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52 shoemaker), than whom a more faithful, and courageous spy no European force ever had in India.

The purport of the message received from the Field Force was, of course, known only to those in command of the Corps, but immediately on its receipt we were warned to march as soon as there should be daylight enough, for obvious reasons, to discern objects at considerable distances. As to the camp, that was to be left standing under the protection of the approaching advance guard; while the camp followers were instructed to await the arrival of the whole Force before striking the tents, and with baggage, etc., following the road we were about to take.

When the morning brightened, we drew sabres and moved off into an unpleasant white mist that hung over our route, but it did not last long before the rising sun, and as it disappeared the features of the country towards which we were proceeding could be distinctly traced for miles in their forlorn solitude — even the very villages we passed were wholly deserted. But this dull, monotonous ride was suddenly enlivened on our reaching some undulating land in the environs of Belwa, and coming in view of its swarming insurgents. And here we had hardly halted, when round-shot ploughed across the fields and ricochetted over the slopes that protected us, while shells rushed and hissed like monsters of the air above our devoted heads — the heads only were visible from the fort, so that the instant the smoke of the cannon appeared in the embrasures, they bobbed approval as regularly and