the Guide Corps. Incessant day and night attacks were here made by the
enemy, who knew that, were that position turned, our camp--in fact, our
very existence as a besieging force--would be imperilled.

But no assault, however strong and determined, made any impression on
the men of these gallant regiments, led by Major Reid, the officer
commanding the Sirmoor battalion. They lost in killed and wounded a
number far out of all proportion to that of any other corps before
Delhi, and must in truth be reckoned the heroes of the siege.

The Goorkhas are recruited in the mountain districts of the Himalayas,
in the kingdom of Nepal. They are short and squat in figure, never more
than five feet three inches in height, of dark complexion, with deep-set
eyes and high cheek-bones denoting their affinity to the Turanian race.
Good-humoured and of a cheerful disposition, they have always been great
favourites with the European soldiers, whose ways and peculiarities they
endeavour to imitate to a ludicrous extent. In battle, as I have often
seen them, they seem in their proper element, fierce and courageous,
shrinking from no danger. They carried, besides the musket, a short,
heavy, curved knife called a _kukri_, a formidable weapon of which the
sepoys were in deadly terror. As soldiers they are second to none,
amenable to discipline and docile, but very tigers when roused; they
fought with unflinching spirit during the Mutiny, freely giving up their
lives in the service of their European masters.

And now that I have endeavoured, for the purposes of this narrative, to
explain our position and that of the enemy, I shall proceed to recount,
as far as my recollection serves, the main incidents of the siege, and
more particularly those in which I personally took part.