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Updated: May 9, 2025
Kerr instantly volunteered to lead a body of his men against the rebels. He knew that he could trust his fellows. Not a moment was to be lost. The bugle sounded to horse. He addressed them, and told them what was to be done. They promised to follow him to the death. Across rivers and nullahs, swollen by heavy rains, they went, and in twenty-six hours pulled rein before the gates of Kolapore.
The soil, thin sand overlying humus, suggested rich crops of ground-nuts; its surface was everywhere cut by nullahs, now dry, and by brooks, running crystal streams; these, when deep, are crossed by tree-trunks, the Brazilian "pingela." "Look him house, Nchigo house!" said Hotaloya, standing under a tall tree.
The path plunged westward into the bush, spanned a dirty and grass-grown plantation of bananas, dived under thorn tunnels and arches of bush, and crossed six nullahs, Neropotamoi, then dry, but full of water on our return.
The salient was so prominent and jutted out so far from the general line of hills, and was besides shaped so like a blunted redan, that its front face was secure from flanking fire. In fact there was plenty of dead ground in its approaches, and, moreover, dongas which are the same as nullahs in India or gullies in Australia ran agreeably to our wishes towards the hill in all directions.
This long line of troops, who were visible to each other but divided by the deep broad nullahs which intersected the whole plain, fell back slowly, halting frequently to keep touch. Seven hundred yards away were the enemy, coming on in a great half-moon nearly three miles long and firing continually.
The southern roads are, however, in the worst condition, the mails travelling to Jelazore at three miles an hour, or less than a groom can walk; and even between Calcutta and Baraset the rate rises to only four miles and a half an hour, while everywhere we have such notices as "road intersected by numerous unbridged rivers and nullahs," "road has not been repaired for these many years," "road not repaired for years," the "road in so bad a state, and so much intersected by rivers and nullahs, that no great improvement in the speed of the mails can be effected."
From the foot of the slope stretched a valley, broken here and there by ravines and nullahs. Every inch of it seemed to be cultivated; and it was one wide expanse of terraced fields, sprinkled with groves and dotted with countless habitations. There was scarce an acre which had not a fortified block house, as each family built a homestead for itself, and fortified itself against all comers.
But soon the jungle diminished to low scrub and finally fell away behind the ascending elephants, and they entered a region of rugged, barren mountains cloven by giant chasms and seamed by rocky nullahs down which brawling streams rushed or tumbled over falls. A herd of gooral the little wild goat rushed away before their coming and sprang in dizzy leaps down almost sheer precipices.
To the north also there are two foul nullahs, the Eswá and the Besáon, which make the neighbourhood pestilential. In days to come the latter will be restored to its old course east of the town and thrown into the Awaminísu, whose mouth will be kept open throughout the year. The eastern suburbs, so to call them, want clearing of offal and all manner of impurities.
Behind the shikargahs, the Fullaillee made a sudden bend to the rear, forming a loop, in which the Ameer's cavalry was placed. The shikargah on the enemy's left was more extensive, and, though free from nullahs, very strong. It was covered towards the plain by a wall, having one opening, not very wide, about half-way between the two armies.
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