Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877Kennedy, James
History
Life and Work in Benares and Kumaon, 1839-1877
Kennedy, James
India -- Description and travel; India -- History -- British occupation, 1765-1947 -- Biography; Missionaries; Missions -- India
The most memorable episode of this period was a visit we paid to
Allahabad, Cawnpore, and Lucknow, in the winter of 1859-60. We saw much
on this tour which deeply and painfully interested us. I have already
mentioned the desolation I saw on my visit to Allahabad at the end of
1857. During the two succeeding years the houses which had been burnt
had been rebuilt, new houses had been erected, and new roads had been
made. Traces of the desolation caused by the Mutiny remained, but there
were on every side signs of great prosperity. Allahabad, from its
position at the confluence of the Ganges and the Jumna, had always been
deemed a place of great importance in both a military and civil aspect.
It rose to new importance by being made the seat of government for the
North-West instead of Agra, and also by becoming the central
railway-station, from which it was arranged railways should ramify to
Lahore and Peshawur in the north-west, to Calcutta in the east and
south, to Jubbulpore and Bombay in the west, forming in Central India a
connection with the railways in Southern India. This arrangement has
been carried out, and now there is no city in the interior of the
country which bears so close a resemblance as Allahabad to the great
Presidency cities, in its churches, European shops, hotels, and roads so
lined with houses that they may be called streets. As might be expected,
the native population has greatly increased.
From Allahabad we went by train to Cawnpore, one hundred and thirty
miles to the north-west. This place was for many years a large military
station, as the kingdom of Oude lay on the other side of the Ganges. It
may be well to give a very brief narrative of the terrible events which
occurred there, that readers may the better understand what we saw.
[Sidenote: MUTINY AT CAWNPORE.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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