Lucknow. ful glances at the gleaming Taj Mahal. We The morning we left Agra, casting regret-
intended to reach Cawnpore within twenty-four hours. Tt was only one hundred thirty odd miles away, and witha brink opin in the early bracing ait, a rest in the panting heat of the day, and then " long steady ride through the perfumed clear mooushin of an Indian summer night it way easy enough. Hut it tok us nearer twenty-f-ur days than twenty-four hour-. As you will heer.
The first part of the journey was done in excellent style, At one we met the village Collector of the district, and in India the collector isn't a man who worries you ab ut our income, oF your gas rate or inhabited ouse duty, but ix a sort of deputy hing, to whom you take off your hat—and he was a cyclist, ardent and with an unbounded enthusi Together with the chief of police he intended going some thirty miles down the road. But as we cycled faxter than they, we agreed to meet at breakfast at Mainpuri. The news had swang alead that the Cullector sahib, astride a bicycle, was coming. Now the Collector sahib, though tremendous dignitary, docs not wear a tress plate proclaiming his iti Tt w Collector. ance of bullock carts, deaf men, slithering women atid unclad children into the bushes. As we whisked through the villages out turned the native police in Sunday uaif.rms an! stood at the salute till we had gone by. 'Annan, a quarter of a mile off, started his cringing obeisance and then' he'd out a Yuneh of documents. They were in the Urdu tongue, and there was no necessity t" dismount and read them. We said it was all right, and that we would attend to the matter when we came that way again. So down went a forehead to the ground in At Mainpuri one of us to k it into hi Head that, aa Indi lacked ad the ajnonotony vf the excursion mi ed by alittle illness. ly. to the disgust of his companions, he "nounced he was about to be unwell." For four dayx and nights he coque'ted outrageously with fever, changed his mini and developed chickenpox, but, finding that a tune, child's-play sort of sickness, "'edded upon dose of smallpox; and went in for an entirely new cast of features.
'A forsaken bengal war hired and en-verted into an infected hospital. Good Samaritans came along with kindness in their hearts and sumptuous nourishment in baskets. The only disagreeable person was the doctor, where mission in life was to vaccina'e people who had no desire to racemated. At the end of three weeks Fraser hinted that he was a bit weary of lying on his back. So he got up, and after some days lazying about to give his legs a chan-e, raid, "Aren't you sick of Main-
Then-we rode slowly towards shrivelling heat st Was aping in!
nellys of tro.ical sultriness over Tt was a white, cheki ¢ heat that roll billows. We gi ded through an-dulating waves of it, xs though some hell monster were gasp ug in our face.
That's why we ro 'e in the early mornit when there was a chili in the air and th refreshing. - Eye ing was then ajoy. But the moment the fierce flames of the sun licked the land and the sensuous summer atmosphere swept alo-like a thin mist, the pleasure of the ride evaporated. The cool air recoiled before the drowsy breath of thick vey-tation. The white roadway quiver-d. Speeding nickly, one med~ a dry kind of breeze. When one stopped by a well, however, ith er-cked Iips and swollen tongue, waiting for slow oxen to draw a leather bucket ut water—the glare was that of a furnace. times it was half-past nine and ten o'clock': before we reached our merning destinati n, and with the thermome er at-166, no bare hand could touch the steri of our machines. Faint to sickness, we would rush-to the dark bungalow, "and in two minutes be splashing in' huge baths.
But there was the day to be spent. All do rs were closed and windows darkened. A nerveless limpness pervaded one's boily. Tue brain was a lump of lethargic pulp. There was nothing to clu but lounge through the hot hours in a semi-torpor. It was even too ho: fosie p. From ten in the morning till six in the evening the punkahs wild be keptswinging, and then beneath the constant fanning we could doze. "In your heart you pitied the patient Hindu and his pulling, pu ling, at the punkah for the 51m of threepence a day. But when foran instant that patient Hinde ceased his pulling, and pi and perspiration jumped fiom you sat up and talked to him for hi The going-down of the sun with gladness. When evening breeze crept our machines and away once more, rushing through rich, well-tilled soil, verdant. with crops, and nurtured by Ing, straight-"rined canals filled with water from the sacred Ganges. But often there was no breeze. Then there was a -teatoing, clammy rourkiness which lowered all inclina/ tien in the way of every two very zero. Lax-limbed, one would lie under the punkah all night, tossing restlessly, waiting farl the dawn, which, while it brought sleep, also brought the hour for getting up.
Sohard up were we for incident, that the discovery of two milestones within a couple of hundred yards of each other regarded as something startling. As indeed it was, in a way, for this was the only instance on the thousands of miles of grand trunk road in India where a mistake in measurement had been made. And yet how could one feel there was nothing to interest? Were we not on the great highway where, in the Mutiny days, the robe's find 0 het, and slaughtered, and} butchered? And didn't the Britsh soldiers, pressing forward in forced marches, struggle, and slash, and die, and gain victory And here we were in Cawnpore, half and-in the dead of the-nights they were all buried together in a.well.
And the: black treachery! - There was the promise of Nana Sahib that" if the British surrendered they would tw given safe conduct down theGanges to Allalabad, and when the surrender was-idle, and the boats were packed with the soldiers, their wives, and' their children, there was the sound ofa bugle, and musketry fire open-from the banks. The hosts caught fire, and the sick and wounded were burned. When the boats drifted ashore the poor victims were cut to bits. One' hundred land twenty women were taken and locked.in the Bibi-garb. Eighty other prisoners were afterwar 8 brought in; and all—all had their theats cut by the' butchers of Cawnpore, "while shrieking women and babes were pitched into a well. Of-all the British folks in Cawnpore at that mournful time, only four men ever escaped.
was shudderingly horrible. To be in harmony a great b ight should have settled jon the spot. It should be barren and black, and with the odour of the grave, But as we saw it Cawnpore was smiling with loveliness, Nature was garbed like a consciously pretty maiden, and the birds throbbed with delightful' song. Hindu boys were scampering about with youthful glee and shout on the ghat by the Ganges where the British were given to the sword jof treachery. There is a memorial church near ths site of the entrenchment. The well where the 200 women: and children were thrown is now in a pretty garden. Above the, well ix the figure of the Anuel of the Resurrection in white marble, Her arms are across her breast; in her hand is *.-Phowe, are they which came out of great palm, "ud over the arch is inscribed,
tribulation."
We stayed at an hotel kept by Joo Lee. Cawnpore without Joe Leo would be Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. We were dusty and tired when we arrived, and in the middle of our ablations he burst upon us. "Gentlemen, your bands; Tam Joe Lee." He was x tall, white-headed, broad-backed old fellow. You've heard of me, gentlemen; of course, you have. Seventy-two years old next birthday, tft six inches round the chest. I'm ax good as any of you. Do you, box? I'm havely with the gloves as a young un of Do you play billiards? Ell play of you for a bottle of whiskey. A.
Tjust think I am "soldier, I was right through the Mutiny, sir got a sword-cut across the arm. and two bullets inthe leg. 'Two hours and ten minutes after those devils had massacred the women I was there. I was in the' first relief perty to Lucknow. A soldier! I think Lama soldier. A five old man! I think Tam. My father: was one, hundred and eleven years and nine days old when he died. My mother was one hundred and three, "ud they had twenty children, Tam x Welshmsn, from Manafon, in Montgomeryshire, and didn't know a word of English when T ran away from thy plough, and listed. Never wrote home—Inever. I went home: after forty yars, found only two: sisters al-ya, "But I issited the wave of my father and mother, and all my hesthers and sisters, and then I came back to: India, But don't mind me; I'm an old soldier, anil you're plucky fellows. Goon washing. Nov, it was in anticipate us of '57 to fient before 1843.
So we listened tu 'Joe Lee's our eyen. there were wide avenues yarning. Excitable an' fluent, and a born and radiant gardens, and the natives were actor, he described his battles with quite mock-eyed, and tartan-br eked soldiers sat la graphic vigour.
He had to stand. uj under trees, throwing stones at squirrels. when talking xbout bayonet' charges an We went about and lo ked at the sights. sword swinging, and he crouched and They were unim: ressive in themselves. hglloed as he eniffed the powder-smoke of It wan what they recorded that brought ai forty years before. We listened to him lump into the throa'. There was the hare, by: the hour. - Indeed, there was little scorched field wher- for twenty days 300 ' chance of doing anything but listen. Eng-soldiers guarded 1,000 women "ud children, j lish people in Cawnpore say Jow Lee rather whil+ lit fire was poured upon them by j expands-the truth. Maybe he does; but 3,000 fanatical mutineers. In those three: Cawnpore could ill afford ta be without Jos weeks one-quarter of the Englisi died, ' and his war tales.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.