The Sun.
London, England, 1857-10-10 00:00:00

DIIGSHAIE.

The following are extracts from the letter of a
young officer at present residing at Dugshaie,
slowly recovering from wounds received before
Delhi. His letter is dated 30th Aug. last :
" I have arrived here (i.e., at Dugshaie) all safe,
on the 23d July. I left on the 2d June to join the
army at Delhi. I was sadly afraid that I would be
too late, but I caught them up at Allipore, 8 miles
on this side of Delhi ; and on the Bth of June we
marched to attack the enemy, who had taken up a
strong position at Badi Serai (a native inn), and I
had command of the advanced guard of our force.
We got close up to the enemyapparently before they
saw us, for when they issued their fire, the shot,
shell, &c., went far over our heads. I was lelt
behind to take charge of the guns we had taken. I
hal soma hard work, however, for the serai (inn)
was full of Sepoya. I took the guard in and killed
about sixty of them. At sunset I received an order
t) march to the camp at Delhi. We had occasional
skirmishes with the enemy. I came safely out of
them all until the 17th June, when I was settled
with five wounds—one through the left wrist ; one
ball carried off the little finger of my right hand, ,
wounding the one next it ; the third was a wound
in the chin ; the fourth broke my collarbone, carry-
ing away upwards of an inch of it, and the bullet
has rot yet been found—it is in me somewhere ;
the fifth was a graze on the right breast. I am
getting on favourably. It was only through God's
mercy I was not killed. The ball passed about a
quarter of an inch from the large artery, and a
quarter of an inch more would have caused the
amputation of my left arm ; so you see again I had
a narrow escape.
As soon as a fresh batch of mutineers arrives at
Delhi we have a fight. The old ones don't like it ;
so it went on—a skirmish about every third day.
But on the Ist of August, the " Bakri Eed" (a
Mahornmedan festival), they came out highly
primed with bhang (an intoxicating weed) ; and as
our men had positive orders on no account to leave
the defences, Pandy took courage and advanced
close up, but a well-directed volley killed numbers,
and seat the rest to the right about. However,
they persisted, and for upwards of 24 hours the
fight lasted. Our total lose was five killed and 14
wounded, and the native report says the enemy's
los was 3,000 killed. I heard say he saw
their dead lying in heaps. I hope by next mail to
be able to tell you that Delhi has at last
fallen ; our reinforcements are close at hand.
The Pandys robbed me of all I had, when
the cart was about a mile from our camp. The
natives all over the country are in a great fright
of the 78th Highlanders, who committed such
havoc at Cawnpore on the murderers there. They
say "that a new sort of people have coma among
them fighting in petticoats, and that when they come
near sweet music issues from their bodies (the bag-
pipes, I suppose) ; that each one of these people is
equal to 100 men ; that nothing can hurt them, and
that they surpass even Rostum (one of the native
heroes) hirngelf.' After I was wounded a man from
the Guile lihrps got me a doolie (a covered litter);
and seeing I was wounded in five places, he said,
" Sahib, burn Cahadoor hoa" (Sir, you have be-
come a very great man), and told me I was sure to
be a major for it. I said, "No, I am only a captain."
He then said, "If you were in my regiment they
would make you a major." The Ghoorkas and Sikhs
had also a great opinion of me because I was severely
wounded. We had a very severe shock of an earth-
quake here the day before yesterday.