1 THE SIKHS WILL NOT CO-OPERATE. 537
2 for our service, had kept up an incessant fire
3 (whether necessary or not is unknown) during
4 the previous night; but thé ‘immediate camp
5 was altered, and in lieu of Durrani horsemen
6 and raw Afghan levies, it was filled with
7 British sepoys and. European soldiers.
8 “It was at noon, the day after I joined Prole’s
9 camp, that sthe political agent (Mackeson),
10 having received no tidings from Dowson (who
11 commanded at Ali Masjid, consequent on
12 Ferris’s departure for Peshawr, again very ill),
13 and being anxious about his safety, ordered us
14 to move forward; but a letter from D., in
15 which he stated that he thought he could yet
16 hold out without assistance, having reached us
17 after we had advanced about a mile and a half,
18 we returned to our old position. Afackeson
19 had on this occasion directed the Sikh troops
20 to enter the Pass by the main route, to create a
21 dwersion; but in spite of his arguments, and
22 those of Colonel Courtlandt, an officer in the
23 Maharaja’s service, who was to have gone
24 with them, they refused to do so, shielding
25 themselves under the excuse, that their orders
26 2a3