"My officers (Captains Biggs and Mackanulty, Lieutenants Glogger,
Pappendick, Stuffle, &c. &c.) were dressed exactly in the same way,
but in yellow; and the men were similarly equipped, but in black.
I have seen many regiments since, and many ferocious-looking men,
but the Ahmednuggar Irregulars were more dreadful to the view than
any set of ruffians on which I ever set eyes. I would to Heaven
that the Czar of Muscovy had passed through Cabool and Lahore, and
that I with my old Ahmednuggars stood on a fair field to meet him!
Bless you, bless 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! {6}

"But away with melancholy reminiscences. You may fancy what a
figure the Irregulars cut on a field-day--a line of five hundred
black-faced, 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 Dooab, in the year 1804, when
we thought that the victory of Laswaree and the brilliant success
at Deeg had completely finished him. Taking ten thousand horse he
broke up 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 Mahratta chieftain, had allowed him to advance about