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as if in a winding sheet — a black shadow symbolising, so to speak, a ghastly spectre, eternally hovering over the unhallowed tomb of the East India Company. And although inexpressibly lamentable as it is to dwell upon the harrowing reminiscences of one of the most cruel catastrophes on record, I make no apology for the digression, especially as it has enabled me to trace, however faintly, the darkest spot on the historic pages of British rule in India. Indeed, the digression might still be continued, but what is the good; except to add that the Mutiny, in one respect, was not altogether an unmitigated calamity? For it resulted in the old order of things being rolled up like a scroll of stupendous failures; and from that eventful period a new era — the glorious Victorian era of righteousness — dawned upon benighted India, by kind Britannia generously lifting her up to a higher level of prosperity and happiness than that to which she had ever attained; and, as years roll on, she is destined to become, as I have already ventured to say, without any prophetic romance, a glory to Asia in her resources of civilisation; and in the far, far distant future, her lustre will tend to brighten the lot of countless millions of her people, and reflect the grandeur of the mighty English nation which, with its irresistible arm, benevolently dispelled the darkness in which she had slumbered for ages immemorial, and raised her to the dignity of an Empire perhaps second to none in the world. And when communication by railway is established between England and India; and steam has annihilated the space