the authors of the Mutiny — and Jhánsí was within fourteen miles. To leave the objective point, when so close to it, in order to attack a distant fortress against which it was probable Whitlock was then marching, would be an act so devoid of common sense that Sir Robert Hamilton courageously resolved to give Sir Hugh the means by which he could evade obedience to the order, positive though it was. He wrote, accordingly, to Lord Canning, stating that he had taken upon himself the entire responsibility of directing, as Governor-General's Agent, Sir Hugh Rose to proceed with his operations against Jhánsí.
Fortified by this order, Sir Hugh set out for and reached Jhánsí on the 21st. The strength of the fortress struck him as remarkable. Standing on an elevated rock, built of massive masonry, with guns peeping from every elevation, it commanded the country far and near. The city, from the centre of three sides of which the rock rises, the rock forming the fourth side, sheer and unassailable, was four and a half miles in circumference. It was surrounded by a massive wall, from six to eight feet thick, varying in height from eighteen to thirty feet, having numerous flanking bastions armed as batteries, and was garrisoned by 11,000 men, commanded by a woman who possessed all the instincts, all the courage, all the resolution of a warrior of the type so well known in consular Rome.
Satisfied by a reconnaissance that it would be necessary to take the city before thinking of the fortress. Sir Hugh, joined the same night and on the 24th by his first brigade, invested it on the night of the 22d. For the seventeen days which followed the defensive works rained without intermission shot and shell on the besieging force. It was evident that the Rání had infused some of her lofty spirit into her compatriots. Women and children were seen assisting in the repair of the havoc made in the defences
