I presently met an affecting procession. These were the native prisoners. Laden with heavy feet-chains were at least a hundred poor wretches who had lingered for years in the tyrant’s clutches. Many of them were unable to walk, and were carried along by their friends. We pitied them vastly more than we have done the prisoners sent in to us, who, with commodious tents, numbers of servants, and plentiful supplies of money and food, have had a far better time of it than these poor wretches of natives. They endeavoured in every way to express their joy and thankfulness. They bent to the ground, they cried, they clapped their hands; and the women—at least such as were not chained—danced, and set-up their shrill cry of welcome. Very kind were the soldiers to them, and not a few gave-up their search for odd articles of plunder to set-to with hammer and chisel to remove their chains. There were some hundreds of huts upon the flat plateau, but not one of them bore any signs of the bombardment; and fortunately the great distance at which the guns were fired had saved the inhabitants from the injury which they must otherwise have suffered from the needless bombardment. A few people had been wounded when the 33d had first entered, but their number was very small; and it seems incredible that out of so large a population only some ten or fifteen, and these the defenders of the gate, were killed. The huts were all of the same size and description—stone walls with conical roofs, and no light except that which entered by the door. The King himself lived in a tent. His wife, or I should rather say wives, lived in a house precisely similar in shape, but larger than the other tents. One or two of these poor women were among the wounded, having rushed wildly about the place before the firing ceased, and being struck by stray bullets. It is extremely satisfactory to know that no lives, with the exception of those of the actual fighting-men, were sacrificed.