the last extreme of one of two stages-intense moodiness verging very closely on the stubborn, or intense liveliness bordering on the recklesseither of which frames of mind, when exhibited by a fine muscular fullgrown bullock, is calculated to drive any one having anything to do with them into a state of the wildest insanity; sowars, or irregular horsemen, with lengthy spear, huge turban, and panting steed, were spurring madly through the dust; pedestrians, carts, buffaloes, ponies, natives, soldiers, horses, officers, commissariat supplies, those inevitable light liver-coloured natives employed as scribes, accountants, &c. &c., in the public departments, and yclept baboos, baggage, doolies, and ammunition, all wending their way towards Cawnpore to supply the capacious maw of that evergreedy monster, an army, were scrambling as best they could along that dusty, roasting, crowded road, amid such a noise and confusion as I had never seen equalled. It was when surrounded by all this bewildering mass that my attention was called to a long, low building, which loomed through the dust like a great nightmare on our left hand-a building surrounded by four or five others of inferior size-sort of outhousessituated on an open maidan (or plain), and the whole battered and pounded by shot and shell and bullets, so that window and door were shattered out of all shape and outline, so that the roof had fallen in, and great breaches and fissures in the walls had reduced the whole almost to a pile of ruins. What could this wretched, woe-begone building be? What mortal men could have stood behind those battered walls and faced the storm of shot which must have rained upon them night and day before such destruction was wrought, or before all those gaping holes, which riddle them like a sieve, were made? What men could have lived for an hour in such a place as this? Not only men, reader! but women lived here, and helped to hold these ruined walls, and faced the iron rain of shot which beat upon this house-not only women, reader! but children and babies have been behind those flimsy parapets when the fire was at its hottest and the iron rain fell heaviest, not for one hour, or for one day, or for two, but-look on these shattered buildings and be proud of your countrymen who could hold them so nobly and so long-but for three long weary weeks! And even then these gallant English hearts failed not, but would have held on still, had not the falsest promise that traitor ever made, or deceived man believed-the most positive and sacred pledge that lips could utter, made only to be broken more foully and cruelly than ever pledge was yet, and, for the honour of mankind, let us add than ever pledge is likely to be again-tempted them from behind those walls, whence, battered as they were, shot would never have driven them, and delivered man, woman, and child up as victims to treachery, cruelties, and indignities which few men besides Nana Sahib (who does not execrate the name ?) could have devised, and which fewer still could have executed. Yes! this pile of battered ruins, this shapeless mass of buildings, is the celebrated "Wheeler's entrenchment." You may ride round it half a dozen times and not notice the tiny embankment and ditch which surrounds it; and yet that embankment and ditch, now, of course, trodden down and diminishing in size daily, but which in its best days could have been but a poor puny breastwork-this and those walls, through the great jagged holes and yawning breaches in which the light now shines brightly, throwing rough, uncouth shadows on the plain beyond, was the

only home for three long weeks for that gallant garrison-for those tender women and those poor children, whose blood, sprinkled upon the walls of this frail fort, and dyeing the waters of the Ganges, and staining the floor of the "slaughter-house," and reddening the sides of the fatal well, cried aloud to their countrymen for vengeance on the traitors who had wrought this cruel deed.

As we continue our journey to the quarters allotted to us-some barracks which, mirabile dictu, had not been destroyed-we are able to observe how carefully every building that English hands had raised was levelled to the ground; not a bungalow which a Feringhee had inhabited. but had been gutted; the churches wherein he prayed, the altars before which he knelt, burnt, unroofed, and defiled; even racket-courts and riding-schools ruined and destroyed, and all in a systematic, regular manner, which spoke volumes for the virulence and animus of our treacherous enemies. Cawnpore was strangely busy at the time I arrived there; its pulses beat feverishly high, responsive to the rumbling of guns, the clatter and jingle of cavalry, and the tramp of regiment after regiment as they concentrated and collected here for the grand advance on Lucknow, many having already crossed into Oude; the frail bridge of boats across the Ganges creaked and trembled daily as portions of the fifteen miles of siege train, destined to accomplish the destruction of the great rebel stronghold, rumbled and clattered across it, and as elephants, camels, baggage, infantry, cavalry, and field-artillery pressed over it into Oude, and strained heavily the timbers, and cables, and quaint flatbottomed boats composing it; vast canvas towns silently sprang up day after day on the hot maidan, announcing the advent of fresh troops, while other canvas towns as silently disappeared, announcing the departure of more regiments into Oude; one constant in-pouring and out-pouring of Highlanders with big legs, of line regiments, and riflemen, sailors, and artillerymen, of bronzed and bearded soldiers in astounding cap-covers, and with a certain tough look about them more satisfactory, I should imagine, to the eyes of an Englishman than a Sepoy. The glittering bayonets of regiments on the move caught the eye at every turn; the pleasant old airs, such as "Cheer, boys, cheer," "Far, far upon the sea," and that well-beloved march of the Rifle Brigade, "I'm ninety-five," with a variety of other pleasant familiar tunes, which had a

joyous, careless life in their every note, rang in your ears till you almost

wearied of the sound, or came faintly from the far distance so far off sometimes they sounded, that I half fancied they must have been wafted to us straight from home across the wide sea; bodies of Sikh irregular cavalry, composed of big-whiskered, swarthy, stalwart men, each one a picture down to the waist, but with something wrong about their legs, which are decidedly of the broomstick order, are spurring about in every direction; sailors in the baggy-est of trousers, and with the degagé-est of airs, not to mention certain mysterious lumps in their cheeks, possibly having some connexion with "pigtail," were polishing up black monsters of siege guns till their lacquered surfaces glistened and shone again, or, patting the breeches of 10-inch mortars, in playful and encouraging anticipation of their services against "them there black rascals ;" officers and others in the commissariat department were proving the existence of "perpetual motion" in their own persons; all was life, bustle, and

excitement, and no light task must his have been who had the manipulating and management of this vast machine, swelled almost beyond all bounds by the enormous staff of camp-followers, indispensable to an army in India. I may as well take this opportunity of saying a word or two on the subject of camp-followers, and explain as briefly as possible how it happens that so large a number is necessary. In the first place, the mode of carrying the sick in India tends to increase one's train enormously. The sick are carried in doolies, which are in many respects most excellent, affording as they do a bed, a covering, and a little temporary hospital for the invalid. When the army has to bivouac, the sick are sheltered from the damp night air by their roof of painted canvas; when in wet weather the army pitches its camp on damp ground, behold the sick are lying in dry beds raised some eight or ten inches above the mud by the short legs of their doolies; when a march is prolonged until the sun is hot and powerful, still are the sick, to a certain extent, shaded from it, as, also, they are protected from the rain by the same means; the wounded man, to whom moving from one bed to another would be agony, may for months, as many have done, live in his doolie, for in camp it becomes his bed, the roof and pole being unshipped, and in the morning, when the march commences, on goes the roof again, in goes the pole, and away goes the doolie on the shoulders of four lusty bearers. And now I come to the point at which I wished to arrive: the proportion of doolies in war time is one to every ten men; this, in a regiment one thousand strong, amounts to one hundred doolies-six bearers to each, total, six hundred doolie bearers to a single regiment! Here, then, is the nucleus, and an extensive one it is, of the force of camp-followers; in addition to this is the large staff of cooks, "bhistees," "bildahs," "sweepers," &c., allotted to regiments on landing, and which of course accompanies them in full force into the field. The regimental hospitals, too, are augmented to an overwhelming size; to each tent in the huge camp is allowed a "kulassie," or tent-man, while the cavalry and artillery swell the black rabble some thousands by their innumerable "syces" and "grass-cutters," who are nearly in the proportion of one of each to every horse. Throw into the scale, also, another by no means small item, in the shape of hordes of hackery-drivers, camel-drivers, and "mahouts;" add to this the bazaar establishment attached to each regiment for the purpose of supplying the soldiers and the natives of the same with any little things they may require from gold mohurs to gram, and numbering, in many instances, whole legions of speculative niggers, all busily and greedily intent on one object, beyond which they have no hopes or cares, viz. the amassing of rupees; add, also, that each officer employs from eight to twelve servants, and close this long list with the numberless employés in the vast train of ordnance (which, as I have before said, on this occasion extended over a distance of fifteen miles), and with the functionaries, baboos, &c., nearly as numerous, belonging to the commissariat department-cum multis aliis-the wives and families of the above, with interlopers, milk-sellers, do-nothings, lookers-on, tag-rag and bobtail attendant upon the whole, and then you may, perhaps, understand how it is that the non-combatant part of an army doubles, ay, and trebles the militant portion.

To an Englishman arriving for the first time in India this gigantic

army of camp-followers appears, to say the least, unnecessary, but the old Indian knows well enough that it must be; that it is necessary for balancing the kite and enabling it to rise; and he knows, also, that were this tail to fall off, the whole army would be helpless and impotent; and therefore he regards it much in the same light as he does the arming a soldier with a musket, or the supplying him with ammunition for the same, or the giving the cavalry soldier a horse. And "griffin," long before his first few months of hot weather campaigning are over, finds out that the old Indian is right.

TO ROBERT BURNS.

AFTER A HUNDRED YEARS.

BY LOUISA STUART COSTELLO.

Of all the streams, from shore to shore,
That sparkle on fair Scotland's breast,
With wealth and commerce running o'er,
Is "bonny Doon" the first and best?
No: Doon, a hundred years ago,

Might glide unmark'd at eve or morn,
Till in a hut, 'midst winter's snow,
Beside its banks, a child was born:
The hut that near its margin stands,
As humble as its simple tide,
Was built by hardy, willing hands-
Raised by a lover for his bride.

And Agnes to that dwelling came,

Full of youth's hopes, and love, and glee;-
There nurs'd the germ of Scotland's fame
To blossom soon, a stately tree.

Now summer wreathes her cot with flowers,
Then dark storms dash its walls to earth,
But still it stands, in gleams and showers,
A temple for a Poet's birth.

Little to art or schools he ow'd,

Of rules and forms he took no heed,
From Nature's fount his learning flow'd,
From God his genius-and his creed.
Wild as the torrent, sudden, rash,
Alive to joy, to sport, to whim,-

Mark but his bright eye's lightning flash,-
Mark but the tears those eyes that dim!

Hear how in thunder wake his tones,
Injustice and deceit to ban,

Hear how in dove-like strains he moans
O'er erring and o'er suff'ring man.

Stormy or gentle, fierce or hush'd,
Repentant, daring, firm or faint,
All feelings through his being rush'd,
And all he felt his hand could paint.
To insolence and pride of place,
To specious words and empty show,
To acts ignoble, false, and base,
A crushing-an unblenching foe.
Of judgment quick, his glance of fire
At once the traitor's guile could see;
His was the patriot's noble ire,
His was the glory to be free.

To virtue, manliness, and truth

A steady friend, a mentor sage;
Pity he had for trembling youth,
And tender care for faltering age.
The slave of Beauty-to excess-
Warming and glowing in her praise;
Not seeking even to love her less

Tho' scorch'd by passion's burning rays.

Yet in his warnings to be wise,

And in his wail for misspent years, So much of virtuous fervour lies

Are not his faults effaced with tears ?

He sang as carol birds at will,

When they to summer boughs reveal, In melody that asks no skill,

The wild delights that minstrels feel.

He sang as others breathe-confined,

His struggling thoughts escaped, unbound, Till the sweet music in his mind

Fill'd the bright air with rapt'rous sound.

No marvel at the hearts he drew,
No marvel souls his call obey'd,
He felt the charm his magic threw,
And trembled to the power he sway'd.
He loved the spell that lent him words
His deep, desponding mood to tell;
He loved the lute whose plaintive chords
Answered his spirit's cry so well.
And thus, when grief his bosom wrings,
Our heart-throbs echo to his sigh,
And when his jocund laughter rings
To the wild note our smiles reply.

His phrases, keen with wit and sense,
Teach us hypocrisy to brand;
He gives us hymns, all eloquence
To hail and laud our native land.
Ask we a bard of matchless worth

To fire, to cheer, to melt by turns-
Does not at once a name burst forth,
And ev'ry voice cry-ROBERT BURNS.