I may also mention the case of a young officer named Banks, of the Seventh Hussars, who was terribly cut up in charging through a band of Ghâzis. One leg was clean lopped off above the knee, the right arm cut off, the left thigh and left arm both cut through the bone, each wound produced by a single cut from a sharp, curved _tulwâr_. I don't know if the young fellow got over it;[64] but he was reported to be still alive, and even cheerful when we marched from Lucknow.
In this matter of sword-blades, I have no wish to dogmatise or to pose as an authority; I merely state my observations and opinion, in the hopes that they may lead to experiments being made. But on one point I am positive. The sharpening of our cavalry swords, if still the same as in 1857, receives far too little attention.
[62] In which case they would have been simply ridden over.
[63] These remarks of Mr. Mitchell's are quite true as regards curved swords; but he forgets that the _point_ is the most effective attack against Eastern swordsmen.
On the afternoon of the 19th August, 1892, I left Cawnpore for Lucknow. As I was a few minutes before time, I walked along the railway-platform to see the engine, and, strange to relate, the engine attached to the train which was to take me into Lucknow (under circumstances very different from those of 1857) was No. 93! In 1857 I had crossed the Ganges in the ranks of the Ninety-Third Highlanders, with the figures 93 on the front of my cap, and here I was, under very different circumstances, revisiting Lucknow for the first time thirty-five years after, and the engine to the train was No. 93! I need not say that I lifted my hat to that engine. As a matter of fact, I never do pass the old number without giving it a salute; but in this instance I looked upon it as a happy omen for the success of my journey.
I took my seat in the carriage, and shortly after was joined by a gentleman whom I took to be a Mahommedan; but to my surprise he told me that he was a Christian employed in the Educational Department, and that he was going to Lucknow for a month's holiday. He appeared to be a man of over sixty years of age, but said he was only fifty-four, and that he would retire from Government service next year. Of course I introduced the subject of the Mutiny, and asked him where he had been at the time. He stated that when the Mutiny broke out he was at school in Bareilly, and that he was then a Mahommedan, but did not join in the rebellion; that on the outbreak of the Mutiny, when all the Europeans were either killed or fled from Bareilly, he had retired to his village near Shâhjehânpore, and remained there till order was re-established on the advance of the English into Rohilcund in May, 1858, after Khân Bahâdoor Khân had reigned in Bareilly twelve months.