CHAPTER XV.
CALCUTTA AND WESTERN BIHÁR IN JULY AND AUGUST.
Reports of the terrible fate of the English men and English women who had been besieged by the rebels at Kánhpur had reached Calcutta early in July, but it was not until Havelock telegraphed, on the 17th of the month, the account of his victory, and of their murder, that all hope of their survival disappeared. Then, for a moment, the crushing blight of despair succeeded to the agony of suspense. Only, however, for a moment. Almost instantly there rose in its place an intense eagerness to place in the hands of the avenging General all the available resources of the State — resources which should make him strong enough to push on to ward off from other threatened garrisons, especially from the garrison of the Residency of Lakhnao, a similar calamity. For the moment the Government, the press, the mercantile bodies, public opinion generally, seemed to unite in concentrating their efforts to obtain this wished-for result Lord Canning had, in the last days of July, sanctioned the raising in Calcutta of a corps of yeomanry cavalry — a corps which, led by a very resolute and able officer, Major J. F. Richardson, was destined to render excellent service. He had, further, in conjunction with the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal, directed similar enlistments from the unemployed sailors to meet the troubles then threatening in Bengal and Bihár, and he had concluded an
