The daily exchange. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1858-1861, 1858-04-20
F 0 R E IG N .
THE MAILS OF THE AFRICA.
THE WAR IN INDIA.
From the Times Crimean Correspondent. !


From the Times Criraean Correspondent
THE HEAD QUARTERS OF THE GOVERNOR GENERAL.
February lO.-AwOke by the familiar strains of
the reveillee of our light infantry bugles and by
great cold. BY gray light the 18th Light In
tantry, Lord Mark kerr's Regiment, turning out
They form the outlying garrison of Allahabad, be-
ing encamped on the plain between the fort and the
town. After breakfast drove over to the fort which
is large quadrangular work, situate at the juno
ton of the Jumha and the Gangss, which is near
ly at right angles. In the great square inside is
pitched the camp of his Excellency the Gov
ernor-General of India. His Exceency lives in
an ordinary generals tent, and all the principal
officers attached to the machinery of the state which
he has carried with him under canvass. AS an
evidence of the state of the country and of the in
adequacy of the military means at the disposal of
the government to do all that is desirable. | NAV
mention that the yery day before we arrived the
report of cannonade was heard in the governors
camp about noon, and soon after news arrived that
chief at the other side of the Ganges near Suraon
had proclaimed his independence, and had ordered
a salvo to be fired by his guns in honor of his rail-
The GovernorGeneral has not man to send to chas-
tise this insolence, he give any active sup
port to Mr.. Mayne, who is struggling to maintain
the civil authority at Suraon.
THE SCENE OF BUTCHERY-THE FATAL WELL.
CaWnpOre, however, was only extensive col
lection of detached bungalows and offices spread
over an immense space of ground, and here and
there concentrated into piles of barracks, maga-
zines and offices. The utter ugliness of brick when
ugliness of mud walls in decay are there pitt
lessly exposed by the hand of the marauder and by
the cannon shot But for the sad interest attached
to these hdeOus mounds, which tOrciby remind
one of the unhoarded spaces in London where
Improvement commissioners at work, labelled
''rubbish may be shot here" Cawnpore would be
most vulgar, commonplace aggregate of unnhabit-
able ediices. We drive on little further, and on
our right amid many broken bungalows. there is
visible an enclosure with broken walls and shatter-
ed gateposts, in the centre of which is a heap of
brick. mud, and white plaster about two or three
feet high, scattered over fifteen twenty square
yards of ground Close to this heap there are some
leatiess trees and the topmOst branch of one of
these just the centre of the mound, with its
foul plumage lighted up by the rays of the rising
sun, sits horrid vulture. 4 few yards beyond
this mass of the ruins of what had once been
a house there rose a ramp or soping mound of
earth from the level of the ground to the edge of
brick WELL the top of which covered in and close
by the well stood monumental cross 1t was
scarcely necessary for my companion to saw "There
is the house. and lust beyOnd it is the we'll" We
passed on by the backened wall of absurdly
fine masonic lodge, and by the ruins of very spa
cous building called the Assembly Rooms, Just op-
posite the scene of the butchery by house close to
it, in which the Mana lived after the occupation of
the place by the sepoys; and then through the re-
mains OF mud houses and bungalows, till we reached
the ruins of the Cawnpore hotel.
THE HANDWRITING ON THE WALLS.
Before breakfast we walked over to inspect the
sepoy mutiny infamous for ever The house in which
it took place is in ruins; it was pulled down to
clear the ground for the guns of the tete de pont
across the Ganges and the very outline of the walls
is scarcely traceabe. 1t was originally built for
and used a zenana, an enclosed residence, with
courtyard in the centre, in which the stump of a
tree was still standing; and off this open space
the rooms in which the massacre took place. The
plaster of the walls still lying about in patches,
but could not detect any trace of blood. Bits of
cloth and wOmens dresses were still visible
amid the rubbish; but there were none of
the more painful tokens of the dreadful tragedy
which had been enacted where stood. There is
reason to believe that the writing on the plaster,
the purpOrt of which you know, did not exist when
Havelock's force entered the place. 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 i'm
mediately after we returned to Cawnpore, and that
it had been traced the wall by some person
who visited the place subsequently. shall here
after mention circumstance which favors that
supposition As there nothing left of the house
but heap of bricks and plaster, and some few
stumps of brick pillars, walked few PAGES fur
ther to the well in of the house, into which the
bodies of the slaughtered women and children were
thrown by the murderers. 1t is now bricked over,
and there only remains a small circular ridge of
brick marking the wall of the well, which not
more than nine or ten feet Beneath rest
the mangled remains OF our poor cOuntrywomen and
their little ones; and standing there we could well
realize the strength of that indignation which stees
the hearts of our soldiers against the enemy.
THE CAMP OF THE CoAMANDER-IN-CHIEF.
We retraced out steps through the ruins, and af-
ter breakfast proceeded to the camp of the Com
mander-in- Chief, which is placed far outside the
city, to the tete de pon. The approach to it is
marked by trains of oxen and baggage animals
hackeries and bullock carts, dOOies or litters for
the wounded. Certainly the Commander-in- Chief
does not set an example to his officers by any ex-
travagance in baggage He lives in a small subal-
terms tent and his chief of the staff is equally mod
crate believe his excellency's personnel is con-
tanned in couple of small portmanteaus, and dur
ing this short campaign he has slept the ground
among his men on more than one occasion without
cover of any sort. He is apparently in excellent
health, although his labOrs are arduOus and nces-
sant as he and his chief of the staff manage all the
details connected with the disposition of his force,
and to great extent dispense with the usual SER
vices of adjutant- general and quartermaster-gen-
eral.
AN INVOLVEMENT BATH FOR "PANDy."
short time ago body of sepoys crossed the
Ganges, just below its junction with the waters of
the Grand Canal. The river low, and they
forded it without difficulty, but, finding that there
was small force waiting to receive them, they re-
tired precipitately after brief encounter and pre-
pared to re-ford the river. As they were contend
ing with its shallow waters, the officer in charge of
the canal suddenly turned down the suice gates,
and in few moments the immense body of water,
which had been diverted from its channel, returned
to its bed with fury, and swept away 200 of the mu
tineers in its course.
THE ENTRENCHMENTs AT CAwNPoRE.
To-day went over the so-called enSrenchments at
Cawnp0re which were held by Wheeler's garrison
for nearly three weeks. 1t was melancholy sight
beyond description, sad and desolate. The posi-
ton, if such it can be called consists of two lofty
one-storyed buildings, intended, believe, to be
| barracks divided into many rooms, with outward
doors opening into corridors. There are two deep
wells near these paralelograms, which are at the
distance of 100 yards or so from each other, and
| three detached out-houses on the Hanks These
buildings are surrounded by the remains of misera
BILE trench formed by casting up the earth dug from
the soil out on a slope towards the enemy. There is
ditch whatever the trench could never have been
| six feet deep, and, the enemy all round
the station, these open trenches enfladed
on all sides. The severity of the fire excessive.
Every square yard of the walls is perforated by
cannon-shOt, the roofs knocked to pieces, and
| in places have tumbled in mdsse. No part of
Sebastopol-not even excepting the range of bar
racks behind the Great Redan, is more battered
and shaken than the barracks at Cawnpore. In one
small space | counted seyentythree shOthnes most
! of which were through and through the walls. The
party were perforated and battered in the same
manner. 1t was a wonder how any one could live
inside for an hour. At one angle of a room was
written in pencil, "Below this mark young Wheel
er killed by cannon ball, which took off his
head His blood and brains spattered the
wall below" Scraps of music books and fragments
of womens dresses still lie among the tiles, bricks
and filth with which the floors covered. In
another room the following inscription was written
on the WALL it is on the larger building in the cor
ridor, between the fourth and fifth doors, facing the
south, on the side opposite the doors:
''Countrymen and women remember the 18th of
| JULY 1857. Your wives and families are here mise
ry and at the disposal of sayages, who have ravshed
both young and old. Oh my child my child =
| COuntrymen, revenge"
This evident imposition, and is the work of the
same of a similar hand in all probability, which
! penned the inscription on the walls of the house
| where the slauphter took place after Hayelock'
victory. 1t need not be said that atroci-
ties or massacres had taken place at Cawnpore at
the time and up to the date of Wheeler's evac-
uation, and the dates prove the fasehood of
| the inscription, which is intended to convey
the impression that it written by one of the
women who were in the place. l am therefore in
clined to think that the inscription the walls of
the house where the subsequent slaughter occurred