day, to meet any emergency; that is to say, to reinforce the right or left as required. Shortly afterwards, an orderly came from Brigadier Stuart, who was commanding on the right, begging him to come up immediately with reinforcements, as the rebels were debouching from the ravines and were advancing in strength. The General at once started himself with the Camel Corps; sending orders to the 25th Native Infantry to join him immediately. Dismounting the Camel Sowars, and forming them into line, he took them at the double up the rising ground, from the top of which they saw Brigadier Stuart, sword in hand, protecting his battery of mortars, with the help of his infantry escort. Their strength had been so reduced and weakened by casualties, that there were only seven or eight artillerymen to both mortars[1].
A charge of the Camel Corps soon relieved the position from immediate danger. But the enemy still swarmed out from the ravines, and became closely engaged with the 86th Regiment. The Gwa-
- ↑ In his graphic account of these operations Colonel Malleson quotes a letter addressed to him by an eye-witness, who wrote: 'Well do I remember that day. Nearly 400 of my regiment — the 86th — were hors de combat. The native regiment — the 25th Bengal Native Infantry — were not much better, and thousands of yelling savages were pressing on while we had a river in our rear. We were well nigh beaten when the Camel Corps came up; and about 150 fresh troops soon turned the tide, and sent the bhang-fortified enemy to the rightabout again. It was the Camel Corps that virtually saved Sir Hugh Rose's division. The enemy were within twenty yards of our battery and outpost tents, the latter full of men down with sunstroke. Another quarter of an hour and there would have been a massacre.'
