§4. On the 30th of June Colonel Neill left Allahabad for Cawnpore with 400 Europeans, a regiment of Sikhs, and two squadrons of sepoy cavalry on whom he could not depend. Three days afterwards he received a terrible message from Sir Henry Lawrence at Lucknow. The sepoys had mutinied at Cawnpore. A Mahratta Brahman, named Nana Sahib, had taken possession of the town and cantonment with a large army of Mahratta soldiers and rebel sepoys. The Europeans at Cawnpore had been closely besieged by the enemy, but their fate was unknown. Neill, however, was ordered not to advance unless he had two complete regiments of Europeans under his command. Neill was therefore compelled to return to Allahabad, and to halt there for the arrival of more Europeans from Bengal. [Sidenote: Story of Cawnpore.] The story of Cawnpore is the most heart-rending episode in the annals of British India. In the earlier years of the century it had been the most important military station in Northern India. It was from Cawnpore that Lord Lake had started westward on his famous campaign against Sindia and the French sepoy battalions, which ended in the capture of Delhi and the deliverance of the Mogul from the Mahrattas. But the old glory had departed from Cawnpore. For years the British government had been concentrating its European strength at Meerut, Lahore, and Peshawar. Cawnpore was stripped of all European soldiers, and nothing remained of the British regiments that had once been quartered there, but some half-ruined barracks and a hospital. [Sidenote: General Wheeler.] In 1857 four regiments of sepoys were cantoned at Cawnpore, namely, three of infantry and one of light cavalry. But there was a large trading community of Europeans and the mixed race known as Eurasians. Moreover, there was a considerable number of ladies and children, families of the British officers of the European regiment quartered at Lucknow. The station at Cawnpore was commanded by General Sir Hugh Wheeler, an old sepoy officer, who had served under Lord Lake, and was present during the Afghan and Sikh wars. He had been fifty-four years in India, and could thus look back upon a military career which began in 1803. He was familiar with sepoy ideas, feelings and aspirations. Yet not even General Wheeler, with his long experiences, was able to provide against such an unprecedented disaster as a mutiny of the Bengal army against greased cartridges. [Sidenote: Sore peril.] Cawnpore is seated on the southern bank of the Ganges. It overlooks Oudh on the east and the North-West Provinces on the south and west. It is the vertex of an angle, fifty-five miles south-west from Lucknow, and 120 miles north-west from Allahabad. The European residents had been greatly alarmed at the revolt at Delhi, for both the town and the cantonment were absolutely at the mercy of the sepoys. [Sidenote: Barracks and hospital.]