the royal artillery institution. 
157 
bound by uprights of stout timber. The exact intention of the four 
enormous loopholes in this stonework I cannot conceive, as it presented an 
equally good, if not better, opening for external firing, for the sides of the 
loophole increased inwards, therefore a man could be hid while loading when 
without, while the whole interior was swept by the fire from the loopholes 
crossing one another. The sides of the galleries giving flanking fire were of 
Matting, so that they could not be made use of without great exposure to 
the “ flanker,” while the supporting posts could have been pulled away by a 
number of men. 
The Bhooteas never dreamt that men would attempt to scale so high 
and apparently inaccessible a work; this can alone account for their remain¬ 
ing inside when the attacking party rushed towards it, and certainly a distant 
view of the work would lead one to believe their idea correct. 
While our troops advanced the Bhooteas fired upon them, causing the loss 
which we suffered, but the moment they found that their enemy was inside 
the work they gave up the contest and suffered themselves to be killed. 
The interior presented a disgusting appearance, set aside the marks 
of the fight. Huge joints of buffalo meat, stores of flour, lying about covered 
with clouds of flies; dirty remnants of clothes, dirty cooking vessels, foul 
wooden platters; and immediately outside the walls the general latrines of 
the Bhooteas. The scene, taking into view also the distorted, mangled, 
stripped corpses of the slain, was one sickening to look at. How 
different the scene when one stepped outside and saw the glorious hand 
of God in nature, and then to think of what the hand of man had made 
within. 
The day following the forcing in the Bala Pass, I employed myself in 
taking sketches of the works and of the country around. To push further 
into the interior of the country would necessitate an immediate descent on 
leaving the works which we had taken, as the path led down again to a little 
tributary of the Toolsa river; but from information we had received it would 
appear that no other steps had been taken by the Bhooteas to oppose an 
invasion into their country. 
On the 17th March a message came in from the enemy to say that they 
would, in exchange for the dead bodies of their friends, give over to us those 
prisoners which they had taken in the previous portion of the campaign; 
these prisoners consisted of one Sepoy and three camp followers. These 
men were reported to be well taken care of and in health—a fact reflecting 
disadvantageously upon our men, who, in the late fighting, had ruthlessly 
killed every Bhootea, even when resistance was over. 
A chief, of considerable importance among the enemy, had been slain in 
the Top Port, and when his countrymen came to remove his body they 
actually wept over it; he was a fine tall muscular man, with very fair 
complexion. 
As the works above Buxar were to be attacked at once, the Armstrong 
mountain battery, under Captain Wilson, was sent on the 18th March, via 
Malingee and Nuttoobaree, as the services of these guns were greatly relied 
on, their practice having been so satisfactory in the late business. 
At Buxar, an apparently extensive and strong stockade had been 
erected since I was last here, on the summit of a high hill above the 
stockade which commanded the road leading into the interior, and which a 
[vol. v,] . 21 
