Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1895-01-03


were on the outside The city of Delhi
has circulated wall on three sides.
wall five and one half miles long,
and the fourth side of the city is de-
Tended by the River Jumna. In addi-
ton to these two defense of wall and
wa err, there were 10000 Sepoys, all
armed. Twelve hundred British sol
diers were to take that city. Nichol-
son, the immortal general, commanded
them, and you must visit his or We be-
fore you leav. Delhi He fell leading
his troops. He commanded them even
after being mortally wounded You
will read this Inscription on his tomb:
John Nicholson. who led the as
sault of Delhi, bu fell in the hour of
victory, morally wounded. and died
23d September, 1857. Aged 35 years
With what guns and men Gen. Mich
olson could muster he had laid siege tn
this walled city filled with devils.
What fearful odds! Twelve hundred
British troops uncovered by any mill
tary works. to take city surrounded
by firm and high masonry, on the top
OF which were ia guns and defended
by 10000 foaming Sepoys. A larger
percentage of troops fell here 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 cour-
age as had never been recorded in all
The annals of bloodshed. Every charge
of the British regiments against the
walls and gates had been beaten back.
The hyenas of Hindooism and Moham-
mechanism howled over the walls, and
the English army could do nothing
but bury their own dead But at this
gate 1 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 car
mage! Write them in letters of
light, for the illustrious deeds!
Write them in letters of black,
for the bereft and the dead. viii the
world ever forget that Cas- mere gate?
Lieutenants Salkeld and Home and
Sergeants Burgess, Carmichael and
Smith offered to take bags of powder
to the foot of that gate and set them
on fire, blowing open the gate, al
though they must die in doing it. There
they go, just after sunrise, each one
carrying sack containing twenty
four 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 before the
gate. As they go, one by one falls UNI
der the shot and shell. One of he
mortally wounded, as he falls, hands
his sack of powder with box of luci-
fer matches to another, telling him to
fire the sack; when with an explosion
that shook the earth for twenty miles
around, part of the Cashmere gate was
blown into fragments, and the bodies
of some of these heroes were SO sea
tered that they were never gathered
for funeral, or grave, or monument.
The British army rushed in through
the broken gate, and although six days
OF naru ngnCIng were necessary oe1ole
the city was in complete possession,
the crisis was past. The Cashmere
gate open, the capture of Delhi
and all it contained of pal
aces, and mosques, and treasures
was possible. Lord Napier of Mag
dala, of whom Mr. Gladstone spoke
to me so affectionatelY when l
was his guest at Hawarden, England,
has lifted monument near this Cash
mere gate with the names of the men
who there fell inscribed thereon. That
English lord, who has seen courage on
many a battlefield, visited the Cash
mere gate, and felt that the men who
opened it with the loss of their own
lives ought to be commemorated, 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 bomb
shells, 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 reaching weaponry. Let the
words Cashmere gate" as synonym
for patriotism, and fearlessness, and
self sacrifice, go into all history, all
art, all literature, all time, all eter-
nifty! My friends, that kind of courage
sanctified will yet take the whole
earth for God. Indeed, the mission
aries now at Delhi, toiling amid
heathenism, and fever, and cholera,
and far away from home and comfort,
and staying there until they drop into
their graves, are just as brave in taking
Delhi for Christ as were Nicholson,
and Home, and Carmichael in taking
Delhi for Great Britain. Take this
for the first sermonic lesson.
AS that night we took the railroad
train from the Delhi station and rolled
out through the city now living, over
the vaster. cities buried under this
ancient capital, cities under cities, and
our travelling servant had unrolled our
bed, which consisted of rug and two
arI ,>il1n,y. opH nc yya xyara