Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 9, 2025
A few miles down the mountain we stopped half an hour to see a Thibetan dramatic performance. It was in the open air on the hillside. The audience was composed of Thibetans, Ghurkas, and other unusual people. The costumes of the actors were in the last degree outlandish, and the performance was in keeping with the clothes.
"By 11:30 the force was in formation under cover in readiness to capture the heights, but when the 2nd Ghurkas, accompanied by the Ghurka scouts of the first battalion 3rd Ghurkas, made their first rush across the open, they were met by such a hot and well-aimed fire that all they could do was to hold on to the position they had reached without being able to advance farther.
The next day a body of 560 men, composed of portions of the 67th Foot, the 72nd Highlanders, the 3rd Sikhs, and 5th Ghurkas, made an attack upon the enemy, who had established themselves on a lofty peak south of Cabul. The enemy occupied the crest in strength, and away on the south, hidden from our view, had 5000 or 6000 men waiting for our attack to develop.
There were hundreds of these carts taking hay to the cavalry divisions. The Ghurkas looked more Japanese than ever in the clear light. Their broad-brimmed khaki hats have a strap that goes under the chin. The strap or their black slanting eyes or perhaps their rather flattened noses and pointed chins give them a look of cruelty that the other Indian troops do not have.
From the little ammunition carts, like toy wagons, they gazed gravely at the car, and at the unheard of spectacle of a woman inside. Side by side with the Indians were Scots in kilts, making up with cheerful impudence for the Indians' lack of curiosity. There were more Ghurkas, carrying rifles and walking lightly beside forage carts driven by British Tommies.
The village lay along the river bank, and about the middle of it, some two hundred yards from the river, rises a small hill. Thus the village was a triangle, with the base on the river, and the hill as apex. On the hill were some monasteries of teak, from which the monks had been ejected, and three hundred Ghurkas were in garrison there.
The forces which took part in the memorable march of General Roberts were the 92nd Highlanders, 23rd Pioneers, 24th Punjaub Infantry, 2nd Ghurkas, 72nd Highlanders, 2nd Sikhs, 3rd Sikhs, 5th Ghurkas, 2nd, 60th, 15th Sikhs, 25th Punjaub Infantry, and the 4th Ghurkas.
Then we knew what our work was to be; we were to dig an advance trench to link up with the French on our left and the English on our right. The advance continued up a gentle slope across which nearly a thousand yards of bare bullet-swept field the Ghurkas had a day or so previously tried to charge.
The position of the notes is the same as on our chanter, and the fingering is the same; afterwards on board when I played a few notes on it the beady black eyes of the Ghurkas in the waist sparkled, and they pulled out their practice chanters from their kit at once and there we were! and the long-legged, almond-eyed Sikhs on their baggage looked on in languid wonder.
A number of French troops had come up and so had the gallant Lahore Division consisting of Indian troops, and they had attacked the Germans and driven them back some distance towards Pilken. No jauntier soldier ever trode the plains of Flanders than the brave Ghurkas.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking