The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-06-30

people A bottle of Ganges water, handed
round among few pilgrims, was said to have
been the cause of the catastrophe, but this was
never proved, as there was no one left alive to
tell the tale. ] have found it no uncommon ex-
perience for native servant to come into a
bungalow and complain to his master or mistress
of feeling gripping pains in the stomach, and
then to return to his little hut in the corn
pound and be dead man three
hours afterward. Sometimes this may be
dysentery, but often as not il is cholera;
how got, where contracted, no one could tell
The most serious cholera epidemic that | was
fated to live through occurred in Baroda. the
capital of the native principalty ruled by
the Gaekwar, about two hundred miles north
of Bombay. The Gaekwars are Mahratta
chiefs, who are feudatories of the British gov
eminent, which always keeps minister called
political resident, at their court. The Gael-
war who ruled previous to the present prince of
Ban oda was named Mulharroe, licentious liber-
tine to whom crime, tyranny and debauchery
were familiar. One day Muharroe tooK it into
his head that it would be good thing to have
Col. Phayre the British resident, poisoned; SO
he bribed the colonels body-servants to place
arsenic and diamond-dust in his usual morning
draught of sherbet. The crime was detected
Mulharroe was impeached, and the whole affair
led to great state trial. which ended in the
Gaekwar being removed from his throne and
sent as state prisoner to Madras. The trial of
a Mahratta prince for murder caused profound
political excitement among the natives of west
ern and central India the chiefs of which could
muster more imam one hundred thousand troops
of their own at a given signal Under these Cir
cumstances the British government poured
troops both European and native into the
Baroda environments, ard acted with so much
vigor that an instruction in Baroda was over
awed and Mulharroe sued in vain for mercy like
a craven suppliant. 1t was while the British
troops were lying under the walls of Baroda
that cholera broke out. First q fine old native
subadar was carried off, and then the number of
deaths increased so rapidly, day after day, that
finally the colonel in command issued orders that
bodies should be buried without musical honors,
for the continual wall of the dead march in
'SauT through the encampment as a funeral
procession marched with reversed arms down
beneath the wide spreading banyan trees to the
rude graves that were hastily dug by the side of
the river was beginning to have a most Sc
rious. depressing effect upon the men.
stayed with the staff surgeons. who were kept
busy day and night Each one tried a cure Of
his own for the malady, and [ very well remem-
Der how graphically one of them described some
experiments he made with the blood of fatally
stricken cholera patient. During the progress
of the malady the blood, under microscope
looked like a mass of moving and multiplying
animacula He explained this appearance on
the superstition that the original cholera germ
was reproducing itself with infinite and incredi-
BILE rapidity. and death ensued when the natural
corpuscles of the blood were entirely destroyed
All the officers tried to look unconcerned in the
presence of an enemy more subtle and relent-
less than war itself. At the officers mess
missed our after dinner game of
whist Ihave my notebook with me here. Let
me recall remarkable scene. Outside the
messtent, after dinner, groups of officers are sit
ting playing whist at the green haize card tables
The soft, hot breeze makes the leaves of the
peepul, the banyan and the tamarind trees sigh
gently. Down through the avenues of leaves and
branches we can see horses picketed, and the
white bell tents of the troops. Presently Sc
pom orderly steps from among the trees and
salutes his colonel, who lifts his eyes off his
cards moment, and says: Well, Hurilal, what
is itp The Sepoy, still sauting, replies
'Sahib, doosra admi mirghia. Who"
'Bapo Premabhoy, sahb answers Hur-
Rial. Then the colonel says: Whose trick
is that!-poor Bapoo, he was good man
-ha yes, | thought my king took that
last trick. Well, Hurrilal, have Mana buried
tomorrow before daybreak and say little 'Ach-
ha sahib, says the erect orderly all right; it
shall be the sahib commands; and then he
salaams-his eyes and dusky face seem to glisten
in the dim lamp-lights-and he retires to the
camp, and we go with the game Such scenes
as these were repeated night after night, al
though we all felt we living in the midst of
death. What else could we do9 Fortunately
the epidemic disappeared as suddenly as it had
broken out The surgeon major attributed the
fact to the sanitary arrangements he had made
in the encampment the Hindoo sepoys said it
owing to the prayers and offerings of rice
and flowers they had placed before Gunputee
their elephant-headed idol"