Snakes. Delhi 309 



But after the retaking of Delhi had cost six days 

 of desperate fighting and horrible house-to-house 

 butchery throughout the dense native quarter, we 

 find, when that week was over, the city presenting 

 another scene. One of the leading officers writes : 

 " That march through Delhi in the early morning 

 light was a gruesome proceeding. Our way from 

 the Lahore Gate through the Chandi Chauk led 

 through a veritable city of the dead : not a sound 

 was to be heard but the falling of our own footsteps ; 

 not a living creature was to be seen. Dead bodies 

 were strewn about in all directions, in every attitude 

 that the death-struggle had caused them to assume, 

 and in every stage of decomposition. We marched 

 in silence or involuntarily spoke in whispers, as 

 though fearing to disturb those ghastly remains of 

 humanity. The sights we encountered were horrible 

 and sickening to the last degree. Here a dog gnawed 

 at an uncovered limb ; there a vulture, disturbed 

 by our approach from its loathsome meal, but too 

 completely gorged to fly, fluttered away to a safer 

 distance. In many instances the positions of the 

 bodies were appallingly lifelike. Some lay with their 

 arms uplifted as if beckoning ; and indeed the whole 

 scene was weird and terrible beyond description. 

 Our horses seemed to feel the horror of it as much 

 as we did, for they shook and snorted in evident 

 terror. The atmosphere was unimaginably disgusting, 

 laden as it was with the most noxious and sickening 

 odours. 



