Fraser anxious about the safety of the fort. When the column had reached the extremity of the Muttra district it was suddenly recalled.

In the East a retrograde movement is invariably attributed to fear or disaster. The northern part of the district had from the first been turbulent, and though the nearest to Delhi, was the least influenced by its fall, the last to believe in it. As our column retired a report spread that our armies had been defeated before Lucknow. As we retreated the country rose. The con

dition of things was worse than before we advanced. The villagers sallied out and attacked stragglers. On one occasion they killed two of our horsemen who had gone on in advance to order forage. On reaching the encamping ground we found them lying dead; their bodies were warm, but the dogs had eaten off their faces.

The column went on to Agra. I remained at Muttra with Lieutenant De Kantzow, Mr. Joyce, and the young Customs' officer who had been my companion at Hodul. I had procured for him a good appointment in the Revenue. After some days we crossed the river and proceeded to the east of the district. Finding the country there quiet I went into Agra, and brought out A— and our little girl. Other officers and ladies joined us, and we were soon a large party. The weather was delightful, and there was just sufficient danger to be a source of pleasant excitement. On one occasion a mutinous army, some thousands strong, burst through the district and nearly surprised us. We had to strike our camp at midnight

and march off in haste to avoid them.

The appearance of the country little indicated the anarchy that had so long prevailed. There seemed as many men, as many carts, and as many animals as in previous times; nor did the business of agriculture appear

to have been interrupted. The whole district was one sheet of fresh green crops. But here and there we came on a village standing desolate, and the fields around it relapsing into jungle. The story was always the same: the village had been attacked by its neighbours, and the inhabitants killed or driven away.

The evidence of the disorder was more apparent in the towns. Hardly one had escaped plundering. The principal streets were often half a heap of ruins-the verandahs broken, every shop wrecked. The temples occasionally had shared the fate of the houses. I saw several that had been nearly destroyed: the idols were broken, the furniture smashed, and the sacred books torn in fragments, and whatever valuables the shrine had possessed had been carried off. The plunderers were always Hindoos, but of some different sect.

The mosques, however, had never been molested. The Mohammedans had often ill-treated the Hindoos, but the Hindoos had rarely, so far as I knew, or never retaliated. Their forbearance was the result not of generosity, simply of fear; for, as I have already said, the Mohammedans possess the faculty of combinationthe Hindoos do not. In this difference of temperament the effect of religion was shown in modifying the character of a people; for both Hindoos and Mohammedans were of the same race, and from time immemorial had inhabited together the same country.

The destruction of property and the loss of life in the various plunderings and affrays must have been very great. How great I can form no estimate. But no mistake could be greater than that of the officials at Agra, that the natives had become weary of the anarchy. After a longer experience of it no doubt they would have become so, but at present it was a condition of things

that entirely suited them. They paid no revenue, they had enriched themselves with the plunder of the towns, and wiped off their debts to the Bunniahs.

At the commencement of the new year I received promotion, and was transferred to a district in the extreme north. After a long journey we reached our new station. Lying beyond the track of the mutineers, it had escaped destruction. For the first time we beheld neither blackened walls nor roofless houses. Situated near the foot of the Lower Himalayas, the climate was cold at this season, and the skies occasionally cloudy. A friend received us. As we entered his house a bright wood fire was burning on the hearth, the table was spread for breakfast; we looked out on pretty grounds resembling an English park. With a delight which I can even now recall, we found ourselves again amid the comforts of peace and civilisation.

In a day or two the clouds cleared and displayed the vast peaks of the snowy range rising white and glistening far above the horizon, looking down, so it seemed to me, on the war and turmoil below calm and indifferent, as they had centuries ago on the hordes of Timour, or, long ages before, on the armies of Alexander.

CHAPTER XXXV.

CONCLUSION.

AFTER leaving Muttra I had no further direct concern with the mutinies. I will, however, briefly relate the leading events that accompanied their suppression. Early in the year Lucknow was relieved, and the Gwalior contingent dispersed. The lower part of the Doab being now cleared of the rebels, Lord Canning left Calcutta and assumed charge of the Upper Provinces. He fixed his residence at Allahabad, to which station he transferred the seat of government. In the course of the year Lucknow was captured and Rohilcund reoccupied. So far as these provinces were concerned the mutiny was ended. It was not, however, till the lapse of another year that order was restored in Central India and other places.

In November 1858, a general amnesty was proclaimed, and the Queen assumed the sovereignty of India. Her doing so gave great satisfaction to the natives, but for a reason which the English public would not have imagined, and of which I do not believe it is even now aware. The natives were under the belief that the East India Company farmed the country from the English Crown. They supposed, consequently, that the abolition of the Company would be followed by a remission of revenue to the extent of the profits which

the Company had been in the habit of receiving. They also imagined that the direct government by the Queen would be accompanied by the establishment of a court, and a display of that splendour so congenial to their tastes.

In the suppression of the mutinies, or rather in what followed their suppression, there were displayed many of the best English characteristics, but also some of our qualities less praiseworthy. There was no retaliation, no revenge; but, on the other hand, there was that rigid adherence to rule, that want of sympathy with the feelings of the people which, though perhaps it makes our government successful, certainly prevents it from being loved.

The revenue was demanded and its payment enforced where it had already been collected by the rebel authorities, and at a time and in parts of the country where those authorities were de facto sovereigns. Escaped prisoners were punished for not surrendering themselves under proclamations of the existence of which they could not have heard, and of which, if they had heard, it was impossible they could have obeyed. Also the rural dis turbers were punished in accordance with laws which, at the time when the disturbances occurred, had practically ceased to exist. It would have been more merciful-it would also have been wiser-if over such offences there had been drawn a veil. Till the next mutiny these crimes would not be repeated, and then no amount of present severity would prevent their recurrence.

It was noticeable that those English officials who, during the crisis of the mutiny, had been the most moderate, the most averse to violence, were, now that the mutiny was suppressed, the least inclined to show generosity.