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 CHAPTER VI

THE FALL OF DELHI

Three months the British army lay upon the Ridge running obliquely from the north-west angle of Delhi—that abrupt height two miles long, whose steep and broken front formed a natural fortification, strengthened by batteries and breast-works, among which the prominent points were at a house known as Hindoo Rao's, on the right of the position, and the Flagstaff Tower on the left, commanding the road to the Cashmere Gate of the city. The rear was protected by a canal that had to be vigilantly guarded, all the bridges broken down but one. The right flank was defended by strong works crowning that end of the ridge; the left rested on the straggling sandy bed of the Jumna, over-*flooded by summer rains. The whole army, after the arrival of reinforcements in June, numbered not six thousand fighting men, a force barely sufficient to maintain such an