shopkeepers,—Europeans some, others half-castes, or, as they would fain be called, Eurasians. There, too, (alas!) were the wives and little ones of the men of all these classes and grades, and in no slender proportion; for among our countrymen in India the marriage state is in special honour. There likewise were a great number of half-caste children belonging to the Cawnpore school, who were soon to buy at a very dear price the privilege of having been begotten by a European sire.
The military quarter was entirely distinct from the native city. And here let the English reader divest himself at once of all European ideas, and keep clear of them, as much as in him lies, during the whole course of this narrative. Let him put aside all preconceived notions of a barrack,—of a yard paved with rough stones, and darkened by buildings four stories high, at the windows of which lounge stalwart warriors in various stages of deshabille, digesting their fresh boiled-beef by the aid of a short pipe and a languid gossip. Let him try to form to himself a picture of a military station in Northern India, for it was within the precincts of such a station that was played out the most terrible tragedy of our age.
The cantonments lay along the bank of the river, over a tract extending six miles from northwest to southeast: for, wheresoever in Hindostan Englishmen
