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How different was the action of Wilkes, that Yankee commander we are so fond of finding fault with! He, too, paid a visit to the cannibal island of Viti Vau; and while there, taught both its king and its people a lesson by the fire of his forty-pounders that, if not altogether effective in extinguishing this national but unnatural custom, has terrified them in its practice to this very day.
Every man of the reserves was hurried into the fighting line; the soldiers were steadied by the energetic efforts of their officers and settled down to a steady and continuous fire from their breechloaders; the guns poured their shells into the hostile masses; and the fire of the forty-pounders on the left effectually arrested the attempt of the Afghan horse to move round that flank.
When the maneuver of out-flanking had been satisfactorily accomplished, the attack was commenced in front. Here the Chinese stood to their position, but only for a brief time, as the fire from eighteen guns, including some forty-pounders, soon silenced their gingalls, and they precipitately abandoned their intrenchments.
General Gough was to take the cavalry of the Cabul column across the Urgundab, so as to reach by a wide circuit the anticipated line of the Afghan retreat. Soon after nine A.M. the forty-pounders on the right of Picquet hill began a vigorous cannonade of the Babawali Kotul, which was sturdily replied to by the three field-guns the enemy had in battery on that elevation.
And then they'd lie in wait all day for the darting pickerel in the little Stream of Shadows above; and when it came June, up the river he went trolling for bass, and he used a different sort of bait from the rest, bass won't bite much at clams, and he hauled in great forty-pounders.
By the 20th of May, several fascine batteries had been erected, one of which mounted five forty-pounders. These batteries, on being opened, did immense execution. While the siege was being proceeded with, Commodore Warren captured the French ship of war "Vigilant," of 74 guns, with her 560 men, and a great quantity of military stores.
The 21st Lancers, 1st battalion of Grenadier Guards, 2nd battalion of the Rifle Brigade, 2nd battalion of the 5th Lancashire Fusiliers, a field battery, a howitzer battery, and two forty-pounders, to batter the defences of Omdurman, should the Khalifa take his stand, were sent.
Here they had two forty-pounders and three other lighter guns, but their artillery strength developed both in numbers and in weight of metal as the day wore on. Of their dispositions little could be seen.
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