From Allahabad we went by train to Cawnpore, one hundred and thirty miles to the north-west. This place was for many years a large military station, as the kingdom of Oude lay on the other side of the Ganges. It may be well to give a very brief narrative of the terrible events which occurred there, that readers may the better understand what we saw.
MUTINY AT CAWNPORE.
On the breaking out of the Mutiny, the English soldiers and residents entrenched themselves in an open plain, which had the solitary advantage of accommodation in barracks, while they left the arsenal in the hands of the insurgents. The siege commenced on June 6th, directed by Dundhoo Punt, the Nana Sahib as he was called, the adopted son of Bajee Rao, the ex-Peshwa of the Mahrattas, whose castle was ten miles distant. On June 27th, after enduring terrible hardships and privations, our people surrendered on promise of being sent safely to Allahabad. They accordingly made their way to the promised boats; but no sooner had they been reached than they were set on fire, and the Nana in person directed a fusillade on the party. Only four succeeded in escaping, and they did this by swimming. The men were murdered, the women and children, to the number of two hundred, were taken back, were huddled together in crowded rooms, scantily fed on the coarsest food, and subjected to every indignity. The Nana's army was defeated in several engagements, and was at last utterly overthrown by the army led by General Havelock, in a battle fought at the entrance to Cawnpore. By an order of the Nana, issued by him when fleeing from the place, the women and children were murdered, and their bodies were thrown into a well. Our soldiers arrived to see to their horror the well choked with the victims of Nana's satanic cruelty. Unknown to those whom he was besieging, he had previously, on June 4th, ordered the massacre of one hundred and thirty men, women, and children, who had come from Futtyghur.
GALLANT DEFENCE AND TERRIBLE DEFEAT.
At Cawnpore we saw much to sadden us to the very core. The thrilling accounts we had read of the atrocious deeds there committed came to our remembrance with a painful reality. All along the river-side, houses, once occupied by officers, lay in ruins as the mutineers had left them. We observed flowers blooming here and there in the gardens, planted by those who had been so ruthlessly cut down. We visited all the places made memorable by the sad events of 1857. We went to the Sabadha Kothee, as it was called, the house on a slight elevation from which the Nana directed the siege of the entrenched camp. It was well remembered by us as the abode, in 1842, on our first visit to Cawnpore, of a missionary of the Propagation Society, with whom we had much pleasant intercourse. Within less than half a mile of this house lay the entrenched camp of the English—if a trench three or four feet deep, with a breastwork of earth behind it four or five feet high, deserves the name of an entrenchment. The spot was chosen on account of the barracks, in which our people could shelter themselves against what they expected to be a mere temporary assault, if an assault at all was made, as they supposed the mutinous soldiery would leave at once for Delhi, which they would have done had not the Nana stopped them by large pay and larger promises. The barracks speedily became well-nigh uninhabitable under the fire of the enemy. At last they were burnt down, and no shelter remained from the fierce rays of the sun. One could not look on the spot, and consider the weakness of the defenders compared with the strength of the enemy, supplied as they were with the guns and ammunition of our arsenal, without wondering the defence could have been maintained for a day. The defence was most heroic; extraordinary feats of valour were performed, but at last the besieged were obliged to succumb from the failure of food and ammunition.
We walked from the entrenchment, which was rapidly disappearing under the rains and heat of the climate, by the route taken by our people to the promised boats, which were set on fire as soon as they reached them. It was truly a via dolorosa, and we walked on it with saddened hearts, musing on the awful sufferings our countrymen had endured. On a little temple close to the ferry at which the boats lay, and on some houses near it, we saw marks of the bullets on the walls.
Since that period—the winter of 1858-59—we have been on several occasions at Cawnpore. The desolation has disappeared. Ruined houses are no longer to be seen. A stranger might pass through the place without observing anything to remind him of the events of 1857. He would be a very preoccupied or a very stolid person who could pass through Cawnpore without making it a point to see the monuments erected to commemorate our fallen countrymen. On the site of the entrenched camp a memorial church has been raised, with stained windows and varied devices bearing the names of those who had fought and suffered there. A very handsome monument of marble, surmounted by a statue of the Angel of Peace, with a suitable inscription, has been erected over the well into which the bodies of the women and children were thrown. The ground round it is kept in beautiful order. For many a day visitors to India will look with tearful eyes and sad hearts on these spots sacred to their fallen countrymen.
THE WELL AT CAWNPORE.