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December 13.

HERE was a lull in the campaign. An armistice had been declared to enable the two Armies to concentrate in fresh country, before commencing the second phase of their operations. The Southern Army had passed through the suburbs of Delhi on the previous day, and were now reported to be camped some miles south of the city. One does not often get a chance of seeing twenty thousand of the flower of the Army of India bivouacking under service conditions in the open country, so I determined to go in search of them. It was said that they were to halt for a day's rest just south of the great Mausoleum of Nawab Safdar Jang, one of the numerous tombs that you find scattered about in the midst of seeming desolation for many miles around Delhi. They were therefore on the precise spot where Timur the Tartar and his horde from Samarkand routed the great army of Sultan Mahmud in 1398. Timur gained his victory on December 12th; an army of the first Emperor of all India slept on the battle-ground on the 504th anniversary of that sanguinary encounter; one wonders if anybody noticed the coincidence.