Page:In old madras.djvu/178

178 sizes, pyramidal, bomb-shaped, or square, all of either stucco or red sandstone, and all gradually crumbling in the fierce tropical sun. Mallender was impressed by two facts; the dimensions of this well-peopled enclosure, in comparison to the size of the cantonment, and the perfect order in which it was maintained. The walks were weedless, the inscriptions legible and undefaced. Who, in this dead station, undertook "Le culte des morts?"

Another remarkable fact was the youth of the departed! Scarcely one of these had seen thirty years. Many headstones bore no names; but a gigantic red tomb, recorded the intelligence that seventy-eight of the men, and non-commissioned officers of the Green Dragon Regiment, who died of cholera, were there interred.

The stranger paused, arrested by his own name, and read on a Slab:

"Sacred to the memory of Geoffrey Hailes, of the 30th Regt. M.N.S. wantonly shot by a Sepoy of his company on the 5th Dec. 1831 aged twenty-seven years."

Near by lay "the mortal remains of Alidora Pegler, who died August the 9th 1785, aged twenty-one years." Underneath was this quaint information, "She was a young woman of most engaging manners."

Not far from Alidora, was the grave of "Dorothea Sumers, a dutiful daughter, a loving wife, and a happy mother, but departed this life, one day after the birth of her son, May 22nd 1796, aged nineteen years." The poor girl had not been granted much time to realise the happiness of motherhood.

From this grave, Mallender passed to that of "Richard Horsley of the Honourable Company's Service, cut off on the night of June 4th 1772, by the hand of an unknown assassin, aged twenty-three years."

Next, was a tall stone erected to the memory of six young officers "who were suddenly swept into eternity, by the plague of cholera."

An imposing obelisk, which towered over all the tombs, bore the name of:

"Mrs. Charlotte Travers, whose soul, perfect in all