again—General Walpole at Rooyah—The Râmgunga

CHAPTER I

THE NINETY-THIRD—SAIL FOR CHINA—COUNTER-ORDERED TO CALCUTTA—ARRIVAL IN INDIA

I cannot truthfully commence these reminiscences with the usual formula of the amateur author,—namely, by stating that, "At the solicitation of numerous friends, the writer was most reluctantly prevailed upon to publish his narrative," and so forth. No one has asked me to write my recollections of the past and my impressions of the present. I do so to please myself, because on revisiting the scenes of the Mutiny I have been forcibly impressed with the fact that, like so many memories, the soldiers and civilians who were personal actors in the great uprising are fast passing away.

Having served in the old Ninety-Third Sutherland Highlanders, and been present at every action in which that famous regiment played a part from the actual relief of Lucknow in November, 1857, till the final operations in Oude ended in November, 1859, and being blessed with a fairly retentive memory, I feel tempted to put on record the recollections of the past and the impressions which my recent return to those scenes has revived.

In writing of the past I shall be careful to discriminate between what I saw myself and what I heard from other eye-witnesses, whether native or European; but when I come to write of the present I may be permitted to make my own comparisons and to draw my own conclusions from present facts, or appearances, as they have been impressed on my own observation; and when recording my recollections of the many engagements in which the Ninety-Third played a prominent part, I intend to skip much that has already been recorded in the pages of history, and to more particularly notice the action of individual soldiers, and other incidents which came under my own notice, which have not, to my knowledge, been recorded by any historian or author of the numerous narratives, personal or other, which have been written about the Indian Mutiny.

Before entering on my reminiscences I may mention that I never previously had an opportunity of revisiting any of the scenes of which I am about to write since I had been an actor in them. My readers will, therefore, understand that it was with strongly mixed feelings both of pleasure and sorrow, not unmingled with gratitude, that I started by the mail train from Howrah in August, 1892, to revisit Cawnpore and Lucknow for the first time, with the terrible scenes of 1857 and 1858 still vividly photographed, as it were, on my memory. In the course of thirty-five years of the life of even the most commonplace individual there are events which are never forgotten, and certain friends are lost who are never replaced; so much so, that in thinking of the past one is almost compelled to exclaim with Solomon,—"Vanity of vanities, all is vanity! One generation passeth away and another generation cometh," and the end of all is "vanity and vexation of spirit." But to the Christian, in grand contrast to the vanity and changeableness of this life, stands out like a rock the promise of the Eternal, the Self-existing, and Unchangeable Jehovah. "The Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms!" But I am no padre, and must not commence to moralise or preach. What tempts me do so is the fact that there is a class of writers in the present day who not only deny the truth of many of the fondly-treasured recollections of the past, which have become part of our national history, but who would, if it were possible, refine even God Himself out of creation, and hand us all over to blind chance for our existence! But enough; I must hark back to 1857.

On the return of the Ninety-Third from the Crimea they were quartered at Dover, and in April, 1857, the regiment was detailed for the expedition forming for China under Lord Elgin, and all time-expired men and those unfit for foreign service were carefully weeded from the service companies and formed into a depôt. The ten service companies were recruited by volunteers from the other Highland regiments, the Forty-Second, Seventy-Second, Seventy-Ninth, and Ninety-Second, each giving a certain number of men, bringing the Ninety-Third up to a corps of eleven hundred bayonets. About the 20th of May the Ninety-Third left Dover for Portsmouth, where we were reviewed by the Queen accompanied by Sir Colin Campbell, who took final leave, as he then supposed, of the regiment which had stood with him in the "thin red line" of Balaklava against the terrible Cossacks. On the first of June three companies, of which mine formed one, embarked in a coasting steamer for Plymouth, where we joined the Belleisle, an old 84-gun two-decker, which had been converted into a transport for the China expedition. This detachment of the Ninety-Third was under the command of Colonel the Honourable Adrian Hope, and the captains of the three companies were Cornwall, Dawson, and Williams—my company being that of Captain E. S. F. G. Dawson, an officer of great experience, who had served in another regiment (I forget which) throughout the Kaffir war in the Cape, and was adjutant of the Ninety-Third at the Alma, where he had his horse shot under him. The remaining seven companies, forming headquarters under Colonel A. S. Leith-Hay, sailed from Portsmouth in the steam transport Mauritius about ten days after us.

Although an old wooden ship, the Belleisle was a very comfortable transport and a good sailer, and we sighted land at the Cape on the morning of the 9th of August, having called and posted mails at both Madeira and the