continued its ravages among the small number of troops
left in Delhi. The reaction from a life of strife and excitement to the
dull existence we were now leading had its effects on the men, and we
each day lamented more and more that we had not gone with the Movable
Column, leaving the noisome smells, the increasing sickness, and the
monotony of Delhi behind. Two thousand sick and wounded had been moved
into the Fort of Selimgarh, where the pure air and open situation of the
place soon made a marked change in the number of invalids: but disease
was rife among the regiments quartered in the city, and convalescents
from Selimgarh were soon replaced by men suffering from cholera and
fever ague.

In the beginning of October, to our intense delight, we moved from the
Ajmir Gate, that sink of corruption, and took up our quarters in the
magazine. The officers here occupied a fine roomy building of two
stories, while the men were housed in comfortable sheds round the
enclosure. We still furnished guards at the Ajmir and Lahore Gates, the
term of duty, through paucity of men for relief, extending over three
days. The officer on guard at the former gate visited detachments and
sentries at the "Delhi" and "Turkoman" Gates, a distance of a mile and
a half through streets in which dead bodies in the last stage of
decomposition were still lying. While one day engaged on this duty, I
passed a carcass on which some pariah dogs were making a meal. Disgusted
at the sight, and weak in stomach from the putrid air, I returned to
my tent at the Ajmir Gate at the time when my servant arrived with my
dinner from the magazine. I asked him what he had brought me, and was
answered, "Liver and bacon." The nauseating sight I had just witnessed
recurred to my memory, visions of diseased and putrid livers rose before
my view, and, unable to control myself, I was seized with a fit of
sickness which prostrated me for some time after.

Nothing of importance occurred during the month of October. We settled
into a very quiet life at the magazine, varied by eternal guard-mounting
at the different gates of the city and regimental drill. My health had
been failing for some time, and, now that there seemed no immediate
prospect of employment on active service, I gladly acquiesced in the
doctor's advice that I should proceed to Umballah on sick leave.

_November 8_.--Accordingly I left Delhi on November 8, my destination
being Umballah, a station in the Cis