Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/88

84 and as the heavy guns had not yet been brought up, the First and Second Divisions were ordered to resume their march on the following morning, leaving it to the rear-guard to put down further resistance. Here the Governor-General gave up three hundred camels and sixty elephants, transferring all his baggage-animals to the Commissariat for the conveyance of stores and supplies. On December 17th a short march was made to Charak, and the next day a march of twenty-one miles brought the whole force to Múdkí.

According to modern ideas of the use of cavalry, our available force of that arm should have been more actively employed in scouting, &c.; and this has given rise to the criticism that the army was surprised at Múdkí. Lál Singh had taken up his position in rear of a jungle, where he was apparently waiting to be attacked. Sir Hugh Gough's despatch as Commander-in-Chief accurately describes the action, while two articles in the Calcutta Review, by Herbert Edwardes and Henry Lawrence, supply graphic details of this first encounter with the forces of the Khálsa.

As related in Major W. Broadfoot's Life of his distinguished brother, while we were sitting in a small tent the latter rushed in, exclaiming, 'The Sikhs are on us!' Then there was the usual stampede. Sepoys, disencumbered of their belts and cooking their 'chapatis,' picketed horses, camels but a short time before relieved of their loads, all were got together in more or less confusion. But discipline soon evolved order