From Egypt to Japan

But what if a wild elephant should come out upon us? In general, I believe these are quiet and peaceable beasts, but they are subject to a kind of madness which makes them untamable. A "rogue elephant" – one who has been tamed, and afterwards goes back to his savage state – is one of the most dangerous of wild beasts. When the Prince of Wales was hunting in the Terai with Sir Jung Bahadoor, an alarm was given that a rogue elephant was coming, and they pushed the Prince up into a tree as quickly as possible, for the monster has no respect to majesty. Mrs. Woodside told me that they once had a servant who asked to go home to visit his friends. On his way he lay down at the foot of a tree, and fell asleep, when a rogue elephant came along, and took him up like a kitten, and crushed him in an instant, and threw him on the roadside.

The possibility of such an adventure was quite enough to keep our imagination in lively exercise. Our friends had told us that there was no danger with flaming torches, although we might perhaps hear a distant roar on the mountains, or an elephant breaking through the trees. We listened intently. When the men were moving on in silence, we strained our ears to catch any sound that might break the stillness of the forest. If a branch fell from a tree, it might be an elephant coming through the wood. If we could not see, we imagined forms gliding in the darkness. Even the shadows cast by the starlight took the shapes that we dreaded. Hush! there is a stealthy step over the fallen leaves. No, it is the wind whispering in the trees. Thus was it all night long. If any wild beasts glared on us out of the covert, our flaming torches kept them at a respectful distance. We did not hear the tramp of an elephant, the growl of a tiger, or even the cry of a jackal.

But though we had not the excitement of an adventure, the scene itself was wild and weird enough. We were entirely alone, with more than a dozen men, with not one of whom we could exchange a single word, traversing a mountain pass, with miles of forest and jungle separating us from any habitation. Our attendants were men of powerful physique, whose swarthy limbs and strange faces looked more strange than ever by the torchlight. Once in seven or eight miles they set down their burden. We halted at a camp fire by the roadside, where a fresh relay was waiting. There our fourteen men were swelled to twenty-eight. Then the curtain of my couch was gently drawn aside, a black head was thrust in, and a voice whispered in the softest of tones "Sahib, backsheesh!" Then the new bearers took up their load, and jogged on their way.

I must say they did very well. The motion was not unpleasant. The dooley rested not on two poles, but on one long bamboo, three or four inches in diameter, at each end of which two men braced themselves against each other, and moved forward with a swinging gait, a kind of dog trot, which they accompanied with a low grunt, which seemed to relieve them, and be a way of keeping time. Their burdens did not fatigue them much – at least they did not groan under the load, but talked and laughed by the way. Nor were luxuries forgotten. One of the men carried a hooka, which served for the whole party, being passed from mouth to mouth, with which the men, when off duty, refreshed themselves with many a puff of the fragrant weed.

Thus refreshed they kept up a steady gait of about three miles an hour through the night. At length the day began to break. As we approached the end of our journey the men picked up speed, and I thought they would come in on a run. Glad were we to come in sight of Saharanpur. At ten o'clock we entered the Mission Compound, and drew up before the door of "Calderwood Padre," who, as he saw me stretched out at full length, "like a warrior taking his rest," if not "with his martial cloak around him," yet with his Scotch plaid shawl covering "his manly breast," declared that I was "an old Indian!"

CHAPTER XVI

THE TRAGEDY OF CAWNPORE

The interest of India is not wholly in the far historic past. Within our own times it has been the theatre of stirring events. In coming down from Upper India, we passed over the "dark and bloody ground" of the Mutiny – one of the most terrible struggles of modern times – a struggle unrelieved by any of the amenities of civilized warfare. On the banks of the Ganges stands a dull old city, of which Bayard Taylor once wrote: "Cawnpore is a pleasant spot, though it contains nothing whatever to interest the traveller." That was true when he saw it, twenty-four years ago. It was then a "sleepy" place. Everything had a quiet and peaceful look. The river flowed peacefully along, and the pretty bungalows of the English residents on its banks seemed like so many castles of indolence, as they stood enclosed in spacious grounds, under the shade of trees, whose leaves scarcely stirred in the sultry air. But four years after that American traveller had passed, that peaceful river ran with Christian blood, and that old Indian town witnessed scenes of cruelty worse than that of the Black Hole of Calcutta, committed by a monster more inhuman than Surajah Dowlah. The memory of those scenes now gives a melancholy interest to the place, such as belongs to no other in India.

It was midnight when we reached Cawnpore (we had left Saharanpur in the morning), and we were utter strangers; but as we stepped from the railway carriage, a stalwart American (Rev. Mr. Mansell of the Methodist Mission) came up, and calling us by name, took us to his home, and "kindly entreated us," and the next morning rode about the city with us to show the sadly memorable places.

The outbreak of the Mutiny in India in 1857, took its English rulers by surprise. They had held the country for a hundred years, and thought they could hold it forever. So secure did they feel that they had reduced their army to a minimum. In the Russian war, regiment after regiment was called home to serve in the Crimea, till there were left not more than twenty thousand British troops in all India – an insignificant force to hold such a vast dependency; and weakened still more by being scattered in small bodies over the country, with no means of rapid concentration. There was hardly a railroad in India. All movements of troops had to be made by long marches. Thus detached and helpless, the military power was really in the hands of the Sepoys, who garrisoned the towns, and whom the English had trained to be good soldiers, with no suspicion that their skill and discipline would ever be turned against themselves.

This was the opportunity for smothered discontent to break out into open rebellion. There had long been among the people an uneasy and restless feeling, such as is the precursor of revolution – a ground swell, which sometimes comes before as well as after a storm. It was just a hundred years since the battle of Plassey (fought June, 1757), which decided the fate of India, and it was whispered that when the century was complete, the English yoke should be broken, and India should be free. The Crimean war had aroused a spirit of fanaticism among the Mohammedans, which extended across the whole of Asia, and fierce Moslems believed that if the English were but driven out, there might be a reconstruction of the splendid old Mogul Empire. This was, therefore, a critical moment, in which the defenceless state of India offered a temptation to rebellion. Some there were (like the Lawrences – Sir John in the Punjaub, and Sir Henry in Lucknow) whose eyes were opened to the danger, and who warned the government. But it could not believe a rebellion was possible; so that when the storm burst, it was like a peal of thunder from a clear sky.

Thus taken by surprise, and off their guard, the English were at a great disadvantage. But they quickly recovered themselves, and prepared for a desperate defence. In towns where the garrisons were chiefly of native troops, with only a small nucleus of English officers and soldiers, the latter had no hope of safety, but to rally all on whom they could rely, and retreat into the forts, and hold out to the last. Such a quick movement saved Agra, where Sir William Muir told me, he and hundreds of refugees with him, passed the whole time of the mutiny, shut up in the fort. The same promptness saved Allahabad. But in Delhi, where the rising took place a few days before, the alarm was not taken quickly enough; the Sepoys rushed in, shooting down their officers, and made themselves masters of the fort and the city, which was not retaken till months after, at the close of a long and terrible siege.

At Cawnpore there was no fort. Sir Hugh Wheeler, who was in command, had three or four thousand troops, but not one man in ten was an English soldier. The rest were Sepoys, who caught the fever of disaffection, and marched off with horses and guns. Mustering the little remnant of his force, he threw up intrenchments on the parade-ground, into which he gathered some two hundred and fifty men of different regiments. Adding to these "civilians" and native servants, and the sick in the hospital, there were about 300 more, with 330 women and children. The latter, of course, added nothing to the strength of the garrison, but were a constant subject of care and anxiety. But with this little force he defended himself bravely for several weeks, beating off every attack of the enemy. But he was in no condition to sustain a siege; his force was becoming rapidly reduced, while foes were swarming around him. In this extremity, uncertain when an English army could come to his relief, he received a proposal to surrender, with the promise that all – men, women, and children – should be allowed to depart in safety, and be provided with boats to take them down the Ganges to Allahabad. He did not listen to these smooth promises without inward misgivings. He was suspicious of treachery; but the case was desperate, and Nana Sahib, who up to the time of the Mutiny had protested great friendship for the English, took a solemn oath that they should be protected. Thus tempted, they yielded to the fatal surrender.

The next morning, June 27th, those who were left of the little garrison marched out of their intrenchments, and were escorted by the Sepoy army on their way to the boats. The women and children and wounded were mounted on elephants, and thus conveyed down to the river. With eagerness they embarked on the boats that were to carry them to a place of safety, and pushed off into the stream. At that moment a native officer who stood on the bank raised his sword, and a masked battery opened on the boats with grape-shot. Instantly ensued a scene of despair. Some of the boats sunk, others took fire, and men, women, and children, were struggling in the water. The Mahratta horsemen pushed into the stream, and cut down the men who tried to save themselves (only four strong swimmers escaped), while the women and children were spared to a worse fate. All the men who were brought back to the shore were massacred on the spot, in the presence of this human tiger, who feasted his eyes with their blood; and about two hundred women and children were taken back into the town as prisoners, in deeper wretchedness than before. They were kept in close confinement nearly three weeks in dreadful uncertainty of their fate, till the middle of July, when Havelock was approaching by forced marches; and fearful that his prey should escape, Nana Sahib gave orders that they should be put to death. No element of horror was wanting in that fearful tragedy. Says one who saw the bodies the next day, and whose wife and children were among those who perished:

"The poor ladies were ordered to come out, but neither threats nor persuasions could induce them to do so. They laid hold of each other by dozens, and clung so close that it was impossible to separate them, or drag them out of the building. The troopers therefore brought muskets, and after firing a great many shots from the doors and windows, rushed in with swords and bayonets. [One account says that, as Hindoos shrink from the touch of blood, five Mohammedan butchers were sent in to complete the work.] Some of the helpless creatures, in their agony, fell down at the feet of their murderers, clasped their legs, and begged in the most pitiful manner to spare their lives, but to no purpose. The fearful deed was done most deliberately, and in the midst of the most dreadful shrieks and cries of the victims. From a little before sunset till candlelight was occupied in completing the dreadful deed. The doors of the building were then locked up for the night, and the murderers went to their homes. Next morning it was found, on opening the doors, that some ten or fifteen women, with a few of the children, had managed to escape from death by falling and hiding under the murdered bodies of their fellow-prisoners. A fresh order was therefore sent to murder them also; but the survivors, not being able to bear the idea of being cut down, rushed out into the compound, and seeing a well, threw themselves into it without hesitation, thus putting a period to lives which it was impossible for them to save. The dead bodies of those murdered on the preceding evening were then ordered to be thrown into the same well, and 'jullars' were employed to drag them along like dogs."[6 - "Narrative of Mr. Shepherd." He owed his escape to the fact that before the surrender of the garrison he had made an attempt to pass through the rebel lines and carry word to Allahabad to hasten the march of troops to its relief, and had been taken and thrown into prison, and was there at the time of the massacre.]

The next day after the massacre, Havelock entered the city, and officers and men rushed to the prison house, hoping to be in time to save that unhappy company of English women and children. But what horrors met their sight! Not one living remained. The place showed traces of the late butchery. The floors were covered with blood. "Upon the walls and pillars were the marks of bullets, and of cuts made by sword-strokes, not high up as if men had fought with men, but low down, and about the corners, where the poor crouching victims had been cut to pieces." "Locks of long silky hair, torn shreds of dress, little children's shoes and playthings, were strewn around."

The sight of these things drove the soldiers to madness. "When they entered the charnel house, and read the writing on the walls [sentences of wretchedness and despair], and saw the still clotted blood, their grief, their rage, their desire for vengeance, knew no bounds. Stalwart, bearded men, the stern soldiers of the ranks, came out of that house perfectly unmanned, utterly unable to repress their emotions." Following the track of blood from the prison to the well, they found the mangled remains of all that martyred company. There the tender English mother had been cast with every indignity, and the child still living thrown down to die upon its mother's breast. Thus were they heaped together, the dying and the dead, in one writhing, palpitating mass.

Turning away from this ghastly sight, the soldiers asked only to meet face to face the perpetrators of these horrible atrocities. But the Sepoys, cowardly as they were cruel, fled at the approach of the English. Those who were taken had to suffer for the whole. "All the rebel Sepoys and troopers who were captured, were collectively tried by a drumhead court-martial, and hanged." But for such a crime as the cold-blooded murder of helpless women and children, death was not enough – it should be death accompanied by shame and degradation. The craven wretches were made to clean away the clotted blood – a task peculiarly odious to a Hindoo. Says General Neill:

"Whenever a rebel is caught, he is immediately tried, and unless he can prove a defence, he is sentenced to be hanged at once; but the chief rebels, or ringleaders, I make first clear up a certain portion of the pool of blood, still two inches deep in the shed where the fearful murder and mutilation of women and children took place. To touch blood is most abhorrent to the high-caste natives; they think by doing so, they doom their souls to perdition. Let them think so. My object is to inflict a fearful punishment for a revolting, cowardly, and barbarous deed, and to strike terror into these rebels.

"The first I caught was a subahdar, or native officer – a high-caste Brahmin, who tried to resist my order to clean up the very blood he had helped to shed; but I made the provost-marshal do his duty, and a few lashes made the miscreant accomplish his task. When done, he was taken out and immediately hanged, and after death, buried in a ditch at the roadside. No one who has witnessed the scenes of murder, mutilation, and massacre, can ever listen to the word mercy, as applied to these fiends.

"Among other wretches drawn from their skulking places, was the man who gave Nana Sahib's orders for the massacre. After this man's identity had been clearly established, and his complicity in directing the massacre proved beyond all doubt, he was compelled, upon his knees, to cleanse up a portion of the blood yet scattered over the fatal yard, and while yet foul from his sickening task, hung like a dog before the gratified soldiers, one of whom writes: 'The collector who gave the order for the murder of the poor ladies, was taken prisoner day before yesterday, and now hangs from a branch of a tree about two hundred yards off the roadside.'"

What became of Nana Sahib after the Mutiny, is a mystery that probably will never be solved. If he lived he sought safety in flight. Many of the Mutineers took refuge in the jungle. The Government kept up a hunt for him for years. Several times it was thought that he was discovered. Only a year or two ago a man was arrested, who was said to be Nana Sahib, but it proved to be a case of mistaken identity. In going up from Delhi we rode in the same railway carriage with an old army surgeon, whose testimony saved the life of the suspected man. He had lived in Cawnpore before the Mutiny, and knew Nana Sahib well, indeed had been his physician, and gave me much information about the bloody Mahratta chief. He said he was not so bad a man by nature, as he became when he was put forward as a leader in a desperate enterprise, and surrounded by men who urged him on to every crime. So long as he was under the wholesome restraint of English power, he was a fair specimen of the "mild Hindoo," "as mild a mannered man as ever scuttled ship or cut a throat." His movement was as soft as that of a cat or a tiger. But like the tiger, when once he tasted blood, it roused the wild beast in him, and he took a delight in killing. And so he who might have lived quietly, and died in his bed, with a reputation not worse than that of other Indian rulers, has left a name in history as the most execrable monster of modern times. It seems a defeat of justice that he cannot be discovered and brought to the scaffold. But perhaps the judgment of God is more severe than that of man. If he still lives, he has suffered a thousand deaths in these twenty years.

My informant told me of the punishment that had come on many of these men of blood. Retribution followed hard after their crimes. When the rebellion was subdued, it was stamped out without mercy. The leaders were shot away from guns. Others who were only less guilty had a short trial and a swift punishment. In this work of meting out retribution, this mild physician was himself obliged to be an instrument. Though his profession was that of saving lives, and not of destroying them, after the Mutiny he was appointed a Commissioner in the district of Cawnpore, where he had lived, to try insurgents, with the power of life and death, and with no appeal from his sentence! It was a terrible responsibility, but he could not shrink from it, and he had to execute many. Those especially who had been guilty of acts of cruelty, could not ask for mercy which they had never shown. Among those whom he captured was the native officer who had given the signal, by raising his sword, to the masked battery to fire on the boats. He said, "I took him to that very spot, and hung him there!" All this sad history was in mind as we went down to the banks of the Ganges, where that fearful tragedy took place not twenty years before. The place still bears the name of the Slaughter Ghat, in memory of that fearful deed. We imagined the scene that summer's morning, when the stream was covered with the bodies of women and children, and the air was filled with the shrieks of despair. With such bitter memories, we recalled the swift retribution, and rejoiced that such a crime had met with such a punishment.

From the river we drove to "the well," but here nothing is painful but its memories. It is holy ground, which pious hands have decked with flowers, and consecrated as a shrine of martyrdom. Around it many acres have been laid out as a garden, with all manner of tropical plants, and well-kept paths winding between, along which the stranger walks slowly and sadly, thinking of those who suffered so much in life, and that now sleep peacefully beyond the reach of pain. In the centre of the garden the place of the well is enclosed, and over the sacred spot where the bodies of the dead were thrown, stands a figure in marble, which might be that of the angel of Resignation or of Peace, with folded wings and face slightly bended, and arms across her breast, and in her hands palm-branches, the emblems of victory.

The visit to these spots, consecrated by so much suffering, had an added tenderness of interest, because some of our own countrymen and countrywomen perished there. In those fearful scenes the blood of Americans – men, women, and children – mingled with that of their English kindred. One of the most terrible incidents of those weeks of crime, was the massacre of a party from Futteghur that tried to escape down the Ganges, hoping to reach Allahabad. As they approached Cawnpore, they concealed themselves in the tall grass on an island, but were discovered by the Sepoys, and made prisoners. Some of the party were wealthy English residents, who offered a large ransom for their lives. But their captors answered roughly: "What they wanted was not money, but blood!" Brought before Nana Sahib, he ordered them instantly to be put to death. Among them were four American missionaries, with their wives, who showed in that hour of trial that they knew how to suffer and to die. Of one of these I had heard a very touching story but a few days before from my friend, Mr. Woodside. When we were standing on the lower range of the Himalayas, looking off to "the snows," he told me how he had once made an expedition with a brother missionary among these mountains, which are full of villages, like the hamlets in the High Alps. He pointed out in the distance the very route they took, and even places on the sides of the successive ranges where they pitched their tents. They started near the close of September, and were out all October, and came in about the middle of November, being gone six weeks. After long and weary marches for many days, they came to a little village called Karsali near Jumnootree, the source of the sacred river Jumna, near which rose a giant peak, 19,000 feet high (though we could but just see it on the horizon), that till then had never been trodden by human foot, but which they, like the daring Americans they were, determined to ascend. Their guides shrank from the attempt, and refused to accompany them; but they determined to make the ascent if they went alone, and at last, rather than be left behind, their men followed, although one sank down in the snow, and could not reach the summit. But the young missionaries pressed on with fresh ardor, as they climbed higher and higher. As they reached the upper altitudes, the summit, which to us at a distance of ninety miles seemed but a peak or cone, broadened out into a plateau of miles in extent; the snow was firm and hard; they feared no crevasses, and strode on with fearless steps. But there was something awful in the silence and the solitude. Not a living thing could be seen on the face of earth or sky. Not a bird soared to such heights; not an eagle or a vulture was abroad in search of prey; not a bone on the waste of snow told where any adventurous explorer had perished before them. Alone they marched over the fields of untrodden snow, and started almost to hear their own voices in that upper air. And yet such was their sense of freedom, that they could not contain their joy. My companion, said Mr. Woodside, was very fond of a little hymn in Hindostanee, a translation of the familiar lines:

I'm a pilgrim, I'm a stranger,
And I tarry but a night,

and as we went upward, he burst into singing, and sang joyously as he strode over the fields of snow. Little he thought that the end of his pilgrimage was so near! But six months later the Mutiny broke out, and he was one of its first victims. He was of the party from Futteghur, with a fate made more dreadful, because he had with him not only his wife, but two children, and the monster spared neither age nor sex. After the Mutiny, Mr. Woodside visited Cawnpore, and made diligent inquiry for the particulars of his friend's death. It was difficult to get the details, as the natives were very reticent, lest they should be accused; but as near as he could learn, "Brother Campbell," as he spoke of him, was led out with his wife – he holding one child in his arms, and she leading another by the hand – and thus all together they met their fate! Does this seem very hard? Yet was it not sweet that they could thus die together, and could come up (like the family of Christian in Pilgrim's Progress) in one group to the wicket gate? No need had he to sing any more:

I'm a pilgrim, I'm a stranger,
And I tarry but a night,

for on that summer morning he passed up a shining pathway, whiter than the fields of snow on the crest of the Himalayas, that led him straight to the gates of gold. Let no man complain of the sacrifice, who would claim the reward; for so it is written, "It is through much tribulation that we must enter into the Kingdom of God."

CHAPTER XVII

THE STORY OF LUCKNOW

"You are going to Lucknow?" she said. It was a lady in black, who sat in the corner of the railway carriage, as we came down from Upper India. A cloud passed over her face. "I cannot go there; I was in the Residency during the siege, and my husband and daughter were killed there. I cannot revisit a place of such sad memories." It was nothing to her that the long struggle had ended in victory, and that the story of the siege was one of the most glorious in English history. Nothing could efface the impression of those months of suffering. She told us how day and night the storm of fire raged around them; how the women took refuge in the cellars; how her daughter was killed before her eyes by the bursting of a shell; and how, when they grew familiar with this danger, there came another terrible fear – that of death by famine; how strong men grew weak for want of food; how women wasted away from very hunger, and children died because they could find no nourishment on their mother's breasts.

But amid those horrors there was one figure which she loved to recall – that of Sir Henry Lawrence, the lion-hearted soldier, who kept up all hearts by his courage and his iron will – till he too fell, and left them almost in despair.

Such memories might keep away one who had been a sufferer in these fearful scenes, but they stimulated our desire to see a spot associated with such courage and devotion, and led us from the scene of the tragedy of Cawnpore to that of the siege of Lucknow.

But how soon nature washes away the stain of blood! As we crossed the Ganges, the gentle stream, rippling against the Slaughter Ghat, left no red spots upon its stony steps. Near the station was a large enclosure full of elephants, some of which perhaps had carried their burden of prisoners down to the river's brink on that fatal day, but were now "taking their ease," as beasts and men like to do. Familiar as we are with the sight, it always gives us a fresh impression of our Asiatic surroundings, to come suddenly upon a herd of these creatures of such enormous bulk, with ears as large as umbrellas, which are kept moving like punkas to keep off the flies; to see them drawing up water into their trunks, as "Behemoth drinketh up Jordan," and spurting it over their backs; or what is more ludicrous still, to see them at play, which seems entirely out of character. We think of the elephant as a grave and solemn creature, made to figure on grand occasions, to march in triumphal processions, carrying the howdahs of great Rajahs, covered with cloth of gold. But there is as much of "youth" in the elephant as in any other beast. A baby elephant is like any other baby. As little tigers play like kittens, so a little elephant is like a colt, or like "Mary's little lamb."

Lucknow is only forty miles from Cawnpore, with which it is connected by railway. A vast plain stretches to the gates of the capital of Oude. It was evening when we reached our destination, where another American friend, Rev. Mr. Mudge of the Methodist Mission, was waiting to receive us. A ride of perhaps a couple of miles through the streets and bazaars gave us some idea of the extent of a city which ranks among the first in India. Daylight showed us still more of its extent and its magnificence. It spreads out many miles over the plain, and has a population of three hundred thousand, while in splendor it is the first of the native cities of India – by native I mean one not taking its character, like Calcutta and Bombay, from the English element. Lucknow is more purely an Indian city, and has more of the Oriental style in its architecture – its domes and minarets reminding us of Cairo and Constantinople. Bayard Taylor says: "The coup d'œil from one of the bridges over the Goomtee, resembles that of Constantinople from the bridge over the Golden Horn, and is more imposing, more picturesque, and more truly Oriental than any other city in India." It is a Mohammedan city, as much as Delhi, the mosques quite overshadowing the Hindoo temples; and the Mohurrim, the great Moslem festival, is observed here with the same fanaticism. But it is much larger than Delhi, and though no single palaces equal those of the old Moguls, yet it has more the appearance of a modern capital, in its busy and crowded streets. It is a great commercial city, with rich merchants, with artificers in silver and gold and all the fabrics of the East.

But the interest of Lucknow, derived from the fact of its being one of the most populous cities of India, and one of the most splendid, is quite eclipsed by the thrilling events of its recent history. All its palaces and mosques have not the attraction of one sacred spot. This is the Residency, the scene of the siege, which will make the name of Lucknow immortal. How the struggle came, we may see by recalling one or two facts in the history of India.

A quarter of a century ago, this was not a part of the British possessions. It was the Kingdom of Oude, with a sovereign who still lives in a palace near Calcutta, with large revenues wherewith to indulge his royal pleasure, but without his kingdom, which the English Government has taken from him. This occurred just before the Mutiny, and has often been alleged as one of the causes, if not the cause, of the outbreak; and England has been loudly accused of perfidy and treachery towards an Indian prince, and of having brought upon herself the terrible events which followed.

No doubt the English Government has often carried things with a high hand in India, and done acts which cannot be defended, just as we must confess that our own Government, in dealing with our Indian tribes, has sometimes seemed to ignore both justice and mercy. But as to this king of Oude, his "right" to his dominion (which is, being interpreted, a right to torture his unhappy subjects) is about the same as the right of a Bengal tiger to his jungle – a right which holds good till some daring hunter can put an end to his career.

When this king ruled in Oude he was such a father to his people, and such was the affection felt for his paternal government, that he had to collect his taxes by the military, and it is said that the poor people in the country built their villages on the borders of the jungle, and kept a watch out for the approach of the soldiers. As soon as they were signalled as being in sight, the wretched peasants gathered up whatever they could carry, and fled into the jungle, preferring to face the wild beasts and the serpents rather than these mercenaries of a tyrant. The troops came, seized what was left and set fire to the village. After they were gone, the miserable people returned and rebuilt their mud hovels, and tried by tilling the soil, to gain a bare subsistence. Such was the patriarchal government of one of the native princes of India.

This king of Oude now finds his chief amusement in collecting a great menagerie. He has a very large number of wild beasts. He has also a "snakery," in which he has collected all the serpents of India. It must be confessed that such a man seems more at home among his tigers and cobras than in oppressing his wretched people. If Americans who visit his palace near Calcutta are moved to sympathy with this deposed king, let them remember what his government was, and they may feel a little pity for his miserable subjects.

To put such a monster off the throne, and thus put an end to his tyrannies, was about as much of a "crime" as it would be to restrain the king of Dahomey or of Ashantee from perpetuating his "Grand Custom." I am out of patience with this mawkish sympathy. There is too much real misery in the world that calls for pity and relief, to have us waste our sensibilities on those who are the scourges of mankind.

But once done, the deed could not be undone. Having seized the bull by the horns, it was necessary to hold him, and this was not an easy matter. It needed a strong hand, which was given it in Sir Henry Lawrence, who had been thirty years in India. Hardly had he been made governor before he felt that there was danger in the air. Neither he nor his brother John, the Governor of the Punjaub, were taken by surprise when the Mutiny broke out. Both expected it, and it did not find them unprepared. Oude was indeed a centre of rebellion. The partisans of the ex-king were of course very active, so that when the Sepoys mutinied at Meerut, near Delhi, the whole kingdom of Oude was in open revolt. Every place was taken except Lucknow, and that was saved only by the wisdom and promptness of its new governor.

His first work was to fortify the Residency (so called from having been occupied by the former English residents), which had about as much of a military character as an old English manor-house. The grounds covered some acres, on which were scattered a few buildings, official residences and guardhouses, with open spaces between, laid out in lawns and gardens. But the quick eye of the governor saw its capability of defence. It was a small plateau, raised a few feet above the plain around, and by connecting the different buildings by walls, which could be mounted with batteries and loopholed for musketry, the whole could be constructed into a kind of fortress. Into this he gathered the European residents with their women and children. And behind such rude defences a few hundred English soldiers, with as many natives who had proved faithful, kept a large army at bay for six months.

There was a fort in Lucknow well supplied with guns and ammunition, but it was defended by only three hundred men, and was a source of weakness rather than strength, since the English force was too small to hold it, and if it should fall into the hands of the Sepoys with all its stores, it would be the arsenal of the rebellion. At Delhi a similar danger had been averted only by a brave officer blowing up the arsenal with his own hand. It was a matter of the utmost moment to destroy the fort and yet to save the soldiers in it. The only hope of keeping up any defence was to unite the two feeble garrisons. But they were more than half a mile apart, and each beleaguered by watchful enemies. Sir Henry Lawrence signalled to the officer in command: "Blow up the fort, and come to the Residency at twelve o'clock to-night. Bring your treasure and guns, and destroy the remainder." This movement could be executed only by the greatest secrecy. But the order was promptly obeyed. At midnight the little band filed silently out of the gates, and stole with muffled steps along a retired path, almost within reach of the guns of the enemies, who discovered the movement only when they were safe in the Residency, and the fuse which had been lighted at the fort reached the magazine, and exploding two hundred and fifty barrels of gunpowder, blew the massive walls into the air.

But the siege was only just begun. Inside the Residency were collected about two thousand two hundred souls, of whom over five hundred were women and children. Only about six hundred were English soldiers, and seven or eight hundred natives who had remained faithful, held to their allegiance by the personal ascendancy of Sir Henry Lawrence.[7 - As the historian of the mutiny has frequent occasion to speak of the treachery of the Sepoys, it should not be forgotten that to this there were splendid exceptions; that some were "found faithful among the faithless." Even in the regiments that mutinied there were some who were not carried away by the general madness; and, when the little remnant of English soldiers retreated into the Residency, these loyal natives went with them, and shared all the dangers and hardships of the siege. Even after it was begun, they were exposed to every temptation to seduce them from their allegiance; for as the lines of the besiegers drew closer to the Residency and hemmed it in on every side, the assailants were so near that they could talk with those within over the palisades of the intrenchments, and the Sepoys appealed to their late fellow-soldiers by threats, and taunts, and promises; by pride of race and of caste; by their love of country and of their religion, to betray the garrison. But not a man deserted his post. Hundreds were killed in the siege, and their blood mingled with that of their English companions-in-arms. History does not record a more noble instance of fidelity.] There were also some three hundred civilians, who, though unused to arms, willingly took part in the defence. Thus all together the garrison did not exceed seventeen hundred men, of whom many were disabled by sickness and wounds. The force of the besiegers was twenty to one. There is in the Indian nature a strange mixture of languor and ferocity, and the latter was aroused by the prospect of vengeance on the English, who were penned up where they could not escape, and where their capture was certain; and every Sepoy wished to be in at the death. Under the attraction of such a prospect it is said that the besieging force rose to fifty thousand men. Many of the natives, who had been in the English service, were practised artillerists, and trained their guns on the slender defences with fatal effect. Advancing over the level ground, they drew their lines nearer and nearer, till their riflemen picked off the soldiers serving in the batteries. Three times they made a breach by exploding mines under the walls, and endeavored to carry the place by storm. But then rose high the unconquerable English spirit. They expected to die, but they were determined to sell their lives dearly. When the alarm of these attacks reached the hospital, the sick and wounded crawled out of their beds and threw away their crutches to take their place at the guns; or if they could not stand, lay down flat on their faces and fired through the holes made for musketry.

But brave as were the defenders, the long endurance told upon them. They were worn out with watching, and their ranks grew thinner day by day. Those who were killed were carried off in the arms of their companions, who gathered at midnight for their burial in some lonely and retired spot, and while the chaplain in a low voice read the service, the survivors stood around the grave, thinking how soon their turn would come, the gloom of the night in fit harmony with the dark thoughts that filled their breasts.

But darker than any night was the day when Sir Henry Lawrence fell. He was the beloved, the adored commander. "While he lived," said our informant, "we all felt safe." But exposing himself too much, he was struck by a shell. Those around him lifted him up tenderly and carried him away to the house of the surgeon of the garrison, where two days after he died. When all was over "they did not dare to let the soldiers know that he was dead," lest they should give up the struggle. But he lived long enough to inspire them with his unconquerable spirit.

He died on the 4th of July, and for nearly three months the siege went on without change, the situation becoming every day more desperate. It was the hottest season of the year, and the sun blazed down fiercely into their little camp, aggravating the sickness and suffering, till they longed for death, and were glad when they could find the grave. "When my daughter was struck down by a fragment of a shell that fell on the floor, she did not ask to live. She might have been saved if she had been where she could have had careful nursing. But there was no proper food to nourish the strength of the sick, and so she sunk away, feeling that it was better to die than to live."