It was understood that to-day an attack would be made in earnest. The _moollahs_ had been at their prayers in the early morning, and had blessed innumerable flimsy standards which were to be planted on our walls when their victorious followers had driven us from our defences. There certainly was more appearance of resolution in the movements of the enemy than has hitherto been the case. The small party in the villages beyond the eastern wall had cleared out during the night, and a demonstration in force was made from the south-western direction. Our cavalry videttes on Siah Sung and the hills near the north-west bastion gave us warning of the approach of several thousand men, who moved out with their standards from the Jellalabad gate and Deh-i-Afghan, and took up positions in the gardens and enclosures which cover the plain to the north of the city. I have said that good cover for an attacking force still remains in front of the southern wall and the south-west bastions, and this was made use of by Mahomed Jan, to push his men well towards Sherpur. The alarm was sounded in cantonments at eleven o’clock, as on the previous day, and in a quarter of an hour we were ready for the attack. A hot fire was begun from behind walls, watercourses, and towers, upon the soldiers lining the walls of Sherpur, and we answered it with our guns. Shells were dropped into the gardens where the enemy were in most force, six guns of G-3 and F-A being taken out at the north-west corner of the cantonment, and making good practice at 1,500 and 2,000 yards. Orders were given for no small-arm ammunition to be wasted, and small volleys only were fired upon the men fully exposing themselves. A few Ghazis worked from wall to wall, until within 400 yards of the corner bastion nearest Deh-i-Afghan, but they could do nothing beyond planting their standards, for at that distance our marksmen, with their Martinis, could scarcely fail to hit even so small an object as a man’s head. Afghans are good skirmishers, and in the art of taking cover they are almost unequalled; but there was an open space between their advanced standards and the walls, which even a Ghazi would not venture to cross. All that we could see were the flashes from their rifles and _jhezails_ from loopholes in the enclosures and towers, or from behind trees, ditches, and stones. Our shells were so effective, that two or three bursting in a garden were enough to drive its defenders to seek other protection; and as they passed from wall to wall, they were shot down by our rifle-fire, which never grew wild or irregular. Eight picked men out of the 72nd Highlanders firing a volley at a signal from their officer accounted for six men out of ten who were trying to reach a small isolated tower only 400 yards from the south-west bastion; and their comrades near were so disheartened that they left their standards, and crawled back several hundred yards.