We remember how Rip Van Winkle, the famous character in Irving’s Sketch Book, fell asleep for 20 years. When poor old Rip stumbled back to his village, he was startled by the changes which he found. The people he talked with and the places he visited were strange. His former home was in ruins and his friends and nagging wife were dead. What was more, he discovered that a war had taken place and America was now an independent nation. If some imaginary native of Great Britain had returned to his home after slumbering from 1750 to 1850, he would …
Read More »India and the Indies 1856 – 1914
In 1856, Great Britain was at war with Russia in the Black Sea area and with the Chinese emperor in south China. Many British troops had been withdrawn from India to fight on these battlefronts. As a result, nine-tenths of the 200,000-man army guarding Great Britain’s largest and richest possession, the subcontinent of India in south-central Asia, consisted of native soldiers called sepoys. At the time, the British were putting a new type of rifle into service in the Indian Army. To load it, a rifleman had to insert each cartridge separately and the cartridges were covered with grease. In …
Read More »