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Rh ravines, impossible for artillery and cavalry, their confidence had returned. The natural advantages of their position they had improved by throwing up intrenchments at all the salient points.

Sir Hugh spent the five days following his arrival at Guláulí in establishing his batteries, in effecting a junction with Maxwell, and in constant skirmishes with the rebels. On the 21st his batteries opened fire, and on the 22d he delivered his attack. The battle that ensued was one of the fiercest and most hotly contested of that terrible war. At one phase of it the rebels, strongest on the decisive point, gained an actual advantage. The thin red line began to waver. The rebels, animated by a confidence they had never felt before, pressed on with loud yells, the British falling back towards the field-guns and the mortar battery. Then Brigadier C. S. Stuart, dismounting, placed himself by the guns, and bade the gunners defend them with their lives. Just at the moment, when the British were well-nigh exhausted, 150 men of the Camel Corps came up and turned the tide. At the moment the rebels had advanced within twenty yards of the battery and of the outpost tents, the latter full of men struck down by the sun. Another quarter of an hour and there would have been a massacre. But the timely arrival of the Camel Corps saved the day, converted defeat into victory, and enabled Sir Hugh Rose to close with glory the first part of his dashing Central Indian campaign.

For the defeat he inflicted on the rebels was decisive. They dispersed in all directions, broken and dispirited. In five months Sir Hugh had, under many difficulties traversed Central India, crossed deep rivers, stormed strong fortresses, defeated the rebels in the field, and re-established British authority in an important region of India. It was impossible to have done this better