attack was made on the Cawnpore Battery, that all the defenders were forced to shield themselves from the balls and bullets-still remaining at hand, however, in case a closer assault were attempted. It being found, too, that a mine was being run by the enemy in the direction of Sago's house, some of the officers made a daring sortie to examine this mine, much to their own peril. Then commenced, as before, a system of countermining, each party of miners being able to hear the other working in an adjoining gallery; it became a struggle which should blow the other up; the British succeeded, and shattered all the works of the enemy at that spot.

Nothing in the whole progress of the siege was more extraordinary than this perpetual mining and countermining. While the infantry and artillery on both sides were at their usual deadly work in the open air, the Sappers and Miners were converting the ground beneath into a honeycomb of dark galleries and passages-the enemy attempting to blow up the defence-works, and the defenders attempting to anticipate this by blowing up the enemy. Whenever the firing by the mutineers slackened in any material degree, the defenders took advantage of the opportunity to make new sand-bags for batteries and earthworks, in place of the old ones which had been destroyed. The 15th of August was a white day within the enclosure; no burial took place. It was also rendered notable by the receipt of a letter from General Havelock-a letter telling of inability to afford present succour, and therefore a mournful letter; but still it was better than none, seeing that it pointed out to all the necessity for continued exertions in the common cause. Now came the time when a great increase of discomfort was in store for the numerous persons who had been accommodated in the Residency, the official house of the chief-commissioner. The building had been so shaken by shells and balls that it was no longer secure; and the inmates were removed to other quarters. On the 18th a terrible commotion took place; the enemy exploded a mine under the Sikh Square or barrack, and made a breach of thirty feet in the defenceboundary of the enclosure. Instantly all hands were set to work; boxes, planks, doors, beams, were brought from various quarters to stop up the gap; while muskets and pistols were brought to bear upon the assailants. Not only did the gallant fellows within the enclosure repel the enemy, but they made a sortie, and blew up some of the exterior buildings which were in inconvenient proximity. By the explosion on this day, Captain Orr, Lieutenant Meecham, and other officers and men, were hurled into the air, but with less serious results than might have been expected; several, however, were suffocated by the débris which fell upon them.

By the eighth week the garrison had become in a strange way accustomed to bullets and balls; that is, though always in misery of some kind or other, the report of firearms had been rendered

On the

so thoroughly familiar to them, through every day and night's experience, that it was a matter of course to hear missiles whiz past the ear. Mr Rees, speaking of his daily movements from building to building in the enclosure, says: 'At one time a bullet passed through my hat; at another I escaped being shot dead by one of the enemy's best riflemen, by an unfortunate soldier passing unexpectedly before me, and receiving the wound through the temples instead; at another I moved off from a place where in less than a twinkling of an eye afterwards a musket-bullet stuck in the wall; at another, again, I was covered with-dust and pieces of brick by a round-shot that struck the wall not two inches away from me; at another, again, a shell burst a couple of yards away from me, killing an old woman, and wounding a native boy and a native cook.' Every day was marked by some vicissitudes. 20th, the enemy opened a tremendous cannonading, which knocked down a guard-room over the Mess-house, and lessened the number of places from which the garrison could obtain a look-out. The enemy were also on that day detected in the attempt to run new mines under the Cawnpore Battery and the Bailey guard. This led to a brilliant sortie, headed by Captain M'Cabe and Lieutenant Browne, which resulted not only in the spiking of two of the enemy's guns, but also in the blowing up of Johannes' house, which had been such a perpetual source of annoyance to the garrison. It was one of the best day's work yet accomplished, and cheered the poor, hard-worked fellows for a time. Yet they had enough to trouble them; the Cawnpore and Redan batteries were almost knocked to pieces, and needed constant repair; the judicial office became so riddled with shot that the women and children had to be removed from it; the enemy's sharpshooters were deadly accurate -in their aim; their miners began new mines as fast as the old ones were destroyed or rendered innoxious; and Inglis's little band was rapidly thinning.

Another week arrived, the last in August, and the ninth of this perilous life in the fortified enclosure. The days exhibited variations in the degree of danger, but not one really bright gleam cheered the hearts of the garrison. An advantage had been gained by the successful mining and blowing up of Johannes' house, once the residence of a merchant of that name; it had been a post from which an African eunuch belonging to the late king's court had kept up a most fatal and accurate fire into the enclosure, bringing down more Europeans than any other person in the enemy's ranks. An advantage was thus gained, it is certain; but there were miseries in abundance in other quarters. Gubbins's house had become so shot-riddled, that the ladies and children domiciled there were too much imperiled to remain longer; they were removed to other buildings, adding to the number of inmates in

and a struggle to determine which party should be the first to blow up the other. The Mohurrum or Mohammedan festival commenced this week; a period in which fanatical Mussulmans are so fierce against all who dissent from their faith, that the garrison apprehended a new onslaught with more force than ever; this fear passed away, however, for though there was much 'tom-tom' processioning and buffalo-horn bugling in the city, the attacks on the enclosure did not differ much from their usual character. Another letter was received from Havelock, which gave joy to men who found that they were not wholly forgotten by friends in the outer world; but when they heard that a period of at least three weeks longer must elapse before he could possibly reach them, their overcharged hearts sank again, and deep despondency existed for a time among them.

During this month of August, the women and children, the sick and wounded, of course suffered much more terribly than in the previous month

of July. Every kind of peril and discomfort had increased in severity; every means of succour and solace had diminished in quantity. Death struck down many; disease and wounds laid low a still greater number; and those who remained were a prey to carking cares, which wore down both mind and body. Those who, in a Christian country, are accustomed to pay the last token of respect to departed friends by decent funeral ceremonies, were often pained by their disability to do so in the Lucknow enclosure, under the straitened circumstances of their position. The Rev. Mr Polehampton, after working day and night in his kindly offices among the sick and wounded, was at length himself struck down by cholera; and then came the mournful question, whether he could have a coffin and a separate grave. writer of the Diary, wife of the clergyman who succeeded Mr Polehampton in his duties as a pastor, says that her husband read the funeralservice over the dead body in presence of the

The

mourning widow, on the day and in the room where the death took place, before removal for instant interment. 'She (the widow) was extremely anxious he should have a coffin, a wish it seemed impossible to gratify; but instituted

a search, and found one stored away with some old boxes under the staircase in the hospital; and he also had a separate grave dug for him. Since the siege, the bodies have hitherto always been buried several in the same grave, and sewn up in their bedding, as there are no people and no time to make coffins.' In their troubled state of feeling, vexations affected the different members of the imprisoned community more acutely than would have been the case at other times. The plague of flies can be adverted to in a half-laughing manner by a man in health; but in the Lucknow enclosure it was a real plague, a source of exquisite | misery, against which more complaints were uttered than almost anything else. There were also troublesome and painful boils on the person, brought on by high temperature and insufficient diet and medicines. Whatever might be the amount of care taken, bullocks were frequently killed by the shot of the enemy; and as animals so dying were not fit for human food, it became necessary to bury the carcasses at once. A frightful duty this was, mostly performed (as has already been stated) at night by officers, whose few hours of possible sleep were cut short by this revolting sort of labour. No one could leave the enclosure, except native servants determined on escape; not an inch of ground belonged to the British beyond the limits of the intrenched position; and therefore whatever had to be put out of sight-dead bodies of human beings, carcasses of bullocks and horses, garbage and refuse of every kind-could only so be treated by being buried underground in the few open spots between the buildings. And this, too, in the August of an Indian climate, when even the best sanitary arrangements fail to remove offensive odours. The officers, in all their letters and diaries, spoke of this portion of their labours as being most distressing; while the poor women, cabined by dozens together in single rooms, yearned, but yearned in vain, for the breathing of a little air free from impurities. They dared not move out, for the balls and bullets of the enemy were whizzing across and into every open spot. Sometimes an 18-pounder shot would burst into a room where two or three of them were dressing, or where a larger number were at meals. In some of the houses or 'garrisons,' where many ladies formed one community, they used to take it in turn to keep awake for hourly watches during the night; one of them said in a letter: 'I don't exactly know what is gained by these nightwatchings-except that we are all very nervous, and are expecting some dreadful catastrophe to happen.' The little children died off rapidly, their maladies being more than could be met by the resources at hand; and those who bore up against afflictions were much emaciated. The husbands

and fathers, worn out with daily fatigue and nightly watching, had little solace to afford their families; and thus the women and children were left to pass the weary hours as best they could. A few little creatures, ‘siege-babies,' as their poor mothers called them, came into the world during this stormy period; and with them each day was a struggle for life. When the native servants one by one escaped, the discomforts of the English women of course underwent much aggravation; and when the house or bungalow of Mr Gubbins became untenable through shot and bullet, the difficulty was immense of finding shelter elsewhere; every place was already overcrowded. Much additional misery befell the officers and men from this fact-that the commissariat quarter, offensive to every sense on account of the organic accumulations inseparable from the slaughtering and cutting up of animals-was one of the weakest parts in the whole enclosure, and required to be guarded at all hours by armed men, who loathed the spot for the reason just mentioned. The chaplain, too, found the church-yard getting into such a horrible state that he dared not go near the graves to read the funeral-service. Mr Rees mentions an instance to illustrate the anxieties of those who, willing to suffer themselves, were almost crushed by witnessing the privations of those dear to them. 'He' (mentioning one of the officers) 'had at first told me of his wife being feverish and quite overcome with the abominable life she had to lead. And then he talked to me of his boy Herbert; how he was attacked with cholera, and feared he was very ill; and how, instead of being able to watch by his bedside, he had been all night digging at Captain Fulton's mine; and then how his child next night was convulsed, and what little hope of his darling being spared to them-how heart-rending the boy's sufferings were to his parents' feelings-how even his (the father's) iron constitution was at last giving way-how he had neither medicine, nor attendance, nor proper food for the child-and how the blowing up of the mine so close to his sick child had frightened him. And then to-day he told me, with tears in his eyes, that yesterday-the anniversary of his birthday-his poor child was called away. "God's will be done," said he; "but it is terrible to think of. At night we dug a hole in the garden, and there, wrapped in a blanket, we laid him." This case is not singular; many another poor parent's heart was thus torn.

The provisioning of the garrison was of course a perpetual source of anxiety to Brigadier Inglis and the other officers; or rather, the distribution of the food already possessed, and rapidly becoming exhausted, without any prospect of replenishing. Fresh meat was in store for the garrison as long as any healthy bullocks remained; but in other articles of food the deficiency became serious as the month advanced. An immense store of attah -the coarse meal from which chupatties or cakes were made-had been provided by Sir Henry

Lawrence; but this was now nearly exhausted, and the garrison had to grind corn daily, from the store kept in the impromptu granaries. The women and the elder children were much employed in this corn-grinding, by means of hand-mills. To economise the meal thus laboriously ground, rice and unground wheat were served out to the natives. The animal food was likely to be limited, by the want not of bullocks, but of bhoosa or fodder to feed them; and the commissariat-officers saw clearly before them the approach of a time when the poor animals must die for want of food. The tea and sugar were exhausted, except a little store kept for invalids. The tobacco was all gone; and the soldiers, yearning for a pipe after a hard day's work, smoked dried leaves as the only obtainable substitute. A few casks of porter still remained, to be guarded as a precious treasure. Once now and then, when an officer was struck down to death, an auction would be held of the few trifling comforts which he had been able to bring with him into the enclosure; and then the prices given by those who possessed means plainly told how eager was the desire for some little change in the poor and insufficient daily food. A few effects left by Sir Henry Lawrence were sold; among them, £16 was given for a dozen bottles 'of brandy, £7 for a dozen of beer, the same amount for a dozen of sherry, £7 for a ham, £4 for a quart bottle of honey, £5 for two small tins of preserved soup, and £3 for a cake of chocolate. Sugar was the luxury for which most craving was exhibited.

We pass on now to another month, September, whose early days ushered in the tenth week of the captivity.

New mines were everywhere discovered. The British, officers and men, attended sedulously to the underground listening-galleries adverted to in a former paragraph, and there obtained unmistakable evidence that the enemy were running mines towards Sago's house, the Brigade Mess, the Bailey guard, and other buildings, with the customary intent of blowing them up, and making a forcible entry into the enclosure. Untiring exertions at countermining alone frustrated these terrible operations. On one day, the upper part of the Brigade Mess was smashed in by a shot; on another, a breach was made in the wall of the Martinière temporary school, requiring very speedy stockading and barricading to prevent the entrance of the enemy; on another, a few engineers made a gallant sortie from Innes's house, and succeeded in blowing up a building from which the enemy had maintained an annoying fire of musketry; and on another day, an officer had the curiosity to count the cannon-balls, varying from 3 to 24 pounds each, which had fallen on the roof of one building alone, the Brigade Mess-they were no less than 280 in number! On the 5th of the month, the enemy made a more than usually impetuous attack; there were 5000 of them in sight from the Residency; they had formed a battery on the other side of the river; they exploded two mines

near the Bailey guard and the mess-house; they advanced to Gubbins's house and to the Sikh Square, bringing with them long ladders to effect an escalade-in short, they seemed determined to carry their point on this occasion. All was in vain, however; the garrison, though worked almost to death, gallantly rushed to every endangered spot and repelled the enemy, hastily reconstructing such defence-works as had been destroyed or damaged. Fortunately, the two exploded mines were short of their intended distance: they wrought but little damage. Much marching and countermarching were occasionally visible among the troops in the city vague rumours reached the Residency that Havelock had a second time vanquished Nena Sahib's troops at Cawnpore or Bithoor; but to what extent these movements and rumours would influence the garrison was left painfully undecided. The nights were more terrible than the days; for the enemy, as if to destroy all chance of sleep, kept up a torrent of musketry, accompanied by much shouting and screaming. Many of the officers worked with almost superhuman energy at this time. Captains. Fulton and Anderson, Lieutenants Aitken, Clery, Innes, Hutchinson, Tulloch, Birch, Hay, and others, were constantly on the watch for mines, and sedulously digging countermines to foil them.

The eleventh week found the garrison more than ever exposed to hourly peril. The officers, driven from place to place for their few hours of repast and repose, had latterly messed in one of the buildings of the Begum's Kothee; this fact seemed to be well known to the rebels, who were from the first better acquainted with what transpired inside the fort than the garrison were with external affairs; they directed their shells and balls so thickly on that spot, that ingress and egress were equally difficult. Two sides of Innes's house were blown in, and the whole structure made little else than a heap of ruins; the Residency, too, became so tottering, that renewed precautions had to be taken in that quarter; new mines were perpetually discovered, directed to points underneath the various buildings; and the enemy sought to increase their means of annoyance by booming forth shells filled with abominable and filthy compositions. Perhaps the most harassing troubles were owing to the uncertainty of the time and place when active services would be needed. The officers could not reckon upon a single minute of peace. In the midst of all these miseries,' says Captain Anderson, 'you would hear the cry of "Turn out ;" and you had to seize your musket and rush to your post. Then there was a constant state of anxiety as to whether we were mined or not; and we were not quite sure, whilst we were at a loophole, that we might not suddenly see the ground open, or observe the whole materials of the house fly into the air by the explosion of a mine. Shells came smashing into our rooms, and dashed our property to pieces; then followed round-shot, and down tumbled huge

pieces of masonry, while bits of wood and brick flew in all directions. I have seen beds literally blown to atoms, and trunks and boxes completely smashed into little bits.' Nevertheless, there was no flinching in the garrison; if a mine were discovered, a countermine was run out to frustrate it; if a wall or a verandah were knocked down by shot, the débris was instantly used to form a rampart, barricade, or stockade. On the 14th of the month, a loss was incurred which caused grief throughout the garrison. Captain Fulton, whose indomitable energy had won the admiration of all in his duties as engineer, and whose kindness of manner had rendered him a general favourite, was struck by a cannon-ball which took his head completely off. Brigadier Inglis felt this loss sensitively, for Fulton had been to him an invaluable aid in all his trials and difficulties. Fulton, who was especially marked by his skill and promptness in countermining, had succeeded Major Anderson as chief-engineer, and was himself now succeeded by Captain Anderson.

The twelfth week, the last which the beleaguered English were destined to suffer before the one which was to bring Havelock and Neill to Lucknow, found them in great despondency. They had lately lost a number of valuable officers. Lieutenant Birch fell; then M. Deprat, a merchant who worked and fought most valiantly at the defences; then Captain Cunliffe; and then Lieutenant Graham, whose mental firmness gave way under privation, grief, and wounds, leading him to commit suicide. As a natural consequence of these and similar losses, harder work than ever pressed on those who remained alive. Never for a moment was the look-out neglected. At all hours of the day and night, officers were posted on the roofs of the Residency and the post-office, finding such shelter as they could while watching intently the river, the bridges, the roads, and the buildings in and around the city; every fact they observed, serious in its apparent import, was at once reported to Brigadier Inglis, who made such defensive arrangements as the circumstances made desirable, and as his gradually lessened means rendered possible. What were the sleepless nights thus added to harassing days for the responsible guardian of the forlorn band, may to some extent be conceived. The enemy's batteries were now more numerous than ever. They were constructed near the iron bridge; in a piece of open ground that formerly comprised the Residency kitchengarden; near a mosque by the swampy ground on the river's bank; in front of a range of buildings called the Captan Bazaar; in the Taree Kothee opposite the Bailey guard; near the clock-tower opposite the financial office; in a garden and buildings opposite the judicial office and Anderson's house; in numerous buildings that bore upon the Cawnpore Battery and the Brigade Mess; in fields and buildings that commanded Gubbins's house; and in positions on the northwest of the nclosure-in other words, the whole place was

surrounded by batteries bristling with mortars and great guns, some or other of which were almost incessantly firing shot and shell into it.

And what, the reader may anxiously ask, was the domestic or personal life of the inmates of the enclosure during these three weeks of September? It was sad indeed-beyond the former sadness. If the men toiled and watched in sultry dry weather, they were nearly overcome by heat and noisome odours; if they slept in the trenches in damp nights after great heat, they suffered terribly in their limbs and bones, for they had neither tents nor change of clothing. Such was the state to which the whole of the ground was brought, by refuse of every kind, that a pool resulting from a shower of rain soon became an insupportable nuisance; sanitary cleansings were unattainable by a community who had neither surplus labour nor efficient drains at command. Half the officers were ill at one time, from disease, over-fatigue, and insufficient diet; and when they were thus laid prostrate, they had neither medicines nor surgeons sufficient for their need. There was not a sound roof in the whole place. On one day a cannon-ball entered at one end of the largest room in the hospital, traversed the whole length, and went out at the other-but, singular to relate, it did not hurt one human being in the whole crowded apartment. In the commissariat department, some of the bullocks yet remaining fell sick through privations, others were shot; thereby lessening the reserve store, and adding to the repulsive night-duties of the officers already adverted to. Of the few native servants still remaining, hardly one now could be retained; and the saving of their simple food was an inadequate counterbalance for the loss of their assistance in drudgery labours. There were not, however, wanting proofs of a fact abundantly illustrated in many walks of life-the moral healthiness of useful employment. One of the ladies, whose early weeks in the Residency had been weeks of misery, afterwards wrote thus: 'I now find every hour of the day fully occupied. It is a great comfort to have so much to do, and to feel one's self of some little use; it helps one to keep up one's spirits much better than would otherwise be possible under the circumstances.' The livestock, the rum, the porter, were all getting low; tea, sugar, coffee, and chocolate had long disappeared from the rations. Such officers and civilians as had money in their pockets, were willing to give almost any prices for the few luxuries still remaining in private hands, in order that they might in some degree alleviate the sufferings of their wives and children. Forty shillings were eagerly given for a bottle of brandy; thirty-two for a bottle of curaçoa; forty for a small fowl; sixteen shillings per pound were offered, but offered in vain, for sugar; two shillings a pound for coarse flour; ten shillings a pound for a little half-rancid butter or ghee; tobacco, four shillings a leaf; a bottle of pickles, forty shillings. Mr