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

The Ganges itself, too – the majestic, far-famed, sacred Ganges – was little disturbed by commotions in May throughout the lower part of its course. Rajmahal, Bhagulpore, Curruckpore, Monghir, Behar, Futwah, Patna, Hajeepoor, Dinapoor, Chupra, Arrah, Bishunpore, Buxar, Ghazeepore – all lie on or near the Ganges between the Hoogly and Benares. Some of these places are centres of commerce for the opium-trade; some are busy with the trading in rice grown in neighbouring districts; others are shipping-places for corn and other agricultural produce; while all regard the Ganges as an invaluable channel, affording intercourse with the rich districts of the west, and with the great focus of authority and trade at Calcutta. Such of these towns as were involved in trouble in later months of the year, will be noticed in the proper chapters; of the others, this narrative is not called upon to treat. One fact, however, may be mentioned in connection with Dinapoor. So early in the year as the middle of February, the Calcutta authorities wrote to the commander at that town, apprising him that a messenger was known to have been sent to the native regiment at Dinapoor, from some men of the 2d Bengal grenadiers, inciting them to mutiny. Major-general Lloyd promised to look out sharply for the messenger, but candidly expressed a doubt whether the astute native would suffer himself to be caught.

Benares may conveniently be described at once; for, whether disturbed or not by mutineers, it is so remarkably situated as to lie in the line of route of all commerce, all aggression, all military movement, between Calcutta and the upper provinces, whether by road, by rail, or by water. Regarded in this light, its possession and security are, and were in an especial degree during the mutiny, objects of the highest importance. This renowned city stands on the left bank of the Ganges, about four hundred and twenty miles by road from Calcutta, and seventy-four from Allahabad. The magnificent river, half a mile wide in the rainy season, forms a kind of semicircular bay in front of the city, which has thus three miles of river-frontage. Among the chief characteristics of Benares are the ghats or flights of fine broad freestone steps, giving access to the river: mostly very solid in construction, and in some cases highly decorated. So numerous are they, that they extend almost in a continuous line along the river’s banks, interrupted here and there by temples. ‘Upon these ghats,’ says a lively traveller, ‘are passed the busiest and happiest hours of every Hindoo’s day: bathing, dressing, praying, preaching, lounging, gossiping, or sleeping, there will be found. Escaping from the dirty, unwholesome, and confined streets, it is a luxury for him to sit upon the open steps and taste the fresh air of the river; so that on the ghats are concentrated the pastimes of the idler, the duties of the devout, and much of the necessary intercourse of business.’ Artists in India have delighted to portray the beauty and animation of this scene; but they cannot, if they would, reveal the hideous accompaniments – the fakeers and ascetics of revolting appearance, ‘offering every conceivable deformity which chalk, cow-dung, disease, matted locks, distorted limbs, and repulsive attitudes of penance, can shew.’

Benares, beyond any other place in India, perhaps, is studded with religious structures. Thirty years ago the Moslem mosques were more than three hundred in number, while the Hindoo temples exceeded a thousand. The pinnacles of the Hindoo pagodas combine to give a very picturesque appearance to the city, viewed from a distance. Large as the number is, the Benares temples, as has been sarcastically observed, are not too many, for religion is ‘the staple article of commerce, through which the holy city flourishes and is enriched.’ The Mohammedan mosques, mostly situated in the northeast quarter of the city, are generally elegant little edifices crowned by small slender minarets, each standing in a garden planted with tamarinds. Most of them have been constructed on the sites, and with the materials, of demolished Hindoo temples. By far the grandest is the great mosque of Aurungzebe, built by that emperor on the site of a temple of Vishnu, which he destroyed to signalise the triumph of Islamism over Brahminism. It rises from the platform above the Madhoray Ghat. The minars or minarets, admired for their simplicity and boldness, taper from eight feet in diameter at the bottom to seven at the top; and though so slender, they are carried up to a height of a hundred and fifty feet, and have each an interior staircase from bottom to top. The streets of Benares have the usual oriental character of narrowness, crookedness, and dirtiness; they are mere alleys, indeed, that will admit no wheel-carriages; nor can beasts of burden pass without sorely disturbing pedestrians. The houses are more lofty than in most Indian cities, generally from three to six stories high; and as the upper stories usually project beyond the lower, the narrow street is almost closed in above: nay, in some cases, the inmates of one house can walk over to the opposite tenement through the upper windows. The houses are, in the better streets, built of stone, small-windowed and gaily painted. During the hot season the citizens are much accustomed to sleep in screened enclosures on the roof, open to the sky above, and to the night-breezes around. There are somewhat under two hundred thousand inhabitants, who live in about thirty thousand houses.

Benares is a religious, not a military city. The district around was at a very remote period the seat of an independent Hindoo state, founded, according to native tradition, twelve hundred years before the Christian era. It subsequently formed part of the dominions of the Rajpoot sovereigns. Then began the Mussulman rule, and Benares became a dependent province under the Moguls. The nawab-viziers of Oude, when the Mogul power was declining, seized Benares; and during some of the political jugglery of the year 1775, the territory was transferred to the East India Company, by whom it has ever since been held. But under whatever dynasty it has been placed, Benares has from remote ages been known as the sacred city of the Hindoos, where all that is remarkable, all that is abominable, in Brahminism, flourishes. It has been described as the Jerusalem of Hindostan – swarming with religious teachers, devotees, mendicants, and sacred bulls. To wash in the Ganges in front of Benares, to die in that city, are precious privileges to the Hindoo. Some writers have given the inhabitants a bad character in what concerns loyalty to their present British rulers. ‘Benares is one of the most unsafe and rebellious cities in Hindostan. It once successfully opposed a house-tax imposed on the people by the British government. There was also recently a strong commotion when the magistrate attempted to equalise the weights and measures. To shew the hostility of the Hindoos of Benares to the English, it may be mentioned that when we lay before Bhurtpore in 1826, no less than thirty thousand sabres were sharpened at the cutlers’ in expectation of our repulse.’ If this statement be well founded, it does indeed denote a perilous state of feeling at the time in question.

Benares, we have said, is not a military city; but so important a place could not safely be left unguarded. Accordingly a British cantonment has been built at Secrole, two or three miles to the northwest. Secrole contains not only the barracks and huts for soldiers, but various civil establishments, and the residences of most of the British population of Benares. The cantonment consists of the usual buildings belonging to the head-quarters of a military division of the Company’s army, and capable of accommodating three or four regiments; it lies on both sides of a small stream called the Burnah Nuddee, crossed by the great road from Benares to Allahabad. On the side of the cantonment furthest from the city are the bungalows of the various officials and European residents: substantially built, well fitted and appointed, and surrounded by pleasant gardens. There are, among the public buildings, a Christian church and chapel, a court of justice, the treasury, the jail, and a mint – the last named never yet appropriated to its destined purpose. Secrole is thus, in effect, the British portion of Benares.

Another military station, subordinate to Benares, Chunar or Chunargur, is about sixteen miles distant; indeed, being nearly midway between Benares and Mirzapore, it may be an auxiliary to either in time of need. Chunar is a town of about twelve thousand inhabitants, standing on a plateau or elevated cliff close to the Ganges. It was regarded as a stronghold more than three centuries ago; and, like many other places in the neighbourhood, belonged to the great Mogul; from whom, in lapse of time, it was wrested by the ambitious nawab-viziers of Oude; until at length it fell into the hands of the British. It was for some years the Company’s principal artillery depôt for the Northwestern Provinces. The fortified portion of the town, on the heights, is surrounded by a rampart a little over a mile in circuit, and from ten to twenty feet high, guarded by towers, and in its turn completely commanding the river and its banks. The space enclosed by this wall or rampart, however, has very little of a military aspect; part is open grass-land; part occupied by bungalows and gardens of Europeans; part by the governor’s house, the hospital, and the state prison; and part by the ancient Hindoo palace, a massy vaulted edifice presenting little of its original splendour. An article of Hindoo faith is recorded in connection with a slab of black marble in a small square court of this palace; to the effect that ‘the Almighty is seated personally, though invisibly, on this stone, for nine hours each day, removing during the other three hours to Benares;’ so that the fort, in sepoy belief, can only be taken between the hours of six and nine in the morning. Considered in a military sense, the fort is by no means strong; nevertheless the steepness of the ascent would render storming difficult; and to increase this difficulty, the garrison was wont in former times to keep a number of large rudely made stone-cylinders at hand, to roll down upon a besieging force. The citadel or stronghold is in the northeastern part of the enclosure; it is mounted with several cannon, and has a bomb-proof magazine. The native town, consisting principally of two-storied stone-houses, is spread over a slope lying eastward of the fortifications. The English dwellings, and the station for invalid soldiers, are lower down the slope.

As soon as the Revolt began, the safety of Benares became an object of much solicitude to the governor-general at Calcutta, to Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow, and indeed to all the Company’s servants: seeing that the maintenance of free communication would greatly depend on the peaceful condition of that city. We have seen that telegrams passed almost daily between Benares and the other chief cities in May; intended partly to facilitate the transport of reinforcements to the northwest, and in part also to insure the tranquillity of Benares itself. About the middle of the month the military commandant had to announce that there had been some excitement in the 37th native infantry; that a Sikh regiment had been sent on to Mirzapore and Allahabad; that the 13th irregular cavalry were at Sultanpore; and that his position was rather weak. On the 18th he telegraphed for aid: stating that ‘if one hundred European infantry could be spared for duty here, it would restore confidence, and make Benares more secure, so as to maintain communication with the northwest.’ General Lloyd was asked whether he could spare that much-coveted reinforcement – a hundred Europeans – from Dinapoor. About the same time the commandant was directed to defend Chunar fort with European invalids and veterans, and to keep the native infantry regiment at hand in Benares. Mr Tucker, civil commissioner, writing to the government on the same day, spoke of the ‘bold policy’ which had been adopted when the 37th shewed disaffection; the Europeans remaining in their houses, and acting so as neither to exhibit nor inspire distrust – instead of attempting to escape. On the 19th, arrangements were completed for sending a company of her Majesty’s 84th from Dumdum to Benares, in five separate parties of twenty-one each, in transit-carriages. By the 19th, the irregular cavalry had been brought in from Sultanpore, and every precaution taken to guard against a surprise – insomuch that the Europeans at neighbouring stations were looking to Benares as a sort of stay and support. More than once allusion was made, by the civil commissioner at that city, to the tactics of serenity, as a medium between severity and fright. One of the telegrams told that ‘Brigadier Ponsonby carries out Colonel Gordon’s quiet policy of shewing no fear or distrust; not a muscle is moved.’ Until towards the close of the month, Benares was included in the military command of which Dinapoor was the centre; but as the distance between the two towns is a hundred and fifty miles, Brigadier Ponsonby received permission to act for himself, irrespective of control from General Lloyd.

The 31st of May found Benares and its neighbourhood at peace. How close at hand were days of violence and bloodshed – a future chapter will shew.

We have now left Bengal, both in its original and in the Company’s acceptation of that term, and have arrived within the territories grouped together as the Northwest Provinces. From Benares and Chunargur, as a glance at the map will shew, the course of the Ganges, of the great trunk-road, and of the railway in process of construction, brings us to Mirzapore – a town not actually thrown into rebellion during the month of May, but placed between two foci of inflammable materials, Benares and Allahabad, and liable at any time to be inflamed by them. Mirzapore is on the right bank of the Ganges, which is half a mile wide at this spot, and is crossed by a ferry in the absence of a bridge. It is a great commercial city, with about eighty thousand inhabitants; the emporium of the cotton trade of Bundelcund and the adjacent provinces; not rich in Mohammedan or Hindoo antiquities or splendour, associated with few military events, but wealthy on account of its industry. The Company’s military cantonment, as in so many other parts of India, is two or three miles out of the town; indeed, this is a fact that must be borne in mind throughout, as a necessary condition to the understanding of events connected with the Revolt.

Approaching now the Jumna regions, the plot thickens and the characters increase in number. We come to that rich country, the Doab, watered on the one side by the Ganges and on the other by the Jumna, with Oude and Rohilcund on the north, Bundelcund and Scindiah’s territory on the south. We find a considerable number of large and important towns – Lucknow, Fyzabad, Bareilly, Allahabad, Futtehpoor, Cawnpore, Furruckabad, Gwalior, Bhurtpore, Agra, Delhi, Meerut – in the immediate vicinity of one or other of these two rivers. The Company’s military stations are far more thickly posted in that region than in any other part of India – a source of weakness in the midst of apparent strength; for as the native troops were predominant in all these places, their numbers became a manifest evil as soon as a mutinous spirit appeared among the men.

This chapter being mainly intended, as already explained, to shew how remarkably the materials for explosion were accumulating during the month of May, to burst forth with frightful violence in June, we shall glance rapidly and touch lightly here on many of the towns situated westward of Mirzapore, in order to place the reader in a position to understand what will follow – treating of sudden outrages and strange escapes in some few cases, and in others of a deceitful calm before a storm.

Allahabad, in a military sense, is a more important post than any between it and Calcutta: indeed, there are few to equal it throughout India. This is due principally to the fact that it lies at the junction of the two great rivers Ganges and Jumna, the northern side being washed by the one, the southern by the other. It occupies the most eastern, or rather southeastern point of the rich and fertile Doab; it lies in the direct water-route from Calcutta to both of the upper rivers; it is a main station on the great trunk-road from Calcutta to the Punjaub, and on the East India Railway now in course of construction; and a bridge will carry that railway across the Jumna close to it. No wonder, therefore, if the eyes of all were directed anxiously towards Allahabad during the mutinies and consequent struggles. The fort and arsenal are among the largest and finest in India. The fort rises direct from the point of confluence of the two rivers, and is on that side nearly impregnable. It is a mile and a half in circuit, five-sided, stone built, and bastioned. Two of the sides, near the water, are old, and weak as against a European force; the other three are modern, and, with their bastions and ravelins, command the city and the country beyond. Bishop Heber remarked that Allahabad fort had lost in grandeur what it had gained in strength: the lofty towers having been pruned down into bastions and cavaliers, and its high stone ramparts obscured by turf parapets and a sloping external glacis. The principal gate of the fort, surmounted by a dome with a wide hall beneath, and surrounded by arcades and galleries, forms a very majestic ornament. The arsenal, situated within the fort, is one of great magnitude, containing (before the Revolt) arms for thirty thousand men, an immense park of artillery, and the largest powder-magazine in Upper India. Altogether, it is a place of great strength, probably impregnable to natives, and fitted to bear a prolonged and formidable siege. In a part of the fort overlooking the Jumna is an ancient and spacious palace, formerly fitted up as residences for the superior European officers, but latterly used for state prisoners. From a balcony perched near the summit of a tower on which the windows of one of the chambers open, a scene is presented, of which European travellers in India speak with much admiration. The spectator looks down upon a grove of mango-trees, flanking a fine esplanade, and peopled with innumerable ring-necked paroquets. Above, on pediment, pinnacle, and turret, others of the feathered tribe build their nests and plume their wings. Along the thickly wooded shores on the north or Allahabad side of the Jumna, buildings of various degrees of interest are seen interspersed with the small islands which speckle the river; while the opposite or Bundelcund shore forms a noble background to the picture. In the days before the Revolt, the European troops of the garrison were accommodated in well-constructed barracks within the fort; while the military cantonment for the native troops lay northwest of it.

The city of Allahabad, westward of the fort, and on the Jumna shore, is scarcely worthy of its magnificent situation. It contains seventy thousand inhabitants; but its streets and houses are poor; nor do the mosques and temples equal those in many other parts of Hindostan, though the gardens and tomb of Sultan Khosroo and his serai are almost unequalled in India. There is a particular spot, outside the fort, where the actual confluence of the two great rivers is considered to take place; and this presents the liveliest scene in the whole city. One traveller tells of the great numbers of pilgrims of both sexes, anxious to bathe in the purifying waters; and of devotees who, causing earthen vessels to be fastened round their waists or to their feet, proceed in a boat to the middle of the stream, and precipitate themselves into the water – supposing that by this self-immolation they secure eternal bliss. Another states that when a pilgrim arrives here – Benares, Gyayah, and Allahabad being frequently included in the same pilgrimage – he sits down on the brink of the river, and causes his head and body to be so shaved that each hair may fall into the water – for the sacred writings promise the pilgrim a million years’ residence in heaven for every hair thus deposited – and that, after shaving and bathing, he performs the obsequies of his deceased ancestors. The Brahmins are the money-makers at these spots; each has his little platform, standing in the water, where he assists in the operations by which the pilgrim is supposed to become holy. Skinner describes the whole scene as a kind of religious fair.

When the events at Meerut and Delhi became known at Allahabad, the native troops shewed much excitement. One of them, the 6th Bengal infantry, drew down encomiums for fidelity, in offering to march and fight against the insurgents; whether all the officers believed the men, may be doubted; but the chief authorities did not deem themselves justified in shewing distrust. Thanks came from Calcutta for the manifestation of loyalty made by the regiment – a loyalty destined to be of brief duration. A detachment of her Majesty’s 84th reached Allahabad on the 23d of May, sent up from Calcutta by the laboriously tedious methods lately described. There being some disturbance expected at the jail, the detachment was sent into the fort, and held in readiness to proceed to the cantonment with two guns; but as the alarm ceased for a time, the troops were sent on to Cawnpore, where much more anxiety was felt. Lieutenant Brasyer commanded four hundred Sikhs of the Ferozpore regiment in the fort; while Captain Hazelwood took charge of the European artillerymen. About two hundred Englishwomen and children were in the fort; and all hoped that the native troops in the cantonment could and would be kept in subjection. How far this hope was well founded, will be shewn in a future chapter.

Lucknow and the important territory of Oude, so far as concerns the events in May, have already been treated. The relations of the British government to the court of Oude, the assiduous exertions of Sir Henry Lawrence to maintain subordination and tranquillity, and the vigorous measures adopted by him against the mutineers at Lucknow towards the close of the month of May, were followed by occurrences in June which will come for notice in their proper place.

Of Cawnpore – a name never to be uttered by an English tongue without a thrill of horror, an agony of exasperated feeling – all notice will be postponed until the next chapter; not because the hapless beings there residing were free from peril in the month of May, but because the tragedy must be treated continuously as a whole, each scene leading forward to the hideous climax. Suffice it at present to know that Cawnpore contained so many English men and women, and so many mutinous native troops, that all eyes were anxiously directed towards the progress of events at that city.

Let us turn to towns and districts further westward.

Agra, once the capital of the Patan emperors, is the chief city of the Northwestern Provinces. Delhi is historically, and in population, more important; but was still at that time nominally under another sovereign; whereas Agra has been British territory since 1803, and is very well suited for a seat of government. The city, like Delhi, is situated on the right bank of the Jumna, and will, like it, be at some future time accommodated by the East India railway. In round numbers, its distance from Delhi is a hundred and fifty miles; from Calcutta, a little under eight hundred; and from Lahore, five hundred. The boundary of the old city encloses a space of twelve square miles; but not more than half of this is at present occupied by houses. There is one fine street, with houses built of red sandstone; the remaining streets are mostly narrow, with very small, insignificant-looking shops. The public buildings are numerous, and some of them very magnificent, telling of the past days of imperial glory and splendour. One is the palace of Shahjehan; small, but rendered very beautiful by its white marble surfaces, arabesques and mosaics, carvings of flowers, inlayings of black and yellow marble, enrichments of gilding, screen-works of marble and metal, fountains in the mosaic pavements. Near this is Shahjehan’s audience-chamber, as large as the palace itself, originally enclosed by arcades hung with tapestries. And also close at hand is the Moti Musjid or Pearl Mosque; with an exterior of red sandstone and an interior of white marble; a court with arcades and a fountain; a vestibule raised on steps; three terraces surmounted by beautiful domes; and nine elegant kiosks equidistant along the front. But the crowning beauty of Agra in its Mohammedan aspect is the celebrated Taj Mahal, a little way outside the city. This was the mausoleum of Shahjehan and his favourite sultaness Nurjehan, the ‘Light of the world,’ and occupied in its construction twenty thousand men during a period of more than twenty years. Page after page of travellers’ descriptions are occupied with this glorious structure – its façade of a thousand feet in length; its dazzling whiteness of marble; its mosques, at either end, with their domes; its stupendous marble terraced platform, with steps and pillars, minarets and kiosks; its great dome surmounted by gilded globes and crescents; its octagonal shrine or sepulchral apartment, with enclosures of extraordinary marble latticework; and its sarcophagi, literally covered with arabesques, fanciful mouldings, sculptured flowers, and inscriptions from the Koran.