ing, knocking down
&c. I saw one man actually lie down and wallow in a filthy ditch full of
every description of dirt imaginable. We halted here about two hours,
and then marched to our ground, about six or seven miles further on, the
men performing this latter part of the march with great cheerfulness. We
halted here two days to rest the men, and were joined by the rest of the
Bombay force, with the Commander-in-chief.

We marched again on the 18th, another night march about twenty miles.
Here we made another halt for three days, while some of the staff went
on to get information of the country a-head, about which they were
ignorant. All the villages we had passed through were deserted, and in
some places the water was stinking. We looked back upon Sinde as a
paradise compared to the country we were now in. All the little grain
that was supplied to the bazaars by the commissariat was sold at the
most exorbitant price, yet we were obliged to buy it, and as much as we
could get of it too, and lucky we thought ourselves to get any of it,
even at this rate, at times, in order to feed our horses and camels,
which were beginning to knock up terribly. We could not now, as we used
to do in Sinde, send the latter into the jungle to feed on the small
brushwood, of which they were so fond, except at the risk of being
robbed of them, and having the servants who looked after them murdered
by the bands of Beloochees who hovered about us in every direction.
Still, notwithstanding these annoyances, the humbugging system of
conciliation was kept up, and although there was not an inhabitant to be
seen, we were robbed to our faces very nearly; yet if a poor sub.'s
horse or camel happened to break his ropes and strayed into a field he
was immediately pounced upon by a provost-marshal and put into a sort of
pound, from which he was not released except on the payment of a certain
sum to be given to the owners of the field! Where were they to be found?
The loss of camels now was irreparable; even if there were any to be
sold, the prices asked were so exorbitant that few of us youngsters,
hampered as we were, could afford to purchase; loss of camels produced
loss of kit, loss of kit produced loss of health, &c. Yet during the
whole of this march we were losing camels through robberies and fatigue,
and no measures taken that we ever heard of to put a stop to it. We
marched from this place on the 22nd, and came to a halt again at a place
called