Cawnpore' (Kanhpur), a city of the Northwestern Provinces, on the right bank of the Ganges, 42 miles SW. of Lucknow, 266 SE. of Delhi, and 628 NW. of Calcutta. The river here varies according to the season, from 500 yards in width to more than a mile. The principal landing-place is the beautiful Sarsiya ghat. Cawnpore, at least as a place of note, is of recent origin, being indebted for its growth, besides its commercial facilities, partly to military and political considerations. Population, 200,000.

In 1777, being then an appendage of Oudh, it was assigned by the nawab as the station of a subsidiary force; and in 1801 it became, in name as well as in fact, British property. At the outbreak of the mutiny in May 1857, Cawnpore contained 1000 Europeans (560 of them women and children), who, after a three weeks' gallant defence, surrendered to the infamous Nana Sahib, on promise of a safe-conduct to Allahabad, only to be pitilessly massacred. There is a memorial church, a Romanesque redbrick building, whilst the scene of the actual massacre is occupied by the memorial gardens. Over the fatal well a mound has been raised, its summit crowned by an octagonal Gothic enclosure, with Marochetti's white marble angel in the centre. But Sir George Trevelyan's Cawnpore (1865) is the best memorial of the tragedy.