When Tamerlane captured Delhi in 1398 the city was given over to massacre for five days, 'some streets being rendered impassable by heaps of dead'; and in 1739 the Persian conqueror, Nadir Shah, after sacking the place for fifty-eight days and massacring thousands of its inhabitants, carried off thirty-two millions sterling of booty.
Although the fierce nature of the struggle that Delhi had gone through in 1857 was apparent everywhere, the inhabitants seemed now to have forgotten all about it.

The city was as densely populated as it had ever been; the Chandni Chauk was gay as formerly with draperies of bright-coloured stuffs; jewellers and shawl-merchants carried on their trades as briskly as ever, and were just as eager in their endeavours to tempt the _Sahib log_ to spend their money as if trade had never been interrupted; so quickly do Orientals recover from the effects of a devastating war.
We left Delhi on the 3rd January, 1860, marching _via_ Karnal.

When at this place my wife went to see Lady Canning, as she often did if we remained at all late in camp.

On this particular occasion she found her busy with the English mail, which had just arrived, so she said she would not stay then, but would come next day instead.

Lady Canning, however, would not let my wife go until she had read her part of a letter from Lady Waterford, which she thought would amuse her.