The Press.
London, England, 1857-09-19 00:00:00

912

We had a skirmish there on the 19th, and lost about
forty men in our eagerness to pursue the enemy. They
attacked our picket at Meteslte's house, in front of our lett
flank on the 23rd. They were easily repulsed. We lost
very few men, but unfortunately three officers were severely
wounded and one killed. _ . _

Since this date we have remained without annoyance.
Our attention is kept up in discussing various reports of
reinforcements arrived at Cawnpore, or reached Agra, or
lingering at Allshabad, or whether it is true Sir Hugh
Wheeler's force has been destroyed. Our communications
from below country, even from Agra, are few and uncer-
tain. The Punjaub is now quiet, and likely to remain so.
Our Sikhs, Atfghans, and Ghoorkaa, tight for us as well as
our beet uropeans, and seemed to bear a deadly hatred to
the Delhi wal:ahs.
A great many people in camp are indignant we did not
make an attempt to escalaUe the wells at the very begin-
ning. We were not strong enough to attack at first, and
before we got our reinforcements they got theirs. In any
case the attempt would have been hazardous and rash.
Our chance of surprising them at night is small. They
keep good watch, and our camp is full of people who
wish them well. One night three regiments were ordered
under arms, and the alarm was sounded an hour after
in the city. In case our approach was discovered, we
should have to advance under a heavy fire, cross a ditch,
and then try to scale a wall manned by a desperate enemy,
and force streets guarded by barricades and honeycombed
by mines.
Onr success in the end is certain. The rebels are con-
suming their money and ammunition. Every day they
are growing more disheartened and disunited. The only
chance they have of getting a new gleam of success, oft s-
etting the other two presidencies to revolt, and gaining the
independent chiefs to juin them, is for us to make a rash
assault on Delhi, and to be driven back with a loss of
1,000 or 1,500 men.

On this account I hope the people at home will not
blame our commanders if we. cannot take Delhi by a coup-
de•main. If there is any one to be blamed it is those who
from motives of parsimony left an immense magazine in a
mutinous city guarded by native soldiers; who preferred
their army to be commanded by worn out old men rather
than bear the expense of paying their servants a decent
retiring allowance.

" Our camp is full of people who wish them well,"
is an ominous expression. It is also clear
from the defensive positicn taken up by General
Wilson that everything rests upon reinforcements.
" The speedy capture of Delhi," says the Bombay
Telegraph, " will alone determine whether every
regiment may with perfect safety be despatched from
Calcutta to share in the easy task of putting down
disorganised 'bands of marauders, or whether the
disaffected taking heart shall again place us in
jeopardy."

Another officer, Lieutenant Hawes, of the Guide
corps, destroys our flattering belief that confidence
and coolness were wanting in the rebels. He de-
scribes them as selecting their own time and
opportunity to fight, fighting well and with consum-
mate coolness, retreating when they have had
enough. The state of the town of Delhi is not so
bad as represented :

A sepoy of the Guides is in the habit of going regn.
bitty into the city as a spy ; he has just returned after a
five days' visit there, and tells me that, although a good
deal of confusion prevails, still the city is in a very fair
state considering the rogues that inhabit it; he says that
looting (stealing) has been forbidden by the new general--
that grain dealers and even goldsmiths' shops are open in
the Chandee (silver) Chok, and trading goes on; also
that a European sergeant of artillery was brought as a
prisoner from %redly; that he is now dressed as a
Mu•sulman, and has the superintendence of the Mores
battery, and if he does not make good shots he is threat-
ened with the tulwar ; so the poor fellow is in a dreadful
state of mind altogether.

The work was telling on our men :
With the few troops we have got, the duty now comes
very heavy upon us all, for what with new batteries to
protect new outworks, which have also to be guarded,
together with picket, dc.c., the soldiers, more especially the
native portion of them, are on a sort of perpetcal duty, and
now that the rains have fairly set in the nightwork is very
trying, for somehow or another it always manages to rain
at night time, and one is well wetted in five inittutes (you
know what an Indian rain is), and having to sit or lie for
seven or eight hours after one is fairly wet through on the
top of a hard rock is no joke. How we all manage to k
so well is quite wonderful, but it is the excitement that
keeps one up.

Speaking of the Hindoo Rao's house, an important
advanced post of ours, and which has now become
historical, he observes :

The present state of the building would rather astonish
the old Hindoo if he could get out of his grave to see it,
for the verandahs are all on a level with the ground, the
outhouses mostly down, and the hall of the house itself
so riddled through and through by every abomination in
the shape of shot and shell. How the old place manages
to stand up at all is a wonder to everybody ; hut it is
owing to the beautiful pukka way in which ail old native
places are b^ilt. I think, nevertheless, that another ten
days' cannonading will bring the whole about our ears. I
don't know what we shall do then, I am sure, for this
house affords a sort of protection for eight hundred troops,