Leaving the church we pass the ground traversed by that body of men, women and children in their march to the ghat, where took place the foul massacre. Above the ghat is a temple dedicated to cruel Siva. But his fane is fast falling into ruins. Seated on the steps of the temple it is hard to realize that historical tragedy. All around is so calm and peaceful. No sound breaks the stillness of the air. Not a breath of air ruffles the broad waters of the Ganges. A country boat is floating down the stream, and the wide white sails catch the golden rays of the sun as it rises above the horizon this fresh December morning. It was the fiery month of June forty-five years ago, when the small band who had so heroically defended the entrench ments embarked on the boats drawn up on the long sand bank which stretches below us. As soon as the last man was on board, the word " Off " was given—a welcome sound after a weary month of hardship and imprisonment. But the command fell on traitorous ears. A blast of a bugle was heard, and at the signal the crew leaped into the water and waded towards dry ground. Before they quitted the boats, they had secreted burning charcoal in the straw roofs, and now they burst forth into a flame. From every bush that lined the bank came forth a deadly shower of bullets, and from the house to our left, where we see an English child playing, two guns poured forth a storm of grape. The men tried to push the boats into mid-current, but all in vain. Then was witnessed a scene without its parallel in his tory or fiction. " Some of the boats presented a broadside to the guns, others were raked from stern to stem by the shot. Volumes of smoke from the thatch somewhat veiled the full extent of the horrors of that morning. All who could move were speedily expelled from the boats by the heat of the flames. Alas ! the wounded were burnt to death : one mitigation only there was to their horrible fate—the flames were terribly fierce, and their intense sufferings were not protracted. Wretched multitudes of women and children crouched behind the boats, or waded out into the deeper water, and stood up to their chins in the river to lessen the probability of being shot." The troopers drawn up near the temple then plunged into the water, and sabred those whom the bullets spared. At length two hundred women and children were all that were left of the heroic garrison. And they were led back along the road which they had come, past the entrenchments which their husbands had so valiantly defended, past their old homes, now in ruins, to the pavilion of the Maharajah, who, after reviewing his cap tives, ordered them to be taken to the Assembly Rooms— the scene of many a former festive gathering—and confined there. On July i he ordered them to be removed to a house
which had been occupied by a native clerk. It comprised two rooms twenty feet long and ten broad, and. a number of dark closets which had been intended for the use of ser vants, and an open court some fifteen feet square. Here for a fortnight in July were confined these tender women and delicate children. They had no furniture, no beds, not even straw to lie upon. They were fed with only one meal a day, consisting of coarse bread and dhall. On July 15 news reached Cawnpore that Havelock's victorious army was within a day's march of the city. A Council, over which the Nana presided, was held and it was resolved that the prisoners must be slain. A stern retribution the leading rebels knew would be exacted by the British troops for the innocent blood already shed, and many who had aided and abetted their chief dreaded their recognition by some of the prisoners who had long resided at Cawnpore. Having de cided that all the captives should be put to death the assembly dispersed. That evening at 6 p.m. the women and children were hacked to pieces by five ruffians of the Nana's guard. When darkness, as darkness itself and as the shadow of death, fell, the groans ceased and " the doors of the buildings were closed." Over the events of that wicked night a gloomy mist still hangs, unpenetrated and for ever unpenetrable. Three hours after the break of day the doors were opened and the bodies removed and thrown into a well hard by.' From the ghat we drive to the Memorial Gardens. We enter the iron gates, and walk up the broad path lined with noble trees. The grass is as trim and green as an English lawn, and the beds are bright with flowers, and the road is lined with bushes of yellow and dark crimson roses. The air is sweet with scent of orange flowers. Slowly we mount the steps, and read the solemn words engraved on the marble pedestal which covers the fatal well :—" Sacred to the Perpetual Memory of a Great Company of Christian People, chiefly Women and Children." The ugly Gothic memorial and the somewhat meretricious figure of an angel in white marble mars the solemnity of the spot. As in the Coliseum at Rome, the only symbol above that well should have been the symbol of a great agony, the symbol of the Cross, the symbol of the faith in which these women who lie quiet and undisturbed in the well beneath lived and died. " And it was said unto them that they should rest yet for a little season."