The Sun.
London, England, 1857-09-28 00:00:00

A TRIP

' A NG ES.

The following is a copy of a second letter from
an Indian officer to his father; dated July 18, con-
taining particulars of the fi,dVaiicb. of the steamer
Berhampooter up the Ganges, • for the relief of
Cawnpore • . • •
" I was despatched with -100.4 f my men, two
guns, and 12 artillerymen (theelat Fusileers) in the
steamer, which was placed at nit command and
under my orders to proued to Cawnpore, and assist
a land column of 400 more of my regiment in re-
lieving the garrison, whioli had beau surrounded
for many weeks by a force of 2,000 rebel Sepoys,
who were well supplied with ammunition of all
kinds, as they had made themselvee masters of our
magazines, arsenals, &c. A steamer had not been
up this way for many years,
.and- the trial then was
a failure ; sa, as the country was in the rebels'
hands on both banks of the river, you may imagire
I did not start with a light heal*, especially as
everybody Laid I could not do it e however, I did
not urge one objection, and I thank God I
have arrived here iu safety, witl,Out the loss of
a single man or follower, though_ I have many
a hole in the steamer. • We ha no coals and
had to forage for fuel every,: day, and as
we ceLameeced the second day to collect it
under fire of about 50J matchloclarien in the Oude
country with a b;,-,6 gun, my prospect of getting to
Cawnpore looked bad ; but I sat the followers to
work for the wood, took half my nlO with titles to
thrash the enemy, which we did in half an hour,
besides charging them and taking their gun, and in
less than two hours we were Under.ateaan, but the
Ganges is such a rapid river that we could scarcely
move against the stream, never got more than two
miles an hour, and now and then had, when going
round a corner, to leave some. of the boats we were
towing (with our provisions, 'Wood;.. &c.) and get
them round one at a time. Our second attack we
escaped without hurt, only two your d shot lodged
iu some safe part of the vessel ; besides we were
at some distance from the fellow; who was pitching
inter us from a ,
high tank,
~heat. vaitia., our Enfield
rifles we managed kill one and wound five, so'
he told us afterwards, for I had a little correspond-
elle° with him after th .Ikv!out the third
day I had informatioa sent me that tile Cawnpore
garrison •had fallen by treachery : -these scoundrels
promised them a safe passage Allahabad by the
river if they would give . in, but no sooner did•
they get hold of the garrison than they-massacred'
all the men. Upon this news I was ord, red to keep
with General Havelock's column, which had been
sent on to strengthen our first party; adding some
1,200 men to the force, and We went-our daily dis-
tance together, they by land, I by:water, but as I
was waiting for General Havelock's force to reach
me (we, were from five to eight miles from each
other every day), and as we were taking it easy,
1 its one afternoon whack came a round shot right
across our deck, breaking the- spoke of a gun-
wheel, and taking off a man's pouch ;' then another
through the vessel's iron side. We soon returned
the
_compliment from our guns and rifles at about
900 yards' distance, but their guns-were so com-
pletely hidden by long grass that we could only
fire at their smoke. It took us an hour to get
up steam and move over to them, but we saved
several men's lives by piling up the bedding and the
valises round the deck. The shot theil went into
the bedding, cutting up the contents, but were
effectually stopped at that distance.' By the time
we got across the river some 300 matchlock men
were ready on a high bank, their guns .in a marsh
in front of them but not to be seen, se, as it was
getting dark, I thought discretion was the best, and
moved off for the Light out of range. The next
morning the fellows were all gone. T' waited here for
two days, and was told that two guns were waiting
for me a little higher up. I got up steam, and was
going off, when a letter was sent me. from a power-
ful Zemindar, an Oude man, the Owner of the
two guns, saying that ha had heard I had a
steamer full of Europeans and was about to attack
him, but he begged I would not dO;e=s, as he was a
faithful servant of Government, se-c. "I believe it
was the same scoundrel that fired upon me, but he
had heard also that our land column had.that morn-
, ing had their first brush with the rebels and taken
lrguns, so he thought it best to knock under at
once. I passed hiS town about two hours after-
wards ; he had two guns in position, a lot of horse-
men, and a cloud of matchlock mon ; but my ob-
ject was to get to Cawnpore, and cross our troops
over to the Lucknotir aide in the steamer, so I left
• my friend iu peace. He had a beantiftallolace' and
a large house or castle-looking plaCe, whieb, from
its position, height, &c., put us all in mind of
Windsor Castle.
" At my next difficult place to pass the:ewner also
sent me a letter of submission, so I completed my
voyage in peace yesterday at noon. "
"The Oude Bank of the river is most beautiful all

the way, and has a parklikeeappearanee—large treeB • e
and green lawns covered with cattle, 'and ploughs
going. No wonder a Governor-GeneratcOveted the
country. If he had disarmed it we shotild have had
less work to do now, but it must be done, for it is a
country of robbers 'who will loot anybody and any- .
thing.tentered o
iT he land-co:lwunanpnowre. as met
iltookb by theall 2
rebels 6 twice
before guns,
and has now driven the scoundrels some miles out
of the station. It is as I am writing. still in pursuit,
but we have no cavalry, so I fear thees will yet
esmpe punishment.
" Our hands are tied till we get more troops, espe-
cially cavalry, and I fear we cannot move on to
Lucknow for many days t) come, for a large force
ninit be left here, and I don't suppose Qur present
moveable column exceeds 1,500 of all arms. More _
are on their way from Cahill' ta, and by this time a
goodly force has set sail from England.. .We must
have a force now of 20,000 sent and added to the
present European Indian force, whiolilias. been re-
duced to such an extent that this present outbreak
has arisen. For years these Mahomeclans have
been biding their time and trying to get"the Hin-
docs to help them, and they have succeeded for a
time. One old subadar the otho: day, Who•was not
quite so bad as his neighbours, and who had got
seine of his officers to escape, put a bag •of money
(901.) in one of their hands, and said, 'Toll Eng-
lish must now go, we have now got the Hindoos on
our side, we are too strong, and our arrangements
are so complete nothing can resist us ' besides, you
have made a great mistake, you think the King of
Ouele is at the head of this but it is the King of
Delhi who is to be King of India. As sooa as you
have gone I thou take all the troops here- to Delhi.'
This occurred near Benares, but after the officers
were in boats the brutes of Sepoys went after them,
and shot them and took the money ; but it is
more than I can write to tell you of all the
frightful scenes that have occurred and are still tak-
ing place. No one wculd believe that men who
have lived a civilized life under our role for so
many years could have committed these atrocities,
and really without reason, except that they have
been treated too kindly. The cause of the out-
break and of so many being among the rebels is
that the heads of the mutiny have worked upon the
Sepoys' minds that it was the intention of the Eng-
lish to make Christians of the whole of the army
and people of India, and they had worked them
up to such a pitch that the greased cartridges
coming just at the time, and those little cakes being
cleverly and artfully distributed by the post-office
authotities to nearly every village in brdia settled
the business.
" Natives, especially those high caste north coun-
try fellows,' would lose anything rather than their
caste, so they have given up pay, pensio'n, life, and
everything where they 7theught it vas' dabger,
and made a vow that every Chr stian in the country
should be murdered, -and, -not only ge, • ;white
people, but all half-caste and other Christians have
been destroyed wherever they could be tfferwith.
" All along this river the indigo planters and
railway officials have been killed and their houses
burnt and property destroyed. Eery cantonment
looks as if some dreadful earthquake. had shaken
and destroyed it, for the' very walls of the houses
have been.' down.. .It vas a work soon
accomplished, for the Sepoys only esteked the trea-
sury, and murdered their office ee And their
families, and the bad characters of' the city,
which is always near a cantonment, soon
completed the work of destruction._ • All civil
government is for the present at an • end, and
the whole country a blaze of fire, for one village
turns out to loot and burn its smaller neighbour,
to be itself served in the same way before the night
is out.
cc Next year there will be a fem'ne, for, all are
now afraid to work, and this is the seal-Sowing
time ; so the sufferings of the population Of India
will be dreadful. Every Sepoy that is caught is
Immediately hanged."