also. Our regiment and the 17th were then made into one brigade, and
marched from Larkhanu, as I said before, on the 11th. The cavalry and
horse artillery, &c., did not march for two days after, with the
Commander-in-chief, who took with him his pet corps; the 19th Native
Infantry. They marched by a different route from ourselves on account of
the scarcity of supplies in that desert country; we halted for them at
Kochee, which place we reached on the 15th about 3 P.M., after the
thirty to forty miles' march I before told you of, across the marshy
desert which seems to divide Sinde from Cutch Gundava. This march ought
only to have been twenty-six miles; but owing to the stupidity of our
guide we went a longer and more circuitous route, and also had the
pleasure of losing our way during the night; in addition to which, on
arriving at the village where it was intended to halt, our staff found
out, all of a sudden, that there was not a sufficiency of water for the
whole force, in consequence of which we were moved to another village
(Kichee) five miles further on.

It was during this march that I first witnessed the effects of extreme
thirst on men, however well disciplined. It was, as I have said before,
the hottest day I ever felt; not a breath of air, and the sun enough to
knock you down. The men were suffering dreadfully, and falling out by
sections, when about eleven or twelve o'clock they caught sight of some
water carriers with their mussacks full, so that they knew water could
not be far off. All discipline was pitched to the devil in an instant,
and the men rushed from the ranks for the water more like mad devils
than anything else--nothing could stop them; the mounted officers
galloped in amongst them, and threatened, but to no purpose; nothing
short of cutting them down would have stopped any of them. In the midst
of this, General Willshire, at the head of the brigade, hearing a row
and looking round, saw the greater part of the 17th (they being in front