Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

no power." "Huzoor is pleased to say so-but"in short, I could hardly get him away from the palanquin side, - particularly as I did not to choose to set off till I had seen the poor people embark, for whose passage I had paid. then parted, the jemautdar still declaring that he would follow me to Cawnpoor, and bring his brother with him.

We

The natives of India seem to attach very great importance to a written recommendation by a European, or person in a public station, in which, as in many other points, they strongly resemble the Russians. The whole scene which I have described, mutatis mutandis, (crucifixes for brahminical strings, &c.) might have occurred at a ferry on the Don or the Dnieper. The mixture of simplicity and cunning, the importunity, the patience and the flattery, seem to belong almost equally to the peasantry of both countries, or more accurately speaking, perhaps, to the state of society in which they are placed.

We arrived between three and four at Searsoul, the station half-way between Kuleaunpoor and Cawnpoor, a moderate sized village, with some neat houses, and a handsome serai. Our people, however, were so much tired with wading up to their middles in water, that we bade them get their dinners, and go to sleep till midnight, when we should again set off. We ourselves did the same as far as dinner was concerned, and after a little walk round the village, which was completely insulated by the inundation, retired to our palanquins, which for security we had carried into the court-yard of the tannah or police-office. We also engaged four mussaulchies, less for their light, the harvestmoon, being sufficient, than to serve as guides through the flooded country.

October 9. The night and morning were again fine, and the waters much abated. Still we were seven hours going sixteen miles, and I had the disappointment to find, on arriving at Mr. Williams's house, that, despairing of my reaching Cawnpoor in such weather, he had sent round to say that the confirmation was postponed. It might, however, I found, be easily arranged for Sunday morning, and in the hospitality, cleanliness, and comfort of his house, we found abundant compensation for our recent labours.

During my stay at Cawnpoor not many events occurred worth noticing. On Sunday the 11th, I confirmed upwards of eighty persons, a considerable proportion of whom afterwards received the sacrament. I visited on Monday the new military hospital and regimental school of the 16th Lancers, both of which are in excellent order. There is one ward of the former furnished with tubes of a new invention,

[blocks in formation]

for the admission and refrigeration of air, which is introduced through two great valves like gigantic chimneys with cowls on them, and let off through the roof by a multitude of small iron tunnels with heads like ventilators. It is said to answer tolerably, but not better than tatties, which are here hardly more expensive. Externally the machinery is a great deformity to the building. The regimental school is on the national system, and conducted extremely well. An institution of a wider scope and loftier pretensions was established some years ago in Cawnpoor for the children both of Europeans and natives, which obtained a very liberal subscription from the English residents, and has since received from Government a handsome grant of 400 s. rupees per month. It has an excellent house, with good school-rooms, an English master and mistress at a large salary, and a Persian moonshee, but I found it attended but by few European and half-caste, and still fewer native children, in deplorable want of books and other similar supplies, and with a master who had apparently been brought in as a party measure, who was previously altogether inexperienced in the improved system of education, and actually declined to be examined in any of the points most necessary to his usefulness. Except their catechism, which they said well, there was nothing satisfactory in the appearance, number, or proficiency of the European children. The native boys were learning Lindley Murray's grammar, without any tolerable knowledge of the language in which it is written, and had for their single classbook Joyce's Scientific Dialogues, which they stammered over by rote, but could none of them construe into Hindoostanee. I asked if they had any Hindoostanee books, and could read them into English? If they learned geography, mathematics, or even wrote English exercises by double translation or otherwise? Nothing of the sort seemed to have entered the master's head. He taught them to write a fair hand, and to work ridiculous and useless sums in fellowship, the double rule of three, and this was all his ambition. Archdeacon Corrie kindly undertook, during his stay at Cawnpoor, to put him into a better train, and I wrote out a list of books, which I recommended to the committee to supply him with, as well as some of the primary and simplest elements of Bell's system of education. Thus, I hope, things will be amended; at present they are bad enough, and when compared with the establishment at Benares, not at all creditable to those who have employed more ample means with so little judgment.

Cawnpoor is a place of great extent, the cantonments be ing six miles from one extremity to the other, but of very

[blocks in formation]

scattered population. Its population, however, abstracted from the civil and military establishments, is still considerable; there are many handsome mosques, and the view of the town from the course gives quite the idea of a city. The European houses are most of them large and roomy, standing in extensive compounds, and built one story high, with sloping roofs, first thatched, and then covered with tiles, a roof which is found better than any other to exclude the heat of the sun, and to possess a freedom from the many accidents to which a mere thatched roof is liable. I received much civility and kindness from General Martindell and the other military officers, and especially from Colonel Lumsdaine, who took great pains in getting our party all which was required from the Commissariate.

Of the climate of Cawnpoor I had heard a very unfavourable account, which, however, was not confirmed by the residents, who said that during the rains it was a very desirable situation, that the cold months were remarkably dry and bracing, and that the hot winds were not worse than in most other parts of the Dooab. The great inconveniences of the place are, as they represent it, its glare and dust, defects, however, which are in a considerable degree removed already by the multitude of trees which they are planting in all directions. There is no regular Christian church. Divine service is performed alternate mornings and evenings in a thatched but convenient bungalow, nearly in the centre of the station, and in a riding-house adjoining the cavalry barracks. Government has sanctioned the building of two churches, but on a scale, I am told, of so rigid inspection and economy, that nobody will undertake the contract. The shops in Cawnpoor are large, and, though far from showy, contain some good things, which are sold very little dearer than in Calcutta. The necessaries of life are barely half the price which they are there, and an excellent house may be rented for eighty or ninety rupees monthly. On the whole, it is in many respects one of the most considerable towns which I have seen in northern India, but being of merely modern origin, it has no fine ancient buildings to show; the European architecture is confined to works of absolute necessity only, and marked by the greatest simplicity, and few places of its size can be named where there is so absolutely nothing to see.

CHAPTER XV.

CAWNPOOR TO LUCKNOW.

ENTRANCE INTO THE KING OF OUDE'S TERRITORIES—INCREASE OF GUARDS-KING'S SUWARRS-AUMEEN-ENTRANCE INTO LUCKNOW-COURT CIRCULAR-NARROW STREETS-ARMED IN HABITANTS--PRIME MINISTER--RHINOCEROSES--DILKOUSHAR CONSTANTIA-DECEASED KING'S WIVES-BREAKFAST AT THE PALACE--DISTRIBUTION OF MONEY AT THE GATES-KING BREAKFASTS AT THE RESIDENCY-PRIVATE DETAILS OF THE GOVERNMENT-CHRISTIANS AT LUCKNOW.

WE left Cawnpoor on Monday afternoon, the 18th of October, having sent our baggage and tents early in the morning to the first station, which is only six miles from the northern bank of the Ganges, the passage of which, by camels and elephants, usually takes up a considerable space of time. The Ganges is still a noble stream; its width, at the usual place of ferrying, is, I should think, not far from a mile and a half, but it is divided at this season by a large sand-bank, and the water is in many places shallow. Its banks on both sides are flat and ugly, but the southern side has the advantage in its numerous bungalows, surrounded by their respective gardens. We had heard much of the misgoverned and desolate state of the kingdom of Oude; boats had been recently menaced, in their way to Cawnpoor, by some of the villages adjoining the river, and my guard had been increased, without any application from me, from thirty to forty-five sepoys, by the obliging care of General Martindell. The immediate vicinity of the river we certainly found uncultivated, and the peasants who passed us here were still more universally loaded with defensive and offensive weapons than those of the Company's territories in the Dooab. We found them, however, peaceable and courteous, though our escort was mostly gone forward, and Mr. Lushington and I had cantered on by ourselves, leaving the remainder of the party behind, and in fact had repeatedly to ask our way as the evening closed in.

When we arrived at our tents, a letter was put into my hands from Mr. Ricketts, the resident at Lucknow, stating that the king of Oude had sent a purveyor, or collector of taxes, (I hardly know how to translate the word "Aumeen,") with two chobdars, and ten "suwarrs" or horsemen, to obtain supplies for us during our march. These persons, however, together with Mr. Ricketts's own messenger, had ex

[blocks in formation]

pected us at Onnaw, a village four miles further on, but a supply had been obtained by their authority of all which was necessary for our present encampment.

October 19.-We started early on two elephants, which, after all, the good-natured exertions of Captain Lumsdaine had obtained for us, though not till I had purchased a second horse for my journey, a purchase, indeed, which most of my friends tell me, in such a journey, I shall not find superfluous. The elephants are extremely convenient in the commencement of a march, while it is yet too dark to ride on horseback with comfort; and by sending on our horses half way to wait for us, we have the relief and pleasure of a ride during the pleasantest time of the morning. It was very dark, and the road excessively bad, through a country naturally broken and marshy, and now rendered almost impassable by the recent rains.

In the village of Onnaw, which we reached about half past four in the morning, it was very difficult to find our way, and nobody was awake except one poor foot-traveller, who, himself a stranger, had sat down on the brink of a large pool, in which, apparently, the only track visible terminated, and, wrapped up in his mantle, his sword and shield under him, and at intervals blowing the fusee of his long matchlock gun, was waiting, as he said, for day, and prepared for any possible attack which might in the meantime be made on him. We did not like to wait so long, and began knocking at the door of the nearest house, a cottage rather larger than ordinary. No answer was returned, and my spearmen were at once going to break the door, or rather gate, for it was built round a small court-yard. I forbade this step, however, on which one of the followers of the elephant, crept like a cat up the mud wall, and dropped down inside of the little enclosure, calling loudly for a guide to show the way. He was received with a volley of abuse in a female voice, which was not at all calmed by my assurance that she had nothing to fear, and that, if her husband would come and show us the way, he should be well paid for his trouble. She declared her husband was not at home, but at last, as she said, merely to get rid of us, herself vouchsafed to open the gate, and give us some few directions. Our road we found, in fact, lay through the pool I have mentioned; and she said, if we kept well to the right hand, without going beyond an old tree, it was probable we should find safe footing. With these directions we were fain to be content, and they carried us on safely.

We wondered all this time that we heard nothing of the king's people, or Mr. Ricketts's servant; shortly after, how.

« PreviousContinue »