PERSONAL ANECDOTES--CAPTURE OF THE SHAH NUJEEF--A FEARFUL EXPERIENCE
I must now leave for a little the general struggle, and turn to the
actions of individual men as they fell under my own observation,--actions
which neither appear in despatches nor in history; and, by the way, I
may remark that one of the best accounts extant of the taking of the
Shah Nujeef is that of Colonel Alison, in _Blackwood's Magazine_ for
October, 1858. Both the Alisons were severely wounded on that
occasion,--Colonel Archibald Alison, Military Secretary, and his
brother, Captain F. M. Alison, A.D.C. to Sir Colin Campbell. I will now
relate a service rendered by Sergeant M. W. Findlay, of my company,
which was never noticed nor rewarded. Sergeant Findlay, let me state,
merely considered that he had done his duty, but that is no reason why I
should not mention his name. I believe he is still in India, and a
distinguished officer of the Rajpootana-Malwa Railway Volunteers at
Ajmere. However, after Captain Peel's guns were dragged into position,
the Ninety-Third took up whatever shelter they could get on the right
and left of the guns, and I, with several others, got behind the walls
of an unroofed mud hut, through which we made loopholes on the side next
to the Shah Nujeef, and were thus able to keep up a destructive fire
on the enemy. Let me add here that the surgeons of the force were
overwhelmed with work, and attending to the wounded in the thick of the
fire. Some time after the attack had commenced we noticed Captain Alison
and his horse in a heap together a few yards behind where we were in
shelter. Sergeant Findlay rushed out, got the wounded officer clear of
his dead horse under a perfect hail of bullets and round-shot, and
carried him under the shelter of the walls where we were lying. He then
ran off in search of a surgeon to bandage his wounds, which were
bleeding very profusely; but the surgeons were all too busy, and Sir
Colin was most strict on the point of wounds being attended to.
Officers, no matter what their rank, had no precedence over the
rank-and-file in this respect; in fact, Sir Colin often expressed the
opinion that an officer could be far more easily replaced than a
well-drilled private. However, there was no surgeon available; so
Sergeant Findlay took his own bandage,--every soldier on going on active
service is supplied with lint and a bandage to have them handy in case
of wounds--set to work, stanched the bleeding, and bandaged up the
wounds of Captain Alison in such a surgeon-like manner that, when Dr.
Menzies of the Ninety-Third at length came to see him, he thought he had
been attended to by a doctor. When he did discover that it was Sergeant
Findlay who had put on the bandages, he expressed his surprise, and said
that in all probability this prompt action had saved Captain Alison's
life, who otherwise might have been weakened by loss of blood beyond
recovery before a doctor could have attended to him. Dr. Menzies there
and then applied to Captain Dawson to get Sergeant Findlay into the
field-hospital as an extra assistant to attend to the wounded. In
closing this incident I may remark that I have known men get the
Victoria Cross for incurring far less danger than Sergeant Findlay did
in exposing himself to bring Captain Alison under shelter. The bullets
were literally flying round him like hail; several passed through his
clothes, and his feather bonnet was shot off his head. When he had
finished putting on the bandages he coolly remarked: "I must go out and
get my bonnet for fear I get sunstruck;" so out he went for his hat, and
before he got back scores of bullets were fired at him from the walls of
the Shah Nujeef.
The next man I shall refer to was Sergeant Daniel White, one of the
coolest and most fearless men in the regiment. Sergeant White was a man
of superior education, an excellent vocalist and reciter, with a most
retentive memory, and one of the best amateur actors in the
Ninety-Third. Under fire he was just as cool and collected as if he had
been enacting the part of Bailie Nicol Jarvie in _Rob Roy_.
In the force defending the Shah Nujeef, in addition to the regular army,
there was a large body of archers on the walls, armed with bows and
arrows which they discharged with great force and precision, and on
White raising his head above the wall an arrow was shot right into his
feather bonnet. Inside of the wire cage of his bonnet, however, he had
placed his forage cap, folded up, and instead of passing right through,
the arrow stuck in the folds of the forage cap, and "Dan," as he was
called, coolly pulled out the arrow, paraphrasing a quotation from Sir
Walter Scott's _Legend of Montrose_, where Dugald Dalgetty and Ranald
MacEagh made their escape from the castle of McCallum More. Looking at
the arrow, "My conscience!" said White, "bows and arrows! bows and
arrows! Have we got Robin Hood and Little John back again? Bows and
arrows! My conscience, the sight has not been seen in civilised war for
nearly two hundred years. Bows and arrows! And why not weavers' beams as
in the days of Goliath? Ah! that Daniel White should be able to tell in
the Saut Market of Glasgow that he had seen men fight with bows and
arrows in the days of Enfield rifles! Well, well, Jack Pandy, since bows
and arrows are the words, here's at you!" and with that he raised his
feather bonnet on the point of his bayonet above the top of the wall,
and immediately another arrow pierced it through, while a dozen more
whizzed past a little wide of the mark.
Just then one poor fellow of the Ninety-Third, named Penny, of No. 2
company, raising his head for an instant a little above the wall, got an
arrow right through his brain, the shaft projecting more than a foot out
at the back of his head. As the poor lad fell dead at our feet,
Sergeant White remarked, "Boys, this is no joke; we must pay them off."
We all loaded and capped, and pushing up our feather bonnets again, a
whole shower of arrows went past or through them. Up we sprang and
returned a well-aimed volley from our rifles at point-blank distance,
and more than half-a-dozen of the enemy went down. But one unfortunate
man of the regiment, named Montgomery, of No. 6 company, exposed himself
a little too long to watch the effect of our volley, and before he could
get down into shelter again an arrow was sent right through his heart,
passing clean through his body and falling on the ground a few yards
behind him. He leaped about six feet straight up in the air, and fell
stone dead. White could not resist making another quotation, but this
time it was from the old English ballad of _Chevy Chase_.
He had a bow bent in his hand
Made of a trusty tree,
An arrow of a cloth-yard long
Up to the head drew he.
Against Sir Hugh Montgomerie
So right his shaft he set,
The grey goose wing that was thereon
In his heart's blood was wet.
Readers who have never been under the excitement of a fight like this
which I describe, may think that such coolness is an exaggeration. It is
not so. Remember the men of whom I write had stood in the "Thin Red
Line" of Balaclava without wavering, and had made up their minds to die
where they stood, if need be; men who had been for days and nights
under shot and shell in the trenches of Sebastopol. If familiarity
breeds contempt, continual exposure to danger breeds coolness, and, I
may say, selfishness too; where all are exposed to equal danger little
sympathy is, for the time being at least, displayed for the unlucky ones
"knocked on the head," to use the common expression in the ranks for
those who are killed. Besides, Sergeant Daniel White was an
exceptionally cool man, and looked on every incident with the eye of an
actor.
By this time the sun was getting low, a heavy cloud of smoke hung over
the field, and every flash of the guns and rifles could be clearly seen.
The enemy in hundreds were visible on the ramparts, yelling like demons,
brandishing their swords in one hand and burning torches in the other,
shouting at us to "Come on!" But little impression had been made on the
solid masonry walls. Brigadier Hope and his aide-de-camp were rolling on
the ground together, the horses of both shot dead; and the same shell
which had done this mischief exploded one of our ammunition waggons,
killing and wounding several men. Altogether the position looked black
and critical when Major Barnston and his battalion of detachments were
ordered to storm. This battalion of detachments was a body made up of
almost every corps in the service,--at least as far as the regiments
forming the expedition to China were concerned--and men belonging to the
different corps which had entered the Residency with Generals Havelock
and Outram. It also comprised some men who had been left (through
sickness or wounds) at Allahabad and Cawnpore, and some of the Ninetieth
Regiment which had been intercepted at Singapore on their way to China,
under Captain (now General Lord) Wolseley. However, although a made-up
battalion, they advanced bravely to the breach, and I think their
leader, Major Barnston, was killed, and the command devolved on Captain
Wolseley. He made a most determined attempt to get into the place, but
there were no scaling-ladders, and the wall was still almost twenty feet
high. During the heavy cannonade the masonry had fallen down in flakes
on the outside, but still leaving an inner wall standing almost
perpendicular, and in attempting to climb up this the men were raked
with a perfect hail of missiles--grenades and round-shot hurled from
wall-pieces, arrows and brickbats, burning torches of rags and cotton
saturated with oil--even boiling water was dashed on them! In the midst
of the smoke the breach would have made a very good representation of
Pandemonium. There were scores of men armed with great burning torches
just like what one may see in the sham fights of the _Mohurrum_, only
these men were in earnest, shouting "_Allah Akbar!_" "_Deen! Deen!_" and
"_Jai Kali ma ki!_"[20]
The stormers were driven back, leaving many dead and wounded under the
wall. At this juncture Sir Colin called on Brigadier Hope to form up
the Ninety-Third for a final attempt. Sir Colin, again addressing us,
said that he had not intended to call on us to storm more positions that
day, but that the building in our front must be carried before dark, and
the Ninety-Third must do it, and he would lead us himself, saying again:
"Remember, men, the lives at stake inside the Residency are those of
women and children, and they must be rescued." A reply burst from the
ranks: "Ay, ay, Sir Colin! we stood by you at Balaklava, and will stand
by you here; but you must not expose yourself so much as you are doing.
We can be replaced, but you can't. You must remain behind; we can lead
ourselves."
By that time the battalion of detachments had cleared the front, and the
enemy were still yelling to us to "Come on," and piling up missiles to
give us a warm reception. Captain Peel had meanwhile brought his
infernal machine, known as a rocket battery, to the front, and sent a
volley of rockets through the crowd on the ramparts around the breach.
Just at that moment Sergeant John Paton of my company came running down
the ravine that separated the Kuddum Russool from the Shah Nujeef,
completely out of breath through exertion, but just able to tell
Brigadier Hope that he had gone up the ravine at the moment the
battalion of detachments had been ordered to storm, and had discovered a
breach in the north-east corner of the rampart next to the river
Goomtee. It appears that our shot and shell had gone over the first
breach, and had blown out the wall on the other side in this particular
spot. Paton told how he had climbed up to the top of the ramparts
without difficulty, and seen right inside the place as the whole
defending force had been called forward to repulse the assault in front.
Captain Dawson and his company were at once called out, and while the
others opened fire on the breach in front of them, we dashed down the
ravine, Sergeant Paton showing the way. As soon as the enemy saw that
the breach behind had been discovered, and that their well-defended
position was no longer tenable, they fled like sheep through the back
gate next to the Goomtee and another in the direction of the Motee
Munzil.[21] If No. 7 company had got in behind them and cut off their
retreat by the back gate, it would have been Secundrabagh over again! As
it was, by the time we got over the breach we were able to catch only
about a score of the fugitives, who were promptly bayoneted; the rest
fled pell-mell into the Goomtee, and it was then too dark to see to use
the rifle with effect on the flying masses. However, by the great pools
of blood inside, and the number of dead floating in the river, they had
plainly suffered heavily, and the well-contested position of the Shah
Nujeef was ours.
By this time Sir Colin and those of his staff remaining alive or
unwounded were inside the position, and the front gate thrown open. A
hearty cheer was given for the Commander-in-Chief, as he called the
officers round him to give instructions for the disposition of the
force for the night. As it was Captain Dawson and his company who had
scaled the breach, to them was assigned the honour of holding the Shah
Nujeef, which was now one of the principal positions to protect the
retreat from the Residency. And thus ended the terrible 16th of
November, 1857.
In the taking of the Secundrabagh all the subaltern officers of my
company were wounded, namely, Lieutenants E. Welch and S. E. Wood, and
Ensign F. R. M'Namara. The only officer therefore with the company in
the Shah Nujeef was Captain Dawson. Sergeant Findlay, as already
mentioned, had been taken over as hospital-assistant, and another
sergeant named Wood was either sick or wounded, I forget which, and
Corporals M'Kenzie and Mitchell (a namesake of mine, belonging to
Balmoral) were killed. It thus fell to my lot as the non-commissioned
officer on duty to go round with Captain Dawson to post the sentries.
Mr. Kavanagh, who was officiating as a volunteer staff-officer,
accompanied us to point out the direction of the strongest positions of
the enemy, and the likely points from which any attempts would be made
to recapture our position during the night. During the absence of the
captain the command of the company devolved on Colour-Sergeant David
Morton, of "Tobacco Soup" fame, and he was instructed to see that none
of the enemy were still lurking in the rooms surrounding the mosque of
the Shah Nujeef, while the captain was going round the ramparts placing
the sentries for the protection of our position.
As soon as the sentries were posted on the ramparts and regular reliefs
told off, arrangements were made among the sergeants and corporals to
patrol at regular intervals from sentry to sentry to see that all were
alert. This was the more necessary as the men were completely worn out
and fatigued by long marches and heavy fighting, and in fact had not
once had their belts off for a week previous, while all the time
carrying double ammunition on half-empty stomachs. Every precaution had
therefore to be taken that the sentries should not go to sleep, and it
fell to me as the corporal on duty to patrol the first two hours of the
night, from eight o'clock till ten. The remainder of the company
bivouacked around the piled arms, which were arranged carefully loaded
and capped with bayonets fixed, ready for instant action should an
attack be made on our position. After the great heat of the day the
nights by contrast felt bitterly cold. There was a stack of dry wood in
the centre of the grounds from which the men kindled a large fire near
the piled arms, and arranged themselves around it, rolled in their
greatcoats but fully accoutred, ready to stand to arms at the least
alarm.
In writing these reminiscences it is far from my wish to make them an
autobiography. My intention is rather to relate the actions of others
than recount what I did myself; but an adventure happened to me in the
Shah Nujeef which gave me such a nervous fright that to this day I often
dream of it. I have forgotten to state that when the force advanced
from the Alumbagh each man carried his greatcoat rolled into what was
then known in our regiment as the "Crimean roll," with ends strapped
together across the right shoulder just over the ammunition pouch-belt,
so that it did not interfere with the free use of the rifle, but rather
formed a protection across the chest. As it turned out many men owed
their lives to the fact that bullets became spent in passing through the
rolled greatcoats before reaching a vital part. Now it happened that in
the heat of the fight in the Secundrabagh my greatcoat was cut right
through where the two ends were fastened together, by the stroke of a
keen-edged _tulwar_ which was intended to cut me across the shoulder,
and as it was very warm at the time from the heat of the mid-day sun
combined with the excitement of the fight, I was rather glad than
otherwise to be rid of the greatcoat; and when the fight was over, it
did not occur to me to appropriate another one in its place from one of
my dead comrades. But by ten o'clock at night there was a considerable
difference in the temperature from ten in the morning, and when it came
to my turn to be relieved from patrol duty and to lie down for a sleep,
I felt the cold wet grass anything but comfortable, and missed my
greatcoat to wrap round my knees; for the kilt is not the most suitable
dress imaginable for a bivouac, without greatcoat or plaid, on a cold,
dewy November night in Upper India; with a raw north wind the climate of
Lucknow feels uncommonly cold at night in November, especially when
contrasted with the heat of the day. I have already mentioned that the
sun had set before we entered the Shah Nujeef, the surrounding enclosure
of which contained a number of small rooms round the inside of the
walls, arranged after the manner of the ordinary Indian native
travellers' _serais_. The Shah Nujeef, it must be remembered, was the
tomb of Ghazee-ood-deen Hyder, the first king of Oude, and consequently
a place of Mahommedan pilgrimage, and the small rooms round the four
walls of the square were for the accommodation of pilgrims. These rooms
had been turned into quarters by the enemy, and, in their hurry to
escape, many of them had left their lamps burning, consisting of the
ordinary _chirags_[22] placed in small niches in the walls, leaving also
their evening meal of _chupatties_ in small piles ready cooked, and the
curry and _dhal_[23] boiling on the fires. Many of the lamps were still
burning when my turn of duty was over, and as I felt the want of a
greatcoat badly, I asked the colour-sergeant of the company (the captain
being fast asleep) for permission to go out of the gate to where our
dead were collected near the Secundrabagh to get another one. This
Colour-Sergeant Morton refused, stating that before going to sleep the
captain had given strict orders that except those on sentry no man was
to leave his post on any pretence whatever. I had therefore to try to
make the best of my position, but although dead tired and wearied out I
felt too uncomfortable to go to sleep, and getting up it struck me that
some of the sepoys in their hurried departure might have left their
greatcoats or blankets behind them. With this hope I went into one of
the rooms where a lamp was burning, took it off its shelf, and shading
the flame with my hand walked to the door of the great domed tomb, or
mosque, which was only about twenty or thirty yards from where the arms
were piled and the men lying round the still burning fire. I peered into
the dark vault, not knowing that it was a king's tomb, but could see
nothing, so I advanced slowly, holding the _chirag_ high over my head
and looking cautiously around for fear of surprise from a concealed
enemy, till I was near the centre of the great vault, where my progress
was obstructed by a big black heap about four or five feet high, which
felt to my feet as if I were walking among loose sand. I lowered the
lamp to see what it was, and immediately discovered that I was standing
up to the ankles in _loose gunpowder_! About forty cwt. of it lay in a
great heap in front of my nose, while a glance to my left showed me a
range of twenty to thirty barrels also full of powder, and on the right
over a hundred 8-inch shells, all loaded with the fuses fixed, while
spare fuses and slow matches and port-fires in profusion lay heaped
beside the shells.
By this time my eyes had become accustomed to the darkness of the
mosque, and I took in my position and my danger at a glance. Here I was
up to my knees in powder,--in the very bowels of a magazine with a
naked light! My hair literally stood on end; I felt the skin of my head
lifting my feather bonnet off my scalp; my knees knocked together, and
despite the chilly night air the cold perspiration burst out all over me
and ran down my face and legs. I had neither cloth nor handkerchief in
my pocket, and there was not a moment to be lost, as already the
overhanging wick of the _chirag_ was threatening to shed its smouldering
red tip into the live magazine at my feet with consequences too
frightful to contemplate. Quick as thought I put my left hand under the
down-dropping flame, and clasped it with a grasp of determination;
holding it firmly I slowly turned to the door, and walked out with my
knees knocking one against the other! Fear had so overcome all other
feeling that I am confident I never felt the least pain from grasping
the burning wick till after I was outside the building and once again in
the open air; but when I opened my hand I felt the smart acutely enough.
I poured the oil out of the lamp into the burnt hand, and kneeling down
thanked God for having saved myself and all the men lying around me from
horrible destruction. I then got up and, staggering rather than walking
to the place where Captain Dawson was sleeping, and shaking him by the
shoulder till he awoke, I told him of my discovery and the fright I had
got.
At first he either did not believe me, or did not comprehend the danger.
"Bah! Corporal Mitchell," was all his answer, "you have woke up out of
your sleep, and have got frightened at a shadow," for my heart was
still thumping against my ribs worse than it was when I first discovered
my danger, and my voice was trembling. I turned my smarting hand to the
light of the fire and showed the captain how it was scorched; and then,
feeling my pride hurt at being told I had got frightened at a shadow, I
said: "Sir, you're not a Highlander or you would know the Gaelic proverb
'_The heart of one who can look death in the face will not start at a
shadow_,' and you, sir, can yourself bear witness that I have not
shirked to look death in the face more than once since daylight this
morning." He replied, "Pardon me, I did not mean that; but calm yourself
and explain what it is that has frightened you." I then told him that I
had gone into the mosque with a naked lamp burning, and had found it
half full of loose gunpowder piled in a great heap on the floor and a
large number of loaded shells. "Are you sure you're not dreaming from
the excitement of this terrible day?" said the captain. With that I
looked down to my feet and my gaiters, which were still covered with
blood from the slaughter in the Secundrabagh; the wet grass had softened
it again, and on this the powder was sticking nearly an inch thick. I
scraped some of it off, throwing it into the fire, and said, "There is
positive proof for you that I'm not dreaming, nor my vision a shadow!"
On that the captain became almost as alarmed as I was, and a sentry was
posted near the door of the mosque to prevent any one from entering it.
The sleeping men were aroused, and the fire smothered out with as great
care as possible, using for the purpose several earthen _ghurrahs_, or
jars of water, which the enemy had left under the trees near where we
were lying.
When all was over, Colour-Sergeant Morton coolly proposed to the captain
to place me under arrest for having left the pile of arms after he, the
colour-sergeant, had refused to give me leave. To this proposal Captain
Dawson replied: "If any one deserves to be put under arrest it is you
yourself, Sergeant Morton, for not having explored the mosque and
discovered the gunpowder while Corporal Mitchell and I were posting the
sentries; and if this neglect comes to the notice of either Colonel Hay
or the Commander-in-Chief, both you and I are likely to hear more about
it; so the less you say about the matter the better!" This ended the
discussion and my adventure, and at the time I was glad to hear nothing
more about it, but I have sometimes since thought that if the part I
acted in this crisis had come to the knowledge of either Colonel Hay or
Sir Colin Campbell, my burnt hand would have brought me something more
than a proposal to place me under arrest, and take my corporal's stripes
from me! Be that as it may, I got a fright that I have never forgotten,
and, as already mentioned, even to this day I often dream of it, and
wake up with a sudden start, the cold perspiration in great beads on my
face, as I think I see again the huge black heap of powder in front of
me.
After a sentry had been posted on the mosque and the fire put out, a
glass lantern was discovered in one of the rooms, and Captain Dawson
and I, with an escort of three or four men, made the circuit of the
walls, searching every room. I remember one of the escort was James
Wilson, the same man who wished to bayonet the Hindoo _jogie_ in the
village who afterwards shot poor Captain Mayne as told in my fourth
chapter. As Wilson was peering into one of the rooms, a concealed sepoy
struck him over the head with his _tulwar_, but the feather bonnet saved
his scalp as it had saved many more that day, and Captain Dawson being
armed with a pair of double-barrelled pistols, put a bullet through the
sepoy before he had time to make another cut at Wilson. In the same room
I found a good cotton quilt which I promptly annexed to replace my lost
greatcoat.
After all was quiet, the men rolled off to sleep again, and wrapping
round my legs my newly-acquired quilt, which was lined with silk and had
evidently belonged to a rebel officer, I too lay down and tried to
sleep. My nerves were however too much shaken, and the pain of my burnt
hand kept me awake, so I lay and listened to the men sleeping around me;
and what a night that was! Had I the descriptive powers of a Tennyson or
a Scott I might draw a picture of it, but as it is I can only very
faintly attempt to make my readers imagine what it was like. The
horrible scenes through which the men had passed during the day had told
with terrible effect on their nervous systems, and the struggles,--eye
to eye, foot to foot, and steel to steel--with death in the
Secundrabagh, were fought over again by most of the men in their sleep,
oaths and shouts of defiance often curiously intermingled with prayers.
One man would be lying calmly sleeping and commence muttering something
inaudible, and then break out into a fierce battle-cry of "Cawnpore, you
bloody murderer!"; another would shout "Charge! give them the bayonet!";
and a third, "Keep together, boys, don't fire; forward, forward; if we
are to die, let us die like men!" Then I would hear one muttering, "Oh,
mother, forgive me, and I'll never leave you again!"; while his comrade
would half rise up, wave his hand, and call, "There they are! Fire low,
give them the bayonet! Remember Cawnpore!" And so it was throughout that
memorable night inside the Shah Nujeef; and I have no doubt but it was
the same with the men holding the other posts. The pain of my burnt hand
and the terrible fright I had got kept me awake, and I lay and listened
till nearly daybreak; but at length completely worn out, I, too, dosed
off into a disturbed slumber, and I suppose I must have behaved in much
the same way as those I had been listening to, for I dreamed of blood
and battle, and then my mind would wander to scenes on Dee and Don side,
and to the Braemar and Lonach gathering, and from that the scene would
suddenly change, and I was a little boy again, kneeling beside my
mother, saying my evening-hymn. Verily that night convinced me that
Campbell's _Soldier's Dream_ is no mere fiction, but must have been
written or dictated from actual experience by one who had passed
through such another day of excitement and danger as that of the 16th
of November, 1857.
My dreams were rudely broken into by the crash of a round-shot through
the top of the tree under which I was lying, and I jumped up repeating
aloud the seventh verse of the ninety-first Psalm, Scotch version:
A thousand at thy side shall fall,
On thy right hand shall lie
Ten thousand dead; yet unto thee
It shall not once come nigh.
Captain Dawson and the sergeants of the company had been astir long
before, and a party of ordnance-lascars from the ammunition park and
several warrant-officers of the Ordnance-Department were busy removing
the gunpowder from the tomb of the Shah Nujeef. Over sixty _maunds_[24]
of loose powder were filled into bags and carted out, besides twenty
barrels of the ordinary size of powder-barrels, and more than one
hundred and fifty loaded 8-inch shells. The work of removal was scarcely
completed before the enemy commenced firing shell and red-hot round-shot
from their batteries in the Badshahibagh across the Goomtee, aimed
straight for the door of the tomb facing the river, showing that they
believed the powder was still there, and that they hoped they might
manage to blow us all up.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] "God is great!" "Religion! Religion!" "Victory to Mother Kali!" The
first two are Mussulman war-cries; the last is Hindoo.
[21] The Pearl Mosque.
[22] Little clay saucers of oil, with a loosely twisted cotton wick.
[23] Small pulse.
[24] Nearly five thousand lbs.