Page:Clyde and Strathnairn.djvu/34

24 Agra was more than once seriously discussed, but was fortunately abandoned. On July 5th, 1857, General Barnard died, worn out with fatigue and anxiety. He was succeeded in command by General Archdale Wilson, an officer who, possessing no special force of character, did little more than secure the safe defence of the position until the arrival of Brigadier Nicholson from the Punjab, August 14th, 1857, with a moveable column of 2500 men, European and Sikhs. And here we may leave Delhi for the moment, deferring till later any further details of the siege.

The city of Cawnpur, situated on the south bank of the river Ganges, forty-two miles south-west of Lucknow and 270 miles from Delhi, lies about a mile from the river in a large sandy plain. On the strip of land between the river and the town, a space broken by ravines, stretched the Civil Station and cantonments. A more difficult position to hold in an extremity cannot well be conceived, occupied as it was by four disaffected Sepoy regiments with but sixty European artillerymen to overawe them. There was, moreover, an incompetent commander. Realising after the disasters at Meerut and Delhi that his native garrison was not to be trusted. Sir Hugh Wheeler threw up a make-shift entrenchment close to the Sepoy lines. Commanded on all sides, it was