How the unfortunate innocents were butchered in cold blood in the beebeegurch where they were confined, by Sepoys who gloried in trying their skill at severing the ladies’ heads from their bodies at one cut, in splitting little children in twain, and in smearing themselves with the blood of their helpless victims, is too harrowing a tale to dwell upon here.  On the following morning “the mangled bodies of both dead and dying” were cast into the well over which now hovers the marble representation of the Pitying Angel.  When the victorious relieving force scattered Nana’s remaining forces and entered the city, two days later, instead of the living forms of those they had made such heroic efforts to save, they looked down the well and saw their ghastly remains.

In this lovely garden, where all is now so calm and peaceful, scarcely does it seem possible that beneath the marble figure of this Pitying Angel repose the dust of two hundred of England’s gentle martyrs, whose murdered and mutilated forms, but thirty years ago, choked up the well into which they were tossed.  While I stand and read the sorrowful inscription it rains a gentle, soft, unpattering shower.  Are these gentle droppings the tender tribute of angels’ tears.  I wonder, and does it always rain so soft and noiselessly here as it does to-day?

No natives are permitted in this garden without special permission; and an English soldier keeps sentinel at the entrance-gate instead of the Sepoy usually found on such duty.  The memory of this tragedy seems to hang over Cawnpore like a cloud even to this day, and to cause a feeling of bitterness in the minds of Englishmen, who everywhere else regard the natives about them with no other feelings than of the kindliest possible nature.  Other monuments of the mutiny exist, notably the Memorial Church, a splendid Lombard-Gothic structure erected in memoriam of those who fell in the mutiny here.  The church is full of tablets commemorating the death of distinguished people, and the stained-glass windows are covered with the names of the victims of Nana Sahib’s treachery, and of those who fell in action.

Cawnpore is celebrated for the number and extensiveness of its manufactures, and might almost be called the Manchester of India; woollen, cotton, and jute mills abound, leather factories, and various kindred industries, giving employment to millions of capital and thousands of hands.

A stroll through the native quarter of any Indian city is interesting, and Cawnpore is no exception.  One sees buildings and courts the decorations and general appearance of which leave the beholder in doubt as to whether they are theatre or temple.  Music and tom-toming would seem rather to suggest the former, but upon entering one sees fakirs and Hindoo devotees, streaked with clay, fanciful paintings and hideous idols, and all the cheap pomp and pageantry of idolatrous worship.  Strolling into one of these places, an attendant, noting my curious gazing, presents himself and points to a sign-board containing characters as meaningless to me as Aztec hieroglyphics.