CHAPTER IX
1851–1852. DUBLIN TO WUZZEERABAD
10th Foot—International Exhibition—Sail for India—Incidents—Battened down—Chinsurah again—Sunderbunds—Purbootpore—Kurumnassa—Incidents of the river trip—By Grand Trunk Road—Hospitable Brahmins—Louis Napoleon—Deobund—Saharunpore—Jugadree—Umballah—Noormahal—Loodianah—Ferozeshah—Ferozepore—Lahore—Googeranwallah—Arrive at regimental headquarters.
Among regiments stationed throughout the Punjab, then but recently annexed, was the 10th Foot, to which, by exchange,[113] I was now appointed. Towards that province I accordingly started without delay. Arrived in London, we visited the great novelty of that day, the palace of glass situated in Hyde Park, in which was held the International Exhibition, progenitor of a long series as it was destined to be. No time was lost in completing arrangements for the coming sea voyage in so far as restricted pecuniary means permitted. Early in June we embarked on board the Lord George Bentinck, I in charge of troops; some hours thereafter the ship was under sail and away.
Among the incidents of our voyage these were recorded at the time of their occurrence; namely, some of our crew drunk and insubordinate, others impertinent; recruits undisciplined; junior officers unacquainted with duties required of them. In a quarrel between soldier and sailor the knife was used, fortunately without fatal result. The death-roll included one child, a soldier who in delirium tremens jumped overboard, another who accidentally fell into the sea during a squall at night,—his death-scream, as he fell, most painful to hear.
Far away in southern latitudes[114] we experienced a hurricane such as occur from time to time in those regions. Ten days and nights it continued to rage; hatchways battened down; men, women, and children confined ’tween decks, deprived to a great degree of light and air, their food and drink handed to and passed from each to other as best could be under the circumstances; decks washed from stem to stern by heavy seas, the ship running before the wind; sky so thick that “sights” were impracticable, and so our exact position left conjectural for the time being. This, added to experiences already mentioned, was the kind of initiation into the rougher side of military life to which my wife was subjected; she herself in delicate health, our infant son severely ill, his “nurse” a young untrained woman, the wife of a recruit.
The sea voyage ended, our detachment was conveyed by steam-boat and flats to Chinsurah, as on a former occasion when transit was by means of country boats. Within a few days after arrival there, cholera attacked our young recruits, many of whom, as also the wives of some among them, fell victims. The sudden death of our child’s nurse was the first shock and trying experience his mother had to face in India.
Starting on November 1, again by steamer and flats, our route was by the Sunderbunds to reach the main stream of the Ganges. A week previous that region was swept over by storm wave and hurricane, by which several ships, among them the steamer Powerful, were wrecked. Two days were occupied in passing along the narrow creeks that intersect the partially submerged forest tract, a thousand miles in superficial extent, to which the name of Sunderbunds is given. At the end of that time we are in the Ganges.
Time passed without special incident. Arrived at Purbootpore, a village on the left bank of the river,[115] the place was interesting only as being the locality where, on August 11, 1851, the Moolraj of Mooltan died, and was burned in accordance with Hindoo rites. He it was who instigated, in April, 1848, the murder of Vans Agnew and Anderson, and headed the revolt which led to the siege and capture of that fortress by British forces, and proved to be the first act in the second Sikh war of that year. The Moolraj was for upwards of two years detained as a political prisoner at Calcutta; his health having given way, Government sanctioned his transfer to Allahabad, and while on his way thither death overtook him.