The Panjaub is a very fertile country, abounding in game, wild boar, deer and pea fowl. We killed no bullocks on our march, out of respect to the inhabitants, as they are mostly Brahmins and worship the bull as sacred. We crossed the Sutledge, the British boundary, and arrived at Meerut in complete rags, horses and men worn and jaded; what clothes we had, patched with sheep and goat skin. We left just sixteen months before, in all the ardour of youth, bright scarlet and gold lace, now sad-looking spectacles—brown as mahogany, and faces covered with rough hair. Our losses during that time were very great. Besides our Colonel, we left two hundred officers and men behind, almost all through hardship and fatigue. The loss during the campaign in horses alone was 3,000, in camels 1,400. On arriving at Meerut we subscribed a week's pay each, had a handsome marble monument erected to our departed comrades in the churchyard. We now required some rest, and we had it. As the recruits from England were awaiting us, they relieved us from duty for awhile, and having a large amount of pay and battier money due us, we gave ourselves up to rest—recreation such as one can have in a hot country—and general enjoyment. The area of India is about 1,558,254 square miles. From the northern extremity of the Punjaub to Cape Cormoran in the south, it measures 1830 miles; its greatest breadth is about the same; its population is about 270,000,000.
The prevailing religions.
The prevailing religions are Buddhism, Brahminism, and Mahommedism. The first contains many excellent moral precepts and maxims, but practically it is a religion of Atheism. The doctrines of merit teach its devotees to believe in the transmigration of souls. "If any man sin" it tells him to build a pagoda, or carve an idol, it threatens him with degradation into a soulless brute, it leaves him without hope, without a god in the world. Brahminism is idolatry in its most debasing forms. It has three hundred millions of gods, but no creed; sun, moon, and stars are deified; sticks, stones, or a lump of clay smeared with red paint, are convertible into objects of superstitious reverence. The rites which it imposes are impure, and sensual. Mahommedanism differs from the other two in that it is not idolatrous. It professes a reverence for the supreme being, but like all human systems of religion it is unsatisfactory, it recognizes no divine mediator between God and man; maintained by the sword, it exercises a cruel and despotic sway over the minds of its votaries, it is remorslessly intolerant and persecuting, deprives men of liberty, upholds slavery and polygamy, and degrades women to the level of the brutes. It is one of the most powerful anti-Christian systems in the world, holding under its iron sway one hundred and seventy-six millions of the human race. A tradition prevails that Christianity was first introduced by Saint Thomas the Apostle. However that may be, when the Portuguese arrived in India, A.D. 1500, they found a large body of professing Christians with upwards of a hundred churches, who traced their history for thirteen hundred years through a succession of bishops to the Patriarch of Antioch. The Hindoos resisted all attempts of the Portuguese priests to convert them to the Roman Catholic faith. "We are Christians," said they, "and do not worship idols." Many of them were seized and put to death as heretics. Many missionaries went to India in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. But the East India Company did not encourage the mission work, as they seemed to keep the natives ignorant of Christianity, and by keeping the Hindoos and Mahomedans antagonistic to each other it aided them in their conquests and growing power. But recently a great many colleges have been built in Bengal, Bombay, and Madras by rich Parsee merchants, and the Hindoo youth are deriving great benefit, and since steam has opened up the rapid passage and the voyage shortened through the Suez Canal they have more frequent intercourse with the European, his manners and customs.
[CHAPTER III.]
Native sobriety and European drunkenness—Hindoo Mahoram feast Ceremony—Native habits—Shooting Sandgeese, Ducks, Parrots, Monkeys—Report of death of Shah-Soojah—Akbar Khan assumes the government—General Elphinstone retires—Mr. McNaughton killed—Massacre in Guddulock Pass by Akbar Khan—44th foot cut to pieces—A few escape to Jellelabad—Colonel Denny—Major Havelock—Colonel Sale attacks Akbar—Denny killed—Havelock in command—General Pollock pushes on from Bengal—Doctor Brydon—His miraculous escape through the Pass—General Nott ordered to Ghuznee—Pollock reinforces Sale—Lord Auckland succeeded by Lord Ellenborough—The Gates of the Temple of Somnuth—The Maharajah of Lahore pays his respects to Lord Ellenborough—Durbar at Delhi—Review before the King and Indian Princes—Meerut again—My comrade Jaco—The Spaniel and Jaco.
