The people at home
England never had

Even yet it is impossible for us, who at some distance of time read the records of this mutiny, not to be filled with grief and rage at the story. were moved as perhaps men in been before. Men shuddered as they thought of the outrages committed upon delicate women and tender children; and a wild, unceasing cry for vengeance arose. It was to the credit of the highest men in India that they set their faces for justice, not revenge. The Governor-General was sneeringly called 'Clemency' Canning, but the name will not now be considered a reproach.

An important change in the government of India was brought about by the mutiny. The East India Company was abolished and India put completely under the control of the crown—a change in every way for the better.

1. War was declared on the 28th of March 1854; it lasted for two years, the treaty of peace being signed at Paris March 30, 1856.

2. This was said to be in accordance with the will of Peter the Great, which pointed the Russians onwards to Constantinople in the south-west, and to India in the south-east.

3. The three great forms of Christianity are (1)

But these were side matters; the very conflict was known, not as the Russian, but as the Crimean war.

8. Crimea, the Russiau Peninsula in the north of the Black Sea.

9. Eupatoria, a Russian seaport on the west coast of the Crimea, 50 miles north of Sebastopol.

British under Lord Raglan.

the Latin or Catholic Church; (2) The 10. The French under Marshal St. Arnaud, the
Greek Church; (3) The Protestant Church.
The Czar of Russia is head of the Greek
Church.

4. Way to India, by the overland or Mediter-
ranean route. This was, of course, before
the time of the Suez Canal. The fear was
that if Russia were allowed to seize Turkey,
or even Constantinople, she would be able
to reach India by a shorter route than that
round the Cape of Good Hope, which Bri-
tain would require to use.

5. Emperor of the French. A third Revolution took place in France in 1848, and Louis Napoleon was made President of the Republic. In 1851 he was declared President for ten years, and in 1852 he was proclaimed Emperor of the French.

6. Greek and Latin Churches. See note 3 above. 7. We sent, it is true, a fleet into the Baltic under Sir Charles Napier which accomplished nothing, as there was nothing very definite that it could do. Then there was the defence of Silistria and Kars by Turks and Englishmen against the Russians.

11. The Alma, fought on September 20, 1854.
12. The Allies had landed on the 14th of Sep-
tember, and this attack was made on the
17th of October.

13. Balaclava, fought on October 25, 1854.
14. The Heavy Brigade, i.e., the heavy cavalry.
The regiments engaged represented the
Rose, the Shamrock, and the Thistle, for
they were the English Dragoon Guards,
the Irish Enniskillens, and the Scots
Greys.

15. On November 5.

16. It caused the overthrow of the Duke of Newcastle's Ministry, and Lord Palmerston became Prime Minister.

17. See note 1 above.

18.

The Great Powers, i.e., Prussia, Russia,
Austria, France, and Britain. To these
Italy has since been added.

19. Russia obtained the abolition of the order
against its Black Sea fleet in 1871, during
the Franco-Prussian war.

20. The Indian Mutiny broke out at Mecrut, to

capital of the kingdom of Oudh.

26. Cawnpore, a sacred city, south-west of Lucknow, on the Ganges.

the north of Delhi, on the 10th of May 1857, | 24. Delhi, a great city on the river Jumna. by the 3d Bengal Cavalry's attack on the 25. Lucknow, a great city on the Ganges, the prison; it may be said to have ended with the capture of Bareilly on May 7, 1858. 21. Sepoys (from the Hindu sipahi, a bowman), the native soldiers of our Indian army. 22. The Hindu would have lost caste, that is, have become an outcast from the class of society to which he belonged. 23. See note 20.

27. One or two were imprisoned with the women, but they were murdered before the others.

28. September 20, 1857.
29. See note 20 above.

AFRICAN WARS SINCE THE MUTINY.

THE Abyssinian War.

Although, since the Crimean

war, we have not been engaged in conflict with any European power, yet the vast extent of our empire brings us into contact with semi-civilised or savage nations, and exposes us to almost continual strugglessmall it may be, but very troublesome, and calling forth the highest qualities of the British army.

The first of these1 which need be mentioned here is the famous Abyssinian Expedition of the year 1868.2 That country is, as you know, a very mountainous region in the north-east of Africa, and lying near to the entrance of the Red Sea. Its half-savage king, Theodore, having, in a fit of sulky passion,3 seized upon the British consul and several English subjects, refused to liberate them.

Accordingly, a force of twelve thousand fighting men was sent from Bombay under the command of Sir Robert Napier. The campaign proved a very remarkable one—not for the fighting which was done, but for the skill and discipline of the march. The army had to advance three hundred and twenty miles through an unknown region filled with vast perpendicular rocks and precipitous ravines. The whole achievement was an unequalled engineering triumph; at one time, hills which blocked up the way had to be blown up with gun

powder; at another, a narrow ledge had to be cut along the face of the mountain wall to afford a footing for the beasts of burden. Every foot of the march was a struggle between the forces of Nature and the persevering skill of man, in which the latter was ultimately victorious.

At last Magdala, the stronghold of the tyrant, was reached and taken by storm. Before the final assault, the captives had been set free; and the baffled king was so disappointed at the defeat of his soldiers that he killed himself in despair. The victorious leader of our troops was afterwards raised to the peerage as Baron Napier of Magdala.

9

10

S

The Ashantee Expedition.-Five years later, the conduct of another African despot forced this country to send out a second expedition. This time our troops, led by the now famous Sir Garnet Wolseley, had to enter the unhealthy region north of the Gold Coast.1 Their object was to punish the savage negro king of Ashantee,” who had without provocation invaded British territory, and interfered with the trade of neighbouring tribes 12-allies of England, and under its protection.

13

14

After four days' fighting and marching—an advance nearly as difficult as that of the Abyssinian war, for our troops had to contend with intense tropical heat, a pestilential climate, an almost impenetrable jungle,' and a brave but barbarous foe-the capital, Coomassie, was taken and destroyed. By this means the British power in West Africa was more firmly established, and not only the conquered king himself, but the other native tyrants of the district, compelled to abstain for the future from interference with their more industrious and peaceful neighbours.

Wars in South Africa.—While one part of our army was fighting in the highlands of Afghanistan, another portion was engaged on the northern frontiers of our South African colony of Natal. England had been persuaded to annex the Transvaal Republic, an immense and little known Dutch 15 state to the north-west of our nearest possessions. It was thought in this country that this had been done with the consent of the people, but this seems not to have been the case, and the whole transaction proved a costly and dangerous one. The Boers, 16 as they are called, were at the time engaged in a bitter dispute with Cetewayo, the king of Zululand," concerning a strip of territory between the two countries. In this, the natives were undoubtedly in the right; but the English authorities in the colony assumed the Boer cause along with the annexation of their land.

The Zulu monarch was therefore ordered to disband his army and break up his military organisation. He returned no answer to this mandate; and, accordingly, a British army of 13,000 men, under Lord Chelmsford, crossed the river Tugela 18 to enforce compliance. The plan of operation was that four columns should move from different points of the frontier and converge towards Ulundi, the African leaders' capital or kraal.19

The expedition soon met with a dreadful disaster. The officers and men alike seem to have despised their savage foes and acted without due caution; but they now found how formidable was the enemy they had to encounter. Ten days after crossing the Tugela, Lord Chelmsford led the greater part of his column out of camp at Isandula,20 leaving a force of 1000 men behind him to act as guard. The officer in command had either been careless or was tempted out of his position. At

all events, when the main body returned they found that the Zulus had destroyed the camp and slaughtered the defenders. The entire force might have been cut off and Natal invaded, had it not been for the heroic defence at Rorke's Drift 1 by 100 men under Lieutenants Chard and Bromhead. That gallant little band

21

kept at bay during a whole night, and finally defeated some thousands of the savage enemy.

So alarmed and indignant were the English people at the disaster which had befallen the army, that Sir Garnet Wolseley, the hero of the Ashantee war, was sent out to take command; but, before he arrived, Lord Chelmsford