We were so fortunate as to reach the Porto-Bello Gardens just in time for “_The Siege and Capture of Delhi_.” We had both of us formed most erroneous impressions on the subject, and it was a grand opportunity for ascertaining truth. If the representation was correct, and there seems no reason to mistrust it, as “no expense had been spared,” it is high time for the English people to be told that the accounts which have appeared in their newspapers (the graphic, glowing descriptions of Mr. William Russell inclusive) are wickedly and superlatively false!
1 The priest can scarcely have been a descendant of his namesake, the General, who, to the manifest delight of an Irish Parliament, thus spake of _potheen_:--“The Chancellor on the woolsack drinks it, the Judge on the bench drinks it, the Peer in his robes drinks it, the Beggar with his wallet drinks it, I drink it, every man drinks it.”
The city of Delhi is constructed of painted wood, and does not exceed in dimensions a respectable modern residence. Before it, there is a pool of water. The siege commenced with a tune on the key-bugle, and with an appropriate illumination of _Bengal_ lights, which extended over the entire scene of war, and was got up, as we supposed, at the joint expense of the combatants. Then the Anglo-Indian army, which had taken up a perilous position about four yards from the city, led off with a Roman-candle, and the rebels promptly replied with a maroon. The exasperated besiegers now went in, or rather went a long way over, with rockets,--the Sepoys, with undaunted courage, defying them with blue lights and crackers. For a time the battle was waged with extraordinary spirit, steel-filings, &c., &c.; but, finally, the “awful explosion of the Magazine,” admirably rendered by a “Jack-in-a-box,” threw the rebels into sad distress, and they came running (all six of them) from the city, trying the old dodge to give an idea of multitude, by rushing in at one door and rushing out at another. The British soldiers, conversant with this manouvre, which they had so often witnessed at Mr. Batty's Hippodrome, immediately charged into the devoted city, lit a red light, and all was over. The total silence, which immediately ensued within the walls, impressively told the annihilation of the vanquished, and the great fatigue (or, alas! it might be the abject intoxication) of the victors, reminding one forcibly of the schoolboy's description, in Latin, of the termination of a siege,--“_Dein victores, urbe capta, si cut pisces bibunt, et, parvula, si ulla, itlis culpa, nullum bestiarum finem ex seipsis faciunt_.”