As we stood in the church reading the names of the victims of the Mutiny we could hear the cheers of the British soldiers in the barracks, welcoming their officers, who had looked in upon their Christmas dinner of roast beef and plum-pudding. The barracks, built since the Mutiny, stand not far from the house which was Nana Sahib's head-quarters at a time when he was treating for the capitulation of a British general, and believed that within twenty-four hours Cawnpore would see the last of the English soldier.

The Memorial Garden is separated from the church by a space big enough to hold the city of Cawnpore if the people could by any means be induced to dwell in neighbourly fashion. At the time of the Mutiny the well served the needs of a few straggling houses which in the eccentric disposition of the town happened to find themselves here. Now only a marble cross set in a grass plot-dark in the shadow of solemn yews-marks the site of the butchery, whilst the well itself is a prominent object in a rich and well-ordered garden. When Havelock reached Cawnpore, and found this terrible truth at the bottom of the well, it was too late to furnish Christian burial to Nana Sahib's victims. The well was bricked over, and in due time there has

risen upon the site a beautiful marble figurean angel with sad face, yet not sorrowing as those that have no hope, but carrying in either hand the palm of victory. Over the gateway of the enclosure which surrounds this solemn burial-place is written

"These are they who came out of great tribulation."

Round the base of the statue runs the inscription:

"Sacred to the perpetual memory of a great company of Christian people, chiefly women and children, who near this spot were cruelly massacred by the followers of the rebel Nana Dhoomdopunt of Bithwoor, and cast, the dying with the dead, into the well below on the 15th July, 1857."

In strange contrast with the scene recalled by these words is the aspect of to-day, with the sun shining down on bright flowers, green grass, and lusty trees, and all around the peace and goodwill of Christmas Day.

CHAPTER XVII.

THE CAPITAL OF THE GREAT MOGUL.

I MADE an acquaintance at Cawnpore who is too interesting to be altogether lost sight of. We met first in the early morning when I was looking for the post-office. There approached from down the road a gharry with a human shoulder projecting from either open window, and a prodigious arm hanging limp, pensively enjoying the cool morning air. The nearer approach of the gharry disclosed the upper part of a gigantic man. His turban brushed the roof of the gharry as he sat, and if he had not got his arms outside I cannot conceive where he would have put them. As I gazed he nodded in the friendliest way, and when I asked if he knew where the postoffice was he stopped the carriage with effusive politeness. He even made as if he would descend, but reflection on the difficulties that surrounded his getting back again made him

pause. As it was he insisted upon shaking me by the hand, and so bubbled over with friendship that I felt as if we had known each other for many years.

His knowledge of English was not more than sufficed, with the assistance of gestures, to direct me to the post-office, and after he had shaken hands with me again the patient horse moved off with him. I marvelled much who he might be, but having no means of learning I had given up the puzzle when I met him once more amid surroundings that deepened the mystery.

I had obtained the address of the editor of a native paper published in Cawnpore, and went in quest of him, desiring to have a talk on the subject of the Ilbert Bill and other matters. His office was in the native part of the town, approached by a street so narrow that driving was inconvenient, if not impossible. Holding the address in my hand, I walked down the street, a narrow lane flanked with shops a few feet square, windowless and doorless. Native shopkeepers in the street at the top skirting the Memorial Gardens might, if they pleased, dress themselves in the borrowed plumes of the English. "Bhonsla Mistre" might vaunt his "furnitures room and "Mistry Janoji" might write himself up

"couch-builder."

But in this street, older

by a century than the English occupation, natives were content to follow old customs and retain ancient appellations.

In each shop squatted a man or woman waiting for custom, which came but slowly. Occasionally a child came up and had weighed out to her with infinite carefulness an ounce of ghee, fished out of a jar by the impartial finger of the proprietor, which was next inserted in whatever other receptacle had a call made upon it. Now and then a woman bought a few pice worth of rice, and the trade in betel-nuts was comparatively lively. For the rest the dealers sat in their shops gazing into vacancy or talking across the narrow passage to their equally disengaged neighbour on the other side.

At the corner of a by-street sat an old woman with a few handfuls of parched peas stored in a bit of paper with a little tin measure designed to mete out the luxury to solvent customers. As none came, the old woman fondled the peas with bony hands not less parched than they, arranging and rearranging them with a tireless devotion that must have added sensibly to their flavour. Perhaps she was hungry herself, and thus dallied with an appetite too expensive to be