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MINUTES OF PROCEEDINGS OF 
cleanliness, while the rest of the force suffered from the plague of blacks. 
Permission had been given for the artillery to encamp where they did owing 
to the danger of fire, and it was indeed fortunate it was so, for the sunburnt 
strips of grass in the infantry camp caught fire, and many tents had to be 
borne bodily off to save them from being burnt; some were damaged, while 
the cavalry were in imminent danger from their horses taking afright from 
the neighbourhood and magnitude of the conflagration. 
The rear guard, under Lieutenant Oldham, of the 12th Khelat-i-Ghilzie 
Eegiment, had a narrow escape with their lives, the fire which we had seen 
about noon had swept down upon them, and the fortunate finding of a spot 
already cleared alone allowed them a place of safety; Lieutenant Oldham 
lost his sword in his flight, and unless I am mistaken, a native officer of the 
44th N.I. was badly burnt. 
As the evening closed upon us, the whole country around was in a blaze 
of light, the jungle having been fired in all directions, and we were begirt by 
a sea of flames. Mr Metcalf, the civil officer, believed that this was the act 
of incendiaries, and a picket declared they saw men in spots where the grass 
had just been lit: if it so was done, it was the deed of the followers of the 
raja of Sidlee, as no Bhooteas were near. 
The danger arising on these occasions from the excessive terror of the 
elephants and horses was great, as they strove to escape from the neigh¬ 
bourhood of the conflagration, and had they once broken loose it would 
have been impossible to re-capture them in the waste of grass jungle that 
surrounded us on every side, and when the flames broke into the cavalry 
lines it caused a consternation not easily to be described. 
The nature of the country was such that cavalry proved a hindrance, a 
source of weakness and delay, while the necessities of a cavalry man are 
great, himself, his horse, and grass cutter having to be fed, and as I have 
before mentioned, our commissariat officer. Captain Biggs, was already short 
of cattle for the conveyance of the provisions of the force. 
While pitching our tents a terror-stricken deer rushed through the camp 
of the artillery and was captured by the men, giving them better meat than 
the half-starved bullocks on which they had usually to depend. 
Early the following morning, the Deputy Assistant Quarter-master 
General, Captain Norman, proceeded ahead with an escort to reconnoitre 
the road. 
At 11 a.m. the force marched, and we commenced to break through the 
tall grass as before ; we had proceeded about one mile, just beyond a gigantic 
skeleton of an elephant lying by the pit in which he had been killed, when the 
word was passed from the front to go about and return to our old camping 
ground. This retrograde movement caused the greatest consternation to the 
camp followers in the rear; how the rumour originated it is hard to say, but 
it was said that the Bhooteas had attacked and routed the force, one man 
declared he had heard the whistling of showers of bullets. The go-about 
movement made a pressure behind, loads were flung off the bullocks, coolies 
dropped their burdens; there was a scamper and a route most complete, and, 
alas, calamitous, for it took hours before the fallen and broken loads of grain 
could be repacked in the Commissariat camp. The ground, as we returned, 
presented the appearance usually seen on the flight of an army. 
The irregularity of such conduct was severely censured in Orders that 
