Page:The Indian Mutiny of 1857.djvu/351

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Order is restored in the Dehlí Districts.
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populations that the power of that family had ceased for ever. Whilst Van Cortlandt, an excellent officer, with native levies, cleared the ground to the north-west of the city, Showers, with a mixed column, marched to the west and south-west, forced the chief of Ballabgarh to submit, and took in succession Ríwárí, Jajhar, and Kanáurí. He returned to Dehlí, on the 19th of October, with three rebel chiefs as prisoners, and much booty, specie of the value of £80,000, seventy guns, and a large quantity of ammunition.

Scarcely had Showers returned when the mutinied troops of the Jodhpur legion, fresh from a victory over the soldiers of the loyal Rájá of Jaipur, invaded the territories he had but just overrun, and occupied Ríwárí. Against them Gerrard, an officer of conspicuous merit, was despatched with a strong column.[1] Gerrard, marching from Dehlí, the 10th of November, reoccupied Ríwárí on the 13th, and pushed on to Narnúl, which the rebels had occupied in considerable force. So strong, indeed, was their position there that, had they had the patience to await attack, Gerrard would have found that all his work had been cut out for him. But, either from sheer incapacity or from utter recklessness, no sooner had it been reported to him that the British were in sight than the rebel leader advanced to meet him in the plain. The cavalry fight which followed was most desperately contested; the Guides, led by Kennedy, and the Carabineers by Wardlaw, fighting splendidly against considerable odds. The rebels, too, fought well, but eventually they gave way. On the left the Multání horse, new levies, had at first displayed considerable reluctance to join in the fray. Roused

  1. The 1st Fusiliers, the 7th Panjáb Infantry, Cookworthy's troop of horse-artillery, Gillespie's heavy battery, the Carabineers, the cavalry of the Guides, the Multání horse.