captured from our grooms, and their recapture by us was considered far more important and satisfactory than the seizure and value of all the other booty put together.
An example in energy so effectual, and in execution so severe, gave confidence to the distracted peasantry, and exacted submission from certain turbulent villages in the neighbourhood.
The rebels at Belwa, too, who at our sudden departure from Amorah exulted in the belief that we had, metaphorically speaking, hoisted the white flag and taken to our heels, when they heard of the victory, were reported to be impressed with an idea that our retrograde movement, though ostensibly undertaken to reduce Nugger, was in reality a trick or stratagem, by which the Brigade hoped to draw them farther out into the open country, and thus lure them to their destruction.
Nugger having fallen, the Brigade was in a position either to remain where it now rested, or return to its former post at Amorah. But Cuptāngung, offering as it did a wider range for field operations, and overlooking a greater expanse of the country, being rightly considered a more strategical locality, we halted there sine die; and again, by digging holes in the ground, we sought shelter in them from our “fiery foe”; and in the harassing routine of the camp duties, such as those to which I have already briefly alluded, the broiling month of May wore away.
During May the enemy received some vague rumours
