these pilgrims, but certainly none have been called upon to prove their sincerity by tests as painful or as long-continued as invariably fall to the lot of their brown brethren. I doubt whether many of these white pilgrims would lay down their lives in this service with the unquestioning faith which inspires these earnest brown men.

CHAPTER V.

CAWNPORE AND LUCKNOW.

The Well-The Story of Cawnpore--Across the Ganges to Oude-Wolf Nurses-Sham Highlanders-Incongruous House Decorations-The Story of Lucknow.

DUST! dust! dust! Well, it really did seem as if Mother Earth had returned to dust prematurely! Dust overhead, dust under foot, on every side dust! Whatever we may have passed that was worthy of observation was all obscured by clouds of choking, blinding dust.

Brown skins and white skins, oriental robes and sombre European broadcloth-all were toned down by the all-pervading dust.

"Black spirits and white spirits-brown spirits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle, on their dusty way."

There were crowds of natives pouring in to celebrate some great festival, and every shuffle of their pointed slippers stirred up the sea of dust more and more, till all their gay dresses, their glittering jewels, and brilliant colours, seemed as though flitting and disappearing like figures in some hot, hazy dream.

The roads are all made of kunkur, small nodules of limestone, which (true to her principle of saving unnecessary labour in tropical regions) Dame Nature has provided all over these alluvial plains as ready-made road metal lying very near the surface, merely requiring the top soil to be removed and the

kunkur to be excavated. First class material for road-making is thus obtained, and the result is excellent, till, pounded by incessant traffic of heavily-laden bullock-gharries, and exposed to the action of much rain and much sun, the kunkur becomes reduced to fine powder, which fills the air, rising in suffocating clouds on the smallest provocation, forcing their way into every crevice, choking and stifling the luckless traveller, whose ears, nostrils, eyes, and mouth become so many dust-bins, and his clothing and everything in his carriage is overlaid with a thick coating of fine grey limestone.

Wherever the weary eyes turn it is the same thing. The country is brown and bare, every blade of grass burnt up and shrivelled, and the hot parched earth cracked in every direction; long chasms gaping like thirsty jaws, but receiving no comfort from the burning rays, which still pour down so ruthlessly. If this is the state of Cawnpore in mid-winter, what will it be before the blessed summer rains are due?

A comfortably-furnished bungalow having, with true Indian hospitality, been placed at our disposal, we ploughed our way thither from the railway through seas of white dust, literally up to the ankles. After early breakfast we sallied forth and again Vploughed our dusty way to the Memorial Gardens, the scene of the awful massacre at the well, when the women and children and "a great company of Christian people" were brutally murdered by the arch-fiend, Nana Sahib, to prevent their rescue by their countrymen.

Here, as everywhere else in the city, every trace that could recall the horrors of 1857 has been utterly swept away, and where those blood-stained houses and the native bazaar then stood, a most beautiful garden has now sprung up. Only round the dread well is the funeral character kept up, and cypress alone planted. Just beyond are two other inclosures, where many soldiers were buried that same year-men who had given their lives willingly to avenge their countrywomen. These sepulchres of sad memory are now, as I said, the centres of a garden of such richness and beauty as to be exceeded by none in England-an

A TRIUMPH OF IRRIGATION.

ΙΟΙ

expression which speaks volumes, as Indian gardens are generally laid out merely for shade, with scarcely a flower to be seen, the constant marvel being where the nosegays come from!

Into this sacred garden no dogs or natives are admitted, the latter at least, not without a permit; and perhaps it would be well if they might not go at all to see how trivial and flimsy a monument England has erected above her dead, in this land where the very barbers and servants of great men are honoured with tombs that will endure for centuries.

This pretty piece of ornamental work is built of stone so friable that even its delicate real carving is already cruelly chipped, while a considerable portion is merely fastened on with stucco, which of course cannot resist the alternations of intense heat and wet, and so is literally falling to pieces, the carved leaves scaling off wholesale. Several of the large stars round Marochetti's statue were actually lying on the ground, and it is commonly said that twenty years hence there will remain small trace of England's

monument.

Moreover, it is unfortunate that the palms held by the angel should be precisely like the broom carried by all the sweepers-a very low caste, whose duty it is to sweep up all unclean things. The native's mind cannot rise above this idea, and (supposing the avenging angel to represent the bearer of the brooms wherewith that blood was swept up) continues to take a very material view of Britain's emblem.

But as to the garden, it is little short of a miracle to see such a triumph of art over nature-to pass from the world of dust outside to those smooth green lawns, with masses of such roses as might excite the envy of a Devonshire rose-gardener. Nor roses only, for all rare and beautiful flowers are here in the same luxuriance-walls of golden bignonia, and of a lilac creeper more exquisite still, the bougainvillia, whose long sprays of delicate lilac leaves festoon each shrub that comes within reach.

The gardener under whose care this Paradise has developed ought surely to look lovingly on all flowers; yet his answer was quaint when (after he had told me how many years he had lived

in the Himalayas) I said, "Ah! then you can tell me in what month the rhododendrons blossom," he replied, "No, I cannot, I was a vegetable gardener then!"

Of course the soil of this fair garden is altogether artificial, and its luxuriance is due to an intricate system of irrigation, whereby the lawns can be flooded for hours at a time with water which flows in inexhaustible supply from the great Ganges Canal-a canal which starts from Hurdwar, nearly four hundred miles up country, and rejoins the Ganges at Cawnpore, bringing life and gladness to all the thirsty land.

Just outside the gardens our admiration was arrested by a number of lovely tall birds like cranes, with lavender body and soft pink neck—" sarus" they are called. In the trees above, innumerable monkeys were playing with their babies, and the green parrots chattering as usual.

From the Memorial Gardens we turned to the Christian church, erected on the site of the so-called intrenchments, that lamentable position, which only could have been selected under some influence of temporary insanity, a position exposed on all sides to the attacks, not only of an armed rabble, but of native regiments, thoroughly drilled by English officers, with an unlimited supply of large guns and ammunition, having moreover the advantage of tall houses from which to fire on the intrenchments

Against such a force as this, the weak mud walls so hastily thrown up could afford small protection to the handful of brave defenders, who nevertheless, with their gallant old chief, Sir Hugh Wheeler, and with only six guns, maintained their ground unflinchingly for twenty days. Including women, children, and civilians they numbered about 700 Europeans.

Some wretched single-story barracks alone sheltered these, not only from the burning midsummer sun, but from the fire of the foe, which, igniting the thatched roofs, burnt many houses and their inmates. Moreover there was but one available well within the intrenchments, and that was under fire. A second there was indeed, but it proved a well without water, mocking the sufferers in their hour of need. Into this were cast the bodies of all who