This party was escorted some miles from camp, and the keeledar was sent a prisoner to his master; but what became of him I never heard. There can be little doubt, however, that his refusing to give up this fort was by positive instructions received from Scindia himself, who was closely connected with the conspiracy formed against the British government, during the Pindaree campaign; but the presence of the Marquis of Hastings, with the centre division of the grand army, under the very walls of his capital, kept that combined conspiracy from breaking forth.
From the tremendous height of this fort, the shelling at night was truly splendid and magnificent. I have seen ten and fifteen shells soaring in the air together, and, from the extreme height from which they were obliged to be thrown, they looked like falling stars. When they burst, the report below was like thunder.
Thus ended the campaign of 1818-19, and we had no occasion to complain of not having had the honour of storming the fort of Asseerghur, as all the guns in the world could never have effected a breach. Where we did attempt a breach, our twenty-four-pound balls only served to knock off little bits of the more prominent and projecting rocks, and to make the ascent more difficult and formidable, by removing the very pieces of rock by which we had a chance of ascent. The part which we attempted to breach was a kind of nook, which had the appearance of once having been a waterfall. I am confident, if we had battered at it till doomsday, we never could get up; and, even if we could, a dozen old women might have killed us every one by rolling down stones upon us. I therefore think it a most fortunate event that this fort was given up without being stormed, and I certainly may be considered as speaking feelingly on this subject, for, my gallant general having volunteered (being the oldest colonel in camp) to lead in his own column, it is not very probable that I should have left him alone to find his way to the breach. Often when I viewed this spot, did I think, "Here ends my career;" and so strong was this impression on my mind, that I began to fix my eye on some little romantic spot where I should like to be interred, should I have here ended my days; for I was convinced of the total impossibility of success. I began to arrange my papers, and had fully made up my mind to end my career, as I had commenced it, in the field of glory. But I had a wife—ay, and a fond wife too, which reflection much embittered the prospect before me. Had I been without this tie, it would have been my heart's first choice to have ended my days in the service of my country. When I say this, I am far from pretending that I had any particular wish to die; but had it been my fate, I would, from choice, sooner have made my exit fighting for my country's liberty and glory, than on the downy bed; but Providence has ordered it otherwise.
In the afternoon we went to examine the fort; and every step I took more thoroughly convinced me of the utter impossibility of any earthly power ever taking it by storm. I was obliged to halt a dozen times in ascending, quite at my leisure, towards the grand entrance. By the time I reached the gate I was completely exhausted, and I was ten minutes in getting to the top. If we had stormed this place, it would, beyond question, have been the grave of hundreds. On the walls were huge stones, piled up for our destruction, some of them weighing two or three hundred-weight, which a child might have pushed off. When once up, the eye extended along a considerable level plain, on which were fields, woods, and gardens. In the centre was a large tank of water, as clear as crystal, but purple streams of blood lingered on its margins and banks. Many dead bodies lay by the side of this tank. Some of them must have been shot in the very act of drinking. The stench was dreadful. Their sacred temple was contaminated and defiled with every kind of dirt and filth, and their gods wore marks of disfigurement from our shells. One had lost a head, but which, by the by, he could well spare, as he had a dozen. In one of the excavations of the rock was discovered a woman lying dead, with a dead infant in her arms. She was seated on a large stone, with her right side reclining on another rock or side of the excavation. Her left hand grasped the child round the body, and on her right reclined her head. The head of the infant, which I should suppose was about a year old, hung over her right knee. The woman had not a bruise about her; but it was supposed she had fled there from those destructive instruments of death, the shells. Near her lay several dead and mutilated bodies, in a state of putrefaction. She was a young woman about twenty, and well dressed. On inquiry among the prisoners, we learned that her husband had been killed by one of our first shells, and thrown into the very hole near which she was found, but it was not known whether she had followed him there, or whether she died before him; for the soldiers were so panic-struck that they could not directly answer the most simple question. Behind the temple lay a headless trunk. We understood that this was the body of the head priest of the said temple; that he was boasting of his being proof against anything that could be hurled against him by his hated foe; and, as we were informed by a surviving mendicant, scarcely had the superstitious words escaped his mouth, than he fell, a headless body, to the ground. His head, we were told, was found some yards from the spot where he lay. We immediately went in search of it, and found it eleven paces from the body, but not a human feature was left. The face was literally torn to pieces. To sketch the horrible scenes that presented themselves would fill a volume. I shall mention but one more; a shell had burst between a man's legs, and had literally split him up to the neck.
The large masses of congealed blood, seen at almost every step between the temple and tank, were convincing proofs that the loss of life must have been very great; but most of the dead bodies had been thrown over the walls, to find their way to the bottom of some excavated rock or tiger's den. The place altogether exhibited nothing but signs of poverty and distress, and they must have been, after the loss of the town, literally in a state of starvation. From this eminence the prospect was extensive and truly beautiful. The city of Borhanpore was plainly visible; and, although fourteen miles distant, such was the height of this place, that it seemed almost to hang over it. Men in the several encampments looked like babes. When the evening closed in, I found the atmosphere chilly and cold. This soon sent us down to the warmer regions below, where the glass, at the cool of eve, stood at eighty-five, and sometimes at ninety. The height of the thermometer at that hour, when the evening breeze is cool and salubrious, was no doubt occasioned by the great heat absorbed by the earth during the day. In India, it is quite common to inhale the sweet and refreshing breeze of eve, when, under foot, the ground is like a hotbed. The soil here was a kind of glittering red sand, and in some places rocky; and we were not at all sorry that we were about to leave it.
CHAPTER XXIV
The combined army was now on the point of marching from Asseerghur, after the cession of that fortress.
We bent our way once more towards cantonments, accompanying Sir John Malcolm to his new station of Mhow, for the purpose of visiting the celebrated cities of Indore and Ougein. This was some miles out of our direct route; but no traveller ought to pass such places without viewing the splendour and magnificence of ancient architecture for which those two cities are celebrated. A careful survey of such places will well compensate the traveller for going out of his way; feed his astonished mind with contemplation for years to come; and impress him with the conviction, that the system of architecture in Europe, in comparison with that of the East, is but in its infancy.