The
Weather Began To Astonish Us A Little To-Day, By A Renewed Accession Of
October Heat.
Still the climate was delightful.
Morning and evenings
always cool, and sometimes cold, and a bright cheery blue invariably
over head, while a refreshing breeze made music through the pine trees,
and waved the golden ears of rice.
Encamped under a spreading sycamore, at the junction of two mountain
streams. To-day a new order of bridge appeared, consisting merely of
a single rope, the passengers being tugged across in a basket. From
its appearance it was rather a matter of congratulation that we were
not called upon to cross it.
OCTOBER 7. - Being Sunday, we made a halt, and enjoyed a refreshing
bathe in the stream, and a rest from the toils of the road.
OCTOBER 8. - Left "Hutteian," and, winding along the valley,
arrived, by a steep ascent, at Chukar, a little village boasting a
fort and a small nest of Sepoys. It also owned a curiously DIRTY,
and consequently SAINTLY Fukeer, whom we found sitting bolt upright,
newly decorated with ashes, and with an extremely florid collection
of bulls, demons, &c. painted about the den he occupied. On the road
I again picked up the old Mussulman, who seemed delighted to chat,
and gave me an account of the part he had played in the mutiny.
He appeared frequently to have warned his Commissioner that an outbreak
was about to take place, but without his crediting the story; and when
it actually did occur, the latter fled from his station at Lahore,
and took shelter with a friendly Risaldar until the storm should blow
over. From thence he sent for the old gentleman, my informant, and
"Imam Buksh" forthwith mounted his camel and came with five and twenty
armed followers to his assistance. While here, a party of rebels came
searching for English, and Mr. Buksh narrated how he went forth to
meet them, and proclaimed, that they might kill the Englishman if they
would, but must first dispose not only of himself, but also of his
five and twenty followers. Upon this they abused him, and asked him,
"What sort of a Mussulman he called himself?" and denounced him as a
"Feringee," or foreigner.
The rebels, however, finally went off, and the Commissioner and his
family, by Imam Buksh's further assistance, succeeded in escaping
all the dangers of the times. For this service it was that the old
gentleman had just received his jageer of two villages, now some
years after the occurrence of the events.
He appeared to think very little of the Maharajah's rule, and
was of opinion that the people were miserably oppressed, paying,
by his account, two thirds of the produce of their lands to the
Government. This was in kind, but, where the revenue was taken in coin,
a produce of about fourteen pounds of grain was subject to a tax of
two rupees. On the subject of the cause of the mutiny in India, he
said that greased cartridges certainly had nothing to do with it; for
the rest, why, "It was the will of God, and so it happened." To induce
him to argue on the POSSIBILITY of the mutiny having been successful,
I found to be out of the question.
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