or liquor of any sort! I hate
drunkenness as much as anybody, but I have no sympathy with what I may
call the intemperate temperance of most of our teetotallers and the
Anti-Opium Society. My experience has been as great and as varied as
that of most Europeans in India, and that experience has led me to the
conviction that the members of the Anti-Opium Society are either
culpably ignorant of facts, or dishonest in the way they represent what
they wish others to believe to be facts. Most of the assertions made
about the Government connection with opium being a hindrance to
mission-work and the spread of Christianity, are gross exaggerations not
borne out by experience, and the opium slave and the opium den, as
depicted in much of the literature on this subject, have no existence
except in the distorted imagination of the writers. But I shall have
some more observations to make on this score elsewhere, and some
evidence to bring forward in support of them.[28]

Early on the morning of the 29th of November the Ninety-Third crossed
the bridge of boats, and it was well that Sir Colin had returned so
promptly from Lucknow to the relief of Cawnpore, for General Wyndham's
troops were not only beaten and cowed,--they were utterly demoralised.

When the Commander-in-Chief left Cawnpore for Lucknow, General Wyndham,
known as the "Hero of the Redan," was left in command at Cawnpore with
instructions to strengthen his position by every means, and to detain
all detachments arriving from Calcutta after the 10th of November,
because it was known that the Gwalior Contingent were in great force
somewhere across the Jumna, and there was every probability that they
would either attack Cawnpore, or cross into Oude to fall on the rear of
the Commander-in-Chief's force to prevent the relief of Lucknow. But
strict orders were given to General Wyndham that he was _on no account_
to move out of Cawnpore, should the Gwalior Contingent advance on his
position, but to act on the defensive, and to hold his entrenchments and
guard the bridge of boats at all hazards. By that time the entrenchment
or mud fort at the Cawnpore end of the bridge, where the Government
Harness and Saddlery Factory now stands, had become a place of
considerable strength under the able direction of Captain Mowbray
Thomson, one of the four survivors of General Wheeler's force. Captain
Thomson had over four thousand _coolies_ daily employed on the defences
from daybreak till