Though it was only a ten-miles tramp, and, leaving knapsacks behind, we had only our great-coats and blankets to carry, I shall never forget that day's march to Kuttingee! It was one of thirst and toil, with all our canteens and water-bottles empty. We pushed on under a noonday sun, under which the parched earth seemed to pant like a living creature. The streams were dried up, and all that was green had become yellow and sickly in hue; the sky seemed a furnace--the sun a globe of fire. Clouds of dust surrounded our line of march, and sand-spouts rose at times; the ravens and kites gaped with wide-open beaks by the wayside, and the alligators lay hidden to the muzzle in their oozy tanks. Fissures gaped in the soil; the birds were hushed, and insect-life stood still; the 'burra choop,' or Great Silence, as the Hindoos call it, reigned around us, and we had three cases of sunstroke; yet we pushed manfully on, and when evening drew near found ourselves in front of Kuttingee. The first shot might be the death-knell of Mrs. Heron and all other Christian prisoners, so the emotions with which her husband surveyed it as he marched the remains of his company into the assigned position may be imagined. The outworks of the fort were armed with cannon, which opened on our columns as soon as they were within range, and to which ours were not slow in replying, and making a considerable slaughter of the infantry that lined the summit of the walls and towers, which their return fire seemed to garland with flashes and smoke. We of the Queen's, as a flank company, had the Minie rifle (which by force of habit we still called Brown Bess), and in closing up we took cover under every bush or stone, and picked off the rebels by steady pot-shots delivered from the knee. We carried the outworks by a furious rush at the point of the bayonet, and then slewed round a couple of the heaviest guns, by which we blew in the gate of the keep, or central fort. Beyond was a traverse, over which the rebels were firing; a tempest of balls swept through the arch as the wind sweeps a tunnel, and there fell many of ours, and among them poor Bill Brierly. Our loud hurrahs replied to the yells of 'Deendeen!' ('Faith!') and 'Death to the Kafirs, the Feringhees, the Ghora Logue!' while maddened by bhang, opium and churuis, the infuriated Sepoys met us hand to hand, but only to go down on every side; for, with our bugles sounding the 'advance,' we stormed the traverse at a rush, and spread all over the garden within the square fort.