every disadvantage, and especially as they sprung the struggle upon them in the very midst of the hot season, when sun-stroke would be sure to lay low more than were prostrated by the bullet.
To show the importance of one aspect of this difficulty: In 1856 there was but one made road in North India—“the Grand Trunk,” so called, from Calcutta to the Punjab. General Anson, the English Commander-in-chief, on the first alarm on the 10th of May, commenced to collect his forces and march upon Delhi. The distance was under four hundred miles; but so wretched were the roads, and having to drag his artillery through rivers, it was the 8th of June when his army reached Delhi, and nine tenths of all the massacre and mischief were accomplished during those twenty-eight days. On the other side the river the conditions of travel were equally bad. The Soane River is crossed by this Grand Trunk Road. There was, in 1856, no way but to drag through its deep sands and widespread waters with bullocks—I have been four hours going from one side to the other; and the wise Government, that for one hundred years had neglected to build a bridge, had erected a dak Bungalow (Travelers' Rest House) on either bank, to meet the clear necessity that if you had breakfasted on one side you would need your dinner when you reached the other! What it was to take troops, artillery, and commissariat through such a country the reader can imagine.
It is a consolation to add, as a sign of that wonderful progress toward a better state of things on which India has since entered, that I had the satisfaction of crossing that same Soane River in 1864 in a few minutes on a first-class railroad bridge, and to-day General Anson could come from Umballa to Delhi in twenty-four hours.
5. The annexation of Oude—the home of the Sepoy—and where, while it was under native administration, the military classes that took service under the British Government had peculiar privileges that annexation would annul, leaving them equal before the law with the rest of the people: this, with the turbulent character of the Talookdars (or Barons) of Oude, who held themselves above
