s they were also well manoeuvred by
their officers, they were perfectly able to cope with the enemy.

Hindoo Rao's hill was looked upon as the post of honour, and round it
most of the affrays took place. It was held by Major Reid, with the
Simoor battalion, and two companies of Rifles.

His losses were afterwards filled up by the infantry of the Guides. The
Goorkhas were crowded into the large house from which the place took its
name. Its walls were shattered with shells and round shot, which now
and then struck through the chambers. Ten men were killed and wounded
in the house by one shot, and seven by another the same day. Nobody was
then secure of his life for an instant. Through the whole siege, Major
Reid kept to his post. He never quitted the ridge save to attack the
enemy below, and never once visited the camp until carried to it wounded
on the day of the final assault.

The gallant Rifles here, as on every other occasion where they have had
the opportunity afforded them, made good use of their weapons. On one
occasion ten riflemen at the Sammy house made such execution among the
gunners at the Moree bastion, that the battery was for a time abandoned.
The Goorkhas, the inhabitants of the hill-country of Nepaul, and who
happily had remained faithful to the British standard, were great adepts
at skirmishing, and gallant little fellows in the main. A story was
told of a Goorkha and a rifleman, who had in a skirmish followed a
Brahmin soldier. The last took refuge in a house, and closed the door.
The rifleman tried to push it open, but the Goorkha went to the window,
and coiling his compact little person into its smallest compass, waited
for his enemy. Soon the point of a musket, then a head and long neck
appeared: the Goorkha sprang up, and seizing him by the locks, which
clustered out of the back of his pugarie, he cut off his head with his
cookri, ere the Brahmin could invoke Mahadeo. The little man was
brought along with his trophy by the rifleman, to receive the applause
of his comrades.

The annoyance which the batteries on Hindoo Rao's hill caused to the
city was so great, that the mutineers commenced the construction of a
battery on the right of it, to enfilade the whole British position. It
was necessary to prevent this. About 400 men of the 1st Fusiliers and
60th Rifles, with Tombs' troop of horse artillery, 30 horsemen of the
Guides, and a few sappers and miners, were got ready. The comma