1 Scaling lad-
2 ders con-
3 structed,
4 Warlike ap-
5 pearances.
6 Hailed with
7 delight by the
8 army of the
9 Sutlej.
10 152. HISTORY OF THE SIKHS.
11 the British Commander-in-chief resolved to employ
12 artillery to the fullest extent, in order to render
13 the attack infinitely more effectual and much less
14 sanguinary than had been the previous actions of
15 Moodkee and Feerozshuhur. The large siege
16 guns, as well as the mortars and rockets, had been
17 brought out from Feerozpore; the rest of the
18 artillery consisted of horse and foot, the men of
19 the latter branch serving the guns attached to light
20 field batteries of both classes.
21 On the morning of the 9th of February, thera
22 was a report that scaling ladders were being made
23 up, but whether these were for the walls of the
24 Sikh entrenchment, the high bank on the opposite
25 side, or the walls of Lahore, was a problem diffi-
26 cult of solution by people not in the secret, Sug-
27 gestions for spiking guns, or rendering them useless,
28 had been promulgated some days previously, so
29 that everything boded some desperate exploit ; and
30 every one rejoiced at the prospect, for there are no
31 men in the world that get sooner tired of inactivity
32 than the soldiery, and the army of the Sutlej was
33 beginning to desire some more stirring scene than
34 the turning out to arms, upon false alarms of
35 hostile approaches.
36 Some readers may be surprised, that the Sikhs
37 never did make a night attack; but it should be
38 remembered, that such a step must have been
39 The reason of disastrous to them, for if repulsed, which there
40 the Sikhs not
41 making an
42 attack on the
43 British camp.
44 was every prospect of their being, they would have
45 been assuredly followed to their entrenchment by