The Iola register. [volume] (Iola, Allen County, Kansas) 1875-1902, 1895-01-04

larger percentage OF troops 1ell mere
than in any great battle / happen to
know of. The Crimean percentage of
the fallen was 17.4s, but the percentage
of Delhi was 37.9. Yet that city must
be taken, and it can only be taken by
such courage as had never been record
ed in all the annals of bloodshed. Ev-
ery charge of the British regiments
against the walls and gates had been
beaten back. The hyenas of Hindoo-
ism and Mohammedanism howled over
the walls, and the English army could
do nothing but bury their own dead.
But at this gate stand and watch an
exploit that makes the page of history
tremble with agitation.
This city has ten gates, but the most
famous is the one before which we now
stand, and it is called Cashmere gate.
Write the words in red ink because of
the carnage. Write them in letters of
light for the illustrious deeds. Write
them in letters of black for the bereft
and the dead. Will the world ever
forget that Cashmere gate? Lieut..
Salkeld and Home and Sergts Bur-
ACoo. Ndl anu OllClCo W
take bags of powder to the foot of that
gate and set them on fire. blowing open
the gate. although they must die in
doing it. There they go just after
sunrise, each one carrying sack con-
tanning "a pounds of powder, and doing
this under the fire of the enemy.
Lieut.. Home was the first to jump
into the ditch, which still remains be-
fore the gate. As they go. one by one
falls under the shot and shell. One of
the MORALLY wounded as he falls
hands his sack of powder with a box Of
lucifer matches to another. telling him
to fire the sack, when. with an eXplo-
sion that shook the earth for 20 miles
around. part of the Cashmere gate was
blown to fragments, and the bodies of
some of these heroes were so scattered
they were never gathered for funeral
or grave or monument. The British
army rushed in through the broken
gate, and although six days of hard
fighting were necessary before the city
was in complete possession the crisis
was past. The Cashmere gate open,
the capture of Delhi and all it con-
tanned of palaces and mosques and
treasures was possible.
Lord Napier, of Magdala. of whom
Mr.. Gladstone spoke to me so affection
ately when | was his guest at Harvard
en-, Eng, has lifted a monument near
this Cashmere gate. with the names of
the men who there fell inscribed there
on. That English lord. who had seen
courage on many battlefield, visited
this Cashmere gate and felt that the
men who opened it with the loss of
their own lives ought to be commence
grated, and hence this cenotaph. But,
after all, the best monument is the
gate itself. with the deep gouges
in the brick wall on the left
side made by two bombshells,
and the wall above torn by ten bomb
shells, and the wall on the right
side defaced and Scraped and plowed
and quilted by all styles OF long reach
ing weaponry. Let the words Cash
mere gate" as synonym for patriot
ism and fearlessness and self sacrifice.
60 into all history, all art. all litera-
ture. all time, all eternity. My friends,
that kind of courage sanctified will yet
take the whole earth for God. Indeed
the missionaries now at Delhi. toiling
amid heathenism and fever and chol-
era. and far away from home and com
fort. and staying there until they drop
into their graves. are Just as brave in
taking Delhi for Christ as were Nichol-
son and Home and Carmichael in TAX
ing Delhi for Great Britain. Take this
for the first sermonic lesson.
Another thing you must see if you go
to Delhi, though you leave many
things unseen. is the palace of the mo-
guls. IL is an Enclosure one thousand
yards by five hundred. You enter
through a vaulted hall nearly four
hundred feet long. Floors of Floren-
tine mosaic and walls once emeralded
and sapphired and carbuncled and dia-
monded. / said to the guide: 'Show us
where once stood the peacock throne. "
Here it was" he responded. All the
thrones of the earth put together
would not equal that for costliness
and brilliance. 1t had steps of sill
yer, and the seat and arms were of
solid gold. 1t cost about $50. 900. 600.
1t stood between two peacocks.
the feathers and plumes of which
were fashioned out of colored
stones. Above the throne was a
life size parrot cut out of one emerald.
Above all was n canopy resting on Il
columns of gold. the canopy fringed
with pearls Seated here. the emperor
on public occasions wore a crown con-
tanning. among other things, the koh-
moor diamond. and the entire blaze OF
coronet cost $40 100000. This superb
and once almost supernaturally beau
tiful room has imbedded in the white
marble wall letters of black marble,
which were translated to me from Per-
sian into English as meaning:
If on earth there be an Eden of bliss.
That place is this. is this. is this is this.
But the peacocks that stood beside
the throne have flown away, taking all
the display with them. and those white
marble floors were redeemed with
slaughter. and those bath rooms ran
with blood. and that Eden of which the
persian couplet on the walls spal1e
has had its flowers wither and its fruits
decay, and thought while looking at
the brilliant desolation and standing
amid the vanished glories of that
throne-room that some one had better
change little that Persian couplet on
the wall and make it read:
If there be place where much you miss,
That place is this. is this, Is this, is this.
AS came out of the palace into the
street of Delhi. | thought to myself
paradises are not built out of stone;
are not cut in sculpture: are not paint