And if this was the condition of those in health, what must have been the state of the sick and wounded! Small-pox, cholera, boils, dysentery, and malarious fever added their horrors to the situation, while the iron hail of death, mingling with the drenching rain of the monsoon, dropped upon them, so that by the first of August the deaths sometimes rose to twenty in a single day. During this period, and amid all this turmoil and sorrow, eight or ten little ones were born; and most of these “siege babies,” as they were called, actually lived through it all, and still survive, while many of the poor mothers sank under their privations. But the bereaved babies were cared for by the noble women around them. Daily the men fell in the presence of the enemy; and it is described as truly affecting to see how the list of newly-made widows increased in its number and sadness.
Food and clothing became painfully scarce, and now “money was despised for bread.” The effects, or little stores, of the officers killed were at once sold by auction to the survivors, and it is curious now to read the prices that were eagerly paid. A bottle of wine brought 70 rupees, (the rupee is 50 cents in gold;) a ham, 75 rupees; a bottle of honey, 45 rupees; a cake of chocolate, 30 rupees; a bottle of brandy, 140 rupees; a small fowl, bought by an officer for his sick wife, 20 rupees; two pounds of sugar brought 16 rupees, and other things in proportion. An old flannel shirt, that had seen hard service in the mines—which they had to dig to countermine the enemy—brought 45 rupees. The single suit with which many of them had to hurry into the Residency was being fast worn out, and the officers might have been seen wearing the most extraordinary costumes. Few had any semblance of a military uniform, and many were in shirts, trousers, and slippers only. One gallant civilian, having found an old billiard-table cloth, had contrived to make himself a kind of loose coat out of it. All carried muskets, and were accoutered like the soldiers.
While the feeble garrison were thus decreasing in numbers, their foes were augmenting their strength. The Talookdars (Barons) of Oude were sending their armed retainers to aid the Sepoys, till it
