Snakes* Delhi 303 



Delhi lies upon the right bank of the River Jumna, 

 and the eastern side, where the city extends to the 

 bank, is the only part of it without wall ; even here 

 the high bank is faced with masonry. The circuit of 

 the actual wall round the city is five and a half miles, 

 and it has ten gates. It was interesting to see the 

 long, white, straight road which leads to Meerut, and 

 was watched with such eager anxiety by our few 

 English survivors from the Flagstaff Tower for days 

 after the Mutiny had broken out. 



It was at Meerut that the Sepoys first revolted. 

 Having shot down their English officers on parade, the 

 die was cast, and in a mad frenzy they rushed off to 

 the jail, breaking it open, and releasing all the prisoners. 

 Running through cantonments, they cut down every 

 European whom they met. Then they streamed off 

 in a body to the neighbouring city of Delhi, to stir up 

 the criminal population of that great " Babylon," to 

 disaffect the native garrison there, and to place them- 

 selves under the authority of the discrowned Mogul 

 Emperor, who was then living in the Palace of Delhi, 

 with a pension of a hundred and twenty thousand 

 pounds a year, and exclusive jurisdiction over the 

 building itself though the city was under British 

 administration. 



Along that very road the mutineers rushed. But 

 meanwhile Meerut was the strongest military station in 

 India, for it possessed a large European garrison of 

 foot, horse, and guns, sufficient to overwhelm the 

 mutineers before ever they reached Delhi. What did the 



