Page:Our Indian Army.djvu/420

396 brisk pace, and, on ascending a rising ground, beheld those of whom he was in search busily occupied in cooking and eating. The surprise was complete, and the success proportionate. The Pindarries were mounted and in flight, with their usual celerity; but it happened that the ground was favourable for pursuit, which was kept up by various parties for several miles. The killed and wounded of the enemy were estimated between seven and eight hundred, and many who escaped without personal injury were incapacitated from further pursuing their avocation by the loss of their horses. The distance traversed by Major Lushington and his regiment was about seventy miles, and this was performed in seventeen hours; their only casualty was the death of Captain Darke, who fell by a spear-thrust.

About the same time, the party which had proceeded to ravage Ganjam met with several surprises; in one of which, Lieutenant Bothwick beat up their camp with only fifty men, and dispersed them with heavy loss. The fugitives subsequently suffered severely from falling in with a party of British troops under Captain Caulfield, by whom about 400 were killed, the English losing only one man. Another large body of Pindarries was surprised about thirty miles west of Bedur, while deliberating on their future course, by a light force detached from Hyderabad under Major McDowall; the approach of which was so sudden that the infantry were close upon the tents of the chiefs before they were discovered, and scarcely a man of the party was mounted when the first volley was fired. They fled, of course, and the greater part of their horses and booty was abandoned; but one bold chieftain, with 260 troopers, crossed the peninsula, swept along the western shore, and, ascending the Taptee, reached his home. with less indeed than half his original number, but all of them carrying a rich booty in their saddles.

But though in some measure successful, and even triumphant, this campaign afforded reason to apprehend that India could never be secure from the inroad of these