illery, the 46th and 84th
Regiments. The enemy came on in overwhelming numbers, and with great
resolution. The British infantry turned out to defend the positions,
manning the slight earthwork which had been thrown up round the camp.
The Egyptians advanced in a storm of bullets, their artillery playing
heavily on the camp. The Egyptians suffered heavily, but advanced with
considerable courage, and the position of the British was becoming
serious.

At this moment, however, the British cavalry, consisting of the Horse
and Life Guards and the 7th Dragoon Guards, with the Horse Artillery,--
who had remounted and advanced when the recommencement of the cannonade
told that the attack had begun in earnest,--came into action. Instead
of advancing direct upon Kassassin, General Lowe took his men by a long
detour by the right, and so came round in the darkness upon the enemy's
rear. It was not until they arrived within a mile that the enemy saw
the black mass advancing in the moonlight over the sandy plain. A
battery of nine guns at once opened upon them, and the Horse Artillery
replied immediately to the enemy's fire. Bullets as well as shell were
now falling fast around the cavalry, and General Lowe gave the order to
charge the guns. Led by Colonel Sir Baker Russell, the cavalry rode
straight at the enemy's battery. Fortunately, in their haste the
Egyptian gunners fired high, and with a few casualties the cavalry
reached the guns. The Egyptian gunners were cut down, and then the
horsemen dashed into the infantry behind, who were already turning to
fly.

The opening of the British guns in their rear at once checked the
advance of the assailants of the garrison of Kassassin. The cavalry
charge completed the confusion of the enemy, and in a short time the
plain was covered with bodies of the flying Egyptians making their way
back to Tel-el-Kebir, from which they had started in the morning,
confident in their power to annihilate the little British force at
Kassassin. Large numbers were killed, and the rout would have been even
more complete had not the horses of the cavalry been too much exhausted
with their long day's work under a broiling sun, to permit the pursuit
being vigorously continued.

The British advance had been terribly hindered from the difficulties of
transport, but at last all was in readiness, and the division which had
come from India having been brought round from Suez to Ismailia, all was
prepare