the very outset of the action, thoroughly roused into headlong energy every man in our force; with the result that the camp was soon secure; and then the fighting from sunrise to sundown became general, and almost outlived that desperate day. To detail how the action was fought out to the end, how the missiles of war hailed around, how the sailors brought their guns to bear upon the crowded ranks of the rebels, how the infantry dauntlessly advanced, and the Yeomanry charged, would be to repeat an “oft-told tale,” which in its reiteration could not fail to become wearisome, if not monotonous to a degree. I will therefore cut a long conflict short by stating that, on this occasion, we were successful in vanquishing the rebel army, only because we fought them in the united grasp of our concentrated force. Union was strength; and we presented a united front to the enemy. We were numerically too weak to cope with more than one column at a time; so that, throughout the whole of that terrific day, a desultory seesaw fight went on. When one column receded, another came on, and then another, and vice versâ until at length, as the sun sank beneath the western horizon, the enemy retreated, leaving a considerable number of his dead behind, and the Brigade the triumphant master of the field.
As a set-off to the victory, however, spies arrived in the camp almost at the same time as our triumphal entrance into it, with the astounding news that the station of Gorukpūr was again threatened with invasion from the direction of Azimghur; that a skirmish
