From this period--the end of December 1857 until the 10th of February 1858--our work consisted in sending out detachments to destroy villages and the houses of rebel Rajahs. On one occasion a Sikh discovered 30,000 rupees (belonging to some Rajah) hidden in the wall of a cow-house. Needless to say, this money was handed over to the Government: much to our dissatisfaction, as we rather anticipated having our respective shares doled out to us. Occasionally our camping-ground was changed, so as to keep in touch with our detachments; but otherwise there was no fighting during these six weeks. Whatever rebels there were about did not collect. Camp life was at that time pleasant enough. The days were pretty warm; the nights actually cold. We amused ourselves shooting snipe in the ghylls of the near neighbourhood, and very often came across wild pea-fowl in the pea-fields or among the “growing crops.” The difficulty lay in procuring shot. We improvised a system of melting bullets: standing on a chair in our tent, we dropped molten lead through small pierced pieces of tin into a bucket of cold water. The shot were rather elongated; but they answered the purpose in a way (anyhow as slugs), and we bagged many pea-fowl, also a few snipe, and occasionally duck. Another recreation was to go pig-sticking after the pariah dog with an improvised spear--generally a long nail secured to a cane of bamboo. We sallied out, a party of six or eight, on our ponies, and rode round the outside of a village in quest of a good, strong-looking dog, which we might find basking in the sun; and if it was not found outside the village, we rode down the “High Street” in search. When found, he got a good prick, and immediately started off, yelling. He was given a bit of law, and off we skedaddled after him. Sometimes the dog would take you clean across country to the next village, and once we had a rare run of five miles. These dogs were more or less wild, and the hunt sounds a bit cruel to relate. I fancy our feelings were hard in camp life--especially during the Mutiny days. The time had now arrived when we were ordered to the banks of the Gogra river to collect boats to enable us to build a bridge for Jung Bahadour’s army to cross over into Oude, in order to render assistance to Lord Clyde’s army, then before Lucknow. Jung had 10,000 Ghoorkas with him, and about twenty-four guns. Why he could not do his own work himself I never discovered. I conclude that, he being an ally, the authorities thought we ought to do his dirty work. We made four or five marches to the banks of the river, took a small fort on the way, and encamped near the bank. The Sepoys were collecting in force on the opposite side; and Jung used to amuse himself by firing long shots at them across the river, though they were well out of range. These 10,000 troops seemed quite a large army to us. I rode into their camp, and dined with some English officers whom he had attached to his force.