After a very stormy history, under Mohammedan sovereigns, the kingdom of Oude was annexed to the British dominions in 1856, by the Earl of Dalhousie. The irritating influence of this measure was felt in 1857, when the mutiny broke out. On Sunday the 3d of May (just one week before the outbreak at Meerut), some of the native troops at Lucknow displayed insubordination, which gave great uneasiness to their officers. Sir Henry Lawrence, chief commissioner or viceroy over the whole of Oude, harangued the troops in their own native language, exhorting them to remain true to Queen Victoria; he had temporary success; but every day produced additional symptoms that insurrection was probable. The military cantonment was six miles out of the city; the British troops were only a few hundreds in number, while the native were many thousands. Just outside the city was a building which became very famous-the Residency. It was, in fact, a large enclosure, bounded on four sides by walls, and containing the chief commissioner's house and other public buildings. The English women and children, the sick, a large amount of stores, and a few faithful English soldiers, were prudently brought within this enclosure by Sir Henry Lawrence, who watched with uneasiness the growing turbulence of the natives. The month of May ended very gloomily. Of the native troops, many escaped to join malcontents elsewhere; and during the early days of June, it became evident that various towns and stations in Oude— Seetapore, Shahjehanpore, Secrora, Beraytch, Fyzabad, Jounpore— were in the hands of mutineers, who meditated a combined attack on Lucknow, and an expulsion of the British. The telegraphic wires were cut, spies and watchers were placed on the various roads, and Lawrence had the utmost difficulty in sending messages to, or receiving them from, the authorities at Calcutta. The whole month of June passed in this way, until the 30th, when a powerful force of rebels approached from Fyzabad. Lawrence went out to encounter them, but his native troops deserted him almost to a man, and he was obliged to flee back into Lucknow, with such of his officers as escaped death. On the 1st of July, he abandoned all the outposts, blew up a vast magazine, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the enemy, and shut himself up with his companions in the Residency, there to make a stout resistance until haply aid might come. But Sir Henry Lawrence did not live to welcome this aid. On the very next day, July 2, he was killed by a shot from the enemy; and many months elapsed before the authorities at Calcutta knew how the little band in the Residency at Lucknow bore up under this and an accumulation of other calamities.

LUCKNOW: DEFENCE OF THE RESIDENCY BY INGLIS.

The defence of the Residency, after Sir Henry Lawrence's death, was a notable exemplification of undaunted courage, heroic patience,

and fertility of resources in time of extreme peril. It was on the 2d of July that the gallant man fell; it was not till the 25th of September that another gallant man came to the rescue; and what the British in the Residency bore up against, during these eightyfive days, can with difficulty be realised. Sir John Inglis succeeded to the command after Sir Henry Lawrence's death, and his difficulties were great. He occupied one corner of a great city,' it has been said, 'every other part of which was swarming with deadly enemies. No companion could leave him, without danger of instant death at the hands of the rebel sepoys and the Lucknow rabble; no friends could succour him, seeing that anything less than a considerable military force would have been cut off ere it reached the gates of the Residency; no food or drink, no medicines or comforts, no clothing, no ammunition, in addition to that which was actually within the place at the beginning of July, could be brought in.' The Residency was not one single structure; it was a walled enclosure, with the British commissioner's residence as the principal building. Within this enclosure all were cooped up-officers, soldiers, judges, magistrates, collectors, chaplains, merchants, clerks, ladies, and children; together with a few faithful natives. The total number appears to have been about 1200. It was hardly possible to say who were fighting-men, for almost every man had to fight in turn. All the buildings were fortified as well as circumstances permitted, and arrangements made for hospitals, dispensaries, barracks, magazines, store-rooms, &c. The rebels kept up a siege, a continuous pouring in of shell and shot, bullet and ball, for the whole of the eighty-five days; and for not one single hour could the garrison (whether military or civilian) relax their watchfulness. The sufferings were very great, and of a multifarious kind. Mines, dug from the street outside, exploded within the Residency; ladies were struck by cannon-balls while sitting quietly at their work; bullocks' fodder was fired by the enemy's shot, and endangered the powder-magazines; balls entered the mess-room where the officers took their hurried meals, and on one occasion cut off both the legs of an officer; bombarding was kept up more fiercely by night than even by day, to prevent the beleaguered garrison from obtaining any rest; dead bullocks had to be buried, lest their decaying carcasses should pollute the air; artillery-horses went mad for want of water; hot vapours from stagnant pools produced fever, cholera, dysentery, and diarrhoea; the poor children died rapidly, unable to bear up against the accumulated sufferings; half rations were very early adopted, as a matter of precaution against absolute famine; and what food there was became almost poisoned by flies and mosquitoes. Inglis tried every means of sending messengers to Cawnpore, with entreaties for aid; but very few of them escaped the alertness of the enemy. At the end of July, a rumour spread that aid was coming; but August advanced, no assistance came, and the garrison were in danger of

sinking into despondency. Out of twenty letters or messages at different times, only one received a direct reply from Cawnpore, and that one told that the time was still far distant when a military force could be sent from that town to Lucknow. The little band became weakened day by day, while the enemy waxed more strongly than ever. No one could pass the open ground without being shot at, by rebel musketeers posted on various buildings outside. One of the civilians, writing afterwards of this extraordinary scene, said: '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 bullet 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, a shell burst a couple of yards away from me, killing an old woman, and wounding a native boy and a native cook.' So wore on the terrible month of August, at the end of which another letter was stealthily brought in from Cawnpore, announcing that three more weeks must elapse before aid could reach Lucknow. Every kind of misery was more intense in September than in the preceding months-death, wounds, disease, hunger, thirst, fatigue. A few poor little creatures-siege-babies,' as their mothers called them--were born at this terrible time, and began their existence amid the sound of cannon-balls. All the suffering had to be borne, however, for there were at least 5000 rebels investing the place; yet was the cry: 'No surrender.' As for dress, the whole of the inmates of the garrison were a mere bundle of rags; fire, wear, and tear had done their work; shirt, trousers, and slippers were all the costume of many an officer accustomed to military trappings.

At length the reward came. Some wept for joy, some laughed and shouted, some sank on their knees in prayerful thankfulness, when on the 21st of September-authentic news arrived that succour was really at hand. It came. On the 25th, Inglis shook hands with two trusty generals within the Residency.

LUCKNOW: ACHIEVEMENTS OF HAVELOCK AND OUTRAM.

General Havelock's advance from Cawnpore to Lucknow, to relieve Inglis and his gallant band, was a work of great difficulty, long delayed for the need of increased reinforcements. He had cut his way triumphantly from Allahabad to Cawnpore; he had now greater numbers and sterner enemies to meet between Cawnpore and Lucknow. Neill hastened up from Allahabad, after Havelock's capture of Cawnpore on July 16; he assumed command there, while Havelock prepared to cross the Ganges, and march towards Lucknow. The prospect was somewhat appalling. Leaving his sick and wounded at Cawnpore, Havelock's little army was actually limited

to 1500 men, with 10 badly equipped guns. He crossed the broad and turbulent Ganges with his troops on the 25th; on the 27th, he defeated a large force of rebels at Onao; on the same day, he vanquished the enemy again at Busherutgunje; and on the next three days, he was marching and fighting with very little intermission. But now a deep mortification was in store for him. Every fight cost him some men, even if only a few. He calculated that, by the time he reached Lucknow, he would only have 600 fighting-men left, after allowing for killed, wounded, and sick; he would then have two miles of street-fighting, before reaching the Residency; and the result would probably be, that only 200 or 300 troops would succeed in joining Sir John Inglis certainly too few to relieve and liberate the gallant but weakened band at the Residency.

Havelock retreated to Mungulwar, with little more than 1000 men, there to wait for such reinforcements as good fortune might send him from Cawnpore; and there soon accumulated between him and Lucknow a rebel army of no less than 30,000 men and 50 guns. He fought a second battle of Busherutgunje on the 4th of August, and a third on the 11th-defeating an enormous force of the enemy on each occasion. On the 13th he recrossed the Ganges to Cawnpore, because every battle he fought, and victory he achieved, cut up some or other of his glorious little band. The next five weeks were vexing weeks to him; he knew that the British at Lucknow were suffering much, though he did not know how much; and yet he was too weak to advance to their rescue. He had perforce to wait at Cawnpore until reinforcements reached him. Meanwhile, Nana Sahib was collecting a large number of rebel sepoys at Bithoor, ready for an attack on the British at Cawnpore. Havelock and Neill resolved to anticipate him. Marching out with 1300 men (all that he and Neill could muster), Havelock thoroughly defeated Nana Sahib at Bithoor, and thereby earned a few days' rest for his over-worked troops at Cawnpore. It was a wonderful work which this brave man achieved-gaining 10 battles in 37 days, against enormous odds. By the 21st of August, his position had become extraordinary; he and Neill together had only 700 men fit for the field, so largely had the sick and wounded lessened the number of effectives; while it was known that more than 35,000 rebel troops menaced him on the north, south, and west.

Another name now comes upon the scene. General Sir James Outram, after bringing the brief war with Persia to a conclusion, was appointed to command the whole military district from Dinapoor to Cawnpore, all the other officers being placed under him. This gave increased unity of purpose, though it could not possibly give greater heroism or fortitude. Every exertion was made to send up troops, by land and by water, as fast as they could be got together in small bands; these were sent on during the first half of September, on the 15th of which month Havelock and Neill had the pleasure

of seeing Outram himself enter Cawnpore. Havelock had before superseded Neill in command, and now Outram superseded Havelock; but all three were chivalrous men, who knew how to interpret the etiquette of their profession. Outram especially behaved nobly at this juncture; he requested Havelock to retain the command until Lucknow should be relieved-Outram himself, although a superior officer in rank, promising to act as a subordinate. This generosity, and the reinforcements forthcoming, quite reanimated Havelock and his gallant little band. Havelock crossed the Ganges again into Oude on the 19th, at the head of a larger force than he had yet had under him. He beat back the enemy day after day, in their endeavour to frustrate his passage. On the 23d, he reached a large building outside Lucknow, called the Alum Bagh; and here, as he knew the little band in the Residency would be able to hear his guns, he purposely poured forth a thundering salvo: how this sound cheered the hearts of Inglis and his companions can but faintly be conceived by those who know not the agony of the preceding three months. Exhausted by a deluge of rain, scanty food, and slight covering, Havelock allowed his troops the whole day on the 24th to rest. On the 25th, leaving his baggage and tents under an escort at the Alum Bagh, he marched on towards the Residency-now traversing roads cut by trenches, crossed by palisades, and intersected by houses held by rebel musketeers; now passing a bridge where a perfect storm of shot from a large body of the enemy met them; then through a range of streets of flat-roofed and loop-holed houses, each house a fortress. At last they reached the Residency, where they were received with cheers that rent the skies. Havelock's loss was very severe, more than 530 killed, wounded, and missing-shewing how desperate the fighting had been. Outram received a flesh-wound, and-much more lamentable -the gallant Neill was struck dead by a cannon-ball. One noble regiment, the 78th Highlanders, bore the brunt of the fighting; and of that corps no fewer than ten officers were killed or wounded. Within the Residency, there was almost a frenzy of joy. A story arose that one Jessie Brown, a corporal's wife, cheered the little band at night, in the depth of their despair, by starting up and declaring that she caught the faint sound of the slogan or war-cry of the approaching Highlanders, particularly that of the clan Macgregor, 'the grandest of them a' No one else could hear it; but she insisted. And she was right: it was the Macgregor, and all went down on their knees in thankfulness.-The story was touching, and has been made the basis of song, drama, and romance; but it has never been traced to an authentic source, and is not accepted in the best-informed quarters.

22