Although the whole country was more or less involved in the struggle, the principal interest was centred in the three great cities which were the scene of the fiercest efforts: at Delhi, Cawnpore, and Lucknow the conflict was long-sustained. Delhi, the seat of the new Empire, was thronged with mutineers from many neighbouring garrisons. It was held by numbers of disciplined, well-armed troops, with powerful artillery, to the use of which they had been fully trained, and it stood a long siege in which, at first, owing to the weakness of our forces, the besiegers were themselves besieged. But the little army was a band of braves led by heroes. Such men as the Nicholsons and the Chamberlains roused them to superhuman efforts; and when the place was captured, after a three months’ siege, it was carried by the assault of four weak columns of barely a thousand each. Cawnpore was another large station, which fell at once into the power of the miscreant, Nana Sahib, who has earned for himself undying execration as the most cruel and unprincipled of our foes. But the handful of Europeans would not easily yield; many were only women and children; the fighting men were few; yet they held out in rough entrenchments for nineteen days, standing a siege under the tropical sun of June, and displaying a calm fortitude beyond all praise. Gentle ladies gave their stockings to make cartridge-cases; they nursed the wounded, fed the troops. One brave woman--a soldier’s wife--mounted sentry, sword in hand, over a number of sepoy prisoners. The roll of heroes was well filled at Cawnpore. Such soldiers as Moore (of the 32nd), Jenkins, Mowbray Thomson; such civilians as Heberden and Moncrieffe, make us proud of our race. Who shall forget the cool courage of Delafosse, who stood over a tumbril of ammunition, the woodwork of which had been set alight by the enemy’s fire--stood over it in imminent peril, while he tore off the burning timbers, and stifled the danger with earth? And yet the defenders could not escape their fate. When resistance became hopeless, they capitulated under promise of a safe conduct to Allahabad, and a general massacre followed, from which only two or three of these devoted martyrs escaped. [Illustration: SIR JAMES OUTRAM.]