SCOTCHMEN IN INDIA. 55 for Lucknow, he told me that he would do so with great pleasure, and more especially as his name, although he was an Eurasian, was William Baxter, and his father came from Scotland! CHAPTER V. LUCKNOW AND CAWNPORE. AT 6.22 p.m., on 24th December, we left Agra; and, amidst the most frightful noiseshunting in various directions, and bumping of too severe a description to be consistent with a Christian state of mind-at Cawnpore Junction, about 3 o'clock in the morning, I heard the exclamation, "A merry Christmas to you!" Between 6 and 7 we were whirled off in gharries -the rough covered cabs of the countryfrom the station to Hill's "tumble-down-dick " Hotel in Lucknow; and I don't know why, but my first remark on entering it was, "We are now 7,000 miles from London." No rain has fallen here since the first week in September, and the dust lies thick, not only on all the roads, and roofs, and walls, but on the topmost leaves of every tree. Most of the trees of India are evergreen, or nearly so; those which do not absolutely answer to this POVERTY IN INDIA. 57 description only shedding their leaves for a week or two in February. Rain is very much wanted now, and I hear fears already expressed regarding the state of the crops. People at home can scarcely realise what vast districts in India are every now and then on the brink of famine. Oude is one of the finest provinces in the country; yet a gentleman in high position told me that of its I 1,000,000 inhabitants 4,000,000 were insufficiently fed, and double that number just able to get enough to sustain them, rendering anything like payment for education totally out of the question. I went on Sunday morning to the American Methodist Episcopal Church, where one of the missionaries delivered a very striking and original discourse appropriate to the season. Some of our party went to a church which shall be nameless, where the clergyman delivered no discourse at all, but simply told a large congregation of high-bred British ladies and gentlemen not to get drunk at Christmas-time! Lucknow, the City of Roses, is quite a modern E place-only 100 years old-but has a population of nearly 300,000. It may be styled, like Washington, the city of magnificent distances, so widely spread are the European dwellings all around it. Its two chief characteristics are the number of gaudy, gingerbread-looking, painted stucco palaces and temples, the tawdry tinsel of which makes one feel quite angry (more particularly after seeing Agra), and the remarkable beauty of its public gardens and parks. I don't know any city so highly favoured in this respect. The Wingfield Park is unsurpassed for the variety of its forest trees; and nothing can exceed the loveliness of the flowers, the flowering shrubs, the walks and beds in the Residency, which has been left in ruins, just as it was when the mutineers marched out of it, after the rescue and retreat of that band of heroes whose exploits astonished the world. I have examined the ground with the greatest care; have stood uncovered at Sir Henry Lawrence's grave; have been twice in early morning to the neighbouring gate of the city where General Neil was shot; and to me it is simply |