wonder, discovered the Christino lance, twisted up like a fish-hook, or a pastoral crook. “Ha! ha! ha!” said Cabrera (who is a notorious wag). “ Valdepeñas madrileños,” growled out Tristany. “ By my cachucha di caballero” (upon my honour as a gentleman), shrieked out Ros d’Eroles, convulsed with laughter, “ I will send it to the Bishop of Leon for a crozier.” Gahagan has consecrated it,” giggled out Ramon Cabrera; and so they went on with their muchachas for an hour or more. But, when they heard that the means of my salvation from the lance of the scoundrelly Christino had been the Magazine containing my own history, their laugh was changed into wonder. I read them (speaking Spanish more fluently than English) every word of my story. “ But how is this?” said Cabrera. “ You surely have other adventures to relate ?” “ Excellent Sir,” said I, “I have ;” and that very evening, as we sat over our cups of tertullia (sangaree), I continued my narrative in nearly the following words : “ I left off in the very middle of the battle of Delhi, which ended, as everybody knows, in the complete triumph of the British arms. But who gained the battle? Lord Lake is called Viscount Lake of Delhi and Laswaree, while Major Gaha-nonsense, never mind him— never mind the charge he executed when, sabre in hand, he leaped the six-foot wall, in the mouth of the roaring cannon, over the heads of the gleaming pikes, when, with one hand seizing the sacred peish-cush, or fish, which was the banner always borne before Scindiah, he, with his good sword, cut off the trunk of the famous white elephant, which, shrieking with agony, plunged madly into the Marhatta ranks, followed by his giant brethren, tossing, like chaff before the wind, the affrighted kitmatgars. He, meanwhile, now plunging into the midst of a battalion of consumahs, now cleaving to the chine a screaming and ferocious bobbachee, * rushed on, like the simoom across the red Zaharan plain, killing, with his own hand, a hundred and forty thr—but never mind -' alone he did it-sufficient be it for him, however, that the victory was won; he cares not for the empty honours which were awarded to more fortunate men ! “ We marched after the battle to Delhi, where poor blind old Shah Allum received us, and bestowed all kinds of honours and titles on our General. As each of the officers passed before him, the Shah did not fail to remark my person,t and was told my name. “ Lord Lake whispered to him my exploits, and the old man was so delighted with the account of my victory over the elephant (whose trunk I use to this day), that he said, “Let him be called Gujputi,' or the lord of elephants, and Gujputi was the name by which I was afterwards familiarly known among the natives—the men, that is. The women had a softer appellation for me, and called me ‘ Mushook,' or charmer. * The double-jointed camel of Bactria, which the classic reader may recollect is mentioned by Suidas (in his Commentary on the flight of Darius), is so called by the Marhattas. + There is some trifling inconsistency on the Major’s part. Shah Allum was notoriously blind : how, then, could he have seen Gahagan? The thing is manifestly impossible. “Well, I shall not describe Delhi, which is doubtless well known to the reader; nor the siege of Agra, to which place we went from Delhi; nor the terrible day at Laswaree, which went nigh to finish the war. Suffice it to say that we were victorious, and that I was wounded, as I have invariably been in the two hundred and four occasions, when I have found myself in action. One point, however, became in the course of this campaign quite evident that something must be done for Gahagan. The country cried shame, the king's troops grumbled, the seapoys openly murmured that their Gujputi was only a Lieutenant, when he had performed such signal services. What was to be done? Lord Wellesley was in an evident quandary. Gahagan,' wrote he, 'to be a subaltern is evidently not your fate-you were born for command; but Lake and General Wellesley are good officers, they cannot be turned out-I must make a post for you. What say you, my dear fellow, to a corps of irregular horse ?' “ It was thus that the famous corps of AHMEDNUGGAR IRREGULARS had its origin; a guerilla force, it is true, but one which will long be remembered in the annals of our Indian campaigns. * * “ As the commander of this regiment, I was allowed to settle the uniform of the corps, as well as to select recruits. These were not wanting as soon as my appointment was made known, but came flocking to my standard a great deal faster than to the regular corps in the company's service. I had European officers, of course, to command them, and a few of my countrymen as sergeants; the rest were all natives, whom I chose of the strongest and bravest men in India, chiefly Pitans, Afghans, Hurrumzadehs, and Calliawns, for these are well known to be the most warlike districts of our Indian territory. “ When on parade and in full uniform we made a singular and noble appearance. I was always fond of dress; and, in this instance, gave a carte-blanche to my taste, and invented the most splendid costume that ever perhaps decorated a soldier. I am, as I have stated already, six feet four inches in height, and of matchless symmetry and proportion. My hair and beard are of the most brilliant auburn, so bright as scarcely to be distinguished at a distance from scarlet. My eyes are bright blue, overshadowed by bushy eyebrows of the colour of my hair, and a terrific gash of the deepest purple, which goes over the forehead, the eyelid, and the cheek, and finishes at the ear, gives my face a more strictly military appearance than can be conceived. When I have been drinking (as is pretty often the case) this gash becomes ruby bright, and, as I have another which took off a piece of my under lip, and shows five of my front teeth, I leave you to imagine that' seldom lighted on the earth,' (as the monster Burke remarked of one of his unhappy victims,) ' a more extraordinary vision.' I improved these natural advantages; and, while in cantonment during the hot winds at Chittybobbary, allowed my hair to grow very long, as did my beard, which reached to my waist. It took me two hours daily to curl my hair in ten thousand little corkscrew ringlets, which waved over my shoulders, and to get my mustachios well round to the corners of my eyelids. I dressed in loose scarlet trousers and red morocco boots, a scarlet jacket, and a shawl of the same colour round my waist; a scarlet turban three feet high, and decorated with a tuft of the scarlet feathers of the flamingo, formed my head-dress, and I did not allow myself a single ornament, except a small silver skull and cross-bones in front of my turban. Two brace of pistols, a Malay creese, and a tulwar, sharp on both sides and very nearly six feet in length, completed this elegant costume. My two flags were each surmounted with a real skull and cross-bones, and ornamented one with a black, and the other with a red beard (of enormous length taken from men slain in battle by me). On one flag were of course the arms of John Company; on the other an image of myself bestriding a prostrate elephant, with the simple word · GUJPUTI' 'written underneath in the Nagaree, Persian, and Sanscrit character. I rode my black horse, and looked, by the immortal gods, like Mars! To me might be applied the words which were written concerning handsome General Webb in Marlborough's time: la". To noble danger he conducts the way, His great example all his troop obey. Like Paris handsome, and like Hector brave!' you, my swart companions in victory! through the mist of twenty years I hear the booming of your war-cry, and mark the glitter of your scimitars as ye rage in the thickest of the battle !* But away with melancholy reminiscences. You may fancy what a figure the Irregulars cut on a field-day-a line of five-hundred blackfaced, black-dressed, black-horsed, black-bearded men-Biggs, Glogger, and the other officers in yellow, galloping about the field like flashes of lightning: myself enlightening them, red, solitary, and majestic, like yon glorious orb in heaven. “There are very few men I presume who have not heard of Holkar's sudden and gallant incursion into the Dooâb in the year 1804, when we thought that the victory of Laswaree and the brilliant success at Dug had completely finished him; taking ten thousand horse, he broke his camp at Palimbang, and the first thing General Lake heard of him was, that he was at Putna, then at Rumpooge, then at Doncaradam -he was, in fact, in the very heart of our territory. “The unfortunate part of the affair was this:- His excellency, despising the Marhatta chieftain, had allowed him to advance about two thousand miles in his front, and knew not in the slightest degree where to lay hold on him. Was he at Hazarubaug ? was he at Bogly Gunge? * I do not wish to brag of my style of writing, or to pretend that my genius as a writer has not been equalled in former times ; but if, in the works of Byron, Scott, Goethe, or Victor Hugo, the reader can find a more beautiful sentence than the above, I will be obliged to him, that is all I simply say, I will be obliged to him.-G, O'G. G., M, H. E. I. C, S., C. I. H. A. up nobody knew, and for a considerable period the movements of Lake's cavalry were quite ambiguous, uncertain, promiscuous, and undetermined. “Such briefly was the state of affairs in October 1804. At the beginning of that month I had been wounded (a trifling scratch cutting off my left upper eyelid, a bit of my cheek, and my underlip), and I was obliged to leave Biggs in command of my Irregulars, whilst I retired for my wounds to an English station at Furruckabad, alias Futtyghur—it is, as every two-penny postman knows, at the apex of the Dooâb. We have there a cantonment, and thither I went for the mere sake of the surgeon and the sticking-plaster. “Furruckabad, then, is divided into two districts or towns; the lower, Cotwal, inhabited by the natives, and the upper (which is fortified slightly, and has all along been called Futtyghur, meaning in Hindostanee'thefavourite-resort-of-the-white-faced-Feringhees-near-the-mangoe-topeconsecrated-to-Ram ') occupied by Europeans. (It is astonishing, by the way, how comprehensive that language is, and how much can be conveyed in one or two of the commonest phrases.) Biggs, then, and my men were playing all sorts of wondrous pranks with Lord Lake's army, whilst I was detained an unwilling prisoner of health at Futtyghur. “ An unwilling prisoner, however, I should not say. The cantonment at Futtyghur contained that which would have made any man a happy slave. Woman, lovely woman, was there in abundance and variety ! The fact is, that, when the campaign commenced in 1803, the ladies of the army all congregated to this place, where they were left, as it was supposed, in safety. I might, like Homer, relate the names and qualities of all. I may at least mention some whose memory is still most dear to me. There was “Mrs. Major-General Bulcher, wife of Bulcher of the infantry. Miss Bulcher. “Miss Belinda Bulcher (whose name I beg the printer to place in large capitals). “ Mrs. Colonel Vandegobbleschroy. “ The Honourable Mrs. Burgoo, Mrs. Flix, Hicks, Wicks, and many more too numerous to mention. The flower of our camp was, however, collected there, and the last words of Lord Lake to me, as I left him, were, “ Gahagan, I commit those women to your charge. Guard them with your life, watch over them with your honour, defend them with the matchless power of indomitable arm.' “Futtyghur is, as I have said, an European station, and the pretty air of the bungalows, amid the clustering topes of mangoe-trees, has often ere this excited the admiration of the tourist and sketcher. On the brow of a hill, the Burrum pooter river rolls majestically at its base, and no spot, in a word, can be conceived more exquisitely arranged, both by art and nature, as a favourite residence of the British fair. Mrs. Bulcher, Mrs. Vandegobbleschroy, and the other married ladies above mentioned, had each of them delightful bungalows and gardens in the place, and between one cottage and another my time passed as delightfully as can the hours of any man who is away from his darling occupation of war. “ I was the commandant of the fort. It is a little insignificant pettah, defended simply by a couple of gabions, a very ordinary counterscarp, and a bomb-proof embrasure; on the top of this my flag was planted, and the small garrison of forty men only were comfortably barracked off in the casemates within. A surgeon and two chaplains (there were besides three reverend gentlemen, of amateur missions, who lived in the town) completed, as I may say, the garrison of our little fortalice, which I was left to defend and to command. “On the night of the 1st of November in the year 1804, I had invited Mrs. Major General Bulcher and her daughters; Mrs. Vandegobbleschroy, and indeed all the ladies in the cantonment, to a little festival in honour of the recovery of my health, of the commencement of the shootingseason, and indeed as a farewell visit, for it was my intention to take dawk the very next morning and return to my regiment. The three amateur missionaries whom I have mentioned, and some ladies in the cantonment of very rigid religious principles, refused to appear at my little party. They had better never have been born than have done as they did, as you shall hear. • We had been dancing merrily all night, and the supper (chiefly of the delicate condor, the luscious adjutant, and other birds of a similar kind, which I had shot in the course of the day) had been duly fêtéd by every lady and gentleman present; when I took an opportunity to retire on the ramparts, with the interesting and lovely Belinda Bulcher. I was occupied, as the French say, in conter-ing fleurettes to this sweet young creature, when, all of a sudden, a rocket was seen whizzing through the air, and a strong light was visible in the valley below the little fort. “What, fire-works! Captain Gahagan,' said Belinda, 'this is too gallant.' "Indeed, my dear Miss Bulcher,' said I, “ they are fire-works of which I have no idea : perhaps our friends the missionaries “Look, look !' said Belinda, trembling, and clutching tightly hold of my arm ; 'what do I see ? yes-no-yes! it is our bungalow is in flames!' “ It was true the spacious bungalow occupied by Mrs. Major General was at that moment seen a prey to the devouring element—another and another succeeded it-seven bungalows, before I could almost ejaculate the name of Jack Robinson, were seen blazing brightly in the black midnight air ! "I seized my night-glass, and, looking towards the spot where the conflagration raged, what was my astonishment to see thousands of black forms dancing round the fires; whilst by their lights I could observe columns after columns of Indian horse, arriving and taking up their ground in the very middle of the open square or tank, round which the bungalows were built! “Ho, warder!' shouted I (while the frightened and trembling Belinda clung closer to my side, and pressed the stalwart arm that encircled her waist),“ down with the drawbridge! see that your masolgees (small tumbrils which are used in place of larger artillery) be well loaded; you seapoys, hasten and man the ravelin! you choprasees, put out the lights in the embrasures ! we shall have warm work of it tonight, or my name is not Goliah Gahagan.' * The ladies, the guests (to the number of eighty-three), the seapoys, |