Extracts.

Lyttelton Times, Volume XI, Issue 679, 11 May 1859, Page 3

Extracts.

THE INDIAN CAMPAIGN. The.-.! fdllo.wirigrexteaci >. fromrrther' Times'icorres?. pondence;iiated-r-fronvi Ouflev in: tiles months of November>:wilL be: found interesting: A NlGflT • Hit-' AN: INrirAlf' CAMP.1 ' •■ '. -; ': :": ': N6v^9. At this'raofning tbMrst buglesounded. At"s o'clock the column'marched ffdiri Beeylah to.' Leowlie; 10 miles' distant on the road to Amethie. Those Indian marches j picturesque enough at the close; and agreeable<in their preliminaries and; their commencement; Only an iron will and long experience can enable one to overcome the tumult which reigns all the night before, and to snatch a few hours of sleepy The klassies; or' tent pitchei's, are a most peculiar" class of:j men. The moment the tenths pitched-their cares for the day are over, and alltheaay'- they^sleep- under the eaves of the tent accordingly-, but1 as! darkness falls they get up and wataler'about stealthily, tapping tent-pegs and preparing for! thei great business of their existence. It is in' Vain that order after order has been- issued to the' klaasie* not to touch a tent-peg until the first buglel sounds. It is their caste to tap tent-pegs; they are bom to it, bred to it, and die to it. The whole.race of men belonging to this order would endure martyrdom in the faith that tent-pegs, when in the ground; are to be knocked out of it, and when out of the ground are to be knocked into it. When awake they can no more rest their impulses on this head than a London pickpocket can refuse the appeal of an easy pocket handkerchief. Soon after dusk the noise begins—tap! tap! tap! far and near, like a fire of musketry, for manya weary a^re of canvass-eovered ground. This is called tanking —striking the long deep Indian- tent-pegs on the sides so as to loosen them in the earth, and to prepare them for easy extrication when the tent is to be struck. The ground shakes with those myriad knockings—one gets feverish, restless,'rushes out on-the persecuting klassie, and, as he falls in' the dark: over the tent ropes, beholds a, white, ghost-like form glide away into obscurity. The shouts, cries j and noises of the bazaars swell into a tempest as the sutlers prepare to pack up their goods, and move off in the early night. Then, long before the first of, the small hours, the camels, which are to move your house and furniture, are brought close to the head of your bed. The " ships of the desert are anchored beside you, and the canvass offers no resistance either to the dreadful vapours which come from the holds of tlfose ships or _the sounds which rage on board. Those ships are always ma state of mutiny. A camel's life is a long,and loud protest against the load that is put on his back, and he wisely enters his. protest before the period of his suffering begins. I know of no sound more sleep destroying. Then there is the; trumpeting of elephants, the barking of dogs, the yelling of jackals: and, above all these, the hideous dissonance of the f many voice camp. The camp bells and gongs too i bray ire. time. They are generally a quarter of an hour or more before they finish one o'clock. The smoke of the? camp fires steals into the tent and ; half chokes one. Look out and you will see something like a Fuseli's dream of Pandemoniumblazing fires, surrounded by black men in white clothing;; moving to and fro, with strange quaint heads of camels,.elephants and other animals peering through and above them. A reddened smoke hang's in the air like a pall over the scene. Towards morning the horses begin to neigh, and those animals are" mostly sound-lunged, and are picketed close behind ihe; tents, so that—but what is the use of nry endeavouring, to dscribe the sights or sounds of an Indian camp; P My letter has already exceeded the limits-of newspaper capacity in its most indulgent moments " out of the season.-** —-It"itrwruiSiiJ' too, with difficulty on a table 18 inches high, from a stool a foot higher: CIVIL INTEEFEBENCE IN MILITAET MATTEBS. ♦•' Nov. 29. My last communication, if I recollect aright, brought the narrative of events occurring immediately around us up to the evacuation of Shunkerpore. The escape of Bainie Madhoo with his Sepoys and guns was, no doubt, a matter of mortification to Lord Clyde, but it was one_ which he could only have prevented by direct disobedience of the instructions of Government, and by an assault on the place before the civil powers had had time to exercise their function. And, once for all, let me record my humble opinion that the junction of the civil and military executive in military i operations is disadvantageous to the public service. I It is an old story; it is the old story over and I over again. Let the arguments by which a sort of I mixed administration of this kind is justified be plausible as may be, the facts are against the re- [ suit. In France, in Holland, and elsewhere,—in ! English armies, in American armies, the principle has been tried and has been found mischievous. But it will be said, with justice, that our position in Oude is anomalous. We are not making war of aggression or defence, we are not conquering fresh territories; our force is employed in rooting out rebellion and in establishing the civil power. The authority of Government is: delegated to its civil servants, who have power to collect revenue, to give and destroy titles, to determine political turpitude or innocence, to settle the country, to treat with rebels, to decide the course of our march, the direction of our efforts, and who have the high i authority to say, " Here shall your arras be staid," or to "cry havoc,and let slip the dogs of war." Such powers, however, exercised by men independent of the Commander-irt-Chief of any army in the field, are prejudicial ;to the success of armies. It is not in human nature to act with such decision and vigour—when there is a superintending and controlling power, as when a powerful will is free to act as seems best. In other countries generals j are placed at the head of armies, with powers almost uncontrolled, for the purpose of carrying on war that peace may come. Even English generals are for the most part permitted to make a campaign of which the objects are assigned to them accordl ing as they think fit, by movements and operations I for which they are responsible. Major Barrow, the commissioner at head-quarters, is a soldier, and no one knows better than he the evils which result from the hampering the free will of a general. He is a man of ability and of clear and liberal views, but he is bound to carry out the orders of, his Government, and the Commander-in-Chief is, in come sense, bound to obey Major Barrow. We come before a position held by a rebel chief, among whose followers are thousands of mutinous and many murderous Sepoys. Two British officers halt before the place with.powerful corps, well ap-; pointed with cavalry and guns. In a few hours, after _ their arrival our guns would have been in position and our troop 3 have been in readiness for the assault. _ " Stay your hands, my lord, till I have ascertained, in compliance with the express directions of Government, that this chief is aware of the terms of the proclamation, and is acquainted with the terms which we are empowered to offer to him." Lord Clyde obeys. He has not the means of investing the place. The enemy makes use of the delay to go off by night, to bury or to carry off their guns. The Indian papers are in frenzies of bad English; grief, despair, and indignation. The result is certainly to be deplored, even though ■we do gain the stronghold without bloodshed, because the enemy escape to work fresh mischief; but, in reality, only one did so escape, and he has been followed up,.driven out of his stronghold, and hunted across his own territory. The delay which took place may have averted a; loss of .men from us ; it has also deprived us of the prestige of

aisauguinary victory; but> on the whole,; great as the evili is, I do not see how the junction of the civil and, the. military authority is to be avoided in Oude. All I say is, that no.blame should,be,attached to the military officer, if his hands : are stayed by ordera which he is bound to, respect. The proclamation and the amnesty would have Jbeen an insult to common sense and humanity, and powerful weapons in the hands of those who accuse us: of deceit andperfidyj if we did not take care to fulfil their promises in letter, and in spirit.

PEOGEESSTHBOUGH A LAND OF WELL-WISHEHS Nov. 29.

On the- 21st we had another night march. We started from our camp before Koy Bareilly at 1 a.m. I had no opportunity of visiting that very ancient and remarkable town except on one, night, and I much regretted that I had not seen a.place so venerable and interesting when I heard, too late, of its antiquities and ruins. Our night march was not very successful this time. Our advance guard of Carabineers went wrong or we did not go right. The guns stuck in the; narrow streets of the town ; thecolumn was unable tosmove for more than two hours. It was long.after 3 o'clock- in the morning before we were clear of. the wonderful labyrinth of deserted streets and tottering,loopholed keeps, barbicans, portals, and battlemented walls which bear witness to the former greatness of • Bareilly. The crenelated and turretted walls seemed in tlie moonlight of great solidity and of great, height. The city is but a collection of- feudal pasties, old baronial forts of the noble of Oude, at the base of which, and in the adjacent spaces, is a stratum of hovels, perforated'by tortuous nariw-.paths and surrounded by the noble old wall. Scarcely a living being came forth to looklat our noisy array as it passed on. Hate and fear lived within these dark dwellings. When we: first approached all the people fled., Some of-them had consciences guilty of' ; blood,.for here. had British officers been murdered. When they found,wa did not destroy the town they, returned in small numbers, but the " respectable classes" kept away. As day broke we found;'our' track lay through a country of Exceeding loveliness ; and; fertility and culture. Strange it was to see . such rich crops in a. country where war and misrule had; revelled for years. The early husbandman scarce turned his head to look on our martial course. Here, before our eyes was the beau ideal of a , Frenchman's beau pays— -vast plains covered with crops around which' the most fastidious and penetrating eye could spy no weeds, rolling away in soft waves to. the horizon amid islands of forest and darkening groves, of richest verdure, peepul, and mangoe, and banyan. Never have Iso muchregrettecl, amid many regrets.which ignorance is sure to generate, my ignorance of botany, of arboriculture, and of animal and vegetable life. From every pond and lake and' grove rise at the noise of our march wonders of created-life. The plumed cranes, the. noisy eirus, the paddy birds, wild geese, duck, teal, widgeon, the himantopers, stilts, plover, minas jays, long-legged snipe^ quail, partridge, flycatchers, shrikes, wagtails, hawks, vultures, buzzards, kites, owls, doves, pigeons—all these, and many more, may be. classified, examined, studied, and bared to bone and feather end by the naturalist; but where is the cunning artist who will tell about the inner life of the dark husbandman who stalks close by us with his- team* or who with a simple bowl is irrigating with painful and careful labour, as his fathers did since Vishnu's first Avatar, that field of springing corn ? How are we- to get at Ms natural history? Who are the men who will engage in the proper study of mankind, and tell us all the secrets of that man's feelings and thoughts? It has not yet- been done, and I fear we have few among us who are fit for the essay. We enter a greasy young man oT some 30 years of age. The string over his shoulder and under his arm proclaims him a Brahmin. His servants are seated around him on the steps. The group of officers ride by—one turns and says "Ho you! Come here !" The Brahmin gets up with an ill grace—a great sensual-looking fine savage of 6ft. 2in. and some 20 stone weight—his, skin almost as fair as „ yours, good reader, if you are not the fairest of Saxon blood. He does not salaam. Of course.he is disaffected. Indeed, you see it in his eye. .He chews his mouthful of betel disrespectfully. " Have you seen Bainie Madhoo or any other budmashes here lately ?'■' Now, mark, this Bainie Madhoo is a great chief or noble in the land, whose only type was some great Norman baron or French seigneur in times, thank God, gone by! He is called a budmash—that is. a villain of bad character who lives by violence. If a party of Roundheads rode, into some agricultural village in Worcestershire and seizing on the parson of the parish asked him if Charles Stuart or any of his blackguards had passed that way, one may easily imagine that the form of interrogation would not have been palateable, or the information elicited very accurate or abundant. Our Brahmin answers "No, he had seen no budmashes." "Where is \ Bainie Madhoo ? " "He does not know," " Are you sure P "■' " Well, he does not know —your raj is restored. Is not that enough for you P " This is insolence. A cut over the bare back, another on the bare head, are the punishment. The Brahmin with rage, fear, and surprise on his features, retires, and we ride on; the officer, a kind, intelligent, active Englishman, only regretting that he had not time "to tie the blackguard up and give him two dozen, though, it might be against the Proclamation." We approach Bochraon. On our left there is a cloud of dust and indistinct figures, which an aide-de-camp resolves into Sowars. Cavalry and guns rush upon them, and the vision is precipitated into cattle and some flying herds. Mud villages, mud forts, mud walls, are on all sides of us, and, as our most soldier-lilce, well mounted, and smartlooking advance and vedettes of the 6th Madras Light Cavalry make their appearance in field after field, we see the people.flying,—some indeed, remaining at their work, and giving rise to surmises that the fugitives have reason for their flight. Another village we pass through. An old man is siezed upon—a Sepoy who served the Company twenty years ago ; his son, a pundit, is also carried off. They are questioned, but they can or will tell us nothing, and yet it is certain that some of Bainie Madhoo's band were in this neighbourhood a day or two ago; A young Brahmin, tall, handsome and graceful, is impressed. He has never heard of any budmashes. The lash of the whip does not unloose his tongue. " No, he knows nothing." No one will tell us anything. Even our clever old head spy wheedles, coaxes, and threatens in vairi. Just in the same way one of our officers thought he could get some intelligence from an old farmer, and began very subtly to ask him how far it was to Allahabad, to Soraon, to Lucknow, and to other places in Oude, to all of which inquiries he received a ready and accurate answer. But the moment he asked how far it was to Dhondia Kera and Buxhar Ghat the Buxhar farmer became helplessly cross and dark. "He had heard of one of those places—he believed it was near Delhi. He did not know anything about? any place west of this." Have we not, oh people of England and rulers of the State, a great conquest to effect when our armies shall have trampled rebellion under foot? We arrived at Bochraon, a distance of twenty-two miles from Eoy Bareilly—-about midday, somewhat fagged and worn. Our tents were pitched, and there we remained till daybreak, on the morning of the next day (the 22nd), when We marched to Khanpore or Tehra, on the othersidoof the river Sic—a name which, provoked an immense amount of bad punning. Tlie ford was not very good. In fact, it was uncomfortably deep and rotten in parts,

'ardour passage was extremely picturesque and amusing. As,; the leading men of the sth Fusilejersi halted to pull' off their trouserSiOn.the banks, one of the men ; called out, " What are you stripping, for? " "Don't, you see the; WAte.v. will take, u$ up to the hips£" was the reply,,; "Bedad," quoth one of the ']■ soldiery not a Northumbrian, "I tould you the' Girierai would never stop till he made us all1 Highlanders!" Cheery, gallant ißritish soldier! with all your, faults, he who trusts and treats you< well is, ever; sure s of your willing obedience in camp : or quarters, as .he; may rely on you in the shock of battle. And yet the British soldier had something to try his good temper that day. We crossed the Sic about nine o'.clock; our 'tents were tip andpitchedabout 12 o'clock; after a march of nine* or ten miles. At one p.m* orders came rouud< for the force to start at three p.m.—a short rest. Evelegh reported the, enemy to have actually fallen, back upon J)ho.nia ICera., Wehad turned south from Roy Bareilly, and were now marching south and west towards the Ganges. Atthree o'clock ■ the force was once more in motion, Carabineers, Police, Field Battery, Irregular Horse, sth Fusileers, Delhi Pioneers, and marching rapidly for seven miles,;. through an . extremely luxuriant country, reached. Oonaie, or,Woonaie, at; nightfall, though, it was; some time after dark before our baggage and tents were up. We dined by moonlight under, some trees, and most of us either bivouacked or crept into the small servants'' tents, called pall tents, instead of having our canvass cottages pitched so late. We are in the Byswarrah or Baiswarrah: country; —the land of the Bys or Rajpoots. From the little hamlets which dot those wide sea4ike plains of corn and forest: came the 1 i materials from which the great, bulk of our Bengal I 'army was constructed. Thither they flew when treason had done its worst, and thus it was that J, every talookd^r was able' to assemble his little 'corps of. trained Sepoys from his immediate neighbourhood.; During the latter periodsi of the feeble, rule of the Oude Nawabsthe; talookdars had "been in the, habit, of enlisting armed men, with ■ 5 whom they, garrisoned their fortresses and, jungle fastnesses, in order that they might resist the troops of the king, or. make aggression on iheir weaker neighbours. The existence of one fort, and of one force, compelled the creation of another, and thus Oude was studded with castles, such, as, they were, and. such as I have tried to describe ; them. The power, of the talookdars, was absolute over life, limb, and property, for, practically, it had no effectual limitation. They were proud of their order, jealous of their privileges, and by marriage strengthened their connexions, as far as the Hindoo law would allow, them. Such w;ere the arrogant, haughty race who, were suddenly called upon to surrender their powers, by a foreign official, and to , submit the very title?,, by which they held their estates to scrutiny. We can easily fancy how a Montmorenci, a'FitzGerald, a Percy, or a Howard would relish the position. Many of the talookdars were deprived of estates which they had held for half a century. Others were justly ousted-from the more recent acquisitions of fraud! or force; but in no case, could, the result be favourable, to our rule, for we did not, substitute, for the incenssd proprietors any class which could in emergency aid us, even if it were disposed to forget that gratitude is ; only an expectation of favours to come, I have seen a pa per- written by a native of Oude for one of our officers, which shows, at all events, the native opinion m_ reference to. some of the causes of ■ the dislike which is too evident and notorious for us to deny. Lord Canning.and Mr. Montgomery may flatter themselves that the mq|s of the people are with us. Let, them go out into the villages with an armed force and see. Let them judge native taskmakersj is against their ■ chiefs 'or against their present, rulers. Now,- this native says that, among other, matters after.annexation, Hunwunt Singly of Kalakunker, was brought into court by a Mahoniedan gentleman, who claimed the land on which the fortress of Rampore was built, as having been the property of ancestors in times gone by. The cause was adjudged against Huiiwunt Singh; and his hostility, which up to his recent submission was bitter, is accounted fox1 on that ground. Basunt. Singh, of Simurpaha, we are told was ridiculed by one of our officers, and was jestingly told to. climb up a tree to see if the Zing of Oude was, returning from Calcutta. The proud savage on his; return to his fort poisoned himself. Rugonauth Singh, of Khijoorgaon, was insulted in one of our courts to such a degree, that he vowed he never would live on his estates again, and moved his I'esidenqe to Allahabad. The whole order of talookdars are naturally against the power which controls them, and reduces the country to order and quiet. I have only further to remark that the various clans were strengthened and kept alive and active by marriages with races foreign to Oude, for the Hindoo code does not allow any marriage between the l'emotest relations —one of the reasons, perhaps, why this extraordinary race constantly maintains its full numbers without any addition by adoption, conversion, or conquest. Bainie Madhoo is. one of the greatest of this race. He has refused every favour; he has risked vast possessions, independence, life itself, on the issue of a most unequal contest; and now we have fairly dogged him to his last stronghold. Here, with his back to the Granges, his Brahmins tell him he may nobly die, and he declares he will do so —just as old Nirput Singh, of Roweah, who is a cripple, says, that God has taken one part of his body, and that he will give the rest to, his country and his faith ; and then ilies with all speed to live to fight another day. A NIGHT MABCH. .-.. , .... , • ■■;■'■.. •■■ -■; Nov. 29. Having placed a small force in the fort of Shunkerpose, the Commander-in-Chief's column started from iis camp at Peechwarra, 2| miles from Shunkerpore, at 8 o'clock on the night of the 18th. Now, of all modes in which a human being can get from one place to another, I, having had experience of the post-cart, the Eastern Counties Railway, the Dutch trekschuit, the French diligence fin rotundo), the Russian tarantasse, and the Scotch herring-boat, do aver and declare that the most utterly abominable is the night march with troops in India. It is very picturesque, no doubt, to see your tents struck by moonlight, the troops and natives moving about the watch-fires, and such matters ; but " sleep it is a heavenly thing," and when it does not spread from poll to poll, in camp, it makes men very ill-natured and spiteful, so that they rejoice exceedingly when their comrades fall into big holes in the dark, and resent very bitterly similar mishaps to themselves. The dust is most irritating, for you must keep close to the column and to. the guides. Walls look like roads by moonlight, and deep water-courses have the singular property of resembling pathways. The rice fields and grain crops, are deep, fetlock encumbering, and in them lie in ambush wells of prodigious profundity. Insidious branches of. trees are waiting to hit you on the head, and carry you off your horse. The quadruped itself, deprived of its natural rest, is sleepy, stumbling, and ill-disposed. The column straggles, baggage animals go astray; over and above all dominates abortive Morpheus and struggling Sournns. The stars persuade you in vain to bveak your net-k by a precipitate desi-ent over your horse's shoulder, but the end is nearly achieved by the desperate fitful starts with which you recover your balance and avert the former catastrophe. However, "great ia discipline," as one of the men said ; " here's thousands of us want to stay here and go to sleep, and here's one old gentleman won't let us ; and, because h«'s the only one that wants

to go, we all go." So tramp ! tramp ! we march round by the jungle of Shunkevpore, steering ;nearly_ duo north for Roy Bareilly, distant about 18 miles. The night passed somehow or other, and, we,arrived at our ground before daybreak, about a mile and a-half from the city. I. rode on with our vedettes and two or three officers—Major Crealock, Captain Thompson, and Mr. Pinkerfcon— in advance of the column, and before we knew the 'latter had halted we were close up to the town. On riding back to the column alone, I had an ad■venture, but as I seldom trouble the public with my personal affairs in campaigning, I shall only add that it was not a pleasant one. On such occasions as these the Commander-in-Chief avails :hhhself of a happy peculiarity, with a success Wihich most of us may despair of ever emulating. He sleeps at will. Down under a tree he goes, puts his hand under his head, obstinately rejecting pillows, or soft stones, or such comforts, and in a moment his regular quiet breathing shows that he is enjoying a repose,, from which little wakes him except a shot, or a note of bugle or trumpet. Less gifted beings lie in constant dread of being kneaded into the dust by passing elephants, or flattened by ■camels, and their sleep is disturbed by waking images of horror, though the spectator would observe nothing but little bundles of cloaks on the ground, sleeping syces and silent tired horses, and would hear .nothing but the. fine vigorous breathing of the fatigued campaigner.