Life in India, and scenes in the mutiny : being a lecture, delivered to the n.c. officers and men of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, in the gymnasium shed, Royal Artillery Park, Halifax, on Friday afternoon, April 27th, 1860 / by H. Chalmers Miles.

  • Miles, H. Chalmers.
Date:
1860
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Life in India, and scenes in the mutiny : being a lecture, delivered to the n.c. officers and men of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers, in the gymnasium shed, Royal Artillery Park, Halifax, on Friday afternoon, April 27th, 1860 / by H. Chalmers Miles. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Mysore. Malabar Coast. Cap* Comorin. Ceylon. Madras. Trlchinopoly. Tanjorc. Calcutta. Dinapoor. Lucknow. Shahjehanpoor.l Bareilly. Meerut. Delhi. India. Outline (k Aspect a trade of exports and imports of 14 million pounds sterling, and is the seat and centre of a government—subordinate though it be to supreme authority at Calcutta,—which exercises sway over, and legislates for, 10,- 000,000 people ! Looking further southward we see the Mysore country, which, forming a table-land of nearly three thousand feet above the sea- level, enjoys a temperate and healthy clime ; the coast of Malabar, with its crowds of forests and cultured lands ; and, last of all. Cape Comorin, which towers up from the deep, like some mighty giant keeping watch and ward amid the seething waves and the howling tempests, which for centuries have impressed the marks of their relentless strife, on this rugged coast- line. Point de Galle, which has been wittily described as the ‘ posting house ’ between Europe and Asia (because it is the place where all travellers have to stop in their transit either to, or from, the east) brings us to Ceylon—an Island remarkable for its beauty of scenery. This exquisite spot seems to realize all that Eastern imagination can picture of Paradise. It teems with the countless products of mineral and precious stones, and as the soft winds sigh through the Cinnamon groves, and an aromatic odour, sweeter than that wafted by the spices of Araby, rises on all sides, like incense, to the sky, the pilgrims who visit its shrines from distant lands, kiss the earth, in thankfulness at the approach of the perfumed breeze, and believe with implicit reverence that they have reached at last ‘ the abode of the blest.’ Returning, however, to a description of the Indian Peninsula, the next place to direct your notice is Madras (the capital of the Presidency of that name),—a town situate on the Coromandel Coast, in Central Car- natic. This place is exposed to the whole fury of the monsoons, which burst on its shores with terrific violence. A heavy surf always rolls beside its jetty, pier or landing place; and the peculiarity of the stranger’s landing at Madras is, that he generally first touches terra jirma with his knees, or on the broad of his back, instead of in a more comfortable, not to say dignified, posture. Whilst speaking of the Madras side, I may allude to Trlchinopoly—a town to which a smoker’s wishes ought to be assiduously turned, as you can buy cheroots there at about three shillings a thousand, or about twenty a penny, and of pure tobacco. Close to Trlchinopoly is Tanjore, famous for a pill which is a specific for the bite of venomous snakes, and the beauty of this specific over all others is, that you can test the virtue of the remedy on the spot, as poisonous serpents abound in the neighbourhood. We next arrive at Calcutta, the ‘ city of palaces,’ and the seat, as you all know, of the supremo government of India. I should exhaust yom patience, did I do more than just indicate, the other places it is desirable to know. Running up the Ganges, you have Dinapoor, where a scene of ruthless massacre of innocents was perpetrated; and dashing fiir away into Oude, you have first Lucknow—immortalized to all time deeds ot sublime heroism—then Shahjeliaiipoor and Bareilly (names familiar to you), Meerut—the place where the first outbreak of tlie^Iutiiiy occurred, —and Delhi, the antique capital of the Royal Race of Oude. , , Now this country, an outline of which I have thus roughly sketched, presents, as it were, an epitome of the whole world. It has regions a bask beneath the brightest rays of a tropic sun, and others so dieary an profound that they are not surpassed in monotonous gloom by the awtul depths of the Arctic pole. The varying degrees o/ ®levatmn, from tab c lands 2000 feet high to mountain vallies of the height of 8000, produce here changes, identical with those that arise elsewhere, fi-om the great^t difference of position on the earth’s surface. Its vast plains present the