DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25988#0188
164 Life of Mountstuart Elphinstone. cn. vi.
of society, to regret for my friends, to the melancholy prospect
of a seven years’ exile, and somewhat to the dismal news from
Europe. I did not enjoy the company of my fellow-travellers
much, but read and thought by myself. I read a little every
day of the Grulistan and Bostan for some time, a little of
. . . .*, and a good deal of Scott’s “Deckan;” my object
being to pick up my Hindustani and Persian, and to get a
taste for native inquiries. I also talked a good deal in Hin-
dustani with some of my fellow-travellers, and some of the
horse that are with me. Of late I have got into better spirits,
and have been comfortable enough, but unluckily a little idle.
I have playecl a good deal at chess, ancl read some of Philidor.
I have also indulged myself with some of Ovid’s “Tristia,” and
his letters “ Ex Ponto.” ’
No incident occurred after passing the Godavery till their
arrival at Karunja, near t-he Nagpoor frontier, when they passed
the camp of Colonel Doveton, who held a command at Hydera-
bad. The meeting gives occasion to an interesting but very
brief reference to the state of panic into which the Madras
army was thrown by the mutiny of Yellore in the previous year.
It had its origin in causes as apparently frivolous and incompre-
hensible as the greased cartridge of 1857. With the destruction
of confidence between the officers and men ensued a wild panic,
which was compared by Lord William Bentinck, then Governor
of Madras, in his vindication of his conduct cluring the crisis,
to the alarm of the Popish plot at the close of the reign of
Charles II. Mr. Elphinstone’s notice is mainly confined to the
part taken by his friencl in this affair.
‘ I do not know how I come to have omitted in its proper
place the conversation I hacl with Doveton on the subject of
the mutiny at Hydera.bad. Doveton is said by Sydenham, and
everybody whom I have hearcl speak of him, and by most who
mention the affair, to have been a principal actor in that
dangerous crisis, and to have preserved his firmness and presence
of rnind better than anybody else in camp. His account of the
affair is this: “ The sepoys had long been harassecl by severe
1 Illegible.
of society, to regret for my friends, to the melancholy prospect
of a seven years’ exile, and somewhat to the dismal news from
Europe. I did not enjoy the company of my fellow-travellers
much, but read and thought by myself. I read a little every
day of the Grulistan and Bostan for some time, a little of
. . . .*, and a good deal of Scott’s “Deckan;” my object
being to pick up my Hindustani and Persian, and to get a
taste for native inquiries. I also talked a good deal in Hin-
dustani with some of my fellow-travellers, and some of the
horse that are with me. Of late I have got into better spirits,
and have been comfortable enough, but unluckily a little idle.
I have playecl a good deal at chess, ancl read some of Philidor.
I have also indulged myself with some of Ovid’s “Tristia,” and
his letters “ Ex Ponto.” ’
No incident occurred after passing the Godavery till their
arrival at Karunja, near t-he Nagpoor frontier, when they passed
the camp of Colonel Doveton, who held a command at Hydera-
bad. The meeting gives occasion to an interesting but very
brief reference to the state of panic into which the Madras
army was thrown by the mutiny of Yellore in the previous year.
It had its origin in causes as apparently frivolous and incompre-
hensible as the greased cartridge of 1857. With the destruction
of confidence between the officers and men ensued a wild panic,
which was compared by Lord William Bentinck, then Governor
of Madras, in his vindication of his conduct cluring the crisis,
to the alarm of the Popish plot at the close of the reign of
Charles II. Mr. Elphinstone’s notice is mainly confined to the
part taken by his friencl in this affair.
‘ I do not know how I come to have omitted in its proper
place the conversation I hacl with Doveton on the subject of
the mutiny at Hydera.bad. Doveton is said by Sydenham, and
everybody whom I have hearcl speak of him, and by most who
mention the affair, to have been a principal actor in that
dangerous crisis, and to have preserved his firmness and presence
of rnind better than anybody else in camp. His account of the
affair is this: “ The sepoys had long been harassecl by severe
1 Illegible.