CHAPTER XXV. · Part 2

A soldier loses all his heroism when the hour for prize and plunder arrives. Those, whether officers or spectators, who have described the scene which was presented when these Lucknow palaces were conquered, tell plainly of a period of wild licence and absorbing greed. On the one hand there were palaces containing vast stores of oriental and European luxuries; on the other, there were bands of armed men, brave and faithful, but at the same time poor and unlettered, who suddenly found themselves masters of all these splendours, with very little check or supervision on the part of their officers. At first, in a spirit of triumphant revenge, costly articles were broken which were too large to be carried away; glass chandeliers were hurled to the ground, mirrors shattered into countless fragments, statues mutilated and overturned, pictures stabbed and torn, doors of costly wood torn from their hinges. But when this destruction had been wreaked, and when the troops had forced their way through courts and corridors strewn with sepoys’ brass lotas or drinking-vessels, charpoys, clothing, belts, ammunition, muskets, matchlocks, swords, pistols, chupatties, and other evidences of precipitate flight—when this had all occurred, then did the love of plunder seize hold of the men.

The Kaiser Bagh had been so quickly conquered, that the subaltern officers had not yet received instructions how to control the movements of the troops in this matter. Sikhs, Highlanders, English, were soon busily engaged. In one splendid saloon might be seen a party of Sikhs melting down gold and silver lace for the sake of the precious metals; in another, a quantity of shawls, lace, pearls, and embroidery of gold and silver, was being divided equally among a group of soldiers. In a sort of treasure-room, apparently belonging to some high personage, a few men of two British regiments found caskets and boxes containing diamonds, emeralds, rubies, pearls, opals, and other gems, made into necklaces, bracelets, earrings, girdles, &c.; together with gold-mounted pistols, jewel-hilted swords, saddle-cloths covered with gold and pearls, gold-handled riding-canes, jewelled cups of agate and jade, japanned boxes filled with crystal and jade vessels. And, as it appeared that every one felt himself permitted or at least enabled to retain whatever he could capture, the camp-followers rushed in and seized all that the soldiers had left.

Coolies, syces, khitmutgars, dooly-bearers, and grass-cutters, were seen running hither and thither, laden with costly clothing, swords, firelocks, brass pots, and other articles larger in bulk than the actual soldiers could readily have disposed of. It was a saturnalia, during which it is believed that some of the troops appropriated enough treasure, if converted into its value in money, to render them independent of labour for the rest of their lives. But each man kept, in whole or in part, his own secret.

Let us on from this extraordinary scene. The 15th was chiefly employed in securing what had been captured, removing powder, destroying mines, and fixing mortars for the further bombardment of the positions still held by the enemy, on the right bank of the Goomtee, and in the heart of the city. As the infantry and artillery could fulfil this duty, without the aid of horse, two bodies of cavalry, under Walpole and Hope Grant, were sent out to prevent, if possible, the escape of the enemy on the sides of the city not subject to immediate attack. One of these generals proceeded towards the Sundeela road, and the other to that leading to Seetapoor. Whether this flight of the enemy disappointed or not the expectations of the commander-in-chief, was a question which he kept to himself. The city, for all practical military purposes, was twenty miles in circumference; and he could not have guarded all the outlets without a very much larger army than that which was at his disposal. Like as at Sebastopol, the siege was not aided by a complete investiture of the place besieged. It is possible that the capture of the Kaiser Bagh, and the consequent flight of the enemy, occurred too early for Sir Colin to be enabled to put in operation certain manœuvres on the other side of the city. Be this as it may, large numbers of rebel sepoys, and a still larger of the regular inhabitants of the city escaped during the 14th and 15th, mostly over the stone bridge—as if hopeful of safety in Rohilcund and Upper Oude.

On the 16th Sir James Outram, after ten days of active operation on the left bank of the Goomtee, crossed over by a bridge of casks opposite the Secunder Bagh; and he then advanced through the Chuttur Munzil towards the Residency. To lessen the chance of the enemy’s retreat as much as possible, he marched right through the city, not only to the iron bridge near the Residency, but to the stone bridge near the Muchee Bhowan. All this was an enterprise of remarkable boldness, for the buildings to be successively conquered and entered were very numerous. Outram shifted his own head-quarters to Banks’s house, on the city side of the river; and it was here that he received a letter from the Begum, or mother of the young boy-king, containing some sort of proposition for compromise or cessation of hostilities. Whatever it may have been, no successful result attended this missive: the progress and conquest went on as before. His troops, as they advanced to the Chuttur Munzil, the Pyne Bagh, the Fureed Buksh, and the Taree Kothee, found all these buildings abandoned by the enemy—who had been too much dismayed by the operations of the 16th to make a bold stand.

At length he approached the Residency, the enclosed spot whose name will ever be imperishably associated with Inglis’s defence of the British garrison, and in which Outram himself had passed many anxious weeks between September and November. Hardly a building remained standing within the enclosure; all had been riddled and shattered during the long period from July to November, and most of them subsequently destroyed by the enemy. Up to this time Outram’s march of the 16th through the city had been almost unopposed; but he now ascertained that the houses and palaces between the iron and stone bridges were occupied by the enemy in considerable force. Hard fighting at once commenced here, in which the 20th, 23d, and 79th regiments were actively engaged. They advanced at a rapid pace from the Residency towards the iron bridge. A 9-pounder, planted to command a road by the way, fired grape into them; but it was speedily captured. By that time the large guns were brought into position, to play upon the stone bridge, the Emanbarra of Azof-u-Dowlah, and other structures northwest of the iron bridge.

At that time Grant and his troopers were near the stone bridge on the left side of the river, while Outram’s guns were firing on it from the right bank; as a consequence, no more escape was permitted by that channel; and the fugitives therefore ran along the right bank of the river, to a part of the open country northwest of Lucknow, not yet controlled by the English. Many of the rebel sepoys resolved to make a stand at the Moosa Bagh, a building at the extreme limits of the city in this direction; but the day was too far advanced to attack them at that spot; and the troops were glad to rest for the night in the splendid saloons and courts of the Emanbarra—one of the grandest among the many grand structures in Lucknow.

While Outram was engaged in these operations on the 16th, obtaining a mastery along almost the whole right bank of the river, the enemy very unexpectedly made an attack on the Alum Bagh, which was only held by a small English force under Brigadier Franklyn. Sir Colin Campbell immediately requested Jung Bahadoor to advance to his left up the canal, and take in reverse the post from which the enemy was making the attack. The Nepaulese chieftain performed this service successfully, capturing the post and the guns, and expelling the enemy.

When the morning of the 17th arrived, the commander-in-chief found himself so undoubtedly the master of Lucknow, that he was enabled to dispense with the services of some of his gallant artillery officers, whose aid was much wanted at Futteghur and elsewhere. Still, though the great conquest was mainly effected, the minor details had yet to be filled up. There were isolated buildings in which small knots of the enemy had fortified themselves; these it would be necessary to capture. It was also very desirable to check the camp-followers in their manifest tendency for plundering the shops and private houses of the city. Sir Colin did not wish the townsmen to regard him as an enemy; he encouraged them, so far as they had not been in complicity with the rebels, to return to their homes and occupations; and it was very essential that those homes should, in the meantime, be spared from reckless _looting_. In some of the streets, pickets of soldiers were placed, to compel the camp-followers to disgorge the plunder which they had appropriated; and thus was collected a strange medley of trinkets and utensils, which the temporary holders gave up with sore unwillingness.

Here and there, where a soldier had a little leisure and opportunity, he would hold a kind of mock-auction, at which not only camp-followers but officers would buy treasures for a mere trifle; but these instances were few, for there was not much ready cash among the conquerors. Sir Colin found it necessary to issue an order concerning the plundering system.[148] Outram and Jung Bahadoor took part in a series of operations, on the 17th, intended to obtain control over the northwest section of the city. The one set forth from the river, the other from the vicinity of the Alum Bagh; and during the day they cleared out many nests of rebels. There was also an action on the margin of the city, in which the enemy managed to bring together a considerable force of horse, foot, and artillery; their guns were captured, however, and themselves put to flight.

Sir Colin, responsible for many places besides Lucknow, and for many troops besides those under his immediate command, now made daily changes in the duties of his officers. Major (now Lieutenant-colonel) Vincent Eyre and Major (now also Lieutenant-colonel) Turner, two of the most distinguished artillery officers, departed for Futteghur and Idrapore; and Franklyn went to Cawnpore. Inglis succeeded Franklyn at the Alum Bagh. Sir Archdale Wilson and Brigadier Russell took their departure on sick-leave.

A considerable force of the enemy still lingered around the Alum Bagh, irresolute as to any actual attacks, but loath to quit the neighbourhood until the last ray of hope was extinguished. With these rebels Jung Bahadoor had many smart contests. He had been instructed by Sir Colin to obtain secure possession of the suburbs of the city near the Char Bagh—the bridge that carried the Cawnpore road over the canal.

It was on this day, the 17th, and partly in consequence of the success attending the operations of the Goorkhas, that two English ladies, Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, were delivered from the hands of enemies who had long held them in bondage. It will be remembered that on the night of the 22d of November,[149] the insurgents in Lucknow, enraged at the safe evacuation of the Residency by the British, put to death certain English prisoners who had long been in confinement in the Kaiser Bagh. Among them were Mr Orr and Sir Mountstuart Jackson. So far as any authentic news could be obtained, it appeared that Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson had been spared; partly, as some said, through the intervention of the Begum. During the subsequent period of nearly four months, the fate of those unhappy ladies remained unknown to their English friends. On the day in question, however (the 17th of March), Captain M’Neil and Lieutenant Bogle, both attached to the Goorkha force, while exploring some of the deserted streets in the suburb, were accosted by a native who asked their protection for his house and property.

The man sought to purchase this protection by a revelation concerning certain English ladies, who, he declared, were in confinement in a place known to him. Almost immediately another native brought a note from Mrs Orr and Miss Jackson, begging earnestly for succour. M’Neil and Bogle instantly obtained a guard of fifty Goorkhas, and, guided by the natives, went on their errand of mercy. After walking through half a mile of narrow streets, doubtful of an ambush at every turning, they came to a house occupied by one Meer Wajeed Ali, who held, or had held, some office under the court. After a little parleying, M’Neil and Bogle were led to an obscure apartment, where were seated two ladies in oriental costume. These were the prisoners, who had so long been excluded from every one of their own country, and who were overwhelmed with tearful joy at this happy deliverance. It was not clearly known whether this Meer Wajeed Ali was endeavouring to buy off safety for himself by betraying a trust imposed in him; but the two English officers deemed it best to lose no time in securing their countrywomen’s safety, whether he were a double-dealer or not; they procured a palanquin, put the ladies into it, and marched off with their living treasure—proud enough with their afternoon’s work.

When these poor ladies came to tell their sad tale of woe, with countenances on which marks of deep suffering were expressed, it became known that, though not exposed to any actual barbarities or atrocities, like so many of their countrywomen in other parts of India, their lives had been made very miserable by the unfeeling conduct of their jailers, who were permitted to use gross and insulting language in their presence, and to harrow them with recitals of what Europeans were and had been suffering. They had had food in moderate sufficiency, but of other sources of solace they were almost wholly bereft. It was fully believed that they would not have been restored alive, had the jailer obeyed the orders issued to him by the Moulvie.

After a day of comparative repose on the 18th, a combined movement against the Moosa Bagh was organised on the 19th. This was the last position held by the enemy on the line of the Goomtee, somewhat beyond the extreme northwest limit of the city. Outram moved forward directly against the place; Hope Grant cannonaded it from the left bank; while William Campbell, approaching on the remote side from the Alum Bagh, prevented retreat in that direction. Some said the Begum was there, some the Moulvie or fanatic chieftain; but on this point nothing was known. All that was certain was that several thousand insurgents, driven from other places, had congregated within the buildings and courts of the Moosa Bagh. Outram’s troops started from the Emanbarra on this expedition early in the morning; he himself joined them from Banks’s house, while Sir Colin rode over to see in person how the work was effected. Opposite the Moosa Bagh, which was a large structure surrounded by an enclosed court, was the residence of Ali Nuckee Khan, vizier or prime-minister to the deposed King of Oude; and in other parts of the vicinity were numerous mansions and mosques.

If the rebels had held well together, they might have made a stout resistance here, for the buildings contained many elements of strength; but discord reigned; the Begum reproached the thalookdars, the thalookdars the sepoys; while the Moulvie was suspected of an intention to set up as King of Oude on his own account. Outram’s column was to make the direct attack; Hope Grant’s cavalry and horse-artillery were to command certain roads of approach and exit on the river-side; while William Campbell’s cavalry, aided by two or three infantry regiments, were to command the opposite side. The contest can hardly be called a battle or a siege; for as soon as the rebels clearly ascertained that the British were approaching, they abandoned court after court, house after house, and escaped towards the northwest, by the only avenue available. Although they did not fight, they escaped more successfully than Sir Colin had wished or intended. Whether the three movements were not timed in unison, or whether collateral objects engaged the attention of Brigadier Campbell, certain it is that few of the enemy were killed, and that many thousands safely marched or ran out. The open country, covered with enclosures and cornfields, enabled the sepoys better to escape than the British to pursue them. A regiment of Sikhs was sent to occupy the Moosa Bagh; and now was Lucknow still more fully than before in the hands of the commander-in-chief.

On the 20th, further measures were taken, by proclamation and otherwise, to induce the peaceful portion of the inhabitants to return to their homes. This was desirable in every sense. Until the ordinary relations of society were re-introduced, anything like civil government was simply impossible; while, so long as the houses, deserted by their proper inhabitants, served as hiding-places for fanatics and budmashes, the streets were never for an instant safe. Many officers and soldiers were shot by concealed antagonists, long after the great buildings of the city had been conquered. Moreover, the Sikhs and Goorkhas were becoming very unruly. The plunder had acted upon them as an intoxicating indulgence, shaking the steady obedience which they were wont to exhibit when actively engaged against the enemy. Even at a time when Sir Colin was planning which of his generals he could spare, for service elsewhere or for sick-leave, and which regiments should form new columns for active service in other districts—even at such a time it was discovered that bodies of the enemy were lurking in houses near Outram’s head-quarters, bent upon mischief or revenge; and there was much musketry-fire necessary before they could be dislodged. The ‘sick-leave,’ just adverted to, was becoming largely applied for. Many officers, so gallant and untiring as to be untouched by any suspicion of their willingness to shirk danger and hard work, gave in; they had become weakened in body and mind by laborious duties, and needed repose.

[Illustration:

MAJOR HODSON, Commandant of Hodson’s Horse. ]

The Moulvie, who had held great power within Lucknow, and whose influence was even now not extinguished, commanded a stronghold in the very heart of the city. Sir Edward Lugard was requested to dislodge him on the 21st. This he did after a sharp contest; and Brigadier W. Campbell, with his cavalry, placed himself in such a position, that he was enabled to attack the enemy who were put to flight by Lugard, and to inflict heavy loss on them during a pursuit of six miles. The conquest of the Moulvie’s stronghold had this useful effect among others; that it enabled Sir Colin to expedite the arrangements for the return of such of the inhabitants as were not too deeply steeped in rebellion to render return expedient. Among those who fell on this occasion, on the side of the enemy, was Shirreff-u-Dowlah, the chief-minister of the rebel boy-king, or rather of his mother the Begum; this man had been in collision with the Moulvie, each envious of the other’s authority; and there were those who thought it was by a treacherous blow that he now fell. Even in this, the last contest within the city, the sappers had to be employed; for the Moulvie had so intrenched himself, with many hundred followers, that he could not be dislodged by the force at first sent against him; the engineers were forced to sap under and through some surrounding buildings, before the infantry could obtain command of that in which the Moulvie was lodged.

This was the last day of those complicated scenes of tactics and fighting which formed collectively the siege of Lucknow, and which had lasted from the 2d to the 21st of March. Concerning the cavalry expeditions, during the third week of this period, it is pretty evident that they had been fruitless in great results. Sir Hope Grant had cut up a few hundred fugitive rebels in one spot, and intercepted more in another; Brigadier William Campbell had rendered useful service both in and beyond the suburbs of the city; but the proofs were not to be doubted that the mutinied sepoys and rebel volunteers had safely escaped from the city, not merely by thousands, but by tens of thousands; and that they still retained a sufficiency of military organisation to render them annoying and even formidable. When this news reached England, it damped considerably the pleasure afforded by the conquest of Lucknow. The nation asked, but asked without the probability of receiving a reply, whether the enemy had in this particular foiled a part of the commander-in-chief’s plan; and whether the governor-general shared the opinions of the commander concerning the plan of strategy, and the consequences resulting from it?

The losses suffered by the British army during the operations at Lucknow, though necessarily considerable, were small in comparison with those which would have been borne if artillery had not been so largely used. Sir Colin from the first determined that shells and balls should do as much of the dread work as possible, clearing away or breaching the enemy’s defence-works before he sent in his infantry to close quarters. During the entire series of operations, from the 2d to the 21st of March, he had 19 officers killed and 48 wounded. The whole of the generals and brigadiers escaped untouched; and there were only two officers among the wounded so high in military rank as lieutenant-colonel. The killed and wounded among the troops generally were about 1100. The enemy’s loss could hardly have been less than 4000. One of the deaths most regretted during these operations was that of Major Hodson; who, as the commander of ‘Hodson’s Horse,’ and as the captor of the King of Delhi, had been prominently engaged in the Indian wars. It was on the day marked by the conquest of the Begum Kothee that he fell.

Having no especial duty on that day, and hearing that Brigadier Napier was busily engaged in engineering operations connected with the attack on that palace, he rode over to him, and joined in that storming attack which Sir Colin characterised as ‘the sternest struggle which occurred during the siege.’ Hodson, while assisting in clearing the court-yards and buildings near the palace of parties of the enemy lurking there, was shot by a sepoy. His orderly, a large powerful Sikh, carried him in his arms to a spot beyond the reach of shot, whence he was carried in a dooly to Banks’s house, where surgical aid could be obtained. Some of his own irregular troopers cried over him like children. The shot had passed through the liver, and he died after a night of great agony. A spot was chosen for his grave near a tope of bamboos behind the Martinière. Sir Colin and his staff attended the funeral, at which the old chief was much affected; he had highly valued Hodson, and did not allow many hours to elapse before he wrote a graceful and feeling letter to the widow of the deceased officer. As soon as possible a telegraphic message was sent to bring down Captain Daly, the commandant of the famous corps of Guides; he was every way fitted to command a similar body of irregular cavalry, ‘Hodson’s Horse.’

No sooner was the city of Lucknow clearly and unequivocally in the hands of Sir Colin Campbell, than he completely broke up the lately formidable ‘army of Oude.’ The troops had nothing more immediately to do at that spot; while their services were urgently needed elsewhere. With regret did the soldiers leave a place where such extraordinary gains had fallen to the lot of some among their number; or, more correctly, this regret endured only until the very stringent regulations put an effectual stop to all plundering. The regiments were reorganised into brigades and divisions; new brigadiers were appointed in lieu of those on ‘sick-leave;’ and a dispersion of the army commenced.

It is impossible to read Sir Colin Campbell’s mention of Jung Bahadoor without feeling that he estimated at a small price the value of the services yielded by the Nepaulese leader. Whether it was that the arrival of the Goorkha army was delayed beyond the date when the greatest services might have been rendered, or that Sir Colin found it embarrassing to issue orders to one who was little less than a king, it is plain that not much was effected by Jung Bahadoor during the operations at Lucknow. He came when the siege was half over; he departed a fortnight afterwards; and although the commander-in-chief said in a courteous dispatch: ‘I found the utmost willingness on his part to accede to any desire of mine during the progress of the siege; and from the first his Highness was pleased to justify his words that he was happy to be serving under my command’—although these were the words used, there was an absence of any reference to special deeds of conquest. It was a pretty general opinion among the officers that the nine thousand soldiers of the Nepaulese army were far inferior in military qualities to those Goorkhas who had for many years formed two or three regiments in the Bengal army.

When the looting in the city began, Jung Bahadoor’s Goorkhas could scarcely be held in any control; like the Sikhs, they were wild with oriental excitement, and Sir Colin was more anxious concerning them than his own European troops. Viscount Canning, who was in intimate correspondence with the commander-in-chief through the medium of the electric telegraph, exchanged opinions with him in terms known only to themselves; but the announcement made public was to the effect that the governor-general solicited the aid of the Goorkha troops in the neighbourhood of Allahabad, and invited Jung Bahadoor to a personal conference with him at that city. It was during the last week in March that the Nepaulese allies quitted Lucknow, and marched off towards the Oude frontier.

Of the troops which remained at Lucknow, after the departure of some of the brigades, it need only be said in this place that they began to experience the heat of an Indian equinox, which, though much less than that of summer, is nevertheless severely felt by Europeans. A letter from an assistant-surgeon in the division lately commanded by Brigadier Franks, conveyed a good impression of camp-troubles at such a time.[150]

When the governor-general wrote the usual thanks and compliments after the conquest of Lucknow, he adverted very properly to the previous operations, which, though not conquests in the ordinary sense of the term, had won so much fame for Inglis, Havelock, Neill, Outram, and Campbell; and then after mentioning some of the most obvious facts connected with the siege,[151] praised all those whom Sir Colin had pointed out as being worthy of praise. Concerning the proclamation which Lord Canning issued, or proposed to issue, to the natives of Oude, it will be convenient to defer notice of it to a future chapter; when attention will be called to the important debates in the imperial legislature relating to that subject.

Here this chapter may suitably end. It was designed as a medium for the remarkable episode of the final conquest of Lucknow in the month of March; and will be best kept free from all topics relating to other parts of India.

Note.

_Lucknow Proclamations._—When Sir Colin Campbell had effectually conquered Lucknow, and had gathered information concerning the proceedings of the rebels since the preceding month of November, it was found that no means had been left untried to madden the populace into a death-struggle with the British. Among other methods, printed proclamations were posted up in all the police stations, not only in Lucknow, but in many other parts of Oude.

One of these proclamations, addressed to the Mohammedans, ran thus:

‘God says in the Koran: “Do not enter into the friendship of Jews and Christians; those who are their friends are of them—that is, the friends of Christians are Christians, and friends of Jews are Jews. God never shews his way to infidels.”

‘By this it is evident that to befriend Christians, is irreligious. Those who are their friends are not Mohammedans; therefore all the Mohammedan fraternity should with all their hearts be deadly enemies to the Christians, and never befriend them in any way; otherwise, all will lose their religion, and become infidels.

‘Some people, weak in faith and worldly, think that if they offend the Christians, they will fall their victims when their rule is re-established. God says of these people: “Look in the hearts of these unbelievers, who are anxious to seek the friendship of Christians through fear of receiving injury,” to remove their doubts and assure their wavering mind. It is also said that “God will shortly give us victory, or will do something by which our enemies will be ashamed of themselves.” The Mussulmans should therefore always hope, and never believe that the Christians will be victorious and injure them; but, on the contrary, should hope to gain the victory and destroy all Christians.

‘If all the Mohammedans join and remain firm to their faith, they would no doubt gain victory over the Christians, because God says that the victory is due to the faithful from Him; but if they become cowards and infirm to their religion, and do not sacrifice their private interest for the public good, the Europeans will be victorious, and, having subdued the Mohammedans, they will disarm, hang, shoot, or blow them away, seize upon their women and children, disgrace, dishonour, and christianise them, dig up their houses and carry off their property; they will also burn religious and sacred books, destroy the musjids, and efface the name of Islam from the world.

‘If the Mohammedans have any shame, they should all join and prepare themselves to kill the Christians without minding any one who says to the contrary; they should also know that no one dies before his time, and when the time comes, nothing can save them. Thousands of men are carried off by cholera and other pestilence; but it is not known whether they die in their senses, and be faithful to their own religion.

‘To be killed in a war against Christians is a proof of obtaining martyrdom. All good Mohammedans pray for such a death; therefore, every one should sacrifice his life for such a reward. Every one is to die assuredly, and those Mohammedans who would spare themselves now will be sorry on their death for their neglect.

‘As it is the duty of all men and women to oppose, kill, and expel the Europeans for deeds committed by them at Delhi, Jhujur, Rewaree, and the Doab, all the Mohammedans should discharge their duty with a willing heart; if they neglect, and the Europeans overpower them, they will be disarmed, hung, and treated like the inhabitants of other unfortunate countries, and will have nothing but regret and sorrow for their lot. Wherefore this notice is given to warn the public.’

Another proclamation, addressed principally to zemindars and Hindoos in general, but to Mohammedans also, was couched in the following terms:

‘All the Hindoos and Mohammedans know that man loves four things most: 1, his religion and caste; 2, his honour; 3, his own and his kinsmen’s lives; 4, his property. All these four are well protected under native rulers; no one interferes with any one’s religion; every one enjoys his respectability according to his caste and wealth. All the respectable people—Syad, Shaikh, Mogul, and Patan, among Mohammedans; and Brahmins, Chatrees, Bys, and Kaeths, among the Hindoos—are respected according to their castes. No low-caste people like chumars, dhanook, and passees, can be equal to and address them disrespectfully. No one’s life or property is taken unless for some heinous crime.

‘The British are quite against these four things—they want to spoil every one’s caste, and wish both the Mohammedans and Hindoos to become Christians. Thousands have turned renegades, and many will become so yet; both the nobles and low caste are equal in their eyes; they disgrace the nobles in the presence of the ignoble; they arrest or summon to their courts the gentry, nawabs, and rajahs at the instance of a chumar, and disgrace them; wherever they go they hang the respectable people, kill their women and children; their troops dishonour the women, and dig up and carry off their buried property. They do not kill the mahajuns, but dishonour their women, and carry off their money. They disarm the people wherever they go, and when the people are disarmed, they hang, shoot, or blow them away.

‘In some places, they deceive the landholders by promising them remittance of revenue, or lessen the amount of their lease; their object is that when their government is settled, and every one becomes their subject, they can readily, according to their wish, hang, disgrace, or christianise them. Some of the foolish landholders have been deceived, but those who are wise and careful do not fall into their snares.

‘Therefore, all the Hindoos and Mohammedans who wish to save their religion, honour, life, and property, are warned to join the government forces, and not to be deceived by the British.

‘The passees (low-caste servants) should also know that the chowkeedaree (office of watchmen) is their hereditary right, but the British appoint burkundauzes in their posts, and deprive them of their rights; they should therefore kill and plunder the British and their followers, and annoy them by committing robbery and thefts in their camp.’

[Illustration:

HINDOO METALLIC ORNAMENTS.

_a_ Women’s Earrings. _b_ Parsee Women’s Neck-ring. _c_ Women’s Nose-rings. _d_ Women’s Forehead Ornament. _f_ Men’s Earrings. _g_ Women’s Anklets. _h_ Women’s Armlets. _i_ Women’s Toe-rings. _k_ Women’s Finger-rings. _l_ Women’s Necklace. _m_ Men’s Necklace. ]

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Footnote 141:

The plans of Lucknow at pp. 321 and 362 will convey an idea of the situation of the city relatively to the river.

Footnote 142: 23d Fusiliers. 79th Highlanders. Rifle Brigade, two battalions. 1st Bengal Europeans. 3d Punjaub infantry. 2d Dragoon Guards. 9th Lancers. 1st, 2d, and 5th Punjaub cavalry, detachment. D’Aguilar’s troop, horse-artillery. Remington’s troop, royal artillery. M’Kinnon’s troop, royal artillery. Gibbon’s light field-battery. Middleton’s light field-battery. Head-quarters, field-artillery brigade.

Footnote 143:

Mr Russell, all day on the 6th and 7th, was watching the proceedings from a position such as has seldom before been occupied by a newspaper writer. He was on the roof of the Dil Koosha, taking his chance of such shots as came from the Martinière, and viewing Outram’s marchings and fightings by means of a telescope. Sometimes his resolution was nearly baffled by heat and dust. ‘The wind was all but intolerable—very hot and very high, and surcharged with dust. I had a little camp-table and chair placed on the top of the building, and tried to write; but the heat and the dust were intolerable. I tried to look out, but the glasses were filled with dust; a fog would be just as good a medium.’

Footnote 144:

‘He (Sir Edward Lugard) will employ for the purpose the 4th brigade, with the 38th and 53d regiments of the 3d brigade in support.

‘The 42d Highlanders will lead the attack, and seize, as a first measure, the huts and ruined houses to the left of the Martinière, as viewed from the brigadier-general’s front.

‘While the movement is being made upon the huts in question, the wall below the right heavy battery will be lined very thickly, with at least the wing of a regiment, which will be flanked again by a troop of R. A. The huts having been seized, this extended wing behind the wall will advance right across the open on the building of the Martinière, its place being taken immediately by a regiment in support, which will also move rapidly forward on the building. But the attack on the huts is not to stop there. As soon as they are in, the Highlanders must turn sharp on the building of the Martinière, also following up the retreating enemy. The heavy guns of the right battery, as well as those belonging to the troop, will search the intrenchments of the tank and the brushwood to the right while this advance is going forward.

‘The whole line of the ruined huts, Martinière, &c., having been seized, the engineers attached to the 2d division for the operation will be set to work immediately by the brigadier-general to give cover to the troops.

‘The men employed in the attack will use nothing but the bayonet. They are absolutely forbidden to fire a shot till the position is won. This must be thoroughly explained to the men, and they will be told also that their advance is flanked on every side by heavy and light artillery, as well as by the infantry fire on the right.

‘The brigadier-general will cause his whole division to dine at 12 o’clock. Inlying pickets will remain in camp. The 90th foot, now in the Mahomed Bagh, will be relieved by a regiment from Brigadier-general Franks’s division. The troops will not be allowed to pass the lines of huts and the building without orders.’

Footnote 145:

When Sir Colin started from Buntara to the Dil Koosha on the 2d of March, Mr Russell says of his personal appearance: ‘He wears a serviceable air which bespeaks confidence and resolution, and gives the notion of hard work and success. Everything about him is for service, even down to the keen-edged sabre in a coarse leather sheath, not dangling and clattering from his side and hitting the flanks of his horse from gaudy sling-belts, but tucked up compactly by a stout shoulder-belt just over his hip.... And so of his nether man; not clothed in regulation with gold stripes, but in stout brown corduroy, warranted to wear in any climate. The chief of the staff and the officers of the staff for the most part follow the example of the commander-in-chief.’

Footnote 146:

It is well to bear in mind the distinction between two great Emanbarras at Lucknow; one, called the Emanbarra of Ghazee-u-deen Hyder, just mentioned; and the other, the Emanbarra of Azof-u-Dowlah, between the Muchee Bhowan and the Moosa Bagh.

Footnote 147:

The graphic writer to whom we have more than once adverted was among those who hastened to the Begum Kothee as a spectator on this morning. Among the scenes that met his view he said: ‘I saw one of the fanatics, a fine old sepoy with a grizzled moustache, lying dead in the court, a sword-cut across his temple, a bayonet-thrust through his neck, his thigh broken by a bullet, and his stomach slashed open, in a desperate attempt to escape. There had been five or six of these fellows altogether, and they had either been surprised and unable to escape, or had shut themselves up in desperation in a small room, one of many looking out on the court. At first, attempts were made to start them by throwing in live shell. A bag of gunpowder was more successful; and out they charged, and, with the exception of one man, were shot and bayoneted on the spot. The man who got away did so by a desperate leap through a window, amid a shower of bullets and many bayonet-thrusts.

Such are the common incidents of this war. From court to court of the huge pile of buildings we wandered through the same scenes—dead sepoys—blood-splashed gardens—groups of eager Highlanders, looking out for the enemy’s loopholes—more eager groups of plunderers searching the dead, many of whom lay heaped on the top of each other, amid the ruins of rooms brought down upon them by our cannon-shot. Two of these were veritable chambers of horrors. It must be remembered that the sepoys and matchlockmen wear cotton clothes, many at this time of year using thickly quilted tunics; and in each room there is a number of _resais_, or quilted cotton coverlets, which serve as beds and quilts to the natives. The explosion of powder sets fire to this cotton very readily, and it may be easily conceived how horrible are the consequences where a number of these sepoys and Nujeebs get into a place whence there is no escape, and where they fall in heaps by our shot. The matches of the men and the discharges of their guns set fire to their cotton clothing; it is fed by the very fat of the dead bodies; the smell is pungent and overpowering, and nauseous to a degree.

I looked in at two such rooms, where, through the dense smoke, I could see piles of bodies; and I was obliged to own that the horrors of the hospital at Sebastopol were far exceeded by what I witnessed. Upwards of 300 dead were found in the courts of the palace, and, if we put the wounded carried off at 700, we may reckon that the capture of the place cost the enemy 1000 men at least. The rooms of the building round the numerous courts were for the most part small and dark, compared with the great size of the corridors and garden enclosures. The state-saloon, fitted up for durbars and entertainments, once possessed some claims to magnificence, which were, however, now lying under our feet in the shape of lustres, mirrors, pier-glasses, gilt tables, damask, silk and satin, embroidered fragments of furniture, and marble tables, over which one made his way from place to place with difficulty. The camp-followers were busily engaged in selecting and carrying away such articles as attracted their fancy—shawls, _resais_, cushions, umbrellas, swords, matchlocks, tom-toms or drums, pictures, looking-glasses, trumpets; but the more valuable plunder disappeared last night. It will be long before a Begum can live here in state again. Every room and wall and tower are battered and breached by our shot.’

Footnote 148:

‘It having been understood that several small pieces of ordnance captured in the city have been appropriated by individuals, all persons having such in their possession are directed at once to make them over to the commissary of ordnance in charge of the park.

‘It is reported to the commander-in-chief that the Sikhs and other native soldiers are plundering in a most outrageous manner, and refuse to give up their plunder to the guards told off for the express purpose of checking such proceedings. His excellency desires that strong parties, under the command of European officers, be immediately sent out from each native regiment to put a stop to these excesses.

‘Commanding officers of native regiments are called upon to use their best endeavours to restore order, and are held responsible that all their men who are not on duty remain in camp, and that those who are on duty do not quit their posts.

‘All native soldiers not on duty are to be confined to camp till further orders, and all who may now be on duty in the city are to be relieved and sent back to camp.

‘All commanding officers are enjoined to use their best endeavours to prevent their followers quitting camp.’

Footnote 149:

Chap. xxi. p. 369.

Footnote 150:

‘Though we are all in the town, our camp and hospital are still in the old place. While I write this in my tent in camp, the thermometer is at 100 degrees; not a breath of wind, and the flies—I can pity the Egyptians now—the tent is filled with them, and everything edible covered with them. We drink and eat flies, and in our turn are eaten by them. They nestle in your hair, and commit the most determined suicides in your tea or soup. Old-fashioned looking crickets come out of holes and stare at you; lizards run wildly across the tent; and ants by the thousand ply their wonted avocations utterly unmindful of your presence. When night arrives, it becomes a little cooler, the candles are lit, all the flies (save the suicides) have gone to roost upon the tent-poles, and you fancy that your troubles are over. Vain hope! the tent-doors are open; in flies a locust, hops into some dish, kicks himself out again, hitting you in the face, and finally bolts out at the opposite door. Then comes a flock of moths, all sizes and shapes, which dart madly at the lights. At last you put out your candle, and get into bed, when a new sound commences. Hum, hum, something soft and light settles on your face and hands: a sensation of red-hot needles intimates that the mosquitoes are upon you. The domestic flea and bug also abound; their appetites quite unimpaired by the climate. Jackals and pariah dogs yell and howl all night. Day dawns, and you have your flies down upon you lively as ever. This will give you some idea of our tent comforts.’

Footnote 151:

‘From the 2d to the 16th of March a series of masterly operations took place, by which the commander-in-chief, nobly supported in his well-laid plans of attack by the ability and skill of the general officers, and by the indomitable bravery and resolution of the officers and men of all arms, drove the rebels successively from all their strongly fortified posts, till the whole fell into the possession of our troops. That this great success should have been accomplished at so little cost of valuable lives, enhances the honour due to the leader who has achieved it.’ After mentioning the remarkable services rendered by Outram during more than five months in the Residency and the Alum Bagh, Viscount Canning could not do other than recognise the crowning service of that distinguished man, as the second in command under Campbell during the great operations of March.

[Illustration:

BARRACKPORE. ]