fumes and hideous relics of horror, and respond to the braying of trumpets rousing the Corps to march on again.
Our next halting ground was in the town of Buste; where the inhabitants — though with disguised sycophancy they pretended to be pleased with our arrival — could not hide from us their hostile looks, which seemed to express the truth that we were not welcome.
The only animals for the conveyance of the baggage now being elephants, they were left to follow us leisurely, while we made a long, rattling march to Amorah; and on our way, as we passed through a large village named Cuptāngung, it was noticed that a portion of it was fortified, in order to overawe the surrounding country, as well as to facilitate communication with our advanced posts.
In this village several officers of a native infantry regiment perished. Poor fellows! they were decoyed while endeavouring to escape the brutal Sepoys, and cruelly murdered. What the living men had suffered while being hunted down can never be known — except this: that exhausted, foot-sore, wounded, and bleeding, they were slain by the savage foe with demoniac barbarity, as we ascertained on the spot. I mention this cruel tragedy here, merely to show how distressed and distracted our unfortunate countrymen were in the Mutiny days. Not knowing what to do, or whither to fly — like ensnared birds awaiting their doom — but flying at length for their lives, they actually flew into the very jaws of death.
