ed in one dense cloud of smoke. The instant the vakeel heard the
guns, he leapt out of his carriage, and ran as fast as he could towards
the fort, screaming in notes something like the angry tiger. This being
the case, I took the liberty of taking the rut and horse to camp as
prize property. Whether he reached the fort in safety I know not, for we
never saw nor heard anything more of his fat ambassadorship; so I
suppose he suffered with many hundreds of others during the siege. The
moment our batteries opened, their guns also opened a heavy cannonade,
evidencing the truth of what the vakeel had been holding forth. Our
siege went on progressively and systematically, keeping in view the
grand point in all sieges, preservation of men's lives, and going to
work with our eyes open. Our breaching-distance from the wall of the
town was only about four hundred yards; and therefore, if we were
inclined to take a peep at things, we were obliged to do it on the sly,
for we were within half musket-shot; so near, indeed, that we were
obliged to have screens for our embrasures, to protect the men when
loading and laying the guns. The parts breached were the two extreme
corners. When we commenced, the town was full of men; but we sent them a
few shrapnells and a few rockets, which played beautifully along the
tops of the houses, and up the narrow streets; and, in one hour,
scarcely a man was to be seen on the ramparts; but we could hear them
busily at work digging something, which we afterwards found to be holes,
to hide from the shells, over which they covered themselves with old
doors and pieces of plank. Some of our shells, however, found them,
even in those dreary hiding-places. Many of their houses were on fire.
The Congreve rocket is a most destructive instrument of death; its
enormous shaking tail carries everything before it; and, when it
explodes, it kills some yards round, and fires houses right and left.
Our little whistling shrapnells quite discomposed the gravity of their
hoary-headed priests, and drove them into the fort to seek refuge, and
call in the aid of their heathen gods; but not one could be prevailed
upon to interpose, even so far as to stop a single rocket or shell. Some
long shots were then thrown from some of the large guns in the town,
near and into camp; but these caused no other inconvenience than to put
some ladies, who had come from Agra to be spectators of the scene, to
the double-quick, who never thought