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Blowing from Gam al Feihawnr. 1A letter from Peahawur, In Blackwood for November, has the following:It was an awfully imposing scene I AH t the troops, European and native, armed I and disarmed, loyal and disaffected, were lt;■ drawn up on parade forming three sides i of a square ; and drawn up very careful- t ly, y ou may be sure, so that any effort on the part of the disaffected; to rescue the doomed prisoners would have been easily checked. Forming the fourth side of the square were drawn up the guns {9 pounders,) ten in number which were to be used for the execution. The prisoners under a strong European guard, were ; then marched into the square—their i crimes and sentences read aloud to them at the head of each regiment; they were then marched around the square, and up-to the guns—the first ten wete picked i out—their eyes were bandaged, and they : were bound to the guns, their backs lean-tug against the muzzle, and their arms i fastened to the wheels. The port-fires were lighted, and at the signal from the , artillery major the guns were fired. It i was a horrid sight that then met the eye; i a regular shower of human fragment* of i heads, of arms, of legs appeared in the i air through the smoke, and when that . cleared away these fragments lying on ; the ground—fragments of Mussulman and fragments of Hindoos, all mixed togeth-f er, were all that remained of those ten r mutineers. Three times more was this i scene repeated ; but so great is the dis-- gust we all feel for the atrocities commit-; ted by the rebels that we had no room in s our hearts for any feelings of pity ; per-feet callousness waa depicted on every I j European's face; a look of grim satisfac-) lion could even be seen on the counts- | I nances of the gunners serving the guns.; But far different was the effect on the na-. live portion of tlie spectators; their black• faces grew ghastly pale as they gazed j I breathlessly at the awful spectacle. Your must know that this is the only fortn^ in- which death baa any terror for a native.- If he is hung or shot by musketry, he r knows that Siis friends or relatives will be- allowed to claim his body, and will give 3 him the funeral riles required by his ro-- ligion ; if a Hindoo, that his body will be r burned with all duo ceremonies ; and if a i Mussulman, that his body will be decent-f ly interred, as directed in the Koran, r But if sentenced to death in this form, he . knows that his body will be blown into a , thousand pieces, and that it will be alto-i gclber impossible for his relatives, how-1 ever devoted to him, to be sure of pickingup nil the fragments of his own parlicu- lar body ; and the thought that a limb of• some one of a different religion to him-i self might possibly be burned or buried f wiih the remainder of his own body, is f agony to him. But notwithstanding this,3 it was impossible for the mutineers’ dir*° est hatred not to feel some degree of ad-e miration for the way in whieh they met• their deaths. Nothing in their lives be* y came them like the leaving them. Of the a whole forty, only two showed any signsof fear, and they were bitterly reproach-o ed by the others, for so disgracing their- race. They certainly died like men. Af-- tor the first ten had been disposed of, the ,1 next batch who had been looking on all j the time, walked up to the guns quitecalmly and unfalteringly, and allowed t themselves to be blindfolded and tied up , without moving a muscle, or showing the J slightest Bign of fear, or even concern, e Whence had these men their strength ? j Their religion bad as it may bo and is,- is, in all other points, at least befriends- them well at the hour of death ; it teaches- them well that great and useful lesson, how to die.
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Clarksburg Coopers Clarksburg Register
Clarksburg, West Virginia, US
Fri, Dec 04, 1857
Page 2
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USA 03 Jan 2025
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