We have seen how the general of Ahmad the Abdali massacred the inhabitants, with a zeal partaking of the fanatic and the robber in equal proportions, in 1757. Since then the place, standing at the head of the Bhartpur basin, and midway between Dehli and the Rajput country, had recovered its importance, and now formed Madhoji's chief cantonment. Here it was that he received the news of the battle of Patan, and of the temporary disappearance of Ismail Beg; and hence he proceeded to Dehli, and there obtained a fresh confirmation of the office of Plenipotentiary for the Peshwa, together with two fresh firmans (or patents). One conferring upon himself the power to choose a successor in the Ministry from among his own family, and the other an edict forbidding the slaughter of horned cattle (so highly reverenced by the Hindus) throughout all the territory which still owned the sway, however nominal, of the Moghul sceptre. Soon after he ordered his army, commanded as before, to return to Rajputana, and punish Bijai Singh, the Rathor leader of Jodhpur, for abetting the resistance of Ismail Beg. On the 21st of August the General arrived at Ajmir, and took the town on the following day. He then sat down to form the regular siege of the citadel, called Taragarh (a fastness strong by nature, and strengthened still more by art, and situated on an eminence some 3,000 feet above sea-level). Bijai Singh, in Rajput fashion, was ready to try negotiation, and thought that he might succeed in practicing upon one whom he would naturally regard in the light of a mercenary leader. He accordingly sent a message to de Boigne offering him the fort, with the territory for fifty miles round Ajmir if he would desert his employer. But the General sent him for answer that "Sindhia had already given him both Jodhpur and Jaipur, and that the Rajah could not be so unreasonable as to expect him to exchange the whole of those territories for the portion offered." After delivering himself of this grim piece of humour, and leaving a force to blockade the citadel, General de Boigne marched west to encounter the Rajah. Burning to retrieve the disgrace of Patan, Bijai Singh was marching up from Jodhpur to the relief of Taragarh when de Boigne met him at Mirta, a walled town about two marches distant from Ajmir and 76 miles N.E. of Jodhpur. It stands on high ground, the western wall being of mud, the eastern of masonry. On the 9th September the armies approached, and Gopal Rao was for attacking at once, but the General, with his accustomed coolness, pointed out that, not only were the men fatigued with marching and in need of repose, but that the day was too far advanced to allow of due pursuit being made should they — as was to be hoped — gain the action. It was therefore determined to try the effect of a surprise after the men had had a meal and a few hours repose. The forces on either side were not unequal. The Rajputs had the better in point of