and
active as cats. The funniest thing is their love for the Highlanders; if
a Highland regiment comes up the two meet and mingle as if they were
brothers. You'll see a great Highlander in his kilt and feather bonnet
arm in arm with one of these little chaps, hobnobbing as if they had
known each other all their lives. And the Ghurkas won't have anything to
say to the other Indian regiments; they despise them all except the
Sikhs--they get on with them all right."

We are lucky, for the Ghurkas are followed by a company of Sikhs, and
anything less like the Ghurkas you could hardly imagine. The Sikhs are
big men with stern bearded faces, they look like veterans and are a
pleasant sight in their scarlet tunics with neat gaitered feet. There
were many Sikh regiments belonging to our army in the black days of the
Mutiny, and some wavered, but some held firm. Had it not been for the
Sikhs things would have gone badly with us.

Now we are nearing the Lahore Gate and you can see that Delhi is a
walled city. The walls run all round for six miles, and are backed up
by a twenty-five feet ditch, so that it is a tough city for any army to
take. The gate itself is a fine building. When the British troops, who
varied at times from 5000 to 10,000 men, set to work to attack this
strong city, held by 40,000 to 100,000 natives, many of them trained and
disciplined soldiers, taught by the very men against whom they were
fighting, it seemed an impossible task. The audacity of it! This gate
was one of the hardest of all to break through. Four attacking parties
had been sent against the walls, the other three got in, but the one
that came here failed. Then the others tried to work their way through,
inside the city, to capture this gate. They crept along the narrow lane
running inside the wall, but it was commanded everywhere from the
heights of the houses by the enemy, who poured down a murderous fire
into it. Again and again the reckless men, who determined to take the
gate, started off on the deadly errand, again and again they were wiped
off, and alas! one of those mortally wounded was General John Nicholson,
whose utter disregard of danger and marvellous understanding of the
native character had made many of the natives look on him as a god!

Now we are outside and driving up to the ridge. Every British boy and
girl has heard of the ridge. It played a great part in the Mutiny. It is
a long backbone of hill which runs close up to the ci