The History of the Indian Revolt and of the Expeditions to Persia, China and Japan 1856-7-8

The mutiny at Fyzabad, besides being attended with a sad loss of life, was note-worthy for certain peculiarities in the tactics of the insurgents – a kind of cool audacity not always exhibited in other instances. A brief description will shew the position and character of this city. In a former chapter (p. 83 (#x_18_i3)) it was explained that Oude or Ayodha, the city that gave name to the province, is very ancient as a Hindoo capital, but has become poor and ruinous in recent times; and that the fragments of many of its old structures were employed in building Fyzabad, the Mohammedan Ayodha, nearly adjoining it on the southwest. It was scarcely more than a hundred and thirty years ago that the foundation of Fyzabad was established, by Saadut Ali Khan, the first nawab-vizier of Oude; its advance in prosperity was rapid; but since the selection of Lucknow as the capital in 1775, Fyzabad has fallen in dignity; the chief merchants and bankers have migrated to Lucknow, and the remaining inhabitants are mostly poor.

On the 3d of June, rumours circulated in Fyzabad that the mutinous 17th regiment B. N. I. was approaching from Azimghur. Colonel Lennox, the military commandant, at once conferred with the other officers, and formed a plan for defending the place. The immediate alarm died away. On the 7th, however, renewed information led the colonel to propose an advance to Surooj-khoond, a place about five miles away, to repel the mutineers before they could reach Fyzabad. The native troops objected to go out, on the plea of disinclination to leave their families and property behind; but they promised to fight valiantly in the cantonment if necessary, and many of them shook hands with him in token of fidelity. The evening of the 8th revealed the hypocrisy of this display. The native troops, cavalry, infantry, and artillery, joined in a demonstration which rendered all the officers powerless; every officer was, in effect, made a prisoner, and placed under armed guard for the night; two tried to escape, but were fired at and brought back. The leader of the mutiny, Dhuleep Singh, subadar-major of the 22d regiment, came to Colonel Lennox in the morning, and told him plainly that he and the other officers must yield to the course of circumstances; that boats would be provided to take them down the river Gogra towards Dinapoor, but that he would not guarantee their safety after once they had embarked. There was a cool impudence about the proceeding, unlike the wild confusion exhibited at many of the scenes of outbreak. A moulvie, who had been imprisoned in the quarter-guard for a disturbance created in the city, and who had just been liberated by the mutineers, sent the sub-assistant surgeon to Colonel Lennox with a message; thanking him for kindnesses received during the imprisonment, and requesting that the colonel’s full-dress regimentals might be sent to the moulvie. The native surgeon begged pardon for his change of allegiance; urging that times were altered, and that he must now obey the mutineers. There was something more than mere effrontery, however, in the proceedings of these insurgents;[24 - The troops stationed at that time at Fyzabad comprised the 22d regiment native infantry; the 6th regiment irregular Oude infantry; the 5th troop of the 15th regiment irregular cavalry; No. 5 company of the 7th battalion of artillery; and No. 13 horse-battery. The chief officers were Colonels Lennox and O’Brien; Major Mill; Captain Morgan; Lieutenants Fowle, English, Bright, Lindesay, Thomas, Ouseley, Cautley, Gordon, Parsons, Percival, and Currie; and Ensigns Anderson and Ritchie. Colonel Goldney held a civil appointment as commissioner.] there was a subordination amid insubordination. ‘The men,’ said one of the narrators, ‘guarded their officers and their bungalows after mutinying, placed sentries over the magazines and all public property, and sent out pickets to prevent the towns-people and servants from looting. They held a council of war, in which the cavalry proposed to kill the officers; but the 22d, objecting to this, informed their officers that they would be allowed to leave, and might take with them their private arms and property, but no public property – as that all belonged to the King of Oude.’

Let us briefly trace the course of some of the European fugitives. Colonel Lennox, powerless to resist, gave up his regimentals, and prepared for a melancholy boat-departure with his wife and daughter. They were escorted to the banks of the Gogra, and pushed off on their voyage. From two in the afternoon on the 8th of June, until nearly midnight, their boat descended the stream – often in peril from sentries and scouts on shore, but befriended by two sepoys who had been sent to protect them for a short distance. Much care and manœuvring were required to effect a safe passage near the spot where the mutinous 17th regiment was encamped; for it now became manifest that the 22d had in effect sold the fugitives to the other corps. Early on the following morning, information received on shore rendering evident the danger of a further boat-voyage, the houseless wanderers, leaving in the boat the few fragments of property they had brought away from Fyzabad, set out on foot towards Goruckpore. With nothing but the clothes on their backs, the family began their weary flight. After stopping under trees and by the side of wells to rest occasionally, they walked until the heat of day rendered necessary a longer pause. By a narrow chance they avoided being dragged to the camp of the 17th regiment, by a trooper who professed to have been offered two hundred rupees for the head of each member of the family. A friendly chieftain, one Meer Mohammed Hossein Khan, came to their rescue just at the moment of greatest peril. One of the retainers of this man, however, more disposed for enmity than amity, spoke to the colonel with great bitterness and fierceness of manner, shewing that the prevalent rumours had made a deep impression in Oude; he expressed a longing to shoot the English, ‘who had come to take away their caste, and make them Christians.’ Meer Mohammed rebuked this man for saying that a stable would do to shelter the refugees, for that he was prepared ‘to kill them like dogs.’ The fugitives were taken to a small fort, one of the numerous class lately adverted to, where the zemindars and petty chieftains maintained a kind of feudal or clannish independence. On the second day, the danger to sheltered Europeans becoming apparent, Colonel Lennox, his wife, and daughter, put on native dresses, and remained nine days concealed in a reed-hut behind the zenana, treated very kindly and considerately by their protector. Meer Mohammed went once or twice to Fyzabad, to learn if possible the plans of the mutineers; he was told that they meant to attack Lucknow, and then depart for Delhi. On the 10th day of the hiding, when news arrived that the fort was likely to be attacked, the ladies went for shelter into the zenana, while the colonel was hid in a dark woodshed. Happily, however, it turned out that the suspected strangers were a party sent by the collector of Goruckpore for the rescue of the family. Danger was now nearly over. The fugitives reached Amorah, Bustee, Goruckpore, Azimghur, and Ghazeepore, at which place they took steamer down to Calcutta. This fortunate escape from great peril was almost wholly due to ‘the noble and considerate’ Meer Mohammed, as Colonel Lennox very properly characterises him.

Far more calamitous were the boat-adventures of the main body of Fyzabad officers, of which an account was afterwards written, for the information of government, by Farrier-sergeant Busher, of the light field-battery. On the morning of the 8th, the wives and families of many civilians, and of five non-commissioned European officers, had been sent by Captain Orr to a place called Sheergunge, under the protection of a friendly native, Rajah Maun Singh, to be free from peril if tumult should arise. Early on the 9th, while Colonel Lennox was still at the station, all or nearly all the other English were sent off by the mutineers in four boats. One of these boats (mere dinghees, in which little more than a bundle for each person could be put) contained eight persons, one six, one five, and the remaining boat three. Only one female was of the party, Mrs Hollum, wife of Sergeant-major Hollum of the 22d native regiment. The first and second boats got ahead of the other two, and proceeded about twenty miles down the river without molestation; but then were seen troopers and sepoys approaching the banks, with an evidently hostile intent. The firing soon became so severe that the occupants of the first boat struck in for the off-shore, and seven of them took to their heels – the eighth being unequal to that physical exertion. They ran on till checked by a broad stream; and while deliberating how to cross, persons approached who were thought to be sepoys; the alarm proved false, but not before Lieutenants Currie and Parsons had been drowned in an attempt to escape by swimming. The other five, running on till quite exhausted, were fortunate enough to meet with a friendly native, who sheltered them for several hours, and supplied them with food. At midnight they started again, taking the road to Amorah, which they were enabled to reach safely through the influence of their kind protector – although once in great peril from a gang of freebooters. They were glad to meet at Amorah the three occupants of the fourth boat, who, like themselves, had escaped the dangers of the voyage by running across fields and fording streams. At seven in the morning of the 10th, the fugitives, now eight in company, recommenced their anxious flight – aided occasionally by friendly natives, but at length betrayed by one whose friendship was only a mask. They had to cross a nullah or stream knee-deep, under pursuit by a body of armed men; here Lieutenant Lindesay fell, literally cut to pieces; and when the other seven had passed to the opposite bank, five were speedily hewn to the ground and butchered – Lieutenants Ritchie, Thomas, and English, and two English sergeants. The two survivors ran at their topmost speed, pursued by a gang of ruffians; Lieutenant Cautley was speedily overtaken, and killed; and then only Sergeant Busher remained alive. He, outrunning his pursuers, reached a Brahmin village, where a bowl of sherbet was given to him. After a little rest, he ran on again, until one Baboo Bully Singh was found to be on the scent after him; he endeavoured to hide under some straw in a hut; but was discovered and dragged out by the hair of the head. From village to village he was then carried as an exhibition to be jeered and scoffed at by the rabble; the Baboo evidently intended the cruel sport to be followed by murder; but this intention underwent a change, probably from dread of some future retribution. He kept his prisoner near him for ten days, but did not further ill treat him. On the eleventh day, Busher was liberated; he overtook Colonel Lennox and his family; and safely reached Ghazeepore seventeen days after his departure from Fyzabad. The boat containing Colonel O’Brien, Lieutenants Percival and Gordon, Ensign Anderson, and Assistant-surgeon Collinson, pursued its voyage the whole way down to Dinapoor; but it was a voyage full of vicissitudes to the fugitives. At many places they were obliged to lie flat in the boat to prevent recognition from the shore; at others they had to compel the native boatmen, on peril of sabring, to continue their tugging at the oars; on one occasion they narrowly escaped shooting by a herd of villagers who followed the boat. For three days they had nothing to eat but a little flour and water; but happening to meet with a friendly rajah at Gola, they obtained aid which enabled them to reach Dinapoor on the 17th.

The occupants of the remaining boat, the civilians, and the ladies and children who had not been able to effect a safe retreat to Nynee Tal, suffered terribly; many lives were lost; and those who escaped to Goruckpore or Dinapoor arrived in distressing plight – especially a party of women and children who had been robbed of everything while on the way, and who had been almost starved to death during a week’s imprisonment in a fort by the river-side. When it is stated that, among a group of women and children who reached a place of safety after infinite hardships, an infant was born on the road, the reader will easily comprehend how far the sufferings must have exceeded anything likely to appear in print. Many persons were shot, many drowned, while the fate of others remained doubtful for weeks or even months. Colonel Goldney and Major Mill were among the slain. The wanderings of Mrs Mill and her three children were perhaps among the most affecting incidents of this mutiny. Amid the dire haste of departure, she became separated from her husband, and was the last Englishwoman left in Fyzabad. How she escaped and how she fared, was more than she herself could clearly narrate; for the whole appeared afterwards as a dreadful dream, in which every kind of misery was confusedly mixed. During two or three weeks, she was wandering up and down the country, living in the jungle when man refused her shelter, and searching the fields for food when none was obtainable elsewhere. Her poor infant, eight months old, died for want of its proper nourishment; but the other two children, seven and three years old, survived all the privations to which they were exposed. On one occasion, seeing some troopers approaching, and being utterly hopeless, she passionately besought them, if their intentions were hostile, to kill her children without torturing them, and then to kill her. The appeal touched the hearts of the rude men; they took her to a village and gave her a little succour; and this facilitated their conveyance by a friendly native to Goruckpore, where danger was over.

Sultanpore was another station at which mutiny and murder occurred. On the 8th of June, a wing of the 15th irregular cavalry entered that place from Seetapoor, in a state of evident excitement. Lieutenant Tucker, who was a favourite with them, endeavoured to allay their mutinous spirit, and succeeded for a few hours; but on the following morning they rose in tumult, murdered Colonel Fisher, Captain Gubbings, and two other Europeans, and urged the lieutenant to escape, which he did. After much jungle-wanderings, and concealment in a friendly native’s house, he safely arrived at Benares, as did likewise four or five other officers, and all the European women and children at the station. In this as in other instances, the revolt of the troops was followed by marauding and incendiarism on the part of the rabble of Sultanpore; in this, too, as in other instances, the mutineers had a little affection for some one or more among their officers, whom they endeavoured to save.

The station of Pershadeepore experienced its day of trouble on the 10th of June. The 1st regiment Oude irregular infantry was there stationed, under Captain Thompson. He prided himself on the fidelity of his men; inasmuch as they seemed to turn a deaf ear to the rumours and suspicions circulating elsewhere; and he had detected the falsity of a mischief-maker, who had secretly caused ground bones to be mixed with the attah (coarse flour with which chupatties are made) sold in the bazaar, as the foundation for a report that the government intended to take away the caste of the people. This pleasant delusion lasted until the 9th; when a troop of the 3d Oude irregular cavalry arrived from Pertabghur, followed soon afterwards by news of the rising at Sultanpore. The fidelity of the infantry now gave way, under the temptations and representations made to them by other troops. When Captain Thompson rose on the morning of the 10th, he found his regiment all dressed, and in orderly mutiny (if such an expression may be used). He tried with an aching heart to separate the good men from the bad, and to induce the former to retire with him to Allahabad; but the temptation of the treasure was more than they could resist; they all joined in the spoliation, and then felt that allegiance was at an end. At four in the afternoon all the Europeans left the station, without a shot or an angry word from the men; they were escorted to the fort of Dharoopoor, belonging to a chieftain named Rajah Hunnewaut Singh, who treated them courteously, and after some days forwarded them safely to Allahabad. There was not throughout India a mutiny conducted with more quietness on both sides than this at Pershadeepore; the sepoys had evidently no angry feeling towards their officers. Captain Thompson remained of opinion that his men had been led away by rumours and insinuations brought by stragglers from other stations, to the effect that any Oude regiment which did not mutiny would be in peril from those that had; and that, even under this fear, they would have remained faithful had there been no treasure to tempt their cupidity. It is curious to note Colonel Neill’s comment on this incident, in his official dispatch; his reliance on the native troops was of the smallest possible amount; and in reference to the captain’s honest faith, he said: ‘This is absurd; they were as deeply in the plot as the rest of the army; the only credit due to them is that they did not murder their officers.’

Seetapoor, about fifty miles north of Lucknow, was the place towards which the insurgent troops from that city bent their steps at the close of May. Whether those regiments kept together, and how far they proceeded on the next few days, are points not clearly made out; but it is certain that the native troops stationed at Seetapoor – comprising the 41st Bengal infantry, the 9th and 10th Oude irregular infantry, and the 2d Oude military police, in all about three thousand men – rose in mutiny on the 3d of June. The 41st began the movement. A sepoy came to one of the officers in the morning, announced that the rising was about to take place, declared that neither he nor his companions wished to draw blood, and suggested that all the officers should retreat from the station. The regiment was in two wings, one in the town and one in the cantonment; the plundering of the treasury was begun by the first-named party; the other wing, obedient at first, broke forth when they suspected they might be deprived of a share in the plunder. After the 41st had thus set the example, the 9th revolted; then the military police; and then the 10th. Lieutenant Burnes, of the last-named regiment, entreated his men earnestly to remain faithful, but to no effect. Seeing that many officers had been struck down, the remainder hastily retired to the house of Mr Christian the commissioner; and when all were assembled, with the civilians, the ladies, and the children, it was at once resolved to quit the burning bungalows and ruthless soldiers and seek refuge at Lucknow. Some made their exit without any preparation; among whom was Lieutenant Burnes – roaming through jungles for days, and aiding women and children as best they could, suffering all those miseries which have so often been depicted. The great body of Europeans, however, left the station in buggies and other vehicles; and as the high roads were perilous, the fugitives drove over hills, hollows, and ploughed fields, where perhaps vehicles had never been driven before. Fortunately, twenty troopers remained faithful to them, and escorted them all the way to Lucknow, which place they reached on the night of the third day – reft of everything they possessed, like many other fugitives in those days. Many of the Europeans did not succeed in quitting Seetapoor in time; and among these the work of death was ruthlessly carried on – the sepoys being either unwilling or unable to check these scenes of barbarity.

As at Lucknow, Fyzabad, Sultanpore, Pershadeepore, Seetapoor; so at Secrora, Durriabad, Beraytch, Gouda, and other places in Oude – wherever there was a native regiment stationed, or a treasury of the Company established, there, in almost every instance, were exhibited scenes of violence attended by murder and plunder. The lamented Lawrence, in the five weeks preceding his death, was, as has been lately pointed out, placed in an extraordinary position. Responsible to the supreme government both for the political and the military management of Oude, and knowing that almost every station in the province was a focus of treachery and mutiny, he was notwithstanding powerless to restore tranquillity. So far from Cawnpore assisting him, he yearned to assist Cawnpore; Rohilcund was in a blaze, and could send him only mutineers who had thrown off all allegiance; Meerut, after sending troops to Delhi, was doing little but defending itself; Agra, with a mere handful of European troops, was too doubtful of its Gwalior neighbours to do anything for Lucknow and Oude; Allahabad and Benares were too recently rescued, by the gallant Neill, from imminent peril, to be in a position to send present assistance to Sir Henry; and the Nepaul sovereign, Jung Bahadoor, had not yet been made an ally of the English in such a way as might possibly have saved Oude, and as was advocated by many well-wishers of India.

The position of the sovereignty just named may usefully be adverted to here. Nepaul, about equal in area to England, is one of the few independent states of Northern India; it reaches to the Himalaya on the north; and is bounded on the other sides by the British territories of Behar, Oude, and Kumaon. The region is distinguished by the magnificent giant mountain-chain which separates it from Tibet; by the dense forest-jungle of the Terai on the Oude frontier; by the beautiful valley in which the capital, Khatmandoo, lies, and which is dotted with flourishing villages, luxuriant fields, and picturesque streams; and by its healthy and temperate climate. It is with the people, however, that this narrative is more particularly concerned. The Nepaulese, about two millions in number, comprise Goorkhas, Newars, Bhotias, Dhauwars, and Mhaujees. The Goorkhas are the dominant race; they are Hindoos in religion, but very unlike Hindoos in appearance, manners, and customs. The Newars are the aborigines of Nepaul, decidedly Mongolian both in faith and in features; they are the clever artisans of the kingdom, while the Goorkhas are the hardy soldiers. The other three tribes are chiefly cultivators of the soil. In the latter half of the last century, Nepaul was for a short time a dependency of the Chinese Empire; but a treaty of commerce with the British in 1782 initiated a state of affairs which soon enabled Nepaul to throw off Chinese supremacy. Conventions, subsidies, border encroachments, and family intrigues, checkered Nepaulese affairs until 1812; when the Company made formal war on the ground of a long catalogue of injuries and insults – such a catalogue as can easily be concocted by a stronger state against a weaker. The war was so badly conducted, that nothing but the military tact of Sir David Ochterlony, who held one-fourth of a command which seems to have had no head or general commander, saved the British from ignominious defeat. Broken engagements led to another war in 1816, which terminated in a treaty never since ruptured; the Nepaulese court has been a focus of intrigue, but the intrigues have not been of such a character as to disturb the relations of amity with the British. Jung Bahadoor – a name well known in England a few years ago, as that of a Nepaulese ambassador who made a sensation by his jewelled splendor – was the nephew of a man who became by successive steps prime minister to the king. Instigated by the queen, and by his own unscrupulous ambition, Jung Bahadoor caused his uncle to be put to death, and became commander-in-chief under a new ministry. Many scenes of truly oriental slaughter followed – that is, slaughter to clear the pathway to power. Jung Bahadoor treated kings and queens somewhat as the Company was accustomed to do in the last century; setting up a son against a father, and treating all alike as puppets. At a period subsequent to his return from England, he caused a marriage to be concluded between his daughter, six years old, and the heir-apparent to the Nepaulese throne, then in his ninth year. Whether king or not, he was virtually chief of Nepaul at the time when the Revolt broke out; and had managed, by astuteness in his diplomacy, to remain on friendly terms with the authorities at Calcutta: indeed he took every opportunity, after his English visit, to display his leaning towards his neighbours. Like Nena Sahib, he had English pianos and English carpets in his house, and prided himself in understanding English manners and the English language; and it is unquestionable that both those men were favourites among such of the English as visited the one at Bithoor or the other at Khatmandoo.

It has been mentioned in a former chapter (p. 115 (#x_21_i22)) that Goorkha troops assisted to defend Nynee Tal when that place became filled with refugees; and Goorkha regiments have been adverted to in many other parts of the narrative. Jung Bahadoor permitted the Nepaulese of this tribe to enlist thus in the Company’s service; and he also offered the aid of a contingent, the non-employment of which brought many strictures upon the policy of the Calcutta government. At a later date, as we shall see, this contingent was accepted; and it rendered us good service at Juanpore and Azimghur by protecting Benares from the advance of Oude mutineers. About the middle of June, fifteen Europeans (seven gentlemen, three ladies, and five children) escaped from the Oude mutineers into the jungle region of Nepaul, and sought refuge in a post-station or serai about ten days’ journey from Goruckpore and eighteen from Khatmandoo. The officer at that place wrote to Jung Bahadoor for instruction in the matter; to which he received a speedy reply – ‘Treat them with every kindness, give them elephants, &c., and escort them to Goruckpore.’ Major Ramsey, the Company’s representative at Khatmandoo, sent them numerous supplies in tin cases; and all the English were naturally disposed to bless the Nepaulese chieftain as a friend in the hour of greatest need, without inquiring very closely by what means he had gained his power.

The course of the narrative now takes us from Oude northwestward into the province of Rohilcund; the districts of which, named after the towns of Bareilly, Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Boodayoun, and Bijnour, felt the full force of the mutinous proceedings among the native troops. The Rohillas were originally Mussulman Afghans, who conquered this part of India, gradually settled down among the Hindoo natives, and imparted to them a daring reckless character, which rendered Rohilcund a nursery for irregular cavalry – and afterwards for mutineers.

Brigadier Sibbald was commandant of Bareilly, one of the towns of Rohilcund in which troops were stationed. These troops were entirely native, comprising the 18th and 68th Bengal native infantry, the 8th irregular cavalry, and a battery of native artillery – not an English soldier among them except the officers. The brigadier, although these troops appeared towards the close of the month of May to be in an agitated state, nevertheless heard that all was well at Mooradabad, Shahjehanpoor, Almora, and other stations in Rohilcund, and looked forward with some confidence to the continuance of tranquility – aided by his second in command, Colonel Troup, and the commissioner, Mr Alexander. As a precaution, however, the ladies and children were sent for safety to Nynee Tal; and the gentlemen kept their horses saddled, ready for any emergency. Bareilly being a city of a hundred thousand inhabitants, the temper of the natives was very anxiously watched. Scarcely had the month closed, before the hopes of Brigadier Sibbald received a dismal check, and his life a violent end. We have already briefly mentioned (p. 114 (#x_21_i18)) that on Sunday the 31st, Bareilly became a scene of violence and rapine; the brigadier himself being shot by a trooper, the treasure seized, the bungalows plundered and burned, and the Europeans either murdered or impelled to escape for their lives. When Colonel Troup, who commanded the 68th native infantry, and who became chief military authority after the death of Sibbald, found himself safe at Nynee Tal, he wrote an official account of the whole proceeding, corroborating the chief facts noted by the brigadier, and adding others known more especially to himself. From this dispatch it appears that the colonel commanded at Bareilly from the 6th to the 19th of May, while the brigadier was making a tour of inspection through his district; that from the 19th to the 29th, Sibbald himself resumed the command; and that during those twenty-three days nothing occurred to shew disaffection among the troops, further than a certain troubled and agitated state. On that day, however, the Europeans received information, from two native officers, that the men of the 18th and 68th native regiments had, while bathing in the river, concerted a plan of mutiny for that same afternoon. Most of the officers were quickly on the alert; and, whether or not through this evidence of preparedness, no émeute took place on that day. On the 30th, Colonel Troup, who had relied on the fidelity of the 8th irregular cavalry, received information that those sowars had sworn not to act against the native infantry and artillery if the latter should rise, although they would refrain from molesting their own officers. After a day and night of violent excitement throughout the whole station, the morning of Sunday the 31st (again Sunday!) ushered in a day of bloodshed and rapine. Messages were despatched to all the officers, warning them of some intended outbreak; but the bearers, sent by Troup, failed in their duty, insomuch that many of the officers remained ignorant of the danger until too late to avert it. Major Pearson, of the 18th, believed his men to be stanch; Captain Kirby, of the artillery (6th company, 6th battalion), in like manner trusted his corps; and Captain Brownlow, the brigade major, disbelieved the approach of mutiny – at the very time that Colonel Troup was impressing on all his conviction that the sinister rumours were well founded. At eleven o’clock, the truth appeared in fatal colours; the roar of cannon, the rattle of musketry, and the yells of men, told plainly that the revolt had begun, and that the artillery had joined in it. The 8th irregular cavalry, under Captain Mackenzie, were ordered or invited by him to proceed against the lines of the insurgent infantry and artillery; but the result was so disastrous, that all the Europeans, military as well as civilians, found their only safety would be in flight. Ruktawar Khan, subadar of artillery, assumed the rank of general, and paraded about in the carriage of the brigadier, attended by a numerous string of followers as a ‘staff.’ Colonel Troup, writing on the 10th of June, had to report the deaths of Brigadier Sibbald and three or four other officers, together with that of many of the civil servants. About twenty-five military officers escaped; but the list of ‘missing’ was large, and many of those included in it were afterwards known to have been brutally murdered. Captain Mackenzie, who clung to his troopers in the earnest hope that they would remain faithful, found only nineteen men who did so, and who escorted their officers all the way to Nynee Tal.

A despicable hoary traitor, Khan Bahadoor Khan, appears to have headed this movement. He had for many years been in receipt of a double pension from the Indian government – as the living representative of one of the early Rohilla chieftains, and as a retired judge of one of the native courts. He was an old, venerable-looking, insinuating man; he was thoroughly relied on by the civil authorities at Bareilly; he had loudly proclaimed his indignation against the Delhi mutineers; and yet he became ringleader of those at Bareilly – deepening his damning atrocities by the massacre of such of the unfortunate Europeans as did not succeed in making their escape. It was by his orders, as self-elected chief of Rohilcund, that a rigorous search was made for all Europeans who remained in Bareilly; and that Judge Robertson, and four or five other European gentlemen, were hung in the Kotwal square, after a mock-trial. During the month of June, Bareilly remained entirely in the hands of the rebels; not an Englishman, probably, was alive in the place; and the Mussulmans and Hindoos were left to contend for supremacy over the spoil.

Of Boodayoun it will be unnecessary to say more here; Mr Edwards’s narrative of an eventful escape (pp. 115 (#x_21_i22), 116), pointed to the 1st of June as the day when the Europeans deemed it necessary to flee from that station – not because there were any native troops at Boodayoun, but because the mutineers from Bareilly were approaching, and joyfully expected by all the scoundrels in the place, who looked forward to a harvest of plunder as a natural result.

Mooradabad, which began its season of anarchy and violence on the 3d of June, stands on the right bank of the Ramgunga, an affluent of the Ganges, at a point about midway between Meerut and Bareilly. It is a town of nearly 60,000 inhabitants – having a civil station, with its cutcherry and bungalows; a cantonment west of the town; a spacious serai for the accommodation of travellers; and an enormous jail sufficiently large to contain nearly two thousand prisoners. In this, as in many other towns of India, the Company’s troops were wont to be regarded rather as guardians of the jail and its inmates, than for any active military duties. So early as the 19th of May, nine days after the mutineers of Meerut had set the example, the 29th regiment native infantry proceeded to the jail at Mooradabad, and released all the prisoners. Although Mr Saunders, collector and magistrate, wrote full accounts to Agra of the proceedings of that and the following days, the dâks were so completely stopped on the road that Mr Colvin remained almost in ignorance of the state of affairs; and on that account Saunders could obtain no assistance from any quarter. The released prisoners, joined by predatory bands of Goojurs, Meewatties, and Jâts, commenced a system of plunder and rapine, which the European authorities were ill able to check. The 29th, however, had not openly mutinied; and it still remained possible to hold control within the town and the surrounding district; several native sappers and miners were stopped and captured on their way from Meerut, and several of the mutinous 20th regiment on the way from Mozuffernugger. When, however, news of the Bareilly outbreak on the 31st reached Mooradabad, the effect on the men of the 29th regiment, and of a native artillery detachment, became very evident. On the 3d of June, the sepoys in guard of the treasury displayed so evident an intention of appropriating the money, that Mr Saunders felt compelled to leave it (about seventy thousand rupees) together with much plate and opium in their hands – being powerless to prevent the spoliation. The troops manifested much irritation at the smallness of the treasure, and were only prevented from wreaking their vengeance on the officials by an oath they had previously taken. To remain longer in the town was deemed a useless risk, as bad passions were rising on every side. The civil officers of the Company, with their wives and families, succeeded in making a safe retreat to Meerut; while Captain Whish, Captain Faddy, and other officers of the 29th, with the few remaining Europeans, laid their plans for a journey to Nynee Tal. All shared an opinion that if the Bareilly regiments had not mutinied, the 29th would have remained faithful – a poor solace, such as had been sought for by many other officials similarly placed. Mr Colvin afterwards accepted Mr Saunders’s motives and conduct in leaving the station, as justifiable under the trying circumstances.

Rohilcund contained three military stations, Bareilly, Mooradabad, and Shahjehanpoor – Boodayoun and the other places named being merely civil stations. As at Bareilly and Mooradabad, so at Shahjehanpoor; the native troops at the station rose in mutiny. On Sunday the 31st of May – a day marked by so many atrocities in India – the 28th native infantry rose, surrounded the Christian residents as they were engaged in divine worship in church, and murdered nearly the whole of them, including the Rev. Mr M’Callum in the sacred edifice itself. The few who escaped were exposed to an accumulation of miseries; first they sought shelter at Mohammerah in Oude; then they met the 41st regiment, after the mutiny at Seetapoor, who shot and cut them down without mercy; and scarcely any lived to tell the dismal tale to English ears.

Thus then it appears that, in Rohilcund, the 18th, 68th, 28th, and 29th regiments native infantry, together with the 8th irregular cavalry and a battery of native artillery, rose in revolt at the three military stations, and murdered or drove out nearly the whole of the Europeans from the entire province – European troops there were none; only officers and civilians. They plundered all the treasuries, containing more than a quarter of a million sterling, and marched off towards Delhi, five thousand strong – unmolested by the general who commanded at Meerut.

Nynee Tal became more crowded than ever with refugees from Oude and Rohilcund. Under the energetic command of Captain Ramsey, this hill-station remained in quiet during the month of May (p. 115 (#x_21_i22)); but it was not so easily defended in June. Some of the native artillery at Almora, not far distant, gave rise to uneasiness towards the close of the month; yet as the ill-doers were promptly put into prison, and as the Goorkhas remained stanch, confidence was partially restored. The sepoys from the rebel regiments dreaded a march in this direction, on account of the deadly character of the Terai, a strip of swampy forest, thirty miles broad, which interposes between the plains and the hills; but that jungle-land itself contained many marauders, who were only prevented by fear of the Goorkhas from going up to Nynee Tal. At the end of June, there were five times as many women and children as men among the Europeans at that place; hence the anxious eye with which the proceedings in surrounding districts were regarded.

The third region to which this chapter is appropriated – the Doab – now calls for attention. Like Oude and Rohilcund, it was the scene of terrible anarchy and bloodshed in the month of June. In its two parts – the Lower Doab, from Allahabad to a little above Furruckabad; and the Upper Doab, from the last-named city up to the hill-country – it was nearly surrounded by mutineers, who apparently acted in concert with those in the Doab itself.

Of Allahabad and Cawnpore, the two chief places in the Lower Doab, sufficient has been said in Chapters VIII. and IX. to trace the course of events during the month of June. About midway between the two is Futtehpoor, a small civil station in the centre of a group of Mohammedan villages; it contained, at the beginning of June, about a dozen civil servants of the Company, and a small detachment of the 6th native regiment from Allahabad. The residents, as a precautionary measure, had sent their wives and children to that stronghold, and had also arranged a plan for assembling at the house of the magistrate, if danger should appear. On the 5th of the month, disastrous news arriving from Lucknow and Cawnpore, the residents took up their abode for the night on the flat roof of the magistrate’s house, with their weapons by their sides; and on the following day they hauled up a supply of tents, provisions, water, and ammunition – a singular citadel being thus extemporised in the absence of better. On the 7th, their small detachment aided in repelling a body of troopers who had just arrived from Cawnpore on a plundering expedition; and the residents congratulated themselves on the fidelity of this small band. Their reliance was, however, of short duration; for, on the receipt of news of the Allahabad outbreak, the native officials in the collector’s office gave way, like the natives all around them, and Futtehpoor soon became a perilous spot for Europeans. On the 9th, the residents held a council on their roof, and resolved to quit the station. A few troopers befriended them; and they succeeded, after many perils and sufferings, in reaching Banda, a town southward of the Jumna. Not all of them, however. Mr Robert Tucker, the judge, resisting entreaty, determined to remain at his post to the last. He rode all over the town, promising rewards to those natives who would be faithful; he endeavoured to shame others by his heroic bearing; he appealed to the gratitude and good feeling of many of the poorer natives, who had been benefited by him in more peaceful times. But all in vain. The jail was broken open, the prisoners liberated, and the treasury plundered; and Mr Tucker, flying to the roof of the cutcherry, there bravely defended himself until a storm of bullets laid him low. Robert Tucker was one of those civilians of whom the Company had reason to be proud.

Advancing to the northwest, we come to a string of towns and stations – Etawah, Minpooree, Allygurh, Futteghur, Muttra, Bolundshuhur, Mozuffernugger, &c. – which shared with Oude and Rohilcund the wild disorders of the month of June. The mutiny at Futteghur has already engaged our notice (p. 133 (#x_23_i33)), in connection with the miserable fugitives who swelled the numbers put to death by Nena Sahib at Bithoor and Cawnpore. It needs little further mention here. The 10th native infantry, and a small body of artillery, long resisted the temptation held out by mutineers elsewhere; but, on the appearance of the insurgent regiments from Seetapoor, their fidelity gave way. Four companies went off with the treasure; the remainder joined the other mutinous regiments in besieging the fort to which so many Europeans had fled for refuge, and from which so disastrous a boat-voyage was made down the Ganges. Mr Colvin, at Agra, knew of the perilous state of things at Futteghur; he knew that a native nawab had been chosen by the mutineers as a sort of sovereign; but, as we shall presently see, he was too weak in reliable troops to afford any assistance whatever. Thus it happened that the two boat-expeditions, of June and July, ended so deplorably to the Europeans, and left Futteghur so wholly in the hands of the rebels. It was a great loss to the British in many ways; for most of the Company’s gun-carriages were made, or at least stored, at Futteghur; and the agency-yard was surrounded by warehouses containing a large supply of material belonging to the artillery service. Indeed it was this court-yard of the gun-carriage agency that constituted the fort, as soon as a few defensive arrangements had been made. Many circumstances had drawn rather a large English population to Futteghur; and hence the terrible severity of the tragedy. There were officers of the 10th regiment; other military officers on leave; gun-carriage agents; civil servants; merchants and dealers; a few tent-makers and other artisans; indigo-planters from the neighbouring estates; and many native Christians under the care of the American Presbyterian mission.

We have already seen (pp. 112 (#x_21_i13), 113 (#x_21_i15)) by how small a number of native troops several stations were set in commotion in May. The 9th regiment Bengal native infantry was separated into four portions, which were stationed at Allygurh, Bolundshuhur, Etawah, and Minpooree, respectively; and all mutinied nearly at the same time. The fortune of war, if war it can be called, at these stations during the month of June, may be traced in a very few words. It was on the 20th of May that the four companies at Allygurh mutinied; and on the 24th that one-half of Lieutenant Cockburn’s Gwalior troopers, instead of assisting him to retain or regain the station, rose in mutiny and galloped off to join the insurgents elsewhere. There were, however, about a hundred who remained faithful to him; and these, with fifty volunteers, made an advance to Allygurh, retook it, drove out the detachment of the 9th native regiment, released a few Europeans who had been in hiding there, captured one Rao Bhopal Singh, and hanged him as a petty chieftain who had continued the rapine begun by the sepoys. Throughout the month of June this station was maintained in British hands – not so much for its value in a military sense, as for its utility in keeping open the roads to Agra and Meerut; but, in the direction of Delhi, the volunteers could obtain very little news, the dâks being all cut off by the Goojurs and other predatory bands. At Minpooree the three companies of the 9th checked, it will be remembered, by the undaunted courage and tact of Lieutenant de Kantzow, departed to join the insurgents elsewhere; but Minpooree remained in British hands. The remaining companies mutinied at Etawah and Bolundshuhur without much violence.

Agra, when the narrative last left it (p. 111 (#x_21_i11)), had passed through the month of May without any serious disturbances. The troops consisted of the 44th and 67th regiments Bengal native infantry, the 3d Europeans, and a few artillery. After two companies of these native troops had mutinied while engaged in bringing treasure from Muttra to Agra, Mr Colvin deemed it necessary to disarm all the other companies; and this was quietly and successfully effected on the 1st of June, by the 3d Europeans and Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery. Many facts afterward came to light, tending to shew that if this disarming had not taken place, the 44th and 67th would have stained their hands with the same bloody deeds as the sepoys were doing elsewhere. The native lines had been more than once set on fire during the later days of May – in the hope, as afterwards appears, that the handful of Europeans, by rushing out unarmed to extinguish the flames, would afford the native troops a favourable opportunity to master the defences of the city, and the six guns of the field-battery. A curious proof was supplied of the little knowledge possessed by the Europeans of the native character, and the secret springs that worked unseen as moving powers for their actions. There had long seemed to be an angry feeling between the 44th and the 67th; and Mr Colvin, or the brigadier acting with him, selected one company from each regiment for the mission to Muttra, in the belief that each would act as a jealous check upon the other; instead of which, the two companies joined in revolt, murdered many of their officers, and carried off their treasure towards Delhi. After the very necessary disarming of the two regiments, the defence of this important city was left to the 3d European Fusiliers, Captain D’Oyley’s field-battery of six guns, and a corps of volunteer European cavalry under Lieutenant Greathed. Most of the disarmed men deserted, and swelled the ranks of the desperadoes that wrought so much ruin in the surrounding districts – a result that led many military officers to doubt whether disarming without imprisonment was a judicious course under such circumstances; for the men naturally felt exasperated at their humbled position, whether deserved or not; and their loyalty, as soldiers out of work, was not likely to be in any way increased. Whether or not this opinion be correct, the Europeans in Agra felt their only reliance to be in each other. During the early days of June, most of the ladies resorted at night to certain places of refuge allotted by the governor, such as the fort, the post-office, the office of the Mofussilite newspaper, and behind the artillery lines; while the gentlemen patrolled the streets, or maintained a defensive attitude at appointed places. Trade was continued, British supremacy was asserted, bloodshed was kept away from the city, and the Europeans maintained a steady if not cheerful demeanour. Nevertheless Mr Colvin was full of anxieties; he was responsible to the Calcutta government, not only for Agra, but for the whole of the Northwest Provinces; yet he found himself equally unable to send aid to other stations, and receive aid from them. Agra was troubled on the night of the 23d of June by the desertion of the jail-guard, to whom had been intrusted the custody of the large central prison. A guard from the 3d Europeans was thereupon placed on the outside; while the inside was guarded by another force under Dr Walker the superintendent. So far as concerned military disturbances within the city, Mr Colvin was not at that time under much apprehension; but he knew that certain regiments from Neemuch – the mutiny of which will be described in the next chapter – had approached by the end of the month to a point on the high road between Agra and Jeypoor, very near the first-named city; and he heard that they contemplated an attack. He estimated their strength at two regiments of infantry, four or five hundred cavalry, and eight guns; but as the whole of the civil and military authorities at Agra were on the alert, he did not regard this approaching force with much alarm. To strengthen his position, and maintain public confidence, he organised a European militia of horse and foot, among the clerks, railway men, &c., to which it was expected and desired that nearly all civilians should belong. This militia, placed under the management of Captains Prendergast and Lamb, Lieutenants Rawlins and Oldfield, and Ensign Noble, who had belonged to the disarmed native regiments, was divided into two corps, to which the defence of the different parts of the station was intrusted. How the Europeans, both military and civilians, became cooped up in the fort during July, we shall see in a future chapter.

Meerut, during June, remained in the hands of the British; but there was much inactivity on the part of the general commanding there, in relation to the districts around that town. On the 10th of May, when the mutiny began (p. 50 (#x_12_i11)), there were a thousand men of the 60th Rifles, six hundred of the Carabiniers, a troop of horse-artillery, and five hundred artillery recruits – constituting a force unusually large, in relation to the general distribution of English troops in India. Yet these fine soldiers were not so handled as to draw from them the greatest amount of service. They were not sent after the three mutinous regiments who escaped to Delhi; and during the urgent and critical need of Lawrence, Colvin, and Wheeler, Major-general Hewett kept his Europeans almost constantly in or near Meerut. It is true that he, and others who have defended him, asserted that the maintenance of the position at Meerut, a very important consideration, could not have been insured if he had marched out to intercept rebels going from various quarters towards Delhi; but this argument was not deemed satisfactory at Calcutta; Major-general Hewett was superseded, and another commander appointed in his place. It was not until June that dâks were re-established between Meerut and Agra on the one hand, and Meerut and Kurnaul on the other. Some of the Europeans were sent off to join the besieging army before Delhi; while a portion of the remainder were occasionally occupied in putting down bands of Goojurs and other predatory robbers around Meerut. The town of Sirdhana, where the Catholic nuns and children had been placed in such peril (p. 57 (#x_12_i31)), was too near Meerut to be held by the rebels. Early in June, one Wallee Dad Khan set himself up as subadar or captain-general of Meerut, under the King of Delhi; raised a rabble force of Goojurs; held the fort of Malagurh with six guns; and seized the district of Bolundshuhur. News arriving that he was advancing with his force towards Meerut, about a hundred European troops, Rifles and Carabiniers, with a few civilians and two guns, started off to intercept him. They had little work to do, however, except to burn villages held by the insurgents; for the robber Goojurs having quarrelled with the robber Jâts about plunder, the latter compelled Wallee Dud Khan and his general, Ismail Khan, to effect a retreat before the English came up. In the last week of the month the force at Meerut, chiefly in consequence of the number sent off to Delhi, was reduced to about eight hundred; these were kept so well on the alert, and the whole town and cantonment so well guarded, that the Europeans felt little alarm; although vexed that they could afford no further assistance to the besiegers of Delhi, nor even chastise a portion of the 4th irregular cavalry, who mutinied at Mozuffernugger. All the English, civilians and their families as well as military officers, lived at Meerut either in barracks or tents – none venturing to sleep beyond the immediate spot where the military were placed.

Simla, during these varied operations, continued to be a place where, as at Nynee Tal, ladies and children, as well as some of the officers and civilians, took refuge after being despoiled by mutineers. A militia was formed after the hasty departure of General Anson; Simla was divided into four districts under separate officers; and the gentlemen aided by a few English troops, defended those districts, throughout June. The people at the bazaar, and all the native servants of the place, were disarmed, and the arms taken for safe custody to Kussowlie.

Delhi – a place repeatedly mentioned in every chapter of this narrative – continued to be the centre towards which the attention of all India was anxiously directed. Fast as the native regiments mutinied in Bengal, Oude, Rohilcund, the Doab, Bundelcund, and elsewhere, so did they either flee to Delhi, or shape their course in dependence on the military operations going on there; and fast as the British troops could be despatched to that spot, so did they take rank among the besiegers. But in truth this latter augmentation came almost wholly from the Punjaub and other western districts. Lloyd, Neill, Wheeler, Lawrence, Hewett, Sibbald, were so closely engaged in attending to the districts around Dinapoor, Benares, Allahabad, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Meerut, and Bareilly, that they could not send aid to the besiegers of Delhi, during several weeks of siege operations. These operations will be noticed in systematic order, when the other threads of the narrative have been traced to the proper points. Meanwhile the reader will bear in mind that the siege of Delhi was in progress from the middle of June to an advanced period in the summer.

CHAPTER XI.

CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA: JUNE

In the political and territorial arrangements of the East India Company, the name of Central India is somewhat vaguely employed to designate a portion of the region lying between the Jumna and Bundelcund on the northeast, and the Nizam’s territory and Gujerat on the southwest; a designation convenient for general reading, without possessing any very precise acceptation. In the present chapter, we shall change the expression and enlarge the meaning so as to designate a belt of country that really forms Central India in a geographical sense, extending from Lower Bengal to Rajpootana, and separating Northern India from the southern or peninsular portion of the empire. This will carry the narrative into regions very little mentioned in former chapters – such as Nagpoor, the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, Bundelcund and Rewah, the Mahratta states and the Rajpoot states – regions that will be briefly described, so far as to render the proceedings of the native troops intelligible.

We begin with Nagpoor, a country now belonging to the British government, and considerably larger than England and Wales.

This province was acquired, not so much by conquest, as by one of those intricate arrangements concerning dynasty which have brought so many native states under British rule. It is in general an elevated country, containing many offshoots from the Vindhya range of mountains. Some parts of it, towards the southeast, have never been explored by Europeans, but are believed to be hilly, wooded, and full of jungles, inhabited by the semi-barbarous tribe of Ghonds. The remainder is better known and better cultivated; and being on the high road from Calcutta to Bombay, possesses much political importance. The population exceeds four millions and a half. Early in the last century, one of the Mahratta chieftains conquered Nagpoor from the rajahs who had before governed it; and he and his descendants, or other ambitious members of the Mahratta family, continued to hold it as Rajahs of Nagpoor or Berar. Although constantly fighting one with another, these Mahrattas were on fair terms with the East India Company until 1803, when, unluckily for the continuance of his rule, the native rajah joined Scindia in the war against the British. As a consequence, when peace was restored in 1804, he was forced to yield Cuttack and other provinces to the conquerors. In 1817, another Rajah of Nagpoor joined the Peishwa of the Mahrattas in hostilities against the British – a course which led to his expulsion from the raj, and to a further increase of British influence. Then followed a period during which one rajah was imbecile, another under age, and many unscrupulous chieftains sought to gain an ascendency one over another. This was precisely the state of things which rendered the British resident more and more powerful, setting up and putting down rajahs, and allowing the competitors to weaken the whole native rule by weakening each other. The history of British India may be almost told in such words as these. At length, in 1853, the last rajah, Ragojee, died – not only without heirs, but without any male relations who could support a legitimate claim to the raj. Thereupon, the governor-general quietly annexed this large country to the Company’s dominions. It will be remembered (p. 4 (#x_6_i7)) that the Marquis of Dalhousie, in his minute, despatched this subject in a very few lines; not asserting that the British had actually any right to the country; but ‘wisely incorporated it,’ as no one else could put in a legitimate claim for it, and as it would have been imprudent ‘to bestow the territory in free gift upon a stranger.’ The Nagpoor territory was placed under the management of a commissioner, who was immediately subordinate to the governor-general in council; seeing that the Bengal Presidency was already too large to have this considerable country attached to it for governmental purposes.

At and soon after the time of the outbreak, there were the 1st regiment irregular infantry, the Kamptee irregulars, an irregular horse-battery, and a body of European gunners, stationed in the city of Nagpoor, or in Kamptee, eleven miles distant; the 2d infantry and a detachment of the 1st were at Chandah; a detachment of the 1st at Bhandara; the chief portion of the 3d at Rajpoor; and the remainder of the same regiment at Bilaspoor. The arsenal, containing guns, arms, ammunition, and military stores of every description; and the treasury of the province, with a large amount of Company’s funds – were close to the city. Mr Plowden filled the office of commissioner at that period. With a mere handful of Europeans in the midst of a very extensive territory, he often trembled in thought for the safety of his position, and of British interests generally, in the region placed under his keeping. He had numerous native troops with him, and a large city under his control; if anything sinister should arise, he was far away from any extraneous aid – being nearly six hundred miles distant from Madras, and still further from Calcutta. But, whatever were his anxieties (and they were many), he put on a calm bearing towards the natives of Nagpoor. This city, the capital of the territory bearing the same name, is a dirty, irregular, straggling place, nearly seven miles in circumference. Most of the houses are mud-built; and even the palace of the late rajah is little more than a clumsy pile of unfinished masonry. The city has become rather famous for its banking business, and for its manufactures of cottons, chintzes, turbans, silks, brocades, woollens, blankets, tent-cloths, and other textile goods. The population exceeds a hundred thousand. There is nothing of a military appearance about the city; but whoever commands the Seetabuldee, commands Nagpoor itself. This Seetabuldee is a hilly ridge close to the city on the west, having two summits, the northern the higher, the southern the larger, but every part overlooking the city, and fortified. Such being the topographical position of his seat of government, Mr Plowden proceeded to disarm such of his troops as excited disquietude in his mind, and to strengthen the Seetabuldee. A corps of irregular cavalry shewed symptoms of disloyalty; and indeed rumours were afloat that on a particular day the ascent of a balloon was to be a signal for the revolt of the troops. Under these circumstances, Mr Plowden arranged with Colonel Cumberlege, the commandant, to disarm them on the morning of the 23d of June – the colonel having the 4th regiment of Madras cavalry, on whom he fully relied, to enforce the order for disbanding. The irregulars were paraded, mounted and fully armed, to shew that the authorities were not afraid of them. Mr Plowden having addressed them, they quietly gave up their arms and their saddles, which were taken in carts to the arsenal; and thus six hundred and fifty troopers were left with nothing but their bare horses, and ropes to picket them. Some of the men and of the native officers were arrested, and put on their trial for an attempt to excite mutiny. The roll was called over every four hours, and every native soldier absent, or found outside the lines without a pass, was treated as a deserter. The 1st regiment irregular infantry assisted in the disarming of the troopers. Following up the measures thus promptly taken, the commissioner strengthened the defences on the Seetabuldee hill, as a last refuge for the Europeans at Nagpoor in the event of any actual mutiny at that place. The Residency became a barrack at night for all the civil and military officers; and a watchful eye was kept on the natives generally. At present, all was safe in Nagpoor.

Another province, and another commissioner in charge of it, now come for notice. This province, bearing the rather lengthened name of the Saugor and Nerbudda Territories, is about half the size of England, and is bounded by the various provinces or regions of Nagpoor, Mirzapore, Allahabad, Banda, Bundelcund, Gwalior, Bhopal, and the Nizam’s state of Hyderabad. It corresponds more nearly with the exact centre of India than any other portion of territory. One half of its name is derived from the town of Saugor, the other half from the river Nerbudda. To describe the scraps and patches of which it consists, and the means by which they were acquired, would be neither easy nor necessary. Within its limits is the small independent state of Rewah, the rajah of which was bound to the British government by a treaty of alliance. Four other petty states – Kotee, Myhir, Oocheyra, and Sohawul – were in the hands of native chieftains, mere feudatories of the Company, under whose grants they held their possessions; allowed to govern their small sovereignties, but subject at any moment to the supervision and interference of the paramount power. The larger portion, now entirely British, is marked by the towns and districts of Saugor, Jubbulpoor, Hosungabad, Seuni, Nursingpore, Baitool, Sohagpoor, and others of less importance. There are still many aboriginal Ghonds in the province, as in Nagpoor, lurking in the gloomiest recesses of dense forests, and subsisting for the most part on wild roots and fruits. There are other half-savage tribes of Koles, Palis, and Panwars; while the more civilised population comprises a singular mixture of Brahmins, Bundelas, Rajpoots, Mahrattas, and Patans. The Mahrattas at one time claimed this region, on the same plea as those east and west of it – the right of conquest; and the British obtained it from the Mahrattas, about forty years ago, by cession after a course of hostilities.

Major Erskine was commissioner of the Saugor and Nerbudda territories during the early weeks of the mutiny; responsible, not immediately to the governor-general at Calcutta, but to the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces at Agra. Like Mr Plowden at Nagpoor, he felt how imperiled he and his fellow-Europeans would be if the native troops were to rebel. At Jhansi and at Nuseerabad, as we shall presently see, revolt and massacre marked the first week in June; and Major Erskine sought earnestly for means to prevent his own Saugor troops from being tempted to a similar course. He was with the 52d native infantry at Jubbulpoor. He wrote on the 9th of June to Brigadier Prior at Kamptee, praying him – while keeping that station and Seuni intact – to prevent, if possible, all news of the mutineers from passing to Jubbulpoor by that route; he feared lest his 52d should yield to the influence of pernicious example. Seuni was a small civil station, nearly midway between Jubbulpoor and Nagpoor, and about eighty miles distant from each; while Kamptee was a cantonment of Madras regulars, eleven miles north of Nagpoor. The four places named, in fact, stand nearly in a line north and south, and interpose between the Mahratta states and Lower Bengal. Mr Plowden at Nagpoor, Major Erskine at Jubbulpoor, and Brigadier Prior at Kamptee, thereupon concerted measures for preserving, so far as they could, that region of India from disturbance; they all three agreed that ‘tranquillity will be most effectually secured by crushing disaffection before it approaches too near to agitate men’s minds dangerously.’ One consequence of this arrangement was, that a force was sent on the 13th to Seuni, under Major Baker; consisting of the 32d native infantry, a squadron of the 4th light cavalry, a squadron of irregular cavalry, and three field-guns.

The Europeans at Jubbulpoor were not allowed to pass through the month of June without many doubts and anxieties. The native troops, though not actually in mutiny, were seized with a mingled feeling of fear and exasperation when European troops were mentioned; they were in perpetual apprehension, from the countless rumours at that time circulating throughout India, that Europeans were about to approach and disarm them, as degraded and distrusted men. Jubbulpoor is a large thriving town, which at the time of the mutiny contained a small cantonment for native troops, and a political agency subsidiary to that at Saugor. On one occasion, this report of the approach of European troops seized so forcibly on the minds of the sepoys, that the subadar-major, a trusted and influential man, lost all control over them; and they were not satisfied until their English colonel allowed two or three from each company to go out and scour the country, to satisfy themselves and the rest whether the rumour were true or false. On another occasion, one of the sepoys rose with a shout of ‘Death to the Feringhees,’ and endeavoured to bayonet the adjutant; but his companions did not aid him; and the authorities deemed it prudent to treat him as a madman, to be confined and not shot. When troops were marched from Kamptee to Seuni, in accordance with the arrangements mentioned in the last paragraph, the sepoys at Jubbulpoor were at once told of it, lest their excited minds should be again aroused on the subject of Europeans. Some of the English officers felt the humiliation involved in this kind of petting and pampering; but danger was around them, and they were obliged to temporise. A few ladies had been sent to Kamptee; all else remained with their husbands, seldom taking off their clothes at night, and holding themselves ready to flee at an hour’s warning. Such a state of affairs, though less perilous, was almost as mentally distressing as actual mutiny. As the month drew to a close, and the perpetual anxiety and expectation were becoming wearisome to all, the Europeans resolved to fortify the Residency. This they did, and moreover stored it with six months’ provision for about sixty persons, including thirty ladies and children; and for several civilians, who had also to be provided for.

Saugor was placed in some such predicament as Jubbulpoor; its European officers had much to plan, much to execute, to enable them to pass safely through the perils of the month of June. This town, the capital of the province in political matters, possessed a military cantonment on the borders of a lake on which the town stands; a large fort, which had been converted into an ordnance depôt; and a population of fifty thousand souls, chiefly Mahrattas. At the time of the outbreak, Brigadier Sage commanded the Saugor district force, and had under him the 31st and 42d native infantry regiments, a regiment of native cavalry, and about seventy European gunners. The fort, the magazine, and the battering-train were at one end of the cantonment; an eminence, called the Artillery Hill, was at the other end, three miles off; and the brigadier felt that if mutiny should occur, he would hardly be able to hold both positions. During many minor transactions in the district, requiring the presence of small detachments from Saugor, the temper of the troops was made sufficiently manifest; sometimes the 31st shewed bad symptoms, sometimes the 42d; two or three men were detected in plans for murdering their officers; and petty rajahs in the district offered the sepoys higher pay if they would change their allegiance. The European inhabitants of Saugor becoming very uneasy, the brigadier cleared out the fort, converted it into a place of refuge for women and children, supplied it with useful furniture and other articles, and succeeded in supplanting sepoys by Europeans in guard of the fort, the magazine, and the treasury. The fort being provisioned for six months, and the guns secured, Brigadier Sage felt himself in a position to adopt a resolute tone towards the native troops, without compromising the safety of the numerous persons congregated within it – comprising a hundred and thirty officers and civilians, and a hundred and sixty women and children, all the Europeans of the place. Thus ended June. It may simply be added here, that during the early part of the following month, the 31st and 42d regiments had a desperate fight, the former willing to be faithful, and the latter to mutiny. The brigadier, not feeling quite sure even of the 31st, would not place either his officers or his guns at their mercy, but he sent out of the fort a few men to aid them. The irregular cavalry joined the 42d; but both corps were ultimately beaten off by the 31st – to carry wild disorder into other towns and districts.[25 - A curious example was afforded, in relation to the affairs of Saugor, of the circuitous manner in which public affairs were conducted in India, when different officials were residing in different parts of that vast empire. The brigadier commanding the Saugor district adopted a certain course, in a time of peril, concerning the management of the troops under his command. He sent information of these proceedings to Neill at Allahabad (300 miles). Neill forwarded the information to Calcutta (500 miles). The military secretary to the government at Calcutta sent a dispatch to the adjutant-general of the army outside Delhi (900 miles), requesting him to ‘move’ the commander-in-chief to send a military message to Saugor (400 miles), calling upon the officer of that station to explain the motives for his conduct in the matter at issue. The explanation, so given, was to be sent 400 miles to Delhi, and then 900 miles to Calcutta; and lastly, if the conduct were not approved, a message to that effect would be sent, by any route that happened to be open for dâk, from Calcutta to Saugor.]

Without dwelling on minor mutinies at Dumoh and other places in the Saugor province, we will transfer our attention northward to Bundelcund; where Jhansi was the scene of a terrible catastrophe, and where riot and plunder were in the ascendant throughout the month of June. Bundelcund, the country of the Bundelas, affords a curious example of the mode in which a region became in past times cut up into a number of petty states, and then fell in great part into British hands. It is a strip of country, about half the size of Scotland, lying south or southwest of the Jumna, and separated by that river from the Doab. The country was in the hands of the Rajpoots until the close of the fourteenth century; when another tribe, the Bundelas, began a system of predatory incursions which led to their ultimate possession of the whole tract. Early in the last century there was a chief of Western Bundelcund tributary to the Great Mogul, and another in Eastern Bundelcund supported by the Mahrattas against that sovereign. How one chief rose against another, and how each obtained a patch of territory for himself, need not be told; it was only an exemplification of a process to which Asiatics have been accustomed from the earliest ages. About the close of the century, the East India Company began to obtain possession here, by conquest or by treaty; and in 1817, after a war with the Mahrattas, a large increase was made in this ownership. These are matters needful to be borne in mind here; for, though the country is but small, it now contains five or six districts belonging to the British, and nine native princedoms or rajahships; besides numerous petty jaghires or domains that may in some sense be compared to the smallest states of the Germanic confederation. At the time of the mutiny, the British districts were managed under the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces; while the ‘political superintendence,’ as it was called, of the native states was in the hands of an agent appointed by, and directly responsible to, the governor-general. With the principal native states, of which Jhansi was one, the British government had engagements, varying on minor points according to circumstances, but all recognising its supremacy, and binding the dependent state to the relinquishment of all political relations except with the superior power. Some were tributary; some exempt from that obligation. The chief towns in the portion of Bundelcund belonging to the British are Jhansi, Banda, and Jaloun.

Bundelcund, we have said, was the scene of much outrage, especially at Jhansi. This town, lying on the main route from Agra to Saugor, was much frequented in the last century by caravans of merchants who traded between the Doab and the Deccan; and it is still a prosperous commercial place, rendered conspicuous by the castellated residence of the former rajahs. The Jhansi mutiny was not followed by so many adventures and wanderings as that at other places – for a very mournful reason; nearly all the Europeans were at once put to death. A fort in the town had been previously supplied with food and ammunition, and had been agreed on as a place of refuge in time of danger. Major Skene and Captain Gordon, civil officers of the Company, received information which tended to shew that a petty chieftain near Jhansi was tampering with the troops; and Captain Dunlop, in command there, made what defensive preparations he could. Besides the fort in the town, there was one called the Star Fort in the cantonment, containing the guns and the treasure. The native troops – portions of the 12th infantry and of the 14th irregular cavalry, and a few artillery – rose on the afternoon of the 4th of June, seized the Star Fort, and shot at all the officers in the cantonment; many were killed, and the rest ran to the Town Fort, which they barricaded as well as they were able. The little garrison of Europeans then prepared for a siege; but it could be only of short duration, as the place was too weak to contend against the rebel besiegers. Musketry and sword-cuts (for the garrison often met their assailants hand to hand at the gates) brought down many; and some of the civilians, who tried to escape disguised as natives, were caught by the insurgents and killed. At last, when Captains Dunlop and Gordon, and many other officers had fallen, and when the remaining Europeans had become disheartened, by the scarcity of ammunition and of food, Major Skene accepted terms offered to him, on oath – that the whole of the garrison should be spared if he opened the gate and surrendered. The blood-thirsty villains soon shewed the value of the oath they had taken. They seized all – men, women, and children – and bound them in two rows to ropes, the men in one row and the women and children in the other. The whole were then deliberately put to death; the poor ladies stood with their infants in their arms, and their elder children clinging to their gowns; and when the husbands and fathers had been slaughtered, then came the other half of the tragedy. It is even said that the innocent children were cut in halves before their mothers’ eyes. One relief, and one only, marked the scene; there was not, so far as is known, torture and violation of women as precursors of death. The death-list was a sad one. Skene, Dunlop, Gordon, Ryves, Taylor, Campbell, Burgess, Turnbull – all were military officers in the Company’s service, employed either on military or civil duties; and all were killed. Twenty-four civil servants and non-commissioned officers likewise met with their death; and most painful of all, nineteen ladies and twenty-three children were butchered by the treacherous miscreants. Mr Thornton, the collector for a district between Jhansi and Cawnpore, was afterwards in a position to inform the government that the mutinous troops intended to have left Jhansi after they had captured the treasure; that a Bundelcund chieftainess, the Ranee of Jhansi, wishing to regain power in the district, bribed them with large presents to take the fort and put all the Europeans to death before they finally departed for Delhi; and that it was thus to a woman that was due the inhuman slaughtering of more than forty European ladies and children. One account, that reached the ears of officers at other stations, was to the effect that when Major Skene became aware of the miscreant treachery, he kissed his wife, shot her, and then shot himself, to avert apprehended atrocities worse than death; while another narrative or rumour represented the murderers as having chopped off the heads of the victims, instead of merely shooting them; but, in truth, the destruction was so complete that scarcely one was left to tell the tale except natives, who contradicted each other in some of the particulars.

Jhansi of course soon became a prey to lawless marauders; while the mutineers marched off to Delhi or elsewhere. Lieutenant Osborne, at Rewah, was placed in a difficult position at that time. Rewah is a small Rajpoot state, ruled by a native rajah, who is bound by treaties with the British government, and who has a British agent as resident at his court. Rewah was nearly surrounded by mutinous districts, such as Benares, Allahabad, Futtehpoor, Jhansi, Saugor, and Jubbulpoor; and it became a difficult problem for Lieutenant Osborne, the British agent, how to keep wild disorder away from that place. On the 8th of June, by an energetic use of his influence, he was able to announce that the Maharajah of Rewah had placed his troops at the disposal of the government; that the offer had been accepted; and that eight hundred of those troops, with two guns, had been sent off to Ummapatan, a place which commanded the roads to Jubbulpoor, Nagode, and Saugor – ready to oppose insurgents from any of those towns, and to intercept communication with other mutinous towns on the Jumna. He also sent eleven hundred of the Maharajah’s troops, with five guns, to Kuttra Pass: a spot whence a rapid advance could be made to Benares, Chunar, or Mirzapore, according as military exigencies might render desirable. A week later, he obtained permission from the Maharajah to send seven hundred troops to Banda; and at the same time to issue a proclamation, promising rewards to any of his soldiers who should distinguish themselves by their gallantry and fidelity. With no higher military rank than that of lieutenant did this active officer thus lay plans, not only for the peace of the Rewah territory itself, but also in aid of the Company’s officers all around him. His position at a later date was very perilous.

If the destruction of life was less at Nowgong than at Jhansi, the proceedings of mutinous troops were followed by much more adventure and varied interest. Nowgong or Nowgaon is situated about a hundred miles southeast of the last-named town, but, like it, in the Bundelcund territory. At the beginning of June there were stationed at that place about four hundred men of the 12th native infantry, and rather over two hundred of the 14th irregular cavalry – wings of the same two regiments as at Jhansi; together with a company of the 9th battalion of artillery, and a light field bullock-battery. Major Kirke, commanding the station, had in earlier weeks often discussed the cartridge question with his men, and believed he had removed from their minds all misgivings on that unfortunate subject. Nevertheless, as June approached, the major deemed the appearance of affairs so suspicious, that he made such precautionary arrangements as were practicable to resist an outbreak. Bungalows were now and then discovered to be in flames, without any means of detecting the incendiaries. When the atrocities at Meerut and elsewhere became known, the troops stationed at Nowgong made ardent demonstrations of loyalty – so ardent, that Kirke almost upbraided himself for his momentary distrust of them; the infantry embraced their colours, the artillery embraced their guns, and all asserted their burning desire to chastise the rebels who had proved faithless to the Company Bahadoor. So late as the 6th of June, even while whisperings and ominous signs were passing between them, these unreliable men sent in a grandiloquent petition, in which they said: ‘As it is necessary to avenge the government on those cowardly rascals who now, in Delhi and other places, are exciting rebellion, and for which purpose many European regiments are being despatched; we, hearing of this, are exceedingly desirous that we be sent as volunteers to chastise these scoundrels. And that we may shew from our hearts our faithfulness, we are ready to go wherever sent’ – and more to the same purpose. This petition or address was presented to Major Kirke by the wing of the 12th regiment. On that same day news arrived that the other wing of the same regiment had mutinied at Jhansi; and the Neemuch men, either with childish indecision or with profound duplicity, sent off a letter to them, reproving them for their insubordination! On the 10th, a petition was presented by the commandant of the artillery (4th company, 9th battalion), couched in similar language; demanding that the artillery might be sent against the rebels; ‘in order,’ as the petition averred, ‘that we may fulfil the wish of our hearts by shewing our bravery and loyalty.’

Never were words uttered more hollow and treacherous. By nightfall on that same 10th of June, the native troops at Nowgong were nearly all rebels, and the Europeans nearly all fugitives. A few hours sufficed to shew the English officers that they were powerless to contend against their opponents. Flight commenced. The officers and civilians, with their families, and Europeans of humbler station, all took their departure from Nowgong – some in buggies, some on horseback, and some on foot; but all equally reft of their worldly property. Were it not that this Chronicle has already contained examples, mournfully numerous, of similar wanderings over the scorching roads and through the thick jungle of India, the fate of the Nowgong party might afford materials for a very exciting narrative; but with the reader’s experience on this matter, a few lines of description will suffice. The party was a large one. It comprised Major Kirke, Captain Scot, Lieutenants Townshend, Jackson, Remington, Ewart, Franks, and Barber, about forty other Europeans of both sexes and all ages, and about ninety sepoys of the mutinous infantry, who had not joined their brethren. The fugitives lessened in number every day; some or other of them sank under the heat and fatigue; while the sepoys deserted when they approached towns where insurgents were in the ascendant. Either collectively or separately the wanderers found themselves on different days at Chutterpore, at Logassee, at Churkaree, at Mahoba, at Callingurh, at Kabrai, at Banda – places mostly belonging to petty rajahs of Bundelcund. The principal survivors of the party were about ten or twelve days on the roads and fields, before they reached friendly quarters at Banda. On one occasion they were attacked by a band of marauders, and had to buy security with rupees; on another, their sepoys were seized with a panic, and ran off in large numbers; on a third, a body of matchlockmen suddenly confronted them, and shot down Lieutenant Townshend. On one part of the journey, Captain Scot found himself in the midst of a distressing group of women and children: having poor Townshend’s horse with him, he loaded both horses with as many as he could carry; but it made him heart-sick to see the others fall away one by one, utterly broken down by fatigue, and with insufficient men to help them along – for the flight appears to have been wanting in every semblance of organisation. A bandsman’s wife dropped dead through a sun-stroke; then an artillery sergeant, worn out, went into a hut to die. Captain Scot came up with a lady and her child, reeling along the road as if delirious; he readjusted his horse-load, took up the fugitives, and the lady very speedily died in his arms. Shortly after this a fine hale sergeant-major sank, to rise no more; Major Kirke died through a sun-stroke; and others dropped off in a similar way. Dr Mawe died from illness and fatigue; and then his wife, while laving her blistered feet in a pool, was set upon by ruffians and robbed of the little she had about her. Captain Scot, after many changes in his horse-load, took up Dr Mawe’s child; and ‘little Lotty,’ of two years’ old, seemed to him a blessing rather than a burden; for on the few occasions when he met friendly natives, their friendship was generally gained for him by the sight of the little girl, whose head he endeavoured to shield from the burning sun by a portion of his shirt – the only resource for one who had lost both hat and coat, and whose own head was nearly driven wild by the intense solar heat. It is pleasant to know that the captain and ‘little Lotty’ were among the few who reached a place of safety.

Banda was another of the stations affected; but the details of its troubles need not be traced here. Suffice it to say that, on the 14th of June, there was a mutiny of a detachment of native infantry, and a few troops belonging to the Nawab of Banda – a titular prince, possessing no political power, but enjoying a pension from the Company, and having a sort of honorary body-guard of native troops. The officers and their families were at first in great peril; but the nawab aided them in making a safe retreat to Nagode. On the 16th of June, Major Ellis had to announce to the government that his station at Nagode was beginning to be filled with anxious fugitives from Banda, Futtehpoor, Humeerpoor, and Ameerpoor; comprising military officers, magistrates, salt-agents, revenue servants, railway officials, and private persons. Twenty-eight of these fugitives arrived on one day. He sent to many petty chieftains of Bundelcund, who were pensioners under the Company or had treaties with it, to exert themselves to the utmost in recovering all property seized during the events of the preceding two or three days in the Banda district. Major Ellis at Nagode, and Mr Mayne at Banda, applied earnestly to Calcutta for military assistance; but they were told plainly that none could be sent to them, every European soldier being needed in the Ganges and Jumna regions.

It now becomes necessary, on removing the scene further to the west, to know something concerning the Mahrattas, their relations to the two great families of Scindia and Holkar, the conventions existing between those two families and the British government, and the military arrangements of the Mahratta territories at the time of the outbreak. These matters can be rendered intelligible without any very lengthened historical narrative.

After the death of the Emperor Aurungzebe, a century and a half ago, India was distracted and impoverished by the contentions of his sons and descendants; each of whom, in claiming the throne, secured the partisanship of powerful nobles, and the military aid of fighting-men in the pay of those nobles. A civil war of terrible kind was the natural result; and equally natural was it that other chieftains, in nowise related to the imperial family, should take advantage of the anarchy to found dynasties for themselves. One such chieftain was Sevajee, a Mahratta in the service of the King of Bejapore, in the southern part of India. The Mahrattas were (and are) a peculiar tribe of Hindoos, more fierce and predatory than most of their fellow-countrymen. Long before Europeans settled in India, the Mahrattas were the chief tribe in the region north, south, and east of the present city of Bombay. After many struggles against the competitors for the throne of Delhi, the Mahrattas were left in possession of a sovereign state, of which Satara and Poonah were the chief cities. From 1707 till 1818, the nominal sovereign or rajah of the Mahrattas had no real power; he was a sort of state or honorary prisoner, confined in the hill-fortress of Satara; while the government was administered by the Peishwa or prime minister, whose office became hereditary in a particular family, and whose seat of government was at Poonah. After many Peishwas had held this singular kind of sovereignty at the one city – the nominal rajah being all the time powerless at the other – circumstances occurred which led to an intermeddling of the East India Company with Mahratta politics, followed by the usual results. Narrain Rao Peishwa was murdered in 1773; many relations of the murdered man competed for the succession; and as the Company greatly desired to possess the island of Salsette and the town of Bassein, at that time belonging to the Mahrattas, it was soon seen that this wish might be gratified by aiding one competitor against another. Battles and intrigues followed, ending in the possession of the two coveted places by the British, and in the appointment of a British resident at the Peishwa’s court at Poonah. Thus matters remained until 1817, when the Peishwa engaged in intrigues with other Mahratta chiefs against the British; a course that led to his total overthrow after a few fierce contests in the field. The Mahratta sovereignty at Poonah was entirely put an end to, except a small principality assigned to the Rajah of Satara, the almost forgotten representative of the founder of the Mahratta rule. The British took all the remaining territory, pensioning off the Peishwa; and as to Satara, after several rajahs had reigned, under the close control of the British resident at that city, the principality ‘lapsed’ in 1848, in default of legitimate male heirs – a lapse that led to the preparation of many ponderous blue books concerning the grievances and complaints of a certain adopted son of the last rajah.

Thus much for the south Mahratta country, having Poonah and Satara for its chief cities; but the British have had fully as much to do with the northern portion of the Mahratta region, represented by the two cities of Gwalior and Indore, and held by the two great Mahratta families of Scindia and Holkar. As the Peishwas in past years cared little for the nominal head of the Mahrattas at Satara, so did the Scindias and Holkars care little for the Peishwas. Each chieftain endeavoured to become an independent sovereign. The Scindia family is traceable up to the year 1720, when Ranojee Scindia was one of the dependents of the Peishwa. From that year, by predatory expeditions and by intrigues, the successive heads of the Scindia family became more and more powerful – contending in turn against the Mogul, the Rajpoots, the Peishwa, and the British; until at length, in 1784, Madhajee Scindia was recognised as an independent sovereign prince, with the hill-fortress of Gwalior as his stronghold and seat of government. In 1794, when Madhajee died, the Scindia dominions extended from beyond Delhi on the north to near Bombay on the south, and from the Ganges to Gujerat – a vast region, held and acquired by means as atrocious as any recorded in the history of India. Early in the present century, the power of the Scindia family received a severe check. Hostilities having broken out with the British, Sir Arthur Wellesley (afterwards Duke of Wellington) defeated Dowlut Rao Scindia at Assaye in 1803, while Lord Lake drove the Mahrattas from the whole of the Doab. Many desperate wars occurred in later years, ending, in 1844, by a treaty which left Bajerut Rao Scindia king or rajah of a state barely equalling England in area, with Gwalior as his capital. A contingent or body of troops was to be supplied by him for the service of the British, beyond which he was permitted to have an independent army of nine thousand men; and there were numerous minor details which gave much influence to the British resident at Gwalior.

Of the family of Holkar, almost the same account may be given as of that of Scindia; inasmuch as it has sprung from a Mahratta leader who acquired power a century and a half ago. The city of Indore has always been the centre of dominion belonging to this family – a dominion extending over a very wide region at some periods, but greatly contracted in recent times. The ruler of the Indore territory at the time of the mutiny was one Mulkerjee Holkar, who had been appointed by the Calcutta government at a time of disputed succession, in such a way as to imply that the territory might pass into British hands whenever the Company chose. Holkar’s territory is now much smaller than Scindia’s, scarcely exceeding Wales in area.

It will suffice, then, to bear in mind that the southern Mahratta power, that of the courts of Poonah and Satara, had wholly fallen into British hands before the time of the mutiny; and that the northern power, held by the courts of Gwalior and Indore, extended over a country no larger than England and Wales united. Nevertheless, considering that that portion of central India is bounded by Bundelcund, the Doab, Rajpootana, Gujerat, the Nizam’s dominions, and the Saugor and Nerbudda territories, it was of much importance to the British that Scindia and Holkar should remain faithful to their alliances at a critical period.

Although Nuseerabad is properly in Rajpootana, of which a few words of description will be given shortly, the mutiny at that place may conveniently be treated here; because it was a link in a chain which successively affected Neemuch, Indore, Mhow, and Gwalior.

Nuseerabad is near Ajmeer, the chief town of a British district surrounded by the dominions of independent or semi-independent rajahs. Ajmeer, though far smaller than most of the principal cities in India, is an ancient and important place, about two hundred and sixty miles southwest of Delhi; at the time of the mutiny, it was the seat of a British political agency; and in a ruined palace of the Emperor Akbar, converted into an arsenal, was a powder-magazine. Nuseerabad, fifteen miles from Ajmeer, may be regarded as the military station for that city, and for the neighbouring British districts; it had an extensive and well-laid-out cantonment, and was the head-quarters of the corps known as the Rajpootana Field-force. Nuseerabad had been nearly drained of troops early in the year, on account of the Persian expedition; but this gap was afterwards partially filled up. In the month of May there were at the station the 1st regiment Bombay lancers, the 15th and 30th Bengal native infantry, and the 2d company of the 7th battalion of Bengal native artillery. An instructive fact was made manifest; the Bombay troops remained faithful, while those of the Bengal army became first restless, then mutinous, then murderous. Unfortunately, the good were not strong enough to coerce the bad; the Bombay lancers numbered only two hundred and fifty sabres. The month of May had not closed when the disturbances at Nuseerabad began. The officers had been nightly in the habit of sleeping with revolvers and swords near at hand; while the Bombay lancers patrolled the cantonment – so suspicious were the symptoms observed. On the evening of the 28th a servant rushed into the bungalow of one of the lieutenants of the 15th infantry, announcing that the regiment had risen. The officers hastened to the lines, and there found the regiment drawn up in companies – the martial array being maintained in mutiny as it had been in regular drill. The men looked sternly at their officers; and soon worse news arrived. The native artillerymen who worked the six guns joined the revolters – not actually firing on the officers, but ready to do so. The Englishmen connected with the two regiments were a mere handful; they were powerless, for none of the sepoys would aid them against the rest. Colonel Penny, in command of the Bombay lancers, instantly hastened down, armed and mounted his troopers, and drew them up into position. Galloping to the artillery lines, and finding the guns pointed against him, he immediately ordered a charge for capturing them, each troop charging in succession. Captain Spottiswoode began, and soon fell mortally wounded; other officers led subsequent charges, but the guns could not be taken. Penny then felt obliged to relinquish this attempt, and to hold himself in readiness to check the mutineers in other ways; but as the two regiments of native infantry refused to listen to their officers, nothing was left but flight. Cornet Newberry, as well as Captain Spottiswoode, fell while charging; Colonel Penny became suddenly ill and died in a few hours; while two or three other officers were wounded. How perilous were those cavalry-charges against the six guns may be judged from a letter written by one of the officers: ‘I galloped towards the guns, and must have been eighty or a hundred yards from them when I began to experience the unpleasant sensation of bullets whizzing past my head, and saw a lot of sepoys taking shots at me as I came along. I immediately turned my pony’s head, and endeavoured to retreat under cover of a wall which ran in front of the artillery lines. Here I saw more men running up with the kind intention of having a crack at me; so I had to keep along the parade-ground right in the line of fire, and had one or two men popping at me from over the wall on my right. My tât (pony) went as fast as ever he could go, and, thanks be to God, carried me back in perfect safety… Off we started towards the cavalry lines amid showers of bullets. I dodged round the first bell of arms; and as I passed the bells, saw three or four men behind each, who deliberately shot at us as we passed.’ The ladies had been sent off from the station just in time. The surviving officers joined them beyond the cantonment about nightfall, and then all hastened away. They rode forty miles during the night, on roads and fields and rocky hills, and reached a place of safety, Beaur or Beawur, towards noon – hungry, tired, and reft of everything but the clothes on their backs.