Before I had finished my sketch, the advance guard came up, and, shortly after, Colonel Kelly. There was a short halt to let the tail of the column close up, and then we commenced the descent. We were down on the river bank in twenty minutes, and the Levies waded across, I on my pony. We found the remains of a bridge which had evidently only just been destroyed, and the material, I fancy, thrown into the river. The Levies were soon up to the fort, and we had the main gate down in a jiffy by using a tree as a battering-ram, and then the Levies went through the place like professional burglars. Before I had hardly got into the courtyard they had found the grain store, and were looting it. I put Gammer Sing on sentry duty over the entrance, and, Borradaile coming up, we inspected it, and found enough grain to last us some months. We now set the Levies to work to get beams for repairing the bridge; at first we could not find any long enough, until the Levies noticed the roof poles of the verandah. We had them out and ran them down to the river bank, opposite to where the Pioneers had drawn up on the farther bank. It took some time to build the bridge, and it was pretty rickety when done, but it saved the men having to ford. Only one man fell into the river, but he was pulled out all right. The baggage did not arrive at the bridge till dark, and most of the coolies waded across, as there was not time for them to cross in single file on the bridge. The battery also forded, but the donkeys had to be unladen and the loads carried across by hand, and the donkeys were then driven in and made to swim. It was night before the rearguard began to cross, Cobbe, who was in command, not getting in till close on nine o'clock. A couple of shots were fired after dark, and there seemed no satisfactory explanation as to why they were fired, but nobody was hit. The coolies were all put into the courtyard of the fort and a guard on the gate, and they soon had fires going, round which they huddled.