em. Our piquet, seeing my situation, got a
six-pounder, and fired a long shot at them. During the consternation
caused by the ball striking near them, and smothering them in dust, I
made the best use of my horse's legs, got safe to the piquet, and never
ventured so far from home again.

On the 1st day of January, 1805, we broke ground against this strong
fortress and town. I was again on the working party, my wound being
nearly closed. We halted near a wood; and, a party having been sent on
to reconnoitre, we at last pitched upon a place, and commenced our
nocturnal labours. We had not been at work ten minutes, when they heard
our working tools, and commenced a most terrific cannonade. We were
ordered to desist, and to lie down behind the earth we had thrown up,
which, fortunately for us, was of a sufficient thickness to be
musket-ball proof, or we must have suffered dreadfully; for their little
rough iron balls flew about as thick as bees. The cannon-shot were
generally high: some that fell short rolled, and were brought up by our
little mound of defence. They kept it up gloriously for half an hour,
conceiving that we intended to take them by surprise; but, from the
reports of this fortress containing 100,000 soldiers, and the enormous
sum of nineteen crore of rupees, our orders were to approach it by
regular siege. I fear I shall be thought rather tedious in relating the
disastrous events at this place; but we must take the gall with the
honey. The firing having ceased, except at intervals, we recommenced our
labours; and glad indeed were we to set blood again on the move. The
night was bitterly cold, and the ground damp; but we kept ourselves in
exercise with our work, and by daylight we had completed our trenches,
and four-gun breaching battery, within five hundred yards of the town
wall. The moment the day dawned, our night's work was observed. The fort
was again in a blaze; flags were hoisted; the parapet of the town wall
was one general mass of spears and little flags, as far as the eye could
reach; and the heads of soldiers studded the ramparts with variegated
colours--their turbans being generally of the most prominent dyes--red,
yellow, and pink. Such shouting, roaring of cannon, whistling of shot,
grumbling of rockets, and waving of flags and spears, made me reflect
for a moment on the folly of having ever sold my "leathers," to
participate in such a scene; but this thought was soon buried in the
shouts of de