A female was lying on a bed of green silk; under her head was a pillow of the same material; her right arm had, no doubt, cradled her babe; and her left was extended as though for the purpose of keeping her child close to her. A large shell had perforated the tiled roof, and, having made its way through three floors, had gone through the foot of the bed, and penetrated some depth into the fourth floor. A piece of this shell had gone through the woman's forehead, carrying away a great part of the head; so that her death, according to the opinion of a medical man who saw her, must have been instantaneous. The lower part of the child's body, from the hips downward, was entirely gone; but, strange to say, its mother's nipple still hung in the left corner of its mouth, and its little right hand still held by its mother's clothes, which probably it had grasped at the first noise of the shell. We understood that this woman was the wife of a most respectable officer in the fort, who had also met his death some hours before her, and was, therefore, in pity spared the afflicting sight. Such, reader, are the scenes of war! Such are the sights which soldiers, in the course of service, are called upon to witness! The poor woman and her babe were committed to the grave--probably the first of her generation that ever returned to the earth as her last home; for she was a Hindoo woman.
The garrison of this fort had been solicited, in the warmest manner, to send their families to their homes, with a promise that they should be guarded to any part of the country, and their property guaranteed to them. To these proposals, dictated by the feelings of humanity, which our good general possessed in a most eminent degree, we received nothing but contemptuous answers. Be the blood of their slaughtered relatives, therefore, on their shoulders, not on ours! Wherever the troops of the Company have been employed, humanity has always marked their steps; yet I have only known one instance in my long service, in which the natives consented to avail themselves of the kind offer made to them, that their families should be protected. I shall have the pleasure of mentioning this in its proper place.