ng to talk, were men who must have
been on the side of the rebels against us. I looked out for such, and
met many who had evidently served as soldiers, and who admitted that
they had been in the army before 1857; but when I tried to get them to
speak about the Mutiny, as a rule they pretended to have been so young
that they had forgotten all about it,--generally a palpable falsehood,
judging from their personal appearance,--or they professed to have been
absent in their villages and to know nothing about the events happening
in the great centres of the rebellion. The impression left on my mind
was that they were either afraid or ashamed to talk about the Mutiny.

In the second chapter of these reminiscences it may be remembered I
asked if any reader could let me know whether Major A. H. S. Neill,
commanding the Second Regiment Central India Horse, who was shot on
parade by Sowar Mazar Ali at Augur, Central India, on the 14th March,
1887, was a son of General Neill of Cawnpore fame. The information has
not been forthcoming[53]; and for want of it I cannot corroborate the
following statement in a very strange story.

In 1892 I passed two days at Jhansi, having been obliged to wait because
the gentleman whom I had gone to see on business was absent from the
station; and I went all over the city to try and pick up information
regarding the Mutiny. I eventually came across a man who, by his
military salute, I could see had served in the army, and I entered into
conversation with him.

At first he pretended that his connection with the army had merely been
that of an armourer-_mistree_[54] of several European regiments; and he
told me that he had served in the armourer's shop of the Ninety-Third
when they were in Jhansi twenty-four years ago, in 1868 and 1869. After
I had informed him that the Ninety-Third was my regiment, he appeared to
be less reticent; and at length he admitted that he had been an armourer
in the service of Scindia before the Mutiny, and that he was in Cawnpore
when the Mutiny broke out, and also when the city was retaken by
Generals Havelock and Neill.

After a long conversation he appeared to be convinced that I had no evil
intentions, but was merely anxious to collect reliable evidence
regarding events which, even now, are but slightly known. Amongst other
matters he told me that the (late) Maharaja Scindia was not by any means
so loyal as the Government believed him to be; that he himself (my
infor