Explosion in Multan

Mortar fire from the British Artillery on 30 Dec 1848 hit the main magazine in Multan, resulting in an enormous explosion. Lieutenant Edwin Maude was an officer in the 4th Bombay Rifles and wrote his eyewitness account of the siege of Multan in his book Rifleman Sahib. ‘Never shall I forget the scene as, rushing out of my tent, I beheld a dark heaving mass rising slowly and imposingly from the interior of the Fort, amid dense volumes of smoke, till it reached a vast height, when it assumed the form of a pillar of gigantic proportions, which gradually spreading out became as it were an immense pall hanging mournfully over the doomed fortress, which seemed shaken as by an earthquake. As if by mutual consent, the firing on both sides ceased awhile, everyone gazing upwards with silent awe and wonder. Then from the British camp arose one loud burst of triumph, which was speedily answered by a furious cannonade from our courageous and still unsubdued enemy.’ The mausoleum of Shah Rukn-e-Alam is the most recognisable building in this print. It was drawn by John Dunlop, produced as a lithograph by Andrew McClure and published by Orr & Co. The besieging army is not visible from the distance of this viewpoint, but would be hidden by the buildings, trees and walls of the suburbs.

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