Runty Goss then opened them one by one, our troops entered, and the victorious standard of my country floated on the walls of Allyghur! When the General, accompanied by his staff; entered the last line of fortifications, the brave old man raised me from the dead rhinoceros on which I was seated, and pressed me to his breast.

But the excitement which had borne me through the fatigues and perils of that fearful day failed all of a sudden, and I wept like a child upon his shoulder.
Promotion, in our army, goes unluckily by seniority; nor is it in the power of the General-in-Chief to advance a Caesar, if he finds him in the capacity of a subaltern: MY reward for the above exploit was, therefore, not very rich.

His Excellency had a favorite horn snuff-box (for, though exalted in station, he was in his habits most simple): of this, and about a quarter of an ounce of high-dried Welsh, which he always took, he made me a present, saying, in front of the line, "Accept this, Mr.Gahagan, as a token of respect from the first to the bravest officer in the army." Calculating the snuff to be worth a halfpenny, I should say that fourpence was about the value of this gift: but it has at least this good effect--it serves to convince any person who doubts my story, that the facts of it are really true.

I have left it at the office of my publisher, along with the extract from the Bengal Hurkaru, and anybody may examine both by applying in the counting-house of Mr.Cunningham.* That once popular expression, or proverb, "are you up to snuff ?" arose out of the above circumstance; for the officers of my corps, none of whom, except myself, had ventured on the storming-party, used to twit me about this modest reward for my labors.

Never mind! when they want me to storm a fort AGAIN, I shall know better.
* The Major certainly offered to leave an old snuff-box at Mr.Cunningham's office; but it contained no extract from a newspaper, and does not QUITE prove that he killed a rhinoceros and stormed fourteen intrenchments at the siege of Allyghur.
Well, immediately after the capture of this important fortress, Perron, who had been the life and soul of Scindiah's army, came in to us, with his family and treasure, and was passed over to the French settlements at Chandernagur.