Note 136 — Chapter XXIII · A SECOND YEAR OF REBELLION.

The condition of the British quarters in Agra at the beginning of the year was briefly told by one of the writers in the Mofussilite newspaper, after the severe pressure on the garrison had ceased: ‘The fort is being abandoned by every one who has a house which can be made in the least degree habitable; but many people will still be compelled to remain within its gloomy walls for an indefinite period; as in many instances the destruction of houses has been so complete, that it will be a work of time and a matter of considerable expense to place them in anything like decent repair.... As we are fortunate enough to possess a good house with a pucka roof, which has been put into excellent repair, we intend publishing next Tuesday’s paper in that building—the former printing-office of the Mofussilite. We shall all be put to great straits for furniture, crockery, and such like things; for although a charpoy (stump-bedstead), a teapoy, and a couple of broken chairs, were as much as we could find room for in one of our little cells of the fort, yet we shall soon require rather more when we dwell in roomier habitations. Our distant friends must know that it is a rare thing to see two plates of the same pattern on any table, and that none but those upon whom fortune has smiled indulge in glass tumblers. Tin pots are the height of our ambition. Port, sherry, brandy, Allsopp, and Bass, are beverages generally as unknown to this community as they were to Robinson Crusoe.’