ar
scarcely credible to the general reader, when he is informed, that to
every fighting-man in an Indian army, there are at least ten
camp-followers. The majority of these live by plundering the adjacent
villages round the camp and on the march; robbing every hut and field
within ten miles round. There is no possibility of checking them, or
preventing these abuses. Amongst these fellows are thieves of every
description, and the most notorious are jugglers. They commence their
nocturnal pilferings in a state of nudity, oiling themselves all over to
prevent their being held if caught; they then creep on their hands and
feet like dogs, and frequently imitate them in barking and howling, as
well as most other animals, more particularly goats, sheep, and asses.
In the course of my narrative, I shall have occasion to mention several
instances of this nature that happened to myself.

On the following morning, I went again on duty in the trenches. We
retired into the wood before mentioned, which had a path of
communication with the trenches, though it was a considerable distance
from the grand breaching-battery. Our operations against the fort
continued active and resolute; but our balls made but little impression
upon the mud bastions and curtains. Many of them scarcely buried
themselves, and others rolled down into the underworks of the enemy, and
were kindly sent back to us. It is almost folly to attempt to effect a
practicable breach in a fort built of such materials. The crust you
knock off the face of a bastion or curtain, forms a great barrier to
your approach to a solid footing. Young engineers are too apt to judge,
from the appearance of the fallen mud, that the breach is practicable;
when, the first step the storming-party takes, they find they sink up to
their necks in light earth. A woful instance of this nature I shall have
to advert to more particularly in the course of my narrative; and, if
it prove a timely hint to the inexperienced, I shall be rewarded. Stone
forts are soon demolished; when undermined well at the bottom, the top
will soon follow, and they cannot easily be repaired; but mud forts defy
human power.

We this day erected howitzer and mortar-batteries; and, when they first
opened, they struck terror and consternation into the enemy, who fled in
every direction, to avoid those destructive engines; but, in a few
hours, they dug holes in the ramparts, which they got into whenever they
saw those unwel