XXIX. 1858…

XXIX. 1858

Mianganj--Curious effect of a mirage--The Dilkusha revisited --Passage of the Gumti--Capture of the Chakar Kothi --Capture of the iron bridge--Hodson mortally wounded --Outram's soldierly instinct--A lost opportunity--Sam Browne --Start for England--Death of Sir William Peel

Our prolonged stay at Fatehgarh was not altogether without advantage. Such a large force being concentrated in the neighbourhood secured the safety of the Doab for the time being, and as Fatehgarh was equally conveniently situated for an advance, either into Rohilkand or upon Lucknow, the rebels were kept in a state of uncertainty as to the direction of our next move.

At length it was decided that Lucknow was to be our first objective, and Sir Colin at once communicated with Outram and Napier as to the best means of conducting the siege. Then, leaving Hope Grant to take the division across the Ganges, the Chief went to Allahabad, the temporary Head-Quarters of the supreme Government, to discuss the situation with the Governor-General.

We marched through Cawnpore, and on the 8th February reached Unao, where we found encamped the 7th Hussars, a troop of Royal Horse Artillery, the 38th Foot and the 79th Highlanders.

Sir Colin on his return from Allahabad on the 10th issued a General Order detailing the regiments, staff, and Commanders who were to take part in the 'Siege of Lucknow.'[1] Hope Grant, who had been made a Major-General for the 'Relief of Lucknow,' was appointed to the command of the Cavalry division, and I remained with him as D.A.Q.M.G.

Rumours had been flying about that the Nana was somewhere in the neighbourhood, but 'Wolf!' had been cried so often with regard to him, that but little notice was taken of the reports, until my faithful spy, Unjur Tiwari, brought me intelligence that the miscreant really was hiding in a small fort about twenty-five miles from our camp. Hope Grant started off at once, taking with him a compact little force, and reached the fort early next morning (17th February), just too late to catch the Nana, who, we were told, had fled precipitately before daybreak. We blew up the fort, and for the next few days moved by short marches towards Lucknow, clearing the country as we went of rebels, small parties of whom we frequently encountered. On the 23rd we reached Mianganj, a small fortified town on the old Cawnpore and Lucknow road, where some 2,000 of the enemy had ensconced themselves. Our advance guard having been fired upon as we approached, the column was halted and the baggage placed in safety, while Hope Grant reconnoitred the position in order to see where it could most advantageously be attacked. We found the town enclosed by a high loop-holed wall with circular bastions at the four corners and at regular intervals along the sides, the whole being surrounded by a wet ditch, while the gateways had been strengthened by palisades. Large bodies of the enemy's Cavalry hovered about our reconnoitring party, only to retire as we advanced, apparently not liking the look of the 7th Hussars and 9th Lancers, who formed the General's escort.

After a careful inspection, Hope Grant decided to breach the north-west angle of the wall, as from a wood near the Infantry could keep down the fire of the enemy's sharpshooters, and the heavy guns would be in a measure protected while the walls were being bombarded. A sufficiently good breach was made in about two hours, and the 53rd Regiment, having been selected for the honour of leading the assault, was told to hold itself in readiness. Hope Grant then spoke a few words of encouragement to the men, and their Colonel (English) replied on their behalf that they might be depended upon to do their duty. The signal was given; the Horse Artillery, under Lieutenant-Colonel Frank Turner, galloped to within grape range of the town, and covered by their fire the 53rd marched in steadily until they got within 100 yards of the walls, when, with a ringing cheer, they dashed through the water in the ditch and entered the breach. Hopkins, the plucky Captain of the light company, was the first inside the walls, followed closely by Augustus Anson and an adventurous Post-Captain of the Royal Navy, who, being unemployed, came to see what 'a winter's campaign in India' was like.[2] There was a good deal of hand-to-hand fighting, and the enemy lost about 500 men, those who tried to escape being cut down by the Cavalry outside the walls. We took about the same number of prisoners, but as none of these were soldiers, and vowed they had been forced to take up arms against us, the General, as much to their astonishment as to their delight, ordered them to be set free. Our losses were small.

Next day we halted while the walls were being destroyed and the place rendered indefensible. As I was superintending the work of destruction, the horrors of war were once more brought very forcibly before me by the appearance of an infirm old man, who besought me to spare his house, saying: 'Yesterday I was the happy father of five sons: three of them lie there' (pointing to a group of dead bodies); 'where the other two are, God only knows. I am old and a cripple, and if my house is burned there is nothing left for me but to die.' Of course I took care that his house and property were left untouched.

On the 25th February we marched to Mohan, a picturesquely situated village on the bank of the Sai Naddi, which stream we crossed the next day and encamped on a fine grassy plain, there to remain until it should be time to join the army before Lucknow.

While we were halting at this place, Watson and I had rather a curious adventure. During a morning's ride my greyhound put up a nilghai[3] so close to us that Watson, aiming a blow at him with his sword, gashed his quarter. Off he started, and we after him at full speed; the chase continued for some miles without our getting much nearer, when, all at once, we beheld moving towards us from our right front a body of the enemy's Cavalry. We were in an awkward position; our horses were very nearly dead beat, and we could hardly hope to get away if pursued. We pulled up, turned round, and trotted back, very quietly at first, that our horses might recover their breath before the enemy got to closer quarters and we should have to ride for our lives. Every now and then we looked back to see whether they were gaining upon us, and at last we distinctly saw them open out and make as if to charge down upon us. We thought our last hour was come. We bade each other good-bye, agreeing that each must do his best to escape, and that neither was to wait for the other, when lo! as suddenly as they had appeared, the horsemen vanished, as though the ground had opened and swallowed them; there was nothing to be seen but the open plain, where a second before there had been a crowd of mounted men. We could hardly believe our eyes, or comprehend at first that what we had seen was simply a mirage, but so like reality that anyone must have been deceived. Our relief, on becoming convinced that we had been scared by a phantom enemy, was considerable; but the apparition had the good effect of making us realize the folly of having allowed ourselves to be tempted so far away from our camp without escort of any kind in an enemy's country, and we determined not to risk it again.[4]

While we were occupied in clearing the country to the north of the Cawnpore-Lucknow road, the main body of the army, with the siege-train, Engineer park, Naval Brigade,[5] ammunition, and stores of all kinds, had gradually been collecting at Bhantira, to which place we were ordered to proceed on the 1st March. We had a troublesome march across country, and did not reach the Head-Quarters camp until close on midnight. There was much difficulty in getting the guns through the muddy nullas and up the steep banks, and but for the assistance of the elephants the task could hardly have been accomplished. It was most curious and interesting to see how these sagacious creatures watched for and seized the moment when their help was needed to get the guns up the steep inclines; they waited till the horses dragging the gun could do no more and were coming to a stand-still, when one of them would place his forehead against the muzzle and shove until the gun was safely landed on the top of the bank.

We started early on the morning of the 2nd for Lucknow, Hope Grant taking command of the Cavalry division for the first time.

On nearing the Alambagh, we bore to our right past the Jalalabad fort, where Outram's Engineers were busily engaged in constructing fascines and gabions for the siege, and preparing spars and empty casks for bridging the Gumti. As we approached the Mahomedbagh we came under the fire of some of the enemy's guns placed in a grove of trees; but no sooner had the Artillery of our advance guard opened fire than the rebels retired, leaving a gun in our hands. We moved on to the Dilkusha, which we found unoccupied. The park had been greatly disfigured since our last visit, most of the finest trees having been cut down.

My General was now placed in charge of the piquets, a position for which he was admirably fitted and in which he delighted. He rode well, without fatigue to himself or his horse, so that any duty entailing long hours in the saddle was particularly congenial to him. I invariably accompanied him in his rounds, and in after-years I often felt that I owed Hope Grant a debt of gratitude for the practical lessons he gave me in outpost duty.

Strong piquets with heavy guns were placed in and around the Dilkusha, as well as in the Mahomedbagh. The main body of the army was encamped to the rear of the Dilkusha, its right almost on the Gumti, while its left stretched for two miles in the direction of the Alambagh. Hope Grant, wishing to be in a convenient position in case of an attack, spent the night in the Mahomedbagh piquet, and Anson, the D.A.A.G., and I kept him company.

On the 3rd some of the troops left at Bhantira came into camp, and on the 5th General Franks arrived. His division, together with the Nepalese Contingent, 9,000 strong, brought the numbers at the Commander-in-Chief's disposal up to nearly 31,000 men, with 164 guns;[6] not a man too many for the capture of a city twenty miles in circumference, defended by 120,000 armed men, who for three months and a half had worked incessantly at strengthening the defences, which consisted of three lines, extending lengthwise from the Charbagh bridge to the Gumti, and in depth from the canal to the Kaisarbagh.

In Napier's carefully prepared plan, which Sir Colin decided to adopt, it was shown that the attack should be made on the east, as that side offered the smallest front, it afforded ground for planting our Artillery, which the west side did not, and it was the shortest approach to the Kaisarbagh, a place to which the rebels attached the greatest importance; more than all, we knew the east side, and were little acquainted with the west. Napier further recommended that the attack should be accompanied by a flank movement on the north, with the object of taking in reverse the first and second lines of the enemy's defences.[7] A division was accordingly sent across the Gumti for this purpose, and the movement, being entirely successful, materially aided in the capture of the city. The passage of the river was effected by means of two pontoon bridges made of empty barrels, and thrown across the stream a little below the Dilkusha. They were completed by midnight on the 5th March, and before day broke the troops detailed for this service had crossed over.

Outram, who, since the 'Relief of Lucknow,' had been maintaining his high reputation by keeping the enemy in check before the Alambagh, commanded this division, with Hope Grant as his second in command. As soon as it was light we moved away from the river to be out of reach of the Martinière guns, and after marching for about two miles we came in view of the enemy; the Artillery of the advance guard got to within a thousand yards and opened fire, upon which the rebels broke and fled. The Bays pursued them for a short distance, but with very little result, the ground being intersected with nullas, and the enemy opening upon them with heavy guns, they had to retire precipitately, with the loss of their Major, Percy Smith, whose body, unhappily, had to be abandoned.

About noon we encamped close to Chinhut, and Hope Grant took special care that day to see the piquets were well placed, for the rebels were in great numbers, and we were surrounded by ravines and wooded enclosures. It was thought by some that he was unnecessarily anxious and careful, for he rode several times over the ground; but the next morning proved how right he was to leave nothing to chance.

While we were at breakfast, information was brought in that the enemy were advancing in force, and directly afterwards half a dozen round shot were sent into our camp; the troops fell in, the Infantry moved out, and Hope Grant took the Horse Artillery and Cavalry to our right flank, where the mutineers were collected in considerable numbers. In less than an hour we had driven them off, but we were not allowed to follow them up, as Outram did not wish to get entangled in the suburbs until heavy guns had arrived. The piquets were strengthened and pushed forward, affording another opportunity for a useful lesson in outpost duty.

All that day and the next I accompanied my General in his reconnaissance of the enemy's position, as well as of the ground near the Gumti, in order to determine where the heavy guns could best be placed, so as effectually to enfilade the enemy's first line of defences along the bank of the canal. On returning to report progress to Outram at mid-day on the 8th, we found Sir Colin Campbell and Mansfield with him, arranging for a joint attack the following day; after their consultation was over, they all rode with us to see the site Hope Grant had selected for the battery. It was a slightly elevated piece of ground about half a mile north of the Kokrel nulla, fairly concealed by a bend of the river; but before it could be made use of it was considered necessary to clear the rebels out of the position they were occupying between the nulla and the iron bridge, the key to which was the Chakar Kothi, and Outram was directed to attack this point the next morning.

At 2 a.m. on the 9th the heavy guns, escorted by the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, were sent forward to within 600 yards of the enemy. The troops then moved off in two parties, that on the right being commanded by Hope Grant. We marched along the Fyzabad road, the two Rifle Brigade battalions leading the way in skirmishing order, with the Cavalry well away to the right. The rebels retired as we advanced, and Walpole, commanding one of our brigades, by wheeling to his left on reaching the opposite bank of the nulla, was enabled to enfilade their position. The column was then halted, and I was sent to inform Outram as to our progress.

When I had delivered my message, and was about to return, Outram desired me to stay with him until the capture of the Chakar Kothi (which he was just about to attempt) should be accomplished, that I might then convey to Hope Grant his orders as to what further action would be required of him; meanwhile Outram sent a messenger to tell my General what he was about to do, in view of his co-operating on the right.[8]

The Chakar Kothi was attacked and taken, and the enemy, apparently having lost heart, fled precipitately. One of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers' colours was placed on the top of this three-storied building by Ensign Jervis to show the Commander-in-Chief that it was in our possession, and that the time had come for him to attack the first line of the enemy's defences. We then continued our advance to the river, where the parties united, and I rejoined Hope Grant.

It was now only 2 p.m., and there was plenty of time to place the heavy guns in position before dark. Major Lothian Nicholson,[9] Outram's Commanding Engineer, was superintending this operation, when he thought he perceived that the enemy had abandoned their first line, but he could not be quite sure. It was most necessary to ascertain for certain whether this was the case, as the Infantry of Hope's brigade, which had attacked and driven the rebels out of the Martinière, could be seen preparing to assault the works at the other side of the river. A discussion ensued as to how this knowledge could be obtained, and a young subaltern of the 1st Bengal Fusiliers, named Butler,[10] offered to swim across the Gumti, and, if he found the enemy had retired, to communicate the fact to Hope's men. This feat was successfully accomplished by the plucky young volunteer; he found the enemy had retired, and, on giving the information to Hope, the brigade advanced, and before nightfall the whole of the enemy's first line was in our possession--a success which had been achieved with but slight loss to us, the chief casualty during the day being William Peel, the gallant Commander of the Naval Brigade, who had been seriously wounded while in command of a battery near the Dilkusha.

The next day, the 10th, Outram's camp was moved close up to the Gumti, and batteries were constructed from which fire could be poured on the mess-house and the Kaisarbagh. For the protection of these works, and to prevent an attack in force being made on the main part of the column, Hope Grant kept moving about with the Horse Artillery and Cavalry between the river and the Sitapur road, our reconnaissance extending beyond the old cantonment. We had several little fights, in one of which a very promising officer named Sandford, who had succeeded Younghusband in command of the 5th Punjab Cavalry squadron, was killed.

At daybreak on the morning of the 11th the batteries opened fire on the enemy's second line of defence; at the same time Outram himself led a strong body of Infantry along the river with the object of securing the approaches to the bridges. On reaching the Fyzabad road, about half a mile from the iron bridge, Outram placed the 1st Bengal Fusiliers in a mosque, with orders to entrench themselves and hold the post, while he pushed on to the stone bridge about a mile away. Outram's advance was covered by Hope Grant's Horse Artillery and Cavalry, but we had to keep at some distance away to the right, in order to avoid houses and walled enclosures. Soon after crossing the Sitapur road we heard guns to our left, and proceeding at a smart trot, came up with Outram just as he was about to attack a large body of the rebels, who, finding themselves in an awkward position, with the river in their rear and their retreat by the iron bridge cut off, made but a feeble resistance before they broke and fled. Some few escaped by the stone bridge, but the greater number, including the whole of the mutinous 15th Irregular Cavalry, made for the old cantonment. We pursued with our Cavalry, and very few of them got away. A couple of guns and a quantity of plunder were left behind by the enemy, who evidently had not expected us and were quite unprepared for our attack. Outram pushed on to the stone bridge, but finding he was losing men from the fire poured upon us by the rebels from the opposite side of the river, he fell back to the mosque where he had left the Fusiliers.

That afternoon, as there was nothing particular for the Cavalry to do, the General, Anson, and I rode across the river to see how matters were progressing on the left of the attack. We reached the Head-Quarters camp just as Sir Colin was about to receive a visit of ceremony from the Nepalese General, the famous Jung Bahadur. Our old Chief, in honour of the occasion, had doffed his usual workman-like costume, and wore General's full-dress uniform, but he was quite thrown into the shade by the splendour of the Gurkha Prince, who was most gorgeously attired, with magnificent jewels in his turban, round his neck, and on his coat.

I looked at Jung Bahadur with no small interest, for his deeds of daring had made him conspicuous amongst probably the bravest race of men in the world, and the fact that a high-born Hindu, such as he was, should, fifty years ago, have so far risen superior to caste prejudice as to cross the sea and visit England, proved him to be a man of unusually strong and independent mind. He was about five feet eight inches high--tall for a Gurkha--with a well-knit, wiry figure, a keen, dauntless eye, and a firm, determined mouth--in every respect a typical, well-bred Nepalese. The interview did not last long, for Sir Colin disliked ceremonial, and, shortly after the Nepalese Prince had taken his seat, news was brought in that the assault on the Begum Kothi had been successfully completed, upon which Sir Colin made the necessity for attending to business an excuse for taking leave of his distinguished visitor, and the interview came to an end.

I then obtained leave to go to the scene of the recent fight, and, galloping across the canal by the bridge near Banks's house, soon found myself at the Begum Kothi. There I was obliged to dismount, for even on foot it was a difficult matter to scramble over the breach. The place was most formidable, and it was a marvel that it had been taken with comparatively so little loss on our side. The bodies of a number of Highlanders and Punjabis were lying about, and a good many wounded men were being attended to, but our casualties were nothing in proportion to those of the enemy, 600 or 700 of whom were buried the next day in the ditch they had themselves dug for their own protection. A very determined stand had been made by the sepoys when they found there was no chance of getting away. There were many tales of hair-breadth escapes and desperate struggles, and on all sides I hoard laments that Hodson should have been one of those dangerously, if not mortally, wounded in the strife. Hodson had been carried to Banks's house, and to the inquiry I made on my way back to camp, as to his condition, the answer was, 'Little, if any, hope.'

A great stride in the advance had been made on this day. Outram had accomplished all that was expected of him, and he was now busy constructing additional batteries for the bombardment of the Kaisarbagh; while Lugard,[11] from his newly-acquired position at the Begum Kothi, was also able to bring fire to bear upon that doomed palace.

Hodson died the following day (the 12th). As a soldier, I had a very great admiration, for him, and, in common with the whole army, I mourned his early death.[12]

On the 13th Lugard's division was relieved by Franks's, and to Jung Bahadur and his Gurkhas, only too eager for the fray, was entrusted the conduct of operations along the line of the canal between Banks's house and the Charbagh bridge. On our side of the river nothing of importance occurred.

The capture of the Imambara (a mosque situated between the Begum Kothi and the Kaisarbagh) was accomplished early next morning. The assault was led by Brasyer's Sikhs and a detachment of the 10th Foot, supported by the remainder of that regiment and the 90th Light Infantry. After a short but very severe struggle, the enemy were forced to retire, and were so closely pursued that the storming party suddenly found themselves in a building immediately overlooking the Kaisarbagh.

It had not been intended to advance that day beyond the Imambara, but, recognizing the advantage of the position thus gained, and the demoralized condition of the rebels, Franks wisely determined to follow up his success. Reinforcements were hurried forward, the troops holding the Sikandarbagh and the Shah Najaf were ordered to act in concert, and before nightfall the Kaisarbagh, the mess-house, and the numerous buildings situated between those places and the Residency, were in our possession.

By means of the field telegraph, Outram was kept accurately informed as to the movements of Franks's division, and he could have afforded it valuable assistance had he been allowed to cross the Gumti with his three brigades of Infantry. Outram, with his soldierly instinct, felt that this was the proper course to pursue; but in reply to his request to be allowed to push over the river by the iron bridge, he received from the Commander-in-Chief through Mansfield the unaccountably strange order that he must not attempt it, if it would entail his losing 'a single man.' Thus a grand opportunity was lost. The bridge, no doubt, was strongly held, but with the numerous guns which Outram could have brought to bear upon its defenders its passage could have been forced without serious loss; the enemy's retreat would have been cut off, and Franks's victory would have been rendered complete, which it certainly was not, owing to Outram's hands having been so effectually tied.

Lucknow was practically in our hands on the evening of the 14th March, but the rebels escaped with comparatively slight punishment, and the campaign, which should have then come to an end, was protracted for nearly a year by the fugitives spreading themselves over Oudh, and occupying forts and other strong positions, from which they were able to offer resistance to our troops until towards the end of May, 1859, thus causing the needless loss of thousands of British soldiers.[13] Sir Colin saw his mistake when too late. The next day orders were issued for the Cavalry to follow up the mutineers, who were understood to have fled in a northerly direction. One brigade under Campbell (the Colonel of the Bays) was directed to proceed to Sandila, and another, under Hope Grant, towards Sitapur. But the enemy was not seen by either. As usual, they had scattered themselves over the country and entirely disappeared, and many of the rebels who still remained in the city seized the opportunity of the Cavalry being absent to get away.

Outram's command on the left bank of the Gumti was now broken up, with the view to his completing the occupation of the city. Accordingly, on the 16th, he advanced from the Kaisarbagh with Douglas's brigade[14] and Middleton's battery, supported by the 20th Foot and Brasyer's Sikhs, and occupied in quick succession, and with but slight resistance, the Residency, the Machi Bhawan, and the great Imambara, thus taking in reverse the defences which had been thrown up by the enemy for the protection of the two bridges. As Outram pushed on, the rebels retreated, some across the stone bridge towards Fyzabad, and some through the city towards the Musabagh. They made two attacks to cover their retirement, one on Walpole's piquets, which enabled a large number (20,000 it was said) to get away in the Fyzabad direction, and another on the Alambagh, which was much more serious, for the garrison had been reduced to less than a thousand men, and the rebels' force was considerable, consisting of Infantry, Cavalry and Artillery. They attacked with great determination, and fought for four hours and a half before they were driven off.

It was not a judicious move on Sir Colin's part to send the Cavalry miles away from Lucknow just when they could have been so usefully employed on the outskirts of the city. This was also appreciated when too late, and both brigades were ordered to return, which they did on the 17th. Even then the Cavalry were not made full use of, for instead of both brigades being collected on the Lucknow bank of the river, which was now the sole line of retreat left open to the enemy (the bridges being in our possession), one only (Campbell's) was sent there, Hope Grant being directed to take up his old position on the opposite side of the Gumti, from which we had the mortification of watching the rebels streaming into the open country from the Musabagh, without the smallest attempt being made by Campbell to stop or pursue them. His brigade had been placed on the enemy's line of retreat on purpose to intercept them, but he completely failed to do what was expected of him. We, on our side, could do nothing, for an unfordable river flowed between us and the escaping mutineers.[15]

There was one more fight in Lucknow. The Moulvie[16] of Fyzabad (who from the first was one of the prominent leaders of the rebellion) had returned at the head of a considerable force, and had placed himself in a strongly-fortified position in the very centre of the city. It was not without a severe struggle that he was dislodged by the 93rd Highlanders and 4th Punjab Infantry under Lugard. The brunt of the fighting fell upon the last-named regiment, the gallant Commander (Wilde) of which, and his second in command,[17] were severely wounded. The Moulvie made his escape, but his followers were pursued, and many of them were cut up. Thus at last the city was cleared of rebels, and we were once more masters in Lucknow.

On the 22nd March Hope Grant was ordered to proceed to Kursi, a small town about twenty-five miles off between the Sitapur and Fyzabad roads, reported to be occupied in force by the enemy.

We started at midnight with a brigade of Infantry, 1,000 Cavalry, two troops of Horse Artillery, and eight heavy guns and mortars. We were delayed some hours by the heavy guns and their escort (the 53rd Foot) taking a wrong turn when leaving the city, which resulted in the enemy being warned of our approach in time to clear out before we arrived.

On hearing they had gone, Hope Grant pushed on with the mounted portion of the force, and we soon came in sight of the enemy in full retreat. The Cavalry, commanded by Captain Browne,[18] was ordered to pursue. It consisted of Browne's own regiment (the 2nd Punjab Cavalry), a squadron of the 1st Punjab Cavalry under Captain Cosserat, and three Horse Artillery guns. At the end of two miles, Browne came upon a body of the mutineers formed up on an open plain. The Cavalry charged through them three times, each time thinning their ranks considerably, but they never wavered, and in the final charge avenged themselves by killing Macdonnell (the Adjutant of the 2nd Punjab Cavalry), and mortally wounding Cosserat. I arrived on the ground with Hope Grant just in time to witness the last charge and the fall of these two officers, and deplorable as we felt their loss to be, it was impossible not to admire the gallantry and steadiness of the sepoys, every one of whom fought to the death.

As soon as Browne could got his men together, the pursuit of the enemy was continued; no further opposition was met with, and fourteen guns fell into our hands.

On the 24th we retraced our steps, halting for the night at the old cantonment of Muriao, where we buried poor Macdonnell. On the 25th we crossed the Gumti, and pitched our camp near the Dilkusha.

Lucknow was now completely in our possession, and our success had been achieved with remarkably slight loss, a result which was chiefly due to the scientific manner in which the siege operations had been carried on under the direction of our talented Chief Engineer, Robert Napier, ably assisted by Colonel Harness; and also to the good use which Sir Colin Campbell made of his powerful force of Artillery. Our casualties during the siege amounted to only 16 British officers, 3 Native officers, and 108 men killed; 51 British officers, 4 Native officers, and 540 men wounded, while 13 men were unaccounted for.

The capture of Lucknow, though not of such supreme importance in its consequences as the taking of Delhi, must have convinced the rebels that their cause was now hopeless. It is true that Jhansi had not yet fallen, and that the rest of Oudh, Rohilkand, and the greater part of Central India remained to be conquered, but there was no very important city in the hands of the enemy, and the subjugation of the country was felt to be merely a matter of time. Sir Hugh Rose, after a brilliant campaign, had arrived before Jhansi, columns of our troops were traversing the country in every direction, and the British Army had been so largely increased that, on the 1st of April, 1858, there were 96,000 British soldiers in India, besides a large body of reliable Native troops, some of whom, although hurriedly raised, had already shown that they were capable of doing good service--a very different state of affairs from that which prevailed six months before.

For some time I had been feeling the ill effects of exposure to the climate and hard work, and the doctor, Campbell Browne, had been urging me to go on the sick-list; that, of course, was out of the question until Lucknow had fallen. Now, however, I placed myself in Browne's hands, hoping that a change to the Hills was all that was needed to set me up; but the doctors insisted on a trip to England. It was a heavy blow to me to have to leave while there was still work to be done, but I had less hesitation than I should have had if most of my own immediate friends had not already gone. Several had been killed, others had left sick or wounded; Watson had gone to Lahore, busily engaged in raising a regiment of Cavalry;[19] Probyn was on his way home, invalided; Hugh Gough had gone to the Hills to recover from his wounds; and Norman and Stewart were about to leave Lucknow with Army Head-Quarters.

On the 1st April, the sixth anniversary of my arrival in India, I made over my office to Wolseley, who succeeded me as Deputy-Assistant-Quartermaster-General on Hope Grant's staff, and towards the middle of the month I left Lucknow.

The Commander-in-Chief was most kind and complimentary when I took leave of him, and told me that, in consideration of my services, he would bestow upon me the first permanent vacancy in the Quartermaster-General's Department, and that he intended to recommend that I should be given the rank of Brevet-Major so soon as I should be qualified by becoming a regimental Captain. I was, of course, much gratified by his appreciative words and kindly manner; but the brevet seemed a long way off, for I had only been a First Lieutenant for less than a year, and there were more than a hundred officers in the Bengal Artillery senior to me in that rank!

I marched to Cawnpore with Army Head-Quarters. Sir William Peel, who was slowly recovering from his wound, was of the party. We reached Cawnpore on the 17th, and the next day I said good-bye to my friends on the Chief's staff. Peel and I dined together on the 19th, when to all appearances he was perfectly well, but on going into his room the next morning I found he was in a high fever, and had some suspicious-looking spots about his face. I went off at once in search of a doctor, and soon returned with one of the surgeons of the 5th Fusiliers, who, to my horror--for I had observed that Peel was nervous about himself--exclaimed with brutal frankness the moment he entered the room, 'You have got small-pox.' It was only too true. On being convinced that this was the case, I went to the chaplain, the Rev. Thomas Moore, and told him of Peel's condition. Without an instant's hesitation, he decided the invalid must come to his house to be taken care of. That afternoon I had the poor fellow carried over, and there I left him in the kind hands of Mrs. Moore, the padre's wife, who had, as a special case, been allowed to accompany her husband to Cawnpore. Peel died on the 27th. On the 4th May I embarked at Calcutta in the P. and O. steamer Nubia, without, alas! the friend whose pleasant companionship I had hoped to have enjoyed on the voyage.

[Footnote 1: The Infantry portion of the army was divided into three divisions, commanded respectively by Outram, Lugard, and Walpole. This was exclusive of Franks's column, which joined at Lucknow and made a fourth division. The Artillery was placed under Archdale Wilson, and the Engineers under Robert Napier. Sir Colin's selection of Commanders caused considerable heart-burnings, especially amongst the senior officers who had been sent out from England for the purpose of being employed in the field. But, as the Chief explained to the Duke of Cambridge, the selection had been made with the greatest care, it having been found that 'an officer unexperienced in war in India cannot act for himself ... it is quite impossible for him to be able to weigh the value of intelligence ... he cannot judge what are the resources of the country, and he is totally unable to make an estimate for himself of the resistance the enemy opposed to him is likely to offer.' Sir Colin wound up his letter as follows: 'I do not wish to undervalue the merits of General or other officers lately arrived from England, but merely to indicate to your Royal Highness the difficulties against which they have to contend. What is more, the state of things at present does not permit of trusting anything to chance, or allowing new-comers to learn, except under the command of others.'--Shadwell's 'Life of Lord Clyde.']

[Footnote 2: The late Captain Oliver Jones, who published his experiences under that title.]

[Footnote 3: Literally 'blue cow,' one of the bovine antelopes.]

[Footnote 4: A few days afterwards, when we were some miles from the scene of our adventure, I was awakened one morning by the greyhound licking my face; she had cleverly found me out in the midst of a large crowded camp.]

[Footnote 5: Peel had changed his 24-pounders for the more powerful 64-pounders belonging to H.M.S. Shannon.]

[Footnote 6:

Naval Brigade 431 Artillery 1,745 Engineers 865 Cavalry 3,169 Infantry 12,498 Franks's Division 2,880 Nepalese Contingent 9,000 ------ 30,588]

[Footnote 7: Kaye, in his 'History of the Indian Mutiny,' gives the credit for originating this movement to the Commander-in-Chief himself; but the present Lord Napier of Magdala has letters in his possession which clearly prove that the idea was his father's, and there is a passage in General Porter's 'History of the Royal Engineers,' vol. ii., p. 476, written after he had read Napier's letters to Sir Colin Campbell, which leaves no room for doubt as to my version being the correct one.]

[Footnote 8: Outram's division consisted of the 23rd Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 79th Highlanders, 2nd and 3rd battalions of the Rifle Brigade, 1st Bengal Fusiliers, 2nd Punjab Infantry, D'Aguilar's, Remmington's and Mackinnon's troops of Horse Artillery, Gibbon's and Middleton's Field Batteries, and some Heavy guns, 2nd Dragoon Guards, 9th Lancers, 2nd Punjab Cavalry, and Watson's and Sandford's squadrons of the 1st and 5th Punjab Cavalry.]

[Footnote 9: The late Lieutenant-General Sir Lothian Nicholson, K.C.B.]

[Footnote 10: Now Colonel Thomas Butler, V.C.]

[Footnote 11: Now General the Right Hon. Sir Edward Lugard, G.C.B.]

[Footnote 12: It was current in camp, and the story has often been repeated, that Hodson was killed in the act of looting. This certainly was not the case. Hodson was sitting with Donald Stewart in the Head-Quarters camp, when the signal-gun announced that the attack on the Begum Kothi was about to take place. Hodson immediately mounted his horse, and rode off in the direction of the city. Stewart, who had been ordered by the Commander-in-Chief to accompany the troops, and send an early report to his Excellency of the result of the assault, had his horse ready, and followed Hodson so closely that he kept him in sight until within a short distance of the fighting, when Stewart stopped to speak to the officer in charge of Peel's guns, which had been covering the advance of the troops. This delayed Stewart for a few minutes only, and as he rode into the court-yard of the palace a Highland soldier handed him a pistol, saying, 'This is your pistol, sir; but I thought you were carried away mortally wounded a short time ago?' Stewart at once conjectured that the man had mistaken him for Hodson. In face they were not much alike, but both were tall, well made and fair, and Native soldiers had frequently saluted one for the other. It is clear from this account that Hodson could not have been looting, as he was wounded almost as soon as he reached the palace.]

[Footnote 13: In the month of May, 1858, alone, not less than a thousand British soldiers died of sunstroke, fatigue and disease, and about a hundred were killed in action.]

[Footnote 14: Consisting of the 23rd Fusiliers, 79th Highlanders, and 1st Bengal Fusiliers.]

[Footnote 15: Captain Wale, a gallant officer who commanded a newly raised corps of Sikh Cavalry, lost his life on this occasion. He persuaded Campbell to let him follow up the enemy, and was shot dead in a charge. His men behaved extremely well, and one of them, by name Ganda Sing, saved the life of the late Sir Robert Sandeman, who was a subaltern in the regiment. The same man, two years later, saved the late Sir Charles Macgregor's life during the China war, and when I was Commander-in-Chief in India I had the pleasure of appointing him to be my Native Aide-de-Camp. Granda Sing, who has now the rank of Captain and the title of Sirdar Bahadur, retired last year with a handsome pension and a small grant of land.]

[Footnote 16: A Mahomedan Priest.]

[Footnote 17: Now General Cockburn Hood, C.B.]

[Footnote 18: Now General Sir Samuel Browne, V.C., G.C.B. This popular and gallant officer, well known to every Native in Upper India as 'S[=a]m Br[=u]n Sahib,' and to the officers of the whole of Her Majesty's army as the inventor of the sword-belt universally adopted on service, distinguished himself greatly in the autumn of 1858. With 230 sabres of his own regiment and 350 Native Infantry, he attacked a party of rebels who had taken up a position at Nuria, a village at the edge of the Terai, about ten miles from Pilibhit. Browne managed to get to the rear of the enemy without being discovered; a hand-to-hand fight then ensued, in which he got two severe wounds--one on the knee, from which he nearly bled to death, the other on the left shoulder, cutting right through the arm. The enemy were completely routed, and fled, leaving their four guns and 300 dead on the ground. Browne was deservedly rewarded with the V.C.]

[Footnote 19: The present 13th Bengal Lancers.]

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Chapter XXX

What brought about the Mutiny? --Religious fears of the people--The land question --The annexation of Oudh--Fulfilment of Malcolm's prophecy --The Delhi royal family--The Nana Sahib--The Native army --Greased cartridges--Limited number of British troops --Objection to foreign service--Excessive age of the British officers

'What brought about the Mutiny?' and 'Is there any chance of a similar rising occurring again?' are questions which are constantly being put to me; I will now endeavour to answer them, though it is not a very easy task--for I feel that my book will be rendered more interesting and complete to many if I endeavour to give them some idea of the circumstances which, in my opinion, led to that calamitous crisis in the history of our rule in India, and then try to show how I think a repetition of such a disaster may best be guarded against.

The causes which brought about the Mutiny were so various, and some of them of such long standing, that it is difficult to point them out as concisely as I could wish; but I will be as brief as possible.

During the first years of our supremacy in India, Hindus and Mahomedans alike were disposed to acquiesce in our rule--the blessings of rest and peace after a long reign of strife and anarchy were too real not to be appreciated; but as time went by, a new generation sprang up by whom past miseries were forgotten, and those who had real grievances, or those who were causelessly discontented, were all ready to lay the blame for their real or fancied troubles on their foreign rulers. Mahomedans looked back to the days of their Empire in India, but failed to remember how completely, until we broke the Mahratta power, the Hindus had got the upper hand. Their Moulvies taught them that it was only lawful for true Mussulmans to submit to the rule of an infidel if there was no possibility of successful revolt, and they watched for the chance of again being able to make Islam supreme. The Hindus had not forgotten that they had ousted the Mahomedans, and they fancied that the fate of the British raj might also be at their mercy.

The late Sir George Campbell, in his interesting memoirs, says: 'The Mutiny was a sepoy revolt, not a Hindu rebellion.' I do not altogether agree with him; for, although there was no general rising of the rural population, the revolt, in my judgment, would never have taken place had there not been a feeling of discontent and disquiet throughout that part of the country from which our Hindustani sepoys chiefly came, and had not certain influential people been thoroughly dissatisfied with our system of government. This discontent and dissatisfaction were produced by a policy which, in many instances, the Rulers of India were powerless to avoid or postpone, forced upon them as it was by the demands of civilization and the necessity for a more enlightened legislation. Intriguers took advantage of this state of affairs to further their own ends. Their plan of action was to alienate the Native army, and to increase the general feeling of uneasiness and suspicion, by spreading false reports as to the intentions of the authorities in regard to the various measures which had been adopted to promote the welfare and prosperity of the masses. It can hardly be questioned that these measures were right and proper in themselves, but they were on that account none the less obnoxious to the Brahmin priesthood, or distasteful to the Natives generally. In some cases also they were premature, and in others they were not carried out as judiciously as they might have been, or with sufficient regard to the feelings and prejudices of the people.

The prohibition of sati (burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands); the putting a stop to female infanticide; the execution of Brahmins for capital offences; the efforts of missionaries and the protection of their converts; the removal of all legal obstacles to the remarriage of widows; the spread of western and secular education generally; and, more particularly, the attempt to introduce female education, were causes of alarm and disgust to the Brahmins, and to those Hindus of high caste whose social privileges were connected with the Brahminical religion. Those arbiters of fate, who were until then all-powerful to control every act of their co-religionists, social, religious or political, were quick to perceive that their influence was menaced, and that their sway would in time be wrested from them, unless they could devise some means for overthrowing our Government. They knew full well that the groundwork of this influence was ignorance and superstition, and they stood aghast at what they foresaw would be the inevitable result of enlightenment and progress. Railways and telegraphs were specially distasteful to the Brahmins: these evidences of ability and strength were too tangible to be pooh-poohed or explained away. Moreover, railways struck a direct blow at the system of caste, for on them people of every caste, high and low, were bound to travel together.

The fears and antagonism of the Brahmins being thus aroused, it was natural that they should wish to see our rule upset, and they proceeded to poison the minds of the people with tales of the Government's determination to force Christianity upon them, and to make them believe that the continuance of our power meant the destruction of all they held most sacred.

Nor was opportunity wanting to confirm, apparently, the truth of their assertions. In the gaols a system of messing had been established which interfered with the time-honoured custom of every man being allowed to provide and cook his own food. This innovation was most properly introduced as a matter of gaol discipline, and due care was taken that the food of the Hindu prisoners should be prepared by cooks of the same or superior caste. Nevertheless, false reports were disseminated, and the credulous Hindu population was led to believe that the prisoners' food was in future to be prepared by men of inferior caste, with the object of defiling and degrading those for whom it was prepared. The news of what was supposed to have happened in the gaols spread from town to town and from village to village, the belief gradually gaining ground that the people were about to be forced to embrace Christianity.

As the promiscuous messing story did not greatly concern the Mahomedans, other cries were made use of to create suspicion and distrust amongst the followers of the Prophet. One of these, which equally affected the Hindu and Mahomedan, was the alleged unfairness of what was known in India as the land settlement, under which system the right and title of each landholder to his property was examined, and the amount of revenue to be paid by him to the paramount Power, as owner of the soil, was regulated.

The rapid acquisition of territory by the East India Company, and the establishment of its supremacy as the sovereign Power throughout India, were necessarily effected by military operations; but as peace and order were established, the system of land revenue, which had been enforced in an extremely oppressive and corrupt manner under successive Native Rulers and dynasties, had to be investigated and revised. With this object in view, surveys were made, and inquiries instituted into the rights of ownership and occupancy, the result being that in many cases it was found that families of position and influence had either appropriated the property of their humbler neighbours, or evaded an assessment proportionate to the value of their estates. Although these inquiries were carried out with the best intentions, they were extremely distasteful to the higher classes, while they failed to conciliate the masses. The ruling families deeply resented our endeavours to introduce an equitable determination of rights and assessment of land revenue. They saw that it would put an end to the system of pillage and extortion which had been practised from time immemorial; they felt that their authority was being diminished, and that they would no longer be permitted to govern their estates in the same despotic manner as formerly. On the other hand, although the agricultural population generally benefited materially by our rule, they could not realize the benevolent intentions of a Government which tried to elevate their position and improve their prospects. Moreover, there were no doubt mistakes made in the valuation of land, some of it being assessed at too high a rate, while the revenue was sometimes collected in too rigid a manner, sufficient allowance not being made for the failure of crops. Then the harsh law for the sale of proprietary rights in land to realize arrears of land-tax was often enforced by careless revenue authorities in far too summary a manner. The peasantry of India were, and still are, ignorant and apathetic. Accustomed from the earliest days to spoliation and oppression, and to a periodical change of masters, they had some reason to doubt whether the rule of the Feringhis would be more permanent than that of the Moghuls or the Mahrattas. Much as a just and tolerant Government would have been to their advantage, they were unable to appreciate it, and if they had appreciated it, they were too timid and too wanting in organization to give it their open support. Under these social and political conditions, the passive attitude of the rural population failed to counterbalance the active hostility of a large section of the upper classes, and of their predatory followers, who for centuries had lived by plunder and civil war.

Another weighty cause of discontent, chiefly affecting the wealthy and influential classes, and giving colour to the Brahmins' accusation that we intended to upset the religion and violate the most cherished customs of the Hindus, was Lord Dalhousie's strict enforcement of the doctrine of the lapse of property in the absence of direct or collateral heirs, and the consequent appropriation of certain Native States, and the resumption of certain political pensions by the Government of India. This was condemned by the people of India as grasping, and as an unjustifiable interference with the institutions of the country, and undoubtedly made us many enemies.[1]

Later on, the annexation of Oudh, which was one of those measures forced on the Rulers of India in the interests of humanity and good government, and which could hardly have been longer delayed, created suspicion and apprehension amongst all the Native States. For more than sixty years Governor-General after Governor-General had pointed out the impossibility of a civilized Government tolerating in the midst of its possessions the misrule, disorder, and debauchery which were desolating one of the most fertile and thickly-populated districts in India.

As early as 1801 Lord Wellesley wrote: 'I am satisfied that no effectual security can be provided against the ruin of the province of Oudh until the exclusive management of the civil and military government of that country shall be transferred to the Company under suitable provisions for the Nawab and his family.'

In 1831 Lord William Bentinck warned the King of Oudh that, unless he would consent to rule his territories in accordance with the principles of good government and the interest of the people, the East India Company would assume the entire administration of the province, and would make him a state prisoner.

In 1847 Lord Hardinge went in person to Lucknow and solemnly reiterated the warning, giving the King two years to reform his administration.

In 1851 Colonel Sleeman, the Resident at Lucknow, whose sympathy with the Rulers of Native States was thought to be even too great, and who was the last person to exaggerate the misrule existing in Oudh, reported to Lord Dalhousie that the state of things had become intolerable, and that, if our troops were withdrawn from Oudh, the landholders would in one month's time overrun the province and pillage Lucknow. It is true Sleeman, with his Native proclivities, did not contemplate annexation; his advice was to 'assume the administration,' but not to 'grasp the revenues of the country.' The same mode of procedure had been advocated by Henry Lawrence six years before in an article which appeared in the Calcutta Review. His words were: 'Let Oudh be at last governed, not for one man, the King, but for the King and his people. Let the administration of the country be Native; let not one rupee come into the Company's coffers.'

Sleeman was followed in 1854 by Colonel Outram, than whom he could not have had a more admirable successor, or one less likely to be unnecessarily hard upon a State which, with all its shortcomings, had been loyal to us for nearly a century. Colonel Outram, nevertheless, fully endorsed the views of his predecessor. General Low, the then Military Member of Council, who twenty years before, when Resident at Lucknow, had deprecated our assuming even temporarily the administration of Oudh, thinking our action would be misunderstood by the people, now also stated his conviction that 'it was the paramount duty of the British Government to interfere at once for the protection of the people of Oudh.'

In summing up the case, Lord Dalhousie laid three possible courses of action before the authorities in England. The King of Oudh might be forced to abdicate, his province being incorporated in the British dominions; or he might be maintained in his royal state as a subsidized Prince, the actual government being permanently transferred to the East India Company; or the transfer of the government to the East India Company might be for a limited period only. The Governor-General recommended the second course, but the Court of Directors and Her Majesty's Ministers decided to adopt the first, and requested Lord Dalhousie to carry out the annexation before he resigned his office.

This measure, so long deferred and so carefully considered, could hardly, in my opinion, have been avoided by a civilized and civilizing Government. It was at last adopted with the utmost reluctance, and only after the experiment of administering a province for the benefit of the Natives, without annexing it, had been tried in the Punjab and had signally failed. To use Lord Dalhousie's words, it was amply justified on the ground that 'the British Government would be guilty in the sight of God and man if it were any longer to aid in sustaining by its countenance an administration fraught with suffering to millions.' But the Natives generally could not understand the necessity for the measure, or believe in the reasons which influenced us; many of them, therefore, considered it an unprovoked usurpation, and each Ruler of a Native State imagined that his turn might come next.

Thus, the annexation of Oudh in one sense augmented that weakness in our position as an eastern Power which, so to speak, had its source in our strength. So long as there was a balance of power between ourselves and Native States--Mahratta, Rajput, Sikh, or Mahomedan--they were prevented by their mutual jealousies and religious differences from combining against us; but when that balance was destroyed and we became the paramount Power in India, the period of danger to us began, as was prophesied by the far-seeing Malcolm in the early days of our first conquests. We had now become objects of suspicion and dread to all the lesser Powers, who were ready to sink their own disputes in the consideration of the best means to check the extension of our rule and overthrow our supremacy; while we, inflated by our power and satisfied with our apparent security, became more dogmatic and uncompromising in enforcing principles which, though sound and just in themselves, were antipathetic to Native ideas and traditions. By a great many acts and measures we made them feel how completely our ideas differed from theirs. They preferred their own, and strongly resented our increasing efforts to impose ours upon them. Even those amongst the Native Princes who were too enlightened to believe that we intended to force our religion upon them and change all their customs, felt that their power was now merely nominal, and that every substantial attribute of sovereignty would soon disappear if our notions of progress continued to be enforced.

At a time when throughout the country there existed these feelings of dissatisfaction and restless suspicion, it was not to be expected that the most discontented and unfriendly of the Native Rulers would not seize the opportunity to work us mischief. The most prominent of these amongst the Mahomedans were the royal family of Delhi and the ex-King of Oudh, and, amongst the Hindus, Dundu Pant, better known by English people as the 'Nana Sahib.'

All three considered themselves badly treated, and no doubt, from their point of view, their grievances were not altogether groundless. The King of Oudh's I have already indicated, and when his province was annexed, he was removed to Calcutta. Having refused the yearly pension of twelve lakhs[2] of rupees offered to him, and declined to sign the treaty by which his territory was made over to the British Government, he sent his mother, his son, and his brother to England to plead his cause for him.

The most influential of the three discontented Rulers, or, at all events, the one whom the rebellious of all castes and religions were most inclined to put forward as their nominal leader, was the head of the Delhi royal family, by name Bahadur Shah. He was eighty years old in 1857, and had been on the throne for twenty years. His particular grievance lay in the fact of our decision that on his death the title of King, which we had bestowed on the successors of the Moghul Emperor, should be abolished, and his family removed from Delhi.

In the early part of the century Lord Wellesley pointed out the danger of allowing a Mahomedan Prince, with all the surroundings of royalty, to remain at the seat of the old Moghul government, but the question was allowed to remain in abeyance until 1849, when Lord Dalhousie reconsidered it, and obtained the sanction of the authorities in England to the removal of the Court from Delhi to a place about fourteen miles off, where the Kutub tower stands. At the same time the Heir Apparent was to be told that on his father's death the title of King of Delhi would cease.

Lord Dalhousie had been only a short time in India when he took up this question, and he could not properly have appreciated the estimation in which the Natives held the King of Delhi, for he wrote in support of his proposals 'that the Princes of India and its people had become entirely indifferent to the condition of the King or his position.' But when the decision of the British Government on the subject reached India, he had been more than two years in the country, and although his views as to the desirability of the measure remained unchanged, the experience he had gained enabled him to gauge more accurately the feelings of the people, and, with the advice of his Council, he came to the conclusion that it would be wiser to let affairs remain in statu quo during Bahadur Shah's lifetime. The royal family were informed accordingly, and an agreement was drawn up, signed, sealed, and witnessed, by which the Heir Apparent accepted the conditions to be imposed upon him on the death of his father, who was to be allowed to remain in Delhi during his lifetime, with all the paraphernalia of royalty.

However satisfactory this arrangement might be to the Government of India, to every member of the Delhi royal family it must have seemed oppressive and humiliating to the last degree. Outwardly they appeared to accept the inevitable quietly and submissively, but they were only biding their time, and longing for an opportunity to throw off the hated English yoke. The war with Persia in 1856 seemed to offer the chance they wanted. On the pretence that the independence of Herat was threatened by the Amir of Kabul, the Persians marched an army to besiege that place. As this act was a violation of our treaty with Persia made three years before, Her Majesty's Government directed that an army should be sent from India to the Persian Gulf. The troops had scarcely left Bombay before the Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces was warned by a Native correspondent that the King of Delhi was intriguing with the Shah of Persia. At the same time a proclamation was posted on the walls of the Jama Masjid (Shah Jehan's famous mosque at Delhi), to the effect that a Persian army was coming to relieve India from the presence of the English, and calling on all true believers to rise and fight against the heretics. Reports were also diligently circulated of our being defeated on the shores of the Persian Gulf, and the people were made to believe that their opportunity had arrived, and that the time was now favourable for a successful rebellion.

Of the three principal movers in the events which immediately preceded the Mutiny, the Nana Sahib was by far the most intelligent, and had mixed most with Europeans. He was the adopted son and heir of the last of the Peshwas, the Chiefs of the Mahratta confederacy. His cause of dissatisfaction was the discontinuance to him of a pension which, at the close of the Mahratta war in 1818, was granted to the Peshwa, on the clear understanding that it was to cease at his death. The Peshwa died in 1851, leaving the Nana an enormous fortune; but he was not content. The lapse of the pension, to which he was not entitled, rankled in his breast, and when all his efforts to get it restored to him proved of no avail, he became thoroughly disgusted and disaffected. After failing to obtain in India a reconsideration of the decision of the Government on the subject, he sent to England as confidential agent a Mahomedan of the name of Azimula Khan, who remained three years in Europe, residing for the most part in London; but he also visited Paris, Constantinople, and the Crimea, arriving at the latter place when we, in alliance with the French, were besieging Sebastopol. He was a man of no rank or position in his own country, a mere agent of the Nana's, but he was received into the best English society, was everywhere treated as a royal Prince, and became engaged to a young English girl, who agreed to follow him to India to be married. All this was revealed by the correspondence to which I have referred as having been found in the Nana's palace of Bithur. The greater number of these letters were from people in England--not a few from ladies of rank and position. One elderly dame called him her dear eastern son. There were numerous letters from his English fiancée, and two from a Frenchman of the name of Lafont,[3] relating to some business with the French settlement of Chandernagore, with which he had been entrusted by Azimula Khan, acting for the Nana. Written, as these letters were, immediately before the Mutiny, in which the Nana was the leading spirit, it seems probable that 'les principales choses,' to which Lafont hopes to bring satisfactory answers, were invitations to the disaffected and disloyal in Calcutta, and perhaps the French settlers at Chandernagore, to assist in the effort about to be made to throw off the British yoke. A portion of the correspondence was unopened, and there were several letters in Azimula's own handwriting which had not been despatched. Two of these were to Omar Pasha at Constantinople, and told of the sepoys' discontent and the troubled state of India generally. That the Nana was intriguing with the King of Delhi, the Nawab of Oudh, and other great personages, has been proved beyond a doubt, although at the time he was looked upon by the British residents at Cawnpore as a perfectly harmless individual, in spite of its being known that he considered himself aggrieved on account of his having been refused the continuance of the pension, and because a salute of guns (such as it is the custom to give to Native Princes on entering British territory) had not been accorded to him.

While the spirit of rebellion was thus being fostered and stirred into active existence throughout the country, it was hardly to be hoped that the Native army would be allowed to remain unaffected by a movement which could not easily attain formidable proportions without the assistance of the Native soldiers, who themselves, moreover, had not remained unmoved spectators of all that had happened during the previous thirty or forty years. The great majority of the sepoys were drawn from the agricultural classes, especially in the province of Oudh, and were therefore directly interested in all questions connected with rights of property, tenure of land, etc.; and questions of religion and caste affected them equally with the rest of the population.

Quietly, but surely, the instigators of rebellion were preparing the Native army for revolt. The greatest cunning and circumspection were, however, necessary to success. There were so many opposing interests to be dealt with, Mahomedans and Hindus being as violently hostile to each other, with regard to religion and customs, as they were to us. Soldiers, too, of all ranks had a great stake in their profession. Some had nearly served their time for their pensions, that greatest of all attractions to the Native to enter the army, for the youngest recruit feels that, if he serves long enough, he is sure of an income sufficient to enable him to sit in the sun and do nothing for the rest of his days--a Native's idea of supreme happiness. The enemies of our rule generally, and the fanatic in particular, were, however, equal to the occasion. They took advantage of the widespread discontent to establish the belief that a systematic attack was to be made on the faith and habits of the people, whether Hindu or Mahomedan, and, as a proof of the truth of their assertions, they alleged that the Enfield cartridges which had been recently issued to the army were greased with a mixture of cows' fat and lard, the one being as obnoxious to the Hindu as the other is to the Mahomedan. The news spread throughout the Bengal Presidency; the sepoys became alarmed, and determined to suffer any punishment rather than pollute themselves by biting the contaminating cartridge, as their doing so would involve loss of caste, which to the Hindu sepoy meant the loss of everything to him most dear and sacred in this world and the next. He and his family would become outcasts, his friends and relations would look on him with horror and disgust, while eternal misery, he believed, would be his doom in the world to come.

It has been made quite clear that a general belief existed amongst the Hindustani sepoys that the destruction of their caste and religion had been finally resolved upon by the English, as a means of forcing them to become Christians, and it seems extraordinary that the English officers with Native regiments were so little aware of the strength of this impression amongst their men.

The recent researches of Mr. Forrest in the records of the Government of India prove that the lubricating mixture used in preparing the cartridges was actually composed of the objectionable ingredients, cows' fat and lard, and that incredible disregard of the soldiers' religious prejudices was displayed in the manufacture of these cartridges. When the sepoys complained that to bite them would destroy their caste, they were solemnly assured by their officers that they had been greased with a perfectly unobjectionable mixture. These officers, understanding, as all who have come in contact with Natives are supposed to understand, their intense abhorrence of touching the flesh or fat of the sacred cow or the unclean pig, did not believe it possible that the authorities could have been so regardless of the sepoys' feelings as to have allowed it to be used in preparing their ammunition: they therefore made this statement in perfect good faith. But nothing was easier than for the men belonging to the regiments quartered near Calcutta to ascertain, from the low-caste Native workmen employed in manufacturing the cartridges at the Fort William arsenal, that the assurances of their officers were not in accordance with facts, and they were thus prepared to credit the fables which the sedition-mongers so sedulously spread abroad, to the effect that the Government they served and the officers who commanded them had entered into a deliberate conspiracy to undermine their religion.

Notwithstanding all the evil influence brought to bear on the Native army, I do not think that the sepoys would have proved such ready instruments in the hands of the civilian intriguers, had that army been organized, disciplined, and officered in a satisfactory manner, and had there been a sufficient proportion of British troops in India at the time. To the great preponderance of Native, as compared with British, troops may be attributed the fact that the sepoys dared to break into open mutiny. Moreover, the belief of the Natives in the invincibility of the British soldier, which formerly enabled small numbers of Europeans to gain victories over large Native armies, had been seriously weakened by the lamentable occurrences at Kabul during the first Afghan war, terminating in the disastrous retreat in the winter of 1841-42.

To add to the exalted idea the sepoys were beginning to entertain of their own importance, they were pampered by their officers and the civil Government to a most absurd extent, being treated under all circumstances with far greater consideration than the European soldiers. For instance, in the time of Lord William Bentinck flogging was abolished in the Native army,[4] while still in full swing amongst British soldiers, and sepoys were actually allowed to witness the humiliation of their white comrades when this degrading form of punishment was inflicted upon them.

In the early days of our connexion with India, we had no need for an army. Living, as we were, on sufferance in a foreign land for commercial purposes, armed men were only required to guard the factories. As these factories increased in size and importance, these armed men were given a semi-military organization, and in time they were formed into levies as a reserve to the few Europeans entertained by the merchants, to enable them to hold their own against the French, who were then beginning to dispute with us for supremacy in southern India. When employed in the field, the Native troops were associated with a varying proportion of British soldiers, but the number of the latter was limited by the expense of their maintenance, the difficulty of supplying them from England, and the unadvisability of locking up a part of the British army in distant stations, which at that time were very inaccessible and generally unhealthy. Native troops were therefore raised in continually increasing numbers, and after the battle of Plassey the Native army was rapidly augmented, especially in the Bengal Presidency; and, trained and led as it was by British officers, it achieved remarkable successes.

During the thirteen years preceding the Mutiny, the Native army, numbering 217,000 men and 176 guns, was increased by 40,000 men and 40 guns, but no addition was made to the small British force of 38,000 until 1853, when one regiment was added to each Presidency, or less than 3,000 soldiers in all. This insignificant augmentation was subsequently more than neutralized by the withdrawal of six British regiments from India to meet the requirements of the Crimean and Persian wars. Lord Dalhousie, Governor-General in 1854, saw the danger of this great preponderance of Native troops. He represented that the annexations and conquests which had taken place during his tenure of office necessitated a proportional increase of British soldiers; he protested against the withdrawal of a single European regiment, either on account of the war with Russia or for operations in the Persian Gulf, and he solemnly warned Her Majesty's Government that the essential element of our strength in India was the presence of a large number of British troops.

No attention, however, was paid to Lord Dalhousie's representations by the authorities in England, who doubtless thought they understood the requirements of India better than the Governor-General, with his more than six years' experience of the country. In spite of his remonstrances, two regiments were ordered to England, and four were sent later to the Persian Gulf, with the result which I have already stated.

When the Mutiny broke out, the whole effective British force in India only amounted to 36,000 men, against 257,000 Native soldiers,[5] a fact which was not likely to be overlooked by those who hoped and strived to gain to their own side this preponderance of numerical strength, and which was calculated to inflate the minds of the sepoys with a most undesirable sense of independence. An army of Asiatics, such as we maintain in India, is a faithful servant, but a treacherous master; powerfully influenced by social and religious prejudices with which we are imperfectly acquainted, it requires the most careful handling; above all, it must never be allowed to lose faith in the prestige or supremacy of the governing race. When mercenaries feel that they are indispensable to the maintenance of that authority which they have no patriotic interest in upholding, they begin to consider whether it would not be more to their advantage to aid in overthrowing that authority, and if they decide that it would be, they have little scruple in transferring their allegiance from the Government they never loved, and have ceased to fear, to the power more in accordance with their own ideas, and from which, they are easily persuaded, they will obtain unlimited benefits.

A fruitful cause of dissatisfaction in our Native army, and one which pressed more heavily upon it year by year, as our acquisitions of territory in northern India became more extended, was the sepoy's liability to service in distant parts of India, entailing upon him a life amongst strangers differing from him in religion and in all their customs, and far away from his home, his family, and his congenial surroundings--a liability which he had never contemplated except in the event of war, when extra pay, free rations and the possibility of loot, would go far to counterbalance the disadvantages of expatriation. Service in Burma, which entailed crossing the sea, and, to the Hindu, consequent loss of caste, was especially distasteful. So great an objection, indeed, had the sepoys to this so-called 'foreign service,' and so difficult did it become to find troops to relieve the regiments, in consequence of the bulk of the Bengal army not being available for service beyond the sea, that the Court of Directors sanctioned Lord Canning's proposal that, after the 1st September, 1856, 'no Native recruit shall be accepted who does not at the time of his enlistment undertake to serve beyond the sea whether within the territories of the Company or beyond them.' This order, though absolutely necessary, caused the greatest dissatisfaction amongst the Hindustani sepoys, who looked upon it as one of the measures introduced by the Sirkar for the forcible, or rather fraudulent, conversion of all the Natives to Christianity.[6]

That the long-existing discontent and growing disloyalty in our Native army might have been discovered sooner, and grappled with in a sufficiently prompt and determined manner to put a stop to the Mutiny, had the senior regimental and staff officers been younger, more energetic, and intelligent, is an opinion to which I have always been strongly inclined. Their excessive age, due to a strict system of promotion by seniority which entailed the employment of Brigadiers of seventy, Colonels of sixty, and Captains of fifty, must necessarily have prevented them performing their military duties with the energy and activity which are more the attributes of younger men, and must have destroyed any enthusiasm about their regiments, in which there was so little hope of advancement or of individual merit being recognized. Officers who displayed any remarkable ability were allowed to be taken away from their own corps for the more attractive and better-paid appointments appertaining to civil employ or the Irregular service. It was, therefore, the object of every ambitious and capable young officer to secure one of these appointments, and escape as soon as possible from a service in which ability and professional zeal counted for nothing.[7]

So far as I understand the causes which led to the rebellion of 1857, I have now answered the question, 'What brought about the Mutiny?' The reply to the second question, 'Is there any chance of a similar rising occurring again?' must be left to another chapter.

[Footnote 1: In this matter it seems to me that Lord Dalhousie's policy has been unfairly criticized. The doctrine of lapse was no new-fangled theory of the Governor-General, but had been recognized and acted upon for many years by the Native dynasties which preceded the East India Company. Under the Company's rule the Court of Directors had investigated the subject, and in a series of despatches from 1834 to 1846 had laid down that, in certain cases, the selection and adoption of an heir by a Native Ruler was an incontestable right, subject only to the formal sanction of the suzerain Power, while in other cases such a procedure was optional, and could only be permitted as a special favour. Lord Dalhousie concurred in the view that each case should be considered and decided on its merits. His words were: 'The Government is bound in duty, as well as in policy, to act on every such occasion with the purest integrity, and in the most scrupulous observance of good faith. Where even a shadow of doubt can be shown, the claim should at once be abandoned. But where the right to territory by lapse is clear, the Government is bound to take that which is justly and legally its due, and to extend to that territory the benefits of our sovereignty, present and prospective.']

[Footnote 2: In those days £120,000.]

[Footnote 3:

'Benares, 'April 4, 1857.

'MON CHER AZIMULA KHAN,

'Je suis parti de Cawnpore le premier du mois et suis arrivé ici ce matin, je partirai ce soir et serai à Chandernagore le 7 au matin, dans la journée je ferai une visite au Gouverneur et le lendemain irai à Calcutta, je verrai notre Consul General. Ecrivez-moi et adressez-moi vos lettres, No. 123, Dhurumtollah. Je voudrais que vous puissiez m'envoyer des fonds au moins 5 ou 600 Rs. sans retard, car je ne resterai à Calcutta que le temps nécessaire pour tout arranger et le bien arranger. Je suppose 48 heures à Calcutta et deux ou trois jours au plus à Chandernagore, ne perdez pas de temps mais répondez de suite. Pour toutes les principales choses les réponses seraient satisfaisantes, soyez-en assuré.

'Faites en sorte de me répondre sans délai afin que je ne sois pas retenu à Calcutta.

'Présentez mes compliments respectueux.

'Rappelez-moi au souvenir de Baba Sahib, et croyez moi, 'Votre bien dévoué 'A. LAFONT.

'Mon adresse à Chandernagore, "Care of Mesdames Albert."

'N.B.--Mais écrivez-moi à Calcutta, car je serai chaque jour là, en chemin de fer, je fais le trajet en 20 minutes. Si vous avez quelque chose de pressé à me communiquer vous le pouvez faire par télégraph en Anglais seulement. 'A.L.'

'Chandernagore, 'April 9, 1857.

'MON CHER AZIMULA KHAN,

'J'ai tout arrangé, j'apporterai une lettre, et elle sera satisfaisante cette lettre me sera donnée le 14 et le 15 je partirai pour Cawnpore. Mes respects à son Altesse.

'Votre tout dévoué 'A. LAFONT.']

[Footnote 4: Flogging was re-introduced in 1845.]

[Footnote 5: This does not include the bodies of armed and trained police, nor the lascars attached to the Artillery as fighting men. These amounted to many thousands.]

[Footnote 6: In a letter to Lord Canning, which Sir Henry Lawrence wrote on the 9th May, 1857, he gave an interesting account of a conversation he had had with a Brahmin Native officer of the Oudh Artillery, who was most persistent in his belief that the Government was determined to make the people of India Christians. He alluded especially to the new order about enlistment, our object being, he said, to make the sepoys go across the sea in order that they might be obliged to eat what we liked; and he argued that, as we had made our way through India, had won Bhartpur, Lahore, etc., by fraud, so it might be possible that we would mix bone-dust with grain sold to Hindus. Sir Henry Lawrence was quite unable to convince the Native officer; he would give us credit for nothing, and although he would not say that he himself did or did not believe, he kept repeating, 'I tell you Natives are all like sheep; the leading one tumbles, and down all the rest roll over him.']

[Footnote 7: It is curious to note how nearly every military officer who held a command or high position on the staff in Bengal when the Mutiny broke out, disappeared from the scene within the first few weeks, and was never heard of officially again. Some were killed, some died of disease, but the great majority failed completely to fulfil the duties of the positions they held, and were consequently considered unfit for further employment. Two Generals of divisions were removed from their commands, seven Brigadiers were found wanting in the hour of need, and out of the seventy-three regiments of Regular Cavalry and Infantry which mutinied, only four Commanding officers were given other commands, younger officers being selected to raise and command the new regiments.]

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Chapter XXXI

Discontent of the Natives--Successful administrators --Paternal despotism--Money-lenders and the Press--Faddists --Cardinal points

The India of to-day is altogether a different country from the India of 1857. Much has been done since then to improve the civil administration, and to meet the legitimate demands of the Native races. India is more tranquil, more prosperous, and more civilized than it was before the Mutiny, and the discipline, efficiency, and mobility of the Native army have been greatly improved. Much, however, still remains to be done, and a good deal might with advantage be undone, to secure the contentment of the Natives with our rule.

Our position has been materially strengthened by the provision of main and subsidiary lines of communication by road and railway; by the great network of telegraphs which now intersects the country; and by the construction of canals. These great public works have largely increased the area of land under cultivation, minimized the risk of famine, equalized the prices of agricultural produce, and developed a large and lucrative export trade. Above all, while our troops can now be assembled easily and rapidly at any centre of disturbance, the number of British soldiers has been more than doubled and the number of Native soldiers has been materially reduced. Moreover, as regards the Native equally with the British army of India, I believe that a better feeling never existed throughout all ranks than exists at present.

Nevertheless, there are signs that the spirit of unrest and discontent which sowed the seeds of the Mutiny is being revived. To some extent this state of things is the natural result of our position in India, and is so far unavoidable, but it is also due to old faults reappearing--faults which require to be carefully watched and guarded against, for it is certain that, however well disposed as soldiers the men in our ranks may be, their attitude will inevitably be influenced by the feelings of the people generally, more especially should their hostility be aroused by any question connected with religion.

For a considerable time after the Mutiny we became more cautious and conciliatory in administrative and legislative matters, more intent on doing what would keep the Chiefs and Rulers satisfied, the masses contented, and the country quiet, than on carrying out our own ideas. Gradually this wholesome caution is being disregarded. The Government has become more and more centralized, and the departmental spirit very strong. Each department, in its laudable wish for progress and advancement, is apt to push on measures which are obnoxious to the Natives, either from their not being properly understood, or from their being opposed to their traditions and habits of life, thus entailing the sacrifice of many cherished customs and privileges. Each department admits in theory the necessity for caution, but in practice presses for liberty of action to further its own particular schemes.

Of late years, too, the tendency has been to increase the number of departments and of secretariat offices under the supreme Government, and this tendency, while causing more work to devolve on the supreme Government than it can efficiently perform, results in lessening the responsibility of provincial Governments by interference in the management of local concerns. It is obvious that in a country like India, composed as it is of great provinces and various races differing from one another in interests, customs, and religions, each with its own peculiar and distinct necessities, administrative details ought to be left to the people on the spot. The Government of India would then be free to exercise a firm and impartial control over the Empire and Imperial interests, while guiding into safe channels, without unduly restraining, intelligent progress.

In times of peace the administration is apt to fall too exclusively into the hands of officials whose ability is of the doctrinaire type; they work hard, and can give logical and statistical reasons for the measures they propose, and are thus able to make them attractive to, and believed in by, the authorities. But they lack the more perfect knowledge of human nature, and the deeper insight into, and greater sympathy with, the feelings and prejudices of Asiatics, which those possessed in a remarkable degree who proved by their success that they had mastered the problem of the best form of government for India. I allude to men like Thomas Munro, Mountstuart Elphinstone, John Malcolm, Charles Metcalfe, George Clerk, Henry and John Lawrence, William Sleeman, James Outram, Herbert Edwardes, John Nicholson, and many others. These administrators, while fully recognizing the need for a gradual reform, understood the peculiarities of our position in the east, the necessity for extreme caution and toleration, and a 'live and let live' policy between us and the Natives. The sound and broad views of this class of public servant are not always appreciated either in India or England, and are too often put aside as unpractical, obstructive, and old-fashioned.

Amongst the causes which have produced discontent of late years, I would mention our forest laws and sanitary regulations, our legislative and fiscal systems--measures so necessary that no one interested in the prosperity of India could cavil at their introduction, but which are so absolutely foreign to Native ideas, that it is essential they should be applied with the utmost gentleness and circumspection.

I think, also, that the official idea of converting the young Princes and Nobles of India into English gentlemen by means of English tutors and English studies should be carried out with great care and caution. It has not hitherto invariably succeeded, and the feeling in many States is strongly opposed to it. The danger of failure lies in the wholesome restraint of the tutor being suddenly removed, and in the young Prince being left at too early an age to select his advisers and companions. The former, perhaps not unnaturally, are interested in proving that the training of their young Ruler by his European governor or tutor has not resulted in good either to himself or his people, while the latter are too often of the lowest class of European adventurers.

The proceedings and regulations of the Forest Department, desirable as they may be from a financial and agricultural point of view, have provoked very great irritation in many parts of India. People who have been accustomed from time immemorial to pick up sticks and graze their cattle on forest lands, cannot understand why they should now be forbidden to do so, nor can they realize the necessity for preserving the trees from the chance of being destroyed by fire, a risk to which they were frequently exposed from the Native custom of making use of their shelter while cooking, and of burning the undergrowth to enrich the grazing.

The action taken by the Government in sanitary matters has also aroused much ill-feeling and apprehension. Sanitary precautions are entirely ignored in eastern countries. The great majority of the people can see no good in them, and no harm in using the same tank for drinking purposes and for bathing and washing their clothes. The immediate surroundings of their towns and villages are most offensive, being used as the general receptacles for dead animals and all kinds of filth. Cholera, fever, and other diseases, which carry off hundreds of thousands every year, are looked upon as the visitation of God, from which it is impossible, even were it not impious to try, to escape; and the precautionary measures insisted upon by us in our cantonments, and at the fairs and places of pilgrimage, are viewed with aversion and indignation. Only those who have witnessed the personal discomfort and fatigue to which Natives of all ages and both sexes willingly submit in their struggle to reach some holy shrine on the occasion of a religious festival, while dragging their weary limbs for many hundreds of miles along a hot, dusty road, or being huddled for hours together in a crammed and stifling railway carriage, can have any idea of the bitter disappointment to the pilgrims caused by their being ordered to disperse when cholera breaks out at such gatherings, without being given the opportunity of performing their vows or bathing in the sacred waters.[1]

Further, our legislative system is based on western ideas, its object being to mete out equal justice to the rich and poor, to the Prince and peasant. But our methods of procedure do not commend themselves to the Indian peoples. Eastern races are accustomed to a paternal despotism, and they conceive it to be the proper function of the local representatives of the supreme Power to investigate and determine on the spot the various criminal and civil cases which come under the cognizance of the district officials. Legal technicalities and references to distant tribunals confuse and harass a population which, with comparatively few exceptions, is illiterate, credulous, and suspicious of underhand influence. An almost unlimited right of appeal from one court to another, in matters of even the most trivial importance, not only tends to impair the authority of the local magistrate, but gives an unfair advantage to the wealthy litigant whose means enable him to secure the services of the ablest pleader, and to purchase the most conclusive evidence in support of his claims. For it must be remembered than in India evidence on almost any subject can be had for the buying, and the difficulty, in the administration of justice, of discriminating between truth and falsehood is thereby greatly increased. Under our system a horde of unscrupulous pleaders has sprung up, and these men encourage useless litigation, thereby impoverishing their clients, and creating much ill-feeling against our laws and administration.

Another point worthy of consideration is the extent to which, under the protection of our legal system, the peasant proprietors of India are being oppressed and ruined by village shop-keepers and money-lenders. These men advance money at a most exorbitant rate of interest, taking as security the crops and occupancy rights of the cultivators of the soil. The latter are ignorant, improvident, and in some matters, such as the marriage ceremonies of their families, inordinately extravagant. The result is that a small debt soon swells into a big one, and eventually the aid of the law courts is invoked to oust the cultivator from a holding which, in many cases, has been in the possession of his ancestors for hundreds of years. The money-lender has his accounts to produce, and these can hardly be disputed, the debtor as a rule being unable to keep accounts of his own, or, indeed, to read or write. Before the British dominion was established in India, the usurer no doubt existed, but his opportunities were fewer, his position more precarious, and his operations more under control than they are at present. The money-lender then knew that his life would not be safe if he exacted too high interest for the loans with which he accommodated his customers, and that if he became too rich, some charge or other would be trumped up against him, which would force him to surrender a large share of his wealth to the officials of the State in which he was living. I do not say that the rough-and-ready methods of Native justice in dealing with money-lenders were excusable or tolerable, but at the same time I am inclined to think that, in granting these men every legal facility for enforcing their demands and carrying on their traffic, we may have neglected the interests of the agriculturists, and that it might be desirable to establish some agency under the control of Government, which would enable the poorer landholders to obtain, at a moderate rate of interest, advances proportionate to the security they had to offer.[2]

Another danger to our supremacy in India is the license allowed to the Native press in vilifying the Government and its officials, and persistently misrepresenting the motives and policy of the ruling Power. In a free country, where the mass of the population is well educated, independent, and self-reliant, a free press is a most valuable institution, representing as it does the requirements and aspirations of important sections of the community, and bringing to light defects and abuses in the social and political system. In a country such as Great Britain, which is well advanced in the art of self-government, intolerant and indiscriminate abuse of public men defeats its own object, and misstatements of matters of fact can be at once exposed and refuted. Like most of the developments of civilization which are worth anything, the English press is a plant of indigenous growth, whereas in India the Native press is an exotic which, under existing conditions, supplies no general want, does nothing to refine, elevate, or instruct the people, and is used by its supporters and promoters--an infinitesimal part of the population--as a means of gaining its selfish ends, and of fostering sedition, and racial and religious animosities. There are, I am afraid, very few Native newspapers actuated by a friendly or impartial spirit towards the Government of India, and to Asiatics it seems incredible that we should permit such hostile publications to be scattered broadcast over the country, unless the assertions were too true to be disputed, or unless we were too weak to suppress them. We gain neither credit nor gratitude for our tolerant attitude towards the Native press--our forbearance is misunderstood; and while the well-disposed are amazed at our inaction, the disaffected rejoice at being allowed to promulgate baseless insinuations and misstatements which undermine our authority, and thwart our efforts to gain the goodwill and confidence of the Native population.

Yet another danger to the permanence of our rule in India lies in the endeavours of well-intentioned faddists to regulate the customs and institutions of eastern races in accordance with their own ideas. The United Kingdom is a highly civilized country, and our habits and convictions have been gradually developed under the influences of our religion and our national surroundings. Fortunately for themselves, the people of Great Britain possess qualities which have made them masters of a vast and still expanding Empire. But these qualities have their defects as well as their merits, and one of the defects is a certain insularity of thought, or narrow-mindedness--a slowness to recognize that institutions which are perfectly suitable and right for us may be quite unsuited, if not injurious, to other races, and that what may not be right for us to do is not necessarily wrong for people of a different belief, and with absolutely different traditions and customs.

Gradually the form of Government in the United Kingdom has become representative and democratic, and it is therefore assumed by some people, who have little, if any, experience of the east, that the Government of India should be guided by the utterances of self-appointed agitators who pose as the mouth-pieces of an oppressed population. Some of these men are almost as much aliens[3] as ourselves, while others are representatives of a class which, though intellectually advanced, has no influence amongst the races in whom lies the real strength of India. Municipal self-government has been found to answer well in the United Kingdom, and it is held, therefore, that a similar system must be equally successful in India. We in England consume animal food and alcoholic liquors, but have no liking for opium; an effort has accordingly been made to deprive our Asiatic fellow-subjects, who, as a rule, are vegetarians, and either total abstainers or singularly abstemious in the matter of drink, of a small and inexpensive stimulant, which they find necessary to their health and comfort. British institutions and ideas are the embodiment of what long experience has proved to us to be best for ourselves; but suddenly to establish these institutions and enforce these ideas on a community which is not prepared for them, does not want them, and cannot understand them, must only lead to suspicion and discontent. The Government of India should, no doubt, be progressive in its policy, and in all things be guided by the immutable principles of right, truth, and justice; but these principles ought to be applied, not necessarily as we should apply them in England, but with due regard to the social peculiarities and religious prejudices of the people whom it ought to be our aim to make better and happier.

It will be gathered from what I have written that our administration, in my opinion, suffers from two main defects. First, it is internally too bureaucratic and centralizing in its tendencies; and, secondly, it is liable to be forced by the external pressure of well-meaning but irresponsible politicians and philanthropists to adopt measures which may be disapproved of by the authorities on the spot, and opposed to the wishes, requirements, and interests of the people. It seems to me that for many years to come the best form of government for India will be the intelligent and benevolent despotism which at present rules the country. On a small scale, and in matters of secondary importance, representative institutions cannot perhaps do much harm, though I am afraid they will effect but little good. On a large scale, however, such a system of government would be quite out of place in view of the fact that ninety-nine out of every hundred of the population are absolutely devoid of any idea of civil responsibility, and that the various races and religious sects possess no bond of national union.

In reply, then, to the question, 'Is there any chance of a Mutiny occurring again?' I would say that the best way of guarding against such a calamity is--

By never allowing the present proportion of British to Native soldiers to be diminished or the discipline and efficiency of the Native army to become slack.

By taking care that men are selected for the higher civil and military posts whose self-reliance, activity, and resolution are not impaired by age, and who possess a knowledge of the country and the habits of the peoples.

By recognizing and guarding against the dogmatism of theorists and the dangers of centralization.

By rendering our administration on the one hand firm and strong, on the other hand tolerant and sympathetic; and last, but not least, by doing all in our power to gain the confidence of the various races, and by convincing them that we have not only the determination, but the ability to maintain our supremacy in India against all assailants.

If these cardinal points are never lost sight of, there is, I believe, little chance of any fresh outbreak disturbing the stability of our rule in India, or neutralizing our efforts to render that country prosperous, contented, and thoroughly loyal to the British Crown.

[Footnote 1: Few acts have been more keenly resented than the closing of the great Hurdwar Fair in the autumn of 1892, on account of a serious outbreak of cholera. It was looked upon by the Natives as a direct blow aimed at their religion, and as a distinct departure from the religious tolerance promised in Her Majesty's proclamation of 1858. The mysterious mud marks on mango-trees in Behar have been attributed by some to a self-interested motive on the part of certain priests to draw the attention of Hindus to the sanctity of some temple outside the limits of British jurisdiction, where the devotees would be at liberty to assemble in any numbers without being troubled by officious inspectors, and where they could remain as long as they pleased, irrespective of the victims daily claimed by cholera, that unfailing avenger of the neglect of sanitary laws in the east.]

[Footnote 2: The proposal would seem to be quite a practical one, for I read in the Times of the 28th November, 1894, that the Government of New Zealand invited applications for Consols in connexion with the scheme for granting loans at a reasonable rate of interest to farmers on the security of their holdings.]

[Footnote 3: I allude to the Parsis, who came from Persia, and whose religion and customs are as distinct from those of the Natives of India as are our own.]

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XXXII. 1858-1859

Home again--Back in India--Allahabad and Cawnpore --The Viceroy's camp--State entry into Lucknow --The Talukdars of Oudh--Loyalty of the Talukdars --Cawnpore and Fatehgarh--The Agra Durbar

I travelled home viâ Corfu, Trieste, Venice, and Switzerland, arriving in England towards the end of June. The intense delight of getting 'home' after one's first term of exile can hardly be exaggerated, and certainly cannot be realized, save by those who have gone through the exile, and been separated, as I had been for years, from all that made the happiness of my early life. Every English tree and flower one comes across on first landing is a distinct and lively pleasure, while the greenness and freshness are a delicious rest to the eye, wearied with the deadly whitey-brown sameness of dried-up sandy plains, or the all-too gorgeous colouring of eastern cities and pageants.

My people were living in Ireland, in the county of Waterford, so after only a short sojourn in London, for the very necessary re-equipment of the outer man, I hastened over there. I found my father well and strong for a man of seventy-four, and to all appearance quite recovered from the effects of his fifty years of Indian service, and, to my great joy, my mother was looking almost as young, and quite as beautiful, as I had left her six years before. My little sister, too, always an invalid, was very much as when I had parted from her--full of loving-kindness for everyone, and, though unable to move without help, perfectly happy in the many resources she had within herself, and the good she was able to do in devoting those resources to the benefit of others.

There, too, I found my fate, in the shape of Nora Bews, a young lady living with a married sister not far from my father's place, who a few months later consented to accompany me on my return to India. The greater part of my leave was, therefore, spent in Ireland.

During the winter months I hunted with the Curraghmore hounds, and was out with them the day before Lord Waterford was killed. We had no run, and at the end of the day, when wishing us good-bye, he said: 'I hope, gentlemen, we shall have better luck next time.' 'Next time' there was 'better luck' as regarded the hunting, but the worst of all possible luck for Lord Waterford's numerous friends; in returning home after a good run, and having killed two foxes, his horse stumbled over quite a small ditch, throwing his rider on his head; the spinal cord was snapped and the fine sportsman breathed his last in a few moments.

I was married on the 17th May, 1859, in the parish church of Waterford. While on our wedding tour in Scotland, I received a command to be present on the 8th June at Buckingham Palace, when the Queen proposed to honour the recipients of the Victoria Cross by presenting the decoration with Her Majesty's own hands.

Being anxious that my wife should be spared the great heat of a journey to India in July, the hottest month of the year in the Red Sea, and the doctors being very decided in their opinion that I should not return so soon, I had applied for a three months' extension of leave, and quite calculated on getting it, so our disappointment was great when the answer arrived and I found that, if I took the extension, I should lose my appointment in the Quartermaster-General's Department. This, we agreed, was not to be thought of, so there was nothing for it but to face the disagreeable necessity as cheerfully as we could. We made a dash over to Ireland, said good-bye to our relations, and started for India on the 27th June.

The heat in the Red Sea proved even worse than I had anticipated. Our captain pronounced it the hottest trip he had ever made. Twice was the ship turned round to steam against the wind for a short time in order to revive some of the passengers, who were almost suffocated.

We passed the wreck of the Alma, a P. and O. vessel which had struck on a coral reef not far from Mocha. The wreck had happened in the dead of night, and there had been only time to get the passengers into the boats, in which they were rowed to another reef near at hand; there they had remained for eighty hours in their scanty night garments, and without the smallest shelter, until rescued by a friendly steamer. The officers and crew were still on the rock when we passed, endeavouring to get up the mails and the passengers' property. We supplied them with provisions and water, of which they were badly in need, and then had to leave them in their extremely uncomfortable position.

We could not complain of lack of air after we passed Aden, for we forthwith encountered the south-west monsoon, then at its height, and on entering the Bay of Bengal we experienced something very nearly akin to a cyclone. We broke our rudder; the lightships, on which a certain number of pilots were always to be found, had all been blown out to sea; and as we had only just sufficient coal to take us up the Hugli when the pilot should appear, we did not dare to keep up steam. Thus we had to remain at the mercy of the winds and waves for some days, until at length a brig with a pilot on board was sent to look for us, and eventually we arrived in Calcutta, in rather a dilapidated condition, on the 30th July.

We were not cheered by the orders I found awaiting me, which were to proceed to Morar and join Brigadier-General Sir Robert Napier, then in command of the Gwalior district. Morar in the month of August is one of the hottest places in India, and my wife was considerably the worse for our experiences at sea. However, a Calcutta hotel never has many attractions, and at that time of year was depressing and uncomfortable to the last degree; in addition, I had rather a severe attack of my old enemy, Peshawar fever, so we started on our journey 'up country' with as little delay as possible.

The railway at that time was not open further than Raniganj; thence we proceeded for a hundred miles in a 'dâk-ghari,' when, changing into doolies, we continued our journey to Hazaribagh, a little cantonment about twenty miles off the main road, where some relations of mine were living; but a day or two after our arrival at their hospitable house, I was ordered back to Calcutta.

I left my wife with our kind friends, and retraced my steps in considerable elation of spirits, for the China expedition was even then being talked about, and I hoped this sudden summons might possibly mean that I was to be sent with it in some capacity. On reaching Calcutta, however, I was told that I had been appointed to organize and take charge of the large camp to be formed for the triumphal progress which Lord Canning proposed to make through Oudh, the North-West Provinces, and the Punjab, with the view of meeting the principal feudatory Chiefs, and rewarding those who had been especially loyal during the rebellion. I was informed that the tents were in store in the arsenal at Allahabad, and that the camp must be ready at Cawnpore on the 15th October, on which date the Viceroy would arrive, and a day or two later commence his stately procession towards Lucknow.

While I was in England a Royal Proclamation had announced to the people of India that the Queen had taken over the government of their country, which had hitherto been held in trust for Her Majesty by the Honourable East India Company. This fact had been publicly proclaimed, with befitting ceremony, throughout the length and breadth of the land, on the 1st November, 1858. At the same time it was announced that Her Majesty's representative in India was henceforth to be styled Viceroy and Governor-General of India, and it was with the object of emphasizing this Proclamation, and impressing the Native mind with the reality of Queen Victoria's power and authority, that Lord Canning decided on undertaking this grand tour.

While in Calcutta on this occasion, I was offered a post in the Revenue Survey Department. I refused it, for, although as a married man the higher pay was a tempting bait, the recollection of the excitement and variety of the year of the Mutiny was still fresh upon me, and I had no wish to leave the Quartermaster-General's Department. I therefore started for Allahabad, picking up my wife en route.

It was then the middle of the rains, and the bridge of boats over the Jumna had been taken down, so we had to cross in ferry-boats-- dâk-gharis, horses, and all--rather a perilous-looking proceeding, for the river was running at a tremendous pace, and there was some difficulty in keeping the boat's head straight. At Allahabad we stayed with a brother officer of mine in the fort, while I was getting the camp equipage out of store, and the tents pitched for inspection. There had not been a large camp for many years, and everything in India deteriorates so rapidly, that I found most of the tents in such a state of mildew and decay as to render it necessary to renew them almost entirely before they could be used for such a splendid occasion as that of the first Viceroy's first march through the re-conquered country.

From Allahabad we proceeded to Cawnpore, where I had a busy time arranging for the multifarious requirements of such an enormous camp; and sometimes I despaired of its being completed by the appointed date. However, completed it was; and on the 15th October Lord and Lady Canning arrived, and expressed themselves so pleased with all the arrangements, and were so kindly appreciative of the exertions I had made to be ready for them by the appointed time, that I felt myself fully rewarded for all my trouble.

The next day I took my wife to call upon Lady Canning, whose unaffected and simple, yet perfectly dignified manner completely charmed her, and from that day she was devoted, in common with everyone who was at all intimately associated with Lady Canning, to the gentle, gracious lady, who was always kindness itself to her.

On the 18th the Viceroy made his first march towards Lucknow. The camp equipage was in duplicate, so that everyone on arriving at the new halting-place found things exactly the same as in the tents they had left.

The camp occupied a considerable space; for, in addition to the Viceroy's large entourage, ground had to be provided for the Commander-in-Chief and the officers of Army Head-Quarters, who were marching with us; then there were the post-office, telegraph, workshops, toshikhana,[1] commissariat, and a host of other offices to be accommodated, beside the escort, which consisted of a battery of Horse Artillery, a squadron of British Cavalry, a regiment of British Infantry, a regiment of Native Cavalry, a regiment of Native Infantry, and the Viceroy's Bodyguard. For the Viceroy, his staff, guests, and secretaries alone, 150 large tents were pitched in the main street, and when we came to a station the duplicate tents were also pitched. For the transport of this portion of the camp equipage 80 elephants and 500 camels were required.[2]

It is very difficult to give any idea of the extraordinary spectacle a big camp like this presents on the line of march. The followers, as a rule, are accompanied by their wives and families, who are piled upon the summits of laden carts, or perched on the loads borne by the baggage animals. In the two camps marching together (Lord Canning's and Lord Clyde's) there could not have been less than 20,000 men, women, and children--a motley crowd streaming along about four-and-twenty miles of road, for the day's march was usually about twelve miles, and before every one had cleared out of the camp occupied the night before, the advance guard had begun to arrive on the ground to be occupied the next day. The strictest discipline had to be maintained, or this moving colony would have been a serious calamity to the peasantry, for the followers would have spread themselves over the country like a flight of locusts, and taken anything they could lay their hands on, representing themselves as Mulk-i-Lord-Sahib-Ke-Naukar,[3] whom according to immemorial tradition it was death to resist. The poor, frightened country-people, therefore, hardly ventured to remonstrate at the mahouts walking off with great loads of their sugar-cane, or to object to the compulsory purchase of their farm produce for half its value. There was a great deal of this kind of raiding at the commencement of the march, and I was constantly having complaints made to me by the villagers; but after I had inflicted on the offenders a few summary and tolerably severe punishments, and made the peasants to understand it was not the Mulk-i-Lord-Sahib's wish that they should submit to such treatment from his servants, order was established, and I had very rarely any trouble.

Our first halt was at Lucknow. Sir Hope Grant was commanding the division, and had established himself very comfortably in the Dilkusha. He had written asking me to bring my wife straight there and stay with him during the Viceroy's visit, as it was still very hot in tents during the day. An invitation which I gladly accepted, for it was pleasant to think of being with my old General again, and I wanted to introduce him to my wife.

The next day, the 22nd October, the state entry was made into Lucknow. It must have been an imposing sight, that long array of troops and guns, with Lord Canning in the centre, accompanied by the Commander-in-Chief, and surrounded by their respective staffs in full uniform. Lord Canning, though at that time not given to riding, looked remarkably well on horseback; for he had a fine head and shoulders, and sat his horse well; on foot, his height, not being quite in proportion, rather detracted from the dignity of his presence.

I headed the procession, leading it across the Charbagh bridge, the scene of Havelock's fiercest encounter, past the Machi Bhawan, and the Residency, to the Kaisarbagh, in front of which were drawn up in a body the Talukdars of Oudh, who had with difficulty been persuaded to come and make their obeisance, for, guiltily conscious of their disloyalty during the rebellion, they did not feel at all sure that the rumours that it was intended to blow them all away from guns, or to otherwise summarily dispose of them, were not true. They salaamed respectfully as the Viceroy passed, and the cavalcade proceeded to the Martinière park, where the camp, which I had pitched the previous day, lay spread before us, in all the spotless purity of new white tents glistening in a flood of brilliant sunshine. The streets through which we passed were crowded with Natives, who--cowed, but not tamed--looked on in sullen defiance, very few showing any sign of respect for the Viceroy.

Sir William and Lady Mansfield, and several other people from our camp were also staying with Sir Hope Grant, and that evening the whole Dilkusha party went to a state dinner given by Lord and Lady Canning. The latter was a delightful hostess; the shyest person was set at ease by her kindly, sympathetic manner, and she had the happy knack of making her guests feel that her entertainments were a pleasure to herself--the surest way of rendering them enjoyable to those she entertained.

I made use of the next week, which was for me a comparatively idle time, to take my wife over the ground by which we had advanced two years before, and explain to her the different positions held by the enemy. She was intensely interested in visiting the Sikandarbagh, the Shah Najaf, the mess-house, and, above all, that glorious memorial of almost superhuman courage and endurance, the Residency, ruined, roofless, and riddled by round shot and bullets. Very little had then been done towards opening out the city, and the surroundings of the Residency were much as they had been during the defence--a labyrinth of streets and lanes; it was therefore easier for the stranger to realize exactly what had taken place than it is now that the landmarks have been cleared away, and well-laid-out gardens and broad roads have taken the place of jungle and narrow alleys.

On the 26th the Viceroy held a grand durbar for the reception of the Talukdars. It was the first function of the sort I had witnessed, and was an amusing novelty to my wife, who, with Lady Canning and some of the other ladies in camp, viewed the proceedings from behind a semi-transparent screen, it not being considered at that time the thing for ladies to appear at ceremonials when Natives were present. The whole scene was very impressive, though not as brilliant in colouring as it would have been in any other part of India, owing to the Chiefs of Oudh being clad in simple white, as is the custom amongst Rajputs.

The Talukdars, to the number of one hundred and sixty, were ushered to their places in strict order of seniority, the highest in rank being the last to arrive. They were arranged in a half semicircle on the right of the Viceroy's chair of state, while on the left the Europeans were seated according to their official rank. When all was ready, the words 'Attention! Royal salute! Present arms!' were heard without, warning those within of the Viceroy's approach, and, as the bugles sounded and the guns thundered forth their welcome, Lord Canning, accompanied by the Commander-in-Chief, and preceded by their staffs, entered the tent.

Everyone rose, and remained standing until the great man took his seat, when the Foreign Secretary came forward, and, making a low bow, informed His Excellency that all who had been summoned to attend the durbar were present. The Chiefs were then brought up and introduced to the Viceroy one by one; each made a profound obeisance, and, as a token of allegiance, presented an offering of gold mohurs, which, according to etiquette, the Viceroy just touched by way of acknowledgment. The presents from the Government to the Chiefs were then handed in on trays, and placed on the ground in front of each, the value of the present being regulated according to the rank and position of the recipient. This part of the ceremony being over, the Viceroy rose and addressed the Talukdars.

After expressing his pleasure at meeting them in their own country, he gave them an assurance that, so long as they remained faithful to the Government, they should receive every consideration; he told them that a new era had commenced in Oudh, and that henceforth they would be allowed to revert to the conditions under which they had held their estates prior to the annexation of the province. When Lord Canning had finished speaking, a translation of his address in Urdu was read to the Talukdars by Mr. Beadon, the Foreign Secretary; atar and pan[4] were then handed round, and the Viceroy took his departure with the same formalities as those with which the durbar had been opened.

There is some excuse to be made for the attitude of the Talukdars, who, from their point of view, had little reason to be grateful to the British Government. These powerful Chiefs, whose individual revenues varied from £10,000 to £15,000 a year, and who, in their jungle fastnesses, often defied their sovereign's troops, had suddenly been deprived of all the authority which in the confusion attending a long period of misgovernment they had gradually usurped, as well as of a considerable proportion of the landed property which, from time to time, they had forcibly appropriated. The conversion of feudal Chiefs into ordinary law-abiding subjects is a process which, however beneficial to the many, is certain to be strenuously resisted by the few.

In March, 1858, when Lucknow was captured, a Proclamation was issued by the Government of India confiscating the proprietary rights in the soil. The object in view was not merely to punish contumacious Chiefs, but also to enable the Government to establish the revenue system on a sounder and firmer footing. Talukdars who submitted were to receive their possessions as a free gift direct from the Government; while those who had done good service, whether men of Oudh or strangers, might be rewarded by grants of confiscated property.

The Proclamation was considered in many influential quarters too arbitrary and sweeping a measure; Outram protested against it, and Lord Ellenborough (the President of the Board of Control) condemned it; but Lord Canning was backed up by the British public, and Lord Ellenborough resigned to save his Cabinet from being wrecked. That Outram and Ellenborough took the right view of the case is, I think, shown by the fact that Lord Canning cancelled the Proclamation on his first visit to Lucknow. By that time he had come to recognize that the Talukdars had reasonable grounds for their discontent, and he wisely determined to take a step which not only afforded them the greatest relief and satisfaction, but enlisted their interest on the side of Government. From that day to this, although, from time to time, subsequent legislation has been found necessary to save the peasantry from oppression, the Chiefs of Oudh have been amongst the most loyal of Her Majesty's Indian subjects.

We remained a few days longer at Lucknow. Lord and Lady Canning entertained all the residents, while a ball was given by the latter in the Chatta Manzil to the strangers in camp, and the city and principal buildings were illuminated in the Viceroy's honour with those curious little oil-lamps which are the most beautiful form of illumination, the delineation of every line, point, and pinnacle with myriads of minute lights producing a wonderfully pretty effect.

On the 29th the first march was made on the return journey to Cawnpore. My duty was to go on ahead, select the best site for the next day's camping-ground, and make all necessary arrangements for supplies, etc. I waited till the Viceroy had given his orders, and then my wife and I started off, usually in the forenoon; sometimes we remained till later in the day, lunching with one or other of our friends in camp, and on very rare occasions, such as a dinner-party at the Viceroy's or the Commander-in-Chief's, we drove on after dinner by moonlight. But that was not until we had been on the march for some time and I felt that the head Native in charge of the camp was to be trusted to make no mistake. It was a life of much interest and variety, and my wife enjoyed the novelty of it all greatly.

Lord Canning held his second durbar at Cawnpore on the 3rd November, when he received the principal Chiefs of Bundelkand, the Maharaja of Rewa, the Maharaja of Benares, and a host of lesser dignitaries.

It was on this occasion that, in accordance with the Proclamation which had already announced that the Queen had no desire to extend her territorial possessions, and that the estates of Native Princes were to be scrupulously respected, the Chiefs were informed that the right of adoption was conceded to them. This meant that, in default of male issue, they were to be allowed to adopt sons according to the Indian custom of adoption, and that the British Government would recognize the right of the chosen heir to succeed as Ruler of the State as well as to inherit the personal property of the Chief by whom he had been adopted. There had been no clear rule on this point previously, each case having been considered on its own merits, but the doctrine that adoption should not be recognized, and that, in default of natural heirs, the State should lapse and be annexed by the supreme Government, had been enforced in a good many instances. Lord Canning's announcement therefore caused the liveliest satisfaction to certain classes throughout India, and did more than any other measure to make the feudatory Princes believe in the sincerity of the amnesty Proclamation.[5]

Our next move was to Fatehgarh, eight marches from Cawnpore, where, on the 15th November, a third durbar was held, at which was received, amongst other leading men of Rohilkand whose services were considered worthy of acknowledgment, the Nawab of Rampur, who had behaved with distinguished loyalty in our time of trouble. This Mahomedan Nobleman's conduct was the more meritorious in that the surrounding country swarmed with rebels, and was the home of numbers of the mutinous Irregular Cavalry, while the close proximity of Rampur to Delhi, whence threats of vengeance were hurled at the Nawab unless he espoused the King's cause, rendered his position extremely precarious.

From Fatehgarh we proceeded to Agra, nine marches, only halting on Sundays, and consequently everyone appreciated being stationary there for a few days. The camp was pitched on the parade-ground, the scene of the fight of the 10th October, 1857. Here the Viceroy received some of the bigger potentates, who were accompanied by large retinues, and, as far as the spectacle went, it was one of the grandest and most curious gatherings we had yet witnessed.

The occasions are rare on which a Viceroy has the opportunity of receiving in durbar the great vassals of our Indian Empire, but when these assemblies can be arranged they have a very useful effect, and should not be looked upon as mere empty ceremonials. This was especially the case at a time when the country had so recently been convulsed by intestine war, and when the Native Princes were anxiously considering how their prospects would be affected by Her Majesty's assumption of the administration of India.

The Chief of highest rank on this occasion was the Maharaja of Gwalior, who, as I have already stated, influenced by his courageous Minister, Dinkar Rao, had remained faithful to us. Like most Mahratta Princes of that time, he was very imperfectly educated. Moreover, he was possessed of a most wayward disposition, frequently threatening, when thwarted in any way, to throw up the reins of government, and take refuge in the jungle; manners he had none.

Next came the enlightened head of the Princely house of Jaipur, the second in importance of the great Chiefs of Rajputana.

He was succeeded by the Karaoli Raja, whose following was the most quaint of all. Amongst the curious signs of his dignity he had on his escort four tigers, each chained on a separate car, and guarded by strange-looking men in brass helmets.

The Maharao Raja of Ulwar was the next to arrive, seated on a superb elephant, eleven feet high, magnificently caparisoned with cloth-of-gold coverings, and chains and breastplates of gold. He was a promising-looking lad who had succeeded to his estate only two years before; but he soon fell into the hands of low intriguers, who plundered his dominions and so oppressed his people that the British Government had to take over the management of his State.

After Ulwar came the Nawab of Tonk, the descendant of an adventurer from Swat, on the Peshawar border, who had become possessed of considerable territory in Rajputana. The Nawab stood by us in the Mutiny, when his capital was plundered by Tantia Topi.

The sixth in rank was the Jât Ruler of Dholpur, a bluff, coarse-looking man, and a very rude specimen of his race.

Last of all arrived the Nawab of Jaora, a handsome, perfectly-dressed man of considerable refinement of manner, and with all the courtesy of a well-bred Mahomedan. Though a feudatory of the rebellious Holkar of Indore, he kept aloof from all Mahratta intrigues, and behaved well to us.

Some of the highest of the Rajput Chiefs declined to attend, alleging as an excuse the distance of their capitals from Agra; but the truth is that these Rulers, the best blood of India, had never bowed their heads to any Power, not even that of the Moghul, and they considered it would be derogatory to their dignity to obey the summons of the representative of a sovereign, of whom they considered themselves the allies and not the mere feudatories.[6]

Those of the Chieftains attending this durbar who had shown conspicuous loyalty during the rebellion were not allowed to leave without receiving substantial rewards. Sindhia had territory bestowed on him to the value of £30,000 a year. Jaipur was given the confiscated property of Kôt K[=a]sim, yielding £5,000 a year, while others were recompensed according to the importance of the services rendered.

[Footnote 1: The depository for jewels and other valuables kept for presentation to Native Chiefs at durbars.]

[Footnote 2: The following details will give some idea of the magnitude of the arrangements required for the Viceroy's camp alone. Besides those above mentioned there were 500 camels, 500 bullocks and 100 bullock carts for transport of camp equipage, 40 sowari (riding) elephants, 527 coolies to carry the glass windows belonging to the larger tents, 100 bhisties, and 40 sweepers for watering and keeping the centre street clean. These were in addition to the private baggage animals, servants, and numberless riding and driving horses, for all of which space and shelter had to be provided.]

[Footnote 3: Servants of the Lord of the Country, or Governor-General.]

[Footnote 4: A few drops of attar of roses are given to each person, and a small packet of pan, which is composed of slices of betel-nut smeared with lime and wrapped in a leaf of the betel-tree.]

[Footnote 5: The question of Native Rulers having the right to adopt heirs was first brought to Lord Canning's notice by the three Phulkian chiefs--Patiala, Jhind and Nabha--who jointly requested in 1858 that the right of adoption might be accorded to them as a reward for the services they had rendered during the Mutiny. The request was refused at the time on the ground that it had never been the custom of the country, though it had occasionally been done. Since then, however, Lord Canning had come to see that the uncertainty which prevailed as to the rights of succession was harassing to the owners of land, and undesirable in many ways, and he urged upon the Secretary of State that some distinct rule on the subject might with advantage be laid down. He wrote as follows: 'The crown of England stands forth the unquestioned Ruler and paramount Power in all India, and is now for the first time brought face to face with its feudatories. There is a reality in the suzerainty of the Sovereign of England which has never existed before, which is not only felt, but eagerly acknowledged by the Chiefs. A great convulsion has been followed by such a manifestation of our strength as India has never seen; and if this in its turn be followed by an act of general and substantial grace, over and above the special rewards which have already been given to those whose services deserve them, the measure will be seasonable and appreciated.' Lord Canning's proposals met with the cordial approval of Her Majesty's Government, and his announcement at Cawnpore rejoiced the hearts of the Chiefs, one of whom, the Maharaja of Rewa, was a leper and had no son. He said, on hearing the Viceroy's words, 'They dispel an evil wind which has long been blowing upon me.']

[Footnote 6: These Rajput Chiefs, however, accepted Lord Lytton's invitation to attend the Imperial Assemblage at Delhi on the 1st January, 1877, and having once given their allegiance to the 'Empress of India,' they have since been the most devotedly loyal of Her Majesty's feudatory Princes.]

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XXXIII. 1859-1860

Delhi under a different aspect--Lord Clyde--Umritsar and Lahore --The Lahore Durbar--Simla--Life at Simla

We remained at Agra until the 9th December. There was so much of beauty and interest in and around the place, that Lady Canning found a wealth of subjects for her facile pencil, and was well content to remain there. There were the usual banquets to the residents, and entertainments given by the Agra people to those in camp, one of them being a party in the Taj gardens, to give us an opportunity of seeing the tomb by moonlight, when it certainly looks its loveliest. My wife was more delighted even than I had anticipated with the perfect beauty of the Taj and the exquisite little mosque in the fort, the Moti-Masjid. I greatly enjoyed showing her all that was worth seeing, and witnessing her pleasure on first viewing these wonderful works of art.

There was no halt again, except the usual one on Sunday, until we reached Meerut on the 21st December.

Three marches from Agra a fire broke out in Lady Canning's tent soon after she had retired for the night, caused by the iron pipe of the stove, which passed through the side of the tent, becoming over-heated. Lady Canning's tents were on one side of the big dining-tent, and the Viceroy's on the other. Immediately on perceiving the fire, Lady Canning ran across to awaken her husband, but the Native sentry, who did not know her or understand a word of what she was saying, would not let her in, and, in despair of being able to make anyone hear, she rushed off to the tent of Sir Edward Campbell, the Military Secretary, which was nearest her own. She succeeded in awaking him, and then flew back to try and save some of her own treasures. The first thing she thought of was her portfolio of drawings, which she dragged outside; but it had already been partially burned, and most of the valuable and characteristic sketches she had made at the different durbars were destroyed. She next tried to rescue her jewels, many of which she had worn the night before; her pearls were lying on the dressing-table, and she was only just in time to save them; one of the strings had caught fire, and several of the pearls were blackened. She swept them off the table into a towel, and threw them into a tub of water standing outside. Her wardrobe was completely destroyed. More damage would have been done had not the Private Secretary, Mr. Lewin Bowring, on the alarm being given, hurried to the dining-tent, and, with great presence of mind, ordered the Native Cavalry sentry to cut the ropes, causing it to fall at once, and preventing the fire from spreading. Some office boxes and records were destroyed, but nothing more. We were as usual in the advance camp, and did not hear what had happened until next morning, when Lady Canning arrived dressed in Lady Campbell's clothes; and as Lady Canning was tall, and Lady Campbell was short, the effect was rather funny.

Christmas was spent at Meerut, where I met several of my brother officers, amongst others my particular friend Edwin Johnson, whom I had the great pleasure of introducing to my wife. With scarcely an exception, my friends became hers, and this added much to the happiness of our Indian life.

Delhi, our next halting-place, was certainly not the least interesting in our tour. Lord Canning was anxious to understand all about the siege, and visited the different positions; the Ridge and its surroundings, the breaches, and the palace, were the chief points of interest. There were two 'Delhi men' besides myself to explain everything to him, Sir Edward Campbell, who was with the 60th Rifles throughout, and one of the best officers in the regiment, and Jemmy Hills, who had now become the Viceroy's Aide-de-camp; while in Lord Clyde's camp there were Norman, Stewart, and Becher.

I had, of course, taken my wife to the scenes of the fights at Agra, Aligarh, and Bulandshahr, but Delhi had the greatest fascination for her. It is certainly an extraordinarily attractive place, setting aside the peculiar interest of the siege. For hundreds of years it had been the seat of Government under Rulers of various nationalities and religions; few cities have the remains of so much pomp and glory, and very few bear the traces of having been besieged so often, or could tell of so much blood spilt in their defence, or of such quantities of treasure looted from them. When Tamerlane captured Delhi in 1398 the city was given over to massacre for five days, 'some streets being rendered impassable by heaps of dead'; and in 1739 the Persian conqueror, Nadir Shah, after sacking the place for fifty-eight days and massacring thousands of its inhabitants, carried off thirty-two millions sterling of booty.

Although the fierce nature of the struggle that Delhi had gone through in 1857 was apparent everywhere, the inhabitants seemed now to have forgotten all about it. The city was as densely populated as it had ever been; the Chandni Chauk was gay as formerly with draperies of bright-coloured stuffs; jewellers and shawl-merchants carried on their trades as briskly as ever, and were just as eager in their endeavours to tempt the Sahib log to spend their money as if trade had never been interrupted; so quickly do Orientals recover from the effects of a devastating war.

We left Delhi on the 3rd January, 1860, marching viâ Karnal. When at this place my wife went to see Lady Canning, as she often did if we remained at all late in camp. On this particular occasion she found her busy with the English mail, which had just arrived, so she said she would not stay then, but would come next day instead. Lady Canning, however, would not let my wife go until she had read her part of a letter from Lady Waterford, which she thought would amuse her. It was in answer to one from Lady Canning, in which she had described the camp, and given her sister a list of all the people in it. Lady Waterford wrote: 'Your Quartermaster-General must be the son of General Roberts, who lives near Waterford; he came home on leave last year. I must tell you an amusing little anecdote about his father. One night, when the General was dining at Curraghmore, he found himself sitting next the Primate of Ireland, with whom he entered into conversation. After some time they discovered they had known each other in the days of their youth, but had never met since a certain morning on which they went out to fight a duel on account of some squabble at a mess; happily the quarrel was stopped without any harm being done, each feeling equally relieved at being prevented from trying to murder the other, as they had been persuaded they were in honour bound to do. The two old gentlemen made very merry over their reminiscences.'

For some time I had been indulging a hope that I might be sent to China with my old General, Hope Grant, who had been nominated to the command of the expedition which, in co-operation with the French, was being prepared to wipe out the disgrace of the repulse experienced early in the year, by the combined French and English naval squadrons in their attack on the Taku forts. My hope, however, was doomed to disappointment. Lord Clyde decided to send Lumsden and Allgood as A.Q.M.G.'s with the force, and I was feeling very low in consequence. A day or two afterwards we dined with the Cannings, and Lord Clyde took my wife in to dinner. His first remark to her was: 'I think I have earned your gratitude, if I have not managed to satisfy everyone by these China appointments.' On my wife asking for what she was expected to be grateful, he said: 'Why, for not sending your husband with the expedition, of course. I suppose you would rather not be left in a foreign country alone a few months after your marriage? If Roberts had not been a newly-married man, I would have sent him.' This was too much for my wife, who sympathized greatly with my disappointment, and she could not help retorting: 'I am afraid I cannot be very grateful to you for making my husband feel I am ruining his career by standing in the way of his being sent on service. You have done your best to make him regret his marriage.' The poor old Chief was greatly astonished, and burst out in his not too refined way: 'Well, I'll be hanged if I can understand you women! I have done the very thing I thought you would like, and have only succeeded in making you angry. I will never try to help a woman again.' My wife saw that he had meant to be kind, and that it was, as he said, only because he did not 'understand women' that he had made the mistake. She was soon appeased, and in the end she and Lord Clyde became great friends.

The middle of January found us at Umballa, where Lord Canning met in state all the Cis-Sutlej Sikh Chiefs. Fine, handsome men they most of them were, and magnificently attired. The beautifully delicate tints which the Sikhs are so fond of, the warlike costumes of some of the Sirdars, the quiet dignity of these high-born men who had rendered us such signal service in our hour of need, made the scene most picturesque and impressive. The place of honour was given to the Maharaja of Patiala (the grandfather of the present Maharaja), as the most powerful of the Phulkian Princes; and he was followed by his neighbours of Nabha and Jhind, all three splendid specimens of well-bred Sikhs, of stately presence and courtly manners. They were much gratified at having the right of adoption granted to their families, and at being given substantial rewards in the shape of extension of territory.

The Sikh Chiefs were followed by Rajas of minor importance, chiefly from the neighbouring hills, whom the Viceroy had summoned in order to thank them for assistance rendered during the Mutiny. Many of them had grievances to be redressed; others had favours to ask; and the Viceroy was able to more or less satisfy them by judiciously yielding to reasonable demands, and by bestowing minor powers on those who were likely to use them well. The wisdom of this policy of concession on Lord Canning's part was proved in after years by its successful results.

On the 29th January the Raja of Kapurthala came out to meet the Viceroy one march from Jullundur. He had supplemented the valuable assistance rendered to Colonel Lake in the early days of the Mutiny by equipping and taking into Oudh a force of 2,000 men, which he personally commanded in six different actions. The Viceroy cordially thanked him for this timely service, and in recognition of it, and his continued and conspicuous loyalty, bestowed upon him large estates in Oudh, where he eventually became one of the chief Talukdars. This Raja was the grandfather of the enlightened nobleman who came to England three years ago.

After visiting Umritsar, gay with brilliant illuminations in honour of the Viceroy, and crowded with Sikhs come to welcome the Queen's representative to their sacred city, we arrived at Lahore on the 10th February.

Early the following morning Lord Canning made his state entry. As we approached the citadel the long line of mounted Chiefs drawn up to receive the Viceroy came into view. A brilliant assemblage they formed, Sikh Sirdars, stately Hill Rajputs, wildly picturesque Multanis and Baluchis with their flowing locks floating behind them, sturdy Tawanas from the Salt range, all gorgeously arrayed in every colour of the rainbow, their jewels glittering in the morning sun, while their horses, magnificently caparisoned in cloth-of-gold saddle cloths, and gold and silver trappings, pranced and curvetted under pressure of their severe bits. As the procession appeared in sight they moved forward in one long dazzling cavalcade, each party of Chiefs being headed by the Commissioner of the district from which they came; they saluted as they approached the Viceroy, and then passing him fell in behind, between the Body Guard and the Artillery of the escort. A royal salute was fired from the fort as we passed under the city walls; we then wound through the civil station of Anárkáli, and on to camp where the garrison of Mian Mir, under the command of Major-General Sir Charles Windham, was drawn up to receive the Viceroy.

At nightfall there were illuminations and a procession of elephants; the Viceroy, seated in a superb howdah, led the way through the brilliantly lighted city. Suddenly a shower of rockets was discharged which resulted in a stampede of the elephants, who rushed through the narrow streets, and fled in every direction, to the imminent peril and great discomfort of the riders. In time they were quieted and brought back, only to become again unmanageable at a fresh volley of fireworks; a second time they were pacified, and as they seemed to be getting accustomed to the noise and lights, the procession proceeded to the garden of the old palace. Here the elephants were drawn up, when all at once a fresh discharge of rockets from every side drove them mad with fright, and off they bolted under the trees, through gates, and some of them could not be pulled up until they had gone far into the country. Howdahs were crushed, hats torn off, but, strange to say, there was only one serious casualty; an officer was swept out of his howdah by the branch of a tree, and falling to the ground, had his thigh broken. Lord Clyde declared that a general action was not half so dangerous, and he would much sooner have been in one!

The Lahore durbar, at which the Punjab Chiefs were received, surpassed any former ceremonials in point of numbers and splendour of effect. Many of Runjit Singh's Sirdars were present, and many who had fought against us in the Sutlej and Punjab campaigns, but had now become our fast friends. The Chiefs quite spontaneously prepared and presented Lord Canning with an address, and, in reply, his Excellency made an eloquent and telling speech, commenting in terms of the highest appreciation on the courage and loyalty displayed by the Nobles and people of the Punjab during the Mutiny.

While the camp was marching to Sialkot, where the Maharaja of Kashmir and some of the leading men of the Punjab were to be received, the Viceroy, accompanied by Lady Canning, Lord Clyde, and a small staff, went on a flying visit to Peshawar, with the object of satisfying himself, by personal examination of our position there, as to the advisability or otherwise of a retirement cis-Indus--a retrograde movement which John Lawrence was still in favour of. The visit, however, only served to strengthen Lord Canning in his preconceived opinion that Peshawar must be held on to as our frontier station.

My wife remained at Mian Mir with our good friends Doctor and Mrs. Tyrrell Ross until it was time for her to go to Simla, and the kind thoughtfulness of Lord Canning, who told me the camp now worked so well that my presence was not always necessary, enabled me to be with her from time to time.

Lord Canning's tour was now nearly over, and we marched without any halt of importance from Sialkot to Kalka at the foot of the hills, where, on the 9th April, the camp was broken up. It was high time to get into cooler regions, for the heat of the tents in the day had become very oppressive.

Thus ended a six months' march of over a thousand miles--a march never likely to be undertaken again by any other Viceroy of India, now that railway trains run from Calcutta to Peshawar, and saloon carriages have taken the place of big tents.

This progress through India had excellent results. The advantages of the representative of the Sovereign meeting face to face the principal feudatories and Chiefs of our great dependency were very considerable, and the opportunity afforded to the Viceroy of personally acknowledging and rewarding the services of those who had helped us, and of showing that he was not afraid to be lenient to those who had failed to do so, provided they should remain loyal in the future, had a very good effect over the whole of India. The wise concessions also announced at the different durbars as regards the adoption by Native Rulers of successors to their estates, and the grant to Native gentlemen of such a share as they were fitted for in the government of the country, were undoubtedly more appreciated than any other description of reward given for assistance in the Mutiny.

My duty with the Viceroy being ended, I returned to Mian Mir to fetch my wife and the little daughter, who had made her appearance on the 10th March, and escort them both to Simla. The journey up the hill was a tedious one. Carriages were not then used as they are now, and my wife travelled in a jampan, a kind of open, half-reclining sedan chair, carried by relays of four men, while I rode or walked by her side. She had been greatly exhausted by the heat of the journey from Mian Mir, but as we ascended higher and higher up the mountain side, and the atmosphere became clearer and fresher, she began to revive. Four hours, however, of this unaccustomed mode of travelling in her weak state had completely tired her out, so on finding a fairly comfortable bungalow at the end of the first stage, I decided to remain there the next day. After that we went on, stage by stage, until we reached Simla. Our house, 'Mount Pleasant,' was on the very top of a hill; up and up we climbed through the rhododendron forest, along a path crimson with the fallen blossom, till we got to the top, when a glorious view opened out before our delighted eyes. The wooded hills of Jakho and Elysium in the foreground, Mahasu and the beautiful Shalli peaks in the middle distance, and beyond, towering above all, the everlasting snows glistening in the morning sun, formed a picture the beauty of which quite entranced us both. I could hardly persuade my wife to leave it and come into the house. Hunger and fatigue, however, at length triumphed. Our servants had arranged everything in our little abode most comfortably; bright fires were burning in the grates, a cosy breakfast was awaiting us, and the feeling that at last we had a home of our own was very pleasant.

Lord Canning did not remain long at Simla. His Council in Calcutta was about to lose its President, Sir James Outram, who was leaving India on account of failing health; and as the suggestion to impose an income-tax was creating a good deal of agitation, the Viceroy hurried back to Calcutta, deeming it expedient to be on the spot.

The measures necessary for the suppression of the Mutiny had emptied the Government coffers; and although a large loan had been raised, the local authorities found it impossible to cope with the increased expenditure. Lord Canning had, therefore, applied to the Government in England for the services of a trained financier; and Mr. Wilson, who had a great reputation in this respect, was sent out. He declared the only remedy to be an income-tax, and he was supported in this view by the merchants of Calcutta. Other Europeans, however, who were intimately acquainted with India, pointed out that it was not advisable to ignore the dislike of Natives to such direct taxation; and Sir Charles Trevelyan, Governor of Madras, argued well and wisely against the scheme. Instead, however, of confining his action in the matter to warning and advising the supreme Government, he publicly proclaimed his opposition, thus giving the signal for agitation to all the malcontents in India. Lord Elphinstone, the Governor of Bombay, followed Trevelyan's example, but in a less pronounced manner, and these attacks from the minor Presidencies proved a serious embarrassment to the action of the Government. In spite of all this antagonism, the income-tax was passed, and Sir Charles Trevelyan's unusual procedure led to his recall.

Lord Canning left Simla for his long and trying journey in May, about the hottest time of the year. On my taking leave of him, he told me that Sir Hugh Rose, then commanding the Bombay army, had been appointed to succeed Lord Clyde, who had long been anxious to return to England, and that Sir Hugh, though he intended to go to Calcutta himself, wished the Head-Quarters of the Army to remain at Simla; a question about which we had been rather anxious, as it would have been an unpleasant breaking up of all our plans, had I been ordered to Calcutta.

Life at Simla was somewhat monotonous. The society was not very large in those days; but there were a certain number of people on leave from the plains, who then, as at present, had nothing to do but amuse themselves, consequently there was a good deal of gaiety in a small way; but we entered into it very little. My wife did not care much about it, and had been very ill for the greater part of the summer. She had made two or three kind friends, and was very happy in her mountain home, though at times, perhaps, a little lonely, as I had to be in office the greater part of each day.

In the autumn we made a trip into the interior of the hills, beyond Simla, which was a new and delightful experience for my wife. We usually started in the morning, sending our servants on about half way, when they prepared breakfast for us in some pretty, shady spot; there we remained, reading, writing, or resting, until after lunch, and it was time to move on, that we might get to our halting place for the night before dinner.

It was a lovely time of the year, when the autumn tints made the forest gorgeous, and the scarlet festoons of the Himalayan vine stood out in brilliant contrast to the dark green of the solemn deodar, amongst the branches of which it loves to twine itself.

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XXXIV. 1860

The Staff Corps--With the Viceroy's camp again--The marble rocks --Lady Canning's death--Pig-sticking at Jamu--Lord Canning --Another cold-weather march--Gwalior and Jhansi --Departmental promotion

In 1860 an important alteration was made in the organization of the army in India, by the passing of a Bill for the amalgamation of the local European Forces with the Royal Army.

On the transfer of the administration of India from the Honourable East India Company to the Crown, a question arose as to the conditions under which the European soldiers had enlisted. The Government contended that the conditions were in no way affected by the abolition of the Company. The soldiers, on the other hand, claimed to be re-enlisted, and on this being refused they asked for their discharge. This was granted, and 10,000 out of the 16,000 men serving in the local army had to be sent to England. These men were replaced and the local Forces were kept up to strength by fresh drafts from England; but, from the date of the amalgamation, enlistment to serve solely in India was to cease.

There was great difference of opinion as to the advisability of this measure; officers of the Queen's service for the most part, and notably Sir Hugh Rose, were in favour of it, but it was not generally popular in India. It was feared that the change would result in a great increase to the military charges which the Indian Government would be called upon to pay; that, notwithstanding such increase, there would be a serious diminution in the control exercised by that Government over the administration and organization of the British Army in India; and that, under the pressure of political emergency in Europe, troops might be withdrawn and Indian requirements disregarded. On the other hand, those in favour of the Bill thought that, after the transfer of India to the Crown, the maintenance of a separate Force uncontrolled by the Horse Guards would be an anomaly. There was, no doubt, much to be said on both sides of the question, but, although it has been proved that the fears of those opposed to the change were not altogether without foundation, in my opinion it was unavoidable, and has greatly benefited both services.

The amalgamation considerably accelerated my promotion, for, in order to place the Indian Ordnance Corps on the same footing as those of the Royal service, the rank of Second Captain had to be introduced into the former, a rank to which I attained in October, 1860, only, however, to hold it for one day, as the next my name appeared in the Gazette as a Brevet Major.

The same year saw the introduction of the Staff Corps. This was the outcome of the disappearance during the Mutiny of nearly the whole of the Regular regiments of the Bengal Army, and their replacement by Irregular regiments. But, as under the Irregular system the number of British officers with each corps was too limited to admit of their promotion being carried on regimentally, as had been done under the Regular system,[1] some organization had to be devised by which the pay and promotion of all officers joining the Indian Army in future could be arranged. Many schemes were put forward; eventually one formulated by Colonel Norman was, with certain modifications, accepted by the Secretary of State, the result being that all officers about to enter the Indian Army were to be placed on one list, in which they would be promoted after fixed periods of service;[2] and all those officers who had been thrown out of employment by the disbandment of their regiments, or by the substitution of the Irregular for the Regular system, were to have the option of joining it. The term Staff Corps, however, was a misnomer, for the constitution of the Corps and the training of its officers had no special connection with staff requirements.

Towards the end of the summer the Viceroy announced his intention of making a march through Central India, and I was again ordered to take charge of his camp, which was to be formed at Benares. My wife and her baby remained at Simla with our friends the Donald Stewarts, and I left her feeling sure that with them she would be happy and well taken care of.

Sir Hugh Rose was at Allahabad, and as I passed through that place I availed myself of the opportunity to pay my respects to the new Chief, being anxious to meet an officer whom I had held in great admiration from the time when, as Chargé d'affaires at Constantinople, his pluck and foresight practically saved Turkey in her time of peril from Russia's threatened attack--admiration increased by the masterly manner in which he had conducted the Central India campaign, in spite of almost overwhelming difficulties from want of transport and other causes, and a severe attack of sunstroke, which would have incapacitated many men. Sir Hugh Rose, when I first met him at Allahabad, was fifty-nine years of age, tall, slight, with refined features, rather delicate-looking, and possessing a distinctly distinguished appearance. He received me most kindly, and told me that he wished me to return to Head-Quarters when the Viceroy could dispense with my services.

The camp this year was by no means on so grand a scale as the preceding one. The escort was much smaller, and the Commander-in-Chief with Army Head-Quarters did not march with us as on the previous occasion.

Lord and Lady Canning arrived by steamer at Benares on the 6th November, and I went on board to meet them. Lord Canning was cordial and pleasant as usual, but I did not think he looked well. Lady Canning was charming as ever; she reproached me for not having brought my wife, but when I told her how ill she had been, she agreed that camp was not quite the place for her.

Benares, to my mind, is a most disappointing city; the streets are narrow and dirty, there are no fine buildings, and it is only interesting from its being held so sacred by the Hindus. The view of the city and burning ghâts from the river is picturesque and pretty, but there is nothing else worth seeing.

Two days were occupied in getting the camp to Mirzarpur, on the opposite bank of the Ganges. There was no bridge, and everything had to be taken over in boats; 10,000 men, 1,000 horses, 2,000 camels, 2,000 bullocks, besides all the tents, carts, and baggage, had to be ferried across the great river. The 180 elephants swam over with their mahouts on their backs to keep their heads straight and urge them on; the stream was rapid, and it was a difficult business to land them safely at the other side, but at last it was accomplished, and our only casualty was one camel, which fell overboard.

The march to Jubbulpur lay through very pretty scenery, low hills and beautiful jungle, ablaze with the flame-coloured blossom of the dhâk-tree. Game abounded, and an occasional tiger was killed. Lord Canning sometimes accompanied the shooting expeditions, but not often, for he was greatly engrossed in, and oppressed by, his work, which he appeared unable to throw off. Even during the morning's drive he was occupied with papers, and on reaching camp he went straight to his office tent, where he remained the whole day till dinner-time, returning to it directly the meal was over, unless there were strangers present with whom he wished to converse.

At Jubbulpur the Viceroy held a durbar for the Maharaja Tukaji Holkar of Indore, and some minor Chiefs of that part of the country. Holkar's conduct during the Mutiny was not altogether above suspicion, but, considering that the only troops at his disposal belonged to the mutinous Indore Contingent, which consisted mainly of Hindustanis enlisted by English officers, over whom he could not be expected to exercise much control, Lord Canning gave him the benefit of the doubt, and was willing to attribute his equivocal behaviour to want of ability and timidity, rather than to disloyalty, and therefore allowed him to come to the durbar.

Another potentate received at this time by the Viceroy was the Begum of Bhopal, who, being a powerful and skilful Ruler, and absolutely loyal to the British Government, had afforded us most valuable assistance during the rebellion. She was one of those women whom the East has occasionally produced, endowed with conspicuous talent and great strength of character, a quality which, from its rarity amongst Indian women, gives immense influence to those who possess it. Lord Canning congratulated the Begum on the success with which she had governed her country, thanked her for her timely help, and bestowed upon her a large tract of country as a reward. She was a determined-looking little woman, and spoke fluently in her own language; she personally managed the affairs of her State, and wrote a remarkably interesting account of her travelling experiences during a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Just as the Begum took her departure, news was brought in of the presence of a tiger two or three miles from the cantonment, and as many of us as could get away started off in pursuit. Not considering myself a first-rate shot, I thought I should be best employed with the beaters, but, as good luck would have it, the tiger broke from the jungle within a few yards of my elephant: I could not resist having a shot, and was fortunate enough to knock him over.

While at Jubbulpur, I visited the famous marble rocks on the Nerbudda. We rowed up the river for about a mile, when the stream began to narrow, and splendid masses of marble came into view. The cliffs rise to about a hundred feet in height, pure white below, gradually shading off to gray at the top. The water at their base is of a deep brown colour; perfectly transparent and smooth, in which the white rocks are reflected with the utmost distinctness. In the crevices hang numerous beehives, whose inmates one has to be careful not to disturb, for on the bank are the graves of two Englishmen who, having incautiously aroused the vicious little creatures, were attacked and drowned in diving under the water to escape from their stings.

A few days later the Viceroy left camp, and proceeded to Lucknow, where he held another durbar for the Talukdars of Oudh. Lady Canning continued to march with us to Mirzapur, where I took her on board her barge, and bade her farewell--a last farewell, for I never saw this good, beautiful, and gifted woman again.

The camp being broken up, I returned towards the end of February to my work in the Quartermaster-General's Office at Simla. I found the place deep in snow; it looked very beautiful, but the change of temperature, from the great heat of Central India to several degrees of frost, was somewhat trying. My wife had benefited greatly from the fine bracing air, and both she and our baby appeared pictures of health; but a day or two after my arrival the little one was taken ill, and died within one week of her birthday--our first great sorrow.

We passed a very quiet, uneventful summer, and in the beginning of October we left Simla for Allahabad, where I had received instructions to prepare a camp for the Viceroy, who had arranged to hold an investiture of the Star of India, the new Order which was originally designed to honour the principal Chiefs of India who had done us good service, by associating them with some of the highest and most distinguished personages in England, and a few carefully selected Europeans in India. Lord Canning was the first Grand Master, and Sir Hugh Rose the first Knight.

The durbar at which the Maharajas Sindhia and Patiala, the Begum of Bhopal, and the Nawab of Rampur were invested, was a most imposing ceremony. The Begum was the cynosure of all eyes--a female Knight was a novelty to Europeans as well as to Natives--and there was much curiosity as to how she would conduct herself; but no one could have behaved with greater dignity or more perfect decorum, and she made a pretty little speech in Urdu in reply to Lord Canning's complimentary address. She was dressed in cloth-of-gold, and wore magnificent jewels; but the effect of her rich costume was somewhat marred by a funny little wreath of artificial flowers, woollen mittens, and black worsted stockings with white tips. When my wife visited the Begum after the durbar, she showed her these curious appendages with great pride, saying she wore them because they were 'English fashion.' This was the first occasion on which ladies were admitted to a durbar, out of compliment to the Begum.

That evening my wife was taken in to dinner by a man whose manner and appearance greatly impressed her, but she did not catch his name when he was introduced; she much enjoyed his conversation during dinner, which was not to be wondered at, for, before she left the table, he told her his name was Bartle Frere.[3] She never saw him again, but she always says he interested her more than almost any of the many distinguished men she has since met.

From Allahabad the Viceroy again visited Lucknow, this time with the object of urging upon the Talukdars the suppression of the horrible custom of female infanticide, which had its origin in the combined pride and poverty of the Rajputs. In various parts of India attempts had been made, with more or less success, to put a stop to this inhuman practice. But not much impression had been made in Oudh, in consequence of the inordinately large dowries demanded from the Rajput fathers of marriageable daughters. Two hundred Talukdars attended Lord Canning's last durbar, and, in reply to his feeling and telling speech, declared their firm determination to do their best to discourage the evil.

The Commander-in-Chief had decided to pass the winter in marching through the Punjab, and inspecting the different stations for troops in the north of India. The Head-Quarters camp had, therefore, been formed at Jullundur, and thither we proceeded when the gathering at Allahabad had dispersed. We had but just arrived, when we were shocked and grieved beyond measure to hear of Lady Canning's death. Instead of accompanying the Viceroy to Allahabad she had gone to Darjeeling, and on her return, anxious to make sketches of the beautiful jungle scenery, she arranged, alas! contrary to the advice of those with her, to spend one night in the terai,[4] where she contracted jungle-fever, to which she succumbed ten days after her return to Calcutta. Her death was a real personal sorrow to all who had the privilege of knowing her; what must it have been to her husband, returning to England without the helpmate who had shared and lightened the burden of his anxieties, and gloried in the success which crowned his eventful career in India.

The Commander-in-Chief arrived in the middle of November, and all the officers of the Head-Quarters camp went out to meet him. I was mounted on a spirited nutmeg-gray Arab, a present from Allgood. Sir Hugh greatly fancied Arabian horses, and immediately noticed mine. He called me up to him, and asked me where I got him, and of what caste he was. From that moment he never varied in the kindness and consideration with which he treated me, and I always fancied I owed his being well disposed towards me from the very first to the fact that I was riding my handsome little Arab that day; he loved a good horse, and liked his staff to be well mounted. A few days afterwards he told me he wished me to accompany him on the flying tours he proposed to make from time to time, in order to see more of the country and troops than would be possible if he marched altogether with the big camp.

We went to Umritsar, Mian Mir, and Sialkot; at each place there were the usual inspections, mess dinners, and entertainments. The Chief's visit made a break in the ordinary life of a cantonment, and the residents were glad to take advantage of it to get up various festivities; Sir Hugh, too, was most hospitably inclined, so that there was always a great deal to do besides actual duty when we arrived at a station.

Jamu, where the Ruler of Kashmir resides during the winter, is not far from Sialkot, so Sir Hugh was tempted to accept an invitation from the Maharaja to pay him a visit and enjoy some good pig-sticking, to my mind the finest sport in the world. His Highness entertained us right royally, and gave us excellent sport, but our pleasure was marred by the Chief having a bad fall: he had got the first spear off a fine boar, who, feeling himself wounded, turned and charged, knocking over Sir Hugh's horse. All three lay in a heap together; the pig was dead, the horse was badly ripped up, and the Chief showed no signs of life. We carried him back to Jamu on a charpoy[5] and when he regained consciousness we found that no great harm was done beyond a severely bruised face and a badly sprained leg, which, though still very painful two or three days later, did not prevent the plucky old fellow from riding over the battle-field of Chilianwalla.

Very soon after this Norman, who was then Adjutant-General of the Army, left Head-Quarters to take up the appointment of Secretary to the Government of India in the Military Department. Before we parted he expressed a hope that I would soon follow him, as a vacancy in the Department was about to take place, which he said he was sure Lord Canning would allow him to offer to me. Norman was succeeded as Adjutant-General of the Indian Army by Edwin Johnson, the last officer who filled that post, as it was done away with when the amalgamation of the services was carried into effect.

Two marches from Jhelum my wife was suddenly taken alarmingly ill, and had to remain behind when the camp moved on. Sir Hugh Rose most kindly insisted on leaving his doctor (Longhurst) in charge of her, and told me I must stay with her as long as was necessary. For three whole weeks we remained on the encamping ground of Sahawar; at the end of that time, thanks (humanly speaking) to the skill and care of our Doctor, she was sufficiently recovered to be put into a doolie and carried to Lahore, I riding a camel by her side, for my horses had gone on with the camp.

While at Lahore I received a most kind letter from Norman, offering me the post in the Secretariat which he had already told me was about to become vacant. After some hesitation--for the Secretariat had its attractions, particularly as regarded pay--I decided to decline the proffered appointment, as my acceptance of it would have taken me away from purely military work and the chance of service in the field. I left my wife on the high-road to recovery, and hurried after the camp, overtaking it at Peshawar just in time to accompany the Commander-in-Chief on his ride along the Derajat frontier, a trip I should have been very sorry to have missed. We visited every station from Kohat to Rajanpur, a ride of about 440 miles. Brigadier-General Neville Chamberlain, who was still commanding the Punjab Frontier Force, met us at Kohat, and remained with us to the end. We did from twenty-five to forty miles a day, and our baggage and servants, carried on riding-camels, kept up with us.

This was my first experience of a part of India with which I had later so much to do, and which always interested me greatly. At the time of which I am writing it was a wild and lawless tract of country. As we left Kohat we met the bodies of four murdered men being carried in, but were told there was nothing unusual in such a sight. On one occasion General Chamberlain introduced to Sir Hugh Rose two young Khans, fine, handsome fellows, who were apparently on excellent terms. A few days later we were told that one of them had been murdered by his companion, there having been a blood-feud between their families for generations; although these two had been brought up together, and liked each other, the one whose clan had last lost a member by the feud felt himself in honour bound to sacrifice his friend.

When I rejoined my wife at the end of the tour, I found her a great deal worse than her letters had led me to expect, but she had been much cheered by the arrival of a sister who had come out to pay us a visit, and who lived with us until she married an old friend and brother officer of mine named Sladen. We remained at Umballa till the end of March; the only noteworthy circumstance that occurred there was a parade for announcing to the troops that Earl Canning had departed, and that the Earl of Elgin and Kincardine was now Viceroy of India.

There are few men whose conduct of affairs has been so severely criticized as Lord Canning's, but there are still fewer who, as Governors or Viceroys, have had to deal with such an overwhelming crisis as the Mutiny. While the want of appreciation Lord Canning at first displayed of the magnitude of that crisis may, with perfect justice, be attributed to the fact that most of his advisers had gained their experience only in Lower Bengal, and had therefore a very imperfect knowledge of popular feeling throughout India, the very large measure of success which attended his subsequent action was undoubtedly due to his own ability and sound judgment.

That by none of Lord Canning's responsible councillors could the extent of the Mutiny, or the position in Upper India, have been grasped, was evident from the telegram[6] sent from Calcutta to the Commander-in-Chief on the 31st May, three weeks after the revolt at Meerut had occurred; but from the time Lord Canning left Calcutta in January, 1858, and had the opportunity of seeing and judging for himself, all that he did was wise and vigorous.

Outwardly Lord Canning was cold and reserved, the result, I think, of extreme sensitiveness; for he was without doubt very warm-hearted, and was greatly liked and respected by those about him, and there was universal regret throughout India when, three months after his departure, the news of his death was received.

We returned to Simla early in April. The season passed much as other seasons had passed, except that there was rather more gaiety. The new Viceroy remained in Calcutta; but Sir Hugh Rose had had quite enough of it the year before, so he came up to the Hills, and established himself at 'Barnes Court.' He was very hospitable, and having my sister-in-law to chaperon, my wife went out rather more than she had cared to do in previous years. We spent a good deal of our time also at Mashobra, a lovely place, in the heart of the Hills, about six miles from Simla, where the Chief had a house, which he was good enough to frequently place at our disposal, when not making use of it himself. It was an agreeable change, and one which we all greatly enjoyed. But at the best one gets very tired of the Hills by the close of the summer, and I was glad to start off towards the end of October with my wife and her sister for Agra, where this year the Head-Quarters camp was to be formed, as the Chief had settled the cold-weather tour was to begin with a march through Bundelkand and Central India, the theatre of his successful campaign.

The second march out we were startled by being told, when we awoke in the morning, that Colonel Gawler, the Deputy-Adjutant-General of Queen's troops, had been badly wounded in the night by a thief, who got into his tent with the object of stealing a large sum of money Gawler had received from the bank the previous day, and for greater safety had placed under his pillow when he went to bed. In the middle of the night his wife awoke him, saying there was someone in the tent, and by the dim light of a small oil-lamp he could just see a dark figure creeping along the floor. He sprang out of bed and seized the robber; but the latter, being perfectly naked and oiled all over, slipped through his hands and wriggled under the wall of the tent. Gawler caught him by the leg just as he was disappearing, and they struggled outside together. When despairing of being able to make his escape, the thief stabbed Gawler several times with a knife, which was tied by a string to his wrist. By this time Mrs. Gawler had been able to arouse two Kaffir servants, one of whom tried to seize the miscreant, but in his turn was stabbed. The second servant, however, was more wary, and succeeded in capturing the thief; Kaffir fashion, he knocked all the breath out of his body by running at him head down and butting him in the stomach, when it became easy to bind the miscreant hand and foot. It was a bad part of the country for thieves; and when some four weeks later I went off on a flying tour with the Commander-in-Chief, I did not leave my wife quite as happily as usual. But neither she nor her sister was afraid. Each night they sent everything at all valuable to be placed under the care of the guard, and having taken this precaution, were quite easy in their minds.

When the camp reached Gwalior, the Maharaja Sindhia seemed to think he could not do enough to show his gratitude to Sir Hugh Rose for his opportune help in June, 1858,[7] when the Gwalior troops mutinied, and joined the rebel army under the Rani of Jhansi and Tantia Topi. The day after our arrival Sindhia held a grand review of his new army in honour of our Chief. The next day there was an open-air entertainment in the Phulbagh (garden of flowers); the third a picnic and elephant fight, which, by the way, was a very tame affair. We had nerved ourselves to see something rather terrific, instead of which the great creatures twisted their trunks about each other in quite a playful manner, and directly the play seemed to be turning into earnest they were separated by their mahouts, being much too valuable to be allowed to injure themselves. Each day there was some kind of entertainment: pig-sticking or shooting expeditions in the morning, and banquets, fireworks, and illuminations in the evening.

Gwalior is an interesting place. The fort is picturesquely situated above a perpendicular cliff; the road up to it is very steep, and it must have been almost impregnable in former days. It was made doubly interesting to us by Sir Hugh Rose explaining how he attacked it, and pointing out the spot where the Rani of Jhansi was killed in a charge of the 8th Hussars.

Our next halt was Jhansi. Here also Sir Hugh had a thrilling tale to tell of its capture, and of his having to fight the battle of the Betwa against a large force brought to the assistance of the rebels by Tantia Topi, while the siege was actually being carried on.

From Jhansi the big camp marched to Lucknow, viâ Cawnpore; while the Chief with a small staff (of which I was one) and light tents, made a detour by Saugor, Jubbulpur, and Allahabad. We travelled through pretty jungle for the most part, interspersed with low hills, and we had altogether a very enjoyable trip. Sir Hugh was justly proud of the splendid service the Central India Field Force had performed under his command; and, as we rode along, it delighted him to point out the various places where he had come in contact with the rebels.

While at Allahabad, on the 13th January--quite the coolest time of the year--I had a slight sunstroke, which it took me a very long time to get over completely. The sensible custom introduced by Lord Clyde, of wearing helmets, was not always adhered to, and Sir Hugh Hose was rather fond of cocked hats. On this occasion I was wearing this--for India--most unsuitable head-dress, and, as ill-luck would have it, the Chief kept me out rather late, going over the ground where the present cantonment stands. I did not feel anything at the time, but an hour later I was suddenly seized with giddiness and sickness, and for a short time I could neither see nor hear. Plentiful douches of cold water brought me round, and I was well enough in the afternoon to go with the Chief to inspect the fort; but for months afterwards I never lost the pain in my head, and for many years I was very susceptible to the evil influence of the sun's rays.

We reached Lucknow towards the middle of January. Here, as elsewhere, we had constant parades and inspections, for Sir Hugh carried out his duties in the most thorough manner, and spared himself no trouble to secure the efficiency and the well-being of the soldier. At the same time, he was careful not to neglect his social duties; he took a prominent part in all amusements, and it was mainly due to his liberal support that we were able to keep up a small pack of hounds with Head-Quarters, which afforded us much enjoyment during the winter months.

From Lucknow we marched through Bareilly, Meerut, and Umballa, and the 30th March saw us all settled at Simla for the season.

Early in April Lord Elgin arrived in Simla for the hot weather, and from that time to the present, Simla has continued to be the Head-Quarters of the Government during the summer months.

About this time the changes necessitated by the amalgamation of the services took place in the army staff. Edwin Johnson lost his appointment in consequence, and Colonel Haythorne,[8] Adjutant-General of Queen's troops, became Adjutant-General of the Army in India, with Donald Stewart as his deputy. The order limiting the tenure of employment on the staff in the same grade to five years was also now introduced, which entailed my good friend Arthur Becher vacating the Quartermaster-Generalship, after having held it for eleven years. He was succeeded by Colonel Paton, with Lumsden as his deputy, and Charles Johnson (brother of Edwin Johnson) and myself as assistants in the Department.

[Footnote 1: Under the Regular system, which was modelled on the Royal Army organization, each regiment of Native Cavalry had 22, and each regiment of Native Infantry 25 British officers, who rose to the higher grades by seniority. From this establishment officers were taken, without being seconded, for the multifarious extra-regimental duties on which the Indian Army was, and is still, employed, viz., Staff, Civil, Political, Commissariat, Pay, Public Works, Stud, and Survey. With the Irregular system this was no longer possible, although the number of British officers with each corps was (after the Mutiny) increased from 3 to 9 with a Cavalry, and 3 to 8 with an Infantry regiment.]

[Footnote 2: Captain after twelve years,[*] Major after twenty years, and Lieutenant-Colonel after twenty-six years.]

[Footnote * to Footnote 2: Since reduced to eleven years.]

[Footnote 3: The late Sir Bartle Frere, Bart, G.C.B., G.C.S.I.]

[Footnote 4: The fever-giving tract of country at the foot of the Himalayas.]

[Footnote 5: Native string bed.]

[Footnote 6: 'Your force of Artillery will enable us to dispose of Delhi with certainty. I therefore beg that you will detach one European Infantry regiment and a small force of European Cavalry to the south of Delhi, without keeping them for operations there, so that Aligarh may be recovered and Cawnpore relieved immediately.']

[Footnote 7: After the capture of Kalpi in May, 1858, Sir Hugh Rose, worn out with fatigue and successive sunstrokes, was advised by his medical officer to return at once to Bombay; his leave had been granted, and his successor (Brigadier-General Napier) had been appointed, when intelligence reached him to the effect that the rebel army, under Tantia Topi and the Rani of Jhansi, had been joined by the whole of Sindhia's troops and were in possession of the fort of Gwalior with its well-supplied arsenal. Sir Hugh Rose at once cancelled his leave, pushed on to Gwalior, and by the 30th of June had re-captured all Sindhia's guns and placed him again in possession of his capital.]

[Footnote 8: The late General Sir Edmund Haythorne, K.C.B.]

* * * * *

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XXXV. 1863

The Umbeyla expedition--The Akhund of Swat --The 'Eagle's Nest' and 'Crag piquet'--The death of Lord Elgin --Loyalty of our Pathan soldiers--Bunerwals show signs of submission --The conical hill--Umbeyla in flames--Bunerwals agree to our terms --Malka destroyed

In the autumn of 1863, while we were preparing for the usual winter tour, Sir Hugh Rose, who had accompanied Lord Elgin on a trip through the hills, telegraphed to the Head-Quarters staff to join him at Mian Mir without delay.

The news which greeted us on our arrival was indeed disturbing. Lord Elgin was at Dharmsala in a dying condition, and the Chief had been obliged to leave him and push on to Lahore, in consequence of unsatisfactory reports from Brigadier-General Chamberlain, who was just then commanding an expedition which had been sent into the mountains near Peshawar, and had met with unexpected opposition. The civil authorities on the spot reported that there existed a great deal of excitement all along the border, that the tribes were collecting in large numbers, that emissaries from Kabul had appeared amongst them, and that, unless reinforcements could be sent up at once, the Government would be involved in a war which must inevitably lead to the most serious complications, not only on the frontier, but with Afghanistan. In so grave a light did the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Robert Montgomery, view the position, that he contemplated the force being withdrawn and the undertaking abandoned.

Sir Hugh had had nothing to do with the despatch of this expedition; it had been decided on by the Government of India in consultation with the Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. When the Commander-in-Chief was communicated with, he expressed himself adverse to the proposal, and placed his views at length before the Government, pointing out the inexpediency of entering a difficult and unknown country, unless the troops were properly equipped with transport, supplies, and reserve ammunition; that time did not permit of their being so equipped before the winter set in; and that, to provide a force of 5,000 men (the strength considered necessary by the Government), the frontier would have to be dangerously weakened. Moreover, he gave it as his opinion that it would be better to postpone operations until the spring, when everything could be perfectly arranged. Subsequent events proved how sound was this advice. But before proceeding with my narrative it will be as well to explain the circumstances with led the authorities to undertake this expedition.

In 1857, when all our resources were required to quell internal tumult, the Hindustani fanatics[1] took the opportunity to stir up disturbances all along the Yusafzai frontier of the Peshawar district, and, aided by the rebel sepoys who had fled to them for protection, they made raids upon our border, and committed all kinds of atrocities. We were obliged, therefore, to send an expedition against them in 1858, which resulted in their being driven from their stronghold, Sitana, and in the neighbouring tribes being bound down to prevent them reoccupying that place. Three years later the fanatics returned to their former haunts and built up a new settlement at Malka; the old troubles recommenced, and for two years they had been allowed to go on raiding, murdering, and attacking our outposts with impunity. It was, therefore, quite time that measures should be taken to effectually rid the frontier of these disturbers of the peace, provided such measures could have been decided upon early enough in the year to ensure success.

The Punjab Government advocated the despatch of a very strong force. Accordingly, two columns were employed, the base of one being in the Peshawar valley, and that of the other in Hazara. The Peshawar column was to move by the Umbeyla Pass, the Buner frontier, and the Chamla valley, thus operating on the enemy's line of retreat. This route would not have been chosen, had not Chamberlain been assured by the civil authorities that no hostility need be feared from the Bunerwals, even if their country had to be entered, as they had given no trouble for fifteen years, and their spiritual head, the Akhund of Swat,[2] had no sympathy with the fanatics. It was not, therefore, considered necessary to warn the Buner people of our approach until preparations were completed; indeed, it was thought unadvisable to do so, as it was important to keep the proposed line of advance secret. The strength of the force was 6,000 men, with 19 guns, but to make up these numbers the stations in Upper India had to be considerably weakened, and there was no reserve nearer than Lahore.

The Peshawar column[3] being all ready for a start, a Proclamation was forwarded to the Buner and other neighbouring tribes, informing them of the object of the expedition, and stating that there was no intention of interfering with them or their possessions.

On the following morning, the 20th October, the Umbeyla Pass was entered, and by noon the kotal[4] was reached without any resistance to speak of; but, from information brought in, it was evident that any further advance would be stoutly opposed. The road turned out to be much more difficult than had been anticipated, and the hurriedly collected transport proved unequal to the strain. Not a single baggage animal, except the ammunition mules, got up that night; indeed, it was not until the morning of the 22nd--more than forty-eight hours after they started--that the rear guard reached the kotal, a distance of only six miles. As soon as it arrived Colonel Alex. Taylor, R.E., was sent off with a body of Cavalry, under Lieutenant-Colonel Probyn, to reconnoitre the road in front. The delay in reaching the top of the pass had given the tribes time to collect, and when the reconnoitring party entered the Chamla valley the Bunerwals could be seen about two miles and a half off, occupying in force the range which separates Buner and Chamla. Whatever may have been their first intention, they apparently could not resist the temptation to try and cut off this small body of Cavalry, for our horsemen on their return journey found a large number of the trusted Buner tribe attempting to block the mouth of the pass. A charge was made, but mounted men could not do much in such a hilly country; the proceedings of the Bunerwals, however, had been observed from the kotal, and Major Brownlow,[5] with some of his own regiment (the 20th Punjab Infantry), was sent to the assistance of the party. A hand-to-hand fight ensued, and the enemy pressed our troops closely on their way back, coming right in amongst them with the utmost daring.

There was now brought in to the Commissioner by a spy the copy of a letter from the Hindustani fanatics, addressed to the Bunerwals, telling them not to be taken in by our assurances that our only object was to punish the fanatics, for our real intentions were to annex Chamla, Buner, and Swat. This letter no doubt aroused the suspicions of the tribes, and, encouraged by the slowness of our movements, they all joined against us from Buner, Mahaban, and the Black Mountain.

On the 23rd large bodies of men with numerous standards were to be seen approaching the mouth of the pass, and a day or two later a report was received that our foes were to have the support of the Akhund of Swat, which meant a most formidable accession of moral as well as material strength, and put a stop, for the time being, to any possibility of a successful advance being made with the force at Chamberlain's disposal.

The position occupied by our troops was enclosed on the left (west) by the Guru Mountain, which separates Umbeyla from Buner, and on the right (east) by a range of hills, not quite so high. The main piquet on the Guru occupied a position upon some precipitous cliffs known as the Eagle's Nest, while that on the right was designated the 'Crag piquet.' The Eagle's Nest was only large enough to accommodate 110 men, so 120 more were placed under the shelter of some rocks at its base, and the remainder of the troops told off for the defence of the left piquet were drawn up on and about a rocky knoll, 400 feet west of the Eagle's Nest.

Some 2,000 of the enemy occupied a breastwork on the crest of a spur of the Guru Mountain; and about noon on the 26th they moved down, and with loud shouts attacked the Eagle's Nest. Their matchlock men posted themselves to the greatest advantage in a wood, and opened a galling fire upon our defences, while their swordsmen made a determined advance. The nature of the ground prevented our guns from being brought to bear upon the assailants, and they were thus able to get across the open space in front of the piquet, and plant their standards close under its parapet. For some considerable time they remained in this position, all our efforts to dislodge them proving of no avail. Eventually, however, they were forced to give way, and were driven up the hill, leaving the ground covered with their dead, and a great many wounded, who were taken into our hospitals and carefully treated, while a still greater number were carried off by their friends. Our losses were, 2 British officers, 1 Native officer, and 26 men killed; and 2 British officers, 7 Native officers, and 86 men wounded.

The day following the fight the Bunerwals were told they might carry away their dead, and we took advantage of their acceptance of this permission to reason with them as to the uselessness of an unnecessary sacrifice of their tribesmen, which would be the certain result of further opposition to us. Their demeanour was courteous, and they conversed freely with General Chamberlain and Colonel Reynell Taylor, the Commissioner, but they made it evident that they were determined not to give in.

Our position had now become rather awkward; there was a combination against us of all the tribes between the Indus and the Kabul rivers, and their numbers could not be less than 15,000 armed men. Mutual animosities were for the time allowed to remain in abeyance, and the tribes all flocked to fight under the Akhund's standard in the interests of their common faith. Moreover, there was trouble in the rear from the people along the Yusafzai border, who assisted the enemy by worrying our lines of communication. Under these changed conditions, and with such an inadequate force, Chamberlain came to the conclusion that, for the moment, he could only remain on the defensive, and trust to time, to the discouragement which repeated unsuccessful attacks were sure to produce on the enemy, and to the gradual decrease of their numbers, to break up the combination against us; for, as these tribesmen only bring with them the quantity of food they are able to carry, as soon as it is finished they are bound to suspend operations till more can be procured.

For three weeks almost daily attacks were made on our position; the enemy fought magnificently, some of them being killed inside our batteries, and twice they gained possession of the 'Crag piquet,' the key of the position, which it was essential should be retaken at all hazards. On the second occasion General Chamberlain himself led the attacking party, and was so severely wounded that he was obliged to relinquish the command of the force.

The Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab, being convinced that reinforcements were necessary, in consultation with Colonels Durand[6] and Norman (the Foreign and Military Secretaries, who had come to Lahore to meet the Viceroy), and without waiting for the sanction of the Commander-in-Chief, ordered to the frontier the three regiments which had been detailed for the Viceroy's camp,[7] as well as the 93rd Highlanders, then at Sialkot; and when Sir Hugh Rose on his arrival at Lahore heard of the heavy losses the expeditionary force had sustained, and of General Chamberlain being hors de combat from his wound, further reinforcements from every direction were hurried to the front. Subsequently, however, it became a question whether the troops should not be withdrawn altogether, and the punishment of the fanatics given up, the Government of India and the Punjab Government being completely in accord in favouring this view, while the Commissioner of Peshawar, Major James (who had succeeded Reynell Taylor),[8] and Sir Hugh Rose were as strongly opposed to a retrograde movement. The Commander-in-Chief pointed out to the Government that the loss of prestige and power we must sustain by retiring from the Umbeyla Pass would be more disastrous, both from a military and political point of view, than anything that could happen save the destruction of the force itself, and that General Chamberlain, on whose sound judgment he could rely, was quite sure that a retirement was unnecessary.

Unfortunately at this time the Viceroy died at Dharmsala, and the question remained in abeyance pending the arrival of Sir William Denison, Governor of Madras, who was coming round to take over the reins of Government until a successor to Lord Elgin should be sent from England.

In the meantime Sir Hugh Rose was most anxious to obtain exact information respecting our position at Umbeyla, the means of operating from it, the nature of the ground--in fact, all details which could only be satisfactorily obtained by sending someone to report on the situation, with whom he had had personal communication regarding the points about which he required to be enlightened. He therefore determined to despatch two officers on special service, whose duty it would be to put the Commander-in-Chief in possession of all the facts of the case; accordingly, Colonel Adye[9] (Deputy-Adjutant-General of Royal Artillery) and I were ordered to proceed to Umbeyla without delay.

Adye proved a most charming travelling companion, clever and entertaining, and I think we both enjoyed our journey. We reached the pass on the 25th November.

There had been no fighting for some days, and most of the wounded had been removed. Sir Neville Chamberlain was still in camp, and I was sorry to find him suffering greatly from his wound. We were much interested in going over the piquets and listening to the story of the different attacks made upon them, which had evidently been conducted by the enemy with as much skill as courage.[10] The loyalty of our Native soldiers struck me as having been most remarkable. Not a single desertion had occurred, although all the Native regiments engaged, with the exception of the Gurkhas and Punjab Pioneers, had amongst them members of the several tribes we were fighting, and many of our soldiers were even closely related to some of the hostile tribesmen; on one occasion a young Buner sepoy actually recognized his own father amongst the enemy's dead when the fight was over.[11]

We listened to many tales of the gallantry of the British officers. The names of Brownlow, Keyes,[12] and Hughes[13] were on everyone's lips, and Brownlow's defence of the Eagle's Nest on the 26th October, and of the 'Crag piquet' on the 12th November, spoke volumes for his coolness and pluck, and for the implicit faith reposed in him by the men of the 20th Punjab Infantry, the regiment he had raised in 1857 when but a subaltern. In his official report the General remarked that 'to Major Brownlow's determination and personal example he attributed the preservation of the "Crag piquet."' And Keyes's recapture of the same piquet was described by Sir Neville as 'a most brilliant exploit, stamping Major Keyes as an officer possessing some of the highest military qualifications.' Brownlow and Keyes were both recommended for the Victoria Cross.

We (Adye and I) had no difficulty in making up our minds as to the course which ought to be taken. The column was daily being strengthened by the arrival of reinforcements, and although the combination of the tribesmen was still formidable, the enemy were showing signs of being disheartened by their many losses, and of a wish to come to terms.

Having consulted the civil and military authorities on the spot, we informed the Commander-in-Chief that they were of opinion a withdrawal would be most unwise, and that it was hoped that on the arrival of General Garvock[14] (Chamberlain's successor) an advance would be made into the Chamla valley, for there would then be a sufficient number of troops to undertake an onward move, as well as to hold the present position, which, as we told the Chief, was one of the strongest we had ever seen.

Sir William Denison reached Calcutta on the 2nd December. A careful study of the correspondence in connexion with the Umbeyla expedition satisfied him that the Commander-in-Chief's views were correct, and that a retirement would be unwise.

Sir Hugh Rose had previously requested to be allowed to personally conduct the operations, and in anticipation of the Government acceding to his request, he had sent a light camp to Hasan Abdal, from which place he intended to push on to Umbeyla; and with the object of collecting troops near the frontier, where they would be available as a reserve should the expedition not be soon and satisfactorily settled, he desired me to select an encamping-ground between Rawal Pindi and Attock suitable for 10,000 men.

Leaving Adye in the pass, I started for Attock, where I spent three days riding about in search of a promising site for the camp. I settled upon a place near Hasan Abdal, which, however, was not in the end made use of. The people of the country were very helpful to me; indeed, when they heard I had been a friend of John Nicholson, they seemed to think they could not do enough for me, and delighted in talking of their old leader, whom they declared to be the greatest man they had ever known.

On my return I marched up the pass with the Rev. W. G. Cowie[15] and Probyn, who, with 400 Cavalry, had been ordered to the front to be in readiness for a move into the Chamla valley. James, the Commissioner, had been working to detach the Bunerwals from the combination against us, and on the afternoon of our arrival a deputation of their headmen arrived in camp, and before their departure the next morning they promised to accompany a force proceeding to destroy Malka, and to expel the Hindustani fanatics from the Buner country.

Later, however, a messenger came in to say they could not fulfil their promise, being unable to resist the pressure brought to bear upon them by their co-religionists. The man further reported that large numbers of fresh tribesmen had appeared on the scene, and that it was intended to attack us on the 16th. He advised the Commissioner to take the initiative, and gave him to understand that if we advanced the Bunerwals would stand aloof.

Sir Hugh Rose had been accorded permission to take command of the troops in the field, and had sent word to General Garvock not 'to attempt any operations until further orders.' James, however, thinking that the situation demanded immediate action, as disturbances had broken out in other parts of the Peshawar valley, deprecated delay, and pressed Garvock to advance, telling him that a successful fight would put matters straight. Garvock consented to follow the Commissioner's advice, and arranged to move on the following day.

The force was divided into three columns. The first and second--consisting of about 4,800 men, and commanded respectively by Colonel W. Turner, C.B.,[16] and Lieutenant-Colonel Wilde, C.B.--were to form the attacking party, while the third, about 3,000 strong, under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Vaughan,[17] was to be left for the protection of the camp.

At daybreak, on the 15th, the troops for the advance, unencumbered by tents or baggage, and each man carrying two days' rations, assembled at the base of the 'Crag piquet.' Turner, an excellent officer, who during the short time he had been at Umbeyla had inspired great confidence by his soldierly qualities, had on the previous afternoon reconnoitred to the right of the camp, and had discovered that about 4,000 men were holding the village of Lalu, from which it was necessary to dislodge them before Umbeyla could be attacked. On being told to advance, therefore, Turner moved off in the direction of Lalu, and, driving the enemy's piquets before him, occupied the heights overlooking the valley, out of which rose, immediately in front about 200 yards off, a conical hill which hid Lalu from view. This hill, which was crowded with Hindustani fanatics and their Pathan allies, was a most formidable position; the sides were precipitous, and the summit was strengthened by sangars.[18] No further move could be made until the enemy were dislodged, so Turner lined the heights all round with his Infantry, and opened fire with his Mountain guns. Meanwhile, Wilde's column had cleared off the enemy from the front of the camp, and formed up on Turner's left. On the advance being sounded, Turner's Infantry rushed down the slopes, and in ten minutes could be seen driving the enemy from the heights on his right; at the same time the 101st Fusiliers, the leading regiment of Wilde's column, made straight for the top of the conical hill, and, under cover of the fire from the Mountain guns of both columns, and supported by the Guides, 4th Gurkhas, and 23rd Pioneers, they climbed the almost perpendicular sides. When near the top a short halt was made to give the men time to get their breath; the signal being then given, amidst a shower of bullets and huge stones, the position was stormed, and carried at the point of the bayonet. It was a grand sight as Adye and I watched it from Hughes's battery; but we were considerably relieved when we perceived the enemy flying down the sides of the hill, and heard the cheers of the gallant Fusiliers as they stood victorious on the highest peak.

Now that the enemy were on the run it was the time to press them, and this Turner did so effectually that the leading men of his column entered Lalu simultaneously with the last of the fugitives. The rapidity of this movement was so unexpected that it threw the enemy inside the walls into confusion; they made no stand, and were soon in full retreat towards Umbeyla and the passes leading into Buner.

While affairs were thus prospering on our right, the enemy, apparently imagining we were too busy to think of our left, came in large numbers from the village of Umbeyla, threatening the camp and the communications of the second column. Wilde, however, was prepared for them, and held his ground until reinforced by Turner, when he made a forward movement. The Guides, and detachments of the 5th Gurkhas and 3rd Sikhs, charged down one spur, and the 101st down another; the enemy were driven off with great slaughter, leaving a standard in the hands of the Gurkhas, and exposing themselves in their flight to Turner's guns. During the day they returned, and, gathering on the heights, made several unsuccessful attacks upon our camp. At last, about 2 p.m., Brownlow, who was in command of the right defences, assumed the offensive, and, aided by Keyes, moved out of the breastworks and, by a succession of well-executed charges, completely cleared the whole front of the position, and drove the tribesmen with great loss into the plain below.

All opposition having now ceased, and the foe being in full retreat, the force bivouacked for the night. We had 16 killed and 67 wounded; while our opponents admitted to 400 killed and wounded.

The next morning we were joined by Probyn with 200 sabres of the 11th Bengal Lancers and the same number of the Guides; and after a hasty breakfast the order was given to march into the Chamla valley. My duty was to accompany the Mountain batteries and show them the way. As we debouched into comparatively open country, the enemy appeared on a ridge which completely covered our approach to Umbeyla, and we could descry many standards flying on the most prominent points. The road was so extremely difficult that it was half-past two o'clock before the whole force was clear of the hills.

General Garvock, having made a careful reconnaissance of the enemy's position, which was of great strength and peculiarly capable of defence, had decided to turn their right, a movement which was to be entrusted to the second column, and I was told to inform Turner that he must try and cut them off from the Buner Pass as they retreated. I found Turner close to Umbeyla and delivered my message. He moved forward at once with the 23rd Pioneers and a wing of the 32nd Pioneers in line, supported by the second wing, having in reserve a wing of the 7th Royal Fusiliers.

When we had passed the village of Umbeyla, which was in flames, having been set fire to by our Cavalry, the wing of the 32nd was brought up in prolongation of our line to the right. The advance was continued to within about 800 yards of the Buner Pass, when Turner, observing a large body of the enemy threatening his left flank, immediately sent two companies of the Royal Fusiliers in that direction. Just at that moment a band of Ghazis furiously attacked the left flank, which was at a disadvantage, having got into broken ground covered with low jungle. In a few seconds five of the Pioneer British officers were on the ground, one killed and four wounded; numbers of the men were knocked over, and the rest, staggered by the suddenness of the onslaught, fell back on their reserve, where they found the needed support, for the Fusiliers stood as firm as a rock. At the critical moment when the Ghazis made their charge, Wright, the Assistant-Adjutant-General, and I, being close by, rushed in amongst the Pioneers and called on them to follow us; as we were personally known to the men of both regiments, they quickly pulled themselves together and responded to our efforts to rally them. It was lucky they did so, for had there been any delay or hesitation, the enemy, who thronged the slopes above us, would certainly have come down in great numbers, and we should have had a most difficult task. As it was, we were entirely successful in repulsing the Ghazis, not a man of whom escaped. We counted 200 of the enemy killed; our losses were comparatively slight--8 killed and 80 wounded.

We bivouacked for the night near the village of Umbeyla, and the next morning the Bunerwals, who, true to their word, had taken no part in the fighting on the 15th or 16th, came in and made their submission.

The question which now had to be decided was, whether a force fully equipped and strong enough to overcome all opposition should be sent to destroy the fanatic settlement of Malka, or whether the work of annihilation should be entrusted to the Bunerwals, witnessed by British officers. The latter course was eventually adopted, chiefly on account of the delay which provisioning a brigade would entail--a delay which the Commissioner was anxious to avoid--for although for the present the combination had broken up, and most of the tribesmen were dispersing to their homes, the Akhund of Swat and his followers were still hovering about in the neighbourhood, and inaction on our part would in all probability have led to a fresh gathering and renewed hostilities.

The terms which were drawn up, and to which the Bunerwals agreed, were:

The breaking-up of the tribal gathering in the Buner Pass.

The destruction of Malka; those carrying out the work to be accompanied by British officers and such escort as might be considered necessary by us.

The expulsion of the Hindustanis from the Buner, Chamla, and Amazai countries.

And, finally, it was stipulated that the headmen of their tribe should be left as hostages until such time as the requirements should have been fulfilled.

On the afternoon of Saturday, the 19th December, the little party of British officers who were to witness the destruction of Malka assembled at Umbeyla. Its members were Reynell Taylor (who was in charge), Alex. Taylor (Commanding Engineer), two Survey officers, Wright, Adye, and myself. Twenty-five Cavalry and 4 companies of the Guides Infantry, under four officers, formed our escort, and it had been arranged that we were to be accompanied by four leading Buner Khans, with 2,000 followers, who would be responsible for our safety, and destroy the fanatics' stronghold in our presence. Rain was falling heavily, but as all our arrangements had been made, and delay was considered undesirable, it was settled that we should make a start. It was rough travelling, and it was almost dark when we reached Kuria, only eight miles on our way, where we halted for the night, and where we had to remain the next day, as the Bunerwals declared they could not continue the journey until they had come to an understanding with the Amazais, in whose territory Malka was situated.

We had noticed on leaving Umbeyla that, instead of 2,000 Bunerwals, there were only about sixty or seventy at the most, and in reply to our repeated questions as to what had become of the remainder, we were told they would join us later on. It soon became evident, however, that no more were coming, and that the Khans thought it wiser to trust to their own influence with the Amazais rather than to intimidation.

We made a fresh start on the morning of the 21st. Malka was only twelve miles off, but the way was so difficult, and our guides stopped so often to consult with the numerous bands of armed men we came across, that it was sunset before we arrived at our destination.

Malka was perched on a spur of the Mahabun mountain, some distance below its highest peak. It was a strong, well-built place, with accommodation for about 1,500 people. The Amazais did not attempt to disguise their disgust at our presence in their country, and they gathered in knots, scowling and pointing at us, evidently discussing whether we should or should not be allowed to return.

The next morning Malka was set on fire, and the huge column of smoke which ascended from the burning village, and was visible for miles round, did not tend to allay the ill-feeling so plainly displayed. The Native officers of the Guides warned us that delay was dangerous, as the people were becoming momentarily more excited, and were vowing we should never return. It was no use, however, to attempt to make a move without the consent of the tribesmen, for we were a mere handful compared to the thousands who had assembled around Malka, and we were separated from our camp by twenty miles of most difficult country. Our position was no doubt extremely critical, and it was well for us that we had at our head such a cool, determined leader as Reynell Taylor. I greatly admired the calm, quiet manner in which he went up and spoke to the headmen, telling them that, the object of our visit having been accomplished, we were ready to retrace our steps. At this the Amazais became still further excited. They talked in loud tones, and gesticulated in true Pathan fashion, thronging round Taylor, who stood quite alone and perfectly self-possessed in the midst of the angry and dangerous-looking multitude. At this crisis the Bunerwals came to our rescue. The most influential of the tribe, a grey-bearded warrior, who had lost an eye and an arm in some tribal contest, forced his way through the rapidly increasing crowd to Taylor's side, and, raising his one arm to enjoin silence, delivered himself as follows: 'You are hesitating whether you will allow these English to return unmolested. You can, of course, murder them and their escort; but if you do, you must kill us Bunerwals first, for we have sworn to protect them, and we will do so with our lives.' This plucky speech produced a quieting effect, and taking advantage of the lull in the storm, we set out on our return journey; but evidently the tribesmen did not consider the question finally or satisfactorily settled, for they followed us the whole way to Kuria. The slopes of the hills on both sides were covered with men. Several times we were stopped while stormy discussions took place, and once, as we were passing through a narrow defile, an armed Amazai, waving a standard above his head, rushed down towards us. Fortunately for us, he was stopped by some of those less inimically disposed; for if he had succeeded in inciting anyone to fire a single shot, the desire for blood would quickly have spread, and in all probability not one of our party would have escaped.

On the 23rd December we reached our camp in the Umbeyla Pass, when the force, which had only been kept there till our return, retired to the plains and was broken up.

During my absence at Umbeyla my wife remained with friends at Mian Mir for some time, and then made her way to Peshawar, where I joined her on Christmas Day. She spent one night en route in Sir Hugh Rose's camp at Hasan Abdal, and found the Chief in great excitement and very angry at such a small party having been sent to Malka, and placed at the mercy of the tribes. He did not know that my wife had arrived, and in passing her tent she heard him say: 'It was madness, and not one of them will ever come back alive.' She was of course dreadfully frightened. As soon as Sir Hugh heard she was in camp, he went to see her, and tried to soften down what he knew she must have heard; but he could not conceal his apprehension; and my poor wife's anxiety was terrible, for she did not hear another word till the morning of the day I returned to her.

[Footnote 1: In 1825 a religious adventurer from Bareilly made his appearance on the Yusafzai frontier with about forty Hindustani followers, and gave out that he was a man of superior sanctity, and had a divine command to wage a war of extermination, with the aid of all true believers, against the infidel. After studying Arabic at Delhi, he proceeded to Mecca by way of Calcutta, and during this journey his doctrines had obtained so great an ascendency over the minds of the Mahomedans of Bengal that they have ever since supplied the colony which Syad Ahmed Shah founded in Yusafzai with money and recruits. The Syad was eventually slain fighting against the Sikhs, but his followers established themselves at Sitana, and in the neighbourhood of that place they continue to flourish, notwithstanding that we have destroyed their settlements more than once during the last forty years.]

[Footnote 2: The Akhund of Swat was a man of seventy years of age at the time of the Umbeyla expedition; he had led a holy life, and had gained such an influence over the minds of Mahomedans in general, that they believed he was supplied by supernatural means with the necessaries of life, and that every morning, on rising from his prayers, a sum of money sufficient for the day's expenditure was found under his praying carpet.]

[Footnote 3: The Peshawar column consisted of half of 19th Company Royal Artillery, No. 3 Punjab Light Field Battery, the Peshawar and Hazara Mountain Batteries, the 71st and 101st Foot, the Guides, one troop 11th Bengal Lancers, one company Bengal Sappers and Miners, 14th Sikhs, 20th Punjab Infantry, 32nd Pioneers, 1st, 3rd, 5th and 6th Punjab Infantry, and 4th and 5th Gurkhas. The Hazara column consisted of a wing of the 51st Foot, 300 Native Cavalry, a regiment of Native Infantry and eight guns, holding Darband, Torbela, and Topi on the Indus.]

[Footnote 4: The highest point of a pass crossing a mountain range.]

[Footnote 5: Now General Sir Charles Brownlow, G.C.B.]

[Footnote 6: The late Sir Henry Marion Durand, K.C.S.I., C.B., afterwards Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab.]

[Footnote 7: 7th Royal Fusiliers, 23rd Pioneers, and 24th Punjab Native Infantry.]

[Footnote 8: Reynell Taylor remained with the force as political officer.]

[Footnote 9: General Sir John Adye, G.C.B.]

[Footnote 10: The expedition was an admirable school for training men in outpost duty. The Pathans and Gurkhas were quite at home at such work, and not only able to take care of themselves, but when stalked by the enemy were equal to a counter-stalk, often most successful. The enemy used to joke with Brownlow's and Keyes's men on these occasions, and say, 'We don't want you. Where are the lal pagriwalas? [as the 14th Sikhs were called from their lal pagris (red turbans)] or the goralog [the Europeans]? They are better shikar [sport]!' The tribesmen soon discovered that the Sikhs and Europeans, though full of fight, were very helpless on the hill-side, and could not keep their heads under cover.]

[Footnote 11: Colonel Reynell Taylor, whilst bearing like testimony to the good conduct of the Pathan soldiery, said the personal influence of officers will always be found to be the only stand-by for the Government interests when the religious cry is raised, and the fidelity of our troops is being tampered with. Pay, pensions, and orders of merit may, and would, be cast to the winds when the honour of the faith was in the scale; but to snap the associations of years, and to turn in his hour of need against the man whom he has proved to be just and worthy, whom he has noted in the hour of danger, and praised as a hero to his family, is just what a Pathan will not do--to his honour be it said. The fact was that the officers in camp had been so long and kindly associated with their soldiers that the latter were willing to set them before their great religious teacher, the Akhund of Swat ('Records of Expeditions against the North-West Frontier Tribes').]

[Footnote 12: The late General Sir Charles Keyes, G.C.B.]

[Footnote 13: The late Major-General T. E. Hughes, C.B., Royal Artillery.]

[Footnote 14: The late General Sir John Garvock, G.C.B.]

[Footnote 15: Now Bishop of Auckland and Primate of New Zealand.]

[Footnote 16: The late Brigadier-General Sir W. W. Turner, K.C.B.]

[Footnote 17: General Sir T. L. Vaughan, K.C.B.]

[Footnote 18: Stone breastworks.]

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