On board of the Semiramis was Captain Walter Scott, Bombay Engineers, who had lately been transferred from commanding in Candeish to the superintendence of the Sind Canals, a department newly organized by the old Conqueror of "Young Egypt," and our chance meeting influenced my life for the next six years. I have before described him. With short intervals I was one of his assistants till 1849. We never had a diverging thought, much less an unpleasant word; and when he died, at Berlin, in 1875, I felt his loss as that of a near relation.
Karáchi, which I have twice described, was in 1844 a mere stretch of a Cantonment, and nothing if not military; the garrison consisting of some five thousand men of all arms, European and native. The discomfort of camp life in this Sahara,[5] which represented the Libyan Desert, after Gujarat, the Nile Valley, was excessive, the dust-storms were atrocious,[6] and the brackish water produced the most unpleasant symptoms. Parades of all kinds, regimental and brigade, were the rule, and Sir Charles Napier was rarely absent from anything on a large scale.
The Conqueror of Scinde was a noted and remarkable figure at that time, and there is still a semi-heroic ring about the name. In appearance he was ultra-Jewish, a wondrous contrast to his grand brother, Sir William; his countrymen called him Fagan, after Dickens, and his subjects, Shaytan-á-Bhái, Satan's brother, from his masterful spirit and reckless energy. There is an idealized portrait of him in Mr. W. H. Bruce's "Life" (London, Murray, 1885), but I much prefer the caricature by Lieutenant Beresford, printed in my wife's volume, "A.E.I." Yet there was nothing mean in the Conqueror's diminutive form; the hawk's eye, and eagle's beak, and powerful chin would redeem any face from vulgarity.
Sir Charles, during his long years of Peninsular and European service, cultivated the habit of jotting down all events in his diary, with a naïveté, a vivacity, and a fulness which echoed his spirit, and which, with advancing years, degenerated into intemperance of language and extravagance of statement. He was hard, as were most men in those days, upon the great Company he termed the "Twenty-four Kings of Leadenhall Street"—"ephemeral sovereigns;" he quoted Lord Wellesley about the "ignominious tyrants of the East."
In his sixtieth year he was appointed to the command of Poonah (December 28th, 1841), and he was so lacking in the goods of this world that a Bombay house refused to advance him £500. He began at once to study Hindostani, but it was too late; the lesson induced irresistible drowsiness, and the munshi was too polite to awaken the aged scholar, who always said he would give Rs. 10,000 to be able to address the Sepoys. On September 3rd, 1842, he set off to assume his new command in Upper and Lower Sind, and he at once saw his opportunity. Major Outram had blackened the faces of the Amirs, but he wanted to keep the work of conquest for himself, and he did not relish its being done by another. He, however, assisted Sir Charles Napier, and it was not till his return to England in 1843 that he ranged himself on the side of the Directors, whose hatred of the Conqueror grew with his success, and two factions, Outramists and Napierists, divided the little world of Western India.
The battles of Miani and Dubba were much criticized by military experts, who found that the "butcher's bill" did not justify the magnificent periods of Sir William Napier. This noble old soldier's "Conquest of Scinde" was a work of fantaisie; the story was admirably told, the picture was perfect, but the details were so incorrect, that it became the subject of endless "chaff" even in Government House, Karáchi. The corrective was an official report by Major (afterwards General) Waddington, B.O. Eng., which gave the shady, rather than the sunlit side of the picture. And there is still a third to be written. Neither of our authorities tell us, nor can we expect a public document to do so, how the mulatto who had charge of the Amir's guns had been persuaded to fire high, and how the Talpur traitor who commanded the cavalry, openly drew off his men and showed the shameless example of flight. When the day shall come to publish details concerning disbursement of "Secret service money in India," the public will learn strange things. Meanwhile those of us who have lived long enough to see how history is written, can regard it as but little better than a poor romance.
However exaggerated, little Miani taught the world one lesson which should not be forgotten—the sole plan to win a fight from barbarians, be they Belochis, Kafirs, or Burmese. It is simplicity itself; a sharp cannonade to shake the enemy, an advance in line or échelon as the ground demands, and a dash of cavalry to expedite the runaways. And presently the victory led to organizing the "Land Transport Corps" and the "Baggage Corps," two prime wants of the Indian army. Here Sir Charles Napier's skill as an inventor evolved order out of disorder, and efficiency from the most cumbrous of abuses. The pacification of the new Province was marvellously brought about by the enlightened despotism of the Conqueror. Outram had predicted ten years of guerilla warfare before peace could be restored; Sir Charles made it safer than any part of India within a year, and in 1844, when levelling down the canals, I was loudly blessed by the peasants, who cried out, "These men are indeed worthy to govern us, as they work for our good."
But Sir Charles Napier began India somewhat too late in life, and had to pay the penalty. His mistakes were manifold, and some of them miserable. When preparing for the "Truhkee campaign," he proposed to content himself with a "Numero-cent" tent for a Commander-in-Chief! When marching upon Multan, his idea was to quarter the Sepoys in the villages, which would have been destroyed at once; and it was some time before his Staff dared put it in this light.
From over-deference to English opinion, he liberated all the African slaves in Sind and turned them out to starve; it would have been wiser to "free the womb," and forbid importation. He never could understand the "Badli system," where a rich native buys a poor man to be hanged for him who committed the crime, and terribly scandalized Captain Young, the civilian Judge Advocate-General, by hanging the wrong man. Finding that the offended husband in Sind was justified by public opinion for cutting down his wife, he sent the unfortunate to the gallows, and the result was a peculiar condition of society. On one occasion, the anonymas of Hyderabad sent him a deputation to complain "that the married women were taking the bread out of their mouths."
Sir Charles was a favourite among the juniors, in fact, amongst all who did not thwart or oppose him. He delighted in Rabelaisian bon-mots, and the Conte grivois, as was the wont of field-officers in his day; his comment upon a newspaper's "peace and plenty at Karáchi" was long quoted.