In the commencement of the year 1831 the north-west frontier of India was reinforced, and the THIRTY-FIRST marched to Kurnaul, the head-quarters of the Sirhind division. The regiment left Meerut on the 27th of January, and halted that day at Sardhanna, the capital of an independent state, under the celebrated Begum Sumroo. She had been its ruler for a period of sixty years; and, a Mahometan in her youth, she had adopted Christianity. The officers of the regiment dined with her Highness.
It is five days’ march from Meerut to Kurnaul. On the 30th of January the river Hinden was crossed by ferry, and on the following day the river Jumna, when the regiment encamped in its new quarters. The barracks had not then been built, Kurnaul never having been occupied by a British regiment. The Native cantonment was situated in front of the city, facing to the north.
The new lines marked out for the regiment were in front of the right of the old lines facing the west, in which quarter an extensive plain extends, without one tree to shade it, as far as the eye can reach; in the rear flows the canal of Merdan Ali Khan, a lively stream drawn from the Jumna at Rajghaut, fifty miles above, and running to Delhi, eighty miles below. On the right are long tracts of jungle, with a few villages and some cultivated land near the bank of the canal, a little to the rear. The barracks were detached buildings, two to each company.
General Sir Henry Warde, G.C.B., was appointed from the sixty-eighth regiment to the Colonelcy of the THIRTY-FIRST regiment on the 13th of April, 1831, in succession to General the Earl of Mulgrave, G.C.B., deceased.
It was the month of June before the barracks were ready to receive the men, until which time the regiment remained in camp. The officers’ houses in rear of the barracks were built at their own expense, it being the custom in the upper provinces of India to possess property of this description; the inconvenience and expense of establishing a cantonment are very severe at the time on many, particularly on the junior officers. It is only, however, when a cantonment is altogether abandoned that this custom can be attended with loss. Kurnaul was likely to be permanent from its position with regard to the Punjaub and the dominions of the Ameers of Scinde, besides the great importance acquired every year by the country beyond the Indus.
In October, 1831, the regiment marched to Roopur on the river Sutlej, as part of the escort attached to the Governor-General, Lord William Bentinck, who had arranged to have an interview at that place with his Highness Runjeet Singh, the Ruler of the Punjaub.
Having left Kurnaul on the 10th of October, the regiment reached the ground allotted for the escort on the 22nd of that month; the route lay through the Sikh territories, on the British side of the Sutlej. Thennaiser, a spot of celebrated sanctity, and Umballa, a populous city, were the only places of consequence, however, on the march. The escort assembled at Roopur, to do honor to the interview, was composed of two squadrons of the sixteenth Lancers, with the band of that regiment, the THIRTY-FIRST regiment, two battalions of native infantry (the 14th and 32nd), eight guns of horse artillery, with two squadrons of irregular cavalry from Colonel Skinner’s regiment.
The force Runjeet Singh had brought with him encamped, on the morning of the 25th of October, on the opposite bank of the river, and consisted of ten thousand of his best horse and six thousand disciplined infantry. A bridge of boats had been thrown across the river, and on the morning of the 26th of October the meeting took place; the Chief of the Punjaub, accompanied by a deputation of British officers that had gone to meet him, with a detachment of 3800 horse, 800 being disciplined dragoons, under General Allard, a French officer in Runjeet’s service, crossed the river. All the Sikh chiefs were in attendance on their Sovereign, and the train passed through a street to the Governor-General’s camp, formed by the sixteenth Lancers and the THIRTY-FIRST regiment. This is not the place in which to dwell on the splendour or chivalrous appearance of the scene, on the glitter of the polished armour of some, and the gaiety of the yellow silk in which all were dressed. The British troops were infinitely greater objects of interest and curiosity to the Sikhs, than even the variety of the arms, and the figures of the men of the latter, were to the former. Runjeet Singh inquired into every thing connected with the arming and disciplining of the THIRTY-FIRST with the keenest eye. During a review of the corps, on a second visit, he rode close into the line, and examined every movement, pointing out with great intelligence to the Sirdars, or leaders, about him the evolutions that he thought useful, or sending them to observe particularly how they were performed. The THIRTY-FIRST regiment was not under arms on the return visit. The farewell interview took place on the last day of the month, with the same ceremony as that observed at the first meeting.
The next morning (November 1st) the camps broke up; the THIRTY-FIRST regiment returned, by the route it had come, to Kurnaul, and arrived there on the 16th of November.
1832