Page:Viscount Hardinge and the Advance of the British Dominions into the Punjab.djvu/91

Rh combined with the facts above-noticed, had created a feeling that the army was not well in hand.'

Sir H. Hardinge always maintained the opinion that the Sepoys resembled the Portuguese, in that they had their fighting days. At the close of the campaign, when their dread of the Khálsa troops had more or less disappeared, they fought at Sobráon with a determination to efface their former unsteadiness, and vied with the Europeans in the attack on the breast-works.

The next day, December 19th, was occupied in burying the dead. We visited the field of battle in the morning. Heaped round the captured cannon, fifteen in number, lay the stalwart forms of the Sikh gunners, locked in death's last embrace. How the native reveres his guns was well exemplified. There were few that had not fallen near the pieces they worshipped. Over the field itself there was the usual mingling of the dead. The Khálsa soldier, the European linesman, the young officer, with groups of horses and camels, all lay in one shapeless mass.

The night before I had ridden back to camp in advance of the columns. I rushed to the mess tent for some water, where I found Baxu, the old Khánsamah, arranging the plates and chairs as if he was preparing for a State dinner at Government House. He had begun life with Lord Wellesley, and faithfully did he serve successive Governors-General. On that night there were several vacant chairs! Herries, the son of the Cabinet Minister, and Munro, both