beleagured city. Strange to say, the enemy made no attempt to disturb the men while constructing the first parallel, nor were they once fired upon until their labours were completed and their guns were in position. It is said, indeed, that the attention of the rebels was diverted by a heavy fire from the Ridge, and that the first intimation they received of the existence of this new battery of ten guns was in the shape of a huge missile. The battery was known as Brind's; it was only 650 yards from the walls and was mainly instrumental in silencing the formidable Kashmír and Mori bastions. The British batteries were now completed, and on the morning of the 11th a cannonade from the first battery, commencing with a salvo of nine twenty-four pounders, brought down large fragments of masonry. The second battery opened soon afterwards, knocking to pieces the curtain between the Kashmír and water bastions. Next morning the third battery came into play. And from that moment until the assault, fifty heavy guns and mortars poured an incessant storm of shot and shell upon the walls of the city. The rebels, however, stood bravely by their crumbling walls, keeping up a continuous roll of musketry until the Engineers reported two practicable breaches near the Kashmír and Water bastions, and arrangements were made for an assault at daybreak of the 14th of September.
The attack was made by four columns, with a fifth held in reserve. The first, commanded by Nicholson, consisted of H.M.'s 75th, the 1st Bengal Fusileers,
