At the conclusion of the year 1775 three companies of artillery, to be commanded by European officers, were ordered to be raised for the Nawab of Oude and attached to the brigade of disciplined troops raised for his service; officers were nominated to them, and struck off the strength of the regiment; but whether the companies were ever raised seems doubtful. In the following year they were directed to be formed into a battalion, under command of Major Patrick Duff, and then to be transferred to the regular army, and fresh ones raised of native artillery in August, 1777. If the companies first ordered had been European, it is difficult to say what became of them, because the sixth, seventh, and eighth companies were raised by minutes of council, July 13th and 24th, 1778; the two former, however, may have been raised from the men of the Oude companies. The artillery, in 1775, appear first to have used Dum-Dum as a practice-ground, and to have been encamped there, when, their tents being wanted for the use of a brigade marching to Patna, they were ordered into Fort William, and their practice cut short with one fortnight instead of two months. In the following year, however, in December, they marched out with their tents and stores, and began the practice (as the orders record) by firing “a royal salute, and after that one of 19 guns, for the Company.” It is not easy to ascertain what Dum-Dum was previous to its occupation by the artillery. The first mention made of it is by Orme, in the account of the action near Omichund’s garden, in 1757. He speaks of Clive crossing “the Dum-Dum road:” this road, however, was only a cutcha-bund[16] leading to Dum-Dum, the name of the place now occupied by Dum-Dum House, the origin of which building is enveloped in mystery. It is said to have been built by a Mr. or Colonel Home,[17] but who he was, or the date, cannot be ascertained. Supernatural aid has been called into play, and the mound on which it stands is reported to have been raised by some spirit of the ring or camp, in the course of a single night, and to this day visions of ghosts haunt the grounds. At the practice season the officers inhabited the house, and the men’s tents were pitched in the compound, and the natives in the “Montague lines,” the ground now occupied by the Nya Bazaar, called after Lieutenant Montague, the adjutant who marked them out. The name is known to the present day. It was not until 1783 that the cantonment was marked out by Colonel Duff, who is said to have made, or rather widened, the road from Shambazar to Barasut,[18] and to have planted the avenue of mulseery trees now running along the southern end of the small exercising-ground. Many villages were scattered over the ground occupied by the cantonment; their sites were purchased up, from time to time, by Government; the last, that of Deiglah, in 1820.