whirling up in support, clearing embankments, ditches, boulders, furrowed fields, in one wild resistless rush. Beyond, regiment after regiment of the Southern Army were closing in and entrenching themselves upon the hard-won position. Highlanders in action, and horse batteries at a gallop over rough country, sights that many home-staying Englishmen would give their ears to see, and all within a radius of three hundred yards! And yet the mild Hindoo placidly turns his back and prefers the tight-rope.
As the sun began to sink, significant clouds of dust on the extreme left, a good two miles away, revealed the point where the Southerners were attempting a wide sweeping movement of cavalry in flank in the direction of Delhi. How a cavalry brigade immediately beneath us trotted off in support, how the Northerners' guns spake warning from unsuspected recesses in the woods, how the flanking movement dwindled into a meaningless reconnaissance, and how jaded cavalry and tired Highlanders alike came back to the shelter of Safdar Jang, time does not suffice to tell. Camp fires were beginning to flicker on the plain as twilight fell upon the scene. The Southerners had made good their advance, and had hemmed in the foe on the banks of the Jumna. Nothing was left for the Northerners but a hasty retreat across the river. And as we drove off through the dust and darkness, the sound of guns contesting the approaches to the ford and bridge mercilessly shattered the stillness of night.
