During our long stay at Bersiah, we frequently went out on parties of pleasure; and, as I had at this place nothing to do in my official situation, I generally accompanied these little excursions. About Bersiah the country was more fertile and beautiful than any part we had passed through, and we had excellent shooting, from the royal tiger to the royal snipe, without going a mile from camp. Thus we passed our time, living pleasantly enough. At length we found that the Pindarees had ascended another range of ghauts, and concentrated their forces at a place called Beechy Taull. Towards this place we bent our course, the extent of our daily marches being entirely regulated by the information brought in by our spies. Our wild enemy were, for a time, stationary; our marches were more regular; and they actually permitted us to approach them, without moving their quarters; taking care, however, to keep a wide and deep river between them and us, and an almost inaccessible ghaut, from whence they could see such a distance round, that our approach could be observed ten or fifteen miles off. When we were within forty miles of this place, we made a forced march in the morning, some twenty-two miles, through a thick woody country. Having completed this distance, we halted for our cattle and followers; but we started again when the moon rose, intending to surprise them by the following morning's dawn. Our road, however, lay through a dense thick wood, with a deep ditch or ravine every hundred paces, which we had so much difficulty in getting our guns over, that, when the morning dawned, we had not proceeded more than one-half of the distance, though we were in sight of the ghaut, which was about eight miles ahead. In an hour and a half after this, we reached and crossed the river Scend, about two miles from the top of the ghaut.