MY TENT AND ITS ATTENDANTS.

175

pole; but then it was on the Indian establishment. I thought of the miserable little shell of rotten calico, under which I braved the Bulgarian sun, or the illshaped tottering Turkish tent in which Collingwood, Dickson, and I had suffered from insects, robbers, and ghosts, not to mention hunger, in the onion bed at Gallipoli; of the poor fabric that went to the winds on the 14th November before Sebastopol; of the clumsy Danish extinguisher-shaped affair under which I once lived, and was so nearly "put out," and then I turned round and round in my new edifice in ever-renewed admiration. The pole is a veritable pillar, varnished or painted yellow, with a fine brass socket in the centre; from the top spreads out the sloping roof to the square side walls. The inside is curiously lined with buff calico with a dark pattern, and beneath one's feet a carpet of striped blue and buff laid over the soft sand is truly Persian in its yielding softness. There is no furniture. "We must send down to the bazaar," says Stewart, "and get tables, chairs, and charpoys (bedsteads), and whatever else we want, such as resais, or quilted cotton bedclothes, which serve as sheets, blankets, and mattresses, all in one.' "But how on earth am I to carry all those things?' "Make your mind quite easy about that; you have only to make a requisition on the commissariat and they'll provide animals enough to carry all Cawnpore, with you, if you are ready to pay for it." Not unused to campaigning, I confess this fertility of resource was surprising to me; and there was still more novelty attached to my position when on going out of my tent I found myself the centre of a small levée, whilst Simon, acting as a general master of the ceremonies, introduced to

my notice the two kelassies, or tent-pitchers, and a sprite in attendance, the bheesty, or water-carrier, the mehter, or sweeper, all attached to the tent; and then, a host of candidates for various imaginary employments whom I dismissed instantaneously. All these gentlemen salaamed and hit their foreheads in great subjection, and then retired under the projecting eaves of the tent, where they smoked, talked, ate, and slept. To each tent there is generally attached a small pall, or low ridge-pole tent, for the servants; and another little canvas structure placed in the rear; but as yet there were no palls issued, and the servants slept out in the open air, and under the eaves of the tent.

The camp is on a high sandy slab, which forms, in fact, the level of the plain above the river. Some forty tents, dispersed in one long street with an open square in the centre-a camp, all of officers, and no soldiers. I dined with the Commander-in-Chief in the evening. The head of the table was occupied by Captain Metcalfe, Commandant at Head-Quarters, and Interpreter to his Excellency. Opposite to him sat Colonel Sterling, the Military Secretary; Sir David Baird, Captain Alison, and Captain Forster, Aides-de-Camp, and one or two invited officers, completed the party. There can be no more genial host or pleasant company than Sir Colin. His anecdotes of the old war, of his French friends-made friends in the vicissitudes of field-service-are vigorous and racy; but when you think of the dates, you are rather puzzled to imagine how the gentleman who sits beside you, looking so hardy and active, can have participated in the scenes which occurred so many years before, and mingled with people who have so long ago departed from the

THE FRENCH GENERAL, VINOY.

177

world. He is no dull laudator temporis acti, but
gives to the present all its due. There is no parade
or display at his table, but everything is very com-
fortable and very good. I was able to tell Sir Colin
some news of his old friend in the Crimea, General
Vinoy, with whom I had travelled to Paris, and
who was loud in his praise of "Mon bon ami, Ser
Colan," and of the famous revolver he had received
of him as a gage d'amitié, that did good service
on the memorable day of the capture of the Mala-
khoff. Their friendship is not interrupted; for his
Excellency told me he had received a long inte-
resting letter from General Vinoy, in which he exhi-
bited great interest in the progress
of our arms
in India, and expressed a strong opinion against
the infliction of indiscriminate punishment; adding,
that in his experience of war, les représailles sont
toujours inutiles. As I had not been able to get
horses, Sir Colin was kind enough to say that I
might have the use of his stud till I had succeeded
in procuring some sort of quadruped-a favour which
the difficulty of walking about the station made
me appreciate all the more.

VOL. I.

N

CHAPTER XII.

Wheeler's intrenchment.-Windham's position.-The two parts of an Indian station.-An imaginary review.-The Cutchery. -A Bedouin of the Press.-Generals cannot "do the graphic." -Bottled beer.-Members of our mess.-School of dialectics.— Improved life of Europeans.-Want of sympathy for natives. -Up-country life and Calcutta life.-Sir Hugh Wheeler's ayah.-Sir Archdale Wilson. - Captain Peel and his blue jackets. Cawnpore dust.-" A shave of old Smith's."—Cawnpore in its palmy days.-Beggars and wigwam villages.

February 13th.-The tent-equipage not being quite complete went down to the hotel after dinner last night. Early this morning, drove over in a hired buggy, with Stewart, to Wheeler's intrenchment. To describe it would be to repeat my letter written at the time. The difficulty, in my mind, was to believe that it could ever have been defended at all. Make every allowance for the effects of weather, for circumstances, it is still the most wretched defensive position that could be imagined. Honour to those who defended it ! Pity for their fate! Above all, pity for the lot of those whom those strong arms and brave hearts had failed to save from the unknown dangers of foul treachery! It was a horrible spot! Inside the shattered rooms, which had been the scene of such devotion and suffering, are heaps of rubbish and filth. The intrenchment is used as a cloaca maxima by the natives, camp-followers, coolies, and others who bivouac in the sandy plains around it. The smells are revolting. Rows of gorged vultures sit with outspread wings on the mouldering parapets,

WINDHAM'S POSITION.

179

or perch in clusters on the two or three leafless trees at the angle of the works by which we enter. I shot one with my revolver; and as the revolting creature disgorged its meal, twisting its bare black snake-like neck to and fro, I made a vow I would never incur such a disgusting sight again.

Thence

From this spot we made our way over to Windham's position, on the second day of his engagement with the Gwalior force, swelled by many thousands of armed natives and by fugitives from Oude. In the Appendix, will be found all I have to say on this matter. we returned through part of the native city, which is like the worst part of Gallipoli; narrow tortuous streets of tumble-down houses, which must have been built of the materials of some city that perished from rottenness. Still it teems with life, and there is far more noise, bustle, and business in those crowded thoroughfares than in our Turkish town. Again I am struck by the scowling, hostile look of the people. The bunniahs bow with their necks, and salaam with their hands, but not with their eyes. There is not a European to be seen, for there are few soldiers near Cawnpore. They are away over beyond that sandy shore at the other side of the Ganges. You see the green trees rising above that belt of sand, and the level strip of cultivated land? Our soldiers are massed there, along the road which leads in a straight line from Cawnpore to Lucknow by this bridge of boats just below us. The line of earthworks from which the bridge springs constitutes the tête-de-pont left in Windham's charge, now greatly strengthened. Hundreds of coolies, men, women, and children are working, as you see, at it now. Clouds of dust are