melted ghee, for fighting-men, and half that allowance for camp-followers; the cattle, both public and private, had long subsisted on the twigs and bark of the trees.[1] The men had suffered much from overwork as well as bad feeding, and also from want of firing; it was, therefore, with greatly diminished strength that they began to march, and their progress was very slow, for the first mile was not accomplished under two hours and a half. An order was then received to return to cantonments, as the chiefs who were to accompany the troops were not ready, but shortly after a counter-order was issued to proceed without further loss of time.
The shadows of night overtook the fugitives, still pursuing their weary course; but its darkness was relieved by the blaze which rose above the British Residency and other buildings which the enemy had fired, upon taking possession of the cantonments. Many Sepoys and camp-followers, unable to contend longer with their misery, lay down to wait, in silent despair, the approach of death, and of those who struggled forward some perished before the morning dawn. The provision for encampment was miserably deficient; here, as on the march, all was disorder and destitution; thousands of wretched men were unable to obtain either shelter, fire, or food; the snow was their only bed, and to many it proved the bed of death. It was two o'clock on the morning of the 7th before the rear-guard arrived at this wretched bivouac, though the whole distance traversed was not more than six miles.
But however dreadful these sufferings and privations were to men inured to war, how much more bitter must they have been to females and children, of whom there were numbers, and especially to those whose station in life had accustomed them to indulgence in every luxury!
"It was the General's original intention," says Lady Sale, in her interesting journal, "to halt at Begramee,
- ↑ Lady Sale's Journal.
