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Rh and we were left to suppose that they—our Christians—were nowhere to be found in or around Bareilly. Of the death of any of them we received no information; so we kept on hoping that heathen rage had confined itself to the Europeans, and that the others, though scattered, were uninjured. How little we knew what they had suffered!

Though at the risk of anticipating events which date further on, I must here give the facts as I was enabled to ascertain them. As soon as any communication was established between Calcutta and the Upper Provinces on the south side of the Ganges—for all north of that river was still held by the Sepoys—I sent off letters to every place to which I thought it likely Joel could have escaped. He also was trying to reach me by letters, but could not. One of my communications at last found him, as I had hoped, in Allahabad, and, in response to my request, he gave me a narrative of what befell him and the rest on that dreadful day. All his statements we afterward confirmed together on the spot in every particular.

Instead of giving the facts myself, I prefer to present his deeply interesting letter, assured that the reader will kindly excuse its occasional imperfect English and Hindustanee idioms, rendering some words in a few places when it is necessary to give his meaning. I had told him that we had heard of the arrival at Calcutta of the first party of our missionaries, and that if he were outside the circle of danger and at Allahabad, and could communicate with Calcutta, to try and have them come where he was, as the seat of the Northwest Government had been fixed at Allahabad, and all was safe there then; also, that I felt assured, as the armies were rapidly breaking up the Sepoy forces, we at Nynee Tal who were still preserved, though besieged, would soon be relieved, and our mission be once more established at Bareilly. I tried to cheer him, and sustain his faith in God. My letter took twelve days to reach him having to go out through the mountains behind us, and then along their crest till it could reach the Ganges, and get beyond the range of the rebels in Rohilcund. In reply he writes: