s drilled to turn off and gallop clear of the squares, instead
of charging home right through the infantry. When it came to actual war
the horses, not being reasoning animals, naturally acted just as on a
field-day; instead of charging straight into the square, they galloped
right past it, simply because they were drilled to do so. Of course, I
do not propose that several battalions of infantry should be slaughtered
every field-day for the purpose of training cavalry. But I would have
the formation altered, and instead of having the infantry in solid
squares, I would form them into quarter distance columns, with lanes
between the companies wide enough for the cavalry to gallop through
under the blank fire of the infantry. The horses would thus be trained
to gallop straight on, and no square of infantry would be able to resist
a charge of well-trained cavalry when it came to actual war. I am
convinced, in my own mind, that this was the reason that the untrained
remount ridden by Sergeant-Major May charged into the square of the
Forty-First, and broke it, while the well-drilled horses galloped round
the flanks in spite of their riders. But the square once being broken,
the other horses followed as a matter of course. However, we are now in
the age of breech-loaders and magazine rifles, and I fear the days of
cavalry charging squares of infantry are over. But we are still a long
way from the millennium, and the experience of the past may yet be
turned to account for the wars of the future.

We reached Futtehghur on the morning of the 3rd of January to find it
deserted, the enemy having got such a "drubbing" that it had struck
terror into their reserves, which had bolted across the Ganges, leaving
large quantities of Government property behind them, consisting of tents
and all the ordnance stores of the Gun-carriage Agency. The enemy had
also established a gun and shot and shell foundry here, and a
powder-factory, all of which they had abandoned, leaving a number of
brass guns in the lathes, half turned, with many more just cast, and
large quantities of metal and material for the manufacture of both
powder and shot.

During the afternoon of the day of our arrival the whole force was
turned out, owing to a report that the Nawab of Furruckabad was still in
the town; and it was said that the civil officer with the force had sent
a proclamation through the city that it would be given over to plunder
if the Nawab was not surren