"Nothing. Unless you happen to have with you some fresh bread. My children, who are asleep in the other palkee, are tired of biscuits, and I imagine we shall not reach Cawnpore before mid-day to-morrow."
It happened that I had a loaf in my palkee, and, with all the pleasure of which the heart of man is capable, placed it in the hands of the fair traveller. On this occasion she opened the doors of her palkee sufficiently wide to admit of my having a really good gaze at her beautiful features. She was enveloped in a white dressing-gown, and wore a hood made of black silk, and lined with pink. Her hair was brushed back off the forehead; but the long dark tresses came from behind the ears, and rested on her covered shoulders.
"Are you going to Agra?" she inquired.
"Yes," I replied.
"Perhaps you would be good enough to return two books for me to the wife of the assistant magistrate. They will, no doubt, afford you as much amusement on your journey as they have afforded me. I finished them this afternoon, and they are now an encumbrance." With these words she handed me the volumes, which I faithfully promised to return. By this time the bearers had settled their affair, and were ready to lift the palkees. I bade the fair traveller "good night, and a safe journey." We shook hands.
The reader may ask, "Who was your friend?" I did not know at the time. It was not until I had arrived at Agra that I was informed on this head. The books which she entrusted to my care I had not read; and, after parting with the ensign at the dâk bungalow at Bewah, they were, indeed, most agreeable companions. I have mentioned this little episode in my journey, not because there is anything in it worth recording, or because there is anything romantic therewith connected; but simply to show how readily we (Christians) in India obliged one another, albeit utter strangers, and how gladly we assist each other, whenever and wherever we meet. Such an episode in the journey of a traveller in India is one of its most commonplace incidents.
Since the news of the recent deplorable disasters has reached this country, many persons have expressed their surprise that a lady should be suffered to travel alone with her children, or be accompanied by no more than one female servant. The fact is, or rather was, that, on any dangerous road, a lady utterly unprotected was safer than a gentleman. The sex was actually its own protection. During my stay in India, I knew of at least a score of instances in which officers and civilians were stopped upon the roads, plundered, assaulted, and in one or two cases murdered, in the Upper Provinces; but I can only bring to mind two instances of European ladies having been molested. This is not to be attributed to any ideas of gallantry or chivalry on the part of marauders in the East; but simply to the fact that they knew the perpetrators of an offence committed against a lady would be hunted down to the death, while the sympathies entertained for the sufferings of a Sahib would be only those of an ordinary character, and soon "blow over." Even the palkee-bearers knew the amount of responsibility that attached to them, when they bore away, from station to station, a female burden; and, had the lady traveller been annoyed or interrupted by an European traveller, they would have attacked and beaten him, even to the breaking of his bones and the danger of his life, had he not desisted when commanded by the lady to do so. This has happened more than once in the Upper Provinces of India.
In December, eighteen hundred and forty-nine, the road between Saharumpore and Umballah was infested by a gang of thieves. Several officers had been stopped, robbed, and plundered of their money and valuables. I had been invited to Lahore, to witness the installation of Sir Walter Gilbert and Sir Henry Elliot as Knights Commanders of the Bath. The danger, near a place called Juggadree, was pointed out to me by a mail contractor, who, finding me determined to proceed, recommended me to dress as a lady for a couple of stages. I did so. I borrowed a gown, a shawl, and a nightcap; and, when I came near the dangerous locality, I put them on, and commanded the bearers to say I was a "mem-Sahib," in the event of the palkee being stopped. Sure enough, the palkee was stopped, near Juggadree, by a gang of ten or twelve armed men, one of whom opened the door to satisfy himself of the truth of the statement made by the bearers. The moment the ruffian saw my nightcap—a very prettily-frilled one it was, lent to me by a very pretty woman—likewise a small bolster, which, beneath my shawl, represented a sleeping baby, he closed the door, and requested the bearers to take up the palkee, and proceed; ay, and what was more, he enjoined them to be "careful of the mem-Sahib!"
I have incidentally spoken of the installation of Sir Walter Gilbert and Sir Henry Elliot, in December, eighteen hundred and forty-nine. Eight years have not yet elapsed, and how many of the principal characters in that magnificent spectacle have departed hence! Sir Walter is dead; Sir Henry is dead. Sir Charles Napier and Sir Dudley Hill, who led them up to Lord Dalhousie, are dead. Colonel Mountain, who carried the cushion on which was placed the insignia of the order is dead. And Sir Henry Lawrence is dead; and poor Stuart Beatson. Alas! how many of that gay throng, men and women, husbands, fathers, wives, and daughters, who had assembled to witness the ceremony, have perished during the recent revolt in the Upper Provinces of India! Those who were present on that sixth of December eighteen hundred and forty-nine, and who, in eighteen hundred and fifty-seven, quietly reflect on what has occurred since, will scarcely believe in their own existence. It must appear to them—as it often appears to me—as a dream; a dream in which we saw Sir Charles Napier, with his spare form, his eagle eyes, his aquiline nose, and long grey beard, joking Sir Dudley Hill on his corpulence and baldness, and asking him what sort of figure he would cut now, in leading a forlorn hope? and Sir Dudley, proudly and loudly replying, that he felt a better man than ever. Presently, a meek civilian, in a white neckcloth, and ignorant of Sir Dudley's early deeds, was so unfortunate as to put the question:—
"Did you ever lead a forlorn hope, Sir Dudley?" a query which induced Sir Dudley Hill to groan, previously to exclaiming—