they had the fate of Bejah Khan staring them in the face; that they had never killed any of our people after the fight, and that all the prisoners had been clothed, fed, and set free. He concluded by saying, that 'he should remain near the fort till we left, to prevent any disturbance between his people and mine, and that he would furnish me with trustworthy guides down.' There was not the slightest appearance of treachery! Thus ended this most interesting conference. It will not, I think, be easily forgotten by either Erskine or myself; so much depended on it – the good of ourselves and the whole of the detachment. We found these Beloochees the most civil and polite of men. The confidence we placed in their word, by meeting them in the way we did, seemed to please them much; and from our having been deadly enemies for five long months, we became in one hour the best of friends. No doubt their joy was just as great in getting rid of us as ours was in gaining our freedom." It is gratifying to add, that the Beloochees kept their faith, and that Captain Brown arrived with his detachment at Poolajee on the 1st of October.
The month of November, 1840, opened auspiciously for the British arms: on the 3rd of that month General Nott re-occupied Kelat, which had been taken from us partly by treachery, and was now abandoned by its garrison; and on the same day Major Boscawen defeated the army of Nazir Khan, son of the ex-Chief of Kelat. On the 1st of December Nazir Khan was again defeated by a force under Lieutenant-Colonel Marshall, consisting of about nine hundred Bombay Native Infantry of the 2nd Grenadiers, the 21st and 25th regiments, sixty irregular horse, and two guns; on which occasion five hundred of the troops of Nazir Khan yielded up their lives in the cause of their fugitive master, who had fled on the first attack, and in the number of the slain were four powerful chiefs. The conduct of those by whom this gallant action was won was fitly characterised by their commander, in a field-order issued on the day after the engagement: –
