by a report that the whole rebel army had fled from Delhi and was hastening towards Agra, and that the mutineers from Gwalior and Central India were advancing to attack the fort.  Again all was confusion.  Reports as to the movements of the enemy were never the same for two days together; at last what appeared to be authentic intelligence was received:  the Gwalior troops were said to be close at hand, and those urgent appeals for assistance which were sent to Greathed caused us to turn our steps towards Agra.

Our object having been attained, we were all anxious to depart.  The Chief Commissioner, however, was quite as anxious that we should remain; firmly believing that the Gwalior troops would reappear, he suggested that we should follow them up at least as far as Dholpur; but this proposal Greathed firmly refused to accede to.  The orders he had received were to open up the country[9] between the Jumna and the Ganges, and he had not forgotten the little note from Havelock discovered in the fakir’s platter.

At last the column was allowed to leave.  The evening before our departure Norman and I called on the Chief Commissioner to say good-bye.  We found Colonel Fraser greatly depressed, and inclined to take a most gloomy view of the situation, evidently thinking the restoration of our rule extremely doubtful.  His last words to us were, ’We shall never meet again.’[10] He looked extremely ill, and his state of health probably accounted for his gloomy forebodings.  We, on the contrary, were full of health and hope.  Having assisted at the capture of Delhi, the dispersion of the enemy who had attempted to oppose us on our way through the Doab, and the troops we were serving with having recently achieved a decisive victory at Agra over a foe four times their number, we never doubted that success would attend us in the future as in the past, and we were now only anxious to join hands with Havelock, and assist in the relief of the sufferers besieged in Lucknow.

[Footnote 1:  ’They regarded the Mutiny as a military revolt; the rural disturbances as the work of the mobs.  The mass of the people they considered as thoroughly loyal, attached to our rule as well from gratitude as from self-interest, being thoroughly conscious of the benefits it had conferred upon them.  Holding these opinions, they did not comprehend either the nature or the magnitude of the crisis.  To their inability to do so, many lives and much treasure were needlessly sacrificed.’—­’The Indian Mutiny,’ Thornhill.]

[Footnote 2:  The Gwalior Contingent was raised in 1844, after the battles of Punniar and Maharajpore, to replace the troops of Maharaja Scindia ordered to be reduced.  It consisted of five batteries of Artillery, two regiments of Cavalry, and seven regiments of Infantry, officered by British officers belonging to the Indian Army, and paid for out of the revenues of districts transferred to British management.]

[Footnote 3:  ‘The Indian Mutiny,’ Thornhill.]