On the Face of the Waters Part 65

I commenced to disperse the disturbers of the public peace on the 21st May. These were largely escaped felons from the Meerut jail; and the fact that they were quite indiscriminate in their lawlessness enabled me to rally most of the well-doing people on my side. I hanged a few of the offenders, and having enlisted a small corps with the aid of some native gentlemen (whose names I append for reference), sent it out under charge of my a.s.sistant (I myself being forced throughout the whole business to remain at headquarters and keep a grip on things) to put down some Goojurs and other predatory tribes who took occasion to resort to their ancestral habits of life.

No real opposition, however, was ever met with; but in June (after our failure to take Delhi by a _coup de main_ became known) there was an organized attempt to seize the Treasury. Fortunately I had some twenty or thirty of my new levy in headquarters at the time, so that the attempt failed, and I was able to bring one or two of the ringleaders (one, I regret to say, a man of considerable importance in my district) to justice.

I subsequently made several applications to the nearest cantonment for a few European soldiers to escort my treasure--some two lakhs--to safer quarters. But this, unfortunately, could not be granted to me, so I had to keep a strong guard of men over the money who might have been more useful elsewhere.

Until the fall of Delhi matters remained much the same. Isolated bands of marauders ravaged portions of my district, often, I regret to say, escaping before punishment could be meted out to them. The general feeling was one of disquiet and alarm to both Europeans and natives.

My table attendant, for instance, absented himself from dinner one day, sending a subst.i.tute to do his work, under the belief that I had given orders for a general slaughter of Mohammedans that evening. I had done nothing of the kind.

After the fall of Delhi, as you are aware, the mutinous fugitives, some fifty or sixty thousand strong, marched southward in a compact body and caused much alarm. But after camping on the outskirts of my district for a few days, they suddenly disappeared. I am told they dispersed during one night, each to his own home. Anyhow they literally melted away, and the public mind seemed to become aware that the contest was over, and that the struggle to subvert British rule had ignominiously failed. Matters therefore a.s.sumed a normal aspect, but I believe that there is more shame, sorrow, and regret in the hearts of many than we shall probably ever have full cognizance of, and that it will take years for the one race to regain its confidence, the other its self-respect.

_Civil Judicature_.--The courts were temporarily suspended for a week or two; after that original work went on much as usual, but the appellate work suffered. There was an indisposition both to inst.i.tute and hear appeals, possibly due to the total eclipse of the higher appellate courts. I myself had little leisure for civil cases.

_Criminal Justice_.--There has been far less crime than usual during the past year. Possibly because much of it had necessarily to be treated summarily and so did not come on the record. I am inclined to believe, however, that petty offenses really are fewer when serious crime is being properly dealt with.

_Police_.--The less said about the behavior of the police the better.

The force simply melted away; but as it was always inefficient its absence had little effect, save, perhaps, in a failure to bring up those trivial offenses mentioned in the last para.

_Jails_.--The jail was happily preserved throughout; for the addition of four or five hundred felons to the bad characters of my district might have complicated matters. I was peculiarly fortunate in this, since I learn that only nine out of the forty-three jails in the Province were so held.

_Revenue_ (_Sub-head, Land_).--The arrears under this head are less than usual, and there seems no reason to apprehend serious loss to Government.

(_Opium_).--There has, I regret to say, been considerable detriment to our revenue under this head, due to the fact that the smuggling of the drug is extremely easy, owing to its small bulk, and that the demand was greater than usual.

(_Stamps_).--The revenue here shows an increase of Rs. 72,000. I am unable to account for this, unless the prevailing uncertainty made the public mind incline toward what security it could compa.s.s in the matter of bonds, agreements, etc.

(_Salt and Customs_).--This department shows a very creditable record.

My subordinates, with the help of a few volunteers, were able to maintain the Customs line throughout the whole disturbances. Its value as a preventative of roving lawlessness cannot be over-estimated. Four hundred and eighty-two smugglers were punished, and the Customs brought in Rs. 33,770 more than in '56. But the work done by this handful of isolated European patrols, with only a few natives under them, to the cause of law and order, cannot be estimated in money.

_Education_.--The higher education went on as usual. Primary instruction suffered. Female schools disappeared altogether.

_Public Works_.--Many things combined to stop anything like a vigorous prosecution of new public works, and those in hand were greatly r.e.t.a.r.ded.

_Post-Office_.--The work in this department suffered occasional lapses owing to the murder of solitary runners by lawless ruffians, but the service continued fairly efficient. An attempt was made, by the confiscation of sepoys' letters, to discover if any organized plan of attack or resistance was in circulation, but nothing incriminatory was found, the correspondence consisting chiefly of love-letters.

_Financial_.--At one time the necessary cash for the pay of establishments ran short, but this was met by bills upon native bankers, who have since been repaid.

_Hospitals_.--The dispensaries were in full working order throughout the year, and the number of cases treated--especially for wounds and hurts, many of them grievous--above the average.

_Health and Population_.--Both were normal, and the supply of food grains ample. Markets strong, and well supplied throughout. Some grain stores were burned, some plundered; but, as a rule, if A robbed B, B in his turn robbed C. So the matter adjusted itself. In many cases also, the booty was restored amicably when it became evident that Government could hold its own.

_Agriculture_.--Notwithstanding the violence of contest, the many instances of plundered and burned villages, the necessary impressment of labor and cattle, and the license of mutineers consorting with felons, agricultural interests did not suffer. Plowing and sowing went on steadily, and the land was well covered with a full winter crop.

_General Remarks_.--Beyond these plundered and burned villages, which are still somewhat of an eyesore, though they are recovering themselves rapidly, the only result of the Mutiny to be observed in my district is that money seems scarcer, and so the cultivators have to pay a higher rate of interest on loans.

There are, of course, some empty chairs in the district durbar. I append a list of their late occupants also, and suggest that the vacancies might be filled from the other list, as some of those gentlemen who helped to raise the levy have not yet got chairs.

In regard to future punishments, however, I venture to suggest that orders should be issued limiting the period during which mutineers can be brought to justice. If some such check on malicious accusation be not laid down we shall have a fine crop of false cases, perjuries, etc., since the late disturbances have, naturally, caused a good many family differences. In view of this also, I believe it would be safest, in the event of such accusations in the future, to punish the whole village to which the alleged mutineer belongs by a heavy fine, rather than to single out individuals as examples. In a case like the present it is extremely difficult to measure the exact proportion of guilt attachable to each member of the community, and, even with the very greatest care, I find it is not always possible to hang the right man. And this is a difficulty which will increase as time goes on.

APPENDIX B.

DELHI, Christmas Day, 1858.

DEAR MRS. ERLTON: I can scarcely believe that two whole years have pa.s.sed since I helped you to decorate a Christmas-tree in the Government college here. Those long months before the walls, and those others of wild chase after vanishing mutineers over half India seem to belong to someone else's existence now that I--and the world around me--are back in the commonplaces of life. I was down to-day helping the chaplain's wife with another tree--she has a very pretty sister, by the way, just out from England--and I almost fancied as I looked into the dim screened veranda where we are going to have an entertainment, that I could see you sitting there with little Sonny Seymour on your lap as I found you that afternoon half asleep--that interminable play about the Lord of Life and Death (wasn't it?) had been too much for you.

Well, I can only hope that Mr. Douglas' health and the pleasures of that Scotch home, of which you wrote me such a delightful description, will allow of your returning to India sometime and giving me a sight of you again.

Meanwhile I am reminded that I sent you off a small parcel by last mail which I trust may arrive before the wedding, as this should do, and convey to you the kindly remembrances of friends many thousand miles away. Not that you will need to be reminded. I fancy that few who went through the Indian Mutiny will ever need to have the faces and places they saw there recalled to their memory. Terrible as it was at the time, I myself feel that I would not willingly forget a single detail. So, being certain that it holds your interest, your imagination also, I am inclosing something for you to read. Can you not imagine the Silent and Diffident Dashe writing it? I can, and the careful way in which he would order the gallows to be removed and lay down his sword in favor of his pen at the earliest opportunity. You see he favors clemency Canning. So do most of us out here except those who have not yet recovered their nerves. I remember hearing Hodson--sad, wasn't it? his death over a needless piece of dare-devilry--very angry over something Mr. Douglas said about our all being in a blind funk. I am afraid it was true of a good many. Not Dashe, however, he kept his district together by sheer absence of fear, and so did many another. This report, then, will carry you on in the story, as it were, since you left us. For the rest, there is not much to tell. You remember our old mess khansaman Numgal Khan? He turned up, with his bill, and out of pure delight insisted on feasting us so lavishly that we had to make him moderate his transports. Even with _batta_ and prize money we should all have been bankrupt, like the royal family. I can't help pitying it. Of course we have pensioned the lot, but I expect precious little hard cash gets to some of those wretched women. One of them, no less a person than the Princess Farkhoonda Zamani, that beast Abool-bukr's ally, has set up a girls'

school in the city. If she had only befriended you instead of turning you out to find your own fate, she would have done better for herself.

Talking of friends and foes, it is rather amusing to find the villages full of men busy at their plows with a suspiciously military set about the shoulders, who, according to their own showing, never wore uniform, or doffed it before the Mutiny began. I was much struck with one of these defaulters the other day; a big Rajpoot, who, but for his name, might have stood for the Laodicean sepoy you told me about. But names can be changed, so can faces; and that reminds me that I had a pet.i.tion from that old scoundrel Tiddu the other day--you know I have been put on to civil work lately, and shall end, I suppose, by being a Commissioner as well as a Colonel. He has had a grant of land given him for life, and he now wants the tenure extended in favor of one Jhungi, who, he declares, helped you in your marvelous escape. It seems there was another brother, one Bhungi, who--but I own to being a little confused in the matter. Perhaps you can set me straight.

Meanwhile, I have pigeon-holed the Jhungi-Bhungi claim until I hear from you. The old man was well, and asked fervently after Sonny, who, by the way, goes home from Lucknow in the spring. I expect the Seymours are about the only family in India which came out of the business unscathed; yet they were in the thick of it. Truly the whole thing was a mystery from beginning to end. I asked a native yesterday if he could explain it, but he only shook his head and said the Lord had sent a "breath into the land." But the most remarkable thing to my mind about the whole affair is the rapidity with which it proved the stuff a man was made of. You can see that by looking into the cemeteries. India is a dead level for the present; all the heads that towered above their fellows laid low. Think of them all! Havelock, Lawrence, Outram. The names crowd to one's lips; but they seem to begin and end with one--Nicholson!

Well, good-by! I have not wished you luck--that goes without saying; but tell Douglas I'm glad he had his chance.

Ever yours truly,

CHARLES MORECOMBE.

FOOTNOTES

[Footnote 1: From Colonel W. Wheler's defense.]

[Footnote 2: This question is one which must be asked as we look back through the years on this pitiful spectacle of the loyal regiment, unarmed, facing the disloyal one shooting down its officers. Briefly, on whom would the seventy men of the 11th, who never left the colors, the hundred and twenty men who returned to them after the short night of tumult was over, have fired if a company of English troops had come up to turn the balance in favor of loyalty?]

[Footnote 3: (How? His house lay a mile at least further off, and the Collector's office was on the only route a messenger could take. No record explains this. But the best ones mention casually that a telegram of warning came to Delhi in the early morning of the 11th.

Whence? the wires to Meerut were cut. Lah.o.r.e, Umballa, Agra, did not know the news themselves. Can the story--improbable in any other history, but in this record of fatal mistakes gaining a pathetic probability--which the old folk in Delhi tell be true? The story of a telegram sent _unofficially_ from Meerut the night before, received while the Commissioner was at dinner, put unopened into his pocket, and _forgotten_.