On the following day, after reconnoitring the fort and the ground in its vicinity, spots were fixed upon for new breaching and shelling batteries; and, in twenty-four hours afterwards, we commenced our work of death on the fort and its obdurate inmates. Long ere the hour of the sun's decline, it grew as dark as midnight. About ten o'clock, the terrific shelling commenced, every whistling shell bearing on its lighted wings messengers of death and desolation. I never saw these implements of destruction so accurately thrown--some of them scarcely five inches above the walls of the fort. In five minutes the screams of the women in the fort were dreadful. In a place so confined, where numberless houses were crowded together, every shell must have found its way to some poor wretch's dwelling, and, perhaps, torn from mothers' bosoms their clinging babes. No person can estimate the dreadful carnage committed by shells, but those whose fate it has been to witness the effects of these messengers of death. On this occasion our shells were very numerous, and of enormous size, many of them thirteen and a half inches in calibre. The system of shelling had been so improved in the twelve years which had elapsed since the siege of Bhurtpore, that, instead of about one shell in five minutes from a single battery, it was by no means extraordinary to see twenty in one minute, from the numerous batteries which were brought to bear upon this place. It was, at times, truly awful to see ten of these soaring in the air together, seemingly riding on the midnight breeze, and disturbing the slumbering clouds on their pillows of rest--all transporting to a destined spot the implements of havoc and desolation contained within their iron sides. The moon hid herself, in seeming pensiveness, behind a dense black cloud, as though reluctant to look on such a scene; and the feathered tribe, that were wont, in those warm nights of summer, to melodize the breeze, retired far into the distant woods, there to tune their notes of sorrow. Mortal language cannot array such a scene in its garb of blackest woe. Some carcasses were also thrown. These, when in the air, are not unlike a fiery man soaring above. They are sent to burn houses, or blow up magazines. Far and wide they stretch forth their claws of death; and well might the poor natives call them devils of the night, or fiends of the clouds. To complete this dreadful scene, the roaring Congreves ran along the bastion's top, breaking legs and arms with their shaking tails. Nothing could be more grand to the eye, or more affecting to the sympathizing heart, than this horrid spectacle. Still, the superstitious foe were stimulated by some hoary priest with hopes of victory, thus imbruing their hands in the blood of their children, their parents, and their friends. Our shells found their way to their very cells, tearing babes from their mothers' bosoms, and dealing death and destruction around.