r and blowing it up. Through the opening thus effected poured the
eager troops that rescued the city from ten times their own number of
mutineers and turned the beams of the scale in which the fate of the
whole British Indian Empire was at the moment balanced. Perhaps in all
the world's battles no more heroic achievement was ever attempted or
carried out than the blowing up of the Cashmere Gate. "Salkeld laid his
bags of powder, in the face of a deadly fire from the open wicket not ten
feet distant; he was instantly shot through the arm and leg, and fell
back on the bridge, handing the port-fire to Sergeant Burgess, bidding
him light the fuse. Burgess was instantly shot dead in the attempt.
Sergeant Carmichael then advanced, took up the port-fire, and succeeded
in firing the fuse, but immediately fell, mortally wounded. Sergeant
Smith, seeing him fall, advanced at a run, but finding that the fuse was
already burning, flung himself into the ditch."

Difficult, indeed, would it be to crowd more heroism into the same number
of words that I have here quoted from Colonel Medley, an eye-witness of
the affair. Between the double archways of the gate is a red-sandstone
memorial tablet, placed there by Lord Napier of Magdala, upon which is
inscribed the names, rank, and regiment of those who took part in the
forlorn hope. All is now peaceful and lovely enough, but the stone
bastions and parapets still remain pretty much as when the British
batteries ceased their plunging rain of shot and shell thirty years ago.

Not far from the Moree Gate is the tomb of General Nicholson, one of the
most conspicuous and heroic characters of that trying period, and
generally regarded as the saviour of Delhi. Enshrined in the hearts of
the brave Sikhs no less than in the hearts of his own countrymen, his
tomb has become a regular place of pilgrimage for the old Sikh warriors
who fought side by side with the English against the mutineers.

It has been my good fortune, I find, to arrive at the old Mogul capital
the day before the commencement of an annual merrymaking, picnicking, and
general holiday at the celebrated Kootub Minar. The Kootub Minar is about
eleven miles out of Delhi, situated amid the ruins of ancient Dilli
(Delhi), the old Hindoo city from which the more modern city takes its
name. It is conceded to be the most beautiful minar-monument in the
world, and ranks with the Taj Mahal at Agra as one of the beautiful
architectural triumph