The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-03 00:00:00

LONDON, SA_CU I:, DAY EYENIN G-1 CSC; I 0 B14:R 3, iSb7

THE MCTINIES IN INDIA.

The following is from an officer in the Engineers :
" Camp Delhi, Aug. 8.
" My dear Father,—l think you hardly know
our present position. It is a pretty mess John
Cempany has got himself into. After all it is only
what one might have expected, considering how the
Sepoys were treated. -.Anything that they objected
to was given up at once. The greatest care was
always to be taken not to offend them. It was
against their caste to do this, that, or the ether,
and unless they chose they never did do it. They
declared it was utterly impossible for them to use
the Enfield cartridges, yet they have shot down
many a poor fellow of ours with these very car-
tridges.. It does not seem to be against their caste
now. We are very anxious to see how people at
home take all this. They say we ought to know
more of our men, be more with them, Sec. With
European soldiers an officer always goes into
their barracks, looks- at thejr dinners, plays cricket
with the men, and of course comes to know
there. That is simply a consequence of their both
beiriEuropeans. To do the same with Sepoys we
must turn .Hindoos or something of the sort, for
under existing circumstances you might be cow t-
martialed' for going near a Sepoy while he is feeding
—as that takes away his caste. Going into his hitt is
perfect profanation, or perhaps sacrilege ; neither
may you touch any of his cooking materials or uten-
sils, or even the wood he is going to cook with. They
pal became so pampered that they would hardly
stand being spoken to. If after all this we are
obliged to have Sepoys again I hope they will be a
d fferent lot and treated in a very different manner.
They have proved themselves thorough curs. They
can murder helpless women and children bravely,
but a-handful ofd armed Europeans frighten -there
outright, and theyalways have avoided places where
perhaps 30 or 40, armed Europeans have been col-
lected. Look, for instance, at Roorkee. The 100
soldiers (college students) there have kept all that
part or the country quiet, and Roorkee itself is un-
touched. At Delhi they are five Or six to one against
us, and see the miserable attempts they made to
turn us out of our position. They have swarmed
ttpthe heights in front of our batteries by thousands.
The ground is so broken and full of ravines and
rocks that they can come up the whole way unseen,
or you may depend upon it they would never ven-
ture. • If they had the pluck of a goose their numbers
might terrify Us, but they never come' near us, and
only, show themselves off at a distance, firing their
muskets into the air, shouting most awfully, but
doing nothing more. It is in the Subzee Mu n dee'
;hat all ilieliard fighting goes on. They get into,
f,nd on the tops of houses, and fire into our-pickets
there. This goes on until we send a force from camp
to turn them out, which we invariably do, but not
without some loss. We have now cleared the ground
all round of the trees, walls, and houses. The con-
sequence is, there is a large space around our pickets,
and 'Panay' will not venture out of cover, au we let
him. pop away from a distance until he is tired. If
ou hear people talking of our not being able to take
Delhi, you must deny it, simply because We have
not made any attempt to do so. I have no
doubt, too, that it is thele,tst policy, for while there
is a Delhi to slink to, all the rebels will flock there
inseead of running wild about the country, where
they would do much more harm. Be.ddes, we shall
have them all in a lump and be able to polish them
off at once. We, I mean our particular corps, have
had very hard work since it left Meerut. We have
lost 3 officers and had 2 wounded, and out of 45
European Sappers we have lost 15 and 3 wounded.
The list of ofticees killed and wounded before Delhi
amounts to upwards of 90, besides those who have
been obliged to leave on account of sickness. This
shows the officers have not been behindhand in any
fight or scrimmage. I think I never told you how
splendidly the ladies behaved at Meerut. You
should have seen them to appreciate the whole
thing—how cheerfully they took every mishap.
Though they were all packed within a smallish
square place surrounded by high brick walls, none
Of them ever grumbled or apparently became fright-
ened. On the contrary, they used to be dancing
about the place (we were at work fortifying if),
offering us tea and all sorts of refreshment. It was
warm work looking after the coolies who were taken
as sappers, all the originals having gone off to Delhi.
The rains have regularly. set in now, all the low
ground about Metcalfe's house is flooded. A siroug
stream now runs in the Jutnest, and we are going
to take advantage of it snd try to destroy the bridge
of boats. Several methods have been talked of.
Yesterday we started three infernal machines, con-
sisting of a tub containing 501 b. of gunpowder ; a
piece Of stick was stuck up outside, which, if it
came in contact with anything, tired a pistol inside.
Wo made a boat, also, and started them as near as
possible in the middle of the stream. One
went off on an isl.and in the river and did nobody
any harm ; another was stranded and didn't go off
at all ; and nobody knows what became of the third.
So our first attempt must be considered &failure. I
hope we may do better next time. We have been
raising a corps of Sikh Sappers and Miners. Some
of the companies have already arrived here, but
they are .not of much use, as they are quite un-
trained. As it iq, all our work is done with
coolies, whom we have dignified with the name of
pioneers. Among the houses at this station were
a few flat-roofed ones which were saved in the
general conflagration. In one of these we have
established ourselves very comfortably. Au old
wooden billiard table forms our mess table. We
have managed to Lot a punkah, and are much
Letter off than those who live in tents, while our
park is iu the next compound.
" Lord Ellenborough was not very far out when
he said in. the House that if we didn't mind what
awe were tout, we should have one of the most
bloody revolutions in India. We are all very
happy here, only a little anxious to get into Delhi
and have a real slap at the Pandies.' You may
be assured they will catch it when the aseau!t does
take place."

The following is from an Artillery officer : '
lla,s4tooreminoforerc
"Camp, Delhi, Aug. 10.
"We a-e in much the same state as when I last
evironosties.tingT hoof
glear
about a week, and then we do not know whether
cripteafnsro7 up-country,
the assault will takes place at once, or whether we
will be in in
shall wait for Sir Patrick Grant. I hope we may,
as I should not like to punish these villains by
halves. Our men are mad to get at them. We have
beet' very much annoyed by their guns lately ; they
have taken up a new position on the right, which
completely enfilades several of our batteries. Au
expedition, in which I was to have had two guns,
was in orders, but was countermanded as tite
ground is excessively bad, and they are afraid our
loss would be very heavy. For the last three or
four days we have had very heavy firing on both
sides. We expend 100 rounds per gun, and
you can imagine how they blaze away when
the day before yesterday 450 round shot were
picked up which they had fired. Two or three
dais ago 50 =ands of their powder blew up in
the city. There has bean much discussion in
consequence, as they have accused the Prime Minis-
ter ut having been concerned in it, and have
got him prisoner. I continue very well, except a
bad ear-aelie, which comes on from being exposed
at night, as the dew is very heavy, and we have
no shelter. However, we ought not to complain.
The horse artillery duties are light compared with
those of the foot ; out of 157 men fit for duty we
have 130 always on, so you can fancy what work
they ivied with the heavy guns day and night.
The engineers have been trying to blow up the
bridge of boats with infernal machines, but at pre-
sent have been unsuccessful, and I don't see that
we gain much if we do destroy a boat or-two, as
the river is so low they can easily repair it. I
believe the city will be given up to three day's
plunder. I fear it will make our Europeans very
uudisciplined. Heaven knows they are hard
enough to control hero, but when they have once
gone in like bloodhounds, and been allowed to
plunder they will be downright demons,—after the
way.in which the 6th behaved at Allahabad, em-
bracing their officers, assuring them over and over
and over again of their fidelity, and with tears en-
treeting them to trust in them, till the officers
thought they might rely on men with whom they
had 13? en so long, and did so, and the result was
they cut them all up in the night-26 of them, and
come mere boys who had been doing duty with them.
I'm sick of writing of massacres. The papers will
give you circumstances I do not remember well
enough to detail myself. At Peshawur, I am
happy to say .all is as yet quiet, but I am very
much afraid to hear bad news, more especially of
the 7th Irregulars who were mutinously inclined.
A good many of my friends are lying close her,
in their graves and several gone away sick. As
long as you keep well and get shelter I think
the weather is very pleasant, much more so than
I ever imagined the weather could be in the rains,
as at Peshawur this is the hottest and most
trying
season in the year. I fear this is a very
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