Very bright and pretty, in the early springtime of the year 1857, were the
British cantonments of Sandynugghur. As in all other British garrisons in
India, they stood quite apart from the town, forming a suburb of their
own. They consisted of the barracks, and of a maidan, or, as in England it
would be called, "a common," on which the troops drilled and exercised,
and round which stood the bungalows of the military and civil officers of
the station, of the chaplain, and of the one or two merchants who
completed the white population of the place.
Very pretty were these bungalows, built entirely upon the ground floor, in
rustic fashion, wood entering largely into their composition. Some were
thatched; others covered with slabs of wood or stone. All had wide
verandas running around them, with tatties, or blinds, made of reeds or
strips of wood, to let down, and give shade and coolness to the rooms
therein. In some of them the visitor walked from the compound, or garden,
directly into the dining-room; large, airy, with neither curtains, nor
carpeting, nor matting, but with polished boards as flooring. The
furniture here was generally plain and almost scanty, for, except at mealtimes, the rooms were but little used.