Chapter XII: Events in the Punjaub and Sinde (2)

Unfortunately, the telegraphic message failed to reach the officer to whom it was sent. The 3d regiment Bengal native cavalry, at Phillour, might, as the commanding officer at that time thought, have been maintained in discipline if the Jullundur mutineers had not disturbed them; but when the 36th and 61st native infantry, and the 6th cavalry were approaching, all control was found to be lost. The telegraphic wires being cut, no news could reach Phillour, and thus the insurgents from Jullundur made their appearance wholly unexpected—by the Europeans, if not by the troopers. The ladies and families were at once hastened off from the cantonment to the fort, which had just before been garrisoned by a hundred men of H.M. 8th foot. The officers then went on parade, where they found themselves unable to bring the 3d regiment to a sense of their duty; the men promised to keep their hands clear of murder, but they would not fight against the approaching rebels from Jullundur. The officers then returned to the fort powerless; for the handful of Europeans there, though sufficient to defend the fort, were unable to encounter four mutinous regiments in the cantonment. In a day or two, all the ladies and children were sent off safely to the hills; and the cavalry officers were left without immediate duties. The tactics of the brigadier at Jullundur were at that crisis somewhat severely criticised. It was considered that he ought to have made such arrangements as would have prevented the mutineers from crossing the Sutlej. He followed them, with such a force as he could spare or collect; but while he was planning to cut off the bridge of boats that spanned the Sutlej between Phillour and Loodianah, they avoided that spot altogether; they crossed the river six miles further up, and proceeded on their march towards Delhi—attacked at certain places by Europeans and by Sikhs, but not in sufficient force to frustrate their purpose.

Although belonging to a region east of the Punjaub, it may be well here to notice another of the June mutinies nearer the focus of disaffection. One of the regiments that took its officers by surprise in mutinying was the 60th B. N. I.; of which the head-quarters had been at Umballa, but which was at Bhotuck, only three marches from Delhi, when the fidelity of the men gave way. One of the English officers, expressing his utter astonishment at this result, said: ‘All gone! The men that we so trusted; my own men, with whom I have shot, played cricket, jumped, entered into all their sports, and treated so kindly!’ He thought it almost cruel to subject that regiment to such temptation as would be afforded by close neighbourhood with the mutineers at Delhi. But, right or wrong, the temptation was afforded, and proved too strong to be resisted. It afterwards became known that the 60th received numerous letters and messages from within Delhi, entreating them to join the national cause against the Kaffir Feringhees. On the 11th of June, the sepoys suddenly rose, and fired a volley at a tent within which many of the officers were at mess, but fortunately without fatal results. Many of the officers at once galloped off to the camp outside Delhi, feeling they might be more useful there than with a mutinous regiment; while others stayed a while, in the vain hope of bringing the men back to a sense of their duty. After plundering the mess of the silver-plate and the wine, and securing the treasure-chest, the mutineers made off for Delhi. Here, however, a warm reception was in store for them; their officers had given the alarm; and H.M. 9th Lancers cut the mutineers up terribly on the road leading to the Lahore Gate. Of those who entered the city, most fell in a sortie shortly afterwards. At the place where this regiment had been stationed, Umballa, another death-fiend—cholera—was at work. ‘We have had that terrible scourge the cholera. It has been raging here with frightful violence for two months (May to July); but, thank God, has now left us without harming the Sahibs. It seemed a judgment on the natives. They were reeling about and falling dead in the streets, and no one to remove them. It is the only time we have looked on it as an ally; though it has carried off many soldiers, two native officers, and six policemen, who were guarding prisoners; all fell dead at the same place; as one dropped, another stepped forward and took his place; and so on the whole lot.’ It was one of the grievous results of the Indian mutiny that English officers, in very bitterness of heart, often expressed satisfaction at the calamities which fell on the natives, even townsmen unconnected with the soldiery.

Jelum, which was the scene of a brief but very fierce contest in July, is a considerable town on the right bank of the river of the same name; it is situated on the great line of road from Lahore to Peshawur; and plans have for some time been under consideration for the establishment of river-steamers thence down through Moultan to Kurachee. Like many other places on the great high road, it was a station for troops; and like many other stations, it was thrown into uneasiness by doubts of the fidelity of the sepoys. The 14th regiment Bengal native infantry, about three-fourths of which were stationed at Jelum, having excited suspicions towards the end of June, it was resolved to disarm them; but as no force was at hand to effect this, three companies of H.M. 24th foot, under Colonel Ellice, with a few horse-artillery, were ordered down from Rawul Pindee. On the 7th of July the English troops arrived, and found the native regiment drawn up on parade. Whether exasperated at the frustration of a proposed plan of mutiny, or encouraged by their strength being thrice that of the English, is not well known; but the 14th attacked the English with musketry directly they approached. This of course brought on an immediate battle. The sepoys had fortified their huts, loopholed their walls, and secured a defensive position in a neighbouring village. The English officers of the native regiment, deserted and fired at by their men, hastened to join the 24th; and a very severe exchange of musketry soon took place. The sepoys fought so boldly, and disputed every inch so resolutely, that it was found necessary to bring the three guns into requisition to drive them out of their covered positions. At last they were expelled, and escaped into the country; where the British, having no cavalry, were unable to follow them. It was an affair altogether out of the usual order in India at that time: instead of being a massacre or a chasing of treacherously betrayed individuals, it was a fight in which the native troops met the British with more than their usual resolution. The loss in this brief conflict was severe. Colonel Ellice was terribly wounded in the chest and the thigh; Captain Spring was killed; Lieutenants Streathfield and Chichester were wounded, one in both legs, and the other in the arm; two sergeants and twenty-three men were killed; four corporals and forty-three men wounded. Thus, out of this small force, seventy-six were either killed or wounded. The government authorities at Jelum immediately offered a reward of thirty rupees a head for every fugitive sepoy captured. This led to the capture of about seventy in the next two days, and to a fearful scene of shooting and blowing away from guns.

On the same day, July 7th, when three companies of H.M. 24th were thus engaged at Jelum, the other companies of the same regiment were engaged at Rawul Pindee in disarming the 58th native infantry and two companies of the 14th. The sepoys hesitated for a time, but seeing a small force of horse-artillery confronted to them, yielded; some fled, but the rest gave up their arms. Two hundred of their muskets were found to be loaded, a significant indication of some murderous intent.

The mutiny at Sealkote, less fatal than that at Jelum in reference to the conflict of troops in fair fight, was more adventurous, more marked by ‘hair-breadth ‘scapes’ among the officers and their families. Sealkote is a town of about twenty thousand inhabitants, in the Doab between the Chenab and the Ravee, on the left bank of the first-named river, and about sixty miles distant from Lahore. At the time of the mutiny there was a rifle-practice depôt at this place. The sepoys stationed at Sealkote had often been in conversation with their European officers concerning the cartridge-question, and had expressed themselves satisfied with the explanations offered. During the active operations for forming movable columns in the Punjaub, either to protect the various stations or to form a Delhi siege-army, all the European troops at Sealkote were taken away, as well as some of the native regiments; leaving at that place only the 46th Bengal native infantry, and a wing of the 9th native cavalry, in cantonment, while within the fort were about a hundred and fifty men of the new Sikh levies. The brigadier commandant was rendered very uneasy by this removal of his best troops; some of his officers had already recommended the disarming of the sepoys before the last of the Queen’s troops were gone; but he was scrupulous of shewing any distrust of the native army; he felt and acted in this matter more like a Bengal officer than a Punjaub officer—relying on the honour and fidelity of the ‘Poorbeah’ troops. His anxieties greatly increased when he heard that the 14th native infantry, after revolting at Jelum, were approaching Sealkote. Many of them, it is true, had been cut up by a few companies of the Queen’s 24th; but still the remainder might very easily tempt his own sepoys and troopers. Nevertheless, to the last day, almost to the last hour, many of the regimental officers fully trusted the men; and even their ladies slept near the lines, for safety.

The troops appear to have laid a plan on the evening of the 8th of July, for a mutiny on the following morning. At four o’clock on the 9th, sounds of musketry and cries of distress were heard, rousing all the Europeans from their slumbers. An officer on night-picket duty near the cavalry lines observed a few troopers going towards the infantry lines. It was afterwards discovered that these troopers went to the sepoys, told them ‘the letters’ had come, and urged them to revolt at once—implying complicity with mutineers elsewhere; but the officer could not know this at the time: he simply thought the movement suspicious, and endeavoured to keep his own sepoy guards from contact with the troopers. In this, however, he failed; the sepoys soon left him, and went over to the troopers. He hurried to his bungalow, told his wife to hasten in a buggy to the fort, and then went himself towards the lines of his regiment. This was a type of what occurred generally. The officers sought to send their wives and families from their various bungalows into the fort, and then hastened to their duties. These duties brought them into the presence of murderous troops at the regimental lines; troops who fired on the very officers that to the last had trusted them. Especially was the mortification great among the Europeans connected with the 46th; for when they begged their sepoys to fire upon the mutinous troopers, the sepoys fired at them instead. A captain, two surgeons, a clergyman, and his wife and child, were killed almost at the very beginning of the outbreak; while Brigadier Brind and other officers were wounded.

There were no wanderings over burning roads and through thick jungles to record in this case; but a few isolated adventures may be briefly noticed. Two or three roads from the lines and bungalows to the fort became speedily marked by fleeing Europeans—officers, ladies, and children—in vehicles, on horseback, and on foot—all trying to reach the fort, and all attacked or pursued by the treacherous villains. Dr Graham, the superintending surgeon, on the alarm being raised, drove quickly with his daughter towards the fort; a trooper rode up and shot him dead; his bereaved daughter seized the reins, and, with the corpse of her parent on her lap, drove into the nearest compound, screaming for help. A young lieutenant of the 9th cavalry, when it came to his turn to flee, had to dash past several troopers, who fired many shots, one only of which hit him. He galloped thirty miles to Wuzeerabad, wounded as he was; and, all his property being left behind him only to be ruthlessly destroyed, he had, to use his own words, to look forward to begin the world again, ‘with a sword, and a jacket cut up the back.’ Three officers galloped forty miles to Gujeranwalla, swimming or wading the rivers that crossed their path. One of the captains of the 46th, who was personally much liked by the sepoys of his own company, was startled by receiving from them an offer of a thousand rupees per month if he would become a rebel like them, and still remain their captain! What answer he gave to this strange offer may easily be conceived; but his company remained kind to him, for they saw him safely escorted to the fort. In one of the bungalows fourteen persons, of whom only three were men, sought refuge from the murderous sepoys and troopers. The women and children all congregated in a small lumber-room; the three gentlemen remained in the drawing-room, pistols in hand. Then ensued a brisk scene of firing and counter-firing; during which, however, only one life appears to have been lost: the love of plunder in this case overpowered the love of murder; for the insurgents, compelling the gentlemen to retreat to their poor companions in the lumber-room, and there besieging them for a time, turned their attention to loot or plunder. After ten hours sojourn of fourteen persons in a small room in a sultry July day, the Europeans, finding that the mutineers were wandering in other directions, contrived to make a safe and hasty run to the fort, a distance of upwards of a mile. Some of the Europeans at the station, as we have said, were killed; some escaped by a brisk gallop; while the rest were shut up for a fortnight in the fort, in great discomfort, until the mutineers went away. There being no European soldiers at Sealkote, the sepoys and sowars acted as they pleased; they pillaged the bungalows, exploded the magazine, let loose the prisoners in the jail, and then started off, like other mutineers, in the direction of Delhi.

One of the most touching incidents at Sealkote bore relation to a nunnery, a convent of nuns belonging to the order of Jesus Marie of Lyon, a Roman Catholic establishment analogous to that at Sirdhana near Meerut, already brought under notice (p. 57). The superior at Lyon, many weeks afterwards, received a letter from one of the sisters,[32] giving an affecting account of the way in which the quiet religieuses were hunted about by the mutineers.

When the Sealkote mutineers had taken their departure towards Delhi, a force was organised at Jelum as quickly as possible to pursue them. This force, under Colonel Brown, comprised three companies of H.M. 24th foot, two hundred Sikhs, a hundred irregular horse, and three horse-artillery guns. The energetic Brigadier Nicholson, in command of a flying column destined for Delhi, comprising the 52d light infantry, the 6th Punjaub cavalry, and other troops, made arrangements at the same time for intercepting the mutineers. It thus happened that on the 12th of July, the insurgent 46th and 9th regiments when they reached the Ravee from Sealkote, found themselves hemmed in; and after an exciting contest on an island in the river, they were almost entirely cut up.

About the close of July, the disarmed 26th native infantry mutinied at Lahore, killed Major Spencer and two native officers, and fled up the left bank of the Ravee; but the police, the new levies, and the villagers pursued them so closely and harassed them so continuously, that hardly a man remained alive. In August, something of the same kind occurred at other places in the Punjaub; native Bengal regiments still were there, disarmed but not disbanded; and it could not be otherwise than that the men felt chafed and discontented with such a state of things. If faithful, they felt the degradation of being disarmed; if hollow in their professed fidelity, they felt the irksomeness of being closely watched in cantonment. At Ferozpore, on the 19th of August, a portion of the 10th native cavalry, that had before been disarmed, mutinied, and endeavoured to capture the guns of Captain Woodcock’s battery; they rushed at the guns while the artillerymen were at dinner, and killed the veterinary surgeon and one or two other persons; but a corps of Bombay Fusiliers, in the station at that time, repulsed and dispersed them. At Peshawur, where it was found frequently necessary to search the huts and tents of the disarmed sepoys, for concealed weapons, the 51st native infantry resisted this search on the 28th of the month; they beat their officers with cudgels, and endeavoured to seize the arms of a Sikh corps while those men were at dinner. They were foiled, and fled towards the hills; but a disastrous flight was it for them; more than a hundred were shot before they could get out of the lines, a hundred and fifty more were cut down during an immediate pursuit, nearly four hundred were brought in prisoners, to be quickly tried and shot, and some of the rest were made slaves by the mountaineers of the Khyber Pass, who would by no means ‘fraternise’ with them. Thus the regiment was in effect annihilated. There were then three disarmed native regiments left in Peshawur, which were kept so encamped that loaded guns in trusty hands might always point towards them.

The course of events in the Punjaub need not be traced further in any connected form. From first to last the plan adopted was pretty uniform in character. When the troubles began, there were about twenty regiments of the Bengal native army in the Punjaub; and these regiments were at once and everywhere distrusted by Sir John Lawrence and his chief officers. If hope and confidence were felt, it was rather by the regimental officers, to whom disloyalty in their respective corps was naturally mortifying and humiliating. All the sepoys were disarmed and the sowars dismounted, as soon as suspicious symptoms appeared; some regiments remained at the stations, disarmed, throughout the whole of the summer and autumn; some mutinied, before or after disarming; but very few indeed lived to reach the scene of rebel supremacy at Delhi; for they were cut up by the Europeans, Sikhs, Punjaubees, or hill-men which the Punjaub afforded. Gladly as every one, whether civilian or military, acknowledged the eminent services of Sir John Lawrence; there were, it must be admitted, certain advantages available to him which were utterly denied to Mr Colvin, the responsible chief of the Northwest Provinces, in which the mutiny raged more fiercely than anywhere else. When the troubles began, the Punjaub was better furnished with regiments of the Queen’s army than any other part of India; while the native Sikhs, Punjaubee Mohammedans, and hill-men, were either indifferent or hostile to the sepoys of Hindostan proper. The consequences of this state of things were two: the native troops were more easily disarmed; and those who mutinied were more in danger of annihilation before they could get east of the Sutlej. In the Northwest Provinces the circumstances were far more disastrous; the British troops were relatively fewer; and the people were more nearly in accord with the sepoys, in so far as concerned national and religious sympathies. In the Meerut military division, when the mutiny had fairly commenced, besides those at Meerut station, there was only one European regiment (at Agra), against ten native regiments, irrespective of those which mutinied at Meerut and Delhi. In the Cawnpore military division, comprising the great stations of Lucknow, Allahabad, Cawnpore, and the whole of Oude, there was scarcely more than one complete European regiment, against thirty native Bengal and Oude regiments, regular and irregular. In the Dinapoor military division, comprising Benares, Patna, Ghazeepore, and other large cities, together with much government wealth in the form of treasure and opium, there was in like manner only one British regiment, against sixteen native corps. There was at the same time this additional difficulty; that no such materials were at hand as in the Punjaub, for raising regiments of horse and foot among tribes who would sympathise but little with the mutineers.

Camel and Rider.
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Sir John Lawrence was at first in some doubt what course to follow in relation to the liberty of the press. The Calcutta authorities, as we shall see in the next chapter, thought it proper to curtail that liberty in Bengal and the Northwest Provinces. Sir John, unwilling on the one hand to place the Europeans in the Punjaub in the tormenting condition of seclusion from all sources of news, and unwilling on the other to leave the news-readers at the mercy of inaccurate or unscrupulous news-writers at such a critical time, adopted a medium course. He caused the _Lahore Chronicle_ to be made the medium of conveying official news of all that was occurring in India, so far as rapid outlines were concerned. The government secretary at that place sent every day to the editor of the newspaper an epitome of the most important public news. This epitome was printed on small quarter-sheets of paper, and despatched by each day’s post to all the stations in the Punjaub. The effect was—that false rumours and sinister reports were much less prevalent in the Punjaub than in Bengal; men were not thrown into mystery by a suppression of journalism; but were candidly told how events proceeded, so far as information had reached that remote part of India. The high character of the chief-commissioner was universally held as a guarantee that the news given in the epitome, whether little or much in quantity, would be honestly rendered; the scheme would have been a failure under a chief who did not command respect and win confidence. As the summer advanced, and dâks and wires were interrupted, the news obtainable became very scanty. The English in the Punjaub were placed in a most tantalising position. Aware that matters were going wrong at Delhi and Agra, at Lucknow and Cawnpore, they did not know _how_ wrong; for communication was well-nigh cut off. As the cities just named lie between the Punjaub and Calcutta, all direct communication with the seat of government was still more completely cut off. The results of this were singularly trying. ‘Gradually,’ says an officer writing from the Punjaub, ‘papers and letters reached us from Calcutta _viâ_ Bombay. It is not the least striking illustration of the complete revolution that has occurred in India, that the news from the Gangetic valley—say from Allahabad and Cawnpore—was known in London sooner than at Lahore. We had been accustomed to receive our daily letters and newspapers from every part of the empire with the same unfailing regularity as in England. Suddenly we found ourselves separated from Calcutta for two months of time. Painfully must a letter travel from the eastern capital to the western port—from Calcutta to Bombay; painfully must it toil up the unsettled provinces of the western coast; slowly must it jog along on mule-back across the sands of Sinde; many queer twists and unwonted turns must that letter take, many enemies must it baffle and elude, before, much bestamped, much stained with travel—for Indian letter-bags are not water-proof—it is delivered to its owner at Lahore.... Slowly, very slowly, the real truth dragged its way up the country. It is only this very 29th of September that this writer in the Punjaub has read anything like a connected account of the fearful tragedy at Cawnpore, which, once read or heard, no Englishman can ever forget.’

Attention must now for a brief space be directed to the country of Sinde or Scinde; not so much for the purpose of narrating the progress of mutiny there, as to shew how it happened that there were few materials out of which mutiny could arise.

Sinde is the region which bounds the lower course of the river Indus, also called Sinde. The name is supposed to have had the same origin as Sindhi or Hindi, connected with the great Hindoo race. When the Indus has passed out of the Punjaub at its lower apex, it enters Sinde, through which it flows to the ocean, which bounds Sinde on the south; east is Rajpootana, and west Beloochistan. The area of Sinde is about equal to that of England without Wales. The coast is washed by the Indian Ocean for a distance of about a hundred and fifty miles; being, with very few exceptions, little other than a series of mud-banks deposited by the Indus, or low sand-hills blown in from the sea-beach. So low is most of the shore, that a wide expanse of country is overflowed at each high tide; it is a dreary swamp, scarcely observable from shipboard three or four miles out at sea. The mouths of the Indus are numerous, but so shallow that only one of them admits ships of any considerable burden; and even that one is subject to so many fluctuations in depth and in weather, that sea-going vessels scarcely enter it at all. Kurachee, the only port in Sinde, is a considerable distance west of all these mouths; and the mercantile world looks forward with much solicitude to the time when a railway will be formed from this port to Hydrabad, a city placed at the head of the delta of the Indus. This delta, in natural features, resembles that of the Nile rather than that of the Ganges, being nearly destitute of timber. On each side of the Indus, for a breadth varying from two to twelve miles, is a flat alluvial tract, in most places extremely fertile. Many parts of Sinde are little better than desert; such as the _Pât_, between Shikarpore and the Bolan Pass, and the _Thur_, nearer to the river. In general, it may be said that no part of Sinde is fertile except where the Indus irrigates it; for there is little either of rain or dew, and the climate is intensely hot. Camels are largely reared in Sinde; and the Sindians have abundant reason to value this animal. It is to him a beast of burden; its milk is a favourite article of diet; its hair is woven into coarse cloth; and it renders him service in many other ways.

The Sindians are an interesting race, both in themselves and in their political relations. They are a mixture of Jâts and Beloochees, among whom the distinction between Hindoo and Mussulman has a good deal broken down. The Beloochees are daring, warlike Mohammedans; the Jâts are Hindoos less rigorous in matters of faith and caste than those of Hindostan; while the Jâts who have become Mohammedans are a peaceful agricultural race, somewhat despised by both the others. The Sindians collectively are a dark, handsome, well-limbed race; and it was a favourite opinion of Sir William Jones, that they were the original of the gipsies. The languages spoken are a mixture of Hindi, Beloochee, and Persian.

The chain of events which brought Sinde under British rule may be traced in a few sentences. About thirteen centuries ago the country was invaded by the Persians, who ravaged it without making a permanent settlement. The califs at a later date conquered Sinde; from them it was taken by the Afghans of Ghiznee; and in the time of Baber it fell into the hands of the chief of Candahar. It was then, for a century and a half, a dependency of the Mogul Empire. For a few years Nadir Shah held it; next the Moguls retook it; and in 1756 Sinde fell under the rule of the Cabool khans, which was maintained nearly to the time when the British seized the sovereign power. Although subject to Cabool, Sinde was really governed by eight or ten native princes, called Ameers, who had among them three distinct territories marked by the cities of Hydrabad, Khyrpore, and Meerpoor. Under these ameers the government was a sort of military despotism, each ameer having a power of life and death; but in warlike affairs they were dependent on feudal chieftains, each of whom held an estate on condition of supplying a certain number of soldiers. The British had various trading treaties with the ameers; one of which, in 1832, opened the roads and rivers of Sinde to the commerce of the Company. When, in 1838, the eyes of the governor-general were directed anxiously towards Afghanistan, Sinde became involved in diplomatic conferences, in which the British, the Afghans, the Sindians, and Runjeet Singh were all concerned. These conferences led to quarrels, to treaties, to accusations of breach of faith, which we need not trace: suffice it to say that Sir Charles James Napier, with powers of the pen and of the sword intrusted to him, settled the Sinde difficulty once for all, in 1848, by fighting battles which led to the annexation of that country to the Company’s dominions. The former government was entirely put an end to; and the ameers were pensioned off with sums amounting in the aggregate to about fifty thousand pounds per annum. Some of these Ameers, like other princes of India, afterwards came to England in the hope of obtaining better terms from Queen Victoria than had been obtainable from the Company Bahadoor.

When Sinde became a British province, it was separated into three collectorates or districts—Shikarpore, Hydrabad, and Kurachee; a new system of revenue administration was introduced; annual fairs were established at Kurachee and Sukur; and peaceful commerce was everywhere so successfully established, that the country improved rapidly, greatly to the content of the mass of the people, who had formerly been ground down by the ameers’ government. For military purposes, Sinde was made a division, under the Bombay presidency.

Sinde, at the commencement of the mutiny, contained about seven thousand troops of all arms, native and European. The military arrangements had brought much distinction to Colonel (afterwards Brigadier-general) John Jacob, whose ‘Sinde Irregular Horse’ formed a corps much talked of in India. It consisted of about sixteen hundred men, in two regiments of eight hundred each, carefully drilled, and armed and equipped in the European manner, yet having only five European officers; the squadron and troop commanders were native officers. The brigadier uniformly contended that it was the best cavalry corps in India; and that the efficiency of such a regiment did _not_ depend so much on the number of European officers, as on the manner in which they fulfilled their duties, and the kind of discipline which they maintained among the men. On these points he was frequently at issue with the Bengal officers; for he never failed to point out the superiority of the system in the Bombay army, where men were enlisted irrespective of caste, and where there were better means of rewarding individual merit.[33] Nationally speaking, they were not Sindians at all; being drawn from other parts of India, in the ratio of three-fourths Mohammedans to one-fourth Hindoos.

When the mutiny began in the regions further east, ten or twelve permanent outposts on the Sinde frontier were held by detachments of the Sinde Irregular Horse, of forty to a hundred and twenty men each, wholly commanded by native officers. These men, and the head-quarters at Jacobabad (a camp named after the gallant brigadier), remained faithful, though sometimes tempted by sepoys and troopers of the Bengal army. A curious correspondence took place later in the year, through the medium of the newspapers, between Brigadier Jacob and Major Pelly on the one side, and Colonel Sykes on the other. The colonel had heard that Jacob ridiculed the greased cartridge affair, as a matter that would never be allowed to trouble _his_ corps; and he sought to shew that it was no subject for laughter: ‘Brigadier John Jacob knows full well that if he were to order his Mohammedan soldiers (though they may venerate him) to bite a cartridge greased with pigs’ fat, or his high-caste troopers to bite a cartridge greased with cows’ fat, both the one and the other would promptly refuse obedience, and in case he endeavoured to enforce it, they would shoot him down.’ Jacob and Pelly at once disputed this; they both asserted that the Mohammedans and Hindoos in the Sinde Horse would never be mutinous on such a point, unless other sources of dissatisfaction existed, and unless they believed it was _purposely_ done to insult their faith. ‘If it were really necessary,’ said the brigadier, ‘in the performance of our ordinary military duty, to use swine’s fat or cows’ fat, or anything else whatever, not a word or a thought would pass about the matter among any members of the Horse, and the nature of the substances made use of would not be thought of or discussed at all, except with reference to the fitness for the purpose to which they were to be applied.’ The controversialists did not succeed in convincing each other; they continued to hold diametrically opposite opinions on a question intimately connected with the early stages of the mutiny—thereby adding to the perplexities of those wishing to solve the important problem: ‘What was the cause of the mutiny?’

Owing partly to the great distance from the disturbed provinces of Hindostan, partly to the vicinity of the well-disposed Bombay army, and partly to the activity and good organisation of Jacob’s Irregular Horse, Sinde was affected with few insurgent proceedings during the year. At one time a body of fanatical Mohammedans would unfurl the green flag, and call upon each other to fight for the Prophet. At another time, gangs of robbers and hill-men, of which India has in all ages had an abundant supply, would take advantage of the troubled state of public feeling to rush forth on marauding expeditions, caring much for plunder and little for faith of any kind. At another, alarms would be given which induced European ladies and families to take refuge in the forts or other defensive positions at Kurachee, Hydrabad, Shikarpore, Jacobabad, &c., where English officers were stationed. At another, regiments of the Bengal army would try to tamper with the fidelity of other troops in Sinde. But of these varied incidents, few were so serious in results as to need record here. One, interesting in many particulars, arose out of the following circumstance: When some of the Sinde forces were sent to Persia, the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry arrived to supply their place. These troopers, when the mutiny was at least four months old, endeavoured to form a plan with some Beloochee Mohammedans for the murder of the British officers at the camp of Jacobabad. A particular hour on the 21st of August was named for this outrage, in which various bands of Beloochees were invited to assist. The plot was revealed to Captain Merewether, who immediately confided in the two senior native officers of the Sinde Irregular Horse. Orders were issued that the day’s proceedings should be as usual, but that the men should hold themselves in readiness. Many of the border chiefs afterwards sent notice to Merewether of what had been planned, announcing their own disapproval of the conspiracy. At a given hour, the leading conspirator was seized, and correspondence found upon him tending to shew that the Bengal regiment having failed in other attempts to seduce the Sinde troops from their allegiance, had determined to murder the European officers as the chief obstacles to their scheme. The authorities at Jacobabad wished Sir John Lawrence to take this Bengal regiment off their hands; but the experienced chief in the Punjaub would not have the dangerous present; he thought it less likely to mutiny where it was than in a region nearer to Delhi.

The troops in the province of Sinde about the middle of August were nearly as follows: At Kurachee—the 14th and 21st Bombay native infantry; the 2d European infantry; the depôt of the 1st Bombay Fusiliers; and the 3d troop of horse artillery. At Hydrabad—the 13th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. At Jacobabad—the 2d Sinde irregular horse; and the 6th Bengal irregular cavalry. At Shikarpore and Sukur, the 16th Bombay native infantry; and a company of the 4th battalion of artillery. The whole comprised about five thousand native troops, and twelve hundred Europeans.

At a later period, when thanks were awarded by parliament to those who had rendered good service in India, the name of Mr Frere, commissioner for Sinde, was mentioned, as one who ‘has reconciled the people of that province to British rule, and by his prudence and wisdom confirmed the conquest which had been achieved by the gallant Napier. He was thereby enabled to furnish aid wherever it was needed, at the same time constantly maintaining the peace and order of the province.’

Notes.

This will be a suitable place in which to introduce two tabular
statements concerning the military condition of India at the
commencement of the mutiny. All the occurrences narrated hitherto
are those in which the authorities at Calcutta were compelled to
encounter difficulties without any reinforcements from England, the
time elapsed having been too short for the arrival of such
reinforcements.

_Military Divisions of India._—At the period of the outbreak, and
for some time afterwards, India was marked out for military purposes
into divisions, each under the command of a general, brigadier, or
other officer, responsible for all the troops, European and native,
within his division. The names and localities of these divisions are
here given; on the authority of a military map of India, engraved at
the Topographical Depôt under the direction of Captain Elphinstone
of the Royal Engineers, and published by the War Department. Each
division was regarded as belonging to, or under the control of, one
of the three presidencies. We shall therefore group them under the
names of the three presidential cities, and shall append a few words
to denote locality:

UNDER CALCUTTA GOVERNMENT.

Name. Limits. _Presidency_ Calcutta and its vicinity, and the east and Division, northeast of Bengal. _Dinapoor_ Division, From the Nepaul frontier, southwest towards Nagpoor. _Cawnpore_ Division, Including Oude, the Lower Doab, and part of Bundelcund. _Saugor_ Division, On both sides of the Nerbudda river, south of Bundelcund. _Gwalior_ Division, Scindia’s Dominions, bordering on Rajpootana. _Meerut_ Division, Rohilcund, from the Himalaya down to Agra and the Jumna. _Sirhind_ Division, The Cis-Sutlej and Hill states, northwest of Delhi. _Lahore_ Division, Eastern part of Punjaub, from Cashmere down to Sinde. _Peshawur_ Division, Western part of Punjaub, on the Afghan frontier.

UNDER BOMBAY GOVERNMENT.

_Sinde_ Division, On the Beloochee frontier, both sides of the Lower Indus. _Rajpootana_ East of Sinde, and west of Scindia’s Gwalior Field-force, dominions. _Northern_ Division, From Cutch nearly to Bombay, including Gujerat. _Poonah_ Division, Around Bombay, and the South Mahratta country near it. _Southern_ Division, Southernmost part of the Bombay Presidency.

UNDER MADRAS GOVERNMENT.

_Nagpoor_ Subsidiary The recently acquired Nagpoor territory, near Force, Nizam’s states. _North_ Division, Northern part of Madras Presidency, on sea-coast. _Centre_ Division, Madras city, and the coast-region north and south of it.

_Ceded_ Districts, Northwest of Madras city, towards Bombay. _Mysore_ Division, Seringapatam, and the country once belonging to Tippoo Saib. _Southern_ Division, Southernmost part of the Indian peninsula, towards Ceylon.

It may be useful to remark that these military divisions are not
necessarily identical in area or boundaries with the political
provinces or collectorates, the two kinds of territorial limits
being based on different considerations.

* * * * *

_Armies of India, at the Commencement of the Mutiny._—During the
progress of the military operations, it was frequently wished in
England that materials were afforded for shewing the exact number of
troops in India when the troubles began. The Company, to respond to
this wish, caused an elaborate return to be prepared, from which a
few entries are here selected. The names and limits of the military
divisions correspond nearly, but not exactly, to those in the above
list.

BENGAL ARMY, MAY 10, 1857.

Military Divisions. Europeans. Natives. Total.
Presidency, 1,214 13,976 15,190
Dinapoor, 1,597 15,063 16,660
Cawnpore, 277 5,725 6,002
Oude, 993 11,319 12,312
Saugor, 327 10,627 10,954
Meerut, 3,096 18,357 21,453
Sirhind, 4,790 11,049 15,839
Lahore, 4,018 15,939 19,957
Peshawur, 4,613 15,916 20,529
Pegu, 1,763 692 2,455
—————— ——————— ———————
22,698 118,663 141,361

The Europeans in this list include all grades of officers as well as
rank and file; and among the officers are included those connected
with the native regiments. The natives, in like manner, include all
grades, from subadars down to sepoys and sowars. The Punjaub, it
will be seen, alone contained 40,000 troops. The troops were
stationed at 160 cantonments, garrisons, or other places. As shewing
gradations of rank, the Europeans comprised 2271 commissioned
officers, 1602 non-commissioned officers, and 18,815 rank and file;
the natives comprised 2325 commissioned officers, 5821
non-commissioned officers, and 110,517 rank and file. The stations
which contained the largest numbers were the following:

Peshawur, 9500
Lahore, 5300
Meerut, 5000
Lucknow, 5000
Jullundur, 4000
Dinapoor, 4000
Umballa, 3800
Cawnpore, 3700
Delhi, 3600
Barrackpore, 3500
Sealkote, 3500
Benares, 3200
Rawul Pindee, 3200
Bareilly, 3000
Moultan, 3000
Saugor, 2800
Agra, 2700
Nowsherab, 2600
Jelum, 2400
Allahabad, 2300

These 20 principal stations thus averaged 3800 troops each, or
nearly 80,000 altogether.

MADRAS ARMY, MAY 10, 1857.

Military Divisions. Europeans. Natives. Total.
Centre, 1,580 6,430 8,010
Mysore, 1,088 4,504 5,592
Malabar, 604 2,513 3,117
Northern, 215 6,169 6,384
Southern, 726 5,718 6,444
Ceded Districts, 135 2,519 2,654
South Mahratta, 16 375 391
Nagpoor, 369 3,505 3,874
Nizam’s, 1,322 5,027 6,349
Penang and Malacca, 49 2,113 2,162
Pegu, 2,880 10,154 13,034
—————— —————— ——————
10,194 49,737 59,931

This list was more fully made out than that for the Bengal army;
since it gave the numbers separately of the dragoons, light cavalry,
horse-artillery, foot-artillery, sappers and miners, European
infantry, native infantry, and veterans. The ratio of Europeans to
native troops was rather higher in the Madras army (about 20 per
cent.) than in that of Bengal (19 per cent.) More fully made out in
some particulars, it was less instructive in others; the Madras list
pointed out the location of all the detachments of each regiment,
whereas the Bengal list gave the actual numbers at each station,
without mentioning the particular regiments of which they were
composed. Hence the materials for comparison are not such as they
might have been had the lists been prepared on one uniform plan.
There were about 36 stations for these troops, but the places which
they occupied in small detachments raised the total to a much higher
number. Although Pegu is considered to belong to the Bengal
presidency, it was mostly served by Madras troops. Besides the
forces above enumerated, there were nearly 2000 Madras troops out of
India altogether, on service in Persia and China.

BOMBAY ARMY, MAY 10, 1857.

Military Divisions. Europeans. Natives. Total.
Bombay Garrison, 695 3,394 4,089
Southern, 283 5,108 5,391
Poonah, 1,838 6,817 8,655
Northern, 1,154 6,452 7,606
Asseerghur Fortress, 2 446 448
Sinde, 1,087 6,072 7,159
Rajpootana, 50 3,312 3,362
————— —————— ——————
5,109 31,601 36,710

The Bombay army was so dislocated at that period, by the departure
of nearly 14,000 troops to Persia and Aden, that the value of this
table for purposes of comparison becomes much lessened.
Nevertheless, it affords means of knowing how many troops were
actually in India at the time when their services were most needed.
On the other hand, about 5000 of the troops in the Bombay presidency
belonged to the Bengal and Madras armies. The different kinds of
troops were classified as in the Madras army. The regular military
stations where troops took up their head-quarters, were about 20 in
number; but the small stations where mere detachments were placed
nearly trebled this number. The Europeans were to the native troops
only as 16 to 100.

* * * * *

As a summary, then, we find that India contained, on the day when
the mutinies began, troops to the number of 238,002 in the service
of the Company, of whom 38,001 were Europeans, and 200,001
natives—19 Europeans to 100 natives. An opportunity will occur in a
future page for enumerating the regiments of which these three
armies were composed.

Catholic Church, Sirdhana.—Built by Begum Sumroo (See p. 57).
]

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Footnote 30:

The events of the mutiny relating to the Punjaub have been ably set
forth in a series of papers in _Blackwood’s Magazine_, written by an
officer on the spot.

Footnote 31:

This column was made up as follows:

1. H.M. 27th foot, from Nowsherah.
2. H.M. 24th foot, from Rawul Pindee.
3. One troop European horse-artillery, from Peshawur.
4. One light field-battery, from Jelum.
5. The Guide Corps, from Murdan.
6. The 16th irregular cavalry, from Rawul Pindee.
7. The 1st Punjaub infantry, from Bunnoo.
8. The Kumaon battalion, from Rawul Pindee.
9. A wing of the 2d Punjaub cavalry, from Kohat.
10. A half company of Sappers, from Attock.

Footnote 32:

‘Very Dear and Good Mother—On the 8th of the present month the native
soldiers heard they were to be disarmed the following day. They became
furious, and secretly planned a revolt. They carried their plans into
execution at an early hour on the following morning. We were
immediately apprised of it, and I hastened to awake our poor children,
and all of us, half-clad, prayed for shelter at a Hindoo habitation.
Some vehicles had been prepared for us to escape, when the servants
desired us to conceal ourselves, as the sepoys were coming into the
garden. We returned to our hiding-place; the soldiers arrived; they
took away our carriages, and a shot was fired into the house where we
were concealed. The ball passed close to where our chaplain was
sitting, and slightly wounded a child in the leg. At the same moment
three soldiers, well armed, presented themselves at the door. The good
father, holding the holy sacrament, which he never quitted, advanced
to meet them. Several of us accompanied him. “We have orders to kill
you,” said the sepoys; “but we will spare you if you give us money. Go
out, all, that we may see there are no men concealed here.” Having
searched and found nothing, one of the soldiers raised his sabre over
the chaplain, and cried out: “You shall die.” “Mercy, in the name of
God!” exclaimed I. “I will open every press to shew you that there is
no money concealed here.” He followed me, and having satisfied himself
that there was no money, the soldiers went away. We then broke a hole
in the wall of our garden, and fled into the jungle. We had scarcely
escaped when thirty more sepoys entered the house; but the Almighty
preserved us from this danger. We were crossing the country, when a
faithful servant brought us to a house where several Europeans had
taken refuge. We breathed freely there for a moment, but the
government treasure was deposited there, and the house was soon
attacked by the mutinous sepoys. We believed that our last hour was at
hand; but the savages were too much occupied with pillage to notice
us, and the Europeans escaped. At this moment a Catholic soldier
offered to guide us to the fort, where we arrived at twelve o’clock.
We do not know how long we shall remain in the fort. The English
officers have treated us with the greatest kindness and attention, and
have supplied us with provisions both for ourselves and our pupils. We
trust we shall one day make our way to Bombay; but that will depend on
the orders we receive from the government.’

Footnote 33:

The brigadier’s confidence in his men was conditional on their
implicit obedience; and he was wont to affirm that his ‘Irregulars’
were as ‘regular’ in conduct and discipline as the Queen’s Life-guards
themselves. He would allow no religious scruples to interfere with
their military efficiency. On one occasion, during the _Mohurram_ or
Mohammedan religious festival in 1854, there was great uproar and
noise among ten thousand Mussulmans assembled in and near his camp of
Jacobabad to celebrate their religious festival. He issued a general
order: ‘The commanding officer has nothing to do with religious
ceremonies. All men may worship God as they please, and may act and
believe as they choose, in matters of religion; but no men have a
right to annoy their neighbours, or to neglect their duty, on pretence
of serving God. The officers and men of the Sinde Horse have the name
of, and are supposed to be, excellent soldiers, and not mad
fakeers.... He therefore now informs the Sinde Irregular Horse, that
in future no noisy processions, nor any disorderly display whatever,
under pretence of religion or anything else, shall ever be allowed in,
or in neighbourhood of, any camp of the Sinde Irregular Horse.’

SIR COLIN CAMPBELL.
]