.

As at Lucknow, Fyzabad, Sultanpore, Pershadeepore, Seetapoor; so at Secrora, Durriabad, Beraytch, Gouda, and other places in Oude—wherever there was a native regiment stationed, or a treasury of the Company established, there, in almost every instance, were exhibited scenes of violence attended by murder and plunder. The lamented Lawrence, in the five weeks preceding his death, was, as has been lately pointed out, placed in an extraordinary position. Responsible to the supreme government both for the political and the military management of Oude, and knowing that almost every station in the province was a focus of treachery and mutiny, he was notwithstanding powerless to restore tranquillity. So far from Cawnpore assisting him, he yearned to assist Cawnpore; Rohilcund was in a blaze, and could send him only mutineers who had thrown off all allegiance; Meerut, after sending troops to Delhi, was doing little but defending itself; Agra, with a mere handful of European troops, was too doubtful of its Gwalior neighbours to do anything for Lucknow and Oude; Allahabad and Benares were too recently rescued, by the gallant Neill, from imminent peril, to be in a position to send present assistance to Sir Henry; and the Nepaul sovereign, Jung Bahadoor, had not yet been made an ally of the English in such a way as might possibly have saved Oude, and as was advocated by many well-wishers of India.

The position of the sovereignty just named may usefully be adverted to here. Nepaul, about equal in area to England, is one of the few independent states of Northern India; it reaches to the Himalaya on the north; and is bounded on the other sides by the British territories of Behar, Oude, and Kumaon. The region is distinguished by the magnificent giant mountain-chain which separates it from Tibet; by the dense forest-jungle of the Terai on the Oude frontier; by the beautiful valley in which the capital, Khatmandoo, lies, and which is dotted with flourishing villages, luxuriant fields, and picturesque streams; and by its healthy and temperate climate. It is with the people, however, that this narrative is more particularly concerned. The Nepaulese, about two millions in number, comprise Goorkhas, Newars, Bhotias, Dhauwars, and Mhaujees. The Goorkhas are the dominant race; they are Hindoos in religion, but very unlike Hindoos in appearance, manners, and customs. The Newars are the aborigines of Nepaul, decidedly Mongolian both in faith and in features; they are the clever artisans of the kingdom, while the Goorkhas are the hardy soldiers. The other three tribes are chiefly cultivators of the soil. In the latter half of the last century, Nepaul was for a short time a dependency of the Chinese Empire; but a treaty of commerce with the British in 1782 initiated a state of affairs which soon enabled Nepaul to throw off Chinese supremacy. Conventions, subsidies, border encroachments, and family intrigues, checkered Nepaulese affairs until 1812; when the Company made formal war on the ground of a long catalogue of injuries and insults—such a catalogue as can easily be concocted by a stronger state against a weaker. The war was so badly conducted, that nothing but the military tact of Sir David Ochterlony, who held one-fourth of a command which seems to have had no head or general commander, saved the British from ignominious defeat. Broken engagements led to another war in 1816, which terminated in a treaty never since ruptured; the Nepaulese court has been a focus of intrigue, but the intrigues have not been of such a character as to disturb the relations of amity with the British. Jung Bahadoor—a name well known in England a few years ago, as that of a Nepaulese ambassador who made a sensation by his jewelled splendor—was the nephew of a man who became by successive steps prime minister to the king. Instigated by the queen, and by his own unscrupulous ambition, Jung Bahadoor caused his uncle to be put to death, and became commander-in-chief under a new ministry. Many scenes of truly oriental slaughter followed—that is, slaughter to clear the pathway to power. Jung Bahadoor treated kings and queens somewhat as the Company was accustomed to do in the last century; setting up a son against a father, and treating all alike as puppets. At a period subsequent to his return from England, he caused a marriage to be concluded between his daughter, six years old, and the heir-apparent to the Nepaulese throne, then in his ninth year. Whether king or not, he was virtually chief of Nepaul at the time when the Revolt broke out; and had managed, by astuteness in his diplomacy, to remain on friendly terms with the authorities at Calcutta: indeed he took every opportunity, after his English visit, to display his leaning towards his neighbours. Like Nena Sahib, he had English pianos and English carpets in his house, and prided himself in understanding English manners and the English language; and it is unquestionable that both those men were favourites among such of the English as visited the one at Bithoor or the other at Khatmandoo.

It has been mentioned in a former chapter (p. [115]) that Goorkha troops assisted to defend Nynee Tal when that place became filled with refugees; and Goorkha regiments have been adverted to in many other parts of the narrative. Jung Bahadoor permitted the Nepaulese of this tribe to enlist thus in the Company’s service; and he also offered the aid of a contingent, the non-employment of which brought many strictures upon the policy of the Calcutta government. At a later date, as we shall see, this contingent was accepted; and it rendered us good service at Juanpore and Azimghur by protecting Benares from the advance of Oude mutineers. About the middle of June, fifteen Europeans (seven gentlemen, three ladies, and five children) escaped from the Oude mutineers into the jungle region of Nepaul, and sought refuge in a post-station or serai about ten days’ journey from Goruckpore and eighteen from Khatmandoo. The officer at that place wrote to Jung Bahadoor for instruction in the matter; to which he received a speedy reply—‘Treat them with every kindness, give them elephants, &c., and escort them to Goruckpore.’ Major Ramsey, the Company’s representative at Khatmandoo, sent them numerous supplies in tin cases; and all the English were naturally disposed to bless the Nepaulese chieftain as a friend in the hour of greatest need, without inquiring very closely by what means he had gained his power.