The possession of this fort was strongly contested, the Russians bringing up field-batteries; the French were also fired on heavily by three steamers, which, circling round, fired broadsides into them, and batteries sent shells from the north side of the harbor into the French support. Eventually after a prolonged struggle, in which the French captured four field-guns, St. Pol's brigade was beaten back, losing its brigadier, and with him fell the chief staff officer of the division and two colonels. The Russians followed up closely, and Bisson's brigade, which for want of space in the trenches had been stationed in the Careenage Ravine, was too far behind to afford effective aid. Bourbaki's right being thus uncovered, he also was driven back, although supported by Motterouge's other brigade.

After Bourbaki and St. Pol had been repulsed, the Voltigeurs and Grenadiers of the Guard and Marolle's brigade were sent against the curtain and Redan respectively. These they carried, but were once more expelled from the Little Redan, Marolle and De Pontevès falling dead at the head of their brigades, and Mellinet, Bisson, and Bourbaki being wounded. The French still held the curtain, and Bosquet now ordered up the two fieldbatteries then standing behind the Victoria redoubt. They descended the ridge at the trot, unlimbered in front of the sixth parallel, and, coming into action, fired with great effect on the Russian infantry, which offered a broad target. Yet the batteries suffered terribly; the commanding officer (Souty) was killed, and out of the one hundred fifty men he brought down, only fifty-five returned when the guns were dragged back by hand because they lost all their horses except nineteen.

Bosquet, surrounded by several Russian officers, who were prisoners, and their guards, was interrogating the captives when a shell burst over them, killing or wounding both them and the guard the General only escaping. Later, when leaning on the parapet watching the progress of the fight, he was struck in the face by a fragment of a shell. He had just strength to send word to General Dulac to take his place, when he fainted.

The struggle in and around the Malakoff was continued till three o'clock, when Gortschakoff withdrew his troops from the work which they had defended with such marvellous endurance for eleven months. The prize was now won, but at heavy cost.

MacMahon's division, which assaulted with forty-five hundred bayonets and two hundred officers, lost in killed and wounded just half its strength.

Soon after the Russians had been driven from the salient of the Malakoff, the French troops occupying it were fired on from the lower part of the old masonry tower, which was loopholed, and inside which five officers and sixty Russian soldiers had taken refuge. It was impossible to dislodge them, as the only entrance was strongly blocked on the inside. After a time some gabions were collected, and having been placed in position close to the loopholes, were lighted, but before the defenders could be smoked out, a mortar fired against the door blew it away, and the Russians surrendered. The gabions burning fiercely, the officers became alarmed lest the fire should be communicated to some of the surrounding magazines, and an attempt was made to extinguish the blazing fragments. As this was difficult, sappers were set to work to dig a trench and throw the excavated earth on the fire. While the men were digging, four wires, communicating with mines, were found and cut.

While the Russian officers were surrendering, a desperate struggle was carried on at the far end of the Malakoff enclosure, the Russians coming over the parapets in three heavy columns. Khrouleff, the "fighting general," being wounded, had been replaced by General Martinau. The combatants fought hand to hand till, Martinau, losing an arm, and his men being out of ammunition, Gortschakoff ordered them to give up the struggle and fall back.

Between three and four o'clock a magazine blew up near the point where the curtain joined the Malakoff, and the division at once ran back to the French advanced trenches. This occurred at a moment when General La Motterouge was wounded, but his men were rallied and got back into position ere the smoke and dust of the explosion cleared away. The flag of the Ninetyfirst Regiment was buried so deep that it was not found till next day, when it was recovered still grasped tightly in the hands of the lifeless officer who was carrying it when the explosion took place.

When the Russians withdrew, General MacMahon, contemplating the possibility of further explosions from undiscovered

mines, in order to minimize possible loss of life, sent back the brigade under Colonel Decaen, whom he ordered to hold himself in readiness, and, if Vinoy's brigade should be blown into the air, to come forward immediately and replace it. Then, turning to General Vinoy, MacMahon observed, "It is possible, General, that your brigade will be blown up, but Decaen will replace you immediately, so we shall still hold our position." MacMahon himself remained in the Malakoff with Vinoy's brigade.

During the afternoon it was reported to General Pélissier that large numbers of Russian troops were crossing by the floating bridge to the north side of the harbor, but the allies did not yet feel confident that the end had quite come. About midnight one of the maritime forts was blown up, and explosions continued at intervals throughout the night, fires bursting out wherever any inflammable substance remained.

At 3 A.M. on the 9th Corporal Ross, Royal Engineers, who was employed in the advanced sap, being struck by the unusual silence within the Redan, crept across the ditch, and, climbing over the parapet, found that the enemy had evacuated the work.

At daylight all the Russian fleet except the Vladimir had disappeared under water, and the last of this heroic garrison was seen forming up on the north side of the floating bridge, which was then cut, leaving on the southern side two hundred or three hundred men, who had remained behind, setting fire to the houses. This was the last of the active operations. Gortschakoff withdrew his troops, and, placing the cavalry on the Belbeck, extended the infantry along the Mackenzie Farm heights position, which he proceeded to fortify.

The allies were now in possession of the bloodstained ruins of Sebastopol, and the last of the Black Sea fleet was at the bottom of the harbor. Perhaps it was well that peace ensued. Although we might have dislodged the Russians from their position on the heights, it would have been difficult to obtain any further material advantage in the Crimea.

THE INDIAN MUTINY

A.D. 1857

J. TALBOYS WHEELER

From the time when Warren Hastings, the first English GovernorGeneral of India, was sent to rule there (1774), the British power in that country grew steadily, and many annexations were made to the territory under its control. There were frequent wars with the French, England's rivals in India, and with the natives in different Provinces that one after another were absorbed into the British possessions. The first serious menace against this growing power appeared in a native movement, the culmination of which is known as the Indian or Sepoy Mutiny.

The causes of this rising are traced to distrust and hatred of the British rulers-feelings that caused a ferment among the Hindus and Mahometans of India, who suspected a design for suppressing their religions. The natives also became alarmed at the introduction of Western ideas and improvements-new methods of education, the steam-engine, the telegraph, etc.—portending to the Indian peoples the substitution of a foreign civilization for their own. The truth is that in attempting to abolish suttee and other ancient native customs, and to introduce more enlightened practices, the British Government was acting in the interest of general humanity.

The immediate provocation of the great mutiny among the sepoys or native troops in the British East-Indian service is well shown, and the entire story of the revolt is equally well told, by Mr. Wheeler. This author, while a secretary to the Government of India in the latter part of the nineteenth century, enjoyed peculiar advantages for study and research. These advantages he turned to account by writing an authoritative and interesting history of the land of his official residence.

EAR

ARLY in the year 1857, it is said, there were rumors of a coming danger to British rule in India. In some parts of the country chu patties, or cakes, were circulated in a mysterious manner from village to village.1 Prophecies were also rife that in 1857 the East India Company's raj [rule] would come to an end. Lord Canning has been blamed for not taking alarm at these proceedings; but something of the kind always had been going 'The form of the cake conveyed information that an insurrection was in preparation-an old custom-understood by the natives.-ED.

on in India. Cakes of cocoanuts are given away in solemn fashion; and as the villagers were afraid to keep them or eat them, the circulation went on to the end of the chapter. Then, again, holy men and prophets have always been common in India. They foretell pestilence and famine: the downfall of British rule, or the destruction of the whole world. They are often supposed to be endowed with supernatural powers and to be impervious to bullets; but these phenomena invariably disappear whenever they come in contact with Europeans, especially as all such characters are liable to be treated as vagrants without visible means of subsistence.

One dangerous story, however, got abroad in the early part of 1857, which ought to have been stopped at once, and for which the military authorities were wholly and solely to blame. The Enfield rifle was being introduced; it required new cartridges, which in England were greased with the fat of beef or pork. The military authorities in India, with strange indifference to the prejudices of sepoys, ordered the cartridges to be prepared at Calcutta in like manner; forgetting that the fat of pigs was hateful to the Mahometans, while the fat of cows was still more horrible in the eyes of the Hindus.

The excitement began at Barrackpur, sixteen miles from Calcutta. At this station there were four regiments of sepoys, and no Europeans except the regimental officers. One day a low-caste native, known as a lascar, asked a Brahmin sepoy for a drink of water from his brass pot. The Brahmin refused, as it would defile his pot. The lascar retorted that the Brahmin was already defiled by biting cartridges which had been greased with cow's fat. This vindictive taunt was based on truth. Lascars had been employed at Calcutta in preparing the new cartridges, and the man was possibly one of them. The taunt created a wild panic at Barrackpur. Strange to say, however, none of the new cartridges had been issued to the sepoys; and had this been promptly explained to the men, and the sepoys left to grease their own cartridges, the alarm might have died out. But the explanation was delayed until the whole of the Bengal army was smitten with the groundless fear; and then, when it was too late, the authorities protested too much, and the terrorstricken sepoys refused to believe them.