Page:Our Indian Army.djvu/486

462 Two corps of Sepoys were left to garrison Prome, in which place a field hospital was established. On the 12th the cholera broke out among the troops, and before it could be checked carried off a great many of the Madras Sepoys, and rendered two British regiments almost unfit for duty. The roads continued to be execrably bad, and the advance very slow. Some of the horrors of this march are depicted in the following extracts from the journal of Major Snodgrass, Military Secretary to the Commander-in-Chief: –

"December 19th. – Marched to Meeaday, where a scene of misery and death awaited us. Within and around the stockades, the ground was strewed with dead and dying, lying promiscuously together, the victims of wounds, disease, and want. Here and there a small white pagoda marked where a man of rank lay buried; while numerous new-made graves plainly denoted that what we saw was merely the small remnant of mortality which the hurried departure of the enemy had prevented them from burying. The beach and neighbouring jungles were filled with dogs and vultures, whose growling and screaming, added to the pestilential smell of the place, rendered our situation far from pleasant. Here and there a faithful dog might be seen stretched out and moaning over a new-made grave, or watching by the side of his still breathing master; but by far the greater number, deprived of the hand that fed them, went prowling with the vultures among the dead, or lay upon the sand, glutted with their foul repast. As if this scene of death had not sufficed, fresh horrors were added to it by the sanguinary leaders of these unhappy men. Several gibbets were found erected about the stockades, each bearing the mouldering remains of three or four crucified victims, thus cruelly put to death for, perhaps, no greater crime than that of wandering from their post in search of food; or, at the very worst, for having followed the example of their chiefs, in flying from the enemy.