The visitors looked over the house and its surroundings, and then went to
the hotel.
CHAPTER XXXII
MORE OF LUCKNOW AND SOMETHING OF BENARES
"I suppose you recall the events of the Mutiny well enough to understand
the situation here in 1857," said Lord Tremlyn the next morning when the
company had gathered in the parlor of the hotel. "But there was no massacre
here, as in Cawnpore, to impress the facts upon your memory, though many
brave men lost their lives in the defence of the place. There were only
seven hundred and fifty troops in the town; but Sir Henry Lawrence had done
the best he could to fortify the Residency, ill adapted as it was for
defensive works.
"An attempt was made to check the advance of the rebels eight miles from
the city; but it was a failure, with the small available force, and two
days later the enemy attacked the British at the Residency. Three times
the brave defenders beat back the assaults of the assailants. These events
on the spot you have visited occurred between the last of May and the first
of July. It was not till the twenty-second of September that Havelock and
Outram arrived, and captured the Alum-Bagh, which we shall visit this
morning. It was a terrible summer that the beleaguered people and their
brave handful of soldiers passed; and Tennyson has commemorated Lucknow in
his immortal verse.
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