Kitabı oku: «India Under British Rule», sayfa 13

Siege of Delhi: perils of British.

§12. The British force reached the Ridge on the evening of the battle. It then numbered 4,000 troops, half Europeans and the other half Sikhs and Ghorkas. The city might have been taken by surprise at an earlier date, but the month's delay had elated the sepoys, and given them time to look to their defences. The British troops were encamped behind the Ridge, and were thus protected from the fire of the rebels. They were, however, the besieged rather than the besiegers. They were threatened on all sides, except the rear, by mutineers and rebels. The rear, however, was open to the Punjab, and all reinforcements and supplies were brought up from the Punjab. For weeks, and indeed for months, the British force could only hope to hold their position until reinforcements could arrive from Lahore or Calcutta. The city of Delhi was strongly fortified with walls and bastions loaded with cannon, and environed by a broad, deep ditch, filled from the river Jumna, which rendered it as impregnable as Babylon of old. It was impossible to storm such fortifications without a strong army of British soldiers and an adequate siege train, all of which were anxiously expected from the Punjab.

Strength of the rebels.

Meanwhile the rebels inside the walls of Delhi were being constantly reinforced by fresh bodies of mutineers. They were in possession of the arms, ammunition, and other stores, which had been collected in the British magazine for more than a generation. They were in receipt of daily supplies of provisions from the neighbouring villages, and it was impossible to cut off the convoys. A force of 4,000 men could scarcely be expected to environ a city seven miles in circumference, or even to approach within cannon shot of the walls.

Punjab and John Lawrence.

§13. Bengal was completely separated from Delhi by the disaffection which flooded the North-west Provinces. All hope of crushing the rebels at Delhi rested on the Punjab; and John Lawrence sent Europeans and Sikhs, siege guns and supplies of all kinds, as fast as they were available to the British force behind the Ridge. In June the "Punjab Guides" reached the Ridge, one of the best regiments in the Indian army. It belonged to the Punjab Frontier Force, which was recruited from the mountain tribes between the Punjab and Afghanistan, and trained and commanded by British officers.

Sikh hatred of Mohammedans.

In 1857 the Sikhs had learnt to respect their European rulers, who maintained order and law. They had no sympathy for the Mohammedans, nor for the king of Delhi. On the contrary, they remembered the murder of their Gurus and saints by Aurangzeb and his successors, and were burning to be revenged on Delhi and the Mogul. During the reign of Runjeet Singh they had outraged the Mohammedans of the Punjab by polluting their mosques and profaning the tombs of their holy men. Accordingly the Sikh warriors of the Khalsa, the very men who had fought against British supremacy at Chillianwalla and Goojerat, were now anxious to join the Europeans in putting down the revolt at Delhi and sacking the capital of Islam in India.

Mutinous spirit of sepoy garrisons.

John Lawrence had thus nothing to fear from the Sikhs. Nor had he anything to fear from the Mohammedans, for they were only anxious for protection against the Sikhs. The Hindus of the Punjab cared for no one but themselves; most of them were traders and money-lenders whose interests were bound up in the maintenance of British rule. The terror of the Punjab lay in the sepoy regiments of the Bengal army that garrisoned the country. The sepoys in the Punjab had no real ground for alarm at the greased cartridges; the issue had been stopped at the school of musketry at Sealkote, on the Cashmere frontier. But the contagion was as virulent as ever. They were maddened by the conviction that the British government was bent on destroying their religion and caste; and when they heard of the outbreak at Meerut and revolt at Delhi, they were bent on mutiny and massacre.

Lahore and Mian Mir.

Lahore, the capital of the Punjab, is situated in the heart of the province, about half-way between Delhi and Peshawar. The fortress at Lahore was held by a battalion of Bengal sepoys, which was relieved once every fortnight—that is, on the 1st and 15th of every month. There was also a European guard within the fortress of about a hundred British soldiers. Six miles from Lahore was the cantonment of Mian Mir, where three regiments of Bengal sepoys were quartered, together with one regiment of Europeans, and two batteries of European artillery.

Sepoy plots.

§14. News of the revolt at Delhi reached Lahore on the 12th of May. Without a moment's delay, a secret plot was formed between the sepoys in the fortress at Lahore and those in the cantonment at Mian Mir for the slaughter of Europeans. On the 15th May, when the sepoy battalion in the fortress was to be relieved by another sepoy battalion, the two were to join together, murder their own officers and then overwhelm the European guard. A signal was thereupon to be given to the cantonment at Mian Mir, on which the sepoy regiments were to break out in mutiny, murder the officers, and environ and overwhelm the regiment of Europeans.

Defeated.

Fortunately the plot was betrayed by a Brahman to the British authorities, and the scheme was defeated. On the morning of the 15th of May, the sepoy regiments in the cantonment at Mian Mir were drawn up on parade as usual. Suddenly, they were ordered with a loud voice to lay down their arms. Before them was a thin line of European infantry which presently fell back, and revealed the mouths of twelve guns pointed at the sepoys with lighted fires. The European infantry began to load their rifles behind the artillery, and the sepoys could hear the clicking of locks and ramrods. The would-be rebels saw that the game was up. They threw away their muskets and sabres in sheer terror. More than 3,000 Asiatic sepoys, who were preparing to murder their officers, had surrendered their arms to less than 600 Europeans. The plot in the fortress at Lahore was crushed in a like fashion. The European guards had been strongly reinforced by a detachment from the regiment at the cantonment at Mian Mir; and the two sepoy battalions were disarmed before they could unite for the slaughter of Europeans.

Chamberlain's flying column.

Later on it was found that all the Bengal sepoys in the Punjab were more or less tainted. Measures were taken to avert or counteract the evil. Suspected regiments were removed to localities where the Sikhs were most hostile to the Bengal army. A flying column of Europeans, Sikhs and others, was organised to act against threatened points and overawe intending mutineers by rapid movement and vigorous action. In the first instance it was commanded by Brigadier Neville Chamberlain, who rose to be one of the most distinguished officers of the time. Later on, the column was commanded by Brigadier John Nicholson, the hero of the day, who, as will be seen hereafter, was cut off in the very zenith of his fame.

Peshawar valley.

§15. The valley of Peshawar was another cause of anxiety. It lies in the north-west corner of the Punjab beyond the river Indus, and faces the Khyber Pass. It is the key to India, the route by which Alexander the Great and the early Mohammedan conquerors invaded the Punjab.

Frontier tribes.

Ever since the British conquest, the Peshawar valley had been harassed by the same mountain tribes that had worried the Macedonians, the Mohammedans, and the Sikhs under Runjeet Singh. Tribes living within the circle of British outposts could be compelled to live in peace; but tribes living beyond the border, and outside British influence, were turbulent, murderous and predatory. Occasionally they assassinated a British officer, or gave an asylum to criminals, or committed raids on British territory or on tribes living under British protection, and not unfrequently stole horses and other property from the British cantonment. All this while they were strictly forbidden to cross the border into British territory; and any tribesman who dared to disobey this law, was liable to arrest and imprisonment until the elders of his tribe made their submission and paid a fine.

Peshawar cantonment.

The valley of Peshawar was held by 9,000 Bengal sepoys and about 3,000 Europeans. Here, as at Lahore, there was a perpetual fear of mutiny and murder. A secret enemy was dwelling in the British camp that was capable of any amount of secrecy and treachery. Accordingly the cantonment was declared in a state of siege. The Europeans took up strong positions, and some of the Bengal regiments were disarmed.

Mutiny and murder.

§16. Towards the end of May a sepoy regiment rose against its officers. The colonel had staked his life on the fidelity of his men, and they had not been disarmed; and owing to this infatuated belief in the fidelity of the sepoys, the rebels had been able to set out for Delhi with their arms and ammunition. The colonel was in the ranks to the last, labouring to keep the men to their colours; but his efforts were vain, and he retired broken-hearted and shot himself. The rebels, however, were pursued and scattered, by the flying column under Neville Chamberlain, and 120 were taken prisoners and brought back to Peshawar.

Executions at Peshawar.

The prisoners were tried for mutiny and were all condemned to death. But John Lawrence recoiled from such wholesale executions. He did not want to exact vengeance on the mutineers, but to terrify other regiments from following their example. Forty of the worst were sentenced to death, but the remaining eighty were imprisoned for periods varying from three to seven years. The condemned forty were blown from guns at Peshawar on the 10th of June.

Volunteering of Sikhs and tribes.

The disarmament of the sepoy regiments, and the executions at Peshawar, convinced the populations of the Punjab that the British were masters. There may have been some of the old Sikh soldiers of the Khalsa, who were still yearning for the expulsion of the British from the land of the five rivers; but even in their case the old hostility was forgotten in the feverish longing to be revenged on Delhi for the persecution and slaughter of their saints. Possibly they were still more eager to plunder the palaces and bazaars of Delhi. The mountain tribes outside the British frontier, who professed to be Mohammedans, were as enthusiastic as the Sikhs to share in the sack of Delhi. They implored pardon for all past offences, paid up all fines, and volunteered to help the British to capture the revolted city.

Sore peril.

John Lawrence sent the Punjab Guides to Delhi, and raised nineteen or twenty regiments of Sikhs and others. But he could not spare more Europeans. Mutiny threatened him on all sides. At Julinder three Bengal regiments murdered their officers, broke open prisons, and ran off to Delhi before the flying column under Neville Chamberlain could overtake them.

John Nicholson, the sainted warrior.

§17. At this crisis Neville Chamberlain was sent to join the British force on the Ridge, and John Nicholson took the command of the flying column. He disarmed several sepoy regiments without firing a shot, but had no mercy for rebels. He was a fine type of the zealous and single-minded European officers of the old East India Company's army; a hero who was reverenced by Asiatic soldiery for his dash and valour, and worshipped by his men as one of the demigods of India. Indeed in one case the worship of Nicholson was literal. A religious fraternity of Sikhs took the name of "Nicholsons"; or as they pronounced it "Nikkal Scynes." They wore salmon-coloured garments and black felt hats as a distinctive garb, and they sang hymns with a chorus of "Guru Nikkal Scyne." In 1854 a deputation of these worshippers waited on Nicholson, threw themselves at his feet and chanted his praises. He remonstrated, but they persisted, and he ordered his native servants to whip the nonsense out of them. The devotees, however, gloried in being flogged, and declared that it was a just punishment for their sins. Nicholson was obliged to run away from his worshippers. It will be seen hereafter that he fell in the storming of Delhi. When the news of his death reached the fraternity, two of them committed suicide, whilst the third embraced Christianity out of respect for the memory of his "Guru."

Proposed withdrawal from Peshawar.

§18. John Lawrence was hedged round with dangers. European regiments were urgently demanded for the siege of Delhi, and he could not spare a man. He was compelled to keep 3,000 Europeans for the defence of the valley of Peshawar, and he had only 2,000 Europeans left to garrison the rest of the Punjab. In this dilemma he proposed to abandon Peshawar and make it over to Dost Mohammed Khan of Cabul. He argued that if the force locked up in Peshawar could be sent against Delhi, the city might be captured in a week, and the revolt brought to a close. Subsequent events strengthened this impression. On the 23rd of June, the centenary of the battle of Plassy, the besieging force at Delhi was nearly overpowered by the rebels. Several sepoy regiments had mutinied in Rohilcund, to the north-west of Oudh, and joined the rebels at Delhi. The Gwalior contingent, a subsidiary force officered by Europeans, and maintained in Sindia's territory, had broken out in mutiny. Altogether John Lawrence was convinced that Delhi must be captured at all hazards, and that it was absolutely necessary to retire from Peshawar.

Opposition.

But the military authorities at Peshawar, including General Sidney Cotton and Colonel Herbert Edwardes, vehemently opposed the measure. They were unanimously agreed that the loss of Peshawar would entail such a loss of prestige as to turn Sikhs and Afghans against the British government. They urged that relief might be already at hand; that five or six European regiments might be advancing from Bengal to Delhi, and that four or five times that number might be on the high seas from England.

Negatived by Lord Canning.

The burning question was referred to Calcutta for the decision of Lord Canning. The reply was a long time coming, but it settled the matter at once. "Hold on Peshawar to the last!" John Lawrence was overruled.

Mutiny at Sealkote.

§19. In this extremity John Lawrence determined to disarm every Bengal sepoy in the Punjab, and then to send every European soldier and gun to Delhi that could be spared. Nicholson hurried on the disarming, when news arrived that the sepoy brigade at Sealkote, on the Cashmere frontier, had broken out in revolt, murdered their officers, and then gone off to Delhi. Nicholson hurried after the brigade, overtook it on the banks of the Ravi, and almost annihilated it. Nearly every rebel was slain, or drowned in the river, or surrendered by the villagers to the British authorities.

Terrible execution.

There was one more tragedy in the Punjab which cannot be ignored. A sepoy regiment mutinied after it was disarmed, and tried to escape to Delhi. It was pursued by a British magistrate with a detachment of irregular horse. About 280 escaped to an island in a river, and being without arms and without food, they were compelled to surrender. The magistrate, however, could not possibly dispose of 280 rebels. He could not imprison them, and it was dangerous to let them loose. In this terrible emergency he saw no alternative but to have them shot in gangs. It was a measure which can only be justified by the law of self-defence and state necessity. The magistrate left the scene pale and trembling.²⁹

Siege of Delhi.

§20. Towards the end of June the hot season passed away. The rains began; military operations before Delhi became possible in the daytime. Sir Henry Barnard died on the 5th of July, and was succeeded by General Archduke Wilson. On the 14th of July an attack on the British outposts was repulsed by General Chamberlain. Towards the middle of August, John Nicholson arrived from the Punjab with his flying column. On the 4th of September a heavy siege train arrived from the Punjab, and fifty large guns were placed in position.

Captured, September 1857.

From the 8th to the 12th of September, four batteries poured a constant storm of shot and shell on the doomed city. On the 13th the breaches were practicable. At three o'clock on the following morning, three assaulting columns were formed in the trenches, whilst a fourth was kept in reserve. The Cashmere gate was blown open by gunpowder; one column pushed through the gateway, whilst the others escaladed the breaches. The advancing columns were exposed to a ceaseless fire from houses, mosques, and other buildings, and John Nicholson received a mortal wound. Then followed six days of desperate street fighting. On the 20th of September the British flag waved in triumph over the old capital of Hindustan and the palace of the Great Mogul.³⁰

Peace in the north-west.

Immediately after the fall of Delhi, a column was sent down the grand trunk road, to relieve the fortress at Agra, and to open up communications between Delhi and Allahabad. Within a few short months peace and order were restored to the North-West Provinces, and the brigandage and anarchy which for a brief interval revived the memory of the old Mahratta days, disappeared, it is hoped for ever, from Hindustan.³¹

CHAPTER VI.—SEPOY REVOLT: NORTH WEST, CAWNPORE, LUCKNOW.—1857-58

§1. Bengal and Lord Canning: General Neill's advance from Calcutta. §2. Sacred city of Benares: Hindu population overawed. §3. Fortress at Allahabad: treachery and massacre. §4. Cawnpore: extreme peril. §5. Story of Nana Sahib. §6. European refuge in the barracks. §7. Nana Sahib at Cawnpore: aspirations after Hindu sovereignty: delusion of General Wheeler. §8. Mutiny and treachery: barracks beleaguered by Nana Sahib. §9. First massacre at Cawnpore: massacre at Jhansi. §10. Advance of General Havelock. §11. Second massacre of women and children: the well. §12. Lucknow and Sir Henry Lawrence: May and June. §13. Siege of British Residency at Lucknow: July to September: death of Sir Henry Lawrence. §14. Havelock's advance and retreat. §15. Advance of Havelock and Outram. §16. Relief of Lucknow. §17. Sir Colin Campbell's advance: deliverance of the garrison. §18. Mutiny of the Gwalior contingent: defeated. §19. End of the mutiny and rebellion: causes.

Surprises.

The progress of events in Northern India, from the revolt at Delhi in May to the capture of the city in September, was a mystery to every Anglo-Indian. Many had foreseen that the Bengal army was in an evil way; that Bengal sepoys had been pandered until the discipline of the army had become dangerously loosened. But no one foresaw mutiny, murder, and massacre. Every fresh budget of news was consequently a surprise which baffled the oldest civilian and the most experienced general. There was much angry controversy, and much bitter recrimination; but such obsolete quarrelling may well be dropped into oblivion. The lessons which the mutiny teaches are best gathered from a plain narrative of events, not by conjectures as to plots and conspiracies which may have had no better origin than those of Oates and Bedloe.

British soldiers.

§1. Whilst Mr. John Lawrence was sending Europeans and Sikhs from the Punjab to reinforce the besiegers on the Ridge at Delhi, Lord Canning was sending similar reinforcements from Bengal to Allahabad, to relieve the beleaguered garrisons at Cawnpore and Lucknow, and to crush the growing disaffection in Oudh. Immediately after the revolt at Delhi, Lord Canning had sent telegrams and steamers to Madras and Bombay, to Ceylon, Burma, and Singapore, to send to Calcutta every European soldier that could be spared. Every local government responded to the call, and Lord Elgin, who was at Singapore pushing on a war with China, sent two British regiments, that were coming round the Cape, to the help of Lord Canning. It was a noble sacrifice. Lord Elgin's heart was in the Chinese war, but he felt as a Briton, that the suppression of a sepoy revolt in India was of far more pressing importance to the British empire than hostilities against China.

Allahabad and Cawnpore.

During the latter part of May, European soldiers were landed at Calcutta, and sent in batches to Allahabad. At that time Lord Canning was most anxious to relieve Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow. The railway had been completed for a hundred miles from Calcutta. Accordingly the soldiers were sent by railway from Calcutta, then by boats up the river Ganges to Allahabad, at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, about half way between Calcutta and Delhi. From Allahabad they were sent a hundred and twenty miles still further up the Ganges to the town of Cawnpore, where the river formed a line of frontier between the North-West Provinces and Oudh. It will be seen hereafter that only a few Europeans reached Cawnpore, and that none of those sent up from Calcutta ever reached Lucknow.

Neill's advance.

The British reinforcements were commanded by Colonel Neill, a Madras officer who had served in the Crimean war, and was distinguished by force of will. On one occasion the station-master at Calcutta proposed sending away a railway train without the soldiers, because the latter were delayed. To his utter surprise he was arrested by Neill, and kept under a guard until every soldier had taken his seat. The incident is trivial, but it tells the character of Neill.

Delay at Benares.

§2. Colonel Neill did not reach Allahabad for some days. He was detained at Benares from the 4th to the 9th of June. This city, the Jerusalem of the Brahmans, is situated on the river Ganges, about 420 miles above Calcutta and eighty miles below Allahabad. It had a population of 300,000, mostly Hindus. The cantonment is two or three miles from the city, and was occupied by a regiment of Bengal infantry, one of irregular cavalry, and a Sikh regiment. There was no European force whatever to keep the city and cantonment in check beyond thirty British gunners, but this number would have been ample had there been no scare about greased cartridges. No danger was to be apprehended from the civil population of Benares. The sepoy regiments in the cantonment were the only cause for alarm.

Turbulence of the people.

Yet the Hindu population of Benares had always been bigoted and turbulent. During the persecuting reign of the Mogul Aurangzeb, in the seventeenth century, the Hindus of the sacred city were kept down by brute force, and compelled to pay the poll-tax levied on infidels, whilst Mohammedan mosques were built on the ruins of Hindu temples. Under the tolerant rule of the British, the Hindus had been more contented, but there had been occasional fights between Hindus and Mohammedans, especially at festival times. Moreover, the Hindus at Benares were under the thumb of the Brahmans, and were more bigoted and exacting under British rule than they had dared to be under Mohammedan domination. A British magistrate, however, had generally kept the peace in Benares with the help of Asiatic police, but occasionally he found it necessary to call out a detachment of sepoys.

Hostility of the Brahmans: stamped out by Gubbins.

For many years the Brahmans at Benares utterly refused to have the sacred city lighted or drained. They declared that lighting and drainage were contrary to the Hindu religion, and the arguments of the British magistrate to the contrary were a sheer waste of words. At last, in 1851, the British magistrate, a Mr. Frederic Gubbins, carried out these municipal reforms in the teeth of a Hindu mob. Then followed a commotion at Benares precisely similar to that which occurred at Madras in the seventeenth century, when the British rulers endeavoured to reform the sanitary condition of their city. The traders and bazaar dealers shut up their shops, and refused to supply the cantonment with grain. Mr. Gubbins was pelted and fired at, and fled for his life. He called out a detachment of sepoys, arrested the ringleaders of the riot, and lodged them in the jail. From that moment Mr. Gubbins was lord of Benares. He rode through the city and ordered all the shops to be opened, and there was no one to say him nay.

British and Mogul rule.

All this was of course very wrong. The Supreme Court at Calcutta, with its bench of British judges, trained to respect the liberties of British subjects, would have been aghast at such proceedings. But from the days of Warren Hastings to those of Lord Canning, the Supreme Courts at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay were prevented by the Act of Parliament passed in 1781 from interfering in any way with the administration of the Company's servants outside the limits of the Presidency capitals. It might, however, be added that the action of the British magistrate, arbitrary and high-handed as it must appear to British readers, was mild and merciful in comparison with Mogul severities. Under an imperious ruler like Aurangzeb, trains of armed elephants were driven through the masses in the streets, and trampled down all that came in their way, until the crowd broke up and fled in terror at the carnage.

Brave civilians.

Right or wrong, the action of Mr. Gubbins in 1851 was remembered by the people of Benares in 1857. Mr. Gubbins was by this time judge at Benares, and a Mr. Lind was magistrate and collector. The Bengal sepoys in the cantonment were disaffected, but there was no sign of insurrection in the city. The British residents were in alarm, and it was proposed to remove to the fortress of Chunar, on the other side of the river Ganges, which was occupied by invalided British soldiers. But Gubbins and Lind refused to desert their posts and abandon Benares. Accordingly the other British residents resolved to stay likewise; and it was arranged that in the event of a mutiny of the sepoys, they should all take refuge on the roof of the treasury, about two miles from the cantonment, which was guarded by Sikh soldiers.

Mutiny at Benares: disasters.

Colonel Neill arrived at Benares on the 4th of June. A detachment of Europeans had been obtained from Her Majesty's 10th Foot, which was posted at Dinapore, and preparations were being made for disarming the Bengal sepoys. Neill joined in the work, but there were untoward incidents. The Europeans were drawn out and the three guns were loaded. The Bengal sepoys were ordered to lay down their arms, and some obeyed. Suddenly, however, the whole regiment of sepoys took alarm and fired at the Europeans. The gunners opened fire on the mutineers. The irregular cavalry joined in the outbreak. The British officer in command of the Sikh regiment was shot dead. The Sikhs were seized with panic and fired on the Europeans. The gunners then discharged a volley of grape at the Sikhs; and sepoys, irregular horse, and Sikhs fled in hot haste from the cantonment, and dispersed in all directions over the surrounding country.

Loyalty of Sikhs and Hindus.

This disaster might have sealed the fate of the Europeans at the treasury. When the Sikh regiment at the cantonment was scattered by a discharge of grape, the Sikh guards at the treasury might have revenged the slaughter by firing at the Europeans on the roof. Fortunately Mr. Gubbins was there, and so too was an old Sikh general, who had fought against the British in the Sikh wars, and was residing at Benares under surveillance, but had become reconciled to British supremacy. Both Gubbins and the Sikh exile pointed out to the guards, that cannonading the Sikhs at the cantonment must have been unpremeditated, and was probably a misunderstanding or an accident. Had it been otherwise, the Europeans at the treasury would never have placed themselves under the protection of Sikh guards. This explanation satisfied the Sikh guards, and the station was saved. It should be added that British authority was nobly supported by the Raja of Benares and another Hindu gentleman of high rank and influence.

Allahabad: strategic importance.

§3. Colonel Neill spent some days in driving the mutineers from the neighbourhood of Benares, and then went on to Allahabad. On his arrival he found the city in a state of insurrection and uproar, whilst the Europeans were shut up in the fortress, and besieged by mutineers and rebels. The city of Allahabad was situated, as already described, at the junction of the Ganges and Jumna, in the centre of Northern India, and about half-way between Calcutta and Delhi. It is the strongest fortress between Calcutta and Agra. It commands the whole river communication between Bengal, Oudh, and the North-West Provinces. It also commanded the old trunk road between Calcutta and Delhi. In the treasury there was £200,000 in silver. Yet, when the mutinies broke out in May, the station and fortress were garrisoned entirely by Asiatics, namely, one Bengal regiment, half a Sikh regiment, and a battery of sepoy artillery. There were no European soldiers whatever at Allahabad, except the British officers in command of the sepoys.

Misplaced confidence.

The colonel and officers of the Bengal sepoys had the most perfect confidence in their men. They had always encouraged the sepoys in their sports, and contributed toward the expenses. It was rumoured in the newspapers that the sepoy regiment was disaffected, but the colonel published an unqualified denial, and declared that the rumour was false and malicious. The British residents at Allahabad were, however, by no means satisfied with this denial. They were alarmed at the reports which reached them of mutiny and murder elsewhere, and after the revolt at Delhi, they complained that they were not sufficiently protected. But no European soldiers were available, not even to garrison the important fortress. Accordingly the British authorities tried to allay the public fears by ordering up sixty-five European invalids from Chunar. Thus the European garrison of the great fortress at Allahabad, which commanded all communications between Bengal and the North-West, consisted for a while of sixty-five invalids. Eventually 100 European non-combatants formed themselves into a volunteer company, and helped to garrison the place. Meanwhile, every batch of European soldiers that arrived from Bengal was at once sent 120 miles further up the river Ganges to the city of Cawnpore, the frontier station towards Oudh.