Through the gloom there was one gleam of sunshine. The fortress of Allahabad, with its magazines of military stores, remained in British possession. At the point where the Ganges and the Jumna blend their waters, distant by land five hundred miles from Calcutta, it was a position of the highest strategical importance, forming as it did an advanced base for operations in the regions beyond having for their object the relief of beleaguered places and the restoration of communications with Delhi and the Punjaub. From Calcutta to Allahabad there were two available routes; by the Ganges a distance of eight hundred miles, to accomplish which by steamer required from twenty to thirty days; by the land route of five hundred miles, one hundred and twenty of which was by railway and three hundred and eighty by the Grand Trunk Road. The troops as they landed were despatched up country in detachments by one or other of those routes. The common objective for the time was Allahabad, where Sir James Outram, who had returned from the command of the Persian expedition and had left Calcutta on the 6th of August to assume the command of the combined Cawnpore and Dinapore divisions along with the civil appointment of Chief Commissioner in Oude, was to collect the detachments of reinforcements as they arrived, preparatory to moving upward to Cawnpore there to join Havelock and advance with him to attempt the relief of the beleaguered garrison in the Residency of Lucknow. But the troops, which as soon as possible after landing at Calcutta should have been pushing straight up country to Allahabad either by land or by water, suffered unavoidable detentions by the way. So disturbed was the country that posts had to be maintained to keep the routes open, and their occupation absorbed a certain proportion of the scanty European force. The mutinies of native troops at Dinapore and Bhagulpore caused the temporary detention by the local authorities of important reinforcements; and it was not until the first week of September that Outram was able to collect his scattered detachments at Allahabad. After a sharp and successful fight on the way he reached Cawnpore on September 15th; bringing reinforcements which raised to a strength of about three thousand men the force of which he chivalrously waived the command in favour of Havelock. Ten days later was accomplished what is commonly though erroneously styled the First Relief of Lucknow,--not a "relief" in any sense of the term, but simply a great augmentation to the defensive strength of the garrison which had been holding the weak position of the Residency with a heroism so staunch.