To make up for want of real success, their leaders strove to inflame them by lying proclamations of victory and incitements to their superstitious zeal. The beginning of August brought in one of the great Mohamedan festivals, and this opportunity was taken to work up their enthusiasm for a fierce onslaught against our positions, from which, however, Sepoy and sowar once more rolled back disheartened, though one party had succeeded in pushing up almost to our left works, yelling out their religious watchwords, "Deen! Deen! Allah! Allah Achbar!" that could not silence the resolute British cheers. Another grand attack was attempted at the rear, but heaven seemed on our side rather than that of the Moslem fanatics, for an opportune deluge of rain swelled the canal to a torrent and swept away their attempts at bridging it. Every effort on their part was foiled, while to the right we made progress in mastering the Kissengunge suburb, and on the left pushed forward half-a-mile from Metcalf House to seize the enemy's guns at a building called Ludlow Castle, formerly the Commissioner's residence, which lay almost under the city walls. On August 7 a powder-magazine blew up on the further side of Delhi, killing hundreds of men. This disaster was the more appalling to the rebels when they learned that a heavy siege-train was advancing to remount our feeble batteries. Six thousand men sallied forth, making a circuit far to our rear in hope to cut off the train. But their movements had been watched. They were followed and defeated with heavy loss, the first exploit of Nicholson, who arrived with his Punjaub column about the middle of August to put new vigour into the attack. This officer, still young for command, had years before won a reputation far beyond his age; and now, as soon as he appeared on the scene of action, seems to have made himself felt as its moving spirit, so much so, that in the story of it, his eager vehemence stands out as too much throwing into the shade the caution supplied by General Wilson, unduly disparaged by Nicholson' admirers. We had need at once here of prudence and of valour in the highest degree. At length the slow siege-train, drawn by a hundred elephants, after so long, literally, sticking in the mud, came up on September 3rd. On the Ridge all was ready for it. Works sprang up like mushrooms, and in a few days forty heavy guns began playing upon the northern face of the city. Batteries were pushed forward to almost within musket-shot; then, day by day, the massive walls and bastions were seen crashing into ruins at several points. Formidable as they were in older warfare, they did not resist modern artillery so well as less pretentious earthworks might have done.