belt of impenetrable jungle, at once impeding the navigation by preventing the tracking of boats, and presenting dangerous facilities for ambush. To these cherished game-preserves the Ameers clung with a desperate pertinacity, which might have moved the sympathy of an English sportsman--"admitting" (says the _Bombay Times_) "that we might strip them of their territory, occupy Hydrabad, or seize their persons without difficulty; but maintaining that they will never consent to become parties to the act of degradation we insist upon, or give their enemies the pretext for charging them with having made over to us by treaty, on any consideration whatever, the most valued portion of their territory." A force under Sir Charles Napier was at length moved from Sukkur towards Hydrabad, with a view of intimidating them into submission; and on February 14, 1843, they affixed their seals to the draught of an agreement for giving up the _shikargahs_. But this apparent concession was only a veil for premeditated treachery. On the 15th, the Residency at Hydrabad was attacked by 8000 men with six guns, headed by one of the Ameers; and the resident, Major Outram, after defending himself with only 100 men for four hours, forced his way through the host of his assailants, and reached Sir Charles Napier's camp. The Ameers now took the field with a force estimated at 22,000 men; but were attacked on the 17th at Meeanee, a town near the Indus above Hydrabad, by 2800 British and Sepoys, and completely routed after a desperate conflict, in which the personal prowess of the British general, and his officers, was called into display in a manner for which few opportunities occur in modern warfare. The effect of the victory was decisive: the Ameers surrendered themselves prisoners of war, and were shortly afterwards sent to Bombay; the British flag was hoisted at Hydrabad; and a proclamation of the Governor-general was published at Agra, March 5, declaring the annexation to our empire of "the country on both sides of the Indus from Sukkur to the sea."