ABSTRACT
It could have been any ordinary Sunday in the cantonment of Barrackpore. The month was march, an odd time in terms of the weather in Bengal. It was nearly the end of spring. It was hot but summer was still a few weeks away. In the early morning and after sunset a cool breeze came in from the river. John Kaye, who in the 19th century wrote a history of 1857 that even today commands magisterial authority, described the peaceful conditions of Barrackpore in very evocative terms:
On the banks of the Hooghly River, sixteen miles from Calcutta by land, is the great military station of Barrackpore. It was the headquarters of the presidency division of the army … There, on the green slopes of the river, stood, in a well-wooded park, the country seat of the governor-general … As the sun declined on the opposite bank, burnishing the stream with gold, and throwing into dark relief the heavy masses of the native boats, the park roads were alive with the equipages of the english residents. There, visitors from Calcutta, escaping for a while from the white glare and the dustladen atmosphere of the metropolis, consorted with the families of the military officers … It was a pleasant, a gay, a hospitable station; and there was not in all India a Cantonment so largely known and frequented by the english. 1
