retiring before him in the direction of Kalunga or Nalapuni, about five miles further off to the northeast. It is a small but strong fort, situated on the extremity of the flat summit of a detached hill, the steep sides of which were covered with jungle.

The fort consisted of a quadrangular stone building, to which access had been rendered difficult by means of stockades. It was garrisoned by 600 men, under Balbhudra Sing, a Ghoorka captain of courage and ability. On halting before the place, Colonel Mawbey received a defiance in answer to his summons, so preparations for a siege began forthwith; and the battering guns were got into position on the summit of the hill, but their fire proving abortive, Mawbey waited for further orders. Gillespie's column was at this time divided into three commands: Colonel Mawbey led the infantry, Colonel Westenra the cavalry, and Major Pennington the artillery.

Though no breach had been made, it was resolved to storm the fort on the 31st of October. There were four columns of attack, three of which had to make a considerable détour, and thus did not hear the signal gun which was to indicate the simultaneous assault. The enemy made a sortie, which was repulsed, and the general conceiving that, by a hot pursuit, the stormers might enter with them, ordered all at his disposal to the attempt, which failed, as the Ghoorkas closed the gates, which proved too strong to be forced.

As usual in too many British assaults, the scalingladders proved too short, and the fiery Gillespie furiously urged his soldiers to accomplish impossibilities; and in this wild attempt against stone walls, he was shot through the heart, when leading on his old regiment, the Royal Irish Dragoons, dismounted, with their swords and pistols.

The matchlock-balls flew thick as hail about the stormers, on whom an avalanche of stones, trunks of trees, and cannon balls were hurled down.

"Although it lasted but a few minutes," wrote a private of H.M. 53rd, who was present, "the sight was horrible; the masses of rock and heavy logs of timber came crashing down towards us, bounding from one uneven place to another, or tearing up or carrying before them, the low brushwood with which the hill was covered. These dreadful missiles were close upon us, ready, as it were, to crush us instantly to death, and sweeping all before them. Some of the men threw themselves flat upon their bellies, in the hope that the ponderous articles would bound over them. The plan was a wise one, for nearly all that did so escaped unscathed, while others were thrown down, bruised, mangled, and perhaps killed. The thought of throwing myself down had not

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struck me soon enough for me to avail myself of it, for in the instant I received a blow on the head, which stretched me senseless on the ground."*

Disheartened by the fall of Gillespie, the troops fell back, and their retreat was covered by one of the three stray columns which came up. On the 25th November, Kalunga was again attacked, and breaching batteries were opened. By noon on the 27th a gap was practicable, and the stormers advanced with unloaded muskets. The breach was found to be impassable, as it was defended by spearmen and matchlock-men intermingled.

The British, unable to return a shot, fell back, with the loss of 680 men; and it is said, that owing to the obvious incapacity of some of the officers, the troops had made that fatal attack with great unwillingness. Though it was known that the garrison obtained its supply of water from a well beyond the fort, it did not occur to any of our officers to have it cut off; so now a bombardment was resorted to. The bare stone walls of the fort gave no shelter to the gallant mountaineers who manned them, and they suffered so dreadfully, that in the course of three days there were surviving only seventy of the original 600. With such a feeble band, breathing an air that was rendered pestilential by the number of unburied dead, a longer defence would have been madness. The few survivors stole out in the night, but were overtaken and cut to pieces, with the loss of their standards; the Ghoorka chief, Balbhudra Sing, effected his escape.

The interior of the fort presented a shocking spectacle, when our troops entered it by daylight. It was everywhere strewed with the bodies of the dead, the dying, and the wounded.

"The latter were piteously crying, and entreating our sepoys to give them water wherewith to cool their parched lips. Many were dying of thirst, not a drop of water had they tasted for the three preceding days. Assistance was immediately afforded to the wretched creatures; those whose wounds were susceptible of cure were removed to our hospitals, and attended with as much care as if they had been our own people; eighty-five of the Ghoorkas recovered under the hands of our surgeons. In the evening immense funeral piles were erected by the sepoys, on which the dead bodies were burnt."+

Kalunga was destroyed, but the Ghoorkas were greatly encouraged by the slaughter of the British before its walls, and began to despise them as antagonists. The Earl of Moira was mortified and disappointed by such an untoward opening of the •E.I. U.S. Journal, 1837. + Ibid.

OPERATIONS OF GENERAL

THE Commencement of the war before the walls of Kalunga was ominous of evil. The position of the combatants was changed, our loss was great, and the prestige remained with the Ghoorkas. The invading troops, from their superiority in numbers and in discipline, had promised themselves an easy and early conquest; and now they began to doubt whether they should be able to grapple with these hardy mountaineers, or do aught but experience a series of disasters. On the other hand, the Ghoorkas were full of ardour and elation,

and were daily joined by other mountain tribes, which had hitherto held aloof. Thus a new character was given to the war, and there was every prospect of its being a protracted one.

Colonel Mawbey detached Colonel Carpenter with a division, to a position on the Jumna, where, by taking possession of certain fords, the enemy's communications between the east and west would be cut off, and whereby the hill chiefs, who were disposed to throw off allegiance to Nepaul, would be encouraged to do so.

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The troops advanced in two columns to the attack; the sepoys, in doing so, evincing much reluctance and want of spirit. The result was that we were beaten at every point, and Martindale fell back with the loss of 500 men and officers hors de combat, thus adding to the contempt with which

mountain ridges met. The approach was rugged, and full of natural obstacles, including a steep ascent and several stony ravines. Sir Gabriel reconnoitred the position, and conceived that his first and best plan would be to cut off the supply of water received by the garrison from certain springs below the fort, and for this purpose the capture of a stockaded post, a mile to the westward, was necessary.

the affair of Kalunga had inspired the Ghoor. kas. Martindale now waited for reinforcements. Meanwhile, the division of Ochterlony, whose sphere of action lay to the westward of General Martindale, encountered difficulties which were equally great, but were less disastrous, because he was a leader of skill and decision. He was

well aware of the character of the Ghoorka warriors,

and of the advantage they might take of their mountain fastnesses, and hence he proceeded with circumspection to open up his way in regions that were unknown. The small strongholds of Nillaghur and Tarraghur, which guarded

the savage pass into Hindur, had

been regularly invested in November, 1814. The former offered every possible resistance until it was breached, and only capitulated before being stormed. The other surrendered; the garrisons in both doing so on the singular enough conditions, that they should neither be compelled to return to Ameer Sing, nor forced to work in fetters on the Honourable Company's roads.

Preceded by the reserve, under Lieutenant

Colonel W. A. Thompson, the army now plunged into the gloomy defiles leading to the first range of stockades and fortifications, with 1,100 Ghoorkas prowling on its flank, to fall upon any weary straggler, whom error or accident might expose to the blades of their deadly kookerees; and on the 8th of November, Thompson established his bivouac on a hill, opposite the centre of a long range of posts that ran from the fort of Ramghur (on a mountain summit 4,600 feet high) on the west, to that of Kot-Katiba on the east. These two places formed respectively the Ghoorka right and left. The intervening heights, varying in elevation and difficulty of access, stretching over three miles, bristled with stockades, manned by armed mountaineers-the flower of the men of Nepaul.

The position was too strong to be forced; and General Ochterlony, now face to face with the redoubted Ameer Sing, for a time disappointed, and even lost the confidence, of many officers of rank, because he did not hurl his strength against the enemy, as Gillespie did so fatally at Kalunga.

Ameer Sing, whose proper head-quarters were at Arkee, thirty miles eastward of Maloun, had hurried forward, at the head of 3,000 men, on hearing of the advance of Ochterlony, who now determined to turn the strong position, and assail it in rear. With this view, he took ground to the north-east, till he obtained possession of a hill seven miles distant from Ramghur, from whence he had a commanding view of the whole Ghoorka lines, and, finding a point from which to assail them, began to prepare a battery.

Notwithstanding the united efforts of the pioneers and elephants, the guns following the infantry took twenty days in being transported to the required point, so terrible was the nature of the ground to be traversed; and, after the cannonade opened, it was found to be so distant as to be useless. To repair this blunder, Lieutenant Peter Lawtie, of the Engineers, was detached with a small party to select nearer ground; and after doing so, he was returning to camp, when the Ghoorkas, who had been watching him, rushed in great strength from their heights, and drove him into a stone enclosure, where he and his soldiers defended themselves till their last cartridge was expended, after which they had to run for their lives along the whole range of the Ghoorka fire.

Some supports, sent out by Ochterlony, joined in their flight, and, as many fell, this affair was magnified by the Ghoorkas into another victory, and inspired more confidence and exultation among them; and, dreading a more universal rising of

the whole country, the major-general deemed it prudent to relinquish the offensive until he was joined by more troops. Meanwhile, he carefully explored several localities, made roads for the conveyance of artillery and stores, disciplined the irregulars of the army, and, on the 26th of December, after a month had been devoted to these labours, the reinforcements came; but they consisted only of a battalion of the 7th Native Infantry and a levy of Sikhs.

The major-general now instantly resumed the offensive, by sending a detachment along the Ghoorka rear, threatening their communication with Arkee and Bilaspore. Alarmed by this, Ameer Sing hastened to frustrate it, and in the attempt sustained a severe repulse, which is thus described in the Memoir of General Ochterlony :—

"The reserve, strengthened by the new regiment, being pushed forward during the night of the 26th December, gained the summit unperceived, and returned, after sustaining an ineffectual fire. Colonel Thompson, an intrepid officer, who did not think discretion the better part of valour, though strictly enjoined, was said not to take every desirable precaution to guard against surprise in the post he had won. The Kadji, hearing with alarm of the success of this movement, and next of guns being taken up on the backs of elephants, being about to open on Mungukedar (a large stockade in the centre of the range), ordered the commandant of it to dislodge the British troops, whatever it might cost. Before dawn on the 28th, a loud uproar began, in which the sound of horns predominated, within the stockade, and when objects became visible, several thousand men were seen shouting and flourishing their swords, while rushing towards Colonel Thompson's post, like a pack of hounds in full cry. Two six-pounders raked their advance for a mile or more ; but in a manner pronounced miraculous, ball after ball rebounded from the rocks amid the hurrying crowd, without injuring one of them. No out-pickets interrupting this onset, the enemy reached the foot of the acclivity leading to the camp, almost out of breath; and fortunately, the ascent, except on one narrow point, was steep. On this point, where the access was easy, a lucky accident, and an act of individual bravery, arrested them for an instant. Four courageous fellows, guiding their comrades along it, dashed through a file of sepoys getting under arms, and were moving onward, when the foremost was shot by Lieutenant Armstrong, of the Pioneers. The other three fell back, while Captain Charles Hamilton and Lieutenant Culley, bringing up their companies of the old 6th and 7th Regiments,

deterred the rest from renewing the attempt to enter by what was called 'the neck of land.' Meanwhile the opposite flank of the assailants received a fatal check. Colonel Thompson himself, having gone to a projecting eminence to survey the field, perceived the Ghoorkas struggling up the hill in dense masses under him. Dispatching orderlies, and using voice and gesture to summon his babas, as he styled the sepoys of the old 3rd Regiment, they, and part of the light infantry battalion, soon began an irregular fire, which told heavily on the mountaineers. Between thirty and forty rolled dead among their companions, and more than a hundred besides being wounded, the Ghoorkas slowly and sullenly retreated, under the discharge of both artillery and musketry."

Ameer Sing now fell back on his post at Ramghur; Ochterlony, following out his own plans, left Colonel (afterwards Major-General Sir John) Arnold, his second in command, with a division to watch the movements of the army, while he proceeded with his main body towards a mountain ridge, the occupation of which would place him between the Sutlej and the Ghoorka fort of Maloun. At the same time he sent forward 2,000 men, belonging to the Rajah of Hindur, who had joined him early, and done good service. These irregulars, under Captain Robert Ross, took possession of some heights above Bilaspore, between the Rajah of which and that of Hindur there existed a bitter feud; and the success of Ochterlony's movements was soon apparent.

Ameer Sing conceiving that his position, thus turned, was no longer tenable, left a garrison in the fort of Ramghur, and with his disposable force fell back to the ridge on which Maloun stands. Meanwhile, the genius of Lawtie, of the Engineers, whose services in this campaign can never be over-rated, by breaching the forts of Ramghur, Jurjura, Tarraghur, and Chumba, dislodged, without having sufficient force to surround, the garrisons of these human eyries. They consequently retired to augment the numbers preparing to make a last stand on the ridge of Maloun.+

Thus, by a series of skilful movements, and without any very direct encounter with the enemy, he compelled them to fall back and abandon their posts, till only one place of strength remained to them. Brave, but prudent, he had the fire without the rashness of Gillespie, and yet both were men of the Scottish race. Even Maloun was held by a very precarious tenure, and by the 1st of April, 1815, it

* E. 1. U. S. Journal, 1839, Calcutta.
+ Ibid.

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was completely invested; and pending the account of its reduction, we must attend to the operations of two other columns of our army in Nepaul.

The division under Major-General Sullivan Wood (formerly of the 8th Royal Irish Dragoons) was unable to take the field before the middle of December, 1814. Marching from Goruckpore, the capital of a district ceded to us by the Nabob of Oude, in 1801, he moved northwards in the direction of Palpah, a mountainous and unproductive principality, one of the many subject to Nepaul, and situated about 100 miles westward of the capital of the latter, Khatmandoo. To reach it by the direct route, Wood would have to traverse a deep and difficult pass, which he understood to be strongly stockaded; but, learning that it might be out-flanked by taking another path, he marched on the 3rd of January, 1815, to attack the stockade at Jetpore, at the base of the Majkati Hills, about a mile westward of Botwul, or Bhotwal, as it would be necessary to force it to proceed.

He accordingly advanced to attack it in front, with twenty-one companies of infantry, while Major Comyn, with seven companies, moved towards its left flank. His information having been erroneous, he encountered a resistance so resolute that he despaired of success too early in the attempt.

Hence, relinquishing all offensive operations, he ordered a retreat, and resolved to restrict himself to merely preventing the Ghoorkas from violating our frontier; but even in this he failed, for the enemy found many opportunities of eluding him, of breaking through and committing serious ravages. He endeavoured to retaliate, but it was chiefly on the unoffending people who dwelt on either side of the boundary line between Nepaul and British India; and this petty strife continued till the climate began seriously to affect the health of his harassed troops, and they were ordered back to their old cantonments at Goruckpore.

Of all the four divisions of the army, now led by Ochterlony, Wood, Nicolls, and Major-General Marley, the latter was deemed the strongest and the one from which most was expected, as its destination was to be Khatmandoo, the capital of the Ghoorkas. On the 23rd of November he began his march from Dinapore, and moved towards Bettiah.

Clearing the way for him was an advanced guard under Bradshaw, who, on the following day, surprised Parsuram Thapa, the native governor of the district, who, with 400 Ghoorka warriors, was encamped on the bank of the Bhagmate in Tirhoot. Thapa was among the