eril; but this is man's ingratitude for services rendered.

I was some time before I could find Lieutenant Turner, the whole of
whose troops were engaged when I came up. When I had communicated the
brigadier-general's orders, they were reluctantly but promptly obeyed,
and we soon joined the 4th Cavalry, agreeably to the general's desire.

Having come up with the enemy's baggage, the night beginning to close
in, and our poor steeds being completely done up, we called a halt, to
refresh ourselves, and more especially our poor goaded horses, who were
so completely exhausted that we could not have proceeded another mile.
The baggage of the enemy consisted of horses, ponies, cows, bullocks,
goats, sheep, women, old men, and children, with their little all; and
that all was nothing more than their wearing-apparel, cooking-things,
&c. These people were only followers. None of their families were here,
except about a hundred of their wives, mounted on ponies. Round these
poor frightened creatures our gallant brigadier, more for their
protection from the villagers than for his own gain or security, placed
a considerable guard. I was immediately dispatched, with four horsemen,
back to the main division of the army, who had encamped on the top of
the ghaut, to communicate the purport of our little skirmishes. It was
no very pleasant thing to ride over a field of battle, groping my way
through the dark with only four men; but, as there was no remedy, it was
as well to do it cheerfully. I found the division had taken up the
enemy's position above the ghauts, where I arrived in safety, but
completely exhausted, as was also my thoroughbred mare. From the time I
mounted on the preceding night, it was twenty-four hours, in which time
I could not have gone less than eighty miles. From the violent
perspiration I was in, and the dust and powder with which I was covered,
when General Marshall saw me, he burst into a loud fit of laughter. No
poor dustman or sweep in London could have cut a more ridiculous figure;
which may account for the impudence of the man who fired at me from
behind the tree, who certainly must have taken me for some menial
servant who had stolen his master's clothes.

Having communicated my orders, my next object was the care of my
faithful horse. She looked the picture of woe, with her head almost down
to the ground, and she had lost one of her shoes. I had a groom who
prided himself on being a bit of a horse-doctor.