The Seven Cities of Delhi
supremacy in India. It was a fearfully hot day; our men were quite exhausted by the sun's ardour, blinded by a terrible glare, and fainting for want of water. Three times were the gardens cleared of rebels, and not till sundown was the Issue certain ; but a substantial gain, to compensate for a hundred and sixty casualties, was the taking of a temple and sarai, in the Sabzlmandi, which were later occupied by a piquet, and considerably protected this flank.
On the 27th of June the periodical rains set in, and the same day saw simultaneous attacks on the Metcalfe piquets, the Ridge batteries, and the Sabzlmandi posts, but all were repulsed. A similar fate met an attack on the right, three days later. On the 28th of June and ist and 2nd of July reinforcements reached the camp, but this accession of strength was more than counter- balanced by the arrival in the city of the Rohilkand brigade of mutineers, who crossed the river on the I St of July, bands playing and colours flying, under the command of a subadar of artillery, Bakhtawar Khan. The enemy's force was estimated to be fifteen thousand strong, while the besiegers did not muster more than five and a half thousand.
Great disappointment had been felt, and expressed, by the highest civil authorities that Delhi274
