With July arrived Brigadier-General Havelock, who, after having employed a week in collecting his resources, moved northwards from Allahabad with six cannon and a thousand English soldiers. That was not a joyous expedition. The hearts of all were occupied with forebodings of evil which they dared not shape into words: and the face of creation seemed to reflect the universal gloom. As in that fantastic canvas of old Dürer, whereon the knight is journeying towards an unknown goal in unhallowed company, so to the fancy of those who were not incapable of vivid emotion even inanimate and irrational nature partook that shade of the future that was on every soul. They waded in a sea of slush, knee-deep now, and now breast high, while the flood of tropical rain beat down from overhead. As far to right and left as eye could pierce extended one vast morass: and the desolate scene was enlivened by no human sound. Nothing was heard save the melancholy croaking of the cicalas, mingled with an under hum of countless insects. The air was heavy with the offensive odour of neem-trees. There were no indications that the column was traversing an inhabited country, except the bodies which hung by twos and threes from branch and signpost, and the gaunt swine who by the roadside were holding their loathsome carnival. After three days of steady toil through the mud and the water Havelock was made aware that the enemy were ahead, and that Renaud was advancing unsupported into the teeth of an overwhelming force. Then our troops hastened forward, and made one march of five leagues and another of eight beneath a blazing sun; (for at this point the weather cleared, and they lost the protection of the clouds;) until they caught up the Major and his detachment, and finally halted in a state of entire prostration five miles from the town of Futtehpore, where Jwala Pershad was encamped with all his chivalry. It was early morning. Our weary people were enjoying their "little breakfast" of tea, that pleasantest of Indian meals, when the rebel vanguard came pouring down the causeway. Havelock, who wished earnestly to give his harassed soldiers rest, resolved to wait until this ebullition should expend itself. But the affair grew serious; and he had soon no choice but to accept the challenge and draw up his army. In front were the guns, protected by a hundred skirmishers armed with that Enfield rifle which, then a rarity, is now a familiar object to every other household in Great Britain. The Fusileers and the Seventy-eighth Highlanders struggled through the swamps on the right. The Sixty-fourth Regiment went forward in the centre; and the Eighty-fourth on the left, supported by a battalion of Punjabees. The cavalry moved along some firm ground which lay on the extreme flank.