36 
SCENES IN INDIA. 
who are unacquainted with the greater advantages 
of European tactics. They exhibit a perfect heedless- 
ness of danger, and a readiness to meet any foe who 
may seek to be opposed to them. They consider 
obedience the first duty of a soldier, and freely sa- 
crifice their lives in discharge of their military obliga- 
tions, an infraction of which they look upon as the 
highest degradation. With no very accurate per- 
ception of moral right, and yet with a very high sense 
of moral obligation, they obey the dominant power by 
whom their allegiance is demanded with an unde- 
viating and patient fidelity which in general nothing, 
not even the harshest treatment, can subdue. They 
have a high sense of honour, seldom betraying the 
trust reposed in them even by a stranger; while 
their long career of victory and their known determi- 
nation in maintaining their conquests, rendered them 
no mean opponents to our armies during the Nepaul 
war. 
As a proof of the resolute spirit by which the 
Ghoorka soldiers are actuated when engaged in de- 
fence of their conquests, I need only mention a me- 
morable instance that occurred in the year 1814. A 
strong detachment, under the command of Colonel 
Gillespie, one of the most spirited officers in the 
British service, had been sent to besiege Kalunga, 
a small hill-fort in the Dhoon, and during the 
storming of which Colonel Gillespie was unhappily 
killed. The garrison consisted of about three hundred 
men, while the besiegers amounted to nearly three 
thousand, commanded by brave and experienced offi- 
cers. After a desperate struggle, and with immense 
