INDIA.

Lyttelton Times, Volume IX, Issue 590, 30 June 1858, Page 5

INDIA.

ME. ETTSSEtI's FIRST lETTEE. The « Times ' gives its first letter from Mr. Russell. The first he wrote was lost in the Ava; — Cawnporb, Feb. 17—I was compelled to leave my last letter (lost in the Ava) unfinished, in order that I might avail myself of an opportunity of joining the force in the field at Cawnpore, and on the morning of the 4th of February, I crossed the dirty Ganges with infinite satisfaction, nod left Calcutta behind me. One whirls four miles past dingy little temples of foul and loathsome deities, till we come to Bnrdwan. Here we get out to look at the prison, and at the Rajah of Pachete, who is confined there on suspicion of treason. It was rumoured that his people were coming to rescue him, and Dr. Mouat, inspector of prisons, who was in the train with us, coming to ascertain the truth of the report, in order that he might be removed to Calcutta if the magistrates found it was well founded. The R aol consists of several brick buildings of only one story in height, and surrounded by a high wall; the doors are strong, and clamped with iron—the gaolers armed with cutlasses. On entering the prison, we saw a number of men with leg irons angaged in various ways in the open yard, making coarse paper, grinding grain, pounding bricks—an evil-faced race.. We passed into one of the rooms, and at once found ourselves among a number of brass pots, earthen r.ots, narghile bowls, and silver vessels, which lay on tho fioor; inside, a young man, about 30 years of ago, with coarse sonsnal features, »oato<l on the ground, was oating rico with his fingers, out of a large dish. In front of him nt some distance, with folded arms, stood 3 domestics in wi attitude of profound attention. Tho Kajah, for it was ho looked up angrily, and demanded who we wi.ro ; nor did he seemed better pleased when J)t. JVlpuat told him his

business, but finding bis Highness so engaged, we at once loft his prexencß. At Buneegunge commences the system of convoyance for which the Indian government deserves very great credit, and by which we are enabled to concentrate our troops with certainty and comfort. Tho men were sent up daily in detachments of JSO or 200 by rail to Unneegange. There closed carriages drawn by oxen were provided for them, into which they were transferred and sent up the country at the rate of 35 miles a day. All along the road bungalows were prepared, where the detachments received their meals with the utmost comfort, aud where they could rest, if necucssary, during the day. These arrangements never failed on any occasion. The accomodatiou sheds are clean and airy, and the cooking is excellent, so that the men, many of whom had served in the Crimean war, were lond in their expressions of praise and wonder. At present, the stream of troops had ceased, but I was an eye-witness of the "excellent preparations made by Captain Sadler and the commissariat office™ for the reception of part of her Majestys 35th Regiment, which arrived there by rail the day after I came. Brigadier Horsford is Btationed in command, and the officers have a small mess, the hospitality of which I have to acknowledge. The only thing worth seeing at Buneegunge was a camp of elephants, 58 of which, with their mahouts, feeders, were installed near the road.

[As he approached Benares, the aspect of the country changed, and became one green sea of corn.]

" Feb. 12—The morning was just dawning, sharp and cold and grey, as we approached Cawnpore. I looked in vain for any evidence that we were on the road to a great city, though I could see many traces of-the existence of a large camp. It was with melancholy interest that I gazed with straining eyes at each site, known hitherto only by name, as one after another they were pointed out by my companion. They were all masses of ruins. 'See that long white building, all riddled with cannon "shot, and battered on every side, with the little broken parapet of earth before it; that is Wheeler's entrenchment.' Strange as it may appear, from the distance at which we were the whole range of these ill-fated buildings looked exactly like the barracks, ■ or what we called the ' White Buildings ' of Sebastopol after the siege. The spot was ill chosen for defence—a long quadrangular block of houses on a level plain, without cover, and open to fire from numerous houses all ronnd it. Had the magazine been selected, the position wonld have been more defensible, and the enemy would have been de. prived of the guns which they nssd with such fatal effect. But Sir Hugh Wheeler, like most old Indians, despised the enemy who appeared before him, or, at all events, he disdained abandoning the station as if from fear of anything they could do, and prepared to defend a position which he scarcely thought they wonld assail. We all know the sad result, which was bronght home to us with renewed force when we filled the road from the house to the river with an imaginary procession of men, women, and children marching down to tho boats, already covered by'the ambushed guns of their cowardly and ferocious enemy. We saw after a few minutes' drive a scene of tremendous desolation—house after house roofless, doorless, windowless—shattered and rent in all directions.

We drive on a little farther, and oil our right, amid many broken bungalows, there is visible an enclosure with broken walls and shattered gate-posts, in the centre .of which is a heap of brick, mud. and white plaster about two or three feet high, scattered over fifteen or twenty square yards of ground. A few yards beyondthe mass of the rains of what had once been a house, there rose a sloping monnd of earth from the level of the ground to the edge of a circular brick well, the top of which was covered in, and close by the well stood a monumental cross. It was scarcely necessary for my companion to say, * There is the house, and jnst beyond ia-the well;' We passed on by the blackened wall of an absurdly fine masonic lodge, and by the ruins of a very spacious building called-the Assembly; Booms, just opposite the scene of the butchery; by a house close to it, in which the Nana lived after the occupation;* of "the place by the Sepoys ; and then through the remain's of mud houses and bungalows,' till we reached the ruins of the Cawnpore Hotel. Everything around us was dilapidatedrrrnot a pane of glass in the broken window, the doors and ceilings broken, and here and there the holes made by cannon shot; but we were glad to find that some of the; rooms WjCre unoccupied, and that such things as breakfast and dinner, were not unknown. The scene from the hotel was curious. . Ruins, ruins—nothing but rnins, amid wh'ch troops of vultures were gorging themselves,.mingled with buzzards, kites, 'adjutants,' and carrion crows; a few tents pitched inside the compound by travellers [triroule, vast processions of carts drawn by oxen, and flies of elephants and camels passing along the dusty plains, which were swept continually by.blasts that whirled before them clouds of fine earth, brick-dust, and the powdered service of the compounds. The, first thing that struck me was ths enormous number of natives in onr service, and the prodigious number of animals in attendance on such a small fragment of our force. There were, indeed, no less than 55,000 to 60,000 camp followers, servants, butteck-drivers, elephant-keepers, grass-cutters, syces, and camel men attached, to this force; and as yet what I have seen gives me not the faiutest idea of the impedimenta, animate and inanimate, of an Indian army.

Before breakfast, we walked over to inspect the site of the horrid butchery which has rendered the Sepoy mutiny infamous for ever. The house in which it took place is now in ruins ; it was pulled down 10 clear the ground for the gnns of the tele depont across the Ganges, aud the very outline of the walls is scarcely traceable. The plaster of the walls was still lying about in patches, but I could not detect any trace of blood. Bits of cloth and of -women's dresses were rtill visible amid the rubbißh ; but there were none of the more painful tokens of the dreadful tragedy which had been enacted where we Btood. There is reason to believe that the writing on the plaster, the purport of which you know, did not exist when Havelock'a force entered the place. I have spoken with officers who examined the walls, and every scratch in the sides of the rooms, and they declare that the appeal to vengeance which is attributed to one of the wretched victims was not to be seen immediately after we returned to Cawupore, and that it had been traced on the wall by some person who visited the place subsequently. We walked a few paces further to the well in the rear of the house, into which the slaughtered women and children were thrown by the murderers. It is now bricked over, ond there.only remains a small circular ridge of brick marking the wall of the well, which vrus not more than nine or ten feet across. Beneath, rest tho mangled remains of our poor countrywomen and their little ones, and standing there we could well realize the strength of that indignation which steels the hearts of our soldiers against the enemy. Within a few feet of " the well," surrounded by a small wooden paling, there stands a, stone crocs on a flat slab, on two courses of masonry, the inscription of which tells its story:—" In memory of the women and children of her Majesty's 32ud regiment, who were slaughtered near this spot, on the 16th July, A.D. 1557. This memorial was erected liy twenty men of tho same regiment, who wero passing through Cawnpore, Nov. 21st, 1857." This inscription is engraved on the upright part of the slab, which is in the form of a Maltese cross, within a circle of stone- In the quadrants of this circle are inscribed in red letteis and in the old English characters, •« I believe in the rosurrection of the dead." The conception and execution of this memorial were most creditable. In the ranks of a marching regiment were found " twenty men" who, with good feelinfj and excellent taste, hare impromptu raised a memorial of the Cawnpore massacresight of which must tonoh one more deeply than any elaborata and costly effort. We retraced our stops through the ruins" and after breakfast proceeded to the camp of the Cominaader-in-Chief, which is placed far outside the city, near to the ietede pont. February 13.— To-day. I went over tho so-called entrenchments at Cawnpore, which were hold by Wheeler's garrison for nearly three weeks. It was a melancholy gj g lit boyond description sad and desolate. The position, if such it can be called, consists of two lofty one-storied buildings, intended, I believe, to bo baracks, divided into many rooms with outward doors openiug. into corridors. There are two deep wells near these parallelograms, which are at the distance of 100 yards or so from each other, and threo detached outhonsos on the flanks. These buildings aro mirrounded by the remains of a miserable trench formed by casting up tho earth dug from the soil out on a •lope towards the enemy. There is no ditch whatever; tho treucb «ould never have been six feet deep, aud as the

enemy were all round the station, theso open trenches were enfiladed ui»on all sides. The severity of the fire was exceMive. Every square yard of the walls is perforated by cannot shot, the roofs are knocked to pieces, and in vlaciiH have tumbled in en masse. No part of Sishastopol —not even excepting the range of barracks behind tho Great Redan, wuh more buttered and shaken than the barrack* at Cawnpore. In out; small space I counted 73 shot holes, most of which were through and through the wills. The part/walls were perforated and battered in the same manner. It was a wonder how any ono could live inside for an hour. At one angle of a room was written in pencil, * Below this mark young Wheeler was killed by a cannon ball, which took off his head. His blood, and brains are spattered on the wall below.' Scraps of music books and fragments of women's dresses still iie among the tilcg, bricks, and filth with which the floors are. covered. In another room the following inscription was written ou the wal I; it is on the larger building in the corridor, between the fourth and fifth doors, facing to the south, on the side opposite the doors;—• Countrymen and women, remembered the 15(h of July, 1857. Tour wives and families are herein misery! and at the disposal of savages, who have ravished both young and old. Oh! my child! my child! Conntrymen, revenge!' This ib an evident imposition, and is the work of the same or of a similar hand, in all probability, which ptmned the inscription on tb.9 walls of the house where the slaughter took place after Havelock's victory.

."Feb. 15.—There are 26,000 Sepoys in Lueknow, bnt the force of matchlock men, very formidable in defending streets and houses, is enormous; the inhabitants aud the men of various arms arrayed against us constitute a total probably of 200,000 sonls. The Bajah of Churkharee has hitherto held out on our side, but very recently the Calpee forces detached a party against him, beat his troops in tw,o engagements, took two of hit) guns, aud forced the Bajah to retreat to his fortress and to pretend to negotiate. Unless we can help him it is feared he may have to yield.

The 'Times' correspondent at Calcutta writes:—''The trial of the King of Delhi is a strange business. The'trial, wretchediy reported, certainly proves three things:—lst.• The revolt was instigated by the Shah of Persia, who promised money and troops. His proclamation to that effect was posted over the Mosque gate, and was taken down by order of Sir Theophilns Metcalfe, who moreover was Warned by John Everett, a Christian Risaiidar, very popular, with the natives, that he had been warned to fly, as the Persians were coming, and that the Mussulmans were exceedingly excited. Sir Theophilus thonght the matter one of no importance. 2nd. A paper was produced, addressed to Mr. Colvin by Mahomed Dervish, revealing th.c whole plot nix weeks before it broke out. Mr. Colvin treated the warning aa unimportant, and never even reported it to ihe government. 3rd. The murders of the Europeans in Delhi were committed by order of the King, in the presence of the royal family, and by means of the Khassbnrdara, his special personal guard."

Causes of the Indian Mutiny.—An important witness has just come forward, showing how deeply the present revolt of the Bengal army is connected with the caste question. Hidayut Ali, the subadar of the Sikh police among the Sontala, has made a statement of his views respecting the mutiny, derived from long intercourse with numerous regiments in all parts of Upper India. He says that the discontent that has ripened into rebellion began during the Affghan war. The Sepoys were then led beyond the Indus, which has always been considered the boundary of Hindooism; that the Brahmins among them had to leave their sacred threads in a temple on its western bank, and that as they advanced into the cold mountains, they no longer kept up the bathings and washingß which every Hindoo in North India daily undergoes before he gets his first meal. The evil rankled in their minds, and they would have been glad even then to kill their officers, and to run back to Hindostan, only they were afraid lest the Affghans should overpower them and compel them to become Mussulmans. They never forgot it after their return.- From that time dissatisfaction was frequently expressed about their rations and their pay. On some occasions they proceeded (ap at Sukkur) to open mutiny. Twice were regiments disbanded; but the dissatisfaction still went on. Castewasnext attacked by the messing system being introduced into gaols, in which, till a few years ago, every prisoner was allowed to preserve his caste by cooking for himself. In one case, the -prisoners were so enraged at the innovation that on the next visit of the magistrate to the gaol they killed him with their brass pots. The system was, however, introduced, and the Sepoys heard of it and felt it deeply. The preaching and teaching of the missionaries, till then unnoticed, were next observed, and viewed as a Government measure. Then came the order that all future Sepoys should be enlisted for general service, and should be obliged to go wherever military duty called them. They feared this greatly as another covert attack upon their caste ; " Who knows but that we may be ordered even to London." Soon after came the annexation of Oude, which took away their exclusive privileges and pnt the peasantry upon a level with them in English courts of justice. Their fears respecting their beloved caste had reached a climax; their peculiar privileges had been assailed; the Enfield rifle arrived, schools of musketry were established, and the greased cartridge set the train on fire. All the time, the Govern ment, true to its ancient policy of conciliation, while fostering caste prejudices on the one side, had, on the other, giveu repeated assurances that it would not interfere with their religion. But the Sepoys never believed one word of the Government -proclamations. Their owu plan for vanquishing a feared enemy has always been that of making profuse assurances of respect, loyalty, and obedience, while they quietly waited for tho right moment to strike a fatal blow. This has been their treacherous course over the whole of Upper India during tho mutiny. All along, therefore, they naturally believed that the Government wss acting in the same treacherons and cowardly manner. They saw how little regard the Government paid to its own professed religion: they saw tho fear which it entertained respecting caste, and the. rites of the Hindoo religion ; and they believed that all these proceedings were but secret preliminaries to the grand and final measure of forcibly making them Christians. They were prepared, therefore, to become the willing tools of that great Mahometan conspiracy, which had been long preparing for a final struggle against the English dominion in India: and the whole army mutinied.

the van,