28 



Narrative of the last outbreak 



[No, SI 



road to a great extent. The advance consisting of the 6th 

 vegiment N. I. charged this party with much effect, and in 

 this affair the commandant of that corps, Major Gray was 

 killed. Other parties of our advance, on taking* up the 

 ground for the day, were suddenly assailed from quarters of 

 which they had no clear view, and some of our officers suf- 

 fered here from dreadful spear wounds. 1 think it was here 

 that Lieutenant Start of the 3d regiment N. I., was wounded. 

 The next day we were again opposed, and an attempt was 

 made to seize a gun from the rear guard, and Captain 

 Trotter in command of it was slightly wounded. — The 

 detachment pursued its course to Ramnad, where it ar- 

 rived sometime in June without any more opposition, although 

 there was no doubt that large parties were hovering aboat in 

 the jungles north of the Vigay river in the vicinity of our 

 route. 



At Ramnad, Col. Agnew had the benefit of much communi- 

 cation with Col. Martinz, who had in his earlier day seen 

 much Poligar service. He was now in years. — The eastern ap- 

 proaches to Caliarcovil were described by all that had any fa- 

 miliar knowledge of them as of much greater extent, and of far 

 more difficult access than the western approaches, and super- 

 added to this serious inconvenience, almost all the Ramnad 

 district was at this time in a destitute state, partly from the 

 disturbances that had prevailed in it, and yet more from a 

 famine with which it had been afflicted a year or two before. 

 Here too we had the intelligence, that the Murdoo was plac- 

 ing Caliarcovil in a state that might call for battering guns, 

 and give us a renewal of the arduous scenes of Panjahlum- 

 coorchey. Under these circumstances, the detachment re- 

 traced its steps to Madura by the route of Comary, which 

 place, it was considered advisable to put in a good state of 

 defence, to keep in some check the malcontents in that 

 quarter. Events proved the utility of this measure, for while 

 the detachment was busily engaged in Shevagungah, and its 

 communications very much obstructed, this post of Comary 

 entrusted to a rising young Officer of the 3d regiment N. I., 



