by William Butler

“ The man may have literally no home, and not be worth five dollars of worldly property; he may have to solicit his next meal of food from those who respect his order; but he is a Brahmin, and is prouder of that simple string over his shoulder and across his naked breast than any English Earl is of his coronet. These men laugh at such a mushroom aristocracy as that of Britain or France, created merely by the breath of a human Sovereign, whose word raises the plebeian to the noble order ”

“ General Outram, his illustrious comrade, asked to be permitted to see him. They had confronted danger together on many a hard-fought field, and death in all its reality was to be faced now. The Christian warrior looked up into the kindly, sympathetic countenance of his visitor, and said to him, “Sir James, for more than forty years I have so ruled my life that when death came I might face it without fear.” Then pausing, as he realized that death had come, he added: “So be it. I am not in the least afraid. To die is gain!” ”

“ The Kootub Mosque stands deserted; snakes and lizards now crawl in its ruins, amid which the Mazinah yet stands, solitary, grand, and majestic, as though heaven spurned the attempt to rear up and perpetuate a peerless sanctuary, where Moslem blasphemy against the Christ of God might be continually uttered in a grand center toward which all Oriental Islamites might turn, and in which they might glory. God dashed their hopes to pieces like a
potter's vessel, and changed their ambition and glory into a tomb and a ruin. ”

“ The extreme caution of rulers prevents them from entirely giving up a sort of complicity with idolatry; the great work of education which the Government is carrying on, to which I shall again allude, is confined too much to a privileged class; but it has been a great pleasure to me to find this land making such rapid progress in all that is calculated to promote the highest good of the people who dwell in it, to whatever race they belong. Overlooking all the past, I heartily rejoice that India is to-day under British rule. ”

“ Few who visit the Kootub, if they have strength for the toilsome ascent, fail to go to the summit, and well does it repay the effort. It is sublime to look up to the unclouded heavens, to which you seem so near, while beneath and beyond, the eye wanders over not merely the city beneath, but across to modern Delhi, with its white and glittering mosques and palaces, the silvery Jumna gently pouring along, the feudal towers of Selimghur, and the mausoleums of Humayun and Sufter Jung, all in the soft light of the India sunset ”

“ But they swarm in India, infesting its highways, crowding its ghats and temples, creeping into its homes, and leading captive its poor, silly women. They hold the general mind of India in such craven fear that the courtly Rajah, riding in his silver howdah on the back of his elephant, and surrounded by his retinue, will often rise from his seat and salaam to one of these wretches as he goes by. ”

“ For eighty-seven days the Lucknow garrison had lived in utter ignorance of all that had taken place outside. Wives, who had long mourned their husbands as dead, were now suddenly restored to them—some of them had come as volunteer cavalry with Havelock—and others, looking fondly forward to glad meetings with those near and dear to them, now for the first time learned that they were alone in the world. ”

“ The glory of that Brahmin who passes from the order of Grihastha to that of Sannyasi illuminates the higher worlds. He should take an earthen water-pot, dwell at the roots of large trees, wear coarse vesture, abide in total solitude, and exhibit a perfect equanimity toward all creatures. He should wish neither for death nor for life, but expect his appointed time, as a hired servant expects his wages. He should look down as he advances his foot, lest he should touch any thing impure. He should drink water that has been purified by straining through a cloth, lest he hurt an insect. ”

“ The Government is doing nothing directly to advance the Christian religion, (though as much as our own Government is doing,) and many evils growing out of the peculiarities of the people, the varieties of races, the inveterate nature of hoary prejudices, yet remain to be removed or remedied; but, judging from the promise of the present, India bids fair to become again a mighty empire in the East, and to outshine in its glory the splendor of the old Moguls. ”

“ They are Heaven's maledictions upon the fearful crime of false religions, which, while they defy God, degrade and dishonor men—cursing their conditions by poverty, miserable homes, and wretched compensation for their toil; wasting their revenues, sinking them in ignorance, destroying their morals, depriving them of liberty, and ruining their souls; till at length, when they have filled up their measure of iniquity, it turns the very centers and cradles of their faiths into the abodes of material or moral ruin, “the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.” ”

“ Probably there never was such a siege as that of Lucknow. History seems to have no parallel to it in its extraordinary
circumstances, the bravery of its garrison, the privations, risks, and horrors to which the women were subjected, while hope was deferred, and England gave them up as dead, and they themselves at length, “not expecting deliverance,” resolved to die, if die they must, with their face to their bloody and relentless foe. ”

“ Just in proportion to this impotent rage, of which the Government was well aware, most of the Hindoo princes around were exultant to think that the Great Mogul had found a master at last—that there was a strong hand on the bridle in his jaws, to hold him back from trampling on the rights of other people. The Shroffs (native Bankers) and moneyed men in the bazaars were in high glee, knowing that the rupees in their coffers were all safe under the protection of England's power, and that none could make them afraid. ”

“ Four or five of these women, tricked out in all their finery and jewelry, and tinkling ornaments on arms, necks, and feet, will, for four or five dollars, dance and jest, and sing India's licentious songs for hours; but even they don't dance except with their own sex. They are prostitutes, and yet they are undoubtedly the only intelligent and cultivated class of Hindoo women. So that the profane and debased have a monopoly of education, while the virtuous and retiring ladies of the land are condemned to a life of ignorance. Such is woman in India as to her mind. ”

“ Simeon to the Virgin Mother of the great Peace-maker might have been addressed to the Futtyghur martyrs, and the victims of Cawnpore and Bareilly, as well as to those who lived to see the great victory of deliverance, “Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” They did not suffer nor die in vain. Their endurance unto blood, and the valor of those who, against such odds, fought their way to their rescue, have taught the men of Hindustan a lesson that can never be forgotten. ”

“ True religion was the only thing this guilty but magnificent race needed for perpetuity. No dynasty ever had a grander opportunity than they—a rich land, the sixth of the world's population, boundless wealth, almost a millennium of time for the trial, with a civilization all their own, and a splendid cultivated taste, which they had the will and the ability to gratify to the utmost, as its memorials in Agra, and Delhi, and elsewhere, attest, to the surprise and delight of the traveler and tourist from many lands. ”

“ For we felt assured, if it were, that the successful effort of the India Sepoy would have found cruel imitation in Burmah, China, and Japan, and that it was possible that, at that hour—in those terrible days of July and August, 1857—Christianity might have been extinguished in the blood of its last martyrs on the Oriental hemisphere, and the clock of the world been put back for centuries. We could only turn to God, and “against hope believe in hope,” while we ourselves “stood in jeopardy every hour.” ”

“ During that night of horror the artillery and marksmen of the enemy, aided by the light of the burning building, poured their cruel fire on the busy men who were trying to save the provisions and ammunition, and living burdens more precious still, out of the fire, while the guards, crouching silent and watchful, finger on trigger, each at his station behind the outer wall, could see the countless foes, revealed now and again by the glare, prowling and yelling around the outer gloom like so many demons eager for their prey. ”

“ Truly heathenism—and above all Hindoo heathenism—is an expensive system of social and national life for any people. Error and vice don't pay. They are dearer far than truth and virtue under any circumstances.
Welcoming to their ranks, as they did, every vagabond of ability who had an aversion to labor, before the introduction of the British rule, these Fakirs, under pretenses of pilgrimages, used to wander, like the Gypsies of the West, over the country in bands of several thousands, but holding their character so sacred that the civil power dare not take cognizance of their conduct ”

“ Each slab of white marble is wrought in rich tracery in the most delicate manner, pierced through and through so as to be the same when seen from either side; the pattern of each slab differs from the next one, and the rich variety, as well as beauty of the designs, fixes the attention of the beholder in amazement at the taste and patient skill that could originate and execute this vision of beauty, which seems like an imagination rising before the fancy, and then, by some wondrous wand of power, transmuted into a solid form forever, to be touched, and examined, and admired. ”

“ As each party of the brave deliverers poured in they were greeted with loud hurrahs, which each garrison in the intrenchments would catch up, and so the cheers ran the rounds, and rose one wondrous shout to heaven. He who bore the bagpipes worked his way into this exulting mass of men, women, and children, and as he strode up and down and around the Residency he gave forth pæns of triumph in the shrill and joyous notes of his instrument, adding, of course, to the enthusiasm, and calling forth ardent repetitions of the wild delight of the occasion. ”

“ After breakfast next morning I started off to explore Lucknow. Going out of the door, how well I remembered the last time I went through it, starting from the Residency on the back of an elephant, guarded by a Sepoy all day. But Mr. Montgomery did not offer me an elephant on this occasion, and there were no Sepoys to attend me. So I walked off, quite content to have it so, and was not ten minutes in the Bazaar till it was all explained. The change was amazing, even already. Instead of every man being armed with tulwar and shield, nobody bore a weapon, save the native police. ”

“ He could lead the advance that so gallantly captured that city; but to stand up for Jesus alone and unprotected, exposed to the rage of the Mohammedan and the Hindoo in their bazaars, seemed to the military hero something that ought not to be attempted in such a country as Oude. He shrugged his shoulders when I reminded him that, as to our safety, Christ our Master, whose commission we obeyed, would look to that; while our success was in the hands of the Holy Spirit, and duty alone was ours. But he could not see it, and
we parted never to meet again. ”

“ About six miles before the traveler reaches the city of Agra the dome and minarets of the world-renowned Taj Mahal burst upon his view from behind a grove of fruit-trees near the road. The effect is wonderful! The long-anticipated pleasure of beholding earth's most beautiful shrine is now within his reach, and the gratified and delighted sight rests upon this first view of its harmony of parts, its faultless congregation of architectural beauties, with a kind of ecstasy. ”

“ By every law and rule of power, opportunity, and purpose, it must have perished had it been merely human, and true philosophy as well as Christian faith teaches us that it was only saved by the special interposition of Almighty God, its defender and keeper. During the long and weary months of our siege on the summit of Nynee Tal, the handful of villagers there declared that we were the last of the Christian life left in India—that from where we stood, to the sea on either side, our religion and race had been all swept away. ”

“ Above, below, on all sides, crowds of human tigers glared from housetop and loop-holed casement upon the intrepid band, while, as they turned the corners which open upon the squares of the palace, surrounded by high walls, they had to encounter from many thousand rifles an iron hurricane of destruction and death.” A bullet here strikes General Neill, and he falls to rise no more. But the brave men and their gallant leaders move steadily on, capturing guns and positions, till they reach the Kaiser Bagh—the King's Palace Garden—which they also capture. ”

“ The Government of India to-day, in its freedom from the policy and traditions of the Company, its separation from idolatrous administrations, its strength and justice, its outspoken interest in the intellectual and moral well-being of the people, its humane and impartial administration, is a wonderful improvement upon the former things that have passed away. At length the oft-repeated assertion, that “India is the noblest trust ever committed to a Christian nation,” seems to have taken possession of the minds who guide her destiny. ”

“ He possesses the Veda, and is alone permitted to teach the laws. By his sacrifices and imprecations he could destroy a Rajah in a moment, together with all his troops, elephants, horses, and chariots. In his wrath he could frame new worlds, with new gods and new mortals. A man who barely assaulted a Brahmin, with the intention of hurting him, would be whirled about for a century in the hell termed Tamasa. He who smote a Brahmin with only a blade of grass, would be born an inferior quadruped during twenty-one transmigrations. ”

“ He is recluse, of a subdued mind and spirit, free from hope, and free from perception. He planteth his own seat firmly on a spot that is undefiled, neither too high nor too low, and sitteth on the sacred grass which is called Koos, covered with a skin and a cloth. Here he whose business is the restraining of his passions should sit, with his mind fixed on one object alone, in the exercise of his devotion for the purification of his soul, keeping his head, his neck, and body steady without motion, his eyes fixed on the point of his nose, looking at no other place around. ”

“ But in the Taj we fall upon a new and separate creation, which never can become a style, since it can never be imitated. It is like some bright and newly discovered winged thing, all beauteous in a beauty peculiar to itself, and referable to no class or order on the roll of zoology, which the whole world flocks to gaze upon with solemn delight, none presuming to designate the lovely stranger, nor to conjecture a kindred for it with the winged things of the earth. ”

“ All the horrors of war were at once laid bare before the anxious crowd.
Every man, including the civilians—some of whom had never handled a musket before, but whom Sir Henry had armed—were now called out to defend the position, for the exultant enemy were pouring over the two bridges and up the streets to the very gates of the Residency, and getting their guns into position. The people of the city within range were flying, with their goods, out of the way of the expected bombardment, while both sides prepared for the
terrible and unequal conflict. ”

“ Such men can and will do, for such reasons, what other men have not nerve enough to adventure merely in obedience to the theoretic rules of their order.
The Brahmins would fain be regarded as the learned class of India. Of course there was a time when, in the earlier ages of the world, they were so, as compared to men in other nations. No scholar can doubt this for a moment. But the world and education are no longer what they once were; both have advanced amazingly, while the Brahmin has not only stood still, but he has retrograded. ”

“ It was not safe for an unarmed man, black or white, to move among them. And, indeed, when I wanted to see the city thoroughly, it was considered essential to my safety that I should not go alone or unattended, so they kindly mounted me on the back of an elephant in a Government howdah, and gave me a Sepoy escort; and thus elevated, so that I could see every thing on the flat-roofed houses, and in the courts and streets below, I made my first acquaintance with the city of Lucknow, and saw heathenism and Mohammedanism in their unutterable vileness. ”

“ The Kootub forms the left of two minars of a mosque, which, in size and splendor, was to be peerless on the earth as a place of worship, and from the character of this single shaft it is evident that, had the design been completed, it would have been all that its imperial founder intended in that respect. But death, war, and human vacillation make sad havoc of men's hopes and intentions, and this great memorial stands in attestation of the fact.
For nearly a century a controversy has existed in India as to the architectural honors of the wonderful Kootub. ”

“ That little force of thirteen hundred men moved up, steady and silent as a wall, to conquer or to die, amid those crashing shells and volleys of musketry; and the heart of the foe died within him, and his fire became hasty and ill-directed, as the sheen of the British bayonets became ominously distinct, till, within one hundred yards, they delivered their fire, and with a cheer dashed through their own smoke at the enemy. Then each rebel thought only of himself. ”

“ Few sovereigns have ever been so utterly forgetful of the duties of a governor of men, or more thoroughly steeped in selfishness and sensuality, than was Wajid Ali Shah. His territories at length, from his misrule and neglect, became an unequaled scene of outrage and bloodshed, and a refuge for the dacoits (robbers) of Northern India, who would cross the Ganges at night and plunder in the British Territories all around, making good their retreat into Oude before daylight. ”

“ She seems to have left God and humanity entirely out of her calculations. In all the tombs and palaces built by her and for her, personal glory and selfish ends—for self and family—alone appear. On these the revenues of a whole people were squandered, and their hard earnings demanded to enable her to exhibit, on this lavish scale, her magnificent caprices. But no hospitals, or schools, or asylums for suffering humanity, exist to call her blessed, or to hand down her name as a pattern or promoter of purity and goodness. ”

“ It may be answered, that had that garrison consisted only of fighting men, no one would have dreamed of surrender. But what could be done when more than half their number, male and female, had already been killed, and the balance was a mixed multitude, in which there was a woman and child to each man, while every other man was incapacitated by wounds or disease, with only four days more of half rations of their miserable subsistence, and the monsoon — the tropical rains — hourly expected to open upon them in all its violence? The only choice was between death and capitulation ”

“ But the richest work of all is on the cenotaph of the Empress within the screen. Upon her tomb—according to universal Mohammedan usage—is a slate or tablet of marble, while on the Emperor's is a small box representing a pen-holder. These always distinguish a man's or a woman's grave among these people; the idea being that a woman's heart is a tablet on which lordly man can write whatever pleases him best. And this mark of feminine inferiority was not spared even the beloved occupant of the Taj Mahal. ”