Part 12 (1/2)

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. Hus.h.!.+ 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 pa.s.s, 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, backshees.h.!.+” 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 pa.s.sed 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!”

FOOTNOTES:

[4] This is given as an average distance in an air line. The nearest peak, Boonderpunch (Monkey's Tail), is forty-five miles as the crow flies, though by the nearest accessible route, it is a hundred and forty! Nunda Davee is a hundred and ten in an air line, but by the paths over the mountains, must be over two hundred.

[5] A very fascinating book, especially to Alpine tourists, or those fond of climbing mountains. The t.i.tle, ”The Abode of Snow,” is a translation of the word Himalaya. The writer is a son of the late Dr.

Wilson, of Bombay. Taking a new field, he has produced a story of travel and adventure, which will be apt to tempt others to follow him.

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 pa.s.sed over the ”dark and b.l.o.o.d.y 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 s.p.a.cious grounds, under the shade of trees, whose leaves scarcely stirred in the sultry air. But four years after that American traveller had pa.s.sed, 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 Pla.s.sey (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, pa.s.sed 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 friends.h.i.+p 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 hors.e.m.e.n 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 sh.o.r.e were ma.s.sacred 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]

The next day after the ma.s.sacre, 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 ma.s.s.

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.