aited but the sound of your jogree
(whistle), and straightway would have galloped up and seized upon every
man, woman, and child in the fort: however, there are but a dozen men in
the garrison, and they have not provision for two days--they must yield;
and then hurrah for the moon-faces! Mashallah! I am told the soldiers
who first get in are to have their pick. How my old woman, Rotee Muckun,
will be surprised when I bring home a couple of Feringhee wives,--ha!
ha!"

"Fool!" said I, "be still!--twelve men in the garrison! there are twelve
hundred! Gahagan himself is as good as a thousand men; and as for food,
I saw with my own eyes five hundred bullocks grazing in the court-yard
as I entered." This WAS a bouncer, I confess; but my object was to
deceive Puneeree Muckun, and give him as high a notion as possible of
the capabilities of defence which the besieged had.

"Pooch, pooch," murmured the men; "it is a wonder of a fortress: we
shall never be able to take it until our guns come up."

There was hope then! they had no battering-train. Ere this arrived,
I trusted that Lord Lake would hear of our plight, and march down to
rescue us. Thus occupied in thought and conversation, we rode on until
the advanced sentinel challenged us, when old Puneeree gave the word,
and we passed on into the centre of Holkar's camp.

It was a strange--a stirring sight! The camp-fires were lighted; and
round them--eating, reposing, talking, looking at the merry steps of the
dancing-girls, or listening to the stories of some Dhol Baut (or Indian
improvisatore) were thousands of dusky soldiery. The camels and horses
were picketed under the banyan-trees, on which the ripe mango fruit was
growing, and offered them an excellent food. Towards the spot which the
golden fish and royal purdahs, floating in the wind, designated as the
tent of Holkar, led an immense avenue--of elephants! the finest street,
indeed, I ever saw. Each of the monstrous animals had a castle on
its back, armed with Mauritanian archers and the celebrated Persian
matchlock-men: it was the feeding time of these royal brutes, and the
grooms were observed bringing immense toffungs, or baskets, filled with
pine-apples, plantains, bandannas, Indian corn, and cocoa-nuts, which
grow luxuriantly at all seasons of the year. We passed down this
extraordinary avenue--no less than three hundred and eighty-eight
tails did I count on each side--each tail appertaining to an elephant
twenty-