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SIEGE OF CAWNPORE.

63

without ever being home, or even up to the hills; is very well to do, and very thankful to God for his position and success in life.

I write at the close of a memorable day, when, under his guidance, and listening to his vivid and naturally eloquent descriptions, we have visited the scenes of the awful catastrophe —the three wells: first, that into which were thrown the bodies of those who died in Wheeler's entrenchment, and for which no cemetery could be found among the living; the second, from which the besieged could alone draw water, always at the peril of their lives, as it was commanded by the enemy's guns; the third, into which were heaped the mutilated bodies of Nana Sahib's victims, which now stands in the midst of a most beautiful garden, and over which has been erected a memorial screen, and a statue by Baron Marochetti. We sat on the steps of the ghaut where the too-confiding ones embarked, and were fired upon; inspected the monuments in the handsome Memorial Church; and for four hours listened to descriptions of horrors almost too terrible for relation.

It may be that the tale of the massacre, and what happened afterwards, may never be told. Things could be written about Sepoy barbarities in the next generation which could scarcely, having regard to the feelings of sorrowing families, be committed to paper while any of the victims are alive; and it may turn out that blowing from the guns was one of the mildest forms of retribution practised by the British troops.

The Mahommedans in Cawnpore are wealthy and influential; they raised large sums of money for the Turks during the Russian war, and nearly all are Jingoes, although notoriously disaffected to British rule.

CHAPTER VI.

ALLAHABAD AND BENARES.

WE left at mid-day for Allahabad, passing through the most fertile and best cultivated district we have seen in India-luxuriant crops, or their remains, of Indian corn, wheat, millet, pulse, and castor-oil, alternating with mango orchards and clumps of stately forest trees; lovely birds, conspicuous among which were the blue jay, the Sarus crane, and a kind of shrike with an orange breast, appearing in almost every field and grove. The day, as many of our days at this time were, was perfect, just like the finest in an English June; but several things reminded us that we were not at home-for example, jackals looking at us from the edge of the maize plantations.

At 5 o'clock wide roads, barracks, and other marks of a capital showed us that we were approaching Allahabad, "the City of God," which the railways have made a place of great

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