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 CHAPTER XII

The Story of Oudh — Lawrence in Charge

The last chapter interrupted the narrative of Sir Henry's career when he was about to leave Rájputána and take up his new charge of Oudh; and it will now be expedient first to describe the position of matters then existent in the Province, as well as their antecedents, and then to speak of the spread and rise of the general disaffection, and the mutiny in the army.

Oudh has been not unjustly called the Garden of India. It is most fertile, yielding magnificent crops where cultivated, and where neglected covered with luxuriant forests, jungle and vegetation. A considerable proportion of the town populations was of the ruling Muhammadan race; but the country population largely consisted of Rájputs, well known for their fine physique, and then contributing the majority of the Sepoy army. The country had been left under the rule of the Delhi Emperor's Viceroy, as king, when the surrounding States were being absorbed into British territory; the cause of this being that the Viceroy had, after Clive's days, thrown in his lot with the English, and he and his successors had remained loyal to that alliance. But they had allowed the administration of the Province to be so grossly mis-