ADVENTURES IN CAMP AND JUNGLE. 197 



* the gunners ; but the infantry who were in support opened 

 fire, and compelled him to retreat ; and he and his men 

 regained the shelter of the Kesidency. 



At the commencement of the outbreak, the Eesident, Colonel 

 Durand, sent off an express to Mhow, calling for the Euro- 

 pean artillery. The battery was sent off at once ; but it was 

 met half-way by a horseman, with the information that the 

 Eesident had been compelled to vacate the cantonment, and 

 had gone, together with such officers and other Europeans, 

 with their families, as could be saved, in the direction of 

 Sehore, escorted by the Bhopal guns, the Sikh cavalry, and 

 the Bheel corps. The station, being abandoned, was sacked 

 and burnt by the insurgents, who murdered about twenty- 

 five European men, women, and children. 



On receiving this intelligence, Colonel Hungerford, who 

 commanded the European artillery, at once returned to Mhow 

 with all speed, fearful least the native troops should have taken 

 advantage of his absence to rise in mutiny. The so-called 

 fort of Mhow was simply an enclosure about 150 yards square, 

 and was used as a magazine. It was surrounded by a loop- 

 holed wall, ten feet high, and two feet in thickness, with 

 small bastions at the four corners, and was originally, I be- 

 lieve, built to repel the Pindarries. Into this Colonel Platt, 

 the officer commanding, had, at the urgent request of his 

 officers, allowed all the European families to be collected. 

 Later on, the artillery were also moved into the fort, but 

 fearful of hurting the feelings of the native troops, the fort 

 guard, which consisted of thirty men of the Native Infantry, 

 was increased to fifty. Thus the day passed, but as soon as 

 darkness had set in the whole of the native troops in the 

 lines rose in open mutiny. The guns, loaded with grape, were 

 at once turned on the native guard in the fort ; and they 



