TWO INDIAN CAMPAIONERS. • TB:E hardships of the Crimean campaign having
failed to damp the martial ardour of Mrs. Duberly, she accompanied her husband and his regiment to India in October 1857, in quest of fresh mili- tary experiences. The 8th Hussars, to which Captain Duberly was attached, formed part of the cavalry brigade which operated during the campaign of 18.58 in Rajpootana and Central India. From the 1st of February, when it landed at Mandavee in Catch, to the 12th of January last, Captain Duberly's regiment passed only one European station, Deesa, and marched in the toilsome pursuit of an ever-flying foe, a distance of 2028 miles, more than 1800 of which the lady herself accomplished on horseback. Rough work this, and more than enough, we suspect, to satisfy most male amateurs; but we doubt that the lady's love of warlike adventure has yet been satiated. She has set her heart on a decoration, and if riding can win it she will ride as interminably as Sir Galahad in quest of the Holy Graal. The Crimean medal had been "almost in her grasp," and not to have possessed it after all " had been a disappointment the keenness and bitterness of which can be suspected only by a few." Probably there is no living potentate for whom the gallant Cap- tainess entertains so profound a respect as she does for Scindia, for " he at least knows how to appreciate and how to reward a woman's fortitude." He told the lady that if a decoration he had designed for our troops were sanctioned by the Governor-General and Council, he should have great pleasure in conferring upon her "a distinction so fairly won." When there was hard fighting; Mrs. Dnberly's place was of course in the rear, and therefore the accounts she gives of such matters are only at second hand. But she was an eye-witness of much suffering, partly inevitable and partly the result of de- plorable mismanagement. She saw many of our absurdly-clad soldiers killed by sun-stroke, and she protests against the wanton way in which their lives were sacrificed to appearance. The men of the 95th marched for some time in their close-fitting scarlet jackets, and the 8th Hussars in even a hotter dress than that worn by the infantry ; besides which, they rode with sheepskins on their saddles ! After two months' wearisome marching, and after fifty-six hours of great exertion, when both men and horses greatly needed repose and refreshment, the 8th Hussars were ordered into action, to cut off the retreat of fugitives from Kotah. The town was bombarded, but the rebels escaped without hindrance.
" We heard the next day that while we were watching the town, between two and three p.m., the remainder of the mutineers were escaping from the opposite gate. They evacuated the town in haste, but without disorder, passing quickly over the plain until they reached a few houses known as The Rebels' Village,' where they formed for their march. It will natu- rally be asked—' Where were the 1500 cavalry and artillery at this time, and what were they doing towards the destruction of the flying enemy ? ' 'The cavalry and artillery reached the ford at the appointed time, and had tra- versed half its width, in spite of the difficulties which it presented, when some one with keener eyes than the rest discovered what he declared to be a gun pointed on the wading force. On nearer and careful examination it proved to be a black buffalo grazing. At last, after a good deal of delay, and some little disorder, the ford was crossed. I hesitate to describe what fol- lowed. The cavalry and artillery were immediately halted on the river bank, and the men remained standing to their horses or lying under the trees until two o'clock, when the enemy, unable to endure the fierce assault of the infantry, fled across the plain, carrying with them their arms, ammunition, and treasure ! Surely on receipt of this intelligence the cavalry must have started in hot pursuit. No. Far from it. They remained where they halted all that day and all that night ; and the next morning they marched into Kotah, and then returned to their original halting-place by the ford !"
Mrs. Duberly gives us an interesting glimpse of Jacob's famous irregular cavalry. "No married man is enlisted into the corps, or permitted to re- main in it ; and the anxiety of the Sindians to be admitted into it is said to be very great. The candidates, if satisfactory in other respects, are mounted on horseback, without a saddle, and with a plain watering-bridle. They are then taken to a steeple-chase ground, extending over two miles, and supplied, artificially and naturally, with every kind of obstacle, and told that the first men in will be chosen. Even before I had heard of this ini initiatory process, I used to admire these dashing riders, who sat so easily on their horses, and looked so well. During the expedition of our flying column there was a ford to be crossed—deep, wide, and difficult ; but they made no check. Plunging into it, they splashed and scrambled through it in ten minutes ; while it took our people, with their steadier notions, twice that time to cross. They are allowed a certain sum, out of which they pro- vide their own horses, or Government perhaps would hardly approve of such expeditious movements."
Here is a subject for a picture.
"An instance of antique heroism, uncommon in these civilised days, oc- curred during the assault on Kotah. The rebel chiefs were endeavounug to make the most favourable disposition of their forces, and one of them rode with considerable difficulty to the top of a fortification, from whence he could command a view of all that was going on. As the mutineers began to fly and the English pressed into the town, it became evident to him that, be- fore he could descend, the enemy would be upon him, and escape would be impossible. Choosing death rather than the disgrace of falling alive into our hands, he gathered up his reins and plunging his armed heels into his horse's sides, rode him at the parapet-wall. The horse rose bravely at his last leap, and falling headlong with his rider a depth of 120 feet, both were erushed in one mangled mass together. In the days of Saladin and Crew de
• Campaigning Experiences in Rajpootana and Central India, during the Sup- pression of the Mutiny, 1857-1868. By Mrs. Henry Doherty, Author of "A Journal kept during the Russian War." With Map.
Up Among the Pandits; or, a Year's Service in India. By Lieutenant Vivian Dicing Majendie, Royal Artillery. Lion thatwould have been carefully gathered up, and reverently buried, instead of being left to be devoured by the pariah, dogs and pigs."
Lieutenant Majendie's book is somewhat laborious reading for those who have no relish for the slang of the fast school of
literature. The best parts of the volume relate to the capture of Lucknow, in which the author took part. He describes as an eye- witness a horrible scene of cruelty which took place at the " Yellow Bungalow," one of the outposts of the city. After the
enemy had evacuated the upper part of the building, about a dozen still kept possession of the lower story, and many of our countrymen, among others a young officer of the Sikhs, were killed in endeavouring to hunt them out of the dark rooms, where the advantages were all on the side of the Sepoys. " At last, General Outram, seeing that it was death to any one to attempt to enter, and thinking that enough lives had been sacrificed in the attempt, ordered some guns to be brought to bear on to the house ; five accordingly came into action, and fired about twenty shells, in quick succession, at the windows and doorways of the building, and as the amoke.of the last round cleared away, the Sikhs, who had been held in readiness for the purpose, received the signal, and dashing forward entered the house en masse. It was most exciting to see them racing up to the place, where, when they reached it, there was for a moment a confused scrambling at the doorways, then a sharp report or two, then a sort of shout and scuffling, then again bang! bang ! sharp and distinct, and finally there burst from the building, with loud yells, a crowd of Sikhs, bearing among them the sole survivor of this garrison, who had made such a gallant defence—for gallant it was, be the source when the courage sprang, fanaticism, despair, or whatever you may choose to call it. How many the Sikhs had killed inside I do not know—not more, I heard, than two or three—but this one, alas for him! they had dragged out alive. And now commenced one of the most frightful scenes I had ever witnessed.
" Infuriated beyond measure by the death of their officer, the Sikhs (as- sisted, I regret to say, by some Englishmen) proceeded to take their revenge on this one wretched man. Seising him by the two legs they attempted to tear him in two ! Failing in this, they dragged him along by the legs, stabbing him iu the face with their bayonets as they went. I could see the poor wretch writhing as the blows fell upon him, and could hear his moans as his captors dug the sharp bayonets into his lacerated and trampled body, while his blood, trickling down, dyed the white sand over which he was being dragged. But the worst was yet to come : while still alive, though faint and feeble from his many wounds, he was deliberately placed upon a small fire of dry sticks, which had been improvised for the purpose, and there held down, in spite of his dying struggles, which, becoming weaker and more feeble every moment, were, from their very faintness and futile desperation, cruel to behold. Once during this frightful operation, the wretched victim, maddened by pain, managed to break away from his tor- mentors, and, already horribly burnt, fled a short distance, but he was im- mediately brought back and placed upon the fire, and there held till life was extinct. It was his last despairing effort, and very sad to see ; but I thought it sadder still that those hoarse, choking cries for mercy should have been disregarded as they were ; his shrieks, his agonized convulsions, his bitter anguish alike unheeded; that those upturned eyes, searching for pity in the swarthy faces which gazed with savage pleasure on the frightful scene, should have searched in vain, and that so—with the horrible smell of his burning flesh as it cracked and blackened in the flames, rising up and poisoning the air—so in this nineteenth century, with its boasted civi- lization and humanity, a human being should lie roasting and consuming to death, while Englishmen and Sikhs, gathered in little knots aroind, looked calmly on. No one will deny, I think, that this man at least adequately expiated, by his frightful and cruel death, any crimes of which he may have been guilty. " Such was the state of excitement and rage that the Sikhs were in from the loss of their officer, that I firmly believe it would have been quite im- possible to prevent this act of torture ; and that many did make the attempt I have no doubt, but the whole business was done so quickly, and with such noise and confusion, that, to me who beheld it from a short-distance (occupied as I then was on another duty), it seemed almost like a dream, till I rode up afterwards and saw the black trunk burned down to a stumpy, almost unrecognisable cinder."
Lieutenant Majendie has had the good fortune to be the chro- nicler of a real legend, and a very striking one, of the Iron Bridge of Lucknow.
"After this bridge had been captured on the 16th March, two com- panies of the Twentieth Regiment were left there, partly as a guard and partly to stop all looting. They occupied some houses about a dozen yards from the extremity of the bridge which touches on the right bank of the river ; the neighbourhood had been entirely cleared of the enemy, and, with the exception of the corpses, there was nothing bearing a resemblance to a Sepoy in the vicinity, the only persons besides our troops, and the passers-by, being a very, very old woman, a wrinkled hag with age grown double,' a miserable, decrepit wretch, so feeble that she could with difficulty drag herself along. This old lady remained down at the Iron Bridge, near the picket there posted, who at first hardly noticed her pre- sence, until the morning of the 17th, when the suspicions of the men, roused in the first instance by seeing her mysteriously picking up little bits of rag and rubbish, and making small heaps of them with no apparent ob- ject, were subsequently strengthened by her continually hovering around their fires, as though watching her opportunity to carry some away unawares. This led them to wonder and inquire among themselves as to who and what she could be, and so strong was this feeling—fostered possibly by her witch-like appearance—that one of the sergeants went to the officer in charge of the picket, and reported the case. The officer knowing how prone men are to make mountains out of mole-hills, and, for want of other occupation, to imagine all sorts of ridiculous and un- defined dangers, laughed at the sergeant's fears, and told himjust to keep his eye on the woman, and see that she got possession of no fire, but not further to interfere with her ; that perhaps she was half crazy, ail& it was improbable that she could do any harm, with more to the same effect. The sergeant then returned to his comrades, and nothing more was thought of the matter until about ten o'clock the following morning, when the old woman was nowhere to be seen ; a search was instantly ordered to be made for her, and at last she was discovered in a house hard by, in a little back room or closet, which was full of shot and shell, and a quantity of rubbish and dirt.
" The old bag, when found, was in a stooping posture, bent nearly double, with her head almost touching her feet, as though she were picking up something, and she was quite dead. Close to her hand lay a piece of cotton, like a candle wick, and partially burnt, while, nearly hidden by the rubbish, appeared through the floor, close to where the dead woman's hand rested, a bamboo containing a slow match, and on being examined it was discovered that this bamboo led down to an enormous mine of barrels of gunpowder piled on one another, and communicating with the extremity of the bamboo by means of a train of powder, carefully laid and prepared ; and as though to make the affair still more miraculous, the slow match in the bamboo had been lighted, and had actually burned about half way down, and then gone out! Here then was the explanation of this old she-devil's mysterious conduct; hence her attempts to get hold of some fire ; and that, spite of all our precautions, she had succeeded in doing so unobserved, was evident, for it would seem that having, somehow or another, lighted the piece of cotton wick, which lay half burned on the floor, she had with it communicated the spark to the slow match in the bamboo, and then, either from excitement, fear, and horror at what she had done, or some other such cause, she had fallen down dead, when, by the merciful intervention of Providence, her diabolical project had been frustrated by the going out of the match. If this had burned down to the train of powder, it would, by exploding the mine, have caused the death, not only of the old hag herself, (who was probably some crazy fanatic, with a certain terrible method in her madness,') but of the whole of the Iron Bridge and the neighbouring houses, with perhaps two or three hundred British soldiers. The truth of this anecdote is undoubted, and the details, which I took some trouble to get correctly, I heard from an officer of the very regiment which was on picket at the time when it occurred."
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