e morning of the 10th our quarter-master divided among us a lot of
shirts and underclothing, mostly what the enemy had captured at
Cawnpore, a great part of which we had now recovered; and we were
allowed to go by wings to undress and have a bath in the sacred Ganges,
and to change our underclothing, which we very much needed to do. The
condition of our flannel shirts is best left undescribed, while our
bodies round our waists, where held tight by our belts, were eaten to
raw flesh. We sent our shirts afloat on the sacred waters of Mother
Gunga, glad to be rid of them, and that night we slept in comfort. Even
now, thirty-five years after, the recollection of the state of my own
flannel when I took it off makes me shiver. This is not a pleasant
subject, but I am writing these reminiscences for the information of our
soldiers of to-day, and merely stating facts, to let them understand
something of what the soldiers of the Mutiny had to go through.

Up to this time, the columns of the British had been mostly acting, as
it were, on the defensive; but from the date of the defeat of the
Gwalior Contingent, our star was in the ascendant, and the attitude of
the country people showed that they understood which was the winning
side. Provisions, such as butter, milk, eggs, and fruit, were brought
into our camp by the villagers for sale the next morning, sparingly at
first, but as soon as the people found that they were well received and
honestly paid for their supplies, they came in by scores, and from that
time there was no scarcity of provisions in our bazaars.

We halted at Serai _ghat_ for the 11th and 12th December, and on the
13th marched back in triumph to Bithoor with our captured guns. The
reason of our return to Bithoor was because spies had reported that the
Nana Sahib had concealed a large amount of treasure in a well there near
the palace of the ex-Peishwa of Poona. Rupees to the amount of thirty
_lakhs_[31] were recovered, which had been packed in ammunition-boxes
and sunk in a well; also a very large amount of gold and silver plate
and other valuables, among other articles a silver howdah which had been
the state howdah of the ex-Peishwa. Besides the rupees, the plate and
other valuables recovered were said to be worth more than a million
sterling, and it was circulated in the force that each private soldier
would receive over a thousand rupees in prize-money. But we never got a
_pie_![32] All we did get was hard w