the men would be fresh, and there would be a certainty of many hours of daylight. At the very moment appointed the troops began to move out of camp, and marched in silence to their destination. This first movement, indeed, was so steadily performed that the Sikhs were everywhere taken by surprise, and beat loudly to arms throughout their wide intrenchments on both sides of the river. Sir Hugh Gough was now much stronger in cavalry than before, and very strong in artillery. He at once put his guns in position in an extended semi-circle, embracing within its fire the works of the Sikhs; the heavy ordnance being arranged in masses on some of the most commanding points opposite the enemy's intrenchments. It had been intended that the cannonade should commence at daybreak; but so heavy a mist hung over the plain and river that it became necessary to wait till sunrise, when the British batteries opened, and for three hours the deadly shower of iron hail poured down upon the Sikh forces within their intrenchments, mingled with the more deadly shells that scattered destruction on <3very side as they fell. But the Sikh intrenchments bristled with the heavy ordnance which had told so effectively against the light field-pieces that formed the sole British artillery in the earlier engagements, and the sun's level rays hardly pierced through the clouds of sulphureous smoke that hung over and around the scene of strife. "Our battery of nine-pounders," says the Commander-in-Chief in his despatch, "opened near the Little Sobraon, with a brigade of howitzers formed from the light field-batteries and troops of Horse Artillery, shortly after daybreak. But it was half-past six before the whole of our artillery fire was developed. It was most spirited and well-directed."
"Nothing," says Dr. Macgregor,[1] "could be conceived grander than the effect of the batteries when they opened, as the cannonade passed along from the Sutledge to Little Sobraon, in one continued roar of guns and mortars; while,
- ↑ "History of the Sikhs."
