[Illustration:
INDIA OR HINDOSTAN
Printed in Colours by Shefick & Macfarlane Edinburgh
W. & R. CHAMBERS, LONDON & EDINBURGH
]
THE
HISTORY
OF THE
INDIAN REVOLT
AND OF THE EXPEDITIONS TO
PERSIA, CHINA, AND JAPAN
1856-7-8
WITH
Maps, Plans, and Wood Engravings
[Illustration]
LONDON
W. AND R. CHAMBERS 47 PATERNOSTER ROW
AND HIGH STREET EDINBURGH
1859
[Illustration: PREFACE]
PREFACE
In the present volume is given a narrative of the chief events connected
with one of the most formidable military Revolts on record. These
events—from the first display of insubordination in the beginning of
1857, to the issue of the Royal Proclamation in the later weeks of
1858—form a series full of the romance as well as the wretchedness of
war: irrespective of the causes that may have led to them, or the
reforms which they suggested. The sudden rising of trained native
soldiers in mutiny; the slaughter of officers who to the last moment had
trusted them; the sufferings of gently-nurtured women and children,
while hurrying wildly over burning sands and through thick jungles; and
the heroism displayed amid unspeakable miseries—all tended to give an
extraordinary character to this outbreak. Nor is it less interesting to
trace the operations by which the difficulties were met. The task was
nothing less than that of suppressing insurgency among a native
population of nearly two hundred million souls by a small number of
British soldiers and civilians, most of whom were at vast distances from
the chief region of disaffection, and were grievously deficient in means
of transport.
A chronicle of these events reveals also the striking differences
between various parts of India. While Behar, Oude, Rohilcund, the Doab,
Bundelcund, Malwah, and Rajpootana were rent with anarchy and plunged in
misery, the rest of India was comparatively untouched. Most important,
too, is it to trace the influence of nation, caste, and creed. Why the
Hindoos of the Brahmin and Rajpoot castes rebelled, while those of the
lower castes remained faithful; why the Sikhs and Mussulmans of the
Punjaub shewed so little sympathy with the insurgents; why the Hindoos
of Bengal were so timidly quiet, and those of Hindostan so boldly
violent; why the native armies of Madras and Bombay were so tranquil,
when that of Bengal was so turbulent?—were questions which it behoved
the government to solve, as clues to the character of the governed, and
to the changes of discipline needed. It was a time that brought into
strong relief the peculiarities of the five chief classes of Europeans
in India—Queen’s soldiers, Company’s soldiers, Company’s ‘covenanted’
servants, ‘uncovenanted’ servants, and residents independent of the
Company; and it shewed how nobly these classes forgot their differences
when the honour of the British name and the safety of India were
imperiled.
The history of home affairs during, and in relation to, that period of
struggle, has its own points of interest—shewing in what manner, amid
the stormy conflicts of party, the nation responded to the call for
military aid to India, for pecuniary aid to individual sufferers, and
for a great change in the government of that country.
Although the minor results of the Revolt may be visible to a much later
date, it is considered that the month of November 1858 would furnish a
convenient limit to the present narrative. The government of India had
by that time been changed; the change had been publicly proclaimed
throughout the length and breadth of that empire; the British army in
the east had been so largely augmented as to render the prospects of the
insurgents hopeless; the rebel leaders were gradually tendering their
submission, under the terms of the Royal Proclamation; the skilled
mutinous sepoys had in great proportion been stricken down by battle and
privation; the military operations had become little more than a chasing
of lawless marauders; and the armed men still at large were mostly dupes
of designing leaders, or ruffians whose watchwords were pay and plunder
rather than nationality or patriotism.
The remarkable Expeditions to Persia, China, and Japan are briefly
noticed towards the close of the volume—on account of the links which
connected them with the affairs of India, and of the aspect which they
gave to the influence of England in the east.
Every endeavour has been made, by a careful examination of available
authorities, to render the narrative a truthful one. It is hoped that
the errors are few in number, and that hasty expressions of opinion on
disputed points have in general been avoided. The Work is quite distinct
from the HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN WAR, issued by the same Publishers; yet
may the two be regarded as companion volumes, relating to the affairs of
England in the east—seeing that a few short months only elapsed between
the close of the events of 1854-5-6 in Turkey, Russia, and Asia Minor,
and the commencement of those of 1856-7-8 in India, Persia, and China.
G. D.
_December 1858._
-----
[Illustration]
[Illustration: Contents]
Contents
INTRODUCTION.
PAGE
INDIA IN 1856: A RETROSPECT, 1
NOTES.—DISTANCES—ORTHOGRAPHY—VOCABULARY, 12, 13
CHAPTER I.
THE ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK, 14
NOTE, 31
CHAPTER II.
SYMPTOMS: CHUPATTIES AND CARTRIDGES, 32
CHAPTER III.
MEERUT, AND THE REBEL-FLIGHT TO DELHI, 48
CHAPTER IV.
DELHI, THE CENTRE OF INDIAN NATIONALITY, 59
CHAPTER V.
THE EVENTFUL ESCAPES FROM DELHI, 69
CHAPTER VI.
LUCKNOW AND THE COURT OF OUDE, 82
CHAPTER VII.
SPREAD OF DISAFFECTION IN MAY, 97
NOTES.—INDIAN RAILWAYS—‘HEADMAN’ OF A VILLAGE, 119
CHAPTER VIII.
TREACHERY AND ATROCITIES AT CAWNPORE, 121
NOTE.—NENA SAHIB’S PROCLAMATIONS, 145
CHAPTER IX.
BENGAL AND THE LOWER GANGES: JUNE, 147
NOTES.—THE OUDE ROYAL FAMILY—CASTES AND CREEDS IN THE INDIAN 161, 162
ARMY,
CHAPTER X.
OUDE, ROHILCUND, AND THE DOAB: JUNE, 163
CHAPTER XI.
CENTRAL REGIONS OF INDIA: JUNE, 176
CHAPTER XII.
EVENTS IN THE PUNJAUB AND SINDE, 191
NOTES.—MILITARY DIVISIONS OF INDIA—ARMIES OF INDIA AT THE 208
COMMENCEMENT OF THE MUTINY,
CHAPTER XIII.
PREPARATIONS: CALCUTTA AND LONDON, 210
NOTE, 227
CHAPTER XIV.
THE SIEGE OF DELHI: JUNE AND JULY, 230
CHAPTER XV.
HAVELOCK’S CAMPAIGN: ALLAHABAD TO LUCKNOW, 247
CHAPTER XVI.
THE DINAPOOR MUTINY, AND ITS CONSEQUENCES, 264
CHAPTER XVII.
MINOR MUTINIES: JULY AND AUGUST, 277
NOTE.—THE BRITISH AT THE MILITARY STATIONS, 293
CHAPTER XVIII.
THE SIEGE OF DELHI: FINAL OPERATIONS, 295
CHAPTER XIX.
THE STORY OF THE LUCKNOW RESIDENCY, 316
NOTE.—BRIGADIER INGLIS’S DISPATCH, 336
CHAPTER XX.
MINOR CONFLICTS: SEPTEMBER AND OCTOBER, 338
CHAPTER XXI.
THE RESCUE AT LUCKNOW, BY SIR COLIN CAMPBELL, 359
NOTE.—CAVANAGH’S ADVENTURE, 371
CHAPTER XXII.
CLOSING EVENTS OF THE YEAR, 374
NOTES.—PROPOSED RE-ORGANISATION OF THE INDIAN ARMY—PROPOSED 386, 387
INQUIRY INTO THE CAUSES OF THE MUTINY,
CHAPTER XXIII.
A SECOND YEAR OF REBELLION, 388
CHAPTER XXIV.
MILITARY OPERATIONS IN FEBRUARY, 398
NOTES.—SIR COLIN CAMPBELL’S ARMY OF OUDE—MOHAMMEDAN REBEL 409, 410
LEADERS,
CHAPTER XXV.
FINAL CONQUEST OF LUCKNOW: MARCH, 412
NOTE.—LUCKNOW PROCLAMATIONS, 427
CHAPTER XXVI.
MINOR EVENTS IN MARCH, 429
NOTES.—‘COVENANTED’ AND ‘UNCOVENANTED’ SERVICE—COLLECTORS AND 443
COLLECTORATES,
CHAPTER XXVII.
DISCUSSIONS ON REBEL PUNISHMENTS, 446
NOTES, 455-461
CHAPTER XXVIII.
MILITARY OPERATIONS IN APRIL, 462
NOTE.—NATIVE POLICE OF INDIA, 480
CHAPTER XXIX.
PROGRESS OF EVENTS IN MAY, 482
NOTE.—TRANSPORT OF TROOPS TO INDIA, 501
CHAPTER XXX.
ROSE’S VICTORIES AT CALPEE AND GWALIOR, 504
CHAPTER XXXI.
STATE OF AFFAIRS AT THE END OF JUNE, 517
NOTE.—QUEEN’S REGIMENTS IN INDIA IN JUNE, 535
CHAPTER XXXII.
GRADUAL PACIFICATION IN THE AUTUMN, 537
CHAPTER XXXIII.
LAST DAYS OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY’S RULE, 561
SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER.
§ 1. THE PERSIAN EXPEDITION, 1856-7, 578
§ 2. THE CHINESE AND JAPANESE EXPEDITIONS, 1856-7-8, 585
§ 3. ENGLISH PROSPECTS IN THE EAST, 604
APPENDIX.
EAST INDIA COMPANY’S PETITION TO PARLIAMENT, JANUARY 1858, 613
EAST INDIA COMPANY’S OBJECTIONS TO THE FIRST AND SECOND INDIA 618
BILLS: APRIL 1858,
EAST INDIA COMPANY’S OBJECTIONS TO THE THIRD INDIA BILL: JUNE 621
1858,
ABSTRACT OF ACT FOR THE BETTER GOVERNMENT OF INDIA—RECEIVED 622
ROYAL ASSENT AUGUST 2, 1858,
THE INDIAN MUTINY RELIEF FUND, 623
QUEEN VICTORIA’S PROCLAMATION TO THE PRINCES, CHIEFS, AND 623
PEOPLE OF INDIA,
VISCOUNT CANNING’S PROCLAMATION, 624
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE, 625
INDEX, 629
[Illustration]
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
Delhi, 1
Initial Letter, 1
Tail-piece, 13
Initial Letter, 14
Boats on the Ganges, 19
Palanquin, 21
Indian Domestics, 22
Group of Sepoys, 28
Bungalow, 29
Troops on the March, 30
Initial Letter, 32
VISCOUNT CANNING, 41
Calcutta, 43
Council-house at Calcutta, 47
King’s Palace, Delhi, 48
Initial Letter, 48
Laboratory at Meerut, 55
Dâk Runner, 58
Initial Letter, 59
Bird’s-eye view of Delhi.—From a Coloured Lithograph by A. 64
Maclure; taken from Original Native Drawings,
Howdah of an Indian Prince, 68
King of Delhi, 69
Initial Letter, 69
Escape from Delhi, 73
Delhi from Flagstaff Tower, 76
Elephant and State Howdah, 81
Lucknow, 82
Initial Letter, 82
SIR HENRY LAWRENCE, 92
Residency at Lucknow, 93
Ekah, or Officer’s Travelling Wagon, 96
General View of Calcutta from Fort William, 97
Initial Letter, 97
Ghât on the Ganges, 105
City and Fort of Allahabad, 108
Agra Fort, 109
Nynee Tal—a Refuge for European Fugitives, 116
Palanquin, 120
Parade-ground, Cawnpore, 121
Initial Letter, 121
NENA SAHIB.—From a Picture painted at Bithoor in 1850, by Mr 124
Beechy, Portrait-painter to the King of Oude,
The Intrenchment at Cawnpore, 128
Plan of Sir H. Wheeler’s Intrenchment at Cawnpore.—From an 129
Official Survey,
House at Cawnpore, in which the Women and Children were 141
massacred,
The Well at Cawnpore, 146
House of the Rajah at Allahabad, 147
Initial Letter, 147
Mess-house of the Officers of the 6th Native Infantry at 157
Allahabad,
Sikh Cavalry, 162
Initial Letter, 163
Simla, the Summer Residence of the Governor-general of India, 173
Tomb at Futtehpore Sikri, 175
Initial Letter, 176
Fort of Mhow, 185
Girls at the Ganges, 190
Akali of the Sikhs, 191
Initial Letter, 191
SIR JOHN LAWRENCE, 193
Camel and Rider, 205
Catholic Church, Sirdhana; built by Begum Sumroo, 209
SIR COLIN CAMPBELL, 210
Initial Letter, 210
General View of Madras.—From a Drawing by Thomas Daniell, 216
Bombay.—From a View in the Library of the East India Company, 217
Jumma Musjid, Agra; Mosque built by Shah Jehan in 1656, 229
Initial Letter, 230
SIR HENRY BARNARD, 232
HINDOO RAO’S House—Battery in front, 237
The General and his Staff at the Mosque Picket before Delhi, 240
GENERAL WILSON, 244
Engineer Officers in Battery before Delhi, 245
Bullock-wagon, 246
SIR HENRY HAVELOCK, 247
Initial Letter, 247
Plan of Action near Cawnpore, July 16, 1857, 252
Plan of Action near Bithoor, August 16, 1857, 257
BRIGADIER-GENERAL NEILL, 261
Initial Letter, 264
MAJOR VINCENT EYRE, 265
MR BOYLE’S House at Arrah, defended for seven days against 269
3000 rebels,
Initial Letter, 277
Fort at Agra, from the river Jumna, 281
Mount Aboo—Military Sanatarium in Rajpootana, 292
Native Musicians at a Sepoy Station, 294
BRIGADIER-GENERAL NICHOLSON.—Copied by permission from a 295
Portrait published by Messrs Gambart,
Initial Letter, 295
Jumma Musjid at Delhi.—From a Photograph, 304
CORPORAL BURGESS, blown up at Cashmere Gate, 308
Scene of capture of the Princes of Delhi—Tomb of Emperor 313
Humayoon,
State Palanquin, 315
SIR J. E. W. INGLIS, Defender of Lucknow, 316
Initial Letter, 316
Plan of Residency and part of the City of Lucknow, 321
English Church and Residency at Lucknow—from Officers’ 329
Quarters,
MR COLVIN, Lieutenant-governor of Northwest Provinces, 338
Initial Letter, 338
Camp within the Fort, Agra.—From a Photograph, 349
LIEUTENANT HOME, Bengal Engineers, 352
COLONEL BURN, Military Governor of Delhi, 356
Ruins near Kootub Minar, Delhi, 358
Lucknow, from the Observatory, 359
Initial Letter, 359
Plan of the Residency and its Defences, Lucknow, 362
Plan of Fort of Alum Bagh, near Lucknow, 370
Group of Mahratta Arms.—From the Collection of Sir S. Meyrick, 373
Initial Letter, 374
Plan of the Battle of Cawnpore, December 6, 1857, 379
St James’s Church, Delhi, 384
Tail-piece, 387
COLONEL E. H. GREATHED, 388
Initial Letter, 388
Houses in the Chandnee Chowk, Delhi, 396
Tail-piece, 397
SIR JAMES OUTRAM, 398
Initial Letter, 398
Moulvies, or Mohammedan Religious Teachers, 408
Tail-piece, 411
Goorkhas in their native country, Nepaul, 412
Initial Letter, 412
Gateway of the Emanbarra at Lucknow, 420
MAJOR HODSON, Commandant of Hodson’s Horse, 425
Hindoo Metallic Ornaments, 428
Barrackpore, 429
Initial Letter, 429
Kootub Minar, near Delhi, 436
Obelisk built on the Site of the Black Hole, Calcutta.—From a 441
Drawing in the India House,
Group of Indian Arms, 445
Zemindar, Hindoo Landowner, 446
Initial Letter, 446
East India House, 452
Ganges Transport Boat, 461
JUNG BAHADOOR, of Nepaul, 462
Initial Letter, 462
Goorkha Havildar or Sergeant, 468
Ghazeepore, 471
Fort of Peshawur, 477
Tail-piece, 481
Summer Costumes, Indian Army, 482
Initial Letter, 482
Dacca, 485
Fyzabad, 489
Hindoo Fruit-girl, 493
Tail-piece, 503
SIR HUGH ROSE, 504
Initial Letter, 504
Gwalior, 512
The Ranee of Jhansi, 513
Darjeeling—Hill Sanatarium in Sikkim, 517
Initial Letter, 517
Principal Street in Lucknow, 524
Surat.—From a View in the Library of the East India Company, 528
Lahore, 529
Kolapore, 533
Tail-piece, 536
Initial Letter, 537
Almorah, Hill-station in Kumaon, 537
Interior of Hindoo Rajah’s House, 545
Umritsir, 549
Jeypoor, 556
Poonah, 559
Hyderabad, 560
Government Buildings, Madras.—From a Drawing by Thomas 561
Daniell,
Initial Letter, 561
Old East India House, Leadenhall Street, 574
Calcutta.—Company’s Troops early in the 19th Century, 576
Ormuz—Entrance to the Persian Gulf, 577
Initial Letter, 577
Bushire, 585
Chinese War-junks, 589
Canton, 592
Hong-Kong, 600
SIR EDWARD LUGARD, 604
Fort St George, Madras; in 1780, 608
Tail-pieces, 612, 624
Various Tail-pieces, Vignettes, &c.
Map of India or Hindostan. (Facing Title-page.)
Map of Part of India—Chief Scene of the Mutinies of 1857, 49
Sketch Map to illustrate Havelock’s Operations during July and 289
August, 1857,
Map of Asia, 577
[Illustration: DELHI.]
INTRODUCTION.
INDIA IN 1856: A RETROSPECT.
Scarcely had England recovered from the excitement attendant on the war
with Russia; scarcely had she counted the cost, provided for the
expenditure, reprobated the blunderings, mourned over the sufferings;
scarcely had she struck a balance between the mortifying incapacity of
some of her children, and the Christian heroism of others—when she was
called upon anew to unsheath the sword, and to wage war, not against an
autocrat on this side of the Caspian, but against some of the most
ancient nations in the world. Within a few months, almost within a few
weeks, China, Persia, and India appeared in battle-array against
her—they being the injurers or the injured, according to the bias of
men’s judgments on the matter. It may almost be said that five hundred
millions of human beings became her enemies at once: there are at the
very least this number of inhabitants in the three great Asiatic
empires; and against all, proclamations were issued and armaments fitted
out. Whether the people, the millions, sided more with her or with their
own rulers, is a question that must be settled in relation to each of
those empires separately; but true it is that the small army of England
was called upon suddenly to render services in Asia, so many and varied,
in regions so widely separated, and so far distant from home, that a
power of mobility scarcely less than ubiquity, aided by a strength of
endurance almost more than mortal—could have brought that small force up
to a level with the duties required of it. Considering how small a space
a month is in the life of a nation, we may indeed say that this great
Oriental outbreak was nearly simultaneous in the three regions of Asia.
It was in October 1856 that the long-continued bickerings between the
British and the Chinese at Canton broke out into a flame, and led to the
despatch of military and naval forces from England. It was while the
British admiral was actually engaged in bombarding Canton that the
governor-general of India, acting as viceroy of the Queen of England,
declared war against the Shah of Persia for an infringement of treaty
relating to the city of Herat. And lastly, it was while two British
armaments were engaged in those two regions of warfare, that
disobedience and disbanding began in India, the initial steps to the
most formidable military Revolt, perhaps, the world has ever seen.
The theologian sees, or thinks he sees, the finger of God, the avenging
rod of an All-ruling Providence, in these scenes of blood-shedding: a
punishment on England for not having Christianised the natives of the
East to the full extent of her power. The soldier insists that, as we
gained our influence in the East mainly by the sword, by the sword we
must keep it: permitting no disobedience to our military rule, but at
the same time offending as little as possible against the prejudices of
faith and caste among the natives. The politician smitten with
Russo-phobia, deeply imbued with the notion, whether well or ill
founded, that the Muscovite aims at universal dominion in Europe and
Asia, seeks for evidences of the czar’s intrigues at Pekin, Teheran, and
Delhi. The partisan, thinking more of the ins and outs of official life,
than of Asia, points triumphantly to the dogma that if _his_ party had
been in power, no one of these three Oriental wars would have come upon
England. The merchant, believing that individual interest lies at the
bottom of all national welfare, tells us that railways and cotton
plantations would be better for India than military stations; and that
diplomatic piques at Canton and at Teheran ought not to be allowed to
drive us into hostility with nations who might be advantageous customers
for our wares. But while the theologian, the soldier, the politician,
the partisan, and the merchant are thus rushing to a demonstration, each
of his favourite theory, without waiting for the evidence which can only
by degrees be collected, England, as a nation, has had to bear up
against the storm as best she could. Not even one short twelvemonth of
peace was vouchsafed to her. The same year, 1856, that marked the
closing scenes of one war, witnessed the commencement of two others;
while the materials for a fourth war were at the same time fermenting,
unknown to those whose duty it was to watch symptoms.
Few things in the history of our empire are more astonishing than the
social explosion in India, taken in connection with the positive
declarations of official men. Historical parallels have often been
pointed out, striking and instructive; but here we have a historical
contradiction. At the time when the plenipotentiaries of seven European
empires and kingdoms were discussing at Paris the bases for a European
peace, the Marquis of Dalhousie was penning an account of India, in the
state to which Britain had brought it. A statesman of high ability, and
of unquestioned earnestness of purpose, he evidently felt a pride in the
work he had achieved as governor-general of India; he thought he had
laid the foundation for a great future; and he claimed credit for
England, not only in respect to what she had done, but also for the
motives that had dictated her Indian policy. It was in the early part of
1848 that this nobleman went out to the East; it was in 1856 that he
yielded the reins of power to Viscount Canning; and shortly before his
departure from Calcutta he wrote a minute or narrative, formally
addressed to the East India Company, but intended for his
fellow-countrymen at large, giving an account of his stewardship.
Remembering that that minute was written in March 1856, and that the
Revolt commenced in January 1857, it becomes very important to know,
from the lips or the pen of the marquis himself, what he believed to be
the actual condition of the Anglo-Indian Empire when he left it. The
document in question is worth more, for our present purpose, than any
formal history or description of India; for it shews not only the
sum-total of power and prosperity in 1848, but the additions made to
that sum year after year till 1856. A parliamentary paper of fifty folio
pages need not and cannot be reproduced here; but its substance may be
rendered intelligible in a few paragraphs. This we will attempt at once,
as a peculiarly fitting introduction to the main object of the present
work; for it shews how little the Revolt was expected by him who was
regarded as the centre of knowledge and influence in India. The marquis
said: ‘The time has nearly come when my administration of the government
of India, prolonged through more than eight years, will reach its final
close. It would seem that some few hours may be profitably devoted to a
short review of those eventful years; not for the purpose of justifying
disputed measures, or of setting forth a retrospective defence of the
policy which may, on every several occasion, have been adopted; but for
the purpose of recalling the political events that have occurred, the
measures that have been taken, and the progress that has been made,
during the career of the administration which is about to close. I enter
on that review with the single hope that the Honourable Court of
Directors may derive from the retrospect some degree of satisfaction
with the past, _and a still larger measure of encouragement for the
future_.’ The words we have italicised are very remarkable, read by the
light so soon and so calamitously to be afforded.
The minute first passes in review the proceedings of the Indian
government with the independent native states, both east and west of the
Ganges. How little our public men are able to foretell the course of
political events in the East, is shewn by the very first paragraph of
the governor-general’s narrative: ‘When I sailed from England in the
winter of 1847, to assume the government of India, there prevailed a
universal conviction among public men at home that permanent peace had
at length been secured in the East. Before the summer came, we were
already involved in the second Sikh war.’ Be it observed that public men
_at home_ are here adverted to: of what were the opinions of public men
in India, the English nation was not kept sufficiently informed. There
had been British officers murdered at Moultan; there was a rebellion of
the Dewan Moolraj against the recognised sovereign of Lahore; but the
renewal of war is attributed mainly to the ‘spirit of the whole Sikh
people, which was inflamed by the bitterest animosity against us; when
chief after chief deserted our cause, until nearly their whole army, led
by sirdars who had signed the treaties, and by members of the Council of
Regency itself, was openly arrayed against us;’ and when the Sikhs even
joined with the Afghans against us. It was not a mere hostile prince, it
was a hostile nation that confronted us; and the Indian government,
whether wisely or not, declared war, put forth its power, maintained a
long campaign, defeated and subdued the Sikhs, drove back the insurgent
Afghans, and ended by annexing the Punjaub to the British territories.
Scarcely had the Anglo-Indian armies been relieved from these onerous
duties, when war called them to the regions beyond the Ganges. Certain
British traders in the port of Rangoon had been subjected to gross
outrage by the officers of the King of Ava, in violation of a
pre-existing treaty; and the Marquis of Dalhousie, acting on a
high-sounding dictum of Lord Wellesley, that ‘an insult offered to the
British flag at the mouth of the Ganges should be resented as promptly
and as fully as an insult offered at the mouth of the Thames,’ resolved
to punish the king for those insults. That monarch was ‘arrogant and
over-bearing’—qualities much disapproved, where not shewn by the
Company’s servants themselves; he violated treaties, insulted our
traders, worried our envoys, and drove away our commercial agent at
Rangoon; and as the government of India ‘could never, consistently with
its own safety, permit itself to stand for a single day in an attitude
of inferiority towards a native power, and least of all towards the
court of Ava, war was declared. After some sharp fighting, the kingdom
of Pegu was taken and annexed, ‘in order that the government of India
might hold from the Burman state both adequate compensation for past
injury, and the best security against future danger.... A sense of
inferiority has penetrated at last to the convictions of the nation; the
Burman court and the Burman people alike have shewn that they now dread
our power; _and in that dread is the only real security we can ever
have, or ever could have had, for stable peace with the Burman state_.’
These words are at once boastful and saddening; but the notions
conveyed, of ‘sense of inferiority’ and ‘dread of power,’ are thoroughly
Asiatic, and as such we must accept them. Another independent state,
Nepaul, on the northern frontier of India, remained faithful during the
eight years of the Dalhousie administration; it carried on a war of its
own against Tibet, but it was friendly to England, and sent a bejewelled
ambassador, Jung Bahadoor, to visit the island Queen. The mountain
region of Cashmere, stolen as it were from the Himalaya, was under an
independent chieftain, Maharajah Gholab Sing, who, when he visited the
Marquis of Dalhousie at Wuzeerabad, caught the vice-regal robe in his
hand and said; ‘Thus I grasp the skirts of the British government, and I
will never let go my hold.’ The governor-general expresses a belief that
Gholab Sing ‘will never depart from his submissive policy as long as he
lives;’ while Gholab’s son and anticipated successor, Meean Rumbeer
Sing, is spoken of as one who will never give ‘any cause of offence to a
powerful neighbour, which he well knows can crush him at will.’ The Khan
of Khelat, near the western frontier, was brought into close
relationship, insomuch that he became ‘the friend of our friends, and
the enemy of our enemies,’ and engaged to give us temporary possession
of such military stations within his territory as we might at any time
require for purposes of defence. At the extreme northwest of our Indian
Empire, the Afghans, with whom we had fought such terrible battles
during the Auckland and Ellenborough administrations of Indian affairs,
had again been brought into friendly relations; the chief prince among
them, Dost Mohammed Khan of Cabool, had been made to see that England
was likely to be his best friend, and ‘had already shewn that he regards
English friendship as a tower of strength.’
Thus the governor-general, in adverting to independent states, announced
that he had conquered and annexed the Punjaub and Pegu; while he had
strengthened the bonds of amity with Nepaul, Cashmere, Khelat, and
Cabool—amity almost degraded to abject servility, if the protestations
of some of the chieftains were to be believed.
Having disposed of the independent states, the marquis directed
attention to the relations existing between the British government and
the protected or semi-independent states, of which there are many more
than those really independent. The kingdom of Nagpoor became British
territory by simple lapse, ‘in the absence of all legal heirs.’ In
bygone years the British put down one rajah and set up another; and when
this latter died, without a son real or adopted, or any male descendant
of the original royal stock, ‘the British government refused to bestow
the territory in free gift upon a stranger, and wisely incorporated it
with its own dominions’—a mode of acquiring territory very prevalent in
our Eastern Empire. The King of Oude, another protected sovereign,
having broken his engagements with the Company in certain instances, his
state was treated like Nagpoor, and added to British India. Satara lost
its rajah in 1849, and as no male heir was then living, that small state
shared the fate of the larger Oude: it was made British. Jhansi, a still
smaller territory, changed owners in an exactly similar way. The Nizam
of Hyderabad, owing to the Company a sum of money which he was unable or
unwilling to pay, and being in other ways under the Company’s wrath,
agreed in 1853 to give up Berar and other provinces to the exclusive
sovereignty of the British. Early in 1848 the Rajah of Ungool, a petty
chieftain in the Jungle Neehals, resisted the authority of the
government; his raj was taken from him, and he died in exile. The Rajah
of Sikim, a hill-chieftain on the borders of Nepaul, ‘had the audacity’
to seize a Company’s official at Darjeling; as a punishment, all the
territories he possessed within the plains were confiscated and annexed.
In Sinde, Meer Ali Morad of Khyrpore, having involved himself in an act
of forgery concerning the ownership of territory, ‘the lands were taken
from him, and his power and influence were reduced to insignificance.’
The Nawab Nazim of Bengal having committed a murder by bastinado, ‘his
highness’s peculiar jurisdiction and legal exemption were taken away
from him; and he was subjected to the disgrace of losing a large portion
of the salute of honour which he had previously received.’ The Nawab of
the Carnatic died suddenly in 1855; and as he left no male heir, and his
relations lived very disreputably, the title of nawab ‘was placed in
abeyance:’ that is, the Carnatic was made British territory, and the
several members of the nawab’s family were pensioned off. About the same
time, the Rajah of Tanjore died, in like manner without male issue
bearing his name; and the same process was adopted there as in the
Carnatic—sovereign power was assumed by the Company, and the ex-royal
family was pensioned off.
Counting up his treasures, the governor-general was certainly enabled to
announce a most extraordinary accession of territory during the years
1848 to 1855. The Punjaub, Pegu, Nagpoor, Oude, Satara, Jhansi, Berar,
Ungool, Darjeling, Khyrpore, the Carnatic, and Tanjore, all became
British for the first time, or else had the links which bound them to
England brought closer. While, on the one hand, it must be admitted that
the grounds or excuses for annexation would be deemed very slight in any
country but India; so, on the other, there can be no doubt that the
Marquis of Dalhousie, and the directors with whom he was acting,
believed that these annexing processes were essential to the maintenance
of British power in the East. He takes credit to his government for
having settled certain family quarrels among the petty royalties of
Gujerat, Buhawalpore, Jummoo, and Mumdote, without paying itself for its
services: as if it were a virtue to abstain from annexation at such
times. The mention made of Delhi must be given in the governor-general’s
own words, to shew how much the descendant of the once mighty Mogul was
regarded as a mere puppet—yet maintaining a certain hold on the
reverence of the people, as was destined to be shewn in a series of
events little anticipated by the writer of the minute. ‘Seven years ago
the heir-apparent to the King of Delhi died. He was the last of the race
who had been born in the purple. The Court of Directors was accordingly
advised to decline to recognise any other heir-apparent, and to permit
the kingly title to fall into abeyance upon the death of the present
king, who even then was a very aged man. The Honourable Court
accordingly conveyed to the government of India _authority to terminate
the dynasty of Timour_, whenever the reigning king should die. But as it
was found that, although the Honourable Court had consented to the
measure, it had given its consent with great reluctance, I abstained
from making use of the authority which had been given to me. The
grandson of the king was recognised as heir-apparent; but only on
condition that he should quit the palace in Delhi in order to reside in
the palace at the Kootub; and that he should, as king, _receive the
governor-general of India at all times on terms of perfect equality_.’
How strange do these words sound! A board of London merchants sitting in
a room in Leadenhall Street, giving ‘authority to terminate the dynasty
of Timour;’ and then, as a gracious condescension, permitting the
representative of that dynasty to be on terms of ‘perfect equality’ with
whomsoever may be the chief representative of the Company in India.
The Marquis of Dalhousie pointed to the revenues derivable from the
newly annexed territories as among the many justifications for his line
of policy. He shewed that four millions sterling were added to the
annual income of the Anglo-Indian Empire by the acquisition of the
Punjaub, Pegu, Nagpoor, Oude, Satara, Jhansi, and Berar—increasing the
total revenue from about twenty-six millions in 1848 to above thirty
millions in 1855.
The extreme importance of this official document lying in the evidence
it affords how little dread was felt in 1856 of any approaching
outbreak, we proceed with the governor-general’s narrative of the
augmentation and stability of British power in the East, power of which
he was evidently proud—presenting, of course, as a mere outline, that
which his lordship fills up in more detail.
Credit is claimed in the minute for the improved administrative
organisation both of the old and of the newly acquired territories. Able
men were selected to administer government in the Punjaub; and so well
did they fulfil their duties that internal peace was secured, violent
crime repressed, the penal law duly enforced, prison-discipline
maintained, civil justice administered, taxation fixed, collection of
revenue rendered just, commerce set free, agriculture fostered, national
resources developed, and future improvements planned. Not only did the
marquis assert this; but there is a general concurrence of opinion that
the Punjaub fell into fortunate hands when its administration came to be
provided for. In Pegu the administration, less brilliant than in the
Punjaub, is nevertheless represented as being sound in principle;
tranquillity was restored; effective police had secured the safety of
all; trade was increased and increasing; a fair revenue was derived from
light taxation; ‘the people, lightly taxed and prosperous, are highly
contented with our rule;’ and, when population has increased, ‘Pegu will
equal Bengal in fertility of production, and surpass it in every other
respect.’ At Nagpoor the assumption of supreme authority by Britain was
‘hailed with lively satisfaction by the whole population of the
province;’ no additional soldier had been introduced thither; the civil
administration was introduced everywhere; the native army was partly
embodied and disciplined in British pay, and partly discharged either
with pensions or gratuities. In short, ‘perfect contentment and quiet
prevail; beyond the palace walls not a murmur has been heard; and in no
single instance throughout the districts has the public peace been
disturbed.’ In Berar, we are told, the same phenomena were observed; as
soon as the cession was made, our numerous disputes with the nizam
ended; the civil administration was brought into working order; crime,
especially the violent crime of _dacoitee_ (gang-robbery without murder)
was diminished; the ‘admirable little army,’ formerly called the Nizam’s
Contingent, was made available as part of the British force; the revenue
rapidly increased; and the public tranquillity had ‘not been disturbed
by a single popular tumult.’ The kingdom of Oude had only been annexed a
few weeks before the Marquis of Dalhousie wrote his minute; but he
states that a complete civil administration, and a resident military
force, had been fully organised before the annexation took place; that
the troops of the deposed native king were contentedly taking service in
British pay; that no zemindar or chief had refused submission to our
authority; that the best men who could be found available were selected
from the civil and military services for the new offices in Oude; and
that no popular resistance or disturbance had occurred.
Nothing could be more clear and positive than these assertions. Not only
did the governor-general announce that the Punjaub, Pegu, Nagpoor,
Berar, and Oude had been completely annexed, bringing a large accession
to the British revenues; but that in every case a scheme of
administration had been framed and established, conducive to the lasting
benefit of the natives, the honour of the British name, and the
development of the natural resources of the several districts. Not a
whisper of discontent, of spirits chafed by change of rulers, did the
marquis recognise: if they occurred, they reached not him; or if they
_did_ reach him, he passed them by as trifles.
Nor was it alone in the newly acquired territories that credit for these
advantageous changes was claimed. Improvements in the government of
India were pointed out in every direction. The governor-general had been
relieved from an overwhelming press of duties by the appointment of a
lieutenant-governor for Bengal. A Legislative Council had been
organised, distinct from the Supreme Council: the public having access
to its deliberations, and its debates and papers being printed and
issued to the world. The Indian civil service, by an act passed in 1853,
had been thrown open to all who, being natural-born subjects of the
British sovereign, should offer themselves as candidates for examination
and admission. Young cadets, who previously had been allowed nearly two
years to ‘idle and loiter’ at the presidencies while studying for
examination as civilians, were by a new regulation required to complete
their studies in a much shorter period, thereby lessening their idleness
and rendering them sooner useful. Periodical examinations of the civil
servants had been established, to insure efficiency before promotion was
given. A board of examiners had been founded, to conduct examinations
and superintend studies. All officers of the Indian government had been
formally prohibited from engaging in banking or trading companies; and
any bankruptcy among them entailed suspension from office. In many of
the civil offices, promotion, before dependent on seniority alone, had
been made dependent on merit alone. A pension or superannuation list had
been established in many departments, to insure steady and faithful
service. Three boards of administration for salt, opium, and customs had
been replaced by one board of revenue, simpler in its constitution. The
annual financial reports, transmitted to the home government, had
gradually been made more clear, full, and instructive. All the salaries
throughout India had been placed under the consideration of a special
commissioner, for equitable revision; and the authorities had determined
that, in future, no salaries, with a few special exceptions, shall
exceed fifty thousand rupees (about five thousand pounds) per annum.
Nor had legislative reform been wholly forgotten. During the eight years
under review, laws had been passed or rules laid down for the punishment
of officials guilty of corruption, or accountants guilty of default; for
allowing counsel to prisoners on their trial; for abolishing the
semi-savage custom of branding convicts; for rendering public officers
more amenable to public justice; for vesting a right of pardon in the
supreme government; for improving the procedure in all the civil and
criminal courts; for rendering the reception of evidence more fair and
impartial; and, among many less important things, for ‘securing liberty
of conscience, and for the protection of converts, and especially of
Christian converts, against injury in respect of property or inheritance
by reason of a change in their religious belief.’ For the amelioration
of prison-discipline, inspectors of prisons had been appointed in all
the three presidencies, as well as in Oude, the Punjaub, and the
northwest provinces.
Equally in moral as in administrative matters did the Marquis of
Dalhousie insist on the manifold improvement of India during the eight
years preceding 1856. Schools for the education of natives had been
established; the Hindoo College at Calcutta had been revived and
improved; a Presidency College had been founded in the same city, to
give a higher scale of education to the youth of Bengal; similar
colleges had been sanctioned at Madras and Bombay; grants-in-aid to all
educational establishments had been authorised, subject to government
inspection of the schools aided; a committee had been appointed to
consider the plans for establishing regular universities at Calcutta,
Bombay, and Madras; a distinct educational department had been formed at
the seat of government, with director-generals of public instruction in
all the presidencies and governments; and the East India Company had, by
a dispatch framed in 1854, sanctioned a most extensive educational
scheme for the whole of India, to be rendered available to all the
natives who might be willing and able to claim its advantages. The
delicate subject of female education had not been forgotten.
Instructions had been given to the officers of the educational
department to afford all possible encouragement to the establishment of
female schools, whenever any disposition was shewn by the natives in
that direction. There is a peculiar difficulty in all that concerns
female education in India, arising from the reluctance which has always
been shewn by the higher classes of natives to permit the attendance of
their daughters at schools. Mr Bethune commenced, and the Marquis of
Dalhousie continued, a delicate and cautious attempt to overcome this
unwillingness by establishing a Hindoo ladies’ school at Calcutta; and
the minute gives expression to an earnest hope and belief that the
female character in India will gradually be brought under the elevating
influence of moral and intellectual education. As the native mind was
thus sought to be ameliorated and strengthened by education; so had the
prevention or cure of bodily maladies been made an object of attention.
Additional advantages had been granted to natives who applied themselves
to the study of the medical sciences; the number of dispensaries had
been greatly increased, to the immense benefit of the poorer classes of
Hindoos and Mohammedans; plans had been commenced for introducing a
check to the dreadful ravages of the small-pox; admission to the medical
service of the Company had been thrown open to natives; and, as a
first-fruit of this change, one Dr Chuckerbutty, a Hindoo educated in
England, had won for himself a commission as assistant-surgeon in the
Company’s service.
In so far as concerns superstition and religion, the minute narrates a
course of proceeding of which the following is the substance. Among the
extraordinary social customs—atrocities they are unquestionably
considered in Europe—of India, those of Suttee, Thuggee, Infanticide,
and the Meriah Sacrifice, are mentioned as having undergone much
amelioration during the eight years to which the minute relates. The
_suttee_, or burning of widows, had been almost suppressed by previous
governor-generals, and the marquis had carried out the plans of his
predecessors: remonstrating where any suttees occurred in independent
states; and punishing where they occurred in the British and protected
territories. _Thuggee_, or systematic murder of travellers for the sake
of booty, had been quite suppressed east of the Sutlej; but having
unexpectedly made its appearance in the Punjaub in 1851, it was
thoroughly put down there as elsewhere; those who turned approvers or
king’s evidence against their brother Thugs now form—or rather did form
in 1856—a peaceful industrious colony at Jubbulpoor, where they spun and
wove muslins of exquisite fineness, instead of cutting the throats of
unsuspecting travellers. _Female infanticide_, the result of pride of
birth and pride of purse—parents murdering their infant daughters either
because they cannot afford the marriage expenditure which must one day
be incurred on their account, or because they see difficulties in
marrying them suitably—had been greatly checked and discouraged. In the
Punjaub a most signal and singular conquest had been achieved; for the
British representative, calling together the chiefs of tribes in 1854,
unfolded to them a plan, ‘the observance of which would effectually
secure that no man should feel any real difficulty in providing for his
daughter in marriage;’ whereupon the chiefs, as well as those of the
Cashmere tribes, promised that, as the motive for infanticide would thus
in great measure be removed, they would cheerfully aid in suppressing
the practice. Lastly, the _Meriah sacrifice_—a horrible rite, in which
young human victims are sacrificed for the propitiation of the special
divinity which presides over the fertility of the earth—had been nearly
rooted out from the only district where it was practised, among the hill
and jungle tribes of Orissa. In religious matters, the ecclesiastical
strength of the established church had been largely increased; clergymen
had been occasionally sanctioned, besides those acting as chaplains to
the Company; places of worship had been provided for the servants and
soldiers of the Company; Protestant churches had been built in places
where the worshippers were willing to contribute something towards the
expenditure; Roman Catholics serving the Company had been provided with
places of worship; salaries had been granted to three Roman Catholic
bishops, one in each presidency; the salaries of the priests had been
revised and augmented; and a wish was manifested to observe justice
towards the Catholic as well as the Protestant who served his country
well in the East.
Thus—in the acquisition of territory, in the augmentation of revenue
consequent on that acquisition, in the administrative organisation, in
the spread of education, in the provision for religious services, and in
the plans for improving the moral conduct of the natives—the Marquis of
Dalhousie claimed to have done much that would redound to the honour of
the British name and to the advancement of the millions under British
rule in India. The problem still remains unsolved—Why should India, or
the native military of that country, have revolted from British service?
Let us see, therefore, whether the governor-general says aught that
throws light upon the matter in connection with trade and commerce; and
in order to understand this subject clearly, let us treat separately of
Productive Industry and Means of Communication.
Cotton is destined, according to the ideas of some thinkers, to mark a
great future for India; but meanwhile we are told in the minute that, by
the acquisition of Nagpoor and Berar, many fertile cotton districts were
brought under British rule; and that since the acquisition of Pegu, an
examination of the cotton-growing capabilities of the northern part of
that kingdom had been commenced. The tea-culture in Assam had prospered
greatly during the eight years from 1848 to 1856; the plant had been
largely introduced into the upper districts of the northwest provinces;
plantations had been established at Deyrah Dhoon, Kumaon, and Gurhwal;
Mr Fortune had brought large supplies of Chinese seeds and Chinese
workmen to India; many of the native zemindars had begun the cultivation
on their own account in districts at the foot of the Himalaya; and every
year witnessed a large increase in the production of Indian tea, which
was excellent in quality, and sold readily at a high price. In
agriculture generally, improvements of all kinds had been made; an
Agricultural and Horticultural Society had been established in the
Punjaub; carefully selected seeds had been procured from Europe; the
growth of flax had been encouraged; the growth of the mulberry and the
rearing of silkworms had been fostered by the government; and a grant
had been made in aid of periodical agricultural shows in the Madras
presidency. In relation to live-stock, plans had been formed for
improving the breed of horses; merino and Australian rams had been
introduced to improve the breed of sheep; and sheep had been introduced
into Pegu, to the great delight of the natives and the advantage of all;
‘for the absence of sheep leads to a privation in respect of food, which
is severely felt, not only by European soldiers in the province, but
also by all of every class who are employed therein.’ The forests had
been brought under due regulation by the appointment of conservators of
forests at Pegu, Tenasserim, and Martaban; by the careful examination of
the whole of the forests in the Punjaub; by the planting of new
districts, hitherto bare; and by the laying down of rules for the future
preservation and thrifty management of these important sources of timber
and fuel. The inestimable value of coal being duly appreciated, careful
researches had been made, by order of the government, in the Punjaub,
Pegu, Tenasserim, Bengal, Silhet, and the Nerbudda Valley, to lay the
groundwork for careful mining whenever and wherever good coal may be
found. Practical chemists and geological surveyors had been set to work
in the Simla Hills, Kumaon, Gurhwal, the Nerbudda Valley, Beerboom, and
Jubbulpoor, either to discover beds of ironstone, or to organise
ironworks where such beds had already been discovered; and an
experimental mining and smelting establishment had been founded by the
government among the Kumaon Hills, to apply tests likely to be valuable
in future.
Next, in connection with means of communication, the channels by and
through which commerce permeates the empire, the governor-general had a
very formidable list of works to notice. Surveys, irrigation and canals,
rivers and harbours, roads, railways, electric telegraphs, and postal
communications—had all been made the subjects of great engineering
activity during the eight years of the Dalhousie administration. A few
words must be said here on each of these topics; for it becomes
absolutely necessary, in order to a due appreciation of the narrative of
Revolt about to follow, that we should, as a preliminary, know whether
India really had or had not been neglected in these elements of
prosperity in the years immediately preceding the outbreak.
Measures, we learn from the minute, had been taken for executing exact
surveys of all the newly annexed territory in the Punjaub, Pegu, Sinde,
Nagpoor, and Berar in the same careful manner as the survey of the older
territories had been before carried out; and in Central India ‘the
consent of all the native states has been obtained to the making of a
topographical survey, and to a demarcation of all the boundaries between
the several native states, and between the British territories and those
of native states:’ a proceeding expected to lessen the frequency of
feuds concerning disputed boundaries.
The activity in irrigation-works and canal-cutting had unquestionably
been very great. In 1854 the Ganges Canal was opened in its main line,
for the double purpose of irrigation and navigation. A mighty work this,
which no mutiny, no angry feelings, should induce the English public to
forget. It is 525 miles in length, and in some parts 170 feet in width;
and considered as a canal for irrigation, ‘it stands unequalled in its
class and character among the efforts of civilised nations. Its length
is fivefold greater than that of all the main lines of Lombardy united,
and more than twice the length of the aggregate irrigation lines of
Lombardy and Egypt together—the only countries in the world whose works
of irrigation rise above insignificance.’ Nor is this all. ‘As a single
work of navigation for purposes of commerce, the Ganges Canal has no
competitor throughout the world. No single canal in Europe has attained
to half the magnitude of this Indian work. It nearly equals the
aggregate length of the four greatest canals in France. It greatly
exceeds all the first-class canals of Holland put together; and it is
greater, by nearly one-third, than the greatest navigation canal in the
United States of America.’ Pausing for one moment just to observe that
the writer of the words here quoted seems to have temporarily forgotten
the great canal of China, we proceed to state, on the authority of the
minute, that when all the branches are finished, this noble Ganges Canal
will be 900 miles in length. It will then, by its periodical
overflowings, irrigate _a million and a half of acres_, thus lessening
the terrible apprehensions of famine or dearth among millions of human
beings. We may doubt or not on other subjects, but it is impossible to
doubt the sincerity of the Marquis of Dalhousie when he says: ‘I trust I
shall not be thought vain-glorious if I say that the successful
execution and completion of such a work as the Ganges Canal would, even
if it stood alone, suffice to signalise an Indian administration.’ But
this work did not absorb all the energies of the canal engineers; much
of a similar though smaller kind had been effected elsewhere. An
irrigation canal had been begun in the Punjaub, which, when finished,
would be 465 miles in length, fed from the river Ravee. All the old
canals formed in the Moultan district of the Punjaub, 600 miles in
length, had been cleansed, enlarged, and improved, and the distribution
of the waters for the purpose of irrigation placed under judicious
regulation. Irrigation canals had been made or improved in the Derajat,
in the provinces east of the Sutlej, in Behar, and in Sinde. A
magnificent work had been executed for carrying an irrigation canal over
the river Godavery; and canals of much importance had been commenced in
the Madras and Bombay presidencies.
Rivers and harbours had shared in the attention bestowed on irrigation
and canal navigation. The Ganges had been opened to river steamers
before 1848, and it only remained to advance in the same line of
improvement. The Indus, by the conquest of the Punjaub, had been made a
British river almost from the Himalaya down to the ocean; steamers had
been placed upon it; and it had become a direct route for troops and
travellers to many parts of Northern India, before attainable only by
the Calcutta route. All the rivers in the upper part of the Punjaub had
been surveyed, with a view to the determination of their capabilities
for steam-navigation. No sooner was Pegu acquired, than steamers were
placed upon the Irrawaddy, the great river of that country; and short
canals of junction between various rivers had been so planned as to give
promise of a complete line of river-steaming from Bassein to Moulmein.
Arrangements had been made for placing steamers upon the river
Burhampooter or Brahmaputra, to connect Assam with the Bay of Bengal.
Extensive works had been commenced to improve the navigation of the
Godavery. The channels that lead from Calcutta through the Sundurbunds
to the sea had been enlarged; and a great bridge over the Hoogly near
the city had been planned. The port of Bombay had been greatly improved,
and large works for water-supply commenced. At Kurachee, at Madras, at
Singapore, at Rangoon, and at other places, engineering improvements had
been made to increase the accommodation for shipping.
We follow the Marquis of Dalhousie from the river to the land, and trace
with him the astonishing length of new road constructed or planned
during his administration. A great trunk-road from Calcutta to Delhi had
been extended nearly to the Sutlej; and when the Punjaub became a
British possession, plans were immediately marked out for prolonging the
same road to Loodianah, Umritsir, Lahore, Jelum, Attock, and
Peshawur—thus forming, if all be completed, a magnificent road 1500
miles in length from Calcutta to the Afghan frontier, available both for
commercial and military operations. The difficulties of crossing so many
broad rivers in Northern India is immense, and the cost great; but the
road, as the minute tells us, ‘will repay a thousandfold the labour and
the treasure it has cost.’ Then, fine roads had been formed from Patna
to Gya, from Cuttack to Ungool and Sumbhulpore, from Dacca to Akyab, and
thence towards Aracan and Pegu; while vast systems of roads had been
brought under consideration for Pegu, the Punjaub, Sinde, and other
newly acquired regions. Engineers had been employed to plan a road from
Simla up to the very Himalaya itself, to connect India with Tibet; as it
would greatly improve the social position of all the native tribes near
it. When Pegu was attacked, and when a military force was sent thither
overland from Calcutta, hundreds of elephants were employed to force a
way through the forests and roadless tracts between Aracan and Pegu; but
by the spring of 1855 a road had been formed, along which a battalion
could march briskly on foot.
The Marquis of Dalhousie was not in a position to say so much concerning
railways in India as ordinary roads. Although railways were brought
under the consideration of the Company in 1843, nothing was done
regarding them till 1849, when a contract was entered into with a
separate company to construct a certain length of railway which, if
continued, would connect Calcutta with the north and northwest of India.
In the spring of 1853 the marquis recommended a bold line of policy in
these matters: the sanction and support, in every available way, of
great lines of railway to connect Calcutta with Lahore, Bombay with
Agra, Bombay with Madras, and Madras with the Malabar coast. A qualified
approval of these schemes had been accorded by the East India Company,
and engagements to the extent of ten millions sterling had been made for
a railway from Delhi to Burdwan: a line from Burdwan to Calcutta having
been opened in 1855. The governor-general, not dreaming of mutinies and
rebellions, named the year 1859 as the probable time of finishing the
iron route from Calcutta to Delhi. Besides these engagements with the
East India Railway Company in the Bengal presidency, contracts had been
made with the Great India Peninsula Company for a railway from Bombay to
the Ghaut Mountains; and another with the Bombay and Central India
Company for a railway from Bombay to Khandeish and Nagpoor, and for
another from Surat to Ahmedabad. On the eastern coast, the government
had arranged with the Madras Railway Company for lines from Madras to
the Malabar coast, _viâ_ Coimbatore, and from Variembaddy to Bangalore.
The English nation has long blamed the East India Company for a dilatory
policy in regard to railways; but all we have to do in this place is, on
the authority of the governor-general, to specify in few words what had
been done in the years immediately preceding the outbreak.
The electric telegraph—perhaps the grandest invention of our age—found
in India a congenial place for its reception. Where the officials had no
more rapid means of sending a message to a distance of a thousand miles
than the fleetness of a corps of foot-runners, it is no marvel that the
achievements of the lightning-messenger were regarded with an eager eye.
An experimental line of electric telegraph was determined on, to be
carried out by Dr (now Sir William) O’Shaughnessy; and when that
energetic man made his report on the result in 1852, it was at once
determined to commence arrangements for lines of immense length, to
connect the widely separated cities of Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, and
Peshawur, and the great towns between them. It was a grand idea, and was
worthily realised; for by the month of March 1854 an electric wire of
800 miles was established between Calcutta and Agra; by the month of
February 1855, the towns of Calcutta, Agra, Attock, Bombay, and Madras
were placed in telegraphic communication by 3000 miles of wire, serving
nearly forty towns on the way; and by the beginning of 1856 another
length of 1000 miles was added, from Attock to Peshawur, from Bangalore
to Ootacamund, and from Rangoon to the Burmese frontier. Many works of
great magnitude were required; there were few good roads for the workmen
to avail themselves of; there were few bridges; there were deadly
jungles to be passed; there was every variety of foundation, from loose
black soil to hard rocky wastes; there were seventy large rivers to be
crossed, either by cables in the water, or by wires extended on the tops
of masts; there was a cable of two miles required to cross the
Toongabudra, and one of three miles to cross the Sone—and yet the entire
work was comprised within a cost of 500 rupees or £50 per mile: perhaps
the wisest expenditure ever incurred in India. Repeatedly has a message,
relating to news from England, been transmitted 1000 miles, from Bombay
to Calcutta, in less than three-quarters of an hour; and it has become a
regular routine that the government at Calcutta shall be in possession
of a considerable body of telegraphic news from England within twelve
hours after the anchoring of the mail-steamer at Bombay. Who can
conceive the bewilderment of the Hindoo mind at such achievements! It is
certainly permissible to the governor-general to refer with pride to two
or three among many instances of the remarkable service rendered by
these telegraphs. ‘When her Majesty’s 10th Hussars were ordered with all
speed from Poonah to the Crimea, a message requesting instructions
regarding their despatch was one day received by me at Calcutta from the
government of Bombay, about nine o’clock in the morning. Instructions
were forthwith sent off by the telegraph in reply; and an answer to that
reply was again received at Calcutta from Bombay in the evening of the
same day. A year before, the same communications for the despatch of
speedy reinforcements to the seat of war, which occupied by the
telegraph no more than _twelve hours_, could not have been made in less
than _thirty days_.’ Again: ‘When it was resolved to send her Majesty’s
12th Lancers from Bangalore to the Crimea, instead of her Majesty’s 14th
Dragoons from Meerut, orders were forthwith despatched by telegraph
direct to the regiment at Bangalore. The corps was immediately got ready
for service; it marched two hundred miles, and was there before the
transports were ready to receive it.’ Again: ‘On the 7th of February
1856, as soon as the administration of Oude was assuredly under British
government, a branch-electric telegraph from Cawnpore to Lucknow was
forthwith commenced; in eighteen working-days it was completed,
including the laying of a cable, six thousand feet in length, across the
river Ganges. On the morning on which I resigned the government in
India, General Outram was asked by telegraph: “Is all well in Oude?” The
answer: “All is well in Oude,” was received soon after noon, and greeted
Lord Canning on his first arrival.’ Little did the new governor-general
then foresee in how few months he would receive painful proof that all
was _not_ well in Oude. However, the Marquis of Dalhousie was justified
in adverting with satisfaction to the establishment of telegraphic
communication during his reign of power; and he insists on full credit
being due to the East India Company for what was done in that direction.
‘I make bold to say, that whether regard be had to promptitude of
executive action, to speed and solidity of construction, to rapidity of
organisation, to liberality of charge, or to the early realisation and
vast magnitude of increased political influence in the East, the
achievement of the Honourable Company in the establishment of the
electric telegraph in India may challenge comparison with any public
enterprise which has been carried into execution in recent times, among
the nations of Europe, or in America itself.’
The postal system had not been allowed to stagnate during the eight
years under consideration. A commission had been appointed in 1850, to
inquire into the best means of increasing the efficiency of the system;
and under the recommendations of this commission, great improvements had
been made. A director-general of the post-office for the whole of India
had been appointed; a uniformity of rate irrespective of distance had
been established (three farthings for a letter, and three half-pence for
a newspaper); prepayment by postage-stamps had been substituted for cash
payment; the privileges of official franking had been almost abolished;
and a uniform sixpenny rate was fixed for letters between India and
England. Here again the governor-general insists, not only that the
Indian government had worked zealously, but that England herself had
been outstripped in liberal policy. ‘In England, a single letter is
conveyed to any part of the British isles for one penny; in India, a
single letter is conveyed over distances immeasurably greater—from
Peshawur, on the borders of Afghanistan, to the southernmost village of
Cape Comorin, or from Dehooghur, in Upper Assam, to Kurachee at the
mouth of the Indus—for no more than three farthings. The postage
chargeable on the same letter three years ago in India would not have
been less than one shilling, or sixteen times the present charge. Again,
since uniform rates of postage between England and India have been
established, the Scotch recruit who joins his regiment on our furthest
frontier at Peshawur, may write to his mother at John o’ Groat’s House,
and may send his letter to her free for sixpence: three years ago, the
same sum would not have carried his letter beyond Lahore.’
So great had been the activity of the Company and the governor-general,
in the course of eight years, in developing the productive resources of
our Oriental empire, that a department of Public Works had become
essentially necessary. The Company expended from two to three millions
sterling annually in this direction, and a new organisation had been
made to conduct the various works on which this amount of expenditure
was to be bestowed. When the great roads and canals were being planned
and executed, numerous civil engineers were of course needed; and the
minute tells us that ‘it was the far-seeing sagacity of Mr Thomason
which first anticipated the necessity of training engineers in the
country itself in which they were to be employed, and which first
suggested an effectual method of doing so. On his recommendation, the
civil engineering college at Roorkee, which now rightly bears his
honoured name, was founded with the consent of the Honourable Court. It
has already been enlarged and extended greatly beyond its original
limits. Instruction in it is given to soldiers preparing for subordinate
employment in the Public Works department, to young gentlemen not in the
service of government, and to natives upon certain conditions. A higher
class for commissioned officers of the army was created some years ago,
at the suggestion of the late Sir Charles Napier; and the government has
been most ready to consent to officers obtaining leave to study there,
as in the senior department at Sandhurst. Excellent fruit has already
been borne by this institution; many good servants have already been
sent forth into [from?] the department; and applications for the
services of students of the Thomason College were, before long, received
from other local governments.’ But this was not all: civil engineering
colleges and classes were formed at Calcutta, Madras, Bombay, Lahore,
and Poonah.
So greatly had the various public works on rivers and harbours, roads
and canals, telegraphic and postal communications, increased the trade
of India, that the shipping entries increased regularly year by year.
There were about six hundred vessels, exclusive of trading craft, that
ascended the Hoogly to Calcutta in 1847; by 1856, the number had
augmented to twelve hundred; and the tonnage had risen in a still
greater ratio.
What is the English nation to think of all this, and how reconcile it
with the tragedies destined so soon to afflict that magnificent country?
Here we find the highest representative of the British crown narrating
and describing, in words too clear to be misunderstood, political and
commercial advancements of a really stupendous kind, effected within the
short period of eight years. We read of vast territories conquered,
tributary states annexed, amicable relations with other states
strengthened, territorial revenues increased, improved administration
organised, the civil service purified, legislative reforms effected,
prison-discipline improved, native colleges and schools established,
medical aid disseminated, thuggee and dacoitee put down, suttee and
infanticide discouraged, churches and chapels built, ministers of
religion salaried. We are told of the cultivation of raw produce being
fostered, the improvement of live-stock insured, the availability of
mineral treasures tested, exact territorial surveys completed,
stupendous irrigation and navigation canals constructed, flotillas of
river-steamers established, ports and harbours enlarged and deepened,
magnificent roads formed, long lines of railway commenced, thousands of
miles of electric telegraph set to work, vast postal improvements
insured. We read all this, and we cannot marvel if the ruler of India
felt some pride in his share of the work. But still the problem remains
unsolved—was the great Revolt foreshadowed in any of these achievements?
As the mutiny began among the military, it may be well to see what
information is afforded by the minute concerning military reforms
between the years 1848 and 1856.
It is truly remarkable, knowing what the English nation now so painfully
knows, that the Marquis of Dalhousie, in narrating the various
improvements introduced by him in the military system, passes at once to
the _British_ soldiers: distinctly asserting that ‘the position of the
_native_ soldier in India has long been such as to leave hardly any
circumstance of his condition in need of improvement.’ The British
troops, we are told, had been benefited in many ways. The terms of
service in India had been limited to twelve years as a maximum; the
rations had been greatly improved; malt liquor had been substituted for
destructive ardent spirits; the barracks had been mostly rebuilt, with
modifications depending on the climate of each station; separate
barracks had been set apart for the married men of each regiment;
lavatories and reading-rooms had become recognised portions of every
barrack; punkhas or cooling fans had been adopted for barracks in hot
stations, and additional bed-coverings in cold; swimming-baths had been
formed at most of the stations; soldiers’ gardens had been formed at
many of the cantonments; workshops and tools for handicraftsmen had been
attached to the barracks; sanitaria had been built among the hills for
sick soldiers; and arrangements had been framed for acclimatising all
recruits from England before sending them into hot districts on service.
Then, as to the officers. Encouragement had been offered for the
officers to make themselves proficient in the native languages. A
principle had been declared and established, that promotion by seniority
should no longer govern the service; but that the test should be ‘the
selection of no man, whatever his standing, unless he was confessedly
capable and efficient.’ With the consent of the Queen, the Company’s
officers had had granted to them the recognition, until then rather
humiliatingly withheld, of their military rank, not only in India but
throughout the world. A military orphan school had been established in
the hill districts. All the military departments had been revised and
amended, the commissariat placed on a wholly new basis, and the military
clothing supplied on a more efficient system than before.
Again is the search baffled. We find in the minute proofs only that
India had become great and grand; if the seeds of rebellion existed,
they were buried under the language which described material and social
advancement. Is it that England, in 1856, had yet to learn to understand
the native character? Such may be; for _thuggee_ came to the knowledge
of our government with astounding suddenness; and there may be some
other kind of thuggee, religious or social, still to be learned by us.
Let us bear in mind what this thuggee or thugism was, and who were the
Thugs. Many years ago, uneasy whispers passed among the British
residents in India. Rumours went abroad of the fate of unsuspecting
travellers ensnared while walking or riding upon the road, lassoed or
strangled by means of a silken cord, and robbed of their personal
property; the rumours were believed to be true; but it was long ere the
Indian government succeeded in bringing to light the stupendous
conspiracy or system on which these atrocities were based. It was then
found that there exists a kind of religious body in India, called Thugs,
among whom murder and robbery are portions of a religious rite,
established more than a thousand years ago. They worship Kali, one of
the deities of the Hindoo faith. In gangs varying from ten to two
hundred, they distribute themselves—or rather _did_ distribute
themselves, before the energetic measures of the government had nearly
suppressed their system—about various parts of India, sacrificing to
their tutelary goddess every victim they can seize, and sharing the
plunder among themselves. They shed no blood, except under special
circumstances; murder being their religion, the performance of its
duties requires secrecy, better observed by a noose or a cord than by a
knife or firearm. Every gang has its leader, teacher, entrappers,
stranglers, and gravediggers; each with his prescribed duties. When a
traveller, supposed or known to have treasure about him, has been
inveigled to a selected spot by the _Sothas_ or entrappers, he is
speedily put to death quietly by the _Bhuttotes_ or stranglers, and then
so dexterously placed underground by the _Lughahees_ or gravediggers
that no vestige of disturbed earth is visible.[1] This done, they offer
a sacrifice to their goddess Kali, and finally share the booty taken
from the murdered man. Although the ceremonial is wholly Hindoo, the
Thugs themselves comprise Mohammedans as well as Hindoos; and it is
supposed by some inquirers that the Mohammedans have ingrafted a system
of robbery on that which was originally a religious murder—murder as
part of a sacrifice to a deity.
We repeat: there _may_ be some moral or social thuggee yet to be
discovered in India; but all we have now to assert is, that the
condition of India in 1856 did not suggest to the retiring
governor-general the slightest suspicion that the British in that
country were on the edge of a volcano. He said, in closing his
remarkable minute: ‘My parting hope and prayer for India is, that, in
all time to come, these reports from the presidencies and provinces
under our rule may form, in each successive year, a happy record of
peace, prosperity, and progress.’ No forebodings here, it is evident.
Nevertheless, there are isolated passages which, read as England can
_now_ read them, are worthy of notice. One runs thus: ‘No prudent man,
who has any knowledge of Eastern affairs, would ever venture to predict
the maintenance of continued peace within our Eastern possessions.
Experience, frequent hard and recent experience, has taught us that war
from without, or rebellion from within, may at any time be raised
against us, in quarters where they were the least to be expected, and by
the most feeble and unlikely instruments. No man, therefore, can ever
prudently hold forth assurance of continued peace in India.’ Again: ‘In
territories and among a population so vast, occasional disturbance must
needs prevail. Raids and forays are, and will still be, reported from
the western frontier. From time to time marauding expeditions will
descend into the plains; and again expeditions to punish the marauders
will penetrate the hills. Nor can it be expected but that, among tribes
so various and multitudes so innumerable, local outbreaks will from time
to time occur.’ But in another place he seeks to lessen the force and
value of any such disturbances as these. ‘With respect to the frontier
raids, they are and must for the present be viewed as events inseparable
from the state of society which for centuries past has existed among the
mountain tribes. They are no more to be regarded as interruptions of the
general peace in India, than the street-brawls which appear among the
everyday proceedings of a police-court in London are regarded as
indications of the existence of civil war in England. I trust,
therefore, that I am guilty of no presumption in saying, that I shall
leave the Indian Empire in peace, without and within.’
Such, then, is a governor-general’s picture of the condition of the
British Empire in India in the spring of 1856: a picture in which there
are scarcely any dark colours, or such as the painter believed to be
dark. We may learn many things from it: among others, a consciousness
how little we even now know of the millions of Hindostan—their motives,
their secrets, their animosities, their aspirations. The bright picture
of 1856, the revolting tragedies of 1857—how little relation does there
appear between them! That there _is_ a relation all must admit, who are
accustomed to study the links of the chain that connect one event with
another; but at what point the relation occurs, is precisely the
question on which men’s opinions will differ until long and
dispassionate attention has been bestowed on the whole subject.
Notes.
[This may be a convenient place in which to introduce a few
observations on three subjects likely to come with much frequency
under the notice of the reader in the following chapters; namely,
the distances between the chief towns in India and the three great
presidential cities—the discrepancies in the current modes of
spelling the names of Indian persons and places—and the meanings of
some of the native words frequently used in connection with Indian
affairs.]
_Distances._—For convenience of occasional reference, a table of
some of the distances in India is here given. It has been compiled
from the larger tables of Taylor, Garden, Hamilton, and Parbury.
Many of the distances are estimated in some publications at smaller
amount, owing, it may be, to the opening of new and shorter routes:
_To Calcutta._ _To Madras._ _To Bombay._
Miles. Miles. Miles.
From Agra 796 1238 754
From Allahabad 498 1151 831
From Arcot 1085 71 715
From Aracan 598 1661 1795
From Benares 428 1151 927
From Bhopal 849 944 492
From Bombay 1185 763
From Calcutta 1063 1185
From Cawnpore 628 1200 854
From Delhi 900 1372 868
From Dinapore 376 1337 1072
From Furrukhabad 722 1257 892
From Gwalior 782 1164 680
From Hyderabad[2] 962 398 434
From Indore 965 979 378
From Jaunpore 473 1196 972
From Jeypoor 921 1352 757
From Kolapoor 1245 584 228
From Kurachee 1610 1567 873
From Lahore 1241 1712 1208
From Lucknow 619 1253 907
From Madras 1063 763
From Masulipatam 797 322 654
From Meerut 906 1405 912
From Moorshedabad 123 1186 1308
From Mysore 1245 290 635
From Nagpoor 677 713 508
From Oodypoor 1139 1209 606
From Patna 369 1299 1065
From Peshawur 1543 2014 1510
From Pondicherry 1157 98 803
From Poonah 1107 667 94
From Rungpoor 271 1334 1456
From Satara 1180 609 163
From Seringapatam 1236 281 626
From Shahjehanpoor 735 1320 936
From Simla 1112 1611 1086
From Surat 1232 867 191
From Tanjore 1257 212 871
From Trichinopoly 1254 209 835
From Umballa 1033 1532 1007
From Umritsir 1193 1664 1160
From Vellore 1100 86 700
From Vizagapatam 557 501 834
_Orthography._—It is perfectly hopeless to attempt here any
settlement of the vexed question of Oriental orthography, the
spelling of the names of Indian persons and places. If we rely
on one governor-general, the next contradicts him; the
commander-in-chief very likely differs from both; authors and
travellers have each a theory of his own; while newspaper
correspondents dash recklessly at any form of word that first
comes to hand. Readers must therefore hold themselves ready for
these complexities, and for detecting the same name under two or
three different forms. The following will suffice to shew our
meaning:—Rajah, raja—nabob, nawab, nawaub—Punjab, Punjaub,
Penjab, Panjab—Vizierabad, Wuzeerabad—Ghengis Khan, Gengis Khan,
Jengis Khan—Cabul, Caboul, Cabool, Kabul—Deccan, Dekkan,
Dukhun—Peshawur, Peshawar—Mahomet, Mehemet, Mohammed, Mahommed,
Muhummud—Sutlej, Sutledge—Sinde, Scinde, Sindh—Himalaya,
Himmaléh—Cawnpore, Cawnpoor—Sikhs, Seiks—Gujerat, Guzerat—Ali,
Alee, Ally—Ghauts, Gauts—Sepoys, Sipahis—Faquir, Fakeer—Oude,
Oudh—Bengali, Bengalee—Burhampooter, Brahmaputra—Asam,
Assam—Nepal, Nepaul—Sikkim, Sikim—Thibet, Tibet—Goorkas,
Ghoorkas—Cashmere, Cashmeer, Kashmir—Doab, Dooab—Sudra,
Soodra—Vishnu, Vishnoo—Buddist, Buddhist, &c. Mr Thornton, in
his excellent Gazetteer of India, gives a curious instance of
this complexity, in _eleven_ modes of spelling the name of one
town, each resting on some good authority—Bikaner, Bhicaner,
Bikaneer, Bickaneer, Bickanere, Bikkaneer, Bhikanere, Beekaneer,
Beekaner, Beykaneer, Bicanere. One more instance will suffice.
Viscount Canning, writing to the directors of the East India
Company concerning the conduct of a sepoy, spelled the man’s
name _Shiek Paltoo_. A fortnight afterwards, the same
governor-general, writing to the same directors about the same
sepoy, presented the name under the form _Shaik Phultoo_. We
have endeavoured as far as possible to make the spelling in the
narrative and the map harmonise.
* * * * *
_Vocabulary._—We here present a vocabulary of about fifty words much
used in India, both in conversation and in writing, connected with
the military and social life of the natives; with the initials or
syllables P., Port., H., M., A., T., Tam., S., to denote whether the
words have been derived from the Persian, Portuguese, Hindustani,
Mahratta, Arabic, Tatar, Tamil, or Sanscrit languages. Tamil or
Tamul is spoken in some of the districts of Southern India. In most
instances, two forms of spelling are given, to prepare the reader
for the discrepancies above adverted to:
_Ab_, _aub_ (P.), water; used in composition thus: _Punjaub_, five
waters, or watered by five rivers; _Doab_, a district between two
rivers, equivalent in meaning to the Greek _Mesopotamia_.
_Abad_ (P.), inhabited; a town or city; such as _Allahabad_, city of
God; _Hyderabad_, city of Hyder.
_Ayah_ (Port.), a nurse; a female attendant on a lady.
_Baba_ (T.), a term of endearment in the domestic circle, nearly
equivalent to the English _dear_, and applied both to a father and
his child.
_Baboo_, a Hindoo title, equivalent to our _Esquire_.
_Bag_, _bágh_, a garden; _Kudsiya bágh_ is a celebrated garden
outside Delhi.
_Bahadoor_ (P.), brave; a title of respect added to the names of
military officers and others.
_Bang_ (P.), an intoxicating potion made from hemp.
_Bazar_, _bazaar_, an exchange or market-place.
_Begum_ (T.), a princess, a lady of high rank.
_Bheestee_, _bihishtí_, a water-carrier.
_Bobachee_, _báwarchí_ (T.), an Indian officer’s cook.
_Budgerow_, _bajrá_ (S.), a Ganges boat of large size.
_Bungalow_, _banglá_ (H.), a house or dwelling.
_Cherry_, _cheri_ (Tam.), village or town; termination to the name
of many places in Southern India; such as _Pondicherry_.
_Chit_, _chittí_ (H.), a note or letter.
_Chupatty_, _chápátí_ (P.), a thin cake of unleavened Indian-corn
bread.
_Coolie_, _kuli_ (T.), a porter or carrier.
_Cutcherry_, _kacharí_ (H.), an official room; a court of justice.
_Dacoit_, _dákáit_ (H.), a gang-robber.
_Dâk_, _dahk_, _dawk_ (H.), the Indian post, and the arrangements
connected with it.
_Dewan_, a native minister or agent.
_Dost_ (P.), a friend.
_Feringhee_, a Frank or European.
_Fakeer_, _fakír_ (A.), a mendicant devotee.
_Ghazee_, _ghazi_ (A.), a true believer who fights against infidels:
hence _Ghazeepoor_, city of the faithful.
_Golundauze_, _golandáz_ (P.), a native artilleryman.
_Havildar_ (P.), a native sergeant.
_Jehad_ (A.), a holy war.
_Jemadar_ (P.), a native lieutenant.
_Jhageerdar_, _jaghiredar_, _jágírdár_ (P.), the holder of land
granted for services.
_Mohurrum_ (A.), a fast held sacred by Mohammedans on the tenth day
of the first month in their year, equivalent to the 25th of July.
_Musjid_ (A.), a mosque; thence _jumma musjid_ or _jum’aah masjid_,
a cathedral or chief mosque.
_Naik_, _naig_ (S.), a native corporal.
_Náná_, _nena_ (M.), grandfather, a term of respect or precedence
among the Mahrattas; _Náná Sahib_, so far from being a family or
personal name, is simply a combination of two terms of respect
(see _Sahib_) for a person whose real name was Dhundu Punt.
_Nawab_, _nabob_, _núwáb_ (A.), derived from _náib_, a viceroy or
vicegerent.
_Nuddee_, _nadi_ (S.), a river.
_Nullah_, _nálá_ (H.), a brook, water-course, the channel of a
torrent.
_Patam_, _pattanam_ (S.), a town; the termination of the names of
many places in Southern India; such as _Seringapatam_, the city of
Shrí Ranga, a Hindoo divinity.
_Peon_ (P.), a messenger or foot-attendant.
_Pore_, _poor_, a town; the final syllable in many significant
names, such as _Bhurtpore_ or _Bharatpoor_, the town of Bharata.
_Rajpoot_, a Hindoo of the military caste or order; there is one
particular province in Upper India named from them _Rajpootana_.
_Ryot_, a peasant cultivator.
_Sahib_, _saheb_, _sáaib_ (A.), lord; a gentleman.
_Sepoy_, _sípahí_, in the Bengal presidency, a native soldier in the
Company’s service; in that of Bombay, it often has the meaning of
a peon or foot-messenger.
_Shahzadah_ (P.), prince; king’s son.
_Sowar_ (P.), a native horseman or trooper.
_Subadar_, _soubahdar_ (A.), a native captain.
_Tuppal_, _tappál_ (H.), a packet of letters; the post.
_Zemindar_, _zamindár_ (P.), a landowner.
-----
Footnote 1:
The visitor to the British Museum, in one of the saloons of the
Ethnological department, will find a very remarkable series of
figures, modelled by a native Hindoo, of the individuals forming a
gang of Thugs; all in their proper costumes, and all as they are (or
were) usually engaged in the successive processes of entrapping,
strangling, and burying a traveller, and then dividing the booty.
Footnote 2:
There are two Hyderabads—one in the Nizam’s dominions in the Deccan,
and the other in Sinde (spelt Hydrabad): it is the former here
intended.
CHAPTER I.
THE ANGLO-INDIAN ARMY AT THE TIME OF THE OUTBREAK.
The magnificent India which began to revolt from England in the early
months of 1857; which continued that Revolt until it spread to many
thousands of square miles; which conducted the Revolt in a manner that
appalled all the civilised world by its unutterable horrors—this India
was, after all, not really unsound at its core. It was not so much the
_people_ who rebelled, as the _soldiers_. Whatever grievances the
hundred and seventy millions of human beings in that wonderful country
may have had to bear; whatever complaints may have been justifiable on
their parts against their native princes or the British government; and
whatever may have been the feelings of those native princes towards the
British—all of which matters will have to be considered in later
chapters of this work—still it remains incontestable that the outbreak
was a military revolt rather than a national rebellion. The Hindoo
foot-soldier, fed and paid by the British, ran off with his arms and his
uniform, and fought against those who had supported him; the Mohammedan
trooper, with his glittering equipments and his fine horse, escaped with
both in like manner, and became suddenly an enemy instead of a friend
and servant. What effect this treachery may have had on the populace of
the towns, is another question: we have at present only to do with the
military origin of the struggle.
Here, therefore, it becomes at once necessary that the reader should be
supplied with an intelligible clue to the series of events, a groundwork
on which his appreciation of them may rest. As this work aims at
something more than a mere record of disasters and victories, all the
parts will be made to bear some definite relation one to another; and
the first of these relations is—between the mutinous movements
themselves, and the soldiers who made those movements. Before we can
well understand what the sepoys _did_, we must know who the sepoys
_are_; before we can picture to ourselves an Indian regiment in revolt,
we must know of what elements it consists, and what are its usages when
in cantonments or when on the march; and before we can appreciate the
importance of two presidential armies remaining faithful while that of
Bengal revolted, we must know what is meant by a presidency, and in what
way the Anglo-Indian army bears relation to the territorial divisions of
India. We shall not need for these purposes to give here a formal
history of Hindostan, nor a history of the rise and constitution of the
East India Company, nor an account of the manners and customs of the
Hindoos, nor a narrative of the British wars in India in past ages, nor
a topographical description of India—many of these subjects will demand
attention in later pages; but at present only so much will be touched
upon as is necessary for the bare understanding of the _facts_ of the
Revolt, leaving the _causes_ for the present in abeyance.
What are the authoritative or official divisions of the country in
reference to the governors who control and the soldiers who fight (or
ought to fight) for it? What are the modes in which a vast region,
extending more than a thousand miles in many different directions, is or
may be traversed by rebel soldiers who fight against their employers,
and by true soldiers who punish the rebels? What and who are the
soldiers thus adverted to; how many, of what races, how levied, how paid
and supported, where cantoned, how officered? These are the three
subjects that will occupy a brief chapter; after which the narrative of
the Revolt may with profit be at once entered upon.
And first, for India as an immense country governed by a people living
eight or ten thousand miles distant. Talk as we may, there are few among
us who can realise the true magnitude of this idea—the true bearing of
the relation borne by two small islands in a remote corner of Europe to
a region which has been famed since the time of Alexander the Great. The
British Empire in India—what does it denote? Even before the acquisition
of Oude, Pegu, and Nagpoor, the British possessions in India covered
nearly 800,000 square miles; but as the influence of England is
gradually extending over the protected and the hitherto independent
states, we shall best conceive the whole (without Pegu, which is
altogether eastward of what is considered India) as a compact territory
of 1,400,000 square miles—twelve times as large as the United Kingdom,
sixteen times as large as Great Britain, twenty-five times as large as
England and Wales: double the size, in fact, of Great Britain, France,
Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, and Switzerland, all
combined. Nor is this, like the Russian Empire, a vast but thinly
populated region. It contains at least a hundred and eighty millions of
human beings, more than a hundred and thirty millions of whom are the
direct subjects of Queen Victoria—that is, if anything _can_ be direct,
connected with the anomalous relations between the Crown and the East
India Company.
It comes within the knowledge of most intelligent English readers at the
present day, that this Indian Empire, governed by a curiously
complicated bargain between a sovereign and a company, has been growing
for a hundred years, and still continues growing. In fits of national
anger or international generosity, we inveigh against the Czar of Russia
for processes of aggression and plans of annexation in regions around
and between the Caspian and Black Seas, and we compassionate and assist
his weak neighbours under the pressure of his ambition; but it is only
in times of excitement or peril that we consider the extraordinary way
in which our own Indian Empire has been built up—by conquest, by
purchase, by forfeiture—and in some cases by means which, called robbery
by our enemies, do at any rate demand a little compunction from us as a
Christian people. Exactly a century ago, England scarcely occupied a
foot of ground in India; her power was almost crushed out by the native
nawab who rendered himself infamous by the episode of the Black Hole at
Calcutta; and it was in the year after that atrocity—namely, in 1757,
that Clive began those wonderful victories which established a permanent
basis for a British Empire in Hindostan. And what a continuous growth by
increment has since been displayed! The Pergunnahs, Masulipatam,
Burdwan, Midnapore, Chittagong, Bengal, Bahar, the Northern Circars,
Benares, all passed into British hands by the year 1775; the next
twenty-five years brought to us the ownership of Salsette, Nagore, Pulo
Penang, Malabar, Dindigul, Salem, Barramahal, Coimbatore, Canara,
Tanjore, and portions of the Deccan and Mysore; in the first quarter of
the present century the list was increased by the Carnatic, Gorukhpore,
the Doab, Bareilly, portions of Bundelcund, Cuttack, Balasore, Delhi,
Gujerat, Kumaon, Saugor, Khandeish, Ajmeer, Poonah, the Concan, portions
of Mahratta country, districts in Bejapore and Ahmednuggur, Singapore,
and Malacca; in the next period of equal length the acquisitions
included Assam, Aracan, Tenasserim, the Nerbudda districts, Patna,
Sumbhulpore, Koorg, Loodianah, Kurnaul, Sinde, and the Jullundur Doab;
while during the eight years of the Marquis of Dalhousie’s
administration, as we learn on his own authority, there were added Pegu,
the Punjaub, Nagpoor, Oude, Satara, Jhansi, and Berar—all these in
exactly a century.
The whole of British India is placed under a governor-general, whose
official residence is at Calcutta, and who is assisted by a kind of
cabinet or council of ministers. Formerly there were three presidencies,
under whom the whole territory was placed; two being under the governors
of Bombay and Madras, and the remainder, called the Bengal presidency,
being under the governor-general himself, who was to this extent vested
with a special as well as a general government. But in process of time
it was found impossible for this official to fulfil all the duties
imposed upon him; and the great Bengal presidency became subdivided.
There are now five local governors of great districts—the
governor-general himself, who directly rules many of the newly acquired
regions; the lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces, who rules
some of the country formerly included in the presidency of Bengal; the
lieutenant-governor of the Lower Provinces, who rules the rest of that
country; and the governors of Madras and Bombay, whose range of
territory has not undergone much increase in recent years. Let us learn
a little concerning each of these five.
Madras, as a presidency or government, includes the whole of the south
of India, where its narrowed, peninsular form is most apparent, up to
about latitude 16° north, together with a strip still further north on
the east or Coromandel coast. Its greatest inland extent is about 950
miles in one direction, and 450 in another; while its shores are washed
by the Indian Ocean and the Bay of Bengal along a coast-line of no less
than 1700 miles—unfortunately, however, very ill provided with ports and
anchorages. There are about thirty districts and states under the
governor’s rule—some as ‘regulation districts,’ others as
‘non-regulation districts,’ and others as ‘native states.’ The
difference between these three kinds may be thus briefly indicated: the
‘regulation’ districts are thoroughly British, and are governed directly
by the chief of the presidency; the ‘non-regulation’ districts are now
equally British, though of more recent acquisition, but are governed by
agents or commissioners; while the ‘native states’ have still their
native princes, ‘protected,’ or rather controlled by the British.
Without any formal enumeration, it may be well to remember that the
following names of some of these districts, all more or less familiar to
English readers as the names of towns or provinces, are included among
those belonging to the presidency or government of Madras—Masulipatam,
Nellore, Chingleput, Madras, Arcot, Cuddalore, Cuddapah, Salem,
Coimbatore, Trichinopoly, Tanjore, Madura, Tinnevelly, Malabar, Canara,
Vizagapatam, Kurnaul, Koorg,[3] Cochin, Mysore, Travancore. Some of
these are not absolutely British; but their independence is little more
than a name. There are various important towns, or places worth knowing
in connection with Indian affairs, which are included in some or other
of these districts, but not giving their names to them—such as
Seringapatam, Golcandah, Rajamandry, Juggernaut, Vellore, Pulicat,
Pondicherry (French), Tranquebar, Negapatam, Bangalore, Ootacamund,
Mangalore, Calicut.
Bombay, as a presidency, is a curiously shaped strip. Exclusive of the
subordinate territories of native princes (over which, however, the
Company exercises paramount political sway) and of Sinde, which, though
recently placed under the government of Bombay, may properly be regarded
as a distinct territory—exclusive of these, the presidency occupies a
narrow strip, of irregular outline, stretching for a considerable
distance north and south. It occupies the western coast of the
peninsula, from Gujerat on the north, to the small Portuguese settlement
of Goa on the south; and has a length of 650 miles, with a maximum
breadth of 240. The Bombay provinces included in the strip just noticed,
the neighbouring territories administered by or on behalf of native
princes, and Sinde, form three sections about equal in size, the whole
collectively being thrice as large as England and Wales. To assist the
memory, as in the last paragraph, we give the names of the chief
districts likely to be known to English readers—all of which either
belong absolutely to the presidency of Bombay, or are more or less under
the control of the governor—Surat, Baroche, Ahmedabad, Khandeish,
Poonah, Ahmednuggur, Bombay, Concan, Satara, Baroda, Kattywar, Kolapore,
Cutch, the Mahratta districts, Kurachee, Hyderabad, Shikarpore,
Khyrpore. The last four are districts of Sinde, conquered by the late
Sir Charles James Napier, and placed under the Bombay presidency as
being nearer at hand than any of the others. Besides the towns similarly
named to most of these districts, the following may be usefully
mentioned—Goa (Portuguese), Bejapore, Bassein, Aurungabad, Assaye,
Nuseerabad, Cambay.
Lower Bengal, or the Lower Provinces of Bengal, considered as a
sub-presidency or lieutenant-government, comprises all the eastern
portion of British India, bounded on the east by the Burmese and Chinese
Empires, and on the north by Nepaul, Sikim, and Bhotan; southward, it is
washed by the Bay of Bengal; while inland or westward, it reaches to a
point on the Ganges a little beyond Patna, but not so far as Benares.
Fancy might compare it in shape to a dumb-bell, surmounting the upper
part of the Bay of Bengal, which washes its shores throughout a distance
of 900 miles. Without reckoning native states under the control of the
Company, this lieutenant-governorship is considerably more than three
times as large as England and Wales; and nearly the whole of it is in
the basins of, or drained by, the two magnificent rivers Ganges and
Brahmaputra. On the principle before adopted, we give the names of
districts most likely to become familiarised to the reader—Jessore,
Burdwan, Bancorah, Bhaugulpore, Monghir, Cuttack, Balasore, Midnapore,
Moorshedabad, Rungpoor, Dacca, Silhet, Patna, Bahar, Chittagong, the
Sunderbunds, Assam, Aracan. Most of these are also the names of towns,
each the chief in its district; but there are other important towns and
places not here named—including Calcutta, Cossimbazar, Barrackpore,
Chandernagore, Serampore, Culpee, Purneah, Boglipore, Rajmahal, Nagore,
Raneegunge, Jellasore, Dinapore, Bahar, Ramghur, Burhampore.
Northwest Bengal, or the Northwestern Provinces of the Bengal
presidency, regarded as a sub-presidency or lieutenant-governorship,
comprises some of the most important and densely populated districts of
Northern India. It covers seven degrees of latitude and nine of
longitude; or, if the portion of the ‘non-regulation’ districts under
the control of this lieutenant-governor be included, the range extends
to ten degrees of latitude and twelve of longitude. Its boundary is
roughly marked by the neighbouring provinces or states of Sirhind,
Kumaon, Nepaul, Oude, Lower Bengal, Rewah, Bundelcund, and Scindiah’s
Mahratta territory; but many of these are included among its
‘non-regulation’ territories. In its limited, strictly British
territory, it is a little larger than England and Wales; but including
the ‘non-regulation’ provinces, such as Kumaon, Ajmeer, Saugor, &c., it
is vastly larger. As the chief city is Agra, the lieutenant-governorship
is often called by that name: more convenient, perhaps, than the one
officially adopted—indeed it was at one time determined, though the plan
has been postponed _sine die_, to form an entirely new and distinct
presidency, called the Presidency of Agra. The Ganges and the Jumna are
the great rivers that permeate it. As before, we give the names of the
most familiarly known divisions or districts—Delhi, Meerut, Allygurh,
Rohilcund, Bareilly, Shahjehanpoor, Bijnour, Agra, Furruckabad,
Allahabad, Cawnpore, Futtehpore, Benares, Gorukhpore, Azimghur,
Jounpore, Mirzapore, Ghazeepore; and if to these we add the names of
towns not indicated by the names of their districts—such as Simla,
Sirhind, Umballa, Loodianah, Shahabad, Buxar—it will be seen how many
places noted more or less in Indian affairs lie within this province or
lieutenant-governorship.
For the sake of brevity, it may here be remarked, we shall frequently,
in future chapters, use the names ‘Northwest Bengal’ and ‘Lower Bengal,’
instead of the tedious designations ‘Northwestern Provinces’ and
‘Lieutenant Government of Bengal.’
As to the fifth or remaining sphere of government—that which is under
the governor-general himself—it is with difficulty described; so many
are the detached scraps and patches. The overworked representative of
the crown, whether his name be Auckland or Ellenborough, Dalhousie or
Canning, finding the governorship of Bengal too onerous when added to
the governor-generalship of the whole of India, gives up his special
care of Bengal, divides it into two sub-provinces, and hands it over to
the two lieutenant-governors. But the increase of territory in British
India has been so vast within the last few years, and the difficulty so
great of deciding to which presidency they ought to belong, that they
have been made into a fifth dominion or government, under the
governor-general himself. The great and important country of the
Punjaub, acquired a few years ago, is one of the list; it is under the
governor-general, and is administered for him by a board of
commissioners. The kingdom of Oude is another, annexed in 1856, and
similarly represented by residents or commissioners acting for and under
the orders of the governor-general. The province of Nagpoor is a third:
a large country in the very centre of India, annexed in 1853, and nearly
touching all the four governorships already described. Pegu is a fourth,
wrested from the sultan of Burmah, in 1852, and placed under the
governor-general’s administration. A fifth is Tenasserim, a strip of
country stretching five hundred miles along the eastern shore of the Bay
of Bengal. There are other fragments; but the above will suffice to shew
that the governor-general has no inconsiderable amount of territory
under his immediate control, represented by his commissioners. If we
look at the names of places included within these limits, we shall be
struck with their number and importance in connection with stirring
events in India. In the Punjaub we find Peshawur, Attock, Rawul Pindee,
Jelum, Ramnugur, Chillianwalla, Wuzeerabad, Umritsir, Lahore, Jullundur,
Ghoorka, Ferozpore, Ferozshah, Moodkee; in the once independent but now
British province or kingdom of Oude will be found the names of Lucknow,
Oude, Fyzabad, Sultanpore, Khyrabad; in the territory of Nagpoor is the
town of the same name, but other towns of any note are scarce. In Pegu
and Tenasserim, both ultra-Gangetic or eastward of the Ganges, we find
Rangoon, Bassein, Prome, Moulmein, and Martaban.
The reader has here before him about a hundred and forty names of places
in this rapid sketch of the great divisional governments of India,
mostly the names of important towns; and—without any present details
concerning modes of government, or numbers governed, natural wealth or
social condition—we believe he will find his comprehension of the events
of the great Revolt much aided by a little attention to this account of
the five governments into which British India is at present divided. As
for the _original_ names of kingdoms and provinces, nawabships and
rajahships, it scarcely repays the trouble to learn them: when the
native chiefs were made pensioned puppets, the former names of their
possessions became of lessened value, and many of them are gradually
disappearing from the maps. We have ‘political residents,’ ‘government
agents,’ or ‘commissioners,’ at the capital city of almost every prince
in India; to denote that, though the prince may hold the trappings of
royalty, there is a watchful master scrutinising his proceedings, and
claiming something to do with his military forces. Such is the case at
Hyderabad in the Nizam’s territory, at Khatmandoo in Nepaul, at Gwalior
in Scindiah’s dominions, at Indore in Holkar’s dominions, at Bhopal, in
the country of the same name, at Bhurtpore and elsewhere in the Rajpoot
princes’ dominions, at Darjeeling in Sikim, at Baroda in the Guicowar’s
dominions, &c.
The semi-independent princes of India—mostly rajahs if Hindoos, nawabs
if Mohammedans—are certainly placed in a most anomalous position. There
are nearly two hundred of these vassal-kings, if we may so term
them—some owning territories as large as European kingdoms, while others
claim dominion over bits of country not larger than petty German
principalities. The whole of them have treaties and engagements with the
British government, involving the reciprocal obligations of protection
and allegiance. Some of them pay tribute, others do not; but almost all
have formally relinquished the right of self-defence, and also that of
maintaining diplomatic relations with each other. The princes are
regarded as children, expected to look up for protection only to their
great mother, the Company. The Company undertakes not only to guarantee
external safety but also internal tranquillity in these states, and is
the umpire in all quarrels between native rulers. Though not called
upon, and indeed not allowed, to defend themselves from an external
attack, the princes mostly have armies, more for show than use under
ordinary circumstances; but then they must obtain permission to do this,
and they must limit the numbers; and in some cases there is a
stipulation that if the British be at war in India, the prince must lend
his troops. It is in this sense that the independent princes of India
are said to possess, collectively, an armed force of little less than
four hundred thousand men: many of them available, according to treaty,
for British service.
Next, we may usefully pay a little attention to this question—How, in so
immense a country, do the soldiers and subjects of these several states,
British and native, travel from place to place: how do they cross
mountains where passes are few, or marshes and sandy plains where roads
are few and bad, or broad rivers where bridges are scarce? The distances
traversed by the armies are sometimes enormous. Let us open a map of
India, and see, for example, the relative positions of Calcutta, Madras,
Bombay, Delhi, Peshawur, and Kurachee at the western mouth of the Indus.
Delhi is nearly nine hundred miles from Bombay, more than nine hundred
from Calcutta by land, fifteen or sixteen hundred miles from the same
city by water-route up the Ganges and Jumna, and nearly fourteen hundred
from Madras. Kurachee, the most westerly spot in India, and destined one
day, perhaps, to be an important depôt for steamers from the Red Sea or
the Persian Gulf, is more than sixteen hundred miles from Calcutta,
nearly across the broadest part of India from east to west; while
Peshawur, at the extreme northwest or Afghan frontier, acquired by
England when the Punjaub was annexed, is no less than _two thousand_
miles from Madras. All opinions and judgments, concerning the slowness
of operations in India, must be tempered by a consideration of these
vast distances.
The rivers were the great highways of that country before roads existed,
as in other regions; and they have never ceased to be the most
frequented routes. At least such is the case in relation to the larger
rivers—such as the Ganges, Indus, Nerbudda, Kishna, Jumna, Sutlej, and
Jelum. Hindoos and Mohammedans, too poor to hire horses or palkees for
land-travel, may yet be able to avail themselves of their river-boats.
The native boats which work on the Ganges are numerous and curious in
kind. The _patella_ or baggage-boat is of saul-wood, clinker-built, and
flat-bottomed, with rather slanting outsides, and not so manageable as a
punt or a London barge; its great breadth gives it a very light draught
of water, and renders it fittest for the cotton and other up-country
products, which require little more than a dry and secure raft to float
them down the stream. The _oolak_ or common baggage-boat of the Hoogly
and Central Bengal, has a sharp bow and smooth rounded sides; it is
fitted for tracking and sailing before the wind, and is tolerably
manageable with the oar in smooth water. The Dacca _pulwar_ is more
weatherly, although, like the rest, without keel, and the fastest and
most handy boat in use for general traffic. The _budgerow_, the
_bauleah_, and the ketch-rigged pinnace, are employed by Europeans for
their personal conveyance. Besides these, there are numerous others—such
as the wood-boats of the Sunderbunds, of various forms and
dimensions—from one hundred to six thousand maunds burden (a maund being
about equal to 100 pounds troy); the salt-boats of Tumlook; the light
boats which carry betel-leaf; the Calcutta _bhur_, or cargo-boat of the
port; the Chittagong boats; the light _mug_-boats, with floors of a
single hollowed piece of timber, and raised sides, neatly attached by
sewing, with strips of bamboo over the seams; the _dinghee_; and the
_panswee_—all found within the limits of the Bengal presidency. ‘A
native traveller, according to his degree and substance, engages a
dinghee or a panswee, a pulwar or an oolak; the man of wealth puts his
baggage and attendants in these, and provides a budgerow or a pinnace
for his personal accommodation. Officers of high standing in the civil
or military service, travelling with a large retinue of servants and a
quantity of baggage, seldom have less than five or six boats (one of
them a cooking-boat, and another fitted with an oven for baking bread):
sometimes as many as fifteen when they carry their horses and equipages,
and the materials of housekeeping for their comfortable establishment on
arrival.’
Before Indian steamers were introduced, or Indian railways thought of,
the Ganges was the great highway from Calcutta to Benares, Allahabad,
and the northwestern provinces generally, in all cases where speed was
not required. The Indian government used to allow their military
servants two months and a half for proceeding to Benares, three to
Allahabad, five to Meerut, and nine to Loodianah—periods that seem to
us, in the old country, outrageous in their length. The boats were
chiefly of two of the kinds mentioned in the preceding paragraph—namely,
the pinnace, very European in its appearance, and the lofty sterned
budgerow, peculiarly Indian. Even after steamers were placed upon the
Ganges, the slow-going budgerow continued to be much used by the
Company’s officers, and by other persons going northwest—chiefly in
cases where a family and a large quantity of luggage or personal effects
had to be conveyed; for every other mode than the budgerow then becomes
very costly—and will probably so continue until the great trunk-railway
is completed. Budgerow boating is, it must be confessed, enough to
stagnate the blood of an active man who wishes to speed onward to a
scene of usefulness. As the tide ends at a few miles above Calcutta,
there is a constant downward current throughout all the rest of the
Ganges; and this current has to be struggled against during the
up-passage. If the wind be favourable, sails are hoisted; but if
otherwise, progress is made by _gooning_ or tracking, an operation
performed by the greater part of the crew proceeding on shore, and with
ropes attached to the mast-head, dragging the vessel bodily along:
wading for hours, it may be, through nullahs or creeks more than breast
high. The travellers spend much of their time on shore in the cooler
hours of the morning and evening, walking, fishing, or shooting, or
otherwise whiling away their time; for they can easily keep up with a
boat that only makes ten miles per average day. The Company have been
accustomed to make a certain allowance to each officer for
boat-accommodation up the country; and it is not unusual for two or
three to join in the hire of one budgerow, to their mutual comfort, and
with a small saving out of their allowance. They engage an attendant
dinghee as a cook-boat, to keep the culinary operations at a respectful
distance; and they fit up their budgerow with camp-tables, camp-stools,
charpoys or light bedsteads, copper chillumchees or wash-basins, rugs,
hanging lamps, canteens, bullock or camel trunks, and a few other
articles of furniture; with wine, spirits, ale, preserves, cheeses,
pickles, salt meats, hams, tongues, and other provisions, which are
cheaper at Calcutta than if purchased on the way; and with their
wardrobes, articles for the toilet, books, chess and backgammon boards,
guns, musical instruments, and other aids to lessen the tedium of a long
voyage.
Hitherto, commerce has had so much more to do with this Ganges traffic
than passenger travel, that the slowness of the progress was not felt:
as in the instance of the canals of England, which, made for goods and
not for passengers, are not blameable on the score of tardiness. The
Ganges is now, as it has been for ages, the main channel for the
commerce of Northern India. The produce of Europe, of Southern India, of
the Eastern Archipelago, of China, brought to Calcutta by ocean-going
steamers or sailing-ships, is distributed upwards to Patna, Benares,
Allahabad, Lucknow, Cawnpore, Agra, Delhi, and other great towns, almost
exclusively by the Ganges route; and the same boats which convey these
cargoes, bring down the raw cotton, indigo, opium, rice, sugar, grain,
rich stuffs, piece-goods, and other grown or manufactured commodities
from the interior, either for consumption at Calcutta and other towns on
the route, or for shipment to England and elsewhere. It is probable that
the cargo-boats and the budgerows will continue to convey a largo
proportion of the traffic of India, let steamers and railways make what
progress they may; for there is much local trading that can be better
managed by this slow, stopping, free-and-easy Ganges route of boating.
[Illustration:
Boats on the Ganges.
]
The Ganges steamers are peculiar. Each consists of two vessels, a
_tug_ and a _flat_, neither of which is of much use without the other.
The tug contains the engine; the flat contains the passengers and
cargo; and this double arrangement seems to have been adopted as a
means of insuring light draught. Each flat contains fifteen or twenty
cabins, divided into three classes according to the accommodation, and
obtainable at a fare of twenty to thirty pounds for each cabin for a
voyage from Calcutta up to Allahabad—less in the reverse direction,
because the aid of the stream shortens the voyage. Besides this, the
passenger pays for all his provisions, and most of the furniture of
his cabin. Every passenger is allowed to take one servant free of
passage fare. The steamer proceeds only during the day, anchoring
every night; and it stops every three or four days, to take coals into
the tug, and to deliver and receive passengers. The chief of these
stopping-places are at the towns of Berhampore, Monghir, Patna,
Dinapoor, Chupra, Buxar, Ghazeepore, Benares, Chunar, and Mirzapore,
all situated on the banks of the Ganges between Calcutta and
Allahabad; and it is only during the two or three hours of these
stoppages that the passengers have an opportunity of rambling on the
shore by daylight. The tug is of iron, and drags the flat by means of
hawsers and a long beam, which latter serves both as a gangway and to
prevent collision between the two vessels. The East India Company
first established these steamers, but others have followed their
example, and help to keep up a healthy competition. The river distance
to Allahabad being eight hundred miles (three hundred in excess of the
land route), and the time of transit being about twenty days, this
gives forty miles per day as the average rate of progress of the tug
and its attendant flat or accommodation-boat. Of proposed plans for
improving this Ganges steaming, we do not speak in this place.
The Indus is less traversed by boats and steamers; but, being nearer to
England than the Ganges, it is becoming more and more important every
year, especially since the annexation of the Punjaub by the British. The
boats on the Indus take up the produce of the Persian and Arabian gulfs,
Cutch, the western districts of India, and so much of the produce of
Europe as is available for Sinde, the Punjaub, and the northwest of
India generally: taking back the produce of Afghanistan, Cashmere, the
Punjaub, Sinde, and the neighbouring countries. The boats on this river,
having fewer European travellers, do not possess so many accommodations
as those on the Ganges; the scantiness of the population, too, and the
semi-barbarous condition of the natives, tend towards the same result.
The Sutlej boats, mostly employed, are long and clumsy; when going
downwards, the stream gives them a velocity of about two miles an hour,
while the oars and sail give them barely another extra mile. They
correspond, indeed, rather with our idea of a Thames coal-barge, than
with that of a boat. The steersman and two oarsmen are at the stern,
working with a broad paddle and two oars. The passengers occupy the rest
of the vessel, in a rude bamboo cabin twelve or fourteen feet long. When
the wind and the stream are unfavourable, the sail is hauled down, and
tracking is resorted to. As the up-river return-voyage is exceedingly
slow, a passenger travelling down towards the sea is obliged to pay for
the return-voyage as well. As there are hardly any important towns on
the banks below the Punjaub, except Hyderabad, a traveller is obliged to
take almost the whole of his provisions and necessaries with him. The
journey up the stream is so insupportably tedious by these boats, that
small steamers are generally preferred; but these require very light
draught and careful handling, to prevent them from grounding on the
shoals and sandbanks, which are more numerous in the Indus than in the
Ganges.
River-travelling, it hence appears, is a very slow affair, ruinously
inadequate to the wants of any but a population in a low scale of
commercial advancement. Let us inquire, therefore, whether
land-travelling is in a condition to remedy these evils.
There are so few good roads in India, that wheel-carriages can scarcely
be trusted for any long distances. The prevailing modes of travel are on
horseback or in a palanquin. Technically, the one mode is called
_marching_; the other, _dâk_, _dakh_, or _dawk_. The former is sometimes
adopted for economy; sometimes from necessity while accompanying troops;
and sometimes, on short trips, through inclination; but as it is almost
impossible to travel on horseback during the heat of the day, the more
expensive but more regular dâk is in greater request. The horseman, when
he adopts the equestrian system, accomplishes from twelve to twenty
miles a day: sending on his servants one march or day in advance, with
tent, bedding, tent-furniture, canteen, &c., in order that they may have
a meal ready for the traveller by the time he arrives. They daily buy
fodder, fowls, eggs, milk, rice, fruit, or vegetables at the villages as
they pass through; the traveller, if a sportsman, aids the supply of his
larder with snipe, wild-fowl, quail, partridges, hares, jungle-cocks, or
bustard; but a week’s provision at a time must be made of all such
supplies as tea, coffee, dried or preserved meats, sauces, spices, beer,
or wine, at the principal towns—as these commodities are either
unattainable or very costly at the smaller stations and villages. Thus
the traveller proceeds, accomplishing eighty to a hundred and fifty
miles per week, according to his supply of horse-relays. We may get rid
of the European notions of inns and hotels on the road: the India
officer must carry his hotel with him.
We come next to the _dâk_ system, much more prevalent than travelling by
horseback. The dâk is a sort of government post, available for private
individuals as for officials. A traveller having planned his journey, he
applies to the postmaster of the district, who requires from one to
three days’ notice, according to the extent of accommodation needed. The
usual complement for one traveller consists of eight _palkee-burdars_ or
palanquin-bearers, two _mussanjees_ or torch-bearers, and two
_bangey-burdars_ or luggage-porters: if less than this number be needed,
the fact must be notified. The time and place of starting, and the
duration and localities of the halts, must also be stated; for
everything is to be paid beforehand, on the basis of a regular tariff.
The charge is about one shilling per mile for the entire set of twelve
men—shewing at how humble a rate personal services are purchasable in
India. There is also an extra charge for demurrage or delays on the
road, attributable to the traveller himself. For these charges, the
postmaster undertakes that there shall be relays of dâk servants
throughout the whole distance, even if it be the nine hundred miles from
Calcutta to Delhi; and to insure this, he writes to the different
villages and post stations, ordering relays to be ready at the appointed
hours. The stages average about ten miles each, accomplished in three
hours; at the end of which time the twelve men retrace their steps, and
are succeeded by another twelve; for each set of men belong to a
particular station, in the same way as each team of horses for an
English stage-coach belongs to a particular town. The rivers and streams
on the route are mostly crossed by ferry-boats, for bridges are scarce
in India; and this ferrying is included in the fare charged by the
postmaster; although the traveller is generally expected to give a small
fee, the counterpart to the ‘drink-money’ of Europe, to ferrymen as well
as bearers. The _palanquin_, _palankeen_, or _palkee_, is a kind of
wooden box opening at the sides by sliding shutters; it is about six
feet in length by four in height, and is suspended by two poles, borne
on the shoulders of four men. The eight bearers relieve one another in
two gangs of four each. The postmaster has nought to do with the
palanquin; this is provided by the traveller; and on its judicious
selection depends much of his comfort during the journey, for a
break-down entails a multitude of petty miseries. The average value of a
palanquin may be about ten pounds; and the traveller can generally
dispose of it again at the end of his journey. On account of the weight,
nothing is carried that can be easily dispensed with; but the traveller
manages to fit up his palanquin with a few books, his shaving and
washing apparatus, his writing materials, and a few articles in frequent
use. The regular fittings of the palanquin are a cushion or bed, a
bolster, and a few light coverings. The traveller’s luggage is mostly
carried in _petarrahs_, tin boxes or wicker-baskets about half a yard
square: a porter can carry two of these; and one or two porters will
suffice for the demands of any ordinary traveller, running before or by
the side of the palanquin. The petarrahs are hung, each from one end of
a _bangey_ or bamboo pole, the middle of which rests on the bearer’s
shoulder. The torch-bearers run by the side of the palanquin to give
light during night-travelling; the torch is simply a short stick bound
round at one end with a piece of rag or a tuft of hemp, on which oil is
occasionally dropped from a flask or a hollow bamboo; the odour of the
oil-smoke is disagreeable, and most travellers are glad to dispense with
the services of a second torch-bearer.
[Illustration:
Palanquin.
]
Bishop Heber’s journey from Delhi to Benares was a good example of
dâk-travelling in his day; and the system has altered very little since.
He had twelve bearers, on account of his route lying partly through a
broken country. His clothes and writing-desk were placed in the two
petarrahs, carried by the two bangey-burdars. ‘The men set out across
the meadows at a good round trot of about four miles an hour, grunting
all the way like paviers in England: a custom which, like paviers, they
imagine eases them under their burden.’ Only four men can usually put
their shoulders to a palanquin at the same time; but the bishop observed
that whenever they approached a deep nullah or steep bank, the bearers
who were not at that time bearing the palanquin, but were having their
interval of rest, thrust stout bamboos under the bottom of the
palanquin, and took hold of the ends on each side; so that the strength
of several additional men was brought into requisition. In crossing a
stream, ‘the boat (the spot being a regular ferry), a broad and
substantial one, had a platform of wood covered with clay across its
middle. The palanquin, with me in it, was placed on this with its length
athwart the middle; the mangee steered, and some of the dâk-bearers took
up oars, so that we were across in a very short time.’
Private dâks are occasionally employed, a speculator undertaking to
supply the bearers. Having no large establishments to keep up, these men
can afford to undersell the government—that is, establish a lower
tariff; and they provide a little additional accommodation in other
ways. Some travellers, however, think these speculators or _chowdries_
not sufficiently to be trusted, and prefer the government dâk at higher
rates. Experienced men will sometimes dispense with the preliminary of
‘laying a dâk,’ or arranging for the whole journey: depending on their
own sagacity for hunting up bearers at the successive stations. There
have also been introduced horse-dâks, wheeled palanquins drawn by
horses; but these are only available on the great trunk-roads recently
executed by the government.
It was observed, in relation to ‘marching’ or horse-travelling, that
there are no hotels or inns on the road; there is a partial substitute,
however, that may here be noticed. The Company have established
dâk-bungalows at certain stations, varying from fifteen to fifty miles
apart, according as the road is much or little frequented. These places
are under the control of government officers: a _khitmutgar_ or servant,
and a porter, attend at each; the traveller pays a fixed sum for the use
of the room, and makes a separate bargain for any few articles of
provisions that may be obtainable. The building is little more than a
thatched house of one story, divided into two small rooms, to each of
which a bathing-room is attached. The servant cooks and serves a meal,
while the porter assists in subsidiary offices. If a traveller does not
choose to avail himself of these bungalows, he can travel continuously
in his palanquin, sleeping and waking by turns. This, however, is a
great trial for most persons; because the bearers make an unpleasant
grunting noise as an accompaniment to their movements; and moreover,
unless well drilled, they do not balance the palanquin well, but subject
its inmate to distressing joltings.
[Illustration:
Indian Domestics.
1. Dirgee—tailor. 2. Khitmutgar writing the accounts of the previous
day. 3. Sepoy after parade. 4. Maitre, or house-cleaner. 5.
Dobee—washerman. 6. Chuprassee going out with gun before a
shooting-party. 7. Chuprassee—letter-carrier. 8. Bengalee Pundit, or
scholar.
]
It has been placed upon record, as an instructive commentary on the
immense distances to be traversed in India, the imperfection of most of
the roads, and the primitive detail of travelling arrangements—that when
Viscount Hardinge was engaged in the Punjaub campaign in 1846, one
hundred European officers were sent off from Calcutta to aid him.
Although the distance was nearly fifteen hundred miles, nothing more
rapid than palanquin travelling was available; and, as a consequence,
the journey became so tediously prolonged that only thirty out of the
hundred officers arrived at the Sutlej before the campaign was over.
Palanquin-bearers were posted at different stations to carry three
persons daily; and it was calculated that, assuming twelve bearers to be
posted at every station, and the stations eight miles apart on an
average, the duty must have required the services of _seven thousand_ of
these men—all to carry one hundred officers: a waste of muscular energy
singular to contemplate by the light of an Englishman’s home experience.
The Indian post is still more simple than the dâk. It is conducted by
runners, each of whom slings his mail-bag on the end of a stick over his
shoulder. He runs five miles in an hour, and then gives his bag to
another man, who runs five miles in an hour; and so on. Strictly
speaking, dâk is an appellation properly belonging to this
letter-carrying system. It is equivalent to the English _post_; and as
the English have adopted the custom of applying the term post to quick
travelling as well as to letter-carrying, in like manner have the
Anglo-Indians adopted a double application of the word dâk. It is only
the express or quick dâk which maintains a speed of five miles an hour;
the ordinary speed, when the letter-bag is heavy, is four miles. In
order that the runners may not be required to go far from their homes,
each man carries his bag one stage, exchanges bags with another runner
who has come in the opposite direction, and then returns. A letter may
thus be conveyed a hundred miles in a day—a distance which, considering
the nature of the system, is quite as great as can reasonably be
expected. Horse and camel dâks are occasionally employed; but they are
not easily available, except on good roads. Besides the letter-dâk,
there is a parcel-dâk or _bangey_, the runner carrying a packet or box,
in which small parcels or newspapers are placed.
It will become a duty, in a later portion of this work, to notice
somewhat fully the railway schemes of India, in relation to the plans
for developing the industrial resources of that great region; but at
present this would be out of place, since the Revolt has been dependent
on the actual, not the prospective. This actuality, so far as concerns
means and modes of travelling, is summed up in a few words. An Indian
officer, we have seen, must travel to his station by horse or by
palanquin if on land, by drag-boat or by steam-boat if on the rivers. In
any case his rate of progress is slow; his movements are encumbered by a
train of servants, by a whole bazarful of furniture and culinary
apparatus, and by an anxiously selected provision for his larder. To
move quickly is well-nigh impossible: all the conditions for it are
wanting. Improvements, it is true, are in progress: steamers of light
draught and rapid movement are being planned for the rivers; the great
trunk-road from Calcutta to the Afghan frontier is beginning to offer
facilities for wheel-carriage transport; and the railways are beginning
to shew their iron tracks in various regions; nevertheless, these are
rather indications of the future than appliances for the present; and
the Indian officers are not yet in a position to say much about them
from personal experience. The humbler soldiers, whether Europeans or
sepoys, are of course less favourably served than the officers. There is
no Weedon in India, connected by rail with a Chatham, a Portsmouth, a
Liverpool, a Leeds, along which a whole regiment can be conveyed in a
few hours; and as saddle-horses and palanquins are out of the question
for infantry privates, it becomes necessary to trudge on foot along such
roads as may be available, or to linger on the tardy river route. Once
now and then, it is true, a daring man, a Napier or an Edwardes, will
swiftly send a small body of troops over a sandy desert or a marshy
plain on camels, horses, elephants, or some exceptional modes of
conveyance; but the prevalent characteristics of travel are such as have
here been described, and such will doubtless be the case for many years
to come.
Such, then, being the territorial arrangements by which Anglo-Indian
troops are considered to belong to different presidencies and states;
and such the modes in which military as well as civilians must move from
place to place in those territories; we shall be prepared next to
understand something about the soldiers themselves—the Anglo-Indian
army.
In no country in Europe is there an army so anomalous in its
construction as that which, until lately, belonged to the East India
Company. Different kinds of troops, and troops from different provinces,
we can well understand. For instance, the French avail themselves of a
few Algerine Arabs, and a small foreign legion, as components in the
regular army. The English have a few colonial corps in addition to the
Queen’s army. The Prussians have a _landwehr_ or militia equal in
magnitude to the regular army itself. The Russians have military
colonists as well as military tributaries, in addition to the great
_corps d’armée_. The Austrians have their peculiar Military Frontier
regiments, besides the regular troops furnished by the dozen or score of
distinct provinces and kingdoms which form their empire. The German
States provide their several contingents to form (if the States can ever
bring themselves to a unity of opinion) an Army of the Confederation.
The Neapolitans employ Swiss mercenaries as a portion of their army. The
Romans, the subjects of the pope as a temporal prince, have the
‘protection’ of French and Austrian bayonets, in addition to a small
native force. The Turks have their regular army, aided (or sometimes
obstructed) by the contingents of vassal-pachas and the irregulars from
mountain districts. But none of these resemble the East India Company’s
army. Under an ordinary state of affairs, and without reference to the
mutiny of 1857, the Indian army is in theory a strange conglomerate. The
Queen _lends_ some of her English troops, for which the Company pay; the
Company enlist other English troops on their own account; they maintain
three complete armies among the natives of India who are their subjects;
they raise irregular corps or regiments in the states not so fully
belonging to them; they claim the services of the troops belonging to
certain tributary princes, whenever exigency arises; and the whole of
these troops are placed under the generalship of a commander-in-chief,
who is appointed—not by the Company, who have to pay for all—but by the
Queen or the British government.
The Company’s army rose by degrees, as the territorial possessions
increased. At first the troops were little better than adventurers who
sold their swords to the highest bidders, and fought for pay and rations
without regard to the justice of the cause in which they were engaged;
many were liberated convicts, many were deserters from various European
armies, some were Africans, while a few were Topasses, a mixed race of
Indo-Portuguese. The first regular English troops seen in Bengal were an
ensign and thirty privates, sent from Madras to quell a petty
disturbance at the Company’s factory in the Hoogly. Gradually, as the
numbers increased and the organisation improved, the weapons underwent
changes. The troops originally were armed with muskets, swords, and
pikes twelve or fourteen feet long: the pikemen in the centre of the
battalion or company, and the musketeers on the flank. In the beginning
of the last century the pikes were abandoned, and the soldiers armed
with bayonets in addition to the muskets and swords. When the custom was
adopted, from European example, of forming the companies into a regular
battalion, the swords were abolished, and the common soldiers left only
with muskets and bayonets. Various changes were made during the century,
assimilating the troops more and more to those of the English crown, in
weapons and accoutrements.
The regiments became, by successive ameliorations, composed almost
wholly of native Hindoos and Mohammedans, officered to some extent by
Europeans. An English sergeant was given to each company, and a
drill-sergeant and sergeant-major to each battalion. Afterwards, when
the battalions were formed into regiments, natives were appointed as
sergeants of companies; and then the only European non-commissioned
officers were a sergeant-major and a quartermaster-sergeant. By the time
of Lord Clive’s achievements, just about a century ago, three armies
were owned by the Company—one in Bengal or the Calcutta presidency, one
in the Coromandel or Madras presidency, and one on the Malabar coast,
south of the present station of Bombay. These three armies were totally
separate and distinct, each under its own commander, and each presenting
some peculiarities of organisation; but they occasionally joined as one
army for large military operations. There were many native corps, and a
few European corps; but all alike were officered by Europeans. The
cadet, the young man sent out from England to ‘make his fortune’ in
India, was appointed to a native corps or a European corps at the choice
of the commander. The pay being good and regular, and the customs and
prejudices respected, the sepoys, sipahis, or native soldiers became in
most cases faithful servants to the Company, obeying their native
officers, who, in their turn, were accountable to the European officers.
The European and the native corps were alike formed by enlistment: the
Company compelling no one to serve but those who deemed the pay and
other arrangements sufficient. An endeavour was made at that time
(afterwards abandoned) to equalise the Hindoos and Mohammedans in
numbers as nearly as possible.
From an early period in the Company’s history, a certain number of
regiments from the British royal army were lent for Indian service; the
number being specified by charter or statute; and the whole expense, of
every kind, being defrayed by the Company—including, by a more modern
arrangement, retiring pay and pensions. There were thus, in effect, at
all times two English armies in India; the one enlisted by the Company,
the other lent by the Crown; and it was a matter of some difficulty to
obviate jealousies and piques between the two corps. For, on the one
hand, the officers of the Company’s troops had better pay and more
profitable stations assigned to them; while, on the other hand, the
royal officers had precedence and greater honour. A Company’s captain,
however so many years he might have served, was subordinate even to the
youngest royal captain, who assumed command over him by right. At
length, in 1796, the commissions received by the Company’s officers were
recognised by the crown; and the two corps became placed on a level in
pay and privileges.
The year just named witnessed a new organisation also of the native
army. A regiment was ordered to be of two thousand men, in two corps or
battalions of one thousand each; and each battalion was divided into ten
companies, with two native officers to each company. Thus there were
forty native officers in each of these large regiments. Besides these,
there were half as many European officers as were allowed to a European
regiment of the same magnitude. There had before been a native
commandant to each battalion; but he was now superseded by a European
field-officer, somewhat to the dissatisfaction of the men. The service
occasionally suffered from this change; for a regiment was transferred
at once from a native who had risen to command by experience and good
conduct, to a person sent out from England who had to learn his duties
as a leader of native troops after he went out. The youngest English
ensign, perhaps a beardless boy, received promotion before any native,
however old and tried in the service. And hence arose the custom,
observed down to recent times, of paying no attention to the merits of
the natives as a spur to promotion, allowing seniority to determine the
rise from one grade to another.
While on the one hand the natives volunteered as soldiers in the
Company’s service, and were eligible to rise to a certain rank as
regimental officers; the English officers, on the other, had their own
particular routine and hopes of preferment. The cadets or youths went
out partially educated by the Company in England, especially those
intended for the artillery and engineer departments; and when settled
with their regiments in India as officers, all rose by seniority; the
engineers and artillery in their own corps, the cavalry and infantry in
their own regiments. It often happened, however, that when few deaths
occurred by war, officers reached middle life without much advancement,
and retired after twenty years or more of service with the pay of the
rank they then held. In 1836, however, a law was made to insure that the
retiring allowance should not be below a certain minimum: if an officer
served twenty-three years, he retired with captain’s pay; if
twenty-seven years, with major’s pay; if thirty-one years, with
lieutenant-colonel’s pay; if thirty-five years, with colonel’s
pay—whatever might have been his actual rank at the date of his
retirement. There was also permission for them to sell their
commissions, although those commissions were not bought by them in the
first instance.
Unquestionably the sepoy was well paid, considering the small value of
labour and personal services in his country; and thus it arose that the
Company had seldom any difficulty in obtaining troops. The sepoys were
volunteers in the full sense of the word. Their pay, though small in our
estimation, was high in proportion to the station they formerly held.
The Bengal Infantry sepoy received seven rupees (fourteen shillings) per
month, with an additional rupee after sixteen years’ service, and two
after twenty years. A havildar or sergeant received fourteen rupees; a
jemadar or lieutenant twenty-four rupees; and a subadar or captain
sixty-seven rupees. This pay was relatively so good, that each man was
usually able to send two-thirds of it to his relations. And he was not a
stranger to them at the end of his term, like a Russian soldier; for it
was a part of the system to allow him periodical furlough or leave of
absence, to visit his friends. If unfit for military service after
fifteen months’ duty, he retired on a life-pension sufficient to support
him in his own simple way of life. Whether he _ought_, in moral
fairness, to be grateful towards the rulers who fed and clothed him, is
just one of those questions on which Indian officers have differed and
still differ. Viewed by the aid of the experience furnished by recent
events, many of the former encomiums on the sepoys, as men grateful for
blessings conferred, read strangely. The Marquis of Dalhousie’s
statement, that ‘The position of the native soldier in India has long
been such as to leave hardly any circumstance of his condition in need
of improvement,’ has already been adverted to. To this we may add the
words of Captain Rafter: ‘We assert, on personal knowledge and reliable
testimony, that the attachment of the sepoy to his English officer, and
through him to the English government, is of an enduring as well as an
endearing nature, that will long bid defiance to the machinations of
every enemy to British supremacy, either foreign or domestic.’[4] In
another authority we find that the sepoy, when his term of military
service has expired, ‘goes back to live in ease and dignity, to teach
his children to love and venerate that mighty abstraction the Company,
and to extend the influence of England still further throughout the
ramifications of native society. Under such a system, although temporary
insubordination may and sometimes does occur in particular regiments, it
is invariably caused by temporary grievances. General disaffection
cannot exist—desertion is unknown.’ But the validity or groundlessness
of such opinions we do not touch upon here: they must be reserved to a
later chapter, when the _causes_ of the mutiny will come under review.
We pass on at once, therefore, from this brief notice of the origin of
the Company’s army, to its actual condition at and shortly before the
period of the outbreak.
Should it be asked what, during recent years, has been the number of
troops in India, the answer must depend upon the scope given to the
question. If we mention Queen’s troops only, the number has been usually
about 24,000; if Queen’s troops and the Company’s European troops, about
42,000; if the Company’s native regulars be added to these, the number
rises to 220,000; if the Company’s irregular corps of horse be included,
there are 280,000; if it include the contingents supplied by native
princes, the number amounts to 320,000; and lastly, if to these be added
the armies of the independent and semi-independent princes, more or less
available by treaty to the Company, the total swells to 700,000 men.
As exhibiting in detail the component elements of the Company’s
Anglo-Indian army at a definite period, the following enumeration by
Captain Rafter may be adopted, as applicable to the early part of 1855.
Certain minor changes were made in the two years from that date to the
commencement of the outbreak; but these will be noticed in later pages
when necessary, and do not affect the general accuracy of the list. The
three presidencies are kept separate, and the three kinds of
troops—regiments of the royal army, the Company’s native regular
regiments, and native irregular regiments—are also kept separate.
First we take the Bengal presidency in all its completeness, stretching
almost entirely across Northern India from the Burmese frontier on the
east, to the Afghan frontier on the west:
BENGAL PRESIDENCY.
_Queen’s Troops._
Two regiments of light cavalry.
Fifteen regiments of infantry.
One battalion of 60th Rifles.
_Company’s Regular Troops._
Three brigades of horse-artillery, European and native.
Six battalions of European foot-artillery.
Three battalions of native foot-artillery.
Corps of Royal Engineers.
Ten regiments of native light cavalry.
Two regiments of European fusiliers.
Seventy-four regiments of native infantry.
One regiment of Sappers and Miners.
_Irregular and Contingent Troops._
Twenty-three regiments of irregular native cavalry.
Twelve regiments of irregular native infantry.
One corps of Guides.
One regiment of camel corps.
Sixteen regiments of local militia.
Shekhawuttie brigade.
Contingents of Gwalior, Jhodpore, Malwah, Bhopal, and Kotah.
The European troops here mentioned, in the Company’s regular army, are
those who have been enlisted in England or elsewhere by the Company’s
agents, quite irrespective of the royal or Queen’s army. The above
forces, altogether, amounted to somewhat over 150,000 men. Let us now
glance at another presidency:
MADRAS PRESIDENCY.
_Queen’s Troops._
One regiment of light cavalry.
Five regiments of infantry.
_Company’s Regular Troops._
One brigade of horse-artillery, European and native.
Four battalions of European foot-artillery.
One battalion of native foot-artillery.
Corps of Royal Engineers.
Eight regiments of native light cavalry.
Two regiments of European infantry.
Fifty-two regiments of native infantry.
No irregular or contingent troops appear in this entry.
BOMBAY PRESIDENCY.
_Queen’s Troops._
One regiment of light cavalry.
Five regiments of infantry.
_Company’s Regular Troops._
One brigade of horse-artillery, European and native.
Two battalions of European foot-artillery.
Two battalions of native foot-artillery.
Corps of Royal Engineers.
Three regiments of native light cavalry.
Two regiments of European infantry.
Twenty-nine regiments of native infantry.
_Irregular and Contingent Troops._
Fifteen regiments of irregular native troops.
The European and the native troops of the Company are not here
separated, although in effect they form distinct regiments. So costly
are all the operations connected with the Anglo-Indian army, that it
has been calculated that every English soldier employed in the East,
whether belonging to the Queen’s or to the Company’s forces, costs, on
an average, one hundred pounds before he becomes available for
service, including his outfit, his voyage, his marching and barracking
in India. This of course relates to the privates; an officer’s cost is
based upon wholly distinct grounds, and can with difficulty be
estimated. The greatly increased expenditure of the Company on
military matters has partly depended on the fact that the European
element in the armies has been regularly augmenting: in 1837 there
were 28,000 European troops in India; in 1850 the number was 44,000,
comprising 28,000 Queen’s troops, and 16,000 belonging to the Company;
while the new charter of 1854 allowed the Company to raise 24,000, of
whom 4000 were to be in training in England, and the rest on service
in India. What was the number in 1857, becomes part of the history of
the mutiny. In the whole Indian army, a year or two before this
catastrophe, there were about 5000 European officers, governing the
native as well as the European regiments; but of this number, so many
were absent on furlough or leave, so many more on staff appointments,
and so many of the remainder in local corps and on civil duties, that
there was an insufficiency of regimental control—leading, as some
authorities think, in great part to the scenes of insubordination; for
the native officers, as we shall presently see, were regarded in a
very subordinate light. There was a commander-in-chief for each of the
three presidencies, controlling the three armies respectively; while
one of the three, the commander-in-chief of the Bengal army, held at
the same time the office of commander-in-chief of the whole of the
armies of India, in order that there might be a unity of plan and
purpose in any large combined operations. Thus, when Sir Colin
Campbell went out to India in the summer of 1857, his power was to be
exerted over the armies of the whole of India generally, as well as
over that of Bengal in particular.
Continuing to speak of the Indian army as it was before the year 1857,
and thereby keeping clear of the changes effected or commenced in that
year, we proceed to mention a few more circumstances connected with the
Company’s European element in that army. The formation of an Indian
officer commenced in England. As a youth, from fourteen to eighteen
years of age, he was admitted to the Company’s school at Addiscombe,
after an ordeal of recommendations and testimonials, and after an
examination of his proficiency in an ordinary English education, in
which a modicum of Latin was also expected. A probation of six months
was gone through, to shew whether he possessed the requisite abilities
and inclination; and if this probation were satisfactory, his studies
were continued for two years. His friends paid the larger portion of the
cost of his maintenance and education at the school. If his abilities
and progress were of a high class, he was set apart for an appointment
in the engineers; if next in degree, in the artillery; and if the lowest
in degree, for the infantry. At the end of his term the pupil must have
attained to a certain amount of knowledge, of which, however, very
little was professional. Supposing all to be satisfactory, he became a
military _cadet_ in the service of the Company, to be available for
Indian service as occasion arose. Having joined one of the regiments as
the lowest commissioned officer, his subsequent advancement depended in
part on his qualifications and in part on seniority. He could not, by
the more recent regulations of the Company, become a captain until he
had acquired, besides his professional efficiency, a knowledge of the
spoken and written Hindustani language, and of the Persian written
character, much used in India. When placed on the general staff, his
services might be required in any one of a number of ways quite unknown
in the Queen’s service in England: he might have a civil duty, or be
placed at the head of the police in a tract of country recently
evacuated by the military, or be made an adjutant, auditor,
quartermaster, surveyor, paymaster, judge-advocate, commissary-general,
brigade-major, aid-de-camp, barrack-master, or clothing agent. Many of
these offices being lucrative, the military liked them; but such a
bestowal created some jealousy among the civil servants of the Company,
whose prizes in the Indian lottery were thereby diminished; and, what
was worse, it shook the connection between an officer and his regiment,
rendering him neither able nor willing to throw his sympathies into his
work. No officer could hold any of these staff appointments, as they
were called, until he had been two years in the army.
The officers noticed in the last paragraph were appointed to the command
both of European and of native regiments. As to privates and
non-commissioned officers in the European regiments, they were much the
same class of men, and enlisted much in the same way, as those in the
Queen’s army. The privates or sepoys of the native regiments were of
course different, not only from Europeans, but different among
themselves. Four-fifths of the Bengal native infantry were Hindoos,
mainly of the Brahmin and Rajpoot castes; and the remainder Mohammedans.
On the other hand, three-fourths of the Bengal native cavalry were
Mohammedans, the Hindoos being generally not equal to them as troopers.
In the Madras native army, the Mohammedans predominated in the cavalry,
while the infantry comprised the two religions in nearly equal
proportions. In Bombay, nearer the nations of Western Asia, the troops
comprised volunteers of many countries and many religions—more easily
managed, our officers found, on that account.
Without at present going into the question how far the religious
feelings and caste prejudices of the natives induced a revolt, it may be
useful to shew how a regiment was constituted, of what materials, and in
what gradations. An infantry regiment in the Bengal presidency will
serve as a type.
The organisation of a Bengal native regiment, before the mutiny, was
nearly as follows: An infantry regiment consisted of about 1000
privates, 120 non-commissioned officers, and 20 native commissioned
officers. It was divided into ten companies, each containing one-tenth
of the above numbers. When stationary, the regiment seldom had barracks,
but was quartered in ten lines of thatched huts, one row for each
company. In front of each row was a small circular building for
containing the arms and accoutrements of that particular company, under
the charge of a _havildar_ or native sergeant. All these natives rose by
a strict rule of seniority: the sepoy or private soldier becoming a
_naik_ or corporal, the naik being promoted to be _havildar_ or
sergeant, the havildar in time assuming the rank of _jemadar_ or
lieutenant, and the jemadar becoming a _subadar_ or captain. All these
promotions were necessarily slow; for the English colonel of the
regiment had very little power to promote a worthy native officer or
non-commissioned officer to a higher rank. The jemadar often became a
gray-headed man of sixty before he rose to the rank of subadar, the
highest attainable by a native. As a rule, there were four or five
Hindoos to one Mohammedan in a Bengal infantry regiment; and of these
eight hundred Hindoos, it was not unfrequent to find four hundred
Brahmins or hereditary priests, and two hundred Rajpoots, a military
caste only a little lower in rank than the former; while the remaining
two hundred were low-caste Hindoos. The European officers, as will be
explained more fully further on, lived in bungalows or detached houses
near the lines of their regiment; but as the weather is too hot to admit
of much open-air duty in the daytime, these officers saw less of their
men than is customary in European armies, or than is necessary for the
due preservation of discipline. The head of a regiment was the
commander, generally a lieutenant-colonel; below him was an adjutant,
who attended to the drill and the daily reports; below him was a
quartermaster and interpreter, whose double duties were to look after
the clothes and huts of the men, and to interpret or translate orders.
Besides these three, there were ten subordinate officers for the ten
companies, each expected to make a morning scrutiny into the condition
and conduct of his men. The Europeans in a native regiment were thus
fourteen or fifteen. It is true that the _theory_ of a regiment involved
a complement of about five-and-twenty European officers; but the causes
of absenteeism, lately adverted to, generally brought down the effective
number to about twelve or fifteen. The arrangements of the infantry in
the other presidencies, and of the native cavalry all over India, each
had their peculiarities.
Leaving for future chapters a further elucidation of the relations
between the European officers and the native troops—so important in
connection with the Revolt—and a description of the sepoys in their
dresses, usages, and personal characteristics—we shall now proceed to
view the native army under two different aspects—first, when barracked
and cantoned in time of peace; and, secondly, when on the march towards
a scene of war.
And first, for the army when stationary. At Calcutta, Bombay, and
Madras, there are solidly built barracks for the whole of the soldiery,
men as well as officers; but in almost all other parts of India the
arrangements are of a slighter and less permanent character. At the
cantonments, it is true, the officers have houses; but the sepoys are
lodged in huts of their own construction. Around the cantonments at the
stations, and generally skirting the parade-grounds, are the houses or
bungalows of the officers. Within the lines of the cantonment, too, the
officers’ mess-rooms are situated; and at the larger stations may be
seen ball-rooms, theatres, and racket-courts; while outside is a
race-stand for witnessing the sports which Englishmen love in India as
well as at home.
[Illustration:
Group of Sepoys.
1. Subadar—major. 2. Jemadar—Lieutenant. 3. Subadar—Captain. 4.
Naik—Corporal. 5. Havildar—Sergeant. 6. Sepoy—Private.
]
The Indian bungalows, the houses inhabited by European officers at the
different towns and stations in India, have a certain general
resemblance, although differing of course much in details. A bungalow of
good size has usually a central room called the hall, a smaller room
opening on the front verandah, a similar one opening on the back
verandah, three narrower rooms on each side of these three, and
bathing-rooms at the four corners. A verandah runs entirely round the
exterior. The central hall has only the borrowed light derived from
eight or a dozen doors leading out of the surrounding apartments: these
doors are always open; but the doorways are covered, when privacy is
desired, with the _chick_, a sort of gauze-work of green-painted strips
of fine bamboo, admitting air and light, but keeping out flies and
mosquitoes. The floors are usually of _chunam_, finely tempered clay,
covered with matting, and then with a sort of blue-striped carpet or
with printed calico. The exterior is usually barn-like and ugly, with
its huge roof, tiled or thatched, sloping down to the pillars of the
verandah. Air and shade are the two desiderata in every bungalow, and
adornment is wisely sacrificed to these. The finest part of the whole is
the surrounding space or garden, called the _compound_, from a
Portuguese word. The larger the space allowed for this compound, the
more pleasant is the residence in its centre, and the more agreeable to
the eye is a cantonment of such bungalows. The trees and fruits in these
enclosures are delicious to the sight, and most welcome to the
heat-wearied occupants of the dwellings. Officers in the Company’s
service, whether military or civil, live much under canvas during the
hot seasons, at some of the stations; and the tents they use are much
larger and more like regular habitations than those known in Europe. The
tents are double, having a space of half a yard or so between the two
canvas walls, to temper the heat of the sun. The double-poled tents are
large enough to contain several apartments, and are furnished with
glass-doors to fit into the openings. A wall of canvas separates the
outer offices and bathing-rooms. Gay chintz for wall-linings, and
printed cotton carpets, give a degree of smartness to the interior.
Movable stoves, or else fire-dishes for wood-fuel called _chillumchees_,
are provided as a resource against the chill that often pervades the air
in the evening of a hot day. The tents for the common soldiers hold ten
men each with great ease, and have a double canvas wall like the others.
[Illustration:
Bungalow.
]
An important part of every cantonment is the bazaar, situated in
convenient proximity to the huts or tents of the troops. It comprises an
enormous number of sutlers, who sell to the soldiers those commodities
which cannot well be dispensed with, but which cannot conveniently be
provided and carried about by them. Curry stuffs, tobacco, rice, arrack
(in addition to the Company’s allowance), cotton cloth, and a
multiplicity of other articles, are sold at these bazaars; and the
market-people who supply these things, with their families, the coolies
or porters, and their hackeries or carts—add enormously to the mass that
constitutes an Indian cantonment. The sepoy has little to spend with his
sixpence a day; but then his wants are few; and his copper _pice_,
somewhat larger than the English farthing, will buy an amount of
necessaries little dreamed of in England. The Hindoos have such peculiar
notions connected with food and cooking, that the government leave them
as much to themselves as possible in those matters; and the bazaar and
sutlers’ arrangements assume a particular importance from this
circumstance.
An Anglo-Indian army we have seen at rest, in cantonments. Now let us
trace it when on a march to a scene of war; but while describing this in
the _present_ tense, we must make allowance for the changes which the
Revolt has inevitably produced.
The non-fighting men who accompany the troops greatly exceed in number
the troops themselves. Captain Munro says: ‘It would be absurd for a
captain to think of taking the field without being attended by the
following enormous retinue—namely, a _dubash_ (agent or commissionaire),
a cook, and a _maty_ boy (servant-of-all-work); if he cannot get
bullocks, he must assemble fifteen or twenty _coolies_ to carry his
baggage, together with a horse-keeper and grass-cutter, and sometimes a
dulcinea and her train, having occasionally the assistance of a barber,
a washer, and an ironer, in common with the other officers of his
regiment. His tent is furnished with a good large bed, mattress,
pillows, &c., a few camp stools or chairs, a folding table, a pair of
glass shades for his candles, six or seven trunks, with table equipage,
his stock of linens (at least twenty-four suits), some dozens of wine,
porter, brandy, and gin; with tea, sugar, and biscuit, a hamper of live
poultry, and his milch-goat. A private’s tent for holding his servants
and the overplus of his baggage is also requisite; but this is not at
the Company’s expense.’ Of course it must be inferred that all this
luxury belongs to the best of times only, and is not available in the
exigency of sudden military movements. The sepoys or common soldiers,
too, have their satellites. Each man is accompanied by his whole family,
who live upon his pay and allowances of rice from the Company. Every
trooper or horse-soldier, too, has his grass-cutter; for it is a day’s
work for one person to dig, cut, and prepare a day’s grass for one
horse.
When on the march, the tents are generally struck soon after midnight.
At the first tap of the drum, the servants knock up the tent-pins, and
down fall the tents; horses begin to neigh and the camels to cry, the
elephants and camels receive their loads of camp-equipage, the bullocks
are laden with the officers’ tents and boxes, the coolies take up their
burdens, and all prepare for the road. During the noise and bustle of
these preliminaries, the officers and men make their few personal
arrangements, aided by their servants or families; while the officers’
cooks and agents are sent on in advance, to prepare breakfast at the
next halting-place. Between one and two o’clock the regiments start off,
in columns of sections: the camp-followers, baggage, bullocks,
elephants, and camels, bringing up the rear. The European soldiers do
not carry their own knapsacks on the march; they have the luxury of
cook-boys or attendants, who render this service for them. The natives,
it is found, are able to carry heavier loads than the Europeans; or—what
is perhaps more nearly the case—they bear the burdens more patiently, as
the Europeans love soldiering better than portering. The tedium of the
journey is sometimes relieved by a hunt after antelopes, hares,
partridges, wild ducks, or wild boars, which the officers may happen to
espy, according to the nature of the country through which they are
passing. Arrived at the halting-place, everything is quickly prepared
for a rest and a breakfast; the quarter-masters push forward to occupy
the ground; the elephants and camels are disburdened of the tents; the
natives and the cattle plunge into some neighbouring pool or tank to
refresh themselves; the cooks have been already some time at work; and
the officers sit down to a breakfast of tea, coffee, curry, rice,
pillau, ham, and other obtainable dishes. The fakeers often recognise
their friends or admirers among the natives of the cavalcade, and give
loud blessings, and tom-tom drummings, in exchange for donations of the
smallest Indian coins. The quarter-masters’ arrangements are so quickly
and so neatly made, that in a short time the general’s _durbar_ appears
in the centre of a street of tents for staff-officers, dining-tents on
the one side and sleeping-tents on the other; while the bazaar-dealers
open their temporary shops in the rear. The horses are picketed in long
lines; while the elephants and camels browse or rest at leisure. Under
ordinary circumstances, the day’s marching is over by nine o’clock in
the morning, at which hour the sun’s heat becomes too fierce to be
willingly borne. Repose, amusements, and light camp-duties fill up the
remainder of the day, to be followed by a like routine on the morrow.
[Illustration:
Troops on the March.
]
While one of these extraordinary marches is in progress, ‘when the
moving masses are touched here and there by the reddening light of the
dawn, it seems to be a true migration, with flocks and herds, cattle
loaded with baggage, men, women, and children, all in a chaos of
disorder but the troops whose wants and wishes have attracted this
assemblage. At length the country appears to awake from its sleep, and
with the yell of the jackal, or the distant baying of the village dogs,
are heard to mingle the voices of human beings. Ruddier grows the dawn,
warmer the breeze, and the light-hearted sepoy, no longer shivering with
cold, gives vent to the joyous feelings of morning in songs and
laughter. The scenes become more striking, and the long array of tall
camels, led by natives in picturesque costume, with here and there a
taller elephant mingling with droves of loaded bullocks, give it a new
and extraordinary character to a European imagination. The line of
swarthy sepoys of Upper India, with their moustached lips and tall
handsome figures, contrasts favourably with the shorter and plainer
soldiers of Britain; the grave mechanical movements of the regular
cavalry in their light-blue uniforms are relieved by the erratic
evolutions and gay and glittering dresses of the irregulars, who with
loud cries and quivering spears, and their long black locks streaming
behind them, spur backwards and forwards like the wind from mere
exuberance of spirits.... The camp-followers in the meantime present
every possible variety of costume; and among them, and not the least
interesting figures in the various groups, may frequently be seen the
pet lambs of which the sepoys are so fond, dressed in necklaces of
ribbons and white shells, and the tip of their tails, ears, and feet
dyed orange colour. The womenkind of the troops of the Peninsula
(Southern India) usually follow the drum; but the Bengalees have left
their families at home; and the Europeans bidden adieu to their
temporary wives with the air the band strikes up on quitting the
station, “The girl I left behind me.’”[5]
Such, before the great Revolt, were the usual characteristics of an
Anglo-Indian army when on the march; and, considering the _impedimenta_,
it is not surprising that the daily progress seldom exceeded ten or
twelve miles. The system was very costly, even at the cheap rate of
Indian service; for the camp-followers, one with another, were ten times
as numerous as the troops; and all, in one way or other, lived upon or
by the Company.
Note.
A parliamentary paper, issued in 1857 on the motion of Colonel
Sykes, affords valuable information on some of the matters treated
in this chapter. It is ‘A Return of the Area and Population of each
Division of each Presidency of India, from the Latest Inquiries;
comprising, also, the Area and Estimated Population of Native
States.’ It separates the British states from the native; and it
further separates the former into five groups, according to the
government under which each is placed. These five, as indicated in
the present chapter, are under the administration of ‘the
governor-general of India in council’—the ‘lieutenant-governor of
Bengal’—the ‘lieutenant-governor of the Northwest Provinces’—the
‘government of Madras’—and the ‘government of Bombay.’ In each case
the ‘regulation districts’ are treated distinct from the
non-regulation provinces,’ the former having been longer under
British power, and brought into a more regular system than the
latter. Without going again over the long list of names of places,
it will suffice to quote those belonging to the group placed
immediately under the governor-general’s control. This group
comprises the Punjaub, in the six divisions of Lahore, Jelum,
Moultan, Leia, Peshawur, and Jullundur; the Cis-Sutlej states, four
in number; the lately annexed kingdom of Oude; the central district
of Nagpoor or Berar; the recently acquired region of Pegu; the strip
of country on the east of the Bay of Bengal, known as the Tenasserim
Provinces; and the ‘Eastern Straits Settlements’ of Singapore,
Penang, and Malacca. The whole of British India is divided into
nearly a hundred and eighty districts, each, on an average, about
the size of Inverness-shire, the largest county, except Yorkshire,
in the United Kingdom. The population, however, is eight times us
dense, per average square mile, as in this Scottish shire. Keeping
clear of details concerning divisions and districts, the following
are the areas and population in the five great governments:
AREA. POPULATION.
Square Miles.
Governor-general’s } 246,050 23,255,972
Provinces. }
Lower Bengal } Regulation, 126,133 37,262,163
Provinces. } Non-regulation, 95,836 3,590,234
Northwest } Regulation, 72,052 30,271,885
Provinces. } Non-regulation, 33,707 3,383,308
Madras } Regulation, 119,526 20,120,495
Presidency. } Non-regulation, 12,564 2,316,802
Bombay } Regulation, 57,723 9,015,534
Presidency. } Non-regulation, 73,821 2,774,508
——————— ———————————
Total, 837,412 131,990,901
In some of the five governments, the population is classified more
minutely than in others. Thus, in the Punjaub member of the
governor-general’s group, Hindoos are separated from non-Hindoos;
then, each of these classes is divided into agricultural and
non-agricultural; and, lastly, each of these is further separated
into male and female. The most instructive feature here is the
scarcity of females compared with males, contrary to the experience
of Europe; in the Punjaub and Sirhind, among thirteen million souls,
there are a million and a half more males than females—shewing,
among other things, one of the effects of female infanticide in past
years. The ratio appears to be about the same in the Northwest
Provinces, around Delhi, Meerut, Rohilcund, Agra, Benares, and
Allahabad. Not one place is named, throughout India, in which the
females equal the males in number. In the Bombay presidency, besides
the difference of sex, the population is tabulated into nine
groups—Hindoos, Wild Tribes, Low Castes, Shrawniks or Jains,
Lingayets, Mussulmans, Parsees, Jews, Christians. Of the last named
there are less than fifty thousand, including military, in a
population of twelve millions.
The area and population of the native states are given in connection
with the presidencies to which those states are geographically and
politically related, and present the following numbers:
AREA. POPULATION.
Square Miles.
In Bengal Presidency, 515,583 38,702,206
In Madras Presidency, 61,802 5,213,071
In Bombay Presidency, 60,575 4,460,370
——————— ——————————
627,910 48,376,247
The enumeration of these native states is minute and intricate; and
it may suffice to shew the complexity arising out of the existence
of so many baby-princedoms, that one of the native states of
Bundelcund, Kampta by name, figures in the table as occupying an
area of _one_ square mile, and as having _three hundred_
inhabitants!
Including the British states, the native states, the few settlements
held by the French and Portuguese, and the recent acquisitions on
the eastern side of the Bay of Bengal, the grand totals come out in
the following numbers:
1,466,576 Square miles,
180,884,297 Inhabitants,
or 124 dwellers per square mile. Of these inhabitants, it is
believed—though the returns are not complete in this particular—that
there are fifteen Hindoos to one Mohammedan: if so, then India must
contain more than a _hundred and sixty million_ worshippers of
Hindoo deities—even after allowance is made for Buddhists, Parsees,
and a few savage tribes almost without religion.
-----
Footnote 3:
A young native princess was sent to England from this district to be
educated as a _Christian_ lady; and Queen Victoria became a sponsor
for her at a baptismal ceremony.
Footnote 4:
_Our Anglo-Indian Army._
Footnote 5:
Leitch Ritchie. _British World in the East._