Camps, Quarters, and Casual PlacesForbes, Archibald
History
Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places
Forbes, Archibald
Military camps; Military history, Modern
Lucknow is so full of interest and the objects of interest are so
widely spread that one is in doubt where to begin the pilgrimage. But
the Alumbagh is on the railway side of the canal and therefore nearest;
and I drive directly to it before going into the town. From the station
the road to the Alumbagh turns sharp to the left and the two miles'
drive is through beautiful groves and gardens. Then the plain opens up
and there is the detached temple which so long was one of Outram's
outlying pickets; and to the left of it the square-walled enclosure of
the Alumbagh itself with the four corners flanked by earthen bastions.
The top of the wall is everywhere roughly crenelated for musketry fire,
and on two of its faces there are countless tokens that it has been the
target for round shot and bullets. The Alumbagh in the pre-Mutiny
period was a pleasure-garden of one of the princes of Oude. The
enclosed park contained a summer palace and all the surroundings were
pretty and tasteful. It was for the possession of the Alumbagh that
Havelock fought his last battle before the relief; here it was where he
left his baggage and went in; here it was that Clyde halted to organise
the turning movement which achieved the second relief. Hither were
brought from the Dilkoosha the women and children of the garrison prior
to starting on the march for Cawnpore; here Outram lay threatening
Lucknow from Clyde's relief until the latter's ultimate capture of the
city. But these occurrences contribute but trivially to the interest of
the Alumbagh in comparison with the circumstance that within its
enclosure is the grave of Havelock. We enter the great enclosure under
the lofty arch of the castellated gateway. From this a straight avenue
bordered by arbor vitae trees, conducts to a square plot of ground
enclosed by low posts and chains. Inside this there is a little garden
the plants of which a native gardener is watering as we open the
wicket. From the centre of the little garden there rises a shapely
obelisk on a square pedestal and on one side of the pedestal is a long
inscription. "Here lie," it begins, "the mortal remains of Henry
Havelock;" and so, methinks, it might have ended. There is needed no
prolix biographical inscription to tell the reverent pilgrim of the
deeds of the dead man by whose grave he stands--so long as history
lives, so long does it suffice to know that "here lie the mortal
remains of Henry Havelock"--and the text and verse of poetry grate on
one as redundancies. He sickened two days before the evacuation of the
Residency and died on the morning of the 24th of November in his dooly
in a tent of the camp at the Dilkoosha. The life went out of him just
as the march began, and his soldiers conveyed with them, on the litter
on which he had expired, the mortal remains of the chief who had so
often led them on to victory.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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