252 Memoirs of John Shipp: [Manrcu, 
them, andanother behind, at full speed. The Pindaree horsemen (and, indeed, 
all horsemen in India) have a decided advantage over the English. Their 
horses are so taught that they can turn them right round for fifty times without 
the horse’s moving his hind-legs from the same circle, or pull them up at full 
speed instantaneously. Our horses are heavy, fat, and quite unmanageable 
with the bit; it takes them as long to get round as a ship; and you cannot 
pull them up under ten or twenty yards. Some of their horsemen have spears 
seventeen feet in length, which they handle in so masterly a style that singly 
they are dangerous persons to have any thing to say to ; but I have frequently 
seen Lord Lake charge, with his body-guard, a whole column of them, and 
put them to the rout.” 
On the occasion of attacking a mud-fort, he gives the result of his 
observations :— 
_ © Our operations against the fort continued active and resolute; but our 
balls made but little impression upon the mud bastions and curtains. Many 
of them scarcely buried themselves, and others rolled down into the under- 
works of the enemy, and were kindly sent back to us. It is almost folly to 
attempt to effect a practicable breach in a fort built of such materials. The 
crust you knock off the face of a bastion or curtain, forms a great barrier to 
your approach to a solid footing. Young engineers are too apt to judge, from 
the appearance of the fallen mud, that the breach is practicable; when, the 
first step the storming-party takes, they find they sink up to their necks in 
light earth. A woful instance of this nature I shall have to advert to more 
particularly in the course of my narrative; and, if it prove a timely hint to 
the inexperienced, I shall be rewarded. Stone forts are soon demolished ; 
when undermined well at the bottom, the top will soon follow, and they can- 
not easily be repaired ; but mud forts defy human power.” 
Of the storming of Bhurtpore, we have nowhere seen the details 
so distinctly given. He himself, we have already said, led the forlorn 
hope three times out of four. Of the first, after detailing the prepara- 
tions, he says— 
** We pushed on at speed ; but were soon obliged to halt. A ditch, about 
twenty yards wide, and four or five deep, branched off from the main trench. 
This ditch formed a small island, on which were posted a strong party of the 
enemy, with two guns. Their fire was well directed, and the front of our column 
suffered severely. The fascines and gabions were thrown in; but they were 
as a drop of water in the mighty deep: the fire became hotter, and my little 
band of heroes plunged into the water, followed by our two companies, and 
part of the 75th Regiment. The middle of the column broke off, and got too 
far down to the left; but we soon cleared the little island. At this time 
Colonel Maitland and Major Campbell joined me, with our brave officers of 
the two companies, and many of the other corps. I proposed following the 
fugitives ; but our duty was to gain the breach, our orders being confined to 
that subject. We did gain it ; but imagine our surprise and consternation, 
when we found a perpendicular curtain going down to the water’s edge, and 
no footing, except on pieces of trees and stones that had fallen from above. 
This could not bear more than three men abreast, and if they slipped (which 
many did), a watery grave awaited them, for the water was extremely deep 
here. Close on our right was a large bastion, which the enemy had judiciously 
hung with dead underwood. ‘his was fired, and it threw such a light upon 
the breach, that it was as clear as noonday. They soon got guns to bear on 
ug, and the first shot (which was grape) shot Colonel Maitland dead, wounded 
Major Campbell in the hip or leg, me in the right shoulder, and completely 
cleared the remaining few of my little party. We had at that moment reached 
‘the top of the breach, not more (as I before stated) than three a-breast, when 
we found that the enemy had completely repaired that part, by driving in 
