constant records of break-downs of all kinds, one is tempted to wonder whether a steam locomotive, even in the forties, ever reached its journey's end without mishap.

The objection of principle that used to be urged against the atmospheric system, namely, that the concentration of the power at a few points instead of its dispersal among several engines, one at the head of each train, meant the break-down of the whole traffic of the line if anything went wrong at a single point, has been sufficiently answered by the experience of electric traction in our own day. Even in England, whose engineers at the present time are at least not obnoxious to a charge of rashness and desire for innovation, a good many scores of million passengers are successfully carried year after year by electric power transmitted from a central station; in America there are ten thousand miles of tramway and not a few miles of ordinary railway worked on the same system; and leading railway men in the United States believe that on main lines and for long distances the substitution of electric traction from central stations for separate and independent steam locomotives is likely to take place in the proximate future.

Brunel's railway work would have filled three lives of mortal men with ordinary powers, but it was far from exhausting Brunel's energies. His work as a marine engineer was only less important and less engrossing than his railway business. The Great Western Railway had only obtained its Act of Parliament a few months when, at a meeting of the directors, some one spoke of the enormous length of the line. Why not,' exclaimed Brunel, ' make it longer, have a steamboat to go from Bristol to New York and call it the Great Western?' The idea, though at first treated as a mere joke, took root, and the result was the Great Western, which, though not the first steamer to cross the Atlantic, was the first steamer built for the Transatlantic service. She was launched in 1837, and, after receiving her engines in London, sailed thence in the March following, with Mr. Brunel and many other persons on board. Within an hour or two a fire broke out, which was with great difficulty subdued, but not till after the ship had been run ashore on a mudbank. In his endeavours to assist in putting out the fire Brunel fell, through setting his foot on the burnt rung of a ladder, eighteen feet down into the hold. He was knocked insensible, and lay head downwards in a pool of water, and was only rescued just in time to save him from drowning. The Great Western was a complete success. She was followed some years later by the Great Britain of 2,000 tons burden, the first large

ship to be built of iron or to be fitted with the screw propeller. She was originally intended to be built of wood with paddle engines. Both alterations were made on reports which Brunel submitted as the result of careful observation and experiment and calculation.

It was on the occasion of the launch of this vessel, in July 1843, that the Prince Consort made the remarkable run from Bristol to London which has been already referred to. Brunel was also responsible for the introduction of the screw propeller into the Royal Navy. He was originally invited by the Admiralty to advise them on the subject, and he did so gratuitously for several years, being apparently treated during the whole period by the Admiralty officials, as Clive said he was by the House of Commons committee, 'like a sheep-stealer.' The idea of the Great Eastern, the last and most famous of Brunel's ships, seems to have occurred to him as early as 1851. She was originally intended for the Oriental trade, hence her name. Work was commenced in the spring of 1854, and the hull was completed in the summer of 1857. The responsibility of the work, added to financial difficulties not unnatural in the panic brought on by the Indian Mutiny, weighed very heavily on Brunel, whose constitution was already breaking down from overstrain. I never,' he wrote, 'embarked in any one thing to which I have entirely devoted myself, and to which I have devoted so much time, thought, and labour, and on the success of which I have staked so much reputation.' But the responsibility of the construction of the great ship was as nothing to the responsibility during her launch, which was begun on November 3, 1857, and not finally completed till the last day of the following January. Forty years were to elapse before another ship was built of equal size.

Space fails even to enumerate Brunel's multifarious minor activities. He built docks or piers, not only at Bristol and Monkwearmouth but all down the Great Western from Brentford to Plymouth, to Briton Ferry and Milford. He built the Crystal Palace water-towers, and during the Crimean War a huge military hospital at Renkioi on the Dardanelles. He introduced improvements in rifle barrels, had a share in the introduction of armourplating for vessels, and was apparently the first to introduce hydraulic power into the working of railway goods stations. Besides all this he had-the authority is his son's, or one would have difficulty in believing it a large practice as a referee under Acts of Parliament and orders of the superior courts.'

Of all his ingenious inventions none was more useful than one which he invented for his own surgical treatment. In April 1843 he was, for the amusement of some children, pretending to pass half-a-sovereign through his ear into his mouth. The coin slipped and went down his throat. There it remained for six weeks, though tracheotomy was performed and every effort made to extract it with forceps. Finally, an apparatus was made on which the position of his body could be inverted as though in a chair turned upside down; Brunel was placed on it, when, with a gentle blow on the back and two or three coughs, the half-sovereign fell into the patient's mouth and so to the floor. It is still preserved in the museum attached to St. George's Hospital.

After the launch of the great ship, Brunel's health finally broke down, and he was ordered abroad. He went to Switzerland, and then later on in the year to Egypt, returning to England in May 1859. During his absence the greatest of all his bridges, the Royal Albert Bridge at Saltash, had been opened by the Prince Consort, and so Cornwall had at length been placed in railway communication with the rest of England. Shortly after his return, Brunel went down and, lying on a mattress placed on a carriage truck, saw for the first and last time the bridge in its completed state.

But, feeble and ill as he was, he could not tear himself from the Great Eastern. He was on board her, superintending the preparations for her sailing, almost every day in August, and as late as September 5. Feeling unwell, he went home to Westminster. Paralysis came on, and ten days later he died. His obituary cannot be better written than in the words of Sir Daniel Gooch, whom twenty-two years of constant and familiar intercourse had qualified to judge of the qualities of his oldest and best friend.'

'By his death the greatest of England's engineers was lost, the man of the greatest originality of thought and power of execution, bold in his plans, but right. The commercial world thought him extravagant, but, although he was so, great things are not done by those who sit down and count the cost of every thought and act. He was a true and sincere friend, a man of the highest honour, and his loss was deeply deplored by all who had the honour to know him.'

W. M. ACWORTH.

THE SEPOY REVOLT AT DELHI.

ΜΑΥ, 1857.

A PERSONAL NARRATIVE.

PART I.

HAVING recently perused in the columns of the 'Pall Mall Magazine' the very interesting account by Sir Hugh Gough, V.C., K.C.B., entitled 'Old Memories,' describing the outbreak of the great sepoy revolt at Meerut on the evening of May 10, 1857, and the subsequent march of the mutineers to Delhi, I am induced, with a view to complete the narrative and as a fitting supplement thereto, to write the following account of my own personal experiences of what happened at Delhi itself on the arrival on the following morning of the mutinous soldiery from Meerut.

I may state that I was at that time a young subaltern in one of the native infantry regiments stationed at Delhi; and as I took an active part in many of the tragic events of that evermemorable day, May 11, 1857, I feel I am in a position to give an accurate description of what occurred not only inside the city of Delhi, but also in the Delhi garrison itself; for although forty years have passed over my head since their occurrence, yet they were of a nature to make a very permanent impression on my memory, and I can trust myself to give a full and trustworthy account of all that took place. How my companions and I ever escaped with our lives on that occasion is no less a matter of exceeding wonder and astonishment to myself than it will be to those readers who care to peruse this narrative; and albeit a general outline of the sepoy insurrection at Delhi has long become a matter of historical record, yet, as many of the details connected therewith, as well as the story of the escape of our party of fugitives up to the time of final rescue by Sir Hugh Gough, have never hitherto been fully published, I am inclined to think that, in spite of the length of time which has since elapsed, they may still prove of general interest.

At the outset of this narrative, perhaps it would be as well to state briefly that the military cantonment of Delhi was situated, roughly speaking, about two miles north-west of the city, and

extended for about the same distance along an elevated ridge of rocks, which latter, running obliquely to the city walls, formed the south-eastern boundary of cantonments in that direction. The lines of the several sepoy regiments, together with a field battery of native artillery which constituted the garrison, were built in one long line parallel to the ridge, and with their respective parade-grounds fronted north-west, a certain space between the lines and the foot of the ridge being reserved for the bungalows of the British officers. The right or northern extremity of the cantonment rested on the river Jumna, from which point it was distant from the city about three miles, whilst its left rear, which abutted on the above-mentioned rocky ridge exactly opposite the Cabul Gate, was not much more than a mile from the city walls. Thus the mean distance from the city, as before stated, was about two miles. The north-west boundary of the cantonment was formed by a deep canal cutting, which, after running along the entire frontage of the station just beyond the regimental parade-grounds, took a slight bend to the right, and then fell into the river. There were several roads which led from different parts of cantonments towards the city of Delhi, the two principal of which, passing over the crest of the ridge, united at a point some eight hundred yards below it, and thence proceeded in almost a straight line to the city, which it entered by way of the Cashmere Gate. On the river side of this road, and standing on its banks, was Metcalfe House, the residence of Sir T. Metcalfe, Bart., at that time joint-magistrate of Delhi, with its extensive park stretching along the edge of the Jumna. Farther on, on the same side of the road, right up to the city walls, lay a number of suburban gardens, in the midst of which stood the Kudsiyá Bágh, the old summer palace of former Moghul sovereigns. These gardens were overgrown with thick shrubbery, and in many places were nothing more or less. than a tangled mass of dense brushwood. The reader will do well to bear this fact in mind in order to clearly understand the narrative later on. On the other, or western side of the road, were a number of houses standing in their own grounds, inhabited for the most part by civilians and other non-military residents, the chief amongst them being Ludlow Castle, the residence of Mr. Fraser, the Commissioner of Delhi. It only remains to add that the grand trunk road from Kurnaul and the Punjab lay a short distance to the west of cantonments, which, after passing