A WELCOME INVITATION.

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one being fastened to the tail of another, and so on n + 1. I do not remember any traveller who mentions this riotous conduct on the part of the camel, though there are some who have done full justice to their unpleasant odours. I was so in

terested in the scene that I remained out till the sky began to warm up in the east. Long before that time, some twenty tents of our little city had tottered to their fall, and others were fast collapsing, or were being made up in detached round cylindrical rolls to fit on the [camel's back. Their tenants, fortified with an early cup of tea and a cigar, had ridden away for the bridge; and when I turned in there were only some five or six tents standing in isolation on the ground: the rest had vanished, and left no trace behind.

My

The sun was high and hot when I awoke. camels were waiting for their load; and in two or three minutes my habitation lay prostrate, and was being dissected into separate members by the Kelassies. Whilst Stewart and I were preparing for our start, the chief came out of his tent and asked us to breakfast with him-a very welcome invitation. He seems quite pleased at getting off at last; and if the work is to be done, it were best done quickly.

Major Herbert Bruce, who is employed in the Intelligence Department and has done good service, came in whilst we were at breakfast, and gave some interesting accounts of Hope Grant's flying column and of the Meeangunj affair. He says they very nearly captured the Nana in an expedition they made to a fort in Oude, opposite Bithoor. The stories about his crossing the Ganges and the main trunk-road are false. It was a relative of his who got away, it

VOL. I.

Q

is supposed, to raise disturbances in the Calpee and Etawah districts. The native policemen who were stationed near the ford, at which the rebels crossed, have been seized, and several of them have been hanged by Captain Bradford, the police-officer. It is suspected they allowed the rebels to cross without giving an alarm. At all events, there is no doubt of their punishment. Bruce says all the Oude people are against us; but he thinks we shall catch Nana Sahib as soon as Lucknow falls. The whole thing will be over then.

At one o'clock, having sent off all our traps, Stewart and I took refuge from the heat of the sun, which is becoming daily stronger and less bearable, in my gharry; and in a scene of dire confusion and tumult, proceeded over the bridge of boats across the Ganges into Oude. It was in the Crimea I first heard of the annexation of Oude, which was represented not only as an act of the highest political wisdom, but also as a political necessity. Now, near the spot, I hear wise men doubt the wisdom-and see them shake their heads when one talks of the necessity of the annexation. The ex-king, who is in captivity at Calcutta, has acted with a firmness which one could not have expected from a mere sensualist, as he was said to be, half-idiotic and entirely base. I am told that his conduct at the time of the annexation astonished our officers; that it was characterized by dignity and propriety. Up to the present moment, he has neither consented to his deposition nor taken one farthing of the annuity which the Company settled on him, nor has he given the least ground for believing that he has participated in the mutiny and

AN APPARENTLY ILLIMITABLE PROCESSION. 227

rebellion. But empires never make restitution; they have no consciences. The Chancellor of their Exchequer never has to acknowledge the receipt of conscience-money. Oude is British as long as England holds India.

Our road lay in a straight broad line of elevated causeway, just over the sands of the river-bed, now at its lowest; and thence through a country as level as the sea, bearing the marks of high cultivation, and diversified by numerous topes or large clumps of trees, so numerous, indeed, as to hem in the horizon all around, with a framework of rich green foliage. As soon as we had advanced a few miles from the Ganges, not only the broad road, but the broad track at each side of it, was thronged by an immense and apparently illimitable procession of oxen, hackeries, horses, ponies, camels, camp-followers on foot or riding, trains of stores, elephants, all plodding steadily along in the burning sun under the umbrella of dense clouds of white dust. The road, cut up by the passage of matériel of ammunition and guns, is broken frequently into deep ruts full of fine dust from the "kunkur," or the limestone nodules, which, hardened into a sort of concrete, rolled down and watered, formed the usual macadamization of Indian highways, and are, when new, the finest metalling in the world. The pathways are in a condition equally favourable for the formation of the veil, which rises like the smoke from endless batteries. What an infinite variety of sights and sounds! What a multitude of novel objects on every side! What combinations of colour, of form, and of sound! As we jogged along, half-choked and baked, in our

inglorious chariot, with a syce, running as avantcourier, shouting all kinds of mendacious assertions as to our rank and position, as a sort of moral wedge to open the way for us-I, for one, looked with ever-growing wonder on the vast tributary of the tide of war, which was surging around and before me. All these men, women, and children, with high delight, were pouring towards Lucknow to aid the Feringhee to overcome their brethren. From India, wider than the regions which the Romans regarded as the world, come the representatives of hundreds of dark-faced tribes, whose speech is a symbol of conquest and of a life in camps — the camps of the conqueror; but that speech is almost their sole bond of union. The sight gave me a notion of the old world times, when nomad tribes came from east and north to overrun and conquer. These people carried all their household wealth with them. Their houses were their tents; their streets, the campbazaar; their ruler, the bazaar-kotwal; their politics, the rise and fall of rice, and such commodities; their fate, that of the host they adhere to, like mussels on the sides of a ship. The old men, perhaps, had been with Lake, or had followed Scindia, or Holkar; the young men could talk of the Punjab or Scinde: the children were taking up their trade with the campaign of Oude. Bred in camps, but unwarlike-for ever behind guns, and never before them—the aptitude of myriads of the natives of Hindostan for this strange life is indicative of their origin, or, at all events, of the history of their country for ages. Most of those people are Hindoos from Bengal or the north-west provinces. Some are from Central India.